Bachelor Unleashed (10 page)

He ignored the ache in his body that tried convincing him that something was better than nothing, and that he should take her up on her offer. But he wasn’t in the market for just being involved in a holiday affair. He wanted the whole shebang. That meant he had no intention of letting her place limitations on their relationship.

“So, what do you think?”

He shrugged his shoulders and wondered if she was prepared for what he was about to say. “I think I’ll pass.”

Voices in his head were calling him all kinds of fool for not accepting her offer. One voice in particular was all but giving his brain a hard kick, screaming that if he thought he could convince her to consider a real relationship with him, he was crazy and wasting his time. Her ex had done too much of a number on her for that to happen. How many times had she told him that she would never, ever, become involved in a serious relationship again? How many times had she reiterated that fact for his benefit?

“You’ll pass?” she asked, with a mixture of shock and confusion outlining what he thought were gorgeous features. “But why?”

He held her gaze. “Because I told you what I wanted.”

“For us to pick up where we left off?”

“Yes, and continue from there without any limitations, Farrah.”

She shook her head. “That’s not going to work, Xavier. That’s why I thought it was best if we ended things six months ago.”

“Whatever hang-ups there were, Farrah, were yours, not mine. The only reason I gave into it at the time was because I convinced myself that perhaps you were right. After last night I decided you’re dead wrong.”

The flaring of fire in her eyes let him know she hadn’t appreciated what he’d just said. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know he’d pushed the wrong button, but at the moment he really didn’t give a damn. It was time they had it out. He refused to go through another long spell without her.

She leaned forward in her seat. “This new attitude of yours is all because of last night? One good blow job got you all up in arms? Got you refusing a holiday fling with me because you want more than that?”

He slid out the chair to stand on his feet. “It’s more than that, Farrah, and you know it. It’s about the chemistry we stir whenever we’re together. I see nothing wrong with wanting more. But after almost a year, you decided we should end things. Why? Because you had begun feeling something a lot deeper and more solid than mere orgasms.”

“That’s not true!” she said adamantly.

“Isn’t it?”

“It was just sex, Xavier. You could have gotten the same from any woman.”

“Hardly, which is why I haven’t slept with another woman since you. And probably why you haven’t, by your admission, been intimate with anyone since me
.
”

He thought he’d hit a nerve, and she proved him right when she began pacing angrily. He decided to sit back in the chair and let her blow off steam, come to terms with being called out. Except he was getting more turned on by the second watching her, seeing how the hair was flying around her face with every livid step she took in boots that were definitely made for more than walking.

Her hips were not just swaying now, they were being brandished about under the sting of rejection. Something she evidently didn’t care much for. Not for the first time, he noticed just how small her waist was, and how her hips flared out in an almost perfect womanly shape. And her breasts—heaven help him, they were the most luscious pair on any woman—were straining against the bodice of her dress.

While his gaze roamed all over her, she finally came to a stop mere inches from where he sat. She placed her hands on her hips. “So, what exactly is it that you want?”

He smiled and leaned forward in his chair and met her gaze without wavering. He fought the urge to tell her that what he wanted was marriage, until death do them part. Considering everything, he figured now was not a good time to share that with her.

“What I want is for us to resume our affair without limitations. That means we go for as long as we’re mutually satisfied.”

She rolled her eyes. “People only do long-term affairs when they want to get serious eventually. People who want more out of a relationship. People who might even contemplate marriage.”

“Not necessarily. I think we know each other’s position on marriage, so we don’t have to worry about us wanting anything
that
serious. However, I’m at a point in my life where I prefer long-term exclusiveness. Not only do I want a satisfying bed partner, I also want to be with someone I can take out to dinner on occasion, to a movie, to those business functions that I’m oftentimes invited to attend. I don’t like women coming on to me anymore. I want to emit an air that I’m taken…even if I’m truly not.”

He paused, wanting her to digest what he’d just said. Then he continued. “You enjoy my company and I enjoy yours. I see no reason why we can’t continue what we had unless…”

She tilted her head and looked at him, lifting a brow. “Unless what?”

“Unless you’re afraid of falling in love with me.”

