Chapter 2
Stunned by all that had just occurred, Alice gestured distractedly at the wineglass on the bar beside her. “Ron already took care of that.”
“Uh-huh. Looked to me like he was about ready to collect something in return for his generosity.”
“So you stepped in and saved me?”
He gave her a self-satisfied smile. “Helping out ladies in distress is a hobby of mine.”
“I see. Did it ever occur to you that Ron and I might have been having a great time?”
With simple surety, he replied, “No.”
“No?”
He repeated, “No. You looked miserable.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He accompanied his next words with a smile that would have convinced a virgin to strip off her knickers in three seconds flat. “Gorgeous but miserable. That guy wasn’t right for you.”
“Oh really?” Alice asked, steadfastly ignoring the way her heart picked up pace at that smile and the effortless gorgeous compliment. It had rolled off his tongue with a practiced ease she’d have to be moronic not to be leery of. “And I suppose you think you’re a better candidate?”
He lifted a shoulder, a gesture meant to suggest the answer was obvious. Maybe he had a point, considering that the proximity of his knees to hers was enough to have heat traveling up Alice’s thighs to settle in the V between them.
She really had been alone too long.
Alice studied him in more detail, unable to do anything other than drink him in the way she would any truly spectacular view. He had nice shoulders beneath that quality suit jacket. His hair was so light brown it was almost blonde. Dirty blonde, it would be called if he were a woman—and he definitely wasn’t that. He gave off manly pheromones as noticeably as Ron had given off the scent of bad cologne. A testosterone-fueled wolf in a businessman’s clothing. The kind of man all except the most sexually confident women knew to steer clear of.
Alice was not a sexually confident woman.
“I at least would have stuck around long enough to discuss the finer points of your particular…” He paused and smiled that smile again. “Tastes. You never know, we might have reached a compromise.”
“Oh, I’m not sure your average Dominatrix is a great fan of compromise.”
He chuckled. “It’s funny you chose that role for yourself.”
“You were the one who brought up sadomasochism.”
“But I never said which one of us was supposed to be the sub and which the Dom. You were the one who introduced cock rings to the conversation. Are you a closet Dominatrix, Alice?”
A flush rose to Alice’s cheeks. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
Damien smiled knowingly. “Didn’t think so.”
“Oh really?” Alice hated it when people made assumptions about her. What did this guy think—she didn’t have the moxie to pull off leather and whips? She could rock a pair of thigh-high boots as well as the next girl…if she owned a pair, that was. “Because it’s so very ridiculous, isn’t it? The idea that a man might let a woman take control once in a while. Tell me, are all men so frightened of any and all displays of female power?”
Damien assessed her with shrewdly narrowed eyes. Alice’s cheeks burned hotter when she realized how fervently the words had erupted from her lips. She’d inadvertently given away too much. She’d let some guy in a bar see some of her personal anguish and regret.
And Damien De Luca was not the type to let an insight like that slip by unnoticed.
“So who was it, Alice? Who took away your power?”
“No one.” Alice took a gulp of her wine. Apparently it loosened her tongue because she added, “I gave it away willingly.”
He angled his head. “How so?”
“I got married,” she drawled. “Became the perfect wife, just like everyone expected me to. The thing is, I didn’t realize it wasn’t what I wanted until it was too late.”
Alice stared into her wine, trying to ignore the hot imprint of Damien’s gaze as it traced her profile. But she was ultra-aware of his presence, the heat emanating from his body and the laden interest in his assessment.
Interest. In her. It had been such a long time since a good-looking man even glanced her way that Alice couldn’t tamp down the leap of excitement, nor control the ebullient inflation of her feminine ego. Despite her suspicion he was the dangerous, egotistical type, a dyed-in-the-wool player, his attention was immensely flattering.
Arousing. Not much had aroused her in a long, long time.
“Should I get my hopes up because you’re speaking about your marriage in the past tense?”
“Your hopes.” Alice forced herself to meet his gaze, determined not to shy away even though the eye contact made her thighs clench. “Come on.”
He shrugged at her disbelieving tone. “You’re a smart woman, Alice. You have to know there’s a reason I got rid of your friend Ron—other than pure altruism, of course.”
Alice stared at him until his focused concentration unsettled her so much she had to turn away after all. She glanced around the busy wine bar, seeing table after table of women—girls, really—talking in groups, their scantily clad bodies telegraphing their availability. They outnumbered the men in the bar three to one.
“I don’t get it,” she murmured. “Why me?”
