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  Randy continued kissing her breasts and her belly, finally looking up and catching her gaze, his thick lashes heavy over his eyes that were bright with arousal.

  And then he grinned a wicked wolf’s grin, and settled his hands at her waist.

  “On the table,” was all he said before he lifted her up to sit on the edge. He hooked her knees over his forearms, spread them wide and reached between her thighs to pull aside the crotch of her panties.

  He stroked her there, and she shivered, curling her toes and staring as he studied what he’d uncovered.

  And then both of his hands were beneath her skirt, his thumbs stroking the bare flesh plumped up on either side of the entrance to her sex. She closed her eyes and whimpered.

  “Feels good?”

  “You can’t imagine.” This was what she loved about being female, this anticipation, this build-up, the burst of sensation to come.

  “How’s this?” he asked, leaning in to cover her with his mouth.

  He ran his tongue through her folds and she gasped, holding on to the table’s edge and praying she didn’t crash with the furniture in a heap to the floor.

  Whether it was the thrill of the situation—sex with a man she didn’t even know, one she couldn’t escape or walk away from when they lived right next door—or his skill and technique didn’t matter.

  She had never in her life felt what she was feeling now. The physical rush unnerved her, left her shaking and unable to open her eyes. But there was so much more than sex going on here. And that was the truth of the fear. She was beyond being able to think.

  It was all she could do to deal with what she was feeling, with what Randy’s fingers were doing, with where he had his tongue, with how he played and tasted and kissed her with his lips.

  Her moan drowned out the hum of the refrigerator and the ring of her cell phone tucked into her purse. Randy pulled back, and she wanted to hit him for leaving her wanting.

  “I’m not answering that,” she said breathlessly.

  He chuckled, and she heard him shuffling around on the seat. “I hope not.”

  “Then ignore the distraction and get back to work,” she said, and he laughed, the sound rolling up from his gut to his throat.

  He finished adjusting and squirming and reached for both of her hands, pulling her up to sit on the table’s edge. The rush of blood from her head left her dizzy; it took her several seconds to open her eyes.

  When she did, she realized he was erect and sheathed and waiting for her to sit in his lap. A deep breath, a long slow exhalation, and she did, easing from the table onto her knees and bracing them on either side of his thighs.

  Then, her gaze on his, she reached between her legs and guided him exactly where she needed him to be, lowering her body slowly, taking him in, breathing sharply as he filled her.

  Oh, but it was hard not to look away, to remain so intimately, visually bonded when it was more than their bodies involved.

  There was a deeper connection here, the same one with which she’d been hit on the balcony last night. She knew it even while she forced it aside to enjoy the physical bliss.

  Her fingers gripping his shoulders, she leaned forward and used that support as well as her knees to ride, grinding her hips, rotating slowly, pressing the heels of her palms into the muscles of his shoulders that bunched as he tightened his hold on her waist.

  His head dropped back, his eyes closed. He guided her exactly as he wanted her, stroked up as she slid down. Lips parted, she caught her tongue between her teeth and watched the tight set of his jaw, the pulse that popped there, the sweat that beaded and fell.

  Men were supposed to be the visual creatures, but the sight of Randy struggling for control sent her own into a spiraling loss. She gripped him harder with her hands and her sex, and then she let go, shuddering, dying, coming apart.

  He followed, a hard upward surge that knocked the table and sent the bowl of salad skittering over the floor. When he groaned, she felt the vibrations there where their bodies were joined.

  And when he finished, the shiver that ran through him shook loose the wrapping with which she’d carefully packaged her heart.

  4

  “SO? DID HE break your heart or not?”

  Randy lay on top of Claire in her bed, his elbows on either side of her shoulders supporting his weight. He tangled his fingers into the loose ends of her hair where the strands lay draped on the pillow.

  “Why are you bringing that up again now? It hardly seems the time to talk about another man.” Her voice was breathless, her fingers digging into his backside and pulling his body further into hers.

  He grit his teeth, settled more deeply between her legs, let his mind drift with intent. Her query and observation were valid. Why he would insist on bringing up their bargain instead of lying back and enjoying her body?

  The reason was simple.

  The two were inextricably linked.

  He wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t agreed to the give and take. And he needed the give and take to secure her as he did all his possessions.

  “It only takes a yes or a no.”

  “Sure. If I were a man.”

  “Really,” he said and rolled away onto one elbow, staring down into her face. “This coming from the same woman who demanded no strings.”

  She looked at him, her wide-eyed gaze clearly accusing him of losing his mind. “With you. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been strings in my past.”

  “But you’ve cut them since.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  She was, yes. But that didn’t answer the question. He spread out his hand over her belly. “You are, and you agreed to answer my question.”

  She huffed, pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts. “And they say women use sex as a bargaining tool.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “What would you call it?”

  Survival. Getting what he wanted. Same thing he’d been doing for more than half of his life. “Waiting.”

  “For what?” She moved her legs, tangled her feet with his. “I already sent you an invitation.”

