More Than A Vow: Vows of Revenge / After Their Vows / Vows Made in Secret

She eyed him, unsettled by his talk of feeling the same irrevocable pull. “I don’t understand how it can be like this if we don’t love each other.”

“I’ve never understood how love enters into sex at all.” He tilted his glass to watch the liquid move in the square bottom of his glass. “I’ve always thought pleasure was the point. Don’t look like that,” he chided gently, glancing up to catch what was probably a wounded expression on her face. “I didn’t say that to mock you. I’m being honest.”

She ducked her head. “It still hurts. You didn’t even think I was attractive, Roman. It wasn’t until the second day that you started to act as though you were interested, and that was after you knew who I was.”

“I told you in Virginia, just because I didn’t let it show doesn’t mean I wasn’t attracted. I’m not interested in serious relationships, Melodie. By that I mean marriage, kids, a lifetime commitment... I’m not cut out for that. You looked like the kind who is. So you’re right, at that first meeting I made sure to keep my interest hidden to avoid going down a dead-end road. Then you smiled for the pictures and...” He frowned, took a sip of scotch and curled his lip in self-deprecation. “The truth is I was captivated. I couldn’t hide how I was reacting when you came back the next day. I stopped trying. You’re very beautiful.”

She shook her head, not comfortable hearing that ever, but especially from him. Especially now. “Roman, I’m trying to believe you. I need to make sense of all this, but we have to be honest if—”

“Your mother was in magazines,” he cut in with a baffled look. “You resemble her. How could you not know how pretty you are?”

Anton. She didn’t say it. She wanted to be completely over him and his ugly criticisms.

“Mom was always described as unusual or arresting. She was just really emotive in front of a camera, unable to hide what she was feeling.”

“And you’re the same. Your true self comes through, and that woman is lovely, Melodie. I should have paid attention to that, not the fact that you happen to share the name Gautier,” he added in a mutter aimed at the bottom of his glass.

She took a few swift footsteps away. He made her feel positively defenseless. She did everything in her power not to react, even though she wanted to flinch, while her pulse tripped in alarm and insecurity attacked her. She had worked so hard to get over all the self-doubts instilled by her upbringing. If there was any benefit to her mother’s hospitalization, it had been the secondhand counseling she’d received. She may not have battled the same physiological depression her mother had fought, but her early years had been exactly the same steady erosion of her self-esteem that her mother had faced.

Now Roman was saying he could see past all the small shields she’d managed to assemble for herself. It was terrifying. She stood in silence, trying to pretend he held no such power while she waited to see where and how he’d use his power to advantage.

“I don’t want the ability to hurt you, Melodie,” he said finally. “I’m emotionally detached by conscious decision, but I can’t stay indifferent around you. You,” he said with a significant tone. “No one else gets under my skin this way.”

She almost found a shred of humor in his vexed tone. She could relate. The truth was she didn’t want the power to hurt him, either.

“I don’t understand why we’re like this,” she said. “We don’t know each other.”

“Don’t we?” He set down his drink and pushed his bunched fists into his pockets. His shoulders went back and his profile was a sharp silhouette against the black windows. “Who holds a woman’s ashes hostage so her daughter has to put her grief on display? It’s as bad as stealing a young man’s only hope for a future by threatening to expose his one mistake in the past.”

Melodie swallowed, acknowledging that he probably did understand her at a very deep level. “Did Anton contribute anything to that software program that built his fortune?”

“His name.” Roman’s expression lost its warmth, hardening. “He was doing me the favor of attaching himself to it. I was desperate enough to give up fifty percent for that. After a sound beating, I agreed to a hundred.”

Melodie gasped, feeling his words like a wrecking ball hitting her chest. But she supposed any man who could shake a woman until she begged for mercy could beat a man to a pulp.

“After Mom’s funeral they were never going to be in my life again. The job with Ingrid was a fresh start, finally a potential career. I couldn’t have traveled for work while Mom was alive. She needed to see me every day. We needed each other,” she corrected, setting down her own glass and purse on a side table to hug herself.

