Читать книгу Model Behaviour - Tamara Morgan - Страница 7

Chapter Two

“If you think the silent treatment is going to work on me, I’m afraid you’re headed for disappointment.” Ben sat next to Livvie in the back of the cab, the warm length of his thigh pressed against hers in what she could have sworn was an intentional act of defiance. “The things I have planned for us don’t require much in the way of talking.”

She crossed her arms and scooted two inches to the right. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response—not even to tell him how much she hated him right now. He was ruining everything.

“This also makes it easier for me to say what I want without interruption. I can’t decide whether I should start by telling you all the things I love about you, or if I should jump right into seduction. Do you have a preference?”

She felt his searing gaze land on her profile, and although she didn’t say so out loud, she prayed for the second one. At least with generic sexual overtures, she stood a chance against him. Withstanding overly aggressive male advances was something of her specialty.

“Since I still have to complete five more of your herculean tasks before the seduction portion of events takes place, I guess I’ll start with the compliments. Do you know what it was about you that first struck me? And before you start guessing, it wasn’t your sweet disposition.”

She snorted, immediately regretting it when a satisfied grin moved crookedly across his face.

“I remember it like it was yesterday.” He adopted a falsely poetic air. “I saw you at that Beck concert, rocking out in leather pants as if you hadn’t a care in the world, and was determined to introduce myself. I almost did, but my friend Mike told me not to bother. ‘That’s the infamous Olivia Winston,’ he said. ‘She hates pretty little rich boys. She’ll devour you before you get past hello.’”

“What are you talking about? We didn’t meet at a Beck concert.” This had to be the worst attempt at sweet talk she’d ever heard. He didn’t even have the right woman. “We met when we sat next to each other at some political fund-raising dinner that dragged on for four hours. We were bored out of our skulls. Our friendship was forged on mutual misery.”

He flashed a cocky smile. Dammit. She was supposed to be ignoring him.

“That’s where you’re wrong, love. The dinner might have been the first time we met, but I knew who you were well before that. Do you have any idea how much I had to slip one of the waiters to get him to move my place card next to yours that night? No. I won’t tell you. It’ll only make you vain.”

All her resolutions to ignore him fled as the taxi came to a stop in front of the Montluxe Hotel, with its impressive stone facade and glinting windows. He wasn’t happy to just step on her origami-night illusions—he was destroying them, ripping them to shreds and casting them to the wind. “Liar. You didn’t do that.”

“I did. You think they make it a habit to put the two youngest, best-looking people at those shindigs next to each other? Of course not. We were there to charm dried-up millionaires into opening their wallets for the next election, not make googly-eyes at each other over the dessert course.”

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t make a single googly-eye at you.”

“I know.” He reached into his back pocket to extract his wallet, then handed a large bill over to the driver with the request he keep the change. “And that was the first thing about you that struck me.”

He exited the cab in one smooth movement, not bothering to open her door or check to make sure she was following. The action wasn’t rude so much as it was telling, announcing his certainty that she would accompany him without question. It was yet another example of the way he saw the universe and his place in it. Right at the center.

And she would follow him—that was the worst thing. Ben knew exactly how to get the results he wanted from his audience, and she wasn’t immune to his hold on the strings. He’d done the unthinkable and wedged the idea of romance between them, and she wouldn’t be able to relax until he took it back out again.

She took her place next to him on the sidewalk, prepared for battle, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge her. At least, not physically. He remained gazing up at the hotel’s facade, almost as though he’d never seen one before.

“Do you remember that time you called me from Tokyo because you couldn’t sleep, when all the neon lights of the city were driving you crazy, and you didn’t know how to make it stop?”

She paused, uncertain whether to answer or not. Answering would only be playing into this game of his, but she did remember that night. She’d been feeling homesick at the time—not for a place, since the concept of home had never really existed for her, but for the comforts of a friendly voice and an understanding ear. For his friendly voice and his understanding ear.

“Of course I remember,” she said irritably. “We played Twenty Questions for hours, only you kept picking the same object over and over again. It was so annoying.”

He laughed. “After the fifth or sixth time, I figured you’d start catching on.”

She frowned. She had caught on, but that was the way Ben played the game. He lulled a girl into a false sense of security and then yanked, turning everything upside down.