  “To catch my breath,” he admitted without thinking, and to which she could only reply, “Oh.”

  After that lapse, making her aware of his weakness, of how close he was to losing control, he remained silent and unmoving, even when she placed her hand on top of his.

  “Okay then,” she said, blowing out a long, slow breath. “His name was Wayne. And he did. We were in high school. He was out of my league. I let myself fall in love when I knew better.”

  Randy smiled to himself. He loved that she felt as if she owed him more of an explanation than he wanted. “Yes or no was all I asked for.”

  She shook her head on the pillow. “I can’t reduce that relationship to one word.”

  So, she hadn’t let it go? “Why not?”

  “Because it was a turning point. Because it taught me so much.”

  “Such as?”

  Laughing softly, she shifted onto her side to face him. “I can’t believe you want to talk. Men don’t talk.”

  About themselves, no. But that’s not what this was. “I can stop.”

  “Oh, no. Please don’t.” She laughed again. It was a husky, throaty sound that worked its way into his gut. “I just thought you might have caught your breath by now.”

  He wasn’t sure he was going to. He was still rock hard. Yet, he was here for more than the sex—a fact he was determined to make her understand—even if sex had been the original intent of the card she’d slipped through his door.

  He moved his hand higher, covered and massaged one of her breasts. “We have all night, Claire.”

  “I can’t get used to hearing you say my name,” she said with a shiver and sigh. “It’s like I know you, but don’t know you.”

  “Do you want to know me?”

  She tugged on his chest hair with one hand, on the hair growing low on his belly with the fingers of the ot
her. “Had you asked me yesterday, I don’t think I’d have given you the same answer.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes,” she softly.

  He felt her exhalation of breath like a tickling flutter. “Are you afraid I’ll break your heart?”

  She hesitated—he wondered if he’d pushed too far—before responding. “If you do, it will be my own fault for not sticking to the invitation’s no strings and no questions.”

  He slid his hand up to her shoulder, pushed her to her back, climbed over her. “We never talked about the strings.”

  “You’re right,” she said, opening her legs as he moved between. “We didn’t. Should we?”

  He used her moisture to ease his way, pushing inside to fill her. “I think it’s too late.”

  CLAIRE TRULY couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept with a man. Not the last time she’d had sex—that memory was quite clear—but the last time she’d closed her eyes and fallen asleep with a man’s arms wrapped around her.

  Even tonight she hadn’t slept long, no more than two hours she guessed, having glanced at the bedside clock after she and Randy had climbed the town house stairs.

  Once they’d tumbled into bed, she’d lost all track of time.

  What she hadn’t lost even while sleeping was the awareness that they’d discussed the question he’d asked of her, yet hadn’t brought up her question to him.

  He couldn’t be blamed, she supposed. She would never have responded to his without prodding.

  It was time to do a little prodding of her own.

  Randy lay spooned up behind her, his arm draped over her waist, his breathing deep and even. She turned onto her stomach, sidled closer and trailed tiny kisses over his collarbone.

  He smelled warm and clean; he tasted alive. He felt as if he belonged between her cool cotton sheets for more than one night, and that left her shaken because this was supposed to be a no-strings-attached fling.

  When she finally looked up, she found his eyes wide open, his lashes thick and sweeping. For several seconds, she remained still, catching her breath that he’d stolen, measuring the hard beats of both of their hearts.

  Then, pushing onto her hands and knees, she crawled over his body and stared down. “My turn.”

  “Be my guest,” he said, rolling onto his back, his hands at her hips settling her over his groin. His penis stirred between her spread thighs.

  “I wasn’t talking about sex,” she said, eyes narrowed. “It’s time to talk.”

  He fought a grin. “We talked already.”

  “I talked. I answered your question.” She leaned forward, braced her hands on his shoulders. “Now you answer mine.”

  “Okay.” He nodded where he lay on the pillow, reached up with one hand to toy with the ends of her hair. “Nothing.”

  She flexed her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders. “Nothing what?”

  “You asked me what I was hiding behind my sports car and designer suits. I answered nothing.”

  She didn’t believe him. She knew image. She knew disguises. It was her business, after all.

  She also knew all about hiding. She didn’t talk about it, but she knew. “The car doesn’t fit. That’s a response to a midlife crisis, not a way to get around town.”

  He rubbed the thumb of his other hand over her hipbone, his penis growing thick. “It gets the job done.”

  “As does my Camry,” she countered, hating the creeping distraction of sex.

  “You’re not a believer in ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’?”

  “No. But neither are you.”

  “You sure you know me that well?”

  Strangely enough, she was. “I know that you’re too comfortable in your own skin to show off.”

  “I don’t need to. I let the clothes do it for me.”

  She growled down. “You are so full of it.”

  “That makes the wrong one of us,” he said, sliding one of her hands away from his shoulder and down the center of his body to his cock.

  She wrapped him in her fingers, stroked him, squeezed him. “That’s all I’m going to get?”

  He surged into her hand. “I haven’t had complaints before.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your equipment.” And selfishly she didn’t like thinking about the women he’d had before. “I was talking about you not answering my question. I answered yours.”

