Chapter 8
Eight
LUKA
I handed the server a hundred-dollar bill. “Deliver the bottle to my suite,” I instructed him. I wanted him to bypass our table for part two of the date. We had almost finished dinner. Dessert was also going to be served upstairs.
“Yes, sir.” He hurried to the bar for the bucket of champagne.
I was about to enter the dining room when my phone vibrated. It was Katya.
“Hi,” I answered. I had a few minutes to give Amara while she took care of her business call.
“Luka, where are you?” She sounded out of breath.
“I’m out. Everything okay? Is it the baby?”
“Yes. No. Not the baby at all. I need to talk to you. Are you at the office? Can I meet you there?” she asked.
“Slow down.” I sat on a velvet bench nearby. “I’m not at the office. Can you tell me now? I’m limited for time, Katya.”
“It’s not something I can tell you over the phone,” she pleaded. “I really need to talk to you about this.”
I rubbed the back of my head. “I’m at dinner. You’re going to have to wait until tomorrow.” I didn’t like to tell her no, but if there was no danger, she could wait.
“Are you with Amara?”
“Why would you ask that?” I was confused where the question came from.
“Never mind. Can we meet at the stables tomorrow? After breakfast?” she suggested.
I had a meeting with Viktor early in the morning, but there were no other scheduled meetings. “I’ll see you there. Are you okay until then? Are you sure?” I felt uneasy hanging up with her.
“Yes. Yes. I’m fine. I’ll meet you tomorrow. I can explain everything then. Enjoy your date.”
I scowled. “I didn’t say I was on a date, Katya.”
Katya hung up before I could say anything else. I tucked my phone back in my pocket. Amara sat at the table when I returned. She looked across the room.
God, I wanted to know what was running through that gorgeous head of hers. She had grown more beautiful in five years than I could have imagined. I wondered if she had chosen the necklace to fuck with me. I slid the door closed. She turned.
“Where’s the champagne?” She noticed I was empty-handed.
“I have a second surprise for you.”
Her emerald eyes widened. “And what’s that?”
“I sold my New Orleans apartment when I moved to Paris. I haven’t been back long enough to buy something new. I will soon.”
“Oh? I assumed you’d move into the compound.”
My jaw tightened. “With my mother? No thank you. She can keep the manse.” She wandered the halls after midnight, carrying empty wine glasses, shouting at the servants for refills. She was a drunken banshee.
“I guess she would be a challenging housemate,” Amara agreed.
I chuckled. “That’s putting it mildly. Anyway, our date is moving locations.”
“Now are we going to Marguerite’s?”
“No. Trust me. You’ll like this better.”
Amara rose from the table. “Should I keep guessing?”
“No, you should not.”
She stepped into my space. “Fine.”
Her lotion was the same citrus scent. It entered my nose, filling me with memories. Fuck. The compulsion to kiss her was strong. I gazed at her pink lips. I repressed the urge and offered her my arm.
“Let’s go.”
Once we were out of the dining room, we turned the corner for the elevator bay. Amara kept glancing at me. She expected an answer. She knew her way around the hotel. This wasn’t a backway to the parking garage. I inserted an antique brass key into the control panel. It clicked softly with the flick of my wrist.
“Upstairs?” She blinked. “Part two is upstairs?”
“What’s the difference between going to the suite or somewhere else for the surprise?”
I thought it was a valid point.
She faltered. “The people in this hotel work for me. I’ve never gone to a room with a guest. That’s a huge difference.”
Did it make me a dick that I was glad to hear that? Somehow it was minimal validation that Amara hadn’t been with another man. Absurd conclusion, but I wanted that truth. I wanted her untouched. Unloved. I wanted her free to be mine.
The bell dinged, and the doors retracted.
“You can put on an offended act for the staff that you don’t want to go upstairs with me.” I saw the goosebumps on her flesh when I whispered in her ear. “Or you can do what you and I both know you want. Step in the elevator.”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “I don’t take orders from anyone,” she hissed. “I haven’t for a long time. I no longer have to submit.”
My hand curled around her wrist. I pressed my fingers into her tender skin. “You stopped doing that the minute you put this dress on for me.” I winked. I thought she was going to slap me, but she wrenched her hand free and marched into the elevator.
“Are you coming?” She eyed me.
Without saying a word, I joined her, turning the key inside the elevator.
I had planned strawberries dipped in chocolate. A second bottle of expensive champagne. I had planned on filling the original claw-foot tub with scalding water. Bubbles. Candles. Roses. Lavishing Amara in decadence. An opulent display fit for the queen she had become. My olive branch would be in the details. The gifts I wanted to give her. But every fucking plan went out the window when we stumbled into that suite.
The door closed, and the world became ours.
Amara spun and I took her mouth with a sensuous kiss. Long. Slow. Her mouth opened. A quiet moan escaped from her throat. My tongue probed, savoring how her tongue liked to tangle with mine. I pinned her against the wall, relishing the taste of her. The beauty of her. I nipped behind her ear, trailing her throat back to her mouth. The kiss was deeper this time. More punishing. Brutal. But who was the predator and who was the prey?
My fingers dug into her shoulders, rotating her to face the wall. Her palms slapped against the hand-painted wallpaper as I began to drag the red dress upward to her hips. The red silk flowed between her thighs as I raised it to expose her ass. Fucking perfection. Her skin was covered in goosebumps. I grinned. The lingerie she wore deserved to be admired for a moment. My mouth covered her ear, the side of her neck, the softness of her shoulders.
“Luka,” she rasped.
“I’ll keep my promise,” I growled, wondering how to tame the primal beast threatening to break free inside me. I ached for her. It was where pain met pleasure. An unruly monster that liked to dance on the line of freefall.
I took her jaw in my hand. “Krasivyy.” I inhaled a breath against her mouth.
I felt the heat between us. The undeniable chemistry that always raged when I was near Amara. My fingers dug into her exquisite curves. She mewed, and I wondered if it was possible to end up on my knees before I even carried her to the bed.
The temptation to do things I’d never done before raged in my belly. The swell of my erection strained against my pants.
She did things to me. Unspeakable monstrous things. She’d haunted my dreams. Plagued me with promises of what could have been. Another life. A richer life. A complete life with nights that ended in fucking each other senseless.
She was mine. She always had been.
Tonight could drown out the mistakes of the past. I would make sure it did. There would be no question tomorrow when we awakened that we had burned something permanent on each other’s souls.