later those tempting lips got a great deal closer as Damon leaned towards her in much the same way as she had done the first time they’d met. Bench in between them but personal space still well and truly invaded. Her eyes moved up to meet Damon’s gaze and there was a promise there waiting for her, and a challenge if she dared to accept it.
‘Something you want from me, Ruby?’ he asked silkily.
‘Nope. Definitely not. Can’t think of anything. At all.’
‘Liar,’ he whispered softly.
‘Are you sure this is flirting without intent?’ she whispered back.
‘Now that you mention it, I may have acquired intent,’ he murmured.
‘That’s really not part of the plan.’
‘I know.’ He rocked forward until his lips brushed hers. ‘The plan was flawed. No pep.’
‘Don’t you have cola for that?’
‘It’s not enough.’
‘Is that a favourite saying of yours?’
‘It is of late.’ He touched his lips to hers again and his big body grew very still. Warm lips against her own and a bench in between them as he waited for her response.
Time seemed to stop as Ruby battled for control of her wayward reaction to Damon West. Not flirty and easy but complex and needy. So much need in her to taste the essence of this man.
Tentatively, she set the tip of her tongue to one corner of his lips and tested the seam. In. He let her in, and he tasted of sweetness and his tongue knew how to tease, drawing her deeper into passionate play, and he led and she followed, and then she led and he let her.
Lightness of touch and an homage to languor and beneath it all a deep well of scorching heat. Ruby backed out of the kiss reluctantly, before it consumed her, and Damon moaned his protest and took one last fast taste before letting her pull back.
‘God, we’d be good in bed together,’ he rumbled and turned away and headed for the fridge.
Ruby closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer. Dear God, not this one. Please, not this one, for his capacity to enchant was too high, and the likelihood of him giving much of himself seemed alarmingly low.
When Damon returned from his foray in the fridge, he had a bowl of ice cubes and a tin of caviar. The ice-bowl went between them on the counter and the caviar got upended on top of it. Next, he opened a packet of breadsticks and set it next to the rest.
‘Eat,’ he said. ‘And remind me again why you’re not going to sleep with me, apart from the fact that you work for my father, need to keep your job and consider me a habitual liar. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem enough.’
Rather than answer, Ruby sampled the food on offer. A pause where pause was needed. An ice cube topped with caviar, and a cool and salty slide. She crunched down on the ice and let the textures mingle. ‘Mmm.’ Good manners prevented speech, so another mmm would have to be enough.
‘Good, isn’t it? Much like we’d be.’ Sighing, Damon picked up a breadstick, loaded it with eggs and held it to her lips. ‘The caviar usually runs out before the ice does. Say aah.’
‘Ahumm.’ The breadstick went in loaded and came out clean. A husky oath filled the air.
Damon’s.
‘Give me a reason not to, Ruby,’ and his voice came low and guttural and slid down her spine like a lover’s hand. ‘Give me a reason to back off, or I swear I’ll be inside of you before the day is through.’
Ruby swallowed hard and attempted to marshal her thoughts. ‘I work for your father,’ she said weakly.
‘Not good enough.’
‘I’ll lose my job.’
‘Says who?’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘Would you like to?’
‘Would you let me?’ Finally an objection she could follow through on. ‘Can you answer even the most casual of questions honestly?’ ‘I can try.’
‘All right. Where were you this time last week? What were you doing? Just the briefest details of your day—that’s all I’m asking for.’
She saw him shut down. Watched his eyes as he sifted back through time, closing compartments as he went. Not that. Not that. Can’t tell her that; and his reasons for not telling her were his own. He didn’t even offer up an excuse.
‘Okay, different question,’ she said. ‘Where will you be in a week’s time? Snapshot that day.’
But he couldn’t seem to do that either. ‘Most people would be able to answer those questions, Damon,’ she said quietly. ‘But then, you’re not most people, are you? I may have been wrong about you being after my father, but I wasn’t wrong about the rest of it. About the way you keep the details of your life to yourself. About there being so much of you that you cannot, or will not, share. Not with strangers. Not with anyone.’ Finally he swore. One word.
Not something they’d be doing anytime soon.
‘Glad we cleared that up,’ she said carefully, no flirting in her now, just a pitiful and aching need for something that had never been on offer. ‘I need honesty from a lover, Damon. I need to taste the truth in you, even if all we’d be doing is having mindless, no-strings-attached sex. It’s a requirement of mine.’ She dredged up a smile from somewhere.
‘Make an exception,’ he cajoled gruffly. ‘For me.’ Nothing like the penetrating gaze of a powerfully persuasive man to make a woman’s mind waver. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Ruby. I swear I will not lie to you. Ever. I’ll just …’
‘Not answer,’ she finished for him softly. ‘I know how it works, Damon. And for what it’s worth you tempt me. So much. But what you’re offering … it’s not enough.’
Damon stayed broodingly silent.
‘I should go,’ she said awkwardly, and then as reality intruded, ‘I need to do the birds first.’
‘I’ll do them.’
‘Thank you.’ Ruby made it to the door and into her shoes before job necessities made her turn to Damon once more. ‘I’ve arranged to collect Poppy from the airport at three and bring her here.’
‘I’ll get her.’
‘Lena gets in at six.’
‘I’ll get her too.’
This time Ruby managed to make it through the doorway, shutting the apartment door behind her with a quiet click. She drew a shuddering breath and closed her eyes briefly, before putting one foot determinedly in front of the other as she headed for the lift.
He wanted too much from her. Too much for too little.
There was nothing left to say.
HEATSTROKE and insanity. That was what Ruby attributed those scorching kisses to. It was hot. She was insane. Simple.
Exactly what Damon West was, apart from obsessively secretive, was still open to interpretation.
Nothing but a memory, she told herself sternly. That was what she needed him to be. A vivid and beautiful memory that a woman could look to every so often. A memory to accompany a wistful sigh, a tiny half-smile and a harmless game of what-if.
What if he had been that little bit more open with her?
What if she’d made an exception for him?
Ruby