Animal Instincts (5 page)

“Technically, she
is
the one who hired me.”

“I
tried
to hire you, but you never returned my calls. More than that, I’m the one paying you.”

I ignored the censure in his tone about the unreturned calls. “That’s good enough for me. She’ll never hear a peep from me.” Moving on. “Is there a specific caterer you’d prefer?”

“No. Whoever you normally use will be fine.”

“Excellent.” Deep breath. Let it out. We had a nice business rhythm going, those trickles of sexual attraction dissolved. I’d ask Kera to cater the party on the condition she use only the food items I approved. Which meant nothing exotic would be on the menu. “What about decorations? Will your mom want something simple, elegant or traditional party style?”

He rubbed his temple and sighed. “Elegant, most likely.”

That had been my guess, though sometimes clients surprised me. I once planned a bachelorette party for a seventy-three-year-old woman. She’d wanted strippers, condom hats and zucchini trays. “Is there a particular symbol or theme she prefers? Anything she collects? Loves?”

“Jewelry. She can’t get enough of it.”

I paused, pen poised over notepad, as images drifted through my mind. “You know, I could make the location look like a jewelry box.” Last time I’d shopped for decorations, I’d seen giant faux diamond rings. They would make excellent centerpieces.

Royce’s dark brows arched, hiding under the inky fall of hair on his forehead. “You can do that? Really?”

“I can do whatever you want.”

His eyes flashed with sudden heat, and I kicked myself for uttering such a suggestive comment. Any man would have reacted to it. It wasn’t
me.

“Let’s leave the decorations open for right now,” he said. “While I like the jewelry box idea, I’m not one-hundred-percent sold on it yet.”

I nodded, making another notation. I really, really wanted this party to be my best ever. Something people would remember and talk about for months afterward. I tapped the pen on my bottom lip and said, “All right, next on the list is location.” Another tap. “Have you decided where you’d like the party to be located?”

He didn’t answer.

Another tap. “Royce?” I looked up and my tapping
stilled. His gaze was fastened on my mouth. Had the pen left a smudge? Was a crumb from breakfast hovering on the edge of my lips? My tongue slipped out to wipe away whatever it was. No taste of ink. No crumbs.

His eyes flashed with blue fire again.

Maybe…maybe it had nothing to do with ink or crumbs. Maybe Mel had been right before, and he wanted my hooker lips all over him. I inhaled a shaky breath, pretending the strange heat growing inside me didn’t exist.

He started leaning toward me. Closer. Closer still. He’s probably dating that supermodel, I reminded myself. “Royce?” I asked again, a bit hoarse. Where was my inner Tigress when I needed her to claw out a man’s eyes? Surely I hadn’t caged her and thrown away the key. “Royce.”

He blinked, but didn’t remove his gaze from my mouth. “Yes?”

“Have you decided where you’d like the party to be located?”

When he still didn’t answer, when he tried to close the space between us a second time, I said, “Royce!” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “You need to stop that.”

“What?” He paused.

“Staring. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Sorry,” he grumbled, at last removing his gaze and directing it over my head. “Just for the record, I wasn’t staring. I was thinking about something totally unrelated to you.”

My mouth fell open. He was lying, just like I’d lied to him earlier. That meant… Good Lord, that meant he’d almost kissed me. My nipples hardened at the thought, and I had to clear my throat. What about his supposed girlfriend, the whore of Babylon? Was he hoping to cheat on her with me? To have a fling with me, then marry the girl he found worthy of him? Bastard!

My fingers tightened around the pen, nearly snapping it in two. “Have you thought about where you want to hold the party?” The words emerged clipped, layered with a hint of anger.

“No,” he said, seeming a little surprised by my vehemence, “I haven’t.”

Great. With this type of
help,
the party was sure to be a success. “There are several places I’ve used before. I’m positive you’ll find one of them satisfactory.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“Give me just a moment,” I said, jolting up. “I’ve already made a list. It’s in my room.”

My steps hurried, I sailed to my bedroom and rooted inside my briefcase. After finding what I needed, I rushed back into the kitchen and plopped onto my seat. One by one I tapped off the names listed.

