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“I’d like to personally thank you for the kind and very generous donation you made to the Foundation tonight,” she said with a sincere smile. “It seems like each time we meet, you’re giving something away.” Eva was trying at humor to douse the crackling atmosphere – but at least it was true; this was the second time they’d be meeting at a charity event. From what she heard, he wasn’t much into the “in” parties so perhaps it was only events like these he really bothered to grace his presence with.
She had to look away from his burning gaze, wondering how such blue eyes could bring off so much heat. “There’s one thing I’m not giving anything away tonight,” he said, his tone rumbling.
Eva knew she was asking for trouble, but she asked anyway. “And what’s that?”
“Opportunity,” he told her plainly, his tone soft. “I’m going to do what I should have done the first time I saw you. Make my move. Make you mine.”
Chapter Two
Eva gulped in air with difficulty. Oh boy. There was no mistaking the look in his eye, the timber in his sexy, slightly accented voice. Her heart pounded in time with the pulsing between her legs and she almost, almost actually considered what he was saying.
Max Nolan. And her. He wanted to make her his. Seriously.
“Seriously?” she said out loud before she could stop herself, and saw him smirk.
“As seriously as wanting to fling you over my shoulder, whisk you away somewhere dark and private, and then fuck you for hours. Seriously,” he said, very deeply. His eyes bored into hers as he spoke.
Eva’s teeth sank into her lower lip as the fairytale moment of being desired by Max Nolan washed over her. She closed her eyes briefly, savoring the thought, the images it created. But even as the concept sank into her senses like hot coals on a bed of ice, she came away feeling bereft.
“Bad idea, Mr. Nolan,” she said on a regretful sigh. “You and me, I mean.”
“How is it bad?” he asked quietly. “And do you think you could ever bring yourself to call me Max?”
“Okay, sure. Max.” She could agree to that. But anything else…Her expression told him she wasn’t budging.
“What did he do to you?” Max Nolan asked softly, eyes narrowing.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she mumbled, inwardly panicking.
“Oh yes, you do. Men like Leon– they suck out the life from a woman, make her feel like she needs to overcompensate for their own shortcomings. I knew he was all wrong for you.”
“And you’re all right?” she couldn’t help teasing with a twisted smile.
“Try me,” he said softly.
“I can’t,” she said with firmness. What could she tell him? That her last relationship ended in a fiasco? The sex hadn’t been great – at all – and she’d come away feeling she was frigid – or worse, couldn’t attract a man in bed. Oh, she knew she was beautiful, even sexy. But behind closed doors…a man like Max Nolan – it would be devastating if he finally discovered how she was lacking.
So…The last thing she wanted, was to jump in on the rebound especially with the first hunky stud who asked her. She wasn’t sure she could take the turmoil if she tried and failed again. She didn’t even want to consider it.
*
“One night,” he said, surprising her, making her head snap up to his.
“What?” she asked, green eyes wide. She felt his hand slide around her wrist, tight and warm. The heat of his touch sped up her arm and spread to the nerve endings of her body. What was it about this guy? He simply oozed sexuality. All the more reason why she should run the other way, she decided. She was the least sexual person she knew; no match for Max.
“How do I put this more plainly, Eva?” he mused, his thumb stroking into her skin tantalizingly, distractingly. She swallowed, waiting for his next words.
“I want you in my bed. I’ve wanted that since the first time I turned around and you were there, standing next to that chinless twit Leon Steinberg. There isn’t a night I haven’t thought about you, wondered whether I’d ever get the right moment.”
“The “right moment”?” she repeated on a shaky, breathless laugh. “So, a chance second meeting at a charity event is your right moment?”
“Who said it was chance? How do you know I haven’t done a bit of checking up on you, finding out more about you, enough to know when and how we could bump into each other? What would you say if I told you I came here fully aware that I’d see you again?”
“I’d say stop pulling my leg,” she said, hardly breathing especially when his eyes darkened.
“Funny what those words bring to my mind,” he said wolfishly, before lifting her hand to his lips, inhaling the base of her wrist, and then kissing it. She shuddered unstoppably.
“Almost everyone in the room’s watching us,” he told her in light tone. “And I can bet anyone can tell in a minute that here’s one man very taken with this lovely blonde bombshell. They’re wondering if you’ll let me have my way – or whether you’ll play safe and run to mommy and hide.”
