Chapter 4
Chapter Four
H is eyes going wide, Clay said, “You mean…?”
Saskia didn’t hesitate. She hadn’t eaten all day, and maybe she was tipsy, but she’d made up her mind. Nothing would stop her. “Yes, I mean…”
She leaned over, fisted one hand in his shirt, and pulled him close, until she could see each individual eyelash. Then she gave him his third wish, her mouth on his, teasing him as she ran her tongue along his lower lip.
He groaned, opening his mouth, and she slipped inside, tasted him, a delicious combination of yeasty beer and her sweet amaretto.
Their tongues tangled in a few luscious strokes, and with his next groan, he thrust his hands in her hair, angled her head, and took control of her mouth. And control of the kiss.
She wasn’t a virgin. She’d had lovers. She’d had Hugo, who did actually know his way around a bed despite being an ass. But there’d been no one since, the scars he’d left too deep for her to want another man.
But there had never been anyone like Clay Harrington.
He kissed the breath out of her, stole a moan rising up from her throat. After that, she didn’t care who he was, didn’t care about his artists’ platform. She cared only about his lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, and his hands in her hair.
Until finally he pulled back, his breathing fast. “Holy hell.”
Saskia stood then. She didn’t hold out her hand to him. She said only, “I’m just going to use the restroom. I’ll be back.”
She was, as promised, then she led him to the hotel stairs almost as if she’d grabbed his shirt again.
The hotel entry lay opposite the bar’s front door, up a narrow set of wooden stairs, reminding her of the stairs to a garret above a bar where Charles Dickens might have written Great Expectations . Reminding her of another garret too. But she wouldn’t think about that now.
Clay’s footsteps followed her up.
At the top, the lobby walls were filled with vintage posters from French circus acts.
The reception desk could have come out of a French chateau, too, delicate and ornate, and the standing lamps resembled Tiffany.
The lady at the desk looked vintage as well, somewhere in her seventies, in a matronly dress that reached well past her knees.
Though Clay was behind Saskia, the concierge glanced at him. “Can I help you, sir?”
Saskia answered, “We’d like a room with a king-sized bed.
The one with the van Gogh prints.” She looked at Clay.
“You’ll love the prints. They aren’t his famous stuff, but more like imagined works that would have been in the crates of paintings van Gogh’s mother supposedly tossed out after he died.
Although that could be an urban legend.” She turned back to the gray-haired woman. “Is that room available?”
“Yes,” the concierge replied. But her gaze was still on Clay’s truly impressive physique.
A woman was never too old to appreciate a gorgeous man.
Reaching into the pocket of her tunic, Saskia pulled out her credit card. Those deep pockets carried everything she needed.
But Clay was already pulling out his wallet. “I’ll get it.”
Saskia stepped between him and the concierge. “I’m taking care of this,” she insisted, even as she felt Clay’s credit card poke her in the back.
She wanted him to know this was her decision. With her retaining control of the entire adventure. He hadn’t seduced her. In fact, she’d seduced him. And she loved that.
The woman returned her credit card along with two keys. Not cards like a regular hotel, but two ornate skeleton keys. Saskia handed one to Clay. The woman called out the number on the key tag and said, “Down the hall, to the left, the second door on the right.”
At the door, Saskia inserted the skeleton key, feeling him right behind her, so close she could smell his masculine cologne. Or maybe his pheromones. Maybe hers. Maybe both.
He laid his hand over hers before she unlocked the door, bracketing her with that magnificently toned body. She couldn’t help a shiver of need, as if the sex goddess she’d kept under lock and key for five years was about to be unleashed.
His breath tantalized her ear. “Are you sure about this?”
She turned the key, pushed open the door with her foot, then turned and met his flame-hot gaze.
“You don’t even know me,” he said.
She pressed close to his body, his hardness. In her boots, despite his height, she didn’t feel petite. But she did feel womanly. Her voice came out in a husky whisper. “You don’t know me either. I could be a succubus luring you to my lair so I can drain you of your essence.”
He laughed. But his breathing was harsh, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Doesn’t the succubus sneak into the victim’s room in the middle of the night?” His nostrils flared as he breathed her in.
“She comes to men in their dreams. Maybe this is all a dream.”
Then she grabbed his shirt and backed into the room, pulling him with her. When he was inside, she kicked the door closed. The sun, not yet obscured by fog, lit the room. “I have only one rule,” she told him.
