Tonight, With Me

The man’s bare torso, still beaded with water, cut across her vision, and her thoughts snapped clean in two. Zena froze like prey before a predator. Even in heels she had to crane her neck to take him in: a towering height, shoulders set wide, a chest drawn in lines as perfect as sculpture, and abs that split, gleaming, with an almost insolent polish.

Her gaze slid slowly downward, snagged on the swell behind the towel, and jerked back up. She saw his brow crease. He looked thoroughly put out at having his rest disturbed.

“I asked you what you want.”

He leaned out and checked both sides of the hall before speaking again. What stood beyond the door was a girl in a black tube dress, young at a glance. She didn’t look like hotel staff. The way she simply stood there, offering no reason for her presence, struck him as strange.

“Mr. Dane… Hunter?”

What business could a young woman he’d never met have with him at this hour? More than that, how did she even know he was staying here? The tip of Dane’s brow lifted.

“Why are you looking for me.”

She worked a bloodless fist, wearing the face of a child who had lost her way. Dane let out a breath and dragged a hand across his brow. Maybe it was the alcohol he’d been putting away for hours. His throat was suddenly parched.

“I’m tired. If you have no business here, go.”

He took his eyes off her and set his hand on the handle. The door began to glide shut, and Zena’s eyes went round.

“Wait.”

At the urgent call from behind the half-closed door, Dane tipped his head. Zena wet her lips with her tongue and scraped together what courage she had. Every drop of blood in her body seemed to rush to her face. Even so, she couldn’t turn back without at least having tried.

“I do have business.”

Dane arched one eyebrow. Was it the languor of the drink, softening his head? The sound of the woman drawing a breath and letting it go was strangely provocative.

Her lips, which had opened and then failed to follow through, finally parted toward him.

“How about spending tonight… with me?”

Dane belonged to a world where choosing someone to satisfy a physical appetite was easier than it was for anyone else. If he wanted a woman, finding one was as simple as breathing.

For the past several years, though, he had put work ahead of relieving his desire. His aversion to women who approached him for his background and his money had grown large enough to smother even a rising heat.

He slowly narrowed his eyes and looked down at the woman standing at the suite door. Who the hell is she? She fidgeted as if she were clutching a ticking bomb.

“How about spending tonight… with me?”

For all the boldness of the words she had thrown out, her face was pale to the point of looking ill. Dane decided he must have misheard.

“…What?”

“You… you heard me.”

If ever there was a moment for the word speechless, this was it. A woman who, the instant she saw his face, asked him to spend the night—and with an expression that unnatural.

“So you’re asking if I heard you right.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She only hesitated. Faced with a gaze packed full of wariness, her mind went blank on how to break through.

Dane’s eyes gradually sharpened. He had handled everything by principle and made his success young. A cautious, restrained life had won him praise, and at the same time the reputation of being cold and arrogant had earned him envy.

People seized by jealousy are never content with their own lives. They try to raise their worth by cutting a rival down, one way or another. Dane let out an irritable sigh.

“Who sent you.”

Maybe someone meant to drag him into a sex scandal and had used a young woman to lay the trap. Scandals of that kind dealt fatal damage to the moral standing of successful businessmen and politicians.

It was a fact of the world that plenty of women fell into the hands of immoral men and became victims of every kind of sexual crime. It was just as common for public figures to be named in false scandals, put through hell, and watch a lifetime of achievement buried under a heap of garbage.

“Not going to answer?”

Dane pressed her. Zena felt sweat sliding down her spine. She couldn’t even guess what expression she was wearing.

His face colder still, he dropped his gaze to her clutch. He caught the wrist of the hesitating Zena and snatched the bag. The hand rummaging through it stopped. He drew out a driver’s license, flicked a glance at her face, and looked down.

The heavy makeup made her face look quite different, but it was enough to confirm she was the same person. Only then did Dane ease a little of the tension locked in his jaw. For a moment his gaze was caught by the long lashes of the woman with her head bowed, by her clear skin, and by her full red lips.

“Not a minor, then.”

Zena flushed under the eyes that raked her face.

“Did Liam Carlson send you?”

The name that leapt from Dane Hunter’s mouth left her at a loss. She didn’t know whether she was allowed to mention Liam Carlson, or whether she was meant to play dumb. In silence she opened and closed her hands, over and over.

“Now that I think about it, Liam’s the only one who knows I’m here.”

Dane looked down at her, his brow slightly drawn. Liam Carlson was exactly the sort of man who would cook up something like this. He should have caught on when the room key changed hands. This had gone past a mischievous prank. Sending a woman at him out of nowhere put Dane in a thoroughly foul mood.

“Since you won’t answer, I’ll take that as a yes.”

Zena bit down on her lip. Admitting that Liam Carlson was behind this felt like something she must not do. Even so, if she didn’t offer an explanation he could accept, this man was obviously not going to let his guard down. Contrary to the trembling inside her, she put on a confident voice.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The truth is, I wanted to speak to you back at the sky bar. You just got up and left, so I followed you.”

The unfamiliar lie sent heat rushing to her face.

“I checked the floor, took the elevator right beside yours, and you were just going into this room.”

“Ah. Is that so…?”

The faint curl of his mouth pretended at warmth, but the lifted corners of his eyes were saying something else.

“Of all the people you could have chosen, why me?”

He shot the question back, his face full of distrust. The retreat was cut off now. She had to seduce him, whatever it took.

