Page 205

He released her then, and she felt so bereft she actually ached. She wanted to cry out, to press herself against him again, to feel that delicious hardness and warmth. But she couldn’t.
Could she?
A tinny clash of cymbals signaled the end of the set, followed by enthusiastic applause, and the two of them scooted even further apart.
She cleared her throat in an attempt to come back to herself.
Now was the time to scoop up Hind, to get home, to shower off the taste, smell and essence of the man in front of her, and to go to sleep like a responsible human being. She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. The chattering from the audience filtered in little by little, breaking the stillness. The evening escapade was over. Desmond fumbled about for his mobile while Val pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.
It didn’t help.
Desmond scrolled, then smiled a little. “It looks like our girl’s headed back to The Ritz.”
“Really?” Val peered over his shoulder. Indeed, Hind’s new story announced:
Tired and HAPPY af!!!! Headed home.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Val exhaled. But then her breath was gone again because Desmond was very close, peering down into her face, and his eyes were so dark that she took a full step back.
“If I pressured you atall, Val, I truly am sorry.”
She was shaking her head hard before he even finished. “You didn’t.”
Relief lightened his features ever so slightly, and at that she was oddly touched. “All right.”
She could feel him withdrawing both physically and emotionally, and her body throbbed with the loss. Her resolve was gone. It’d dissolved like salt in boiling water. There was no point in getting it back, really.
You could enjoy the night, a little voice inside her whispered, fanned by the heat lapping in her lower tummy.Just this once. You know you want him. He’s not going to stick around—he’ll probably be relieved that you don’t want him to. You can go right back to your rules.
She’d made the rules for herself to avoid entanglements. She’d make sure this wouldn’t turn into one. She wasn’t the naive, vapid, impressionable girl her who had been seduced and abandoned.
She wasVal.
And Desmond was…young. A little full of himself, yes. But he had stopped when she’d asked him and he’dlistened.
And if she were truly honest with herself, she wanted him rather badly.
“Desmond?”
He turned and her mouth went dry. She stepped forward and, on her tiptoes, she pressed her mouth to his. Before she could even register the skin on skin, he’d wrapped one long, muscled arm round her waist and was drawing her close with a surety that was becoming all too familiar. He stopped only when her breasts were flush against his chest and the inches between them evaporated like mist over the Gulf on humid August mornings.
“Make sure she gets home,” he said, his lips a whisper away from her own. Her body was surging to life—again. Oh, she was introuble. “All right, Valentina? If this is what I think it is—”
“It is,” she said hoarsely against his mouth.
“Come home with me, then.”
“Desmond—”
“Iwantyou,” he warned, his eyes glittering. “And if that’s ever not okay, I’ll stop and send you home. But I want you, Valentina Montgomery. And I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Oh, wow.
Desmond was cupping her face now, looking hard into her eyes. “I’m not him, whoever he was,” he said simply and firmly, and she closed her eyes, as much to shut him out as anything else.
“I know,” she whispered.
CHAPTER FIVE