The Billionaire's Touch (The Sinclairs #3) (19 page)

“Thanks,” she answered politely.

Micah was surprised when she winked back at him and then laid her head against his shoulder. He continued to lead her, and she followed him every step of the way.

Neither of them spoke as their bodies communicated without words . . . and they danced.

CHAPTER 18

Evan’s fists clenched at his sides as his eyes tracked Randi on the dance floor. An hour after they’d arrived, she’d agreed to a dance with Liam, and Evan wasn’t dealing well with anybody holding Randi except him.

I should have asked her to dance first. I should have kept her on the floor all night
.

Unfortunately, he’d done neither one of those things, so he was standing alone in a corner, one shoulder propped against the wall, trying especially hard not to bash his fist into it.

He gritted his teeth as he saw Randi tip her head up and smile at Liam, apparently enjoying both the dance and his company. He almost stepped forward as the guy had the audacity to move his hand over her bare back.

His forward progress was stopped by a rather large body that stepped in front of him.

“You look like you need this.” Jared handed him a glass filled with ice and what Evan assumed was alcohol.

“I don’t drink,” he replied irritably, stepping around his brother to move toward Randi again.

“Maybe you should tonight,” Jared suggested smoothly, grasping the back of Evan’s tuxedo so he didn’t move forward. “Don’t do it, Evan. He’s a decent sort of guy.”

“He’s touching her,” Evan rasped angrily.

Jared stepped in front of Evan again and pushed him back against the wall. “Have a drink and relax. Tessa tried to set up Liam and Randi, but Liam got sick. I’m sure he just wanted to apologize for leaving her high and dry. She’s not interested in him.”

Evan downed the entire glass of liquid in one gulp and handed it back to Jared. It took superhuman effort not to cough as the alcohol burned all the way down his throat to his gut. “Did you just poison me?” he asked in a painfully hoarse voice.

“Scotch on the rocks. It’s a good year and brand. You’ll get used to it. It’s kind of an acquired taste,” Jared remarked with a mischievous grin as he handed Evan a second glass that he’d snagged from a passing waiter. “Drink it slow,” he warned.

Evan scowled at the glass in his hand. “How do you know that she’s not interested? She’s smiling at him.”

“Generally, if a guy asks a woman to dance it’s not really appropriate
not
to smile. Just calm the hell down. It’s just a dance,” Jared advised. He paused to take a sip of his own drink before adding, “Damn, you have it bad for her.”

Evan took an unconscious swig from his glass, his mind elsewhere as the liquid burned its way to his stomach. The fiery heat didn’t even make him flinch. “You’re blocking my view,” he growled.

“I know,” Jared answered calmly, shoving a hand in the pocket of his tuxedo pants and looking like he was making himself comfortable. “Believe me, it’s better this way. The song will be over in another minute or two.”

“I hate feeling this way,” Evan admitted. His control was slowly slipping, and he knew he was acting irrationally, but he didn’t give a shit.

“Now you know how I felt when I thought my own brother was interested in my woman,” Jared reminded him harshly.

“I didn’t dance with her,” Evan pointed out.

“No, but you did touch her, pick her up, and hold her,” Jared remarked casually. “And you did take an interest in her.”

“Because I actually liked Mara,” Evan snapped. “And you were acting like a jackass.”

“Kind of like you’re acting right now?” Jared prompted.

“Yes,” he growled, realizing just how Jared had felt when Evan had tried to make him see sense by hinting that he might be interested in Mara himself. “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how it felt back then.”

“Apology accepted,” Jared replied calmly. “I’m thinking that karma is a bitch right now for you.”

Evan took another sip from his drink. “Pretty much,” he grunted as he swiped a hand across his face. He was starting to relax, but he was sweating. It had to be the effects of the alcohol. He didn’t usually imbibe, and the drink was obviously starting to hit him pretty hard.

“You okay, Evan?” Jared asked in a milder, more concerned tone.

For the first time in his life, Evan answered the question honestly. “No. No, I don’t think I
am
okay.” His voice was raw with emotion, and his chest ached with a pain he’d never experienced before. So many feelings began to bombard him all at once that he wasn’t certain which ones to react to first. “I love her,” he added, his vulnerability open for Jared to see, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“I know.” Jared’s answer was benevolent. “But it’s not the end of the world, Evan. It’s the beginning of something so good that you’ll wake up every morning happy to just see her face when you open your eyes.”

“I won’t be seeing her. I’m leaving tomorrow, and she can’t love me,” he snarled back. Maybe his younger brothers’ relationships had worked out, but Evan couldn’t
make
Randi love him no matter how much he wished he could.

