One Night in Santiago

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Audra North. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Heather Howland and Tahra Seplowin

ISBN 978-1-62266-410-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition December 2013

For A.B.

Chapter One

Lily Stanton pushed her way through the heavy doors of the hotel entrance, rolling her small suitcase closely behind her. The rain was still coming down in droves, but as soon as she stumbled into the gorgeous, rotunda lobby of the Santiago Ritz and the doors swung shut behind her, the din of the pounding rain dropped away as if by magic. Some of the accumulated exhaustion ebbed from her body.

She shrugged out of her rain-splattered down jacket and hung it over the handle of her suitcase, breathing a sigh of relief…just before the doors whooshed open again behind her. The deafening noise of the storm rushed back in, accompanied by a renewed tension in her shoulders. Lily whipped her head around and saw a tall man striding in from the awning-covered sidewalk, looking arrogantly calm, as though the raging torrent just behind him didn’t affect him one bit.

Wow. A fantastically good-looking, well-built man…

She shook her head and turned back around to walk toward the reception desk. She shouldn’t be checking out guys like that, ones who commanded attention even when the rest of the world was falling apart around them. Still, he was pretty damn hot.

Two employees were manning the desk, each busy giving out room keys to business travelers. Lily got in line behind one, while the man who had walked in behind her stood in the other.

There was just something about him.

The hairs on her arms were standing on end. She could feel it. Lily paused for a moment to confirm that it wasn’t the temperature causing this reaction. Nope.

It was him.

The effect he was having on her made her think he should be classified as his own weather system, something strong enough to rival the tempest outside. A veritable hurricane of hotness.

She glanced over at him surreptitiously as he, too, removed his wet coat, and then his suit jacket. He had on black pinstriped pants, and a lavender shirt that highlighted just how very broad his shoulders were and how alluringly tanned his skin was. His hair was cut short enough that the intense winds outside hadn’t disturbed a single strand.

He draped his coat and suit jacket from the handle of his suitcase, just like she had, and she could see a dark purple tie sticking out of the right side pocket of the jacket.

He looked like a proper man who was coming undone.

Lily pressed her thighs together against the pure sensation that shot between them. Get a grip. You’re only attracted to him because you haven’t had sex in several months. Then why hadn’t she felt the same reaction when her last date, back home in New York, had kissed her good night? It had been only three weeks ago, but that date seemed like something from another life.

“Señora?” A man’s voice broke into her reverie. The customer in front of her had moved away, and the receptionist was calling her forward.

“Oh! I apologize. I was daydreaming.” Lily gave him a smile and walked up to the counter. The man in the suit was coming forward at the same time.

“How may I help you, madam?” the receptionist—Edgardo, according to his name tag—asked.

She stifled a sigh. “I need a room for one night, please.”

Edgardo nodded. “Of course. Do you have a reservation?”

“No, unfortunately. I was supposed to fly back home this afternoon, but because of the storms, all the flights got canceled and—” She stopped herself before her voice broke. Thinking about how she might miss her baby sister’s graduation because of her own selfishness in going on this ski trip in the first place would have her crying her eyes out in seconds.

“The recent storms have been keeping us quite busy, indeed. I am sorry to hear your flight was affected. Let me just check the system for you.” Edgardo punched a few keys on the computer in front of him and studied the screen for a bit.

At the same time, the other receptionist was saying the same thing to the man next to Lily. That she was sorry about his flight, and that she was going to check the system. Apparently, the sexy stranger had also been trying to get somewhere on a plane and didn’t have a reservation, either.

Edgardo looked back up with a furrow in his brow. Oh, no. Please don’t be out of rooms.

“We have one room left…” He and his colleague began speaking at the same time, but realizing the echo, both stopped.

The female receptionist—a pretty young woman with pale green eyes and light brown hair—turned to Edgardo. They conferred for a moment in Spanish and Edgardo turned back to address her…and the mysterious man to her left.

“It appears we have a bit of a problem,” Edgardo said slowly, moving his eyes between Lily and the other man. “We have only one available room remaining. It is an executive suite—”

“I’ll take it,” she replied, at the exact moment that the gorgeous guy next to her did. Although, as it seemed that they were both vying for the last hotel room in one of the few hotels that she knew by reputation—she didn’t like taking a chance on unknown chains at the last minute—he was starting to look decidedly less appealing.

Edgardo looked wary, but he maintained his professionalism and soldiered on, “And the price is nine hundred and forty dollars for the night,” he finished, his eyes again bouncing between Lily and the stranger.

Who, once again at the same time as she, said, “Done.”

Oh, of all the infuriating—

“Jinx!” Lily exhaled loudly, the frustration of her day suddenly spilling over as she turned to face her now-nemesis, the brief attraction to him momentarily forgotten.

Momentarily being the key word. Because as soon as their eyes met, she could barely form a coherent thought over the rush of hormones that rose up in her body. There was something in this man’s gaze that called to her, that made her want to throw caution to the wind and do wild, dirty things with a perfect stranger. His chin was hard and angled, shadowed with a light dusting of dark hair. Deep-set chocolate-colored eyes, a perfectly straight nose with wickedly flaring nostrils at the end above full, pink lips set into a smirk—

She jumped as those lips moved, and she prayed her thoughts weren’t written all over her face. She’d been told she had an expressive face.

“Jinx? As in, I’m not allowed to talk until someone says, ‘done’ again?” The man had an American accent, though she couldn’t place its exact origin. Not Southern, and not New York, but that didn’t actually narrow it down much. His voice was low, but not too low. Perfectly pitched to be smooth and soothing, and she had a sudden, vivid image of him whispering hot, sinful words in her ear as he pushed into her body—

Lily snapped to attention, forcing her posture into a rigid stance. She tipped her chin up and looked him in the eye. “Yes, jinx. And pinch, poke, you owe me a Coke, while we’re at it. After I book my hotel room.”

His eyebrows rose. She knew she was coming off as a total bitch, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. This guy was hardly being chivalrous, and she was emotionally as well as physically exhausted. This ski trip she’d just spent six days on, at some chic and plush and altogether miserable resort in the Andes, hadn’t turned out the way she had hoped. Primarily because of the miserable part.

She held the man’s gaze for a moment before letting out a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. She knew she must look scraggly and unimpressive in her yoga pants and fleece turtleneck, her dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, but backing down from this guy wasn’t an option.

Luckily, she hadn’t spent years fighting for contracts as an independent consultant, only to roll over and die at the mere hint of public conflict over a hotel room.

“Fine,” she snapped. “I don’t drink soda. But you owe me a drink.”

“You take my hotel room and then I owe you a drink?” the man scoffed, reaching for his wallet. Lily took a step back. Was he going to try to buy her off? Maybe whip out an official-looking badge? Oh, no, please don’t let him have a diplomatic passport…the room would be his, for sure.

But instead, he withdrew a slim, dark gray card from one of the pockets of his sleek leather wallet and placed it on the reception desk. She willed herself to stay still, not to strain to see it like some kind of fluttering rookie.

The receptionist helping the man picked it up and her eyebrows rose. Edgardo glanced over at it and his eyes went wide.

Shit.

That was the universal expression for, “You’re screwed.”

“Miss Stanton,” Edgardo cleared his throat. “I do apologize, but might you have a Ritz-Carlton Rewards account?”

So that’s what it was. Lily shook her head and simmered. She usually stayed at Marriotts, since that had been the hotel chain that her first consulting firm preferred, back when she had been starting out and worked for someone else. After she struck out on her own she wanted to maintain her loyalty points.

Besides, it was more practical. The Ritz was a beautiful hotel, certainly, but she wasn’t going to regularly dig into her own bottom line by splurging for the more expensive chain on a regular basis.

Apparently, this guy didn’t have a problem with his bottom line.

She ignored the catcalls in her mind as an image of his firm ass momentarily filled her vision.

Or maybe he was a financial catastrophe. She might feel slightly superior if he was just a playboy on a spending spree. Let him have the room and continue to dig his own money pit. But judging from the way his whole person screamed “Wealth and power!” she somehow doubted he was anything but a very secure, competent man.

“I am sorry, Miss Stanton. We do have to offer the room to Mr. Komarov first.”

Komarov. The name of a man who apparently always got what he wanted.

And Lily knew she didn’t have any more cards to play. Literally. Time to bow out gracefully and get on with the search for a hotel room. There had to be another place nearby that she recognized, or maybe the receptionists would recommend one for her. Her shoulders slumped, but she managed to hold her head high as she nodded past the lump in her throat. “Of course. I understand,” she said quietly.

She turned to the man—Mr. Komarov—and summoned up every ounce of professional courtesy she had. “It’s only fair,” she assured him, even though she could only think just how unfair it was as she put out her hand to shake his, “although you still owe me a drink.” Lily forced a teasing smile, but she could feel the tension behind it.

He eyed her for a moment, but slowly extended his hand.

When his fingers touched hers, his large, warm hand sliding forward to envelop her smaller palm in his, her eyes nearly rolled back in her head at the pleasurable feeling.

Dangerous. This man was dangerous. A sexy, hard-bodied, well-dressed room stealer. And she had already had enough experiences with guys who took too much from her. She didn’t need to spend any more time in this one’s company.

It was for the best, then, that she was walking away and would likely never see him again. She had sworn off men like that after Jason. Sworn off men altogether, in fact, for nearly four months until her date a few weeks ago.

But before she could pull her hand away and run for the exit, he gave it a gentle squeeze, dark eyes boring into hers. It was as though he could see to her very soul in that look, and her breath hitched. God, but he was gorgeous.

Komarov cleared his throat. “I apologize for being less than a gentleman. I am afraid that the situation prompted me to act out of hand, and I reacted inappropriately. The room is yours.”

She couldn’t help it. Her jaw dropped.

“I insist.” He let go of her hand, and she was surprised to find her entire body felt suddenly chilled and her fingers stiffened in protest.

To the receptionist, he extended the same hand that had been holding hers, and an irrational jealousy surged.

“I’ll just take my card back and be on my way,” he said evenly. But as Lily watched his face, he looked so beaten and weary all of a sudden that she was ashamed. She had misjudged him based on his behavior—actions that had likely been born out of the stress and exhaustion that she only now bothered to notice were etched all over his face. Despite that, though, he had even apologized and given her the room.

Her parents had always taught her that a little short-term discomfort was always survivable, and that a generous heart and a positive attitude toward people would open more joy in her life than a surly, stubborn one. And here she was, fighting with a stranger for a place to spend a handful of hours, on the brink of missing a major event in Julie’s life because she had insisted on going alone on the ski trip that she and Jason had planned, even knowing that she would be cutting it close to land back in New York just over one day before the graduation ceremony. Definitely not generous-hearted.

Now the sibling she was closest to was graduating college. And Lily was stuck half a day’s flight away. If she managed to get on the morning flight tomorrow, Greg or Andrew—her two older brothers—could pick her up from the airport so she might even be able to sneak in a couple hours’ sleep before the ceremony. Enough time…but only if she made the flight.

She would make it. She’d take on Mother Nature herself if it meant being able to be there for Julie’s big day.

Lily hesitated, but Komarov prodded her. “Go on, before someone else calls the hotel directly and takes it from either of us.”

She sighed and passed her credit card and passport over the counter, then forced herself to look him in the eye. “Thank you,” she murmured, her cheeks burning with both shame and relief at the same time.

He merely winked and nodded, then began wheeling his luggage away. The female receptionist sighed quietly.

I agree.

And, just like that, she made her decision, and turned to him.

“The couch is yours if you want it,” she called.

Komarov stopped, but didn’t turn around. She quickly looked back at the receptionist. “There’s a couch in the suite, right?”

He nodded. “Indeed, madam. It even folds out into a bed.”

“You want it?”

He pivoted slowly and looked at her strangely.

