Pursued

“I do. And since we’ve established that you like me as well…” His hands went to the buttons of the too-big shirt she was wearing. His shirt, she thought dazedly as he slipped the first two buttons through their holes then gently skimmed his knuckles along the undersides of her breasts. “I think we should maybe head back to my bedroom and like each other some more.”

“Like each other some more?” she repeated, trying to keep her voice steady despite the heat arcing through her like a lightning storm. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

He laughed. “It’s what I’m calling it. Sorry. I know it’s not very romantic, but my brain pretty much stops working the second I touch you.”

She was charmed by the admission despite herself. Determined to keep things light after the confession she’d had no intention of making, she told him, “I guess it’s all right if your brain isn’t working, as long as other parts of your anatomy are.”

He quirked a brow at her. “The other parts of my anatomy are working just fine, thank you very much.”

“Oh, yeah?” She ran a hand over his firm, hard chest. “Prove it.”

His eyes darkened at the challenge and he grabbed her hips. Pulled her forward until she was balanced right on the edge of the seat and her sex was nestled right up against the hard ridge of his erection.

“Proof enough for you?” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear.

“I don’t know. I think I might need a more detailed demonstration.” She arched against him then, reveling in the groan he didn’t even try to hold back.

“A more detailed demonstration, hmm?” He slid his hands under her and picked her up as if she weighed nothing. For the second time that night, Desi wound her arms and legs around him.

She clung to him like a limpet as he carried her out of the kitchen, through the family room and down the long hallway that led to his bedroom. She waited until he’d crossed over the threshold before she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “‘Need You Tonight.’”

“I need you, too,” he said as he carried her over to the bed.

It was her turn to laugh. “I meant, that’s my favorite song.”

Something moved in his eyes—something wonderful and terrifying and so, so exhilarating. Then he was kissing her, his mouth slamming down on hers with the same desperation that was suddenly crashing through her.

And then they were falling onto the bed with him on top of her.

“What’s your favorite song?” she managed to choke out as he finished unbuttoning her shirt, pressing kisses to each new bit of exposed skin. Her brain was going fast, her body taking over, but after all the back-and-forth, she wanted—needed—to know this one thing about him.

“I thought that was obvious,” he said and she could feel him smile against her stomach. “Eric Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight.’”

Four (#ulink_3feacf98-fb2e-5d08-be08-16e300eea0d3)

Nic woke up alone. Which was unexpected. And which also really, really sucked.

Especially since it wasn’t as if Desi was temporarily gone, like in the kitchen making coffee or the bathroom taking a shower. No, she had bugged out of his place and taken every last trace of her existence with her. She hadn’t left a note, hadn’t left a last name, hadn’t left so much as a high-heeled glass slipper behind for him to go by.

She was really gone. So gone that if he didn’t have scratches down his back from her nails, a bed that looked like a disaster zone, and—he glanced at his phone, just to make sure—her phone number in his contacts list, he might be tempted to think he’d imagined the whole damn thing.

But he hadn’t imagined it. Desi was real. He had her number to prove it, he told himself as he stared at the 323 area code of his last missed call. Unfortunately, he also had a promise—not to use that phone number until she used his first.

Which, again, really, really sucked.

Because he liked her. He really, really liked her. More than should be possible considering he knew almost nothing about her—and what knowledge he did have, he’d gained from asking questions and pushing the issue until she very reluctantly responded.

Which, now that he thought about it, probably should have been his first clue that this wasn’t going to go the way he’d wanted it to. Damn it, he really hated playing the fool.

A quick look at his bedside clock told him it was barely 7:00 a.m., and since he knew she’d been asleep in his bed at five, when he’d finally succumbed to exhaustion, he couldn’t shake the idea that he had just missed her. That if only he had woken up a few minutes earlier, he would have caught her before she disappeared.

The thought made him crazy, especially since he’d planned on starting the morning the same way he’d spent most of the night. Deep inside Desi, watching her fall apart, as the defensive wall she’d built around herself crumbled one tiny brick at a time.

It seemed like a ridiculous plan now, considering he was alone in rapidly cooling sheets. After all, he’d known she was emotionally closed off—he would have had to be an idiot not to see the No Trespassing signs she had posted over pretty much every part of herself. And yet…and yet she’d opened up to him, over and over again through the night. Oh, not about big things such as who she was or why she had such a bleak outlook on people or even what her favorite movie was. But she’d let her guard down enough for him to catch glimpses of a lot of the mixed-up pieces that made her who she was.

