A Taste of Heaven (Billionaires' Secrets Book 3) (2 page)

He took her hand and clasped it softly, wrapping long, strong fingers around hers. The warmth of his blood seemed to pulse through his skin and heat hers as the music beat around them.

“What kind of dance are we going to do?” She didn’t dare look up at his face. Already she was too close to him. So near she could feel the heat of him through her clothes.

“Any kind you like. It sounds like a mambo to me.”

Her feet slipped into the mambo rhythm, following the patterns she’d learned years ago at Ms. Valentine’s dancing school. She tried to focus on the steps, on moving gracefully, and keeping enough distance between her and her partner. He smelled of spices, like the rich food she’d eaten, and of starched cotton.

“I like your shirt.” She risked a glance at his face.

Those rich, honey-colored eyes gazed at her, twinkling with amusement. “You don’t have to make polite conversation with me. I know you’re nice.”

“How on earth would you know that?”

“I can read people. It’s a gift I got from my grandmother. She used to read tea leaves, but she told me her secret was always to read the people as they stared at the leaves.”

“What do you look for?” She tried to ignore the steady warmth of his big hand on her back.

“Facial expression tells you what matters to someone, not just while you look at them, but every day. All the little dimples and wrinkles reveal something.”

“Uh, oh. I’m getting self-conscious.” Two plastic surgery consultations had reassured her that it wasn’t yet time to get drastic, but at thirty-one, Samantha knew she was no longer at the peak of her once-prize-winning beauty.

“That dimple in your chin tells me you smile a lot. And the tilt of your eyes tells me that you like to make people happy.”

“That’s true.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I’ve been told I try too hard to please. I’m a ‘yes’ woman.”

“But you have strength of character. I can see that by the way you carry yourself. You care very much about everything you do.”

She frowned, taking in his words. Was it true? Maybe she just had good posture from training for beauty pageants.

She’d tried hard to mature. To learn from her failed marriages and all the mistakes she’d made.

She’d given everything she had to make Tarrant’s last years the best they could be.

“And you’re very, very sad.” His low voice tickled her ear. While they moved, he’d come closer.

“I’m okay,” she stammered, trying to reassure herself as much as him.

“You are okay.” His hand shifted on her back, stroking her. “You’re more than okay. But my grandmother would tell you to breathe.”

“I am breathing,” she protested.

“Little shallow breaths.” He leaned into her. She could feel his hot breath on her neck. “Just enough to keep you afloat, to get you through the day.”

He squeezed her hand inside his. His penetrating gaze almost stole the last of her breath. “You need to inhale and draw oxygen way down deep into your body. To let it flow all the way through you, out to your fingers and toes.”

Her toes tingled. “Right now?”

She swallowed. Glanced around his broad arm to where other couples danced, lost in their own world.

“No time like the present.” He smiled.

He had a nice smile, warm and friendly. She might not be a tea-leaf expert, but she was no slouch at reading people, either. A survival mechanism she’d learned early on in her volatile household.

Of course, he was still far too good-looking. No man grew to adulthood with looks like that without an outsized and highly chiseled ego to match.

“Go on, breathe.”

Their feet had been keeping time to the music, but suddenly he stopped. Holding her with one arm around her back, and one hand on hers, he waited for her to follow his command.

Chapter Two

A
ware that their non-movement must be attracting attention, Sam sucked in a breath. Her breasts lifted several inches inside the thin, white dress before she blew it out, blushing.

“Nice try, but you need to draw it down into your chest.” He tapped her back with his fingertips. “All the way down to my fingers.”

She glanced over her shoulder.

“Breathing’s not a crime in this state.” He grinned. “Come on, let’s do it together. One, two, three...” Eyes fixed on hers, he drew a breath deep into his chest, which swelled under his shirt.

Sam tried her best to match the length and duration of his breath. When she finally blew it out, she was gasping. “How embarrassing.”

“Not at all. That was great. You’d be surprised how many people go through life every day holding their breath without realizing. You don’t want to do that.” He flashed a grin and swept her into the mambo rhythm again. Twirled her fast and tight until she had to suck in a breath just to keep her balance.

