Since I Saw You (3 page)

“I’m surprised you haven’t told me exactly what they like in bed,” he added, goading her a little.

Her dark eyebrows rose in amusement. Her expression was typically controlled, but her large eyes were compellingly expressive.

“That’s something I wouldn’t know,” she replied evenly.

“What about Ian’s preferences in that arena?” he prodded. “Are you familiar with those?”

Her gaze flashed to his at his impertinence, the whites of her eyes a striking contrast to the dark brown irises. “Absolutely not.”

“Good,” he said, unable to prevent a knowing, satisfied smile. She shook her head. She looked incredulous at his audacity . . . and slightly dazed.

“Presumptuous,” she said in a hushed tone.

He wrapped her wrist with his hand, slipping his thumb beneath a ruffle onto her warm skin. If he knew anything, he knew how to read a woman’s body. His own heartbeat escalated when he felt the rapid, strong throb of her pulse. He knew logically what it meant, but still his brain doubted.

“
Realistic.
Why deny it?” he said with much more confidence than he felt.

He was filled with an irrational urge to set Lin Soong off balance, to melt her cool exterior, to prove that beneath that crisp, efficient manner, she’d prove warm and supple beneath his touch.

He saw the column of her throat convulse as she swallowed. She twisted her wrist and slid her hand through his loose hold, her fingertips brushing against his palm.

“Why indeed?” she said so softly that he wondered for a second if he’d heard her correctly. Those two words and that whispering caress against calloused skin made the hair on his forearms stand on end. Part of him still doubted what was happening—not really believing a woman like Lin would ever want him—until she encircled his thick thumb with her elegant fingers and squeezed.

For some damn reason, it was the most erotic caress he’d ever experienced. His cock swelled painfully.

She glanced at his half-full glass. “We could stay here and finish our drinks,” she said, her lustrous eyes bewitching him. “Or we could go to my place.”

His eyebrows went up in wry disbelief. “It’s a good beer, but
really
? Compared to option number two?”

She laughed softly. “I’m glad we’re in agreement on at least one thing,” she murmured. She met his gaze frankly. “This is probably not a very good idea,” she said in a hushed tone, and he sensed her anxiety twining with lust.

He studied the sublime line of her jaw and the curve of her mouth.

“Maybe. But it’s the
only
idea in my head at the moment,” he admitted gruffly. For a moment, she just stared. Then she nodded once—
done
—reminding him of a woman who had just made a business decision and wouldn’t back down now. The spike of irritation he experienced wasn’t enough to lessen his intense interest, let alone cause even a flicker in his arousal. In the periphery of his awareness, he saw Victor set the check on the bar. His hand slid out and grabbed the leather portfolio, beating Lin by a hairsbreadth.

“Let me. Ian would insist,” she said anxiously as he pulled the folder out of her reach.

“Ian isn’t here. I am.”

When she didn’t reply, he reached for his wallet with a sense of grim satisfaction. Her submission in this wasn’t much.

But it was something.

•   •   •

She unlocked the front door and held it open for him to enter. He hadn’t tried to touch her during the foggy cab ride through the city. They hadn’t spoken, just sat in silence as the tension and anticipation mounted until it almost felt unbearable to her.

He was slightly taller than Ian, Lin realized dazedly. Ian had been to her place several times over the years in order to drop something off or for a working dinner, both when the condo had still belonged to her grandmother and after she had died. She knew precisely where her boss’s dark head hit the doorframe, and she thought Kam surpassed that imaginary measuring mark by a fraction of an inch.

He met her stare as he crossed the threshold. Her consciousness felt fogged by a glass and a half of wine and a rush of unexpected, potent lust.

She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

She saw his nostrils flare slightly as he approached—a predator’s stalk. A thrill of excitement went through her as she guessed what he was about to do. He swept down and captured her mouth with his. Firm, warm lips moved over hers, not forcefully, necessarily, but with unapologetic hunger, shaping her flesh to his own, learning it, owning it. He placed one hand on her jaw and penetrated her lips. She gasped at the impact of his taste and heat.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you,” he said roughly next to her lips a moment later. “Your mouth is downright indecent.” He pulled her closer to him so that he could close the door. He shut and locked it, his piercing stare never leaving her face. Her sex clenched tight at the sensation of his large, lean, solid body pressed against her own.

