Yours for the Night (30 page)

Footsteps, the doorknob turned, and she wanted to run as badly as she wanted to throw herself at him.

The entry lamp backlighted him, disguising his eyes, yet he was beautiful in his usual black, casual tonight in jeans and a button-down shirt. One second, two seconds, three. She found her voice. “I wanted to apologize for running out on you in Palm Springs.”

He kept one hand on the door as if afraid she might try to leap past him and he’d never get rid of her. “It was the first time a woman has rented a car and driven five hundred miles to get away from me.” His voice was as expressionless as his face, yet with that sexy, sensual note that struck a chord deep inside.

“It wasn’t like that.” But of course it was exactly like that. 188

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Like Spock, he raised one brow in question.

“I was running away from myself.”

“That’s illuminating.” An edge had crept into his tone.

“I didn’t mean that to sound trite.” But it had. Dammit, when she’d worked this out in the car, she’d been so eloquent.

He waited for her to go on. God, this was hard. “I thoroughly enjoyed everything we did together,” she said.

Silence. He was determined to make it difficult for her. But she had been the pissy one throughout, always pushing for her way, her terms, her everything. So why not say that? “I was a total bitch. You treated me like a princess, and I gave you crap the entire time.”

One corner of his mouth rose. “I wouldn’t say it was the entire time.”

Her heart lifted in response. “You’re being generous. I’ve been a bitch since my husband left me, and I’ve relished taking it out on all the men I dated. But you especially.”

“And what earned me that honor?”

His features seemed to swim before her eyes. “Because you were so damn hot and you made me feel all the things I hadn’t felt in a long time, but you wouldn’t pay me. I needed that.”

“Money turns it into a business deal.” His voice remained level, his facial muscles even. Yet she sensed there was more in that statement than she grasped.

What was she supposed to say? Again, honesty was the best policy, as her mother used to say. “Money has become how I measure myself.”

He raised a finger, shot it at her. “That’s the problem. I don’t have that much money.”

But the Atherton house, the Palm Springs trip, renting a moun taintop for her—he had more than enough money.

He noted her widened eyes and interpreted correctly. “None of what I did was enough, was it.” He didn’t question, he knew. “Hence my point that I don’t have enough. I’m not sure anyone does.”

She stared at her sexy black pumps. “You’re right,” she whispered. She’d been trying to buy back the self-esteem she’d let Edward’s defection rob her of.

“I don’t know what you were offering me, but I want to—”

“Gabriel, what’s going on?”

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The sight of the blonde stepping into the entry hall ripped the rest of the words out of Dominique’s mouth. He wasn’t alone. Gabriel raised a hand. “It’s nothing, Carla.”

Dominique was nothing? While the blonde was gorgeous. And younger. Thirty-five perhaps. God had graced her with a lithe, model-thin body, big baby blues, and blond curls, in perfect contrast with Gabriel’s darker looks. Dominique felt light-headed, as if she’d stood up too quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.” She backed down one step. Her fears had ruined everything, stolen the beautiful opportunity. Wrong. Nothing had been stolen. She’d thrown it away. “I won’t bother you again.”

She’d learned her lesson the hard way. Fear of getting hurt didn’t protect you, it just screwed your chance at happiness.

“ARE YOU DOMINIQUE?” CARLA ASKED.

Dominique stopped, one foot on the first step. Gripping the door so hard his knuckles hurt, Gabriel didn’t move. “Yes, this is Dominique.”

Why was she here? What did she want? Simply to apologize, to explain?

Fuck, he needed more from her.

Carla rolled her eyes. “I should have listened to Brenda.”

So his good friend had been talking. He’d met Carla a week ago at one of Brenda’s parties. He’d liked her. Trying to pretend to himself he wasn’t already hooked on another woman’s line, he’d asked her out. It was clear to him within half an hour that he’d made a mistake. His cock didn’t feel the slightest urge.

Her heels clicked on the tile floor. “Don’t go,” she said to Dominique. Then Carla ran a hand along his arm to capture his hand. “You’re a sweet man”—he’d never been called sweet before—“but I think your mind is elsewhere.” Her purse already on her shoulder, she pulled out her keys.

“I’m sorry it showed.” He wasn’t normally an asshole.

“It didn’t. It’s just—” She stopped, shrugged eloquently, then wrinkled her nose. “A woman knows.”

Then he’d been a double asshole.

She kissed his cheek, smiled at Dominique as she passed, and headed out to her car at the far end of the circular drive.

“I didn’t see her car. I wouldn’t have—”

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“Does a woman know?” he interrupted her.

She tipped her head, her silky red hair brushing the shoulder of her elegant midnight blue evening gown. “Know what?”

“When a man is interested.”

“I . . .” She stopped. “Yes.”

“Come here.”

Her bare leg peeked through the slit in the dress as she returned to the porch and stood in front of him.

“So what do you know about me?” he asked.

“You’re interested,” she whispered, her green eyes soft.

“Hell yes, I am. Isabel wouldn’t give me your number. I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle it out of her.”

“It was a shitty way to leave things.”

He’d gone over what he could have done differently, but he’d found no satisfactory answers. “What did I do to make you afraid I’d hurt you?”

Moisture flickered in her eyes, then she blinked and it was gone. “You did everything right, Gabriel. I haven’t been myself for months. The divorce, Edward’s new wife, the new baby—” Her pain rippled through her eyes. “I’d like the chance to show you I’m not the greedy, power-hungry bitch I’ve been acting like.”

