How To Host a Seduction (6 page)

And when she couldn't possibly take any more, when it seemed he might actually kill her if he tried to wring one more orgasm from her overwhelmed body, Ellen pulled away from him, refused to let him see the tears that were suddenly blinding her.

“Don't go.”

His voice filtered through the darkness, penetrated her
senses, so rich and deep with just the faintest hint of the Deep South, a sound she hadn't realized she'd missed so much until hearing it again.

Pulling her back to him, he curved his body around hers, locked his arm around her waist, cradled his sex against her bottom. He settled his chin on the top of her head, and she heard him inhale deeply, felt the corresponding rise and fall of his chest.

Ellen couldn't think clearly. She was too inundated with emotion and sensation even to try. Her body still trembled with the fading echoes of climax, the warmth of satiation, the boneless descent of an awesome adrenaline rush.

His breath tickled her ear. He held her so close their bodies were seamless, bound by a thin sheen of sweat.

In that moment, a moment when everything seemed right in her world for the first time in forever, Ellen didn't think about her ironclad rules for relationships. She didn't analyze the consequences of giving in to his request. She didn't think about making mistakes.

She just closed her eyes.

I
N THE STILLNESS
of the very late night, Christopher cradled Ellen close, savored the feel of her sleek legs tangled with his, her soft breaths breaking against his chest. Physically, he should be exhausted, but the singularity of holding her again precluded any need for sleep.

Just as she had on that night three months ago, Ellen had blown him away. He'd meant to engage her in the fantasy of a role-playing event in a place where she could feel safe from the restrictions guiding her complicated life. He'd wound up unable to keep his hands off her and made them miss all the opening night events, instead—an occurrence she'd have something to say about when she awoke. His only defense was that he'd lost himself in the challenge of coaxing sighs from her lips, slipping past those walls she so ably tossed up between them.

Those walls were what had done him in. She built them quicker than he could tear them down, her cool composure distancing him as efficiently as if she'd thrown an ocean between them. Christopher had been tired of distance last night.

Three months without her had been three months too long.

The fault was all his, of course. He'd made a judgment error, something he didn't do often. Ellen's refusal to sleep all night in his bed should have warned him to tread
slowly, but unfortunately, treading slowly was not one of his strengths.

Gut instinct and the ability to make fast decisions marked his career. And for the hundredth time since Ellen had stormed out his door without a backward glance, Christopher told himself that a senior vice president of sales with forty-seven global divisions under his supervision should have had a firmer handle on his presentation.

Given Ellen's high-profile family, he'd believed proposing marriage was the logical solution to their problem of being together. He'd believed that commitment would bridge the distance she kept between them and prove he wanted to spend his life with her. Made sense.

Not to Ellen.

He hadn't factored in those damn walls she retreated behind whenever life slipped out of her grasp. He hadn't counted on her determination to play by her damn rules, either, which had resulted in him overplaying his hand badly. All he could claim was that love had made him lose his mind.

But, damn, what a feeling.

Closing his eyes, he luxuriated in the brush of her hair against his cheek, the delicate scent of her touched by the fragrant breeze wafting in through the open courtyard doors. The sense of completion he felt was like nothing he'd ever known before.

Except when he was with her.

She'd inspired him to pick up the phone in the middle of a workday just to hear her voice. He reveled in the challenge of peeling away the coolly composed layers to the passionate woman below, a woman he'd missed during these past months.

He wanted another chance.

As though she sensed the bent of his thoughts, she rolled
out of his arms with a sigh. Christopher didn't take it personally. Ellen clearly wasn't used to sharing her bed, and he'd been chasing her around ever since she'd fallen asleep. Every time she slipped away, he rolled with her and wrapped himself around her again.

But this time he slipped out of bed, dragged on jeans and a shirt, stepped into his favorite Top-Siders. After glancing at Ellen to make sure she still slept, he left the bedroom. He had business to conduct. Business that couldn't wait.

Heading into the sitting room, he looked for…there it was, on an end table right beside the bedroom door. Within earshot. Always.

Retrieving Ellen's purse, he flipped it open with no remorse for privacy invasion, grabbed her cell phone and pressed the power button.

Off.

