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Emmeline choked back a strangled laugh. Her eyes stung and burned. She swallowed once and again. And then she did what she’d been taught to do her entire life—she arranged her features into a formal but polite smile—and graciously thanked the kind kitchen staff for bringing her dinner.
That kiss, he thought, that kiss …
It was two-thirty in the morning and Makin was still up, his thoughts unusually chaotic, and he climbed from bed, giving up the illusion of trying to sleep.
He was angry he’d kissed her, angry with himself, angry with his loss of control.
He never lost control.
And that kiss.
It threatened to change everything. It had made him feel things he didn’t feel. Hadn’t thought he could feel. Holding her, tasting her had been intoxicating. He’d felt like someone else. Someone different.
He’d felt.
And suddenly he didn’t want to send her away, on to London and a new position, but he wanted to keep her here, for him, with him. Not as his assistant but as his woman.
But he had a woman. He had Madeline. And until tonight he’d been happy with her as his mistress.
Had been, he silently repeated, brow furrowing, his expression darkening as he paced the length of his bedroom once and again.
Why was he so tempted by Hannah? Was Madeline not enough for him anymore?
Skin hot, emotions hotter, Makin opened the tall glass doors and walked out onto his balcony. Moonlight turned the garden below silver and white. A fountain splashed and he leaned against the elegant iron railing, aware that his attraction to Hannah was stronger than anything he’d ever felt for Madeline or Jenny or any woman in years.
But then, he’d always deliberately chosen beautiful women who were cool and calm … composed. His mistresses accommodated him, never challenging him or disturbing his focus.
Everything about Hannah disturbed his focus.
He shouldn’t like it, shouldn’t allow it. He’d never wanted fire or intensity with his women before. He was too practical. He wanted convenience, companionship and satisfaction. And he had all that with Madeline. When in Nadir he saw her two, maybe three times, a week. If she chafed at their limited time together, she never said so. She greeted him with smiles and easy warmth, and there was never pressure to be anything but present. It was enough. Enough for her, enough for him.
He liked their routine in Nadir. He’d join her around nine or ten in the evening. They’d have dinner, a little conversation, sex, and then he’d return home. He never stayed the night. He never wanted to. And it was the kind of relationship that worked for him.
What kind of mistress would Hannah be? He pictured installing her in a beautiful house overlooking the royal gardens in Nadir, pictured working all day then going to her at night. Pictured her opening the door, wearing something orange and filmy, or perhaps a sleek black satin evening gown with a thigh-high slit up the front. Makin hardened.
He wouldn’t want dinner. Or talk. He’d want her. Immediately. He’d want to take her there in the hall, slip his hands beneath the fabric and find her soft sensitive skin and make her shudder and whimper against him.
And then he’d want her again in the bedroom, beneath him on the bed, pale thighs parted, her breasts rising and falling as he rose up over her, plunging slowly, deeply into her, filling her, making her cry out his name.
Body aching, shaft throbbing, Makin turned, leaned against the railing and gazed into his bedroom glowing with yellow light, wishing Hannah were in his bed now. He wanted her now. Needed her, needed release.
His hand slipped down his belly, reaching into his loose pajama pants to grip his heavy erection. He palmed himself once, twice, his grip firm as he pictured her blue eyes, the curve of her lips, the firmness of her breasts and the ripeness of her hips and ass.
He would take her from behind, and then flip her over, and take her again, this time drawing her down onto his shaft so that he could watch her face as he made her come.
He wanted to make her come. He wanted to make her come over and over.
Madness.
This was exactly why he had to send her away. He didn’t want to feel this much for a woman, didn’t want to become emotionally involved. He had a job to do, a plan for his future, a plan that didn’t include sex in hallways and restless nights and hot, erotic thoughts.
He liked cool women, cool, calm, sophisticated women. Women who didn’t provoke or challenge or arouse him to the point he couldn’t think or sleep.
As she had tonight.
He’d been with Madeline for three years and yet he’d never once lost sleep thinking of her. But tonight he felt absolutely obsessed with Hannah.
Thank God she’d be gone in the morning.
The sun poured through his office window, casting a glare on the computer screen, making his eyes burn.
