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This was so not her. She liked sex, but she had never behaved like this. It had never felt like this. She might actually climax fooling around fully clothed, grinding herself against him if he kept up that perfectly delicious rhythm. The hard length of him was right where it needed to be, rubbing against her most sensitized flesh. She was so turned on and really tempted to let it happen. It was like they were dancing. The song’s beat was picking up, growing more intense. Tension was gathering in her abdomen and lower, in the flesh he was stimulating so erotically.
Dropping her head back against the wall, she bit her bottom lip, one hand bracing on his shoulder. They had to stop. They were practically in public and she was so close!
He whispered something in French that sounded like encouragement and reached one hand to lock the door. “It’s okay. Come.”
“I’m not—”
“Oui, chérie, you are. Very close. I can feel you trembling. It’s exciting. Come.”
She wanted to tell him he didn’t know how she felt, but he kissed her like he had the first time, barely grazing her mouth so she turned her head, seeking further contact and clinging to his lips with her own.
“Let me give you this,” he whispered as he broke away and shifted to bring his hand between them, gently tracing her tender flesh through the damp layer of black silk.
She stopped breathing. Anticipation held her very still as he drew light patterns over the silk of her thong. Her entire being narrowed to the touch of his fingertip, which was so light, yet made her throb with need. She waited in agony for his caress to steal beneath the elastic and…
“Mmm,” she moaned when he finally did it.
“You like?” He stroked her exactly the way she needed, unhurried, kissing and drawing away, stoking her arousal, kissing her more deeply, gently penetrating, then whispering praise, promising to make it so good for her. “Come. I want you to.”
She was going out of her mind, but his control was equally crazy making. She wanted to let go but she couldn’t stand that he was doing this to her.
“Do you have a condom?” she gasped when he let her breathe again.
He stilled, eyes a silvery glimmer in the low light, gaze burning into hers.
“You want to make love?” he asked on a rasp.
Oh, please. His hand was in her knickers. He knew what she wanted. She was dying. But she wanted climaxing to be something they did together.
She slid her hands down to his fly, hands shaking so much with anticipation she was clumsy as she tried to open his pants.
He removed his hand and hooked her thong to peel it down, letting her leg drop so the silk slid to her ankles. Then he shrugged out of his suspenders and finished opening his pants, bringing a condom from his pocket before he hitched his pants low on his hips and revealed himself.
It ought to have been the moment she woke up and realized this was way beyond where it was supposed to go. Across the suite, the doors were open to a crowd of famous faces, hidden just below the rail.
Her world became a narrow, shadowed one where her blood was on fire. Every breath she drew was filled with his spicy, masculine scent. She admired the shape of him in the low light as she watched him roll the condom down his length. She was so filled with anticipation her loins clenched in pangs of yearning.
He nudged his feet between hers, stepping the thong off her ankle as he settled against her again, the heat of his body a type of deliverance. She gathered her skirt and lifted her leg, hooking her calf against his buttocks, offering herself. He bent his knees and glided to caress, teasing her a moment, wetting the tip before he nudged for entry. He pressed, finding no resistance, and thrust smoothly into her slick channel, so she dug her nails into the back of his neck and made a keening noise at the intensity of his thickness filling her.
“Hurt?” he grunted with surprise, pulling back a little.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “So good.” She tightened her foot into the back of his thigh, urging him deeper.
He growled a noise of agreement and pressed all the way in, giving her a moment to greet his intrusion with little rippling hugs of her inner muscles, joyous at the invasion of that hot, hard length. So rock hard. They kissed like that, joined, barely moving as they stood against the wall, tongues laving against each other, bodies quaking with holding back, hot, so hot.
She had never been so overcome by desire that she stood against a damned wall with a stranger. She had never felt so desperate for more. She nudged to signal him that he was making her wait too long. Her arousal was a screaming pitch of need.
