Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 1(73)
Brian inserts the key into the lock. It’s one of those old-fashioned brass keys which she would find quaint if the situation were any different.
Gawd! How did she ever think she could pull this off? She – who can’t even lie effectively to Mr. Hughes when she was caught smoking a joint in twelfth grade.
Brian says, “Would you like me to carry you over the threshold and throw you onto the bed?”
Why is everything he says tinged with a layer of obvious sarcasm?
“No thanks. But you can carry my bags, lover boy.”
OK, that didn’t come out right. If Cassie had said that, it would have been polished and quippy and zesty, kind of like lemon punch. Out of Sam’s mouth, it just seems rehearsed and trite, as if she’s a not particularly good stage actress who hasn’t mastered her lines.
“After you then, darling,” Brian says with a grin.
She squeezes past him to enter the room. His body heat radiates from underneath the designer leather jacket he wears. Why does he have to stand so close to her and why does he have to be so damned smug?
The room possesses a king-sized bed with white sheets and four fluffy white pillows. The thread count here apparently goes into the thousands. There are two black-and-white striped armchairs and a glass table, but no couch. The ceiling-to-floor windows proffer a view of the gardens. The whole ensemble is very rustic, very nineteenth century.
Brian throws the suitcases on the floor. He wrenches off his leather jacket.
“I stink. I’m going to take a shower.”
She has yet to talk to him about their sleeping arrangements. Naturally, he would be taking the floor.
He throws the jacket onto the bed and starts unbuttoning his black shirt, which is so well-cut as to emphasize his torso. She can’t help staring. He has a very nice body. Scratch that. He has an amazing body, with a smooth sculptured chest, broad shoulders and flat abs. She can see and count every muscle. Even the snaking veins on his arms.
It doesn’t occur to her that he will stop there until he unzips his jeans.
“What are you doing?” she says, taken aback.
“What does it look like? I’m taking a shower.” He doesn’t wear anything under his jeans. A tuft of black pubic hair springs out. He is brimming with raw sexuality – a well-toned predator on the Serengeti, sleekly muscled and boiling with energy.
Oh my God.
Her face inflamed, she turns to face the window. His cock. She doesn’t want to see his cock.
Who is she kidding? It will be magnificent.
He’s doing this to infuriate her. She can see (or try not to see) right through him. He doesn’t think he will tantalize her in any sexual manner, but he senses that deep down she’s a prude, and he’s making sure he pushes all her alarm buttons in every way possible.
“You can damned well take your clothes off in the bathroom,” she hisses.
“But we are lovers,” he says in a singsong voice. He places a caustic emphasis on the word. “Lovers are supposed to see each other naked all the time. I have nothing to hide.”
She’s aware of that double entrende. She still has her back turned on him.
“Believe me, I’ve seen nothing on you that remotely interests me,” she says in a tone that is meant to sting.
“That makes two of us, sweetheart.”
She hears him sauntering off to the bathroom and she half-turns to steal a look. His incredible bare buttocks roll as he disappears. A moment later, and the sound of a shower hits the tiles. He hasn’t even bothered to shut the bathroom door.
If she’s supposed to be the mistress and he her willing slave, he certainly has got the tables turned.
How is she ever going to get through sleeping in the same bedroom with him tonight?
7
Tonight, there’s a reception at the Grand Ballroom of the hotel.
“Remember, it’s a snazzy affair, so you’ll have to dress up,” Sam reminds him.
She’s anxiously fussing over her own hairdo. She’s frizzing it up with some sort of spray, which accounts for the massive suitcase she made him carry all the way from Chicago. She combs each strand and musses it up again with gel, as if she’s trying to shape it into some sort of bizarre corkscrew pattern.
He doesn’t see the point, since she’s got great hair. Not that he would ever tell her that in a million years, of course.
He knows why she is so worked up about appearing good for her sister. At least, he thinks he knows. If she is any extension of what she was during middle school, then she would have had a hard time coming out of her sister’s shadow. A sister, from all accounts, who is prettier, more glamorous and more successful in landing big fish than she is.
He says, “I don’t know why you bother. Your hair never going to resemble anything other a bird’s nest.”