  “I gave you an answer.”

  “It was evasive and circular and hardly forthcoming,” she said, teasing though honest. When he remained silent, she added, “I told you about Wayne.”

  “I knew a Wayne when I was younger.” His fingers flexed on her thighs. “He ran the soup kitchen where I ate a lot of my meals.”

  Her hand stilled, as did her whole body. “Why did you eat in soup kitchens?”

  “Because the couple who adopted me didn’t just take me in.” His expression grew chilled. “They made sure I understood where I had come from and where I would end up if I didn’t pay attention.”

  “Pay attention to what?” she asked, her broken voice barely recognizable. Where in the world had he come from?

  “To the fact that money does buy happiness.”

  No. She wasn’t buying it. “You can’t believe that.”

  “I’ve never been happier in my life.”

  “But not because of money.”

  “Sure. Money buys me the designer suits and the sports car.”

  She slid off his thighs to sit cross-legged beside him. “So, your happiness is dependent on what you own.”

  He hesitated a moment, stacking his hands beneath his head. “Not so much on what I own as on knowing that I don’t have to do without.”

  It wasn’t hard to understand the sentiment. Having money made a lot of life easier to deal with. But money buying happiness?

  She started to tell him that doing without was hardly the end of the world. But she stopped because she wouldn’t know a thing about it.

  She’d never missed a meal she didn’t need to miss. Her survival had never been tied to the generosity of others. Randy’s obviously had.

  And he’d responded by guaranteeing, like Scarlet, that he would never go hungry again.

  Claire reached over and smoothed her hand from his elbow to his hip. “What one thing do you most want to buy but haven’t?”

  “For someone who went into this arrangement insisting on no questions, you’ve certainly changed your tune,” he said, his voice gruff, his breathing harsh, his erection swelling with her lingering touch.

  He was right—and she deserved every bit of the blame. She’d only wanted a fling; how could she have known he’d be so intriguing? Or that she’d want to dig for all of the truths he hid?

  Right now what she wanted was to let the questions go. To stop talking. To get back to the reason they were here.

  “Why don’t you think on that and answer me tomorrow?” she said, getting up to her hands and knees and crawling between his legs.

  He spread them wider. “Sounds like a hell of a plan.”

  Smiling, she ringed her fingers beneath the head of his cock and took him into her mouth. He let her know of his pleasure with the sounds he made, grunts and groans and strangled gasps.

  Then he let her know he’d had enough. He pushed her away, rolled on a condom, and urged her to climb on top. He didn’t have to urge much at all.

  She returned to straddling his hips and took him in her hand, lifting up and guiding him to her center. He filled her completely, perfectly, as if in some weird twist of fate she’d found the man with the body most suited to hers.

  It made no sense. There was no such thing.

  Yet she couldn’t push away the memory of catching his gaze on the balcony. Of the connection, the sense that he was the only man she needed.

  He held her by the hips. She leaned forward, her hands on his chest where she braced her weight as she rode. She took her time. She wanted to enjoy the tingling pressure, the sweet unbea
rable ache, the feel of Randy forever.

  Forever took no time in coming, and neither did she. Even after telling herself to wait, all it took was his fingers sliding from her hip to the sweet spot where her body had taken his in.

  He stroked her, teased her, wet his finger with her moisture and played with her clit. She shuddered and searched for the edge of her control.

  What she found was the freedom of surrender. She gave up, crying out as she came, feeling the surge of Randy’s release deep inside as he followed.

  It was quick and reckless, a heated burst that wasn’t enough. It was the fling she’d asked for, but as she curled up beneath the sheets next to his big warm body, she decided that Santa hadn’t quite got it right.

  GOOD THING Claire hadn’t gone into this affair expecting true romance—or even breakfast in bed. Randy was gone when she woke. She showered and dressed for the office.

  Had she known when she left last night that she’d arrive home to a working AC, she would’ve packed up her laptop and carted her work home with her.

  A day spent in slouchy sweats sounded like heaven. But she hadn’t known, making pumps and panty hose the order of the day.

  Before she headed for her car, however, she headed for Café Eros. Calories, schmalories. After last night, she needed caffeine and sugar, and no one provided both better than Chloe Matthews.

  At the entrance to the alley leading out of Court du Chaud, Claire ran—not unexpectedly—into Perry Brazille. Perry wore an orange tank top with her gauzy ankle-length skirt. “This is a cruel, cruel joke. If I wanted to sunbathe in winter, I’d live Down Under.”

  “No kidding,” Claire said. “I’m hoping coffee and Chloe’s Christmas pastries will go a long way to reminding me that Santa’s on his way.”

  Perry hooked her arm through Claire’s. “I’m right there with you, though I was thinking of starting the day with chocolate.”

  Laughing, the two women entered the café’s courtyard where seasonal blooms spilled in a riot of color from the center fountain that now served as a planter. They chose a nearby table covered in a cloth of Christmas red and gave their order to the server.