MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE (11 page)

“Promise me,” she insisted.

He lifted his right hand, palm out, as if taking a pledge. “I promise.”

“This day’s a wash, though,” she told him. “It’s too late to get started on anything new.”

“I’m sorry for the way I behaved at the tearoom,” he said, surprising her again.

“And I’m sorry I made you go to a tearoom,” she conceded.

The remark reminded her she was still wearing her hat and gloves, and she lifted her hands to inspect the latter. She’d seen them in a vintage clothing store when she was still in college and hadn’t been able to resist them. What had possessed her to buy white gloves with more buttons than a lunar module? Oh, right. To match the white dress with more buttons than Cape Canaveral that she’d bought at a different vintage clothing store. She began the task of unfastening each of the pearly little buttons on her left glove.

“No, don’t,” Peyton said abruptly.

When she looked at him, she saw that his gaze was fixed on her two gloved hands. “Why not?”

Now his gaze flew to her face, and she couldn’t help thinking he looked guilty about something. “Uh...it’s just...um...I mean...ah...” He swallowed hard. “They just look really nice on you.”

His cheeks were tinged with the faintest bit of pink, she noted with astonishment. Was he actually blushing? Was that possible? Surely it was due to the bad lighting in the kitchen. Even so, something in his eyes made heat spark in her belly, spreading quickly outward, warming parts of her that really shouldn’t be warming at the moment.

“Thank you,” she said, the words coming out a little unevenly.

When she started to unbutton her glove once more, Peyton lifted a hand halfway to hers, looking as if he wanted to object again. She halted, eyeing him in silent question, and he dropped his hand with clear reluctance.
How odd,
she thought. She went back to the task, but couldn’t help noticing how he still pinned his gaze to her hands, and how a muscle in his jaw twitched as his cheeks grew ruddier. Where she normally had no trouble removing the garments, for some reason, suddenly, her hands didn’t want to cooperate. When the second button took longer to free than the first, and the third took even longer than the second, Peyton started to lift a hand toward hers again, closer this time, as if he wanted to help. And this time, he didn’t drop it.

The more his scrutiny intensified, the more awkward Ava felt, slowing her progress even more. At this rate, he and Francesca would be sending their firstborn off to college before she finished with her first glove. Finally, she surrendered, dropping her right hand to her side and extending the left toward him.

“Could you help me out?” she asked, the question coming out softly and uncertainly.

It seemed to take a moment for her question to sink in, as Peyton was still fixed so intently on her gloved hand. Even when he moved his gaze from her hand to her face, he still looked acutely distracted.

“What?” he asked, sounding distracted, too.

“My glove,” she said. “The buttons. I’m having trouble getting them undone. Do you mind?”

Color seeped into his cheeks again. “Uh, no. No, of course I don’t mind. I’ll be glad to do...ah,
un
do...you...I mean
them.
Help you. Undo them. Of course. No problem.”

He moved both of his hands to her left one, but he hesitated before making contact. Instinctively, Ava took a step forward, as if doing so would help him close the hairbreadth of space that hovered between their hands. But all that did was diminish to a hairbreadth the space between their bodies, bringing them close enough that she more keenly felt his heat and more fully enjoyed his scent.

Close enough that, this time, Peyton did move closer, completely erasing any space left between them.

As his torso bumped hers, something at Ava’s core caught fire. When he closed his hands over her glove, capturing the fourth button between his thumb and forefinger, that fire exploded, sending rockets of heat through her entire body. It was such an exquisitely tender touch, coming so unexpectedly from a man like him, so unlike anything she’d felt before.

Then she remembered that that wasn’t true. Years ago, surrounded by girlish accoutrements in the bedroom of a Gold Coast mansion, she’d felt a touch that was just as tender, just as exquisite. That night, when Peyton had curled the fingers of one hand gingerly over her shoulder and skimmed the others along her nape, the gesture had been so tentative, so gentle, it was as if he were touching a girl for the first time. Which was ridiculous, because everyone at Emerson knew he was already hugely experienced, even at seventeen. With a carefulness no teenage boy should have been able to manage, he had begun to soothe her tense muscles.

