CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
T hey did not manage to “scoop” Hind up in front of the Royal Opera House, much to Val’s dismay and Desmond’s amusement, despite himself. The little minx was proving more slippery than an ice cube on a marble floor, and her rapid-fire posts seemed more a mockery of their incompetence than anything else. When he told Val so, she glared at him. Any relaxation she’d managed to achieve in the Champagne Bar seemed to have evaporated with the realization that once again Hind was loose on the streets of London, and the time was nearing ten o’clock. She was looking crosser and crosser by the minute.
“Are you really finding this amusing?” she asked. “Running off to some basement jazz club, off all places,” Val sputtered. “Ronnie Scott’s—can you imagine? She just came from a concert.”
Desmond stifled a smirk with some difficulty. Calling Ronnie Scott’s “some basement jazz club” definitely wouldn’t go over well in Soho, but they were already back in his car with his driver patiently navigating his way through late-night traffic. “It’s not the actual Ronnie Scott’s—it’s a club close to it. A dupe, I believe she said. She’s catching the tail end of a friend’s set,” he said in the soberest voice he could manage.
“She’s not meant to have any friends!”
Desmond laughed out loud; it was a real laugh as well, and he wondered how many of them this woman had pulled from him this evening. Val was staring hard out of the car window, as if she could conjure Hind by sheer will. Desmond reached out and tapped the leather seat just next to her thigh, and she jumped.
“We’re almost there,” he said. She nodded with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked worried, and tired and more than a little defeated, and he wasn’t sure it was entirely related to Hind’s misbehavior. Something bloomed in his chest, something warm and fierce—a desire to lift some of that heaviness from her in some way. Which was mad in and of itself. He didn’t even know her! Digging beneath the surface of a person, shifting those sands, only led to more complications. Since his tumultuous early years, he’d managed to live a life free of complications in the personal relationship department.
He was man enough to admit that he was a little afraid of taking off the mask; the results would likely be catastrophic. And Val had already made him say too much. His father’s death was public information, but the real reason he worked himself half to death and was determined to break into the Gulf market was not .
And with one question and one little flutter of her lashes, Valentina Montgomery had made him say more than he ever had to anyone else.
It was increasingly difficult not to slip up and call her by her full name.
The car stopped a little distance from Chez Dodo and Val immediately leaped out of the car and began speed-walking toward the club without a backward glance. Desmond’s long legs ate up the distance quickly, but she still managed to enter before he did. When he ducked through the door, navigating the throng of people, he was surprised to see her standing with her arms crossed, just to the right of the stage.
“There she is,” she said in a subdued voice, and nodded, pointing with her chin. It took Desmond a full minute to recognize Hind; the teenager was sitting in the midst of a group of girls who more or less looked like her, chattering nonstop.
“She looks so happy,” Val said, and there was a wobble in her voice that made Desmond draw a little closer to her, despite himself. “I could go over there now, and get her, but…”
“We could give her a bit of time?” Desmond suggested. He steered Val to a benched area with a partial view of the stage. It was clearly designed for intimacy because the moment they sat, it was as if they became ensconced in their own little world, a wood- and leather-sealed sanctuary that smelled of gin and dust and sweat and perfume. Desmond was suddenly very aware of the softness of her thigh, pressed close to his, of that powdery sweetness that lingered on the soft skin of her neck, of the curve of her breasts beneath her tight black dress, of her small waist and full lips.
This was a setting made for closeness, for pressing a warm body against yours and kissing them, deliberate and sweet, until they sighed and softened and melted into you. Normally, Desmond would do exactly this, but not with a woman like Valentina Montgomery.
He reminded himself of that, and sternly.
She was chewing that deliciously full lower lip and when she released it, it was plump and cherry red. Desmond completely gave up any denial of the lust he was feeling. Apparently, he could add sexy librarian to his list of kinks. He cleared his throat. “Are you going to get her?”
Her eyes were still fixed on her charge, and she sighed. “No.”
“No?”
“She…she looks so happy, and she rarely gets to have fun like this. Bahr Al-Dahab isn’t like let’s say, Dubai or Qatar. Beautiful architecture, amazing food and a great educational system, but not much in the way of teenage fun. She can’t get in trouble now because I’m watching her.” She sounded as if she were convincing herself rather than him. She cleared her throat and released her death grip on her handbag. “You’ve been so kind, and you’re so busy. Since I can actually see her now, I can take it from here. I’ll take her home in a cab after the set.”
Desmond raised his brows to their limit. “Surely this isn’t the same woman who reamed me out only a couple of hours ago?”
“I know, I know .” Val pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I was…distraught. I apologize. You’ve been very nice about this mess of an evening.”
