A Deal for the Di Sione Ring

by Jennifer Hayward

  Her cries came fast and urgent against his mouth. “Nate...”

  Neet.

  Gritting his teeth against the surge of lust that knocked him sideways, he found her core with his thumb and made her come in a deliberate series of movements that pushed her over the edge. Long and hard, the orgasm shook her petite frame. He caught her against him as her knees gave way and held her through every last shudder of it.

  Never had a woman’s release turned him on more. Never had it made him shake with the need to have her.

  It brought him hurtling back to vivid, mind-altering reality. To what he had done.

  He told himself he hadn’t taken her. That he could still bring this back under control...

  It was a lie he couldn’t force himself to swallow. Hadn’t crossed a line? He’d just crossed the Great Divide. He had wanted to touch Mina. He had goaded himself and her into it, to the point of no return, and then he’d walked across the line.

  The sound of dishes rattling came from inside the suite. Their first course.

  He set Mina away from him with unsteady hands, his head too full of emotion for the first time in his life to make sense of what had just happened. To process any of it. He could no more eat dinner right now than he could look at the stripped-down, dazed look on his wife’s face. His wife’s face. Dear Lord.

  “I need to go.”

  “What?” Mina pushed her dress down around her hips. “Dinner is here.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. “Eat without me.”

  Her face crumpled. “Nate—”

  He turned on his heel and left.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “SHOULD WE MOVE ON to the timeline?” Sheng Zhu prompted.

  Nate nodded. He’d heard enough during the first ten minutes of the celebrity chef’s presentation to know it was a partnership the Grand would sign on to. Sheng Zhu was offering the five-year exclusivity he’d demanded, the numbers looked sound and it was clear the chef was a smart businessman first, hotheaded personality second. He’d given them everything they’d wanted.

  Unfortunately, the significant part of a bottle of his favorite single-malt Scotch, consumed in a swank watering hole called the American Bar last night, hadn’t solved his other problem. All it had done was give him a throbbing headache and no answers about what to do with his sexy, irresistible wife.

  He sat back in his chair and brought his steaming cup of coffee with him, wincing as his head protested the movement. Mingmei threw him one of those curious glances she’d been sending his way, as if her spies had told her he’d walked out on his and Mina’s dinner. Or maybe it was just because he’d tuned out half an hour ago.

  He’d been a fool to think he could ever control this thing between him and Mina. Their chemistry was too strong, the opportunities to exploit it too plentiful. He’d like to say he could turn back the clock and wipe out that brief moment of insanity last night, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not when the awareness between him and Mina pulsed across the table like a living, breathing entity. Not when he’d put his hands on her in the most intimate way possible and made her cry out his name with the lights of Hong Kong blazing around them.

  Mina gave him a veiled look from beneath her lashes. Confusion, hurt, apprehension. He hadn’t come back to their suite until well past midnight last night, the six-course dinner long cleared away. Had gone to the gym early this morning to keep some distance between them.

  He cared about her. Genuinely cared about her, which was a first for a woman. But he could never offer Mina what she would eventually want—that white picket fence and a family to banish the loneliness she’d carried with her for so long.

  She claimed she could handle an affair between them, but could she really? Would it turn their working relationship into an awkward, untenable partnership that worked for neither of them when it was over? Could she give him her virginity in the uncomplicated transaction she’d spoken of and walk away after this year without emotional ties?

  If he didn’t take her up on the offer, then someone else would. He closed his eyes as the image of a man like Franco becoming Mina’s first lover made his head throb.

  He took a long sip of his coffee. He could shut it down between them. Fall back on his excuse he never mixed business with pleasure, but Mina was right. Their relationship had already blurred so many lines, there was no going back. The only question was how to move forward.

  * * *

  Mina stood and forced a smile to her face as they concluded their meeting with Sheng Zhu, exchanging bows all around. It had been easy to keep to her role of active listener today. Her brain was running in circles, like a dog chasing its tail, humiliation and confusion taking turns preserving the momentum.

  Why had Nate walked out on her like that? What had she done wrong? Why had he looked so angry?

  She didn’t regret one second of what had happened between them. Learning to go after what she wanted in life, enjoying these heady initial successes, had stoked her craving to experience everything life had to offer. But, she acknowledged miserably, if it was going to ruin everything she and Nate had started to build together, then it had been a big mistake.

  Which it might just have been. She had fallen asleep at midnight with Nate still not back, the sumptuous dinner Mingmei had arranged for them sent back virtually untouched. Then woken up to his stone-cold, unapproachable face this morning when he’d come back from the gym.

  Had she pushed him too far? He had been pushing, too. Challenging her. Tempting her. It had not been a one-way street.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, she headed for the coffee machine before their next meeting. Nearly jumped out of her skin when a shadow fell over her.

  “A word, please.”

  Nate’s sophisticated cologne filled her head in a tantalizing reminder of last night. She risked a look up at him. He still looked distinctly agitated.

  He jerked his head toward the hallway. She followed him, the snap of the door as it shut behind them making her flinch.

