The Fifth Favor (27 page)

“I was certain you’d forbid it.”

Azure’s smile lost its edge of satisfaction. “I did forbid it, but he’s quite single-minded about you, even at the risk of losing his position here.”

Billie’s temper surged. “You would fire him for this? Is it so taboo for your employees to have relationships?”

Azure’s laughter was as soft and magical as the ringing of a tiny bell. “Is that what you think you have with Adrian? A relationship?”

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The Fifth Favor

Billie stared back at her, unblinking. “I know we do.”

They glared at each other. Then to Billie’s surprise, the other woman’s gaze darted aside and she moved toward a small table in the sitting area, her graceful hands drawn to the erotic bronze statue Billie had noticed there on her first visit.

“You’re beautiful, bright and sexy, Ms. Cort. A pleasant distraction to Adrian, no question. The first in many years. The last one was a bourgeois girl from a
nouveau riche
background who ran for home when she found out his truth. Since then he’s reveled in the company of the wealthiest, most cultured and educated women in the world. I’m quite certain his definition of a relationship is different than yours. I’d keep that in mind if I were you.”

Billie’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a warning?”

Azure shrugged, caressing the sculpture as though it were a living thing. “Your confidence is astounding. You’re terribly determined to pursue pleasure with a man still under suspicion for murder.”

“He hasn’t been charged.”

“Thankfully, no.”

“He says he didn’t kill Lucien. I believe him.”

Azure abandoned the sculpture and circled her slowly, like a panther examining potential prey. “Will you also believe him when he tells you he’s in love with you?”

Billie’s stockpile of retorts dissolved and scattered. “Should I believe him if he says such a thing?”

“He’ll say it before the night’s through. He believes it. He’s utterly convinced, in fact.” Azure paused in front of her and took Billie’s hand in her cool, manicured fingers.

“But I know Adrian, Ms. Cort. I know him better than he knows himself. If you’re as intelligent as I think, you’ll back away and give him time to examine his true desires.

He’s so busy fulfilling everyone else’s; he has no idea what he wants.”

“I’ve been under the impression that he wanted me,” Billie said coldly, “or I wouldn’t be here.”

“For tonight, there’s no question.” Azure patted her hand, a humoring gesture, then glided back toward the reception desk and pushed a button beside the phone. “He’ll come for you now. Are you ready?”

Billie drew a slow, shaky breath. Who was ever truly prepared for her first night at Avalon? “Absolutely.”

Azure merely smiled and turned her graceful profile to wait for Adrian’s appearance at the top of the stairs.

When he paused at the rail, the world disappeared for Billie. Azure, Avalon, the scent of coconut and sensuality; the sultry flicker of candlelight that gilded Adrian’s solemn features. Only the man remained, his dark eyes unreadable from such a distance, yet their heat was tangible on Billie’s skin.

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Shelby Reed

He moved. Between one breath and the next, he stood before her, his hand extended, ready to lead her away. She glanced down at those fingers. The promise of ecstasy hung thick in the air between them, and suddenly she was afraid of his hands.

Hands that could incite the most excruciating response with a few choreographed caresses. Hands that would crush her heart, as he’d threatened, to dust.

“Welcome to Avalon, Ms. Cort,” Adrian said, softly enough that the air hardly stirred around him. “Will you come with me?”

* * * * *

Upstairs, he paused for Billie to enter the room before him, then followed her inside and silently closed the door. Candles flickered on every table, their flames casting shadows that danced like frantic spirits on the ceiling and walls.

He stopped behind her, close enough that she felt the soft kiss of his breath against the nape of her neck. Then his fingers slid the damp raincoat from her shoulders.

Billie closed her eyes as cool air brushed her bare arms. She should have worn sleeves, but the periwinkle dress made the warm highlights in her hair a little brighter; her green eyes a little greener. Tonight she had dressed for him, craving the feel of his appreciative gaze on her body. One last night. A fleeting pipe dream laid to rest.

She listened to the sounds of his movements as he opened a closet door, hung her coat and closed it again with a quiet click.

