She briefly closed her eyes and then nodded.
Inside, the hostess led them to their table. The club was dark and the music loud with a driving beat. Franco wondered what Stacy thought of the retro decor, but decided it did not matter. Knowing her tastes was not part of their deal.
He arranged for their drinks and waited with impatience he had no business feeling for Stacy to consume hers while the women chatted, pointed out celebrities and acclimatized themselves to the club. An hour later even the shy Amelia had deserted them for the dance floor. Franco extended his hand. Stacy bit her lip, hesitating before she laid her palm over his and rose.
Thankful that slow songs were few and far between at Jimmy’z, he led her onto the floor. The night would be long enough without the arousing slide of her body against his. Needing the physical exertion to expend some of his caged energy, he released her hand and found the rhythm of the beat. Stacy moved self-consciously at first, but soon either the gyrating crowd surrounding them or the alcohol relaxed her. The results devastated him. A slight sheen of sweat dampened her flushed skin, reminding him of her face just before le petit mort. He would have been better off if Stacy had remained stiff.
His gaze slid over her. When he had chosen her clothing he’d had no idea the effect she would have on his control and his carefully planned evening. Each pirouette flared her skirt almost to her bottom. He wasn’t the only man to notice. A primitive urge to mark her as his surged through him.
He cupped a hand around her nape, pulled her close and pressed a quick, hard kiss on her lips. He said into her ear, “You dance like you make love. Très sexy.”
Shock made Stacy stumble. Could the man read minds? Franco caught her quickly, pulling her flush against the hot length of his hard body. The contact was too intense, too arousing. She jerked back, her gaze slamming into his. Suddenly the air seemed loaded with sexual tension.
For the past two hours she’d been thinking he moved like an invitation to sin—an invitation she wanted to accept more and more with each passing second. She’d believed that after a night in his bed she couldn’t—wouldn’t—desire him again. Wrong. Her body, already warm from dancing, flushed with heat and pulsed with a sexual awareness with which she’d been unfamiliar until Franco.
Franco moved closer, his hand curving around her waist and his hips punctuating the beat in a purely sensual dance that made her feminine muscles clench in anticipation. A mating dance. Not graphic or crude. Just devastatingly, pulse-acceleratingly sensuous. And she wasn’t the only woman to notice. Since they’d arrived, each time Stacy had glanced past the cobalt silk stretched across his broad shoulders she’d caught women glaring at her or ogling Franco’s behind, and who could blame them?
More than one bold woman had sashayed up to them on the dance floor and shimmied directly beside him as if trying to draw his attention. But Franco’s gaze never strayed. His eyes had remained locked on hers or on the movement of her body with an intensity burning in the blue depths that made her feel incredibly attractive and yes, very desirable. Realizing she was proud to be the woman he’d chosen was a scary thought since the man should be her worst nightmare.
Her throat dried and her belly tightened. She blamed the discomforts on thirst and hunger. Nerves over this evening had ruined her appetite and she’d barely touched the dinner she and her suitemates had shared earlier. Hoping for a distraction, she dampened her lips and glanced toward their table, but her friends weren’t there to rescue her.
Franco intercepted her look, caught her hand and led her off the dance floor without a word. He paused beside her chair, brushed stray tendrils of hair from her damp forehead and tucked them behind her ears. His fingertips lingered over her pulse points, no doubt noting the rapid tattoo not solely caused by the dancing, and then one hand traced her collar bone and dipped into the V of her top. Desire rippled over her, tightening her nipples and making her shiver.
“Another drink, mon gardénia?”
Maybe the alcohol was to blame for loosening her inhibitions and erasing her common sense. Whatever, she wanted him to kiss her instead of staring at her lips as if he would consume her were they not surrounded by people, and her response was both unacceptable and unwise, given what she knew of men in his position.
She cleared her throat and sat. “Water this time.”
He signaled the waiter, ordered another round of drinks for their table and seated himself beside her.
Stacy gasped when his hand smoothed up from her knee and then her breath wheezed out again when his fingertips stroked along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
“You wish to go?”
She did. Oh boy, she did. What did it say about her that she couldn’t wait to get back to his house, back to his bed? She waited until after the waiter deposited the drinks and left to reply. “We shouldn’t leave before the others.”
“Amelia has found someone. Madeline and Candace are coming this way.”
Surprised that he’d kept track of her suitemates, she turned in her seat and searched the crowd until she located Amelia dancing with a tall, sandy-haired man. “Should we leave her with him?”
“Toby will take care of her.”
“Toby? Toby Haynes? The race-car driver?”
“Oui, and Vincent’s best man. He is also charged with your safety while you are in Monaco.” He removed his hand as the women neared the table and Stacy immediately missed his touch.
Something is definitely wrong with you.
Madeline and Candace slid into their seats.
“Merci, Franco,” Candace said. She and Madeline toasted him with their fresh drinks. “This has been a blast, but I wish Vincent were here.”
Madeline scanned the crowd. “And Damon. I had hoped he’d join us tonight.”
“Damon is your tour guide?” Stacy asked.
“Yes. But I guess he had to work tonight.”
“Shall I call for the limo for you?” Franco asked.
“Yes,” Madeline and Candace answered simultaneously.
“Excuse me.” Franco left the table, headed onto the dance floor and spoke to Toby and then disappeared toward the club entrance.
Candace grinned mischievously. “I’ll tell ya, Stacy, Franco is definitely a keeper. He has some seriously sexy moves, and if he’s half as good in bed as he is on the dance floor, a girl could have a real good time.”
Stacy’s cheeks burned. She ducked her head and fiddled with her cocktail napkin. So this was girl talk. “He’s a good, um … dancer.”
“You’re going home with him?” Madeline asked.
Stacy fought the urge to squirm in her seat. “Yes, but I’ll be back for our morning meeting.”
“The only thing on the agenda tomorrow is me tinkering with the rehearsal dinner and reception seating. No work for you, so stay as long as you like,” Candace replied with a wink and a smug smile. “It’s almost 3:00 a.m. I have a feeling we’ll all be sleeping in.”
Stacy had permission to spend the entire night with Franco. Did she want to? The swiftness of her answer surprised and alarmed her. She’d slid far too easily into the role of a rich man’s mistress.
“Remove your clothing,” Franco ordered in the darkness thirty minutes later.
Stacy’s breath caught. She couldn’t see anything, not even her hand in front of her face, and she didn’t know where she was. Franco had led her into his home, and without