Free Did Someone Order Room Service?: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance Novella (Do Not Disturb, Book 2) by Charlotte Phillips

following him across the room. He noticed that she waited for him to sit down before she followed suit, and then she took the opposite sofa. On her guard. Yet he’d felt a fleeting touch of something closer when they were talking over dinner. He couldn’t remember being so intrigued by someone, and her reticence only served to interest him even further. She was such a welcome foil to the one-sided conversations and endless bubbling enthusiasm of the usual girls he mixed with.
    Her skin was honeyed porcelain in the flickering firelight, her hair gleaming. The baby pink softness of her upper lip made him itch to take it between his own lips and suck, just to see if it still felt as delectable as it had yesterday. Low burning began to course through his body just from looking at her.
    Layla could feel his eyes on her and when she looked up from her glass the way he caught and held her gaze in his said it all. Her pulse rate made a break for it and her stomach melted to soft heat. An anticipatory tingle rose in her breasts and between her thighs at the thought of his hands on her, the memory of what had happened between them not twenty four hours ago in this suite crashing through her barriers straight back into her mind. The evening was theirs for the taking and he made his move by standing up, rounding the low coffee table and sitting beside her to take her hand in his.
    She looked down at it.
    ‘I told you before, I’m not some fangirl. I know that sounds ludicrous after what happened yesterday, but that was
so
not what it was about for me.’
    ‘What was it about then?’
    She considered the question, not sure she really knew the answer.
    ‘I don’t know. Proving a point maybe? Perhaps I’d just had a gutful of playing by the rules for once. Working, savings accounts, behaving responsibly…really it’s got me nowhere in life. My mother running out was the last straw.’ She shrugged. ‘I just wanted some fun.’
    ‘You regret it?’
    The deliciousness of the previous evening danced through her mind.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, meaning no.
    She was a crap liar. She saw it in his smile.
    ‘You’re like a palate cleanser,’ he said. ‘A reality check in the middle of all the madness.’
    A single word or move from her would be enough to revert this whole situation to platonic. She simply needed to make herself and her position clear once again.
    She didn’t withdraw her hand. Somewhere in the depths of her mind lurked the dark and delicious urge to take this further, this crazy situation she’d got herself into. Not just take it further but run with it, as far as she could. Maybe there was some kind of inevitability about her attraction to him that made it undeniable. Could this be an opportunity to explore her mother’s crazy lifestyle, to somehow get a tiny bit closer to understanding her parents and her own dysfunctional upbringing? Why not experiment with that world a bit herself? It didn’t mean she was going to fall for him, she had her head screwed on far too tightly for that.
    That was the difference here,
that
was what set her apart from run-of-the-mill groupie. She had an agenda of her own that wasn’t about fan worship.
    Or was she actually just clutching at straws to justify this to herself when it went against everything she’d always believed? Was she really considering continuing with this madness?
    The thought made her stand up quickly, and she moved back towards the table, began stacking dishes on the silver trolley to be taken downstairs.
    ‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said over one shoulder. ‘But it’s getting late, I should think about finishing up here.’
    She forced her mouth to say the words and when she had finished up here she would force her feet to walk out of the door.
    And then he was behind her, one arm curling softly around her waist and the other sweeping her hair to one side so he could kiss her neck. Sparks fizzed down her spine as he turned her to face him and she looked