He breathed a soft laugh against her mouth and began to move with heavy purpose, not rough, but thorough, drawing out each movement so the pleasure went to its furthest degree each time, dragging tingles to the tips of her extremities. It was so sweet it made her teeth ache. She kept thinking it couldn’t possibly get better, then he thrust heavily, landing deep, and it was fantastic.
She ceased thinking about where she was or who he was. Their lovemaking became her entire focus. Nothing mattered except that he was moving within her in that exquisitely perfect way. It was earthy and uncivilized, yet so finely tuned it was art. She wanted him with her in this place where he’d propelled her, where nothing existed except this pleasure.
She ran her tongue up his neck and sucked his earlobe and angled to take him as deeply as she could. She kissed him back with abandon and brought his hand up under her dress to her breast, then slid her own under his shirt to caress his tense stomach. She whispered, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
He said something in French, his whole body shaking, as though he was in the same state of straining to hold back because this was too good to release.
“You’re killing me, chérie. I can’t hold on. Are you ready?”
“I don’t want it to end,” she gasped, turning her open mouth against his neck and gently biting as the crisis threatened.
“Neither do I, but—ah!”
“Yes. Oh, Henri.”
“Oui. Ensemble. Maintenant.” He thrust harder. Faster.
Glory rose up in a gathering wave, locking them together in ecstatic culmination.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d8041395-eb45-5828-9faf-a1be1b5e2ccc)
IT WAS WEEKS after the nightclub before Henri found himself in London again. He hadn’t stopped thinking about Cinnia Whitley and he didn’t know why. Their evening together had followed exactly the pattern he’d assumed it would and it wasn’t a new one.
Well, he usually closed an encounter with more grace, but she was the one who had disappeared when he’d stepped away to take what he thought might be an emergency call from his sister.
Regardless, it wasn’t as if Ramon was giving a second thought to her friend Vera, so he didn’t know why he couldn’t stop thinking about Cinnia. Maybe it was because she hadn’t behaved as predictably as her friend.
Vera had posted the selfie she’d taken with the four of them when they’d first entered the hospitality suite. She was using her rub with a Sauveterre to gain some celebrity status of her own. Absolutely nothing new and he didn’t even bother feeling disgusted by it.
Cinnia hadn’t shared the selfie to her own account, though. The one online quote he’d found attributed to her about him was “I met him briefly. There’s nothing else to say.”
Not one to kiss and tell, obviously.
Neither was he, so he appreciated her discretion.
Of course, what could one say about their lovemaking without sounding like a blatant liar or an overly romantic poet? He liked an involved partner and always did what he could to ensure the woman got as much from their lovemaking as he did. But to say he and Cinnia had had sex, or had given each other an orgasm, was to completely understate the act.
He kept rationalizing what had made it seem so powerful. She’d been resisting their attraction in a slow burn that had made her capitulation all the sweeter. The partially public location had held a titillating appeal. Their chemistry was very compatible.
As he’d leaned against the soft cushion of her body, barely able to keep his knees from buckling, he’d been… He wanted to call it empty, but even though he’d felt drained, he’d also felt utterly satisfied.
At peace.
All the responsibilities that weighed on him were still there. He hadn’t stopped caring about them, but in that moment of euphoria, he’d accepted it all. If that was what had made him into the man who could be there with that woman, forehead tilted against the wall, cheek pressed to hers, inhaling her scent and twitching with reaction long after the pulses of orgasm had faded, feeling the very light stroke of her fingertips at his spine…
So be it.
Then he had heard Trella’s ringtone and his demanding life had rushed back in to consume him. He had stepped away from Cinnia and straightened himself, snatching up the phone and answering it without visuals, stepping outside in case Trella was in crisis and he needed to talk her down.
Looking back, he knew he had reacted almost like a shock victim, rushing to get on with his life after a collision that had nearly taken his life. His head had been spinning, his body firing with adrenaline.
