Lessons in Seduction (11 page)

She was contemplating the curve of his ear when he suddenly shifted his gaze to catch her studying him. His dark eyes trapped and held hers. “Your move,” he said slowly.

If it was truly her move, she'd leave her seat and trace the shape of his ear, maybe run her fingers through his hair or over his shoulders, and definitely, definitely kiss his lips, seeking the taste of him, needing to feel that softness, to inhale something of him.

They were both leaning forward over the board. His face was close and she was trapped by the depths in his eyes.

Desire. It bloomed within her. And she recognized its match in the darkening of Adam's eyes. She tried to look away. Tried and failed. And she couldn't say for certain which of them closed that small distance. She'd thought so hard about it that maybe it was her. But it didn't matter because his lips were on hers. She closed her eyes and savored the onslaught of sensation. His lips, firm yet soft, the taste of cinnamon from the mulled wine, and his encompassing warmth. She gave herself over to the kiss. Let the sensations wash through her, claim her. She felt his hand at the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair.

Unlike their earlier desperate kisses this was achingly tender.

“D
inner's ready.” They broke apart at the sound of Blake's voice. “Oh, sh—sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“You weren't interrupting,” Adam said.

“Looked like I was, to me. Dinner can wait if you like.”

“No.” Adam who was never outwardly fazed by anything spoke almost curtly. He took a breath. “We're ready now,” he said a little less abruptly.

“This way. If you're sure.” Blake looked from Adam to Danni.

“We're sure,” Adam said.

He led them to the dining room where it would be just the two of them with candles on the table between them and soft music playing from unseen speakers. Danni, whose biggest problem was usually
saying all the wrong things, could think of nothing at all to say.

They focused on their appetizers, though neither of them ate much. Finally Adam set his fork down. “I'm sorry.”

And there it was, his apology, an attempt to let her down gently, to take the blame and then reassert the proper distance between them.

“Don't be,” she said warily. “It's me who's sorry.”

“I shouldn't have kissed you then and I shouldn't have kissed you yesterday. I can't seem to help it. But it won't happen again.”

She should say nothing, but instead, “Why not?” slipped from her lips.

His eyes widened. “I don't want to ruin or lose what we have and I won't take advantage of you.”

“We don't have anything to ruin or lose.” Danni's fork clanged against her plate.

“Yes we do. I trust you and I value you and I like you.”

Like.
That was at least as bad as
nice.

“The last thing in the world I want is to do anything to change that.”

“You're too late. It's already changed.”

“How do we change it back?”

“We don't. We can't. And I don't want to. And it wasn't you who kissed me just then, it was me who kissed you. So you have no right to apologize for it. Ever since we kissed yesterday—”

“We shouldn't have.”

“Since before we kissed, if I'm going to be honest.” She pushed on before he could stop her. “I've thought of you differently.”

“We can go back to how we were.”

“I don't want to.”

Adam looked stricken.

“I want to go forward.”

“Forward?”

“I want to see where these new feelings go. I want you to kiss me and to touch me. All over. And I want to be able to kiss you, and to touch you. All over. And I want more than that, too.” She waited, her heart pounding. Why, why, could she never keep her mouth closed?

Sorrow and a shadow of horror clouded his face. “We can't, Danni.”

She'd known he didn't want to think of her that way. If she'd just kept her mouth shut, she could also have kept her dignity. “I'm sorry.” Heat swept across her face as she picked up her fork and stabbed at a mushroom.

“It's not that I don't want to.”

She looked up. His dark eyes were troubled. “At least be honest. Making up excuses would be worse than anything. A simple ‘I'm just not attracted to you' will do nicely.”

“I'm more attracted to you than I can stand. I kept skiing today—past when we should have stopped and gone home—just because I wanted to prolong being with you. Just being with you. Do you have any idea how extraordinary that is? I'm happiest on my own. Or at least I thought I was. But I've discovered that's not true. I'm happier when I'm with you. I can't stop thinking about you, but…”

There had to be a
but,
because for a while her heart had hoped and soared.

