This Changes Everything (14 page)

Was it so bad to hold hands with an old friend? It felt so right. She stifled a moan as his thumb stroked her knuckle.

They stepped out into the parking lot, a small square of concrete set between a strip mall and the palm-lined entrance to a gated housing development. The temperature had dropped into the low fifties, and she used her free hand to tug her wrap over her upper arms. Sly reached over to help, bringing his dimpled chin into view.

He hadn’t shaved again. The feel of those whiskers on her cheek was burned into her sensory memory. Unlike a bite of whatever she’d eaten inside.

Just past the stubble-shadowed dimple, a full harvest moon that would’ve looked huge over a rural field was just a small bright orb hovering over the power-plant-draining city, like a firefly in the Milky Way.

The parking lot felt more intimate than the cozy restaurant. Without Frank or the candles, the night was theirs alone. A wave of longing struck her for this man and his confident grin, quick mind, and good taste in serial television. What was life for but to connect with other people? She’d been so alone. It wasn’t her fault. It hadn’t been—but it would be if she ran away now.

Too much alcohol made her sway on her feet, holding on to him for balance. If they couldn’t go back, they’d have to go forward. It was past time she lived like other adults, enjoying physical pleasures, and who better to experiment with than an old friend she liked and trusted?

Wasn’t she always telling her students how important it was to practice?

She said none of this aloud and got into the limo for their return to the Strip without hinting at any of her thoughts.

He looked good sitting in a limo. At ease. Confident. Gorgeous. Delicious. In a suit. Although a birthday suit would be better.

She rested her head on the back of her seat, feeling the world spin.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I was imagining you naked.” A laugh bubbled out of her. Not a cute feminine giggle, either, but a throaty guffaw.

He didn’t answer right away. “Hilarious.”

She hauled his hand to her lips and kissed it. His skin smelled like men’s cologne, which seemed terribly unfair. Hers probably smelled like parmesan.

She rotated their hands and sniffed her own fingers. Yup. Cheese. She laughed again.

“I wish I’d cut you off after the second martini,” he said.

“No you don’t.” She dragged her lips to the underside of his wrist, trying to tell if his pulse was racing as fast as hers was. “Then I might not have decided to sleep with you tonight.”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced over at him. He was staring at her, unblinking, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

She turned his wrist again and opened her mouth over the skin that smelled so good, mouthing the little hairs.

His voice came out strained. “You can’t make any big decisions when you’ve had so much to drink.”

“You have too many scruples.”

“We’ll go dancing. You can metabolize just enough of the alcohol to let me take you up on your offer.”

“I don’t feel like dancing. That didn’t work out so well last time.”

“Not that kind of dancing,” he said. “We’ll go to a club.”

She brushed her lips across the swell of his thumb pad.

“Cleo,” he choked out.

In response, to draw the pointless dancing conversation to a close, she licked his palm.

In one sudden move, he wrenched his hand free and captured her face in both hands.

F
inally
, Cleo thought, arching into him. She didn’t care how irrational this was, considering she’d been pushing him away so long. They could never go back to the way they were before, so why try? The ship had left the barn. The cow had left the station. The metaphor was as mixed as the drinks she’d poured down her throat and the emotions churning inside her.

She tunneled her fingers through his hair, fisted the thick locks, and kissed him deeper. Their tongues tangled. A low moan escaped him, filling her with a sense of her own power. He wanted her, he wanted to kiss her, he wanted to make love to her. Before now, she’d been shoving it aside as humorous and unlikely, a comic accident of biology and bad timing. She couldn’t remember why she’d thought any of this was funny. She couldn’t remember anything.

His hand roved across her body, snaked around her waist, and was hauling her on top of him when the driver’s voice drifted back to them.

“We’re here, folks,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry to rush you, but I’ve got another party waiting.”

Not registering what he was saying, Cleo slid her hand around Sly’s neck and played with the wavy hair behind his ears. Sometimes, when they watched TV and he sat on the floor and she sprawled above him on the couch, she’d stared at this spot, wondering what it felt like.

Now she knew. It felt excellent.

“Cleo.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss on the mouth before pushing her away. “We have to get out.”

The door opened, sending in cool air. With effort, she moved away from Sly, tugging her dress over her thighs, and clambered out of the low seat, grateful the driver averted his eyes.

“Thanks,” she said, stifling a giggle. A giggle? Her? Lord. “Great driving.” She watched Sly to make sure he tipped the old guy before walking unsteadily toward the huge ornamental doorway into their hotel. The valets greeted her, and she waved at them, hoping she looked like a fun-loving party girl, because that’s what she needed to feel like to keep going. Not a woman who was fighting the instinct to run and hide. No. Just a party girl without a care in the world.

