“William!”
Dammit. Was he still staring?
“Who the fuck are you?” Emily demanded, and took a threatening step forward. The girl skittered sideways, inadvertently brushing William’s arm.
Emotions and feelings and instincts bumped savagely to life in Will’s overheated system. They swirled and congealed, galvanizing his desire, bracing his protective instincts, and effectively sending any lingering brain waves skittering off to attend his nether parts like water down a flume.
“I am . . .” The girl darted her evergreen gaze to his like a forest creature on the run. “I am his,” she whispered.
Chapter
3
“Mine?” the man rumbled.
“His?” the woman shrieked.
Her voice was a barded barrage against Ava’s shattered senses. Her head felt swollen, her limbs weak. Where was she? Who was she? She glanced down. And shouldn’t she be wearing clothes?
“William, get her out of here!” the woman demanded.
Avalina snapped her gaze fretfully to the other’s face, but as she did so the world seemed to shift around her. The floor buckled up like a swelling wave and suddenly she was falling, slipping into darkness.
“Hey! Hold on,” he said, and caught her against him at a slanted angle. Feelings as primitive as hope shimmied through her, firing up emotions, igniting unadmitted instincts. She raised a hand shakily to his chest. It felt solid and hard and strangely alluring. She focused on it with an effort. His skin was warm, his hair coarse and dark, sparking her imagination, tinkling her fingers. She blinked as feelings washed through her in lavender waves. The woman had called him William, but it seemed wrong somehow, too dull, too rigid. “Hair,” she said, though she didn’t truly know why. It simply seemed a strange place to be hirsute. She let her gaze slip lower. His hair narrowed to a silky trail that traveled the length of his tight-muscled abdomen and disappeared beneath the bumpy, white cloth that encircled his waist. She reached for it, curious.
“William!” snapped the woman.
Ava yanked her fingers back.
“Just . . .” William lifted his free hand, palm out. His other arm cradled Avalina’s back, holding her tight against him. His skin felt supple and lovely against hers. “Just give me a minute. I think she’s sick.”
“Sick!” The woman’s face was screwed up like a snarling goblin’s, her voice an abomination to Ava’s ears. “I don’t care if she’s dying. She’s naked!”
“Well, yes.” He had a lovely voice. Low, beautiful, resonating from the core of him. His gaze held hers. “Yes, she is that.” From beneath the towel, part of him moved, nudging her hip. She turned toward him without thought, lips parted, ready. Though, if the truth be told, she had no idea what she was ready for.
“William!” the woman gasped. “Do you have a hard—What the hell is going on here?”
He was tall, towering over Ava, but somehow his lips were only inches from hers. They moved. She rose on her toes, eager to taste their sound, to feel their emotion.
“William!”
He jerked his gaze away, straightening abruptly. “I . . . I’m not sure. I . . .”
“You’re not sure!”
“I think she needs help.”
“She needs a quick kick in the ass,” Emily rasped, and grabbed Ava’s arm.
The grip was hard and cold. Avalina tried to pull away, but her head was reeling. And then she was falling again, tumbling end over end into darkness.
Still, she felt him lift her, felt herself being carried through the door and away. Something yielded against her back. She fluttered her eyes open, and he was there, singularly alluring, strangely irresistible. She lifted one hand toward him, and for a moment it seemed he approached but suddenly he jerked away, moved out of reach, cleared his throat.
“Just . . . just rest for a minute,” he said, and disappeared from sight. She tried to follow his departure, but the world was so hazy. Confusing and cold and frightening. Her eyes fell closed.
The woman hissed something, but they were already moving out of earshot and the darkness was so alluring, so quiet, so seductive.
“Let go of my arm,” Emily ordered, which was strange, because William hadn’t actually realized he’d been gripping her arm. He dropped it now, rubbed his hands together, and tried to clear his head. It remained patently unclear.
Emily took a step back. Her eyes were narrow, her perfectly frosted lips pursed in hard lines. “Well?”