It had been an evening, hadn’t it? And one that he otherwise would have spent in his apartment, brooding. Or pacing. Or working feverishly. An evening like this, when they’d been thrust together so unconventionally, could be good two ways, couldn’t it?
An in with Sheikh Rashid, and more time with a beautiful woman, who had his body humming with an anticipation to which it had no right.
“I’ll stay with you, if it’s all right,” he said. “Let me buy you dinner, at least.”
“It’s after ten!”
“A second dinner,” he amended, and laughed. “When was the last time you were out on the town, Miss Montgomery?”
“A very, very long time ago,” she admitted with a rueful smile.
Warmth blossomed in his chest.
“I am a bit hungry,” she admitted.
“Say no more.” Desmond stood and waved the waiter over.
* * *
Perhaps it was seeing the youthful, happy glow on Hind’s beautiful face that did it, or perhaps it was the handsome man at her side, dark eyes boring into her as if he’d discovered something surprisingly precious, but Val found she wasn’t ready to go home. Not at all. And those rules she held so tight to, well her heart was eroding them away piece by piece, with every second of enjoyment.
That strange dark moment in the Champagne Bar was behind them, and she wanted to be pressed improperly close to Desmond Tesfay as the silky strains of Gershwin hung in the air. She wanted to cut into the perfectly cooked steak in front of her, fragrant with rosemary and glistening with butter and pan juices. She wanted to feel the smoky burn of fine whiskey on her tongue.
She wanted to laugh, as she hadn’t in months. Years, really. And most of all, she wanted to revel in the fact that Desmond Tesfay’s eyes were devouring her.
When he wasn’t being obnoxious, Desmond Tesfay was as skilled a conversationalist as he was handsome and he drew her out with easy, innocuous questions. How long had she been in the Gulf? Which countries had she worked in? Did she enjoy it? Nothing personal at all, nothing about—thank goodness—dead fathers, or birth names, and nothing she wouldn’t share in any casual conversation.
She felt herself relaxing. Yes, she’d worked in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar and now for Sheikh Rashid. She couldn’t name her clients of course, but she’d worked for an ambassador for the UAE, a brother of the Omani sultan, a famous Emirati influencer, a Qatari princess. She understood Gulf Arabic perfectly, but her accent was dreadful, and she spoke fluent French. Her favorite food in the region had to be chicken mandi …
She found herself chattering away in a manner that probably would have appalled her had she been in her right mind. Any protests about the fine wine, the food, any of it were met with a laconic “It’s your birthday, after all,” and one of the slow vulpine smiles that made her stomach flop to her feet. And then he’d look at her.
He wasn’t even trying to hide it, she thought with an internal shiver. Every time his eyes flickered over her face or body, she pressed her thighs together against the heat kindling there. She was no untried virgin and nor was she frigid; the fact that she found it so easy to be swept away was why she’d kept her defenses so rigidly in place all these years. Being with a man she’d wanted wildly had ended in nothing but disaster and a feeling of emptiness that had lingered through till this very night.
And yet…
She cleared her throat in a bid to clear her head. It didn’t work, but she forged on anyway. “I’ve talked so much that I think I need to resort to clichés at this point.” He smiled noncommittally and she felt a stab of nervousness. “Do you come here often? Is it quite fashionable? I’d heard of Ronnie Scott’s but not this place.”
“I come here once in a while, when a client who fancies himself a music aficionado wants a must-see spot.” Desmond was toying with the remains of his own dinner, eyes fixed lazily on her face. “Do you like it?”
“At the risk of sounding pretentious, it’s extraordinary.”
“Good.” Were his eyes drifting down her body now? And if she was not mistaken, that was desire in his eyes… She was disturbed to find herself tilting toward him, her body arching under his gaze. “I intend for you to enjoy every thing we do this evening.”
Val choked, then placed her whiskey glass down, chasing the mouthful with ice water. In an effort to calm herself, she closed her eyes.
“Do you like the music?”
“It’s amazing.” At this point, keeping her eyes closed seemed safer. Now that Desmond was shut out, the music became more than a backdrop; she could make out melody, cadence, rhythm. While Val wasn’t a music aficionado by any means, jazz had always been a part of her life. She licked her lips, lowered her shoulders and bid tension in her body to leave through exhaled breath. And to her surprise, it did.
She eased back into the seat, but it was no longer buttery soft leather; Desmond’s arm was there. It was rigid and soft all at once, and it pulsed with warmth. He’d clearly taken the opportunity to move even closer. She was…well, she was practically in his arms. And it made her fizz inside.
“My father played as part of a jazz combo when I was a child,” she said. The smell of him was dizzying.
“Where was that, again?” His voice was low and rich and she could feel it tightening at the tender points of her body; her breasts, the soft secret place between her thighs.