“You don’t even know me,” he rumbled, and she forced herself not to feel naïve. Of course she didn’t know him. But the little girl in her still believed in the inherent goodness of people. Men, even. Not everyone was like Jason, and his horrible behavior shouldn’t cause her to lose her trust in humankind. Even though she might have lost sight of that for a few minutes just now, Komarov’s concession had given her a pretty good reminder.

She gave him a small wave and laughed. “Hi. I’m Lily Stanton.”

The hint of a smile quirked the corners of his lips. “Bruno Komarov.”

Bruno. Hot. Not that it mattered. This was just a basic courtesy, introducing themselves before sharing a living space for the next ten hours or so.

She flashed him a wide smile—the one that had gotten her moved to the front row at the Maroon 5 concert, had gotten her free drinks all night when she went down to New Orleans last year for Mardi Gras, and the one that Jason had called her the-only-reason-you-want-to-live-in-this-town-is-because-I-own-it smile.

She hadn’t used it since she and Jason had broken up. Or, more precisely, since she had discovered he’d been cheating on her for a year with her supposed best friend, Isabelle. That had killed any desire to smile at all.

She expected this Bruno Komarov guy to melt accordingly, and say yes so that she wouldn’t feel like such a jerk for taking his hotel room.

Hey! Since when had it become his?

But there was no time to wonder about that, because it dawned on her after a few awkward seconds of silence that the smile wasn’t working on him. Komarov—for some reason, she kept thinking of him that way—was just eyeing her curiously and probably waiting for her to say something instead of grinning at him like an idiot.

Well, damn.

She dropped the smile. “Look, I don’t know you that well, but I do know some things about you,” she argued, and then stopped. “Wait. Why am I trying to convince you that you’re safe and it’s okay for you to accept a place to sleep in my hotel room?”

Back to yours, then. You’re so wishy-washy.

Except she wasn’t. That was Jason talking, during the three years they had been together and he had been so sly about it, she hadn’t even realized just how far he had brought her confidence down. She’d been a young, hotshot consultant with her own thriving business when they’d met, and although work was still going well, she had been putting in way too many hours just to prove Jason wrong, to prove that she was worthy of him.

And, apparently, to help fund his affair with Isabelle. They’d carried on in her apartment, in the room she had given to Jason to use as his painting studio after he’d quit his job to focus on his art to become the next Basquiat.

Her hands clenched into fists.

He shrugged. “Because I have three younger sisters and I can only pray they would never do something as foolish as invite a total stranger to share a hotel room with them.”

Of all the—

“I was trying to be nice, not foolish.” She punched her finger in his direction. She should never have made the offer. He was a jerk. She stepped a fraction closer as she laid into him. “You’re not the only person who’s allowed to do something decent for another human being? I was making a genuine offer—and in return, you insulted me?” Lily poked her finger forward again and was surprised when it met a warm, solid chest this time.

She hadn’t realized she’d advanced on him like this. What was it about him that had her swinging from angry to benevolent, to grateful and back again to angry within a span of five minutes? She never acted this way. That’s how she had grown her firm to the level of success it had today. By always being calm, cool, collected.

Everything that, at the moment, she was decidedly not.

And it was because of him. This man who made her feel too much.

He looked down at her finger touching his lavender shirt. And smirked.

Lily let out a strangled scream of frustration, turned on her heel, and stalked back to the counter.

“If you’ll sign here, madam,” Edgardo said smoothly, pretending not to have noticed the exchange that had gone on not five feet away from his nose, “I will make the room keys. Er—how many would you like?”

Edgardo’s perfectly pitched tone—somewhere between polite interest and polite disinterest—wavered slightly, making her feel marginally better. She wasn’t the only one who had been knocked out of joint by Komarov. She opened her mouth to tell Edgardo that one would be enough, but a low voice just behind her left shoulder beat her to it.

“She’ll take two,” Komarov told Edgardo.

He leaned in closer, until she could feel the heat of his body and smell the musky scent of his aftershave, and said, “I accept your offer.”

…

Lily Stanton was trouble.

He’d noticed her the second his cab had pulled up in front of the Ritz. She was struggling to get herself and her suitcase through the heavy front doors without causing harm to herself or the doors and had barely succeeded.

But that’s not why he’d noticed her.

It had been her ass, frankly.

Curvy, tight, and encased in form-fitting sweatpants. There was probably some fancy name for pants like that so women wouldn’t feel like they were dressing down too much. But they were really just sexy sweatpants. Her rich, dark hair was gathered back in a half-braid, half-ponytail thing and fell to just beneath her shoulder blades, a thick rope of brown silk that reminded him of the rich soil of the family vineyard.

But it was the ass that had him tracking her with his eyes as she rolled up to the front desk. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to bounce quarters off of it, but he could certainly imagine what it would look like to have this woman bending over to take his cock from behind. That was a damned more attractive vision than flinging loose change at her butt.

There was no time to strike up a conversation and see what she was about, whether she’d be interested in a quick fling or a few casual dates every few months when he traveled here from his home in Napa Valley to oversee operations at his grandparents’ vineyard. She might not even be Chilean. Probably not, in fact, if she was staying at the hotel.

But the set of her shoulders was tight even under the jacket she’d been wearing, as if she were under some intense stress.

Join the club.

He watched her roll an unbelievably tiny suitcase forward. It was June in Chile. Wintertime. If she was a tourist, it seemed like she was roughing it—which was hard to imagine about someone checking into the Ritz.

He thought he saw her check him out, but since she was standing to his side, he couldn’t tell for sure. And then they were both at the counter, anyway, and he’d had to focus on getting a room. It was too far to drive back to the vineyard for the night, and he had to get out on tomorrow’s flight or he’d miss the big shipment into their warehouse in California. With Papi having just retired and Rosa, Hilda, and Delia all heavily pregnant at the same time, he was pulling double duty in the family business to make sure everything got done right.

His friends often teased him for having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but even though Komarov Enterprises had already boasted several vineyards and a bustling import business, he worked like a dog to maintain and grow what they’d had. His great-grandparents had started with a small vineyard when they’d first left Russia to settle in Chile, and each successive generation had added their own stamp. Even though he’d been born and raised in California, he took pride in his Chilean heritage and worked hard to maintain ties here. Bruno had added an investment firm headquartered here in Santiago to the family portfolio and was now looking at acquiring in the technology and renewable energy space in both countries.

But all that hard work meant he’d never had time to settle down, get married, like Mami was constantly urging him to do.

He was feeling ready now, though. At thirty-seven years old, it was time. He wanted someone to spend the rest of his life with. Definitely not one of the stunningly gorgeous, but incredibly vacuous women with whom he’d usually had relationships.

In that respect, anyway—the stunningly gorgeous one—the woman in sweatpants was definitely his type. Once he’d seen her face, he’d even be willing to bet that her career was modeling. Wide, plump, pink lips gave her a pouty look and complemented the light brown color of her eyes. Her nose was small and slightly upturned, and even though her skin was pale, she had no freckles as far as he could tell.

Definitely a model. A laid-back, sweatpants-wearing, tight-ass-flaunting model. He’d wanted to fuck her into the next decade.

Until they’d started fighting over the last remaining hotel room, and he realized just how wrong he was about his assumptions. She was not a delicate flower. Nor, in fact, like anything he’d ever encountered. She’d jinxed him, for God’s sake. Did little kids even do that anymore? And then she’d battled him, gave as good as she got, and when he’d finally trumped her with his loyalty card, she had accepted it with grace and goodwill.

He had been ashamed of himself, both for his assumptions about her and his reaction to the surprise of realizing that, just because she was beautiful didn’t mean she had an empty personality like so many of the women he dated. Because that’s what his nasty behavior had been about—he was bristling at the unexpected. This woman was a knockout, had a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, but she accepted defeat with poise.

And if any man had ever treated one of his sisters or, God forbid, his mother, the way he had just treated her, he would have taken the guy out. Twenty years of karate and a “freakish”—as Rosa liked to say—love of ballroom dance kept him in flexible, fighting shape.

So he’d conceded because he had no other choice, because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hadn’t. She’d gone and foolishly asked him to stay the night with her, told him her name, all while wearing the most brilliant, sexy, don’t-bother-arguing-because-you’ll-love-being-my-slave smile, and he’d mustered every ounce of willpower he had not to fall slobbering at her feet.

And then she had gone off on him, saying all kinds of things that he wasn’t even sure were true, and he’d been unable to resist. Even though his body was screaming in protest, knowing how hard it was going to be for him to sleep just one room away from her, one door…

“She’ll take two,” he heard himself say, and tried to ignore the way his cock jumped in anticipation.

Down, boy. This isn’t what it seems.

From the way Lily’s shoulders stiffened as she stood with her back to him, that long ponytail making him want to grab, pull, and bend her backward to meet his mouth as he dove into hers with his tongue, she wasn’t very happy with his decision.

But he already knew, from her impassioned speech, and the fact that she’d made the offer in the first place, that she wouldn’t renege.

And he knew, even if she hadn’t, that he was a good guy. Even if he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life, he wouldn’t take advantage. She was safe with him. He would keep her safe.

But, for some reason, he couldn’t resist tweaking her nose a bit. He leaned closer to her, just far enough that he could see the faint, wispy hairs on the nape of her neck, and purred, “I accept your offer.”

Chapter Two

The elevator car arrived and Lily walked in, head held high. After all that drama, Komarov just accepted the couch like it was his due? It almost felt like it was, the way he sauntered in after her and leaned against one of the mirrored walls, head back against the shiny surface. His relaxed pose made her nervous.

Now she was having second thoughts, all because of what he’d said about her not knowing him. But he had put those second thoughts into her head about himself!

She didn’t know what to make of him. After he had announced his intention to take the couch for the night, he had attempted to pay for the room, too. But she drew the line there. It made her uncomfortable. Not just because it would make her feel obligated to relinquish the bed to him, but because she just wasn’t used to having men do such things for her. She always paid her own way. And usually her boyfriends’ way, too.

Eventually, they’d settled on a sixty-forty split. They’d argued for several minutes over that one, until Lily had item-priced every major service or convenience that one might use in a suite within one night, then calculated that, actually, thirty-eight percent was fair enough for him.

He had raised a questioning eyebrow at her at that. It reminded her of how Jason had regularly called her a math dork and a pencil pusher. Those repeated insults—delivered in the guise of good-natured teasing—used to make her self-conscious about her skills.

But she wasn’t going to apologize anymore for being great at math, and excellent at breaking things down and quantifying their value. It was a big part of how she made a successful living.

“Thirty-eight percent. Don’t make me break out the decimals.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” he’d scoffed. His voice dropped and he gave a low, easy laugh. “Go ahead and show me what you’ve got. I’m a patient man, and I’ve got all night.” Lily’s blood had heated so fast at those words, she’d had to fight the urge to fan herself.

Of course, at that point, Edgardo had to break his pretense of not eavesdropping and informed them that they did not split bills on stays under three nights, reminding Lily just how temporary this was.

Komarov’s voice broke into her thoughts, pitched low and much more drawn out than he’d been down in the lobby. “Look, Miss Stanton. I want you to know…if this is too much for you, I don’t mind finding another place for the night. I’m really not trying to make things difficult for you.”

She turned and took him in, gulping at the sight of this tall, tanned, gorgeous man reflecting back at her from three of the walls. It was Komarov, surround-sound style. She shook her head. “No. It’s not too much for me,” she replied, before she could think. But she paused for a moment and realized that was the truth. This was a minor blip on the radar of her otherwise horrible week. “And please call me Lily.”

He pushed away from the wall abruptly, and surprise had her shrinking back, just a bit, before catching herself and straightening again.

But he’d noticed, and he grimaced, freezing in place. “I promise you I will not harm you. I was telling the truth, that I have three little sisters and I’d kill any guy who even thought about doing them a disservice. I won’t hold myself to a different standard. I wouldn’t even think of it.”