  He turned and rested a hand against the wall. “We need to talk.”

  Sì. They did. Before she crawled right out of her skin.

  “I think it should wait until we get to the Maldives,” he said tersely. “I have a pile of work to do on the flight. And this particular conversation needs to be done in private.”

  She couldn’t read anything from his expression. Nothing.

  “I agree.”

  But it wasn’t so easy to endure an entire morning of meetings before they boarded the jet for the Maldives. Nor the several-hour flight in a strained silence between them. By the time they set down on the short, single runway in the tiny island republic in the middle of the Indian Ocean, she had crawled out of her skin.

  A car took them to the harbor, where a boat transported them the rest of the way to the exclusive resort Nate was about to buy, situated on its own private island. Mina’s breath caught as the boat pulled up alongside a dock with a private villa attached to it. Perched in the middle of the ocean with only a narrow walkway connecting it to the island and resort, it was a floating paradise.

  Lights glittered inside the grass-roofed villa as sunset approached, illuminating its luxurious interior. A private plunge pool, Jacuzzi and lounge area completed the idyllic picture. But all Mina could look at was the endless vista of blue all around them, as if they were alone in the middle of the ocean.

  This was where they were staying? It seemed far too intimate, far too inescapable, no matter which way their conversation went.

  A white-shirted butler emerged from the villa, introduced himself and spirited their luggage inside. Nate went with him. Mina stayed outside drinking in the view. They had beautiful beaches in Sicily, but they were crowded and busy and this...this was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

>   Nate appeared beside her, his jacket and tie gone, the top buttons of his shirt undone. “I thought we could have a drink and enjoy the sunset before dinner.”

  Her pulse kicked up, her palms growing damp. She nodded and swallowed back her nerves. “I’d like to change first.”

  He inclined his head toward the villa. “I’ll see what there is to choose from.”

  She found her luggage in the airy, dark-paneled bedroom with its king-size bed, perfectly positioned to enjoy the sunset and sunrise from through the tall, sliding glass doors that fronted the villa.

  One bed. Was it an indication of where Nate’s thoughts lay? Or what had been appointed to them? Rather than cater to the nerves consuming her, she exchanged her pants and shirt for a white floral printed dress and rejoined Nate on the terrace.

  He was standing, his gaze on the horizon as the sun sank below it, a fiery ball of flame on a canvas of turquoise blue. She padded across the warm wood in her bare feet to his side.

  “It’s almost unreal, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Perhaps unfair only a select few ever get to experience it.”

  “The deal is almost done, you said?”

  “We should finalize it this week if all the requested enhancements have been made to the property.”

  And then they would head home to New York. Her home now. The thought of being immersed in Nate’s world, taking her place as his wife with so much tension between them, made her stomach tighten.

  He plucked a bottle of wine from the ice bucket and poured them both a glass of the rosé. She eyed the glass he handed her warily, a flush filling her cheeks. “I’m not sure I should have any of that.”

  His gaze rested on her with disturbing precision. “The way you responded to me last night was beautifully uninhibited, Mina. A massive turn-on for a man. It’s not something to be ashamed of.”

  Then why had he walked away?

  He set a palm to the small of her back and directed her toward the lounge area. She sat down on the sofa beside him, curling her bare legs beneath her as a breeze sent a delicious waft of air over her heated skin.

  Nate took a sip of his wine, then cradled the glass against his chest, his gaze resting on her. “I needed to give us both time to think last night. To slow things down so we use our heads and not our hormones to decide if us having an intimate relationship is a good idea.”

  Her breath snagged in her throat. So he was considering it. She set her wine on the coffee table. “You think I didn’t mean what I said. That because I have no experience, I can’t handle a relationship with you.”

  “Can you? Can we layer the complexity of a sexual relationship onto what we already have and expect it to be manageable for both of us? Because if we can’t, if we don’t walk into this with the same expectations, we need to shut this down. Now. My primary concern is ensuring you flourish, Mina, so you build a career for yourself and you can stand on your own two feet when this is over. You’ve gone through too much for me not to do that.”

  She nodded. “You’ve set me on that course. You know how much I appreciate it. But nothing is going to distract me from it. It means too much to me.”

  He gave her a long look, his dark gaze contemplative. “I’m not sure you can separate your vision of me as hero with the reality of who I am. What I am.”

  That may be true, but she wasn’t sure that was possible in any aspect of their relationship. What they were was unique because of the way it had started. That was never going to change. But what happened next was about them both making adult decisions fully conscious of what they were doing. And she knew what she was doing.

  She took a sip of wine to bolster her courage. “I want you to be my first lover, Nate. I want to experience that with you. I want it to be as memorable as I know it can be. I don’t expect anything more of you and I won’t let it affect our working relationship.”

  His gaze widened imperceptibly. “I’m not sure you can make that assurance.”

  “I can and I will.”

  He turned his gaze to the horizon. Silence fell between them, the cry of the birds flying overhead the only sound to break it. “Maybe I should ask the same of you,” she ventured quietly. “What do you want of me, Nate?”