“If you’re going to have one anyway, isn’t a sugar daddy who’s rich and easy on the eyes the better choice?”

Dane’s gaze moved to the set of her mouth—resolute, almost—and to the slender nape that looked as if it might snap in a grip.

Her features were harmonious, pretty by anyone’s measure, and even the heavy makeup couldn’t hide all of a face that still looked innocent. But the black mini dress, fitted as if it had been measured to the inch, laid bare a body that was slim and curved at once.

“I don’t have a taste for little girls.”

At his words Zena wrinkled her pretty brow, then answered at once.

“You saw my ID. I’m not that young.”

“And I have even less interest in a woman who comes at a man for his money.”

Dane wet his lips with a tongue the alcohol had not fully left.

Contrary to the cold words, conflict moved through him. It was probably because he had been running one enormous project after another and hadn’t so much as brought himself off in longer than he cared to count. It would have been a lie to say his body hadn’t stirred at the alluring woman who filled his vision the moment he opened the door.

“If all I wanted was someone to pay, the lounge is full of them. But men who are too old aren’t my type.”

Dane’s easy expression broke. Something about her felt precarious, unsteady. For a woman trying to seduce a man, her face was far too grim. It was written there plainly that the boldness was only in her mouth. Every time their eyes met, her gaze—far from winding around him—was busy looking for a way to run. That was the proof.

With a short click of his tongue, Dane spoke.

“Look.”

At the low call, Zena lifted her face and met his eyes.

“I have no interest in sugarships, or anything like them. You’d be better off not wasting your time.”

“If we spend tonight together and you still feel nothing for me, I’ll give up cleanly and leave.”

She looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.

Dane’s gaze went to her red lips. He prided himself on a self-control second to none, but he was fairly drunk now. Apart from the reason that told him to refuse, the situation below his waist was becoming a problem. With nothing on but a towel, it would be trouble if his body answered any further.

“Nothing is less attractive than a woman who clings. Don’t you even know that?”

Forcing the tightness in his throat back down, he took the handle to shut the door.

“W-wait!”

Desperate, Zena cried out and shoved her hand into the narrowing gap.

“Ah—!”

Her scream came before he registered that something had caught in the door.

Dane startled and yanked the handle back. Zena clamped her injured right hand in her left and gritted her teeth. Her body had moved first, and an innocent finger had paid for it.

He let out a long breath, as if he couldn’t believe it. He could see her straining to endure the pain. He had closed the door without thinking, but a hotel door of thick solid wood had real weight. It had to hurt badly.

“Damn it!”

Contrary to the rough tone, the hand that seized hers was gentle. Her knuckles, half-curled and trembling, were darkening to a deep red.

“Come with me.”

He led her straight into the suite. He had never meant to let a woman into the room, but he couldn’t pretend not to see someone who was hurt. Before she quite knew it, Zena was pulled along by his hand and stepped inside.

He sat her at the foot of the bed and left her there. Zena followed Dane Hunter with her eyes. Through the open bathroom door she saw the solid line of his back as he went in.

Still clutching her injured hand, she let her gaze roam. From the hall she had never imagined the interior would be this vast, this lavish—a space of luxury and indulgence only the wealthy could enjoy, looking down on the glittering crowns of countless towers. The excess was so complete that she forgot the pain for a moment.

She turned her eyes back to the bathroom. The man’s muscled body struck her with vivid clarity, a sculpture that actually breathed.

A sugarship, with a man that unreal. Someone who looked as if he wouldn’t spare an ordinary woman so much as a glance was never going to fall for a seduction this clumsy. Zena drew in the breath that threatened to come apart, and let it out slowly.

She had dated Ryan for two years, but the times they had actually slept together could be counted on one hand. Their circumstances had never allowed more. They had always been in a rush to straighten their clothes before anyone saw.

Ryan had grown up in a foster home that lived mainly on government stipends for the children in its care. In a house with more than a dozen foster siblings, he had shared a room with an older “brother,” a few years his senior, who had a disability. Her situation had been no different. Living on sufferance in her father’s and stepmother’s house, watching every mood, she couldn’t even dream of bringing a boyfriend home.

Dane came out of the bathroom with a first-aid kit and a towel. He opened the refrigerator, took out a small ice pack, and came toward her.

He set the kit on the corner of the bed and took her red, swollen hand in his. Resting her palm in one hand, he carefully lowered the ice pack, wrapped in the towel, onto the wound.

“Ah.”

The scraped skin throbbed and stung. When her shoulder flinched, he scolded her in a low voice.

“If you’d listened from the start, this wouldn’t have happened.”

The voice was blunt, unlike whatever moved underneath it.

“I didn’t know you were the sort of man with no manners who’d shut a door in someone’s face.”

“And shoving your hand in anyway isn’t exactly a smart answer.”

“Still, I’m in the room now, aren’t I? Ow, that hurts!”

She tried to pull her arm away from the biting cold, but her hand was caught even harder. The grip was hot enough to burn.

“Hold still.”

Dane’s brow drew in. What on earth had left her hand this covered in scrapes? Setting aside the injury from a moment ago, it was a long way from a delicate hand. He had never seen a woman her age keep her nails cut this short.

For a long while he held the ice to her hand in silence. Then he took ointment from the kit, spread it over the broken skin, and wrapped the bandage tight.

“Go to a hospital first thing tomorrow. This won’t get better anytime soon just because I did this.”

At his words Zena lifted her head a beat late. Dane raised his own in the same slow way and met her gaze at a slant.