DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense (11 page)

I’m numb. Completely numb. And
speechless.

How is it that I can walk into
any establishment in this city and take pride in the appearance I’ve worked so
hard to maintain, but when I’m approached by one of the most sought-after
bachelors in the free world, all of my insecurities rise to my mind’s surface
one after another?

I’ve perfected the art of
looking approachable. I’m trained to represent allure and mystery and sex and
fantasy, all the things a man could want and then some. Everything I’ve ever
learned about becoming desirable is working in tandem to draw this man to me
right now, and I still can’t help but wonder what he could possibly want with
me
.

“Yeah, sure.” I swallow my
insecurities whole and slap a demure smile on my mouth before sliding off the barstool.

Two agents sandwich us as we
make our way to an area behind red velvet ropes, and it doesn’t occur to me
until we’re already there that I didn’t tell
Araminta
where I went.

“Phone.” An agent places his
hand toward me.

I look to
Keir
and he nods. “Standard procedure. You’ll get it back.”

The phone goes from my purse to
the agent’s palm before slipping into his front suit pocket. A group of six or
seven men, friends of his perhaps, and a handful of giggling women dressed to
the nines take up the space around us.

“So you were saying?” I wait
for him to take a seat before occupying the one beside him. My legs cross,
pointing toward him, and I angle my body for optimal conversation.

He leans in. “You look familiar
to me, Camille. Do you have any idea why that would be?”

I’m not sure if this is some
kind of trick question. A test maybe? Am I already supposed to know the answer?

I lift a brow. “I have no idea
why that would be,
Keir
. I’m quite certain we’ve
never met before. I’d remember meeting someone like you.”

It’s my feeble attempt to charm
a charmer. Can’t blame a girl for trying.

Keir’s gaze hypnotizes and
disarms me all at once, and he lifts his hand to my face. His fingers run the
underside of my jaw, leaving a trail of frenzied nerves in their path. If he
touches me again, I’m certain my heart will beat out of my chest.

“I can’t shake the feeling we
were meant to cross paths tonight.” His stare hasn’t broken. We’re locked this
way.

“I don’t believe in destiny, only
random coincidence.”

His hand falls to the side of
my neck, his thumb raking the front. I need to swallow but I’m paralyzed. My
tongue rakes my bottom lip, and I inhale.

“You’re very beautiful,
Camille.” I swear he inches closer, but all I can do is focus on steadying my
breathing.

Women pass, gawking, pointing,
and smiling covetous smiles. I see them all, but
Keir
doesn’t.

“Thank you,” I say.

His hand is still hooked on my
neck, and his gaze falls to my pout. He wants to kiss me . . .

Keir
Montgomery
wants to kiss
me
.

My eyes flutter shut as the
pressure on the back of my neck guides me to his lips. His mouth grazes along
mine, the heat a tortuous tease seconds before the real thing. This heart-stopping
kiss comes with a side of tongue and two of the softest lips I’ve ever tasted.

Keir’s fingers glide up the
nape of my neck, taking a fistful of hair while he claims my mouth. His kisses feel
like John and taste like fine alcohol. I lift my hands to his face, as if the
pads of my fingers might remember the way he felt beneath them.

With eyes closed, everything
about this is eerily familiar. His hands in my hair. The stroke of his soft
lips on mine. The tempo of his greedy kisses. The rich scent filling my lungs
with each breathless gasp for air.

I pull away, studying his face
as if I could possibly know what it might look like bathed in pitch black.

“Why’d you stop?” His fist in
my hair relaxes.

This can’t be John.

John wouldn’t approach me at a
bar, lead me behind a velvet rope and make out with me in front of every patron
within a five-foot radius.

Unless John was drunk, and then
. . .

I wouldn’t know, because I’ve
never seen him in that condition.

“Do you want privacy? Is that
what you want?” he asks.

“The way you kiss me,” I say.
“It’s very distinct.”

His eyes flash. “You like it.”

His response is more of a
statement than a question.

I nod, biting my bottom lip
like I’m some kind of coy schoolgirl. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me, but
I’m throwing tactics and techniques out the window at every turn. When he looks
at me with that intense blue stare, I can’t think straight.

“Do you want to go somewhere
private?” he says into my ear.

My chest tingles. I’m finding
it difficult to speak at the moment. My mind runs a million miles per hour, and
any attempt to listen to my gut instinct is quashed by the loudness of my
thoughts and the haywire nerves sprawling along every inch of my body.

Keir
rises,
reaching to take my hand. I place it in his, and he pulls me up and into him,
slipping his hand around the small of my back. He leans into me again, and I
inhale his sexy scent for the millionth time tonight. I could bathe in it.

“I want to take you home with
me.” His words send a pulse between my thighs.

I don’t know what to say. I
mean, I know what I
want
to say . . .

That’s obvious.

But all I can hear are
Araminta’s
words echoing my mind, and I know damn well the fantasy
of being with a Montgomery brother is likely a million times better than the
reality. Less dangerous, too.

Keir
guides
my face to his, and I linger in his wonderfully wicked gaze before making my
decision.

“Look at me, Camille. You can
trust me.”

“What . . . did you say?”

“You can trust me, Camille.” He
smiles, dimples anchoring his cheeks.

I want to hear his voice
without all of this external noise. I know John’s voice, and I know the way it
feels rumbling through his chest and filtering through a silent room. It’s
crisp and clear, low and virile.

“Come,” he takes my hand,
nodding toward an agent who follows us down a long hall.

