“I thought you might like this,” she said as Rebecca took the sketch from her.
Rebecca’s eyes widened as she looked down at the drawing and her eyes filled with tears. Ellie scrambled around the desk and placed her hand on the other woman’s back, hoping to comfort her.
“I didn’t mean to upset you…” Ellie started.
Rebecca wiped away the tears before she set down the drawing on her desk and pulled Ellie into a crushing hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s beautiful.”
Ellie patted Rebecca’s back and squeezed once, before she drew back with a smile.
“You and the man in the picture look so happy that I couldn’t help myself. I’m glad you like it.”
“It’s perfect. You have a real talent,” Rebecca said.
“Thank you, and thanks for all your help.”
Ellie stepped back and glanced at Lucian. Heat flared in his eyes, making them shine like a banked emerald fire. The intensity in which he looked at her left her shaken. She walked around to the other side of the desk, to where she had left her messenger bag, and shoved her things inside. She smiled one more time at Rebecca, but as she turned to exit the office, Lucian grasped her elbow.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said.
She walked out of the office and toward the elevators, aware of his slight touch on her arm and his arm brushing her shoulder with each step. She felt as though she’d run a marathon by the time they arrived at the exit. When she turned to say good-bye, he walked her back into the elevator until she was pressed back against the farthest wall.
After the doors had closed, he reached behind him and absently flipped the stop elevator button, which caused the elevator car to darken, giving him a more dangerous air. She couldn’t decipher his look as he crowded her against the wall, but she could feel the constrained energy that pulsed through his body and into hers. Instead of shrinking away from the effect he had on her, she held her ground.
“At least you’re not immune to me,” he murmured.
“I have a feeling that very few women are.”
He pressed against her, and she could feel the vibrations from his deep laughter pass through her. She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes as she felt his taut chest, muscular and hard, as he leaned against her. Her hands itched to travel up his stomach and caress his chest, and feel his hardness for herself. Her eyes kept traveling along the length of his body, not caring how much time had passed.
“I never denied that I was attracted to you. All I said was that I can’t see other people believing that we’re a couple,” she muttered.
He captured her gaze for a split second before he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers in a touch so gentle, she thought she might have imagined it. Without conscious thought, she leaned toward him, wanting more than a simple touch, but he cupped her cheeks in his hands and captured her gaze in his unwavering one.
“If we weren’t in an elevator, in a public building, I would show you how compatible we are,” he growled.
“We just met. I would like to get to know you before I do something stupid, like dive in headfirst and have an affair with you.”
“It wouldn’t be an affair, love,” he promised.
“Do you call all the women you know love?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Get to know me, and you’ll see how serious I am,” he growled.
She shook her head, but she didn’t know whether she was trying to deny his words, or whether she contemplated taking him up on his offer. The sooner he realized that she wasn’t his type of woman, the sooner he would move on. Her heart kicked in her chest, hard and painfully, at the thought of him with another woman.
The side of his mouth lifted, and her breath caught in her throat. He wasn’t the type of man who would give up on something that he wanted, and at the moment, he wanted her.
She’d never been a cautious woman when it came to something she wanted, but wanting this man was borderline lunacy. Her mind flipped back and forth, all while she kept her eyes on his. She tried to clear some of the fog that had descended from his nearness, but he interpreted her movement as denial.
“I guess I’ll have to convince you then.” He groaned.
Before she could figure out what he meant, he leaned toward her and captured her mouth in a kiss so decadent, she felt her knees weaken and her body shake with a need she’d never felt before in her life.
She gripped his forearms for support, and when she sucked in a breath at the hard muscles underneath her hands, he took advantage and deepened the kiss. His tongue swept in. As he tasted her, her hands crawled up his arms until she wrapped them around his shoulders and hung on.
She heard a ringing in a distance, and moaned a protest when he broke the kiss. Her chest heaved with exertion, and when her thoughts solidified several moments after he’d pulled away, she realized that her arms were still wrapped around his shoulders. Instead of pulling away as he would have expected, she laid her head on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart.
“That was easy,” she murmured.
“What was?” he asked.
“To forget where I was, and kiss a man I just met.”
Chapter Two
Lucian meant it to be just a kiss to show her how compatible they were together, but it flamed into an inferno that made him forget about everything but the woman in his arms.
Kissing Ellie was better than any other kiss, fantasy or reality, for him.
As she held on to him, he rubbed her back and smiled as she relaxed further into his body. The sound continued to blare, so while he kept one hand open on her back and pressed her closer to him, his other hand shot out and silenced the alarm in the elevator.
She was jostled when the car started to move down, and he tightened his arms to keep her close.
He could hear her stuttered breathing and the rapid beat of her heart, and it took all of his control not to carry her out of this building and to his place, in his bed, and spend the rest of the weekend finding ways to pleasure her.