“Then don’t go,” Jared suggested.

“I have an important meeting in San Francisco on Monday, a company I’ve been trying to acquire controlling ownership on for a long time. I think they’re ready, because they need capital to grow. If I’m not there to snap up the company, somebody else will,” he answered automatically.

“So let them.” Jared was blunt. “Evan, there comes a point where the money doesn’t matter anymore. We have so much that we couldn’t spend it in a dozen lifetimes.”

“It’s not about the money. It’s about being better, being successful. The old man never thought I’d do it, but I can.” Evan was breathing heavily as he downed the rest of the drink and tossed the glass on a table beside him.

“You already have,” Jared answered furiously. “You don’t have a damn thing to prove to anybody anymore, Evan. That battle is over and won. It only still exists in your own head.”

“Is everything okay?” a feminine voice interrupted.

Jared stepped aside, revealing Randi and her dance partner. “Fine,” he said amiably. “Evan and I were just discussing . . . business.”

“Would you like to dance another one, Randi?” Liam asked politely, his hand resting on her bare back.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Evan growled, his temper finally snapping.

He stepped forward and grabbed the front of Liam’s starched white shirt that he was wearing with a gray suit and tie. “Take your hands off her,” he rasped, his rage now beyond being contained.

Jared reached out and pulled Randi to the side, causing Liam to lose any connection with her. “Stop it, Evan. People are starting to stare,” Jared advised.

Evan didn’t give a shit whether the entire world was watching. He stood toe-to-toe with his rival, a homicidal look on his face. Without letting go of Liam’s shirt, he said in a low, dangerous voice, “Don’t look at her. Don’t think about touching her. Don’t ever even imagine yourself with her or your ass is mine.”

Jared jerked Evan backward, forcing him to let go of Liam. “Randi, can you take Evan somewhere to cool off? He’s . . . overheated. I’ll talk to Liam.”

Randi grasped Evan’s arm and whispered fiercely, “What in the hell was that about?” She started to lead him away from the crowded ballroom.

Evan followed . . . well . . . just because he’d follow her anywhere.

He let her lead him down the hallway and away from the ballroom, stepping into a smaller room some distance away from the crowd.

She closed the door and locked it behind her, and then pushed him into a padded chair that seemed much too small for him.

“What in the hell just happened?” she asked, sounding more puzzled than angry.

“I didn’t like the way he was touching you.” Evan’s response was angry.

“We were dancing,” she answered reasonably and propped her hands on her hips.

“I know. I hated it.” His answer was blunt as he struggled to regain his usual control.

“Then
you
should have asked me to dance,” she said softly. “You are my date.”

“That’s another thing I never did right for a Sinclair. I suck at dancing,” he confessed. “I wish I would have done it anyway. I don’t do it perfectly, so I rarely dance. Would you have cared?”

Randi’s expression softened as she looked down at him. “No. I wouldn’t have minded at all. In fact, it would make you more human. Nobody is perfect at everything.
You
don’t have to be perfect at
everything
, Evan. You’re already disgustingly close.”

Then why can’t you love me? Why can’t you love a man like me?

He wanted desperately to ask her, but the answer was obvious. Love just . . . was. There was no explanation for it, no way to rationalize it, and no way to pick the perfect partner and feel those kinds of emotions. He was starting to understand that love wasn’t a choice, it just happened. He definitely never thought it would happen to him.

“I think you owe Liam an apology,” Randi remarked matter-of-factly. “He was being charming and polite.”

“He wasn’t charming.” Evan’s response was disgruntled. “He wants to get you naked.”

“How would you know?” she asked.

“Because I want the same damn thing. I recognize the look, but he’s not nearly as pathetically desperate as I am for that right now.” He stood and grasped her around the waist. “I want it every time I see you or hear your voice. I want it when you smile at me. I want it every fucking minute of the day. If I’m not with you, I want to be.” His breathing labored, he added, “I. Need. You.”

Evan shuddered as Randi wrapped her arms around his neck and placed her soft cheek against his slightly whiskered jaw. “I need you, too. I’m not interested in Liam, Evan.” She sniffed and then asked him quietly, “Is this the alcohol talking? I can smell it. Have you been drinking?”

“Two drinks. I’m not drunk, Randi. I’m emotional, something that never happens to me.”

“Jealous?” she questioned.

“Yes,” he answered promptly, honestly. “I don’t want any man touching you except me.”

