Terms Of Engagement

She met his eyes and felt that she had known him always, that he was already her lover, her soul mate. She was crazy to feel such things and think such thoughts about a man she barely knew, but when dinner was over, they skipped dessert.

An hour later, she sat across from him in his downtown loft, sipping coffee while he drank brandy. In vain, she tried to act unimpressed by his art collection and sparkling views of the city. Not easy, since both were impressive.

His entrance was filled with an installation of crimson light by one of her favorite artists. The foyer was a dazzling ruby void that opened into a living room with high, white ceilings. All the rooms of his apartment held an eclectic mix of sculpture, porcelains and paintings.

Although she hadn’t yet complimented his stylish home, she couldn’t help but compare her small, littered apartment to his spacious one. Who was she to label him an arrogant upstart? He was a success in the international oil business and a man of impeccable taste, while she was still floundering in her career and struggling to find herself.

“I wanted to be alone with you like this the minute I saw you today,” he said.

She shifted uneasily on his cream-leather sofa. Yet more evidence that he was a planner. “Well, I didn’t.”

“I think you did. You just couldn’t let yourself believe you did.”

“No,” she whispered, setting down her cup. With difficulty she tried to focus on her mission. “So, what about Jaycee? You’re sure that’s over?”

“Finished. From the first moment I saw you.”

“Without mud all over my face.”

He laughed. “Actually, you got to me that day, too. Every time I dined with Jacinda and your family, I kept hoping I’d meet you again.”

Even as she remembered all those dinner invitations her parents had extended and she’d declined, she couldn’t believe he was telling the truth.

“I had my team research you,” he said.

“Why?”

“I asked myself the same question. I think you intrigued me … like I said, even with mud on your face. First thing tomorrow, I will break it off with Jacinda formally. Which means you’ve won. Does that make you happy? You have what you came for.”

He was all charm, especially his warm, white smile. Like a child with a new playmate, she was happy just being with him, but she couldn’t admit that to him.

He must have sensed her feelings, though, because he got up and moved silently toward her. “I feel like I’ve lived my whole life since my father’s death alone—until you. And that’s how I wanted to live—until you.”

She knew it was sudden and reckless, but she felt the same way. If she wasn’t careful, she would forget all that should divide them.

As if in a dream, she took his hand when he offered it and kissed his fingers with feverish devotion.

“You’ve made me realize how lonely I’ve been,” he said.

“That’s a very good line.”

“It’s the truth.”

“But you are so successful, while I …”

“Look what you’re doing in the interim—helping a friend to realize her dream.”

“My father says I’m wasting my potential.”

“You will find yourself … if you are patient.” He cupped her chin and stared into her eyes. Again she felt that uncanny recognition. He was a kindred soul who knew what it was to feel lost.

“Dear God,” he muttered. “Don’t listen to me. I don’t know a damn thing about patience. Like now … I should let you go … but I can’t.”

He pulled her to him and crushed her close. It wasn’t long before holding her wasn’t enough. He had to have her lips, her throat, her breasts. She felt the same way. Shedding her shirt, scarf and bra, she burst into flame as he kissed her. Even though she barely knew him, she could not wait another moment to belong to him.

“I’m not feeling so patient right now myself,” she admitted huskily.

Do not give yourself to this man, said an inner voice. Remember all those blondes. Remember his urge for revenge.

Even as her emotions spiraled out of control, she knew she was no femme fatale, while he was a devastatingly attractive man. Had he said all these same wonderful things to all those other women he’d bedded? Had he done and felt all the same things, too, a thousand times before? Were nights like this routine for him, while he was the first to make her feel so thrillingly alive?

But then his mouth claimed hers again, and again, with a fierce, wild hunger that made her forget her doubts and shake and cling to him. His kisses completed her as she’d never been completed before. He was a wounded soul, and she understood his wounds. How could she feel so much when they hadn’t even made love?

Lifting her into his arms, he carried her into his vast bedroom, which was bathed in silver moonlight. Over her shoulder she saw his big, black bed in the middle of an ocean of white marble and Persian carpets.

He was a driven, successful billionaire, and she was a waitress. Feeling out of her depth, her nerves returned. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed a fingertip to his lips. Gently, shyly, she traced his dimple.