“New Orleans,” she said after a moment. “He passed away when I was a child. That’s why I was so embarrassed about…before. I shouldn’t make such tactless comments.”
Desmond made a noise of acknowledgement deep in his throat, and Val felt the sound resonate down to her toes, leaving a very pleasant tingle. Those beautiful eyes were masked, completely and she didn’t know whether to be disappointed or to be relieved.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said after a beat, and his voice was gentle.
“Oh, you don’t have to be. I was young. My mum married again, and my stepfather was just fine—” And now she was babbling like a nervous teenager. She stopped and took a deep, steadying breath, then closed her eyes. Desmond’s body was a warm mass at her side, pulsing with something she dared not name.
“He played an upright bass, my father,” she continued. “In a restaurant. It was an unapologetic tourist trap that served nothing but frozen hurricanes—”
“Hurricanes?”
“It’s a drink that’ll have you on your back in a half hour. And they had the best lobster and shrimp pot pies. I can taste them even now…”
“Val,” he said with an amused tone. “Your eyes are still shut.”
She bit her lower lip hard and nodded.
“Are you afraid to look at me?”
Yes, she was. Because he was too attractive, and because this was inappropriate—and most of all because the fire raging inside her at this very moment was much too reminiscent of the young woman she’d been, a woman too easily swept away by passion into dangerous currents. She’d almost been lost—no, she had been lost, for a very long time. And now she was here, in the arms of possibly the most attractive man in all of England, while technically working. And he was telling her to open her eyes .
“I am,” she said, and she wondered how the hell her voice had gone so soft and smoky. She hadn’t sounded like that, not since—
The sound he made in response lived halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Well, at least I know you feel it, too.”
Val’s eyes flicked open, and she knew right away it’d been a mistake. Desmond had shifted his body and was peering intently into her face, with those dark eyes and their honey-tinged irises glowing in the dimness of the lounge, like a cat’s. Want sliced razor-sharp through her, and he thumbed her chin, his touch whisper-soft. She swallowed. And the words that came out of her mouth next shocked the hell out of her.
“You might as well just do it,” she said a little acidly, sounding like herself for the first time since they’d sat down, and his lips twitched.
“Am I that obvious?”
“Weren’t you trying to be?”
“Don’t be so eager to rush a beautiful thing, Miss Montgomery.”
“Val,” she corrected, her heart thumping like a rabbit’s. If this was happening, she couldn’t let it happen with him calling her Miss Montgomery or, worse yet, Valentina. Not with his liquid, rich voice simply dripping with all the dirty things she presumed he could do to her—it was bringing to the surface something she wasn’t ready to explore. Not with him.
And yet, her thoughts were going in directions she couldn’t control, while she sat in the booth, heart thudding, mentally grasping at them as they floated beyond her fingertips into places that sent back heated, urgent images that took her breath away with their sensuality. His mouth on her neck, his lips on hers, the softness of his breath on her ear. His hands on her breasts, hips, bottom, thighs. Stroking. Exploring.
Gripping.
Her face bloomed with heat, and it left her body in the softest of exhales before he finally kissed her. It was soft and heated and spicy with whiskey and honey sweet, all at once. His lips knew exactly where to go. First he explored her mouth with the tenderness of one who’d been a long-time lover, then to that pulsing hollow in her throat that had always left her a quivering mess and finally to her collarbone, dangerously close to the dip in her neckline—
“Desmond!” she gasped.
“I shouldn’t,” he said quietly against her skin. “I don’t think you’re the type to—”
“How would you know what type I am at all?” she said a little haughtily.
He made an amused sound without looking up. “Okay, you’ve convinced me.”
He didn’t want any more interruptions to this, and when his mouth skittered up and to her lips again, she didn’t protest. She just sighed a little, tipped her head back, and lifted her arms to encircle his neck. He was kissing her more urgently now, muttering things she couldn’t quite understand, and then his mouth was at her ear again—
“You smell so damned good,” he rasped. She realized vaguely that he had stood up and was facing her now, hands resting on her thighs. She wanted to pull up her dress so she could draw him between her thighs—
“It’s all right,” she almost said. After all, he was shielding her, and the booth they were in was private and dark, but that would be ridiculous. As ridiculous as the fact that his fingers were tracing slow, lazy circles over that tender bit of skin between her stocking tops and her underwear, and she was incredibly close to letting out a whimper that she might not recover from. And there was still—
Hind!
She must have uttered the name out loud as she thought it, because Desmond pulled back abruptly. She noticed dimly that his breathing was ragged— she’d done that to him, she thought, astonished. And from a few simple kisses. And despite their very public location, despite Hind, she didn’t want to move. To emerge from this little cocoon of lust they’d created would mean a forcible ejection back into the real world, one that might never allow the throbbing want she felt to bubble back up to the surface again.
