“No.” His hand caught her wrist before she could get away. He drew her down to the cushions again. “I need to know something more about you right now.”
Today’s taste of Poppy. The feel of her against him at this moment. What it was like to have her in this room, in the almost-spring sunshine that glazed the green velvet upholstery with a honey light the color of the palest strands in Poppy’s multihued hair.
He turned into her then took her down on the sofa, her back against the seat cushions. Instead of protesting, she made a sweet, low sound in her throat as he claimed her mouth. Aah, he thought, her taste familiar, addictive, something that he’d been missing. Aah.
Her mouth opened under his and he thrust inside her wet heat as she squirmed and he shifted and then they were stretched out and she was making a cradle for him between her thighs. He ground against her there, feeling her moan rise from her belly. He pushed against her again, and the heat between her thighs penetrated his thin workout pants.
She tilted her hips, rubbing against him, too, and he lifted his head to look into her face. The expression was that baffled one that just flat-out got to him, because it clearly communicated that he got to her, that the sexual exchange that pulsed between them was both new to her and thrilling.
So fucking thrilling.
Still watching her, he drew one hand up her ribs in a slow path toward her breast. He saw her suck in a breath, hold it, her entire body thrumming in anticipation of his touch.
Through blouse and bra, he tweaked her nipple, saw her twitch in reaction, then flush with arousal. One of her legs came around his hip and he pinched her again. Her body jerked against his cock.
He could make them come like this, he thought. Like two kids—
“Mommy?” A real kid’s voice reverberated down the hallways. “Mommy, where are you?”
One instant Poppy was pliant and his, the next she was on her feet, already her son’s mother again.
Even though his cock ached like the devil, Ryan had to admire the immediate metamorphosis.
“We should forget that happened,” she said, snaring the laundry basket. Without another word, she ran from the room.
Ryan sat up, then tipped his head against the cushions to stare at the coffered ceiling. Shit. Yeah, they should forget that happened. Great idea, except the whole “forget” thing hadn’t worked for squat for him. Though maybe this time they’d have better luck.
He sent a sour glance toward the door, because a perverse part of him hoped it wouldn’t be so.
* * *
THAT NIGHT, AS Poppy climbed onto the mattress and slipped between the covers, the intercom built into the wall peeped, goosing her pulse beat. She knew who was only a button away.
Hesitating, she glanced down at her at her sleep-tank, hyperaware that beneath the blankets she only wore a pair of panties. Would he know?
Of course he wouldn’t know, she admonished herself. Silly woman. Ryan Hamilton, in rooms on the ground level, couldn’t tell anything about her state of undress.
From that distance, he wasn’t the least bit dangerous.
Arm extended, she pressed the blinking button. “Hello? Is everything okay?”
“That’s my line.” His voice, low and rich, tickled her ear. This must be a high-end intercom system—he’d said those chefs liked their gadgets—because it didn’t sound mechanical or the least bit loud. His soft tone had no chance of permeating the thick walls and waking Mason. “You didn’t have dinner with us tonight.”
Poppy switched off the lamp and slid down, onto the pillows. “No. I...” She hesitated, not sure how to explain her absence. The truth was that she hadn’t been sure she could face him again so soon after her embarrassing confession. Now he knew the situation with her son’s father—that she’d been stupid enough to fall for a man who in the end cared for her so very little.
And of course, there’d been that ill-timed kiss. Thank God Ryan wasn’t close by now, because she had to kick away the covers just recalling it. He’d been so darn hot, in those low-slung pants and nothing else. She blamed all that bare skin for her babble. Distracted by his muscles, she’d been barely aware of the discussion. Instead, she’d been recalling what he did when he was dressed—or hardly dressed—like that. Working out, making all those powerful muscles stretch and flex. Then that body had pressed against hers, long and hard and so delicious against her softer parts. They tingled even now, arousal beginning a low hum.
“Poppy? Did you fall asleep on me?”
“No.” Not even close. When she was around him, she felt energized, her purely female side stirred up and at full consciousness. After such a long hibernation she found it confusing. Confounding.
Exciting.
She cleared her throat. “I didn’t join you and Linus for dinner because I made an early one for Mason—his favorite, beans and weenies. He was going to crash ahead of schedule, I could tell—your brother wore him out in an afternoon session of a game he made up. Hall hockey.”
“Hall hockey?”
Talking of dinner and games had allowed her to cool a little, so she pulled up the blankets again. “Mmm. Some sort of game on stocking feet, with brooms and a crumpled—”
“—brown bag as a ball. Damn that credit-stealing Linus. I made that up, though I called it ‘wall hockey’ due to the number of times our heads or knees or other body part collided with plaster.”
“Well, anyway, it was nice of your brother to spend time with Mason. He really enjoyed himself.”
Ryan was quiet a moment. “Linus likes little kids.”
Poppy wondered what set Ryan apart from his brother in that way. Yes, she’d seen him be kind to her son, but in a distant manner. It was clear he didn’t want to actively engage with Mason. A lot of men couldn’t relate to children, she supposed, but there was something...off about Ryan’s reserve.
