Seduced by the Baron (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 4)

by Amy Andrews

  Henri, a large man with a ruddy face, a snowy handlebar moustache and lederhosen-style suspenders, stopped mid-sentence. “Mein Gott,” he murmured looking at something behind Raf. “Australia is known for their beautiful women, my friend but America is no slouch either.”

  “Ja,” said the guy next to him, while the gazes of the two on either side lit with lascivious intent.

  Raf turned to see who had caught their attention and almost went into cardiac arrest as Faith walked towards him in a killer green dress. She smiled at him hesitantly as she drew to a stop.

  “Faith.” He slid his hands up her arms and pulled her in for a lingering kiss. “You made it.”

  “Yes. I’d forgotten how bossy my friends could be.”

  “Remind me to thank them,” he said with a grin, kissing her briefly this time before pulling away to introduce her to the group who were staring with open curiosity.

  Even though he wanted to drag her away and keep her all to himself.

  “Gentlemen, may I present Faith Sullivan.”

  “My pleasure, Fräulein,” Henri said as he took her hand and bowed over it. “I should have known this handsome devil would be with the prettiest woman at the ball.”

  She laughed. “His taste is impeccable,” Faith agreed earning a round of raucous laughter from a bunch of smitten middle aged men.

  “Faith’s family owns an Irish pub in Brooklyn,” Raf said feeling the need to make some attempt at conversation before he rushed her off.

  “Ah.” Henri nodded. “The home of Guinness.”

  Faith laid her hand over her heart. “The one true beer.”

  “You wound me.” Henri grinned, not looking remotely put out. “A pretty woman who’s devoted to beer. Rafael, why haven’t you married this girl?”

  Faith stiffened beside him a little as the enquiry caught Raf by surprise. He was used to fielding questions about his marital status, or lack of it, from nosy great-aunts right through to global CEOs and his answer was always standard. Why ruin a good thing? But tonight the question threw him off balance. Where was his quick comeback tonight?

  “I prefer to just use him for sex,” Faith quipped.

  Henri roared laughing then and slapped Raf on the back. Raf laughed too after his initial shock, giving her hip a squeeze.

  “She’s a keeper, Rafael,” Henry said still chuckling.

  Raf looked down into her face. She looked relaxed and happy. Maybe Henri was right?

  “Would you excuse us please, gentlemen? I’m going to find Faith a drink.”

  Raf took Faith’s hand and led her away, weaving through the clusters of people talking over the jazz band that presided over a full dance floor.

  “I can’t believe you came,” Raf said, as he pulled her in next to a large potted plant at the back of the room. He held out both her hands from her sides and looked at her. “You look …Wow. You’re just…”

  “Va va voom according to Mercy,” Faith supplied.

  Raf laughed. “Indeed. Va va voom.”

  And then he kissed her because having her so near and not kissing her was torture. Her mouth parted and she sighed his name and touched her tongue to his and it took all of his control not to have her right here, right now against a wall in the Waldorf in front of about five hundred people.

  He broke off long seconds later, his breathing heavy, his dick hard. “I want to get you out of here,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “I want to kiss you until we both can’t breathe and bury myself in you and not let you out of my bed or my sight. But,” he said, lifting his forehead, “I’ve already made arrangements to speak with a few people.”

  She smiled at him, her hand bunching in his shirt. “It’s fine. I can wait.”

  “I fucking can’t,” he growled, his voice as low and desperate as he felt, dropping another quick, hard kiss on her mouth. “An hour then we can go, okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  *

  It was two hours before Raf stepped out of the ballroom with Faith. She’d charmed everyone with her knowledge of beer and the local market, making short conversations difficult. The dress and the cleavage didn’t help. Those two aided and abetted wherever they went.

  Then he’d pulled her onto the dance floor and they’d danced. Real slow. Real close. It was utter torture, heat and lust and need flaring between them hot enough to burn the whole damn Waldorf to the ground. But holding her in his arms, swaying to music, her earrings swinging enticingly…he wouldn’t have swapped it for anything.

  They picked up her coat and Faith slung it over her arm as she took his hand and headed out. She frowned as he resisted the tug. “Exit’s this way,” she said.

  “Oh no.” Raf shook his head. “There’s no way I’m waiting any longer to get you naked. I’m getting a room here.”

  In thirty seconds he was standing at the check-in desk, the swing of Faith’s earring in his peripheral vision way more fascinating than any of the magnificent art deco surrounds. She pulled out her phone as he waited for the paperwork to be processed.

  “It’ll still be going strong at Sully’s?”

  She nodded her head. “We close at two tonight.” Her finger hovered over the screen. “Thought I might just check in and see how they’re all coping.”

  Raf liked that she cared about Sully’s and her family but if she thought he was letting her go if they weren’t coping then she had seriously underestimated how very much he wanted her right now.

  And the size of his erection.

  “I’m sure they are.”

  She pursed her lips, her finger moving away from the screen. “You’re right.” She located the off button and pressed. “I’m switching it off. No Sully’s tonight.” The screen went blank. “Just you and me.”