How long had it been since she’d felt this near wild longing to be touched, kissed?
At least ten years. And it was happening now, and with a man who was significantly younger than her.
That was sobering enough. Val cleared her throat and stood, taking a very large step sideways in order to move herself from Desmond’s immediate area of contact. He stood as well. His head was tilted and he was looking down at her, an odd half smile in place.
“Don’t spoil it by talking about how sorry you are for being so impulsive. Or say it was the champagne. Or tell me you never do this.”
She blinked. He’d taken the words right out of her mouth. He reached out with his long, slim fingers and touched her chin.
“Don’t be sad.”
She felt tears prick beneath her lids. She wasn’t sad. She was lonely . She was angry because the actions of one man had turned her life into this—a woman who was trying very hard not to romanticize kissing a stranger at least a decade younger than her in the basement of a club. And the fact that he’d recognized it so easily made her feel even worse.
“I’m not sad,” she whispered. “And you’re right. I never do this. And for very good reason, too.”
“Which is?”
Val lifted a hand to cradle the side of his face; he tilted his head so that it perfectly fit into the hollow of her palm. “Because kisses are bad for me,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I always end up paying for them, Desmond. I don’t want to do that with you.”
“Why? Are you afraid of getting attached?” His eyes were glittering in the dark.
“I used to be. Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“I met a man as handsome as you are.” His hands tightened at her waist. “Unfortunately, he turned out to be…not very nice.”
She felt his arm loosen and grow rigid. “Did he—?”
“No! Not that.” There was that prickling behind her lids again. “I just… I lost myself in him, Desmond. I got in so deep that I didn’t recognize who I was after a while. And I told myself that would never happen again. Not to me. And here I am, with you…”
He released her then, and she felt so bereft she actually ached. She wanted to cry out, to press herself against him again, to feel that delicious hardness and warmth. But she couldn’t.
Could she?
A tinny clash of cymbals signaled the end of the set, followed by enthusiastic applause, and the two of them scooted even further apart.
She cleared her throat in an attempt to come back to herself.
Now was the time to scoop up Hind, to get home, to shower off the taste, smell and essence of the man in front of her, and to go to sleep like a responsible human being. She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. The chattering from the audience filtered in little by little, breaking the stillness. The evening escapade was over. Desmond fumbled about for his mobile while Val pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
It didn’t help.
Desmond scrolled, then smiled a little. “It looks like our girl’s headed back to The Ritz.”
“Really?” Val peered over his shoulder. Indeed, Hind’s new story announced:
Tired and HAPPY af!!!! Headed home. 3 you London
“Oh, thank goodness,” Val exhaled. But then her breath was gone again because Desmond was very close, peering down into her face, and his eyes were so dark that she took a full step back.
“If I pressured you at all , Val, I truly am sorry.”
She was shaking her head hard before he even finished. “You didn’t.”
Relief lightened his features ever so slightly, and at that she was oddly touched. “All right.”
She could feel him withdrawing both physically and emotionally, and her body throbbed with the loss. Her resolve was gone. It’d dissolved like salt in boiling water. There was no point in getting it back, really.
You could enjoy the night , a little voice inside her whispered, fanned by the heat lapping in her lower tummy. Just this once. You know you want him. He’s not going to stick around—he’ll probably be relieved that you don’t want him to. You can go right back to your rules.
She’d made the rules for herself to avoid entanglements. She’d make sure this wouldn’t turn into one. She wasn’t the naive, vapid, impressionable girl her who had been seduced and abandoned.
She was Val .
And Desmond was…young. A little full of himself, yes. But he had stopped when she’d asked him and he’d listened .
And if she were truly honest with herself, she wanted him rather badly.
“Desmond?”
He turned and her mouth went dry. She stepped forward and, on her tiptoes, she pressed her mouth to his. Before she could even register the skin on skin, he’d wrapped one long, muscled arm round her waist and was drawing her close with a surety that was becoming all too familiar. He stopped only when her breasts were flush against his chest and the inches between them evaporated like mist over the Gulf on humid August mornings.
“Make sure she gets home,” he said, his lips a whisper away from her own. Her body was surging to life—again. Oh, she was in trouble . “All right, Valentina? If this is what I think it is—”
“It is,” she said hoarsely against his mouth.
“Come home with me, then.”
“Desmond—”
“I want you,” he warned, his eyes glittering. “And if that’s ever not okay, I’ll stop and send you home. But I want you, Valentina Montgomery. And I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Oh, wow.
Desmond was cupping her face now, looking hard into her eyes. “I’m not him, whoever he was,” he said simply and firmly, and she closed her eyes, as much to shut him out as anything else.
“I know,” she whispered.