Since then, he had been telling himself he was wrong. Their lovemaking hadn’t been anywhere near so profound as he recollected. Even if it had been the best sex of his life with a woman who possessed an ounce of discretion, so what? He wasn’t in the market for a relationship and given the life he led, never would be.
At best, he might have stretched their association into the rest of the weekend, if she hadn’t disappeared like the fire bell had rung. When he had realized she hadn’t just ducked into the ladies’ room, he had told himself it was for the best and asked for his order of strawberries.
The berries had been both sweet and tart, imprinting on his memory a little deeper with each bite. He suspected he would think of her every time he glimpsed a strawberry for a very long time and would wonder if she was managing to stay away from them.
Why? Such a ridiculous question to clog up his brain.
And yet, weeks later, as he entered a party he had no desire to attend and spotted her, his first thought was so far so good. She was alive and well, not having succumbed to fruit poisoning.
Her blond hair was gathered in a knot and held in place with a couple of sticks, but a few delicate spirals fell around her face. Her shoulders were bared by her white summer dress, her heels an attractive spike that showed off her legs. She wore only a pair of silver hoop earrings for jewelry.
She was as casually beautiful as he remembered, her expression serene as she listened to a man who wasn’t her date, but looked like he wanted to be.
As was his habit, Henri had insisted his security be given the finalized guest list before he accepted the invitation. If people wanted him to show up to their affairs, they complied. That’s how he had known Cinnia would be here and he’d made himself take a full ten minutes of sober second thought before he’d accepted the invite himself—without a plus one, as she had also done.
His heart started to thud with male need as he looked at her. He knew what lurked beneath that air of containment and he’d be damned if that gangly pontificator would discover it, as well.
Cinnia had convinced herself this engagement party for her friend from uni was yet another good “networking opportunity,” even though she knew why she’d been invited. Once Vera’s photo of the two of them with the twins had made the rounds, Cinnia had been inundated by old acquaintances eager to reach out. She was part of the “it” crowd now and her mother couldn’t be happier.
If only she was in a position to decline, but she was too practical to be proud. Her friend was marrying into a very wealthy family from New York and their circle of friends included the types of fortunes that were just complex enough to need a qualified manager.
Unfortunately, you couldn’t reply to casual questions about your career with “I’m drumming up biz for the agency I’m opening.” Evenings like this were about making introductions and impressions, keeping the talk light yet memorable, then somehow finding an excuse at a point down the road to contact the same people and ask, “Do you have a plan for your eventual death?”
Since she didn’t have a man in her life who was eager to put on a tie and show up to a stranger’s engagement party, she had come alone and was now a target for the stags in rut. Gerald, here, was a perfect example, shadowing her through her last two attempts to ditch him. She swore if he asked for her number, she would give him her business card and tell him to call when he was ready to discuss his final wishes.
“Don’t look now, but guess who just walked in,” the woman across from her said with a sparkle in her eye. “I think you know him, Cinnia.”
Of course Cinnia looked.
And promptly felt stretched thin as a strand of glass, so brittle she would break if a wrong word was breathed in her direction. Her throat closed and her chest stung from the inside. It took everything in her to keep a look of nonchalance on her face while her heart bolted for the nearest exit.
He was looking right at her, gorgeous in tailored grey pants and a black shirt sans tie, hat or suspenders. His forest green linen jacket should have looked affected, but, of course, it was a simple statement that he was gorgeous and stylish in modern garb as well as vintage.
“Not really,” she said, turning back to her group, begging her cheeks not to go hot with betrayal. “I only met them briefly,” she lied. For the millionth time.
It was an open secret that Vera had slept with Ramon. She hadn’t just notched her bedpost, but had engraved the words A Sauveterre Slept Here on her headboard. Everyone assumed Cinnia had put out as well and it had taken her weeks to convince the world at large she hadn’t.
Because, when a man could walk into a room and create a stir without doing a damned thing, what red-blooded woman wouldn’t sleep with him the first chance she got?
