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“Once or twice,” she replied, her smile widening at the miracle of the fact that she was talking one-on-one with him and not tripping over her tongue.

  “Come have a drink with me?”

  “Sure,” she replied, shrugging nonchalantly as if it were the most natural thing in the world to agree to a drink with Trey Riordan.

  —

  He couldn’t figure her out, Trey admitted to himself a half hour later. He watched her while she took a sip of red wine, those beguiling cat’s eyes fixed on him over the rim. Sure, she’d been a mystery from the first, but he was a pretty quick study when it came to drilling down into a woman’s character once he met her. Eleanor, though . . . she was different. Her beauty and sexy factor were over the top. That was a given. Right now, for instance, her stare was hot. Not like a flirting glance. Hot like she was imagining taking a bite out of him. Those eyes of hers were like a beacon, golden and liquid, warm as heated honey. He found himself melting every time he got stuck in her stare. Somehow, she softened something inside him and yet turned him rock hard all at once. She was the epitome of sexy confidence.

  Some of the time, anyway.

  Just thirty seconds ago, she’d almost knocked over her wineglass when he’d asked her what she did for a living. She’d righted the goblet and twitched her hands, like she was brushing away his question like a pesky fly.

  “My job? It’s not that interesting, really. Nothing like yours. Did you say you were a musician, and that’s how you first got involved with creating BandBook? What instrument do you play? My mother made my sister and me learn piano when we were little, but it never stuck. Do you still practice? It’s really hot in here, isn’t it?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first?” he’d asked her dubiously.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how she could be as sexy and as comfortable in her own skin as an in-heat minx one second, and clumsy and rambling the next. He got that her inconsistencies signaled a deeper truth about her. Problem was, he couldn’t grasp what that truth was.

  “Why don’t you tell me what your job is, and I’ll decide if it’s interesting or not,” he said presently. Her eyes widened and she set down her wineglass with a clinking sound. She’d thought she’d sidestepped him on the job question, of course, and was inconvenienced he’d brought it up again. He’d noticed over the past several minutes that she had a tell, an anxious habit of playing with her cocktail napkin. He found himself watching her long, pretty fingers fidgeting with the paper edges, oddly aroused even by her show of nerves.

  “You won’t. Find it interesting, I mean.”

  “Try me,” he challenged.

  She inhaled. At the movement, he glanced down at her breasts. Beautiful breasts. Mouthwatering. He couldn’t decide what he liked better: the memory of her first baring them to him through the window, or right now. Up close. The way the black knit clung to the lush curves, the way the point of that weird, big white collar just covered her nipples; all of it was driving him nuts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Or maybe she was, as firm and high as the mounds were. He wanted to just reach across the table, cup her in his hand and find out once and for all. He grit his teeth at the very idea, his cock going heavy at the mere thought.

  Bra, no bra, there definitely had to be a bra—

  “Well . . .” she said, interrupting his imbecilic self-argument. This is why he needed a vacation from women. They turned him into an idiot. He focused on her face. An idea seemed to come to her. She brightened. “I work there. At the museum.”

  “At the Illinois Historical Museum?”

  “Yes. I’m an executive there.”

  “An executive of what?” He had the impression her outer self froze while her brain whirred like a spinning top.

  “Membership,” she said suddenly.

  “That doesn’t sound boring at all. It sounds interesting. I like that museum. I’m a member there. My company makes a donation to the annual fund, as well.”

  “I know.”

  His gaze sharpened on her.

  “It’s a real adrenaline sales job, wooing the patrons, keeping the machine running by constantly bargaining for the lifeline that keeps us in business. But that’s how I love things. I’m not happy unless I’m running on the fast track.”

  His gaze narrowed on her flushed cheeks. Was she blushing? Was she a man-eater, or was she an adorable goofball? He couldn’t believe he couldn’t figure it out.

  “This isn’t all about you trying to get a bigger donation from me or my company, is it?” he asked suspiciously.