“Careful,” Sly said, capturing her hand. “You’re weaving.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve never weaved in my life. A little crochet, that’s it.”

He pulled her against his side as they walked, his hand stroking the side of her waist. She knew she wasn’t herself when she didn’t adjust her underwear to smooth out the soft rolls that formed where the elastic dug into her. He was feeling her, rolls and all. Cinnabon had nothing on her.

Oh God. She wanted him so bad. She wanted him to touch her everywhere and she didn’t care what he thought, what he saw, what he felt, just that he would do it and keep doing it all night. All night. Right now. Right here. Sly. Her strong, sexy friend with the bedroom eyes and dimpled chin and talented fingers.

Sly tightened his hold around her waist. “Are you OK, sweetheart?” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s sit down for a minute.”

Tucked off to their left was a seating area with red velvet sofas and leather club chairs. He guided her over to it and pushed her down in one of the chairs while remaining standing himself. He bent over to kiss her on the forehead, lingering there a moment with his lips brushing her skin, then turned as if to go.

She gripped his wrist. “Where are you going?”

“Wait right here.” He caressed her cheek, dragging her hand with him. “I need to do something.”

“Do what? Check your email? What?”

“No. Nothing like that. It’s a surprise. Will you wait for me?”

“You’re just going to leave me here?”

“Only a few minutes,” he said.

“Will I like this surprise?”

“Stop asking me questions. It’s a surprise.”

She looked up at the chandelier over their heads. It didn’t look familiar. “Are you sure this is our hotel?”

“I wish you’d had more to eat tonight. You’d be handling the liquor a little better.”

“So much better I wouldn’t be doing this,” she said, staring at him as she licked her lips, slow and seductive. Or she hoped it was.

“Don’t say that.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

The lights in the chandelier were blue, she realized. Not all of them, just some of them. She wondered where you could find blue chandelier lights or if it was a custom-made kind of thing.

Sly said, “I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” and strode out of sight. Head spinning, she pondered the lights some more. When she got home, she’d go shopping for lights. They were so sparkly. These little ones twinkled like the high notes of a harpsichord.

“Here you go.”

She lifted her head to see a paper cup with a plastic lid and a familiar green logo hovering in front of her. No, not hovering. Sly had returned. The cup was connected to his arm.

“You need to sober up a little,” he said. “Before we go on.”

“You have the totally wrong idea about that.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked at her raspberry-neon toes. Lights in a pink color like that would be pretty too. “I don’t drink caffeine after six.”

“Because it keeps you up all night,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.

She met his gaze. His left eyebrow was arched in a way that, several months ago, she would’ve called obnoxious. But now it was hopelessly, frantically sexy. She wanted to kiss it.

“Good point.” She took the cup with both hands and brought it to her lips.

“While you drink that, I’ve got one more thing to do.”

“This is very anticlimactic.”

“Just drink that, will you?”

“You’re so bossy. Are you always this bossy with your women?”

Not smiling, he leaned down and kissed her. Hot and hard. Just as she was feeling a trickle of hot coffee burn through the polyester of her dress, scalding her thigh, he drew back, righting the cup, and said, “You’re my only woman, Cleo. Only you.”

Holy mother of Beethoven. Was this really happening? She felt as hot as the coffee.

His hand brushed her cheek. “Drink it,” he said, then disappeared again.

She craned her neck around to see where he was going. God, that arrogance. That stride. That ass. He was headed toward reception. When the fountain blocked her line of sight, she turned back to her coffee with a long, lusty sigh.

This city needed a warning label. She’d already become a gambling addict, an alcoholic, and a sex fiend. What vices had she missed? Cigarettes had killed her grandparents, which was unforgivable, and she was too conscientious to become a criminal. She was trying to remember the Ten Commandments, a little hung up on the coveting your neighbor’s wife part, which reminded her of her failed marriage, when her date returned.

He took the cup away from her and shook it a little. “You didn’t drink it.”

“It was as hot as your ass,” she said, then smiled at him.

“God.”

“I forgot that one! But I already do that.” She hauled herself out of her seat and wrapped her arms around his waist. Because she could.

“Lots of people forget God here.”

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain,” she said. “I was trying to think of new sins I could commit.”

He moved both hands down her spine and cupped her bottom, right there in the lobby. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said into her hair, “and I’ll help you with that.”

