How You Remind Me (3 page)

Was it clichéd? Maybe. Did she care? No. If she was going to
throw caution to the wind and seduce Shaw Tyler into her bed, what better way
than in a femme fatale fairytale?

“Want a drink?” she asked, running her fingers down the
sweating neck of the champagne she’d ordered up from room service.

“Not of bubbly,” he replied.

She turned and reclined across the bed. Though she hadn’t
had a chance in a long time, Kate knew how to be sexy, how to make a man crazy
with lust, how to get what she wanted and give the same in return. Judging by
the swiftness with which Shaw crawled next to her, she hadn’t lost her touch.

“What do you want then?” she asked.

“You.”

His kiss was tender, tentative, not at all what she’d
expected from a man who made his living in leather pants. She imagined he’d
make love as fast and furiously as he worked a stage, but instead, he took his
sweet time, nipping at the corners of her mouth, suckling softly on her bottom
lip, all the time cupping her cheeks as if her face was crafted from porcelain.
When he finally tangled his tongue with hers, he led her in a slow, swaying dance
better suited to the music played at a symphony rather than a rock concert.

Not that she minded. His sensual pace intensified each
touch, enhanced each taste. He dropped his mouth to the pulse point of her neck,
brushing his lips over the sensitive skin as his fingers explored, tracing her
ear, her chin, her neck, then lower, until a single fingertip outlined the curves
and dips of her bodice, but never breached the fabric.

He didn’t need to. Through the paper-thin silk, her nerve
endings exploded in slow succession. He sketched around her nipples. Pop. He
tightened the circles with each concentric curve. Pop. Pop. By the time he bent
his head and took her into his mouth through the silk, she nearly bucked off
the bed from the sensory assault.

“Oh.” She entangled her fingers in his hair, tugging and
pulling with the same gentle pressure as his mouth. “Oh, Shaw.”

She writhed beneath him, wishing he’d tear the gown aside. Instead,
moisture saturated the material so that when he blew a warm breath over her, it
was like he was licking her everywhere, all at once.

“Your breasts are perfect,” he said, cupping her, his thumbs
grazing across her straining nipple.

“Not perfect,” she argued.

He flicked the straps off her shoulders. With slow
reverence, he pealed the fabric from her skin, then caressed the full curve of
her, first on the right side, then the left, worshipping her with his palms,
his eyes, and then, finally, his lips.

“Perfect,” he murmured.

She squeaked as he tightened his teeth on her and then
repeated, “Yes, perfect.”

Perfect was the pressure he exerted, just enough to invoke a
series of coos from deep within and send a wash of pleasured heat straight to
her sex. He followed the heat blazing through her bloodstream as he dragged his
hands down her side, across her belly, then lower.

Into the slit of her gown. Beyond the tangle of curls into
her sweet center.

“So wet,” he murmured.

She wiggled her backside, inching up the material of her
gown so she could open wider to his touch.

“Yes,” she said, moaning as he traced the curves of her
labia. “Oh, yes.”

“Where should I touch you first? Here? “ he asked, sliding a
finger deep inside until she gasped, then withdrawing. “Or here?”

He pressed her clit and she arched, gasping at the explosion
of need spiking through her blood stream.

He touched and toggled, then buried his finger deep within
her again.

She shook her head. She couldn’t choose. She wanted both. She
wanted him. She wanted to do exactly what she was doing now—allow him full
access to ply his magic.

He didn’t disappoint her. He alternated between the two,
sending her into a maelstrom of sensation. He whispered a thousand sweet
compliments, each made nonsensical by the blood rushing in her ears. She picked
up snippets. Something about loving how hot she was. Maybe something about
wanting to feel her come at least twice before he took any pleasure for
himself.

She was only vaguely aware of the gravity of that vow when he
kissed a sweet path down her inner thigh. Without hesitation, she lifted her
knees. He tucked his shoulders underneath her thighs, ran his smooth cheek
against her sensitive skin, then blew out a hot breath across her hungry flesh,
elevating her madness to near insanity.

