His features were taut, his eyes as molten as his dark cable sweater.
“We both—” Her voice shook and she steadied the betraying tremble before continuing, “We both know I’m attracted to you, and it’s a safe bet to say you’re attracted to me as well. I also know I can want you while not liking you very much. However, I’m not so sure that jumping each other is the wisest move—”
“Whoa, hold on there.” He held up his hands while keeping them well off her. “I have no intention of seducing you.”
“Oh.” The guy sure knew how to take the wind out of a girl’s sails. “Then what the hell was that erotic massage all about?”
He lowered his hands, still not so much as brushing her, while outlining her shape, her br**sts, waist, hips, around and stopping an inch away from curving her bottom. “To put you at ease and reassure you of my self-control. You can enjoy what I’m about to do because you don’t have to keep up your guard.”
His confidence was unmistakable, the luxury cabin echoing with the regal sense of surety in his every word. Even in casual jeans and a sweater, this man was royal born, destined to lead, and right now she very much wanted to follow wherever he led.
A simple sway would bring her flush against him. Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe. “And what exactly are you about to do?”
He grinned ever so slightly at her words, his predatory look lifting the hairs on her arms.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
Six
The luscious feel of Lilah still tattooed in his memory, burned in his brain, seared in his soul, Carlos lowered his mouth to hers. No subtle skim of lips over lips. He simply took her.
He’d warned her, giving her a chance to pull away. Still she had not uttered a syllable of protest, no request to stop. Perhaps that pushed the boundary of his promise to her, but he needed her to know how much he wanted her. It would hurt like hell to pull away, but he would honor his word.
He angled his mouth over hers more firmly, exploring, plundering, and wondered how she felt so familiar after only a few kisses. He would have recognized her taste, her scent, her fingers gliding along his jaw. Her touch was so exact, she could have been a surgeon herself, thoroughly dissecting his restraint and leaving him bare to the powerful draw of pure, undiluted Lilah.
She peeled away layers of his reserve as fully as she inched up his sweater and T-shirt to explore his chest with her cool, soft hands.
As smoothly as he’d eased the zipper down her dress earlier.
Sliding inside her open dress, he palmed her bottom. With only her silky panties between his fingers and her flesh, he fit her against him, his arousal. He’d told her they would use this time to find level ground but the floor beneath his feet felt more unsteady than ever.
She gripped fists full of his sweater, anchoring herself to him. So fast, so perfectly, she seduced him right back with a simple stroke of her hands, her tongue, her body brushing against his.
Already rock hard from wanting her, still he throbbed harder. Nobody turned him inside out the way Lilah did, until he forgot about the ever-present pain in his back, the persistent ghosts of his past. In her arms, he could even let go of his driving need to erase loss and agony from the endless stream of children who needed him, children who he too often failed….
And for all those reasons, he needed to keep himself carefully guarded around this woman. The one woman who could make him lose sight of his only path to redemption for his own failure.
Drawing in a shuddering breath that did little to sweep away the sense of Lilah invading every niche inside him, Carlos pulled away. Full of regret, he withdrew his hands and slipped her zipper up inch by inch until he cupped the back of her neck. He took in her passion-dazed emerald eyes, her kissed moist mouth, all signs of his effect on her.
She flattened her hands to his chest, her fingers plucking at his T-shirt peeking from the V-neck of his sweater. “I thought you weren’t going to seduce me.”
“You were seduced by just a kiss?” He took small comfort in that much.
“Don’t be a jerk.” Her smile went wobbly. “You know what you did.”
“I also know what else I would like to do to you, but I promised not to take things further unless you asked.” He tipped his ear toward the whine of jet engines. “Besides, I believe we are beginning our descent.”
As if on cue, the intercom crackled a second ahead of the captain’s voice. “This is your captain. Please return to your seats and buckle in for landing in Eagle-Vail, Colorado. On behalf of myself and my copilot, I hope you’ve had a pleasant flight.”
They had arrived. And shortly, he would have Lilah all to himself in a house with eight empty bedrooms. He couldn’t decide if he was a genius or a moron.
If there was even a remote chance that Lilah proved to be the mother of his child, they needed the chance to get to know each other better outside of the workplace. So this trip made sense. And the heat blasting over him even now from that kiss reminded him how good it could be between them.
But—baby or no baby—he needed to find a way to clear Lilah from his system before the need for her leveled all his defenses.
Permanently.
A few days alone in Vail, Colorado, with Carlos suddenly felt like an eternity.
As their SUV climbed the icy driveway winding up a hill, Lilah studied the house ahead of them and crossed her fingers for a large staff. Not because she wanted or expected to be waited on, rather she hoped for some human buffers between herself and the increasing need to jump the man beside her. She searched the looming structure for signs of life as Carlos spoke softly beside her, detailing enticing factoids about the area.
Of course he could make a hut in the woods sound amazing with that luscious accent.
The house, she reminded herself. Check out the house.
Three stories tall at the center, the cedar home sported varying heights and levels on either side in a sort of art deco Swiss Alps style that instantly charmed her. Built with logs that could only have come from the fattest, most ancient trees, the size of the structure seemed about right for the mammoth mountain it was perched on. Generous windows shone a welcoming yellow glow into the night, a positive sign there might be people inside.
Carlos guided the four-wheel drive past towering pines, branches still wearing heavy snowcaps. She hugged her coat tighter around her, which only served to remind her how much warmer his arms had been earlier in the airplane. Since the pilot had announced their approach, Carlos had shifted from seductive lover to considerate tour guide.