He fingered the button at her collar and slipped it free.
It was like flipping a switch; the change was that dramatic. One moment, her body was loose and languorous. The next, she was tense as a stretched rubber band. The color bled from her face. Her expression went from sensual to downright scared. She dropped her hands to her sides and balled them into fists.
“Stella?”
She gulped down a ragged breath and started unbuttoning her shirt. “I’m sorry. Let me get them.” With uncoordinated fingers, she loosed one button, then another.
He covered her hands with his to halt her progress. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing.”
“I’m not going to have sex with you when you’re like this.” It was wrong. He’d never had sex with a woman who wasn’t one hundred percent into it, and he wasn’t going to start now.
She turned onto her side to face away from him, and her chest shook. Dammit, she was crying. He lowered his hands toward her before hesitating. Would his touch help her or make it worse? Fuck it. He had to do something. He couldn’t let her cry like this. Tears gutted him like nothing else. He wrapped himself around her. When she tried to shrink away, he held her tighter. What the hell? It had just been one button.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. What happened? Did someone . . . hurt you? Is that why you tensed up on me?” The thought of someone assaulting her sent a murderous rage through Michael’s brain, and adrenaline spiked, preparing him for a superb ass-kicking.
She dug her palms into her eyes. “No one hurt me. I’m just like this. Can you please continue and establish the baseline?”
“Stella, you’re trembling and crying.” He stroked tear-soaked tendrils away from her face.
She scrubbed at the moisture and took a hard breath. “No more crying.”
“Other men had sex with you when you were like this?” He strove to sound gentle, but the words came out harsh. The thought of some asshole sweating over her while she was pale and terrified made his fists itch.
“Three.”
“Goddamned piece-of-shit assho—”
His words dried up when she turned around to face him with a wounded expression.
“No, I’m not talking about you. You’re not the problem. It’s those men. Me.” A wrinkle formed between her eyebrows, and he smoothed it out with a fingertip. “You need someone to go slow with you.”
“You have been going slow with me. The others were done by now.”
“I don’t want to hear about the others,” he bit out.
She looked away and held the folds of her shirt together. “What now?”
Michael had no idea. Whatever it was, it had to be ultra slow. He looked around the hotel suite for inspiration, and the large TV mounted on the wall across the bed grabbed his attention. “A movie and cuddling. We can try for the baseline afterward.”
Her face became pained. “I don’t really like cuddling.”
“You can’t be serious.” All women were suckers for it. Even he liked cuddling. At least, he had back before he’d started escorting. Cuddling with clients was something he tolerated at best, but his instincts told him this was something she needed.
“I might like it with you, I suppose. It’s your smell, I think. Your body wages biological warfare on me.”
“So you’re saying I’m your Achilles’ heel?” He kind of liked the sound of that. They’d never see each other after tonight, but maybe she’d remember him. He knew he’d remember her.
Instead of smiling, as he thought she would, she searched his face. She looked into his eyes for a split second before she got out of bed and padded to the bathroom. After several moments inside, she returned wearing her glasses and holding his now neatly folded T-shirt. She set it on the nightstand, picked up the remote, and sat on the far edge of the bed, turning the TV on. As she flipped through the viewer guide, her expression was cool with concentration. Dressed in professional business attire, she could have been at a board meeting—but for the tangled, finger-swept state of her hair. “What do you want to watch?”
Her sudden distance shouldn’t have bothered him. But it did. He wanted her back the way she’d been before. “No K-drama, please. My sisters force me to watch with them so they can laugh when I cry.”
Her reserve melted as her lips curved, and everything was right again. “Do you really?”
“Who wouldn’t? People die left and right. There are huge misunderstandings. That super cute pregnant heroine got hit by a car.”
Her smile widened, though it looked almost shy. “That one is my favorite. How about something with more action and less drama?” The movie page for Ip Man, one of the best martial arts flicks ever, covered the screen.
“You don’t have to watch this just for me.”
She rolled her eyes and hit the purchase button.
“Wait,” Michael said, taking the remote from her and pausing the film. “There’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You need to take your clothes off.”
* * *
• • •
Stella clawed at the unbuttoned folds of her shirt, feeling like the walls were closing in on her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why not?”
Because she preferred being dressed, needed the tight restriction of fabric to feel safe. Because she didn’t like her body. Because every time she was naked with a man, he ended up using and discarding her.
She wet her dry lips and said the most basic truth: “I’m not used to it.”
Also, she was exhausted. So many new things had happened tonight, she felt shell-shocked. She desperately wanted to go home, but that would be pure cowardice. She was on a mission. Once she decided on something, she was just as single-minded as her mother—and her mascot, the pugnacious honey badger.
When his only response was the raise of an eyebrow, she asked, “Do you honestly think it will help?”
“I do.” He propped the pillows up, kicked the covers down, and made himself comfortable. He looked so beautiful lying back against the pillows that for a moment Stella felt like she’d walked into a magazine cover. The shadows and light loved the striking lines of his face, the sharp edges of his man’s body, and the dragon tattoo. It was difficult to believe she’d mussed his hair to such sexy perfection, even more difficult to believe that the place he’d reserved next to him was for her.
Drawing her shoulders back, she stood up and brought cold fingers to the buttons of her shirt. As the plackets came undone, her heart rate accelerated. Silence roared in her ears like jet engines preparing for takeoff. A film of sweat made the shirt adhere to her skin. After she tugged it free of her skirt and peeled it off, she shivered.
She could feel the weight of his eyes on her newly naked skin, and her hands fumbled on the side zipper of her skirt. Her fingers were so stiff it took three attempts before the small metal clasp came free. The skirt pooled around her ankles, leaving her in nothing but a simple flesh-toned bra and matching panties.
Eyes on the wall, she said, “Maybe I should have gotten better lingerie. Mine are all like this.”
He cleared his throat before asking, “They’re all that same color?”
“It’s the most functional color.”
She winced at how boring she sounded and hazarded a glance in his direction, but he didn’t look put out by her underwear choices. Maybe some of his clients preferred granny panties. Those had a definite time and place. At least she wasn’t wearing those right now.
“You can leave those on if you want. I’m here for you, Stella. Don’t forget you have the final say on everything we’re doing.”
Her stomach untightened a fraction, and she adjusted her glasses and nodded. After draping her clothes on the nightstand next to his folded T-shirt—which she’d spent a good minute covertly breathing in like rubber cement inside the bathroom—she crawled onto the bed and sat next to him.
He eased an arm behind her and pulled her close so their sides came flush together. “Rest your head against my shoulder.”