Feeling her tension, he set her down. She pushed against his chest and then took a step away from him. Watching her, he said, “You can finish undressing in the bathroom if you’d prefer privacy. Or we can stop. I’ll drive you to your car. Your choice.”

She should have said, “I don’t belong here with you,” and accepted his gallant offer. Instead, without a word, she scampered toward the door he’d indicated. Alone in his beige marble bathroom with golden fixtures and a lovely, compelling etching by another one of her favorite artists, she barely recognized her own flushed face, tousled hair and sparkling eyes.

The radiant girl in his tall mirror was as beautiful as an enchanted princess. She looked expectant, excited. Maybe she did belong here with him. Maybe he was the beginning of her new life, the first correct step toward the bright future that had so long eluded her.

When she tiptoed back into the bedroom, wearing nothing but his white robe, he was in bed. She couldn’t help admiring the width of his bronzed shoulders as he leaned back against several plumped pillows. She had never dated anyone half so handsome; she’d never felt anything as powerful as the glorious heady heat that suffused her entire being as his blue eyes studied her hungrily. Still, she was nervy, shaking.

“I’m no good at sex,” she said. “You’re probably very good … Of course you are. You’re good at everything.”

“Come here,” he whispered.

“But …”

“Just come to me. You could not possibly delight me more. Surely you know that.”

Did he really feel as much as she did?

Removing his bathrobe, she flew to him before she lost her nerve, fell into his bed and into his arms, consumed by forces beyond her control. Nothing mattered but sliding against his long body, being held close in his strong arms. Beneath the covers, his heat was delicious and welcoming as she nestled against him.

He gave her a moment to settle before he rolled on top of her. Bracing himself with his elbows against the mattress, so as not to crush her, he kissed her lips, her cheeks, her brows and then her eyelids with urgent yet featherlike strokes. Slowly, gently, each kiss was driving her mad.

“Take me,” she whispered, in the grip of a fever such as she’d never experienced before. “I want you inside me. Now.”

“I know,” he said, laughing. “I’m as ravenous as you are. But have patience, darlin’.”

“You have a funny way of showing your hunger.”

“If I do what you ask, it would be over in a heartbeat. This moment, our first time together, is too special to me.”

Was she special?

“We must savor it, draw it out, make it last,” he said.

“Maybe I want it to be over swiftly,” she begged. “Maybe this obsessive need is unbearable.”

“Exquisite expectation?”

“I can’t stand it.”

“And I want to heighten it. Which means we’re at cross-purposes.”

He didn’t take her. With infinite care and maddening patience he adored her with his clever mouth and skilled hands. His fevered lips skimmed across her soft skin, raising goose bumps in secret places. As she lay beneath him, he licked each nipple until it grew hard, licked her navel until he had all her nerve endings on fire for him. Then he kissed her belly and dived even lower to explore those hidden, honey-sweet lips between her legs. When she felt his tongue dart inside, she gasped and drew back.

“Relax,” he whispered.

With slow, hot kisses, he made her gush. All too soon her embarrassment was gone, and she was melting, shivering, whimpering—all but begging him to give her release.

Until tonight she had been an exile in the world of love. With all other men, not that there had been that many, she had been going through the motions, playing a part, searching always for something meaningful and never finding it.

Until now, tonight, with him.

He couldn’t matter this much! She couldn’t let this be more than fierce, wild sex. He, the man, couldn’t matter. But her building emotions told her that he did matter—in ways she’d never imagined possible before.

He took her breast in his mouth and suckled again. Then his hand entered her heated wetness, making her gasp helplessly and plead. When he stroked her, his fingers sliding against that secret flesh, she arched against his expert touch, while her breath came in hard, tortured pants.

Just when she didn’t think she could bear it any longer, he dragged her beneath him and slid inside her. He was huge, massive, wonderful. Crying out, she clung to him and pushed her pelvis against his, aching for him to fill her even more deeply. “Yes! Yes!”

When he sank deeper, ever deeper, she moaned. For a long moment he held her and caressed her. Then he began to plunge in and out, slowly at first. Her rising pleasure carried her and shook her in sharp, hot waves, causing her to climax and scream his name.

He went crazy when she dug her nails in his shoulder. Then she came again, and again, sobbing. She had no idea how many climaxes she had before she felt his hard loins bunch as he exploded.

Afterward, sweat dripped off his brow. His whole body was flushed, burning up, and so was hers.

