Check off one, Dominic thought.

Then, since the game had changed and speed was no longer the issue, he moved his hips in long, slow strokes, taking his time. Indulging himself and her, bringing her up again, skillfully teasing her hard, pink crests, leaning down occasionally on his back stroke to suck on her engorged nipples, continuing to massage her swollen clit and G-spot, slowly, delicately, gently drawing one orgasm after another from her slick, throbbing sex. Until, his benevolence exhausted, he finally said breathlessly, “That’s it,” covered her hands with his, exerted additional pressure, and climaxed in a powerful, protracted, strung-out-to-the-max orgasm that rocked his world.

When his breathing was semirestored and he knew where the fuck he was again, he flipped his hair out of his face, smiled down on Kate, and stroked her tousled curls in gratitude. “Christ, it’s good to have you back, baby. Better than anything. Really.” He shook his head; a quick reality check that this was still about sex. “Now how big a mess did I make?” He reached for a towel, then looked back and grinned. “Sorry about that.” He wiped her cheek.

“Not a problem,” she said, returning his smile, beginning to recognize his leaps back from the edge. “You were good to me. I have no complaints.”

“There you go. Two people with common interests. It must be karma.”

“Or random fate,” she purred, not knowing how long her personal paradise would last, but intent on enjoying every minute while it did. “Either way we win.”

ELEVEN

Nick’s phone is turned off. What the fuck is going on?”

Max squinted at the bedside clock, quickly rolled out of bed. “Jesus, keep it down. You’ll wake Liv.”

“Well, where the fuck is he?” Roscoe, Dominic’s CFO back in San Francisco, roared, in only a slightly less strident tone.

“You woke me up at two in the morning to ask me that?” Max muttered, striding away from the bed, not wishing to interrupt his wife’s sleep.

“Nick always answers his phone. Is he dead and no one told me?” Roscoe growled.

“He’s in love,” Max said, moving toward the bathroom.

“So he can’t talk on his phone?” The notion of Dominic in love was too preposterous to believe.

“I’m guessing he’s busy fucking his sweetheart.”

“Nick doesn’t have sweethearts. He doesn’t even understand the meaning of the word. So what’s he really doing?”

“I’m serious. He has a sweetheart—or at least the equivalent of a sweetheart in Dominic-speak. Although I wouldn’t bet he’s not learning a little about the language of love. What do you think of that?” Max grabbed his robe from the hook on the bathroom door.

“I think you’re fucking crazy.”

“I’m not but Nick might be… at least for the moment.” Crossing the white marble floor Max opened the connecting door to his office. “He’s in Singapore pursuing his dream girl. Now, granted,” Max added, shrugging into his robe and making his way to a chair by the windows, “this lust or lovesickness or whatever might not last. But long story, short,” Max said bluntly, dropping into the chair, “our hard-nosed, pragmatic, emotionally distant CEO is currently way the hell over the edge. And I’m not exaggerating. Justin says Nick had him set up a job for Katherine in Singapore and he’s paying for it all, including her princely salary.”

“Jeez, what the hell does she have that the other thousand didn’t?”

“What she has is—she’s not like the other thousand. She’s not an ornament or a mountain-climbing companion. She’s a beautiful, sexy, small-town girl with a brain who doesn’t care about his money. And she walked away from him in Hong Kong.”

“So it’s the bloody challenge,” Roscoe said with disgust. “He can’t ever pass up a challenge. If there’s a mountain to climb, he’ll fucking climb it.”

“That’s my guess.”

“Then once he has her, he’s reached the summit and it’s over. Hopefully that will be soon because I need my phone calls answered.”

“Maybe,” Max said in a warning tone, squinting at the brilliant silver moon over Hong Kong harbor. “But Nick hasn’t touched a woman in a month. No sex clubs, no call girls, Vicky kept phoning in Paris and I had to tell her he was on safari and out of cell range. So I’m not completely sure where this is going. He’s not playing to past history.”

“Christ, is he sick?” Roscoe’s stridency gentled to a genuine concern. “You’re not saying that, are you?”

“No, no… Nick’s health is fine. Although one of our Paris attorneys who hit on him and was rejected was spreading a different story in the office. I had a talk with her the minute I heard, and shut it down. We don’t need any rumors about Nick being sick. It doesn’t affect our stock price since Knight Enterprises is privately held, but gossip like that can be dangerous in terms of the company’s long-range plans.”

Roscoe’s sigh echoed down the wire. “We really don’t need this bullshit now. We’ve got a dozen new projects on the books. Jesus Christ, tell me this will be over soon. Lie if necessary.”

“I wish I could.”

Another sonorous sigh. “Okay, it’s not as though I have a choice. If he’s off the grid, he’s off it. I’ll do my best to calm down the manager at our aerospace facility who needs some goddamn special fuel yesterday. But if you talk to Nick, have him call me. This company doesn’t run without him. It never has.”