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

listen to him made his temper break free, not least because he felt her regard for him slipping away and he had no idea how to regain it when the one thing that he’d always relied on to impress people happened to be the one thing she really wasn’t impressed by.
    ‘Being with you these last few days hasn’t only been about sex, you know.’ He shrugged and conceded, ‘OK well, it might have started out that way but as I’ve got to know you it’s turned into something else.’
    ‘You would say that of course,’ the coldness didn’t waver. ‘Say the right things, whatever works to get me into bed, isn’t that right?’
    He couldn’t stop an incredulous laugh. Did she really think he would be bothered with her insane high maintenance if the only thing he liked about her was sex?
    ‘Has it not occurred to you that the reason I like being with you is because you DON’T ask me to autograph your tits?’ he snapped. ‘If sex was all I wanted I’d say
Layla, you’re not needed anymore
and I’d call up one of a dozen or so women I know in London who’d be happy to provide just that. Or I would have invited autograph girl back here for the evening.’ He flung exasperated hands up. ‘Do you think I don’t wish it could be that straightforward? Like I need this grief! Nothing about you is easy, you’re impossible to impress, you change your mind every five minutes and you think the worst of me by default. But for some crazy reason the only person I want to be with right now is you.’
    He paused for breath as she stared at him, roused out of her coldness by his raised voice and exasperated tone. He made a monumental effort to calm down.
    ‘You’re the first person I’ve met who isn’t impressed by who I am and that’s new territory for me.’ He ran his hands distractedly through his hair. ‘I’ve spent my life trying to impress and that’s what got me where I am. I
can’t
just dispense with that side of my life. It’s who I am, Layla. It’s made me what I am.’
    And without it he really wasn’t sure who he was. Or whether he would be good enough for her or for anyone.
    Her heart turned softly over at the anguish in his face. Not to mention the fact that he’d just compared her to the celebrity fishbowl and she’d come out on top. OK so he’d also said she was difficult but she could overlook that in the light of the overall sentiment.
    Could she really let herself believe there might be something more to this than a throwaway week? How that could possibly play out going forward, she had no idea, but for now just knowing he thought she was different was enough.
    She raised her hand and for a split second he thought she was about to slap his face. Nothing would surprise him coming from her, wasn’t that what the whole appeal was? Instead she touched his cheek softly with her palm, her blue eyes softening. He covered her hand immediately with his own, lacing his fingers through hers, holding her gaze in his. And then he pulled her close and kissed her.
    Lingering kisses this time, a chance to taste, feel, caress. As she melted against him she slid her arms up to curl around his neck and then he was lifting her, carrying her, kissing his way across the suite to the bedroom where he lowered her onto the softness of the bed. Removing her clothes was a delight to be lingered over, every inch of her skin his to kiss until she was squirming deliciously under his hands.
    He savoured the silk of her skin against his and her gasp of pleasure as he slid inside her thrilled him. With each long smooth stroke into her he breathed in the sweet scent of her hair, savoured the delectable softness of her lips against his. The caress of her fingertips on his skin and the satin of her legs as she curled them around his back, pressing him deeper into her as her breathing rose, her soft cries of pleasure against his shoulder, these things thrilled him on a deep level he’d never known before. The want, the
need
for her