He smiled at her sardonically. “Let’s talk after dinner.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I meant it, Gael. I’m not interested in some kind of sexual quid pro quo.”
“I’m very pleased to hear it,” he said seriously. “It removes the need I was feeling to rip Noris Newman’s head off.”
Her laugh was tremulous. “That was the first time I’d met Noris. Probably the last, thanks to you.”
“Disappointed?”
“No.”
“Something’s been bothering me,” he said pushing aside his empty gnocchi dish.
Carrie silently placed her own in front of him, her eyes sparking with challenge. She didn’t notice the anger that fizzed over Gael’s own expression.
“Yes?” She asked, her tone overloaded with saccharine sweetness.
“On Friday night, did you know who I was?”
She thought about lying, but decided swiftly that it was beneath her. “The second I saw you.”
He expelled an angry sigh. “What was your plan?”
“My plan?”
“And don’t lie to me. I can tell you’re someone who has a plan in everything she does.”
He was right, but coming from Gael, it felt like an insult. She sipped her martini, regarding him thoughtfully. Her blue eyes didn’t drop from his face. She swallowed, and said the words she’d been thinking for years. “I was embarrassed that night. The night I … I kissed you. I misunderstood what you wanted. I get it. But I honestly thought you felt it too. That you wanted me. And I’ll never forget what you said to me.”
She finally dropped her gaze, the intensity in his stare too much to handle.
“And never forgive me for it?” He guessed shrewdly.
“Of course I’ve forgiven you. I was a kid. I made a stupid mistake. It hardly mattered.” It was a bald-face lie.
“I see,” he said. “Well, Carrie, seeing as it’s all in the past, I presume you won’t have any problems with my proposition.”
“Proposition?”
“I have serious concerns about the figures you’ve put together. The amount you’re asking for isn’t realistic.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flamed. “I appreciate it might seem a lot, but it’s the bare minimum required to launch the app on all platforms and organise a basic marketing strategy.”
“Yes, by my calculations you’ll need three times that to get the additional services up and running.”
Carrie nodded. “I’ll find the money, Gael. I’m very committed to this.”
“You won’t be if you’re searching around looking for additional investors.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Yes, I know.”
Her heart turned over as she wondered, briefly, how he knew. The very idea that he’d researched her made something odd pop inside her belly.
“So?”
“I’m willing to provide the full amount up-front. Conditionally.”
Carrie had never been so surprised. She stared at him, her mouth open. But his final word stuck in her mind. “Conditionally?”
“Si. I’m a businessman, Carrie, and I don’t make hasty decisions.”
“Okay, what do you need?”
“I have to fly to Barcelona tomorrow. I have urgent business and I’ll be there a week. I want you to come with me.”
She frowned. “Is that a condition? I mean, will you only front this investment if I come to Spain?”
“Yes. It is not negotiable.”
She felt instantly deflated. “I just told you, Gael, I’m not interested in becoming some kind of sexual pawn.”
“I’m aware of that. This would be business. I want more figures and facts. I don’t do silent investments. I appreciate you were looking for money and money alone, but I would plan to take a more active role in the company.”
“Okay,” she nodded, biting down on her lip. “I can accommodate that. But coming to Spain…?”
“I won’t sign anything until the end of the week. You have until then to prove to me that you’re as committed to this as I will require.”
“You’re doubting me?”
“With all due respect, Carrie, I know three things about you.” He leaned forward, and she caught a hint of his cologne. It made her insides jerk to life. “Firstly, you’re happy to have sex with men who don’t even know your name. Secondly, you run away when things get tough. And third, you are motivated by making money and a name for yourself, and that you’ll have done that as soon as the press gets wind of my investment. You will therefore have very little reason to stay involved.”
“Gael,” she said, her mind dragged to a standstill by his hurtful, yet accurate, assessment of her. “That’s …”
“Don’t bother trying to deny it to me, Carrie. You know I’m right, and I know I’m right. Come to Spain or there’s no hope of a deal.”
“Fine.” Her pale blue eyes bore into his. “Under sufferance.”
His grin was laced with a dark emotion she didn’t understand. “Good.” He leaned back when the waiter came to clear their plates.
“Anything else?” She asked, finishing her martini.
“Yes.” His eyes glittered speculatively as he dragged them over her beautiful face. “Business is done for tonight. I want to finish this meal, and then I want you to come upstairs with me. Not because you want my money, but because you want me. Because you want what we shared the other night, with both of us knowing what we’re getting involved in. I want you, Carrie, like I’ve never wanted another woman.”
6
Time stretched, like a string that just wouldn’t snap. She felt its inexorable pull and wondered how long she could sit without speaking.
Because she did want him. She wanted him with all her heart and soul. Her body seemed to burn for him in the same way her stomach hungered for food or her mouth for water. She needed him in an elemental, survivalist way.
But what then? What did it mean?
She lifted her lips in a cool smile. “I don’t think so.”
His eyes flared at the unspoken challenge. He understood her hesitation, but her interest was palpable. “Will you at least join me for coffee upstairs?”