“There’s something about you,” Damien said simply. “I like what I see.”
His bald explanation was more seductive than a flowery line could ever be. Alice’s blood stirred, heating her in places that hadn’t been heated in quite some time.
Jeez, Alice. You’re so easy. She straightened her spine, forcing a brusque tone so she wouldn’t give away that his words had thrilled her just a little. Maybe a lot. “Right, well let’s go then, shall we? Back to your place for a look at the etchings.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest anything like that.” Damien smiled.
Alice’s cheeks tingled with heat once again and she focused her attention on gulping down the last of her wine. She tensed when Damien leaned toward her, coming out of his seat enough that he could slide his cheek softly against hers. He put one hand on the back of her chair to brace his weight, effectively closing her in. Yet rather than feeling trapped, Alice felt warm, sheltered.
The other hand, he rested on her thigh. Beneath his touch, her flesh ignited. Her skin prickled with awareness when Damien brushed his lips ever so lightly over her earlobe.
His voice was filled with husky amusement and suggestive promise. “Because I don’t etch. However, I am open to discussing anything else of mine you might want to see.”
Heat spiraled inside her, expanding like a phoenix that rose, wings stretching, from the ashes of her once healthy sexual appetite. Flames flickered to life, fanned by the weight of Damien’s hand resting on her thigh. On top of the dress, not under it like Ron, yet it seemed so, so much more intimate. He stroked her lightly, enough to make the slinky fabric shift against the skin left bare above the tops of her stockings.
Alice knew the instant he encountered the garters by the way his hand froze. The slight hitch in his breath was a dead giveaway as well. She might have been out of practice but at thirty-four years of age she wasn’t naïve. She was aware of the effect sexy lingerie could have on the average man.
Not that Damien De Luca brought the word average to mind.
He pulled back far enough so he could see into her eyes. “Well, well, Alice. You’re not as proper or nice as you appear to be.”
Alice struggled to catch her breath. She fought even harder to sound cavalier in the face of his flirtatious tone and the hot imprint of his hand where it still rested on her thigh. “And how nice did you think I was?”
“Too nice. The kind of nice that made you sit through twenty-five minutes of excruciating conversation with a drunk used-car salesman because you were too polite to tell him to rack off.”
“I was just about to do it when you intervened.”
“Twenty minutes too late. He was beneath you. I knew it from the second I saw you with him from across the room.”
He’d watched her from across the room? For a whole twenty-five minutes? The knowledge should have creeped her out but somehow it didn’t. Was it because he was sinfully handsome? Shallow, Alice. Very shallow.
At last Damien moved away, resting once more against the back of his stool and giving Alice some much-needed space. He lifted his beer and took a long pull, finishing off the remains of the bottle. Alice gazed at the sensuous undulation of his throat muscles. Sensuous. Dear lord, she was horny if she thought a man swilling beer was sexy.
He rested his empty bottle on the bar and pinned her with his blue-eyed stare. “I’d like to be more forward with you, Alice.”
Alice sputtered a laugh. “You haven’t been doing that already?”
“No way. I’ve been holding back.” That roguish grin curved his lips and Alice nearly melted. She didn’t even want to imagine how Damien De Luca would behave if he wasn’t holding back.
That was a lie. She did want to, was already imagining it in fact. He was the take-charge type. If they were alone he’d have her pinned to the wall by now, his mouth on hers, his hands… Her breathing quickened as she pictured all the places she’d be willing to let him put his hands. Basically everywhere. And his tongue—his impossibly arrogant, clever tongue. She wanted that everywhere too.
Her nether regions throbbed, a hard pulse of base lust. She was hot for him. A complete stranger who’d barely touched her and she was fired up like a race car that had been held back in the pit too long.
She wanted to burn rubber. So. Bad.
Alice started when he grasped her barstool and moved it forward, bringing her closer to him. In the process, one of his knees nudged between her thighs, effectively parting them. Alice held her breath when Damien’s hand skimmed along her silk stocking, moving up and up her leg, under her dress, until his fingers brushed the bare flesh of her inner thigh.
Her heart started a rhythm that had cardiac arrest written all over it. Wet heat pooled in Alice’s panties, panties Damien was going to touch if he kept moving his hand higher and higher…
“What are you doing?” She wished her question sounded more like an objection and less like a wistful moan.
“I’m just touching you.” His voice was blasé while his hand was being downright impertinent. The disparity increased the whirling confusion that existed where Alice’s common sense used to be. “Why so tense?”
