“I—”

Don’t, she warned herself.

But that deep, inner, intuitive voice said, He’s the one.

Her voice was thick as honey. “I’m sure the staff won’t let it go to waste if we skip it.”

Rather than the smug smile she’d expected, his cheek ticked. He took her hand as they left the restaurant.

CHAPTER THREE

MOST PEOPLE ASSUMED Saint was a risk junkie. Or at the very least, someone who didn’t care about risks so long as he got what he wanted.

That wasn’t true at all. As a child, he had learned to calculate risk very quickly. If he’d wanted to speak to his father, he’d first weighed whether the subject was worth his father’s wrath at having his work interrupted. If he’d tried out for the school play, would it be worth his mother showing up tipsy and making it about her?

Later, when he and his father had found common ground in programming and hardware, his mother had been hurt and jealous. Which would he rather endure? His mother’s heartbreak or his father’s belittling lecture?

Those early consequences had prepared him for the perils in later relationships: the friend who was only a friend because he wanted access to the newest smart phone, or the girl who liked his money more than she liked him, or the people who invited him to parties to elevate their own social standing.

Saint was always aware when people were trying to use him. He often allowed it. There were silver linings: business advantages, amusing entertainments. Sex.

But he had taught those around him to expect very little from him beyond a sarcastic remark and that he would pick up the bill.

This woman beside him in the elevator, with her quirky sense of humor and understated beauty and fiery depths of passion, felt like a gamble he ought to take more time to calculate. His reaction to her was too sharp. Too intense. That kiss had been so hot, so all encompassing, he’d been seared from hairline to toenails.

This wasn’t purely a carnal reaction, though. That was the part making his nerve endings sting with danger. He’d been drawn to her all night—from the first glimpse to his compulsion to leave the gala with her. To learn more about her. To touch her.

She was as puzzling as she was alluring. Both open and closed. That air of mystery, with her refusing to give him her full name, tickled at his well-strung trip wires, but what damage could she possibly do to him if they spent the night together? He didn’t have anything in his room that he wasn’t prepared to lose. He weathered bad publicity like a seasonal storm.

Hell, he was in a small storm right now, he recalled with annoyance, but that fiasco with Julie reminded him to make clear to Fliss that this evening had its limits.

“I’m due in New York first thing in the morning,” he said. “I’ll be leaving for the airport in a few hours, but stay the night. Use the room tomorrow if you want. Visit the spa.”

The gold in her irises tarnished slightly before she blinked it away. “I have to work tomorrow.” Her mouth twitched. “But you’ve very good at this. Very smooth.” She looked down to where she held her purse and gave its clasp a few nervous clicks. “I’ve always wondered how these things were handled. By that I mean, um, I don’t have condoms.” She peeked up at him in question.

“I do.” Always. There was one in his pocket that he’d pulled from his stash out of habit.

Fliss nodded, but her brows pulled into a frown of consternation.

“Second thoughts? That’s fine.” He might actually die if she changed her mind, though. He’d never felt horniness like this. So specific. So beastly. Like there was a creature inside him that would run her to ground if he had to, he needed her so badly.

“No, I want to.” Her cheeks stained that pretty shade of pink that stoked the fire in his gut. “It’s only that I felt swept away a few minutes ago. Now the mood is a little...” She wrinkled her nose. “Logistical. I’m being silly.”

The doors opened, and she stepped out, looking to him to show her the way.

Her befuddling honesty and that phrase always wondered how these things were handled made him realize she didn’t have the experience he did. It provoked a sort of endeared protectiveness in him. As he brought her to the door of his penthouse, he felt almost as though he was initiating a virgin. He wanted to take care with her and meet all her expectations. These sorts of interludes ought to be nothing but pleasure with no reason for regret. He wanted to give her that.

He wanted to give her the best sex she’d ever had so he would remain in her thoughts forever.

And where the hell had that come from?

“Do you want a drink?” He let her in and closed the door, sealing them into a lounge lit only by a table lamp. He threw off his jacket, trying to cool his blood. Patience.

“No, thanks.” She was clicking the clasp on her purse again.

“I don’t do this as often you might think, you know.” Not anymore at least. “It suits me to let people think I’m a slut, but I’m actually quite picky.”

“Which sounds a little like you’re trying to make me feel special. I’ll chose to believe you.” She set her handbag on a side table and wandered past the sofa to the glass doors that led onto the terrace. Outside, recessed lighting cast pools of gold from beneath the hedges that surrounded the patio table and chairs.

“You are special.” He came up behind her and trailed his fingertips down her bare arms, pleased when he heard her breath catch. He was growing addicted to this chemistry that simmered and fizzed between them. It stoked his own arousal, making him twitch and thicken behind his fly. “Do you always react like this?”

“Ha. No.” She hugged herself, rubbing the bumps that had risen on her arms. In the faint reflection on the glass, her gaze sought his. “Do you?” Her voice held challenge. Cynicism.

Her question plucked at one of the razor-thin piano wires he used to protect himself. He did not react like this to every woman he met, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“If you want to talk because you’re nervous, that’s okay.” He trailed his fingers down her arms again, making her body twitch in a shudder of sensuality. “But I’d rather you let me sweep you away.”

“I am nervous,” she admitted breathlessly, voice thinning to a whisper. “But I do want that.” She started to turn into his arms.

He stopped her.

“Stay like this,” he persuaded, hearing his voice drop into his chest with anticipation.

He drew a line from one side of her neck to the other, scooping her hair onto the front of her shoulder, exposing the bow that secured the haltered front of her gown. He pressed a kiss to her nape.

Such a tiny thing, but it made her shoulders flex. This power he had over her would be heady if there wasn’t such an answering ring of need that crashed like a gong inside him. Sexual aggression had its place, but this wasn’t it. He kept a tight leash on his inner caveman and nuzzled into the fragrance of almonds and peaches that clung in her hair.

“Can I untie this?” he asked against the strings that dangled against the top of her spine.

“Yes.” The word was a rush of breath.

Slowly, slowly, he drew the tail free, watching her shoulder blades pull together as the loops released. He kissed her nape and the tip of her shoulder and scraped his teeth against the tendons at the base of her neck, then bent lower to suck the skin on the fleshy part of her upper arm.

A shiver and a helpless sound was his reward.

As the front of her gown fell forward, exposing her chest in a translucent reflection of pale gold and shadowed nipples, she brought her arms up to shield herself.

He slid his hands around to cup her breasts for her, very aware of the way she drew in a ragged breath at his possessive action. He involuntarily groaned with possessive pleasure as the weight of the warm swells filled his palms.

“Put your hands on the glass.” His voice was barely working, coming out graveled by the carnal hunger that was gathering inside him.

The position forced her to lean forward slightly, pushing her ass into his fly and settling her breasts more fully into his hands. He could feel her excitement in the way her breaths trembled, and knowing he was causing it sent electric signals of need straight into his groin.

He stepped even closer, covering her as he continued to kiss her nape and slowly massage the firm globes that filled his hands. He played with her nipples until they were so taut his mouth watered with longing to suck on them. Hard.

She made a noise that sounded like pain.

“Too rough?” He stilled his touch.