Privately ensconced behind the closed doors of his hotel suite Alex gathered Maggie into his arms and held her close. He lowered his face to hers and kissed her – softly, gently. He imbibed her – hot, feminine, fragrant. He ran the fingers of one hand to the back of her neck and caressed her nape.
She broke the kiss and tilted her face to look into his eyes. “Make love to me,” she whispered.
He pulled back, releasing her from his arms, semi-paralyzed by her choice of words. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the laptop. The shiny rectangle was a reminder of the cyber world that lay beyond the walls of his hotel room.
What new stories lurked out there?
What latest headline loomed?
He jabbed a hand into his hair, huffed out a breath and turned away from her. He should stop before they went any further. The best way to protect Maggie from the venom of any more press tittle-tattle would be to go to his room, close the door and stay there – alone.
He turned back and faced her looking for some kind of signal in her enticing eyes. “This can only be for one night. You know that, don’t you?”
She gave a mysterious half-smile, tossed her head, tipped up her chin and fired him an impatient look. Her hands played distractedly with her hair and she glanced away. Gathering it all into a single swathe, she curled it around the back of her neck and let it lie across one shoulder. Its sheen glinted. “Look at me, Maggie. This is important.”
She met his gaze with a sparkling, playful smile, put one fist over her mouth and contorted her voice so that it sounded like she was speaking through a loudhailer. “Roll up! Roll up! Ladies and gentleman. For One Night Only. In a hotel suite near you …”
“Stop it.” He grabbed her wrist, drew her close. “Don’t play the clown.” He kissed her deeply. Suppressing a groan, he forced himself to stop, pulled back from her. Did human beings ever really spontaneously combust? On Mercy of the Vampires there’d been an episode when his wicked half-werewolf, half-vampire cousin had exploded into flames and melted into an unattractive pool of putrid gloop. All he wanted to do was scoop Maggie into his arms and carry her straight to bed. “I’m being serious.”
Maggie reached up and touched his face, her palm smooth against his jaw. “I’m not looking for a relationship. We both know that.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “We’re on the same page then?”
“Sure,” she said, twisting away and heading towards her bedroom. “One night. End of story.” She turned back, met his gaze, and since he hadn’t budged, took his hand and laced her fingers through his, tugging so that she could uproot him from his spot and pull him after her. “We’ve already hit the headlines. Might as well make the most of it.”
“The newspapers are a law unto themselves.”
“I get that.”
One minute Maggie was leading Jago the merciless vampire to her bedroom, and the next she was off her feet and in the arms of Alex, as if she was lighter than air. She let out a squeal of delight and anchored herself by circling her arms around his neck. He was too gorgeous for words. And tonight the top-of-the-hotties was all hers.
She trembled, remembering that she needed to hang on to the vampire fantasy and not risk letting her heart believe that she was finally spending a night with her fabulous lost-but-found-friend.
She gave a kind of internal shrug. Either way, it was unreal. He was taking her to bed.
Result!
She’d left her scarf draped on the back of a sofa. As Alex carried her to his room she reached out with one hand and grabbed it.
“What’s that for?” His voice was gravelly hoarse.
“I want you to blindfold me.”
“Oh no, lady. Your wish is my command. But not that. I want to see your face.” Silent for a second, he added throatily, “Your eyes.”
He tossed the scarf across the room. It unfurled, opening up into a rainbow parachute as it billowed in the air and floated to the floor. Alex shouldered open the door to his bedroom. Maggie tried to kick off her shoes. They were bound fast by the ribbons at her ankles. He sat on the bed with Maggie across his lap and slowly undid the ties. First one shoe, then the other, hit the deep-pile carpet with a muffled clunk.
He stood, lifting her with him, and setting her on her feet beside the ridiculously super-sized bed. Giddy, she steadied herself with one hand on the bulge of his biceps. She traced the line of his mouth with one finger.
“I want your lips to cover my body in figures of eight,” she whispered huskily, adding stupidly. “Like you do with your conquests in Mercy of the Vampires.”
His jaw tensed. Hands balanced on his broad shoulders, beneath her fingers a shudder rippled across the muscles.
“I thought you weren’t into the vampire stuff.”
“I changed my mind. I’ve unbanned it.”
“It’s always a lady’s prerogative to change her mind.” His quiet words spelt it out clearly. She had the option to back out if she wanted to.
She shook her head slowly, knotting her arms around his neck, twisting her fingers into his hair and drawing his head down. “I haven’t changed my mind about anything else.” He’d put a spell on her. Magnetic desire had turned her spaced-out and rubbery-boned. Backing out now would be an impossibility.
He dwarfed her, a tower of rock-hard muscle. Smaller without her heels, she felt as if she’d swallowed a shrinking potion. Her confidence wobbled. Alex wasn’t a passing fancy. But imagining that she could have any kind of life with him in it would be a fantasy.
It’s a fling. One night. Nothing more.
She resolved to immerse herself in the pretense that she was being seduced by Hot Vampire Guy. If she admitted it to him, she’d risk losing the one night she craved with Alex – forever.
He clasped her tight against him. She melted into his muscles, lost in his hold. It felt so right, far beyond control.
She took a deep breath as if she was about to jump into the deep end of an infinity pool, somewhere hot and beautiful.
Holding her so close that she could feel his heartbeat, Alex’s erection pressed hard and urgent against her middle. He slipped the fabric of her dress off her shoulders and it fell to her waist. Outside a moon, now only one sliver short of a full circle, hung high above the trees in Central Park. Her naked breasts stood out pale and rose-peaked, bathed in silvery light. With one swift move Alex found the zip and expertly freed the fabric covering the curve of her bum so that it dropped at her feet, leaving her standing in nothing but a wisp of lace with a shimmering pool of black silk and sparkly sequins at her feet. As he was about to kiss her, he let out a raw groan and stepped back, striding quickly across the room to close the curtains.
Along with the moonlight she shut out emotion, erasing her feelings like darkness stripping away color. Her body quivered as he picked her up and laid her on the bed, compelling her to acknowledge that he was no fantasy.
With impatient fingers she unknotted his bow tie and tossed it aside. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, hurrying him to shuck it. Her hands fumbled for his buttons, her undoing of them awkward and inexpert. He breathed heavily as she pulled at his shirt, held fast by cufflinks at his wrists.
“Flip. Sorry,” she whispered. He gave a low, seductive laugh, rolled onto his back, unfastened the cuffs of his shirt, and dropped them – somewhere. He rolled the shirt into a ball and launched it across the room. Maggie’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. She straddled him. She smoothed her hands up his arms, feeling her way over his biceps to his shoulders, down across his broad