by Lucy Monroe
She was playing black jack and had been dealt two face cards. She could split her hand, hoping to hit twenty-one with one or both face cards, or hold with the hope that no one else at the table would get the winning combination. “That depends on what kind of risk you prefer to take.”
“I’m not big into risk taking at all…or at least I wasn’t before I met you.”
He grinned. “Good to hear it.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. A man likes to know he has a singular effect on his woman.”
She grinned. “You do that. A very singular effect. As I’m sure you know.”
Then she went suddenly shy, dropping her gaze. He could not stop himself from leaning down to press a brief kiss to her lips even though they were in a crowded public venue and he had seen a photographer earlier. It just didn’t seem to matter. Besides, he wasn’t worried about their privacy being invaded too much. Pictures were one thing…names were another and he’d done what he could to protect hers from getting out.
She ended up staying with the cards she’d been dealt and winning the pot. “Oh, this is fun, Miguel.”
“Yes, it is.” Watching her was truly pleasurable.
“I can’t believe I’ve never gambled before.”
“Well, it’s not quite as fun when you’re losing consistently.”
“Oh, no, I suppose not. I suppose that’s the primary reason I’ve never gambled. I’m not a big fan of trying things it’s so easy to lose at.”
“You are adept at stacking the deck in your favor.”
“Don’t talk like that here. They’ll think I’m a card shark.”
“No one is going to believe such a lovely woman could be anything but honest.”
She snorted inelegantly and he laughed out loud. “Throughout history beauty has been used to hide deception. I don’t think anyone looks at my photogenic face and automatically thinks,there goes an honest woman .”
“Ah, but not only are you a stunningly lovely woman, but you glow with innocence.”
“Not anymore,” she quipped.
And he almost choked on his own breath. The little minx. “Still very innocent, I think.”
“I suppose you’ll have to fix that, won’t you?” She flirted up at him through her eyelashes.
“It will be my pleasure.”
“And mine.”
“Count on it.”
“Wow…this is just so strange, Miguel.”
“What?”
Vulnerability and something like awe shimmered in her sea-green depths. “Being together…being with you.”
“Funny.” He squeezed her waist. “It does not feel odd to me at all.”
“Truly?” She was looking at him, all serious and questioning.
He clamped his jaw on his initial flip reply and thought about it. “Well, perhaps a bit.”
She smiled as if he’d given her a gift and he was very glad he’d taken the moment for honesty. He only wished they had more than two weeks for the sense of strangeness to wear off. They were both going to feel like something was left undone when he had to leave for Prague.
But it could not be helped.
As they had agreed earlier, sometimes you simply had to seize the moment.
He was thinking about the time limitation to their affair late that night as he lay in bed beside her sleeping form. They had retrieved her things from her hotel on the way home from the casino and he’d convinced her to go to sleep without making love again. Gratifyingly she had balked, but he had been adamant. He wanted to give her body time to heal.
If that left him hard and aching while he watched her sleep, so be it. She was too precious to allow his libido to override what he knew to be good for her.
Normally when he could not sleep, he would have gotten up to work, but he did not want to leave her. By the saints, he had it bad. Was that because she’d been a virgin? He’d never really believed it made a difference, but he felt more possessively toward her than he had any previous lover.
It must be because of her innocence.
The thought of breaking off their relationship when he went to Prague filled him with more than frustration at an affair that would end to early. Unreasoning anger beat a steady tattoo in his chest. He did not want to leave the field open for some other man to come in and claim the passion he had awakened inhis Amber.
But there was no other tenable option.
It would not be fair to her or himself to be tied to a long distance relationship. Attempting such a thing with the commitments they each had to their work would be impossible. They would only be able to see each other when she could get time off between jobs and considering the fact this was her first vacation in more than a year, he had little hope such circumstances would arise often enough to suit either of them.
The business commitments he had agreed to shoulder for his family’s company in Prague would preclude him leaving Russia for six months, maybe even a year. He might be able to arrange a flying visit or two to California, but nothing more. Not enough to maintain a committed, exclusive relationship.
He could not be sure of his ability to go without sex if they had a long separation. He never had before. He loved sexual intimacy and needed the stress release it provided when business got extra intense. Now that Amber knew what she’d been missing, he did not think she would sublimate her sensuality with work so effectively, either.
No. A long distance relationship was only asking for trouble and heartache for both of them.
He could not back out of his commitment to his family. Such an option was unthinkable. Well, he had thought of it and then discarded it. He had never let the company down before and family pride and duty demanded he not start now.
He could not ask Amber to come to Prague with him. Not even for a couple of months, though the temptation was acute.