“Dad always had final say in her care, so he was always this dark presence that kept me on edge. Then, finally, even though it was only her ashes, she was in my care. I saw myself drawing a line under my childhood but...” She shrugged, accosted by vulnerability again, but it wasn’t as hard this time. She was beginning to feel safe making her confession to him. “You were supposed to be the redemption, Roman. You were supposed to prove that not all men are the same. You let me down. You proved that they can still hurt me. That all the brutality and ugliness they put into the world is still able to bounce back and hit me.”

“Melodie, I didn’t know.”

“I know,” she acknowledged with a jerky nod. “Anton has a daughter out there from a college girlfriend. I check in on her, send her money sometimes. He doesn’t care. You cared enough to show up and ask if you had a baby on the way. I knew that day in the limo that you weren’t really like them. I just...”

“Still hate me.”

“I’m trying to, Roman. If I don’t, then you’ll—”

“What?” he prompted quickly, demeanor changing.

He knew. She blushed and had to look away.

A muted noise sounded, and they both looked to the clutch where she’d set it next to her glass. Her mobile vibrated inside it.

“Trenton is wondering where I am,” she guessed, then made a face, feeling as though she was with a friend after all, she supposed, because she found herself saying a very uncharitable, “I should text back that I’m being nice to you.”

The banked sexual awareness between them flared like the catch of a match.

“That wasn’t—” she hurried to say.

“I know.” He sounded as though he was laughing at her, making her shoot a scowl his direction. “I’m not going to make another unwelcome pass, Melodie. No matter how much I want to.”

Which was a pass in itself, she noted drily, but managed to say, “Good.” Even though she was suddenly reluctant to accept that. Her mind was expanding with one ballooning thought. What would it be like now, when they’d set aside the misjudgments and animosity?

“I should go,” she said briskly. Before she lost her mind.

“I’ll walk you down.”

“You don’t have to.” She picked up her clutch and headed toward the door.

He pocketed his room key off the bar and followed her. “Better if we both reappear without looking flushed and disheveled.”

“Right.” Flushed. Disheveled. Skin damp and whole body tingling in the aftermath of orgasm. That would be bad. “Yes,” she affirmed. “You’re probably right.”

“Only probably? Don’t give me an opening, Melodie. I will take it,” he said.

They stood at the door, his hand on the latch, his white shirt and black jacket filling her vision.

“An opening for what?” She was playing dumb, not like her at all.

His mouth lifted at one corner, knowing. “I said I wouldn’t make an unwelcome pass,” he said, then touched her chin, gently forcing her to tilt up her face until she couldn’t avoid his eyes. “If this is not welcome, say so now.”

His touch was bringing her to life in ways she had thought were manifestations of an overactive imagination.

“I keep wondering—”

He covered her mouth and she knew. They were every bit as volatile as before. They stepped into the kiss with synchronicity, her arms going over his shoulders, his hands sliding to her lower back, pulling her hips into his. In heels she was eye level with his mouth, and they both moaned with pleasure at how perfectly they fit together.

The buzz sounded again from inside her purse.

They broke away.

She threw the clutch toward the sofa, missing. It hit the floor and slid while they stepped into tight contact again, lips meeting without hesitation or clumsiness. Her same distant thoughts of how and why penetrated, but she honestly didn’t care. He was the man who did this to her. She couldn’t turn away now that it had started. And there was no evidence of his trying to slow things down as his fingertips dug into her buttocks and he rotated to press her into the door.

Oh, the weight of him felt good!

Pushing into his thighs with her own, she incited where he was already hard.

He ground back, making a growling noise as he drew back just enough to smooth the fine hairs from her neck, then nipped and nibbled his way to her bare shoulder. The action was both tender and feral, as though he was asserting his dominance but with gentle care, demanding her capitulation in the exposure of her throat to him, rewarding her with caresses that trickled delicious fire through her whole body.

Threading fingers into his hair, she moaned his name, helpless to the onslaught of pleasure. Weak against the masculine power that didn’t need muscle to overwhelm her.

