Flirting With Intent (9 page)

‘I know.’ She opened the case and watched Damon’s gaze sharpen upon the tiles as most everyone’s did when they first viewed the set. Pewter-backed jade, each piece exquisitely carved and painted and then polished to high gloss—each tile so perfectly matched to the next that there could be no telling them apart once they were face down.

‘It’s said this set once belonged to the emperor’s favourite concubine and that she won many a concession from her lover when the tiles were played. I hope you don’t mind if we play on a velvet cloth,’ she murmured dulcetly. ‘It’s a very sensual experience. And of course it protects the pieces.’

Damon made no reply, just started in on his shirt buttons and then peeled it off and handed it to her. ‘This being the shirt off my back,’ he said. ‘Take it. It’ll save time.’

‘It’s also rumoured that a lot of games between the emperor and his concubine remained unfinished.’ Ruby took the shirt from
him and steeled herself not to ogle his very fine form. ‘Now I know why.’

‘Happy to do as much illuminating as you want on that score, Ruby. He was probably trying to distract her.’

‘Well, I’m sure she appreciated his efforts,’ she murmured. ‘What a giver.’

Damon smiled, slow and lazy, and Ruby shivered, and not with apprehension. Something about this man called to her and it wasn’t just his beautiful body and it certainly wasn’t his zealously guarded mind. Maybe it was the yearning she sensed in his soul.

‘C’mere,’ he said, and Ruby went and gave herself over to him willingly, to the taste of him and the responsiveness of her skin beneath his touch. A fleeting kiss and then another as he teased her lips with his and made the ache inside her grow.

‘Distracted yet?’ he murmured.

‘Very.’

She found places for her hands on his chest. A puckered nipple beneath one palm and the ridges of his stomach beneath another. ‘Last night,’ she whispered, ‘was so … so …’

‘Don’t say disappointing.’

‘Unexpected.’ As he slid her hair comb
from her hair and set his lips to the skin behind her ear. ‘And unbelievably hot. I’ve been trying to figure out the why of it all morning.’

‘I’m blaming it on the limo,’ he whispered, threading his fingers through her hair and drawing her into an open-mouthed kiss that as far as Ruby was concerned destroyed his limo argument outright. ‘All that forced intimacy.’

‘I’m thinking of blaming it on Santa,’ she offered, and closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the fire in his touch.

‘Not exactly a reasoned argument.’

Ruby countered by sliding her hand down until she found the iron-hard length of him, deeply satisfied when he groaned and surged against her hand and then in one swift movement picked her up and planted her on the table, her legs wide as he stepped in between them and showed her exactly where he wanted that shaft to be. ‘Better than yours, though. Where’s the limo now?’

‘What limo?’ he muttered and his eyes were dark with desire. ‘Where’s your bed?’

‘Down the hall, first door on the right.’

By the time they got there Ruby’s clothes were gone and so were his, two of the hallway
pictures were askew and the walls had received a battering.

He gave himself so freely to pleasure, and Ruby did too, until they were both bathed in touch and taste and the heady scent of arousal, and then he rolled until she sat astride him and he positioned her for his entry and made it slow and glorious.

Ruby closed her eyes and wrapped her hands around his forearms while he sat up and worked his clever lips and tongue over her neck and throat. Piling distraction upon distraction and lacing it with an abandon she couldn’t resist.

There were no rules with this man. She wanted him at her breast, and he took it with a groan and paid attention and made her scream. He kissed his way down her body after that, and he turned her on her back and took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the wrought-iron bed bars above her head and told her to keep them there and then proceeded to string kisses across her stomach and her hip, her thigh and finally her core, and he knew what he was doing, heaven help her he did, and she entreated him and cursed him in the same breath as he took her to a land far, far away.

There’d been a magical quality to last night’s love-making that had taken Ruby unawares and turned the night golden, and today was no different.

He made her feel loved, and he made her feel beautiful as he let her ride out her climax and then entered her as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer.

‘Now you can touch me,’ he whispered, and touch him she did, only she could never quite get enough, and her need built again, he made damn sure of that.

Need over reason, for how could reason explain this?

