Then he left the silence undisturbed.
He was entirely too good-looking. Too familiar with a revolving door of women making asses over themselves to please him. She could choose not to join that vast legion. But then her rendezvous with destiny was beckoning like a mirage in the desert. And like mirages everywhere, the lure was irresistible. Perhaps not completely irresistible, because a little voice inside her head reprimanded, sharply: I’m disowning you if you cave completely. I need a quid pro quo. “Just so everything’s clear,” Nicole said, hardwired not to cave with or without a niggling voice. “We’re agreed on two weeks?”
He recognized her challenge, said as much with a look.
She laughed. “They always just say yes, don’t they?”
“Of course not,” he lied.
Nicole looked up at Fiona, who was failing to follow the subtext of the conversation. “I’m going to stay,” she explained. “You and Jack have a good time.”
“You’re sure now?” There was a note of uncertainty in Fiona’s voice.
“Rafe said he was sorry.” Nicole gave him a smug smile. “So everything’s good. What about you? Are you fine with”—she wiggled her fingers—“wherever you’re going?”
“Are you kidding?” Fiona let out a throaty giggle. “I feel like I won the lottery!”
Nicole laughed. “Have fun then. Oh, hell,” she said. “Do you know where my phone is?”
“With mine. I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll go with you.” Jack set down the two whiskeys he held, intent on giving Rafe the privacy he wanted.
Rafe glanced up. “Carlos is in the wheelhouse. I told him you’d be up.”
Nicole waited until they were alone before offering her own apology. “I’m sorry too. I have a short fuse.” Whether her mother’s admonitions about common courtesy were prompting her or she was trying to semi-manage the uncharted craziness, she wanted to clear the air. “Can you deal with the fireworks? We’ll probably fight like a couple of cats.”
He offered her a lazy grin. “Cats?”
“Not you I suppose—unless it’s some huge jungle animal.” Her gaze flicked up, a playful glitter in the blue depths. “Points to you on weight class.”
“Why don’t I promise not to use my size to my advantage?” His smile could have melted the last of the Arctic ice. “Deal?”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “Deal, but still… last warning—I can be difficult. You might be better off with someone else.”
“In what way?”
“Less angst. More compliance.” She smiled. “All those yeses you like.”
His brows rose. “Tut, tut. You want compliments? You want me to tell you how special you are? How I can’t live without you?”
“Screw you,” she muttered, taking offense at his silky sarcasm, chafing at her flagrant attraction to a man who only knew adoring women.
“Oh you will,” he said softly, “a hundred different ways. And,” he added with a smile, “if I’d wanted someone else, I wouldn’t have sent Silvie away.”
His deep voice was like a caress, his smile sensual, the subliminal message so overt, she felt the pleasure ripple through her body, particularly where his fingers had so recently rested. But he was watching her, so ignoring his lazy smile and her fevered senses, she spoke with deliberate coolness. “You forget, her husband came for her.”
“I could have dealt with it. Silvie likes to fuck me. She would have stayed.”
Nicole gave him a sharp look. “You really are an arrogant bastard.”
“But that’s what you like. You don’t want someone too nice, do you?” When she didn’t answer, he said very softly, “I’ll tell you what you want. You want raw, sweaty, rock-your-world sex. You want to be pushed and pushed and pushed some more until you’re dripping wet and desperate, until you’ll do anything to be taken over the fucking orgasmic edge. Because under all that sass and audacity of yours you don’t really want a man who takes orders, do you?” Her heart was pounding, her ears buzzing, her breath caught in her throat, and as if knowing what he’d done to her, he held her heated gaze, gave her a mocking smile and repeated in a whisper, “Do you, Nicole?”
She didn’t have to answer. The insolent smile on his face said it all. She should tell him to find someone else to fucking push over the edge. But she didn’t because all she felt was an insistent, impossible craving that she was powerless to contain and she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t going to simply melt in a puddle of lust right before his eyes. So with a noticeable wince because she’d never before said anything so abjectly submissive, she answered, “No.”