Justin couldn’t resist the temptation to bait her even further. “Ours is…a business relationship.”
“Oh,” she nodded. “So you must know him from his Wall Street days.”
Wall Street days? His father had only been dead a month and already his life was being sectioned off into the “old” and the “new”? He hadn’t realized that taking over the hotels would re-define him. Her comment gave him considerable pause. What was he doing taking on an industry he didn’t understand? Justin fidgeted and re-positioned the towel across his middle.
She was looking up at him with gleaming green eyes. There was absolutely no guile in her face and when Justin probed her face, he realized that not since his mother, had he seen a woman look at him like this. For far too long, every woman he’d met had wanted something from him. If it wasn’t sex, it was money or his name or his baby. Everyone he knew wanted a piece of him. But right here, right now, for this strange suspension in time, this woman, thought he was someone else and she didn’t want anything.
Damn the bad luck, he thought. For once he would have liked it if a woman just wanted him for sex.
Shana didn’t know precisely at what millisecond the conversation between them moved from getting to know you to sex, but she could see it clearly in Mr. Gorgeous’ eyes.
She felt herself blush and rightfully so. She should have been blushing crimson red from hairline to toes. She’d dropped her towel and he’d seen everything. Once she’d gotten over the shock of his presence, she’d almost forgotten that fact.
But facts were fact.
The real problem here was that Shana couldn’t take her eyes off him anymore than he could not look at her. For the first time in her life she actually wondered what it would be like to shed her analytical, borderline anal-retentive nature and run wild. Run free. To think about no one else but Shana. What would that be like? She couldn’t even think back to a time when such an urge had ever come over her. She’d always been the responsible one. She’d thought through every decision she’d ever made and every response that had ever come out her mouth. Now, the only thing she wanted to do with her mouth was plant it on top of his.
It was all she could do not to reach out and touch his knee and then let it move up his massive muscular thigh and pull herself up to him.
A vision of being trapped between his legs, his mouth on hers and her hand raking through his thick black hair caused her to choke.
Then she coughed. And coughed again.
“You okay?” Justin asked.
She nodded in three quick jerky nods. “Steam. Makes my throat constrict.”
Justin smiled. “It’s the same for me,” he said in such sensuous tones, Shana felt light-headed.
Justin leaned over very close to her. “Know what helps?”
She shook her head. “What?”
“Mouth to mouth resuscitation.” Not waiting for her response, Justin impetuously skimmed her soft mouth with his. It was only a brush across her lips, but it might as well have been setting a fire to a keg of dynamite. Justin’s head jerked back. He stared down into the goddess’ eyes. “Better?” he finally croaked out.
“Not yet,” she said reaching her hand up behind his head and placing it gingerly on his nape. She had never felt a shock wave like the one Mr. Gorgeous was generating inside her. Tremors of illicit delight raked through her body, organ by organ, muscle by muscle until she felt an inferno so strong, she thought she would surely perish.
Slowly, she pulled him back to her, keeping her eyes open so that she could see the smoldering look she was creating in him. Never in her life had she felt such power over another person. She didn’t know who Mr.Gorgeous was, nor did she care. All she knew was that she had to know what it would be like to really kiss him.
He didn’t wait for further instruction. He clamped his full lips over her mouth and drank in her sweetness. It was like lightening striking him and he felt the thunderbolt throughout his entire body. He parted her lips with his tongue and again felt a jolt of electricity.
Shana kissed him back with a hunger that she had never known she possessed. She’d been kissed plenty of times, but there had never been anything this exciting or explosive. She took him inside her, stroking his tongue with her own. Though the duel of their eager tongues relaxed into a slower dance, the fire inside her did not fade but continued to flame and burn higher and higher.
She didn’t remember to breathe and she didn’t care. Her lungs burned, her muscles tensed and every vein, nerve and cell in her body craved more from him.
She sank her fingers into his hair and then placed her hands on his face holding him so that he could not escape. She heard a deep guttural nearly animal-like moan from deep within his throat. She knew she’d never heard anything so sexy, so satisfying in her life.
Justin placed his hands on either side of the goddess’ face when he broke from the kiss. Her eyes were closed when he looked down on her and her long blonde eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. She was completely and utterly under his spell. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and the tip of her nose before capturing her mouth again.
Justin had no idea what had come over him, but at this moment all he wanted to do was go on kissing this woman again and again. She was just the right mixture of aggressive and submissive he’d always wanted. And she tasted like heaven.
His tongued plunged again and again into her honeyed interior and with each thrust he felt himself getting hard. With hot steam slaking down his chest and back, he pulled her closer into him. He had to feel her skin against his or he would go crazy.
He placed his hands on her back and despite the layer of wet steam, he knew he’d never felt skin as soft as hers. He eased himself closer, and with his strong arms, he pulled her into him at the same time. Encased in his arms, her hands now clinging to his shoulders, he knew she was as deeply into the kiss, into the passion they were creating as he was.
Slowly he relinquished himself from the internal anguish he was building inside himself. “Who taught you to kiss like that?” he asked.