‘Let go, Damon, just let go now. I’ll come with you, I swear I will.’

And it was as if her words released the leash he’d kept on himself and stripped away every barrier. He shuddered hard and clung to her as he spilled himself deep inside her, and Ruby flew with him this time, not even half a heartbeat behind as together they found oblivion.

Just as she’d promised.

‘The things you do to me,’ he murmured as they lay on the bed, both of them on their backs, their bodies spent and separate but the
connection between them running stronger than ever. He lifted his arm from his elbow down, made a fist and then stretched his fingers wide, and Ruby raised her hand to his and he threaded his fingers through hers. ‘The concessions you wring from me.’

‘I’d hardly call a thimbleful of honesty between lovers a concession,’ she murmured lazily. ‘Although maybe in your case I should. Maybe you should favour me with another example of your concessions, just so I can identify them in future.’

‘Give me five minutes and I’ll get right onto it.’ He shot her a lazy, satisfied smile. ‘Maybe ten.’

‘Give me a memory from your childhood, something you don’t usually reveal, and I’ll give you anything you want.’

‘Big promises, Empress.’

‘Chances are I’ll never have to deliver, Concession Boy.’

He closed his eyes. He shut her out. ‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Not something I tell the world.’

Careful where your wishes take you, Ruby,
she thought grimly, but it was too late to turn back now. ‘That’s understandable.’

Damon said nothing.

‘Did your family hold it against you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’

Ruby let go of Damon’s hand, the better to prop herself up on one elbow and look at him. But she slid her other hand in his the minute she could and he didn’t pull away. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said simply.

‘Didn’t stop me from spending most of my teens trying to push them away.’

‘And then you got over yourself?’ she asked hopefully, and he smiled wryly and brought her hand to his chest.

‘Let’s just say I finally figured out how much I needed them. And how much they needed me to come good. To make their loss worthwhile. To make it mean something.’

‘Or, they could’ve just been waiting for you to stop beating yourself up over something you had no control over so that you could finally see how much they loved you. That’d work too. As an argument for persistence in the face of your rebellion.’

‘The lawyer speaks.’

‘Well, if reasoned argument isn’t working for you, I dare say I could always try kissing
you better. Provided of course that you tell me where it hurts.’

‘My shoulder,’ he murmured, his eyes dark and guarded, and she kissed his shoulder and he took a shuddering breath.

‘My chest,’ he said next and she kissed him above his heart and then she took his nipple in her mouth and Damon loosened his hold on her hand and the next thing she knew his hand was in her hair, the better to hold her against him.

‘My side.’ Little more than a rumble, but she heard him and she kissed him there, as he started to stiffen against her once more, ten minutes to resurrection be damned.

‘Where else?’ she whispered.

‘You know where.’

‘Say it.’

But he didn’t say a word.

‘Why, Damon West,’ she said with a grin and slid her mouth another inch or two down his stupendous body. ‘I do believe you’re repressed. Who knew?’

‘I am not repr—’ he began warningly, and then she licked and made a meal out of him and he sucked in his breath and shut the hell up.

‘Something on your mind?’ she murmured
long moments later. ‘Because you’d tell me if there was, right?’ ‘Right,’ he rasped.

‘Liar.’ She found the base of him and kissed him there and set her hand to him and he caught her hair up in his hands and strained within her grasp. ‘This, by the way, is
my
concession to you and I do hope you like it. Feel free to distract me whenever you’ve had enough.’ Damon groaned. Ruby licked.

‘Is my hand too tight?’ She slid it slowly up and down the generous length of him. ‘Mouth too warm?’ She slid that up and down the length of him too and interpreted his guttural groan as a no. ‘Because you’d tell me, right?’

‘Right.’

He let her pleasure him, for a time. And then he lifted her into his arms and slid inside her and Ruby could have cried at how right it felt to make love with this particular man, lose herself in him even.

But she didn’t cry and she didn’t say a word about how easily he could shatter her defences. Nor did she mention the decidedly inconvenient and somewhat frightening
fact that she’d never felt this way with anyone before.

Ruby Maguire knew how to keep secrets too.

