She desperately needed to start writing again. To start feeling as if she existed in the real world, instead of some breathless sexual fantasy of David’s. His hands touched her. His body grazed hers deliciously. His eyes followed her. He wanted her. He enjoyed her. But as she wondered if he would ever really love her, she felt a sense of total hopelessness wash over her weary soul.
She wanted the kind of love others seemed to have found.
“Let’s go see what we can find to do upstairs, hmmm?” His voice was a purr of desire and she shivered slightly as she felt his warm breath against her temple.
“You have a wonderful sense of timing, David. But can we just walk for a while?”
“Walk? Walk where? This is New York City, after midnight. No one walks in New York City after midnight, unless they have a death wish.” He gazed at her quizzically.
“Oh well. If New York even scares Chance Braza, I guess we’ll just go upstairs and fool around some more.” She sounded tired.
He frowned down at her. That wasn’t exactly the response he had expected. Although her lips had said the words, he sensed instantly that she didn’t mean them.
She wasn’t interested in going back upstairs to bed and enjoying sex again tonight? He swallowed hard. A sudden sense of foreboding filled him. He’d pushed too damn hard. Had demanded too damn much. But she had enjoyed it too-hadn’t she? Or had he just imagined her responses? He stared down at her bent head and felt as if the floor had just dropped out from under his feet. He pressed the button for the elevator and ground his teeth to keep from cursing aloud.
Here he was, with a hard-on from hell, breathing like a steam locomotive and ready to tear his clothes off and throw her onto the bed. He drew a couple of deep, calming breaths and did his damnedest to get his mind and body back out of the zone. That was way easier said than done but when they finally stepped out of the elevator, he was able to walk the short distance to their suite door and slide his card key through the slot and open the door quietly, allowing her to step into the airy suite before following her.
She moved into the center of the sitting room and sank onto the antique divan, her head in her hands.
“You okay, Sam? What’s wrong?” He stepped up beside her and dropped to his haunches, his face level with hers. He almost didn’t dare to touch her but he gently slid his hand over her slim back and let it rest there without forcing the more sensual caresses his body craved. Needed. Desperately.
Sam swallowed hard. Her mind was a jumble of disjointed thoughts. She hadn’t been able to write a cohesive sentence in months and here she had the opportunity of a lifetime. She had been so damn immersed in the sensual pleasure of David’s desire for her, she had forgotten that living the dream left little room for trying to imagine anything more.
She felt his fingertips on the soft silk of her dress, toying with the zipper at her back, and she closed her eyes. The closeness of his body was enough to make her forget her own needs. The sound of his voice was enough to melt her resolve. And the gentle caress of those strong fingers was enough to send her to the stars. She wanted to turn into his arms and forget everything. But that was all she’d done for months now.
Tonight had made her realize that she was on a wonderful, crazily tilting carousel. One that would stop shortly and leave her in the dust while her emotions were left scattered and tangled in pain and rejection.
She so desperately wanted more than just this marvelous sexual gratification. She wanted so very much more. She wanted him to see her as a woman he could love, could be with forever. But all he saw was the way she responded so pathetically quickly to everything he said and did. He would never see her as anything but a willing, eager bed partner.
He didn’t see the loving, gentle person inside the wild, sex-crazed nymphomaniac in his bed. He saw nothing of the resourceful, independent woman who had forged a great career out of nothing and who had her own life outside his bedroom. He saw a woman who was pathetically willing. And pathetically eager. Pathetically in love.
She had been so damn cowardly to have agreed to this farce. Too cowardly to simply tell him she loved him, afraid that he would feel disgust that she had begun to cling. She should have paid the lawsuit if it took all that she owned. At least she would not now be facing the total collapse of her little bubble of happiness. But she had taken the cowardly way. Now she was stuck in a fruitless situation with no way out except to beg him to let her go.
He had told her that women gravitated to him like bees to a honeypot. He was right about that. They swarmed to him. He would have no trouble whatsoever forgetting about her. But she dreaded the moment when she would walk out that door and never see him again, except on TV or in the movies. For she had fallen desperately in love with her temporary “husband” and the thought of meaning nothing more to him than mindless sex left her hurting and frightened.
She calmed her thoughts with difficulty and raised a face streaming with tears and whispered huskily, “Just hold me, David.”
His gut tightened painfully at the sight of her tear-streaked face and the lost look in those emerald eyes. There was no glittering light of desire in her eyes. There was no vibrant sound of wanting in that sad, trembling voice. Only a complete lack of energy. He had noticed the way she had begun to sag at the party under the constant barrage of business and promises. He should have gotten her out of that fucking party sooner.
“Let me help you out of that dress and get you something to drink. You look frazzled.” His voice was uncertain and quiet.
“Will you just hold me, David? I just want to feel your arms around me. I feel safe in your arms.”
He rose and extended his hand. She took it slowly as she stood up and he gently wrapped his muscular arms around her, burying his face in the softly piled mass of copper atop her head. “Is this better?” he breathed quietly.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Talk to me, Sam. Is it something I did?” He felt suddenly frightened. Helpless.
“No.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“Is it something I didn’t do?”
“I don’t know.”
He drew a deep breath. “I’ve been too damn possessive. I haven’t given you your space.”
“Shut up and just hold me.”
He obeyed, enfolding her gently in his embrace and closing his eyes as he felt her small hands move so gently and tantalizingly over his back. He swallowed as he felt her lips moving against his throat as she whispered, “Make love to me, David. Like you did that very first time. Make me forget who I am and who you are and take me back to the stars.”
He swung her into his arms and walked into the bedroom and set her gently back on her feet. He kissed her mouth slowly, gently deepening the kiss until she was panting with desire. He shrugged out of his jacket and bent slowly to slide her silken panties from her, before unzipping and gently lifting her and wrapping her thighs about his hips, fitting himself to her entrance with a need that frightened even him.
He lifted her so that he could slip her sweetly delightful body over his hard, aching cock, closing his eyes with ecstasy as he buried himself deep inside her tight, hot sheath.
He struggled to maintain his calm. She was so fucking ready. He felt her body enclosing him, felt her tighten about him as she climaxed with a gasping moan of delight. Yet he held back. He paid exquisite attention to detail as he carefully replayed their first time together, his eyes locking with hers in fevered need as she seemed to be asking him for something. Something he could not fathom. He urged her from climax to climax, knowing her body well and understanding the way she responded.
He lowered his mouth to her breast through the clinging silk and he drew the erect nipple into his mouth, swirling his hot tongue around the taut peak. He felt her body arch and clamp tight about him as she clung to his head and panted with her release. And when he finally allowed himself to empty into her trembling body, he could not stand without leaning against the wall, dragging in deep gasps of air.
He held her to his body for several minutes as they calmed themselves. He said nothing but used his free hand to unzip the silk dress and drag it off over her head. She wore no bra. He swallowed hard as she unbuttoned his dress shirt and shoved it back from his body with slow, loving hands. He held her eyes as she ran her palms over his chest, caressed his nipples and then reached for his belt and released his slacks to drop about his ankles.
He watched the glazed expression of delight in those green eyes and wanted to make her forget about ever leaving him. Make her want him badly enough to stay with him. He bent his head slowly to caress her mouth again, stroking her eager tongue as she closed her eyes and opened to him. He willed her to open her eyes.