Obviously.

“It wasn’t even a very good object, if I remember correctly. A butterfly or something.”

“It was a monarch butterfly,” he corrected her, and dropped the subject as quickly as he’d picked it up. He gestured up at the hotel. “I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty of getting us a room. My apartment is undergoing a few repairs, so I thought we’d be more comfortable here. I know how much you love this place.”

She did love the Montluxe, but that was hardly the point here. The point was, well, rather pointed.

Hotels had beds. And privacy. And room service. And beds.

“Wait a minute—doesn’t a reservation at the Montluxe have to be booked months in advance?” she asked, another realization hitting her with a start. The nerve of this man. “You planned this attack far enough in advance to get a reservation? Or is this just a standing order with you? ‘Hold my room at the Montluxe in case a lady friend needs some extra convincing’?”

“Which one do you think?” He winked and handed her a small satchel he’d extracted from the trunk of the cab. “I also took the liberty of packing you an overnight bag. I think you’ll like what’s in there. I know I do.”

“It’s full of lingerie, isn’t it?” She shook the bag, a clanking rattle making her rethink her stance. “Oh, God. It’s either that or sex toys. All I can say is this bag better not be full of butt plugs. You won’t like what I plan to do with them.”

There was his gaze again, dark and intense and not supposed to be there at all.

“How would you know?” he asked, and whisked past her through the revolving glass doors.

* * *

“You’re sleeping on the couch.” Livvie barely registered the sprawling, open-floored layout of the penthouse suite as she followed Ben inside. This might be one of her favorite hotel rooms in the city, ideal for romance and all its perks, but she wasn’t about to be swayed. If nice linens and marble floors were all it took to get her to open her legs, she’d be enjoying a vastly different profession right now. “And I’ll give you until eight thirty-four tomorrow evening, but not a minute more. I don’t have time to play your games forever, and I doubt you do, either. You’ve never gone this long without work before.”

“It’s a deal.” He shut the door, the electronic latch sealing them to their fate. “I probably won’t need the whole twenty-four hours anyway.”

She threw up her hands. There was cocky, and then there was Benjamin Meyers. Bravado wrapped in balls and dipped in titanium for good measure. She didn’t know why she even tried. “You’re lucky I’m here at all, you jerk. I could have just as easily walked away.”

“I know,” he said. “But you didn’t.”

She refused to be the first to look away, even when the heavy note of meaning in his voice pulled her into a panic. There was no way his confidence went any deeper than the surface, all part of this ploy of his to win at any cost. If she remembered that napkin correctly—seven drunkenly scrawled tasks, a silly list with increasingly complicated undertakings Ben must complete before she’d be willing to sleep with him—no way would he get much further than number four or five. And he’d definitely stop before he got to seven. She’d bet their friendship on it.

In fact, that was exactly what she was doing.

He grinned.

With a grunt of irritation, she pulled the jewelry box from out of the mountain of pepper inside her purse and shoved it at his chest. “And you’re taking this stupid thing back. I don’t want it.”

He just continued beaming down at her, unruffled at the assault. “You picked it up off the table. I knew you would.”

She tried to ignore the way Ben’s chest felt where it rested solidly under her fingertips, the heat of him drawing her in. Although he almost always wore a suit and tie, his deceptively uptight businesslike appearance could never hide his latent strength. She knew the strength was there, lurking under the surface, but she’d always made it a point to ignore it. The occasional hug or air kiss, that one time last year she’d missed a friend’s funeral and sobbed in his arms for a good two hours—those were all the intimacies she allowed herself.

“I could see the hostess eyeing it from the front of the restaurant. Did you really want me to leave several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry on the table to try and prove my point? Here—take it, will you?”

“Nope. That’s for you. You can put it in the hotel safe if the burden of carrying it is too much. Of course, you could also just open it and see what’s inside. How do you know it’s worth thousands of dollars? Maybe it’s a breath mint.”

He didn’t make a move to grab the jewelry box, but he did lift a hand to her face. His thumb grazed along her cheekbone, as if wiping away a smudge, and he didn’t stop there. Fingers kept trailing until he wove them through the upsweep of her hair, tugging just enough to render the strands askew. “Is the idea of you and me together that abhorrent?”