“What’s your pleasure?” he asked from across the room.

She met his eyes and leaned to remove first one pump from her foot, then the other.

“You.”

He watched her, the heat from his gaze lending inexplicable eroticism to the simple task of taking off a pair of shoes. It was only when she set the pumps by the bed and straightened that he moved to the sitting area, where a crystal ice bucket cradled a bottle of champagne.

Billie crept closer, her attention fixed on his hands as he withdrew the bottle and wiped it with a towel. Skillfully he released the cork with a quiet pop and leaned to the crystal flutes sitting on the occasional table.

He was dressed sedately in black pants and a black turtleneck. His shoulders were wide, his recently trimmed hair dark and thick, as black as his attire. When he glanced at her, his gaze swallowed the light. Then he turned his attention to the task at hand, and the sound of champagne felt like fingers trickling across Billie’s senses.

“I trust you like champagne,” he said, extending one of the stem glasses to her.

She nodded and took it from him, painfully aware of his ebony observation as she tilted the glass to her lips. The beverage foamed on her tongue, a bubbling, cold caress, 150

The Fifth Favor

before she swallowed it and blinked in relief. Her throat was desert dry, but everywhere else she was damp. Sheer nerves. Undiluted anticipation.

“What happens next?” she asked when she’d emptied her glass.

Adrian took it from her and refilled it. “I leave you alone long enough for you to pull yourself together.” He set the flute in her hand again, stroked a single, burning finger down her bare arm and started across the room toward the bathroom.

She followed him a few steps. “Do I seem nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To draw a bath.” His voice faded as he disappeared around the corner.

“A bath,” she muttered, perplexed. Then her eyes opened wide. A bath.
Oh, God.

The Kouros. The special jets.

A good five minutes passed while she stood outside the bathroom door, listening to the splash of water and the gentle hum of a whirlpool motor. The champagne seeped through her body, chased by a rush of dizzying warmth. She glanced back at the bottle sitting on the table and recognized the label. The best champagne. The best lover. The most expensive night of her life, because she would pay with her soul.

Inside the bathroom, the rhythmic rush of water abruptly ceased.

When Adrian reappeared in the doorway, she set down her glass and faced him.

“You’re going to put me in that extraordinary bathtub and show me more pleasure than I’ve ever known in my life, aren’t you?”

“To begin with.”

“And then?”

“Then I’m going to take you to bed and make you come so many times, you beg me to stop. And then I’m going to make you come again.”

Her head tilted as she considered him. “And will it be making love? Or fucking?”

His silence was all the answer she needed.

“May I be totally honest with you, Adrian?”

“When have you ever failed to be?” He took a few steps toward her, then stopped.

“What is it?”

“I’m terrified.”

His expression remained placid except for a slight crease between his brows. “I see.”

Flustered, she went on. “I wanted this, I thought, more than anything. I know it will lay this thing between us to rest. I even told myself I could use the experience to finish the article, to give it an edge no
Illicit
article ever had. But looking at you now, I know myself too well.” She tried to swallow the lump rising in her throat and failed. “I know I won’t be able to write about this night. I could never do it justice. Worse—I’m afraid I’ll forget the precious details in time. Fragments of it will float away, and I’ll miss—”

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Shelby Reed

“Billie,” he said softly. A flicker of something crossed his features. Humor, maybe.

Tenderness. Confusion.

“People like me don’t do this sort of thing, Adrian.”

“People like you do it every day. They do it with me.”

Her heart plummeted. “I wanted it to be different with us.”

“It has been.” He moved toward her and drew her into his arms, smoothed back the dark strands that escaped her bun. His scent rose with his body heat, soap and musk and faded champagne, to feed her senses. While he held her face and studied her with excruciating diligence, she clutched his wrists, closed her eyes and waited for the touch of his mouth.

It came, not on her lips, but on her brow. The left, then the right. Soft, patient flutters over her lashes, her nose and cheeks.

Drowsily she said, “Azure told me something when I arrived here tonight. She said—”

“Azure says a lot of things,” he murmured, nuzzling her jaw.