  He looked back at her, the glitter in his eyes sending her heart into a free fall. “I want what I’ve wanted from the beginning. You in my bed, Mina. To explore every perfect inch of you with my mouth and my hands and everything else at my disposal.”

  She sucked in a breath. They were surrounded by hazy, purple sky, but it didn’t seem to be supplying enough oxygen to her brain to fix her spinning head.

  Wine seemed to be the answer. The sparkling rosé was delicious: tart and refreshing. It slid down easily as the sun sank into the sea, leaving behind it a stunning dusky-pink-stained sky. By the time she’d finished it, she’d almost convinced herself it was doing the trick—relaxing her taut limbs and clearing her head. Then Nate set his hand over hers, laced their fingers together and her pulse flatlined.

  She looked down at his strong, elegant hand. Thought about what he’d done to her with it last night and her stomach did a slow roll.

  “You want dinner?” he asked quietly.

  She lifted her gaze to his and shook her head.

  A purposeful heat blazed to life in his eyes. He took the empty glass from her hand and set it on the coffee table. His hands settled around her waist to lift her up and bring her down on his lap so her knees straddled his thighs.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Dio mio. He was all hard muscle beneath her, the intensity of his dark gaze fixed on hers. She might have been tempted to run if the want in his eyes hadn’t drawn her in and kept her right where she was.

  “You are so very beautiful,” he said huskily. “You do something to me, Mina. I forget my common sense. I forget everything but having you.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a criticism. She didn’t much care when he lowered his head and took her mouth in one of those teasing, devastating kisses that rendered her brain useless. Her hands settled on his jaw, her mouth seeking his. Back and forth they exchanged the initiative, kissing and being kissed. Exploring and being explored. Slow, lazy kisses that seemed to match the night darkening around them, pulling them further and further under each other’s spell.

  Lips, tongue, sexy little nibbles. They did it all, for ages, until she wondered if Nate would do anything else.

  She gave his lip a frustrated tug with her teeth. Nate pulled back, an amused glint in his eyes. “What was that for?”

  “Aren’t you going to—I mean—you know...?”

  He reclined back against the seat, his mouth curving. “I’m right here, Mina. Yours for the taking.”

  Her insides twisted at the invitation. But his mouth was soft from their kisses, his eyes a molten dark brown. He was letting her take the lead, making sure she was comfortable. Putting her first as he always did. She swallowed, her chest tight.

  Pulling her gaze from his hot, watchful study, she worked the top button of his shirt free, then painstakingly worked her way down the row. Her throat went dry as she exposed more and more of his beautiful torso. Flat, hard and defined, he was incredible. His swift intake of air when her fingers brushed against his lower abs was headily empowering.

  The last button undone, she found her next move surprisingly intuitive. Splaying her palms across his hot, hard skin, she bent her head and pressed her lips to the sinewy solid muscle, absorbing his earthy, salty flavor. Nate made a sound of approval low in his throat, his hands falling to the sofa to give her better access.

  Pulling back, she moved her fingertips down over his pectoral muscles to the hard points that were so much alike, yet so very different from hers. Nate sucked in a breath. “Careful. Men are very sensitive there.”

  She tra
ced him gently. Moved her thumbs back and forth over him. He let her play for a few moments, then grabbed her hands and dragged them down to her sides. “Enough of that.”

  She wondered where to go next, but she needn’t have worried. Nate took control, pressing a hot kiss to the sensitive skin at the base of her neck as he swept the straps of her dress off her shoulders. His mouth followed his hands as he eased the material away from her skin, his lips finding the soft flesh of her upper breasts, the hollow in between. She held her breath as he pushed the material lower and bared her breasts to his gaze. The lust in his eyes as he palmed her flesh made her stomach curl. “So beautiful.”

  She closed her eyes. The brush of his thumbs across her nipples in a slow sweep made her gasp. The sensation of his touch on her bare skin was even better than last night. So much more intense...

  A wet heat enveloped one of the peaks. Her eyes flew open. Nate’s dark head was bent to her, his mouth closed around her aching flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut as he laved her with his tongue, scraped at her with his teeth, sucked on her. A low moan escaped her throat.

  “You like that?” he asked. Mina’s head tipped up and down. He lavished the same treatment on its twin until her fingers were in his hair holding on for dear life and her whole body felt tense and on edge.

  “Nate,” she begged. “It’s too much.”

  He lifted his head. Settled her further back on his thighs. The sweep of his hot palms up her inner thighs, squeezing her flesh as he went, was tantalizing, blindingly intimate. “You don’t need less,” he murmured. “You need different.”

  She remembered different from last night. She wanted more of it. Except it was too intimate, him watching her face as he moved closer to the heat between her legs. Her eyes drifted closed. Waiting, anticipating.

  His hands stilled. “Open your eyes. I want to see what I do to you.”

  Her breath left her in a whoosh. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  She opened her eyes. He swept the filmy material of her panties aside and slid his fingers against her hot, wet flesh. Her lashes fluttered closed as a bolt of heat went through her. She couldn’t do it.