The Millionaire's Wish (14 page)

She leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his jaw. She felt his hands settle on her hips, as if he couldn't help himself anymore.

He smelled so good. He always smelled good, but right now the scent of aftershave on his skin turned her muscles to water. She pulled his head down and kissed him on the mouth.

He groaned, and his hands tightened on her hips. She moved closer, her breasts brushing against his chest, and he pulled her flush against him. He opened his mouth, and because their lips were pressed together hers opened, too.

The taste of him was wild and sweet and familiar. His hands roamed as if they couldn't rest in one place, over her waist, her back, her arms, her shoulders. Then he slid his fingers into her hair.

The kiss was hungry now, feverish. She was gripping the rigid muscles of his shoulders, and she was amazed at the strength under her fingers and the restraint that made his touch so gentle.

When he broke the kiss, they were both gasping. Rick rested his forehead against hers as they fought for breath.

After a minute he straightened up. “Allison.”

Her breathing was still ragged, but she could speak. “Yes.”

“Do you want to go back to the party?”

“No.”

“Do you want to call it a night?”

She gripped the lapels of his tuxedo. “No.”

He stroked her hair, letting his hand settle at the back of her neck. “Then I need you to tell me what you do want.”

“I want—” She reached for her courage, and found she had more than enough. “I want you. I want to be with you.”

His chest rose as he took a deep breath. “They have rooms here,” he said.

“I hope so. I mean, it is a hotel.”

“Do you—”

“Yes.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

When they were back inside the lobby she went to the coat check counter to retrieve her purse. By the time she got it, Rick was waiting for her.

He held up a hotel key card with a grin. Then he took her by the hand and led her to the elevators.

“Rick, I need to tell you…”

He looked down at her, and the heat in his gaze made her stomach flutter.

“You can tell me anything.”

“It's just… I'm not sure I can… It's been a long time for me. I want to spend the night with you, but I'm not sure I'm ready for…”

“Hold that thought for a second,” he said as the elevator doors opened and he pulled her inside.

When the doors closed again he backed her against the wall and kissed her, his hands thrust into her hair and his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth.

Her bones melted as she kissed him back, sliding her arms around his waist and pulling him closer.

He broke the kiss before she was ready and she made a little sound of protest.

“This is what I want to do tonight,” he whispered. “I want to be alone with you, and kiss you, and do everything you're ready for and nothing you're not. Okay?”

She didn't trust herself to speak, so she just nodded. Rick smiled and leaned close again, but then the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, so he took her hand instead and led her across the hall to another set of elevators.

Rick inserted his key card into a slot and the doors opened, this time for a short ride up just one floor.

When the doors opened again, Allison found herself looking into an opulent two-room suite with a wall of windows overlooking the city. She gasped, and Rick smiled with obvious pleasure at her reaction. “I thought you'd like it.”

He went over to the mahogany entertainment console, turning on the satellite radio and finding the station he wanted. Frank Sinatra was singing “They Can't Take That Away From Me,” and he turned back to Allison, walking toward her with his hand outstretched.

She took it, and he pulled her into his arms.

They danced around the big living room with the city lights glinting through the picture windows, and her blood seemed to be shimmering instead of flowing through her veins.

There was a knock on the door, and Rick led her over to the couch before he went to go answer it.

“Pajamas,” he said as he came back, carrying two white boxes, one large and one small.

“Wow,” she said, smiling up at him. “I didn't realize you could order pajamas like room service.”

“I asked downstairs if they'd raid the hotel boutique for us.”

Her heart warmed. “Thanks,” she said.

He sat down beside her, taking off his jacket and loosening his tie, and Allison realized why the look was so familiar.

“You look exactly like you did in that picture. The one in
People
.”

He groaned. “Don't remind me.”

“You looked so sexy,” she said, leaning back against the cushions and smiling at him. “The week after we
had dinner that first night, I stole Rachel's copy of the magazine and brought it home with me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You did?”

“I did.”

He grinned at her. “I still have that issue of the
Gazette
, the one with the pictures of us. And I keep your book on my night table. I stare at your face every night before I go to sleep.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

There was a moment of silence between them, charged and electric, and Allison reached for the box that held her pajamas to break the tension.

“I think I'll go put these on,” she said.

“I was hoping you might indulge me in one thing first.”

She swallowed. “What would that be?”

“Ever since you opened your apartment door tonight, I've been wanting to unzip that dress.”

Her heart thumped against her ribs. “Just unzip it?”

He nodded.

After a moment's hesitation she moved over next to him and turned her back. She felt his hands against her bare skin, and then the slow slide of the zipper. He pressed a kiss against the nape of her neck and she got goose bumps on top of goose bumps.

“Let me take off your shoes,” he said in a voice that made her knees weak, and she put a hand to the top of her dress to make sure it stayed up as she scooted back to her side of the couch, reclining back against the armrest and lifting her feet into his lap.

He slid the sandals off slowly, one after the other.

Her small feet seemed lost in his big hands as he
stroked his thumbs across her insteps, over and over, a sensation so exquisite she had to close her eyes, unable to do anything but feel. When his hands moved higher, over her ankles and along her calves, she started to quiver.

She wanted him to go higher. She wanted to invite him into all her secret places. There was a sudden throbbing of heat and wetness at her center, a wild longing to open for him, to let him into the very heart of her.

“You should go get changed,” he said after a moment.

She got to her feet a little shakily. “Can I show you something first?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That's a question you never have to ask.”

