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“You are a very dangerous man to me, Maxwell Black,” she said with a lot more serious mien than she had shown only a second before. “It’s good to know you don’t have it all easy with me.”
“I would call you anything but easy, milaya.”
Her blue gaze sparked with heat as she placed her hand in his and stood. “You know I love when you use Russian endearments.”
He did know it. Though once again, he was not sure he understood why. But it was easier to use Russian endearments than English for him.
His mother had never used the English terms and while he would admit it aloud only under the threat of his company’s dissolution, Russian was the language of what passed for his heart.
Unlike her silent and rather bemused response to his tour earlier, Romi commented on the décor on the way to his bedroom, seemingly surprised it felt like a home rather than a hotel room.
“Why would my home feel like a hotel?” he had to ask.
“Well, because decorators often go generic when they do places for men like you.”
“Men like me?” He pressed against the door to his study with his back, pushing it open wide enough for them to enter.
“Corporate Tsars,” she said with the tiniest bit of sarcasm lacing the second word.
Her allusion to his royal attitude was not lost on Maxwell, but he refused to pretend to be other than what he was. A man who knew what he wanted and had a decided talent for figuring out how to get it.
“If I wanted to live in a place that looked like a hotel, I would live in one.” If he wanted to live in a palace, he’d live in one of those, too.
“See, that’s the way I always thought. You should have heard me and Maddie when Jeremy had his mansion redecorated.”
“It is not the warmest of abodes.” There was nothing wrong with the mansion if you wanted to live in luxury without personality.
The designer who had redone the Archer house had obviously been very knowledgeable in his or her field—talented even—but it was a cold place with no evidence a family lived there.
Though Maxwell supposed with just Jeremy Archer in residence, a family didn’t. “It’s a showplace for a megarich tycoon who likes to impress and intimidate with his surroundings as much as his money.”
Maxwell’s own strategy for how his home came across to visitors was more subtle. His penthouse reflected him and his wealth in a way that let others know he was not afraid for them to know who he was.
Of course, that was because nothing of manipulative value could be discovered visiting the main areas of his home. His favorite colors? His preference for dark wood? Yes.
Even his Russian heritage and wholesale acceptance of the country of his second citizenship, America.
What no one saw, unless they were looking very closely and knew how to read such things—not a common occurrence—was his desire for control or his genuine affection for his mother.
There was only a single formal picture of her in the living area. His bedroom suite was different.
There, much of what made Maxwell the man he was could be seen on display.
Hence the dearth of invitations to that sanctum.
He did not invite women to the bed in which he slept for a reason. The only friend who had been in his personal office in memory was Viktor Beck, and the only people who had seen every room in his apartment were his mother and his cleaning staff.
Before today.
Today, Maxwell brought Romi into his private sanctuary without hesitation.
She seemed to realize the enormity of it when they stepped over the threshold into his office. She stopped and drew in a shocked breath. “You are in here.”
“I am indeed.”
“No, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re so droll. I mean, I can see you in this room. I thought your apartment was so much your home, but this? This is like a glimpse at your heart.”
“You are assuming on that heart thing again.”
She shook her head, not even cracking a smile. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“It was part of your deal.”
“No, sex was my deal. That could have happened in a guest room.”
He winced.
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s where you take your lovers, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. She’d guessed. There was no point in confirming it.
“You know if I do marry you, we’ll be buying all new furniture for those rooms, right?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how things work with you. I may not have gotten the full meal, but the taste I had was not a man who gave his partner whatever she wanted.”
“On the contrary, I am very good at determining what it is you really want and giving it.”
“You were a year ago, that’s for sure.” Her blue eyes glowed with remembered passion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROMI GAZED AT him with nothing less than adoration. “Other men aren’t like you.”
“You tested this theory?” Maxwell demanded even as he basked unashamedly in her evident approval of his sexual prowess.
“You know I didn’t.”
“Then how do you know?”
She blushed. “I just do.”
He found her innocence charming when the same in other women had acted as a huge red flag for Maxwell.
He stopped in the middle of his office, and brushed his hand along her heated cheek. “Yes, but how, sweet little Romi?”
“I may be a virgin, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never done anything with other guys.”
“Like?” he pressed, wondering if she realized they were engaged in foreplay.
She rolled her expressive eyes. “I’ve kissed other men.”
“And on the basis of kissing alone…” He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, taking advantage of her surprised gasp for a small taste before lifting his head. “You have determined I am unique?”
She blinked up at him.
He smiled.
“You’re starting now, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I began in the living room.”
She looked like she was realigning her thoughts based on his claim and then she nodded. “Like I said. No one like you.”
“Did you do more than kiss with other men?” he asked, allowing his breath to caress her lips.
Her pupils dilated, her expression going dreamy. “Hmmm?”
“Other men,” he reminded her. “Your experience with them.”
“Some touching.”
“Here?” he asked, brushing along her back.
“What? I don’t…” She swayed toward him. “Maybe? I think so.”
He liked this proof she could not think clearly from the simple touches. His own libido was already in overdrive.
“What about here?” he asked as he cupped her nape and ran his thumb down to her pulse point.
She moaned, leaning into a kiss he kept brief by necessity. They would make it to the bedroom.
“No one ever took over like you do.” Her words weren’t an answer to his teasing.
But they were exactly what Maxwell wanted to hear. “And no one ever made you feel like I did, either.”
“Not even close.” Her desire to be near him screamed from every line of her willing body.
He shook his head at his own stupidity and her stubbornness. They could have had this for the last year. “Yet you broke it off with me.”
“Because you offered a definitive ending date.”
“And that wasn’t something you wanted.” She was really hung up on that concept.
He needed to remember that.
“No.”
He didn’t point out he
was offering something very different this time. She knew it.
Just as he knew that ultimately, she would agree to marry him.
The draw between them was irresistible. He’d provided a way for them to meet, to connect, but one way or another, they would have come together again. It had been inevitable.
One day she might even admit that.
He forced himself to step back, to create physical space between them. He wanted her surrender, but if he accepted too early, they weren’t going to make it the steps it would take to go from his office to his bedroom.
Romi seemed to understand that instinctively as well, as she looked around his personal space with dazed eyes that slowly cleared.
She moved to the photos gracing one of the built-in bookshelves. “Oh, my gosh…this is you as a little boy. With your mom.”
She reached out and touched the photo with the same delicacy her hands showed on his body.