It would be absolutely unfair to her. Her career was just heating up and she would be very busy, especially once a few well placed recommendations were made by Miguel’s ad campaign manager. He’d spoken to the man earlier that day and made it clear that Menendez Enterprises would be grateful to others (including his own employee) who saw the same potential in Amber Taylor that they had. She wouldn’t want him to do that, which was why he hadn’t told her.
But having friends in business never hurt.
He sighed and touched the top slope of her breast exposed by the dipping neckline on her silk sleepshirt. Leaving this woman would be hard, but he had no choice. A clean break at the end of their time together was the only way, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t maximize the time they did have together.
Unwilling to dwell any longer on unpalatable facts that could not be changed, he forced himself to climb from the bed leaving her seductive warmth behind. Work would afford distraction from his chaotic thoughts. Sometimes toiling in the wee hours was the best way to accomplish a lot in a short period. If he was going to maximize the precious little time he did have with Amber, he needed to get rid of as many work obligations as possible.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AN HOURand a half later, Miguel sat up from where he’d been working at the coffee table in the living room and stretched. He had delegated all the responsibilities he could without letting anyone down, answered e-mails he would have had to at the office later, and even had two IM sessions with international associates that took care of any communication he would have had to have with them the following week.
He was closing his computer when a slight sound to his left caught his attention. He looked up.
Amber stood a few short feet from the sofa, her golden hair a messy halo around her sleep softened features, her slight curves accented by the silky nightshirt. She smiled softly. “Hi.”
He snapped the laptop shut and leaned back on the sofa, his long legs stretched out before him. If he got within touching distance, he was going to touch…and a whole lot more. “Hi, yourself. What are you doing up,querida ?”
She shrugged. “I woke and you wer
e gone. I decided to find you.” She looked down at the closed laptop. “Working?”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t sleep or stuff that couldn’t wait?”
“A little of both, but mostly sleeping within touching distance of temptation became too much.”
She smiled and came to sit beside him, her feminine scent reaching out to wrap around him as she curled up facing him, one hand on his chest. “How’s this for temptation?”
He groaned. “The sadistic streak is not something I expected.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“But you are tempting me…knowing I cannot follow through. Some might call that cruel.” He called it too damn delicious.
“You know, I may have been a virgin less than twenty-four hours ago, but I am not ignorant.” She rubbed her face against his chest, making a little humming sound. “There are things we can do that do not require penetration.”
“You have done these things?” he demanded, wondering why the prospect she had would bother him. It should not.
Then again, he did not think she would enjoy hearing about his past conquests.
“No, but I read about them.”
“Youread about them?”
“My mother’s answer to sex education. Books.”
“And what did you read about in these books?” The very idea of her telling him had him swelling with anticipation. He’d been semierect since bringing her back to the penthouse, so it took very little to tent the silk boxers he wore.
Her hand slid up his chest until one fingertip was over his hardening nipple. “I’d rather show you than tell you.”
“I would very much like to hear you tell me. Are you too shy?”
She looked up at him. “Maybe.”
“Would it help if I started?”
“You can’t tell me what I read about.”
He grinned at her affront. “But I can tell you what I know.”
“Yes.” The word gusted out on a soft sigh. “And you can tell me why you didn’t suggest the other ways of touching yourself.”
“I was afraid that I would not stop at the boundary that must be maintained for your body’s recovery.”
“Ohhhh…I like being that much a temptation to you.”
“I also like the fact you are such a temptation.”
She laughed, the sound musical and sweet. And extremely sexy. “So, are you going to start?”
“Shall we make it a game? I say something, then you?”
“Hmmm…I think we can make it a little more interesting than that.”
“More interesting?”
His little ex-virgin was definitely full of surprises.
“Right.” She considered him for several seconds, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “Okay, what about if you tell me something I can do to give you pleasure and I do it?” “And then you will tell me something that will give you pleasure and I am supposed to do it?” He liked the sound of this game. A lot.
“Yes.” Though crimson dusted her lovely cheekbones. The sweet innocent was definitely more comfortable with the first part of the game.
“A man has many areas of his body that give pleasure, though we tend to concentrate on one particular organ.”
“Hmmm, yes…maybe we should add another rule…you have to give me at least three other options before directing me to touch you…um…” She licked her lips and dipped her gaze to his lap.“Down there.”
He manfully held back his laughter at her awkwardness. He found it endearing, but did not think she would read his amusement in that light. “I agree, butyou cannot go more than three turns without directing me to touch you somewhere between your legs.”
She closed her eyes as if praying, but nodded. “All right. Deal.”
Then they looked at each other in silence while anticipation built between them.
He took her hand and put it on his inner thigh, brushing the back of her fingers. “Touch me there and you will make me weep with pleasure.”
“How?”
“Any way you like.”
She started by caressing him lightly through the silk of his boxers, tracing the contours of his muscles and sending shivers through him. It took all his control not to close his legs and trap her hand when it strayed near his sex. He made a strangled sound and forced his thighs to remain apart.
