“I have certain standards.”
“Just because I’m not in your financial tax bracket doesn’t mean I live in a dump.” To be fair, there was a time when it would have meant exactly that. But the last three years had been good to her and her business. She didn’t live in the most prestigious neighborhood, like he did. But she lived in a nice area. A comfortable, middle-class neighborhood where people genuinely cared for each other, and not because of their social status or connections.
“I wasn’t implying you lived in a dump.”
Had she overreacted? She had no idea. Suddenly she wanted this night to end. She wanted to be back in her nice, safe little home, tucked under the quilt that used to grace her parents’ bed, hidden away from the world so she could regroup.
“I can’t put my life on hold for six months,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. This was the part she’d never been able to imagine when she’d thought of their contract. The part that made this temporary business arrangement all too real.
“I’m not asking you to.” He brushed her hand aside and massaged the back of her neck and shoulders. His touch was just right, strong and firm.
Chills spread down her neck and arms. Her breasts felt fuller. Even though his touch wasn’t sexual, she wanted it to be. She wanted more of the passion-filled kisses that had punctuated the last three years of her life.
“Relax, Bella. This is going to work out the way we both envision it,” he said.
He slid his hands down her arms and drew her back against his body. His breath stirred the hair at the nape of her neck. She was completely surrounded by him and sank back against his tall, lean frame.
Why did he sound so reasonable? He was making her feel like she was being difficult, and that had never been her intention. She needed to be up front about what limitations she wanted on the relationship.
But she couldn’t do it while she was in his arms.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from him, turning to face him. “I need to stay in my home. I’ll be available for you on evenings and weekends. There will be some nights when I have to work, but I can come over here or even to that townhome if you want all of our sexual encounters to take place there.”
“Sexual encounters.”
“Aren’t those the words you used in the contract we both signed?”
He closed the distance she’d put between them in one long stride. She couldn’t help taking a step backward. Gone was the soft, tender lover. She couldn’t really tell what he felt at this moment, but she suspected it was close to anger. She thought her blunt summation of their relationship might have been too baldly stated.
He’d let things get out of control in an effort to relax her and perhaps to make up for the encounter with Lucinda. But letting her boil down what was between them to nothing more than sexual encounters left a bad taste in his mouth, no matter that it was the truth.
From the very beginning the attraction between them had been electric. He couldn’t explain it any other way. He knew that real sexual chemistry was rare. He had experienced it to lesser degrees with other women he’d dated, but from the first instant he’d seen her, his entire body had gone on high alert.
She’d been too thin and too tired to be interested in any advances he made, but she’d still responded. Responded and turned him down with regret because she had a teenage brother at home for whom she was responsible.
That had been part of the attraction, he admitted. Her total selflessness where her brother was concerned. He didn’t have one acquaintance who would have done the same, except Kell. Kell would sacrifice himself for Jeremy, and Jeremy would do the same for his cousin.
But never for the women he’d been involved with. He’d thought perhaps that novel situation had been the driving factor in the attraction. He could have walked away from her—hell, who was he kidding? Walking away was never something he’d considered.
When he saw something he wanted, he went after it until he made it his own. And he was going to make her his. Completely his, no matter what she thought or how she tried to manage him and their time together. Sexual encounters was too tame a term to describe what he intended between them.
She bit her lower lip and he groaned out loud. Her mouth was full and lush and beckoned him like nothing else ever had.
He caught her hips in his hands and pulled her toward him. Her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply but she didn’t resist him.
“We’re going to have more than sexual encounters, Bella.”
“We are?”
“Yes,” he said, lowering his head to hers. He dropped nibbling kisses along her brow and then slowly found her lips with his. All night long he’d kept a tight rein on his desire to devour her mouth. He knew how it tasted, always thought it couldn’t be as lush and welcoming as he remembered. Yet it always was.
Her hands found his shoulders and she clung to him as he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue.
There had been something of a challenge in those words she’d uttered. And he didn’t know if he would be able to prove her right or wrong. Part of him—the hard, hungry part of him—wanted sex. Craved the feel of her silky limbs against his.
There was a spark of wildness in her eyes that called to him. Her hands clasped his shoulders, making him feel like the strongest man in the world. He tilted his head to the side and plundered her mouth.
If she wanted this, then he’d be happy to oblige. He’d seduce her into his bed and use her until the passion between them ran its course and then send her on her way. She’d fulfill her promise to him and he’d have…he’d have Bella for a short time.
She tasted of some essence of woman that he was coming to associate only with her. She moaned deep in her throat as he thrust his tongue into her mouth. Her tongue stroked tentatively against his.
Sliding his hands down her back, he cupped her hips and pulled her more firmly against his body. He’d meant to keep the embrace light, but Bella made it too easy to forget his intentions.