“The botanical gardens.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“The Mansion on Turtle Creek.”

“No.”

“Omni at Park West.”

“No.”

“The Adolphus.”

“No.”

“The Hilton. The Hyatt Regency. Four Seasons.”

“No. No. No.”

My jaw clenched so tightly I felt the burn all the way to my teeth. “None of these places will work?”

Again, “No.”

Why the hell not?

“If you’ll put together a list of places
you
find suitable—” damn him “—I’ll visit each one and let you know which will work for a party the size you’re planning.” Not that I knew what size party it was going to be with an answer like
Maybe fifty, or a hundred or two.

“Then,” I finished, “I’ll put together another list, as well, and we can compare.”

“Sounds good.” He paused and studied me, his eyes blank, giving no hint of his thoughts. “I have a question for you now.”

I almost shuddered. The last time he’d asked me a question in that tone, I’d had to promise to turn other clients away. “Shoot.”

“What’s your home number?”

I frowned. “I keep my business and private life separate. It’s the reason my home number isn’t listed on my card. My cell phone is always turned on during business hours.”

When he remained silent, I added, “There’s no reason for you to have access to my personal line.”

“I disagree. Since I’m paying triple your normal
rate, I expect you to be at my beck and call. If I need you to look at a potential location at four in the morning, I want to be able to get a hold of you.”

The only place I could think of that was open at four in the morning and equipped for a party was the all-nude, all-the-time strip club a few streets over. “Very well,” I answered, even though I knew a true Tigress wouldn’t have acquiesced so easily.

Just because I gave in didn’t mean I did it gracefully, though. With jerky movements, I wrote down the required number and shoved the pad and pen at him. “I’ll need your home number as well. Just in case I need to get a hold of you at four in the morning,” I added with a false, bite-me smile.

He didn’t balk as I expected—but then, when did he ever? He grinned as if I’d given him exactly what he wanted and plucked the pen from my hand. His fingertips brushed my knuckles. Slivers of sexual awareness pulsed the length of my arm and sparked electric currents through my veins.

He didn’t seem the least affected by the touch, I noted irritably.

“This is a direct line.” He tore the bottom half of the page from the notebook and handed it to me. “You can reach me without having to go through Ms. Carroll.”

“Who?”

“My assistant.”

Ah, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I almost French-kissed the number. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He scanned the paper I’d
handed him, nodded and tucked the sheet of paper in his jacket pocket. “Any other details we need to go over right now?”

“No.” Now he would leave, I thought, and wanted to jump and shout with joy. Okay, that was a lie. I
still
wasn’t ready for him to leave—even though he might have a
girlfriend.
He was fun to talk to, with a dry sense of humor I enjoyed. Plus, I liked looking at him.

“Good.” He stood, took my hand and tugged me to my feet. “Now that business is over, let’s get something to eat. I’m starved. Do you like Chinese? We can call in an order and have it delivered.”

“Eat?” With Royce? Here? Alone? My stomach growled at the same time an ache throbbed between my legs. A
yes
from my stomach and a
yes
from my libido. “No.” From my common sense. We could sit and chat, but a meal provided a sense of intimacy I knew I wasn’t ready for. “No, thank you. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said with a bit more force than necessary.

At least a small part of me recalled my rules.

Royce was so close I feared he might hear the wild rhythm of my heart. He grinned. “I heard your stomach growl. If you were any hungrier, I’d worry you were about to gnaw off my arm.”

“You’re hard of hearing, remember? My stomach did
not
growl. Your ears must have been ringing because of your inner-ear problem. And just so you know, I had a big breakfast.” As a preventive measure, I eased out of his grasp and shifted out of reach.
“Really big.” My stomach chose that moment to growl again. “So big I may not be able to eat ever again.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, causing his shirt to tighten over his well-defined, corded muscles. Holy Lord, he had the body of a Trojan warrior. I shivered. I’d always felt small around men. Now, standing in front of Royce, that feeling jumped to the next level. I felt as if I were a tiny speck consumed by the raw power he emitted. We weren’t touching, yet his broad shoulders all but surrounded me.

“Either you don’t like Chinese or you’re pretending not to be hungry so you won’t have to eat with me.” His voice dropped to that husky whisper. His eyelids lowered to half-mast. “Which is it?”