“You’re leaving early in the morning. We can’t be this intense right now,” Randi warned him in a husky voice.

“Right now is what we have,” Evan said angrily, unable to process the thought of leaving her side, much less putting any more distance between the two of them. He’d lose it entirely.

He watched as the gold in her beautiful eyes seemed to erupt into tiny, sparkling particles. She gazed up at him with a look of longing that made Evan feel like he’d been punched in the gut.

“Then fuck me, Evan. Here. Now. One last time,” she begged breathlessly. “I know we can’t have a relationship, but you’re right. We have right now. I’ve learned that sometimes that’s all a person will ever have.”

He wanted forever, but he needed her so desperately that he’d figure that all out later. He looked around quickly, realizing they were in a powder room, and the door beyond probably led to the toilets. He knew from previous visits that there were plenty of restrooms at the Center, but this was obviously one that Grady had redone to be nicer, plusher.

There were small, elegant chairs lined in front of a long line of mirrors, probably so women could do whatever it was that women did to freshen up.

Too far gone to really care where they were, he reached behind her and double-checked the lock on the door to make sure it was secure, and then he stalked her. “It’s going to end up hard and fast, Randi. Possibly even rough. I don’t have even an ounce of control right now when it comes to you,” he warned her in a dangerous voice.

“I don’t care,” she answered emphatically, letting him pin her against the makeup counter.

Evan removed his tuxedo jacket roughly, yanking it from his body and turning it inside out in his haste to get it off him so he had more freedom of movement. He needed his body to be as unrestrained as his mind was at the moment.

He dropped the jacket on the floor, feeling relieved once it was gone. His gut tightened and his cock pulsated with the need to be inside Randi as he looked down at her vulnerable expression.

“Are you scared?” he asked gruffly.

She shook her head. “No. Not of you. But I’m afraid of the way I feel.”

Her statement made a million questions flitter through Evan’s mind.

How do you feel?

Do you feel like you’re losing your sanity as much as I do?

How do you expect me to leave when I want more than anything to stay?

All of those unanswered questions fled from his brain as Randi tore off his bow tie and tugged hard at his shirt, scattering buttons onto the carpeted floor.

When she touched his bare skin, he forgot about them completely as the feral, carnal emotions he’d been experiencing became his elemental focus.

When Randi curled a hand behind his neck and tugged his mouth down to hers, Evan Sinclair, master of the art of control, finally lost it completely.

CHAPTER 19

If Randi wasn’t so lost, she might have pondered that if she looked back on this night later, she’d admit that it was Evan’s vulnerability that had finally gotten to her.

His anger, the fear and pain she could see in his expression, and his willingness to expose himself tore at her heart. She could see his need in those beautiful eyes of his, and the war he was waging with his emotions was her undoing.

I love him.

There was no uncertainty, no hesitation anymore. She wanted Evan Sinclair and all of his unguarded fierceness more than she needed the oxygen she breathed.

He ravaged her mouth like she was the only woman he ever wanted to kiss, but she needed so much more. She wanted to climb inside him until she couldn’t get any closer to him.

Need slithered inside her belly, moving straight to her core, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

“Evan, please,” she begged as his mouth left hers, trailing a rough path with his tongue down the sensitive skin of her neck. “Fuck me.”

All her defenses were stripped away. She wanted and needed him.

“You. Are. Mine,” he told her in a demanding voice as he pulled the silky material of her gown up to her waist.

Randi moaned aloud as Evan’s fingers pressed insistently between their bodies and beneath the scant covering of the thong she was wearing beneath the dress. She had worn the most daring set of lingerie she’d ever owned underneath her gown, needing to feel like the sexiest woman alive for just one more night.

“Christ, what are you wearing?” Evan’s voice was needy and hungry.

She didn’t answer; she panted as she leaned back on the counter, letting Evan look until he growled.

Randi trembled as he yanked the dress over her head, helping him as she shrugged it off and let it drop to the floor. She hadn’t worn a bra since the dress had a low back, and she could just imagine what she looked like in the red thong panties, her heels, and silky stockings held up by a garter belt. “They’re new. I bought them for our last night together.”

It was a bold move for her, a woman who liked lacy, pretty underwear rather than what she was wearing now.

Evan traced the outline of her folds through her saturated panties. Grasping her roughly by the waist, he sat her up on the counter. “I’ll buy you more,” he said in a harsh voice.

Before Randi could react, he gave a hard tug on the flimsy material and the panties came apart.

His mouth was between her thighs almost instantly, as he placed her legs on his shoulders.

