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He had a condom in his wallet. She’d recently had a ring on her finger. Safe enough for him.
“Good,” he said, and lowering the lid to protect the piano keys, he rose, took her hand and led them out the back door.
* * *
EMMA WASN’T STUPID. She knew what she was agreeing to by leaving the bar with Chris. She just couldn’t seem to make herself care.
Because she was numb? Hurt beyond good judgment?
Because she was drunk?
Or because the piano man made her body sing in places a tune had never played?
The warm night air didn’t sober her. Or instill her with any better sense. It caressed her skin, heightening the surreal sense of vibrancy she felt as they walked hand in hand across a quiet street lit with old-fashioned gas lamps.
They reached the other side.
“I don’t…”
“Don’t what?” They were the first words he’d said since he’d locked the door of Citadel’s behind them.
Who was she kidding? This was no love tryst. She didn’t know anything about the man, except that he’d been endowed with a magnificent talent.
“I reserve the right to change my mind.” Emma strove to save herself from the unleashed woman inside of her.
“Of course.”
They stopped on the curb in front of one of the more expensive hotels in the tourist district. The doorman stood alert, in spite of the very early morning hour, appearing eager to be of service to them.
Chris’s eyes were blue. A vivid, bright blue—not the darker hue they’d appeared to be in the shadows of the restaurant. His hair, falling across his forehead, was dark enough to be almost black.
“You want me to walk you to your car?” he asked. His eyes belied the indifference in his voice.
“No!” She was surprised by the vehemence with which she said it. “I just want… I’ve heard stories….”
Words escaped her and she waited for him to get her drift.
He was silent.
“It’s only fair that you know, going in, that I might change my mind. At an inopportune moment.”
He raised one of his strong, gifted hands to her face and ran his fingers through her hair.
“I will stop,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “If at any time, any time, you change your mind, I will stop.”
She believed him. And hoped, God help her, that she wouldn’t want him to.
* * *
EMMA ALMOST GIGGLED as the elevator opened for them upon approach, as though it had been commanded to do so. Surely Chris didn’t have that much power.
Though, judging by the way he made her feel, she couldn’t be sure.
“Not many people going up and down at this late hour,” he said, stepping inside the car.
“I think I’ve had a lot to drink,” she said, grinning at him.
“Four glasses of wine by my count.”
He was counting? She stared at him. He’d been watching her that closely?
“From the moment you walked in tonight, I didn’t notice anything else.”
It was a good line and she was inebriated enough to like it.
“I’m not kidding,” Chris said, his voice deep, a bit husky, reminding her of a well-aged wine. One out of her price league. “I don’t play games with women.”
“I don’t play at all,” Emma said, her voice sounding tiny in the confines of the elevator. “This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this.”
A mood-killer if ever there was one. Yes, she’d discovered new things about herself tonight. But she was still Emma and now she was going to blow this whole thing.
If she did, chances were old Emma would win and she’d have to resign herself to a life of safety and security and settling for Robs.
She nearly laughed out loud at that last thought. Robs. Funny word.
But if she succeeded—if she made love with her piano man—she’d be forever changed. She’d no longer be the woman who’d never taken a chance, never faced danger, never had the nerve to do exactly what she felt like doing.
The elevator door slid open and Emma half expected Chris to gracefully bow out of his invitation.
Holding the door open with his body, he lifted her hand until her gaze followed.
“I’m glad you don’t make a habit of this,” he said, the smile in his eyes sending her spiraling as though he’d tipped her over the edge of a cliff. “You want to continue?”
“Yes.”
He guided her through the door, following closely, and when he came up beside her, he wrapped his arm around her waist.
They faced the elegantly appointed room together. And she tingled with anticipation. Not fear.
In that moment, Emma knew that if the night killed her, she’d die having lived.
And she’d prefer that to living her whole life as if she were already dead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to happen this way.
The words repeated themselves in his mind. He wasn’t sure what they meant. But he heard them.
He probably even believed them. There just wasn’t a damn thing he could—or wanted to—do about them.
“I have a dry white or merlot,” he said as he peered into the stocked refrigerator in the living-room section of his hotel room.
The king-size bed was there, too, in plain view, about ten feet of plush beige carpet away.