“I don’t like Chinese?” I hadn’t meant to phrase it as a question.

“Then we can cook something here.”

I gulped back my panic. “I don’t like home cooking, either. It upsets my stomach.”

His brows arched. “If I asked you to have drinks with me, you’d say…”

“I don’t drink. Alcohol makes me loopy.”

“I was referring to water.”

“I’m allergic. Besides, I have a ton of stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Just stuff. Lots and lots of stuff.”

His eyes narrowed. I watched a strange, unreadable light enter them, giving the blue a deep, greenish hue that seized attention. He surprised me by stepping toward me, leaning down and whispering in my ear, “I think you’re afraid I plan to kiss you.”

Royce’s words rocked my already shaky composure. “Do you?” I asked on a wispy catch of breath, my gaze searching his.

He slowly smiled. “Yes. I do.”

Ohmygod. Thinking that he desired me was completely different from actually hearing him admit it. Different and horrible and heady and mind-boggling and amazing. That delicious heat sprang to life again and my mind instantly recognized it as dangerous.
Fight it. Fight it, damn you.

“What about your girlfriend?” I gulped.

He frowned. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Gwendolyn Summers,” I reminded him.

He waved away my words. “A friend, nothing more. Now
you,
I’d like to be more.”

My stupid, dumb-ass knees weakened. He didn’t have a girlfriend…he wanted me to be more than a friend…he wanted to kiss me. All of that combined had my equally dumb-ass hormones screaming for a taste of him.

“Now,” he said, his voice dropping to that husky whisper, “about that kiss.”

“I’ve already made a list of why we shouldn’t,” I rushed out, then cringed, realizing I’d just admitted to pondering such an event. Conclusion: all of me is a dumb-ass.

His features lit; obviously he’d caught the implication of my words. “What’s reason number one?”

“We work together.”

“So do lots of couples,” he said. “Two?”

“It wouldn’t be wise.”

“The best things in life never are. Three?”

“I’m not interested in getting involved with you or anyone else right now.” Rotten, rotten lie. I wanted to get naked with him ASAP, and that was pretty involved, to my way of thinking.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

Smart man. “Believe what you want. That doesn’t change the facts. I don’t want you. I never will.”

“You’re lying again,” he said in a singsong voice. “I can tell.”

My mouth dropped open and I gazed up at him with incredulity. “You can’t tell. There’s no way you can tell.”

He ignored me. “Let’s make a new list, hmm?” He leaned toward me and his breath caressed the sensitive hollow of my cheek.

My knees weakened again. I would have stepped away from him, but I would have fallen. “About what?”

“Exactly why we
should
kiss. I’ll help you with reason number one.”

I barely had time to register the fact that Royce’s mouth was descending to mine before he was there, kissing me. Slowly at first, simply exploring and testing. His tongue brushing mine, rolling over it, pushing against it. He tasted so freaking good, like heat and man and something all his own.

Of their own will, my arms skidded up his incredibly strong, corded-with-muscles chest and anchored around his neck. My fingers inched into his silky hair. The world around me faded. I knew only the heady throb working through my body, pooling
between my legs. Had the good Lord suddenly summoned me to heaven? I wondered, dazed. How else would I have reached the corridors of paradise so quickly?

“Your lips are softer than I imagined,” he said, low and husky.

“You imagined them?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“A thousand times these past two weeks. A thousand more if you count the last—” He stopped.

“The last what?” Snared by his sensual appeal as I was, I nuzzled his nose with mine, breathing in his scent, absorbing his heat. I couldn’t force myself to move away.

“Nothing.” His tongue swept inside my mouth as his arms caressed their way down my waist, locking me in place, arching my hips forward. When I liquefied against him, his grip tightened, held me up and let me sink even deeper into his embrace.

“Oh, my God,” I said as his erection rubbed against me.

“No. Royce.”

The kiss gained speed, going from sultry to wild in mere seconds. I moaned. My nipples—my ever traitorous nipples—hardened and I meshed them into his chest. The strength and warmth of Royce radiated from his clothing and nearly singed every inch of my body.