  “No, of course not,” she exclaimed, looking insulted. “If I ever suggest you give a dime more than you already do for the museum’s sake, you have my permission to turn and walk away.”

  “I’m sorry. But you’re really sending me mixed messages,” he stated bluntly, picking up his highball glass.

  She went still. “I am?”

  He nodded and took a drink. He took his time swallowing, letting the taste of the bourbon soak into his tongue, studying her face the whole time for clues.

  “You blew me away last night with that dance,” he said quietly after he swallowed, setting down his glass. “You could be a professional dancer.”

  “The second person on the planet to think so aside from my mother,” she said with a patentable, mischievous grin.

  “You’ve blown me away since I first set eyes on you. The sexy book. The sexy clothes. The way you move. Everything.”

  Her grin faded. Her mouth trembled.

  He put his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “Is that what turns you on, Eleanor? Having a man watch you? Is that what gets you off? Is exhibitionism your kink?”

  He saw her elegant throat tighten in the charged silence that followed.

  “I like it,” she admitted softly. Her cheeks deepened in color, but she didn’t look away. “I liked having you watch me.”

  “I’ve known a few women who had a proclivity for exhibitionism. I was never into it—or them—personally, but I can’t blame a person for having their own thing. It always seemed relatively harmless.” The thought of how she’d looked in that window, of how she’d dangled him on her hook, flamed in his brain. So did irritation. “You, however, were downright mercenary about it.”

  “I wanted you to notice me.”

  He straightened, taken aback by what struck him as a burst of honesty and annoyance on her part.

  “How could you think I wouldn’t notice you?” he asked baldly. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just arrange a meeting with my doorman? Or, you said you knew I was a member at the museum, right? Couldn’t you have just introduced yourself sometime, maybe while I was there for an exhibit opening or something? How come you wanted to torture me?” Jesus, she’d flashed him her pussy the first time he’d ever sat in a public place with her. She couldn’t just have said hi instead? Not that he was complaining about her alternate form of greeting.

  Well, maybe a little part of him was. The part not located at his crotch.

  She bit at her shapely lower lip. It might have been a nervous gesture on her part. It might have been intentional seduction. In that moment, he didn’t care. The result was one and the same.

  “I did it because you tortured me,” she said. He made a sound of disbelief at the unexpected flash of fire in her eyes as she said it.

  “I tortured you.”

  Her indignation vanished as quick as it came. She glanced aside, her fingers moving faster as she flipped at the edge of the cocktail napkin. “That didn’t come out right. I know you didn’t do it on purpose . . . torture me those times.”

  “Eleanor?” he prodded. She glanced up skittishly. “What times, precisely?”

  Her mouth pressed tight. He had a strong urge to pry it open with his tongue. For a few seconds, he thought she’d refuse to answer.

  “T
hose times I saw you naked,” she finally said, her voice just above a whisper, her eyes downcast. His body tensed. He couldn’t unglue his gaze from her moving mouth. “The times I saw you . . . with other women.”

  Her hoarsely uttered words seemed to hover in the air between them.

  “That’s an invasion of my privacy.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Maybe it’s partially my fault for leaving open the curtains. But you could have looked away. You could have drawn your own curtains. You didn’t have to keep looking.”

  “Yes. I did.”

  She inhaled choppily, her eyes going wide, like the words had escaped her throat without her permission and surprised even her.

  “So you got off on watching me with other women.”

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head rapidly. She looked a little desperate. “I mean . . . I got off on watching you.”

  The clink of glasses and the low murmur of other patron’s conversation blended into a low, pulsing hum in his ears.

  “Do you just want to torture me, or have actual sex with me?” he demanded succinctly, sick of thrashing around in confusion and lust.

  “Can I?”

  Air puffed out of his lungs. He glanced around the sparsely populated bar, again half expecting to find someone filming his gobsmacked reaction for an Internet joke. None of the other patrons looked remotely interested in him and Eleanor. This was real. She was.

