bar, huh?”
Baz inclined his head. “If that is what you wish.”
“I...” What was he saying? Was he ready for the evening to be over?
“Or we could go into the hotel and get a room?” he suggested.
She’d never done that, not once. Randi had not only never had a one-off with a man she’d just met, she’d also never rented a hotel room with a man for the sole purpose of having sex. The illicit nature of the idea was way too alluring.
And that worried her. Where was her deeply ingrained sense of self-preservation?
She asked the only thing her mind could conjure without giving away just how much she wanted to do exactly as he suggested. “Don’t you have a room already?”
His shrug was dismissive. “An executive penthouse condo, but getting there would require waiting to have my car brought around by the valet. Besides, I can’t travel alone. If I’m in my penthouse, my staff can find me even if I turn off my phone.”
She couldn’t imagine that kind of pressure, the knowledge that privacy and alone time were little more than an illusion. Even so.
“You’re saying you want me so much you want to get a room, right here at the Heathman, so we can...” She couldn’t make herself spell it out.
“Pick up where that kiss left off, yes.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, yes, I’d like that.” What was she saying? Was she agreeing to a hookup in a hotel room with a man she’d only met hours ago?
And if she was, why wasn’t she more freaked out about the idea?
Randi was barely a nonvirgin, having had sex exactly twice. Neither of which had turned out well for her. She and her almost fiancé had gotten intimate just before the accident and subsequent media storm. The reporter had gotten Randi into bed after a few weeks of dating and pretending to be someone else, only to walk away the next morning with his exclusive.
But Baz was not some jerk with a hidden agenda who would break her heart after using her body. It might only be one night; their mutual passion might be a temporary aberration, but at least she wasn’t worried about the aftermath.
Randi was tired of living in the bubble of loneliness that had surrounded her for the past five years.
Whatever happened tomorrow, tonight she got what she just knew was going to be amazing sex, with the most magnetic man she’d ever spoken to, much less kissed.
Baz looked down at her, his dark-chocolate gaze filled with desire. “Well?”
An atavistic chill ran down her spine. This man was a primal alpha and she wanted to meet him passion for passion. “Yes.”
“Yes to the hotel room?”
She nodded.
“I need the word, mi hermosa. There can be no doubt.”
“Yes.”
His smile was killer. “Muy bien. Vente mi, cariña.” He took her hand and set a fast pace for the main entrance to the hotel.
So, he lost his English when he was turned on. Randi liked knowing she could affect him so strongly. And she liked the endearments, too. Even if it was only a one-night stand, what woman didn’t want to be called beautiful and darling? Though beautiful might be stretching it, she wasn’t about to tell him so. Let the man look at her through the filter of lust-filled glasses.
She hadn’t been into the main lobby of the Heathman in years, its nearly hundred-year-old beauty as pristine as when it had first been built in the nineteen-twenties. Both luxurious and gorgeous, with its decorative, rich wood walls and pillars, two-story-high ceiling and elegant decor, the cavernous room intended for greeting guests was nothing short of awe-inspiring. Baz, international business mogul, led her to the desk and had no trouble procuring a room, despite his lack of reservations. The fact he was happy to take the Grand Suite for the night probably had something to do with that.
Randi couldn’t help gasping when she heard the clerk tell Baz how much one night would be. She could pay the rent on her small apartment for two months with what he was willing to pay to have the convenience of a hotel room right that minute.
With original art on the walls—art rarely seen outside a museum, no less—the suite’s full-size living room and dining area decorated in pure modern elegance was separated from the bedroom by a spacious foyer, making the suite bigger than her apartment and way more lavish.
“Stop looking at the furniture. I want your eyes on me,” Baz instructed as he pulled her into his arms.
“But this place is incredible,” she teased, having no problem following his demands.
Even the opulent suite couldn’t hold a candle to the man pulling her close into his body.
Baz’s expression turned thoughtful. “You like it? The clerk said it was booked for tomorrow, but I could probably persuade them to accommodate us.”
Of course the billionaire thought so, despite the fact it was probably some kind of celebrity coming in to stay.
“No. I... It’s just... This place is bigger than my apartment!”
His smile was indulgent. “And would you rather explore it, or me?”
That fast, the desire buzzing along her nerve endings went critical. “You.”
“Then let us go to the bedroom.”
And without warning, she was suddenly in his arms, being carried like a princess into a bedroom fit for royalty. He set her down and ripped the extra pillows from the bed, tossing them onto the floor, before flinging back the duvet.
Then he turned to her. “I think we are both overdressed for what is about to happen.”
Her mouth gone instantly dry, she nodded.
He slipped off his tailored suit jacket and hung it carelessly on an armchair, before toeing off his shoes so he could slip his trousers off and do the same with them. His legs were pillars of muscle; his olive skin sprinkled with dark, masculine hair. He kicked off his socks without looking away from her, no evidence of even the slightest discomfort in his near nudity.
Paralyzed with want and no small dose of insecurity she’d rather pretend she never felt, Randi just watched the Spanish business shark strip.
“You are not going to join me?” he asked, his tone teasing, no doubt there that she wanted what he so clearly did.
The power tie went next, and then the buttons on his shirt before Baz shrugged it off to lay it over his other clothes on the chair, putting acres of golden olive skin on display.
She sucked in air as his muscular, defined torso and chest came into view. “I think your abs have abs. What do you do, like a million sit-ups a day or something?”
“My exercise routine is what you want to talk about?” he demanded, humor lacing his voice, but oh, his eyes.
They burned with everything she felt.
Truthfully? She didn’t want to talk at all. Randi wanted to touch, crossing the few feet of carpet separating them to do just that.
While the tent in his snug, black, silk-knit boxers called to her, she reached up to brush her hands through the black hair on his chest. “So soft.”
“You expected something else?”
“I’ve never been with a man with chest hair before,” she admitted.
“I do not want to hear about other men.”
His words thrilled her, but she wasn’t so far gone she was going to let him see that. “So possessive for a one-night stand.”
“You