Inhaling and exhaling, my lashes lower with the trickle of air from my lips. Cole folds me against him again and before I know his intent, he stands up, taking me with him, and I quickly grab his neck, forced to hold on until we’re in the bathroom, and he’s setting me down on the sink. “Hang tight, sweetheart,” he says, and walks toward the toilet, tosses the condom, pulls on a pair of sweats, and then grabs the hotel robe from a hook and wraps it around me, holding onto the lapels. “Better now?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, realizing now that I’m no longer shaking. “Yes. It’s passing. I’m better.”
“Good.”
He gives me an inquiring look, his blue eyes probing but gentle. “Did you like it?”
This is where I should feel awkward about the question, about being spanked by this man, but somehow, I just—don’t. “Yes. I did. I’m surprised that I did.”
“I’m not,” he says, “or I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Because the danger of never letting go is you lose yourself. When you lose yourself, you lose what you’re after, why you’re doing what you’re doing. Been there, done that.”
I want to ask more. I want to understand. I want to know why he saw this in me, but I’m treading on tomorrow territory and he doesn’t give me a chance anyway. His hands come down on my waist and he sets me on the floor in front of him, tying the belt around the robe for me. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry. Let’s order room service.”
I want to say yes. Why does this man make me want to say yes to everything?
“This is where I’m supposed to leave.”
“Says who?” he asks.
“Me. I said—”
“One night,” he says, “not two hours. Which means our one night is not over. I leave tomorrow morning. What do you have to lose by staying?”
What do I have to lose?
Myself, I think.
My career.
My independence.
“We had one condom,” I point out.
“And as you can tell, I can be creative.” His lips curve. “When I’m well fed. Stay, Lori. I want you to stay.” His voice is low, rough, compelling. “Forget what you planned to do. Do what we both want you to do. Stay with me.”
I should say no, but I don’t. “Yes,” I say, because nothing has changed. He might kiss like trouble, but this is one night and trouble can’t touch me tomorrow.
CHAPTER NINE
Lori
Cole’s response to my agreement to stay longer is to kiss me hard and fast, his lips firm and warm. “Good,” he says. “Because I’m not done with you. Not even close.” Heat rushes through me with that promise and he laces his fingers with mine. “Come on. Let’s order that food.” He turns and holds onto my hand, almost as if he’s afraid I’ll run for the door, and the truth is, it feels good to have someone hold onto me, to want me. The kind of feelings I can’t afford, not beyond tonight, but I can’t help but revel in them here, now, just a little longer.
He guides me to the sitting area and we settle on the couch, no space between us. He keeps me close, our legs aligned, and when he opens a drawer on the coffee table and removes a menu, he sets it on our joined legs, skipping to a photo. “I highly recommend the lasagna,” he says, pointing to what looks like two thousand calories of perfection, while I think he’s about double that or more. “The chef trained in Italy,” he continues, “and he does Italy better than Italy and that’s hard to do.”
“You’ve been here often if you’ve evaluated the chef’s resume.”
He makes a frustrated sound. “Too often,” he says. “I’m ready to be out of here.”
He’s ready to be out of here. He’s ready to be home. Tonight is tonight. It’s what I want. It’s right for me and right for him but I still find myself wanting to ask: Where is home? Why is he here? A case? Family? What?
His finger caressing my cheek brings my attention back to him. “But,” he adds, “an excellent chef makes the stay here more bearable.” He flips the menu to another page. “The pizza is authentic Italian as well and excellent.”
“Lasagna really does sound perfect,” I say, and his second “authentic Italian” comment inspires me to vow to one day visit Italy and compare this meal to the ones I’ll enjoy there.
“All right then,” he says, sticking the menu back in the drawer. “Lasagna it is.”
He reaches over the arm of the couch, grabs the hotel phone from the end table and requests our order, the angle of his shoulder resting in a way that exposes a tattoo I can’t believe I haven’t noticed until now. Oh my God. It’s a paw print that reads “Tobey 1996.” This arrogant, powerful, impossibly good-looking and apparently successful man loved an animal to the point of tattooing his body with his memory.
“Twenty minutes,” he says, settling back down next to me, and surprising me by kissing me. “Do you like wine?”
“Yes. Who was Tobey?”
“My childhood dog. He died the year I went to college.”
“I love that you got a tattoo for Tobey.”
“He was a good friend. The best. Let me grab the wine.” He stands and crosses to a doorway, disappearing inside, and returning as he pulls on a white T-shirt, while I enjoy every second of the stretch and tug of muscles. “Do you have a wine preference?” he asks, hands settling on his hips.
“I have a wide palate for forty-dollar-a-bottle-and-under wines,” I say. “Anything is fine.”
He laughs. It’s a good laugh. Warm. Relaxed. Sincere. “All right then,” he says, crossing the room toward the built-in cabinet behind the chair where we’d played his game. Where he’d spanked me. I’m trying to understand this man who is rich, powerful, and kinky, but also has a paw print to commemorate his love for his furry friend.
“Do you have a dog now?” I ask.
“No,” he says, returning to join me with two wine glasses and a corked bottle of wine in hand. “Dogs deserve time and love that I don’t have to give.”
