Then he shifted, and the fire was directly behind him, putting his face in shadow. “I wouldn’t call any woman who chases after a man boring.” Though I couldn’t read his features, his tone seemed suddenly harder. Accusing even, and the electricity between us notched up a degree.
“I didn’t chase after you exactly. I didn’t even know you’d be at the resort when I booked the trip.” Lies. I’d chased him. And though I hadn’t been positive he’d be at his Palm Springs resort, I’d suspected based on his previous habits around the holidays. It took more than a week to figure out how to get him alone.
“Then when you learned I was here, you decided to…?”
“I decided to meet you.” It was another interrogation, like the one at the pool, but more intent. I pretended I didn’t notice and tried to return us to the easiness of the moment before. “This surely isn’t the first time you’ve been come on to, Reeve. How do you normally meet women?”
Even though his expression was indifferent, his eyes reached everywhere – the insides, the outsides. Touching me, tickling me in ways that made me flush and squirm and burn. “Normally, I don’t meet women unless I want to,” he said. “Normally, I initiate.”
God, he was alpha male through and through. If I didn’t know without a doubt that Amber would never have put up with a true dominant then I might have pegged him for the master/slave type. My guess was that, at the very least, he was bossy when it came to his women, just like it seemed he was bossy with everyone in his life.
“You initiated dinner,” I offered, hoping that would console his obvious irritation. Hoping it would relieve me from the violation of those eyes.
It didn’t. “You wanted me to ask you to dinner.”
“I wanted to see you again.” My voice wasn’t as sure as I would have preferred. I was losing ground. I felt it slipping away underneath me. Desperate to gain it back, I added boldly, “I wasn’t necessarily aiming for dinner. I was more interested in dessert.” I skated my gaze down his body, accentuating my point.
“To be blunt, Emily, I’m usually uninterested in women who are so forward.”
But forwardness had gotten me the date in the first place. And despite his words, his shoulders pushed back and his chin lifted, obviously pleased with my interest.
Besides, my body was really the only weapon in my arsenal that I knew how to use. “Usually,” I repeated, standing as I spoke. “That means not always.”
He cocked his head. Watching me.
Then I knew with absolute certainty that he wanted to kiss me. That if he did, he’d take every last bit of power I had.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had to act first.
With a burst of resolve, I closed the space between us and settled my palm at the front of his pants. My breath caught as my hand closed around the thick outline, surprised he was already hard. “It seems it also means not right now.”
His cock twitched as I tightened my grip, but otherwise Reeve remained still. It was a stark contrast to the way I felt inside – nervous, agitated, infested. Aroused. I stroked the length of him, my heart pounding as he grew harder beneath my touch. Falling to my knees was natural and my hands fumbled at his buckle with a desperate urgency that had little to do with finding Amber.
I’d barely undone the clasp when my upper arms were seized and I was pulled roughly to my feet. I struggled to get loose, but my hands were pinned securely behind me. I managed to twist enough to see the person holding me was the bodyguard who’d met me at the door.
I turned toward Reeve who still leaned calmly against the pit wall. The hint of a wicked smile on his face sent a bolt of trepidation through me. Had this been planned? Was this a trap after all? Or was Reeve a kinky guy who let his staff participate in his sexual acts?
After a moment, he spoke. “I probably should have warned you this could happen. My men usually insist on doing a body search on anyone who spends time alone with me. I told them to skip it with you, but that, of course, made some of them even more wary.”
A misunderstanding, then. My pulse settled slightly. “I wasn’t going to hurt him,” I said over my shoulder. “Just the opposite, actually.”
“That may be true,” Reeve said. “But as I’m not used to having women come on to me, neither are they. Like I said, I always do the initiating.”
Reeve exchanged some words with his bodyguard in a foreign language – Greek, if I had to guess. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t wanted to speak it to me, because it was the language he used to communicate with his security team. I waited for them to finish, for Reeve to explain and for the guard to let me go.
Instead, the grip around me tightened.
Reeve stood, the corners of his lips turned down in an insincere frown. “I know this is awkward, Emily, but Anatolios insists on having you patted down now. To make you more comfortable, he’s agreed to let me do the honors.”
At the moment, I would have preferred the bodyguard. Even just the thought of Reeve’s hands wandering over me made my belly twist and flutter, and right now I didn’t want to be turned on by him; I wanted to be pissed. I was pissed. Because I didn’t buy for a moment that this wasn’t all part of Reeve’s game. I didn’t buy that anyone could ever let Reeve do anything. He was a man who did what he wanted.
So, as he crossed the two steps between us, I tried to find comfort in the fact that he wanted to be touching me. Like I wanted to be touching him.
His guard – Anatolios – shifted his hold, pushing me forward as if he were a loyal servant presenting a gift to his master.