Emma sat—still fully dressed down to the low-heeled shoes she wore—on the couch, but based on the stiffness of her posture and the way her gaze kept darting to the oversize armchair next to the couch he had the distinct impression that she’d have been more comfortable in the seat made for one.
He quirked his brow at her. “You ready to say stop?”
“Dry white, please.” Her brown gaze swung to him, and stayed there. Steady and strong.
“I’m glad.” Really glad. Abnormally glad—Chris had never been hard up for women.
He opened the small bottle, emptied it into one of two wineglasses on the bar, opened a miniature bottle of Crown for himself and poured it into a highball.
Handing her the glass of wine, he took a sip of his whiskey and sat down beside her.
The night might be late, but he felt like they had all the time in the world. And if they didn’t, he was going to take it, anyway. This woman, this experience, was not to be rushed.
“You want to know anything more about me?” he asked.
“Yes, but not right now.”
Fair enough.
She didn’t offer him the same privilege. She pushed her hair back away from her face and he saw that white band on her finger again. She’d said she’d never done anything like this before.
“I’m okay if tonight is a rebound for you. But I need to know that you aren’t married. I don’t take what belongs to someone else.”
“I’m not married.”
He felt like grinning. And it wasn’t supposed to happen that way, either.
“Have you ever been married?”
“No.” She glanced away, as though ashamed.
Chris lifted her hand that held the wineglass and brought it to her lips. “Sip,” he said softly. “I haven’t ever been married, either.” Almost didn’t count.
His words brought her gaze back to him. “How old are you?” he asked.
She was of age; he knew that. But he was curious.
“Twenty-nine.”
Younger than he’d expected. Younger than Sara by eleven years.
“I’m forty.”
She had a right to know.
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“That you’re eleven years older than me?”
His age had never been an issue for him before. He simply hadn’t cared to measure life in terms of time. He sipped his drink.
“It doesn’t bother me in the least,” she said, a small smile forming on the lips that had been calling to him all night long. “As a matter of fact, I find forty kind of sexy. You aren’t a kid all filled up with his own sense of importance.”
“I could be an older guy all filled up with my own sense of importance.”
“You could be.” She took a sip of her wine, still smiling. “But I know that you aren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve asked for my permission every step of the way,” she said simply. “If you thought you were life’s greatest gift, you’d be sure you knew what I wanted—which, by the way would be only what you wanted—and you’d have charged forward with the strength of a bull to get it.”
“Apparently you know someone who’s filled with his own sense of importance.”
“I don’t think a girl can escape puberty without meeting one or two or a dozen of those.”
“I wish I could believe you were wrong about that.”
She shrugged. “It’s not all bad,” she said, her gaze dropping to his shoulders—his chest—and lingering there. “Gives you the chance to discern between the good and the bad.”
Which didn’t mean a woman always was able to discern, he guessed, glancing again at that ring finger.
The guy, whoever he’d been, was a first-class fool. To lose a woman like this?
Chris drew himself up with a gulp of whiskey. Whoa. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The words came again.
He was not one who entertained thoughts of having a relationship with a woman. His associations with women were just that—associations.
She reached for the top button on his shirt. “Do you mind if I undo this?” she asked, her other hand still holding the glass of wine he’d poured for her.
“No. Not at all.” Chris’s penis forced the words out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to react.
Her hand shook and her fingers caught and pulled a couple of strands of his chest hair as she struggled to open the button. The stiffness in his groin intensified. If she’d been experienced, assured, he might have had a hope.
He could have helped. Could have disrobed completely without a care. The sweet torment of Emma’s soft skin scraping against his chest as she continued to try, one-handed, to get the button free from the hole had control of him.
Her attentions turned him on too much to deny himself. If the exquisite torture felt this good at the top buttons, he could hardly wait for her to tackle the buttons that were currently tucked into the fly of his dress slacks.
The wine sloshed a bit in the glass and she took a sip. The button was almost free and then she fumbled it and lost the ground she’d gained. She didn’t giggle. Or sigh. Slowly, patiently, she tried again. Then finding success, she moved on to the next button.
He felt his underwear getting moist. He was going to have to stop her. Or help her. Or explode before he ever got a chance to show her any pleasure at all.
