He stepped away to fetch a condom from his wallet.
‘I guess I could,’ Rose murmured as he slipped back into bed to pull her against him. ‘I guess it could work...’ She parted her legs and sighed as her body began to get excited all over again. ‘I mean,’ she continued, voice hitched, ‘I hadn’t banked on any of this happening.’
‘That’s been the story of my life from the second I saw you,’ Art agreed with heartfelt sincerity. ‘You may well have converted me to the pleasures of the unforeseen.’
‘We both have the same goal.’
Art caressed her breast then levered himself into a position where he could taste it. He flicked his tongue over her nipple and then took it into his mouth so that he could suckle on it while he played with her other nipple, teasing it into tight arousal.
‘The same goal...’ Her words registered and he slowly kissed his way up to nuzzle against her neck before settling alongside her in a lovely, comfortable position where he could carry on teasing her nipple between his fingers.
* * *
‘I don’t want to want you.’ Rose imagined that his next girlfriend might have brains, might have more staying power, might be the woman he let into his life because he had now seen for himself that being in a kitchen together and sharing a meal and then doing the washing-up whilst talking about anything and everything was not something to be feared and reviled. She had done him a favour in pointing him in a different direction and her heart twisted because when he left her behind and walked away it would be into a relationship that might prove to be the one.
‘And,’ she continued, tugging him up because she couldn’t focus on anything when he was doing what he’d been doing, ‘I know you feel the same.’ She paused, a fractional little pause during which he could have jumped in with a denial or said something that might have indicated an interest in more than just getting her out of his system. He failed to take the bait. ‘So, yes, perhaps if I moved in with you for a couple of days...well, while I’m here, then this thing we have going on...well, we can get it out of our systems faster.’
Art frowned. ‘My way of thinking,’ he said, on cue.
‘There’s something about familiarity...’
‘You certainly know how to massage a guy’s ego. In a minute you’ll start comparing me to a virus.’
‘Well, it is a bit like that.’ Rose laughed shakily.
‘And what if it doesn’t conveniently blow over in a couple of days?’
Rose knew that he was playing devil’s advocate. ‘It will,’ she said firmly. ‘We don’t have anything in common, Art. We don’t have what it takes to have a proper relationship, which is the only thing that would stop this thing from blowing over.’
Art frowned. ‘Define a proper relationship. Is there a checklist for something like that?’
‘More or less, if I’m being honest.’
‘So now you’re saying I tick none of the boxes.’
‘There’s still one box that gets a very big tick.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘But for me,’ Rose said on a sigh, ‘a relationship is so much more than just sex.’
‘And yet sex, like it or not, is so much a part of any relationship. Too much talking. I get the picture. We’re here and this is something we have to do and I can’t tell you how much I’m going to enjoy doing it.’
* * *
He’d just never mentioned a timeline...
Rose lay in bed, half dozing, drinking him in as he strolled through the bedroom of his penthouse apartment, completely naked, hunting down his laptop computer because, even though it was still only six in the morning, he was up and ready to work.
She was warm and replete and contented. He’d roused her an hour earlier, nudging her into compliant wakefulness, and they had made love oh, so slowly. Caught in that hazy, half asleep place, Rose had let him take her to places that had left her crying out with pleasure. When, after touching her everywhere, after exploring her soft, warm body, he had finally thrust into her, filling her up, she had felt tears leak down her cheeks and had had to surreptitiously wipe them away because that definitely wasn’t part of the deal.
The package deal had kicked off three days previously, when she had fallen into his arms like a starving woman deprived of food who suddenly found herself with a ticket to an all-you-can-eat banquet.
They had made love and then, after a handful of hours’ sleep, had made love again and the very next morning she had moved in with him.
They hadn’t discussed how long this arrangement was going to last. How did you talk about something like that? How did you work out the length of time it would take for one person to get sick of the other?
How long would it take for him to get bored with her?
Rose knew that that was the way it was going to play out because she wasn’t close to getting him out of her system. Indeed, with every passing minute spent together, he became more embedded in her bloodstream.
They’d talked about sex. He did that a lot. When they made love he would whisper things in her ear that made her whole body burn. He would tell her, in a husky, shaky voice, how much he wanted her and what he wanted to do with her.
He was ruled by lust. He couldn’t keep his hands off her and the more he showed that want, the more she needed something more. Something more powerful than want.
But that was off the cards and it was always going to be off the cards.
Except...now...looking at him and his careless elegance, Rose felt her heart twist and she knew with an awful sense of despair that she was powerless to initiate the necessary break-up.
She was held in place by something far bigger than lust.
Somehow, against all odds, she had fallen in love with him and she was as powerless now as a speck of flotsam being tossed around this way and that on an unpredictable, fast-flowing current.
She could only make sure he never saw her vulnerability because if he did he would run for the hills.
