Flirting With Intent

No Damon, no temptation. This was a good thing.

Dry-cleaning over one arm, shopping bag full of sushi dangling from her fingertips and a gingerbread house balanced precariously on top of the dry-cleaning, Ruby elbowed her way through the doorway to the apartment and slipped off her shoes. No time to put her flats on because if she didn’t get rid of the gingerbread house soon she’d drop it and that really wouldn’t do.

‘Are you ever not carting things from one place to the next?’ asked a voice from behind her and Ruby jumped and the gingerbread house started to slide.

Damon caught it well before it hit the floor and Ruby’s thanks came thin and grudging, seeing as he was the one who’d startled her into dropping it in the first place. She turned to look at him, taking in his choice of clothing for the day—a white linen shirt that she hadn’t seen before, and well-fitting jeans that looked decidedly familiar. The clothes looked crisp and fresh. The body beneath them seemed a little rumpled. ‘I thought you were out.’

‘That was you on the phone five minutes ago?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry. I was asleep. By the time I’d found the phone and picked up, you’d put down.’

‘Jet lag?’ ‘Possibly.’

‘There are tonics for that.’ ‘It’s Hong Kong. There are tonics for everything.’

‘Just a suggestion,’ she murmured and started towards Russell’s rooms where his suits lived. When she returned and slid the sushi into the fridge, she found the gingerbread house on the kitchen bench and a tousle-haired Damon cracking open a fizzy drink that hadn’t entered the apartment by way of Ruby.

‘You’ve been shopping,’ she accused.

‘Guilty.’

‘If you want anything like that, let me know. That’s my department.’

‘Ruby, I’m quite capable of stepping out for half a dozen cans of cola. Consider it exercise and a change of scenery on my part.’

‘That’s really not how it works.’

‘No, that’s usually exactly how it works,’ he murmured with a crooked smile. ‘Want one?’

‘Just water, please. It’s slick out. Hopefully the icing hasn’t slid off the roof of the house.’ Ruby gave the confectionary a careful once-over but all looked well with Santa’s gingerbread cottage. ‘Are we flirting yet?’

‘Just working my way up to it,’ he said with a smiling glance in her direction. ‘It’s all in the timing.’ He looked back at the cellophane wrapped gingerbread house. ‘Anyone ever tell you that you shop too much?’

‘You’re the first. Speaking of shopping, are those the jeans we bought for you yesterday?’

Damon nodded. ‘Useful, aren’t they?’

‘There goes the Christmas present,’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps I forgot to mention the part where I wrap them up and put them under the tree?’

‘That can still be arranged,’ he said dryly.

‘It’s not the same. You’re meant to wait. Take possession on Christmas Day.’

‘It’s just another day, Ruby.’

‘Well, it is now. Take them off.’

Grinning, Damon set his drink down and reached for his fly. Ruby raised a delicate eyebrow but made no move to stop him. Eventually he stopped of his own accord.

‘You’re supposed to say “not here”,’ he said. ‘And then you blush.’

‘Not sure we’re living in the same universe, my friend.’

‘I’ll say. Good thing I’m adaptable.’ The trousers came off. He handed them to Ruby, who stripped his belt from the trousers and handed it back to him with considerable expertise.

‘And the rest of the clothes from yesterday,’ she said airily. ‘When you’re ready.’

‘Good thing we didn’t buy underwear,’ he murmured and set off up the hall, not an ounce of self-consciousness anywhere in sight. Just strong, athletic legs, broad, shirt-covered shoulders, and a hint of mighty fine buttock. Put today’s picture together with yesterday’s man-and-his-towel image, and a woman could be excused for losing her breath.

‘I know you’re looking,’ he said from halfway down the hall.

‘No, I’m not.’ But she said it with a smile, and she leaned over the counter the better to catch the show.

Only once he’d reached his room did Ruby drag her attention away from Damon West’s very fine form to study his can of cola and note the label. She’d add it to the drinks order and make sure a case of it arrived later this evening with the last of the Christmas Day fare.

When Damon returned he had the rest of the clothes they’d purchased yesterday in hand and a pair of vivid Hawaiian board shorts on person.

‘A leftover from your last stint as a pool boy?’ she queried delicately.

‘What? You don’t like them? They’re my favourite.’

‘Oh, Damon. That’s just …’ Words failed her. ‘Sad.’ She handed the new trousers back to him with a sigh. ‘Put them back on before your father sees you. He has a reputation to maintain.’

‘Ruby, you confuse me,’ he murmured, but he took hold of the trousers deftly enough and the edges of his lips signalled his satisfaction.

‘Player,’ she accused.

‘Despot.’

‘Yes, but I’m a benevolent one. How many of these clothes we bought you yesterday are you going to need to wear tomorrow?’

‘Only the shirt. And the jeans again. Maybe the jacket.’

Ruby sighed, temporarily defeated. Maybe she could shop with him in mind on the way home. Something with a V-neck and tiny little sleeves. Flared pants with spangles.

‘Would it have killed you to get two sets of clothes when we were shopping earlier?’

‘I wasn’t sure that shop was me.’

‘There were other shops.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said with a shudder. ‘They were everywhere. But two clothes shops a year is my limit and we did them both yesterday.’

‘We need to build your stamina.’

