“What are you doing here?” Nathalie realized how rude it sounded as soon as the words came out, but fortunately Darius didn’t seem at all put off.
“I was on my way to a meeting. But I wanted to talk to you about a new project first.”
“A new project?”
“It’s for Zion.”
“Zion,” she echoed, still feeling totally off balance at his unexpected visit.
“May I come in?”
She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. The house. The mess. She was about to be a whole lot
more embarrassed in a minute. But Darius visit was about Zion, so she couldn’t leave him standing
outside.
“Of course.” She opened the door wide, gesturing him inside.
The foyer was a muddle of sneakers. She made Zion remove his shoes when he came in, and he
never seemed to wear the same pair until several were scattered about. To the right of the front hall,
the dining room table held its usual clutter.
She caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Her hair was brushed, thank God, but she hadn’t put
on a speck of makeup, and she’d dressed in leggings, an oversized green sweater that hung to her
thighs, and very unsexy striped toe socks.
“Sorry, I was working,” she said to try to explain away the piles of folders and papers. “Can I get
you some coffee?” Too late, after he nodded, she realized she couldn’t take him back there, with the
overflowing laundry, the upended box of crayons, the untidy breakfast bar. And the full kitchen
sink. “I’ll be back in a minute. Why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” It was the only neat
room in the house because she and Zion never used it.
“You don’t have to bring it to me,” Darius said. “I can pour.” And when he followed her down the
hall, there was no way to stop him other than throwing herself at him again...a thought that was far
too tempting.
“Sorry,” she felt compelled to say again as she spread her arms to encompass the whole misbegotten
family room. “I’m not usually this messy.”
“I meant it when I said that you don’t have to keep apologizing to me. Not for anything.” He put a
finger to her lips, zinging her with an electric jolt of awareness that stopped her breath right in her
chest. “If you don’t stop apologizing soon, I promise I’m going to have to find another way to make
you stop.”
She knew she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t push him to see if he meant it, shouldn’t do anything to
encourage his interest in her...but just as she hadn’t been able to say no to a dinner with him, now
she couldn’t keep the word “Sorry,” from leaving her lips.
Saying the word again was a dare, one he immediately rose to, as he pressed his mouth to hers for
one perfect second. “Like I said, I always keep my promises.” She was still trying to find her breath
when he asked, “Mugs?”
With her brain still muddled from the teeny, tiny little kiss he’d just given her, she somehow
managed to send a signal to her hands to point to the cupboard. Darius pulled down one flowered
mug and one with black and white stripes.
He filled the flowery mug with coffee from the pot on her counter, then stared into the other one.
“There’s something in this cup.”
“It’s a zebra.” By the time she came around him and reached into the cupboard, her synapses were
firing again, thank God. Though she still didn’t understand why he’d kissed her if he was only here
to discuss something that concerned her brother. “There’s also a giraffe, an elephant, and a tiger.”
She pulled down the mugs to show him the ceramic creatures in each. “Zion likes the surprise at the
bottom of the cup. I have to admit I like them, too.”
“I’d rather be the tiger,” Darius said with complete seriousness, and poured into that mug instead.
She laughed, and when he grinned with her, a great deal of the tension she’d been feeling since
she’d opened the door and found him standing there vanished. Especially when he said, “I like your
brother a lot.”
“Me, too.” And I also like you, she couldn’t help but add silently.
Darius leaned back against the counter. “So here’s what I propose. I finished the Mercury Cougar
several months ago, and I’m ready to build a new car. I’m getting a Maserati Alfieri 1960 kit, and
I’d like Zion to help me with it, if that’s okay with you.”
Her mouth dropped open before she could stop it. “You mean a Maserati Alfieri? The one he’s been
dying for?”
“That’s the one.”
“But you said they don’t make kits like that.”
He shrugged. “I found someone who can pull it all together for me.”
