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No more imagining him naked, rule number two.
He pulled the car up out the front of the exclusive building, coming around to open her door. Habit kept her in her seat, waiting for him, and as she stepped out, into the circle of his arms, she had to fight an impulse to lean in, to brush their bodies together. She was losing her mind. What had happened to her rules?
Two doormen stood just inside the foyer, and as she approached, one opened the glass doors, the other tipped his hat.
“Mademoiselle Fortescue, good evening.”
She smiled in response, waiting for Noah, who took one last look around then stepped with her into the building. He handed the keys to the doorman, clearly au fait with protocols in apartments like this.
“The place was built in the thirties,” she murmured, “but unlike a lot of old apartment buildings in Paris, the lifts were redone sometime in the late nineties. Thank God. My flat’s on the seventh floor, and on the handful of times I’ve had to use the steps it’s a workout, believe me.”
She was babbling.
“Anyway,” she forced her voice to resemble something crisp and cool, gesturing to the bank of lifts.
One came almost as soon as he pressed the button and Max stepped into it without thinking, without preparing, more to the point, for how close she would be to Noah in this tiny cubicle – all the space the building would allow for.
They were shoulder to shoulder, and Max barely breathed as the lift ascended, wanting to reach for him, to touch him.
The doors pinged open into a well-lit corridor that had three doors coming off it.
“Do you know the other occupants?”
“Not well. We’re not here often.” She angled her face to his. “Why? Do you think one of them has been secretly following me?”
His lips compressed. “I like to cover all bases.”
Control. The word burst into her mind and she knew it answered her question. He was chasing down every possibility because he wanted – needed – control over this situation.
“The woman next door is in her eighties. She’s lived here for a long time. Seems nice enough. The other door is, I believe, a corporate apartment like ours.”
“Your company owns the flat?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, Fortescue Inc is basically just Gray and me. We share a lot of property.”
“Right.”
“You guys don’t talk about this stuff?”
“Not generally, no.”
She wondered about their friendship – she’d heard Noah’s name from time to time, but not often, and they definitely didn’t move in the same social circles, so far as she knew.
She flicked on lights as she entered, tossing her handbag onto a chair
then heading into the kitchen to pour a glass of wine, before she remembered rule number one and switched to soda water. “Want one?”
He dipped his head in silent agreement; she retrieved another bottle. She should have put it on the kitchen bench, but impulsiveness drew her across the room, her hand pushing the bottle towards him at close range, so that when he took it, his fingers curled around hers and something inside of her jolted, hard.
Pleasure began to build, to spin, anticipation throbbing low in her abdomen. She wasn’t drunk now, not even close, so she knew the decisions she was making were all powered by her own wants, her own desires.
“Why did you push me away last night?”
A muscle jerked low in his jaw, as though he were grinding his teeth.
“When?”
“Don’t do that,” she murmured, swaying forward, the water forgotten, his nearness all she could focus on. “Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. If you’re not attracted to me, that’s fine. Just say it. My ego’s not so fragile…”
