She checked on Winslow and found him snoring on her bed. Then she padded across the living room and knocked on Dominick’s bedroom door, her pulse skipping. She ached for him, but she hadn’t experienced an adrenaline rush all day—would the sex be different this time? Less exciting?
When he answered the door wearing only pale-colored boxers, her heartbeat went into the stratosphere.
His gaze swept her from head to toe. “Vee, you look…”
“Different?” she asked, lifting her chin.
“Amazing,” he corrected, then kissed her and pulled her inside, his strong hands roving down her back. She wondered if the day would ever come that she’d want him to take it slow. Right now all she wanted was him inside her, as soon as possible.
Dominick closed the door and handed her a drink. “Cheers,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he held up his glass.
“Merry Christmas,” she murmured, clinking her glass to his. She sipped the drink, then smiled happily. “Love in an Elevator.”
“I thought you liked it on the plane.”
“I did, thanks.” She glanced all around his room, keeping an eye out for any bags or packages that would give her a clue as to what he might have gotten her. No grown woman should be so excited about a Christmas gift, but she couldn’t help it. Would this be the first of many gifts he’d get her? The first of many Christmases they would spend together?
Dominick clasped her hand and led her to sit on the edge of the king-size bed. Then he set their drinks on the nightstand and turned his attention back to her. He knelt on the floor in front of her, kissing her while he slid his hands up her thighs and lifted the teddy up and off. He stared at her for a few seconds and she felt herself bloom under his gaze.
He lowered his head and feasted on her breasts like a starved man, laving and drawing on the nipples until they were hard little knots. He reached down to remove her panties, and she knew the second he realized they were crotchless. His hands stopped and his breathing escalated to a moan. Then he eased her back on the bed and before she could exhale, he had parted her knees and his mouth was on her.
Violet had heard about oral sex, had read about it, had taken quizzes in Cosmo about it, had even tried it on a guy once, but no one had ever returned the favor. The sheer shock of the sensations splintering through her body nearly sent her off the bed. He gave her a long, slow tongue-lashing, then he latched onto her clit and sipped at her wetness. She cried out and pulled at his hair, wanting him to stop, but not about to let him until she’d experienced it to the end.
But the end came sooner than she expected. It was his skilled tongue, she thought wildly as an orgasm erupted in her belly like a fireball. She squeezed his shoulders with her knees as the pleasure burned through her body.
“Dominick…please…oh, yes…Dominick.” The torture was so exquisite she didn’t have words to describe it. She had barely begun to recover when he stood and fumbled for a condom on the nightstand. He quickly sheathed himself, then pulled her ankles to his shoulders and thrust into her with a groan. His face was contorted with a mix of pleasure and pain, and he appeared to be restraining himself.
But Violet wanted all of him—now.
“You feel so good inside me,” she said, contracting around him. “Fill me up, Dominick…harder…faster.”
He looked down at her with hooded eyes. A muscle in his jaw worked. He kissed her ankle, then bit down gently as his body began to shudder against hers. “Ahh…ahh…ahh.” He came and came, seemingly against his will, then collapsed forward onto the bed.
Violet curled up next to Dominick, utterly sated. Their chemistry was so amazing, it was as if he knew exactly what to do to make her lose her inhibitions. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair. New, wondrous love flowered in her heart. She never wanted this night to end.
She gave in to peaceful dreams in his arms and jarred awake around five in the morning.
Christmas morning, she realized. She sat up, troubled to find Dominick gone until she heard the sound of the shower running in his bathroom. The room was warm, she conceded. Since her body was covered with a sheen of perspiration, he was probably trying to cool off. She turned on a light and adjusted the thermostat, then considered joining Dominick in the shower. Why not? She was a different person now, the sensual, confident woman she’d always wanted to be.
Then a mischievous thought slipped into her mind—the gift Dominick had bought her. She was dying to know what it was and if it would give her a clue as to how he felt about her.