He eased up from his seat, ignoring the burst of longing and love he felt for the woman standing in front of him. The woman he was determined to make fall in love with him to the same degree that he was with her.

He knew now that she wasn’t as opposed to restarting their affair as she put on. But she was scared of letting her heart get broken again. So he knew he had to tread lightly but at the same time push harder…if that made sense.

“Are you afraid, Farrah? If you are, then I understand and totally agree that we should not pick up where we left off.”

He immediately saw the effect his words had on her. After her jaw dropped to the floor, she went still. He was convinced she was barely breathing. And her gaze intensified, focused on him. Her eyes zeroed in on him like he was the only thing in their laser beam’s target. From the distance separating them, he felt her anger, but he also felt her fear. He actually saw it in her eyes, and he knew at that moment what he’d assumed was right. She was falling in love with him, but was fighting it tooth and nail. She would never, ever admit such a thing.

So he stood there watching her, waiting to see how she planned on getting out of the neat little box he’d just placed her in.

Chapter 11

T
hink, Farrah!

She nibbled on her bottom lip as she tried unscrambling her brain, refusing to admit Xavier had hit a nerve, which automatically put her on the defensive. “Me? Not being able to control my emotions and fall in love? Please. That is the last thing you, or any man, have to worry about, trust me.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Did he honestly think she’d fall in love with him? Okay, she would admit—although never to him—that she had ended things between them because she’d had feelings for him and had been uncomfortable with those newfound emotions. But she would never let any man suspect she was afraid of losing her heart.

She threw her head back, sending her hair flying over her shoulders. “I’m going to only say this once and I hope you’re listening, Xavier. The last thing you have to worry about, and the one thing I am
not
afraid of, is falling in love with you or any man. I’ve been there, done that and you can believe I’ll never go that way again.”

“In that case, I see no reason for us not to continue our affair beyond the holidays. In other words, there is no reason not to go back to things being the way they were. And in addition, I see no reason why we can’t bring our affair out of the bedroom and start going out more…unless there’s a reason you prefer not being seen with me.”

Farrah’s head was spinning dizzily with everything Xavier was saying. But she was coherent enough to latch on to his last statement. “For what reason would I not want to be seen with you?”

“That you’re still pining away for your ex-husband and you don’t want him to know you’re in a relationship with someone.”

If Farrah hadn’t been programmed to act in a dignified manner, especially when discussing such an important topic, she would have fallen to the floor and rolled over a few times in laughter. Anyone who knew her and Dustin’s history knew there was no way that she was pining for her ex. In fact, whenever she saw him, she wondered why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. It’s not that he’d ever had anything going for him that was so spectacular. But while they’d been in college, he had convinced her he was the best thing since sliced bread and that he would be going places.

She had believed he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and they would stay together forever. She didn’t even mind during their first year when he couldn’t get a job and she had supported the both of them, or the times she’d put up with his deadbeat parents whose way of life was calling for loans and not paying them back.

“So, did I hit it out of the ballpark, Farrah?”

She could only assume he figured that because she hadn’t yet responded to his statement. “You didn’t come close, Xavier. In fact, you struck out so bad they are replacing you in the game entirely. There is no way I’d ever get back with Dustin, nor do I want to.”

She didn’t like the look she saw in his eyes. Although he heard what she said, she couldn’t tell if he believed her. “
If
what you say is true, then there is no reason why we can’t continue what we once had without limitations, right?”

Farrah’s pulse began beating wildly, anxiously, and that cloak of protectiveness she used as a shield immediately went into place. There were lots of reasons why they couldn’t continue what they once had. And not imposing limitations was simply out of the question.

Although she would never admit she had developed a weakness for him, the truth of the matter was that on more than one occasion she had lost control and lowered her guard, which was totally unacceptable behavior. When she was with Xavier she had a tendency to let loose, getting buck wild and crazy. Not just in the bedroom—that she could handle. But with her heart. Only with him did she care about the here and now and not worry about the outcome.