The pile of the carpet felt thick and luxurious under her stocking feet. “My sister made me buy this black lace garter belt…”

She paused, keeping one hand on the bodice of her dress as she slowly pulled up her skirt.

“When I was putting it on, I had this fantasy of you seeing it.”

The top of the slit rose to her hip, showing the black strap against her bare skin and the ribboned clasp holding up the top of her stocking.

The look in his eyes was more than she'd imagined in her fantasy.

“What doesn't kill us makes us stronger,” he murmured. “I'd like to think that by continuing to sit here and not undoing that thing with my teeth, I'm building character.”

“Character is important,” she said, her voice husky.
She took a deep breath. Then she put both her hands at her sides and let her dress slip to the floor.

For a second he just stared at her. Then he rose to his feet, moving slowly and deliberately, and closed the space between them.

When she felt his hands on the bare skin of her waist, she gasped.

“I don't know how I got through last week,” he whispered. His eyes were on hers, the pupils so dilated they looked black. “I want you so much. I've wanted you from the moment I saw you.”

His hands moved slowly up her sides, and she felt a restless ache start between her legs. “Me, too,” she said indistinctly, her voice shaking.

“Liar,” he said, leaning closer. “You thought I was a jerk the first time we met.”

“And the second time, if we're being honest…”

He smiled, his hands stopping just under her bra.

“And now?”

“Now I think you're…okay.”

“Just okay?” His thumbs moved, caressing the undersides of her breasts through the lace of her bra. Desire stabbed through her, leaving her knees weak.

“Definitely better than okay.”

“How much better?”

His hands moved higher, and she held her breath. When his thumbs stroked across her aching nipples, a spasm rocked her body.

Her knees buckled, but before she could collapse he scooped her into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all.

She rested her head against his chest as he carried her into the bedroom. Her hand found a gap between the
buttons of his shirt and she slid inside, touching his bare skin, where she could feel his heart pounding against her fingers.

He laid her down on the bed and covered her body with his own, kissing her fiercely, hungrily, his tongue tangling with hers and his weight pinning her to the mattress.

She wanted him closer. She opened her legs and wrapped them around his waist. She felt the length of his erection pressed against her center and she knew that was what she wanted, needed, craved on such a primal level she hardly recognized the wild sound that escaped her throat.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck for a second, saying her name against her skin. Then his hands were underneath her, at the clasp of her bra, and in the second after it was gone his mouth was on her breast.

She cried out, arching her back, and then he was circling one nipple with his tongue while he caressed the other with his fingers, stroking until she was pushing herself against him, unable to stay still.

He kissed between her breasts and lower, and when he got to her garter belt she heard it rip. “I'll buy you another one,” he said, and then he was tugging her panties and her stockings down her legs.

Before she knew what was happening he'd hooked her knees over his shoulders and his mouth was on her again, so intimately this time she twisted away in instinctive shyness.

But his strong hands were on her hips as he held her in place against him, against his mouth, his tongue, and her motions intensified the sensation until she was moving with him, rocking with him, doing everything his
hands urged her to do as a new kind of pressure started to build inside her.

Her hands fisted in the sheets as she fought to breathe, and the pressure tightened and coiled in every muscle. When the explosion came she called out his name, her head thrown back, the wave of pleasure so intense it left her shaking.

She came down slowly, sweetly, through layers of warmth and pleasure. She'd come undone and Rick was weaving her together again, moving up her body with exquisite slowness, kissing her as softly as snow falling on snow.

When he made it all the way up she'd regained some muscle control, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he kissed her long and deep.

After a while he rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow.

“I got a little carried away there,” he said, reaching out a hand to brush the sweat-dampened hair from her forehead. “I meant to go slow, but you were so incredible…so responsive…”

She gave a long, shuddering sigh. “I didn't know I could be like that. I didn't know anything could feel like that.” She took another breath, and then turned on her side to face him, her face pillowed on her arm. “We're not done, are we?”

He was still running his fingers through her hair. “We can be, if you're tired.”

“I'm not tired at all. And you still have all your clothes on.”

He smiled at her. “We've got all night, Allison. I can wait.”

“I don't want to wait,” she said. “I want you naked
now. I dream about seeing you naked. I've been ogling you for weeks.”

She sat up and put a hand on his shoulder, pushing gently until he lay flat on his back.

His eyes traveled down her naked body and back up to her face. “Now that you have me at your mercy, what are you going to do with me?”

“I'm going to take your clothes off,” she said, reaching out to undo the top button of his shirt.

She took her time, her movements slow and precise, and when he actually growled at her she just smiled and moved onto the second, and the third. She undid them all, and then brushed her palms across the hard planes of his chest as she slid the shirt off his shoulders. He shifted so she could pull it off completely, and then lay back down as she leaned forward to kiss her way up his torso. She could feel his heart pounding.

“Allison, you're killing me,” he said, reaching for her.

“I'm not done yet,” she told him, catching his arms and putting them back down by his sides. Then she lowered his zipper and tugged his pants down his legs, letting him kick them off once they were past his knees.

“Black silk boxers,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Very sexy.” She took hold of the waistband and slid them down and off, helping him shed his socks, too.

Only then did she let herself look at him, really look at him, at his long, hard-muscled body and the erection jutting out from his hips.

For the first time, she felt a little nervous.

He rose up on his elbows, and the hunger in his eyes made her tremble.

She scooted up the bed so she could stretch out next to him. “Maybe you can take over for a while,” she said.