But then tingles awoke between my legs as I remembered what I’d been dreaming about. Even after the ferocious sex and stunning love-making, I’d been lost in an aroused fog, dreaming of Henry and sex.
For a moment, I lay there, enjoying the sensation of being in his arms. It was beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
I felt safe in this man’s arms.
Safe and even cherished.
It was possibly a million times more dangerous than my attraction to him.
His leg suddenly shifted and his arm tightened around my waist, attempting, it seemed, to pull me closer to him.
“I’m as close as you’re going to get me,” I mumbled against his naked chest.
It rumbled beneath my lips. “Not true,” came his husky response. “My cock isn’t inside you.”
“Charming.”
I felt him shake with laughter and involuntarily smiled in response.
He tangled a hand through my hair and gently tugged on it. I gave him what he wanted and tilted my head back to look into his eyes. Affection and heat mingled in his expression. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Feeling stupidly shy all of a sudden, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You don’t snore.”
He gave me a sleepy grin that was way too sexy for my comfort. “Well, you’d be the first to know.”
“What does that mean?”
Henry shrugged. “You’d be the first nonrelated woman to know if I snored or not.”
Understanding dawned and a mixture of triumph and uneasiness came over me. “Are you saying you’ve never slept with a woman before? How can that be? You’ve been monogamous with a woman for periods of time.”
“Yes.” He did me a favor by not asking how I knew that. “But I’ve never slept in their bed, nor they in mine.” He reached up to curl strands of my hair behind my ear, and then he caressed my cheek with the back of his knuckles. I was breathless, watching him as he seemed to memorize every facet of my face. “Sleeping over usually sends the wrong message.”
What?
Oh my God. “But… you’re happy to send this message… to me?”
His answer was a long, sweet, drugging kiss that had my fingers curling into his biceps. When we finally came up for air, I felt a little lost.
“I can’t imagine feeling like this with anyone else.”
What? Was he saying what I thought he was saying? Or was this a phase for him, something new to try? “What does that mean? Exactly?”
“It means that waking up with you in my arms feels good.” He brushed his mouth over mine. “And I want to repeat it.”
“Henry…”
“I love when you say my name.” His kiss was harder, wanting, so I was surprised when he suddenly broke it with a miserable groan. “And I can’t do anything about it because I have to go.”
Surprise jolted through me. “You do?”
He kissed my nose as he lightly caressed my breast with his thumb, groaned in frustration, and then hopped out of bed. I wrapped the sheets around me, watching befuddled as he moved around the room, grabbing his clothes. As he pulled on his tuxedo jacket, reality came crashing back.
When he was so close, he had a bad habit of confusing me, bewitching me even. Now with a margin of distance between us, I remembered what I wanted and what I didn’t want. And what I didn’t want was to be that girl who was confused when a guy said he wanted you but then got out of bed right away to leave.
“Look,” I sighed, “you don’t have to do this.”
Henry frowned. “Do what?”
“Pretend. I’m a big girl. And we had a deal. This was a one-time-only thing.”
“Are you being serious?” he asked incredulously as he sat down to tie his dress shoes.
“Excuse me?”
“If I wanted out, I would have been gone as soon as we had sex last night. Were you not listening to anything I just said?” He gestured to the bed.
He didn’t seem angry. More amused by me. “Henry…”
I didn’t know how to articulate what I was feeling, or if I even really wanted him to know what I was feeling, but he pulled out his cell and called someone before I could make up my mind. “Henry Lexington. A Town Car, please.” He gave the person on the other end my address. “My apartment first. I need the driver to wait. I have an eleven o’ clock flight… Logan.” He ended the call. “I have a flight.”
“So I heard.” Some of my uneasiness dwindled a little now that I knew he had a legitimate reason for leaving. “Business trip?”
“To the Caymans.”
“Nice.”
Henry didn’t seem like he thought it was nice. Instead he sat down on the bed next to me and reached over to tug playfully on the sheet I had wrapped around me.
“Stop.” I swatted away his hand.
He pouted playfully. “Please. I need a visual to get me through the next few days. From the Caymans I fly to Panama, from Panama to Seattle. I won’t be back until next Monday.”
The news that he would be gone for over a week disturbed me. It was ridiculous! I would not be one of those women. “You have plenty of visuals from last night,” I reminded him, “to get you through forever.” I swatted his hand away again. “Henry, this was a one-time deal.”
He got by my swatting, fisted a huge chunk of sheet in his hand, and used it to haul me up against him. His arms wrapped around me, trapping me. “I thought we came to an understanding a few hours ago… when we came.”
I would not laugh.
He saw my lips twitching and grinned. “Nadia, I like you. You like me. Let’s not overcomplicate this. Let’s see where it goes.”
That was the problem. I did like him. And I liked that he liked me.
I wanted to see where this went, despite my reservations.
I think I wanted it more than anything. Which meant I had to hope he never found out the truth. With an exaggerated huff, I withdrew and lowered the sheet. His eyes immediately dropped and heated at the sight of my naked breasts. “Enough to see you through?” I quipped.
With a long, drawn-out groan, he dropped his face between them and mumbled, disgruntled, “It’ll just have to be.”
“Something is bothering you,” Barbara said as she sat her pert butt on my desk and crossed her arms. She gave me an “I’m not moving until you tell me” look.
It was Wednesday.
And I hadn’t heard a thing from Henry. At all.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting but when he took my phone and programmed me into his before he left me Sunday morning, I assumed that meant I’d at least get a “I arrived safe and sound” text. Or something.
But nada. Zilch. Zippo. Nothing.
And I was back to feeling like an insecure high schooler.
I resented the hell out of him for it.
“Is it about Lexington?” Barbara asked.
Feeling vulnerable and stupid, I didn’t want to explain. Barbara was so together about men. She was always the one in control. She surprised me by saying, “They have a way of fucking with our heads even when we think we’ve done everything to protect ourselves from it.” She saw my surprise and nodded. “There was someone in my past I developed feelings for. Even when I meant not to.”