The feel of his hot, hungry mouth on her bare pussy was a shock to her senses, especially since he didn’t start slow. He devoured. He tasted. He licked until Randi was chanting his name. “Evan. Oh God, Evan.”

His fierce possession of her was exhilarating. He held open her folds and buried his face in her pussy, feasting on her ravenously, greedily. He didn’t tease. He was a man driven to make her come, and his laser focus on the task was mind-blowing.

“Yes,” she moaned, fisting his hair and pulling his face flush against her needy core. “More.”

Evan could be as rough as possible, and it still might not be enough. She needed to come, and she needed it right now.

His tongue rolled exquisitely over her clit, forcefully and commandingly. There was no real finesse. There was only passion, desire, and raw, carnal need.

“Yes. Please. Now.” She whimpered her plea, grinding her pussy against his face, demanding that he make her climax.

And suddenly, devastatingly, she did, with a blinding-hot intensity that made her scream. “Evan!”

Pulsating waves washed over her in assaulting forcefulness, making it impossible for her to do anything but ride along with them. Evan rose and tore at his tuxedo pants, freeing his massive, hard cock in record time.

Randi barely had time to draw breath before Evan was inside her. He claimed her savagely, need riding him.

She coveted his possessive, caveman-like claiming,
needing
it to make her feel alive. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she clung to him. Her channel was still squeezing him from her first orgasm.

“Christ. You feel like a dream, but I know you’re real,” Evan said gravely, his voice vibrating with passion.

“Harder.” Randi needed more.

He yanked her off the slick countertop, and she nearly wailed aloud as he pulled himself out of her. Flipping her around, he took her hands and placed them on the counter as he moved behind her. “This will be hard, but I can’t control myself right now.”

“I need you out of control,” she agreed.

He drove his cock home, burying himself so deeply that Randi moaned.

“You’re mine,” Evan insisted in a feral groan as he pulled his cock almost totally out of her channel and drove it back in again.

Randi gasped at Evan’s carnal claiming, needing something to hold, something to keep her from flying away on a violent wave of elemental desire. Gripping the marble countertop tightly, she pushed back as Evan surged forward, and a feeling of satisfaction enveloped her at the sound of their bodies slamming together.

It was too much.

It wasn’t enough.

Randi wanted to hold Evan inside her as deeply as he could possibly get. That was the moment she realized that he owned her: heart, body, and soul. She wanted more; she wanted everything from him.

“Don’t hold back,” she begged him with a moan, her body writhing.

“I can’t,” he admitted, sounding tortured as his grip on her hips tightened hard enough that she’d probably have bruises come morning. “Admit that you’re mine, Randi. Say it or I’m going to lose my damn mind.”

“I love you,” she blurted out helplessly, unable to keep her emotions under control. Every movement, every ragged breath she took was focused only on Evan at the moment, and she had to tell him how she felt.

“Fuck,” Evan rasped, pummeling into her with a strength that left her mindless. “What did you just say?”

“I love you,” she bellowed out loud, the words echoing in the tiny space.

She exploded the moment Evan moved one of his hands to the front of her body and stroked a thumb over her engorged clit. Her head dropped to the counter as her body was assaulted by pulsations that had her heart racing and her entire body trembling in climax.

“Don’t look down.” Evan grasped her hair and pulled her head up. “I need to see you.”

She probably wouldn’t have lifted her head if Evan hadn’t been supporting it by his hold on her hair. He threaded his fingers through the tresses, and their eyes met in the mirror as she saw herself in the throes of an orgasm.

Desperate.

Needy.

So entirely pleasured that at the moment, she didn’t even know her own name.

“You make me feel so good, it’s almost painful,” she moaned as she stared into a pair of blue eyes filled with torment and confusion.

Their gazes locked and held until Evan gave one final thrust and leaned his head back in ecstasy as she milked him of his own release.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his body as they both panted for breath, finally pulling her into the too-small chair and letting her collapse onto his lap as his cock slid from its position inside her.

“Tell me why, Randi,” Evan demanded as he recovered his composure.

She clung to him, her arms around his neck to retain her position on his lap. “What?” She had no idea what he was talking about.

“Tell me why you said you could never love a man like me. Those words nearly killed me. Why did you say that?” He stroked her hair like she was the most precious female on earth.

Randi tried to make her brain functional again, his questions sinking in as she slowly regained coherent thought. She hadn’t said that, had she? “I never said that.”

I can never love a man like him.

Her brain started working, and she shook her head at the conclusion it was making.