Only luck had kept her phone from ringing while they'd made love, and Christopher was grateful. If that phone had rung, Ellen would have ejected from his bed like a shot.

Her life boiled down to a phone that remained on
always.
It was the connection that called the Talbot family together from anywhere and everywhere when the Senator needed her family by her side to present a united front to the press. In fact, Ellen had almost missed Josh and Lennon's wedding because of a family duty call during her mother's most recent campaign.

He understood that the Talbots needed to rally behind the Senator, but he didn't understand why Ellen lived her life on hold while waiting for these duty calls. He'd asked her, but she'd only said that her parents had certain expectations of their children and she had some catching up to do to meet them. Given what an intelligent and accomplished woman Ellen was, he'd had a hard time imagining
where she'd fallen short. But she wouldn't discuss the subject. He added this to his list of things that intrigued him about her.

Heading out of the suite, Christopher recalled the very first time he'd laid eyes on Ellen—a vivid moment that still stood out in his memory.

June. Louis Armstrong Airport. Metairie, Louisiana.

With all the pre-wedding fittings and festivities, Christopher, a groomsman, had been recruited to make the airport run to retrieve a bridesmaid who'd changed her travel plans at the last minute, arriving only in time for the rehearsal.

A simple request he'd been happy to carry out. Since both made their homes in Manhattan and obviously shared the commonality of a busy schedule, Christopher had figured they would have something to talk about on the ride back into New Orleans.

He hadn't smelled a setup until Ellen emerged from the gate.

She was one cool beauty with her almost waist-length dark hair and willowy body. Beautiful in a very classic way, creamy skin and elegant features that brought to mind a porcelain doll on a collector's shelf. She had a smile that lit up the terminal like a spotlight and a mysterious self-possession that suggested she would remain unruffled in the middle of an avalanche.

It was that quality that had first caught his attention.

And continued alternately to fascinate and frustrate him. Shaking his head, Christopher left the garden suite and tucked the memory safely away. That image, along with others he'd collected during the time they'd dated, had been all he'd had of Ellen for three long months. He wasn't about to let them go until he saw how his plans for the next few days transpired.

Hence, he had to get about his business.

The light shining through the glass office door surprised him. He gave a quick knock and entered, only to find Miss Q sitting behind a desk, a cup of tea at her elbow and stacks of papers in front of her.

“Just the person I needed to see,” he said. “I was going to leave you a note. I thought you'd be sleeping.”

Miss Q gazed over the rims of her reading glasses with bright eyes that the passage of time hadn't dimmed. “I figure I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead, dear. Right now, I've got things to do.”

She stopped Christopher in his tracks with her easy reference to the inevitable, and he quickly understood that Miss Q planned to face death in the same manner she faced life. With an appreciation for a new experience. Christopher supposed when one looked at death that way it became another adventure.

He filed that idea away for future reference, thinking he might like to handle matters with that same sort of aplomb.

“I'm not disturbing you, am I?”

“Of course not. But given that you and Ellen never showed up for the introduction, I was hoping you were engaged in something a little more exciting than talking to an old lady.”

“No comment.”

“Playing the gentleman, are you? Well, then, keep the details to yourself and just tell me how it went. You're still vertical and I don't see any blood, so I'll assume you and Ellen worked out some sort of compromise for the training.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Technically he and Ellen hadn't discussed the training. He wouldn't have that pleasure until she awoke and real
ized they'd missed the introduction. Hopefully, there wouldn't be a splatter trail to mark the occasion.

“I see” was all Miss Q said.

And Christopher knew she did. Miss Q was one of the few people who had understood the significance of his marriage proposal. Not only had she lived with the love of her life for well over fifty years—a man who'd been close friends with Christopher's grandfather—but she'd also known him all his life. And she knew Ellen. Hell, she'd been the one to send him off to the airport to pick up the errant bridesmaid in the first place.

And the ensuing months had been…well,
awesome.

For what seemed like the hundredth time since first meeting Ellen, Christopher thought that a man who made his living supervising client relations all over the globe should be more articulate. But Ellen had affected so many changes in him, this lack of articulation not the least among them.

“After seeing Ellen tonight, I'm convinced I've got a good shot at getting her to give me another chance.”