  Raf made a show of switching his phone off too. Just her and him. He liked the sound of that. He liked it a lot.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‡

  Raf stood aside so she could precede him into the elevator. He was aware of the soft swish of her dress and cherry bounce of her curls as she brushed past him walking straight to the rear. He was aware of the beat of his heart and the woosh of his breath and the steady thrum of hot need beating through his pulse points like a drum.

  He followed her in, punching the button for floor twenty-eight then lounged against the wall near the panel as the doors slid silently closed.

  She looked at him with questioning eyes. “You’re a long way away over there,” she murmured, taking a step towards him.

  Raf held up his hand, grateful when she pulled up short. “If you had any idea how badly I want to lift that dress and bury myself inside you right now, you’ll stay right where you are.”

  She watched him from under a fringe of luxurious sooty lashes, the dark blue shimmer of her eye make-up emphasizing the indigo in her eyes. She didn’t move and she didn’t say a word as the air in the elevator built and thickened with every floor they travelled until it sat like soup between them.

  They whirred to a halt and the doors slid open. “After you,” Raf said. She walked out, giving him a wider berth this time and Raf smiled.

  Smart.

  “This way,” he said, following the signs to their room then swiping the card through the slot, very aware of her just behind him. Her heat and her cherry cola hair and those damn earrings swinging sexily back and forth, brushing her neck light as feathers.

  A click followed by a green light was a welcome sight and Raf pushed the door open, standing aside for her to enter. The hem of her skirt brushed his leg as she did so and he shut his eyes at the unexpected eroticism.

  He followed her into the room, grabbing her hand before the door had clicked shut behind him, before she’d travelled too far from his side and pulled her gently—way more gently than the primitive man inside him was urging – against him, her front fitting snug against his, her mouth lightly parted.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, need straining his voice.


  “To check out the room.” Her answer was soft and breathy. “It’s the Waldorf.”

  Raf couldn’t give a rat’s ass if it was Buckingham Palace. The where of them didn’t matter. He didn’t want to check out the room or the view or the shampoo in the goddamn bathroom. All he wanted was Faith. Here. Now.

  “Later,” he muttered, his mouth coming down hard on hers. He’d been waiting too damn long for this and he’d be gone in two days. He needed to get his fill now because he had a very bad feeling he was going to miss this.

  Miss her. A new experience for someone who was used to walking away and not looking back.

  Her instantaneous whimper soared in his head, filling his lungs and his heart and speeding through his blood like quicksilver and all the control he’d been exercising at the ball and in the elevator fell away until there was nothing but the primal husk of him wanting her in the most carnal of ways.

  He turned her around, backing her up until her head bumped against the nearest wall. Her bag hit the ground. So did her coat. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he muttered, breaking off the kiss, a hurricane swirling in his chest, “I want you so bad I can barely contain it.”

  She shook her head, her hands slipping inside the jacket of his tux and pushing it off his shoulders. “I don’t want you to,” she whispered.

  Raf groaned as he shook out of his jacket and slammed his mouth back onto hers, unleashing the full fury of the storm inside him, travelling down her throat and the v of her neckline. He grabbed the hem of her dress and yanked it up, grinding his erect and fully clothed cock against her lacy underwear as he plundered her mouth again, his tongue stroking against hers.

  “Yes,” she moaned, breaking off the kiss as she tilted her pelvis, her hands clamping on his ass, riding the hard edge of him. Then suddenly her hands were gone and they were at his belt and she was undoing it and then his button and then his fly and then her hands were slipping into his Calvin Klein’s grasping his cock.

  “Fuck,” he groaned, planting a forearm on the wall beside her head and leaning heavily into it, his eyes closing as she gripped it hard and good, just the way he liked it. But he needed more than that. He needed to be inside her.

  He grabbed her leg, bending it up until her knee pressed into his hip and her calf anchored fast to his ass then slid his hand down the inside of her thigh straight into the slickness between her legs, pushing aside her underwear and plunging two fingers straight into her core.

  “I want to be inside you like this,” he muttered.

  She cried out, breaking their kiss, her head falling back against the wall. He lowered his mouth to her neck and licked the pulse that thudded there as she squirmed against his hand.

  “Now…” she panted, guiding his cock towards her center. “In me…” She grabbed his shirt and yanked. “Help me up.”

  Raf eased out of her, dragging her underwear down before sliding his hands to her ass under the fabric of her dress and boosting her up the wall aided by the slippery satin. Her legs locked around his flanks and her hot, wet core aligned with the thick bluntness of his head as he stilled, poised on the precipice. There wasn’t one cell inside him that wasn’t pulsating with the driving need to be part of her.

  “In me,” she repeated, sliding her hands into his hair, her tongue licking along his lips before she opened her mouth over his.

  Raf groaned. He didn’t stop to think about condoms or the fact they had a perfectly good bed not very far away or that he’d be gone in two days, he just sucked in all her cherry cola goodness and thrust into her in one swift wild jerk of his hips, her velvety heat a fiery balm to his velvety hardness.

  She cried out, her mouth wrenching from his as her head fell back against the wall, her hands clenching his shoulders, her eyes squeezed shut.

