He heard the soft whispers from the women around, the shocked gasps of the men, and yet he couldn’t shift his gaze away from her.
The red dress, the hair, the spiky gold heels that laced around her toned calves...she screamed only one word.
Sex.
The dress was strapless. It cupped and thrust up her breasts to attention, lush and rounded. Her skin glinted under the bright lights, casting shadows of her long eyelashes on her cheekbones.
It cinched at her waist, contrasting the dip of her stomach against the curves of her breasts and hips. Ended several inches above her knees, displaying a scandalous amount of toned thigh.
The dress so scandalously short that he wondered...
And as though as a direct answer to his licentious question, she turned around and Nathan swallowed.
Too much of her back was bare, with only a strip of fabric covering her behind.
And as he watched, she laughed, threw her hands behind her and did a little thing with her shoulders.
His mouth dried up, lust slamming into him from every direction.
Her hair, all that glorious, lustrous hair was combed into a braid that rested on one breast, calling attention to the shadowed crook where her neck met her shoulder.
She wore no jewelry. Her face, usually free of makeup, was made up, and yet not in a garish way. The bloodred lipstick matched her dress perfectly, making her mouth look even more luscious.
Suddenly Nathan was incredibly hot under the collar. His erection turned stone hard as she looked around herself aimlessly, her tongue swiping over her lower lip. It seemed the butterfly had finally come out of the cocoon, and God help the male population.
She moved again, in tune to the soft music, and this time it was a subtle move of her hips. Threw her head back and laughed.
Her hands above her, she moved in beat to the tune. Rubbed the tip of her nose against her bare arm in a sensual move that knocked the breath out of him.
Where had this woman come from? Where had she been hiding all that sensuality?
Just then, she turned her head and caught his gaze.
Across the little distance that separated them, something zinged between them. Like a juggernaut, he weaved through the crowd toward her.
Their gazes didn’t break from each other. And for the first time since she’d stormed into the office that morning a few weeks ago, Nathan saw a challenge, a daring in her gaze.
He moved fast and caught her as she turned in tune to the languid jazzy beat again.
Her breasts pressed against him and he hissed out a sharp breath. Aware that she was beginning to attract unwise attention from colleagues she would have to work with for years to come, Nathan tapped her cheek and tilted it up. “Riya? Riya, look at me.”
Her gaze found him instantly and he breathed out in relief. She was only mildly buzzed. He felt her mouth open in a smile against his arm.
Sinking his fingers into her hair, he tugged until her gaze settled on him. Shock, shame and finally recklessness settled into her beautiful brown eyes. Recklessness that had his blood pounding in his veins. “Hi, hotness.”
Nate didn’t know whether to laugh or throw her over his shoulder and carry her out. Probably both.
She was all toned muscle and soft curves to his touch. His imagination running wild, Nathan swallowed. “This public display is not you, Riya.”
“Even I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.” She sounded sad, wistful. “Anyway, don’t be a party pooper, Nathan. I want to do one thing I’ve never done before the buzz in my head evaporates.”
His fingers around her arms, he tugged her toward him.
“Let me go. I’m having fun. For once in my life, I’m behaving the way I should.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“To live for the night. And you...you’re getting in the way of my fun.”
This was going all wrong. It wasn’t what he had intended.
Isn’t it? a voice mocked him. Isn’t this what you wanted all along?
For her to throw off the shackles she’d bound herself with? For her to be reckless and wild? For her to realize what it was to truly live? For her to embrace life and make it impossible for him to walk away without giving them both what they wanted without guilt?
Gritting his teeth, he clamped down the questions. It was too late now. For regrets or guilt.
His arm around her waist, he tugged her off the dance floor. “This isn’t what you want, Riya.”
Her fingers clutched the lapels of his coat. Stretching on her toes, she tilted forward until she could whisper in his ear. Her warm breath feathered over his jaw, making every muscle clench. His entire frame shook with hunger, with lust so hard that he swayed on his feet.
“Do you know what you want, Mr. Ramirez?”
