One Night: Exotic Fantasies: One Night in Paradise / Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby / Prince Nadir's Secret Heir
and paused for a moment before continuing, “agree to stuff myself into a gown that has all the give of saran wrap like a Vienna sausage!”
“I like the visual, but your attitude needs work.”
“Your head needs work,” she shot back.
“Wear the dress.” He hung up the phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat before maneuvering his car against the curb in front of Clara’s apartment.
He didn’t bother to wait for the elevator. He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on her door, beneath the pretty, pink flowery wreath thing she had hung there. A clever ruse to make people think the owner of the apartment was sweetness and light when, at the moment, she was spitting flame and sulfur.
The door jerked open and he met Clara’s glittering brown eyes. And then he looked down and all of the blood in his body roared south.
She was right about the dress. A deep scarlet, it would draw the eye of everyone in the restaurant. And while it didn’t show her belly button, it did put her amazing cleavage on display. The soft, rounded curves of her breasts were accentuated by the sweetheart neckline, the pleating in the waist showing off just how tiny she was, before her hips flared out, the fabric conforming to that gorgeous, hourglass shape of hers.
“I am not going out in this.”
“It’s too late for you to change,” he said, barely able to force himself to raise his eyes to her face. He had to admit, the dress was counterproductive as when it came to trying to put Clara back into the proper compartment she was meant to be in in his life, he didn’t want her to change.
He wanted to look at her in that dress for as long as he could. And then, he wanted to lower the zipper on the back of it and watch it slither down her body. He wanted to see her again, soft, naked and begging him to take her.
“Zack …”
“Do you have something against looking sexy?”
“What? No.”
“Then what’s the problem? If it honestly offends your modesty in some way, fine, change. But otherwise, you look …”
“Like I’m trying too hard?”
He took a step and she backed away from the door, letting him into the apartment. He shouldn’t touch her. Not even an innocent gesture. Because with the thoughts that were running through his brain, nothing could be innocent.
He did anyway, and he ignored the voice in his head telling him to stay in control. He was in control. He could touch her without doing more. He was the master of his body, of his emotions.
He put his finger on her jaw, traced the line of it down her neck, to her exposed collarbone.
“You look effortless. As though bringing men to their knees is something you do every day of the week without breaking a sweat. You look like the kind of woman who can have anyone or anything she wants.”
“I … I … well, I don’t appreciate you dressing me,” she said. “It’s demeaning.”
“I don’t know if it was demeaning, but selfish, perhaps.”
“Selfish?”
“Because I’m enjoying looking at you so much.”
She bent down and picked up a black shawl from the couch, looping it over her arms before grabbing a black clutch purse from the little side table. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
She breezed out the door ahead of him, clearly resigned to wearing the dress.
“Probably not,” he said, his tone light.
“But you did anyway,” she said, turning to face him.
“I did. There are a lot of things I shouldn’t have said or done over the past couple of weeks, and yet, it seems I’ve said and done them all.”
“I haven’t,” she said, turning away from him again and heading down the stairs, eager to avoid being in an elevator with him, he imagined.
“Oh, really?”
“Mmm. I have been virtuous. I’ve wanted to say and do many things in the past week that I haven’t.”
“Why do I feel disappointed by that news?”
“I don’t know. You shouldn’t be,” she said, her stilettos clicking and echoing in the stairwell. “You should be thankful.” She pushed open the exterior door and they both walked out into the cool evening air.
“I find I’m not.”
“I can’t help you there.”
Something hot and reckless sparked in him. She must have noticed because she backed away from him until she bumped against his car. That was a picture, Clara, in scarlet silk, leaning against his black sports car. The fantasies that were rolling through his mind should be illegal.
“I wish you could,” he said, taking a step toward her.
She shook her head. “There’s no help for either of us.”
“I’m starting to think that might be true.”
He wanted to kiss the red off her lips. He wanted to take her back upstairs and do something about the unbearable ache that had settled in his body more than a week ago and hadn’t released him since.
“Let’s go. We have a dinner date,” he said, his voice curt, harsher than he’d intended.
She nodded and went around to the passenger side and he let out a long, slow breath, trying to ease the tension in his body.
Being with her once hadn’t helped at all. One night hadn’t been enough.
But there wouldn’t be another night. There would be no point to it.
“THANK you for doing that,” Zack said, once they were back in the car and away from the presence of the man they were putting on the show for.
Dinner had gone well, and it looked like everything was on track for Mr. Amudee to sign the exclusive deal with Roasted. It turned out he was thrilled that Zack was marrying a woman he worked with, a woman who understood and shared his passion for the business. It was one of the things, they’d found out over dessert, that had placed Zack slightly ahead of his rival at Sand Dollar. Because Amudee felt Zack and Clara were working together, and the owner of the other coffee-shop chain would be spending more time away from his family.
So, just another way their farce had helped. She still didn’t feel good about it.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m serious. I should have thanked you before.”
“Gourmet dinner after a week in Thailand? I’m not all that put out by it.” A big lie, and they both knew it.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “About freaking out about the dress.”
“Not a big deal.”
Tension hung thick in the air between them. She just felt … restless and needy. The kiss, the one they’d shared in his office, still burning her lips.
It was only supposed to be the one time. Just once. In Chiang Mai, not here.
“I really liked my … salmon,” she said. It was lame but she didn’t want to leave Zack yet. Didn’t want to get into her cold, empty bed and slowly die, crushed beneath the weight of her sexual frustration.
A dramatic interpretation of what would actually happen, but she felt dramatic.
“You didn’t have salmon.”
“I