‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on your sofa.’ Had she misinterpreted his shudder of arousal for one of disdain? ‘I apologise for...’ she faltered and gestured wide ‘...for inviting myself in here.’ She looked around the vast executive suite as if she’d never seen it. Presumably she hadn’t taken in her surroundings earlier.
That, and the way she spoke, plus the shadow of tension where before there’d been nothing but a lack of inhibition, told Adoni the effects of the alcohol were wearing off.
He was torn between relief that she was obviously recovered enough to go home, and regret.
As if he wanted her to stay.
For her amusing conversation, or something else?
White teeth bit that plump bottom lip. Did she read the sexual interest he couldn’t douse?
‘No need to apologise. It’s been an interesting evening.’
She shut her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m sure it has. You’ve been very forbearing. Thank you for...’ again that wave of one hand ‘...for the coffee and for letting me sleep.’ Once again, soft colour stained her pale cheeks. Adoni found himself wondering how long it had been since he’d met a woman who still blushed.
‘My pleasure.’ He stood and again her eyes rounded as they traced him, as if she hadn’t realised how tall he was. Or perhaps he looked different now he’d shed his jacket and tie, undone a couple of buttons and rolled up his sleeves.
Neither moved. Did he imagine the heavy chug of energy thickening the atmosphere? Adoni wasn’t prone to flights of fancy, yet it seemed all the air in the room was being sucked away, making it hard to breathe.
He watched her swallow, her slender throat pale and alluring, especially when compared with that mustard horror of a dress. It was as if someone had taken something pure and hidden it beneath layers of camouflage.
Pure? An old-fashioned word for a woman who’d blatantly invited him to be sexually intimate. Yet it seemed apt. Alice Trehearn was surely the most honest woman he’d ever met. In Adoni’s world, where people pretended affection in return for material comforts, honesty was the purest quality he knew.
* * *
He took a step closer and Alice’s insides twisted like a riot of butterflies dipping and fluttering over a spring meadow.
Now the effects of the wine had worn off she was stunned to find herself alone with such a man.
That he was wealthy and powerful went without saying. It was obvious from the casual way he wore his hand-tailored clothes and the equally nonchalant way he took this exquisite, ultra-expensive suite for granted.
But it wasn’t the fact he came from a world far removed from her own that made her stare. It was the man himself. Tall, with a hard, chiselled face that had more than a trace of arrogance in those winged black eyebrows and high cheekbones. His mouth looked as if it didn’t smile enough, as if his world was too serious. Yet when he did smile his eyes, an amazing colour somewhere between blue and green, danced. The tight curve of his lips undid her as if he reached out and loosened a ribbon deep inside her.
What on earth had she said to him? She remembered some of their conversation, not all. She vividly recalled his laugh, rich and warm, enfolding her.
He hadn’t laughed at her, despite her appearance and the way the wine affected her. He’d laughed with her, sharing whatever joke she’d made. That sense of humour undercut her common sense. It was too appealing.
How she’d missed laughter lately.
She felt a link to this man she’d never experienced before, except to David, her godfather, who’d been her best friend despite the age difference. But her feelings for David had been a far cry from this. She swallowed hard, simultaneously shocked and intrigued by the way her body came alive under the Greek’s sea-bright stare. Tiny shivers prickled her skin and her nipples budded against the loose bodice of her dress.
When he noticed, his gaze dropping to her breasts, Alice’s breath clogged and excitement danced in her blood. To her amazement her breasts seemed to both tighten and swell. She’d never felt anything like it. But then her experience of men, and of sexual arousal, was almost zero.
She blinked, lifting her hands to rub her bare arms.
Was she trying to invite his attention? As if he’d be interested in a woman so ordinary and unsophisticated!
Yet her feet seemed welded to the floor.
‘Well, thank you again for your hospitality.’ She moistened her bottom lip with her tongue and was shocked when his eyes zeroed in on the movement. A hot wire of sensation tugged between her mouth and her breasts, then down to the achy spot between her legs. ‘I should be going.’
She made herself turn, looking for her handbag on the sofa. When she turned back he was closer—much closer. She had to tilt her head back to keep eye contact. Dimly she realised she was barefoot, that she’d need to search for her shoes. Her toes curled into the thick pile of the rug at the look in his eyes.
‘Is someone waiting for you at home?’
Alice frowned, feeling the sudden gnaw of anxiety that had become so familiar. She’d lost her home when David died and, though she’d known that day would come, she’d been so caught up in looking after him, making his final days comfortable, she hadn’t focused enough on where she’d live afterwards. Her little nest egg hadn’t gone nearly as far as she’d hoped. Nest egg! It had been barely enough to keep a roof over her head until she got a job.
‘I live alone.’
‘Then there’s no rush to leave.’ Those sleek dark eyebrows rose as his expression turned wickedly seductive.
Alice’s heart banged her ribs and her breath stalled. ‘Are you...’ She paused, hardly crediting what she read in his face. ‘Are you suggesting I stay here?’
‘You weren’t so hesitant earlier.’ His smile was slow and intense and it superheated her blood.
‘I wasn’t?’
He frowned. ‘You don’t remember?’
‘I...’ She frowned as snippets of conversation came back to her in vivid clarity. ‘I asked if you were a good kisser.’ Part of her shrank at the memory of such champagne-induced frankness, but now she was here, toe to toe with this fascinating man, excitement overrode bashfulness.
‘Would you still like to find out?’ His voice dropped to a low note that wound its way through her belly and down to her knees, making them wobble.
Impossible that he should affect her so intensely, this man whose name she couldn’t even recall. Adoni something. She knew so little about him.
Sensible Alice Trehearn, the one who’d spent years being dependable, devoted and reliable, knew this was her cue to leave. Yet another Alice Trehearn, the one who secretly yearned for life, and who’d only surfaced previously in her hell-for-leather gallops across the moor, shivered in excitement.
‘Yes.’ The word was out before she thought about it. Because if she thought about it she’d never say it.
‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Your mouth has been driving me crazy.’
Her mouth? Alice lifted a hand to her lips but instead met his chin as his head lowered. He stopped a breath away. She felt his exhalation on her lips, scented with coffee and brandy and something indefinable. The pads of her fingers trembled against the solid plane of his jaw, then spread, testing warm skin with a hint of stubble that grazed her flesh as she settled her whole palm across his chin.
She’d shaved both her father and later her godfather, David, when each grew too ill to do it themselves. Neither had been like this. Adoni radiated heat and vigour and a sensuality she felt right down to the marrow in her bones. He was strong, his flesh taut and so vitally alive.
Alice