She slid one arm behind her head. “Oh, and by the way, over dinner we watched Mason’s favorite movie together.”
Another quiet pause. “Tell me it wasn’t Gang of Spies.”
“Well, Duke, I don’t believe I can tell a superspy a lie.”
Ryan groaned. “I’m not going to ask you what you thought of it.”
“That earring sure was something.... And were you wearing eyeliner?”
“I was twenty-one. Remember how we agreed it isn’t a clever age?”
Poppy laughed. “I actually thought it was a clever movie,” she said. “Fun, as you said. Lots of action. And you got the girl.”
“Duke got the girl. In reality, she was doing the married director. Quite the scandal a decade ago.”
“You must have lived a very interesting life.”
“Not always the word I’d use. For example—those beans and weenies? I wish I’d eaten them with you. Linus, in all his cruelty, thought tonight called for Sloppy Joes.”
“So much for the sophisticated palate I imagined you both shared.”
“You’ve had my soup. ’Nuff said.”
“But also Linus’s penne. I don’t see him as the Sloppy Joes type.”
“It’s a poke at me. While he was busy being the voice of a mouse on an animated series, I got into a few commercials. I was as green as they come when I was cast as a boy-caveman enjoying my Sloppy Joe—the commercial was for a mix—with my cave family around the fire.”
Poppy set the scene in her mind. Ryan would have been pretty then, she guessed, the masculine cast to his beauty not yet set. “In furs I suppose.”
“Mmm. The costume itched like hell. But I had a line and everything. ‘Me eat meat.’”
It made her giggle, the way he said it, with a guttural inflection. “Do you have a copy of it somewhere? I’d love to see it.”
“Absolutely not. Just thinking of it makes my stomach pitch. Because here�
��s the thing, it took hours to get those forty-five seconds right. For each take, I had to yell ‘Me eat meat’ and then sink my chops in the Joe to get a big bite, only to do it all over again if the director decided the lighting was wrong or if somebody wasn’t positioned right, or when the buns started to look soggy.”
“That sounds like a lot of Joe.”
“No kidding. The other members of my ‘family’ were old hands and knew enough to spit out their bites between takes. Not me. I was a hungry kid and thought I was in hog heaven...until I felt like I had a whole hog in my belly. That was the first and last time I stuck my finger down my throat for a job.”
“Poor Ryan.”
“I didn’t tell that story for the sympathy. Only so you’d understand that the business is not all designer tuxes, beautiful women and overstuffed bags of swag.”
Ryan Hamilton in a tuxedo. Poppy nearly swooned at the idea, her imagination conjuring up his lean-hipped body in a well-fitted dark suit. She thought of undoing the tie at his throat and unfastening the bright white shirt. It would have those little stud-type fastenings, and they’d plink-plink-plink as she dropped them one by one to the marble floor.
“Uh, Poppy?”
His voice burst the wonderful fantasy and she frowned at the intercom. “What?”
“Should I apologize for this afternoon...in my suite?”
Did he mean the kiss? She didn’t want to talk about the kiss. “You didn’t twist my arm.” Oh, God, that sounded like it was about the kiss. “I mean, I volunteered all that about Denny.”
“He’s a loser.”
She sighed. “Yet I still fell for him.”
“You don’t get what I mean. He’s a loser because he gave up you. And because he gave up his son.”
She sighed again. “He was twenty-five when I got pregnant. I suppose he was too young for the responsibility.”
Ryan snorted. “Please.”
“You don’t think most men his age would run from that situation?”
“Real men of any age would not run from that situation.”
Poppy made a face. “Only proving, once again, that I’m a terrible judge of them.”
“Don’t think you’re alone. Everybody has regrets of one kind or another.”
“Truly? What are you sorry about?”
A long moment passed. “Well, I...”
There was a serious note in his voice that made her suck in a breath. Tucking the covers beneath her arms, she stayed quiet, instinct telling her he was on the verge of some confidence, some admission that might bring her closer to knowing him. She wanted that, she thought. She wanted to understand what lay behind his need for privacy and what was the source of that darkness she sensed deep inside of him. What made a man hold himself so apart one moment, then tenderly cover a sleeping child the next?
“I don’t regret that night we spent together,” Ryan said.
Poppy released the breath she’d been holding, aware the moment of truth was getting away. Could she get him back on track? “That’s nice to know, but—”
“And I don’t regret our kiss this afternoon.”
“Um...” Poppy squirmed against the sheets. She’d been so easy for him, so quickly melting into his embrace. His hold over her was mystifying. She seemed to get lost in lust for him, out of her element and out of control. But this conversation might make things different if she could steer it back to him. “That’s nice to hear, but I think you had something else you wanted to say to me....”
“Yeah.”
Poppy held her breath.
“I regret I’ve never had intercom sex.”
The words startled a laugh out of her. Intercom sex? “What?”
“I know we thought we’d never see each other again—after that night in the cabin.”
“It was supposed to be a one-and-done,” Poppy agreed.
“But circumstances changed....” he said in a silky voice. “Though not the way you look at me.”
