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The only part of logic that remained in her mind told her she was being seduced, that this was seduction at its most potent, and that this man was a master of the art. But, beyond that recognition, logic was no help to her now—not when she was being held captive by the spell he’d woven around her. Not when she was being swept off her feet.
‘I want to make love to you.’
She gasped. His directness shocked at the same time as it delighted, sending coiled messages through her nerve-endings to prepare herself for coupling even before she’d had a chance to assimilate his offer.
What should she do? She could hardly take offence. Not when her own body hungered for the same outcome, was even now preparing itself, tingling with expectation.
His lips brushed over her earlobe and she raised her chin to give him better access. He took it, his mouth gliding over her throat, turning her nipples achingly tight.
Vaguely she was aware of the music drifting to a conclusion, of couples around them moving apart.
‘Well?’ he whispered in her ear, his deep voice another layer of seduction, another caress. ‘Make love with me, Jade. Make love with me now—tonight.’
Something about the way he said her name wove its way deep into her senses, trailing a promise of things to come like a silken ribbon tugging insistently and irresistibly around her heated core.
He wanted to make love to her. To hear his words had sent her into a heady spin. Just the very thought of making love with this man was intoxicating. Because she knew what her body wanted. It wanted her to answer in the affirmative.
Was it wrong to want to? Was it wrong to want to give in to the desires that were besetting her? Wrong to give in to the forces of passion that were swirling around her—through her?
There should be one thousand reasons why not. There should be reasons clamouring for attention, pounding on her brain for supremacy. But right now none of them could be found, and rational thought was so heavily weighted with pure physical need thatit threw up arguments instead about why she should make love with him. Arguments like, how could it possibly be wrong when it felt so damned right?
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, felt the passion and the need, and knew that she couldn’t bring herself to lie. She couldn’t say no. And yet neither was she able to release herself totally from the constraints of her own upbringing. She’d never been the sort of person who did this sort of thing—meeting up with strangers and agreeing to make love with them.
And yet here she was…
‘You’re a very magnetic man,’ she said, understating the facts by a factor of ten. ‘And I admit I’m attracted…’
‘But?’ he urged.
‘But I’m not protected,’ she heard herself say—the most honest thing she could think of under the circumstances.
Something flared into life in his eyes, something that told her he wasn’t disappointed at the naïveté of her confession, that his need was barely contained, let alone extinguished.
He let his arm peel slowly from around her back, instead winding it through hers and taking her hand as he led her from the floor. ‘Allow me to take care of that.’
Despite the rush of cool air as they’d pulled apart, moist heat pooled heavy and insistent between her quivering thighs. Her heart thumping, she forced her legs to keep walking to the beat of the pounding in her veins, forced her melting spine to hold her erect. He was leading her somewhere private. He was leading her somewhere to make love to her.
Her breath tripped in her throat. Had she meant to do that? Had her non-committal answer been designed to give him the chance to take the decision out of her hands? So that she would get what she wanted by default?
Somehow he negotiated her through the room. The strain of knowing she’d landed herself in this position was threatening to shatter the plastic smile masking her face; the anticipation of what was to come was urging her to move even faster. The crowd was thinning out, people were spilling out into the terraces, and by now there would no doubt be a pool full of skimpily clad young women offering their wares, ready to take on all comers.
Guests had drifted off into sheltered corners of the garden, or even not so sheltered ones, for their assignations. She’d never been comfortable with this side of celebrity life here in Beverly Hills—and yet wasn’t that what she was now doing herself? Searching for privacy, seeking out what amounted to a love-nest with someone little more than a stranger? Did she really want to be doing this?