He cleared his throat again and glanced guiltily toward the bedroom door, which was also strange because he didn’t do guilt. It was one of those unnecessary emotions he’d purged from his life nearly a decade before. He didn’t clear his throat, he didn’t feel guilt, and he didn’t become so aroused he was in danger of spontaneous combustion. Hell, there was a whole damn list of things he didn’t do . . . until now. “Well what?” he asked.
“What is she doing here?” Emily could, it seemed, speak with her teeth tightly clenched. Interesting.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. Generally, he did not make vastly ridiculous understatements, either.
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? Who is she?”
He glanced toward the bedroom again, wanting, with rather desperate longing, to step through the door, to see her there, to watch her sleep. “She didn’t say.”
“Didn’t say?” Emily’s perfectly arched brows rose above narrowed, crafty eyes. The careful diction was back in place. The serene, seductive expression was not. “Tell me, William, do slutty teenagers often show up naked in your bathroom?”
He nodded, though he had no idea what he was nodding about. His head seemed to have taken on a life of its own. As had other parts. “It’s uncommon.” He glanced toward the bedroom again. The urge to watch her sleep was growing. He itched to sit by her side. To feel his fingers envelop hers. To see her awaken. And . . . well . . . to do more.
“Get rid of her.”
“What?” he asked, and dragged his gaze back to the woman who might, if he remembered correctly, be his fiancée.
“I want her gone. Now! Do you understand me?”
“But . . .” He studiously kept himself from staring at her door like an abandoned bloodhound. “I think she might be ill.”
“Ill! Yes, she very probably is, William. Diseased! The little whore! Get her out of here.”
“Whore?” The word seemed oddly incongruous when put in conjunction with the angel in his bed. The angel was sparkly. Whores didn’t sparkle. He was sure of it, though, in actuality, he knew very little about whores . . . or angels, come to that. He was a hell of a contractor, though. Had devoted nearly two decades of his life to it, but suddenly he didn’t much care.
“William!”
He pulled his gaze back toward Emily with some difficulty. “Yes?”
She gave him a thin-lipped smile. “Perhaps in the past you’ve enjoyed flaunting your . . . trashy foreigners. But in the future you’ll be both judicial and discreet.”
“Trashy—”
“I want her gone,” Emily hissed. “Do you hear me?”
Was she saying she didn’t care if he had affairs? Was that normal? Shouldn’t she care? “I’m not sure I do.”
“I’m leaving now,” she said, frosty tone level, eyes deadly hard. “You’ll get rid of her. You’ll not see her again. And we’ll not speak of this again.”
He had a bad feeling he might be stupidly staring again.
“Or else,” she added.
“Or else . . . ?”
“I’m gone! Along with Daddy’s money, Meier Conglomerated, and your future. Do you understand?”
She wasn’t speaking some kind of cryptic code. He was sure of it, and yet it was oddly difficult to focus on her words, or her . . . or anything that wasn’t the angel with the sparkly breasts.
“Don’t disappoint me, William,” she hissed, and, storming through the house, slammed the door in her wake.
He stared at the
reverberating portal, but that didn’t seem to be particularly productive, so he turned and stared at the bedroom door for a while. That, too, seemed less than fruitful; he let his legs carry him to it. The knob felt strangely surreal beneath his fingers. It turned in his hand. He pushed the door open and realized suddenly that he was holding his breath.
But she was still there, lying perfectly still upon his blessedly lucky sheets.
He crossed the floor silently and stared down at her. Her eyes were closed, but it didn’t matter. He could remember them exactly. They were purple. Not blue, not aquamarine. But a purple so deep and pure it stole your breath and froze your senses. The lids that covered them were a rusty hue, and the lashes . . .
He marveled at them, finding that he wanted to touch them, to run his fingertips along the downy fringe and watch them lift. They were gold. Not blond, but gold, as if each strand were made of the finest gilded mesh. He shook his head. It was foolishness, of course. They were obviously fake. And surely she was wearing tinted lenses. He hadn’t immersed himself so deeply in his career that he had failed to hear of such things.