“Are you being intentionally obtuse or are… Oh God!” Alice flinched, her whole body jerking when Damien’s fingertip tickled the satin of her panties. His behavior was shocking, unseemly, indecent. She ought to leap off the barstool right now and slap him across his impudent, smiling face.
Alice was quite sure she would have done it too if her synapses were in any kind of working order. She knew she was supposed to upbraid him but her knees were too weak. The fevered excitement coursing through her system made her hot and cold all at once.
This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening…
“You’re wet,” Damien remarked, once more brushing his fingers over the damp material covering her crotch. “No way did Ron do that.”
God, he was smug. Alice lowered her voice to a hiss. “You made me wet. So?”
“So…I bet I could make you come too.” To back up his statement, Damien added the slightest pressure with his fingers, right against her inflamed clit.
It throbbed in response, sending hot shivers over Alice’s body. Her mouth dried out but when she reached for her wineglass she saw it was empty. When did that happen?
When had her entire world spun out of control?
With a start Alice realized she wasn’t doing anything to stop Damien’s skillful explorations. If anything her legs had melted farther apart, desire and want pervading her body like a hit of some opiate. Her pussy clenched, yearning for his fingers. Would he do that—go that far right here in a public bar?
Suddenly panicked, Alice glanced around at the other patrons, expecting to see shocked expressions, accusing stares. Some people talked in groups, some sat together as couples, all of them only interested in their companions. In the murky light, nobody was paying attention to her. The full skirt of her dress hid Damien’s hand from any prying eyes anyway.
“No one’s looking.” Damien’s murmured words confirmed her thoughts. “Relax, Alice.”
Relax? Every nerve ending in her body was on red alert, straining in anticipation. Her nipples ached where they pressed against the lacy cups of her bra. Her breathing had shallowed, become little more than a series of weak pants as Damien stroked his sure finger over her. Alice lost oxygen altogether when he found the edge of her flimsy underwear and slipped his finger beneath it.
The bartender came to collect their empties and Alice froze, her heart in her throat. As cool as can be, as though his fingers weren’t inside her panties, nearly inside her, Damien asked the server for two glasses of water. Then the guy disappeared, showing no sign he’d noticed the flush in her cheeks or the position of Damien’s hand beneath her skirt. Alice let out a slow breath.
Her relief was short-lived. Tension coiled in her belly once more when Damien leaned close and said, “Before he gets back, I’m going to make you come.”
Nothing like a time limit to pile on the sense of urgency. For a moment the fog cleared a little and Alice thought of telling him to stick it, of storming out like she should have five minutes ago. But then Damien gave her swollen clit a good, long stroke. Her thighs began to quiver uncontrollably. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. It had already started and Alice didn’t want to stop.
It had been so long, over a year since she’d known a man’s intimate touch. And she’d never been touched quite like this, with so much confidence and authority. Damien strummed her clit the way a skilled musician did an instrument, making beautiful music vibrate through her frame. She yearned to feel that strong, talented finger thrust hard and deep inside her but in this position he couldn’t go quite that far. The sense of denial was a frustration and a turn-on at once.
The bartender was still filling their water glasses when the inevitable hit her like an electric pulse. Alice had to grip the bar with one hand and cover her mouth with the other. She stifled the moans of release as she came hard against Damien’s circling finger. Wetness spilled into her panties in a rush.
Damien muttered a curse that she barely heard over the pounding of blood in her ears. He gave her clit a parting flick before slowly withdrawing his hand from her underwear. The second the bartender set their water glasses on the bar, Alice grabbed hers and took a thirsty sip from the straw, trying to soothe her parched throat.
Too bad she couldn’t soothe her sense of shame so easily. She stared at the ice swirling in her glass, afraid to look at Damien. What must he think of her? No doubt that she was some desperate divorcée who was so deprived of a man’s touch she came apart at the slightest provocation.
In other words, the truth.
Still without looking at him, Alice gathered her evening bag from where she’d hooked it over the back of the barstool and stood. “Well, that was…” She had no words, something that would have shocked her ex-husband Cal. He always told her she talked everything to death, that it took all the fun out of things. Not so boring now, am I, Cal? Boring people didn’t let strangers finger them in public. She was pretty sure it was against the boring person code.
“Alice.” Damien’s hands on her hips stopped her from escaping as she badly wanted to. “The word you’re looking for is ‘amazing’. That was amazing.”
“Not the word I was thinking of but I suppose it applies,” Alice drawled. “I think I should go.”
