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“Really? It’s an amazing city that prides itself on being weird.” She adored the eccentricity mixed with a good dose of cosmopolitan culture and had grown to love her new home in a very short amount of time.
“So I’ve been told.”
“I just moved here a couple of months ago, but I wouldn’t mind showing you some of the sights, if you like.” Randi waited with cautious hope for Baz’s answer to what was for her a very bold and unprecedented offer.
“I would like that.” Dark eyes glinting with something like satisfaction, he smiled down at her. “Getting a feeling for the area is part of how I make decisions about whether or not to buy.”
“So you are here looking for a property.” She knew it.
But she did her best to ignore the tendril of hope unfurling inside her. If he bought a property, he’d come back. Wouldn’t he?
“Perhaps” was all he said.
She laughed, finding something about his caginess endearing. “I’m not going to blab. Even if I did, who could I tell that would impact you?” she teased. “I’m a social worker, not a real estate mogul.”
His responding laughter sent shivers of sensation through her. “As you say.”
“But you’re still not going to tell me, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re a very cautious man.”
“I would not be where I am if I were not.”
“Walking down the street with a woman you just met hours ago?” She made no effort to hide the laughter in her voice, because really? If she was acting impulsively, so was he.
He stopped and pulled her around to face him, their bodies inches apart, his attention intent and on her only. “You enjoy your own humor, don’t you?”
“Someone should.”
He wasn’t smiling exactly, but humor gleamed in his espresso-brown gaze. “You are not as shy as you appear at first.”
“I feel comfortable with you.” Which was really dangerous, but she also found him super-attractive. Could attraction undermine common sense completely? She’d never thought so, but she was adjusting her thinking on that issue fast.
“That is good to know.”
“I think so, too.” Her words trailed off as his head lowered toward hers. She stared up into his dark gaze; her lips parted of their own accord. “Are you going to kiss me?”
His answer was his mouth pressing to hers.
Sensation exploded inside Randi. Zings of electric current coursed through her body, radiating outward from where their lips touched and sending goose bumps in waves over her skin. Need like she had never known throbbed in her core, making her press her thighs together in instinctive effort to alleviate it. It didn’t work, of course.
She ached for way more than a simple kiss.
Though there was nothing simple about the way Baz’s lips owned hers, giving no quarter, demanding response or submission, with no option for backing off.
At least as far as her body’s response would allow.
Though his hands were on her upper arms, Baz did not actively hold her in place with anything but the press of his lips. Randi responded on a primal, visceral level that would not allow her to hold back, bringing forth sensations she’d read about, but never actually experienced.
Overwhelming passion. Gut-level desire that burned hotter than the California wildfires in the summer. Her nipples beaded with near-painful intensity; her most intimate flesh pulsed with a need for touch; her lips softened and molded to his with hungry ardency.
Randi reveled in every single unfamiliar sensation, responding to the kiss in a way that a public display on the busy sidewalk did not warrant, her own lack of control acting as an irresistible aphrodisiac.
She could no more help giving him kiss for kiss than she could stop breathing.
Breathing might even be less necessary.
Randi curled her fingers around the lapels of Baz’s suit jacket, pulling his body closer to hers. Only then did warm, masculine arms come around her, holding her tight now, his hands pressed tightly to her back and just at the top of her buttocks.
The kiss morphed into something more than possession. It became two people equally intent, equally impassioned, equally lost to their desires.
There could be no doubt, until Baz pulled his head back.
At least his breathing was ragged like hers, his expression pained. “We’ve got to stop. On a public sidewalk is not the place for this.”
Randi didn’t care. This was something new for her. Something craved. Something needed. Refusing to give up the amazing sensations his kiss caused, she rose on her tiptoes, seeking his mouth again, only realizing as his lips cut them off that the needy little sounds she heard were coming from her.
And she did not care. There could be no embarrassment in this level of yearning.
He groaned, the deep, masculine sound traveling through her body, leaving devastation in its wake. Baz invaded her mouth with his tongue. It was not finessed; the demand of his tongue sliding against hers had no lead in, no buildup to the increased intimacy, and again... Randi did not care.
She opened wider for him, melting under the demanding forays. Her tongue tangled with his, taking in his taste, unlike any other taste, pure sex, pure man. Randi kissed him back, letting him feel the unfamiliar and overwhelming passion exploding inside her.
He made a deep sound in his throat, all male want, but then he did the unthinkable. Again.
His hands landing on her shoulders to push her away at the same time as he broke the connection between their mouths for the second time was not only not welcome, it was also torture. Didn’t he understand? She needed his lips, his tongue, his arms tight around her.
She could not suppress the sound of keen disappointment, or control her involuntary move back toward him.
But Baz was made of sterner stuff than she was, apparently, because he held her firmly away. “No, Miranda. Not here. We have put on enough of an entertainment for others.”
She looked around and saw that they did indeed have an audience, several smiles and thumbs-ups directed her way. Only in Portland.
Blushing to the roots of her hair, Randi allowed herself to be set away from the source of her temptation. “I guess we should go into the piano bar, huh?”
Baz inclined his head. “If that is what you wish.”
“I...” What was he saying? Was he ready for the evening to be over?
“Or we could go into the hotel and get a room?” he suggested.
She’d never done that, not once. Randi had not only never had a one-off with a man she’d just met, she’d also never rented a hotel room with a man for the sole purpose of having sex. The illicit nature of the idea was way too alluring.
And that worried her. Where was her deeply ingrained sense of self-preservation?
She asked the only thing her mind could conjure without giving away just how much she wanted to do exactly as he suggested. “Don’t you have a room already?”
