He didn’t know how this was going to turn out. Josie had been matter-of-fact on the phone earlier when she’d asked him to come tonight. He stepped inside the lobby, the scent of sage unusually strong. He looked around, finding different-sized white candles burning in every corner and forming a line that went even into the courtyard and the kitchen beyond.

He felt another well of fear that this meeting would be a quiet send-off, a “nice to meet you, too bad you turned out to be a louse” chat that would leave him standing on the street alone wondering what had happened. It didn’t help that even he believed it was no less than he deserved.

But, somehow, the atmosphere inside the hotel also infused him with something else. Hope, perhaps, that he might have a chance to prove that his feelings for Josie went deeper than his deception.

“Josie?” he quietly called.

There was no answer. Not from Josie or Philippe, whom, he assumed, she’d let go for the night.

Drew glanced at the door behind himself, wondering if he should close it. But there was something that urged him to leave it open, a cross breeze he hadn’t noticed before that seemed to flow from the top of the building to the bottom, enveloping him where he stood. The scent of something exotically floral teased his nose, seeming to draw his attention to the stairs.

He squinted at the candles placed on each of the steps, then started to climb, first to the second floor, then following the flickering wicks up to the third, then the fourth, a place he’d never visited before.

All the doors stood open. He wasn’t sure how he knew to walk straight ahead rather than go into either of the open doorways to his right and left, but he halted just outside the third one. He blinked, sure he was seeing things. Seated in front of a table was Josie, her golden skin shiny and beautiful, contrasting against the sheer white dress she wore. She appeared to be in some sort of trance, the planes of her face relaxed and peaceful. She looked exactly like the enchantress he’d once thought her.

Drew stood mesmerized as the flame of the candle on the table in front of her flickered, playing hide-and-seek with the shadows. She blinked, as if having been alerted to his presence, then looked up into his face and smiled.

Drew felt like she’d touched him although she sat a good twenty feet away.

She slowly rose to her feet and rounded the table, seeming to float more than walk. When she stepped in front of the candle, he saw how very sheer the dress she wore was. Her luscious body was clearly outlined and he could make out the dusty rounds of her areolae and the deep V of curls between her thighs.

He swallowed hard as she came to stop in front of him.

“I’m glad you came,” she said quietly.

Glad didn’t begin to cover how he felt about being there, present in her private rooms, gaining a glimpse into a woman who’d fascinated him since the beginning. He felt honored, undeserving and awed.

He thought of all the things that he wanted to say. That he’d put together in his mind over the past four hours since her phone call. There was a proposition that he wanted to make, that covered both personal and business matters. And he’d composed an expanded explanation for his deceptive actions.

He remembered the call he’d made to his client. His final call, because he’d used the opportunity to quit. Something that hadn’t gone over very well and had resulted in a lot of threats that involved him never working in this business again.

He’d expected the reaction, but had never anticipated the venom that had gone along with it. After all, he was dropping a client, not taking one of Rove’s children hostage.

Drew hadn’t realized how very off balance his life had been until that one moment. How much importance he and those he worked for placed on their business pursuits to the exclusion of all else.

A game. That’s what it all was. Some sort of pointless, intense match of wills that required your complete attention. Forget family or home or personal enjoyment or conscience. It was all about the next deal, the next kill, the money involved.

Never mind what you did with the money. Whether you enjoyed the results of your labor. That didn’t matter. What did was getting it. Period.

And Josie, with her soft smile, had made him realize that that was no longer enough.

She held out her hand and he took it, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. No matter how much he wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss the life out her, he found he could do little more than follow her lead, allow her to call the shots.

And he had little doubt that whatever happened tonight would be something he would never forget.

18

“ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL the love, Josie. Love is the true genesis of all things good. No bad can hide from love.”

Anne-Marie’s parting words echoed in Josie’s mind as she reached out, filling her, lifting her, making her feel outside herself. Her heart floated in her chest, her stomach felt fathomless, and every cell, every throb of her pulse, was aware of the man standing opposite her.

