Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) (20 page)

I’d already seen both. I was turning pink just looking at the innocuous cardboard box. Not to mention the roses.

Not lavender this time. These had been sent to make a different statement. Deep, rich crimson, and no mere dozen of them.

A huge mass of enormous blooms sat in a crystal vase that had come from someplace much more special than a florist’s shelf, the flowers seeming to glow in the lamplight, unfurling their lush petals and releasing their gloriously heady scent into the air of the little house. Reminding me irresistibly of that last night, when the music and the lights had both been turned down low. A night when Hemi had taken off my clothes, made me weak, made me come, and made me his. As if I’d been anything else since the first day I’d met him, when he’d touched my cheek, licked his fingers, smiled into my eyes, and stolen me away. Body, heart, and soul.

“Whoa,” Karen said. “Paging the Love Doctor. Love Doctor, stat.”

I barely heard her. I was pulling the envelope off its spike and opening it, then taking out the card inside.

Five words.

Red for passion. Call me.

My mouth had gone dry, and I shoved the card back in his envelope as if somebody would see it. Well, that wasn’t crazy, because all three of the others
were
watching me.

“I’ll just . . . take these into the bedroom,” I decided. I juggled the package and tried to pick up the huge vase, hugging it against me, but it rocked down to the table again as I realized it was a two-handed job, and a heavy one at that.

Matiu said, “I’ll get it.” Before I could object, he lifted the vase and headed for the back of the house, leaving me to follow behind with the package, the card, my jacket, and my purse.

He didn’t seem to have any problem finding the right room, but then, I guessed he’d been there before. He set the vase carefully on the dresser, didn’t look at the bed, and said, confirming my suspicions, “It’s been a while since I was in here. Never saw too much of Hemi growing up. Nearly ten years older than me, and he only lived here a couple years.”

“Yes,” I said, which was a pretty stupid answer. I set the package and card down beside my flowers, longed with everything in me to rip open the cardboard box and see what was inside, and heard Hemi say,
You’re not to open it. Wait for me.

“I’ll go get Koro into the shower,” Matiu said, and I nodded and said, “Thanks. And for the lesson, too. Stay for dinner if you like,” and thought about time zones and a grandfather and sister who needed my attention, a lover who was asleep and absolutely required his rest, and thirty indecently opulent roses as rich as velvet, as red as blood. And wondered what was in my box.

Hope

Matiu had gone home. Koro, worn out by pain and the hard work of knitting old bones, had gone to bed. Karen was in the living room, watching TV with her earphones in.

And me? I was lying in Hemi’s bed with music playing softly on my phone and a cardboard box beside me, pretending to read a book and wishing it would hurry up and be nine o’clock. Five a.m. in New York, as early as I dared to call him.

On the thought, my phone rang with the brush of drums and sweet lick of guitar that was my sexy, self-indulgent Hemi ringtone. I grabbed for it and said, “You’re early.”

That dark-chocolate voice. “Told you to call me.”

“I wanted to let you sleep first.”

“I don’t need to sleep. I need you.”

Just like that, there was that thrum again, licking into me exactly as if Hemi’s mouth were trailing across my cheek right now, his clever fingers tracing my neckline, making me start to burn. “I need you, too,” I said, keeping my voice down, not because somebody would hear me but because it sounded better that way. More secret. More intimate.

“Did you open your parcel?”

“No. You said not to.”

“Good.”

“I got your flowers, though. I loved them. But they’re so . . .” I hesitated.

“Yes?”

“So much. Such a . . . statement.”

“Could be I needed to make a statement. Could be I needed you to hear my statement. Are you in bed?”

Another pulse. “Yes.”

“Got your laptop?”

“Uh . . . my
laptop?”

“Go get it. Bring it over and set it beside you.”

Oh, boy. Why did I have a feeling that things were about to get dirty?

“Got it,” I said, climbing back into bed again and fluffing up the pillows behind me.

“We’re switching over. Onto the computer. I’m ringing off now, but I’ll be back.”

A few seconds later, and I was clicking the touchpad and seeing Hemi on my screen, sitting up in bed himself. His face, his bare shoulders and chest rich brown against the white sheets and duvet, the tattoo I loved to trace and kiss standing out in its vivid blue-black.

He was seeing me, too, because he said, “That’s pretty, baby.”

“Mm.” I was wearing a pink nightgown he liked. “I’ve been wearing pj’s, but I wanted to feel sexy for you tonight, even though I didn’t think you’d see me. I took a shower and used your favorite body butter, too, wishing the whole time that you were here to touch me and feel how soft I am. And now you
are
seeing me, and I’m seeing you, too. How good is that? Even though I’m not sure how much I want to show you. Not on camera.”

“But you see,” he said, his voice so thrillingly low, so nearly dangerous, “it’s not about what you want to show me. It’s about what I’m going to tell you to do.”

I didn’t even answer that. I couldn’t. My breath was gone.

He didn’t smile. “Ready to open your box?”

This one, I answered. “You know I am. I’m dying to.”

“Right, then. Do it.”

It had a tab on the side, and I pulled it, then shoved the flaps back. “Two things in here,” I said.

“Open the one wrapped in tissue first.”

I did it, then sighed. “Hemi . . . that’s really pretty.”

“You’re gorgeous the way you are,” he said, and even on the screen, his liquid brown eyes drew me in and threatened to drown me. “But I want to watch you take that pink nightdress off and put on the one I sent you.”