He looked so fierce in that moment, so intense, that she vaguely wondered if that’s what he looked like when he came inside of a woman. Her cheeks heated. She groped for something to say, to return her libido to something approximating normal. “Do you often have occasion to do that? To threaten the life of men who side-eye your sisters?”

He relaxed and chuckled. “No. Not anymore, anyway. There was a time, when they were in their twenties and not yet married, when I thought I was going to go crazy. I practically had to beat ’em off with a stick.”

Lily nodded. She could see how his sculpted features would look uncannily beautiful rendered more delicately on a feminine face. “I know the feeling. My sister is much younger than I am—she was a surprise baby—and just came into her good looks. I worry all the time about the guys she gets involved with.”

Said the pot to the kettle.

He grinned. “If she looks anything like you, I could see worrying being a full-time job.”

She snorted.

The elevator chimed and stopped, and she stepped out as the doors slid open. Did he just come on to her? She didn’t think so, since he’d said it so matter-of-factly, but it wasn’t something that someone said to a random acquaintance if it wasn’t a pickup line. On the other hand, they’d just finished talking about how he wasn’t a threat to her, so…Lily shrugged. He certainly hadn’t followed up his statement with any attempted kissing, groping, or inappropriate hand gestures, so she assumed he was just trying to be nice.

She pulled the card key from the little paper protector that Edgardo had given her and walked down the hall to their suite, checking the numbers as she passed. The room turned out to be at the very end of the hall. It was quiet. Secluded. Definitely a great place to come to on a romantic vacation.

Her shoulders tensed again. Don’t think about Jason!

“You okay?” he prompted. He was standing in the corridor behind her, and she realized she had just been standing in front of their door, not bothering to slide the keycard in.

An arm slid past her, brushing her ribs as he slid his key into the slot. The sibilant slide of his sleeve against her shirt was enough to make her brain shut down almost completely. The only thing she could think of was turning around, grabbing him by the collar, and pulling his lips to hers—

“After you,” he offered, pushing the door open and holding it with his fingertips to allow her to pass.

It was difficult to move out of his space. His arm was above her, his body bracketed hers, and she fought the desire to rub her back against his front. He would probably turn stone-faced on her again, like when she’d given him her magic smile. Plus, he was a stranger!

Way to add that in as an afterthought.

Even Jason hadn’t been a stranger when she’d started dating him. But then again, Jason had also been an asshole from the start, but she hadn’t seen it until years later. Lily was only passing one night with Komarov. She sighed and went into the suite. And gasped.

It was gorgeous.

Butter-colored upholstery combined with soft cream accents lent a clean, welcoming feel to the living room area, where a couple of chairs flanked a plush couch in front of a gleaming wood coffee table. There was a carved wood desk for working, a large, flat-screen TV, and what looked to be a half bathroom off one side, and a set of double doors leading to a room beyond, where a large, white-linen-covered bed beckoned to her.

“Wow, that looks so good.” It was impossible not to sigh in appreciation. She had awoken very early this morning to get from the ski resort to the airport, and the exhaustion of waiting in lines, then having to make arrangements for a hotel, and the unexpected—er, pleasure—of meeting Komarov had taken its toll. It was barely seven o’clock, but she was tired, famished, and in need of a long, hot shower.

She heard him chuckle behind her. “Now you definitely remind me of my sisters. They care more about the mattress and the water pressure in a room than the view.”

Lily turned and saw him standing near the far wall, pulling the drapes open as he spoke.

And when he slid them back, she gasped again and ran over to the windows. “Double wow!”

Since the hotel was located in a newer part of town, they could see most of Santiago before them, with the Andes looming in the distance. The intense rainstorm that had surprised everyone this past week seemed to have finally stopped while she and Komarov were wrangling a room. Dusk had fallen, and the twinkling lights of the city looked like their own small galaxy beneath the stars beginning to appear above the horizon.

A pang of sadness struck hard in her chest. “I can’t believe I’m only seeing this on the day I leave. Supposed to leave, anyway.”

He moved away from the glass. “What were you doing here, anyway? If I may be so bold?”

She laughed loudly, then. “The man who played his rewards status to gain this room is worried about being too bold?”

To his credit, he grinned, and Lily softened. The man had a wonderful smile. Straight, white teeth, and one side of his lip curled up slightly more than the other. She loved that tiny imperfection.

Whoa, what? You love something about Komarov? Her inner voice was reeling.

She gave a mental shrug. So what? He was attractive, relatively normal—or at least seemed to be—and he was impossibly sexy. After tonight, she’d never see him again. So she was allowed to bask in him for the short time he was in her life. Right? Right. Well, here goes nothing. She took a deep breath.

“This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip.”

…

Bruno felt it like a sucker punch to the gut. What the hell? If she was supposed to be on her honeymoon, where was her supposed to be husband?

Holy shit, was she married? His eyes flicked to her left hand, but it was bare. Unless her husband was European, maybe the right hand…nope. No ring.

But that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t married. It was one thing to share a suite for a few hours with an unattached woman. But he knew how he would feel if some guy were here with his wife, and no way was that gonna go down.

“Are you married?” he barked at her, more forcefully than he’d intended, but this was throwing him off.

She furrowed her brow. “No…” She spoke slowly to him as though he‘d just surfaced from a deep underwater dive and needed time to reacclimate to the terrestrial world. “It was supposed to be my honeymoon, but my ex-fiancé and I broke up four months ago and the tickets, the deposit on the villa at the resort—none of it was refundable.”

He relaxed in relief. She wasn’t married. “So you came anyway.” It was more of a statement than a question, because of course she had come, anyway, but he wanted to hear more of the story. It was a ballsy move, going on a vacation alone after breaking an engagement.

“I came anyway.”

She shrugged when she said it, as though trying to make it seem like no big deal, but she sounded so dejected that he decided to throw caution to the wind and touch her. He reached out and rubbed her shoulder, while simultaneously making appropriate corresponding sounds of sympathy.

And immediately regretted it.

He should not have touched her.

Because now his pants were tight, his hands were practically burning where they skimmed over the fleece of her top, and he could feel his lungs seizing up.

He was about to draw his hand away when she purred, “That feels really good,” and tipped her neck forward in invitation. “Do you mind doing it a little harder?”

¡Pedro, Pablo, y María! as Mami liked to say. This was so wrong, so so wrong…

But he took half a step forward, anyway, and started gently squeezing the fine muscles just above her shoulder. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, swaying toward him just enough that he caught the faint scent of her in the air between them, something clean and crisp that reminded him of autumn in Napa. Home.

“Wow, you are really good with your fingers,” she said, and he realized he was now kneading the muscles of her slender neck. How did this happen? “Did you study massage therapy or something?”

He tried to focus on what she was saying. She wanted to know if he studied how to touch a woman and relax her? No, but he sure as hell was up for a lesson right now… Okay, man. Settle down. Not going to happen. Just rub her damned neck.

“No.” He used the word to test his voice, relieved when it didn’t crack like an adolescent’s. “I studied finance in college, actually. But all three of my sisters are pregnant right now, one of them with her fourth kid and the other two with their second ones, so there’s a lot of massaging of necks, feet, backs, you name it. If it’s not a husbands-only place, you can bet my sisters have roped me into rubbing just about every part of their tortured bodies.”

Lily laughed and Bruno’s chest swelled with pride that he’d made her happy. She had looked so miserable a moment ago, when she had confessed that she had gone on her honeymoon trip by herself, and he’d wanted nothing more than to see her smile again. In fact, he wanted to see her wear that full-blown, so-damned-sexy-it-should-be-outlawed smile.

And nothing else.

He pulled his hand away. Dangerous territory.

“Want to talk about it?” He slid his hands into his pants pockets, striving to look purposely casual. He knew how his sisters were. If they felt he cared too much, they’d withdraw and not share a thing. But he’d perfected the art of caring just enough that every woman he’d ever known would spill everything within seconds of his asking, just like that. And they usually served him pie, or brownies, or some other delicious treat while they dished their woes along with it.

He should work for the State Department.

But, of course, he should have known Lily would be different.

She shook her head. “Actually, I’d love a shower. And maybe some food. I think room service takes a while, though, so I’ll order now. Do you want something?”

You, he wanted to say. His massage must have worked, because she looked softer now, even more beautiful, if that was possible. Now that they weren’t fighting, and he wasn’t worried about where he was going to sleep tonight, he was feeling like his normal self. Pretty easygoing, a guy who liked to laugh and hang out with friends and family. And beautiful strangers.

“Any kind of red meat works for me.” He shrugged. “I’m easy to please.”

She smiled and moved to get the room service menu. It happened so fast that he almost missed it. In the space of a second—just before she turned away from him—she swept her eyes up his body, starting with his crotch and ending somewhere around his neck.

He shuddered as though she’d actually caressed him.

She wanted him.

Which was certainly going to make not touching her much more difficult.

Bruno could feel his groin swelling and pulsing, and he had to step behind the couch to hide his swiftly growing erection. “Maybe I’ll have a quick shower while you’re ordering?” he spoke to her profile, as she was bent over the desk, thumbing through the room service menu.

She waved in his direction. “Go for it. I think the bathroom in here”—Lily gestured to the door behind him—“is just a lavatory. There’s probably another one off the bedroom with a shower.”

Nodding tightly, he made a beeline for the other room, relieved that she hadn’t bothered to look up and notice his now-tented pants.

This was going to be one of the coldest showers in history.

Chapter Three

Lily hung up the phone and tried not to squeal with a girlish thrill. Komarov had been rocking a hard-on when he fled the room. She’d seen him out of the corner of her eye, but pretended not to be looking as soon as she saw the front of his pants.

Which had been the first thing she’d seen, since…wow. Just wow.

And she thought the view from their suite’s window had been impressive. But his erection was even more inspiring scenery.

But had that been for her? Or, in the minute or so that they had moved apart, had he thought of someone else? Maybe a lover waiting for him at home, whom he wouldn’t be seeing tonight because his flight got canceled. She felt strangely dejected at the possibility.

Goodness, she didn’t even know where “home” was for him. She knew he had three pregnant sisters, which amused her even now, just thinking of a man as large and intense as him being tasked with rubbing his sisters’ sore feet. But that was about all she knew.

No, scratch that. She also knew he had a big dick.

She rolled her eyes at herself. May as well write his biography.

She heard the water running in the bathroom beyond, and she made quick work of the half bathroom off the living room, then rolled her suitcase into the bedroom so that she could get a change of clothes.

For a moment, she hesitated, thinking she should just leave it there and come back when he had finished showering. Somehow, it felt too intimate to be in the bedroom next to him when he was naked, soaping himself and rubbing his body in the shower, hard muscles flexing as he washed his back.

Lily groaned and slapped her forehead. This was going to be the longest night of her life.

What’s worse, she’d barely given Julie’s graduation a second thought ever since she’d met him. It wasn’t like her to forget her responsibilities so easily.

You say “responsibilities,” I say “guilt,” her mother had once told her. You have to stop feeling so apologetic for every little thing that goes wrong. Especially when you have no control over it.

That had been one year after Lily had started dating Jason. Before, she’d been more easygoing, but after a while she had started worrying over little things, obsessing about them turning out right. It became harder and harder to deal with mistakes, especially her own.

She had told herself it was because her business had been ramping up so wildly, but her mother had seen the truth. Mom had suggested that Lily take a break from Jason for a bit, to focus on getting her consulting business under control.

But Lily had scoffed. “I’ll never abandon Jason! I’m not like that,” she had insisted. Mom had cautioned her that Jason was more of a project than an equal partner, and Lily had said something back that she regretted every day since. Just because you’re still sad and lonely all these years after Dad’s death doesn’t mean that everyone else around you has to be, too.

It was only now that she could see just how worried Mom had been. And how right.

Lily hefted her suitcase onto the small console by the bedroom door and unzipped it, then stared down at the contents of the bag as though she were seeing them for the first time. It should have been obvious that this vacation was going to be a disaster when she’d packed as though going on a work trip instead of a fun getaway.

