The Millionaire's Inexperienced Love-Slave
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Should she ask him and risk bringing an abrupt ending to their time together today? Or avoid the question altogether?
Sharni was still dithering over this dilemma when she emerged from the dressing room.
Adrian’s satisfaction at the way things were going was temporarily derailed when he saw the expression on Sharni’s face.
He didn’t like whatever was going on in her mind, but didn’t say a word whilst she paid for her purchases. Experience had taught him never to tamper with a woman’s mind. They were minefields that could blow up in your face when least expected.
‘Let me take a couple of those,’ she said when they left the shop with him carrying all her parcels.
‘If you insist,’ he returned, thinking he would need a hand free to extract his key-card for the lifts.
‘I insist,’ she said, and took the two bags from the boutique.
They walked in silence over to the main entrance to the tower.
‘This way,’ Adrian said, the automatic doors opening when he stepped forward onto the entry mat.
Their reflection in the glass, however, showed that Sharni had ground to a halt behind him, that worried look still on her face.
Gritting his teeth against a flash of irritation, he turned and rejoined her on the pavement. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I…I have to ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘Is there anyone in your life who would be upset with you taking me out tonight?’
‘A girlfriend, you mean.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes fixed unswervingly on his.
Man, but she would be a difficult person to lie to. Not that he had to, thank God. Felicity was definitely no longer his girlfriend.
‘Absolutely not.’
If anything, her frown increased with his answer. ‘I…I do find that hard to believe.’
Adrian’s frustration was tempered by the flattery within her statement. ‘There was someone till recently,’ he said, but refrained from saying how recently. ‘Let me assure you that there’s no one who could object to my taking you out tonight.’
Her sigh showed genuine relief. ‘That’s good, then.’
‘And if I’d said there was someone?’ he couldn’t resist asking.
Adrian empathised with the flash of indecision that crossed her face, because it echoed his feelings for her. Never in his life had he felt this strongly about a woman within hours of meeting her. He’d been attracted at first sight in the past. But this was more than that.
If there’d been some new man in Sharni’s life, he would still have pursued her.
‘No need to answer that,’ he went on before she could put her obviously muddled thoughts into words. ‘It was a silly question. Come on. I want to get you upstairs while the sun’s still shining.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHARNI TRIED to relax during the ride up to the twenty-fifth floor, but it was impossible. Something had taken possession of her when she’d paraded herself in front of Adrian in that sexy outfit, something that she’d pushed to one side when she’d changed back into her less sexy clothes, but which had emerged with a vengeance once she discovered Adrian didn’t have a girlfriend.
That something was desire. The desire to be kissed, and touched, and made love to.
Not since Ray had she met a man who’d made her feel remotely like this. Of course, Adrian did look exactly like Ray, which could explain the heat washing through her. Her body could be reacting to old tapes.
But somehow, Sharni wasn’t convinced. The sexual hunger consuming her body at this moment was much more intense than anything she’d felt with Ray. When Adrian asked her what she would have done if he’d said he did have a girlfriend, Sharni had been shocked by the realisation that she would still have come up here with him.
He’d promised not to make a pass. Yet she wanted him to. Quite desperately.
The lift whizzed to a halt on the twenty-fifth floor in no time at all, Sharni having no space to come to terms with the shockingly aroused state she was in.
When the lifts doors opened an extremely tense Sharni followed Adrian into an elegant, marble-floored foyer, which had a domed ceiling and a spectacularly modern chandelier hanging from it. Straight ahead were double French doors through which she could see a huge and equally elegant living area.
‘Put your parcels down here,’ Adrian suggested, placing the ones he was carrying beneath a glass-topped hall table on their right.
She did so, then immediately asked him where the bathroom was.
Suddenly, she needed to go. Quite badly.
‘That’s the guest powder room,’ he said, indicating a door on her left. ‘When you’re finished go on through into the lounge room and make yourself comfortable. I’ll join you shortly,’ he said, turning away and leaving her through the French doors.
The powder room had everything a multimillion-dollar penthouse would have: marble floors and walls, stylish firings and gold taps.
After she’d washed her hands, Sharni spent a couple of extra minutes combing her hair and refreshing her pink lipstick, all the while struggling to find some composure.
‘I look the same as the girl who left the beauty salon this morning,’ she said agitatedly to the reflection in the mirror. ‘But I don’t feel the same.’
Meeting Adrian had changed her. In ways she had yet to appreciate, or understand.
All Sharni knew was that she wanted Adrian as she had never wanted Ray.
This admission brought a wave of guilt. Because she’d had a good sex life with her husband, who’d been a gentle and considerate lover. On top of that, she’d loved him very much.
She didn’t love Adrian. She didn’t even know him. Not really.
You didn’t get to know anyone properly in a couple of hours.
No doubt he’d been presenting his best face to her so far today, impressing her with his decisiveness, his charm, and yes, the evidence of his material success. What girl wouldn’t be bowled over by a millionaire’s penthouse in the middle of Sydney?