No. It wasn’t. That was the problem.

“I’m reasonably attractive. I take a shower every day. I like to think I can make you laugh even when you’d rather throw me out a window.” He licked his lips, taking his time with the movement, as if he knew she was imagining the way that tongue might feel on every inch of her skin. “You’re the last woman on earth I’d ever want to hurt, Olivia. You have to know that.”

But he already had hurt her—that was the thing. He’d hurt her the second he pulled out that napkin and tilted her world on its axis, trading in their friendship for a chance at something more.

His friend from the Beck concert had been right about her. She hated flattery, and she would have chewed up and spit Ben out if he’d tried his smooth man-about-town routine on her that night. Rich, powerful men were a dime a dozen when you had a face and a body as famous as hers, and she didn’t need the Benjamin Meyers of the world to croon in her ear about how much they wanted to fuck her.

Sex was just sex, and if experience had taught her one thing, it was that men would say anything to get it. They lied and they spewed compliments. They dangled money and they offered modeling contracts. Sometimes they followed through with their promises, sometimes they didn’t. That was the way the world worked.

But this—these five years of friendship, that feeling of comfort when Ben walked into the room, the long nights in Tokyo when only his voice would do—it was rare for her to have something so consistent in her life, and he knew it. That was what hurt the most. He knew it, and he was still willing to jeopardize everything.

“What could you possibly know about pain?” she asked, her voice strained.

“I know enough.” His grip on her neck tightened, and she could feel the pulse in his thumb throbbing against the one in her throat. “Every time I see you, I feel as though the breath has been knocked out of me, and it takes me days to fill my lungs again. Missing you is like missing a part of my soul, and I find myself searching for you even when I know you’re halfway across the world.”

“Don’t, Ben. Please.”

“I have to. The next twenty-three hours or so are mine to command, and I don’t intend to waste them. I can tell by the panicked look in your eyes that there’s a good chance I’m going to ruin everything by being so honest with you, but it’s a risk I have to take.”

“But we work so well as friends. No pressure. No obligations. Why are you determined to wreck that?”

“Because I want you,” he said simply, and dropped his hand. And that was it. Ben saw. Ben wanted. Ben would stop at nothing to get. A man didn’t get to his level of success by age thirty without a stubborn and reckless streak. And a man didn’t get to his level of charm without leaving a trail of broken hearts behind.

Her body flooded with annoyance, and she welcomed it, grateful for all the other emotions it cast aside. “You know the harder you push, the harder I’ll push back, right? I’m not one of those women who only needs a few cheap compliments before she gives in.”

“You thought those compliments were cheap?” He pulled his lips down in a mock frown. “Damn. I paid a lot for them.”

She wouldn’t laugh. She wouldn’t even crack a smile. “And just so you know, if there’s a bottle of champagne and strawberries waiting inside the bedroom, I’m turning around and going home. I don’t care what the napkin says.”

“I’m insulted you think I’d stoop to such obvious tactics as those.” He paused. “But if someone knocks at the door in about five minutes, you should probably ignore it.”

She fell into a peal of mirth, unable to hold it back any longer. It was impossible to take Ben seriously for more than a few minutes at a time—in fact, that was a large part of his appeal. “Please tell me you didn’t actually think that would work.”

“No.” His lips twitched. “In fact, I’d have been disappointed if it did. I like that you’re making me work for this.”

Of course he did. His confession down there in the cab—that the first thing he noticed about her was her lack of googly-eyes—said it all. She was the only woman in the world who hadn’t fallen in a swoon at his feet, and he couldn’t stand it.

In fact, if she threw herself at him right now—if she gave in to stupid overtures like champagne and strawberries and a fancy room—he’d probably lose interest. Bored and disillusioned, he’d realize that nothing she had to offer was any different from what scores of other women had happily handed over in the past.

She stopped in the act of searching the linen cupboard for spare sheets to make up the couch. Of course. That was it. She could protest until she ran out of oxygen and still come nowhere near the amount of hot air Ben used in a single breath. You couldn’t argue with a brick wall.

But you could tear it down.

