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“Take me back to the Mansion, Rule. Take me to your room. We can dance there.”
Chapter Five
His room was one of the two Terrace Suites on the Mansion’s top floor. It was over thirteen hundred square feet of pure luxury.
There was champagne waiting for them in the sitting room—champagne and a crystal bowl full of Montedoran oranges. He took off his jacket and tie and they sat on the sofa, sipping the champagne. She slipped off her shoes as he peeled an orange for her.
“Oh, this so good,” she said, savoring the ruby-red sections, one by one. They tasted like no orange she’d ever had before.
He bent close and kissed her then, a slow kiss that started out light and so tender and deepened until she was slightly breathless—scratch that. More than slightly. A lot more than slightly. “Very sweet,” he said when he lifted his mouth from hers. He wasn’t talking about the orange.
She only gazed at him, her heart beating in a slow, deep, exciting way, her body warm and lazy, her eyelids suddenly heavy.
The sofa was nice and fat and comfortable. She considered stretching out on the cushions, reaching for him as she went down, pulling him with her, so they were stretched out together.
But he set his half-full flute aside and picked up the remote on the coffee table. The large flat screen above a bow-fronted cabinet flared to life. Before she could ask him why he suddenly wanted to watch Lockup, he changed the channel to a music station. A slow romantic song was playing.
“Come.” He offered his hand and they rose together. They went out to the terrace, where the lights of downtown Dallas glittered in the balmy darkness of the April night.
They danced. It was like a dream, a dream come to life, just the two of them, holding each other, swaying to the music, not saying anything.
Not needing to speak.
Then he put a finger under her chin and she looked up into his eyes, into the light shining within that velvet darkness. She tried to remind herself that she still wasn’t sure about the whole love at first sight thing, didn’t really believe that you could meet someone and know instantly that here was the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. It took time to know another person, time to learn his ways, time to discover if there really was any chance for the relationship in the long-term.
But when Rule looked at her, well, she believed that he believed. And his belief was powerful. His belief made her want to believe, too.
“I see you,” he whispered, and she couldn’t help smiling. He reminded her of Trev again, Trev playing peeka-boo:
I see you, Mama. I see you, I do. “I know,” he said. “It sounds silly when I say it. It sounds self-evident. And not important in the least.”
“I didn’t say that. It was only, for a moment, you reminded me of Trev.”
“Ah.” He searched her eyes some more. “Well, good, then. I’m pleased if I make you think of him. And it is important that I see you. I see in you all that I’ve been looking for, though I didn’t even realize I was looking until yesterday. I see in you the best things, Sydney. The things that matter. I see that with you I can be a better man, and a happier man. I see that you will always interest me. That you will challenge me. I want to … give you everything. I want to spend my life making sure you have it all, whatever makes you happy, whatever your heart desires.”
She searched his astonishingly gorgeous face. “You are tempting me, you know that?”
“I hope so.” He brushed one soft, warm kiss against her lips, a kiss that lingered like a tender brand on her skin even after he had lifted his head to gaze down at her once more. “I want to tempt you, Sydney. Because I’ve never met anyone like you. You amaze me. I want to be with you. I never want to let you go.” He kissed her again, an endless kiss, as they danced. His mouth was so soft, not like the rest of him at all. His mouth was hot and supple and his tongue eased past the trembling barrier of her lips, sliding hot and knowing, over the edges of her teeth, across the top of her tongue, and then beneath it.
She felt … lost. Lost in a lovely, delicious kind of way. She didn’t know where she was going. And Sydney Gabrielle O’Shea always knew where she was going. She’d always kept her focus, because she had to. Who would keep her on track if she didn’t? Her parents were gone without her even knowing them. And then, too soon, so was her strong, steady grandmother. The men to whom she gave her trust were not dependable.
There was only Lani, her true, forever friend. And then there was Trevor to light up her days.
And now this. Now Rule.
At last. Long after she’d been sure there would never be a m
an for her. Her doubts, her hesitations were falling away. He was peeling them away. With his tenderness and his understanding, with his honesty and his frank desire for her.
Who had she been kidding? She could believe in love at first sight. Like her beloved grandmother before her, she did believe in love at first sight.
As long as it was love at first sight with a certain man. With the right man. The one she could trust. The one she could count on to be there when she needed someone to lean on. The one who honestly seemed to like everything about her, even her prickly nature and her sometimes sharp tongue.
Maybe that wasn’t so surprising, that he had no issues with her strength and determination, with her ambition and her drive. After all, she had no issues with him—or whenever she did have issues, he would patiently and calmly put them to rest.
And she certainly liked the feelings he roused in her. The excitement, the desire. And the unaccustomed trust. Every time she felt her doubts rising—about him, about the impossibility of this thing between them—he stepped right up and banished them. He kept proving to her that he was exactly the man he seemed to be, exactly the man she’d never dared to dream she might someday find.
They danced some more, still kissing. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threaded her fingers up into the warm silk of his dark, dark hair. He lifted his head, but only to slant his mouth the other way and continue to kiss her, endlessly, perfectly. She sighed and lifted closer to him, loving the feel of her breasts against his hard chest, of her body and his body, touching so lightly, striking off sparks.