She must have licked her lower lip. But the stroke of her tongue against the rim of his ear burned through him. Turned every drop of blood in him to molten desire.
Keeping his arm around her, he pushed at her chin, until she was facing him again. “I do, Riya, with a blinding clarity. And I know why it would be wrong to take what I want too.”
Large, almond-shaped eyes widened. The edge in his voice hadn’t gone unnoticed. She would back down now. She would retreat under that hard shell. She always did.
She didn’t and Nathan felt something in him unravel.
Long, pink-tipped fingers fanned over his jaw, and their restless wandering drove Nathan crazy. With the tip of her forefinger, she traced his lower lip, sending a shiver down his spine. “You know, you have the sexiest lower lip I’ve ever seen on a man. The upper one is the mean one, the one that declares to the world that you’re heartless. But the lower one betrays you, Nate.”
Her gaze caressed him. And Nate struggled to control his own desire under it. “It shows that you’re kind underneath, that you have a softer side. Why are you so bent on keeping everyone at a distance?”
Nathan felt like the lowest scum of the world. The trust in her eyes, he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t even deserve to stand next to her here. “Tell me what happened.”
“Why am I finally living my life like a twenty-three-year-old should? Why am I having fun?”
He steered her around. “I’ll take you back to the estate.”
“No.” She shuddered, her balance still precarious. “I don’t want to see Jackie. I can’t bear to be even near her,” she said with such bitterness that it stopped Nathan in his tracks. “I hate her. I didn’t know it was possible to hate anyone so much.”
He ran his fingers over his eyes, wondering what he had started. To see her turn from a sweet, caring person to this? It was like watching a train wreck happen knowing you had instigated it.
He sighed, fought against the panic rising through him. Panic because he could see clearly where it was headed and still it seemed he couldn’t stop it.
“Riya, you’re not yourself. Let me take you back to the estate.”
She tugged away from him and stepped back, her mouth pouting. “Leave me here if that suits you. But I won’t go back there.” She reached out for the pillar and moved toward it. “I’ve always taken care of myself, did you know? I’m sure I can handle tonight. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll fall and land on my rear. The best? I’ll go home with some stranger like every other partying twenty-three-year-old over there.”
And those words...they sank into Nathan like sharp claws.
The picture they painted, her bare limbs tangled up with some faceless stranger, was enough to root him to the spot.
Nathan clasped her wrist and dragged her behind him. The swish of the elevator doors, the soft ping as it began to ascend. Everything felt magnified. As if every breath was rushing up to the moment where he would have her in his suite, dressed like this, and he and his control and his good intentions in tatters.
He still made one last attempt at keeping his sanity, at doing the right thing. “As soon as I pour some coffee down your throat, I’m taking you home.”
She laughed then, her hands tucked tight around her, her entire body trembling. “Home? I have no home, Nathan. That estate belongs to you. I have no one and nothing.”
“Riya, it doesn’t have to be this way. I understand that you’re angry. I understand how it feels when someone who should take care of you betrays you...when someone you—”
“Do you? She lied to me. About my father. She practically stole me from him.”
If she had cried, Nathan wouldn’t have been so scared for her. But she didn’t. It was as though her shock was much too deep for mere tears. “Everything I have believed about myself, everything is a lie. I thought he abandoned me. I thought he didn’t love me. I will never forgive her for this. She stole my childhood and she made me into this frozen coward who hid from everything in life. No one has ever cared about my happiness.
“Not her and definitely not my dad. If he had, knowing how emotionally weak she is, would he have threatened her that he would take me from her?”
What the hell had he started?
He had never meant to hurt her. He had never meant to make her feel alone, had never meant to unravel her like this. He understood the weight of it, he knew better than anyone how painful, how awful it felt.
“Shh, Riya. Enough,” he said in a stern voice. “Look at me, butterfly.”
When she raised her gaze to him, the depth of feeling that filled him scared the life out of him. Her mouth trembled and he jerked his hand back, the urge to touch that soft cushion overwhelming him. “This will pass, Riya. Believe me, let me drive you back to the estate and—”