Page 67 of The Money Man
She fell into the exquisite rhythm of tightening and loosening, the bliss of it exploding deep within her as she felt him pumping too. When her body felt wrung out like a happy sponge, she unlocked her ankles and let her butt lower, the sliding out of his still semihard cock making her nerves twitch with a last wisp of delight.
“I won.” She gave him a seductive smile. “It doesn’t matter who came first, I definitely won.”
He disposed of his condom but continued to kneel, looking down at her with a satisfied laxity in his face and stance. “It was a tie.”
“I can live with that.” She seized his wrist and tugged at it.
He came down beside her, the front of his long body pressed against her side and his head propped on his hand. “I could live with this,” he said, his palm skimming over her shoulder and arm.
A little niggle of hope rose in her chest but she swatted it down. He was just flirting with her, post-sex. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. He didn’t mean he wanted to live with her beyond this moment.
He wound a strand of her hair around his fingers and used the end to brush at her breast, making the nipple pucker. “You can do that all you want, buster, but you have used me up. For now,” she said, even as delicious sensations rippled over her skin.
“I can wait.” He continued his marvelous torture for a few more moments. Then he bent his neck and put his lips where her hair had been, sucking ever so gently. The warmth and pull flowed through her, making her sigh and close her eyes to focus on what his mouth was doing. Then he stopped and she whimpered her regret.
“I’d like to see you when I get back from Asia.”
Her eyelids flew open to find his jaw tight and his eyebrows drawn together in a near frown. The happy tap dance her heart had started stumbled to a halt in the face of his strange expression. “I’m in,” she said but without the unalloyed joy she expected to feel.
“I’ll call you when I get back.” His face relaxed, as though some difficult negotiation had been concluded. “We should get moving before Christian or Pam comes up to get proof of life. You can use the master bath. I’ll go down to the guest room.” He lowered his head for a kiss that made up for his odd mood. Mostly.
Derek stood in the shower, the water from the multiple pulsing showerheads pounding into his skin, as he berated himself for botching things with Alice. He’d seen the bewilderment on her face when he’d baldly stated his desire to see her again. But he’d considered his request an admission of weakness, so he hadn’t been graceful, hadn’t been able to phrase it with more finesse. He needed to find the words to fix that, so she didn’t wonder why the hell he had asked her out again if he was so unhappy about it. It wasn’t her fault that she made him want to shirk all his responsibilities.
The irony was that, unlike Courtney, Alice wouldn’t resent his commitment to his career. He was the one who wanted to chuck it all and spend the day in bed.
He shook his head, sending water splattering over the marble tiles. Hehadto work, even though it was Sunday. Not that he paid much attention to what day of the week it was when there was a job to be finished.
He dried himself off and padded back down the hallway with a towel slung around his hips. He would get dressed and make coffee while Alice was doing whatever she did on a Sunday morning. Caffeine might blast away the fog wrapped around his brain.
He walked in to hear a hair dryer humming. She’d left the bathroom door open so he leaned against the door jamb to watch her separate a swath of hair and run the dryer down and back up it until it was dry. She was also wrapped in a towel, her skin looking creamy against the pure white terrycloth. Her soft, brown eyes were not quite focused while a smile came and went at the corners of her generous, so-tempting mouth. He hoped thoughts of him and their night together were putting that expression on her face. The idea sent a spiral of satisfaction through him.
As she lifted her arms, he was overwhelmed with the urge to kiss the exquisite curve of her bare shoulder, so he strolled up behind her.
She nearly dropped the hair dryer. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He lowered his lips to the satin of her skin, now scented with his soap instead of her usual violets. There was something strangely intimate in that, as though he had marked her as his. He inhaled deeply and then blew out the breath, making her giggle.
“That tickles,” she said, slanting her shoulder away.
He kissed her shoulder again before straightening up. “It’s strange not to smell violets.”
Her eyes widened and she smiled in a way that made his heart twist. “I wasn’t allowed to bring my own toiletries with me, you know.”
“We’ll check in with Tully to see what progress they’ve made. When you’re ready, look in the closet. Your new clothes should be in there.”
He forced himself to leave her in the bathroom, despite his desire to unwind the towel from around her breasts and bend her over the marble-topped vanity while he slid into her from behind like he had on the sofa. Instead he focused on deciding what to wear. It was all his overheated brain could handle at the moment. Even then, it took him some debate to pull out jeans and a black polo shirt.
He was slipping on black loafers when Alice walked out of the bathroom, her hair shimmering over her shoulders in brown waves. His cock jumped. “You look delicious,” he said. “Like Venus rising from the waves.”
“I don’t think Venus wore glasses,” she said with a wry smile. “But thank you.”
He pointed to the half-open closet door. “Shopping bags on the counter and clothes hanging on the right.”
“You have a counter in your closet?” As she walked across the room, he enjoyed the way the towel’s folds moved with the swing of her hips. She pulled the door open and stared. “This is not a closet. This is a whole room. How many suits do you own?”
He grimaced even though she couldn’t see him. “Too many.” He remembered when it had been a thrill to be measured for a custom-tailored suit. Now he just reordered the same style in fabrics so slightly different that you practically needed a magnifying glass to find the variations.
He heard the rustle of paper bags and tissue paper before there was a laughing exclamation. She walked out with a wisp of red lace panties stretched between her hands and a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks. “Seriously! Did you ask the concierge to buy these?”