The soothing, however, had quickly escalated. His touch did more to agitate than to placate, stirring feelings in Ava she’d spent months—years, even—trying to deny. Each stroke of his fingers over her flesh had made her crave more, until her thoughts became a jumble of desire and want and need. Peyton had been no more immune to the touching than she had. Within moments, what had started as an effort to calm erupted into a demand to incite. They’d been on each other like animals, scarcely breaking apart long enough to breathe.

But they’d been kids, she reminded herself, trying to ignore the heat building in her belly—and elsewhere. They’d been at the mercy of uncontrollable adolescent hormones. They were adults now, and could contain themselves. Yes, she was still physically attracted to Peyton. She suspected he was still physically attracted to her. But they were mature enough and experienced enough to recognize the pointlessness of such an attraction when there was nothing else between them to make it last. Sex was only sex without emotion to enrich it. And she was beyond wanting to have sex with someone when there was no future in it for either of them.

Now the caress of his fingers on her hand began to sway her thinking in that regard. Maybe, just this once, sex without a future wouldn’t be such a bad thing...

Then Ava realized Peyton wasn’t unbuttoning her glove. He was, in fact, rebuttoning it.

“Peyton, what are you doing?” she asked, surprised by how breathless she sounded. Surprised by how breathless she was. “I need you to help me get my gloves
off.
”

He sounded a little breathless himself when he replied, “Oh, I think I like them better on.”

“But—”

She wasn’t able to complete her objection—she wasn’t even able to complete a thought—because he dipped his head to press his mouth against hers. A little gasp of surprise escaped her, and he took advantage of her open mouth to taste her more deeply. With one hand still tangled in her gloved fingers, he pulled her close with the other, opening his hand at the small of her back to hold her in place. Not that Ava necessarily wanted to go anywhere. Not just yet. This was starting to get interesting...

Instinctively, she kissed him back, curving her free hand over his shoulder, tilting her head to facilitate the embrace. When she did, her hat bumped his forehead and tipped to one side. She released his shoulder to pull out the trio of hairpins keeping it in place, but Peyton captured that hand, too, pulling both away from her body.

“Don’t,” he said softly.

“But it’s in the way.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s perfect where it is.”

They were both breathing hard, their gazes locked, neither seeming to know what to do. The whole thing made no sense. Moments ago, they were arguing, and she was telling him to leave her alone. Yes, they’d ultimately arrived at an uneasy truce, but this went beyond every treaty they’d ever studied in World Civ.

Finally, she asked, “Peyton, what are we doing?”

He said nothing for a moment, only continued to hold her hands at her sides and study her face. Then he said, “Something that’s been coming for a long time, I think.”

“It can’t have been that long. You’ve only been back in Chicago for two weeks.”

“Oh, this started long before I came back to Chicago.”

That was true. It had probably started her freshman year at Emerson, the first time she’d laid eyes on the bad boy of the sophomore class. The bad boy of every class. Even before she knew what it was to want someone, she’d wanted Peyton. She just hadn’t understood how deeply that kind of wanting could run. Now—

Now she understood all too well. And now she wanted it—wanted him—even more.

Nevertheless, she resisted. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s no point in it.”

“There was no point in it sixteen years ago, either, but that didn’t stop us then.”

“That’s exactly my point.”

He smiled at that. “But we were so good together, Ava.”

“That one night we were.”

He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Most people don’t get one night like that their entire lives.”

Implicit in his statement was that if they let things continue the way they had started, she and Peyton could have not just one but two nights like that. But was it enough? And wanting him more now, would it be even harder to let him go this time?

She didn’t have a chance to form an answer to either question, because Peyton lowered his head and kissed her again. He was more careful this time, tilting to avoid her hat, brushing his lips gently over hers once, twice, three times, four. With every stroke of his mouth, Ava’s heart raced more wildly, her temperature shot higher, and her thoughts melted away. The next thing she knew, she was framing Peyton’s face in her gloved hands and kissing him back with all the tenderness he was showing her.