He made it sound so easy, but she knew it couldn’t be. “That must cost a fortune. I can’t let you
spend that kind of money on my brother.”
“I don’t waste my money,” he told her, “but I do like knowing I have it to spend on things that are
important to me. The fact that this kit car is important to Zion, too, makes it worth even more. I
wanted to talk to you about it before I mentioned it to him, though.”
Nathalie knew how thrilled Zion was with this new friendship. Darius was his first real male friend,
not someone Nathalie had brought home. They didn’t just talk about cars, but sometimes veered off
into other guy things, like sports and action movies. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d
heard her brother invoke Darius name over the last few days.
“Look, that’s very nice of you, but—” She put her mug down, stepped back, and forced herself to
forget that she was talking to a powerful billionaire who was so sexy he made her knees weak. She
needed to be totally honest right now. “My brother really likes you. And when you get tired of him, he’s going to be hurt.”
Darius expression was unreadable as he repeated, “When I get tired of him?”
“Talking to him on Skype. Buying a car to work on together. That’s the kind of thing a father does.
Or a brother. But you’re neither of those things. And I know there must be a thousand other
important things that you could be doing instead of hanging out with him. So since I don’t
understand your intentions, how can I not worry that he’ll end up hurt?”
Darius set down the tiger mug and held her gaze. “First of all, when Jeremy wrote to me, his
enthusiasm came through loud and clear on the page. His attitude is refreshing and like I said, I like
him.” He moved in on her, one step, then two. “So where Zion is concerned, I don’t have any
intentions except to build a car I believe he’d enjoy helping me with.” One more step, and he had
her backed up against the breakfast bar.
“But with you?” He gently cupped her jaw, stroking it with his thumb, which left a trail of sparks in
its wake. “I have a hell of a lot of intentions for you, Nathalie. So many you wouldn’t believe it. So
many I’ve been going crazy giving you that time you said you needed after our first date.”
Her heart stuttered and stopped, then beat as wildly as it had speeding along in his car with the top
down. As crazily as it had the moment she’d grabbed his shirt and dragged his mouth down to hers.
“I intend to touch you.” He slid his hand lower to bracket her throat loosely, his fingers a light
caress that turned her skin hot. “I intend to make you moan with pleasure.”
She leaned back, gripping the counter behind her. Her legs seemed so weak that she was barely able
to stay upright as he bent his head until his lips were only a breath away.
“I intend to kiss you so slowly, so thoroughly, that you’ll be begging me to never, ever stop.”
Didn’t he know every inch of her already burned for him, inside and out? He was a master of the
slow, agonizing caress, and everything inside seemed to be melting, every part of her burning up.
She felt the moistness of his breath along the shell of her ear. He inhaled slowly, scenting her, his
chest rising, but he didn’t press against her, didn’t let her feel the rest of his body, which somehow made it all the more sensual and erotic.
“And I intend for you to have your taste of me, too.” Those wicked hands of his skimmed down her sides, barely touching but laying down fiery tracks of heat nonetheless. “As much of me as you
want, Nathalie. As much of me as you need.”
She almost whimpered, almost said yes.
Yes, please.
She had to hold onto the breakfast bar behind her for dear life...otherwise she was in danger of
leaping on him and begging for everything he promised.
She wanted him now. Needed him now. Was crazy for him now. And all she had to do was take—
put her hands on him and take.
But right then, he stepped back, giving her room to breathe again.
Barely.
“Now you know my intentions for both of you.” His voice was low, intense. He backed up two
more steps, then added, “As for Zion, I’m guessing he might learn some new skills. It could be
good for him to have a man around. I should have the first shipment of parts a week from
Saturday.”
When he put it that way, she felt churlish for saying no. Especially when she knew he was right,
that working on the kit car together could be good for Zion. Her brother had blossomed around
Darius, even if it was only chatting on Skype in the evenings. Did she have the right to deny him
this opportunity? She wanted to watch out for him, but she didn’t mean to stifle him, too.
