“I have to choose?” She put her hand to his chest and leaned in. He lowered his face, half expecting her to tease. He liked her confidence. It was well-considered, serendipity rather than rampant opportunism, and she wasn’t a star-fucker. He didn’t see her trying to insert herself permanently in his life. He didn’t see himself having to go cold on her, have Rick or one of the team keep her away. He liked her restraint. She wasn’t in total awe of him or all over him. She was neither reckless nor trying to impress him with her sophistication.
She was well worth waking up beside.
Up close, she smelled a little like wet dog, but under that there was a trace of something floral. Part of him was still surprised when she said, “Now,” and tipped her chin up, pressing her lips to his.
Other than the hand he still held, he didn’t touch her, let her control the kiss, parting her lips and sighing. The risk of this was on her side. As much as he could promise her safety and control, she was on his territory and he had the power.
Their tongues tipped, and she pulled away, laughter in her eyes, a hand to her mouth as if she wasn’t sure she still owned it.
“What would your mother think about that?” he said.
She took a step back, another. “My mother doesn’t need to know everything.”
He mimed a lip lock.
“But I have a feeling if she did, she’d be impressed.”
His laughter chased her into the bedroom, where he heard the shower turn on. He had time to update Rick, stand Hassan down, check his messages, order room service and consult the concierge about Teela’s dress and shoes before she reappeared in the hotel robe, bare-faced, hair loose and partially blow-dried, curling around her face and shoulders.
“Feel better?”
“Much.”
“Food is coming, but before that we’re going to have a little excursion.”
She looked down at herself. “I’m not exactly excursion ready.”
“No one will see you.”
“You see me.”
And what he saw pleased him very much. He put his hands to her shoulders. The robe was one of those thick toweling types that made everyone look short and squat. Inside it she was still more imaginary than real.
She leaned into him. She smelled of the hotel’s fancy brand toiletries. “I’d like my after kiss now please.”
“With pleasure.” He slipped his hands down her back and pulled her close, and when she lifted her chin, he palmed her face and ran his nose over her cheek, delivering what would be the first of many kisses to her temple, before angling her face and taking her lips firmly. Her murmur told him she liked it. He took it deeper, added pressure, letting his tongue out to play and grazing his teeth over her bottom lip.
Somewhere between the simple loveliness of her clean, silky skin and the complexity of her response, a kind of trembling wonder that ignited his lust, and right before she jammed a hand in his hair and licked the roof of his mouth, he stopped feeling satisfied with himself for engineering an enjoyable night and started feeling inspired. Teela Carpenter was a one-night stand worthy of wowing.
“You’re doing a good job of making me forget my manners,” he said, lips coasting over her jaw. “We’ll come back to this.”
“I don’t see any reason for us to leave.”
He ran the backs of his knuckles over her cheek. “Hotel can’t save your dress and your shoes are a lost cause and you need something other than this ugly thing to wear.”
She frowned. “I can make do.”
“I’m sure you can. But not tonight. Not with me.” He took her hand and towed her to the elevator. “I had the concierge open the boutique for us. Let’s choose you something dry to wear to work tomorrow.”
The mezzanine floor was dark, except for the light in the boutique. He pushed the door open and noted the chilled champagne and strawberries set out for them. Teela took a stroll around the shelves and fixtures. She had pretty feet and bright red toenails, though her fingernails were unpainted and clipped short. Business on top, but a hint of less restraint underneath.
“Choose something to replace your dress.” He sat on a chaise longue to wait for her.
She held up something pink and shiny. “I can see the logic of having things for the morning, but the idea of you buying them for me makes me uncomfortable. I make a good living. I can buy my own clothes.”
That was a first. He was accustomed to being the one who spent money on others. “It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable.”
“I know. You’ve got a lock on charming.” She left the pink thing behind and came across to him. “It’s sweet of you, but you don’t have to buy my attention, or compensate me, or whatever you’re doing. I’m being unprofessional, letting myself be seduced by you, and the only way this works for me is that it’s one secret night with no strings, but this,” she gestured at the racks of clothing, “is confusing.”
“Did you think I was simply going to throw you on the bed and have my way with you?” He could tell by the look on her face she did. “Now I feel uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to make you feel.” He stopped talking, swallowed the word compromised, when she sat over his legs, a knee either side of his hips. There was a lot of smooth thigh to look at and she wasn’t wearing underwear. He got a tantalizing glimpse of her pussy, a dark strip of pubic hair before the robe fell back in place and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He got to know those thighs and the smooth curve of her ass; he got to be uncomfortable for other reasons to do with how hard he was before they came up for air. He’d almost forgotten where they were and why.
“I want to buy you something to wear because I can.” Assuming Rum hadn’t come up with a way to freeze his bank accounts and demand his rusted-on bachelor heart for ransom. “It will make me happy, not for any other reason. Just because this is one night, it doesn’t mean we can’t get to know one another.” It was, after all, what she’d hinted at wanting, along with kisses.
She snuck a look over her shoulder at the clothing. She wasn’t cold to the idea anymore. “Teela, go shopping for me because it’s part of the fantasy.”
