“I’m not amused, Victoria,” her mother called as Tori took the stairs two at a time. “I expect you to be prompt tomorrow. This dinner is very important.”
She slipped inside her room, shut the door and sank against it and groaned. Jake would assume she’d chickened out. What the hell was she going to do?
4
JAKE IDLY FLIPPED through several more channels and then flung the remote aside. He should have known she wouldn’t show up. Yeah, he’d been surprised when he’d shown up early to check in and pay for the room only to find that she’d beat him to it. She’d left a note apologizing that she’d be late, which had bugged him, yet had also been encouraging.
But it was already nine. If he had a brain in his head he’d just leave. Not that he had anything else to do. Bad enough he’d barely been able to concentrate all day. He’d purposely stayed in the office to clear some paperwork off his desk. And what? All he’d managed to do was upset his secretary by screwing up her new filing system.
Muttering over his foolishness for hanging around, he went to the minibar and grabbed another beer out of the fridge. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t turned down sex before, although admittedly, that wasn’t a common occurrence. If he wanted to be totally honest with himself, he kind of got a charge out of a Whitford coming on to him.
He skipped the chair this time and stretched out on the bed, adjusting the pillow behind his neck before resuming his channel surfing. Great hotel but the channel selection sucked. She obviously wasn’t going to show. He ought to go home where he could at least catch the end of the Raiders’ game.
After taking another pull of beer, he set the bottle on the nightstand and yawned. Screw her. Better that she’d chumped him. She wouldn’t even have to know that he’d shown up. He wasn’t a toy poodle for her amusement. The sex would probably have been great but it still niggled at him that she wanted to keep him her guilty secret.
She thought he was a gardener…someone beneath her. Granted, he wasn’t in her social class, but little did she know that he’d actually…
A light knock at the door had him sitting up. And then he heard a key in the lock and the door opened.
Tori stepped inside the semidark room, her gaze darting first to the television and then to him. She smiled and closed the door behind her. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
“I was just about to leave.”
She quickly sobered. “I’m really sorry about being late. I tried looking for you in the garden today but obviously you weren’t there.” She laid her purse on the table and moved closer. “I’d totally forgotten about a business dinner I had tonight. I hope you got the note I left at the front desk.”
“I got it.” He picked up his beer and took another sip before getting to his feet.
“You’re angry.”
“I wasted two hours waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t know how else to get a hold of you.”
“Did you try my father?”
She blinked, and looked away. “I didn’t think of that.”
Bull shit. He knew damn well she wouldn’t have risked letting anyone know they had a date. If you could call their little sex tryst that.
For a moment he thought about calling her on the lie, but what would that solve? Nothing would change. Except it might mean he wouldn’t get anything tonight. If he still wanted it…
His gaze went to the hem of her cream dress, where it stopped about three inches above her knee. The style was conservative with a high neck and short sleeves and she shouldn’t have looked so damn sexy.
Yeah, he still wanted her, all right.
“Forget it. You’re here now,” he said, and pulled off his shirt.
Her eyes widened, excitement mixed with fear sparkling from their depths, and she drew a hand up her opposite arm.
The lady wanted a walk on the wild side. Jake smiled. He wouldn’t disappoint her.
TORI DREW AN UNSTEADY breath. He didn’t look as if he was about to waste any time on small talk or foreplay. She watched him unsnap his jeans, and wished she’d had that brandy her mother had ordered her after dinner. But by the time dessert had arrived, Tori had her purse in hand and excuse to leave the table on her lips.
After she’d fought the downtown traffic, she’d half expected not to find Jake waiting. But here he was, with the best-looking chest in the southern hemisphere.
He shoved the jeans down his thighs and then pulled them off, leaving him in navy-blue boxers. “If you don’t want me to mess up that pretty dress of yours, I’d suggest you take it off.”
At the deep, suggestive timbre of his voice, a shiver slithered down her spine and she automatically reached behind to find the zipper. His gaze went to her breasts where the linen fabric strained against them and revealed her protruding nipples.
“Need help?”
She looked up when she realized she’d been staring at his fly. Already he was semiaroused which sent her pulse into the danger zone. She fumbled with the zipper, her fingers going numb, so she slowly turned around to accept his help, briefly closing her eyes, anticipating that he might rip the tab off the track.
He didn’t, but simply pulled gently until the zipper parted and then he unhooked her bra before she could turn around and do it herself. He slipped the dress off her right shoulder along with the bra strap. She started to turn to face him, but he held her by the shoulders and ran his tongue down the side of her spine.
Her breath caught and she closed her eyes while he slid the dress off her other shoulder. The fabric dropped to her waist where she held it to her tingling skin. The creamy silk bra easily followed so that she was bare to the waist.
Gripping her by the shoulders, he turned her around until their eyes met, briefly, before his gaze lowered to her breasts. She swallowed when he took her wrists and pulled her hands away from the dress. She let go and the pale linen fell to her feet.
He still didn’t let go, but lifted his gaze to her face. “How do you like it, Victoria?” he whispered, and then kissed the side of her neck.
“What do you mean?” She barely recognized her own voice. Deep. Husky. Sexy.
He drew back and gave her a lazy smile. “You like it a little rough?” He gripped her wrist tighter and forced her backward until she was against the wall, and then he kissed her hard, pushing his tongue between her lips.
Just as quickly he withdrew, lightly nibbling the side of her mouth, sucking at her lower lip, releasing her wrist to cup her face in his hands and giving her a gentle but very satisfying kiss.
He pulled back, his darkly intense eyes even with hers. “Or slow and tender?”
It took her a moment to catch her breath. “I don’t know. I’ve never—” A glint of triumph in his eyes stopped her. Was he trying to intimidate her? “If you want to spend the night analyzing the situation…” She put a hand on his hip and dipped a couple of fingers into the elastic of his boxers. “Then we might as well put our clothes back on.”
His mouth curved in a crooked smile, and before she knew what he was doing, he’d hooked his thumbs in her bikini panties and drew them down her legs, lowering himself so that she felt his warm breath at the juncture of her thighs.
She clutched his shoulder to keep her balance, unsure what he’d do next, nervous that he might be jumping the gun a bit. But after he got her to step out of the panties, he cast them aside, and then raised himself to a standing position, casually, as if he hadn’t been tonguing distance from her heat.
The