Her heart was pounding, boom, boom, boom, it beat hard against her ribcage, so hard she could feel it reverberating through her entire body. She wanted him. But she had wanted him six years ago. She wanted his sweetness and his love, not just his desire. She wanted him to erase the hardness that had begun to coil around her when he’d told her that she wasn’t good enough for him.
“Coffee? Yes.”
Yes? She screamed inwardly. What the hell had she just agreed to? This man was the beginning and end of her angry frustrations.
Gael stood, and held a hand to her. “Excellent.”
“Your steak…”
He shook his head and his eyes found hers. “It no longer matters.”
He pulled her after him with desperate speed, through the tables, weaving and twisting, back towards the elevators. Carrie’s breath was coming in fits and spurts by the time the doors pinged open. Not because of the speed they’d walked, but because a weight of expectation was pressing down on her lungs.
Once in the elevator, he jabbed a finger to the top floor, and then turned to face her. “Do you realise I am using literally every single gram of my willpower not to kiss you right now?”
She couldn’t breathe, so how could she speak? Her blue eyes clung to him, as though he would make it better. As though he’d alleviate her suffering. “Gael,” she whispered, finally, darting her tongue out to trace her lips. “I ...”
“Oh, what the hell,” he groaned, and pressed his mouth to hers, pushing her back, until her head connected with the cold wall of the lift. His hands pulled at her shirt, lifting it from the pencil skirt so that his fingertips could connect with her bare skin. The lift pinged open and he wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her feet off the floor and keeping her snug against his chest. He walked backwards, carrying
her into the palatial penthouse and easing her feet to floor. He broke the kiss, to offer her a drink, but Carrie’s mouth chased his, not letting him speak. She kissed him with just as much intensity as he’d used.
He swore again, this time in Spanish, as his fingers found the hem of her skirt and pushed it higher. “God, Carrie, what are you?”
He undid just enough buttons so that he could lift her blouse over her head. His hands ran reverently down her back, his body pinned hers to the wall. “You are … You are …”
She shook her head. “You are,” she contradicted, her hands searching for his skin. He was warm and smooth, with a faint line of hair that traced from the thick column of his strong neck, down his muscular chest to the band of his pants. She pushed the buttons apart, so that she could see all of him, and then she traced a line of kisses down his chest, to the gold buckle of his belt. She kneeled before him, her blue eyes enormous as she looked up at him. She slid the belt from its loops slowly and deliberately, her eyes not leaving his face.
She dropped it to the floor beside them; it fell softly to the carpet. Her fingers reached for the opening of his pants. Surprisingly, her fingers trembled, for she was no retiring virgin anymore. Carrie had made it her mission to discover her sexiness, and to acknowledge that sex was just sex. A physical act between two biological creatures. It did not have the weight or importance that love stories ascribed to it. So why did she feel, now, as though she was doing something incredibly important? Something meaningful?
She pushed his pants down his legs – so firm and forceful in their size. Gael stepped out of them and his shoes at the same time, kicking them aside impatiently. The way she was looking at him made his heart turn over. It was as though he was her salvation. As though she needed something important from him, and he had no idea what.
When her tongue traced his length, he shuddered. “Carrie,” he groaned. He put a hand onto her shoulder, to pull her to standing, but she laced her fingers through his and held his hands away. Her mouth circled him, taking him deep into her moist warmth. And her blue eyes lingered, clinging to his face as she made pleasurable sparks erupt inside of him. His whole body was shaking with the force of what she was doing to him.
“Carrie,” he said again, this time a groan of wonder.
Carrie wanted … she wanted to bring him to his knees. She wanted him, too, but what she needed above all else was for Gael Vivas to acknowledge the domination that she could demonstrate over him. She positioned herself so that she could take more of him, and she smiled when she felt him slouch against the wall. His strength abated, no – surrendered – to her greater power. She pulled away, slowly, and reached for his pants.
His wallet was in the back pocket, and she opened it on a hunch. A condom was visible and she pulled it out, unfurling it on his arousal. He was so hard; she needed him.
They moved as one. Carrie couldn’t have said who pulled whom, but they fell to the floor, just a writhing mass of legs on the carpet, moving with desperation. Carrie didn’t kiss him. She didn’t hold him. She needed only fulfilment. It was not romance, it was not love. It was a transaction for pleasure. He gave, she received, and vice versa. She arched her back as he moved deeper into her, and lifted her arms over her head. He ran his fingers down their length, and then over her breasts. His palms were slightly rough, and as he pushed them against her nipples, she made a sound of pleasurable yearning. Her breasts ached, her whole body felt as though the nerve endings had been supercharged.
She lifted her legs around his waist and cried out, as an unimaginable world of pleasure opened before her. She dived into it, pulling Gael with her. Together they delved beneath the surface, their cries matched by their uneven breathing as blissful satisfaction wrapped around them both.
Carrie lay very still, waiting for her breathing to slow, and her body to cease its pleasure soaked throbbing. Eventually, she began to feel more like Carrie Beauchamp and less like a sex-crazed animal.
“Wow,” she said quietly, pulling slowly away from him.