Guilty as charged, obviously, but Cinnia was far too mortified to admit it. Why, why, why had he affected her so strongly she’d gone against her basic principles? She could already feel him creating the same wicked stir in her—which was unconscionable now she understood he hadn’t just been availing himself but cheating.
“Friends with the groom, I guess?” Gerald murmured. “Looks like it. Not your date then, Cinnia?”
“No,” she asserted, refusing to look at Henri again. Refusing. Burning inside with rejection. “I’m not even sure which one that is,” she said, utterly bald-faced.
But she knew that was Henri. It didn’t make sense to her that her body recognized him at a basic level while regarding his brother like any other man, but there it was. She was attuned and susceptible to this twin.
Please, God, don’t let him know how susceptible. Would it be too obvious if she excused herself to the ladies’ room and caught a cab away from here?
“What did you get for the happy couple?” she asked, trying to steer the conversation off Henri. “I saw they’d registered for one of those bullets to make smoothies, but someone beat me to it. I got them the yogurt maker instead.”
“He’s coming,” the woman said, barely moving her lips, then pasting on a big smile. “Mr. Sauveterre. It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Bonjour.” He nodded and set his wide hand on Cinnia’s lower back as he leaned in to shake the offered hand. She stiffened, burned by the imprint of his touch through the satin of her dress. “Cinnia. Nice to see you again. Will you introduce me to your friends?”
She could hardly breathe with his palm sending waves of sensual excitement through her.
“Of course, um—” she squinted at him, making a show of guessing “—Henri?”
His gaze flashed and his thumb and finger dug into her waist in a suggestion of a pinch, promising retribution. “Oui.”
He was a master at the small talk game, asking people how they knew the betrothed couple, discovering occupations and commenting on places of travel without offering a single detail about himself.
She stood dumbly paralyzed by his hand resting against her spine, telling herself to walk away, but unable to. Her entire body was reacting with the tingling memory of his muscled body moving against hers. Within her. It was all she could do not to betray that she was growing aroused by standing next to him. If she walked away, she’d only draw attention to how gripped she was by her reaction.
“Oh, Cinnia, there’s someone you should meet. Let me introduce you.”
Henri smoothly snagged her hand and drew her away while Gerald stammered, “Nice chatting with you, Cinnia…” in their wake.
Enough. She had to get away. She tugged at her hand. “I’m leaving,” she told him.
“Excellent. Me, too.”
Oh, nice one. She had walked blindly into that.
“But I do have to say hello to this couple.” Apparently he knew them from New York. He drew her across the room.
She followed to avoid making a scene and they chatted for a few minutes. Cinnia quietly fumed, hating him and herself for still reacting. She was just about to make her escape by excusing herself to the powder room and crawling out a window when Henri tightened his grip on the hand she was subtly working free of his.
“I’m afraid we have to run. We should say good night to our hosts,” he added to Cinnia, exactly as if they were a couple who had arrived together.
“They” were not a couple. He had demonstrated that clearly enough at the nightclub. Growing hot with fresh outrage, she waited until they’d left the prospective bride and groom and their roomful of friends with a meaty chunk of gossip to chew over before saying, “Why are you doing this? You’re ruining my reputation.”
“Untrue. Nothing a Sauveterre touches turns to anything but gold. You can thank me later.”
“How?” she demanded with undisguised bitterness.
“Don’t be crass.” He steadied her with a hand under her elbow as he walked her down the stairs and out through the lobby of the hotel. A car glided to the curb before them. His guard reached around them to open the back door. “Where can I take you?”
“I think you know where I want you to go. I prefer you go alone.”
“So hostile. You can’t possibly be upset about how we left things since it was your choice to leave. Let’s have this conversation away from our audience.”
Flashes started going off and she realized paparazzi were swarming like mosquitos scenting fresh blood.
She slid into the car and he followed, reaching forward to close the privacy screen before the door had been slammed behind him.
His guard moved into the passenger seat and the car pulled away.
