I jerked away. The pig! I forced myself to stay diplomatic. “Good night, Victor. And good luck with your meeting. I’ll keep you in the loop with regard to our new advertising campaign. I think you’ll like it.”
I slammed my martini down on the bar counter, leaving Victor with the tab, and stalked off to my hotel room. I so needed to get some rest.
Once at the door to my suite, I rummaged through my purse for my card key. Where had I put it? My designer bag was so monstrous it could be anywhere. I kept digging. My fatigue made me all the more frustrated.
“I want you, Gloria.”
The familiar drawl made me whirl around. Victor again! The glazed look in his eyes told me he was drunk, and in a breath, he was all over me, his hands groping and squeezing.
“Get off of me, Victor,” I pleaded.
“No, darling. It’s time you and I got to know each other better.”
His muscular body pressed me against the hard slab of my door, and then his mouth crushed mine before I could say another word. Exhausted, I didn’t have the strength to fend him off. The more I resisted, the harder he pressed. He wormed his repulsive tongue into my mouth, and grinded his stiff arousal against my middle. The groping and squeezing intensified. I writhed and wanted to scream. Desperately. But his mouth and body held me captive. Painfully, I submitted to his advances. I squeezed my eyes closed, to shut out the ugly sight of him.
“Get your fucking hands off her,” growled another familiar voice.
In a nano-second, Victor was sprawled over a bouquet of red roses on the carpeted floor. My eyes found my hero. Jaime Zander! He’d come to my rescue. My rapid heartbeat didn’t know whether to slow down or speed up. My emotions were in turmoil.
Victor crawled to his knees. He shot Jaime a glaring look, his eyes filled with cold fury. “Be careful, Zander. Don’t fuck with me. You were always a problem child. And you still are.”
Victor’s words rippled through me. He had known Jaime since he was a boy?
Jaime didn’t flinch as the older man collected himself and stood up. He plucked out a thorn from his expensive suit jacket.
“Get the hell out of here, Victor.” Jaime’s voice was at once commanding and threatening.
“I’ll be watching your every move,” snarled Victor. “And yours too, Gloria.” Red with rage, he stomped on the exquisite flowers, crushing the delicate buds. He then staggered down the hall to the elevators and disappeared
I stared blankly at the tattered roses. Once beautiful, they were now in ruin. Their fragility touched something deep inside me, and tears pricked my eyes. I stood there silently, quivering against the door to my suite. A whirling dervish of emotions and questions assaulted me as my eyes met Jaime’s intense gaze.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft.
I nodded, words failing me in my distraught state.
He placed his strong, beautiful hands on my shoulders. I should have been running away from this man but instead I craved to sink into him. His tender touch made the anger, pain, and confusion of the last twenty-four hours fade.
“I’m sorry about the flowers,” I finally managed.
“Don’t be. I’ll buy you three dozen even more beautiful roses.”
His words made my heart flutter. “What are you doing here?”
He fisted my braid and traced my face with the wispy ends. His denim blue eyes never left mine. “I owe you an explanation. What you saw with Vivien is not what you think.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, anger creeping back into my voice. My eyes hadn’t lied. Fighting back tears, I turned my head away from him.
He cupped my jaw in his hands and gently turned my head to face him. His eyes bore into mine, and in a heartbeat, his lips consumed mine in a deep, passionate kiss that I couldn’t resist. I so wanted and needed it. A rush of heat rose to my core before he pulled away.
“Come on, angel. Let’s get the hell out of this place. We need to talk.”
I did something I needed to do all day. Against his chest, I sobbed.
Twenty minutes later, we were on the Left Bank, in a small but elegant hotel on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, soaking in a deep copper bathtub with champagne flutes on a tray table, an arm’s reach away. I was seated backside to him, my knees bent between his outstretched muscular thighs. The hot, sudsy bath was just what my body and soul craved. The tension that had built up inside me began to melt away as Jaime massaged and washed me. His touch was gentle, treating every part of my body reverently, including my breasts. He softly nuzzled my neck, and after tenderly nibbling my earlobes, he breathed into my ear, “We need to talk…but after I make love to you, my angel.”
The L-word stunned me into silence and submission. My shoulders heaved as he lifted my hips and inserted his cock into me, inch by delicious inch. The fullness of him inside me made me moan with pleasure.