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‘I’m not talking about the gown.’ His gaze flicked to her chignon. ‘Or the hair.’ Warm hands caught her waist and drew her close until she could feel exactly how much he desired her. ‘It’s what’s underneath I want.’
She blinked, the arousal flowing through her body on a tidal wave of desperation. Now, as then, she couldn’t seem to make her brain function because all she could feel was the need.
‘That sounds like a very bad idea,’ she whispered, trying to make herself mean it.
Fierce heat flared in his gaze, and suddenly his hands had moved to grasp her cheeks, to lift her face to his.
‘I know,’ he murmured against her lips, his voice hoarse as the heat pulsed and throbbed at her core. But then his lips captured hers in a forceful, demanding kiss. She gasped, shocked by the brutal yearning which surged from her core. His tongue delved into the recesses of her mouth, controlling her, possessing her, wanting her, needing her with a ferocity she remembered.
The part of her brain still clinging to sanity knew she should tell him to stop, but the heady joy of being wanted again—by him—was far too raw and all-consuming to allow her to do anything but surrender to the moment.
A moment she hadn’t even realised she had been waiting to relive for five years.
She found herself kissing him back with the same fervour—no longer the young girl happy to absorb all the sensations battering her. Now she was a woman, with needs of her own. Her tongue tangled with his, her hands fisted in his starched shirt as she tugged him closer. Her body vibrated with yearning as she reached up on tiptoes and met his hunger with all the need and longing from so long ago.
The kiss became carnal, and devastating, a battle for supremacy. She ripped her mouth from his—trying to regain her sense of self, her equilibrium—but it remained out of reach, the harsh rasps of her breathing making her lightheaded.
His expression became fierce and determined as his hands skimmed down the gossamer silk of her gown, shattering her senses all over again. His hands landed on her bottom to press her into the thick ridge in his trousers and his mouth found the hammering pulse point in her neck.
She gasped, shuddered, as she lost herself again in his devastating caresses.
Her head fell back, her own fingers tensing and releasing, her mind drifting into the forbidden zone where nothing mattered except feeding this incessant hunger.
Suddenly he wrenched himself away.
His gaze focussed on her face, and his palms rose to cup her cheeks. Satisfaction roared through her as she noticed his hands trembled.
Yes, she wanted him, but he wanted her right back. She hadn’t imagined that five years ago. All this time she had blamed that girl for allowing herself to be used, for not reading the signs. But she wasn’t that needy girl any more who would be devastated when this night was over. She knew the score.
He swore softly, then growled. ‘I want to take you to bed.’
She knew she should say no. But why did this have to be about Ruby? Why couldn’t it just be about them? He didn’t know who she was, didn’t know he had once destroyed her.
She’d been careful, patient and pragmatic for so long, solely focussed on building a new life, a better life, for her and her little girl. But during the last five years she’d also hated the untried girl she had been that night, for giving herself to him so easily, for falling halfway in love with him after a few hours without ever really knowing him, and for allowing herself to be destroyed by his rejection.
Didn’t that girl deserve the chance to enjoy this chemistry again, but on her terms now instead of his?
She let the heady excitement course through her veins. And nodded.
CHAPTER FOUR
THENEXTFEWMINUTES—as Brandon Cade dragged her out of the ballroom, through the heritage hotel’s ornate lobby area and up the grand staircase to their suites—went by in a blur.
Lacey felt as if she were floating on a wave of euphoria...and dread.
The voice inside her head, demanding she stop this madness, was drowned out by the deafening thuds of her heartbeats and the brutal yearning burning like a hot brick at her core.
‘Your suite or mine?’ Brandon demanded, his voice raw, when they reached the first-floor hallway.
‘I... I don’t know,’ she managed, her throat drying to parchment.
‘Mine’s bigger,’ he supplied.
Seconds later, her mind still reeling, her body still yearning, still pliant, she found herself standing in the shadowy splendour of the hotel’s Presidential Suite. He led her past upholstered sofas, ornate furniture, a spray of flowers in a priceless antique vase and out onto a large terrace, the full moon and the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower so close, it seemed as if she could reach out and touch them.
But then he swung her round. And all she could see was him. Tall, handsome, indomitable. He tugged off his jacket, dumped it on the marble tiles then grasped her hips in urgent hands and pulled her into his body.
His mouth fastened back on her neck, finding the pulse point, exploiting it ruthlessly and without mercy. She grasped his head, the short bristles of hair sending yet more sensation shimmering south as she held him to her, let him feast. Blood rushed to her breasts, trapped against his hard chest.
