Once the SUV was stopped in front of the car park security gate, Nicolas glared over at her. ‘What gives you the right to make demands like that?’
‘I don’t have any right,’ she admitted. ‘But if you do what I ask, I’ll do whatever you want for the next four hours. If not, then you can turn around and take me home.’
Nicolas could have called her bluff, the way he had a short time ago. But really, there was no point. All his questions had been answered now. Serina didn’t love him anymore. Maybe she’d never loved him. That night thirteen years ago hadn’t been about love, it’d been all about lust. As was this afternoon.
She still wanted him. Quite badly, if he was any judge. Which explained why she was so anxious to get rid of him, because she was afraid of what she might do.
Nicolas suspected he could seduce her into going away with him, if he tried hard enough. But he wasn’t that ruthless, despite what she thought of him. He could see that her life here meant the world to her, as did her daughter. To take her away from Rocky Creek would be cruel and truly wicked, which he was not.
Which left him with the harsh reality that this afternoon would be the last time he’d be with her.
Four miserable short hours.
It just wasn’t enough.
‘Make it six hours,’ he counteroffered. ‘Call Felicity on her mobile and tell her to go to a friend’s place till then.’
‘I can’t do that. People will talk.’
‘Serina, they’re going to talk anyway. But if I leave town for good the day after tomorrow, they’ll soon forget.’
‘If you leave town?’
‘That’s conditional on your staying with me for six hours. And what was it you offered? Doing whatever I want.’
‘That’s blackmail!’ she protested.
Nicolas laughed. ‘No, my darling heart. That’s negotiation. So what’s it to be?’
‘I… I’ll ring Felicity later. But not right now. Closer to four.’
‘Fine.’ Satisfied for the moment, he leant out of the driver’s window and swiped the key card across the security unit attached to the wall. As the gate slowly lifted, Nicolas glanced at his watch.
It was noon. High noon.
He smiled a wry smile.
What have I done? Serina agonised when she saw Nicolas smile.
You’ve sold your soul to the devil, that’s what you’ve done.
No, not my soul. My body. My soul is still mine.
But this last thought was little consolation. Serina’s hands curled into tight fists in her lap as Nicolas drove slowly down the ramp before angling the bulky vehicle into an empty parking space in a dimly lit corner of the basement car park. The moment the engine died, a nervous sigh shuddered from her lungs.
‘There’s no need for that,’ he said with surprising tenderness, and reached over to take her tense hands in his. ‘I don’t mean you any harm, my darling,’ he murmured, and lifted her hands to his mouth, where he kissed the whitened knuckles one after the other. ‘I just want to make love to you the way I used to. Not what we shared that night at the Opera House. That was way too fast and furious. I want to enjoy you at length the way we did in the beginning. Remember how it used to be between us?’
How could she forget?
Already she was trembling inside.
‘You used to do whatever I asked. Whatever I wanted. Be like that with me one more time and I’ll leave like you asked me to.’
A soft moan escaped her lips when he uncurled one of her fingers and pushed it deep into his mouth. She closed her eyes as he began to suck, her mind filling with memories of all the things he’d done to her in the past. Nothing had been taboo in the end. Everything had been tried, everything enjoyed. Even…
Serina snapped open at that particular memory.
‘You… you do have protection with you, don’t you?’ she blurted out.
Slowly, his head lifted, leaving her finger wet and tingling.
‘Of course,’ he said softly.
Of course. Nicolas had always been a thinker and a planner. Only twice had he not practised safe sex with her. That first time. And then during that wildly impassioned encounter at the Opera House, for which she only had herself to blame.
His head turned at the sound of a group of people walking across the car park and getting in a nearby car.
‘Time, I think,’ came his oh-so-cool words, ‘for us to go upstairs… ’
SERINA’S knees felt like jelly during their short walk to the lift well. She was glad that no one joined them there, leaving them alone for the ride up to Nicolas’s floor. She didn’t want anyone to see the state she was in. Though nothing much was visible on the outside, nothing except for her possibly haunted eyes and her rock-hard nipples. An outsider could not see her wildly whirling thoughts, or the shocking wetness between her legs.
Nicolas, on the other hand, to all appearances had regained total control of himself. There again, he hadn’t touched her since alighting from the SUV, going about his business with the key card in the lift without even glancing her way. So maybe he wasn’t quite as cool as he was pretending to be.
Once they left the lift, he did take her elbow, steering her across a grey carpeted foyer and down a corridor to a door marked number seventy-three in silver numbers. A quick swipe of the key card and a green light came on in the silver door handle, Nicolas swiftly pushing the door open.
The apartment was, she saw immediately, not run-of-the-mill holiday accommodation. The living room into which she first walked was very spacious, the décor expensive. The walls and ceilings were painted a soft off-white, with the furniture, floor and accessories in various shades of blue, ranging from the palest of grey-blues to quite bright blues to the darkest navy, with the odd splash of turquoise thrown in.
‘Very nice,’ she murmured, and dropped her handbag onto a large navy leather armchair before moving across the room to the sliding glass doors, which led out to the balcony.
‘It’s locked,’ she said when the door wouldn’t slide open.
Nicolas strode over, lifted the latch then locked it again.
‘Oh,’ she said, feeling totally flustered and confused.
Nicolas cupped her face and forced her eyes up to his. ‘If you think you’re going to waste time out there looking at a view you’ve seen a million times before, Serina, then think again. I didn’t bring you up here to play pretend tourist. Now, as pretty as this dress is that you’re wearing,’ he said, his hands dropping down to the wide belt around her waist, ‘it has to go.’
Serina’s first instinct was to object. But her second thought was to stay silent and just let him get on with it. After all, this was what she’d agreed to. And what she’d often dreamt about over the years. To somehow be able to go back into the past when they were teenagers and so very much in love.
Which they had been.
Not once had Serina ever felt that the intimacies they’d shared were just acts of lust. It had always been lovemaking, not sex. Nicolas had never made her feel used. Yes, he was dominant and domineering, but he was also tender and loving. He never stopped telling her how much he loved her and how beautiful she was.
Her stomach