Chapter 2. Lustful Night

“One rule,” Diana said as the car pulled away from the hotel. “No names.”

The man glanced at her. His hand rested on the wheel; his other lay near the gearshift, close enough that she kept noticing it.

“You don’t want to know mine?”

“Tomorrow I might. Tonight I’d like to be someone who doesn’t ask sensible questions about career prospects.”

“I see.”

“Although if there’s a wife, a fiancée, or a woman keeping your dinner warm, this is your opportunity to mention her.”

“None of those.”

She studied his profile. “You answered very quickly.”

“It wasn’t a difficult inventory.”

She laughed, surprising herself. He looked at her for a moment, then turned back to the road.

“No names,” he agreed.

For once, she wouldn’t have to explain herself. Not her job, her age, or why a woman who could negotiate a six-figure contract had spent so long with a man who borrowed her grocery money.

She could just be the woman he had looked at across a crowded room.

He drove to a tower of black glass. The doorman greeted him without using a name. The elevator opened directly into an apartment, and Diana stepped out into a view of the whole city.

“Oh,” she said.

He stopped beside her. “Is that a good 'oh'?”

“I’m deciding. My apartment has a view of a pharmacy.”

“Useful.”

“Extremely. I can tell whether they’re out of toothpaste without leaving home.”

His laugh was brief and real. She liked it more than she liked the windows.

He took off his jacket. No photographs, no discarded books, nothing looked as though another person had ever left it there. He cleared a chair for her and brought a glass of water.

“You’re very prepared,” she said.

“You looked ill earlier.”

That sobered her. She drank before answering. “I don’t know what happened. Too many flowers. Not enough dinner.”

“I can order food.”

“I ate at the reception. I’m all right.”

He remained standing. For the first time, she wondered if he regretted bringing her here.

“Or I can take you home,” he said.

She looked down at the glass. She had expected him to kiss her in the elevator. Now he was offering to drive her back across town, and she was absurdly disappointed.

“Could you open a window?”

He did. Cool air touched her bare shoulders. She drank the rest of the water and asked him about the ridiculous distance between his sofa and his television. He admitted he had never measured it. She told him she worked in interiors and considered this a professional failure.

By the time he refilled her glass, she could think clearly about the bus she could take home, the stranger whose name she hadn’t asked, and the fact that she wanted to stay.

He set the water beside her. “Better?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, but didn’t step away quickly enough. Her knee brushed his trouser leg. The tiny contact sent warmth all the way to her stomach.

Easy.

Diana went still.

His mouth was closed.

“Did you say something?”

His gaze sharpened. “What did you hear?”

“Easy.”

His hand tightened on the chair back.

“Did you?” she asked.

For a moment he looked almost frightened. Then he stepped back.

“Take another minute.”

That wasn’t an answer. She watched him draw a slow breath, his chest rising beneath the white shirt. He seemed to be steadying himself, too.

She stayed in the chair until she felt only the air from the window. No heat crowding her skull. No strange pressure. Just the familiar, inconvenient wish to touch a man who was watching her as though touching her might be a mistake he badly wanted to make.

“If you’re waiting for me to become sensible,” she said, “I should warn you it hasn’t been that sort of evening.”

“I’m waiting for you to decide.”

She stood.

“I have.”

Up close, he was very still. Diana reached for the top button of his shirt. Her fingers caught once; he watched without helping.

“You can breathe,” she told him.

His mouth curved. “Thank you.”

The tattoo wound down his chest. Beside it, near his heart, a small pale scar interrupted the skin. She touched its edge before she could ask.

He caught his breath.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

She looked up. The amusement had left his face. Whatever had put that mark there wasn’t something he was ready to explain to a woman whose name he didn’t know.

She moved her hand to his collar instead and drew him down.

He kissed her with a hunger that stole her last clever remarks. His palm settled against her back. She stepped closer, and he made a low sound against her mouth that she felt in her knees.

When he lifted his head, she followed him before she could stop herself.

He smiled. She caught his lower lip between hers, lightly, and the smile disappeared.

“Careful,” he murmured.

“I’ve been careful for years.”

His hand slid to the fastening of her dress, then stopped.

“Yes?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

The zipper caught at the repair beneath her arm. For one terrible second, she thought he would tear the dress.

“Careful,” she whispered. “There’s a deposit on this dress.”

His mouth curved against her shoulder. “I can manage a dress.”

He inspected the stubborn seam and worked it free with the concentration of a man defusing something expensive.

He lifted her and carried her to the bed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and laughed into his neck when he nearly walked into a doorframe.

“Smooth,” she said.

“I’m distracted,” he said. “It’s your fault.”

He took his time with her. He learned her the way she suspected he learned everything, with total attention: where she was ticklish, where a slow kiss made her arch, which sounds meant more. He didn’t rush. He kept listening to her until she came apart, shaking and astonished.

Afterward, she lay there, staring at the ceiling.

Oh, she thought. So that’s what it’s supposed to feel like.

He moved up beside her and brushed her hair from her damp forehead. He was smiling, and it wasn’t a smirk this time. It was softer, almost unguarded.

“You look surprised,” he said.

“Shut up,” she whispered, and pulled him down to kiss her.

He reached past her to the nightstand. She heard foil tear, a small, practical sound, and liked him more for it.

“If you want me to stop, say it,” he murmured.

Diana looked up at him, at the dark eyes that had followed her across a wedding hall.

“Don’t.”

He smiled against her mouth, and she felt it more than saw it. Then he was moving with her, slow at first, and it was nothing like what she was used to. It wasn’t a performance. It felt like a conversation in a language she hadn’t known she spoke. When she pushed against his chest, he understood at once and rolled them over, letting her set the pace. Watching him watch her, Diana felt powerful for the first time in a very long time.

Afterward, she lay with her cheek against the stranger’s chest, trying not to smile too obviously.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

She covered her face with one hand. He caught it and kissed her knuckles.

“I’m reconsidering several years of my life,” she admitted.

He laughed softly, but there was no mockery in it. He brought her water, retrieved her phone when she asked, and gave her the side of the bed nearest the bathroom without making it a negotiation.

She sent Eva a brief message: Home tomorrow. Talk to you Monday.

The answer came before she put the phone down: YOU HAD BETTER.

Diana smiled and set it aside. His arm settled around her when she moved back toward him.

No flowers. No violin. No voice that she couldn’t explain. Just warm skin, an ordinary heartbeat, and a man idly running his thumb over her shoulder.

She had needed this chance to be wanted without first making herself useful.

He drew lazy circles on her bare shoulder. She was drifting, warm and boneless, half asleep, when he spoke into her hair.

“Stay the night, Diana.”

Her eyes opened.

The ceiling was dark. His heartbeat beat steadily beneath her cheek.

She hadn’t told him her name.