She looked up into his eyes, her own pupils dilated with passion. “You’re not weeping.”
He husked out a laugh. “That was merely an expression of speech, but believe me, you are achieving the desired reaction.”
She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes, going completely still as if thinking. Then she increased the pressure of her touch, kneading his thigh through the silk, the sensation more stimulating than he would have expected. Every touch felt like it zinged straight to his groin, pulsing through his erect shaft with teasing pleasure.
When she stopped, he had to take a deep breath and let it out before he could speak. “Now it is your turn to tell me.”
“I’m not done.”
“What?”
“I’m still learning this thigh touching technique.”
“You have it down,” he insisted. Any more and he was going to lose his mind. Or weep for real.
But she shook her head and slipped her hand inside the leg of his shorts to touch bare skin.
He hissed his enjoyment while she moaned a little. The touch through silk had been erotic, but this was like being branded with her personal fire. And she acted like she could continue to touch that small area on his body for what remained of the night.
“We are going to have to institute a new rule,” he said from between gritted teeth.
“What? A rule?” She looked up at him dazed.
“Yes. A rule. A time limit.” He gently removed her hand, making a sound suspiciously close to a whimper as he did so and then grabbed his watch from the table and set the timer. “Three minute maximum per touch.”
“So, you think it’s been three minutes?” she asked with a heated look.
“More. Definitely longer.”
“It’s my turn then, hmm?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” She took a breath, as if girding herself to say what she wanted. “I read that every area of the body can be an erogenous zone if touched the right way.”
“Okay then…touch my face.”
Herface?
She must have read the shock in his expression because she smiled shyly. “I love the way it feels when you brush my hair back from my temple, or caress my cheek. I want to see if more touching will roll into the realm of the sensual or if there is an area of my body that isn’t conducive to making love.”
“I will show you that it is. Close your eyes.”
She did, her body vibrating with clear anticipation for the first touch. He made it an ultralight kiss against her brow…then moved his mouth in soft nibbles down to her cheekbone and along her jaw. She was shivering in seconds and by the time he was feathering kisses over her eyelids, he was sure she would concede the point.
“It works,” she said breathlessly. “And you didn’t even kiss my mouth.”
“That would have been too easy.”
“You are such a competitor,” she said on a groan. Her eyes opened slowly, as if she was forcing them to obey her inner command and her breath was coming in shallow gasps. “What next?”
He knew exactly what he wanted. “Your mouth on my stomach.” He settled back, going completely still and silent, waiting for her to touch him.
She turned to fiddle with his watch, resetting the timer and then faced him again, reaching out to touch his stomach with barely there caresses.
He had to bite back a reminder that she was not using her mouth. He wanted to know what she would do.
She leaned forward to hover over him, her hands never stopping the gentle touching. “Your body is so amazing to me, you’re strong everywhere. Before I came to find you, I lay in bed thinking about you
, about how you touch me, fantasizing about you kissing me all over.”
The scent of her arousal testified to the veracity of her words and he had to clench his jaw tight to hold back a moan. She was such a mixture of innocence and frank sensuality. She enthralled him.
Then she kissed him, right below his belly button, opening her mouth to suck, bringing blood to the surface and no doubt leaving a mark of her possession.
A rumble of passion shook his chest and his mouth opened of its own volition on a hoarse grunt.
She rained kisses all over his stomach, flicking her tongue out to taste his skin every few seconds. He was moaning when his watch started beeping.
Amber sat up, her eyes shining with both desire and satisfaction. “Time’s up.”
He nodded, taking a deep breath before husking out, “Now you.” She impacted him like no other.
Her eyes gleamed with mischief. “Use your mouth someplace unexpected.” She climbed onto his lap, straddling his thighs, her naked, damp curls settling over his pulsingly hard flesh. “I’ll even make it easier for you.”
“This is supposed to be easy on me?” he choked out.
“Easy access.”
“What if I wanted to lick your feet?”
“That wouldn’t be a big surprise. I mean kissing someone’s feet is what you’d expect when trying for the unexpected, so it isn’t anymore. Know what I mean?”
He laughed, shocked at how much fun he was having. He was used to sex being physically intense, cathartic even, but notfun . “Set the timer,” he growled.
She reached behind her and did it, tossing the watch onto the couch cushions beside them.
Then, he prepared to do the unexpected. He grabbed her face and kissed her lips, delving inside when her mouth parted on a surprised gasp. He kissed her until the timer went off on his watch and a little beyond.
When he stopped, she lifted her head, dazed looking. “I wasn’t expecting that. I thought you’d kiss me someplace funny like my elbow or something.”
“I know.”
“You’re devious.”
“Yes.”
“I think I like that.”