“Use that mouth right now,” he demanded hoarsely. “Use it to tell me you want me.”

“You really need me to tell you that?” she asked, touching his face experimentally. She liked the sensation of his whiskers abrading her fingertips so well, she opened her other hand along his jaw.

“I think it’d help to make this whole night seem a little more believable,” he muttered, leaning down and nipping at her lips with his. She joined him in a barely restrained, blistering kiss.

“Go on,” he said in a gravelly voice after a mind-hazing moment.

“I want you. I
must
, to be doing something so crazy,” she whispered, meeting his stare and arching her back, rubbing her breasts against his ribs. He growled appreciatively and ducked his head, greedily taking her lower lip between his scraping teeth. A hand came up and cupped her left breast, squeezing it firmly, molding her flesh to his, testing her texture. She moaned as liquid heat rushed through her, the sharpness of her arousal a fresh cause for amazement. His groan sounded every bit as appreciative.

She’d never had a man sweep her into his arms before. Somehow, it didn’t surprise her in the least that Kam did it without blinking an eye.

He was unknowingly stroking a narrow, sweet spot in her being without even trying. She wanted him just a little less than her next breath. She craved him just enough to relinquish her typical rigid control. That kind of desire left room for little else, let alone rational thought.

He held her stare as he carried her down the dim hallway.

“There,” she said breathlessly, waving at the master bedroom suite.

He kicked lightly at the partially open door to widen it. She looked up at him as he set her at the foot of the bed, a thrilling combination of lust, wariness, anxiety, and electrical excitement beginning to simmer in her blood.

•   •   •

He couldn’t take his eyes off her face. Later, he’d realize that if asked what her condominium looked like an hour after being there, he wouldn’t be able to supply even a sketchy description. That’s how rapt he was with Lin Soong. That lush, rosebud mouth was his to touch, lick . . . ravage, the smooth skin his to caress and kiss, the sweet, thrusting breasts his to drown in, to coax to a full response with his mouth, lips, and tongue . . .

. . . for a little while, anyway.

Without a word, he began to undress her, sweeping her coat off and tossing it carelessly on a chair, raising the thin sweater over her shoulders and head and discarding it on the mattress. His actions mussed her hair even further. He delved his fingers into the gathered mass at the back of her head, finding three long, smooth wooden hair sticks and removing them. He tossed them. The pins flew several feet where they landed with clicks on a bedside table, rolled and came to a rest. He never took his eyes off her. A midnight mass of hair whispered around her white shoulders. He clutched at it with both hands, burying his fingers in the curls. Gently, he arranged it around her back and upper arms.

“I’ve never seen an Asian woman with curly hair. It’s beautiful,” he muttered, distracted by the sensation of it coiling around his fingers. Her hair was a lighter weight than he would have thought considering the mass at the back of her head, but there was tons of it. The fragrance of the liberated tendrils reached his nose—fruit and flowers, musky and sensual. It whisked next to his calloused fingers, feeling like silk and air combined.

“It’s not that common. The humidity makes it worse,” she said huskily, staring up at him with a solemn, dark-eyed gaze.

His jaw tightened as he reached to unfasten her bra, the anticipation cutting at him. He could tell by her shape in the clinging bra she was going to be lovely. After he’d removed the bra, he just stared for a moment, lust and something sharp and unexpected tightening his throat and cock. When air finally escaped his lungs, it did so on a rough, uncontrollable groan.

“Lin,”
he said as he opened his hands along her rib cage, feeling the delicate lines of her carriage, her rapidly beating heart, her softness, her heat. He went lower, encircling her waist. He’d been right. He could nearly encompass her in his grasp. He scooted her farther up the bedcover and came down over her. Their mouths fused, hot and voracious from the first. He’d realized earlier that although her figure was slender and her features small, she was tall for a woman. Their fit was ideal. He rested one hip on the bed, but she curved against him like a heat-seeking kitten, cupping his aching cock between her thighs. The evidence of her returned ardor inflamed him further.

