by Robyn Grady
“So you’ll be working for Natalie’s agency?”
“While I was dressing—make that redressing—Natalie explained they’d lost three cleaners in the past couple of weeks.”
“You don’t mind the work?”
“I’m grateful for it. And it won’t be forever.”
He grinned. “Sounds as if you’re making plans.”
Seeing her father today cemented what she’d already come to realize. Education was the key to independence. “I’m going to apply to college.”
“Do you know what you’ll study? Teaching? Nursing?”
“Maybe I should become a doctor,” she joked. “Dr. Bailey Ross. Neurosurgeon.” She laughed and so did he, but not in a condescending way. “I want to do something that makes people happy,” she went on. “That makes them feel good about themselves.”
“Whatever you choose I’m sure you’ll do well.”
“Because you know I’m an A student, right?”
“Because I think you have guts. Persistence will get you most places in life.”
Unless you were talking about her father. The more she’d tried, the more he’d turned his back. Cut her off. There came a time when a person needed to accept they should look forward rather than back.
But then she retraced her thoughts back to Mateo’s words—I think you have guts. She gave him a dubious look. “Was that another compliment?”
A line cut between his brows. “Tell you what. We’ll make a deal. I promise not to mention the money you owe Mama in a derogatory way if you promise something in return. It has to do with my vacation.”
She couldn’t think what. Except maybe, “You want me to house sit?”
“I want you to come with me to France.”
Bailey’s legs buckled. When she fell against him, bands of steel stopped her from slipping farther. But the way her front grazed against his, his help only made her sudden case of weakness worse.
Siphoning down a breath, she scooped back some hair fallen over her face. “Sorry. Did you just say you want me to go to France with you?”
“I got the impression you hadn’t seen Paris.”
“I was saving it for last. I never got there.”
His smile flashed white beneath the purple lights. “Now’s your chance.”
She took a step back but more deep breaths didn’t help. She cupped her forehead.
“Mateo, I’m confused.”
He brought her near again and flicked a glance over his shoulder at the couple dancing nearby. “Blame Alex. He suggested it.”
She tried to ignore the delicious press of his body, the masculine scent of his skin, the way his hard thigh nudged between hers as he rotated them around in a tight circle. “You know I don’t have money for a ticket to Europe.” Her jaw hardened. “And I won’t take any more charity.”
“Even if you’d be doing me a favor, keeping me company?” His dark gaze, so close, roamed her face. “One good turn deserves another.”
“That’s not fair.”
His mouth turned into a solemn line. “There wouldn’t be any conditions.”
Bailey blinked. Maybe because he was Mama’s grandson, she hadn’t considered he might be trying to buy more than her company.
With the lights slowly spinning and couples floating by, oxygen burned in her lungs while she tried to come up with an appropriate reply to a question that had knocked her for a loop. After an agonizingly long moment, she felt the groan rumble in his chest and his grip on her hand loosen.
“You’re right,” he said. “Crazy idea.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t like to go.” She’d always wanted to see Paris. It was her biggest disappointment that she’d planned to save France for last rather than enjoying that country first. “But I’ve just got back,” she explained. “I’m starting that job Monday.” She finished with the obvious excuse. “We don’t know each other.”
He dismissed it with a self-deprecating smile. “Like I said. Forget I spoke.”
But as his palm skimmed up her back and he tucked her crown under his chin while they continued to dance, although she knew she really should, Bailey couldn’t forget.
At the end of the evening, she and Mateo dropped Natalie and Alex off then drove back to his place in a loaded silence.
Her breathing was heavier than it ought to be. Was his heartbeat hammering as fast as hers, or was she the only one who couldn’t get that enthralling dance and tempting offer out of her mind? Mateo had asked her to jet away to France with him. What had he been thinking? What was she thinking still considering it after having already told him no?
Bailey pressed on her stomach as her insides looped.
Admittedly, she was uniquely attracted to Mateo Celeca; he had a presence, a confidence that was difficult to ignore. But how did she feel about him beyond the physical? Yesterday, after he’d tried to degrade her over the money she’d loaned, she’d thought him little more than a self-serving snob. And yet, tonight, when she’d met his friends…had been his date…
Her stomach looped again.
After that episode with Emilio, the last thing she wanted was to get caught up in a man. Any man. Even when he gave generously to the orphanage where he’d spent his earliest years. Even when she felt as if she’d found a slice of heaven in his arms.
Since that dance, the air between them had crackled with a double dose of anticipation and electricity. If, when they got home, they started talking, got to touching, she didn’t know if she’d want to stop.
After they pulled into the garage, Mateo opened her door and helped her out. Their hands lingered, the contact simmered, before his fingers slipped from hers and he moved to unlock the internal door and flick on the lights. Gathering herself—straightening her dress and patting down her burning cheeks—Bailey followed into the kitchen.
“Care for a nightcap?” he asked, poised near the fridge.
Bailey clasped the pocketbook Natalie had loaned her under her chin and, resolute, made a believable excuse.