“You want to breathe it all in, everything, the good and the bad.”

“The bad?”

“If you try too hard to avoid the bad stuff, you end up missing out on the good stuff, too.” His narrowed eyes shone like a cat’s in the dim interior. She tried to ignore a little tug in her belly.

Was it all the deep breathing? She couldn’t tell, but something had changed.

Their dance became more intense as he pulled her closer, whipped her out and then drew her back in. A drummer had joined the guitarist on stage and the hypnotic, pounding rhythm of palms on bongos pulsed through her until her feet took on a life of their own.

She found herself moving faster, deeper, throwing herself into the dance. She drew air deep into her lungs as she whirled through the air, and came back to rest against his hard body. Somehow everything was effortless, flowing, and she found herself losing track of which part of the room they were in.

The drumming grew louder, then faded away, the clinking of glasses blended with the rhythmic strumming of the guitar, until the whole atmosphere seemed to throb, to breathe, in and out, round and round.

Sam laughed aloud with sheer delight. When the music stopped with a flourish, she fell into her partner’s arms. “That was fantastic.”

“You’re an incredible dancer.”

“I’m a very rusty dancer, but you’re onto something with that breathing.”

“In and out, that’s all it takes.”

“It’s funny how we forget the little things that are most important.”

He made another hand signal to the guitarist, who launched into a slow song with cascades of rippling notes. Sam let her body sway instinctively to the seductive sound.

The club’s interior was warm and she could feel her skin—glowing, to put it delicately, but she wasn’t embarrassed.

Her partner’s reassuring gaze rested on her eyes, not probing or poking about the rest of her the way so many men did.

Without even thinking, she inhaled deeply and blew it out, and enjoyed the smile that stretched across his handsome face.

I don’t know his name.

How odd. To be dancing with someone and have no idea who he was. She knew he owned the bar, so he had an identity, but without a name he wasn’t quite...real.

Should she ask?

She blinked, strangely reluctant. A name seemed so formal, like a passport or driver’s license that gave you official status. She didn’t want to tell him that she was Samantha Hardcastle. Her name and picture might not ring any bells down here in New Orleans, but in New York they’d been plastered over the papers for months.

The Merry Widow,
with her much older husband’s billions now at her disposal. Like she’d
won
or something.

Bile rose in her gut. She didn’t want this man to know anything about that. To form preconceptions about her as a golddigging tramp who married a rich man for his money.

“Hey, you okay?” His hand slid around her back.

She realized her breathing had grown shallow again. She swallowed. “Sure, I’m fine. Sorry!” She drew in a deep and deliberate breath for his benefit, and they both chuckled as she blew it out.

The guitarist, joined by a saxophonist, as well as the drummer, launched into a swinging, bluesy number. His eyes were closed and his head bobbed in time with the music as if he were captivated by its spell.

Sam let that spell guide her feet as they danced without touching, their bodies swaying to the rhythm. Sensual and muscular in his movements, her partner moved with effortless ease.

Maybe it was the sips of champagne, but Sam felt strangely weightless, like all her cares and worries had drifted up to the ornate tin ceiling and hovered there, leaving her free and light.

“Were you a professional dancer?” His breath warmed her neck as he leaned in.

She colored slightly. “I competed a few times. Does my dancing look too artificial?”

He shook his head, his smile reassuring. “Not artificial, just polished, like the rest of you.”

She resisted the urge to glance down. She couldn’t deny being polished. As Tarrant’s wife, it had been her job. Her hours in between social lunches and dinners were filled with appointments to get her nails done or her hair trimmed.

She was so used to being buffed to a high shine that she had no idea what she’d look like without the carefully highlighted hair and couture dresses. If she stripped all the expensive enhancements away, would there be anyone there at all?

Right now it didn’t matter. Her partner’s expression shone with quiet appreciation. That honey-brown gaze didn’t seem to accuse her or to find anything lacking.

