He looked away, regretting he’d said anything. But he couldn’t let her think he was calling her out for drawing that man’s attention when he was the one who’d put her in the actor’s line of sight in the first place.
Inhaling to gather his composure, he stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the penthouse, folding his arms and bracing his feet as he faced her. The elevator began to climb.
“I don’t typically care if the women I take to these things choose to leave with someone else. That guy knows it. Hell, most of the women I date come on to me for an introduction to a crowd like that. I don’t care,” he insisted, because until this evening, he genuinely hadn’t.
“But tonight you did?” She was very somber, looking up at him with something that approached concern. As though she sensed he was facing a demon, which was as painful as actually looking into the hard light of self-reflection.
“Tonight I saw how tawdry it is,” he acknowledged.
The elevator stopped at her floor, making her take a half step for balance. The doors opened, but they stayed in the suspended elevator, the air so thick with tension it held no oxygen.
“He embarrassed me,” Demitri admitted, teeth locked and trying to hold in the uncomfortable revelation. “He made me embarrassed of myself. You said you weren’t in the same league as the women I usually date, and that’s true.”
She flinched, taken aback.
“You’re well beyond anything they could aspire to,” he expounded. “Not as worldly, I’ll give you that, but you have the kind of standards the people I call friends wouldn’t even begin to understand.”
“That’s not true,” she argued. Glancing out to the hall, she motioned that he should release the door. She seemed embarrassed, as though she wanted privacy.
As he allowed the doors to close again, she clasped her hands before her, shoulders hunched and defensive, brow crinkled and looking mortified.
The elevator began the rest of its climb.
“I’m not worldly, that’s dead-on. But I don’t have any kind of great standards. I came to France kind of fantasizing about having an affair, just like you accused me this afternoon. I mean, obviously not really expecting anything to happen,” she stammered, wringing her hands. “But as I was dancing, I was letting myself think it could. I’m sure I gave him the wrong impression.”
His brain went supernova, exploding in his head, sweeping out any other thought but that he could have her.
“If you want an affair, Natalie, I’m your man.” His voice plummeted into throaty depravity, the want in him so quick and intense it tightened his airway.
Her lashes quivered and her pupils expanded. “I... It was just a fantasy,” she insisted—voice, tone, protest thin and insubstantial.
The elevator stopped again.
He pinned the door automatically with the well-practiced step of his foot into the sensor and the rest of him in her space.
She was off balance, breasts rising in a startled gasp as her hand went behind her, searching blindly for the rail.
He braced his hands against the wall on either side of her head and took his time gazing on her wary expression, letting her get used to the idea. Some primal part of him deliberately forgot why he’d meant to let her go home alone.
“The first time I saw you I thought you would have such soft skin.” He leaned close enough to draw in the scent of her flushed cheek, letting their body heat build in the tiny space he allowed between them. Seduction was about giving a woman time to feel the want, then providing the relief.
“I’m not sure,” she whispered, but her gaze was on his mouth. Yearning parted her lips. “I didn’t mean for you to think...”
Patience, he warned himself, practically trembling with the avalanche of desire building behind his wall of self-control.
“I want this...” she whispered.
He moved in with the skill of a man who always got what he wanted, not by force, but persuasion.
Her mouth was a tender morsel that made his breath hiss out in gratification as he nuzzled it with his own. She responded hesitantly, then with openness, inviting his full possession, letting him guide her toward the sensual world he longed to explore with her. She was delightful, shy yet generous, eyes closed tight in pained pleasure. When a little sob of capitulation left her, when she brought her hands from behind her back to his chest and splayed them in a promising caress, he drew back just enough to speak.
“Come with me.”
DON’T, SHE THOUGHT.
But in the back of her mind, she asked herself, What’s holding you back? She had mentally allowed for something like this to happen. Heck, she’d actually bought condoms, thinking at the time that it was a ridiculous prospect, but secretly dreaming of being swept off her feet by a suave foreigner. Demitri was a prime example of the sophisticated man she’d hoped to meet. Plus, he actually knew how these situations worked.
But she hadn’t expected an affair to actually happen. She was normal, boring, run-of-the-mill Natalie. Not some irresistible, exciting woman who captivated a man.
Demitri looked at her as if she was that and more. He made her feel beautiful and alluring, as though she was the kind of woman who deserved a man to love and cherish her. That fantasy was as seductive as the genuine tingles of arousal he provoked in her.
When he closed his hand around hers and backed out of the elevator, drawing her with him, she let it happen.
Knees weak, heart pounding, lips still burning, she allowed him to lead her down the hallway, half convinced this was a dream because things like this didn’t really happen. Not to her.
They passed recessed doors that led to private suites. She’d only been in one Makricosta penthouse ever, to resolve a Wi-Fi issue for a client she hadn’t even seen. She knew of the family suites in each of the hotels, but hadn’t ever expected to see the interior of one.
Demitri let her in a door marked Private Residence.
She took in the overstuffed semicircle couch and round coffee table, the dining area and table for twelve, the marble mantel and matching accent tables. Table lamps provided soft light against the draped windows. The art on the walls looked expensive. The suite was tasteful and welcoming, if cold. Not as generic as a hotel room, but not really lived in.
“Take your coat?” he offered.
She set her pocketbook on the chest beside the door and offered her back, nerves strummed by the brush of his fingertips as he lowered her coat off her shoulders. The brush of silk lining down her arms caused her to shiver, making her nipples pull tight. Everything in her tensed with anticipation while nerves had her heart hammering in her throat.
Was she really doing this? She ought to tell him that she didn’t do this. It wasn’t her. He’d be disappointed.
Working up her courage, she turned, hands clasped before her.
He was looking at her legs, coat suspended from his hand. As she turned, he lifted his gaze to hers, locking her in a heated stare, not looking away as he tossed her wet coat toward the leather sofa.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she protested, taking an automatic step to fetch it.
He stepped into her space. The air between them thinned like smoke, leaving a vacuum that pulled them into the space, energy sizzling and popping with sexual awareness.
He was so gorgeous. Not just that sculpted jaw and his intense dark eyes, but the kissable shape of his lips and the scope of his shoulders.