Until Jason, she had dated nice guys who, though they might not have been as sexually inspiring as, say, Bruno Komarov, were good people who cared about her and supported her dreams. Jason had been a break from that sweet, but boring, trend. He was tall and lean, with Nordic good looks and long-fingered artist’s hands. He rode a fast motorcycle—which she had later learned had been a gift from an ex-girlfriend whom he had treated just as badly as he’d treated Lily—and painted like a savage animal. She had fallen hard.

But even so, the sex hadn’t lived up to the attraction, and she had finally accepted that it was her problem.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed at her eyes. Massaging herself didn’t feel nearly as good as when Bruno did it, but she was so tense. A hot shower was definitely in order.

The image of her tiptoeing into the bathroom and slipping into the shower with him, kneeling down and taking him in her mouth, startled her.

She never fantasized about giving oral sex to a man. Every time she did it, it was only to please the guy she had been with and not herself. But something about Komarov made the very idea of having his hard shaft against her tongue the most desirable thing she could think of.

She imagined having his hand in her hair as she stroked him with her lips, how his balls would tighten and he would fight against climax so that he wouldn’t lose it in her mouth, but when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d say—

“All yours.” His voice jerked her out of her naughty fantasy so fast that she jumped and yelped in guilty surprise.

She whipped around and yelped again, but this time at the real deal.

He was wearing only a towel.

She froze, unable to tear her gaze away from his body. His shoulders were smooth and broad, his biceps just the right size for a woman to clutch as he drove into her. His chest was lightly sprinkled with dark hair over his olive skin, which ran in a faint line down the middle of his stomach, bisecting the muscles that looked like they were cut into his skin, so well-defined were they. He held the towel in place with one large hand, his long, powerful fingers clutching it so tightly that his knuckles were going white, and just beneath that, the terry cloth was poking up and out, jutting toward her—

She clapped a hand to her mouth as her eyes flew to his.

He chuckled apologetically. “It happens when I get a thorough inspection like that,” he said casually, but the tension in his shoulders belied the indifference in his voice.

Rather belatedly, Lily whirled back around and faced her luggage.

“I-I’m so sorry,” she stammered, directing her apology to the clothes packed in neat rolls.

He chuckled again and she heard his feet padding softly on the carpet, walking toward the door. “Don’t mention it. Really. The shower is all yours. I left my clothes hanging on the hook, but they shouldn’t be in your way. I’ll get them later.”

Her cheeks burned and she couldn’t look at him, could only nod, as he walked past her into the living room, pulling the door softly shut behind him.

Once he was out of sight, she let out a tense breath.

She felt like a naïve little girl again. The same way he’d made her feel down in the lobby, when he’d questioned her decision about inviting him to stay with her. But he hadn’t made any moves on her, and he’d actually told her not to mention it just now when she’d apologized for being forward enough to turn him on.

Which probably meant that he preferred to keep things mostly business-like, and that moment between them, and his erection as he left the living room earlier, just represented an inconvenient aberration.

A magnificent, large, thrusting aberration…

She flexed her fingers, trying to make herself move. It was no use thinking that way about him. The clock was ticking, and she wasn’t about to get involved with a man for just one night. Especially when she knew only the barest of facts about him.

But as she gathered her clothes and toiletries, it occurred to her that what she had told him earlier in the lobby—that she knew more about him than he realized—was true.

He was a good man, and she could trust him. She knew it.

Lily stepped into the bathroom and cocked her head. Something was off about it, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She shut and locked the door, coming face-to-face with Komarov’s lavender shirt hanging from the hook on the back of the door.

She couldn’t help it. She leaned in and took a deep breath.

Mmm. It smelled like him, only more concentrated. Pure sexy male. The tang of his aftershave, a subtle hint of soap, and even the bite of his sweat. The pleasure centers in her brain lit up like wildfire, and she pushed away. She could not afford to get even more turned on by him. Not after ogling him just now and making a fool of herself. Getting distracted by his hotness would only mean more opportunity to be a fool.

And she’d had enough of that this week. Hell, enough in the past few years.

She set her folded clothes on the toilet seat and her toiletries case on the counter, next to his, pulling out a few items and trying not to let her curiosity get the better of her, but she failed miserably.

She peeked inside his case.

What was it about this guy and her self-control? Even in her early days of dating Jason, when they were at their hottest and heaviest, she’d never felt like she couldn’t stop herself from touching him, from knowing him in every way.

But less than an hour in Komarov’s presence and she wanted to burrow deep inside of him and never come out. He pulled emotions out of her that she rarely showed to anyone but her family, and all within minutes of their meeting.

She gently rummaged through his toiletries. Dental floss, an unlabeled tube of something, an old travel bottle of conditioner, and—three condoms? The curiosity was practically killing her. Was he the kind of guy who packed them, just in case, or did he regularly have sex on the road?

Lily wrinkled her nose and slid one out of the case. Size large. She gulped. Well, she knew that already, but having it confirmed was doing something funny to the place between her thighs. She checked the expiration date. Less than one year from now. These had been bought quite some time ago, then.

It shouldn’t have been important. But she couldn’t stop herself from feeling relieved that they weren’t freshly bought condoms. Now her imagination was running wild, thinking about how she would straddle him, roll one of these on, and then mount him, letting him stretch her, taking all of him.

At that moment, she knew it would be great. Scorching hot. The best sex of her life, and what sex should be like.

The thought that she would be teased like this with something that she couldn’t have—wouldn’t take, anyway—was too depressing. She slid the condom back into the case and turned on the shower, stepping inside with a sigh.

That’s when she figured out what had been off about the bathroom when she had first entered. The porcelain tub was freezing cold. There had been no steam fogging the mirror and warming the bathroom.

Komarov had taken an extremely cold shower.

…

Bruno had just taken the coldest damned shower of his life. Too bad, because only a few minutes out of that polar-ice-cap-degree cold and he was practically sweating with the need to release himself inside of Lily. The way she had looked him over—leisurely this time, with eyes burning hot and ready—had almost destroyed his willpower.

But he would not hook up with an unknown woman in a hotel room in Chile. Or anywhere, for that matter.

As much as he liked to fantasize about a one-night stand with her, in truth it wasn’t his style. Even his shortest relationship ever had still lasted two months, until Mami and Rosa had sat him down and explained that Natalie had to go.

That was the only time they’d directly interfered with his love life. Mami dropped hints regularly, and sometimes gave outright suggestions, but they had never said anything about the individual women he dated. He could see the disapproval on their faces, though, every time he brought home another one, just like the ones before. Nice enough girls, with no particular aspirations other than to be a rich man’s wife, give him babies, and go to lunch or play tennis with friends.

Natalie hadn’t been nice enough, though, and her cattiness had been the reason why his mother and eldest sister had asked him to break it off.

But he supposed that some part of him had been choosing that kind of woman on purpose. Precisely because all they had wanted was marriage to someone with deep pockets, one wealthy man interchangeable with another, he had felt safe in the knowledge that he would never have settled down with any of them. He had wanted more. So much more, he realized, that he had been afraid that he would never find it. He would be doomed to hoping and searching for something that would never come his way. So he had dated women with absolutely no potential for becoming his lifelong partner, not even bothering to take a chance on someone more suited to him lest she turn out to be less than perfect.

Lily, though…she was someone he wanted to gamble on. To spend more time with. The thought jarred him momentarily.

But why? He had been in the world for long enough to know that he was tired of avoiding commitment. Lily had been a surprise, but already she was proving to be a refreshing change from the demands of his life, which he hadn’t really realized until today were pretty intense.

He wondered where she lived, if it was anywhere close to Napa Valley.

Probably not, though. She didn’t seem Californian. It was hard to explain, but there was something a bit more edgy about her. Probably East Coast. Which meant she may as well be living in Santiago. He actually visited here more than he did the other side of the United States.

He scoffed at the empty room. What was he doing, anyway, making up a fictional relationship with her? They were together for a few hours, nothing more. And he was going to behave himself.

He shoved his legs into his sweats—thick, fleece-lined, and baggy, nothing like those ones that Lily had been wearing—and pulled on a T-shirt before sliding his laptop from his bag and logging on to the hotel Wi-Fi.

Once online, he immediately typed “Lily Stanton” into the Google search box. Maybe it was an invasion of her privacy, but he figured if it was on the Internet, it wasn’t private, anyway.

The first search result was for Four Tethers Consulting. When he clicked on it, a full-length picture of her in a conservative skirt suit, shaking the hand of the president of a major IT service corporation, popped up. Holy damn. She was very successful, based on the client list on her website. She was the president and employed thirty consultants in her firm, apparently.

No wonder she hadn’t batted an eyelash at the nearly thousand-dollar price tag on this suite for the night.

And it explained her small suitcase. Every consultant he had ever met was able to pack two weeks’ worth of life into a suitcase smaller than his laptop bag. Considering that Lily had been toting a rollerboard, she had probably managed to stuff everything she needed for a ski trip into it and still left room for souvenirs to bring back home.

Even on vacation, she packed like she was going on a work trip.

Consultants were a weird breed.

He had been momentarily shocked when she had computed what had to have been thirty calculations in her head, down in the lobby. And each dollar amount that she had assigned to something that either of them would need to use during their stay was logically justified.

It had floored him, turned him on, and turned him inside out with the force of attraction he’d felt, not just to her body, but to her clever mind.

He poked around a bit more on the firm’s website. It was based out of Manhattan and listed a satellite office in North Carolina, but apart from that there wasn’t any specific information about its president.

He clicked back to the search results page and saw her name attached to several consulting projects at big technology firms. Interesting. She seemed to know the clean tech fields well, was an investor through an angel group, and served on the board of directors of a nonprofit company focused on bringing technology to public schools along the Eastern seaboard.

After a few more minutes, he hadn’t found anything more interesting, so he closed the page and started checking his e-mail.

Lily had been in the shower for nearly twenty minutes when he finally heard the water shut off, and he had to reread the e-mail he had opened several times to push past the image of her emerging from the shower, naked, streaming water, with peaked nipples from the sudden cold after so long in the wet warmth.

He groaned and fought for control by forcing the words from one of his e-mails into his brain. Sales projections. Market share. Growth potential. The dry terms brought him back to reality. He heard shuffling in the other room and the door swung open. Lily emerged, dressed in flannel pajamas, her long hair wrapped in a towel.

She looked amazing.

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “I didn’t have anything but dirty clothes and these pajamas.”

He pushed back from the desk. “You look great. Besides, it’s not like we’re heading to a fashion show.” He grinned and gestured to his worn sweats with the big Stanford logo on them.

She looked at him in surprise. “Did you go there for college?”

“Business school. I was at Berkeley for undergrad.”

“Oh.” Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Do you still live in California, then?”

He nodded, trying to ignore how disappointed she looked. She must feel it, too, he thought. This connection between them.

He wasn’t just thinking of their attraction then, though that was certainly a big connection, too.

They stared at each other for a moment too long, and he searched for something to say.

“I connected to the hotel network, if you want to use my laptop.” He gestured to the desk.

And almost keeled over when Lily gave him The Smile. The one he had seen earlier, and she hadn’t revealed since. But she did now, and the way it lit up her face was enchanting.

And sexy as hell.

“Thank you so much,” she breathed. “I haven’t had a chance to call my sister since the craziness at the airport.”

She was still firing that megawatt smile at him.

He looked away, shifting uncomfortably. “Yeah, well, go for it.” He got up and spun the chair around for her, then went to his bag to dig out his e-reader.

She settled into the chair he had just vacated and began clicking swiftly. Bruno headed toward the bedroom so that she could have some privacy during the call, but she waved her hand at him, not bothering to look up.

“You don’t need to go. This will be quick.”

He shrugged and turned, settling instead into a large, upholstered wingback chair across the room.

A few more clicks, and within seconds he heard the ringing of a phone coming from his computer. Soon, another voice came through the speakers.