A good shot.
He sampled the effect of the words on his tongue, decided he disliked the taste of potential defeat—a feeling he hadn't experienced much in his life. “That's what I came to tell you.”

“You're convinced she still loves you.”

“Yes.”

Only a beat of silence passed before Miss Q took him at his word. “Good, because I want everything to go your way, dear. You've gone through a great deal of trouble and expense to arrange this get-together and I must tell you how impressed I am with your ingenuity and imagination. If anyone can prove himself to our fiercely independent Ellen, you're the man.”

“Thank you for helping me pull this off.”

“My pleasure. It's been a good time, and I'm delighted that Olaf has taken to this place the way he has. He hasn't had so much fun in ages, and he deserves some after working so hard to organize the Eastman Gallery.” She referred to the erotic art gallery she'd recently opened as a memorial to her late lover. “I want you to have fun, too. I think you'll be pleased with the script we've cooked up.”

“I'm sure I will be.”

“Then, smile, dear. You're an innovative businessman, the senior vice-president of sales in that fancy company, for goodness' sake. You can sell yourself to Ellen.”

If only selling himself were as simple as wheeling and dealing for controlling interest in a Black Sea vacation resort or an antebellum plantation. But Miss Q did have a point, and he wasn't embarrassed to admit that her opinion mattered. He'd known Miss Q his whole life and he respected her. Knowing she returned the sentiment went a long way toward dispelling the lingering sense of defeat he'd been grappling with since Ellen ended their relationship and refused his calls.

“I've already taken the up-front approach, and she wasn't impressed. She's a very strong woman, so chasing after her was never an option. Ingenuity and imagination are all I have.”

“Ellen's a tough sell. No doubt.” Miss Q sounded thoughtful. “But then, so were you. Finding a woman to catch your eye hasn't been easy. Trust me.”

“She has me between a rock and a hard place.”

“Your favorite place to be.”

“Admittedly. But I normally have more options.”

“Even better,” she shot back. “You like challenges.”

“The more challenging the better.
Usually.
” Taking a deep breath, Christopher steeled himself to admit the truth. “I don't want to lose her.”

Miss Q sighed, and Christopher shook off the grim effects of his admission to manage another smile. This woman was a true romantic.

“Ellen's an intelligent girl and you two are perfect for each other. I know. I brought you together, and I don't make mistakes about grand passion.”

“With luck I'll convince her, too.”

Miss Q grinned a grin that lit up her wizened features, hinted at the gorgeous daredevil she'd been in her youth. “Luck has nothing to do with it. You just be your dashing self and let her heart do the rest. She's a smart girl.”

“Who chooses to play it safe. She won't allow herself to get too close or too vulnerable, and right now she's convinced being involved with me is the worst possible move she could make. But one thing I do know is that beneath her cool exterior beats the heart of an idealist. She may hide it well, but editing those romances feeds her soul. She's very influenced by heroes, fantasies and happy endings, whether she admits it or not. It so happens I'm targeting idealistic souls this weekend.”

“You'll be a wonderful hero, dear. It's in your blood. Just look at your parents. They're the love match of their generation.”

No argument there. His parents brought to life the cliché
two peas in a pod,
as infatuated with each other today as they had been when Christopher was a child. Which had caused him considerable embarrassment in his youth. He used to roll his eyes and spend as much time with his grandfather as he could manage, but that was before he'd matured enough to appreciate how rare and special was the love his parents shared.

“You and Ellen are grand passion personified.” Miss Q sighed again, with such drama that Christopher knew he'd come to the right place when he'd asked for her help.

True, hooking up with the little old matchmaker had been an unconventional approach to the problem, but he'd analyzed his options, assessed the success-to-failure ratio. Lovesickness aside, Christopher hadn't worked his way into executive management with a multinational holding corporation without the ability to read people and trust his gut instinct.

Miss Q was his best bet for success.

He would not overplay his hand again. Not remembering how he'd felt sitting in his Manhattan office, staring fifty stories down at the busy street. People rushing around the city, playing, working and living their lives. Ellen didn't work far away and could have been any one of them, hurrying out to meet with an agent at one of the city's fancy eateries or squeezing in some shopping on her lunch hour.