“Darlin’ Kira,” he whispered in that husky baritone that could still make her shiver even when she was spent. “Darlin’ Kira.”

For a long time, she lay in his arms, not speaking, feeling too weak to move any part of her body. Then he leaned over and nibbled at her bottom lip.

The second time he made love to her, he did so with a reverent gentleness that made her weep and hold on to him for a long time afterward. He’d used a condom the second time, causing her to realize belatedly that he hadn’t the first time.

How could they have been so careless? She had simply been swept away. Maybe he had, too. Well, it was useless to worry about that now. Besides, she was too happy, too relaxed to care about anything except being in his arms. There was no going back.

For a long time they lay together, facing each other while they talked. He told her about his father’s financial crisis and how her father had turned on him and made things worse. He spoke of his mother’s extravagance and betrayal and his profound hurt that his world had fallen apart so quickly and brutally. She listened as he explained how grief, poverty and helplessness had twisted him and made him hard.

“Love made me too vulnerable, as it did my father. It was a destructive force. My father loved my mother, and it ruined him. She was greedy and extravagant,” he said. “Love destroys the men in our family.”

“If you don’t want to love, why did you date all those women I read about?”

“I wasn’t looking for love, and neither were they.”

“You were just using them, then?”

“They were using me, too.”

“That’s so cynical.”

“That’s how my life has been. I loved my father so much, and I hurt so much when he died, I gave up on love. He loved my mother, and she broke his heart with her unrelenting demands. When he lost the business, she lost interest in him and began searching for a richer man.”

“And did she find him?”

“Several.”

“Do you ever see her?”

“No. I was an accident she regretted, I believe. She couldn’t relate to children, and after I was grown, I had no interest in her. Love, no matter what kind, always costs too much. I do write her a monthly check, however.”

“So, my father was only part of your father’s problem.”

“But a big part. Losing ownership in Sullivan and Murray Oil made my father feel like he was less than nothing. My mother left him because of that loss. She stripped him of what little wealth and self-esteem he had left. Alone, without his company or his wife, he grew depressed. He wouldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. I’d hear the stairs creak as he paced at night.

“Then early one morning I heard a shot. When I called his name, he didn’t answer. I found him in the shop attached to our garage. In a pool of blood on the floor, dead. I still don’t know if it was an accident or … what I feared it was. He was gone. At first I was frightened. Then I became angry. I wanted to blame someone, to get even, to make his death right. I lived for revenge. But now that I’ve almost achieved my goal of taking back Murray Oil, it’s as if my fever’s burned out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she teased, touching his damp brow.

“I mean my fever for revenge, which was what kept me going.”

“So,” she asked, “what will you live for now?”

“I don’t know. I guess a lot of people just wake up in the morning and go to work, then come home at night and drink while they flip channels with their remote.”

“Not you.”

“Who’s to say? Maybe such people are lucky. At least they’re not driven by hate, as I was.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for you.” She’d always been driven by the need for love.

When he stared into her eyes with fierce longing, she pulled him close and ran her hands through his hair. “You are young yet. You’ll find something to give your life meaning,” she said.

“Well, it won’t be love, because I’ve experienced love’s dark side for too many years. I want you to know that. You are special, but I can’t ever love you, no matter how good we are together. I’m no longer capable of that emotion.”

“So you keep telling me,” she said, pretending his words didn’t hurt.

“I just want to be honest.”

“Do we always know our own truths?”

“Darlin’,” he whispered. “Forgive me if I sounded too harsh. It’s just that … I don’t want to hurt you by raising your expectations about something I’m incapable of. Other women have become unhappy because of the way I am.”

“You’re my family’s enemy. Why would I ever want to love you?”

Wrapping her legs around him, she held him for hours, trying to comfort the boy who’d lost so much as well as the angry man who’d gained a fortune because he’d been consumed by a fierce, if misplaced, hatred.

“My father had nothing to do with your father’s death,” she whispered. “He didn’t.”

“You have your view, and I have mine,” he said. “The important thing is that I don’t hold you responsible for your father’s sins any longer.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

After that, he was silent. Soon afterward he let her go and rolled onto his side.

She lay awake for hours. Where would they go from here? He had hated her family for years. Had he really let go of all those harsh feelings? Had she deluded herself into thinking he wasn’t her enemy?

What price would she pay for sleeping with a man who probably only saw her as an instrument for revenge?

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