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Henry’s mouth twisted in agitation. “Sorry, I got waylaid. Are you ready to go?”
“Henry, I was speaking with your... companion,” Jorge wheezed. His eyes swept Sophie’s form with derision.
“Yes, you were. Good night, father.” Henry’s hand slid to the small of her back and urged her around the acerbic millionaire. The minute they stepped out of the hotel, she took a deep breath of cool night air.
“Well, that was—” she started.
“It was awful. I’m sorry about him.” His face was grim and the lines at the corners of his eyes were deep as he squinted into the night.
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.”
The limo drew up to the curb and Henry helped her into it. He slid in after her, tugging at the knot of his bow-tie, a look of exhaustion taking over his face.
Sophie looked at him as he stared ahead. He was decompressing as much as she was from that affair. For the first time , she began to feel the baggage Carl had mentioned. His father, his status, fighting with the sharks in that party, it was overwhelming.
She sidled up close to him and leaned on his shoulder. “Henry, your father—”
Henry exhaled loudly through his nose. “Please don’t listen to him. He is an old man who has lost any sense of the manners he once had.”
“Okay, but—”
“And thank you for coming to this with me. I hope you feel better about this whole situation. I’m sorry about—about everything.”
Sophie’s heart squeezed in her chest. He was doing it again, making an effort. She bit her lip. His father’s words stuck in her mind: she was acting. Whether she was acting like they were a couple or like she didn’t want the man in front of her, she couldn’t say.
“Back to Chelsea, sir?” the driver asked.
Sophie looked up at Henry. His eyes were closed, and she could see his jaw tense. She wanted to melt into him.
“No,” she said. For tonight, she would keep acting.
Henry’s eyes shot open. He looked down at her, his eyes going from tired to focused.
“The penthouse,” he called, holding her gaze.
Chapter Thirteen
They didn’t speak for the rest of the short limo ride. Sophie leaned against Henry’s side, his broad palm resting lightly on her knee. Their eyes met, and her lungs constricted in her chest as he held her hungry gaze with his own.
The limo pulled up to Henry’s complex and he slid out of the back seat, his eyes still lingering on her. Sophie sensed desire in the heat of his stare and the tick in his jaw, but there were other emotions too. A hint of surprise around the corners of his eyes and a flicker of hope in the determined set of his strong chin. He reached his hand out to her.
She studied him, tall and handsome and holding all those emotions in check. Giving her a choice. She’d thought she’d made it back at the hotel, but his demeanor said differently. He was clearly trying to convey that she could change her mind right now and he would have the driver take her home. If she wanted.
Did she? Her body wanted her to stay. It vividly recalled his every masterful touch, the rich sound of his voice as he’d told her to take off her clothes, the delicious friction as he’d slid inside her. Heat pooled low in her belly and moisture flooded her already tingling folds. She knew what her body wanted.
Even her mind was telling her to go for it. He had proven he was willing to repent for his previous behavior. He’d given her a glimpse of his world, and her interaction with his father had gone a long way toward explaining why he might have acted the way he had the morning after their previous liaison. Business came first in the Medina family. But the chance, her mind insisted, was worth the risk. Only her heart was cautious.
He was still guarded. The society he moved in was foreign to her, and she wasn’t comfortable within it. His father had made no bones about his complete and utter dislike for her. Damn it! Sophie slid toward the door and clasped Henry’s warm fingers. In every dance, someone had to take the first step. This once she was the leader, not the follower.
“I’ve got you,” he said as she pulled herself from the car.
His eyes were smoldering embers as he swept her through the lobby to the elevator. Their linked fingers were the only parts of their bodies that touched, and yet Sophie’s skin prickled as if he were running his hands up her thighs and over her torso.
The elevator doors slid open and they drifted inside, as slow and weightless as milkweed puffs. Her first trip up to Henry’s penthouse had taken forever, it seemed, as the numbers on the display crawled from L to 73. This time it happened in the blink of an eye. Henry’s thumb stroked across her knuckles in a slow, hypnotic rhythm while he quickly tapped in the code for the penthouse. The light touch seemed to transfer from her hand to her breasts. Her nipples ached as if he caressed them with that butterfly brush of his thumb.
She began to move her fingertips over the rough satin of his palm, but he drew her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles. His tongue, hot and slick, flicked quickly into the tender space between her pointer and index fingers. The fleeting caress created an answering throb between her thighs. Sophie gasped, eyelids fluttering.
The elevator doors slid open, revealing the glowing opulence of the first floor of his penthouse. Beyond the windows, all of New York City lay spread out in twinkling lights. She drifted toward the terrace as Henry released her hand to open the sliding glass door. Sophie stepped outside, the city sounds rising around her in a symphony of car horns, revving engines, and the babble of people. “I’ll never get enough of this view,” she mused.