She closed the linen cupboard without extracting so much as a pillow and settled her back against the door. It wasn’t an aggressive stance, but if Ben had been paying attention, he would have noticed the shift. She was all liquid sensuality over here, the pose one she’d perfected years ago.

“You know, I think it’s been a whole forty-five minutes since you dropped your phone in my drink,” she said, her voice neutral. No need to give everything away all at once. “Aren’t you curious about what’s going on in Singapore right now? What if your secretary is frantically emailing you about an international emergency?”

He turned to her with a lifted finger, wagging it playfully. “Nice try. You can’t make me slip up that easily. She knows to call the hotel if there’s anything catastrophic.”

“Cheater. That renders number two null and void.”

“Untrue. The napkin doesn’t say anything about landlines. Cell phone only. I checked the fine print.”

“Then I’m adding a caveat. A lady’s prerogative.” No way was he derailing her with logic. Logic was for business meetings and contract negotiations. Not a mad-dash effort to preserve the most important relationship in her life.

“I would never deny a lady her prerogative,” Ben said.

That was Livvie’s cue. She moved to the side wall, where a vintage rotary phone sat in all its gold-leaf glory. Leaning over so that the short skirt of her black dress rode high, she yanked on the phone cord connecting them to the rest of the world.

“There.” She straightened and whipped the phone cord in a circle, bandying it like a feather boa. Lowering her voice, she added, “Now we’re all alone up here. Just two people enjoying a private evening together.”

“Yes, we are. It’s nice, isn’t it?” He looked around the room, seemingly satisfied with its painstaking elegance. “Since you nixed the idea of champagne and strawberries, do you want to play checkers?”

Was he missing the part where she was standing here with an enticing pout to her lips? This pout was worth a fortune. This pout was all she had. “Since when does the Montluxe have checkers?”

“It’s what I packed in your satchel. Checkers and a toothbrush. I hope you don’t mind. It has an oscillating head.”

She gave a strangled laugh and let the phone cord slide through her fingers. For a man intent on having sex with her, he was making it incredibly difficult to get to first base.

“What? I thought we might get bored. And oscillating head sounded too good to pass up.”

“If you wanted oscillating head, you could have just asked.” Without waiting for her comment to fully register, she drew close—close enough that he had to take a wide step back, his calves hitting the edge of the couch. The heat emanating off his body was a force of its own, raw with power and sex, and she had to swallow to remind herself that she was in charge here. She was seducing him, forcing him out on this high wire to see how he liked it.

It was dizzying and exhilarating up here, yes, but one misstep meant the loss of everything. Ben was too good a businessman—too aware of the value of calculated risks—not to recognize the folly of pushing forward.

“Checkers is a poor substitute for the other kinds of games we could play,” she cooed, infusing her tone with a throaty purr that would have done a phone-sex operator proud. She ran one hand up the inside of his tie, holding him firmly in place. From there, it would take one push of her hand on his chest to send him sprawling onto the cushions. One hitch of her skirt to straddle him. They were essentially two seconds and a leg lift away from full-on fornication. “I’m starting to think you might be onto something here.”

“Strip checkers, you mean?” he asked, amusement and desire deepening his voice. He had yet to do more than mold his body against hers, letting her lean in, but she could tell he wanted to do more. There was a tense strength to the way his muscles unfolded along hers, as if he could unleash his full potential at any moment. “Checkers role play? No—I’ve got it. You want to paint my body and make it the board.”

“No, Ben. I want us to fuck.”

“Wait—what?” An adorably perplexed frown moved across his face, and the tense strength of him snapped. She didn’t give him a chance to use it to push her away, taking advantage of his momentary imbalance to brush her lips against his instead.

It was a slight touch, more of an exchange of breath than a true kiss, but it was all she needed to convince her that every boundary she’d put up against this man was a necessary one. His lips were impossibly soft and easy to fall into, and she found herself straining for more. Her thighs knocked against his as she used him for balance, sparks of sensation springing to life as her bare legs scraped the fabric of his slacks.

Although he had yet to do much more than stand there in a state of stupefaction, she lifted a hand to the nape of his neck, allowing her fingers to curl through his hair. A tiny tug had his mouth angled to let her in, and she wedged her leg firmly between his. At those extra touches—her insistence in their embrace—he finally emitted a groan and began moving his lips in return.