He rolled on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and ravening her mouth, suddenly too hungry to be polite.

“Ah God,” she whispered when he raised his head a moment later and flexed, his straining cock pressing against the juncture of her thighs. She gyrated her hips, and he saw red. His lips found her cheek and her ear. He kissed the opening and she squirmed beneath him, gasping. He bit gently at the shell and brought her earlobe into his mouth, laving both skin and the smooth pearl inserted in the flesh, licking at the succulent contrast of smooth hardness and tender softness. The feeling of her sleek body writhing beneath him almost made him go berserk. Only his single-minded desire to taste more of her stopped him from driving into her then and there, from discovering firsthand if she was as soft and warm on the inside as she was on the surface.

Her neck was fragrant, her trapped cries delicious against his lips and gently scraping teeth. She craned her head up, trying to find his mouth again. Her hands moved frantically over his back, scooping his light jacket and the material of his shirt with them. He lifted his head and hissed when her fingernails scraped against bare skin and a shiver of sharp sensation rippled through him.

Their stares met briefly as he shifted on top of her, gathering her hands. He held her wrists and pressed them to the pillow above her head. He waited two heartbeats . . . three, but she didn’t protest at his restraint.

Instead, she arched her back in an offering.

Lust tore at him, undeniable. Feral. She’d exceeded his expectations. Her breasts were mouthwateringly beautiful. They had the thrusting firmness of small breasts, but they
weren’t
small. They were fleshy and ripe, and the way they stood out from her narrow, delicate rib cage drove him mad. He transferred her wrists to one hand and used the other to shape a breast, plumping the tender, extremely firm flesh.

“C’est si bon,”
he muttered before he went lower. Her skin was so flawless, so transparent, that he could see the delicate blue veins beneath it. He slipped a crown between his lips and laved the pebbled flesh against his tongue, drinking in her moans of pleasure, becoming drunk by her softness and scent, by her responsiveness. When he drew on her more forcefully, she bucked her hips and moaned her approval. Her pussy rubbed against his heavy erection, beckoning him . . . taunting.

He snarled in barely leashed restraint and secured his hold on her wrists. He transferred to her other sweet breast, keeping her immobile for his ravening mouth by cupping her rib cage with one hand and pressing her wrists down into the pillow. After he’d sucked and laved at her nipple until it grew tight and distended and her desperate cries told him how sensitive the flesh had become, he transferred his mouth to the sides of her heaving ribs.

“Please . . . Kam,” she whispered frantically when he opened his mouth and scraped the skin covering her ribs. A shudder ran through her, delicate and delicious as the rest of her. His tongue ran over her skin, feeling the slight bumps his caresses had raised. He released his hold on her torso—it excited him how much of her trembling body he could hold with even one hand—and ran it over the mound between her thighs. She parted her legs immediately, and he looked into her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her pink mouth a parted invitation as she panted shallowly.

Fuck.

It was as much a curse as it was an order from the primitive part of his brain.

“You want it now,
ma petite minette
? You want it fast and hard?” he muttered roughly through clenched teeth.

“Please,” she repeated, this time soundlessly.

He fell on her, ravaging her mouth. So sweet. So responsive. His hand moved, pulling up the edge of her skirt, fingers skimming across smooth, taut thighs partially covered in cool, smooth, clingy material. Arousal spiked through him and he lifted his head, staring downward. Jesus. She was wearing some kind of lacy, thigh-high stockings that were nearly as pale and soft as her skin. His cock lurched at the vision she made. Frenchmen were supposedly used to women in luxury lingerie, but the women Kam bedded usually weren’t the type to wear such refined, feminine, frilly things—or to afford them, for that matter.

Spellbound, he moved his hand over her silk-covered mound. He felt her heat and jerked the pretty panties downward roughly. A groan scored his throat when he touched her. She was smooth here, too. Warm, sleek, and creamy. He dipped the ridge of his forefinger between shaved labia. Desire had softened and plumped her flesh. He leaned down and ate her aroused cries. She strained against him and writhed when he inserted a finger into her clasping vagina.