But just as before, that deliberation quickly escalated. She pushed her hands through his hair to cup one over his nape and the other along his throat. Then both hands were skimming under his lapels to push his jacket from his shoulders. He shrugged the garment off, then moved his hands to the top of her dress, unfastening the first of its many buttons. She wanted to undo the ones on his shirt, but her gloves hindered her once more. She pulled her mouth away from his to attempt their removal again, only to have him stop her.

“I want them off so I can touch you,” she said.

“And I want them on,” he told her. He grinned in a way that was downright salacious. “At least the first time. And the little hat, too.”

Her pulse quickened at the prospect of a second—and perhaps even a third—time. Just as there had been that night when they were teenagers, even if the third time had been thanks to Peyton’s gentle touches, because she’d been too tender to accommodate him again. Touching was good. She liked touching. It had been so long since she’d enjoyed such intimacies with anyone. In a way, she supposed she hadn’t truly enjoyed them since that night with Peyton—at least not as much as she had with him. When a woman’s first time was with someone like him, it left other guys at a disadvantage.

Then the second part of his statement came clear, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “Just how long have you been thinking about this?”

“All afternoon.”

“But I’m having trouble unbuttoning anything with them on,” she told him. She hesitated to add that that was mostly because his touch made her tremble all over.

“Oh, that’s okay,” he assured her. “I can unbutton anything you—or I—want.”

He dropped his fingers to the second button on her dress and deftly slipped it free, then moved on to the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. As he went, he moved his body slowly forward, gently urging her toward the kitchen door. Then into the hallway. Then to her bedroom door. Then into her bedroom. He reached her hem just as they arrived at her bed and, with the release of the final button, he spread her dress open. Beneath it, she wore a white lace demicup bra and matching panties. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of the latter and eased them down over her hips, then gently pushed her down to a sitting position on the bed.

Ava started to scoot backward to make room for him, too, but he gripped her thighs and halted her.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he murmured.

He started pulling down her panties again, over her thighs and knees, kneeling to push them along her calves and over her ankles. Instead of rising again, however, he moved between her legs, pushing her thighs apart. When Ava threaded her white-gloved hands through his hair, he gripped one of her wrists to place a kiss at the center of her palm. She closed her eyes, feeling the kiss through the fabric, through her skin, down to her very core. Then she felt his mouth on her naked thigh, and she gasped, her eyes flying open. Instinctively, she tried to close her legs, but he caught one in each hand and opened her wider. Then he moved his mouth higher, and higher, and higher still, until he was tasting her in the most intimate way he could.

Pleasure pooled in her belly as he darted his tongue against her, rippling outward to send ribbons of deliciousness echoing through her. Over and over, he savored her, relished her, aroused her. Little by little, those ribbons began to coil tight. Closer and closer they drew, until she didn’t think she would be able to tolerate the chaos surging through her. Then, just when she thought she would shatter, those coils sprang free and she fell back onto the bed, arms spread wide, surrendering as one wave after another engulfed her.

Delirious, panting for breath, she somehow managed to lift her head enough to see Peyton stand. As he moved his hands to the buttons of his shirt, his grin was smug and satisfied. As much as she had enjoyed the last—how long had she been lying here? Moments? Months? An eternity?—she enjoyed watching him undress even more. He did it methodically, intently, his eyes never leaving hers, casting his shirt to the floor and then reaching for the waistband of his trousers.

He might have been a workaholic, but he clearly also took time to work out. His torso was roped with muscle and sinew, and his shoulders and biceps bunched and flexed as he jerked his belt free and lowered his zipper. Beneath, he wore a pair of silk boxers Ava had been in no way instrumental in encouraging him to buy. So either he cared more about undergarments than he did about what he wore over them, or else he wanted to impress someone. She remembered he would be meeting soon with a woman who’d been handpicked for him. And she pushed the thought away. He was with her now. That was all that mattered. For now.