He seemed to be begging when he asked, “What’s that?”
“This is only for one night.”
His lips curved, this time with a cocky smile that turned her heart over in her chest. Damn, he was so dangerously good-looking. “What if you want more?”
He had the looks of a beautiful devil, a smile that promised glorious sin, and eyes that could devour her soul. But she smiled right back at him. “I won’t.”
He ate her up with those eyes. She was so very hot, wet, and ready to jump him right this moment, before they even made it to the bed. Especially when he asked, “Doesn’t a succubus keep coming back?”
She trailed a finger from his chin down his throat to the neckline of his shirt. “When I’m done with you, there won’t be anything left to come back for.”
His entire body seemed to go up in smoke.
She was so gorgeous, and he’d never wanted a woman more.
His chest to her breasts, her scent rose to his head, clouding his brain like the San Francisco fog starting to roll down the hill.
That’s what she was like—a whisper of fog, or a ghost, something that couldn’t possibly be real.
But he scented how much she wanted him.
Like a predator, he took hold of her hips, jerked her close, let her feel how badly he wanted her in return.
“Don’t you want to look at the van Gogh prints?” she murmured.
“Screw the prints.”
Like animals, they tore at each other’s clothes, fabric flying.
He picked her up, strode to the bed, her combat boots bouncing against his backside.
Then he laid her on the bed, her legs parted.
She was amazing. Her breasts were perfect, not large but rose-tipped, begging for his lips, his tongue, his teeth.
Her flowery dress and black tunic lay somewhere behind them. So did his shirt. Now he toed off his shoes and shucked his slacks while she watched. Her eyes widened as he stripped down to nothing, and he teased her a moment just by standing there, letting her look her fill.
He squatted to untie her boots, yanking them off, throwing them with a thud against the wall, then peeled off her socks.
She wore no bra, and that was even sexier than a scrap of lacy lingerie.
Thrusting his fingers into the tops of her leggings, he yanked them down.
Her breathing ratcheted up. Then she was gloriously naked before him.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered with the awe he would have felt gazing at van Gogh’s Starry Night .
He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him.
While he didn’t have relationships, he’d never moved on a woman quite this fast. He’d wooed a little, given gifts, spent money on jewelry and dining and shows.
But this woman wanted no trinkets. In fact, she wore no jewelry and not even a speck of makeup.
Yet her lips were a luscious red that beckoned him.
He fell on her, kissing her, taking her mouth as if he’d never tasted a woman before, as if she could fill up every empty nook and cranny inside him. He was the incubus, taking everything he could and needing more. She tasted so damn sweet, like Kahlúa and amaretto and something so much more. Her .
Pulling back, he whispered, “I have to taste all of you.” Then he started to glide down her body.
But she grabbed his shoulders. “I want you inside me. Right now. As deep as you can go.” Her beautiful brown eyes were now like dark amber, mesmerizing him.
Until rational thought flooded in. “I don’t have a condom.”
She laughed, a sparkle in her sexy eyes. “I thought all men carried a condom in their wallets in case they got lucky.”
An answering laugh rumbled up from his chest. “I don’t. But if I’d known I’d rescue a woman like you from a robotaxi, I’d’ve made sure I had one.”
She wrinkled her nose, a smile twinkling in her eyes. “Luckily for me, I think ahead. When I went to the restroom downstairs, I slipped into the men’s room. Guess what kind of machine they had hanging on the wall?”
He gasped. “No.”
She nodded wickedly, stirring him to greater heights. Then she pointed past him. “Check my tunic pocket.”
She was freaking incredible.
He dove off the bed, swiping up her tunic, feeling in the pocket where she’d stowed the credit card. He came out with a strip of three condoms.
“They didn’t come in singles.” Then she held out her hand. “Come here. I’ll put it on for you.”
Like a teenage boy, he could have lost it just at the sound of her voice.
The fog had rolled past the window so quickly that it was as if nothing else existed but them, together, in here. He stalked her like the predator she wanted him to be. A graceful panther, with dark hair and gleaming skin.
He stole her breath and made her heart beat a thousand times a minute. Her mouth watered for a taste of him. She should have been self-conscious; it had been so long. But this man doused every ounce of embarrassment, because she had to have him.