Red Hot Rose Boxed Set (12 page)

I considered his words.
 
I call to him?
 
What?
 
Like a siren?
 
I smiled at that.
 
Sirens were kick-butt.

“You’re like some kind of drug I find myself addicted to.”
 
He turned briefly to give me a smoldering look before dropping his gaze to my thigh and crotch area.

I could tell he wanted to touch me, but maybe now he wouldn’t because of what I said.
 
Dammit!
 
My mind was racing.
 
He wants to touch me.
 
I want him to touch me.
 
Why am I being a silly little girl about it?
 
Jessica’s words came ringing back into my ears.
 
“Whatever he asks, the answer is yes.”

I disregarded the alarm bells of caution that were ringing in my head and lifted up the hem of my dress, reaching in underneath to hook the edge of my thong with my finger and drag it down.
 
I could have done it quickly, but something told me the act of doing it was as important as the final result.

I looked over at him when part of the material was halfway down my thigh.
 
His breath had quickened and the muscle at his jaw was twitching like crazy.
 
It was a miracle we weren’t flying off the side of the road, the way his hands were gripping the wheel so intensely, squeezing it over and over.

I lifted up the right side of my dress and pulled other part of my panties down until they were finally at my knees.
 
I thanked the stars that Jessica had insisted I wear thigh-high stockings instead of full control-tops tonight.
 
I couldn’t imagine how I would have pulled off this sexy little strip-tease if I’d had to wrestle with all that nylon.

“Stop,” he said, holding his hand out between us.
 
He glanced over at me, my dress pulled up high to reveal a lot of black-stockinged leg and my underwear at my knees.
 
He breathed out heavily as he lowered his hand down slowly to stroke my leg.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, reveling in the sensations being created by his hot hand.
 
I could feel the heat through my stockings and was ready to beg him to go higher so I could feel him on my bare skin.

He made a strangled sound or a growl, I wasn’t sure which, and jerked his hand back, putting it on the wheel again.
 
“Take them off.
 
All the way,” he demanded.

I pushed them down, over my ankles and around the back and bottom of my heels.
 
When they were completely off, I put them in my purse, wondering when I’d get a chance to put them back on again.
 
He couldn’t possibly expect me to go butt-naked all night during dinner.
 
Could he?

I looked over at him, wanting to know what was going through his mind.
 
I smiled at my boldness, considering my thoughts only for a second before I gave voice to them.
 
“What are you thinking right now?”

He didn’t answer me at first.
 
He looked angry, a storm cloud moving over his expression.
 
I was almost to the point of regretting having asked him when his answer finally came.

“I’m thinking how badly I want to bury my face in your pussy.”

A shock of pure pleasure hit me between the legs.
 
He hadn’t touched me, and his hands were still on the wheel, but his words and the way they came out all raspy and manly just took me down.

I swallowed hard, trying to get my voice to work properly.
 
“Oh,” I said.
 
“That sounds … nice.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed it against the front of his pants, right over his hard cock.
 
“Nice doesn’t even begin to cut it,” he said.

I was emboldened by his passion for me, riding high on the knowledge that he was a slave to my sex appeal.
 
Here was one of the most powerful men I’d ever met, and he was losing control over me in a little black dress.
 
I rubbed him through his pants, not sure if it was the safest thing to do while flying down the highway at almost seventy miles an hour but doing it anyway.

“You’d better stop,” he said, “or I’m going to have to pull over.
 
And then we’ll never make it to dinner.”

I stroked him a couple more times for good measure and then pulled my hand away, grinning to myself, feeling like such a bad girl over the idea that I didn’t even care if we made it to that stupid restaurant at this point.
 
All my high and mighty ideas of not being easy and not just letting him have his way with me faded out, overpowered by the idea of having his hands on me again.
 
And that face-buried-in-the-pussy thing sounded pretty good too.

“You have to keep me from touching you anymore tonight,” he said.
 
“I have a serious business proposition for you, and I don’t want to spoil it.”

So I’m irresistible now, huh?
 
That’s kind of hard to believe.
 
I looked at this grown man wearing a business suit with the jacket hanging on a hook in the back seat, his diamond-studded cufflinks attached to the french-cut shirt I knew had probably cost as much as my monthly rent.

I shook my head, wondering what a guy like him was doing with a girl like me, folding my hands to keep the tremble in my fingers from being obvious.
 
“I don’t understand.
 
Why me?
 
I’m just … a party escort.”

He frowned, looking even more dangerous than he had before.
 
“You’re not
just
anything.”
 
He looked over at me.
 
“You can’t possibly believe that about yourself.”

I shrugged but said nothing.
 
I wasn’t going to let this degenerate into one of those ‘poor me and you’re-not-a-bad-girl’ conversations.
 
I didn’t want his pity, and I also didn’t need him thinking I didn’t have any respect for myself.
 
I reached into my purse and pulled out my underwear.

His hand shot out, grabbing my wrist firmly but not uncomfortably so.
 
“Don’t,” he said, not looking at me.

“Why not?”

“Because.
 
It’s what I want.”