Instead of crowding her against the back of the elevator like he wanted to, he stepped back, giving them both room to breathe while he kept his arm around her shoulders. He knew that if he pressured her, he would lose his chance to get to know her better, and at the moment, he wanted to find out everything about her.
“Lucian?”
“I didn’t mean to lose control like that,” he admitted.
“I know. I didn’t either.” She looked up at him with a yearning that reflected how he felt, and he clenched his hands to get control over himself. He blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and before he could respond, the elevator doors opened and the doorman cleared his throat.
“Are you exiting, Mr. Cole?”
His eyes never leaving Ellie’s, he nodded at the man and placed a hand on the small of Ellie’s back, before he walked them toward the exit. His hand never left her as he led her outside and hailed a cab.
As they waited, he glanced down at her face, and could see the light blush stained on her cheeks and the residual effect of their kiss on her swollen lips. As much as he wanted to continue where they’d left off, he needed time to think, to figure out a way to convince Ellie that they should get to know each other, and not just for the sake of her friend’s wedding. He kept his eyes locked with hers as the cab pulled up to the curb, and he absently reached for the handle and opened the door for her. As she walked toward the open door, he reached for her hand and gave her a squeeze of reassurance before he kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll see you soon, love.”
She nodded but he could feel her reluctance, so he leaned down and placed his mouth near her ear.
“I’ve never met a woman I want more than I want you. You’re the most sensual woman I’ve ever touched,” he growled.
She stepped closer until her body was flush to his, and moved her face toward his ear. Her breath brushed against his cheek, sending hi
s temperature soaring.
“It was a good thing you pulled back when you did,” she admitted.
His right brow drew up in surprise at what she revealed to him. When the corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk, a groan erupted from deep in his chest.
“You’re going to kill me, love.”
“Hopefully not before I see you naked,” she stated.
Unable to stop his body from responding to her words, he slid his hand to the small of her back, spread his fingers, and pressed her soft body against his.
He couldn’t stop touching her.
He could hear people shuffling by and cars honking, but his full attention was focused on the woman he held in his arms. He closed his eyes and focused on her soft curves, the stuttered breathing that had her chest rising and falling at a rapid rate, and her light scent that danced in the air. She was the perfect combination of innocent and seductress.
He brushed his lips over her cheek before he stepped back. “Soon,” he promised.
Her mouth opened but no sound escaped. Instead, she nodded and slid into the back of the cab.
He forced himself to close the door and back away from the curb. She met his eyes as the taxi pulled away, and the small smile she gave him strengthened his determination to get to know her.
He stood in the exact spot on the curb for several moments, until her cab disappeared in midday traffic. Then he strode toward back into the building and straight to the elevators, determined to get Ellie’s information from Bec.
He found himself whistling as the elevator door opened on the floor that housed Liaison. His thoughts replayed every moment since he spotted Ellie, and with a hurried pace, he walked through the reception area and into his sister’s office.
He knew that despite her surprise that he had volunteered to be her date, and her arguments that they weren’t compatible, their attraction was off the charts. He had no idea what he’d been thinking, passing himself off as a hired escort, but one look at Ellie and all thoughts fled his mind, everything but his need to get to know her.
There was nothing about her that didn’t ring true. From the streaks of purple in her hair, to the way his body responded to her in a casual pair of jeans and a plain white shirt that emphasized her curvy body, and her genuine smile. When he spotted the sketch she created for his sister, he knew that all her success was because of talent. She was beautiful, brilliant, and funny. Everything about her intrigued him.
He hadn’t wanted to deceive her about his identity, but the thought of her getting to know another escort, or another man, was unacceptable. He wanted to tell her the truth from the moment he opened his mouth, but her arguments about why he wouldn’t be a believable date had stopped him from doing so. She had seen the look that passed between him and Rebecca when Ellie questioned him about being an escort, but he was already invested in being her date, to get to know her, so he kept his mouth shut.
He wanted to have the chance to get to know her, and for the first time in his life, to have her get to know him as a man, not a successful business owner with more money than he knew what to do with. He would be her date for the wedding of a man who failed to see the beauty of a woman who was becoming an obsession to him.
But he wouldn’t make the same mistake.
He just needed time to come up with a plan to tell Ellie the truth about him, and to convince her that they would be perfect together.
He strode into the office. His focus was to find more information about Ellie, and he rooted around Bec’s desk for Ellie’s file. For the third time that day, his focus had caused him to ignore everything and everyone around him. It wasn’t until he found the file and he blew out a relieved breath that he glanced up to his sister’s smiling face looking back at him from across her desk.
He sighed as he tightened his grip on the file, walked a few feet to the chair that Ellie had vacated a few minutes earlier and sat down. Her light scent of lemon grass and coconut still lingered, and his body tightened at the smell. He focused across the desk, knowing that Bec would have questions about the way he acted, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to answer them.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
She shook her head and leaned back in her office chair, waiting for him to explain his behavior.