“Feel what you’re doing to me,” he said, lifting his head and dragging her hand to his neck. Beneath her palm his artery pulsed in hard, rapid pumps.

“Mine’s going to explode, too,” she said, drawing his hand to her chest, where her heart raced in such a rapid tattoo it alarmed her.

He slid his palm lower, cupping her breast, watching as he plumped the swell and circled the tip with his thumb, nipple tight and straining against silk.

Showers of delight glittered through her. She slid her hand to the back of his head and urged him to kiss her again.

He did, once, hard, then lifted his head. “I want to do it right.” He clasped her hand, drew it from his hair so he could kiss her wrist. “I want to take our time and do it because we make each other feel so damned good. Stay with me.”

It meant trusting him. Trusting that afterward he wouldn’t throw her out and ruin her life.

Her stupid purse hummed, making her look past his shoulder with an anguished noise. When she tried to step away from him, he resisted letting her go. For one long second his muscles locked in refusal. Then he sucked in a breath and stepped back, hands up with frustrated surrender, shoulders hitting the wall next to the door as he accepted her rejection with a stoic face and a knock of his head into the wall behind him.

Paris, she thought. And, Be nice.

Looking back at Roman, at the way he’d lowered his eyelids to hide his thoughts but couldn’t disguise the way his mouth had gone flat with dismay, she shrugged off doubts and skepticism. All she could think was I want him.

She walked over to kick her purse so it skittered under the sofa, then looked over her shoulder at him.

He came off the wall, alert.

Swallowing, she reached behind to begin lowering the zipper on her dress.

As it loosened across her bust, his breath hissed and his chest swelled. He came across to help.

She wanted to smile, but her gown puddled on the floor around her spiked heels. She hesitated, wearing only her bra and thong underpants, the vulnerability of the moment striking her with a sudden chill.

The way he looked at her bolstered her courage, though. His gaze ate her up while he shed his jacket, then pulled at his bow tie.

“Condom?” she managed to ask, trying to hang on to some shred of sense.

His expression blanked, hinted at panic, then he reached to pick up his jacket and swiftly went through the pockets, coming up with his wallet. Showing her the two foil packets he removed, he pushed them into his pants’ pocket, dropped his jacket and chinned toward the opposite side of the room.

“Bedroom,” he said in a graveled husk. “Or I’ll have you over the back of this sofa. You make me insane, Melodie.”

Yet he looked completely in control. It strained her trust, made her wonder for a bleak second if she was being reckless again. But the idea that she might have some kind of ability to provoke him was incredibly exciting.

She let her hips roll in a wicked sway as she walked ahead of him, providing what she supposed was a lurid view of her buttocks atop her long legs, but the thought made her feel sexy and desirable for the first time. With another twist of her arms behind her, she shed her bra as she went, leaving it on the floor, not turning around, smiling at the idea of teasing him.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accused, not sounding the least bit displeased as he came up behind her next to the bed and caught her back against him, one firm, confident hand capturing her breast as if he owned it.

It was both comforting and deeply provoking, especially when he gave her breast a firm caress and nearly buckled her knees with the catch of her nipple in a light pinch. She leaned into him weakly, legs shaking as he fondled more deliberately, playing with her nipple until she had to cover his hand to slow him down. It was getting too intense too quickly.

“Roman,” she whispered, part protest, part plea.

“I want it to be so good for you that you know without a doubt that it’s only about this, Melodie.” His other hand slid to the front of her lace undies, fingertips slipping under without hesitation, cupping, massaging, working with gentle but insistent pressure to part and find her slick center.

Gasping, she wriggled back from his hot touch only to feel the thick ridge of his erection against her buttocks. She stilled with surprise.

“Yes, you’re arousing me as much as I’m arousing you.” His caress became deliberate, flagrant, pressing her into the thrust of his clothed hips against her backside as he drove her relentlessly toward orgasm.

Her head fell back against his shoulder while he took full advantage of her capitulation, biting the side of her neck.

“I want us to be together,” she gasped, trying to still his hands on her, growing completely overwhelmed.