Love was not on his radar. Not with her. And it never would be. The novelty value that had drawn him to her might not have yet released him from its hold but, now that she was immersed in his life, she knew with dreadful certainty that she was only ever going to be a distraction for him.
He didn’t do love. The highs and lows of emotion were things he would seek to avoid. Above everything, he enjoyed the power of control and that included control of his emotional life. He would find someone but she knew in her heart that he would not want someone who was as emotional as she had turned out to be.
Far from being the level-headed woman she’d imagined she was, love had turned her to mush and she wasn’t ashamed of it.
Even though she knew that hurt was lurking around the corner, waiting for her.
He produced the laptop from where it had been residing under a bundle of discarded clothes on a chair in his bedroom with a grin of triumph and turned to her. ‘First time this hasn’t been at my fingertips.’
‘You were in a hurry last night.’ She forced herself to grin back, keeping it light.
‘So I was,’ he murmured, dumping the computer and making his way back towards the bed to lean over her, then dropping a kiss on her forehead. ‘You do that to me.’
‘Make you want to run?’ Rose teased, playing with words.
‘I can’t get to you fast enough.’
Art looked at her for a few serious seconds and Rose had the feeling that there was something he wanted to tell her. A cold chill spread through her but she kept smiling, keeping it light. There could only be one thing he could have wanted to tell her that would have put that serious expression on his face and those words were not ones she wanted to hear. She swallowed down the nasty lump of desperation.
‘Stay in bed with me,’ she urged. ‘Surely work can wait.’
‘Not this.’ He was still looking at her with that expression on his face.
‘Big deal you have to close? I can’t imagine there’s any deal big enough that you
can’t ignore it for a few more minutes.’
His expression lightened. ‘And to think I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of guy who can hold out for longer than a couple of minutes...although,’ he mused, ‘fast and furious does hold a certain appeal, I have to admit.’ He sighed, glanced at his cell phone and looked at her again with that pensive expression, thinking thoughts she couldn’t begin to fathom. ‘Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with work, as such...’
‘Why am I getting the feeling that you’re speaking in riddles?’
For a few seconds Art remained silent and during those few seconds Rose felt her heart clench tightly, painfully in her chest. Now was the time for her to voice her thoughts and either give him permission to walk away or else pre-empt his departure by announcing hers first.
She was spared any decision because just at that moment his phone buzzed. He looked at the number, then at her.
‘Private call,’ he said lightly, turning away.
He’d never done that before. Fighting down a wave of nausea, Rose hurriedly leapt out of the bed the second he had left the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. She flew into the bathroom and had a very quick shower. She was dressed and ready for the day and he still had not returned.
Was the call so important that he had to take it at this ungodly hour, without even taking time out to get dressed?
Was it another woman?
She knew that he had conference calls at strange hours from people in a different time zone, but he had always been fully prepped for those. He’d always conducted them in front of his computer, accessing information while talking to whoever might be on the line.
This was...different.
Rose couldn’t credit that he might sleep with her whilst having something going on with someone else. He just wasn’t that kind of guy, but then maybe, quite by chance, he had met someone in the last day or so. Was that so tough to believe? Hadn’t she already come to the conclusion that he was a changed man, even though he might not see it for himself? A man more open to the possibility of letting someone into his life? A suitable woman.
People gave out vibes without even realising it. Had he projected some sort of availability-to-the-right-woman vibe?
Tense with anxiety, she stood back and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was nothing special, however much he might wax lyrical about her sexiness.
She was tall and rangy and her looks, such as they were, were unconventional.
Was his private call with a woman with more to offer in the looks department? Was he returning to his comfort zone after his brush with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks?
She found him in the kitchen and he was no longer on the phone. He was also no longer buck naked but had a towel slung around his lean hips. He must have nabbed it from the spare bathroom while he had been strolling to the kitchen.
Coffee was on the go.
He was so drop-dead gorgeous. So sinfully sexy. So horribly addictive. She remembered that she had fallen for him within five minutes of meeting him. So much for her much-prized defence system when it came to the opposite sex!
‘What was that about?’
Art stilled. He’d been reaching for a couple of mugs and he paused for a fraction of a second.
‘Coffee?’
‘You’re not going to answer?’
Rose was dismayed at the shrill, demanding tone of her voice. She had aimed for banter mingled with amused curiosity. She had ended up with shrewish nag but she couldn’t claw her way back from the question and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. If he was going to break it off with her because of some other woman then he should have the decency to come right out and tell her.
She shouldn’t have to second-guess.
‘I didn’t think that sharing my private phone calls was part and parcel of what we had.’
Rose flushed. ‘Who was it?’ she was horrified to hear herself ask.
‘I think this is a conversation best put on hold,’ Art said coolly.
