me.’ No one did. No one should. He had everything he’d ever wanted, everything anyone wanted. He didn’t need Zoe Parker’s pity.
She laughed softly. ‘Touched a sore spot, did I?’
He saw now that with the wine and the food she was getting over-confident. Presumptuous. Thinking that this meant something, that they were creating some kind of intimate situation here. It was time to start calling the shots, Aaron decided. And to let Zoe know the only kind of intimate he was interested in.
She was annoying him, Zoe knew. Making him angry. Shame, because for a little while there things had almost seemed pleasant. Aaron had almost seemed…normal.
And she liked baiting him. She needed to do it, because the intensity of her attraction—and her emotion—scared her. She didn’t do intense, not anymore. Teasing him defused that, at least a little.
Except now the very air felt thick with tension, with desire. She saw his dark eyes flare darker and he set his plate and glass aside as Zoe braced herself, knowing the pleasant little interlude was over. Aaron Bryant was ready to get down to business.
She met his gaze, determined to stay insouciant, never to let him know how much he affected her. How much power he had over her. ‘Party over?’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ He reached out one powerful hand and closed it around her wrist, pulling her slowly and inexorably towards him. Zoe didn’t resist. She couldn’t; already she felt that heavy languor steal through her veins, take over her brain. She was just way too attracted to this man. ‘I’d say it’s just beginning.’
Aaron pulled her onto his sprawled thighs, his hands on her hips so she was straddling him. She felt the press of his erection against the juncture of her own thighs and pleasure bolted straight through her. It took all her will-power not to press back, not to admit with her body how much she wanted him. She needed to keep some kind of pride. Some kind of defence.
‘A different kind of party,’ Aaron murmured and slid his hands up along her hips and waist to cup her breasts only briefly and then frame her face. He brought her forward to brush his lips against hers, and distantly Zoe realised this was the first time they’d kissed.
It started gently but within seconds it flamed into something else entirely—something deep, primal and urgent. His tongue slid inside the warmth of her mouth and his hips rocked against hers—and so much for her pride, because she rocked back helplessly, her body taking over, already desperately seeking release.
His hands slid back down to her waist, and then to her thighs, and he edged the dress over her bottom so it was rucked about her waist. She was bare below except for a skimpy thong. He slid his fingers along the silky length of her thigh to the heat of her. ‘No phones here,’ he murmured, and Zoe would have laughed except he was kissing her again. His fingers were working deft magic, and all she could think about was how much she wanted this.
In one easy movement Aaron rolled her onto her back so she was splayed out on the fur rug, her dress still around her waist. Aaron lay poised over her, his cheeks faintly flushed, his eyes gleaming with desire, his breath a little ragged. He looked beautiful, dark and powerful and he stole Zoe’s breath away.
He tugged down the zip of her dress and in just a few seconds it was gone, tossed to the side of the room. Zoe stared up at him, wearing only a strapless bra and matching thong, wondering what Aaron Bryant would do with her now. Willing him to do just about anything.
‘I’m amazed you managed to fit a phone in here at all,’ he said, and ran his hand between her breasts, along her stomach, then dipping once more between her thighs. Zoe arched helplessly against his hand, and Aaron slid her panties off her. The bra followed soon after.
She lay there, naked and supine on the rug, every sense spinning into aching awareness. She supposed, distantly, that she should feel bare, exposed, nervous, but she felt none of that. All she felt was a glorious anticipation, an unbearable readiness. Aaron bent his head to her and his hands, lips and tongue seemed to be everywhere at once, teasing, tasting, tormenting her.
She tangled her hands in his hair, surprised by its softness, for everything else about him was so hard: eyes, mouth, body, attitude. Heart. But his hair was soft and she ran her fingers through it, glorying in it even as she arched and writhed beneath him, as his mouth and hands brought her to the brink of that pleasurable precipice again and again.
And then, with a quick rustle of foil, he slid on a condom and drove inside her in one single stroke. He lay suspended above her, braced on his forearms, his body fully inside hers. For one breathless moment he gazed down at her, his eyes blazing dark fire, and Zoe felt something in her lurch, shift. She saw need and something deeper flare in Aaron’s eyes, and for a second this seemed like more than sex.
Then he started to move and she wrapped her legs around his waist to bring him even closer. The moment became one of raw, primal passion, and then one of endless pleasure.
When it was over Aaron rolled onto his back and Zoe lay there, spent and breathless, her mind spinning for a few glorious minutes before she returned to earth with a dull thud. The party was over, she knew, and she didn’t relish being dismissed now that she’d served her purpose. She was pretty sure that was how Aaron treated his women, at least his one-night stands, of which she was most assuredly one. Surreptitiously she rolled over and reached for her discarded underwear, only to have Aaron stay her arm.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I need to get going,’ Zoe answered, keeping her voice light. ‘Not that the sushi wasn’t delicious.’
Aaron let out a low rumble of laughter, surprising her. For a man who didn’t joke, he’d still managed to laugh twice this evening, a thought which absurdly pleased her. What did she care if he laughed?
‘Not so fast,’ he said and pulled her towards him. Her body instinctively slid around his, her soft places finding his hard ones, so they fit like two pieces of a puzzle. ‘We need to find my bed.’
She felt a thrill at his gruffly spoken words, a ridiculous, huge thrill. He wanted her to stay? She hesitated, knowing the better, safer thing to do would be to leave. She knew herself, knew her weaknesses. Sex was sex to a man like Aaron, but to her it was something else. No matter what her head dictated, she couldn’t keep her heart from always insisting this was the one, this was love. And already she sensed that she would fall harder and longer for a man like Aaron than any of the other men she’d known. Feeling anything but basic, primal lust for Aaron Bryant bordered on the utterly insane.
‘Well, actually… .’ she began, and that was as far as she got. Aaron was smoothing his hands over her bottom, as if he were touching a rare silk, then his fingers slid between her legs and she gave up the battle she hadn’t really been fighting. ‘You have a bed?’ she managed, and with a throaty chuckle—his third laugh—he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom and his wonderful, king-sized bed.
Hours later Zoe lay in that bed with dawn’s first pale fingers streaking across the city sky and watched Aaron sleep. She was exhausted, totally sated, and as she looked at him she felt a little dart of sorrow arrow inside her. She didn’t regret this night; it had been too amazing for that. But as she looked at his face softened with sleep, his lashes feathering his cheeks and his softly sculpted lips slightly parted, she wished things could be different. That Aaron was a different kind of man.
Don’t, she warned herself. Don’t do it again. Don’t insist you’re in love with a complete ass. She’d only done that about four times before. Millie always teased her about the emotional toe-rags she dated, and Zoe usually laughed it off. After all, it was true. But that didn’t make it hurt less.
Silently she slipped from the bed and went in search of her clothes. The last of the moonlight spilled into the living room, bathing the chrome and glass with a pearly sheen even as the horizon pinkened with the promise of a new day. Zoe dressed quickly and, with one last bittersweet glance towards the bedroom, she left.
Three weeks later Zoe had done