Blackmailed Into His Arms: Blackmailed into Bed / The Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain / Blackmailed For Her Baby

The gown showed off her womanly shape as though she were naked, and he suddenly wanted to keep her inside the room with him rather than take her out, so no one else could see her.

“What do you think?”

He thought way too many things, none of them suitable for delicate ears or pre-dinner conversation. After dinner, though … that was a whole different story.

“Good. Good. You look good.” His tongue felt like an old gym sock in his mouth, and even though he knew he wasn’t making much sense, he was content to be able to form words at all. The synapse in his brain was barely firing, cells washing away to join all the others in his body south of the equator.

To buy a few much-needed moments to recover his senses, he cleared his throat and checked his watch. She was right; she’d only taken a little over twenty minutes to get ready, from the time she’d disappeared into the bedroom … twenty-five counting the time he’d wasted standing there feeling speechless and steamrolled.

“Okay. Well, then …” He tugged at his cuffs, straightened his tie and somehow managed to step forward, offering his arm. “Are we ready to go?”

She nodded, meeting him halfway. He noticed the shawl in her other hand and took it from her, draping the long-fringed lace around her shoulders.

“You look amazing,” he said, perhaps belatedly.

“Thank you.”

He pulled open the door, holding it until she’d passed into the hall, then hooked her arm around his elbow again and guided her to the elevator. Their reflection shimmered back at them in the polished golden doors, and he couldn’t help noticing how good she looked standing beside him. Tall, glamorous, gorgeous.

He’d known she was beautiful when he’d suggested this arrangement—a man would have to be blind not to, and even then, any man worth his salt would have a pretty good idea of her charms just from her voice and the way she handled herself.

He’d also known she would make a good impression on his associates. She was funny and charismatic and knew when to put in a few words or hold her tongue while business was being discussed. And there was no arguing she was easy on the eyes.

What he hadn’t counted on was the force of his attraction to her.

Beautiful women were nothing new to Chase Ramsey. He was wealthy, a self-made multimillionaire, which happened to be an attribute that a lot of women apparently found irresistible.

And he’d enjoyed his fair share of them. Some might say he used them, asking them out only when he needed a date for one event or another, and then taking them to bed—a place they were always more than willing to go.

But the way he saw it, any using was mutual. They wanted to be with him because he had money, wanted to be seen with him because of his power and prestige.

And most of them, whether they were blatant about it or not, harbored hopes of finagling a wedding ring out of him and snagging themselves a rich husband.

Elena, however, was in an entirely different category.

She didn’t seem impressed by his wealth at all. Yes, her family had money of their own, but so did the families of a lot of women he dated. That never kept them from wheedling for or accepting expensive gifts. Permission to use his credit card for the day would have had most of them squealing like a litter of hungry piglets.

She didn’t take forever in the bathroom or fuss obsessively over her appearance, and once she was ready, she was ready. She carried herself with confidence and seemed comfortable with whatever she was wearing instead of fidgeting with every little thing.

It was that confidence, her silent assurance, that turned him on almost as much as her shapely body and passionate nature.

Aside from that, he also found her simply fascinating. She never did what he expected, never reacted to things quite the way he thought she would.

And she hadn’t charged a single damn thing to his credit card, which he had to admit was driving him positively crazy. He wanted to know where she’d been all day, what she’d been up to.

He needed to know.

“So,” he murmured as the elevator doors whooshed open and they stepped inside the plush compartment. “What did you do today?”

Five

Elena raised the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. It had been a long day, and she was suddenly feeling every minute of it. The two Manhattans she’d sipped through dinner probably hadn’t helped, either.

“Sleepy?” Chase asked, brushing a loose tendril of hair away from her face.

She offered a small smile and leaned into his touch as the same elevator that had taken them down to the lobby a few hours before now took them back up to their floor.

It was amazing how comfortable she felt with him after such a short time, and it worried her. She’d expected their relationship to be cold, businesslike. Intimate, but functional.

Instead, things between them had been warm and friendly. She liked it, and that bothered her most—that she liked it maybe a bit too much.

“I’m a little tired,” she answered.

His hand slid from the lobe of her ear to the nape of her neck, where he gently kneaded the taut muscles with his calloused fingertips.

“You must have had a busy day.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to find out how she’d spent the afternoon. But so far, she’d avoided giving him a straight answer. It wasn’t that her activities were that much of a secret, just that she didn’t feel like sharing.

He’d handed her a wad of cash and a credit card, and basically told her to keep herself occupied while he worked. Well, she had—without spending more than twenty-five or thirty dollars of his money, either. Since she hadn’t let him foot the bill for more than a short cab ride and a salad for lunch, it was no one’s business but her own how she’d stayed busy.

When it became apparent she wasn’t going to answer, he went on.

“When we get back to the room, I’ll help you slip out of these clothes, then turn down the covers and we’ll crawl into bed.”

“Just to sleep?” she teased.

“Just to sleep,” he assured her. And then his lips curved and a devilish glint sparkled in his blue eyes. “Unless you’re interested in something else.”

A slow heat began to unfurl low in her belly. That was another thing she found surprising about this situation … that making love with him didn’t feel like a chore she had to subject herself to in order to help her father save his company. She liked being with him, and was already looking forward to spending the night in his arms. Just the thought made warmth pour through her system and put her nerve endings on red alert.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked as the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the hallway, any drowsiness quickly morphing into arousal and anticipation.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled, his arm twined with hers as they strolled slowly toward their suite. “We didn’t have dessert with dinner so maybe we should order something sweet from room service.”

They stopped in front of their door and he fitted the key card into the lock, waiting for the light to flash green.

“Strawberries and champagne?” he suggested, holding the door open for her. “I could nibble juice from your chin and trickle champagne into your navel. Or hot fudge sundaes. I understand chocolate sauce tastes even better licked off a beautiful woman’s naked flesh.”

If she hadn’t been turned on before, the mental images he was creating certainly aroused her. She shivered as she thought of his tongue scraping along her skin, of chocolate and ice cream mixing with passion in her mouth as he kissed her after cleaning them from her body.

“So what will it be?” he asked when she was halfway across the room. “Dessert or straight to bed?”

His voice sounded farther away than she’d expected, and she turned to find him leaning against the wall, just a few steps past the closed and locked door. His arms were crossed over his chest, one leg cocked over the other at the ankle.

One glimpse of him standing there, looking so casually relaxed yet so intensely masculine, and she knew there was no way she’d be sleeping tonight. At least not anytime soon.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun with him first.