She glared in the direction of the intercom. “You look at me in exactly the same way.” Her words had a defensive edge.
“Not denying it, Poppy.” His voice lowered, the tone raspy and seductive. “So I’m thinking maybe we could do something about that...from the safety of our separate bedrooms. You know...work through it, but in a different way.”
She tried laughing again. “Ryan, really—”
“Intercom sex.”
Oh, wicked man. Wicked, tempting man.
“I’m a single mother!”
“Even single mothers are sexual beings,” the snake whispered into her ear. Take a bite...take a bite...take a bite.
Her pulse was pounding hard, making a whooshing sound in her ears. During the hailstorm, she’d given herself permission to be a little bad...and now she had the distinct urge to be a little bad again. Those patches of fire were blooming on her skin. “But I...I wouldn’t know how to begin.”
“I’ll bet you do, but I don’t mind helping out,” he said, his soft tone obliging. “Take off whatever’s on top first.”
“Maybe I’m sleeping in the nude.”
“No, that’s what I’m doing.”
She had an insane urge to giggle again, a hysterical bubble of laughter was crawling up her throat. But then she thought of Ryan—Ryan naked—and her mouth went dry. The unclothed curves and angles of him were something she’d felt against her body that night in the cabin. The room had been dark, mountain-dark, as darkness can only be when streetlights are far, far away. But she’d mapped him in her mind, the thick wedge of his shoulder, the pad of his pectoral muscle, the bulge of his biceps as he rested on elbows above her.
He’d touched her breast, the light brush of his thumb, and she traced her nipple with her own now, over the soft cotton of her tank.
“Take off your top,” Ryan whispered again.
Poppy did. She felt feverish, her breasts achy and like they’d swelled large enough to miraculously fill a C-cup as she settled back against the sheets. The smooth cotton scratched at the supersensitized skin covering her back and hips.
“What color are your panties?”
Swallowing hard, she glanced down. “Pink.”
“Like your mouth,” he murmured, “and the color, I’m imagining, of that pretty, pretty place between your legs. Pink and luscious.”
Poppy burned.
“It was so dark that night that I couldn’t see everything I wanted to. But I felt you, Poppy. You were so damn hot and yielding there. When I slipped my finger inside you, your body tightened on me, and you poured liquid into my palm.”
Oh. My. God.
“I went so damn hard I didn’t think I could last.” His voice became just a rasp of sound. “Are you wet now, Poppy?”
Her breath was caught in her chest. But she didn’t need air, she just needed touch and she slid her hand under the elastic band of her hipster panties and stroked her own flesh. Closing her eyes tight, she pretended it was Ryan’s hand exploring her. She heard herself moan.
“Caress your nipples, too,” he said now, whispering. “It will feel so good.”
Like a marionette, her hand lifted and she rubbed her palm against the pearled center of one breast. Her body was humming now, taut with a sweet tension that promised an even sweeter release.
“Say my name when you come,” he ordered. “I want to hear you say my name.”
She stroked faster, two fingers circling the apex of her sex, even as the edge of her thumb strummed at her nipple. Her breath was loud in her own ears, her heart racing
Then the pleasure peaked and she was fracturing, fracturing, a thousand pieces of Poppy flying about the room, all because of... “Ryan,” she moaned. “Oh, God. Ryan.”
Through the intercom she heard a quick, indrawn breath and th
en he groaned, the sound sexy...and satisfying to her ears.
She wanted to see him. She wanted to see him with a desperate urgency. That night in his cabin it had been so gloomy the sex had been nearly anonymous. But Ryan was no stranger now. He was that strong body that turned her on and the chivalrous man who rescued her from the photographers. He was the one who had said, “He’s a loser because he gave up you” and also the one who insisted that even single mothers were sexual beings.
She wanted to see his face, now replete. She wanted to watch his body relax and then drift into sleep.
She wanted to touch him at will and know every one of his secrets.
And that’s when Poppy realized how very dangerous he actually was. Because even when he was a floor away, she could still feel him beside her—and she could still want a window into his heart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LINUS HAD COOKED dinner, so Poppy performed the cleanup and congratulated herself on dodging Ryan for something like the past twenty hours. Or maybe he’d been dodging her—Linus said he was holed up in his office reading scripts and handling other business matters. The outcome was the same, however: she hadn’t been forced to meet his gaze while remembering that searing interlude over the intercom...which had rocked her world in the moment, but in retrospect was entirely embarrassing.
But her exultation over her Ryan-avoidance made clear it was time to craft other plans. Tomorrow, she decided, would be the day she’d leave him, despite the still-lurking paparazzi and the puzzling situation with Denny. With luck, she could make her escape without having to see Ryan again.
A thank-you note could do, right?
Moving to hang the damp towel she’d been using, she heard distant sounds of scuffling and laughter. Linus and Mason had left the kitchen with brooms in hand, intent on another round of hall hockey. When she was finished here, she’d watch them for a few minutes, then convince Mason it was time for a bath, two books then bed. Still holding the length of toweling, her maternal radar pinged just an instant before she heard a loud thud and crash followed by an ominous beat of silence.
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