The Billionaire’s Handler

anyone. Ever. And that maxim was a mighty never where Carolina was concerned. So that was why he put his hands on her again.

It wasn’t to sweep her beneath him. It was to stop her, from rubbing against his crotch, from dancing her satined body in the opening of his tux shirt, from breathing in her scent, her tongue, the desire beading off her in torrents.

Only, something went wrong.

He intended to push her away. He was outstanding at pushing people away, had his whole life, only somehow… Magic? Miracles? Bad luck? She seemed to twist at just the wrong time, so that he ended up on top of her. And once she was beneath him, her slim legs rose up and high, clasping around his hips, inviting him in, teasing him closer, closer. She arched her back, so the brush of her breasts could cause him more torment. Her skin heated. Her damn mouth started trembling again. She made that earthy little wicked groan again.

Finally, from the scrabbled, scrambled contents of his brain came some words. “Okay. Okay. This is okay. For a few minutes. Nothing wrong…”

“You’re darned right there’s nothing wrong. This is as right as anything I can ever remember.”

“Just because…this is a little unexpected…doesn’t mean we’ve done anything…unforgivable…”

“Yet,” she qualified, and ruthlessly took a nip from his neck.

“Yet? Yet?”

“I’m about to do something unforgivable,” she promised him. “With you. Only with you.”

“Now, Carolina-”

“I don’t care if you respect me in the morning.”

“Now, Carolina-”

“What? You think the whole world’s going to crash if you take off the good-guy hat for a whole ten minutes? Or is it that you need an engraved invitation?”

He didn’t need an invitation. He needed something, someone, somehow to knock some sense into his head, but once she said “ten minutes,” he lost it. What little brain he had left. Ten minutes? That’s all she thought it’d take to be made love to? Made love with?

Hell, she might as well have tossed a red scarf at a bull.

The slightest shift and tug, and he was enabled to remove that delectable, fragile slip of satin off her skin, and then he had her naked.

His senses both blurred and sharpened. He expected the peaches and ivory…not the sizzling heat and impatience. He expected the same-as-innocent…but not the brazen I-own-you-Maguire bravado.

That was the whole problem. She touched, she stroked, she kissed, as if she owned. As if this moment was her inarguable right, to claim, to master. To feel. Everything. With him.

You just didn’t walk into forest fires. Everybody knew that, coming straight out of the womb…except for her. She needed tenderness, yet demanded rough speed and roller-coaster tension. She bruised too damn easily, yet she bit and kneaded and pulled, with her mouth, with her hands, in a fight for…he didn’t know what the hell she was fighting for.

He just knew that he wanted to fight with her. For her. His skin turned slick, his blood thick. The shine in her eyes was so fierce, so greedy. Any hesitation or caution on his part, she met with whispered dares. Real dares. Crazy, crazy dares. Like…to walk on moonlight with her. To dance on honey. To sing with their fingers. See? How impossibly crazy and silly she was? How life-young?

It was all total foolishness. Except…

Except…

That he couldn’t remember, ever, having the chance to be foolish.

Couldn’t remember, ever, letting his guard down, because he knew, he knew, how sharply a man could get hurt. How jagged a wound could be. How deeply a man could be scarred. If he didn’t protect himself.

He just didn’t know how to protect himself with her.

Carolina fell asleep, but only for a short time. She didn’t want to sleep. She’d had enough rest for aeons. In some ways, she was discovering she’d been asleep her whole life.

And looking at Maguire was a heady way to enjoy staying awake. At first moonlight flooded in the balcony doors, making his skin look silver, the wild thrash of his hair making shadows on the far wall. His face, in repose, was the strong marble of statues, the whole Greek god thing.

After moonlight came that long, dark stretch, where she could barely see him, even the shadow of him…but she could hear his deep, quiet breathing. Feel the weight of his arm, his hand, when he tucked her close to him, almost inside of him…and how, even in sleep, he stroked. Soothed. Enticed.

Maguire was ultraskilled at locking up his emotions-when he was awake. He’d revealed so much, making love with her. She hadn’t guessed before… that Maguire was as vulnerable as she was. That he was risking as much as he was.

He’d been counseling her to go after what she wanted and needed-but had he ever done just that with his own life?

At least she’d risked opening her heart to people. Maybe too much. But Maguire was so, so alone.

Except for last night. She had no doubt at all about the love inside the man. The heart inside the man.

And now, after darkness came that predawn color, not gray, more like a slow seeping yellow, pearling the air, turning charcoal shadows back into inanimate things with color and life and depth. Dawn showed the stubble on Maguire’s chin, the pleat of a sun-wrinkle around his eyes, the paintbrush-thick eyelashes. Even in the cool of the night, he hurled off the blankets and sheets. Somehow even in sleep, he’d kept her covered, but for himself, he kicked off any warmth-except for her. Out of nowhere, she’d find his arm sneaking around her again. Then his sigh of relief, as if finding her still there enabled him to go back to sleep again.

He slept nude. So did she. But he sure looked better in dawn light than she did. Which was when he suddenly opened his eyes and found her staring at him.

Maguire-her Maguire-wasn’t a blusher. But a little alarm seemed to shoot up his neck as if she’d caught him doing something…wicked.

Which of course she had.

“We didn’t really do that,” he said, his voice still night-thick.

“Oh yeah, we sure did. Twice, I believe.”

A fingertip touched her cheek, his tenderness a direct contradiction to the sudden scowl ruffling his brow. “This wasn’t in the game plan, Carolina.”

“Well, feel free to wallow in guilt, if you want. I won’t stop you. But you might want to consider that…well, maybe I needed this. To heal. Maybe I needed to be made love to, specifically by you. You can just think of it as part of the job. Part of the project you signed up for.”

“You’re not a job or a project, Carolina.”

She shrugged. “I don’t want to hear a bunch of integrity-and-responsibility stuff. I want breakfast. A decadent breakfast. A seven-cheese omelet, overloaded with cholesterol, like real butter, and French toast, and fresh orange wedges…”

“Where are you going?”

She could see from his expression that he wanted a further serious morning-after discussion, so she slid out of bed. “The shower. My shower. While I do that, I’m hoping you’ll order our decadent breakfast.”

“We will be leaving the room for breakfast.”

She didn’t wince. Her brilliant smile didn’t falter either. But she got the message. He wasn’t going to be alone with her if he could help it, not after last night.

He’d liked it, Maguire. Her. The sex. Being loved by her, with her. She didn’t doubt that.

But he wanted her long term in his life like he wanted a sliver. He was here to fix her. That was all. To do the responsible thing and get her healed, before dropping her back in her real life and out of his hair again.

She got it, she got it.

But after last night, she was going to have a lot harder time pretending it was that simple for her again. Or ever could be.

Downstairs, one of the hotel restaurants served breakfast in the open patio overlooking the bay. The tables