He lifted his mouth from sucking a mark onto her neck and said, “We will be. I’m going to lose it any second.” His voice grated roughly, as stimulating as his touch. “Look,” he said, shifting her slightly and there they were, caught in flagrante delicto in the mirror, his hands possessing her, his expression over her shoulder so filled with masculine intent she would have been alarmed, except then he strummed her again.

And told her how sexy she was, how badly he wanted her, how this was only the first of many so let him watch. Give him this because he needed to see he could make her feel good—

She cried out, embarrassed by the sight of herself losing control, so weakened by the buffet of climax she was wholly dependent on his support as he made it play out for her in lingering strokes that caused pulses of fading delight.

When she hung in his arms, he pressed hot, dry kisses and sexy compliments to her damp temple, finally turning her into his embrace so he could kiss her properly.

She belonged to him then. He utterly and completely owned her, and she didn’t care. If misgivings surfaced, she brushed them away before she could identify them, too busy cradling his face so she could kiss him, telling him with her lips and body how incredible he made her feel.

He was hard, so hard all over. Absolutely primed with arousal, chest like sun-warmed bronze as she opened his shirt and caressed his hot, hard muscles. When she kissed her way across his chest, lightly brushing his beaded nipples with her fingertips, he threw back his head and groaned at the ceiling.

His reaction wasn’t fake. What man as contained as he was would let her see the blind passion in his gaze as he cupped her cheeks and kissed the life out of her? What man that aroused would strip them both, then take his time pressing her to the bed?

What man wanting only to use a woman for his pleasure would kiss his way past her navel and ensure she was as ready as he was?

Sweeping her arms as though she was making angels in the satin sheets, she encouraged him with lusty moans, abandoning herself to the heaven of his tantalizing play. “Roman, I’m so close,” she gasped.

He turned his mouth into her thigh, biting the twitching muscle there, drunk on her scent and taste, wishing he could hold out to finish her like this and arouse her again, but wanting her with him when he lost it inside her.

With a growl of strained control he slid up the silken length of her, pausing for light bites of her gorgeous breasts, eyes nearly rolling into the back of his skull as she framed his hips with her bent knees, offering herself. It was all he could do to fumble a condom into place.

The barest few words could be found in the miasma of his consciousness—heat, softness, roses, citrus, wet, welcome. Melodie.

She arched as he entered her, taking all of him in one slick thrust that sent a streak of sensation down his spine, flexing his shoulders and yanking his stomach muscles into a hot knot of masculine energy. His thoughts grew even more base. Thrust, own. She panted and clutched at him, opened her mouth to his kiss and licked at his tongue without inhibition.

The animal in him took over, protective enough to ensure he didn’t hurt her, but driven by instinct to imprint himself indelibly. He returned to her again and again, his tension and level of stimulation so high he was blind and deaf to everything but her wordless expressions of yearning and need. He wanted everything she was. Everything.

“Give it to me. All of it,” he ground out, needing her complete surrender to passion before he could give in to it himself.

Tossing her head, she cried out jaggedly, trembling beneath him, nails scraping down his upper arms as she bucked. Then it happened for her. He felt her release and his own struck like a hammer. He drove into her pulsing center and held himself there as they both were clenched in the paroxysm of orgasm.

Time stood still. Nothing mattered except this pleasure. No one existed but him and Melodie and this state of ecstasy.

* * *

Roman rolled away, forcing Melodie back to awareness of the room, how intimate they’d just been, that she was supposed to be working...

She covered her eyes with her forearm, not ready to face any of it.

The ring of the phone on the bedside table jarred into the silence. Roman came up on his elbow, damp skin brushing hers as he leaned across her, lifted the receiver and promptly dropped it back into its cradle.

Melodie peeked at him from under her arm. “Booty call from your Swedish friend?”

“For you, I imagine. I only booked the room an hour ago. No one I know would think to look for me here.” Continuing to loom over her, he slid his leg across hers, pinning her erotically to the mattress as he picked up the receiver again and punched a number before bringing it to his ear. “Put my phone on Do Not Disturb,” he ordered, then lowered the phone to ask Melodie, “Do you want anything?”