But her face. He actually reached out to touch it. Just stopping himself inches from her cheek. It was astounding. Miraculous. Although, if asked, he couldn’t have said why exactly. It was, after all, just a face. Nevertheless, there was something spectacular about it. Something bold and shy all at once. Something almost comical yet strikingly intelligent. Broad at her apple-bright cheeks, it narrowed to a pointy, clefted chin. Her lips were a tiny curved Cupid’s bow, whimsically lifted into a half smile even as she slept. And her hair . . .
He let his gaze follow the curling, twining length of it. It tumbled over her shoulders, trilled over her breasts, and fell . . .
Well, he couldn’t really look past her breasts, for they were mesmerizing. Perhaps he had imagined the sparkle, but perhaps not, for it seemed almost that when he shifted his gaze the slightest degree, the tone of her skin changed almost imperceptibly from a golden hue to a soft, indescribable shade of . . . lavender?
He shook his head and pushed his gaze downward over the flat plane of her belly to—But he stopped abruptly, blinking. Where was her navel? he wondered, but in that moment she shifted, drawing his gaze down to where her legs joined, only to find that the long golden sweep of her hair had curled past her hip to effectively cover her private parts.
Nevertheless, he felt himself buck with desire and moved closer, almost reaching for her. But he stopped, crunching his fingers into fists and remaining very still. His lips felt dry and his throat strangely tight, but he did not touch her.
No. That would be asinine. And he was never asinine. He was disciplined. Controlled. He had his life organized, planned down to the minute. Down to the dollar. No extravagant expenditures, no ridiculous risks, just solid, careful investments and hard work.
But still his gaze slipped along the length of her legs, up one slightly raised thigh to her right knee. Sweat trickled down his back, though he was sure, absolutely certain, that her knee could not possibly be irresistible. It was just a knee, after all. Much like her other knee, which . . . He skipped his attention to the peaked cap in the center of her left leg and found it to be just as fascinating as the first.
Still, he managed to force his gaze away, down the long, slim muscles of her calf to where one foot lay gently atop another. They were graceful and delicate and sweetly pointed, with each little toe capped by a shell-like nail in mother-of-pearl hues.
He had no particular fondness for feet. No fetishes. No odd fantasies. And yet, to his vague amazement, he found himself seated on the bed, reaching for one long, dainty foot.
And then she awoke.
He knew the moment she came to. Felt it in his questionable soul. He glanced breathlessly at her face and watched her eyes flutter open. The deep purple captivated him, held him. She sat up slowly. Corn silk hair slipped over her nipples, half-hiding, half-teasing. Her knees bent, opening her core to him, but he was still held in her eyes, in her thoughts.
She wanted him. He knew it long before she touched him, felt it in her gaze, smelled it in the very air.
She rose to her knees. Her hair moved like a living thing, as though she were floating in the sea, as though it was tossed by an invisible wind, but her eyes never shifted. They remained fixed on him, slanted like a cat’s, wide and deep, filled with a thousand sorrows, a million joys. And suddenly he wanted to laugh and cry and shout all at once, but she was reaching for him, her fingers smooth and slim and magical.
He watched her move closer, her nails gleaming in shades of silver and periwinkle, her digits curving up slightly at the ends like an avid pianist’s.
Her fingertips touched his cheek, and even though he had braced himself for contact, he felt the first spasm of orgasm strike him like a tidal wave.
Chapter
4
“Holy shit!” he rasped, and lurched to his feet, spilling her sideways. She tumbled onto the bed, eyes wide, endless legs sprawling. But he didn’t care. Hardly cared at all.
Good God, was she hurt?
And was he panting? Panting like a hound? “What . . .” His voice sounded like a croak. “What the hell just happened?”
She blinked at him, lashes gold against amethyst eyes. “Is aught amiss?” she whispered.