His shrug was dismissive. “An executive penthouse condo, but getting there would require waiting to have my car brought around by the valet. Besides, I can’t travel alone. If I’m in my penthouse, my staff can find me even if I turn off my phone.”
She couldn’t imagine that kind of pressure, the knowledge that privacy and alone time were little more than an illusion. Even so.
“You’re saying you want me so much you want to get a room, right here at the Heathman, so we can...” She couldn’t make herself spell it out.
“Pick up where that kiss left off, yes.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, yes, I’d like that.” What was she saying? Was she agreeing to a hookup in a hotel room with a man she’d only met hours ago?
And if she was, why wasn’t she more freaked out about the idea?
Randi was barely a nonvirgin, having had sex exactly twice. Neither of which had turned out well for her. She and her almost fiancé had gotten intimate just before the accident and subsequent media storm. The reporter had gotten Randi into bed after a few weeks of dating and pretending to be someone else, only to walk away the next morning with his exclusive.
But Baz was not some jerk with a hidden agenda who would break her heart after using her body. It might only be one night; their mutual passion might be a temporary aberration, but at least she wasn’t worried about the aftermath.
Randi was tired of living in the bubble of loneliness that had surrounded her for the past five years.
Whatever happened tomorrow, tonight she got what she just knew was going to be amazing sex, with the most magnetic man she’d ever spoken to, much less kissed.
Baz looked down at her, his dark-chocolate gaze filled with desire. “Well?”
An atavistic chill ran down her spine. This man was a primal alpha and she wanted to meet him passion for passion. “Yes.”
“Yes to the hotel room?”
She nodded.
“I need the word, mi hermosa. There can be no doubt.”
“Yes.”
His smile was killer. “Muy bien. Vente mi, cariña.” He took her hand and set a fast pace for the main entrance to the hotel.
So, he lost his English when he was turned on. Randi liked knowing she could affect him so strongly. And she liked the endearments, too. Even if it was only a one-night stand, what woman didn’t want to be called beautiful and darling? Though beautiful might be stretching it, she wasn’t about to tell him so. Let the man look at her through the filter of lust-filled glasses.
She hadn’t been into the main lobby of the Heathman in years, its nearly hundred-year-old beauty as pristine as when it had first been built in the nineteen-twenties. Both luxurious and gorgeous, with its decorative, rich wood walls and pillars, two-story-high ceiling and elegant decor, the cavernous room intended for greeting guests was nothing short of awe-inspiring. Baz, international business mogul, led her to the desk and had no trouble procuring a room, despite his lack of reservations. The fact he was happy to take the Grand Suite for the night probably had something to do with that.
Randi couldn’t help gasping when she heard the clerk tell Baz how much one night would be. She could pay the rent on her small apartment for two months with what he was willing to pay to have the convenience of a hotel room right that minute.
With original art on the walls—art rarely seen outside a museum, no less—the suite’s full-size living room and dining area decorated in pure modern elegance was separated from the bedroom by a spacious foyer, making the suite bigger than her apartment and way more lavish.
“Stop looking at the furniture. I want your eyes on me,” Baz instructed as he pulled her into his arms.
“But this place is incredible,” she teased, having no problem following his demands.
Even the opulent suite couldn’t hold a candle to the man pulling her close into his body.
Baz’s expression turned thoughtful. “You like it? The clerk said it was booked for tomorrow, but I could probably persuade them to accommodate us.”
Of course the billionaire thought so, despite the fact it was probably some kind of celebrity coming in to stay.
“No. I... It’s just... This place is bigger than my apartment!”
His smile was indulgent. “And would you rather explore it, or me?”
That fast, the desire buzzing along her nerve endings went critical. “You.”
“Then let us go to the bedroom.”
And without warning, she was suddenly in his arms, being carried like a princess into a bedroom fit for royalty. He set her down and ripped the extra pillows from the bed, tossing them onto the floor, before flinging back the duvet.
Then he turned to her. “I think we are both overdressed for what is about to happen.”
Her mouth gone instantly dry, she nodded.
He slipped off his tailored suit jacket and hung it carelessly on an armchair, before toeing off his shoes so he could slip his trousers off and do the same with them. His legs were pillars of muscle; his olive skin sprinkled with dark, masculine hair. He kicked off his socks without looking away from her, no evidence of even the slightest discomfort in his near nudity.
Paralyzed with want and no small dose of insecurity she’d rather pretend she never felt, Randi just watched the Spanish business shark strip.
“You are not going to join me?” he asked, his tone teasing, no doubt there that she wanted what he so clearly did.
The power tie went next, and then the buttons on his shirt before Baz shrugged it off to lay it over his other clothes on the chair, putting acres of golden olive skin on display.
She sucked in air as his muscular, defined torso and chest came into view. “I think your abs have abs. What do you do, like a million sit-ups a day or something?”
“My exercise routine is what you want to talk about?” he demanded, humor lacing his voice, but oh, his eyes.
They burned with everything she felt.
Truthfully? She didn’t want to talk at all. Randi wanted to touch, crossing the few feet of carpet separating them to do just that.
While the tent in his snug, black, silk-knit boxers called to her, she reached up to brush her hands through the black hair on his chest. “So soft.”
“You expected something else?”
“I’ve never been with a man with chest hair before,” she admitted.
“I do not want to hear about other men.”
His words thrilled her, but she wasn’t so far gone she was going to let him see that. “So possessive for a one-night stand.”
“You believe I will have all I want of you in a single night?” he asked with disbelief. “Not a chance.”
The breath in her lungs whooshed out. “Good to know,” she choked out.