“Lily!” it squealed, and Bruno smiled. Her sister sounded young and very excited to be getting the call. “I thought you were supposed to be on a plane, but I was reading the weather reports from Santiago and they said most flights were grounded. Are you okay? I figured you were okay, since you’re you and super-capable, of course, but I was still a little worried. Did you find a place to stay? I found a couple of online posts that said most of the hotels are completely booked because of all the stranded tourists. But you have Internet, so I’m guessing—”

“Slow down!” Lily broke into the monologue, laughing. “I think you’re way more worked up than I am,” she teased. “And I’m fine. I’m at the Ritz.”

Julie gave an impressed whistle. “You’re so glamorous.”

He tried not to chuckle, given that he just been talking with Lily about how dressed down they were.

Lily smiled, but even from a distance he could see it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her face grew serious. “Actually, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to get out tomorrow. I mean, the storms have stopped, I think, just based on what it looks like outside, but I don’t know how backed up the flights are.”

She was tense. He knew her well enough already to recognize the slight clenching of her jaw, the hard set of her shoulders.

There was a pause on the other end, and then Julie said softly, “Don’t beat yourself up about it if you can’t make it home. I’ll miss you, but Greg, Andrew, and Meredith will be there with Mom, and your staying safe is way more important than my graduation. We can always celebrate in a few days, just you and me.”

Lily sighed. “I should never have come on this trip and risked not making it back in time. It was a selfish thing to do.”

Bruno frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this. He felt protective of Lily already, and it sounded like she was taking on unnecessary responsibility for things that were out of her control. Julie didn’t seem to think it was Lily’s fault if she couldn’t make it back for the graduation. He wondered how old Julie was. Lily had said she was young. Was this a college graduation? High school? Lily certainly wasn’t fresh out of college, based on her career success alone, but she didn’t look much older than mid-twenties.

And suddenly, he felt like a dirty old man. He hoped she was at least within a decade younger than he was.

Julie scoffed, the harshness of the sound magnified by the tinny speakers of the laptop. “I think it’s about time you were selfish. You’ve spent the last few years catering to everyone’s needs but your own. If you don’t make it to my graduation, it doesn’t matter.”

Bruno couldn’t tear his eyes away from Lily’s face as she fought back tears. “You’re too good to me.” She managed a wobbly smile at the screen.

Julie tsked. “You’ve been through enough this week with your fun, screw-that-asshole getaway turning out to be such a disappointment.”

Lily sighed. “I should never have e-mailed you about that. It was a moment of extreme weakness—”

Julie cut off her sister. “There you go again, taking the world’s problems on your shoulders and not letting anyone share the burden. I know you still think of me as a baby, but I’m about to graduate from college. And I’m here for you, just like you’ve always been here for me.” There was a short pause, and when Julie spoke again, her voice was softer. “I’m grown up enough to at least listen to what is hurting you. And I’ll always be here for you, whether or not you make it home tomorrow.”

Bruno watched as Lily just nodded, swallowing convulsively. Uh-oh. She was about to lose it.

Not that he would mind. He could deal with a little emotion. What he couldn’t deal with was seeing this strong, smart woman driven to tears by a series of awful, unfair events. “Thanks, Julie. Listen, I gotta go,” Lily said, her eyes flicking to him for the first time during the conversation, as though she had forgotten he was there until just that moment. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear any news on my flight tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Take care of yourself.”

He heard the call end, but he stayed silent, pretending to read while Lily clicked and typed for a few more minutes on the computer. But after a while he looked up, curious to see her face, and immediately jumped out of his chair. She was crying silently, tears falling slowly down her cheeks even as she worked. She swiped at them with the sleeve of her pajamas as though they were just a minor annoyance.

He was at her side in three long strides, not even hesitating before he took hold of her hands and gently tugged her upright, then wrapped his arms around her slender body. And that’s when the dam broke. She grabbed on tight, gave one pathetic “Oh,” and then sobbed into his neck.

Chapter Four

This was so embarrassing.

After several minutes of weeping on Komarov’s T-shirt, Lily finally composed herself with several long, deep breaths and tried to pull away from his warm, solid chest. But his arms trapped her tightly, not letting her leave him when all she wanted to do was run into the bedroom and hide.

She had just lost it in front of him. She felt like the biggest loser in history.

He reached up and took the towel off her head. It had already gotten all skewed when she had pushed her nose into his collar, and her hair must look like a mess, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept making soft, shushing sounds, and after a while, she relaxed into his embrace.

Which felt really, really good. So good to be pressed against almost his entire length, front to front, breasts to chest, her legs between his as he leaned against the back of the chair and supported her weight against his body.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his shirt. “I’m so embarrassed. You must think I’m the worst sister in the world.”

He laughed softly, and she felt the vibration through his chest. “Not particularly, no. Sounds like you’ve been a pretty great one, actually. Greg, Andrew, and Meredith—are they your other siblings?”

Lily nodded against his chest, her damp hair rasping against the fabric of his T-shirt. “Greg and Andrew are my older brothers, and Meredith is Andrew’s fiancée. Julie is almost nine years younger than I am and our dad died when she was only thirteen. For many years after his death, Mom lost a lot of her spark, and I think that was hard on Julie, even though Mom tried really hard to stay positive for Julie’s sake. The rest of us were out of the house by then, and I always felt like Julie got the short end of the stick, spending her teen years without a dad, a grieving mom, and siblings who all lived far away…”

She trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling. I swear, I’m not usually such a basket case. It’s been a rough week.”

He tsked at her. “Even if you wept like a baby on a regular basis, it sounds like you have good reason to. And…not that I was listening”—she gave a weak laugh against his shirt—“but it sounded like you really are being too hard on yourself. It seems to me that you tried very hard to make sure she never felt like she had missed out.”

Lily sighed and shrugged. “I tried to go back home as often as possible. I pushed for consulting gigs in North Carolina—where I’m from—and guilted Greg and Andrew into coming for every holiday. Even Flag Day, for goodness’ sake.”

He laughed again, this time a short, barking laugh that made her smile. “It doesn’t sound like ‘worst sister’ behavior to me. In fact, if you were only in your early twenties, it was probably something that few of your contemporaries would have done for a teenaged sister.”

Her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, as if to say that it was no big deal. “Julie went through some hard times in high school with another girl that bullied her. She did so well at her university, but even so, I think not having us around as much to protect her during those difficult high school years really affected her.” She took another deep breath and sank into him. His hand came up to caress her back, gently rubbing in long, soft strokes from her neck to her waist.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, and he paused. She could tell he disliked when she apologized for herself, but she pressed on. “You’re making a lot of solid, rational points, and ordinarily I would be listening to you with a much more open mind. This just happens to be the near-culmination of an extremely bad, bad week, and it might actually get even worse if I don’t make it to Julie’s graduation. I recognize it’s irrational, but her graduation has become some sort of symbolic thing for me. It’s just important.”

He nodded, and she felt his chin dip into her hair. “I do understand. I went through something similar about a year ago. And it doesn’t make you irrational. It makes you human.”

Lily was so overwhelmed by his kind words that she didn’t know how to respond, so she simply stayed silent, wrapped in his embrace. She didn’t know how much time passed as she stood there, letting him ease her nerves, until she finally drew back a bit, pressing against his firm chest, which caused her hips to pitch forward into his.

And the jolt of heat between them sparked all the way up his body into his eyes. The warm brown of his eyes deepened even more, becoming nearly black as he slowly pushed forward, his face only a hairsbreadth away from hers. She felt his breath on her lips, and she licked them in response as her heart threatened to explode with excitement. He slid his hand to her waist, pulled her just a fraction more against his body, where she could now feel his powerful cock pressing into her lower belly—

A loud knock sounded on the door, and she sprang away from him as though she were a teenager again, when her dad caught her kissing Will Newhouse on the front porch after their first date.

“Room service,” a cheerful, accented voice floated through the door, and Komarov bit out a growling curse.

“Coming!” he shouted, and with one last, heated look at Lily, he went to open the door.

…

A part of Bruno wanted to silently curse the hapless waiter who arrived bearing their meal, but the interruption was probably for the best. If left alone for one more minute, chances are that they would have been too wrapped up in one another to even hear the knock. Still, he had to work hard to push away the images of a panting, gasping Lily that were crowding into his mind. What was it about this woman that got him so worked up, so impatient?

He definitely did not feel this aroused out of sympathy. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel bad about the shitty week—hell, the shitty relationship—that she’d endured. It was simply that he wanted her apart from all that.

But she had been emotional, and he shouldn’t have taken advantage of that. Thankfully, the waiter had stopped him. If he had tried to take it further, ignoring that she might end up regretting getting involved with him while she was distressed, he would have felt like a jerk for only adding to her problems.

He conversed briefly with the waiter, tipped him some pesos, and beckoned to Lily, who was still standing by the desk, to come and eat. The waiter had covered a small table in the room with a tablecloth and pulled up two chairs on either side, pouring two glasses of wine, as well, before leaving.

He hoped the wine that she had ordered would help to relieve some of her stress, even if only temporarily. After everything that had happened to her this week, she deserved to relax.

Sex could also relax her, he suggested to himself.

But he tamped that down immediately. No, no, and no.

Besides, she looked pretty shell-shocked, and he was worried now that he had scared her with that almost-kiss. He wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to eat alone in her room with the door locked.

He smiled at her as she approached the table, trying to look like he didn’t want to eat her up. He held out her chair and pushed it in as she sat, then took his own seat across from her and picked up his wineglass.

“Here’s to smooth flying tomorrow.” He kept his tone light. Friendly.

She picked up her glass and licked her lips, and he tracked it with his eyes like a fox scenting a hare. “Here’s to unexpected cancellations,” she murmured, and tipped her glass forward slightly, her eyes never leaving his, even when they both took a sip of the dry Chilean red.

Bruno shifted in his seat as his erection pressed up against the fabric of his sweatpants.

Definitely hadn’t scared her.

Out of habit, he held the wine on his tongue for a while, testing the flavor with his palate. It was a good wine. He glanced over and recognized the cork and label from another family vineyard that neighbored his grandparents’ place.

He set down his glass and picked up his fork, trying to keep his hands busy so that they wouldn’t be all over her. She might have just caressed him with her eyes, but it was hardly a clear invitation for what he wanted to do.

“You speak Spanish,” she blurted.

His hands stilled for a moment, then he grinned. “Sí,” was his only reply before he popped a piece of steak in his mouth. Damn, that was good. At that moment, with a good Chilean wine at hand and a perfectly cooked Chilean steak on his plate, he felt pretty proud to be of Chilean descent.

She looked at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised, as she chewed her own steak.

He swallowed and took a sip of wine. “Like two steers in a cud-chewing competition.”

She choked a bit, but recovered, swallowing quickly and downing a gulp from her own glass. “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been so flattered in my life.”

He laughed. “I meant it as a compliment. I like that you’re stubborn,” he told her, and before she could protest, he added, “My mom was born in Chile, but her family moved to California when she was only five years old. They spoke Spanish at home, though, and visited here often. When my mom was twenty-four, she came here for a graduate school project—her focus was agricultural engineering—and ended up working on my grandparents’ vineyard, where she met my dad. He followed her to California, where my sisters and I were born and raised, spoke only Spanish to us at home, and the rest is history.”

She sat back. “Wow. I hadn’t expected that. I mean, with a name like Komarov…”

Bruno shrugged. “There are a surprising number of Russians here that go back several generations. But my mother’s family is mixed. Some European, some indigenous, and even some African.”

“Is that why you come back? To visit your family?”

He nodded. “Something like that. But we also have businesses here, and my grandparents are quite elderly now. I help them run the vineyard, and manage the shipments to our warehouse in California.”

“Your warehouse? You produce that much wine?”