He’d liked what he’d seen, a lot. Which was just one more reason this disappearing act of hers bothered him so much. For the first time in a very long time, he’d been looking forward to exploring her. To exploring them and finding out all the little things that made Desi tick.

For God’s sake, he’d brought her to his house, which was something he did not normally do. At least not until he’d been on a few dates with a woman. And definitely not until he knew she was someone he wanted to get serious with.

Yet last night, on that balcony, he’d been adamant about convincing Desi to come home with him. True, part of that was because he’d really, really wanted to sleep with her again—the two times on the balcony hadn’t been close to enough to exhaust the sexual chemistry between them. But that didn’t explain why he’d been so determined to bring her home, to his house. They’d been at a hotel, for God’s sake. How much easier would it have been to simply stop by the front desk and get a room for the night?

Instead, he’d brought her home. He’d made her blueberry pancakes and asked her questions and—when she had commented on various pieces of his furniture—had even thought about showing her his studio, which was pretty much the most sacred place in his house. He barely let his brother, Marc, in there, let alone anyone else.

But she didn’t know any of that, a part of him rationalized. He’d thought he had made his interest clear to her last night, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she’d thought she really was nothing more than a one-night stand to him. Maybe she’d thought he expected her to be gone when he woke up. After all, he hadn’t said otherwise.

No, but he’d made a point of giving her his phone number, he told himself as he rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Had made a point of getting hers. Surely that had given her a clue that he was interested in her.

Then again, maybe his interest—or lack thereof—wasn’t the problem. Maybe hers was. She’d been pretty damn reluctant to answer even his most innocuous questions, and when she had answered, it was usually with a nonanswer. As if she was afraid of letting him too close, of letting him learn too much about her. Or maybe, more accurately, she didn’t want him to get close to her.

Just the thought annoyed him. It had been a long time since he’d met a woman who really interested him. Who was smart and funny and also sexy as hell. So why was it that the first woman he did meet who interested him on all those fronts had gone running from him the first chance she’d gotten?

He turned on the shower, and while he was waiting for it to warm up, he took a long, hard look at himself in the mirror. As he did, he couldn’t help wondering what it was Desi had seen when she’d looked at him. Had she seen his public persona, the easygoing, happy-go-lucky guy who was always up for a beer or a game of golf? The guy who didn’t make waves and always had a joke at the ready?

Or had she seen deeper than that? Had she seen who he really was under all the polish and bull? He’d tried to show her a little bit of that guy last night, had thought—when he caught her looking at him as if she had a million questions—that maybe she had seen him. And if she had…if she had, was that who she had run away from? Not the man she’d picked up at the gala, but the one who lurked below his surface?

The idea grated. But it also lingered, long after he’d all but scrubbed himself raw in the shower in an effort to get rid of the warm-honey scent of her that had somehow embedded itself in his skin.

He was still poking at the wound, still turning it over in his mind, when he cruised into his brother’s office an hour later.

“How was the gala?” Marc asked without looking up from where he was checking his first emails of the day.

“Enlightening,” Nic answered, walking over to the window that made up one whole wall of the room. Beyond the company grounds were rocky cliffs and a small sandy beach. Beyond that was the endless Pacific. He watched the water for long minutes, saw the waves build out at sea, then crest, then roll harmlessly onto shore. It was winter, so the water was cold, but there were a few surfers out there, paddling on their boards as they waited for the next big wave.

For a second, he wanted to be out there with them. Wanted to be free, wanted—for just once in his life—to do whatever he wanted. To be whomever he wanted and to hell with the consequences.

But then Marc asked, “Enlightening how?” and the fantasy was shattered.

“What do you mean?” He turned to look at his brother.

Marc pushed back from his desk, then crossed the room to the small minifridge embedded in the bar. He grabbed a bottle of iced coffee for himself, then tossed Nic a pint of the fresh-squeezed orange juice he favored. He caught it neatly.

“When I asked you about the gala, you said it was enlightening. How so?” Marc came to stand next to him by the window, glancing out at the ocean before turning to Nic, an inquisitive look on his face.

Nic started to gloss over it, to focus on the people he’d met or the money he’d pledged from Bijoux. But Marc was his brother and his best friend, the only person he ever really opened up to. And so, before Nic even knew the words were there, he found himself saying, “I met a girl.”

“You met a girl?”

“A woman,” he corrected himself, thinking of Desi’s lush curves and quick wit. “I met a woman.”