She bit into her lip. The old Violet would never peek….
But the new Violet might.
Wouldn’t it be better if she knew what it was so that when he gave it to her, her response would be appropriate? It could save them both from embarrassed or hurt feelings if, for example, he’d bought her a souvenir snow globe or something gadgety, versus something romantic.
It was already Christmas morning, she reasoned. He’d be giving it to her soon anyway. She pulled on her teddy and glanced around the room. Where would Dominick hide a gift?
She knelt to look under the bed, but it was a pedestal model with no space underneath. Next she quietly opened the closet. His clothes hung neatly from hangers, some of them still covered by dry cleaner’s bags—clothes that she’d probably picked up, she thought wryly—but no shopping bags.
Then she spied the dresser drawers. Three of them. She walked over and slid open the first one—folded T-shirts and shorts. Then she slid out the second one—his toiletry bag. Then she slid open the bottom drawer and her pulse blipped. Amongst his socks and underwear was a gift bag.
She reached for the bag, but then was distracted when something else caught her eye. Something pink. Violet frowned and a memory chord strummed even before she could fully process what she was seeing.
A pink polka-dotted envelope.
17
VIOLET STARED AT the pink polka-dotted envelope she thought had been discarded.
She pulled it out of Dominick’s dresser drawer, her mind reeling in confusion as she turned it over in her hands. Why on earth would Dominick have her letter?
And then the contents landed on her like a bomb.
Her letter of sexual fantasies.
About not being impressed with sex.
About hoping someday to experience exciting sex.
She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a cry. When she looked up, Dominick was coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“I didn’t mean to wake you, Vee. I was coming back—”
“Where did you get this?” Violet asked, holding up the envelope with a shaking hand.
Dominick’s mouth opened, then closed. He gestured to the letter, then put his hands on his hips, obviously at a loss.
“Answer me,” Violet said, breathing hard.
He closed his eyes briefly. “It was…in the envelope of research you sent to my house.”
Her mind spooled back over that day. She had received the letter, had read it, then had stuffed it under something on her desk when Lillian had come into her office. Later she had done the research for Dominick, and put together the packet to have couriered to his house. She must have inadvertently included the letter with the other papers from her desk.
“This letter is private,” she said in a strangled voice.
“I know.” He took a step toward her. “I…I’m sorry, Vee.”
She put up her hands. “Don’t call me that,” she said, backing up. “Why do you still have it?”
“I…didn’t know how to return it without embarrassing you. And it seemed wrong to throw it away.”
Realization dawned on her—the last-minute invitation to Miami, the sex…the exciting sex. Mortification bled through her. “You planned this entire trip because of this letter, didn’t you?”
He didn’t have to respond, she could see the answer on his face. His primary conquest hadn’t been Sunpiper—it had been her.
“You wanted to what—prove that you could seduce me? Show the ingénue what she’s missing?” She choked on a sob. “Make me fall in love with you?”
His face had gone dark, but he remained silent.
“Did you have a big laugh about it with your friends?” she asked, crying now.
“No,” he said finally, his voice low. “No else knows about the letter.”
She wiped at her eyes. “So I was just your personal project for the holidays?”
He didn’t respond, which only made the hole in her heart bigger.
“I’m leaving,” she said, backing out of the room.
“Vee—Violet, wait. Let me explain.”
She stopped and waited…and waited…
* * *
DOMINICK WANTED to put his arms around Violet and admit he was a jerk, to say how sorry he was, but he had no defense. He had planned the trip for his own amusement, intrigued by the prospect of bedding Violet and introducing her to thrilling sex. He hadn’t considered how condescending she would find it because he’d never dreamed that she’d find the letter.
And he hadn’t counted on the fact that she would turn the tables on him, make him so horny he could barely perform without embarrassing himself…and in between, be so sweet and sincere and fun that he’d come dangerously close to falling in love with her.