She lifted her chin. “There
is
a reason,” she said, knowing what she was about to say was an absolute lie. “Have you ever considered that the only reason I don’t want to take up where we left off in an affair, Xavier, is because I just don’t want to be romantically involved with you any longer?”

Darn. Instead of frowning, he was smiling, which meant he hadn’t believed a word she’d just said. Hadn’t taken her seriously. She watched as he crossed his arms over his chest and braced his legs apart in a ready-for-combat stance. She hated thinking it, but his standing that way and looking at her with that “I know better” smirk on his face sent a rush of adrenaline up her spine.

“You expect me to believe that, Farrah? The same woman who I took on the backseat of a private car last night while cruising on a barge on an icy cold night down the Hudson.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why can’t I convince you it was nothing but sex?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but here’s your chance. Convince me. Prove you’re not afraid of letting your emotions get in the way of an affair with me, and that your mind is not getting confused with the L-word. Prove to me, Farrah, that for us it’s only about sex, which is the only thing we want anyway, and that we don’t have to worry about anything else to the point that we establish limitations.”

Her mind was spinning in confusion, and she wondered if he’d caused that to happen deliberately. All she knew at that moment was that she had a point to prove to him, several in fact. First, she was capable of keeping her emotions under wraps. Second, she was not still carrying a torch for Dustin. And last but not least, she was not afraid of falling in love with Xavier.

“Fine,” she threw out heatedly. “You think you’ve got everything figured out, but I’m going to prove you wrong, Xavier. I’m going to give you your affair without limitations and then you’re going to see just how wrong you are about everything.”

Xavier couldn’t ignore the burst of happiness that tore through him at that moment, and he had to fight hard to keep a smile off his lips. With some outright manipulation, which he wasn’t all that thrilled about, he had moved Farrah into the spot where he wanted her for now.

She had agreed to an affair without limitations, and he doubted that she fully understood exactly what that meant, but she would find out soon enough. Although they would continue to make love just as before, they would not be spending one hundred percent of the time between the sheets. He would take her out on dates, to parties—there were always a number of them to attend this time of year—and she would get to spend time with him around people who meant a lot to him. They were family and friends who would come to love her as much as he did.

“Good, we’re on the same page now,” he heard himself saying as he crossed the room to her, needing to feel her in his arms, although he could tell she was still somewhat tiffed with him.

“Fine,” she said, when he slid his arm around her waist and brought her body closer to his. She might not be happy with him now, but the moment he pulled her into his arms, she came willingly. And when he lowered his head to capture her mouth, there was not a single ounce of resistance in her body.

She leaned in, and he felt her warmth deep, all the way to the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t surprised when he felt the shiver ease up his spine and his erection get harder. Desire sizzled through him, and he fought to push it back. This woman could set his body on fire, and at any other time he would take advantage of it. But not this time. He had his game plan tonight and didn’t want to ruin it.

But there was no reason he couldn’t make love to her mouth if not her body, was there? After all, when it came to kissing, they always indulged in the ultimate enjoyment. Then he remembered. The fact that he had managed to breathe six months without tasting her was a miracle, and he didn’t intend to suffer through that agony again.

He finally pulled his mouth away, but their greedy tongues were still intent on doing a tangling dance, if not inside their mouths then out. They always enjoyed this type of play where they took licking and sucking to a whole new level.

And then his tongue was back inside her mouth again, and his arms tightened around her. It wouldn’t take much to ease her down on the sofa, push her dress up, pull down those leggings and bury his head between her legs and do a lot of tongue play there. It wouldn’t take much enticement for him to kiss every inch of her body. Unfortunately, he would save that specific activity for another day. Unknown her to, this kind of kissing was all they would be doing tonight.

Ah hell,
he thought, when he felt her hands wiggle between them and her fingers tug on his zipper. He needed to stop her before she went down on him. There was no way he could resist that. With all the strength he could gather, all the control he could muster, he reached down and took hold of her hand to stop her from going further.

She pulled her mouth from his and looked up at him with a questioning gaze. “Why are you holding my hands, Xavier?”

Before answering her question, he leaned down and took another lick around her mouth. Hell, she tasted as good as she looked. “I want to give you time to be absolutely sure I’m what you want, Farrah.”