  He didn’t quite know what to make of her, but at least she was honest about what she wanted. He had to give her that.

  “If you want to,” he said, unable to hide his puzzlement. “God knows I want to.”

  “Oh, good,” she gushed as if relieved. She smiled then, bright and sexy, like the first time she smiled at him in the coffee shop. He reacted just the same as he had then: by sweating and growing stiff as a board. Her effortless effect on him sent up a red flag. He leaned forward intently. Whatever expression he wore caused her smile to fade.

  “But let’s get this straight,” he said. “If you’ve seen me in the bedroom a few times, then you might already know this: I call the shots. You’re not going to yank my chain anymore. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “Well . . . not unless I ask you to,” he added after a moment’s consideration. Her mouth curled. He felt that grin all the way to his crotch. He couldn’t help but smile back. Sure, her seductions were torture, but it’d be entering new erotic territory, to know he controlled the climax of her brain-twisting little displays.

  “When do you want to start?” she asked.

  “I’ve actually sworn off sex for a while.”

  Her face fell.

  “But I was thinking of starting again soon. Like . . . right now?” he added hopefully.

  He noticed her pulse was fluttering like mad at her throat. He suddenly didn’t think he could stand waiting another minute before he felt it beneath his mouth.

  “I was thinking the same thing. But I don’t want to encourage any bad habits on your part.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he corrected her grimly. She didn’t argue, just wore that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile of hers. “You’re being straight with me, so I should be honest with you in return, though. I’m not looking for a relationship at the moment. If we do this, can we just keep it . . . light?”

  “Light?”

  He exhaled in frustration. He’d never actually said that to a woman before, and realized how selfish it probably sounded. But he was just trying to be honest about his intentions. “I just lost some people that I cared about, and I’ve had some pretty bad dating experiences recently. I’ve been trying to take some time to myself. Get some perspective.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, sounding like she meant it.

  He nodded. “I was trying to do some self-examination,” he admitted. “Hopefully some self-improvement. That’s why I’m off women for a while. Or I’m supposed to be, anyway. Women have been kind of . . . unhealthy for me recently,” he explained, lifting his glass and taking a swallow.

  “Are you worried you’re a sex addict?”

  He snorted into his drink, startled by her earnest question. “I wasn’t . . . but now I kind of am.”

  She appeared regretful and amused at once. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to suggest you were. Really,” she insisted when she noticed his dubious expression. “It’s just . . . you seem to know a lot of women. And you said they were unhealthy for you—”

  “They tend to make me stupid, that’s all,” he mumbled.

  “Women make you stupid,” she repeated flatly, her brow creasing in that sweet, curious expression he liked.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I probably sound like an ass saying that. I might be the one who’s the problem. Maybe I’m not cut out for the relationship thing, I don’t know. Point being, I was trying to figure things out, one way or another. I was doing okay until I looked up and saw you sitting at the coffee shop.”

  “You’re making me feel guilty.”

  “I’m not trying to. I’m telling you all this because if we do this, it’ll just be about sex. I can’t commit to anything else at the moment. Or better to say, I shouldn’t. Is that all right with you?”

  “Of course. That’s all I want too.”

  He searched her face, but all he could see was the sexy flush of her cheeks and lips and the excited shine in her eyes. He was finally going to get to touch her, consume her, possess completely what had only been dangled so enticingly in front of him. Yeah, he was falling off the abstinence wagon.

  But it was going to be the best fucking fall in the world.

  “Then let’s go,” he said with an air of decided finality. He stood, grabbed his coat and reached for her hand.

  SIX

  They stepped out of Gold Coast into his building’s lobby.

  “Is my place okay?” he asked her quietly.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Ralph,” Trey said as they passed the doorman’s station.