“I’m beat. Practically dead on my feet. Think I’ll go straight up and turn in.”
As she headed out, Bailey laughed at herself. He might not even want to kiss her. She could be blowing this awareness factor all out of proportion. But prevention was always better than cure. She’d accepted his invitation to stay a couple more nights. She didn’t want to do something they both might regret in the morning. And if they got involved that way, there would be regrets. Neither was looking for a relationship. She certainly didn’t want to get caught up in a man who, only yesterday, had as good as called her thief. A man who might set her pulse racing but who could never get serious about a woman in her situation.
And yet, he had asked her to France….
When Mateo reached the foot of the staircase, he stopped and turned to face her. Standing there, simply gazing at one another in the semi-darkness, she had this silly urge to play down the scene, stick out a hand and offer to shake. But, given past experience, probably best they didn’t touch.
“Thank you for the lovely evening,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Well…” Clutching her pocketbook tighter, she set a foot onto the lowest stair. “Good night.”
“Good night, Bailey.”
When she began to climb, he started up too. They ascended together until they hit a point where the stairs divided into separate branches. A fork in the road.
Her stomach twisting with nerves, she chanced a look across. He was looking at her too, a masculine silhouette a mere arm’s length away.
Swirling desire pooled low in her belly and she frowned. “You’re not moving.”
“Neither are you.”
Rolling back her shoulders, she issued a firm and final, “Good night.”
She hiked the rest of the stairs, right to the top. But before she could head off down to her suite, curiosity won out again. She edged a gaze over her right shoulder, to wh
ere she’d left Mateo standing seconds ago. What she saw sent her heart dropping in her chest.
He was gone. And wasn’t that what she’d wanted? What she knew was best for both their sakes?
Still, she stared at that vacant spot a moment more, feeling strangely empty and no longer so pretty in her pink designer dress. Shifting her weight, she finally rotated back…and ran right into Mateo’s solid chest.
Her heels balanced on the edge of the stairs, Bailey toppled back. But before she could fall, his arm hooked around her waist, pulling her effortlessly against him. Déjà vu. With the bodice of her dress pinned to his chest—with every one of her reflexes in a tailspin—she worked to catch her breath before croaking out, “I thought you were tired.”
“You said you were tired.” His dark eyes gleamed. “I’m wide awake.”
When she felt his hardness pressed against her belly, she gulped down another breath only to feel him grow harder still. Any doubts she may have had were blown away. The way her own blood was throbbing, taking this steadily growing attraction further seemed frighteningly inevitable.
“Maybe…” She wet her suddenly dry lips. “Maybe we should have that nightcap after all.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “What kind of nightcap?”
“What would you like?”
His mouth came to within a whisper of hers.
“I’d like you.”
Six
He didn’t waste time waiting for her reply. Bailey supposed he saw all he needed to know in her eyes. He angled and, before she could think beyond I need you to kiss me, she was in his arms and he was moving down the hall, away from her suite, headed for his.
The tall double doors of his suite were open. He didn’t bother to kick them shut after he’d carried her through. Nor did he switch on any lamps. What she could make out in the shadows was courtesy of the light filtering in from the hall as well as the moonbeams slanting through a bank of soaring arched windows that looked out over that garden and its statues below.
He stopped at the foot of his bed and his voice dropped to a low rasp.
“This is what you want?”
Instinctively, her palm wove around the sandpaper of his jaw. She filled her lungs with his scent then skimmed the pad of her thumb over the dent in his chin.
“Yes,” she murmured.
His chest expanded, his grip tightened then he lifted her higher in his arms as his head came purposefully down. When his mouth claimed hers, Bailey couldn’t contain the moan of deepest desire the sensation dragged from her throat. She didn’t want to contain anything. And as his mouth worked magic against hers and his stubble grazed and teased her skin, she pressed herself up and in, needing to feel even closer. Needing him as close as it got.
Her fingers wound through his hair while his throat rumbled with satisfaction and the kiss deepened. Even as her mind and body raged with desire, she was lucid enough to recognize the simple truth. Whatever it was that had sparked when they’d met, it had grown to a point where now they were downright hungry for each other. Starving for each other’s touch in a primal nothing-held-back, nothing-taboo, kind of way. She could never get enough of this burn…of the flames that already leapt and blazed nearly out of control.
When his lips gradually left hers, she felt dizzy. Her eyes remained closed but she heard and felt his breathing. At the edges of her mind, she wondered…why was this coming together so intense? So combustible?
He dipped to sit her on the edge of the mattress. With moonlight spilling in, she dragged the dress up over her head then, in her lingerie, watched as he wound the shirt off his shoulders, the sleeves from his arms. When he was naked, he bent near, slid an arm around her waist and drew her up to stand again. Holding her chin, he ran the wet tip of his tongue along the open seam of her mouth while, at her back, he unsnapped the strapless bra with one deft flick. His palm pressed down the dent of her spine and slipped into the back of her panties. She whimpered as her womb contracted and quivered…a tantalizing prelude to the climax she couldn’t wait to enjoy.