I wanted this more than anything, but I couldn’t help a shiver of nerves. “Nobody can see this, right? This call?”

“Nobody,” he promised. “It’s safe to show me. Come on, baby. Change your clothes for me. I need to see you naked.”

I couldn’t have resisted that if I’d tried, although to be fair, there was no way I was trying. I wriggled to my knees, then adjusted the laptop screen. “Can you see me?”

I could swear that his gaze was less focused than it had been a minute ago. Just seeing me in my nightgown had had that effect on him, and the power of my femininity surged through me again, as if the pheromones could reach him over all the distance between us, just as his were reaching me. I kept my gaze on him, pulled the short nightgown slowly up and over my head, and dropped it on the bed.

He swallowed. I saw it. “Now take off the thong.”

I didn’t smile, either. I just looked at him and did it. A thumb on either side of the waistband, a slow, sensuous wriggle down my hips, and then it had joined the nightgown, and I was naked. Smooth, perfumed, and burning for his touch.

He sighed. “Sweetheart. If I hadn’t picked up that outfit for you and hadn’t been thinking about seeing you in it ever since, I wouldn’t make you put it on, because looking at you like that . . .”

“Mm.” I smiled, slow and seductive, and reached for the filmy bit of cobweb that had been wrapped in the tissue paper.

Another thong, first, made of delicate lace, in an ivory that looked warm against my skin. And then the other part.

I guess you’d call it a chemise. A barely-there wisp of sleeveless ivory lace made up of an almost-but-not-quite-opaque bodice that fastened with a single ivory ribbon, then fell away on either transparent side to end in a floating drift of lace just beneath the hips, revealing much more than it concealed. I tied the ribbon into a bow between my breasts, then lay back against the pillows again.

“Is it pretty?” I asked, knowing I was preening and loving it.

“So pretty,” he said. “Got your belly showing for me. That’s why I chose it. I wanted to see you in that lace, and I wanted to see that little belly.”

I stroked my hand over the bump that was a tiny bit more visible now. “So what’s the rest of my present?” I asked softly. “I noticed there’s something else in there for me.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “Look and see.”

I did. And felt the heat rise again. “Hemi . . . I’m not going to show you
that.”

“Oh,” he said, “I think you are. It’s got a couple special features I expect you to enjoy. I’m going to enjoy them, too. You need to feel good, baby, and so do I. I’m going to make you do it all the way from here, and I can’t wait.”

The thing was pink, and it was . . . big. I held it up, flipped a switch, and it began to buzz.

Yep. It was a vibrator. Of the dual-mode rabbit variety, made to stimulate everything that Hemi wasn’t here to take care of. Not exactly something I’d had room for in my suitcase or my thoughts when I’d left home, on a night when sex had been the last thing on my mind.

Time to get sassy. “You sure you want this? I’m pretty skilled on my own, and I know you’d like to watch that.” I put the vibrator down, picked up the tube of lube Mr. Thoughtful had packed into the box, and waggled it at him. “I might even
let
you watch it. If you talk dirty enough to me that I have to get busy, that is. You’d love that, and we both know it.”

“We do.” He wasn’t buying the sass. His face was absolutely serious when he said, “But here’s what you’re going to do. Get out the candles and light them, then turn out the light, lie back, and adjust your screen so I can see you. So I can record you. Then we’re going to get started. You and me.”

A lick of pure nervousness this time. Excitement, arousal, and uncertainty, a heady, scary mix. The curtains across the room stirred in the cool breeze and wafted the spicy scent of red roses to me. I was dressed in lace, and Hemi, I knew, was dressed in nothing. I was going to let him watch me, but was I willing to let him
film
me?

“Give it to me, Hope,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “You’ve always trusted me. Trust me in this.”

I did it. Of course I did. I pulled the heavy candles and matches out of the drawer, set one on each bedside table, and lit them, and knew Hemi was enjoying watching me do it. Then I turned out the lamp and lay back against the pillows, the flickering candlelight soft around me. And then I looked into my lover’s eyes.

Hunger. That was what I saw. That was the power I had, even as I gave it up to him. I made him hungry, and then I satisfied him. I gave him what he needed most, and I was the only one in the world who could do it right.

“That’s good.” His voice was a little husky, and I loved hearing it. “Now turn your music on. The good stuff. Let’s hear it.”

Music, soft, smooth, and so sexy. Candlelight. Roses. Lace. And Hemi talking to me.

“Close your eyes,” he told me. “Lie there and feel. I’m there with you, lying over you. Kissing your mouth the way you love it. Like it’s mine.”

A few sentences, and he already had me going. My fingers went up to my mouth as if it had a mind of its own, and Hemi said, “That’s it. Feel that. Now I’m kissing my way over to your neck, and you’re already arching your back, aren’t you? Because you want it so much. You need it so badly.”

I did. My fingers were going there, as greedy for the feel of my skin as if it really were his mouth that needed to kiss me, his hands that needed to stroke me. I left a trail of sparks in every place I touched, and when my hand drifted down my throat to the mesmerizing beat of the music, the dark pleasure of Hemi’s voice, my back
was
arching. I needed that hand. I needed it now.

“I’m slowing down,” Hemi said. “Working on your neck, your throat, and you’re trying to pull me in, pull me down. Until I’ve had enough, and I grab your wrists and tie them together, pull them over your head and fasten them down tight. Because I need to take my time, and because I want you helpless.”

“Hemi.” It was a breath, and that was all.