This wasn’t how he imagined their first night together. The smart, capable Cleo he knew didn’t act like a drunken teenager who groped his crotch in the elevator and then broke down giggling. He wanted her to lose control, but not like this. If they had sex when she was in this condition, he’d be taking advantage of her.

The elevator passed the floor for the room Hugo and Trixie had given them and kept going. She was too busy trying to cop another feel and collapsing with laughter to notice they were going somewhere else. Unrequited lust was making him tense, and her behavior annoyed him. He blamed himself, of course. She hadn’t kept the drinks coming, he had. Now he had her lush, inviting body in his arms and he was going to have to push her away until she’d sobered up. Which could be hours. By then she might change her mind.

He couldn’t bear to get this close to having her and then lose her. But if she woke up feeling ill-used, she’d never forgive him.

She stopped groping him and stared, eyes wide. Unfocused, but wide. “What’s the matter?”

Her sweet face knocked the breath out of him. He bent his head and kissed her lightly, then stood there, inhaling her scent, heart pounding with wanting her, until the doors opened at the top floor. He gathered his wits and led her off the elevator to a door at the end of the hallway.

She didn’t notice they were in a new suite until they were inside. “This isn’t our room.”

“It is now.”

The suite cost him more than he’d ever spent on a hotel room before in his life, and he’d traveled around the world with an expense account for over a decade. Of course, as an entrepreneur, he’d never enjoyed draining the company’s coffers and had been known to be thrifty on occasion. In fact, Mark had always accused him of being cheap.

Well, he wasn’t being cheap now. “Chocolate?” Holding her hand, he walked over to the plate of truffles waiting for them under a vase of red roses.

“You got us another room?”

He picked up a cocoa-dusted pyramid, pulled her against him, and pushed it between her lips. While she chewed, moaning, he pressed his hips into her soft curves and told himself he could resist tearing her clothes off as long as he got to hold her.

“There’s champagne too.” Her hands found his ass again and squeezed, inspiring another round of giggles.

“None for you,” he said.

She pulled away, eyebrow arching. “Excuse me?”

“I’m waiting for you to sober up.”

“I’m waiting for you to pull that stick out of your ass.” She lunged, as if going for the stick, and he twisted out of reach. Her humor faded. “Come on, you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m finally ready to go, and you’re saying no?”

“I’m saying let’s take it slow.”

She closed her eyes, dropping mascara-darkened lashes over her cheeks. Nostrils flaring, she took a deep breath, then spun away from him and strode into the room. As she walked past the wet bar with the chocolates and champagne, her arm swung out and caught the bottle. She took it with her through the sunken living room to the sliding balcony doors, where she stood with her back to him, hand on the window, looking out on the view. The flashing city lights put her hourglass figure into stunning silhouette.

“We can’t wait,” she said, setting the champagne bottle on the floor. “We have to do it now.” She turned, leaning against the glass, and reached up to the neckline of her dress. With a tug, one side fell down her arm, exposing a red bra strap and a pale, creamy shoulder.

He hurried over. “It’s not a chore to get over with.” Breathing hard, he grabbed the dress and yanked it back up, trying to tune out the feel of her velvety skin under his fingers and the seductive way she leaned into him. The scent of her perfume. The memory of her taste, sweet and forbidden.

Tilting her head, she touched the hollow of his throat, then trailed a featherlight finger up to his chin, across his jaw, his lips. He froze, struggling to hold himself back, trying not to show how her touch undid him, but his heart was pounding and he was aching hard for her. If she didn’t stop, he’d have to leave. He’d have to. He’d have to. He closed his eyes.

“So beautiful you are,” she said, mockingly, a hint of Yoda in her voice.

He felt her chest press against his as she drew closer. “So drunk you are,” he managed to say, his voice unsteady. “Sober up you must.”

He opened his eyes just as she kissed him, light and teasing, on his chin. “But then I won’t be happy fun girl. I might remember we can’t do this.”

“We can.”

She began pulling his shirttails out from his pants. “Yes we can, yes we can,” she chanted between giggles, hooking her fingers around his belt. Powerless for a moment to stop her, he froze, indulging in the fantasy of her fumbling to unfasten the leather, unfasten his pants, and touch him.

She withdrew her hands suddenly and reached down for the champagne. “You’re wrong about me, you know.”

He swallowed over his dry throat. “Am I?”

“I’m not nearly drunk enough to do this.” She tore off the foil and began untwisting the wire over the cork.

Not nearly drunk enough. Not nearly.

He ducked his head. “Neither am I.” Hardly believing he had the willpower to move, he pivoted and headed for the door.