Katherine Garbera - Claimed by the Millionaire

He felt a small hand on his arm and glanced down at Sheri. “Having fun?” he asked.

“Yes. I can’t believe I was reluctant to come,” she said. Her breath smelled faintly of champagne. She held a half-empty glass in her right hand. She tucked her left hand between his arm and body.

She closed her eyes and swayed to the music. Just a little movement and humming under her breath.

“Are you enjoying the reception?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. Ava’s so sweet. Thank you for inviting me to join you this week.”

“You’re welcome. I believe I owe you something.”

“What do you owe me, Tristan?”

There was a dreamy quality to her voice. From the first it had been obvious to him that she was attracted to him. But she was careful to keep that attraction to herself and had put a barrier between them. Put him into a box, so it seemed. But tonight…tonight, with the trio playing romantic music and the wine flowing freely, none of that mattered.

“Dance with me, ma douce? ”

She smiled up at him. “I’d love to.”

He had never seen that exact look in her eyes before. “You seem different.”

“Maybe that’s because we’re not in the office.”

“No, we are not. What difference does that make to you, Sheri?”

“It makes all the difference in the world, Tristan.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned up on tiptoe, brushing her lips against his neck. “This is so nice.”

Tristan knew he should pull away and let her go but instead he leaned down, put his hand under her chin and tipped her head up toward his. His lips found hers easily and she sighed into his mouth as their lips met.

The wedding that she’d been nervous about participating in had taken on a certain dreamlike state. The champagne was good. Very good. There really was a difference between that stuff she bought in the grocery store and fine French champagne.

The music was chic and sexy and, as Sheri leaned closer to Tristan, she realized that he was, too. His cologne was one of a kind and smelled delicious. She’d never get enough of it. Even at work the scent lingered in his office when he was away.

She knew it was partly the alcohol she’d drunk that gave the evening the magical quality that it was taking on as she danced with Tristan, but just this once she felt as if she was woman enough for him.

The right kind of woman for Tristan Sabina, international playboy, her boss and the sexiest man she’d ever danced with.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his French accent nearly as appealing as the strong line of his jaw.

“About you.”

“Really?”

“Um…yes. What are you thinking?”

“That maybe I should pull you closer,” he said, suiting action to words.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She knew this was another part of the wonderful dreamland she’d been in for the last week. Being on Mykonos was like being in a fantasy world.

Tristan and his friends were wealthy in every sense of the word and, when she was with them, she was living a life that was far removed from ev erything she’d ever known.

“Okay?”

“Yes,” she said, her words a sigh. “Though I thought we’d decided that…um, we’d just have a professional relationship.”

“Did we? I think we can both be forgiven for making the most of this moment, on a night like tonight.”

She looked up at him, trying to judge if he was sincere, and she saw something in his eyes. Something she’d never seen in them before.

Lust.

Everything feminine in her clenched at that expression. Here was what she’d dreamed of. And how sad was it that she wanted to accept whatever he had to offer?

“For just this night?” she asked, to make sure she understood what he was offering.

“That’s all I have in me,” he said, but in his eyes she saw the hint of something more.

Some kind of emotion that intimated that he did feel more, but why did she care? Being in Tristan’s arms was enough for her. This moment dancing together was better than she’d ever imagined it could be. She kept breathing deeply, trying to imprint the scent of him in her soul. She ran her hands down his shoulders and back, feeling the strength of his body under her touch.

If she were braver she’d press her body closer to his so she’d have the imprint of him against her to recall when she was back in the office and they were simply employer and employee again.

His finger under her chin startled her into opening her eyes and when he tipped her head back and their eyes met, she realized that there was more happening here than just a dance. She saw something else in Tristan’s gaze. There was such sadness there, she thought. A kind of pain that she recognized all the way to her lonely soul.

Tristan Sabina, lonely?

The thought was ludicrous.

She shook her head. What the hell was she doing? This was her boss. She pulled back, put a respectable few inches between them, and he let her.

She got the message loud and clear. There wasn’t more to this than Tristan feeling lonely at the reception and wanting…what exactly?

She tipped her head to the side as he brushed his finger along the line of her jaw. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I never realized how beautiful your eyes are.”

She caught her breath. She wasn’t beautiful and she knew it. Her eyes were brown. Not the kind of luscious chocolaty color that poets wrote about, just plain brown. She shook her head.

“Yes, gorgeous. I could get lost in them.”

“Tristan—”

He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip and her thoughts dissolved. She felt a tingling from that contact that spread down her neck and shoulders. And she realized that the safe little way in which she’d been obsessed with Tristan had turned into a dangerous and exciting attraction.

She knew that he wasn’t himself tonight. That Monday morning, when they were back at work, they would return to the relationship they’d always had.

A sane person would turn around, walk off the dance floor and go back to her room.

But she’d been alone in her room for much of her life. In a box of her own making where she was safely insulated from pain. From the men who always left her.

She looked up at Tristan. He stared at her lips. His own parted as he stroked hers. And she wondered if knowing he was leaving, figuratively speaking, after one night would somehow lessen the pain of being left once again.

And she didn’t kid herself that it wasn’t going to be painful when he left. It was always painful, but being with Tristan…being in his arms and experiencing the things she’d dreamed of since the first time he’d walked into her office…well, that might be worth it.

Wouldn’t it?

She didn’t know and didn’t want to analyze it. For once she wanted to forget that she was a plain-Jane kind of woman. That she was the kind of girl who usually went back to her room alone. For tonight, she was the woman that Tristan Sabina was looking at with lust in his eyes.

He and Sheri danced together for the rest of the evening and once Christos and his bride left, Tristan thought of leaving, too. But he glanced over at Sheri and was unable to walk away.

He drew her back out onto the dance floor, moving their bodies together. Feeling the rightness of the way she fit in his arms and against his body.

If she pulled back, of course he’d let her walk away. He had never had to coax a woman into his bed. But with Sheri, he was tempted. He was tempted to ply her with champagne and kisses.

Kisses.

He’d tasted her lips once, and now that was all he wanted to do. Stroke his tongue over the seam between her lips until she sighed and opened her mouth. Let his tongue sweep into the softness of her mouth. She would taste sweet…of champagne and something else that was uniquely Sheri.