the door wider, inviting him in and battling the urge to hold him until the lines around his eyes disappeared. But she couldn’t step that close to the edge. This was all she could offer…all she could accept. This game—short-lived, finite and slaking only a mutual physical need.
The door closed behind him and he followed her into the room.
She turned, begging him with her eyes not to break the spell, not to break the rules. ‘What do you want?’ she said, her voice a whisper.
He stared. Endless seconds in which she felt stripped bare by the intensity in his haunted eyes.
‘I want to be buried inside you.’
Stark, honest, hard to deny. But deny she must. For her own sanity.
Without comment, or even acknowledgment, she stripped out of her sweater and jeans, careful not to disrupt her hair. His eyes widened at the lacy underwear she’d donned, but he stood stock-still, waiting and watching.
She approached him as a cat might approach a dog: with slinking bravado, narrowed eyes and muscles coiled tight, ready to flee if he decided to show off his superior strength.
When she was inches away she sank down, catching him by surprise. Her knees hit the carpet at his feet. She unclasped his belt buckle and made quick work of the button fly of his jeans. When she lifted her eyes to his smouldering stare she caught her breath. How had she ever thought she could control this vibrant, fearless, worldly man?
Every muscle in his body seemed to strain, and raw power poured from his dark eyes and clenched jaw. His biceps bulged at the sleeves of his T-shirt as he fisted his hands at his sides.
Uncertain how much time she’d have, she tugged the jeans and underwear down over his hips, her mouth watering at the sight and scent of him.
Leaning forward, she touched her tongue to his steely tip.
‘Wait.’
Her gaze flicked up. Would he stop her? Had she imagined the excitement flashing in his dark eyes? Perhaps his brooding mood had left him reluctant to play her game. Obey her rules.
Slowly his hands cradled her face, fingers burrowing into her hair. She pressed her lips together as one by one he tugged the hairgrips free, until her hair spilled down her bare back. He stroked it back from her face, gentle hands fingering the strands with a reverence that made her itch.
Libby looked away. She didn’t want to see tenderness on his face. Didn’t want to explore his strange mood or the reasons for it. She just wanted him. In her mouth, at her mercy, under her control.
She gripped his erection, angling him towards her mouth, and closed her lips around him. He groaned, his teeth snagging his bottom lip. His thighs were steel under her palms and he shifted restlessly on the balls of his feet, his chest rising and falling in rapid pants.
Boldly staring up at him, she took him to the back of her throat, her tongue pressed hard against him to hit all his pleasure points…the ones that made his eyes roll back and his hands fist in her hair. But his stare quickly returned to the action, darting between her eyes and her working mouth while harsh grunts jerked from his panting chest.
‘Libby…’
When he tried to back away Libby clung tighter, increasing the suction, her head bobbing with renewed determination. Power surged inside her, flooding her sex with moisture. This big, strong man—intelligent, driven, compassionate—was trembling, frantic, on the verge of shattering. And, although he was legendary for his thrill-seeking and audacious business deals, he’d handed her control like a precious gift. A gift she needed.
With a shout he came, his hands buried in her hair, holding her face as she sucked and swallowed until he was spent and breathless, a wondrous expression softening the hard planes of his face, which seconds before had been twisted in rapture.
She released him from her mouth and he hauled her to her feet, engulfing her in his strong arms and then gripping her face to kiss her with heat.
He pulled back, leaving Libby’s head spinning.
‘Never go back to America.’
Not bothering to wait for her response, he kissed her again, looped his arms around her waist and flopped them down onto the nearby mattress.
LIBBY’S HEAD ROSE and sank with the movement of Alex’s chest as his breaths slowed. His warm fingers traced small circles on her back, his legs entwined with hers, and his heartbeat thumped under her cheek, which was glued to his sweat-damp skin.
It was way too intimate, but her heavy limbs refused to move—as if they’d run a marathon and gone on strike. And in a way they had. This week was a whirlwind of life in the fast lane so far.
‘I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly today.’
His sleepy voice rumbled in his broad chest, his chest hairs tickling her nose.
‘I understand. Is your mother okay?’
He drew in a breath that seemed unending, the gust of his prolonged exhalation blowing strands of her now wild hair onto her face. His fingers swooped in, pushing the hair back from her forehead and rectifying the situation.
‘She drinks sometimes. Too much. She’s never really got over losing Jenny.’
The weight of his confession pressed Libby even further into the mattress and her breath stalled. Should she pry? He wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t want to talk, right?
‘What happened to your sister?’ She held her breath.
His fingers returned to the small of her back, their tips gliding round and round in a hypnotic pattern. ‘She had epilepsy.’
Libby waited, still and quiet, so as not to break the confessional spell.
‘Around six hundred people per year die of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. It’s called SUDEP for short.’ His fingers on her back stilled. ‘She was eighteen.’
His matter of fact tone contrasted with the increase in his breathing and the renewed thud of his heart.
‘I’m sorry that happened to your family. It must have been a terrible time.’
‘For my parents, yes. It essentially destroyed their marriage. The blame game. The what ifs. Although theirs had been a rocky marriage for years prior to my sister’s death.’
His hand resumed its stroking.
‘Do you like weddings?’
The change of subject was so abrupt Libby lifted her head to stare at him, her neck muscles jarring. What could she say? He’d opened up to her this evening—not that it was part of their deal—but she wasn’t ready to do the same. What was the point? This was temporary. A holiday away from reality. Less than a fling—a business merger, brokered and negotiated. Just sex.
She trained her features to stay neutral, swallowing back the acid in her throat. ‘Who doesn’t?’
She shifted, untangling herself from his warmth and his long, muscular limbs. She sat on the bed with her back to him, reaching for a robe and shrugging it on. A shield.
‘Do you want to go to one? My cousin Isabel is marrying in France this weekend. We should have met her brother, Jack, today. The architect I told you about.’
Libby swallowed. That itchy, impatient feeling was back, making her restless. ‘You can’t invite a stranger to a family wedding.’
‘Why not?’
His fingers continued to work their magic, circling lazily on the curve of her hip. Even through the cotton his touch carried a potency that made her weak.
‘You’d be my plus one. Jack and Isabel’s grandfather