That did it. “You get to approve my choice.”
If that’s what she needed to make this work. He poured them both champagne, dropping a strawberry into each glass.
This time she reviewed the shelves and racks with more purpose, sipping her champagne and picking up hangers and taking them to a changeroom. When she was satisfied with her selection she stepped inside, a hand to the curtain.
He stopped her. “Leave that.” He stood and went to her. “I’d like to watch.”
She sucked in a harsh breath. “Anyone who comes up here could see.”
They could, except he’d made sure they would not be disturbed, and the store surveillance cameras had been turned off. “No one is going to see us.” He reached for the tie on her robe and undid it, letting the garment open, revealing her throat, the center of her chest, her sternum, belly and pussy. “You’re beautiful.”
She was flushed, and a pulse fluttered in her neck. “It’s very convenient you think so.”
He knew a lot of beautiful women and Teela would be aware of that. “I’m not the first to tell you your body is lovely.” It simply wasn’t possible some guy hadn’t made a fool of himself over her.
“I’m having a moment where I’m wondering how I got here.” She pulled the robe closed. “After-hours shopping with the Sexiest Man Alive.”
Ugh, that stupid magazine title. “If memory serves me, there was an apocalypse and I rescued you from being swept away.”
“You promised me towels.”
“By which I think you mean kisses.”
“By which I mean hot sex.”
“Ah.” He grinned. I like you, Teela Carpenter. “We’ll get to the hot sex portion of tonight’s entertainment. This is the building suspense part of our attraction.” He backed off, enjoying her incredulous expression, returning to the loun
ge. He’d been moments off pushing the robe off her shoulders and devouring her against a changeroom wall, which is likely what she expected him to do.
Never let it be said he played to type.
She faced away, but from where he sat he could see her in the mirror. In a show of courage, she dropped the robe, let it pool on the floor, staring at her reflection, at him staring at her. Her breasts were full and soft, tipped with large dusky-pink areola and raspberry nipples, raised and incredibly lickable. He’d taste their sweetness soon. As she lifted the first dress over her head, he sucked the champagne-soaked strawberry into his mouth, poor substitute, and went back to her side, feeding it to her in a kiss that made her laugh. Neither of them liked the first dress. It went back on a hanger.
From the lounge, he watched her try four more dresses. Each time she undressed for him she was a little less self-conscious, moved a little less stiffly. He liked her body, not model, starlet starved, a real woman’s body, with padded hips and a belly, with the subtle dimples of cellulite, but he learned to read her face and saw the moment she found the dress she liked best.
“That one,” he said. Navy and white. Sleeveless with a boat neck, fitted to the waist and flaring over her hips to her knees. “Your favorite.”
She studied herself in the mirror. “Yes, it’s simple and elegant. Easy to wear. Needs the right underwear.”
“Choose something nice I can strip off you.”
She spun around. “You can’t rip them.”
He feigned disgust. “I would never.” Whatever she chose, he’d pay for two, just in case. The lace stuff could be horribly delicate. “You need shoes too.”
Teela made her way to the shoe display. “I’m pretending this is fine. Totally fine. An Academy Award winning—”
“Two-time.”
She didn’t look at him. “A two-time Academy Award winning actor—”
“And three-time nominee.”
Now she looked at him. “A self-important blowhard is buying me clothing that’s more expensive than anything I own.”
He laughed. She was perfect. “Get the red ones with the four-inch stiletto heel. They’ll make your incredible legs look endless.”
“They really are torture devices. Too high to walk in and not my size.”
He left the lounge, walked into what he’d figured was the stockroom and brought her a size eight. “You just lost a pair of red shoes, these are well-made, and you have to suffer to be glamorous.”
She tried the shoe. “Good guess on the size.”
“I worked ladies’ shoes at Neiman Marcus. You’d be a nine in a ballet flat.”
She gasped. “That’s not in your résumé.”
“I’m full of dark secrets.”
“Do you suffer for your glamor?”
Not an ounce of suffering in his life now. There was pain. Losing Mom. Worry about his father’s health. There was struggle in the early days when he’d had nothing, not even a permanent place to live, just a succession of stinky couches he’d been pathetically grateful to crash on, and barely enough money to feed himself waiting on audition callbacks that never came. Until, on the verge of giving up, the one that did.
This life, the one where he got to buy a beautiful woman he barely knew clothing that was stupidly expensive for the fun of it wasn’t anything he’d ever seen coming. That’s why he had to use his luck, leave the world a better place than he found it for people who didn’t get the chances he’d had.
“I have no complaints.”
“Your wrist?”
“Only a bad sprain. But shake a couple of hundred hands and I’d have been feeling it. The brace is more of a protective measure than anything else.”
“You took it off to shake my hand.”
“I wanted to shake your hand.”
“Do you have full use of your fingers?” She wiggled hers at him.
“Are you planning on kicking me out of bed if I don’t?”
She laughed. “You’ve never been kicked out of bed in your life.”