“Wait.” His grip tightened. “Are you going to look at me?”
“Oh, I think eye contact is overrated.”
“Alice.” The note of censure in his voice provoked an automatic response in her.
Obedience.
Her acquiescence annoyed her yet Alice couldn’t stop herself from doing as he bid. She met his gaze, expecting to find an expression of triumph on his too-handsome face. Instead she saw reverence, respect, even approval. His blue eyes, which had sparkled with arrogance before, were now warm with a kindness Alice hadn’t expected to see in him.
His voice was soft and rough at the same time. “You’re beautiful.”
With him still seated and her standing in heels, they were perfectly aligned. Before she could think better of it, Alice moved forward and pressed her mouth to his. Immediately he drove a hand into her curls, holding her head still so she couldn’t back away. His tongue nudged at her lips and she found herself capitulating. She parted on a sigh, allowing his tongue to sweep inside her mouth and take possession.
The kiss was breathtaking, somehow more intimate than his making her orgasm had been. Alice was stunned when the desire she’d thought quenched rose within her anew, making her nipples prod at the silky front of her dress.
She was disconcerted and more than a little embarrassed by her reaction to him. As though sensing her instinctive urge to flee, Damien kept a firm grip on her with one hand while his other gently massaged her scalp. The twin touches both prevented her from breaking away and coaxed her to remain.
When the kiss finally ended, Alice was very much aware it was Damien’s decision to stop, not hers. She was breathless and aroused, her thoughts in such a mess that when he spoke his words made no sense at first.
“I have a room at the place across the road.”
Alice blinked, wondering what he was talking about. A room, as in a hotel room, dummy. She tried to muster some outrage that he was inviting her to his room on so short an acquaintance but she couldn’t, not considering what she’d already let him do.
“I can’t leave a bar with a man I don’t even know.” Alice grasped for a reason other than her sense of decency, which had taken a powder the second she let him finger her in public. “It’s dangerous.”
“Perhaps the fact we don’t know each other is what makes it safe.”
For the briefest instant his eyes were crystal clear, revealing a depth Alice hadn’t expected. She’d thought him a player, a hedonistic creature and a man who always got what he wanted. But with his words and the flickering shadow that crossed his expression, Alice saw a person for whom making human connections had proven difficult, even painful.
Welcome to the club.
Alice fought against the tug of empathy that made her heart shift. No way should her heart have anything to do with this, even if she decided to take things further. Perhaps especially if. The fact we don’t know each other is what makes it safe. Maybe the mysterious and sexy Damien De Luca had a point.
“Tell you what, I’ll give you this.” He pulled a slim card from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to her. “You should call a friend you trust and give her my details, tell her where you’ll be. The hotel I’m staying in also has a twenty-four-hour concierge and security cameras. I’m not inviting you to my room so I can chop you into little pieces.”
That was a possibility she certainly should have considered before he brought it up. Very remiss of her not to assume he was a serial killer. She read the silver-on-black printing on the card. She looked up at him in surprise. “You’re a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Of like…philosophy?”
Damien laughed softly. “Of like…medicine.”
“Oh.” Alice blushed now that she realized what a dumb question she’d asked. Dr. Damien De Luca wasn’t the buried-in-dusty-research-books type. She read the card again and registered that his business address was a place in Sydney. An out-of-town address, a hotel room…this obviously wasn’t the beginning of anything long-term.
Which was good. Alice had no desire to get into another relationship right now. But she’d never actually had sex with someone she knew there was no relationship potential with. Casual sex, for the sake of sex and nothing more. She’d thought she wanted it but had never actually had it. What would it be like?
Damien stood, his height dwarfing her. Alice was five feet nine so it took a tall guy to make her feel like that. He bent down and murmured in her ear, “I really enjoyed what we just did but I’d rather get you alone so I could be more…thorough.”
Alice’s knees wobbled. Thorough… Oh God. Damien seemed like a true A type, the kind who had to be the best at everything. Based on her experiences with Cal, which had been satisfying but fairly nondescript, Alice knew instinctively Damien De Luca might be the best lover she’d ever have. If she took the risk and let him be.
Sex for the sake of sex and nothing more, with a walking, talking Ryan Gosling meme with edge. Hey girl, I’m going to rub your feet and feed you chocolate-coated strawberries, then I’m going to fuck you in five different positions and make you come repeatedly until you pass out.
The idea certainly had appeal.
“Think about it, Alice. Room 1208 at the Park Towers. I’ll be waiting.”