Very slowly, he lifted his hand from her breast and took all the pressure of his body to the side, releasing her. Instantly, she was cold and lonely and achy in a completely different way.
“I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met,” he said simply. “And if keeping that contract will prove it to you, well, then....” He inched her bodice higher, getting her strapless dress right back in place. “I can wait.”
She didn’t answer, searching his face, knowing he had to feel her heart thump the way she felt his. A billionaire with a good heart? Was this even possible? Could she trust him?
“You can wait?” she asked.
“What’s another few days after twelve years?” He kissed her cheek and inched her toward the pillow. “Sleep with me. Just sleep.”
She could do that. The realization that she most certainly could do that, and it wouldn’t be wrong or stupid or anything but amazing washed over her as cool as the rain pounding on the balcony.
“Yes,” she sighed, rolling into his arms. “I can sleep with you.”
Hours later, Amanda woke up sweating and tangled. Without thinking, she turned to the man she’d fallen asleep next to, ready to make a joke about how her dress—her three-thousand-dollar designer dress—was wrapped around her legs.
But the pillow next to her was empty. Sitting up, Amanda blinked into the darkness. Cool air ruffled the drapes shrouding the bed, the sound of steady rain loud enough for her to know the French doors were opened. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
They’d fallen asleep on top of the covers, but at some point, Zeke had pulled the comforter down and covered her with a sheet.
She threw that off and pushed back the sheer drape, peering into the darkness toward the balcony. It was hard to see, but it looked like he stood leaning against the railing, face up to the sky, rain pouring on him.
He needed to be alone. Needed to do his...waiting.
Her heart folded as she remembered the words he’d whispered to her.
I can wait.
But could he wait forever? She let out a long, slow breath of sadness and frustration. She should tell him now. She should tell him what he was getting into and how…unavailable she was emotionally and physically and every other way a man might want her.
How would he take it? She barely knew him, but she had a sense that he was a man of honor. He was also a man who got what he wanted. A man who could tear a paper-towel contract in two with one sexy, talented hand. He could lick a contract apart, kiss it to pieces, make a mockery of…legalities.
And he seemed to want more than sex, or was that her dreaming and fantasizing that he truly was the perfect man?
Another long, low rumble of thunder rolled over the Atlantic Ocean, echoing in the room. Her entire being longed to bring him back to bed. But she couldn’t—she shouldn’t—do that.
She slipped her feet to the floor, the sheer dress damp from sweat and discomfort. The bodice squeezed her top, the material stuck to her legs. Her fingers brushed something cool and crisp, and she lifted Zeke’s shirt, which he’d left on the bed.
Without a second’s hesitation, she slipped out of the dress, wearing nothing but a tiny silk thong. The room lit with distant lightning, enough for Amanda to see Zeke’s silhouette standing on the wide balcony, the marbled section protruding out further than the overhang, rain drenching him.
She stuck her arms in his shirt, buttoning a few buttons and standing so that it fell to her bare thighs. Taking a breath, she calmed herself and walked slowly toward the storm outside, which could only be a little more dangerous than the one raging inside her.
She had to do something. She had to.
* * *
Water sluiced down Zeke’s bare chest, dousing his hair, soaking his skin, and plastering the pants that still hung unbuttoned to his body. Mother Nature’s cold shower was doing its job, and he didn’t have to go into the bathroom and run water to keep his erection at bay.
Around three, he’d awakened, a curvy, sexy, soft, sweet woman in his arms, her breath against his cheek, her sleepy sighs as intoxicating as the port he’d had in Garrett’s library. With each moment, he’d grown hotter, harder, and more desperate to touch her.
He’d stroked her arm, let their feet brush, and listened to the music of a moan she’d never know she’d let out. If he’d touched Mandy, she would have responded. Their bodies were meant for each other, ready for the inevitable.
But the pain in her eyes after their kiss had told him the ice-cold reality that some heartless bastard had slashed her heart. No, he couldn’t do anything that would—
He shuddered as arms wrapped around his waist, stunning him with warmth and invitation.
“What are you doing out here, Ezekiel?”
Her voice was musical, gentle against the distant backdrop of thunder.
“Solving a quadratic equation.”
He felt her laugh. “What a geek.”
“It’s that or break the contract.”
She scraped her fingers over his chest. “You already did. This is not your shirt.”
He put his hand on her arm, recognizing the feel of familiar fabric, already wet from the downpour. “No, but this is.”
“I borrowed. Is that okay under our contract?”
Mandy was in his shirt. The thought shot fire into his groin, taking him back to the state he’d tried for the last twenty minutes to drown. “No,” he said, the roughness in his voice surprising him. “Not okay.”
In one easy move, he pulled her around his body, getting her right in front of him against the railing. She was rain-soaked already, the water battering her hair and pouring down her face. But she looked up at him, undaunted by a little smeared makeup and a storm.
“The rules didn’t say whose clothes we had to wear,” she whispered. “And it was the closest thing to you in that empty bed.”
Her words slayed him, punctuated by a flash of lightning in the distance. The light was just enough to highlight his wet dress shirt flattened against her body, molded to her form, the shape of her breasts visible, the points of her nipples like gumdrops he needed to taste.
Instinctively, he leaned her back so more rain poured over her. She dropped her head and let the water cover her face and slide down her neck and into the shirt.
How had this happened? What lottery had he won? What good deed had he done? What karmic retribution put her in his arms? “Mandy Mitchell.”
She smiled, her back still arched, pressing her against him. “I really never thought I’d be called that again in this life,” she said.