The Dare Collection December 2019. Clare Connelly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ brick walk-up in Brooklyn.

      His breathing is ragged, just like my own. I stay right where I am, pleasure like fireworks just beneath my skin, exploding fast at my pulse points. I stare down at the snow-covered city, thinking of the time I went to visit Meemaw and Pa. I’d heard about them, but had barely spent more than an hour in their company. My mother worked hard to distance herself from her working-class roots. She’d married Hollywood royalty, she was a theatre queen and she wasn’t going to have the fact that she came from an ordinary family in the south do anything to harm her carefully cultivated image. I didn’t have those hang-ups, and right after Abbey died, I just felt as if I needed to see my grandparents, to spend time with them. I wanted the authenticity their life offered; I wanted to be as far from my parents and their set as possible.

      So I went to Meemaw’s, and only a day or two after I arrived, a tornado crossed town. It was loud and fierce and so fast. It must have lasted only two or three minutes before it moved away again and the most surreal, unnatural silence followed.

      That’s what’s happening now.

      Silence, but weird and unnatural and, contrasted with our earlier passion, it is freakishly quiet in my office.

      And I have no idea what to say, which makes me even more freaked out because I pride myself on being able to fill difficult silences and cover awkwardness with a quip or a joke.

      Now, I’ve got nothing.

      I’m just a tangle of nerves and excitement. My whole body feels as if it’s been stretched in a thousand directions, stretched by the speed with which my blood has terrorised it.

      His hands on my back are gentle now, inquisitive, returning me to the here and now with a slow, sweet touch. He curves his palms over my shoulders and turns me around to face him.

      It makes it so much harder to kick my brain into gear because one look at his face and I’m melting. What the heck is wrong with me? I don’t do rich guys. I find all that money off-putting and there’s no mistaking Nicholas Rothsmore’s background of privilege and wealth. It is in the strength of his spine, the confident tilt of his chin, the sophistication of his eyes, the dimple of his chin that for some reason screams aristocracy.

      But there’s also something hard-worn about him, something broken and devil-may-care. Something that tells me he’s a risk-taker and an adventurer, that he might have been born to fit the mould of a privileged aristocrat but that he’s worked hard to fight his way free of it.

      That alone keeps me rooted to the spot, unable to look away from a face that I have been seeing in my dreams since we snatched an hour together in Sydney.

      ‘I’m…’

      He lifts a finger and presses it to my lips, his dark brows knitting together as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.

      ‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ I say against his finger. When he doesn’t move it, I dart my tongue out and flick it. His eyes flare wide and power rushes through my body.

      This is bigger than me, bigger than him.

      ‘You made pretty sure of that.’

      ‘Not quite.’ I bite the soft flesh of his finger now, and he presses it to my lips, so I roll my tongue over it and feel his cock jerk against me.

      He’s like the Energizer Bunny of sex. Then again, apparently I am too, because desire ignites inside me, and I wish we were anywhere but my office.

      My office!

      ‘Oh, crap.’ I press my hand to his chest and push him back, everything forgotten except the fact Emily and I have an extremely casual relationship and she walks in whenever she needs anything. Not to mention I’ve just been screaming like a banshee at the top of my lungs.

      I sidestep him and move away as if he’s explosive dynamite and I’m right in its trajectory. I need space. Space to think and I definitely absolutely need to get dressed.

      ‘That was…completely unprofessional.’ I lift a hand and smooth my hair over one shoulder, my fingers grazing my nipples by accident, so I have to spin away or risk him seeing my instant physical reaction to the simple touch.

      ‘It was also completely fucking great.’

      A smile curves my lips. There’s a bathroom across my office—I work long hours and frequently have to attend Billionaires’ Club events, which I go to directly from here. Fortunately for me, there’s also a wardrobe and it’s always stocked with an array of outfits. I pull out a black pantsuit and a silk camisole, trying not to think about what Emily will say when she notices the obvious change of clothes, pulling the silk top on quickly to dispense with the whole nakedness thing.

      I spin around to find him watching me with an expression I can only describe as indolent. He’s like some kind of crack cocaine to me—I’m high on him and already craving my next fix.

      I stare across at him—he’s pulled his boxers back on but there’s still an expanse of toned abs and tanned skin—and my mouth goes dry, my stomach loops and my fingers tingle.

      ‘I don’t do this.’

      He lifts a thick, dark brow, his expression quirking with curiosity. ‘Do what?’

      ‘This.’ I gesture from him to me. ‘Sleep with clients. Sleep with anyone.’

      He laughs, the sound bouncing around my office. My pulse trembles. ‘You weren’t a virgin.’

      I jerk my head. ‘Yeah, but…’

      He begins to prowl towards me.

      ‘It had been a while.’

      I told him that in Sydney. There’s no point in denying it.

      ‘What’s “a while”?’

      I swallow, my throat bone dry. I wave my hand in the air in what I hope passes as some kind of descriptor of time. He catches it in his, lacing our fingers together and holding it at my side.

      Up close, I look at him—really look at him—in a way I haven’t had the luxury of doing yet. I notice things that previously passed me by. Not because they didn’t warrant notice, but because there’s so much of him that demands attention: his square jaw; his perfectly sculpted lips; the little indent above his mouth, forming a bridge to his nose; a nose that is straight and strong—patrician, appropriately, given his pedigree—but that has a bump halfway down, as if it’s been broken at some point. His lashes are thick and dark and clumpy, and close up it almost looks as if he’s wearing eyeliner. He’s not, but that’s the effect the weight of his lashes combines to create. He has a silvery scar near his hairline—a single, trembling line about an inch long, very faint and, going by the shimmery paleness of it, earned long ago, perhaps even as a boy.

      My tummy swoops. ‘Oh, you know, years.’

      ‘Years?’ The word is like a curse, and his brow dips as if he can’t even comprehend this concept. I can’t really blame him—standing here in a post-orgasm glow, I have no idea why I’ve denied myself this for as long as I have.

      I go to pull away but his hand squeezes mine. ‘Years?’ Softer, gentler, less shocked, more wondering.

СКАЧАТЬ