  Raf held still, coasting in the bliss of being bare inside her, of having nothing between them. He never did this. He wouldn’t ever do it again.

  But right now it felt exquisite. Perfect. Right.

  She opened her eyes and he was trapped by the shimmer of hunger lurking there. “More,” she said.

  Raf leaned forward, planting his forearm back near her head and gave her exactly what she was asking for with a flex of his hips. “Yes,” she panted, her eyes fluttering closed.

  He flexed again. And again. And again. Her head bobbed with each thrust, her earrings swayed against her neck. Raf buried his face there, his forehead on the wall, his lips at her throat as he angled himself better and slid his other hand down to where all the action was, his fingers finding the raised little bead they were searching for and rubbing.

  She whimpered and arched her back. And he kept going, thrusting and rubbing and building. Building her and him with every pass, every flex, every yes from her mouth, burying his groans in her neck as his climax simmered and he quickly lost his way and his mind, his brain oozing out as their orgasms boiled over and there was nothing but white hot light then a kaleidoscope of pleasure.

  *

  Faith wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke with a full bladder. A stray foot had accidentally knocked the clock radio off the bedside table and out of the wall during a particularly ambitious position last night so there were no glowing luminous numbers to inform her. She glanced over at the window. No light broke around the edges of the thick Waldorf curtains.

  So, it could be any time before dawn. But it must be close because they’d been awake for hours and she was pretty sure she’d been asleep a while as well.

  Raf’s big warm body lay cocooned around hers, his arm draped heavily over her waist and she took a moment to savor it. Last night had been a marathon. A delicious, energetic smorgasbord of touch and taste.

  It had been wonderful.

  *

  Another signal from her brain about her painfully full bladder poked her again and Faith finally gave into its demands, gently lifting Raf’s arm and sliding out from under.

  “Hey,” he protested all deep and sleepy, his hand reaching for her as she sat on the side of the bed. “Where are you going?” he asked, his eyelids heavy, trying to open and failing.

  “Just the bathroom,” she whispered. “Won’t be long.”

  She left the bed, smiling at Raf already sound asleep again. She was still smiling as she stepped over her coat to get into the bathroom.

  It was going to be hard to bring this day down.

  She spotted her bag on the floor as she exited the bathroom, scooping it up and fishing through it for her phone. At least it would tell her the time. She sat back on the edge of the mattress and waited for it to power up.

  The first thing she noticed was it was five thirty, the second was the avalanche of missed calls and texts appearing before her eyes. Faith’s heart almost stopped as she saw the number twelve next to Ty’s name.

  Ty had tried to call her a dozen times? Finn almost as many. Ty had probably never called her a dozen times in his entire life. There were several calls from Zel and Dawn and Mercy too.

  Pop.

  There were texts as well from everybody with nothing other than, call urgently in the body.

  Fuck! Faith’s pulse hammered so fast in her chest it actually ached as dread circled inside her.

  Something had happened to Pop.

  A sharp twist of fear pierced the dread. Good God almighty, if he’d died while she was in the Waldorf screwing Raf, she’d never forgive herself.

  She had to get out of here.

  Frantic now, she stood, a tear spilling down her face as the worst case scenario played out in her head while she plucked up her strewn clothes, throwing them on as she went.

  She had to get to Pop.

  She couldn’t look at Raf lying on his stomach sound asleep, the sheet covering his lower half, the golden tan of his back a stark contrast to the snowy white fabric. She couldn’t look at him and know that as something bad was happening to her father she’d been here with him. She couldn’t look at him as she shoved her feet into her shoes and her arms into her co
at and hurried for the door.

  And she couldn’t think about this shitty goodbye as she eased the heavy door open and shut it quietly behind her. All she could think about now was pop.

  Please don’t let him be dead.

  Scrubbing at more tears streaming down her face with one hand she tapped on Ty’s number with the other as she strode down the corridor.

  “Faith,” he answered on the second ring. “Jesus…where have you been?”

  Oh God. “Is he dead?”

  “No. He’s alive. He’s stable. He’s at Lutheran Medical Center.”

  The sudden rush of relief almost brought Faith to her knees. She sobbed and stumbled but she refused to buckle, pushing herself to take the last steps to the elevator bank.

  “I’m coming now.”

  *

  Faith felt ridiculous walking into the hospital in her ball clothes. She might as well have a scarlet letter attached to her chest but ultimately none of that mattered as she hurried to the ICU. Everyone stood as she burst through the doors of the waiting room two minutes later. They were all there looking haggard and weary and a red-eyed Mercy, who was being comforted by Seb, looked like she’d been crying for hours.

  “Faith,” Ty said, moving towards her and she was torn between wanting to yell at him and breaking down. She almost chose the latter when he pulled her into a hug but she blinked back her tears, slamming a door shut on those emotions.

  If she succumbed she wouldn’t be any good to Pop.

  “What happened?” she demanded, pulling out of his embrace.

  “It was just after close. We were all cleaning up.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “He should have been in bed.”

  Ty shook his head. “You should have seen him, Faith. He was in such good spirits, you couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.”

  “It’s true,” Zel said, moving in to hug her too. “He was laughing and telling jokes.”