  “Evening, Mr. Riordan.” There was an edge to Trey’s tone and an icy gleam in his blue eyes as he passed the desk and Ralph returned the greeting. He wasn’t pleased that the doorman had helped her to breach his privacy, and then had refused to supply him with her name. If she had to guess, Ralph would be hearing more about it from Trey when she wasn’t there to hear it. Ralph looked at her and blinked in surprised recognition. She ducked her head in fleeting embarrassment.

  It only took a second for stunned excitement to take center stage in her awareness again.

  I’m going to have Trey Riordan!

  The idea was too unbelievable to absorb. He’d been such an untouchable fantasy for so long. And now, she was standing right next to him and he was taking her up to his penthouse. Incredible.

  The elevator door dinged open. Trey got on and she followed, his gaze landing on her when he turned. He reached, and her heart jumped. But he wasn’t reaching for her, she realized. He had a card in his hand, which he swiped along the elevator button console before he pushed the eighteenth floor.

  A billowing silence descended once the doors slid closed.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked her quietly.

  “I’m thinking it’s weird.”

  His brows slanted. “Weird?”

  “That I’m about to go to bed with you, and we’ve never even held hands . . . or kissed.”

  His eyebrows arched. He grabbed her hand. He tugged firmly. The front of her thumped against him. Oh my. He was every bit as lean and hard as she’d imagined. More so. She inhaled his subtle scent: spice and fragrant wood and something indefinable . . . the essence of Trey. She stared up at him wide-eyed, her pulse hammering at her throat, her body coiling tighter by the second.

  He lowered his head and brushed his mouth against hers, exploring her gently
at first. His lips sandwiched hers, first the lower, then the upper, his caresses firm, unhurried. Delicious. Taut anticipation coiled in her belly. She couldn’t breathe.

  Then, ever so deliberately, he dipped his tongue between her lips, tasting her. A floodgate of sensation opened. She whimpered softly into his mouth. She clung on to his shoulders, feeling the hardness of his muscles through his shirt. She’d long admired all of his tall, beautiful body, but she was particularly drawn to his broad shoulders. To feel the rounded, dense muscles curving into her palm while his deft tongue explored her mouth struck her as surreal.

  He laced his hands between her coat and her body and encircled her waist, fingers stroking her back, discovering her. They both turned their heads in unison. The kiss turned deep. Liquid. Electric.

  The sound of the elevator opening barely penetrated her awareness. She blinked, bringing him into focus with effort, when they parted several inches.

  Talk about a helluva first kiss.

  He reached around her, and she realized he was catching the closing doors.

  She couldn’t unglue her stare from his small, hovering smile.

  “Now we’ve done both,” he said, squeezing her hand. She regarded him stupidly. His stare on her was sharp. Hungry. “Held hands and kissed,” he prompted her sluggish brain. His gaze narrowed on her. “This is going to be really good, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yeah,” she replied, unable to hide her eagerness from her tone.

  His smile widened. Keeping a firm grip on her hand, he led her off the elevator. She gasped in surprise.

  “The elevator leads straight into your house?”

  “Yeah,” he said, reaching for her coat. She relinquished it dazedly.

  She was reminded that he was the sole inhabitant of the eighteenth and nineteenth floors. They stood in a high-ceiled, elegant hallway. Through an arch she could see his living room. Trey hung up the coats and took her hand. He led her through the arched entry. She gazed all around at the wide-open space, entranced. She’d never seen any of his penthouse, except through the windows of his bedroom.

  The living room was enormous and modernly decorated with streamlined yet comfortable-looking furniture featuring leather and beige, brown and ivory upholstery. The ceilings were at least twelve feet tall. The east wall was completely made of iron beams and glass and faced Lake Shore Drive and the lake. The other walls served as the background for a fantastic art collection. Enraptured, she tugged gently on her hand. He released it and she walked to the center of the masculine, sophisticated room while he remained in place. Slowly, she spun around, absorbing all the amazing details, aware of Trey watching her the whole time.