But for the life of him, he had no explanation to give. He acted on instinct because Ellie had enchanted him from the moment he spotted her curled up in this chair, her braid draped over her left shoulder and her sky-blue eyes widening as his gaze raked over her. What they shared in the few minutes they were together was beyond his realm of explanation, and until he spent more time with Ellie, he couldn’t explain it to anyone else, so he remained silent.
Bec blew out a breath before she smiled at him. “I called Gabriel and told him what happened.”
Lucian growled at his sister. He knew she and Gabriel had no secrets between them, but he hoped to understand why he reacted to Ellie in such an elemental way before they dissected his reactions. He considered Gabriel to be as close as a brother, and he’d been happy when Gabriel and Rebecca acknowledged that they were in love. But he didn’t need his love life examined by the two people who were the epitome of love in his eyes.
He knew that you couldn’t build a relationship on deception, but he knew that if he had told Ellie the truth of who he was, she would have rejected him outright and he would never have the chance to get to know her. And he had to get to know her.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m happy that you’re interested in Ellie, but when she finds out that you’re not an escort, she’s gonna be upset, to say the least,” Rebecca pointed out.
He nodded to acknowledge the truth in her words. But once he spotted Ellie, there was nothing that would discourage him from getting to know her and touch her. He craved to know that whether her skin was as soft as he imagined it to be.
Her white buttoned shirt had exposed a patch of skin just below her neck, and he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her there, to see whether it was as sensitive as it looked. He loved the flare of color in her hair, but it was encased in a braid, and he wanted it loose so he could run his fingers through it, to know how it would feel against his naked chest.
Hell, in a matter of an hour, she had managed to make him think about nothing else but her. And what surprised him the most was that he was happy to have his sterile existence turned upside down.
“I know that look,” Bec said.
He opened his mouth to deny it, but closed it without uttering a word.
He had seen Gabriel look at his sister with such affection that sometimes he couldn’t stand to be around them. Not because he wanted to deny either of them happiness, but it reminded him of how incomplete his life was.
He realized that work was just that. Work. When he came home to his empty apartment, his loneliness would sneak up on him until it crowded out everything else. He’d dated enough women over the years to know that most of them wanted him for his position or the money that he made. He’d found out the hard way that money blinded people to what they wanted and who they were. Instead of making him balk at relationships, it made him yearn for a real one. One that he could imagine with Ellie.
Unable to stop himself, he opened the file and memorized her address and phone number.
“I’ve never known you to lie,” Rebecca said.
“She thought that I was out of her league, and if I would have told her that I wasn’t an escort, she wouldn’t have agreed to get to know me. I plan to follow the rules you set out for your escorts, and I plan to tell her the truth, but after she gets to know me.”
“And if she chooses not to see you again?” Rebecca asked.
His heart jumped in his chest, but he kept his calm exterior, despite the rage that coursed through his body. He knew that could be a possibility, but he would do his best to convince Ellie to explore their attraction.
He shook his head and ignored the question. “I know what I’m doing.”
Chapter Three
Ellie glanced up as the cab slowed outside her apartment building. She hadn’t realized that she gave the man her home address, but she pulled out a crisp twenty and slid it to him before she opened the door and stepped out. She thanked him before she shut the door, and walked to the entrance of her building. She absently nodded at Henry, the doorman, for opening the door, and she walked to the elevator, all without conscious thought.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Lucian and the kiss they shared. She could still feel his arousal as he pressed her to his body, and she couldn’t bring herself to care less that the man was paid to get to know women and to know what they desired. As she slipped her key in the door to her apartment, she shook her head in an effort to expel the images of Lucian in her mind. But they refused to budge.
She let out a gasp as the door was opened from the inside, and she reached out and grabbed the doorframe to prevent the nosedive from the abrupt movement.
“Well?”
Ellie straightened and looked into the eager faces of her two best friends, Nina and Ben. Nina was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a crisp black fitted jacket over a cream blouse. Her matching pencil skirt ended just above her knees, with her makeup as perfect as it was first thing in the morning, even though it was late afternoon, and her sandy-blonde hair was bound in a tight bun.
Ben, who worked as the one IT guy in the entire firm, dressed in blue jeans and a blue V-neck sweater over a white t-shirt, but his hair was thoroughly mussed and his eyes sparkled with mischief. He looked like a model, but his wicked smile, sense of humor, and his casual outlook on life made him one of the two true friends she had in her life.
“Work was great, thanks for asking.” She skirted around her two friends, who had posted themselves as sentries in front of her door. She pulled off her messenger bag and laid it on the couch, trying to keep herself busy so she wouldn’t have to answer questions she didn’t quite have the answers to.
The Mistaken Escort's Pleasure: A Liaison Novel Page 2