I withdrew my wrist from his grasp and leaned down, carefully drawing my underwear over and around my heels and up my legs, lifting my rear end from the seat to slide them in place.
 
I carefully pulled my dress back down and smoothed it out.
 
“Well, there’s no better time than the present to teach you the first thing you need to know about working with me.”

“What’s that?” he said, his nostrils flaring as he stared out the windshield.

“You’re not always going to get what you want, when you want it.”

He dropped his hand to the gear shift, putting it into fourth gear so he could overtake a slow car in front of us.

“Challenge accepted,” he said confidently, his foot pressing on the gas pedal, the force of his acceleration pushing my body back into the soft leather seat.

My face burned hot, but I wasn’t sure of the cause.
 
Was it the nearly evil grin slowly spreading across his face?
 
Or could it be the promise I heard in his voice?
 
Either way, I knew I was playing in deep water now, and I was in waaaay over my head.

We arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes early for our reservation, but the fawning and smiling host led us to our table immediately.
 
We had the best spot in the place, in a small alcove made private by strategically-placed plants and trees that allowed us to see out but no one to see in very well.

Alexander pulled my chair out for me, waving the waiter off.
 
He took his own seat, giving the other man the opportunity to take my cloth napkin off the table and drape it over my lap.

The waiter stood next to me when he was finished, clasping his white-gloved hands together expectantly.
 
“Shall I bring you an aperitif, perhaps?
 
A kir or a cocktail?”

I was immediately flustered by all the attention.
 
I had no idea what a
keer
was or whether I wanted one, and I knew a cocktail this early in the evening would probably be a mistake.

“Champagne,” said Alex without hesitation.
 
“Ruinart.
 
You know which I prefer.”
 
His pronunciation of the champagne brand was perfectly French, causing me to wonder again when he’d been to France or to think that maybe he’d lived there at some point.
 
It made me jealous; I’d always loved the French language and culture.
 
Three years of learning the language in high school and another three in college hadn’t done anything to lessen my interest, either.

The waiter gave a half-bow.
 
“Of course, Mr. Blackstone.
 
We have some ready for you, as well as some of the red from Mas Montel if you wish.”

“Maybe later,” he said, looking at me.
 
“I trust you enjoy champagne?”

“It’s like drinking stars.
 
What’s not to enjoy about that?” I said, smiling before I realized it probably made me look less sophisticated than I should in this place.
 
I carefully schooled my features to look bland and cool.

The waiter winked at me before leaving the table.
 
I glanced over at Alexander, afraid he’d seen the man’s acknowledgment of my silliness, but I shouldn’t have worried; he acted as if the waiter didn’t even exist.
 
He was staring holes into me instead.

I started to feel uncomfortable, resisting the strong urge to reach up and feel my hair.
 
My eyes widened as my imagination quickly ran away from me.
 
Oh no!
 
Do I have something on my face?
 
Or please, not something on my nose!
 
I wiggled it back and forth, trying to figure out if anything was amiss.
 
I reached up and brushed just above my lip, hoping I wasn’t humiliating myself already without even opening my mouth.

“Do you know what the problem is?” Alexander asked, still staring at me.

I froze, using every ounce of willpower I had not to bolt from the room.
 
Here’s where he was going to tell me that I was too young or too naive or too inexperienced or too … something.

“You’re too sexy,” he said, in a tone that suggested he was suddenly discovering this for himself.
 
“And you have no idea how sexy you truly are, which only makes it worse.
 
It’s entirely natural and real, and not a part of some grand plan put together to snag, bag, and tag a guy.”

My brain was having a hard time shifting from insecure young girl to the all-powerful she-rah, hear-me-roar kind of woman that he was suggesting I was.

“Snag, bag, and tag?” was all I could think to say.
 
I wondered if he was talking about someone he knew, visions of his ex-fiancée jumping to my mind.

“Bait and switch. Turn it on, get the guy, turn it off.
 
You know the ploy.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, shaking my head.
 
It was partially a lie, because I
could
picture someone doing that - someone like Jacqueline for instance - but it wasn’t who
I
was for sure.
 
When a man fell for me, I wanted it to be for real, not the result of some elaborate game set up to trap him into liking me.

“Exactly my point.”
 
He reached over and pulled my hand from my lap, squeezing it gently as he laid it on the table to the side of my plate.
 
“You’re genuine.
 
Never change that about yourself.”

I laughed briefly.
 
“I don’t plan on it.
 
And since I’m apparently blissfully unaware of my incredible power over men, I’m pretty sure even if I
did
try to plan it, I wouldn’t know the first place to start.”

“Speaking of starting, what do you say we just get right down to business?” he asked.

“You move fast,” I said, taking my hand back and smoothing out the napkin in my lap, hoping it would soak up some of the sweat that was making my palms too moist.

He shrugged casually, acknowledging the arrival of an ice bucket from one waiter while the another worked at untwisting the wire cage that held the champagne cork inside the neck of the fat bottle.

“I see something I want, and I take it,” he said.
 
“I won’t apologize for that.”
 
There was no suggestive meaning in his words.
 
He was stating absolute fact as far as he was concerned.