“No one,” she breathed and finally lifted her eyelids to look longingly into his eyes. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”
“Oh, it is. Believe me, it is,” he groaned and pulled her into his chest. He rubbed his lips across her mouth igniting sparks of tingling electricity inside her.
Shana ached to feel her bare breasts on his chest. She wanted to know what it would be like to feel her nipples against the mat of dark hair on his chest. Just the thought of their kiss moving into something more profound, more thrilling, caused her nipples to go hard. All she had to do was release the errant towel, which earlier had appeared to have a mind of its own anyway. She could plead ignorance. Or she could tell him the truth, that she had pulled the towel down herself. She could tell him that she needed more of him.
She didn’t know what precisely had happened but mysteriously, her wish was suddenly fulfilled. She crushed her bare breasts against him and heard that deep guttural groan escape his lips.
Was he panting?
Was he losing control? Was it possible she was doing this to this incredibly gorgeous man? When had she become so adept at seduction?
Justin was losing his mind. His erection was so hard and stiff and full that he thought his brain would implode. He couldn’t stand it much longer. He would have to take her and that was a complete impossibility. She was a stranger, and yet, she felt and tasted so familiar as if they had lived before. He had to end this. He should. He absolutely should. But first…
Justin clamped his mouth against hers once more and indulging his sexual impulses, he splayed his hand over her full breast luxuriating in the soft flesh that spilled over his huge hands. The heat inside him was at an inferno pitch. The slamming sound he heard in his head was clearly from the jackhammering pulse his heart was beating out just to stay functional. Five more minutes of this bliss and he’d be dead.
He had to admit it, she
was too much for him.
Shana placed her hands against his muscular chest and regretfully but ever-so-slowly pushed herself away from him. The moment she felt air rush between her breasts and his chest, she felt a fleeting moment of sadness, of near grief for the ending of the beauty she’d felt only a moment ago. Suddenly, she understood the meaning of longing. She had felt safe being held by him, and she shouldn’t have.
Shana let her arms slip away from him and she pulled up her towel to cover herself once again. She was stunned at the unthinkable abandon she’d just performed. Shana had never done a single risky thing in her life. She’d paid all her parking tickets, never indulged herself in too much ice cream no matter how tempting the flavor, never intentionally said a hurtful thing to another person even if they deserved it and she had never, ever made the initial move toward a man…ever. But here she was, practically raping this total stranger.
No question about it, she’d lost her mind. Early onset Alzheimer’s. That was it. Absolutely brought about by a rare sexual hormone imbalance probably unknown to medical science, she rationalized.
The man must think I’m a harlot!
Overwhelmingly embarrassed, Shana’s blush covered her face, throat and chest with a crimson blanket.
Still, she thought, he was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. A flash of wicked thought caused her to wonder what the rest of him would taste like.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said half-heartedly.
“Liar. You loved it as much as I did,” he said in breathless tones, still not quite back down to earth.
“I confess. I did.”
He slowly eased himself up enough off the seat to tie his towel around his middle.
Shana took the opportunity to glance down at him and see his erection. She smiled and then instantly checked herself when she realized he had caught her looking at him.
“Yes. You most definitely aroused me. Being the gentleman that I am, I prefer that we save that for our next date.”
“Next date?”
“I would say this counts as number one.”
Shana looked shocked. She didn’t have time for dates. In fact she hadn’t had time for most of the men she’d met on the job and off for months. At least not since she and Karl Heilmann, the owner of the Shellingham Geneva Hotel broke up. Was that really two years ago already? Karl had wanted her solely for her genius at turning his hotel around. He thought they would become a mega-power in the hotel industry. He wanted to build a chain to rival the Four Seasons. He believed that Shana was his ticket to fame.
Shana had learned her lesson the hard way and fast. She would never trust her heart again to anyone she worked with or worse, worked for. She was her own woman building her own reputation.
“Oh, I don’t think…” she started when he put his fingers over her lips again.
Shana shivered when he touched her. It was a simple enough gesture. She shouldn’t have responded so vehemently, but there was no question that his touch shot shards of lightening straight down to the pit of her belly. If he touched any single part of her body right now, she would climax. She just knew it.
“I…I could get into trouble for this,” Shana said, looking around the steam room sheepishly toward the door. For the first time she realized that they could have been interrupted. What if one of the other employees had decided to use the off-limits steam room just as she had? What if Justin himself had walked in? She would have been humiliated.
“Really? How’s that?”
“I, er, work here. This…this is very embarrassing,” she stumbled. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“You what?” Justin felt his blood chill.
“I work here,” she said touching her finger to her lips. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Justin swallowed. “In what position?” he asked.
“Director of Operations,” Shana said proudly. Then she looked at the startled expression on Mr. Gorgeous’ face. To reassure him she said, “Look, “I absolutely promise I won’t say anything to anyone.”
He just stared at her with a hard, but stricken look.
Shana felt the room go cold. The slacking steam down her breasts and back felt like frigid winter rain. Then it hit her. “You’re…not a guest here.”
He shook his head.
“Who are you?”
“Justin Yates.”