He had worded the statement carefully. Instead of saying he wanted her to be sure that the
affair
was what she wanted, he had said he wanted her to be sure that
he
was what she wanted. There was a difference, and over the next few weeks he would show her what that difference was.

“But I already know you’re what I want, Xavier.”

Yes, she would want him sexually, that was a given. But he wanted her to want him in a way she’d never wanted another man, a way that went deeper than mere sex. He wanted to conquer her heart. For a man who just last week had thought he didn’t need the love of a woman, in the last forty-eight hours he had been proven wrong.

“Yes, but I want you to be certain because now that you’ve agreed to an unlimited affair with me, Farrah, there’s no turning back.”

She lifted her brow, as if his comment gave her pause. “No turning back” sounded kind of final in his book, so he knew it sounded likewise in hers, but now he was talking for keeps.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment and then, “Why are you trying to make things so complicated, Xavier?”

“Sorry if you think I’m doing that, sweetheart, but I just want to make sure a few weeks from now you don’t try kicking me out of your life again. I have to know that we want the same thing out of this relationship.”

He was trying to defuse any suspicions she had that things with him weren’t on the up-and-up. He only hoped when she discovered they weren’t she would be too far gone to care.

She nodded slowly. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“It does. Besides, another reason I need to make it an early night is because Cameron is flying in tomorrow and I need to have some papers ready for him to sign when he does.”

He was deliberately giving her the impression that he was putting work before her. Although she didn’t say anything, he could tell she was both surprised and >disappointed.

“Oh, well, then I guess I need to go.”

“Not before we share dessert and not before you help me with kitchen clean up.”

She smiled. “All right.”

He wanted to kiss her again, and he figured before she left to return to the hotel that he would, several times. But at least she would be leaving with the knowledge that for the first time, though they’d had the convenience and the privacy to make love, they hadn’t.

“Is the car warm enough for you, Ms. Langley?”

Farrah glanced over the seat in front of her at Jules. Xavier had given the driver strict instructions to see to her every comfort, and to especially make sure she was kept warm.

“Yes, thank you for asking.”

She settled back against the plush leather seat, determined to replay in her mind all that had transpired tonight and to make sure she hadn’t imagined any thing.

She’d gone to his house fully intending to convince him to extend their affair through the holidays, after which, they would go their separate ways again.

For reasons she was still trying to figure out, he hadn’t wanted any part of that suggestion. Instead, he wanted to resume the affair with no limitations. He’d even gone so far as to suggest her reluctance to do so was because she was afraid of falling in love with him and because she still harbored feelings for Dustin.

Okay, secretly she would agree the former did have some merit, but the latter did not. To prove him wrong on both counts, she had no choice but to agree to his terms. So technically, they were now involved in a longterm, no-strings relationship.

Even more confusing to her was how, once she’d agreed, their relationship had taken a definite turn. But to where she hadn’t a clue. First, it had been the way he’d kissed her. It was greedy and hungry as usual, but it seemed like he was holding back, which didn’t make sense. After all, she had agreed to what he’d wanted. And no matter what she’d done, she hadn’t changed his mind about sleeping with her, although she knew without a doubt that he’d wanted her.

Men!

Now here she was, riding in the car alone as she returned to her hotel. Truly, what sense did that make? He could have easily asked that she stay the night and she would have. But he hadn’t. He’d even suggested she take time to think her decision through. Now, drawing in a deep breath, she decided to do just what he’d suggested.

As the car sped along the Long Island Expressway, she closed her eyes. An unlimited affair with him meant essentially no more booty calls. At least they wouldn’t be termed that anymore. She had agreed that she and Xavier would start doing things outside the bedroom. More than likely they would go out to dinner on occasion, to a movie, to business functions.

She felt a knot forming in the pit of her stomach at the thought of doing those things with him and knew the reason why. She might just begin to enjoy it too much. Her challenge was going to be keeping things in perspective. Though neither of them wanted to take things any further than they had previously, Xavier was now ready for more exclusiveness. At least she could rest assured he still wasn’t the marrying kind. Good, she thought, because neither was she.