T
HE
aftermath of love-making wasn’t always easy, conceded Damon. There could be awkwardness and boundaries to re-establish. Control to find. Leave to be taken, provided clothes could be found. So far, Damon had managed to find his clothes. Ruby hadn’t even managed that, but then, she didn’t have family waiting and wondering where the hell she was.

‘What time is it?’ she said.

‘Four.’

‘That late?’ She sat up abruptly, every inch the dishevelled wanton, and the corners of Damon’s mouth kicked in response.

‘I’m taking that as a compliment.’

‘And so you should.’ Ruby slipped from the bed and found her dress, no awkwardness in her whatsoever and it helped ease his. ‘Your powers of distraction are truly—’

Ruby laid a hand over her heart ‘—
truly
stupendous.’

Damon smiled at her words and turned away and headed for the en-suite. There’d been a hell of a lot more than distraction going on here this afternoon, but if Ruby wasn’t inclined to point it out then he certainly wasn’t going to. Ruby—it seemed—had bypassed awkwardness and moved straight to the setting of boundaries. Which was fine by him.

No promises and no regrets. They could do this. And then Ruby came into the bathroom with her dress on and leaned back against the bench as he splashed his face with water and took the hand towel she offered him.

‘I need to get going soon,’ he said, and wondered at his sudden reluctance to move.

‘Want a lift?’ And when he studied the towel instead of answering, ‘I can drop you at the door?’ He moved away from the basin and Ruby took his place, took one look in the mirror and gasped and then grabbed for her hairbrush. ‘Boy, am I dropping you at the door.’

‘You look fine.’ He took the brush from her and stepped in behind her, setting brush to hair. His gaze met Ruby’s in the mirror
and it hit him like a train that he wanted this picture in his life. Wanted it with an intensity he usually reserved for his work. ‘And you’re welcome to come in.’

‘No. Thank you, but no. If you’re planning on attending your father’s Boxing Day luncheon I’ll see you tomorrow. If you’re not …’

‘I’ll be there,’ he murmured and handed her back her brush. ‘I’ll be at my father’s until the thirtieth.’

‘More information?’ she purred. ‘Why, Damon. You spoil me.’

‘No, I don’t.’ But he wanted to.

‘Anyway …’ she said with a shrug that reminded him of the shrugs of his youth. The ones designed to make people think he wasn’t hurting. ‘Time to get you home.’

She drove him to his father’s door. And then she smiled and blew him a kiss and drove away.

Russell West’s inaugural Boxing Day luncheon had been Ruby’s idea. An informal drop-in for business associates and friends, it started at midday and would go on until late as guests cycled through, staying for as long or as short a time as they wanted. The caterers were the best in the business and
came complete with service manager and wait staff, which left Ruby very little to do but stay out of the way unless issues arose.

Instigator she might have been but host she was not. She left that to Russell and his family and could not fault any of them. Both Poppy and Lena were wearing the clothes she’d chosen for them. Both looked stunning—even if she did say so herself.

Ruby wore a simple ivory skirt and jacket with a violet camisole beneath. No lace. No frou-frou at all except for a tiny crystal-embedded hair clip to hold her hair up and out of her face. Her father’s reputation preceded her these days, but she did her best to be unobtrusive in this type of company so that her presence would not reflect poorly on Russell.

No need for people to know how Russell had come by his recent social savvy. All they needed to know was that a new social circle had opened up and that it glowed with opportunity when it came to matching investors with developers, visionaries with the more practically minded, movers and shakers with those who could oil their way.

Damn right no one paid her any attention—everyone was too busy doing what they did best.

Ruby allowed herself a tiny smile. At least two major business deals would get stitched up here today. Maybe three. Not bad for a former corporate lawyer turned social PA.

‘Ruby? Is that you?’

Ruby looked up at the sound of her name, her smile turning genuine as she recognised the speaker. ‘Juliet! How are you? It’s been too long. And you are
still
the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I want your secret.’

‘Flatterer,’ said the other woman warmly as they exchanged kisses. ‘Your father taught you well.’

‘So true.’ Ruby stood back and caught the other woman’s hand. ‘I heard you’d remarried. Renauld Lang, yes?’