‘I have stamina,’ he murmured. ‘It’s selective.’

‘Ah,’ she murmured. ‘Now we’re flirting.’ ‘Correct.’

Ruby’s gaze cut to Damon’s mouth. Flirting was meant to be light. Fun. Not deeply, emotionally satisfying.

Moments later those tempting lips got a great deal closer as Damon leaned towards her in much the same way as she had done the first time they’d met. Bench in between them but personal space still well and truly invaded. Her eyes moved up to meet Damon’s gaze and there was a promise there waiting for her, and a challenge if she dared to accept it.

‘Something you want from me, Ruby?’ he asked silkily.

‘Nope. Definitely not. Can’t think of anything. At all.’

‘Liar,’ he whispered softly.

‘Are you sure this is flirting without intent?’ she whispered back.

‘Now that you mention it, I may have acquired intent,’ he murmured.

‘That’s really not part of the plan.’

‘I know.’ He rocked forward until his lips brushed hers. ‘The plan was flawed. No pep.’

‘Don’t you have cola for that?’

‘It’s not enough.’

‘Is that a favourite saying of yours?’

‘It is of late.’ He touched his lips to hers again and his big body grew very still. Warm lips against her own and a bench in between them as he waited for her response.

Time seemed to stop as Ruby battled for control of her wayward reaction to Damon West. Not flirty and easy but complex and needy. So much need in her to taste the essence of this man.

Tentatively, she set the tip of her tongue to one corner of his lips and tested the seam. In. He let her in, and he tasted of sweetness and his tongue knew how to tease, drawing her deeper into passionate play, and he led and she followed, and then she led and he let her.

Lightness of touch and an homage to languor and beneath it all a deep well of scorching heat. Ruby backed out of the kiss reluctantly, before it consumed her, and Damon moaned his protest and took one last fast taste before letting her pull back.

‘God, we’d be good in bed together,’ he rumbled and turned away and headed for the fridge.

Ruby closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer. Dear God, not this one. Please, not this one, for his capacity to enchant was too high, and the likelihood of him giving much of himself seemed alarmingly low.

When Damon returned from his foray in the fridge, he had a bowl of ice cubes and a tin of caviar. The ice-bowl went between them on the counter and the caviar got upended on top of it. Next, he opened a packet of breadsticks and set it next to the rest.

‘Eat,’ he said. ‘And remind me again why you’re not going to sleep with me, apart from the fact that you work for my father, need to keep your job and consider me a habitual liar. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem enough.’

Rather than answer, Ruby sampled the food on offer. A pause where pause was needed. An ice cube topped with caviar, and a cool and salty slide. She crunched down on the ice and let the textures mingle. ‘Mmm.’ Good manners prevented speech, so another mmm would have to be enough.

‘Good, isn’t it? Much like we’d be.’ Sighing, Damon picked up a breadstick, loaded it with eggs and held it to her lips. ‘The caviar usually runs out before the ice does. Say aah.’

‘Ahumm.’ The breadstick went in loaded and came out clean. A husky oath filled the air.

Damon’s.

‘Give me a reason not to, Ruby,’ and his voice came low and guttural and slid down her spine like a lover’s hand. ‘Give me a reason to back off, or I swear I’ll be inside of you before the day is through.’

Ruby swallowed hard and attempted to marshal her thoughts. ‘I work for your father,’ she said weakly.

‘Not good enough.’

‘I’ll lose my job.’

‘Says who?’

‘I don’t know you.’

‘Would you like to?’

‘Would you let me?’ Finally an objection she could follow through on. ‘Can you answer even the most casual of questions honestly?’ ‘I can try.’

‘All right. Where were you this time last week? What were you doing? Just the briefest details of your day—that’s all I’m asking for.’

She saw him shut down. Watched his eyes as he sifted back through time, closing compartments as he went. Not that. Not that. Can’t tell her that; and his reasons for not telling her were his own. He didn’t even offer up an excuse.

‘Okay, different question,’ she said. ‘Where will you be in a week’s time? Snapshot that day.’

But he couldn’t seem to do that either. ‘Most people would be able to answer those questions, Damon,’ she said quietly. ‘But then, you’re not most people, are you? I may have been wrong about you being after my father, but I wasn’t wrong about the rest of it. About the way you keep the details of your life to yourself. About there being so much of you that you cannot, or will not, share. Not with strangers. Not with anyone.’ Finally he swore. One word.

Not something they’d be doing anytime soon.

‘Glad we cleared that up,’ she said carefully, no flirting in her now, just a pitiful and aching need for something that had never been on offer. ‘I need honesty from a lover, Damon. I need to taste the truth in you, even if all we’d be doing is having mindless, no-strings-attached sex. It’s a requirement of mine.’ She dredged up a smile from somewhere.

‘Make an exception,’ he cajoled gruffly. ‘For me.’ Nothing like the penetrating gaze of a powerfully persuasive man to make a woman’s mind waver. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Ruby. I swear I will not lie to you. Ever. I’ll just …’

‘Not answer,’ she finished for him softly. ‘I know how it works, Damon. And for what it’s worth you tempt me. So much. But what you’re offering … it’s not enough.’

Damon stayed broodingly silent.

‘I should go,’ she said awkwardly, and then as reality intruded, ‘I need to do the birds first.’

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