“Aught? Amiss?” He stared at her, boggled, trying to get his bearings, but his damned bearings were gone. His dick, however, was pointing due north. It throbbed, taut and erect, and just on the socially acceptable side of full ejaculation. He wanted to grab her and kiss her and make love to her with a desperation so deep he was about to implode, but he held back, gritting his teeth, fisting his hands. “Amiss?”
She blinked again, gathered her sensuous legs under her, and settled back on her buttocks, watching him. Her hair shifted again, though he could have sworn her magical body remained still.
“Who are you?” he asked. Or maybe he panted. It was entirely, disgustingly possible he was still panting. Which would have been disconcerting if he were coherent enough to think about it.
She shook her head.
He drew a careful breath, reminding himself not to fall on her like a mail room boy at lunch break. “Where did you come from?”
A scowl marred her brow, but she was now only more beautiful. It made him want to kiss her and sing to her and . . .
Sing to her? Good God! What was wrong with him? Was he concussed? Was he delirious? Was he nuts?
“Are you French?” he asked. Dean said Frenchwomen always breakfasted in the nude. That’s what made them so horny. Note to self, William thought hazily: Fire Dean.
She shook her head, but the movement was uncertain.
“Italian?”
She only blinked this time.
“Do you speak English? I mean . . . you speak English. Right?” He’d heard her speak English. Good God, he’d heard her say that she was his. Something pounded in his chest at the memory. He hoped it was his heart.
“Listen. . . .” He opened his mouth, searching for something to call her, but he had nothing. “Do you have a name?”
She chewed her lower lip. He found he wanted to do the same. Chew her lip, lick her neck, stroke her slim, pointy feet. Her feet? What the hell!
“All right. Okay,” he said, and pulled his gaze from her toes to turn and pace the length of the room. It was the hardest damn thing he’d ever done in his life, because it wasn’t okay. He was nuts. So nuts, in fact, that by the time he turned back he felt desperate to see her again, to look at her, to make certain she was well and safe and . . .
A trickle of blood ran over the slim muscle of her calf and smudged the sheet below her. At the sight of it, his breath stopped in his throat. His heart bumped to stillness.
“You’re bleeding.” His voice was throaty, helpless.
Her frown increased.
“Blood,” he said, and stepped toward her. She reached for him with unconscious grace, but he reeled himself back moments bef
ore it was too late. Before he crossed the point of no return and fell like a brick into ecstasy. What the hell was going on? Was she a witch? Was that it? Had she cast a spell on him? Had she—
Oh, for God’s sake, there was no such thing as witches!
“Blood,” he said, and pointed, careful now to go no closer, to stay at arm’s length, but his hands were already shaking. He closed his eyes and tried again. “On the bed.”
She glanced down. Her lips moved into a little moue of dissatisfaction and she shifted, smearing blood across his sheets.
“You’re hurt.”
She blinked.
“Let me see. Stand up,” he ordered, and she did so finally, stepping with forest-creature grace onto his squashed carpet. Good Lord, her feet were pretty. And her legs and her . . .
He was feeling faint by the time he got to her kneecaps, but he braced himself on the wall to his left and remained erect . . . in so many ways. “Turn around.”
She blinked. Why did she keep blinking? Didn’t she know it made him want to do less than acceptable things with her?
“Around,” he repeated, and made a motion with his hand. She pirouetted slowly, revealing her back, her waist, her . . .
“Holy crap,” he said, and stumbled back to sit on the chair near the door.
She turned her head, gazing down. Her hair, fine as silk, brushed past her shoulders to tickle her buttocks like gilded fingers. Her buttocks that were soft and golden brown and split by an irresistible crease that housed the hot core of . . .
“I be injured,” she said.
He slammed his ridiculous thoughts to a halt and focused. Somehow he’d failed to notice the blood that smeared across her buttocks. Her buttocks that were as luscious as . . .
Oh, dear God!
“What happened?” he asked.
But she only shook her head.
“How bad is it? Does it hurt? Do you need a doctor?”
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