Shana gaped at him and her eyes bowled wide open. She felt like she was facing the mongrel hoard. Justin Yates. She forced her mind to register all pertinent data. This was the playboy who used women as if they were entertainment. From the staff she’d learned that he had always had streams of women that he saw once and discarded them. The former Director of Operations, Felicity Cummings, had kept a log of Justin’s women. Shana had actually seen the log when she’d taken the job over from Felicity. It had names, dates and lengths of stays in the penthouse. He was the womanizer of all womanizers.
And he was her boss.
Worst of all, he had lied to her. He’d pretended to be someone he was not. He was the very worst of his own wretched reputation. All the things she’d heard about Justin had to be true.
Shana felt as if the earth had opened up and sucked her into its core. Her entire life was over. She’d just sabotaged her hard-won and hard-fought for career all for a kiss.
She could never work for him now. She had embarrassed herself and now she was just another one of his many female conquests. She had only one course of action.
“You’ll have my resignation in the morning.”
Justin was stunned. He’d just wanted to have a bit of fun. His emotions had spiked to the ceiling only moments ago with their torrid kiss, but now, he felt as if he were crawling under the tile floor, he was so low.
“You can’t quit,” he said firmly.
Shana bolted to her feet nearly losing her towel once again. “You lied to me!”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Yes, you did. You said you were Justin’s friend.”
“No, I said we were close.”
“Same thing, bastard!” She shook her fist at him, wanting, willing it to land on his powerful chest, but for some reason her hand would not obey and it just hung there, riveted in mid-space.
“Miss Jackson!” he shouted hoping to calm her down. “Let’s discuss this.”
“What? Talk? I told you, I quit!” Shana shouted back with exactly the same resonance to her voice that he had displayed.
She spun on her heel and trounced out of the steam room and just as she swung the door open, her towel dropped again.
Justin got a clear view of the most luscious backside he’d ever seen and groaned.
Shana whipped the towel over her arm, turned toward him and let him see a full frontal view. Her smirk seared through the steam and mist, challenging him. Her green eyes were like jade on fire. “I’ll hand in my resignation tomorrow at our meeting. And don’t forget, it’s at nine o’clock sharp!”
She walked away and the steam room door closed.
Justin stood amidst the whorls of steam, raked his hand through his thick hair and wondered what had just happened to him…and to his hotel.
CHAPTER THREE
Twisting herself into a cocoon of white sheets, Shana fought the dream images of Justin Yates as violently as she did in the waking state. Knowing the sweet pressure of his lips on hers, she dreamed of what his lips would feel like on every part of her body. When the intensity of the dream became too unbearable, she forced herself to wake up and end the torture.
Shana looked at the clock. It was two forty-five in the morning and she’d only fallen asleep less than one hour ago.
“I need sleep. Lots of it. Tomorrow, er, today is probably going to be the point of no return for me,” she grumbled to herself as she swung her long legs over the side of the bed. She stared at her bare feet. She needed a pedicure.
“I need my head examined is what I need,” she berated herself. She rose and
tip toed past the open door to her roommate, Cate Tropez’s, bedroom where Cate slept in a sprawled position of total surrender to the netherworld.
Shana exhaled deeply. She would give anything to be like Cate, creative, artistic and independently wealthy enough to have no worries about her career or her financial future. Cate was a Boston trust-fund baby who was stretching her wings by trying to become the world’s next famous artist.
Shana headed straight for the kitchen. She opened the freezer door of the stainless steel double door refrigerator. “In times of crisis there is only one solution that has served mankind in the positive. Ice cream. Hmm. I think…” she pondered gazing at pints of strawberry, peppermint stick, coconut almond fudge and chubby hubby. “Definitely coconut almond fudge.”
She took a large spoon from the silverware drawer and stood at the sink, drowning her sorrows in the dark kitchen.
Shana licked the creamy, thick ice cream from the spoon and then plunged into the pint again when the kitchen light went on.
“It’s as bad as all that?” Cate asked standing sleepy eyed in the doorway dressed in white cotton pajamas with tiny Scotty dogs printed on the fabric. She pointed at the pint of chocolate ice cream. “I’ve never seen you go for the coconut almond fudge at night. I figured you for the strawberries and cream after all you told me at dinner.”
Shana looked at Cate sheepishly. “I didn’t tell you all the story about Justin.”
Cate went to the freezer, pulled out the peppermint stick pint and dug in. “Okay, Spill.”
“There’s the part about my resignation that I sort of left out,” Shana said staring down at the hunk of almond surrounded by glistening dark, dark chocolate. Shana put the lid on the ice cream and placed it back in the freezer. “When I met Justin…I was naked.”
Cate choked. “What?” Her eyes ballooned into saucers and a very mischievous smile spread across her lips. She jumped up onto the counter and dangled her feet, tossing the pint into the sink. Placing her hands on the counter’s edge she leaned forward. If her ears had pricked, Shana wouldn’t have been surprised. Cate had always loved a good story and she especially loved scandalous stories that involved people she actually knew.
Billionaire's Love Suite Page 3