Lily was clearly impressed, and he felt flattered by her curiosity. For the first time, he felt like he was with a woman who was genuinely interested in the workings of his life, as opposed to how secure his financial status was, or whether he could make even more money than he already had. He could tell, just from the way her whole face was engaged in the conversation, that she would have shown just as much interest if he had told her that he was a welder or a rodeo clown.

Not that he was “with” Lily…

But you are, at least for now, a little voice in his mind said.

“Not from Santa Lucía,” he replied, thinking of the lovely, rambling house that his great-grandparents had built over a hundred years ago. “But we also have holdings in Napa Valley, and we import some foods and soft goods from Chile and Argentina into the United States. The warehouse holds all of that.”

“Wow, that’s more like an empire than a company.” She leaned forward and took up her utensils again, cutting into her potatoes, then paused with her knife hovering above her plate and cocked her head at him. “I’m kind of curious, though, Komarov. All that you have now…is it all that you’ve wanted?” She looked at him earnestly. “I mean, do you ever feel like you’ve had to sacrifice anything big to be where you are?”

He blinked. She wasn’t being arch or insulting. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, given her own success, but the question was unexpected, just the same. The women he’d dated only cared about the material things he had, not the intangible things he’d had to give up. Leave it to this woman to break apart one more thing he’d taken for granted.

She was an amazing wom—

Wait a second.

“Komarov? Did you just call me by my last name?” He knew he was probably overreacting at the moment, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He wanted—no, needed—to hear his name on her lips. Not Komarov. Bruno.

But she only looked at him with a half-smile playing on her lips. “It’s how I think of you. Besides, I don’t think we’ve known each other long enough to be on a first name basis.”

Lily was flirting with him. He liked Flirty Lily.

She took a sip of her wine to hide her smile, but he wasn’t fooled. “You told me to call you Lily, back in the elevator,” he reminded her.

“I was just trying to level the playing field. Didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable being a guest in my hotel room.”

He put a hand to his heart. “You are all that is generous,” he teased her back.

She waved her hand in the air. “More evidence that we don’t know each other that well,” she replied. But before he could protest, she cocked an eyebrow at him and said, “So? You didn’t answer my question.”

He toyed with his wineglass, tipping it back and forth by the stem, watching the color of the liquid change as it moved. Funny, that she was the first person to ask him such a thing when he had just been thinking of what his work had cost him.

“You don’t have to—”

“Recently, I’ve been—”

They both spoke at the same time, breaking the silence that he had allowed to stretch for too long.

He smiled. You don’t have to answer was what she was going to say. But he wanted to. He spoke quickly, before she could offer it again.

“I’m alone a lot.” He let go of the glass and brought his eyes back to hers. “For all the really great people in my life, at the end of the day, it’s just me.” He twisted his lips in a wry smile. “Maybe I shouldn’t complain about that, though. Seems like such an insignificant thing in comparison to what other people are missing in life.”

Slowly, as though the movement were seduction itself, she lowered her hand to his and rested her palm in his. The touch was light, but he felt it with an unparalleled intensity.

“I don’t think it’s insignificant at all. And thanks for telling me.”

She began to draw her hand away, but he curled his fingers around hers, rubbing over them lightly while keeping his eyes on hers.

He could see heat flaring there.

“S-so, what’s waiting for you back in California?” she asked, and he didn’t miss her slight stumble over the words.

And she didn’t take her hand from his.

He considered her question for a moment. Was she asking about his personal life? Whether he had a wife or a girlfriend? Or was her interest more general? What should he tell her?

He went with the truth. “My father ran our businesses for decades until he had a stroke nearly a year ago, but I only officially stepped up as the CEO a couple of months back. The first shipment of wine from this year’s harvest is supposed to arrive in California in the next couple of days. It’s a long-held tradition that, on that day, we have a big party for the entire company, and the CEO is there to make a speech and such. If I didn’t make it, in my first year at the helm, it would be…not good.”

He shrugged. “And, of course, my parents are there, and my sisters and their husbands and my nieces and nephews. My family.”

Lily frowned. “I’m so sorry. If you get a flight out tomorrow—which I think you will, by the way, since the weather seems to have calmed—will you still make it in time?”

He nodded. “I should.” And then, because he didn’t want to start worrying about it, he glanced at her glass and changed the subject. “You need a refill.”

She pulled her hand from his, and he exhaled heavily, immediately missing her warmth. She picked up her glass and held it out for him to pour. When he set the bottle back down, though, she kept her arm raised. “Cheers.”

He raised his own glass and touched it to hers, briefly, his eyes not wavering from hers. “What are we toasting to this time?”

She gave him a slow, relaxed smile. When she spoke, her voice was low and husky. “To not being alone. At least for tonight.”

It took every ounce of control he had to bring the glass to his lips instead of plunking it back down on the table and hauling her into his arms. She took a long sip, sighing and sinking back into her chair. She certainly seemed relaxed enough for him to test the waters. “So…still don’t want to talk about it?”

Lily gave him a puzzled look for a moment, but then understanding lit her eyes. “Oh! You mean about Jason.” She blew out a mock-annoyed breath, but the wine really must have done its trick, because she leaned forward and winked conspiratorially at him. “Okay, but only if you promise to comfort me after I tell you this traumatic, heart-wrenching story.”

She was so cute. And sexy as hell. And she had just come on to him.

She dropped back in her chair and held her wineglass in both hands, staring at the liquid inside as she began to speak. “Jason and I were supposed to have gotten married last Saturday after more than three years together. Except that, four months ago, I came home early from a consulting trip—I own a boutique consulting firm, by the way.” She waved her hand as though this was a minor accomplishment, and he just nodded. “Anyway, I came home and found my fiancé fucking my best friend in our bed.”

Bruno saw red. He was definitely going to kill this Jason dipshit. Suddenly her teasing words about a “traumatic, heart-wrenching story” didn’t seem like a joke anymore.

She frowned at the memory. “I wish I could say I did something awesome, like kick his ass and take her clothes so she would have to walk home naked. But I didn’t. I simply cleared my throat, they panicked and started protesting, and I just took off my engagement ring and left it on the kitchen counter as I walked out. By the time I returned back home, they were gone, and I spent that weekend packing up his stuff and leaving it in the hallway for him to pick up. I didn’t even slash his paintings, or anything like that.”

He gave her a grim smile. “It sounds like you were very mature about it.”

Lily snorted. “I was a doormat,” she retorted, but there was no heat in it, just an amusement that he worried was at her own expense.

“Anyway, we had planned to come here for a ski trip and some sightseeing for our honeymoon. I went back and forth constantly about going, anyway, but finally I convinced myself that not going would be letting Jason and Isabelle—my former best friend—get the best of me. So I went, even though it means that now I might miss my little sister’s graduation.”

“You couldn’t have forecasted these storms,” he assured her. “This isn’t usual.”

She shook her head. “Even when we were still together, when I booked the tickets, I was worried about making it back, but Jason said it was the only time we could go, since he was working toward a big gallery show in July. And I caved to his desires, as usual.”

There was so much derision in her voice that his heart stopped for a moment with a thought. Best find out now, man, before you’re in too deep. “Are you still hung up on this guy?”

There. Good. Put it out there.

To his relief, she laughed. “Jason? No way. I was over him even before we broke up, I realized. It didn’t take me long to get over his stupidity. But I am angry at myself. Because before Jason, I felt like I knew what was right and what was wrong. I felt like, even if I wasn’t perfect, I was good enough. Maybe I didn’t spend enough time with my sister, or maybe I wasn’t as ambitious as I should have been, or all kinds of things that didn’t necessarily match up. But I felt like I was doing an adequate job at being a human being. I didn’t realize just how precarious that image of myself was. How easily Jason tore it down. And I let him do it. I think that’s why I insisted on coming on this vacation. Because I was trying to get back something that I thought I needed.”

Lily paused and cocked her head as though she was thinking it over. “Pride, I guess. That’s what I was probably trying to get back. The ridiculous thing is that I spent the entire time sleeping alone in a huge bed in a suite with a lovely, romantic view that I couldn’t share with anyone and it only made me miserable. I even offered to fly my mother down with me, just to have some company. But no one I know could take the time away.”

She let out a short, harsh laugh. “It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized that I should have just left and either gone back home or explored the country somewhere else. That it was staying and torturing myself that made me more foolish than anything. I don’t even like skiing that much.”

His stomach roiled. What kind of guy would put a woman in such a position?

She took a sip of her wine and put it back on the table, then flicked her hair over her shoulder. “The thing is, like you, I didn’t like being there alone. But I wasn’t upset that Jason wasn’t there with me, which only confirms that I never really loved him the way I thought I had. For that, I’m grateful I found out he was no good before we got married. But what I was upset by was that I did exactly what I loathed in him. I put my pride and what I thought were my own desires before my sister. And now I might miss the most important moment in her life thus far because of that selfishness. I’ve let a guy who wasn’t worth it in the first place interrupt one of the few truly special relationships in my life.”

Bruno shook his head, but Lily put up her hand. “Before you speak, I will caution you that, no matter what you say, that’s what I think.”

He sat back. She was right. He didn’t know her well enough to try to convince her of something that she was so wrapped up in right now. Maybe in time she would come to realize that getting something back for herself was the right thing to do. Especially judging from her sister’s reaction.

“What about you? Have you ever let a woman drive you to do something foolish?” Her tone was teasing.

“I don’t know yet. And I’m not sure I’d call it foolish, either.”

“Hmmm.” His breath caught at the feel of her foot sliding up his calf. “Sounds like you’re a bit confused. Maybe you might need some help with pinning it down.”

“What do you suggest?” His voice was gruffer than usual, the desire he’d been feeling all evening culminating in a need so strong, it was practically strangling his entire body. Lily’s foot was halfway up his thigh now.

“Well, I am a consultant. I’m good at finding solutions to hard problems.” She grazed his erection, and he barely suppressed a groan. “Big, hard problems.”

“Lily…” He made a last attempt at rational thought. “You’re a smart, beautiful, sexy”—her foot eased between his legs with a gentle pressure, and this time he did groan—“woman. But when you make it home tomorrow and the stress of not knowing whether you’ll make it back in time is gone, and you’re further away from the days you spent at the ski resort, will you regret it?”

Her foot dropped. She slowly pushed her chair back and stood, then walked around the table to stand next to him. She leaned down close, placing both hands on the arm of his chair.

“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know,” she said, her voice pitched soft and low, and he felt his pulse jump. He could smell the floral scent of her perfume, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the neck of her pajama top, where it gaped as it fell away from her body. He could see her breasts, hanging in the shadowy softness beneath her shirt.

His cock jumped. Bruno gripped the napkin in his lap like it was a life preserver and he was alone in the middle of the Pacific.

She gave a delicate shrug. “But I do know that I have had a lot of important realizations this week. That includes tonight. And I know that, whether or not I make it tomorrow, it won’t change my mind that my decision to stay at the resort all week was stupid. What I’d like to do tonight, though, is do something that has nothing to do with pride or strength or any of that other bullshit. Tonight, I’m going to be selfish in the right way. Because, for probably the first time in my life, there’s something that I want so badly that it makes me forget everything else except for myself,” she said huskily, her lips practically caressing his cheek now.

His nostrils flared at the seduction in her voice. This woman was going to be the death of him if she didn’t let him touch her soon. And that was what she wanted. He could tell, and he wasn’t about to say no. He wanted her, too.

But he held off, just sat and watched her, knowing that she needed to say everything she had in mind before she could give herself over to him.

“And what is it that you want?” he asked quietly.

The wait was worth it. A slow, wide smile spread across her face. The Smile. His body practically vibrated with need.

“You,” she whispered, before she finally gave him what he wanted and pressed her lips to his.

Chapter Five

Lily had intended the kiss to be a demand, a hot and heavy exchange that set the stage for the kind of sex she imagined one-night stands would be like. Intense, rough, explosive.