‘And I happen to think that I deserve an answer. If it was a personal call with another woman, then I deserve to know. I realise this isn’t anything serious but I’m not interested in sleeping with anyone who’s seeing someone else on the side.’
‘Is that what you think?’ he asked quietly.
Rose hesitated but, like someone who had crossed a certain line, she was now doomed to carry on walking that road. And besides, she roused herself to a place of self-righteous justification, she did deserve to know if he was thinking about ditching her for someone else!
‘How do I know what to think if you won’t tell me what’s going on?’ she muttered.
‘I’m going to get changed.’
‘You’re walking away from an uncomfortable conversation,’ she challenged but he was already heading back to the bedroom and after a while she tripped along behind him.
Art stopped dead in his tracks and looked at her, eyes flint-hard. ‘I don’t do this,’ he said calmly.
Rose returned that gaze with one that was equally cool. ‘Do what, Art?’ She folded her arms, determined to brave out what she knew was going to be their final conversation. ‘Discuss anything you might find a little awkward? I know this isn’t about love and commitment, but it should be about respect and if you respected me you wouldn’t baulk at having this conversation.’
Rose hoped that he would read nothing in her eyes that gave the lie to that statement because when it came to love she was drowning under the weight of it. Pride would never allow her to admit that, however. She was going to leave but she would leave without him ever having cause to think that he had had a narrow escape from yet another needy woman who had foolishly disobeyed his Do Not Trespass signs and developed unacceptable feelings towards him.
He had let slip in conversation the headaches he had had with a couple of previous girlfriends who had wanted him to meet the parents, who had mentioned the possibility of making plans further ahead than the next couple of hours.
Rose had absorbed those passing comments and was not going to be bracketed in the same category, to become yet another irritating ex to be produced during some future conversation with some future woman.
Art’s eyebrows shot up but something made him hesitate before heading back to the bedroom.
‘I’m not going to have this conversation,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you feel that I am the sort of man who disrespects women, who has somehow disrespected you, then it’s clear that we should not be together.’
‘Art...’
‘I’ll be back but don’t wait up.’
‘Is that your way of saying that you’d like me to be gone by the time you return? Because if it is then why don’t you have the guts to come right out and say so?’
‘No one speaks to me like that!’
Rose folded her arms and stared at him mutinously. On the inside she was breaking up into pieces. On the outside she refused to show him just how much she was hurting. ‘Then you’re right,’ she said gruffly. ‘It’s clear that we shouldn’t be together if I’m only allowed to speak to you in a certain way!’
The tense silence between them stretched on and on and on...stretched until she could feel all her wretchedness washing over her in a painful tidal wave.
‘Like I said,’ Art drawled, ‘don’t wait up.’
Rose watched in silence as he threw aside the towel to get dressed. She found that she couldn’t look at him. Even at the height of this toxic argument, she could still be moved by his sheer animal beauty. She didn’t want to be moved.
He left the room without a backward glance and for a while she actually hoped that he would have second thoughts and return.
He didn’t.
She had no idea where he’d gone and her feverish imagination provided her with all sorts of unwelcome scenarios. Had he disappeared into the waiting arms of some other woman? Had he somehow manoeuvred a situation in which she would react in a way that would give him an out?
She wasn’t going to hang around to find out and there was nothing more to be said.
She gathered her things in record time. She hadn’t brought much with her and what little she had brought took ten minutes to toss into her case.
She paused to look at the wonderful dress she had worn for the charity event that had been so memorable for so many reasons.
No way was she taking it with her.
It took her half an hour and then she was out of the mansion block and casting one last look behind her from the back of a black cab.
* * *
Art returned to an empty apartment. Of course he knew that she would be gone by the time he got back. He’d disappeared for over four hours. No explanation. What would have possessed her to hang around?
He flipped on the lights and went straight to his computer and switched it on. In his peripheral vision, he could tell that all her belongings had gone with her. There was no need for him to waste his energy hunting for evidence of her departure.
The screen opened up and he stared at it and realised that it really was possible to look at numbers and letters and symbols and see absolutely nothing whatsoever.
She would have caught a taxi to the station and would be heading back to her house by train. He was tempted to look up the possible departure times of the trains and resisted.
He’d done the right thing. That reaction was sufficient to harden his resolve. He had been weak once, had engineered a situation because he had still wanted her and had been unable to resist the demands of his body, but that weakness was something that had to be overcome.
He had seen where emotional weakness could lead. Those lessons had been learned when he had been too young but they were lessons he would never forget.
His indecision had been getting on his nerves and so he’d killed it fast. He hadn’t signed up to a querulous woman throwing a hissy fit because he refused to be subjected to a cross-examination.
So what if that phone call had had nothing to do with a woman?
The Tycoon’s Ultimate Conquest Page 13