It wasn’t possible, but yet . . . She’d never said those words to Evan; she’d made that comment in writing to S.

Somehow it all made sense. Actually, hadn’t S. started encouraging her relationship with Evan, even asking her to give him a chance after he’d warned her away?

S. had changed since she’d started a relationship with Evan—now that she really thought about it. He asked a lot about her relationship, and was almost prompting her to give Evan a chance, a man he’d never met. His behavior was exactly the opposite of his normal and constant cautiousness.

She stood, feeling naked figuratively as well as physically. Snatching her dress from the floor, she donned it mechanically, pulling down the silky material of her gown to cover her scanty remaining lingerie hastily.

Her stomach lurched as she thought about some of the conversations they’d had, and the fact that S. now had a woman in his life. The Sinclair Fund was Evan’s business, so it wasn’t a stretch that it could be him, that it had always been
him
.

Her heart started to bleed as she thought about the fact that if he was S., he hadn’t told her, had actually lied to her. He’d used the relationship to his advantage, and to hell with how she felt. They were incongruent actions from the Evan she’d come to know and love.

Maybe I only thought I knew him.

“I didn’t say those words to you. I wrote them to a man I thought was a friend, a man I trusted.” She took a deep breath and asked quietly, “Are
you
that man?”

Randi wasn’t looking at him directly but she saw him give an affirmative jerk of his head from the corner of her eye as he stood up. “Yes,” he admitted huskily.

“The calla lily on Dennis and Joan’s graves. It was you?” She already knew the answer. Gut instinct told her that it was true. Maybe she was able to blow it off before, but that made sense to her now, too. Evan Sinclair was probably one of the only men who could get anything he wanted, even a perfect calla lily every day in the dead of winter in Maine.

“Yes.” Evan zipped his pants and reached for his shirt and tie. “I did it every day to thank them.”

“What were you thanking them for?” Her mind was spinning, and she was still trying to wrap her head around the idea that S. and Evan were one and the same man.

As he jammed his arms into his shirt, he replied, “I was thanking them for saving you when I couldn’t. I’m grateful you’re here, that you’re healthy and strong. I’m grateful that they gave you a home. Most of all, I’m grateful they saved you for me.” He shouldered into his jacket and put his tie in the pocket.

Randi felt completely destroyed and betrayed by the two men who meant the most to her. “You lied to me. When did you know who I was?”

“The day I brought you supplies and you lost power. Hope told me that you had recently lost your foster mother, and everything fell into place. I should have told you that day, but I couldn’t.”

Okay . . . so maybe he hadn’t known for very long, but he’d known before they’d ever been intimate. He should have told her before anything ever happened between them. “There was nothing stopping you from telling me,” she told him furiously, angry now that the initial shock of his confession had worn off. “You played me.” He’d used his status as a trusted friend to get information from her.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he grumbled as he strode forward and gripped her by the shoulders. “Why did you say you couldn’t love me if you do?”

She shook off his hands, not wanting him to touch her. He’d betrayed her, and his dishonesty and the way he’d toyed with her emotions infuriated her.

“I didn’t say I
didn’t
love you. I said I
can’t
love you because of my past and the problems it might cause. You’re a billionaire who travels and I’m a teacher who stays in the same place. Don’t worry. I’ll get over it. The fact that you’re a liar and that you deceived me will help me get over you that much faster,” she answered hotly.

Evan grabbed her shoulders again. “You’ll never get over me. I’ll never get over you,” he growled, sounding enraged. “I’ve never gotten over you. I feel the same damn way every time I see you. I wasn’t as shocked as I should have been to learn that you were the woman I was corresponding with, either. I should have known that two different women could never hold my interest in the same way. I have to wonder if deep down inside, you knew who I was, too.”

“I didn’t know,” Randi denied emphatically. “I thought you were my friend.” The loss of both men was practically ripping her heart from her chest.

“I am your friend. I’m also your lover,” Evan replied flatly.

“You’re nothing,” Randi answered, thinking about all of the times he’d played with her feelings. “Was any of it real?”

“All of it,” Evan said in a graveled voice. “And don’t say I’m nothing to you. You just told me you loved me.”

She pulled away from him to look at his face, unable to decipher exactly what was real and what wasn’t. He’d lied to her from the very beginning, agreeing that he was just an employee. Then he’d bullshitted her again, not telling her the truth even after he knew who she was. “I don’t really know you, do I?” she asked angrily. “How can I love a man who doesn’t exist?” The question made her nauseous. How could she have been so stupid?