Gael nodded, but he kept his body still, holding her beneath him. “Yes, wow.”
Carrie swallowed, and when she looked up at him, she couldn’t understand the tension in his eyes. The searching intensity as he stared at her, looking for something as though he’d lost it. “I have to go,” she said into the darkness of the hotel suite.
“No, you don’t,” he responded teasingly. “You are coming to Spain tomorrow. Why not stay?” The invitation shocked him out of his skin. He had never, not once, spent the night with a woman. In fact, Gael Vivas went to great lengths to walk away once he’d had his pleasure. He had no interest in any kind of romantic involvement. At thirty five years of age, he had accepted that he was just made that way. That some genetic switch had never flicked inside of him. The gene that required intimacy beyond sex wasn’t there.
“Stay?” Her panic mirrored his own reaction. And despite the fact he felt it too, seeing it in her eyes angered him.
“Yes. I have a very big bed. I promise you will be comfortable.”
“No.” She pushed at his shoulders and stood, looking around for her shirt. It was then that he realised he hadn’t even bothered to undress her properly. Her skirt sat bunched around her waist, from the way he’d pushed at it. He’d needed her with a speed and desperation that had defied his standards. Each time they’d slept together, it had been rushed and desperate. What he wanted was to hold her and please her, and stare down at her while he worked out just what drove her wildest of all. “Let’s not go blurring lines.”
“Blurring lines?” He laughed quietly. “What lines are we blurring?”
“All of them,” she responded with a self-deprecating shake of her head. “Work. Sex. The past. The present.” She hit her palm against her forehead and made a noise of confusion. “This is absolute madness.” She pulled her shirt on and buttoned it together. He noticed with pleasure that she’d omitted her bra. The thought of her naked breasts beneath the soft silk of her blouse made him hard again instantly.
“Madness of the nicest type,” he said with a sensual smile.
She shook her head. “Just madness. Look, Gael, I’m not the same girl I was six years ago.”
He took in the resolute set of her chin, the squared shoulders, the determined glint in her eye, and wondered what it was about her teenage self she wanted to run from. Why she was so adamant to draw a line in the sand, between who she’d been and who she now was.
“You’ve said that,” he nodded slowly.
“It’s just … I was a child then. Now, I’m a woman. I like sex. I’m not ashamed of that. I don’t believe in love and happy endings and that kind of immature nonsense. I see sex almost as an itch that needs to be scratched, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, that’s all.”
“Oh?” Why was he so angry? Why was her emphatic, emotionless delivery infuriating him? “So give me the right idea.”
She slipped her feet into her heels, and looked down at him, lying unapologetically naked on the carpet. He was so handsome. His dark hair glimmered in the moonlight, like black sand and flame. She closed her eyes, searching for inner strength. “I like sex. Not you. What we have is something I could have with any other guy I found attractive.” She blinked then, meeting his eyes with a silent challenge. She had no idea that her expression revealed a well of inner torment. How could she? She’d spent years perfecting a mask, never expecting it to be challenged by the man who’d forced her to assume it.
“I see,” he said quietly, his mind ticking over her proclamation.
“So I won’t be staying tonight. And in Spain… I’m happy to do what we just did,” she gestured to the carpet, the scene of their erotic entanglement, “but I will walk away from you every time, until we’re done with this.”
A muscle clenched in his gut. Something heavy and sharp at the same time. He stood and moved towards her with a menacing purpose. His eyes linked to hers. “And when will we be done?” He said, pull
ing her to him and holding her body against his. He saw the surprise in her eyes when she felt the power of his arousal, and he smiled inwardly.
Her bravado was slipping. She pulled it back in place with effort. “I never take long to bore of a man. I suspect next week will get you out of my system.”
“Excellent.” He pressed his lips to hers; it was a kiss of need but also of punishment. She had just voiced exactly what he’d always felt for women, but he didn’t like hearing it now. With his lips against hers, he lifted her skirt, and pressed his fingers against the sweet heart of her femininity.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was a husky kernel.
He smiled against her mouth. “Experiencing an orgasm while standing is one of the most satisfying sensations.” He grabbed her hands in one of his, his powerful fingers clenching around her slender wrists as he held them behind her back. He kissed her, and restrained her, while he pleasured her. His mouth dipped lower, to the sensitive pulse point at the base of her neck. Carrie tried to stay strong, but she was a single raft on a turbulent ocean of want. Waves of need rocked her, sending her pulse skittering through her body as heat, searing and intense, ravaged her nerves. She collapsed against him, shaking and overcome, as her body shredded apart.
“Gael,” she whimpered, weakened and exhausted. “That’s…”
He squeezed her wrists. “Just the beginning,” he promised. “You may tire of me eventually, Carrie, but I suspect it will take longer than a week.”
“It’s just a week,” Carrie searched her apartment, locating essentials as she went. Make up, exfoliator, face masks, conditioner. “And I’ll have my phone.”
“I know,” Juanita said, “But we’re going dress shopping at the weekend.”
“I’ll be back by Sunday, I promise. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Are you sure?”