“I'm not going to do anything about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm supposed to be looking for a woman I can marry. A woman who can stand at my side and be my princess when I take my father's place.”

“And I'm not that woman?” She was the opposite of what he was looking for. She knew it, she'd always known it, so it shouldn't hurt.

“Do you want to be?”

She almost said yes, till she thought about it. Danni laughed. “No. I can't think of anything worse.” Except for the part where she would get to be with him in private.

“That's why I'm not going to do anything about it.”

“Because there's no future in it.”

He nodded.

“What about the present?”

“It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be fair to you.”

“Who are you to decide what's fair to me?”

“I'm not having this conversation with you.”

“Do you see this appetizer we're eating?”

“Yes.”

“It's not dinner. It's not the main event. It'd never fill you up, but it's very nice. So just because you're looking to start dating seriously so that you can find your perfect woman doesn't mean that while we're both here we can't…” She shrugged then took a deep breath.
Don't do it,
a voice of warning cried in her head. “I want to make love with you.”

He shook his head. And in his eyes was hardness. And pity. “We can't. It wouldn't be right.”

She'd just propositioned him, something she'd never done to any man. And been turned down.

And still she wanted him.

 

In her bedroom she changed into her pajamas—drawstring pants and a camisole—and sat on the big, empty, four-poster bed. She had no fantasies of a four-poster bed, only fantasies of Adam. So real she could taste them, feel them, so real they beat inside her chest.

Senses alert, she listened to the faint precise sounds coming through the wall of Adam getting ready for bed. The bathroom door opening and shutting, taps running.

He was attracted to her. He'd said that much—the admission wrung regretfully out of him.

But he wasn't going to do anything about it. That regret was hers.

Because it wouldn't be right or fair to her. Was the regret, the loss of something not known, never to be known, fair? Was sitting in here alone and needing, fair? He would do nothing about that injustice.

But could she?

A sliver of light peeped beneath the adjoining door. Was he thinking about her? Or had he put her from his mind? He was good at that. Deal with the issue at hand then move on to the next, letting no overlap complicate one or the other. He could be in there reading or working, totally focused.

But he'd said he was attracted to her. More than he could stand. And Adam was not a man to use words lightly.

She crossed to the door and put her ear to it but heard nothing. She touched her fingers to its hard, unrevealing, uninviting surface.

He'd already admitted that her going against his stated wishes and bringing him here had been a good
decision. She could…seduce him. She swallowed a laugh that would have been close to hysterical.

Steeling herself, knowing that some regrets were bigger than others and some opportunities could never be recovered, she touched the handle. The beating of her heart precluded hearing anything else.

So few things in life scared her, but this…this terrified her. She deepened her breath till her fingers ceased their shaking.

She'd already made a fool of herself. She had nothing further to lose. Slowly, she turned the handle, holding her breath against the possibility that he'd locked the door from his side, and on her exhale swung the door silently open.

He sat at the small desk, his back to her and his laptop open in front of him but his head held in his hands. Trying to work? But not.

Drawn to him, to that broad back, that bent head, Danni crossed the thickly carpeted room.

Adam didn't move.

She stood behind him. His laptop had switched to its screen saver.

He straightened and held himself still, as though listening. She just had to touch him, one hand to the closest forbidding shoulder but her heart beat so hard she could scarcely move.

“No.”

The single abrupt word was fierce. Sighing heavily, he rested his fingers on the keyboard and began slowly to type. A document with graphs and tables sprang to life on the screen.

That
no
was a message for her. What was she doing? She was no seductress. She was wearing her pajamas!
She didn't even own anything that could claim to be a negligee. He'd already turned her down. How much rejection did she want? Panic gripped her. She took a step backward, held still and then took another step. She backed halfway across the room on unsteady legs then turned. And she had her fingers on the edge of the door when his hand landed on her right shoulder and the shock waves reverberated through her.

“What are you doing?” His deep voice held both the question and his reluctant awareness of what her answer had to be. Given her earlier admission there could be no other.

“Nothing.” She didn't turn to face him. She couldn't. Her heart thudded in her chest. Run. Run. Run. But she couldn't do that, either.

