A Wish Upon Jasmine by Laura Florand Read Free Book Online Page B

bottle of Spoiled Brat, but who cared about the bottom line? Their value was in the blush on her cheeks.
    She swallowed and took a step back, color deepening.
    Well… well. He removed that second cufflink and set it beside the other with a little click.
    She stared at his wrist. Then her gaze tracked up his torso helplessly until she reached the open collar, when she closed her eyes tightly. She swallowed again.
    At this point, that night, he’d abandoned his cufflinks on the dresser and moved toward her, running his hands down her arms. I’ve got you, you know. Thank you. Thank you for trusting me with your wishing.
    Now he fingered his watch. She could pawn that to buy a car. A nice car. His father had given it to him when he orchestrated his first smooth takeover of a dangerous Rosier SA rival.
    He unfastened the band.
    “Don’t!” she said, strangled.
    “I don’t want to cheat you.” His voice came out silky and a little mean. You’re always the mean one, Damien. Matt, pissed off and growling carelessly that way he did, as if his damn temper bounced off his cousins. Machiavellian.
    “Are you kidding me?” Her breasts were shifting in beautiful little pants, her face flushed and panicked. “That’s worth way more than a bottle of Spoiled Brat! For something like that, I’d have to make you your own custom perfume.”
    His fingers froze on the watch, as the fantasy of it caught him—her making a scent for him, testing it on his skin to see how it blended with his natural scents. The time it took to do something like that properly, as she tested it through top notes, middle notes, bottom notes to make sure it was perfect for him all the way through…time in this shop, under her hands, fulfilling whatever fantasy she made of him.
    And then his gut clenched around the reality. God knew what perfume she’d make to represent him. Something mean. Machiavellian. Some masculine variant of Spoiled Brat, maybe. Maybe she’d call it Assassin. The kind of perfume a woman made for a guy whose apartment she snuck out of while he was still asleep, and to whom she spoke with arch, light, flippant indifference ever after, to make sure he knew that nothing of value had been offered by her that night.
    And nothing of value received by her either.
    He swallowed down the tightness in his throat. And then just ripped the watch off, making himself do it.
    He set the watch down in the middle of the counter by the cufflinks, dark, brushed titanium, a gauntlet thrown down.
    You can’t break me , that watch said.
    Or did it say, I yield.
    ***
    The dark titanium band curled on top of the counter amid those bottles of scents. All the hair on Jess’s body lifted. She couldn’t breathe. Shallow sips of air got stuck in the top of her lungs.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Not enough?” His hands shifted to the lapels of his coat. “This is Dior, hand-tailored. Will that be enough?” He held her eyes, his glittering with…anger? Why would he be angry? “How much of me are you worth?”
    All of you , that stupid hope in its bottle tried to whisper . She shoved it back down. Of course he did not think she was worth all of him. That was herfantasy. But she got to decide her own worth, and if he couldn’t pay it that didn’t mean she had to give herself to him cheaply. Not again. She firmed her chin. “More than that.”
    He peeled off the coat, his eyes locked on hers. She couldn’t hold his gaze. Her own wanted to dart all over the place—his chest, his shoulders in that fine white shirt, the lean waist and flat stomach that she remembered touching—
    The coat draped over the counter, beside the watch.
    All the scents in the shop exploded in her brain like fireworks, leaving nothing but colors and longing. “Stop!”
    He reached for his cuff. “Tell me,” that mean, velvet panther’s purr, “when I’ve bid high enough.”
    “None of that’s worth any of me!”
    Deft, tan, masculine fingers rolled up his cuff to reveal