The same reason I don’t have a dog, I think, well that and I live in a closet. He sits down next to me. “This is a blend,” he says, joining me. “It’s smooth and easy, but I have a pinot and a merlot if you’d prefer?”
“Like I said, I have broad—”
“Forty-dollar-a-bottle-or-under palate,” he supplies, giving a chuckle and pulling the cork. “There are wines to taste and wines to drink. The expensive ones tend to drink like hell.” He fills my glass. “Try it.” He hands it to me.
“Is it under forty dollars?”
“You tell me. Taste it.”
“Why do I feel like I’m being tested?”
“Because you are. Most people can’t tell expensive wine from inexpensive wine.”
“But you can?” I ask, accepting the glass.
“I’m pretty fluent in wine.”
“I’m not a good drinker,” I warn. “You should know that before I drink, and you have to wake me up to send me home. I fall asleep because I—” I catch myself before I start talking about my schedule. “I just fall asleep.”
“I’ll do my part to keep you awake,” he promises, giving me a wink that does funny things to my stomach. “Try the wine,” he encourages again.
Feeling oddly shy, when shy is not my thing, I cut my gaze, and sip the rich wine, its slightly sweet flavor exploding on my tongue. “It’s excellent,” I say. “I like it.”
“But is it under forty dollars?” he challenges.
“No,” I say. “And I only know that because you’re you and we’re here in this fancy room.”
“You don’t know me well enough to make that statement. When you do, I’ll ask you again to sum me up.”
“When I do?”
“If you do,” he says, and before I can let the possibilities in the word “if” sink in, he’s moved on, “It’s fifty-five dollars. Close to forty.” He fills his glass and corks the bottle.
r /> I glance at the bottle that reads “Maria’s Vineyards” and “Magnificant,” an obvious intentional misspelling. “Is it really fifty-five dollars?”
“It is indeed,” he says sipping his wine. “I discovered it a few years ago and I’ve been a fan ever since.”
I sip again and set my glass down. “When I was sizing you up at the bar tonight, I’d have called you a whiskey guy.”
“I like whiskey,” he says. “Scotch is my preferred drink, but wine is in my blood. My family owns a winery. Actually,” he corrects, cutting his gaze. “I own the damn winery.”
The bitterness in his tone is impossible to miss and tells me that he’s recently inherited and not just a winery. Problems. I know all about problems. “You recently inherited the winery,” I assume.
“It and more,” he says, and I get the impression the more might not be all good, a situation I can relate to far too well. “My father died a few months ago,” he adds.
More and more, I see the ways we might be drawn to each other, and I wonder if there is a kind of kindred spirit one knows by merely bumping into a person on the street. “And your mother?” I ask cautiously, aware that this might be as delicate a subject with him as it is with me.
“Also gone, and a long time gone,” he says, shifting the conversation to me. “Are your parents alive?”
I reach for my wine and sip, considering my answer. This isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t want to talk about me, and yet, I want to talk about him. I want to know more about this man that I actually trusted to spank me. “Quid pro quo,” he says, seeming to read my mind. “I’m naked. You’re naked, remember?”
All too well, I think, as he adds, “Give me something, Lori. I don’t even know your last name.”
And he won’t. “My mother’s a nurse. She’s alive. My father died last year.” I wait for the typical “I’m sorry. How did he die?” I hate those words, and I hate that question, which is why I didn’t say them to him. I steel myself and sip my wine.
“I’m not going to ask,” he says softly.
I glance up at him. “What?”
His eyes are warm with understanding, blue flecked with brilliant amber. “I get it. I hate the ‘I’m sorry’ that people always offer and I hate being asked how my parents died. So, thank you, for saying neither of those things.”
We do understand each other, I decide then. It has to be why I was drawn to him. No matter how much he’s pushed for the conquest tonight, he’s not a relationship person. I’m different, as he called me, because I’m not either. Women want his money as well, he’d said so, but I do not. I want my own, that I earn.
“And since I seem to only be able to bribe you for what I want,” he continues, “and what I want is to know more about you, I’ll do what I never do. I’ll tell you my story. My mother died in a car accident when I was eighteen. She was driving erratically after she’d left the house because she was fighting with my father over his mistress and hit an embankment and flipped. Cancer killed my father. As for the other question that I hate to be asked: ‘Are you okay?’ I’ve heard that a lot these past six months since he died. The answer I want to give to people but have the decorum to know I cannot, is that I’m fucking great. I hated the bastard.”
I study him a moment, understanding filling me. “You’re an only child.”
His eyes narrow on me. “And you know this how?”
“You hated your father, but he didn’t hate you,” I say. “And so, you inherited.”
“Very good, counselor,” he says. “I might need to insist on your last name, just to ensure I don’t accept a case against you. I don’t want to ruin my perfect record.”
His cell phone rings and since his pants are on the floor near his feet, he grabs them, pulling out his phone. I think of all the nights I’ve worked at the restaurant, fearing a call that my mother was sick, and even with her return to work, at a hospital of all places, I dread a call. Even now, I dread my phone ringing instead of his. Cole glances at his display and sets his cell on the table.
