Page 57 of Fierce

So Much More

Why hadn’t he come in with me? Why on earth would he leave?

I couldn’t come up with a reason, but then, Hemi’d had me off-balance since the moment I’d met him. So I hung up my coat and brushed my teeth, then turned on the table lamp in the living room, turned off the chandelier, and finally, took a deep breath and switched on the light beside the bed. After that, I sat on my boudoir-pink couch and waited.

Which lasted about thirty seconds, and then I was jumping up to go look out the window, down an avenue of golden light ending in the gorgeous, glowing façade of the Paris Opéra, the elegant lines of its copper dome a delicate tracery against the night sky. Over everything, in other words, that reminded me how completely I was out of my element.

When the door opened again, I whirled. Hemi was barefoot, without his jacket, his sleeves rolled up. Still dressed in business attire, but so much harder. So much hotter. Something in him had shifted, and this was a different man. Or maybe the fundamental man. He dropped the keycard on a table by the door, set the bottle and glasses he’d been carrying on the coffee table, then looked at me where I still stood, framed by the window.

“You’re scared,” he said, his voice low, thrilling. “But you listened.”

“You—” I swallowed. Quit being a butterfly. Except that I wanted to be one, now. I wanted it so badly. “You told me to.”

“Yeh. I did.” He sat down on the couch, still watching me. “Come here.”

I moved hesitantly toward him, sat down beside him, as close as I dared, and he didn’t touch me, didn’t kiss me. Instead, he opened the bottle and poured a splash into each of the balloon glasses.

“Cognac.” He handed me a glass, picked up the other and touched it delicately to mine, the faint ting sounding loud in the silence. “To your first time. And, Hope—” His steady gaze told me he meant it. “It’ll be good. I promise.”

I drank, because I couldn’t think what else to do. The minute I put the snifter to my lips, the aroma filled me. I inhaled, sipped, and the fiery liquid warmed my mouth, lit a path down my throat, settled somewhere in my chest, lighting me up. Or maybe that was the man beside me.

“Everything we do tonight,” Hemi told me, “is going to be about giving you pleasure. About me learning how to please you, finding out what your body and your mind respond to.”

“My…mind?” I took another mouthful of smooth, aromatic comfort.

“Tell me,” he said, his hand sliding under my hair, beginning to stroke my nape, “when I said those things to you after our day in the rose garden, how did they make you feel?”

“Uh…” It was hard to talk with his sensitive, powerful fingers on me, moving around to the side of my neck now, up to my jawline, taking their time. “They made me feel…warm,” I admitted. “They made me…shiver.”

They’d made me do a whole lot more than that, but I wasn’t telling.

“And when you took your bath that night,” he said, “did you think about them then? What did you imagine?”

It was as if he could see to the heart of me, to every hidden desire, every secret pleasure. “How do you know I took a bath?”

“You have one bed,” he said, his gaze so intent, “and you share it with Karen. But somebody as sensual as you knows how to give herself pleasure. I’m guessing that you don’t get it nearly as often as you need it, but when you do…it’s good.”

The heat was rising into my cheeks, and I knew he noticed. His hand had drifted down, was stroking down my neck, tracing the neckline of my sweater as he had that day, and I shifted a little at the pleasure of it. “What kind of orgasm did you have that night?” he asked me softly. “When you thought about what I’d said? When you thought about me?”

Oh, yeah. I was telling. Whispering the words, though. “Hard. Good.”

“Had trouble keeping quiet, eh.” His fingers were still moving, drawing a slow path along the edge of the fabric, and the shiver was going straight down my body, the tingle that had long since set up residence becoming a full-on throb. “Because you’ve always had to hold your breath, to do it fast, to get it over with before somebody notices. But tonight’s going to be different. Tonight, we’re going to go so slowly. We’re going to find out exactly how loud I can get you. We’re going to see how much you can burn.”

I couldn’t even answer that, because I was burning already. I took another sip of cognac, which only added more fuel to the fire that was licking into every secret spot, until I had all I could do not to squirm under his hand, his dark-chocolate voice, the heat of his gaze.

“Do you remember,” he said, “when I put your shoes on for you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Remember” was putting it mildly. The memory of his hands wrapped around my ankles was imprinted on my brain.

“Do you want to know what I was thinking?”

“Wh-what?” That butterfly was trapped now for sure, every flutter of my wings only securing me more tightly.

“I was thinking of how much I wanted to put you on your back. How I’d take off your clothes. How slowly I’d shove your legs up over your head, and how I’d open you up for me. How hard I’d be holding your legs when I took you that way.”

I was burning with arousal, and by now, I couldn’t have spoken if I’d wanted to.

“And tonight?” he said. “Tonight, I’m going to do it.”