Her fingers clung to his shoulders. “Are you saying I shouldn’t believe what she tells me about you?”

He drew back to meet her gaze. “What did she say?”

“She said…you think you’re in love with me, but that it’s a mistake.”

He didn’t admit or deny it. He only withdrew and went to snatch his champagne from a small console beneath an Impressionistic painting, the subtle tightening in his posture revealing his indignation. A wry smile twisted his mouth behind the glass as he tipped it to his lips and drained it dry.

Abandoned where she stood, Billie felt unprotected, foolish, uncertain of the man standing before her.

“What’s your real first name?” she said, desperate for something, anything to remind her that he was living, breathing, caring.

“It’s not important.”

Another strand of hope unraveled from around her heart. “It is to me. I want to know who I’m sharing my body with.”

He set the glass down and returned to her, his bare feet silent on the plush Persian carpet. “You tell yourself that, and maybe it buys you a modicum of propriety. But the truth is you don’t know me outside of what I want you to know. And still you’re here, and you desire me, and I desire you. Names don’t matter. Pleasure matters. This.”

He reached out and touched her breast, lightly stroking his fingers over the tip until it hardened and she shuddered. “Sex with a stranger. You can’t rationalize it or justify it, but you can enjoy it. And I promise you will.”

Despite the scripted flavor of his statement, it was the hollow, aching truth—his truth, not hers.

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He would drive that fact home again and again in the next few hours. He would devalue the love they made in this room by setting a price on it. He would make it easy for her to let go, just as he’d promised.

In that instant, Billie appraised the true value of her feelings for Adrian…and changed her mind.

She stepped back, gathered courage around her like bricks to build a hasty, lopsided barrier between them. “Thank you,” she said, holding his gaze as confusion clouded its onyx clarity. “But it seems I can’t do this after all.”

The only sign of emotion on his face was a slight upward nudge of an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She twisted her hands together, a mindless prayer for strength.

“Because of how I feel for you. I won’t cheapen it by buying what you sell to strangers.

I’m not a stranger. I’m the woman who loves you.”

The spoken truth shattered the air into crystalline shards.

She paused, cursing the telltale tremble that would quake her words. “Walking away from you with a broken heart is easier to handle than selling my soul to make love with you. I’m sorry, Adrian. I might be lonely, and naïve, and all the things you think about me. But I’m also true to myself, and I won’t denigrate my feelings for you.

They’re much too precious in a world that offers so little love.”

Without waiting for his response, she turned and retrieved her shoes, slipped them on her feet, then walked with chin erect to the closet, where she withdrew her coat and put it on.

“My purse,” she said in a low, even voice.

He hadn’t yet moved from where she’d left him. Wordlessly, he pointed to a console near the fireplace. She crossed to pick up the leather handbag, then glanced back at him.

His face was impassive. No sign of the man who’d touched her body, mind and heart while swaying in a hammock in the haunted woods of suburbia.

He said, “I’m curious about something.”

“What?”

“About why you’ve chosen me to love. Why? How can you be so sure of me?”

She swallowed. “I’m not sure of anything. But my heart won’t listen to reason. And I’m quite certain you’ve known that about me from the beginning, since you seem to know
me
so well.”

He didn’t respond. His dark eyes watched her, liquid ink, betraying nothing but a strange sparkle she didn’t understand. Triumph, maybe? He’d conquered her. Not much of a victory, but another notch on his belt, anyway. He’d won the game of cat and mouse.

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Shelby Reed

Billie started to turn for the door, and just as suddenly, Adrian moved. It startled her. While she clutched her purse, the only protection against his dark, mesmeric force, he approached her, his gaze hot on her face.

“And what do I owe you for the gift of your love, Ms. Cort?”

“Nothing.” Tears thickened her voice. “You owe me nothing. It’s my mistake.”

“One that has benefited me.” He reached out and fingered the lapel of her coat, not touching her skin, but Billie shivered as though he had. “Anything of value must be repaid, Billie. I insist. A favor for a favor. What do you want in exchange?”