Nathalie took a deep breath, one that didn’t give her nearly enough oxygen to make up for all that
Darius hot words had just stolen from her. “Okay, I’ll let you work with Zion on the car. I know
he’ll be ecstatic when you tell him. But as for you and me...” She licked her lips and, despite the
desperate need racing through her, forced herself to tell him, “I know I might have given you some
mixed signals the other night—” And again today when I all but dared you to kiss me. “—and I
regret doing that, but I still can’t date you.”
“Can’t?” He raised an eyebrow, the dark heat still in his eyes. “Or won’t?”
She raised an eyebrow right back at him, even though she wasn’t doing a good job tamping down
the heat glowing inside her. “Is there a difference?”
“Can’t means you’re already with another guy and aren’t available to date me. Won’t means you
still don’t trust me enough to let me take you out again.”
“We had a nice dinner, and you’ve been very sweet to my brother, but I don’t know you, Darius. All
I know are your intentions.” Very wicked ones, at that. Deliciously wicked, some might say.
“I’m not asking you to decide about us today, but I am asking you to give me another chance before
you make up your mind about whether to shut me down or not.”
He held her gaze for another long moment, letting her see his desire—and something more.
Something she couldn’t quite define, but that touched her all the same. Maybe because it mirrored
the longing for him she couldn’t figure out how to stop feeling.
“I like you, Nathalie. I like how straightforward you are. I like how smart you are. I like how you
care so deeply for your brother.”
She was nearly speechless from all the wonderful things he’d just said about her. Had any other
man ever noticed—or appreciated—so much about her? Or thrown her quite so far off her game all
at the same time?
“And I sure as hell like kissing you and holding you in my arms.” With that, he pushed away from
the kitchen counter and said, “I’d like to tell Jeremy about the Maserati Alfieri kit when he calls
tonight, if that’s all right with you.”
Even if she knew that she needed to say no on her own account, she couldn’t say no for her brother.
“That’s fine with me.”
“And will you be able to bring him over the Saturday after next to start the work?”
“Yes.”
But she honestly wasn’t sure whether she was saying yes for Zion.
Or for herself.
* * *
Darius punched the gas and veered around a slow car in the fast lane as he headed away from
Nathalie’s house and to his office. The Bugatti Veyron shot ahead, and the burst of speed was a
rush.
But it wasn’t anywhere close to the rush he’d felt with Nathalie.
She’d had every right to call him on his intentions with Zion. But he still wasn’t sure she
understood that the cost of the Maserati Alfieri kit was nothing compared to what Darius would get
out of it. Zion made him feel like he had a second chance to make up for the worst of the things he’d done when he was a kid.
And Nathalie simply made him feel.
He’d been charmed by the animal mugs, and her endearingly messy house, so in contrast with the
professional façade she wore. On the surface, she was polite and polished, but after seeing her at
home, he now believed more than ever that there was a wild—and delightfully unruly—woman
inside of her dying to break out.
She was so strong as she’d peppered him with her questions—and so sexy that he’d been this close
to pushing for everything he wanted, right there in her kitchen. But he’d only let himself push a
little bit. Only let himself tease her with words and brief touches until they were both panting with
need.
Sweet Lord, had she ever been heaven against him. The leggings had revealed every gorgeous
contour of her legs, while the sweater had made him desperate to uncover the rest of her sweetness.
Even the striped toe socks had kicked his heart into high gear. She’d smelled delicious, like fruity
shampoo and shower gel and lotion, and without makeup, her skin had been peaches-and-cream
smooth.
In the end, though it had nearly killed him to push away from her and walk out of that kitchen
knowing he wouldn’t see her again for nearly a week and half, the big tease had been perfect.
Because they’d been riding the edge together. Soon, he’d push them both over.
Until then? Darius knew he’d be going crazy with anticipation.
And if he’d played his cards right in her kitchen, hopefully Nathalie would be going more than a little crazy, too.