But she should have known Komarov would turn the tables on her. He seized the kiss within seconds, slowing the slide of their lips over each other’s, gentling the strokes of her tongue by slowing the pace until the urgency within her melted away.

It was incredible, how good he was at giving her what she needed. Even from a sitting position, trapped by the table and the chair’s armrests, he made her relax. She was amazed at how soft she felt with him, how secure.

He didn’t feel like a stranger. His hands stroked up her arms and gripped the back of her head as though he did it every morning. When he released her lips to nibble a trail down her neck, then lower still, pressing slow kisses to each inch of bare skin that was revealed by the slide of a button, she had the oddest sensation that he was meant to do this forever.

When her shirt was hanging open, barely hiding her breasts, he finally stood up, pushing back from the table so forcefully that the chair toppled over.

She moved to right it, but he gripped her arm. “Leave it,” he commanded. And then, “Bedroom.”

There was no time to respond before his mouth took hers again, moving her backward toward the bedroom door even as he kissed her deeply, his hands roaming freely over her body.

Lily moved her hands up his arms and reveled in the strength she felt there before spreading her fingers wide and sliding her hands down his chest, flat palms over sculpted muscle that she could feel even through his T-shirt.

The backs of her thighs hit something soft. The bed.

“Komarov,” she whispered against his lips.

“Bruno,” he growled and pulled away.

She smiled and used the space between them to dance around him, turning him and pushing him back against the bed.

He fell.

Oh, yes.

This lovely, big man against plush white linens…it was breathtaking. She gave him a cat-that-ate-the-cream smile, stepping between his legs, which still dangled off the edge, and slid off her pajama top. His legs tightened around her, briefly, intensely, and she yelped.

He froze. “Did I hurt you?”

Lily shook her head. “I liked it.” She leaned forward to lay her body atop his, her breasts swaying hypnotically for a moment before melting against his chest, then wiggling back and forth, scraping her nipples across the cotton of his shirt. The friction felt so good she couldn’t help letting out a soft moan. He pushed his hips up in response, his large cock pressing into her abdomen through the fabric of his sweats.

“Jesus,” he gritted out, bucking again.

Her hands burrowed under his T-shirt, finding warm skin and firm muscles. “I want this off, Komarov. I want you,” she purred, pushing the material up.

But his hand came down, stopping her, even as he pushed his hips up again. “Bruno.”

Her eyes flew up to his face. His face was strained, his jaw set tight. He was serious. Well, then.

“Bruno,” she breathed.

But instead of letting her slide his T-shirt off, in one fluid motion he sat up, wrapping an arm around her waist and setting her back on her feet between his legs. He jerked the shirt over his head, threw it across the room, then pulled her back to him for a deep kiss.

His hands went to her right breast, gently stroking first, then rubbing and kneading as she made sounds of pleasure into his mouth. He lightly pinched her nipple and she moaned, and he tore his mouth from hers before putting it to her breast, licking and lightly biting where his fingers had just been playing.

Lily arched against him, and the position put his stiff cock right where she needed it. She pushed up on her toes and sank back down slowly as he moved from one breast to another, laving her nipples and squeezing the tender flesh. Up and down, over and over, until she could no longer take the torture.

Nor he, it seemed, because he pulled back, gasping. “Lily—”

But she shushed him and pushed him back until he was lying on the bed again, then leaned forward and grabbed the waistband of his sweats. She ran her finger along the elastic. No underwear. Perfect.

She stepped back a bit as she pulled his pants off, his erection springing free and jutting up thick and hard between his legs.

Lily licked her lips. Ever since he’d walked into the hotel lobby, this man had crowded into her fantasies, firing her libido and making her want. The mere thought of having her mouth on him had made her flush with desire, and the way he was lying before her now, like a delicacy to be savored, made it impossible for her to resist. Even though she was practically shuddering now with the need to have this cock inside of her, she wanted to taste him first.

Bruno realized what she was about to do. “You don’t have to—oh, holy shit, that feels good.” He groaned as she licked over the wide head of his cock before sliding her mouth around him. He whimpered. She sucked. And slowly, she began to move her mouth up and down on him, loving the way the smooth shaft pulsed under her tongue, the little sounds of pleasure that he made as she sucked him.

She felt him grow even harder, and his big hand grasped her by the shoulder, pulling her upright in one strong tug.

“Lily,” he gasped. “Can’t take anymore right now.” He sat up, resting his forehead against her breast and she bit back a smile.

But the smile died quickly as he rose off the bed and stood in front of her. God, he was beautiful. Seeing him naked like this, the dim light from the bedside lamp reflecting off his skin, she was awestruck.

He was hers for the night.

He kissed her, and she could feel dampness from her own mouth on the sensitive skin just below her navel as his cock rubbed lightly against her body. She moaned with need.

Bruno picked her up, tossing her onto the bed effortlessly before yanking off her pajama bottoms, leaving her in only her lacy lavender panties.

He stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes focusing on the only remaining scrap of cloth that covered her.

“Your panties match the shirt I was wearing earlier,” he rasped.

“I thought of you when I chose them,” she answered honestly.

“Shit, that’s hot.” He drew in a ragged breath. “Don’t go anywhere.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

“Where would I go wearing only lavender panties?” she called after him, but just then he came back out, holding the condom packets she’d found earlier in his toiletries case. Just watching him walk toward her, the tight muscles of his body flexing as he moved, was making her even hotter. She spread her legs and cupped her breasts in her hands, pushing them together. “What makes you think you’re going to get so lucky?” she teased.

Bruno placed a warm hand on her stomach and stroked downward, over her hip and then to her center, pressing the heel of his palm against her clit. She arched up and into his hand.

“That’s what,” he rumbled, and slid back up her body to kiss her, placing his cock between her thighs so that she could press against it, use it, to get closer to pleasure. “You’re so wet, I can feel it even through your panties.” He was pushing back now, responding to the light arch of her hips with a push of his own. He moved away from her and slid off the lavender bikinis, leaving her bare and wanting as he turned to the bedside table to rip open a condom packet and slide it on.

The sight of his large hand rolling the condom down his erection turned her on even more. “I want you,” she panted, sitting forward and trying to pull him atop her. “I want you now.”

But he didn’t move, and she frowned. “Komarov.”

He smiled back at her. “Bruno. And not yet.”

Not yet? What else did he plan—

“Oh!”

Just like that, he had pushed her back, spread her legs, and bent before her, swiping his tongue between her thighs. She melted and whimpered.

It felt like the best kind of ambush.

“More?” he asked, looking up at her face.

Her cheeks burned to see him there, in such an intimate place, but she nodded.

“Say it.”

“More.”

He shook his head slowly, lowering his chin so that his five o’clock shadow rasped lightly over her clit. She shuddered.

“No. Tell me everything. Tell me what you want.” He pushed with his chin. “Be selfish.”

Lily drew in a deep breath. Her cheeks were unbearably hot now. She had never done this before. “I want you to lick me.”

He grinned, dipped his head, and flicked his tongue over her lightly, then drew away again.

“I want you to lick me, Bruno,” he corrected her.

Hearing the words out of his mouth was so hot, she almost fainted. But she wanted him too badly to miss this. She wanted to remember every touch, every sigh, from this night. It was for herself, after all, that she was doing this, and she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to enjoy him in every way.

“I want you to lick me, Bruno,” she whispered.

“Good girl.” And he finally knelt all the way, pulling her body toward the edge of the bed and settling in. His tongue stroked gently at first, licking up and down the sides of her opening until she was writhing for more contact. His hands massaged her thighs and belly, played in her curls as he licked and nuzzled her.

She could feel her channel pulsing, clamoring for more. “Please,” she begged, past any capacity for banter. “I need you inside of me.”

But instead of rising and positioning his cock at her entrance, like she had expected, he opened her lips with his fingers—and plunged his tongue deep.

Lily jerked and cried out as sensation threatened to overwhelm her. She was so close, so close. If he would just touch her a bit farther up while stroking his tongue inside of her—

“Fuck.” He stood up and put one knee on the bed between her thighs. She shamelessly rubbed against it, searching for the contact that he’d taken away. “I’m taking you now.”

Her nipples tightened painfully. Yes.

She slithered up the bed and he followed her, slowly lowering his body to press against hers. She could feel the head of his cock at her entrance, and she spread her legs wider as he kissed her mouth while teasing her below.

His fingers dipped down between her legs, feeling how wet she was, and then trailed his damp finger back up her body, making her shiver as his gentle touch skimmed her belly, stroked her breasts.

She groaned as the head of his cock breached her, and for a moment they both held still, reveling in the feel of being joined for the first time.

He pushed again, sliding in a little bit farther. God, that felt good. She could feel the wet heat building in her passage, eager to accommodate him, and she tilted her hips upward, wanting more. But when her movement brought him deeper, he stopped cold, shutting his eyes and clenching his jaw as though he were in pain.

She squirmed beneath him, her breasts rubbing against his chest, the friction making her inner muscles contract in response, squeezing around his cock. He groaned and gave another thrust, a little harder this time, and she couldn’t help the small sound of protest that escaped her.

“Should I stop?” He barely got the words out, his teeth were clamped together so tightly.

Her hands fluttered up to his biceps, gripping them tightly. Lily was starting to feel uncomfortably stretched, but she wouldn’t even consider letting him go. “No way,” she panted. But he didn’t keep going. Instead, he stilled his thrusts and kissed her softly, slowly, stroking her body until she was relaxed and open, until she began raising her hips again, reaching her arms around his neck and hooking her legs around his waist to pull him farther inside.

“Better?” he murmured against her lips, the vibration on her skin heightening the already intense sensation she had of him all around her, filling her, until she couldn’t tell the difference between inside and out.

She arched her neck, pushing her aching breasts into his chest. “Fuck. It’s so good. You’re so good,” she moaned, running one hand down his back and palming his ass, pushing him into her heat until he slid all the way home. She was so slick that he went those last few inches with ease.

“More, Bruno. More,” she demanded, and then there were no more words. He pulled out nearly all the way, then sank back in on a groan. Over and over, slowly at first, rubbing his pelvis against hers every time their bodies met, putting pressure on her clit as he did.

Little by little, she came apart. Her whole body was hot, straining, as he pumped in and out of her, his heavy cock completely filling her every time. The sound of their damp flesh meeting, his low grunts of pleasure, her soft moans when he stroked deep—and before long, she was so close, reaching hard for the release that she could feel was barely outside her grasp.

“Fuck, Lily. You’re so tight, so sexy—I can’t hold on much longer.” His voice was strained, his rhythm starting to falter. “Lily,” he gasped. “Tell me what you want.”

Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want. The words circled in her head with every push and pull of his body inside of hers.

And the answer was so simple, so true, that she screamed it as the world shattered around her.

You.

…

Lily’s climax came on so hard that Bruno almost stopped just to watch her scream and shake with pleasure.

It was the most fantastic thing he had ever experienced.

But, damn it, her inner muscles were clenching so tightly, and she was so slick and hot now, that he couldn’t pause to savor her response to him, could only thrust in deep, heavy strokes until his own orgasm was ripping through his body, sucking him into oblivion as he shouted and fell, spent, into her arms.

They lay like that for a while, neither speaking nor moving, both trying to simply catch their breath.

The hazy buzz of his post-climax finally dissipated enough for him to realize that he was probably crushing her beneath him, and he rolled away, grabbing the condom as he pulled out.

She whimpered in protest as he slid away from her, wincing in discomfort.

He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, and disappeared for a moment into the bathroom to dispose of the condom. He’d panicked for a moment, earlier, when he wasn’t sure whether he actually had any in his case. But when he found the ones he’d slid in nearly a year ago, almost on a whim, then had promptly forgotten about them, he almost did a victory dance on the cold bathroom floor.

Almost. With a woman like Lily waiting for him back in the bed, he wouldn’t want to waste a moment getting back to her. Back to the woman with whom he’d had the best, most explosive sex of his life. A joining that had wrenched his soul right out of his body and deposited it in Lily Stanton’s soft arms.

