[Invitation to Eden 24.0] How to Tempt a Tycoon by Daire StDenis Read Free Book Online

magnificent.”
    “How can you say that when you’ve just met me? You don’t know me.”
    “I have seen you before. Watched you.”
    “Stalked me.”
    He laughs. “I know you better than you think. You are me two years ago.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Shall I tell you about yourself? Then you can tell me if I’m wrong.”
    “Go ahead.” I wave dismissively. “Try if you must.”
    He settles back on the couch with glass in hand, never taking his eyes off me. After an extra-long pause that is surely meant to make me feel uncomfortable, he says, “You have enough money to live in luxury, yet material things mean nothing to you. Your life is about experiencing as much as you can, not accumulating as much as you can. So, you love often but not deeply.”
    “See, you’re wrong. I do love deeply.”
    “Do you?”
    “Yes.” Why does the word sound like a question instead of a statement?
    He does that tilted head gesture and drinks. Afterwards he says, “I used to think I did too. I had many love affairs, with beautiful, exciting women.” He leans forward, elbows on knees. “But always, always the excitement faded. The scenario I described to you? Tearing at one another’s clothes, the fierce need of being inside of a lover’s body? I lived that for so many years, the excitement intoxicating...it always ends.” Finishing his scotch, he sets the glass down on the table. His gaze meets mine. “So, I would find another. And another. And then the quicker I traded one lover in for the next, the quicker the feelings of passion subsided.” He reaches across the table and takes my clenched hands, rubbing my knuckles. “I became more demanding. Needing more all the time. Anger taking the place of love.”
    I try to pull away but his hold is too tight, as if he’s reliving some of the anger in his previous relationships. I can totally picture him, the fierce dominant, tying up his lovers and taking them hard, always needing more, more, more.
    “Until I discovered Tantra.” His grip loosens. “And I realized I was going about it all the wrong way.”
    I slowly pull my hands from his softened grasp. “So, how does this relate to me?”
    “You are the same. Going from one lover to the next. Always looking for new experiences. Always needing more.”
    “Ah.” I raise my finger at him. “That is where we differ. Your relationships were not satisfying. Mine are.”
    “Are they?”
    “Yes.” This time my affirmative has way more conviction.
    “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    He stands and I think perhaps he’s about to leave, but he doesn’t and I realize I’m relieved that he is staying.
    “Aren’t you curious?”
    “About what?”
    “About what I’m proposing.”
    “What are you proposing?”
    “Not only a new way of making love, a new way of being.”
    Needing something to occupy my hands, I slice a piece of cheese and take a bite. “Not really,” I lie.
    “So, you do not want me to describe what an encounter between us would look like?”
    I raise my gaze. “No.”
    He grins. “You truly have the worst poker face I’ve ever encountered.”

Chapter Five
    “I ’m not lying.”
    “Tessa Savage. You are dying to hear how being with me would be different from that primal, animalistic act you’re accustomed to. You want desperately to know how it is that we could reach a state of orgasm, together, rather than the fleeting moment that is over before it even begins.”
    Oh my fucking God. He is right, I am curious and I hate him so much right now for knowing me so well.
    When he sits back down, he doesn’t sit across from me, he sits next to me. He does not ask me again if I want to hear his tale, he just starts telling it.
    “We do not start by removing clothing, but by sitting together. Much like we are now. Looking at one another, holding hands, gazing softly at each other. I wait for your eyes, your breath and the warmth of your skin to tell me