Warm jealousy displaces my
excitement when I ponder the idea that
Keir
is, in
fact, John, and that he possibly spends his free evenings in bars, picking up
women who fawn all over him because he’s one of the most irresistible bachelors
on the face of the planet.

I know so little about John
that such a scenario wouldn’t be entirely implausible.

Keir
yanks
me around a corner while his agents block the hallway. No one’s getting in. No
one’s getting out.

It’s not as quiet as I’d hoped
and there’s a ringing in my ears, but at least we’re away from prying eyes. In
all my years, I’ve never been keen on exhibitionism.

His mouth covers my collarbone,
his teeth grazing my flesh. My head dips back and waits for his lips to travel
a natural path. From my collar to the center of my neck, his kisses grow
harder, greedier. Keir’s free hand caresses my left breast, massaging until it
hurts just enough to feel good.

The room spins a moment later,
and I’m not sure if I’m drunk or drunk off of sheer infatuation and physical
delight. All signs point to everything.

“Come home with me.” His lips
leave me as our eyes meet once again.

“I shouldn’t.” My mind
overrides my body for a moment. I’ve had a few drinks. I don’t want to do
something I might regret.

In all my years in this city,
I’ve never gone home with a man just because I wanted to. Cheap and easy has
never been my modus operandi. Giving away the goods for free is the worst thing
a woman can do with a man who looks this good and kisses like this. He’s
probably never had to work for a single lay in his life.

“Aren’t you curious, Camille?”
His dimpled smile makes me forget and miss John all at once, and then I scold
myself for missing someone I don’t even know. “You can trust me.”

Those words . . .

“Why do you keep saying that?” My
brain attempts to piece together his words as if they’re riddles.

“Because there are very few
people a beautiful woman like you should trust in a city like this,” he says.
“And I’m one of them.
Trust
that I
know how to make you feel incredible, Camille. Know that out of all the women
here tonight, you’re the only one I would remotely consider bringing home with
me.”

I stare into his dark blue eyes
and run my fingers against the hollow above his jaw.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I
test the waters.

“There are plenty of things I’m
not telling you,” he says. “Just as there are plenty of things you’re not
telling me. Isn’t it better that way? More mystery. More excitement.”

“It depends.”

“On . . . ?”

“What drew you to me tonight?”

He sighs, scratching the spot
above his temple. He’s growing frustrated with my questions, or perhaps the
fact that I’m not as easy as I look.

“I told you, you’re the most exquisite
woman here tonight, and there’s something familiar about you.”
Keir
takes a strand of my hair and twists it around his
finger before letting it fall. “Tell me, Camille. Am I familiar to you? Haven’t
you ever looked at someone and just
known
?”

There’s a flurry in my chest
and the air around me grows thinner.

“This is a game to you, isn’t
it?” I ask. “You speak in codes.”

“Everything’s a game.” His
answer comes quickly, and he smirks, leaning in to taste my lips. “Leave with
me, Camille. You want to. I can see it in those curious, dark eyes of yours.”

My thighs squeeze as his words
penetrate my apprehensive little fortress. If
Keir
is
John or if he isn’t, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Or it’s all the same.

Funny how
Keir
showed up in my life the second it became clear that “John” was finished with
me.

“Okay.” The word feels
uncertain in my mouth, and the pounding from the music has caused some kind of
temporary, mild deafness. Everything sounds tinny and hollow and far away, even
my own voice.

He slips his hand around mine
and leads me out a back door to a waiting limousine. A driver stands next to
the passenger door, and I climb in first. I hear
Keir
tell the driver to take us to the Hightower apartment, and my
heartrate
skyrockets.

He enters the running car, his
eyes intense and determined, and takes the seat next to me. Pulling me into his
lap, he grips my face and guides my mouth to his. The car pulls away a moment
later, city lights streaking past the windows in a multi-colored blur.

“You’re taking me to the Hightower?”
I ask between kisses, my fingers digging into his scalp.

“Yes.” His hands cradle my ass,
pulling me close enough that I feel the growing bulge in his pants.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” My words
are buoyant and breathless. I’m disgusted with myself for craving validation
that I’m still worthy of being wanted by a faceless man. “You’re him.”

Keir’s lips are against my
neck, his hands tugging up the hem of my dress. He slips a finger under the
crotch of my lace panties and glides it between my folds.

“Tell me you’re him,” I whisper
into his ear.

“Do you want me to be?” His
voice is low, monotonous. Void of infliction. I’ve heard this voice before. I
know it.

 
My eyes squeeze as my hands trail along
his strong jaw and perfect nose, and my hips grind against his prodding
fingers.

“I need to hear you say it.” I
breathe in his scent as it fuses with mine.

And then I ask myself why it
matters. I’m not John’s anymore, and I certainly don’t have feelings for a man whose
face I’ve never seen. A flood of questions rushes through me all at once,
demanding my attention when I’d much rather be focusing on the way Keir’s hands
own my body and his mouth takes whatever it wants without asking.

Thoughts of John refuse to be
dismissed.

My bruised ego chooses this
moment to remind me that I’m inferior. Mediocre. Worthy only of rejection. I
find Keir’s lips once more, as if his tongue against mine could possibly
reinflate my self-esteem.

“What do you want me to say,
Camille?” His hands snake up my sides as his words breathe hot on my skin. The
car pulls to a stop, and I glance out the window to see the well-lit Hightower
sign. “I think you know exactly who I am.”