Bruno rubbed a hand over his face. Jesus, he had to stop thinking things like that, or he might actually go blurting it out loud and scaring the hell out of her.

He already felt more for her than just lust, though. Lily might feel as though like she had been selfish in taking this vacation, but he knew it wasn’t true. She had sacrificed a lot for her ex-fiancé and for her family, and this week had been a trial for her. He was impressed that she had come out of it as a stronger person, had closed a hard chapter of her life for good, and even moved on in one flying leap. Right on top of him.

But he wasn’t sure what he looked like in her mind. Was he a narrow, crumbling ledge? Or did she feel like he did, like he was something solid and lasting? Something she wanted to hold on to.

Quit being a sappy shit, he told himself. Enjoy this night for what it is, and let her take the lead. If she doesn’t want you, leave her alone.

He returned to the bedroom, pushing thoughts of permanence from his mind so that he could concentrate on enjoying right now with Lily.

She was lying on the bed, a light flush still covering her body, and he felt a surge of fierce pride that she’d chosen him, even if it was just for one night. “Open your legs for me.” His urging was soft, belying his intense thoughts, and she did as he asked. It turned him on, to see her spreading her legs for him so that he could see all of her pink, swollen sex. He could feel his cock stirring, even as he covered her with the cool, damp cloth.

When it touched her body, she started, but didn’t move away or clamp her legs shut, and a thrill rushed through him at the realization that she must trust him. He finished and threw the washcloth toward the bathroom, hearing the wet splat as it smacked against the wall.

Lily laughed. “It’s a good thing your dream wasn’t to play in the NBA.”

He climbed back on the bed and settled his body next to hers, gathering her in close. “Nah, I was more of a loner. Probably because I’m not coordinated enough for team sports.”

She snorted. “Felt pretty coordinated to me,” she said under her breath.

Bruno laughed and kissed her neck. She turned her face to his, smiling, and before long, their mouths were clinging in hot, wet kisses. He stroked his hands over her body, enjoying the feel of her flat belly, soft skin, and plump breasts. “Does that mean you’re ready for round two?”

She sat up and cocked an eyebrow, bringing her hand to his chest. “Does that mean you are?” she teased, as she ran her hand down his body until her fingers touched warm, hard cock. She gasped. “Oh, my God, you are.”

He grinned as he pulled her atop him and spread her legs to straddle him. “Just be gentle with me,” he said teasingly, as he rolled on another condom and brought her down onto him.

Chapter Six

Lily awoke shortly before six o’clock the next morning. The room was faintly lit by the warm lights coming from the city and the reflection of the moon off the white-capped Andes. It gave everything a soft, ethereal glow, and under the fluffy comforter, she felt like she was living in the Hollywood version of Heaven.

Next to her, Komarov was lying on his stomach, one arm under the pillow and the other slung over her rib cage. His soft, even breathing was the only sound in the room as she studied his face, drinking in the sight of him so relaxed.

He was a gorgeous man. And good and kind and patient and a ferocious, intense lover. If she were still being selfish, she’d say that he was exactly the kind of man that she wanted for her own.

But that was crazy, wasn’t it? She barely knew him. She had done something wild, had sex with him—three times—after an acquaintance of mere hours, but that didn’t mean that they were in a relationship. At least, not one that was going to last longer than the time it took her to get up, pack, and walk out the door.

Which she would have to do. Soon, in fact. Her spirits sank. The next flight to New York left in just under three hours. Yesterday, the desk agent had told her that her reservation had been transferred to the 8:40 a.m. flight, but she hadn’t received a confirmation e-mail. And she still had to pack and take a taxi to the airport, get through security…

She sighed.

Part of her wished Komarov was awake so that he could work his magic and relax her. Somewhere between making love for the second and third time, Lily had realized just how easily he had made her forget her troubles, had made her feel wanted and normal and good and whole, and she missed that already.

Even when they had first met, he had pushed things in her that she hadn’t known she had needed until later; exhilarated by their exchange in the hotel lobby, she’d already been in a better mood than she had all week. She just hadn’t realized it until it was too late. When she woke in a hotel room with this man by her side and could feel herself at the edge, ready to fall into something more serious than just one night.

She had to leave now.

She had to go, had to get back to New York and be there for her baby sister, to hug her mother and apologize for the hurtful things she’d said.

She would probably never see Komarov again.

Before the thought made her cry, she mustered her willpower and slid from the bed, taking care not to wake him. Last night, after they had used his last condom and brushed their teeth, side by side in the bathroom in companionable silence, he had set his alarm for an hour from now. His flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until close to noon.

Lily had set hers, too. It would probably go off any minute now. No doubt he had been expecting it to wake them both so that he could say good-bye, then go back to sleep after she had left for the airport.

Instead, she tiptoed to her phone and shut it off.

She told herself it was because she felt bad about interrupting his sleep, but the truth was that she didn’t think she could bear to say good-bye.

It was better this way.

Merely fifteen minutes later, she stepped quietly into the hallway. She shut the heavy door softly behind her and leaned her forehead against it for a moment.

She would not feel sorry for herself. She had learned a lot about herself this week, and was grateful, at least, for the clarity she had gained by coming here. She’d made a choice and taken a risk, and she would deal with whatever came out of it.

Even if it was nothing.

“Good-bye, Komarov,” she sighed, then turned and wheeled her suitcase down the hall.

…

Bruno woke with a start, the feeling that something was wrong propelling him out of bed before he was even fully alert.

She was gone.

Even if her things weren’t missing from the bedroom, he didn’t have to check the rest of the suite to know. There was something vital now lacking in the air, like there wasn’t enough oxygen in it anymore to keep him from suffocating. He grabbed his phone off the bedside table, staring in frustration at the screen as though he could somehow will her cell number to appear there, angry at himself for missing his chance to tell her how he felt. He hadn’t wanted to scare her away.

But instead, he’d said nothing, and then he’d lost her, anyway. Why hadn’t he taken the risk? Had he really been afraid that she’d reject him? He’d never hesitated on making a move when a business deal looked promising. Komarov Enterprises had grown by leaps and bounds since he had taken the helm precisely because he took bold actions on behalf of the company. Why hadn’t he realized before now that, all along, he’d been failing to take the same initiative in his personal life?

Because you hadn’t had a reason to before now.

Lily had given him a reason to want more than superficial relationships and professional success.

Bruno sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his chin into his hands. In one night, he had created memories with Lily that were more meaningful than any of the ones he’d had of other women. She’d fought him for the room with as much strength and confidence as he could ever hope to have. She’d shown him her vulnerability. She’d teased him, and kissed him, and made him believe that he might have a chance at deserving her. Made him want to deserve her. But now it was too late.

No. It wasn’t too late.

Bruno straightened. Yes, he’d missed his chance to talk to her in person. But he wasn’t about to sit back and just accept that he would never again see the one woman with whom he ever felt such a strong connection. There was contact information on her consulting company’s website, after all. He could at least start by e-mailing the corporate office.

He stood and strode through the bedroom door, intending to power on his laptop and sending a message immediately, but he didn’t even get as far as opening it up. Instead, the sight of a white scrap of paper, torn from the hotel notepad on the desk, had him rushing forward, snatching up the sheet, and finally grinning with relief when he read the words scrawled on it.

This time, he wasn’t going to miss his chance.

…

“Indeed, Miss Stanton, you are confirmed on this flight. It is completely full, but you have a window seat. And you’ll be home by this evening.”

Bruno raced up to the counter just in time to hear the agent’s words. Lily’s shoulders sagged. With what—relief? Unexpected disappointment?

Please let it be both.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to share this time.” He suppressed the urge to grab and shake her, to yell at her that she should never have left without kissing him good-bye. Without telling him what he wanted to know.

Lily jumped in surprise and whirled around. For a brief moment, he saw the expression of unbridled joy on her face, and his chest swelled with pride.

It was what he wanted to see.

But the look was gone in an instant, wiped clean and replaced with the part-haughty, part-playful, devastatingly lovely Lily Stanton he had met at the front desk of the Ritz last night.

“What are you going to do about it? Because your status might have trumped mine last night…” She stopped, blushing at the suggestive leer that he gave her. He couldn’t help seeing innuendo in everything right now, after having this woman above, below, and wrapped around him three times in the last twelve hours. “But I don’t think they’re going to let you share my seat,” she told him. “The flight is completely full and—mmrp!”

Bruno didn’t bother listening anymore. He grabbed her and pulled her forward, slanting his lips over hers and stroking his tongue into her mouth. She responded, sucked lightly, nibbled his lips. Thank God. He hadn’t lost her, like he’d feared.

“You didn’t say good-bye,” he growled.

“I left you a note.”

“Yeah. And I’m fulfilling your request. You’re lucky I didn’t sleep the extra thirty minutes until my alarm went off, or you’d already be at the gate. As it was, I think I probably set a record for speed dressing.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her lips. “My note said that I wanted to see you again, sure. But it also specifically said to call me, and I left you three possible phone numbers.”

He kissed her again.

“But I’m glad you ignored that part,” she whispered against his lips.

“Señora, I’ve finished processing your ticket. Here is your boarding pass.” Lily turned back to take the boarding pass from the agent, who sighed. “You two are so romantic.”

Bruno winked over Lily’s head and the agent sighed again as they walked toward the security gate.

“I didn’t ignore that part. I’m just doing it in a different order.” He turned and hugged her, crushing her to him.

She held him back, just as tightly.

He released her reluctantly and leveled a serious look on her. “I want to see you again. Not just someday, or casually. Until last night…no, until I met you, I didn’t even realize how much has been missing from my life.”

Her face softened, her lips tipping up in a wide smile.

“I want to see you as soon as this first shipment comes in and I can get a flight out. I should be able to be there in the next three days. I know it’s fast but—hell. I will call you. As soon as I land in San Francisco. As soon as I book my tickets to New York. As soon as I reserve a hotel room—”

At that, she interrupted him. “No need to book a room. You should know by now that I don’t mind sharing. And I thought about it, too. I can probably get some clients in California through some of my existing contacts, and then I can be there for several weeks in a row.” She stopped, smiling slyly. “Of course, if that sounds too overwhelming, we can agree to just take it one night at a time. We already know how good we are at that.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “It doesn’t sound overwhelming at all. You’re so much more than just one night.”

Lily melted against him. “Oh, Komarov.”

He smiled. “Bruno,” he reminded her, before taking her lips again.

Did you love this Entangled Select Contemporary? Check out more of our titles here!

And for exclusive sneak peeks at our upcoming books, excerpts, contests, chats with our authors and editors, and more…

Sign up for our Newsletter

Be sure to like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Acknowledgments

Since before we were married, my husband has been my greatest source of support and encouragement. Without him, I likely would not have been able to find the confidence or time to write a single word, much less an entire book. In this and everything else, he is my champion, my friend, and I owe him more than I can convey in words.

My children give me a purpose above all others, but they also are a reason why I write. To show them, as they have shown me, that life is full of possibility and joy, and that seizing opportunity is as much about seeing the potential for something great as it is about hard work.

A heartfelt thank you to my editors, Tahra Seplowin and Heather Howland, for everything you put into whipping this book into shape. I consider myself blessed to work with two such brilliant and talented women.

Romance is a beautiful genre in many ways. Not only do I love reading and writing stories of love; I have also been fortunate enough to befriend some of the most incredible women I’ve ever known because they are fellow romance authors. To the women of Wonkomance, I thank you for being people with whom I can talk about this wonderful, wacky world of writing, whose opinions I greatly value, and who are beautiful inside and out.

Ruthie Knox, you’ve been a mentor to me, whether you know it or not, and I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for you. Thank you for being there when I just needed someone to listen.

Last, but not least, to my readers…thank you. I love all of you for the support you give to the romance genre. It would not be such a gorgeous place without you.