Page 20 of Their Diamond Ring Ruse

Julian grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger, controlling her with ease as his lips lowered to hers. Brushing softly, gently. Once...twice. And then his tongue followed, tasting her.

She mewled, felt her legs growing weak, but a strong arm wrapped around her waist, fusing her to his hard body, and she gasped, allowing him to slide his tongue into her mouth, coaxing hers to dance with him.

And it did. Nervously at first, but then Julian growled deeply at the back of his throat, and it was the single most erotic sound she had ever heard. It made her confidence swell. Allowed her to take his bottom lip between hers, to press her hands against the hard muscle of his stomach, push them up until they landed on his chest, his white shirt bunched in her fingers.

And still he kissed her. Dominated her mouth. His lips slid with urgency now. They were lost. Lost to this stormy tempest of a kiss that kept sucking them into its depths only to crash into each other again and again.

His taste and his smell, like rich leather and spice and a hint of coffee, submerged her. She thought she could kiss him for ever. But the sound of clapping broke the spell and Julian wrenched away from her lips, his chest rising and falling as if he had run miles. His eyes were dark.

Lily hadn’t known what to expect in kissing Julian, but she couldn’t have imagined it would be like this. Kissing him had been life-altering. And she wanted to do it again.

CHAPTER FIVE

JULIAN’S JAW WAS clenched so hard his teeth were in jeopardy of shattering. He held the steering wheel in a death grip. There was no air in the car. Only a tension so thick it was almost physically suffocating.

Lily wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were set firmly on the road ahead. Dainty hands neatly clasped in her lap. Still. So very still.

Despite this, every minute shift in her body set off a gong in his head. Julian half expected to see something physical, tethering them together. But there was just the invisible magnetism between them that had ratcheted up to alarming levels. He had never been so aware of a woman’s body before.

It was all the fault of that kiss.

They’d had chemistry before, and now that they’d lifted the lid on it, it was like opening Pandora’s box. Unleashing a power between them that they hadn’t seen coming. One that had led to this tension...all the easy conversation from before obliterated.

Julian wanted to call out to Lily. Make sure she was okay. That would have been the right thing to do. But he couldn’t. It would mean unclenching his jaw, and that pain gave him back his control and the ability to think straight, which was exactly what he needed now. He had to master himself, because if he didn’t his mind immediately went back to the kiss.

He’d had to kiss her. People had needed to see. That was the whole reason he had chosen that restaurant in the first place. No doubt pictures of his proposal would already be flying around San Francisco at speeds that would seem incomprehensible.

So he’d slipped the ring on her finger and then had to kiss her—because what man would not do so after getting his yes? He’d been prepared for that. He’d thought it would be a simple kiss. But, Christ, he’d been wrong!

The moment their lips had touched something in him had bowed to Lily. As if he had been searching for an answer his whole life and here she was, giving it to him. He hadn’t been ready for the surge of arousal, for her less than confident response.

Julian had kissed many women in his life, so the inexperience of her touch had been immediately noticeable to him, telling him he had to be gentle. But he hadn’t wanted to be, and when she’d found the confidence to kiss him back he really had not wanted to be gentle. He’d wanted to swipe the table clear and pin her down on it, kissing her until her lips were bruised from the force of his want. And even though he’d had to hold back, he’d still drowned in her.

He could still feel the sweet touch of her hands on his chest. His eyes flicked down to his shirt. Deep creases wrinkled the fabric where her hands had fisted it. She’d wanted more of him and he had wanted to give it to her. If that clapping hadn’t returned his senses to him Julian shuddered to think where they might have ended up.

Lily could make him lose control. Therefore Lily was a danger to him. To his goals. He had remained focussed on IRES for years. It was the only good thing in his life. He needed to make sure his company thrived, because the success of his company was what made him worth something. More than that, the greater the success of IRES, the further away from the poverty of his childhood he moved. But, despite all that, he still wanted to kiss her again.

It was not acceptable.

He had worked too damn hard to get where he was just to lose sight of what mattered because of some attraction. He hadn’t walked out of his stepfather’s house, never to return, only to fall down now, before he could have everything he wanted.

He had been through too much, sacrificed too much, to let his wayward libido screw everything up. Emotions...raging attraction—they all clouded the mind. After all his mother had been through Julian didn’t want that. He needed Lily and she needed him for a purpose. If they blurred the lines it would help neither of them.

He couldn’t let a kiss like that happen again. For both their sakes.

Now, his biggest concern was to get her comfortable with him again—because if she stayed this tense around him no one was going to believe they were engaged. Devan was suspicious enough already, and he needed the man to see how happy Lily was with him. It would get him on Julian’s side for the Arum deal, and soon enough Julian would leverage this ‘relationship’ to secure other contracts.

All of it would start with Lily relaxing. The problem was it wasn’t in Julian’s nature to apologise—and he didn’t want to apologise for that kiss.

‘Lily...’

Her body stiffened, but slowly she turned towards him, her gaze averted. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’

He had only seen her confidence. The insecurity written in her posture now didn’t sit right with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Julian was taken aback. What on earth did she have to be sorry for?

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