His fingertips pressed and seared into her flesh while his mouth covered hers completely again, and all the time her insides clenched and pulsed while her limbs and mind went to mush. She wanted this heaven to go on forever. But even more, she wanted him bearing down on top of her. Inside of her. Filling and fulfilling her now.
Her hands ironed down his sides. When she reached his lean hips, she urged him forward, toward her and the bed. With their mouths still joined, she felt his smile before he broke the kiss long enough to wrench back the sheets. With a determined gleam in his eyes, he crowded until the back of her legs met the cool edge of the mattress. His big hands ringed her waist and her feet left the ground long enough for him to lay her gently down. He followed a heartbeat behind.
Looming above her, everything seemed to still as he searched her eyes in a world of midnight shadows. His deep low voice seemed to fill the room.
“I didn’t ask you to stay here for this.”
She drew an aimless pattern through the hair at the base of his throat.
“I know.”
“Although I’m not sorry you agreed.”
She matched his grin. “I’m not sorry you asked.”
He dropped a tender kiss at the side of her mouth, a barely there touch that shot a fountain of star-tipped sparks through her every fiber.
“Come with me to France,” he murmured against her lips.
She groaned. The temptation was huge. She’d said no and had meant it. She was starting a job Monday. She didn’t want to take more charity. But those considerations didn’t seem quite so solid since he’d carried her to his bed.
Closing her eyes, she sighed. He was kissing the sensitive spot beneath her left lobe.
“What if I say please?”
She bit her lip. He was killing her.
“I’ll tell you what.” She filed her fingers up over his burning ears, through his hair. “I promise not to say no again if you promise not to ask.”
He moved lower to nuzzle the arc of her neck. “I don’t like when you say no.”
“To everything but that, Mateo…” She hooked her leg around his hip and drew him close. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Mateo couldn’t stop to think about how his unexpected encounter with Bailey Ross had come to this. How they’d gone from strangers to opponents to lovers in less than two days. As he tasted a leisurely line along the perfumed sweep of her shoulder, he only knew these sensations were too intense to analyze. More intense—more vital—than he’d ever had before.
When her heel dug into the back of his thigh, letting him know again she was on the same page, he ground up against her but then grit his teeth and blocked that insistent heady push. Tonight would be sweet torture. He’d need every ounce of willpower to keep this encounter—his pleasure—from peaking too soon.
Working to steady his breathing, his pace, he sculpted a palm over the outside of one full breast as he shifted lower. His mouth covered that nipple before his teeth grazed up all the way, tugging the tip of the bead. Her hands had been winding through his hair but now she dug in and held on as she shuddered and moaned beneath him. He heard her desperate swallow and listened, pleased that her breathing sounded more labored than his own. Savoring the way her breasts rose and fell on each lungful of air, he twirled his tongue around that tip and tried to ignore the fact his every inch was ready to explode.
With her leg twined over the back of his, her pelvis began to move in time with the adoring sweep of his tongue. She murmured something he didn’t catch. But he wouldn’t ask and stop the bone-melting rhythm their bodies had fallen into. He didn’t want to interrupt for a moment the feel of her body stirring beneath his. He could lie here all night, doing precisely this.
If only his erection wasn’t begging for more.
He repositioned again, higher to savor the honey of her lips at the same time his touch wove down: over her ribs, the curve of her waist, the subtle flare
of a hip, then up over the same terrain. He was performing a repeat descent, stroking and playing—anticipating the added treasures he’d discover this time around—when she grunted, shifted and pushed against his chest.
He froze. Then, eyes snapping open, he rolled away. What was wrong? Had he hurt her?
When she slid over too—on top of him—he held his brow and almost laughed with relief.
“What are you doing?”
Crouched on his lap, she slid her hips one way and the other then tossed back the hair fallen over her face. “What do you think?”
She slid up a little this time then down over his throbbing shaft. That sent him reeling way too close to the edge. He was thrilled she was so completely in the zone that she wanted to take the reins, but any more of that kind of maneuvering and he’d reach the finish line way too soon.
He flipped her over so she lay on her back again, him firmly on top. While she peered up at him, a saucy glint in her eyes, his hand burrowed between them, down the front of her panties, and his erection grew heavier still. She was warm and moist. When his touch curled up between her folds and pressed against a woman’s most sensitive spot, she let out a time honored sound that told him she was ready.
Leaning over, he opened his bedside drawer, found the pack then tore a single foiled wrap with his teeth. As he rolled on protection, her fingers sluiced up and down his sides. Oh, he wanted to take this slower. Make it last. But this time, with this lady, that wasn’t going to happen.
Sheathed, he positioned himself, took a long slow kiss from her welcoming mouth then eased inside. Her walls clamped around him at the same time her hips lifted and she opened her mouth wider, inviting him deeper.
With one arm curled around her head, he drove in and clenched every muscle as a mind-tingling burn hardened him more. He felt as if he was drowning in a lake of fire. All exposed nerve endings and profound sizzling need.
