“I don’t like that I was carried away like that. It makes me feel cheap.”
“Cheap! Why?”
“Because you expected it. You expected me to behave that badly and I did.”
“I wanted you to make love with me. I didn’t expect it. And there was nothing bad about it. You have a real hang-up about when it’s permissible to have sex, don’t you?”
“Yes, all right? I do! I’ve had two lovers and I thought I loved both of them. I don’t have sex with random strangers for whom I feel mostly annoyance.”
He blinked once, taking a moment to pick apart her words. She expected him to take issue with her calling him annoying, but he only repeated, “Thought you loved.”
She looked away, aware of tension in the hands that had become fists on her thighs, and said nothing.
“Tell me about this boyfriend you were exorcising.”
“No.” She craned her neck to look past him. They were pulling up in front of a posh hotel. “What are we doing here?”
“We have dinner reservations.”
She had eaten exactly one stuffed mushroom cap at the engagement party. She was starving. Nevertheless, she glared at him.
To hide the fact she was scared.
And shamefully thrilled they weren’t parting ways yet. This man utterly fascinated her and it was so dangerous. Like swimming in petrol under a rainstorm of flaming comets.
“Why?” she asked, stalling.
“It’s a date, Cinnia. Surely that doesn’t go too harshly against your precious rules for how to behave with a man?”
She looked at her nails. “No, but I have one about providing the lion’s share of sarcasm in a relationship. I suggest you take it down a notch or things could become quite scathing.”
He tsk-tsked and started to open his door. His guard finished the job, but Henri held out his hand himself to help her out.
Then he kept his fingers firmly entwined with hers as he walked her through the glittering gold-and-glass entrance of the hotel, across the marble tiles and around the lobby fountain, up the red-carpeted staircase and into a restaurant where a harpist played. The maître d’ exclaimed delight that she could join them when Henri introduced her.
The moment they were alone, she said drily, “And I won’t feel obligated after this to go upstairs to the room you’ve booked.”
“No,” he assured her. “You won’t feel obligated.” He gathered her hands across the white tablecloth and gave her a slow and anticipatory smile. “But I hope very much you’ll feel inclined.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CINNIA WOKE TO a room that was nearly pitch-black, Henri’s arm heavy across her waist. They were naked, front to front, legs entwined. She wanted to press her lips into the smoothness of his shoulder and kiss his skin.
What the hell was she doing?
Succumbing to hormones. And charm. Henri was very engaging when he wanted to be. He smoothly deflected from anything too personal, but he was keenly intelligent and had exchanged lively opinions with her on everything from world politics to pop music. He had asked her advice about a point of estate law, which she had thought was pure pandering, but she soon realized he was serious and had to tell him he was better off consulting someone who specialized in international trusts.
Then the evening’s trio had arrived and he had taken her to the dance floor and seduced her, right there in front of the world. Not that he was obvious about it. Henri was far too subtle for that. No, it had been a light brush of his chest against her breasts, a whisper that she smelled delicious, a brief contact with his hips so she knew he was aroused.
“I can’t help it, chérie. You have that effect on me,” he had said without embarrassment.
Dessert had arrived, a caramel flan they’d shared, but they hadn’t even finished when he said, “Will you come upstairs? I’m dying to kiss you.”
They both knew how she reacted to his kiss.
They might have made love in the elevator if his guard hadn’t been with them, standing discreetly at the front of the car with his back to them so Henri could steal a first kiss, then a second, longer, more passionate one.
Inside the suite, they’d barely made it to the bed.
How had she been so aroused? Until that moment, he’d barely touched her.
But even as she lay here next to him, thinking about the way he’d hurriedly skimmed away her knickers and covered himself with a shaking hand, she was growing wet and achy. She had been pure butter beneath him, locking her legs around his waist and lifting into his heavy thrusts.
She should go home. She didn’t want to do the walk of shame in the morning, not when she already knew the paparazzi were on to them.