“Do you need to take your call?” I ask.
“It’s an asshole,” he says. “And I don’t work for assholes.” The doorbell rings and he sets down his glass. “That will be dinner and not soon enough for me.”
He heads toward the door, his stride long and confident, everything about this man is power and grace, and yet, he doesn’t overwhelm me like someone else I once knew and knew too well. Cole doesn’t constantly seem to be pulling my strings, but then, as one of my law professors said: “everyone is on their best behavior while trying to be naked and well fucked.”
Cole’s words come back to me. “I might need to insist on your last name.” Because he doesn’t want to face me in court, but there is no issue there. I’m not a lawyer, whereas he’s in possession of a winning record, the rewards of hard work falling into place, while mine have years to be foreseen.
My gaze catches on my skirt and the realization that the awkward goodbye is coming hits me. I need to be dressed. I need to be ready. Actually, I need to leave before I do something stupid with this man. Like stay the night. Like give him my last name. Like get involved in what won’t hurt him, but could my career. I can’t risk becoming distracted by a man who has his career while I have a long way until I have mine. I stand up and dart for my skirt.
CHAPTER TEN
Lori
I’ve barely had time to straighten after picking up my skirt, and somehow Cole is already walking back into the room. “Don’t even think about putting that on unless you just want me to take it off of you.”
“We don’t have a condom,” I remind him.
He sets the bag in his hand on the table and steps in front of me. “We have lasagna and my tongue, sweetheart,” he says, removing my skirt from my hand and kissing me. “And I have yet to prove my skills in that area.”
“I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
“Because you’re a virgin and so am I?”
“You’re funny,” I say.
“Not usually and not now. I’m quite serious, and adding to that, I can say with definitive certainty that my meal will taste better with you in that robe, naked beneath it.” His lips curve ever so slightly as he adds, “and so will yours. I’ll show you.”
My God. Somehow this man and his piercing blue eyes have turned lasagna into the promise of an orgasm. He snags my hands and moves us toward the couch. I don’t argue. How can I? I’m wet and my nipples ache. I’ve never wanted lasagna so badly in my life, and according to my nose, there is deliciousness in that bag that will extend beyond the food.
We sit down, and he glances over at me, smiles and kisses my cheek. It’s cute and sweet and sexy and just so many things I don’t expect, especially after he just promised to show me skills involving his tongue. The man must keep a jury seduced, confused, and seduced all over again, and in spades.
“You okay with wine?” he asks. “I have water in the fridge under the bar.”
“Wine is fine,” I say and reach for my glass.
He opens the bag. “I have them bring my food in take-out containers,” he says, setting two foil-wrapped bowls on the table, along with a bag of bread. “Otherwise their obsession with picking up the trays becomes incessant.”
Which tells me he’s a private person, focused on his work when he’s here. Or whichever woman is with him, and maybe I’m a fool, but that doesn’t feel like Cole to me. Despite his “I fuck when I want to fuck” comment, I really don’t believe he’s a manwhore any more than I’m easy because I came here tonight.
He offers me a fork. “Try the lasagna.”
“Thank you,” I say, accepting it. “For dinner.”
“Thank you,” he surprises me by saying.
“For what?”
“I needed to slow down. I needed tonight, too.”
He needed tonight, too.
His words seem to hang in the air between us, a conf
ession of sorts, when I don’t think he’s a man of confessions or apologies. I don’t know why he’s allowed me this intimacy, but then, he is intelligent and instinctive. He has to know I’ve allowed him much tonight that I allow no one else. He motions to the food. “Try it,” he says softly, and it’s almost as if he’s not talking about the food, though I don’t know what else he could be talking about.
I nod and take a bite, and an explosion of delicious spices, cheese and tomato sauce awakens my taste buds. “It’s wonderful,” I say. “Amazing, actually.”
“It’s something to look forward to when I’m here,” he says, taking a bite himself.
I want to ask how often he’s here, but it feels like that’s a request to see him again that I can’t afford to make. I need to finish climbing my ladder, so for now, I focus on his career. “How does an asshole you won’t defend get your personal cell phone number?” I ask, thinking of his call earlier, and sipping my wine.
“Another asshole gave it to him,” he says, finishing off another bite of his food.
“And how does that asshole have your number?” I ask, rolling cheese around my fork.
“He works in my firm and saw dollar figures and nothing else.”
“And you don’t?” I ask, taking a bite.
“Expensive as fuck, sweetheart,” he assures me, refilling his wine glass and then topping off mine.
“I assumed from this place we’re in right now,” I say. “And I assume that means you’re worth it.”
“Yes,” he says. “I am. Are you going to call me arrogant again?”
“Have you won the cases to back it up?
“Yes,” he says again. “I have.”
“Then it’s fact, not arrogance.”
“And you?” he asks. “How good are you, Lori?”
He’s hit that nerve I’ve been avoiding and I cut my gaze, reaching for the wine and downing a big swallow. “I really don’t want to talk about my career.”
“You lost a case,” he assumes. “Is that what brought you here tonight? You can talk to me about it. I get it. I know this world. I’m a good choice.”