He stepped in closer. She could feel him behind her, surrounding her without touching her, except for that one touch, a heavy hand tight on her shoulder. Its grip invincible.

“Why are you in here?” His breath feathered across her neck sending warm shivers through her with the gently spoken words. Tension, beyond anything she'd known, seized her. A combination of wanting and anticipation and cowardice and fear.

He had to ask? As if her presence here wasn't obvious. She didn't doubt that women had tried to seduce him before. She was certain, however, that he'd never had to ask what they were doing. “I was going to burgle your room.” Between that and seduction, burglary was surely the lesser sin.

“What were you going to take?” he asked quietly.

“Your innocence.” She'd thought about making it a joke but her words came out a whisper.

His hand on her shoulder tightened and he pulled her back against him. She felt laughter reverberating through him. Okay. So maybe it had sounded like a joke. Apparently a really funny one.

But the silent laughter stilled. “My innocence is long gone, Danni,” he said, utter seriousness in his quiet voice. “It's only when I'm with you that I even remember I had any.”

She waited. His fingers tightened where his hand still rested on her shoulder. His breath still feathered across her neck though his breathing was shorter. And though the beat of her heart still commanded her to run, his hand and her recalcitrant feet and perhaps that whisper of breath kept her immobile.

“Maybe we should just forget I came in here.”

“It's not going to be that easy.”

“Nothing ever is with you.”

“Why?” His other hand came to rest on her left shoulder.

“Because you never let anything just be easy. You're always analyzing life like it's a chess game.”

From the floor below them came a crash and the rumble of Blake's voice.

Adam's hands slid lower till they curved around her arms, his touch gentle but unbreakable. “I meant,” he said, and she imagined his smile, “why were you trying to seduce me?”

“How many reasons could there be?”

“More than you could imagine,” he said quietly.

“Well apparently I don't have a very good imagination. Because as far as I can see there would only be one reason I would try to seduce you.”

“Danni. Go. While you can.” He moved. Closer still.
So that she felt the press of him against her back. His hands slid lower still until they wrapped around hers, holding her in direct contradiction to his words. His cheek was beside hers.

She closed her eyes and leaned against him, overwhelmed by him. His nearness, his warmth, his scent enveloped her.

Movement again, and then the gentle press of his lips against her neck. Need blossomed. Drenched her. Stole strength from her limbs so that she melted back against him, her head falling to one side to give him greater access to her neck because she needed this kiss. His kiss.

This moment of weakness might be all she would get from him. So even as the desire and delight engulfed her, she tried to catalogue the sensations. But the strength of them made cataloguing impossible.

He just was. And his touch did what it did. And called to something in her that was beyond reason.

And while his lips and touch worked magic on her, magic so powerful it needed access to no more than the bare skin of her neck, his hands moved again, sliding from her hands to her waist, sliding beneath her top. Skin to skin. His heat seared her so that her breath shuddered in her chest. She backed more firmly against him.

Hands and lips stilled.

Please don't let him stop.

She leaned farther back, trying to meld herself with him so that he couldn't let her go, couldn't push her away. And she felt the evidence of his need, heard it in the ragged hitch to his breath.

“Danni.”

She heard too much in his voice. Regret and blame and apology. His hands started to slip away. He would ignore need and go with his idea of right. She gripped his wrists and his hands stilled. She guided them upward, trailing over waist and ribs till she led them where she wanted to feel them, covering her breasts. He groaned against her neck and his thumbs brushed over hardened nipples.

Her gasp matched his groan as need streaked through her, hot and fierce.

He dropped his hands and as she was about to cry out in protest he turned her around.

And kissed her.

Properly. Finally. The kiss she'd been waiting for all her life. There was no anger or regret this time. No sweet gentleness. There was only need. His lips against hers. His tongue dancing with and teasing hers, clamoring to learn her and please her. His arms wound tightly around her and his body pressed against her.

She returned his kiss. Greedily. She had wanted this for so long even while she'd denied that wanting. She'd imagined it, dreamed of it.

And it was everything that she'd imagined and dreamed only better and so much more.