Gone from her mind was his deception. Banished was any thought of this night being their last time together. Nowhere in sight were the problems she was having. All that existed in that one moment in time was love. Her love for Drew. And, yes, she realized, his love for her as well.

Rather than turning away from the raw emotion so clearly etched on his handsome face, she reveled in it. He loved her. It was there in the dark blue depth of his eyes. If she placed a hand on his chest, she felt sure she’d feel it in the heat of his heart. A heart he’d opened to her as surely as she’d opened hers to him. While she hadn’t been aware of what was happening at the time, now that she did know, rather than closing the door, she opened it, drawing from the extraordinary emotion, allowing it to dictate her thoughts, her actions.

“Come,” she said softly, leading him to the open door of her bedroom.

The candles burned on the nightstands, giving an otherworldly feel to the room. The air coming in through the open French doors flickered the flames and stirred the sheers on the canopy.

Josie stopped at the foot of the bed then turned to face Drew again. He had yet to say anything, and she didn’t need him to. Everything that needed to be expressed would come through action rather than words.

She released his hands then crossed her arms in front of her breasts as she reached up to her shoulders. She brushed the light material down over her shoulders, baring one at a time. Drew watched her movement as she caught the fabric between her breasts. But she didn’t use it to cover herself. Rather her nipples stood out, prominent and proud, and then she allowed the sheath to pool around her feet on the floor.

She watched Drew swallow and she read what he couldn’t say. He found her beautiful. And she felt beautiful. Wanted. Wanton.

He moved, unbuttoning his shirt as if on automatic pilot, his gaze never leaving hers as the soft cotton rasped from his skin to join her sheath on the floor. The whisper of a zipper later, his slacks and boxers followed suit, his need for her evident in the erection that seemed to reach out for her.

Josie slowly curved her fingers around his turgid flesh, watching as his pupils dilated and his breath came out in a rush. So thick. So hard. So hot. She explored the silken shaft with her fingertips, finding a bead of moisture on the engorged knob. Her mouth watered with the desire to taste him, to feel him against her tongue. She slid down to one knee, then the other, until her mouth was mere millimeters in front of his arousal.

Drew still hadn’t moved. He stood stock-still, watching her as she cupped his sac, reveling in the feel of his coarse pubic hair against her palm. She kissed his erection, then swirled her tongue over the tip, lapping up the moisture there even as she added a different type of moisture with her mouth. Then she fitted her lips around the end, creating a wet channel with her tongue, and took in as much of his considerable length as she could, withdrawing when she reached that point, then starting over again.

She felt his flesh pulsate and grow thicker. Sensed his growing urgency from the stiffness of his body and the rapidness of his breathing. She gently squeezed his sac, then moved her fingertips to just beyond, to the nerve system there, and pressed the knotted flesh, holding off his crisis even as she slid her mouth to cover him again.

He tasted sweet and sour, hot and hard. And she couldn’t seem to get enough of him as she licked and suckled and squeezed.

Finally, he moved.

She felt his hands on her bare shoulders and understood he was urging her to stand up before him. His face was savage with need. His fingers indented the flesh of her hips as he curved them around to her backside, cupping her bottom. Then he lifted her so that her legs went around his hips and she felt his hardness pressing against her slick softness.

Josie’s heart seemed to stop and expand and beat harder all at once. She balanced herself with her hands on his shoulders, her gaze locked with his. Then he slid his hands down further from behind, his fingers finding the tight bud nestled in her curls. She lost her breath as he pressed it. Then he parted her swollen labia, testing her readiness, the proof of her arousal covering his fingers, lubricating them so that they easily slid inside her tight canal.

Josie’s eyelids drifted closed as she rode the swell of white-hot sensation.

Then he replaced his fingers with the head of his shaft. Slowly, torturously, he moved her down until she covered him fully, her pubis resting against his, her curls entangled with his. Bare flesh meeting bare flesh.