She couldn’t help but notice the way his hips moved. How they linked to strong thighs just visible beneath the smooth surface of his dark pants, to his flat belly.

A young, athletic body in the peak of health. A beautiful thing.

How old was he? Early thirties probably. Her age, though most of the time she felt about ninety.

He picked up her left hand and examined it. It felt very naked without the big engagement and wedding ring Tarrant had given her with such fanfare only four years ago.

The engagement ring had a diamond too big to wear outside without an armed guard. The wedding ring had been buried with his coffin. Tarrant had wanted her to place it on his hand like Jackie Kennedy did when her famous husband died. He always enjoyed a dramatic flourish.

“You’re smiling.” His deep voice stirred something in her chest.

“Happy memories.” How odd to have that as a happy memory. She was getting pretty strange in her old age.

“Now you’re not smiling.” He tugged her hand and pulled her closer. “I think you need to step outside your memories and into the present.”

He slid his arm around her waist. Her breasts crushed gently against his chest and a warm surge of pleasure rippled through her.

“I love this song,” he murmured. His low timbre vibrated in her ear, sending a shiver along her spine. “It makes me think of a lazy day out on the bayou. Sun shining on the water, cranes watching from the trees, the
putt-putt
of a shrimp boat in the distance.”

The image formed in her mind, a peaceful scene, at odds with their rather urbane surroundings. “Do you go there much?”

“As often as I can.”

She couldn’t see his face because he’d pulled her too close. His arms wrapped around her waist and she found that hers had slipped around his neck. A quick glance confirmed that other couples danced the same way, wrapped up in each other, to the gentle strumming of the guitar and the low caress of the saxophone.

He lowered his cheek to hers and she felt the slight stubble on his chin. A delicious masculine sensation she’d almost forgotten.

Almost, but not quite. The familiar strains of desire echoed through her like the notes of the music. It stirred in the palms of her hands where they pressed against his broad shoulder blades, in her nipples as they bumped his hard chest, in her tongue, which wondered what his mouth would taste like.

The answer came as their lips touched, opened, and her tongue flicked over his. His sensual mouth was both soft and firm, his tongue at first tentative, then insistent, hungry.

Her fingers dug into the crisp cotton of his shirt. Her belly pressed against his firm hips, as she tilted into the powerful kiss.

Light and color crackled behind her eyelids, dazzling her, while their tongues danced together. Then, slowly, their tongues drew back, and his lips closed. She felt his warm skin part from hers, to be replaced by cool, air-conditioned air.

Still clutching his back, she opened her eyes and blinked in the dim light. Her breath came in unsteady gasps, her legs wobbled and her skin stung with arousal.

“Come with me.” He didn’t look at her and it wasn’t a question. With one arm firmly about her waist, he led her off the floor and across the room. Faces and bodies blurred around her as she tried to get her bearings.

I only had two or three sips of champagne.
The thought flickered through her mind then flew away on a low note from the saxophone. Under her flimsy dress, her body pulsed and throbbed, and if he wasn’t holding her up, she wasn’t sure she’d still be walking.

Maybe she’d be floating.

They left the crowded restaurant through a door behind the bar that led out into a dim hallway. Across the hall he opened a tall, polished wood door. “More private.”

He ushered her into a beautiful room, decorated in the same prohibition-era style as the bar, as if Woodrow Wilson might wander in and start arguing with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Antiques gleamed in the soft light from a beautiful glass light fixture. The interlacing pattern of stained glass was so harmonious and unusual that she wondered aloud, “Is that a Tiffany lamp?”

“Yes, my mother collects them.”

Her eyes widened. “Aren’t they worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?”

He shrugged and opened a wood cabinet. “What use are beautiful things if you can’t enjoy them?” He pulled out two crystal glasses and another bottle of Krug champagne.

“You do enjoy the good life, don’t you?”

“I consider myself privileged to have the opportunity to enjoy the good life. I’d be a fool to squander it.”

Sam smiled as he offered her the bubbling glass. “Do you live here?”

“No, this is more like...my office.”