“I should go,” she said, shifting restlessly under the weight of his leg.

Holding eye contact with her, he said into the phone, “We’ll need a pair of overnight kits, toothbrushes and—” He paused to listen, then said, “Perfect. Thank you.” He hung up. “The drawer in the bathroom likely has everything a couple might need, including more condoms.”

“They said that?”

“It was implied.”

“Did I imply that we needed more? Because I think I said I should go.”

“Exactly. Should. Not that you were intending to.”

“I begin to see why women tire of you,” she said in a pert undertone. “Apparently you don’t tire at all.”

His grin flashed as he settled more of his weight on her and began searching her hair for pins. “Look, I’m no expert, but I’m thinking this hairdo of yours is not going back to the ballroom. So you might as well stay.”

She should have taken her own hair apart, but instead she turned her head on the pillow to allow him to find the rest of the pins while she played delicate fingers across his collarbone and down to his biceps, where he braced himself on his forearm.

This was nice, she thought. It was the sort of sweet moment that should happen after lovemaking. If only...

“Why the sigh?” he asked, making her aware she’d released one. The last of her hairpins went onto the night table and he slid lower so they were eye to eye. “Regrets?” His tone held a fresh note of reserve.

“No,” she said halfheartedly, then more sincerely, “No, this was...” Nice? Hardly. It had been basic and regressive. The blatant way he’d watched her come apart in the mirror, then devoted himself to her pleasure before stamping her with guttural thrusts rushed back at her. The burn of a self-conscious flush crept into her throat and face. “I’m embarrassed, if you want the truth. I don’t fall into bed with men. I don’t behave like this at all. Ever.”

“Except with me,” he said, as though making the statement of a closing argument.

“Except with you,” she agreed softly, shifting her head so she felt his forearm under her cheek and had her lips against the smooth skin inside his biceps. He tasted faintly salty against her openmouthed kiss and smelled dark and masculine as she drew another fatalistic sigh.

“I’m not intuitive, Melodie, but you don’t sound happy about that.”

“Because even if I stay the night, I still have to leave in the morning. I’ll never feel like this again and that’s depressing.”

“You don’t have to leave.”

“I do. We’re flying to, um, gosh, I’m losing track.” She looked to the headboard as though it had the answer. “Hartford, maybe. Leaving really early.”

“You don’t sound as if you enjoy this job. Quit.”

“I can’t. If I finish my contract and Trenton gets his nomination, I get a bonus.” As she brought her chin back down, she adjusted the pearls so they weren’t strangling her. “Before you think I’m all about the money, it’s for Mom. She always wanted to go back to Paris. I promised her I’d sprinkle her ashes in the Seine.”

“I’ll take you,” he offered smoothly.

“Please don’t ruin this by suggesting I become your mistress,” she admonished, both tempted and slighted. She’d thought they’d acted as equals here.

“I have companions, not mistresses,” he corrected, pulling back and letting his hand fall on her stomach, but at a subliminal level, he’d pulled way back. “I don’t buy women.”

“Really. You don’t support your lovers? Buy them clothes or jewelry? Take them on trips?” she asked skeptically.

“I meet their needs while they’re with me, yes, and sometimes that extends to after we’ve stopped seeing each other. But it’s not an exchange for sex.”

“You’re just that generous?”

“I try to be.”

He sounded truthful, if stiffly reserved. Insulted?

“Well, I only have to get through the fall with this job and then I can look for something else. So I will,” she said.

His lips twitched with dismay. “I don’t like that answer,” he informed her. “Quit now and look for something when it suits you.”

Yes, she was a fool to think they were equals. Here was the rich tycoon who got what he wanted without regard for other people’s wishes.

Proceeding delicately because she didn’t want to ruin this fragile accord they’d managed to find, she said, “Roman, my mother put her fate in the hands of a powerful man, then birthed me into the same situation. It didn’t work out well for either of us. I need my independence so I don’t feel trapped or obligated.”