It was as if he could read her mind—as if he’d read a page
from her unwritten sexual diary. He knew what she liked, what she wanted, what
she dreamed about. He curled back the lips of her sex and blew again, this time
concentrating a stream of air where she was hottest and wettest. When she cried
out with pleasure, he dropped his mouth on her.

The sensations threw her into instant delirium. He took his
time, tasting every inch of her, leaving no crevice unexplored. By the time he
concentrated his tongue on her clit and slid two fingers deep inside her, she
no longer had any sense of who she was or why she was here. She was nothing
more than an exposed nerve ending, desperate for the sensations he pumped into
her.

“Yea, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “That’s it. Come on. You’re
nearly there.”

He increased the tempo and she cried out as she crested,
then fell. In the aftermath, he pressed his face to her thigh, his own
breathing labored as she came back to earth.

And then, suddenly, he was straightening her clothes,
tugging down the hem and adjusting the straps so that the lingerie reached her
ankles and covered her breasts. He rolled off the bed, back to her, and slammed
his hands through his hair with such force, she imagined he’d torn out some of
the strands.

“Shaw?”

He spun around, looked at her for a split-second, then held
out his hands as if to ward her off.

She sat up on her elbows. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do this,” he muttered.

She remained stunned for a full minute before she mustered
the strength to slide her legs off the bed and stand. Her knees protested, but
obeyed.

“Can’t do what?”

Up close, she could see anguish carved into every aspect of
his face.

She took a step back, suddenly enveloped in fear. She’d
risked so much to be with him tonight—her pride, her professional position, her
heart. Was he throwing this back at her somehow? Rejecting her after giving her
the best oral sex she’d ever had?

“Shaw? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then turned his hands, not
to touch her, but in surrender. “I have to tell you something, Kate. About the
night we first met.”

Kate looked away, wracking her brain for the time and place
of the first time they’d been introduced. It couldn’t have been anything
significant. A party? A business meeting at the office?

“A fundraiser for a city council candidate at a club on
Division Street,” she said.

Even before she finished the sentence, Shaw was shaking his
head.

“No, Kate. That’s the first time you remember meeting me. But
our worlds collided a couple of months before that. The night you can’t
remember.”

The muscles in her chest clenched tight. “How do you know
about that?”

“Because I was there. With you. All night long.”

Though Shaw knew it might be a mistake, he couldn’t help but
grab Kate by the elbows when it looked like she might fall. She instantly
tugged out of his hold and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

He muttered a curse, disbelieving how massively he’d screwed
up. He should have told her the truth before things went so far, but the allure
of her seduction had been too powerful for him to resist—especially after how
much he’d resisted that night she couldn’t recall. But after tasting and
inhaling and experiencing the full breadth of her climax, he’d known that his
world would remain in turmoil until he came clean.

“I want to be with you, Kate,” he confessed.

She shook her head, as if trying to clear away her confusion.
“Isn’t that what we were aiming for?”

“Like an arrow,” Shaw said. “And I swear to God, I want it—I
want you—more than anything. But there’s a lie in our way. Actually, not a lie.
A truth. A truth I haven’t told about what happened that night.”

“No one knows what happened to me,” she said. “I asked around.
No one even remembers seeing me. I was at the club and then, I wasn’t. I ended
up at home, in bed, alone.”

He dropped to his knee, needing her to see his face. “That’s
because I took you home.”

“You? You didn’t even know me then.”

“I knew you were in trouble.”

She snorted, but couldn’t meet his eyes. Her confidence was
cracked—thanks to him.

“I can take care of myself,” she insisted.

“You couldn’t that night, Kate. You were vulnerable. Maybe
more vulnerable than you’ve been in your entire life.”

Her chin notched upward. “I was an attorney, a junior
partner in a major law firm. Very good at my job and very well respected.”

“And very unhappy.”

