Lovegame(16)

The silken glide of his hair across my lips, my breasts, my stomach.

Heat sparks deep inside of me, unfurls in my abdomen. My nipples tighten of their own volition and I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware of the feel of my clothes against my skin.

Is this what it feels like, then? Is this heightened awareness, this heightened sensitivity, what everyone is on about all the time?

Is this what real, true desire feels like?

His gaze meets mine, then, and the question—whatever it is—is still there. But with it is a sudden awareness, a knowledge of what I’m thinking. What I’m feeling. I can see it in the rapid rise and fall of his chest, can feel it in the wave of heat emanating from him. Can hear it in the sudden harsh intake of breath that shatters the silence of the room.

“Veronica.” My name is husky on his lips, dark, and as he takes a step toward me, I take two back.

I never retreat, never give up ground. Not in public and never, ever in private.

But this is different than my usual encounters. This is real and I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with that. With him.

“Veronica.” This time when he says my name, it’s a question mixed with some underlying thread of emotion I can’t quite identify.

He doesn’t come any closer and still I take another step back. Still I seek to put distance between us. He makes me nervous when for years I’ve made a point never to let a man matter enough to make me nervous. The fact that he does…I don’t know. Not what it means or what I’m supposed to do about it.

I lick my lips, force moisture into my too dry mouth. “What else do you want to see?”

“What?” He sounds as dazed as I feel.

I swallow, ignoring the bowling ball in my stomach and the heat still sliding along right under my skin. “You said you had something else you wanted to see in here. What is it?”

“Something that matters.”

“I don’t understand.” Is this sudden onset of lust making me stupid or is he talking in riddles?

“I want you to pick one thing from this room—besides the ceiling your dad had made for you—that matters to you and I want you to tell me why. It can be anything.”

Fuck. No.

Fuck, no.

Fuck no.

In the seconds after his pronouncement, I run the gamut of emotions as I frantically try to figure out how to get out of this. Normally I’d flirt a little, distract him that way. But that’s not an option right now, not when he’s looking at me like that’s exactly what he expects me to do. And now when I’m feeling so unsteady. So…vulnerable.

I shudder at the word, at the lack of protection it implies. And at the knowledge that the feeling will only get worse if I tell him what he wants to know.

Because there’s only one thing in this room that matters to me, only one thing I give a damn about, and I would destroy it myself before I let him—before I let anyone—know about it.





Chapter 5


“Veronica?” I feel like a parrot as I say her name for the third time in as many minutes. But something’s going on here and I can’t quite figure out what it is.

I’ve been attracted to her since pretty much the minute she slid into the booth across from me at the café yesterday—pretty hard not to be when she looks the way she looks and is the way she is. And while there have been a few times through the last two days that I thought she might return the sentiment, she’s pretty hard to read and even harder to pin down.

Until right now.

Or, more specifically, until a couple minutes ago. Because at this moment she’s looking at me with a combination of horror and calculation that is as fascinating as it is concerning. I just wish I knew why.

When she’d worked so hard to break the sexual tension that stretched between us like a circus high wire, I’d gone along with it. Had even lobbed an easy question at her so that she could get her balance back. So we both could.

That isn’t what’s happening here, though. Instead, she’s freaking out.

Oh, she’s doing her best to hide it, and maybe—if I hadn’t just spent the last eight hours studying her every movement, her every expression and inflection—I wouldn’t notice. But I didn’t take my eyes off of her during the photo shoot today and if I know nothing else right now, I know that what I just asked shut her down completely.

My only question is Why?

Her phone rings before I can ask it though, and she grabs for it like a drowning woman grabs for an inner tube—with a kind of terrified disbelief and desperate joy that the ordeal is almost over.

Veronica glances at the caller ID on her phone and her face smooths out, her expression becoming totally unreadable. “I’m sorry. I need to take this.”

“Of course. I’ll head downstairs for that coffee you keep offering me.”

“Great.” She nods, already distracted by whomever is on the other line. “I’ll meet you down there in a couple minutes.”

“Take your time.”

I head out of the suite and she pulls the doors closed after me with a sharp crack that echoes through the empty halls. I’m curious, really curious, so for a moment I think about hanging around, just to watch her body language through the glass doors. But that feels like cheating, especially since I’m certain that whoever she’s talking to has absolutely nothing to do with Vargas or my research.