Maybe she'd just been satisfying a sexual curiosity, an itch that needed scratching, and she'd back right off him again now. He found his hands clenching and forced himself to relax. She had to stay beside him for the next few hours. At least that much was assured.
Tony and Hannah emerged from another elevator, Hannah looking absolutely fantastic in a beaded green gown, her long crinkly blond hair billowing around her shoulders. Pregnancy not showing yet.
Matt checked the time on his watch again. Thirteen minutes past seven. If Nicole wasn't here in the next two minutes he'd go up to her room and haul her down. No way was he going to let her call in sick or make some other lame excuse for not joining him tonight. If she thought she could take him for sexual pleasure, then turn her back on him... Matt seethed over the possibility, vowing he'd set her straight in no uncertain terms.
He caught his grandmother observing him and tried to adopt a nonchalant air, glancing around the lobby in a pretence of careless patience for their party to be complete. An image of red and black caught his eye, high in his normal field of vision. His gaze jerked up. There, at the top of the staircase, leading down to the lobby from the mezzanine floor.
She stood looking straight at him. Checking him out?
Matt neither knew nor cared. His heart turned over as he slipped back in time to the night he'd first seen her in New Orleans. Red and black. And her skin glowing pearly white. Stunning. Fascinating. Compelling him to follow, to watch her, listen to her. Not the time nor place to get to know her then, but now...
"Oh, there's Nicole on the mezzanine level," he heard his grandmother say. "She must have pressed the wrong button in the elevator."
No, Matt thought. It was deliberate. Her gaze didn't so much as waver from his as she began her descent to the lobby. He wasn't someone in a mask at the back of a crowd of tourists tonight. She knew who he was and was challenging his interest in her, refiring the desire he'd driven to its ultimate expression earlier, desire she'd conceded herself.
He'd called her a femme fatale.
Mockingly.
He could feel her flaunting it in his face with every step she took down the staircase. Her black dress was the sexiest he'd ever seen, its heart- shaped neckline cut wide on the shoulders to little cap sleeves that virtually left her slender white arms bare. The décolletage was low enough to show the valley between her breasts and the upper swell of them on either side.
More provocative than blatant. The bodice was moulded to her curves and the whole gown hugged her figure to knee-length. He could see a fishtail train slithering down the steps behind her. The shiny fabric added to the whole sensual effect.
Matt belatedly realized he was moving to meet her. She'd drawn him like a magnet. Too late to stop, to deny her that power. Better to make the action seem perfectly natural, her escort doing the polite thing. He waited at the foot of the stairs, ready to offer his arm, which she'd take if he had to forcibly hook hers around it.
Her hair gleamed like liquid fire, a smooth fall forward over one shoulder, brushed back behind the other. That was provocative, too. Her mouth the same colour red. Her lashes were lowered to make it appear her gaze was focused on the steps, but it wasn't. Through the semi-veil, her eyes were simmering with satisfaction at having him waiting on her.
Matt had to quell a wild surge of caveman instincts. His family was watching and be damned if he'd give his grandmother the satisfaction of knowing her choice was making him burn more than any other woman he'd ever known. Now was the time for very polished manners and Nicole Redman had better match him in that.
He offered his arm as she took the last step, his own eyes hooded to prevent her from seeing the inner conflagration of rampant desire and angry frustration with the situation he found himself in. Control was needed. He hated not having it. He would not let this woman take it from him.
The tightness in his chest eased as she slid her arm smoothly around his, no hesitation at all. "Thank you," she said huskily.
"My pleasure," he replied, darting a sharp look at her, surprised by the furred tone.
Her gaze fluttered away from the quick probe, but he was left with an impression of uncertainty. No triumph. No confidence, either. She wasn't claiming him. In fact, the hand resting on his coat sleeve was actually tremulous. He quickly covered it with his own, holding it in place. If she was having second thoughts about linking herself to him, no way would he allow her to flit off and leave him standing like a fool.