He laughed, the first genuine laugh in two months. “You are not a powerhungry bitch. Single-minded, yes, but not a bitch.” He touched her cheek with his fingertips, her skin soft, smooth, her scent sweet and fruity, like the grapefruit bath salts she’d used in Palm Springs. “I saw you with your husband that first night, and I knew you’d been hurt. I didn’t expect anything to be easy.”

He drew a thumb lightly across her lower lip. “But I didn’t expect you to disappear in the middle of the night without giving me the chance to convince you I was worth the risk.”

She blinked again, the slightest tremble at her mouth. “Will you give me that chance now? Can we start over?”

“First date, no sex?” He shook his head, a wry smile finding its way to his lips.

“I’m pretty damn sure I can’t go that far back. But I also can’t give you the money you want.” He stroked her cheek, then dropped his hand. “Money diminishes what we could have together.”

“I don’t want you to pay. I don’t want any appreciative gifts.” She raised her 191

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chin almost defiantly and met his gaze. “I had specific reasons for becoming a courtesan, and they were primarily because of my husband. But you showed me that money doesn’t buy happiness.” Then she smiled and everything about her changed. She was suddenly the woman he’d taken shopping, the lady who’d teased him mercilessly on the plane. “How’s that for a perfect cliché?”

He took her hand, pulled her in. “I’ve missed you. I would have paid Isabel anything she wanted to tell me where you lived, but she couldn’t be bought.”

“I’ve been an idiot.” She came into his arms, leaned her body against his, and tipped her head back. “But I’ve officially taken my head out of my . . .” She trailed off, smiled. “And I called Isabel tonight to tell her I’m leaving Courtesans.”

“You don’t have to do that for me.” But he couldn’t help the reflexive tightening of his arms across her back. The thought of having her all to himself simmered through his blood.

“But if I’m not doing that, you’re going to have to work extra hard to satisfy me.”

“In any way you want.”

She arched a brow and gave him a naughty half smile. “Anything?”

“Anything. You’re worth it.”

Both brows went up this time, and he knew he was in trouble. “Remember what Trevor did for me?” she asked, that wicked half smile turning his heart over.

“I remember.”

“Well . . .”

“No.”

“But you said anything.” She pouted. His cock surged.

“Let’s think of something else.”

“Like what? Remember, you have to top renting a mountain restaurant and making love to me in front of the staff.”

Making love instead of fucking. He liked her word use. Skimming a hand down the front of her dress, he delved lightly between her legs. “Mile-high club.”

She squirmed against him, her musky feminine scent of arousal rising. “Sex on a plane?”

“Yeah.” Anywhere, as long as he got to taste her.

“We already did that,” she huffed, then curled her foot around his calf.

“I didn’t come, so it wasn’t sex.”

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She snorted, then gave in. “All right. Think of something else anyway. Something really exciting and naughty.”

His hand at the base of her spine, he hitched her closer. “How about a threesome?”

“Only if it’s a man. Everything should be about me.” The playfulness in her gaze gave way to something different, tenderness. Then she went up on her toes to wrap her arms about his neck, hugging him tight, her face buried against his throat. “I’m the one who should be paying you for how you make me feel.”

He breathed in her sweet, citrus scent, letting it fill him to the brim. “I’m very expensive.”

“And worth every penny,” she whispered.

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TRIPLEPLAY

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1

“I FEEL LIKE I’VE BEEN EATING TOO MUCH VANILLA ICE CREAM.” Noelle St. James toyed with the rim of her double nonfat caramel latte. The barista art in the foam, a maple leaf, was starting to disintegrate. She hated to destroy it completely by drinking. “I need something exotic.” She tipped her head, her long hair falling across her shoulder. “Like Pistachio Crème. Or Blue Moon. I don’t know”—she rolled her eyes—“something new.”

“How about a bukkake?” Isabel sipped her tea. According to her philosophy, tea should be served in bone china cups and made only with boiling water. She’d found a San Francisco café willing to cater to her needs.

“What’s a bukkake?” With her maple leaf finally melting away, Noelle tested the delicious brew. Yum.

It was ten in the morning, and despite the cool of an early March day, the sidewalk tables were packed, hot air blowing from vents beneath the striped awning. The street teemed with passers by. Isabel lowered her voice so she couldn’t be heard by the college students to the right or the two middle-aged businessmen to the left. “You get five or six hot guys to stand over you while you’re naked. They jack off and come on you.”

Noelle almost spit out her latte. “I can’t believe you just suggested that.”

Noelle was joking, of course. Over the years, she’d come to consider Isabel a friend. They could say anything to each other. Which was one of the reasons Noelle had asked for this little face-to-face. She’d need Isabel’s help in redirecting her energies.

Isabel made a face. An elegant blonde, she still had the slack-jawed “duh”

look down pat. “You’re a courtesan. What’s wrong with something outrageous?

You said you wanted exotic.”

Noelle had become a courtesan about two months after her last divorce, when a male friend suggested she’d make a perfect companion. A client of Courtesans, he’d made the introductions. In the ensuing two years, Noelle had done a lot of things, some she’d loved, some she’d decided once was enough. But this was a new one. “There’s no personal connection if you’ve just got them masturbating on you.”

“Think about this. It’s five men hot for your naked body.”

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