“Not true. It’s very difficult to pull off a seduction when you’re sharing a couch with a drooling Mastiff.” Under cover of Teela’s laughter, he moved to the underwear section and selected a matching set in navy. Flimsy, frivolous G-string and push-up bra, laying them on the counter.
“Don’t tell me you moonlighted in ladies’ lingerie?”
“I specialized in ladies’ lingerie.” He had no idea if he’d chosen appropriately but he liked stirring her up.
The pile on the counter eventually included the navy dress, its matching jacket and the red shoes, two sets of underwear, his selection in a larger size, which she wore, and a more practical beige set Teela chose. He threw in a silk dressing gown and Teela put it on for the trip back to the suite, leaving the terry robe and all the tags to be added to his hotel bill.
They’d had their meet-cute on the balcony, their second act in the rain and the night was still young as they moved into act three.
THREE
Teela felt more naked in the champagne-colored robe and the barely there underwear, sitting across from Haydn at a table stacked with food choices, than she had when she was legitimately naked in the changeroom.
That made no sense. He’d had his hands on her butt, and he’d watched her dressing. There was very little of her body he hadn’t seen, and he’d made out with her tonsils, and yet now, comparatively fully dressed, neck to ankle, without even cleavage on show, she might spontaneously combust.
It had something to do with the way he was looking at her. Relaxing in the chair opposite, one arm slung along the back of it, the other holding a teacup. His posture said casual elegance, but the way he watched her eat was all carnivore.
In the bedroom after showering, she’d sent Evie a message. If I should go missing, it’s because I’ve experienced the world’s sexiest cock and have died of pleasure. Don’t mourn me.
It might’ve been more appropriate to say she’d died of seduction because that seemed to be Haydn’s intention. He wasn’t simply stalling, playing with her, deliberately dragging things out when he could’ve pushed her against a wall and been done with her in five minutes. This was a calculated assault on her senses designed to rearrange her sexual DNA. He was going to unravel her with kindness, courtesy, clothing and cuisine before he put a hand anywhere near a critical point of entry, and just thinking about that made it hard to remember what they were talking about.
“I started the company four years ago,” she said.
He put his cup down on its saucer. “You mentioned that.” Had she? He couldn’t possibly be interested in her business. She could be telling him anything. He had her senses scrambled. “You also said you haven’t had a lot of time since then for a private life and that’s a shame.”
Why did he have to be a better listener than she was a conversationalist? This wasn’t at all how she’d expected this to go. Something frantic, hasty, ill-considered but carnal and opportunistically essential.
And already over.
It was astonishingly better.
“The failure rate for new businesses is high and I don’t want to be a statistic.” But she was one. She was whatever the statistic was for a woman who focused too much on her career and had her husband-to-be check out, because she wasn’t focused enough on him. She wasn’t even bitter about that anymore. Imagine thinking she could make a life with a man who couldn’t support her ambition. “It’s easier being single.”
“On that we agree.”
“You really don’t think you’ll ever marry?”
He shook his head. “It’s not just a headline.” And a much-labored interview topic. “My parents were happy together. It’s not some deeply ingrained fear of failure. I’m not sure anyone of means needs the permanence of marriage anymore. It’s something we’re conditioned to want.”
“A habit?”
“A status symbol. Has some merit where it comes to having children, but I don’t see myself as a parent.”
“Did you really have a vasectomy?” Another well-publicized fact about him and since he went there, she was only following up for accuracy’s sake.
“I’ve had the snip. No regrets.”
“You don’t believe in love?”
“Of course I do.” He leaned forward as if to impress that upon her, as if to say I’m not a barbarian. “I’ve been well-loved and there are people in my life I love dearly. I don’t believe in lasting romantic love and I don’t want kids.”
She couldn’t help herself but prod him. “You’ve never been in love?”
“More like deeply infatuated. I’m deeply infatuated often. I’m a serial infatuate.”
“Is that a real word?”
He nodded and looked away as if he’d been caught out doing something naughty. “It most certainly is.”
“But you’re not infatuated right now.” That he didn’t have a current girlfriend was mind-blowing. Or a lie.
His eyes found hers. Mischief dialed up to pulse-jumping. “I might be working on something.”
That sounded right. Lucky girl. “I’m happy for you. I don’t want to watch you on a talk show one day and think, poor Haydn, he’s suffering from an infatuation deficiency. I can see it in his eyes.”
With an exaggerated eyelash bat, he said, “What else can you see in my eyes?”
“Jet lag?”
“No dice. Melatonin and I’ve had a nap.”
She smiled at her hands, twisted up in her lap. Everything he was doing was working on her. “I have to admit that you, this, us, the way you look at me, the way you make me feel, makes it difficult to concentrate. I haven’t had sex for a long while and no, I’m not telling you how long, and in my wildest dreams I never expected this. You’re a lot to take in.” She met his eyes. “And I haven’t even seen forearms yet.”
“Hmm, I see.” Said with a serious expression, brows angled down and fingers steepled. “Can you concentrate enough to tell me how you’d like to proceed?”
One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One Book 1) Page 3