"You look quite superb tonight," he said, determined on appearing outwardly calm and collected as he led her towards the family group.
"So do you," she muttered, then took a deep breath as though she needed it to steady herself.
Was she regretting having had sex with him? Worried about it? Afraid he might now take some advantage from it she didn't want? Did her appearance have more to do with bravado than deliberate allure?
Alex was ushering his grandmother and Rosita towards the door. Tony and Hannah were hanging back, waiting. Matt waved them on, wanting them to go ahead and give him a few private moments with Nicole.
"We need to do some talking," he shot at her.
Red battle flags in her cheeks. "I thought you'd done all the talking you wanted to do with me."
What was this? Blaming him for what she'd wanted to do herself? "Nowhere near," he mocked. "You could say we now have a basis for a beginning."
"I thought it was an end in itself," came her snippy reply.
"Rubbish! If circumstances were different, we'd still be on that bed."
Her mouth compressed. No reply. She didn't want to admit it and denial would be a lie. He hadn't actually meant sexual communication. Why was she being difficult? Talking had to be the next step. He tried again.
"We don't have the time now but after the show..."
"There's a party and I intend to go to it." She turned her head to direct a blaze of defiance at him. "With you or without you. Please yourself. I will not be dictated to by you, Matt King."
"I had mutual interests in mind," he grated out. "Above the sexual level?"
It goaded him into retorting, "Something wrong with the sexual level?''
"No. But there's more to me than that." "You think I don't know it?"
"You haven't shown it."
Her head snapped forward, pride stamped on her tilted profile.
Matt fumed at her intransigence. "Precisely how was I supposed to show it when you've been avoiding me like the plague?"
"You were a plague."
"Well, well, progress," he drawled mockingly. "Thank you for the past tense. Satisfying our mutual lust was of some benefit."
Her chin tilted higher, emphasising her long graceful neck. Matt wondered how long it would stay extended if he planted a few hot kisses on it. Going to see West Side Story had no appeal to him tonight, even with Gina singing. The Taming of the Shrew would have suited him much better.
Ahead of them, Alex was stepping into the first limousine after his grandmother and Rosita. Tony and Hannah were outside the lobby, waiting for the second limousine to slide into place. The hotel doors were being kept open for his and Nicole's imminent passage to the pick-up point.
At least Nicole hadn't queried arrangements. Matt figured he'd won that much from her. And she'd accepted him as her escort. No overt attempt to avoid his physical presence. She might be burning over the fact he hadn't left her with honeyed words after their intimacy, but given the way she'd treated him previously, what could she expect?
He'd been entirely reasonable.
So what the hell was her problem?
"Well, I hope you enjoy the show tonight," he said with a twist of irony.
She looked at him, obviously confused by his line of thought. "What do you mean by that?" she asked, her tone wary, suspicious.
"It's about star-crossed lovers, ending unhappily. Which is what you seem determined on for us."
The comment sharpened her eyes into a fine glitter. "You're very fast at assumptions."
"You could try giving me more to work on," he retaliated.
"And you could try asking instead of making up your own scenarios and thinking you can force me into them," she flashed back at him.
"Fine! After the show tonight..."
"I'm going to the party," she said stubbornly.
"So am I," he snapped, having run out of time to say any more.
The first limousine had pulled away, Hannah and Tony were climbing into the second, and he and Nicole were now on their heels, poised to follow. A few seconds later they were all settled inside it and the chauffeur was closing the door on them.
Matt sat facing Tony, almost hating his brother for looking so happy. And there was Hannah next to him, holding his hand, glowing as though all her Christmases had just come. In contrast, he filled the space beside the red-haired witch who kept stirring cauldrons of boiling oil to hang him over them.
But he'd get her tonight.
If she thought she could give him the slip at the post-premiere party, she could think again. He'd be there at every turn, making his presence felt. And she'd feel it all right. He wasn't making any wrong assumptions about the sexual spark between them.
Absolute dynamite.
And the fuse was burning.