She narrowed her gaze. With every secret he revealed, her
anger increased. He couldn’t blame her. While under the influence, she’d
confessed secrets about her life, her career and her most intimate sexual
preferences—secrets only an intimate friend or lover would know—secrets he
could keep to himself no longer.

“How do you know about my job? Did Erica tell you?”

“No,” he replied. “She didn’t need to. You told me yourself.
How bored you were in the corporate world. How you hit the clubs, desperate for
some fun after feeling like a caged bird all day. You told me how you went into
law to please your parents and your friends, but that you hated being cooped up.
You wanted a job where you could be creative and maybe a little wild. You told
me everything, Kate.”

With each admission, she leaned another inch away from him. “I
wouldn’t.”

Shaw cradled his pounding head while he wondered what to say
next. Except under the influence of drugs, Kate wasn’t chatty about her
personal life. But that night, she’d talked for hours. She’d gifted him with
her life story, from growing up as an only child to type A personality parents
to the time she’d seduced the lead singer of a well-known eighties hair band.

“Under normal circumstances, you’d never tell a stranger so
much. But the circumstances weren’t normal, Kate. My band was on stage. You
were in the front row. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. For one heartbeat, we
connected. Then some guy, I don’t think you knew him, slipped something into
your drink.”

The color drained from her face. “I was drugged?”

He inched closer, his hands aching to take her palms in his.
“Yeah.”

She faced him dead on. “You’re sure?”

He nodded.

“And you’ve known this for over a year?”

The snap in her voice cut straight through the center of his
chest. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t think,” she scooted around him and stalked across
the room, “that maybe you should tell me?”

He stood. “I’ve thought every single minute we’ve been
together about how I should tell you. I just couldn’t figure out how.”

“Couldn’t figure out how?” she repeated, incensed. “You just
do it! Do you have any idea how long I’ve wondered what happened to me?”

“I’m sorry. Katie-gate, I swear—”

“Don’t call me that! Wait. Oh, God. Is that why you came up
with that nickname? Because I’m some sort of secret scandal? Is that what I am
to you? A joke? A double-entendre? A pun?”

“No,” he insisted. “Listen to me. I didn’t even know your
name until I fished your ID out of your purse to get your address. But I
couldn’t just throw you in a cab and hope for the best. I took you home myself.
No one stopped me. No one else stepped up to the plate to stay with you all
night and make sure you didn’t have any dangerous after effects.”

“What about the actual effects? Roofies make you drop your
inhibitions. They make you horny. Did you fuck me while under the influence and
since then, all your flirting and come-ons have been an attempt at a second go?”

She wasn’t crying, but her voice shook as if she was holding
in the emotional equivalent of a tidal wave. Shaw had known she wouldn’t take
this well, but the way she held herself together despite her justifiable anger elevated
his admiration for her to a level he hadn’t thought possible.

He should have found a way to tell her sooner, before she’d
dropped her guard, before she’d invited him to her room. Or at the very least,
before he joined her in her bed.

“I would never take advantage of a woman who wasn’t fully
aware of what she was doing. I took you home. I…I listened. And I liked what I
heard enough so that when we ran into each other again, I wanted to be with
you. The right way. Like this,” he said, gesturing toward the bed. “With
romance and seduction and truth.”

Her gaze was locked on the door and slowly, her head shook
from side to side. He wasn’t sure if she didn’t believe him or she didn’t want
to—either way, he knew he was seconds away from being tossed out on his ass.

When she finally spoke again, she didn’t look at him. “You
expect me to believe that while I was hot to go for anyone with a penis,
nothing happened? Not a single kiss? You didn’t cop a single feel? Hell, I
didn’t?”

He pressed his lips together. He couldn’t lie to her. Not
again.

“Nothing happened that you should regret,” he answered.

She laughed, but the sound was hard and humorless. “That
doesn’t answer my question.”

He chanced a step closer to her, but she backed up until she
was inches from disappearing behind the bathroom door.

“Kate, I’ll tell you everything that happened, I swear. But
you have to trust me.”