He rubbed his growing erection against her and she made another soft sound in the back of her throat. Her nails dug into his shoulders through the layer of his shirt. She undulated against him.
He lifted his head. Her eyes were closed and her face was flushed with desire. He knew that it would take very little for him to persuade her to have sex with him, but with a few words she’d made him want her to admit there was more than sex between them.
He traced a path down the side of her neck to the choker he’d given her. He wanted to see her wearing just that and the moonlight. The image almost brought him to his knees.
He didn’t know if she’d meant to remind him or herself with those words. Part of him wanted to just take what he needed. Show her how it would be if he really did just use her for sex.
But then her eyes opened and she looked at him and did something no woman had ever done before. Bella cupped his face and stood on tiptoe, touching her lips to his and whispering his name.
His heart beat too quickly in his chest and the lust that had taken control of his body abated as fear slowly crept through him. He wanted her more than he should.
He let his hands fall away from her body and turned on his heel, heading back up to the house. Once inside, he went to the wet bar and mixed himself a drink.
How had the evening gotten so out of control? Bella stayed on the patio for a few extra minutes, trying to gather her senses and make some kind of plan to get safely out the door without throwing herself into Jeremy’s arms.
His arms around her always felt so right. She shook her head, refusing to dwell on that. They needed to come to a compromise about their living arrangements for the next six months. She’d angered him with her summation of their relationship and she couldn’t blame him.
Half the time she said things just to get a rise out of him. As she belatedly followed him into the house, she smiled to herself. She’d gotten more than one kind of rise out of him just now.
�
�What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it was kind of an inside joke.”
He waited, highball glass in one hand, hip cocked. He looked so virile and masculine standing there in the dim light provided by the wall sconces. He took her breath away with the way he moved. And his contradictions. Why couldn’t he have stuck to ordering her around?
She could resist Jeremy all day long when he was arrogant, but as soon as she felt his arms around her she was lost. Or was she found? She’d been lost for so long that she’d almost accepted it as the norm. But then he reminded her that there were still things she wanted in the world that had nothing to do with money, status or business success.
“You might not think it’s funny.”
“Try me,” he said, knocking back his drink.
“Um…I was just thinking that I said what I did to get a rise out of you…”
He gave her a wry grin, but didn’t move from the doorway.
“I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I should try to remember what Shelley advised.”
“Your assistant?”
“She’s more than just an employee, she’s a friend.”
“What did she say?”
“To enjoy you,” she said.
“Tell me more.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about my friends,” she said quietly, reluctant to reveal more than she had.
“Me either.”
She took a few steps closer to him. They had to come to some kind of compromise. “I kind of want to have things my way on everything.”
“Yeah, I can understand that. I’ve been dealing with people for a long time. And I’ve learned that having everything in a contract is the only way to keep all sides from getting upset.”
It sounded so cold, hearing him talk about sleeping with her the same way he’d approach a deal he brokered. Guard your heart, Bella, she thought. This man could hurt you.
“I’ve never been a mistress before. And I haven’t experienced relationships the way you have. Most of the people I deal with are good on their word.”
“What if they aren’t?”
“Then I’m disappointed in them.”
“With a contract there’s no room for disappointment.”
“Do you realize how cold that sounds?” she said before she could help herself. Her doubts were circling back to her.
He shrugged a shoulder and turned to the bar, pouring himself another mixed drink. “Can I get you something?”
She shook her head. She knew how Alice must have felt when she’d stumbled down the rabbit hole. Bella only wished there’d been a talking white rabbit to alert her that she was now in an alternate universe.
“Where are the papers you had for me to look at?”
“On the table,” he said, gesturing with his glass toward the dining room.
The dining room was bigger than the master bedroom in her current house and recalled images of the one from her childhood. She remembered playing on hardwood floors just like this, sock-skating around the table while her mother sang in her beautiful contralto voice.
Oh, man. What was she doing here? No matter how many times she asked the question, she still hadn’t found the answer she was looking for.
There was a manila file folder with her name written across it. She drew out a chair and sat down, opening the folder. Inside was an addendum to the contract she’d already signed. It listed the start and end dates for their relationship.
He had been thorough and very generous. The accounts he’d set up would last only as long as their relationship did, but the annuity he was providing for her for the six months would continue. He wouldn’t be adding money into it, but by the terms and stipulations she read, he’d given her a cushion that would ensure she’d never again have to leave her house in the middle of the night one step ahead of the creditors.
She struck out the clause about the townhome, but left the accounts with the stipulation that they be paid from the annuity. She didn’t want to take any more than was absolutely necessary. She changed the start and end dates by one day because she couldn’t start tonight.
And hoped he’d understand. She added one addendum of her own and then initialed her changes and signed her name.
She glanced up to where he waited in the doorway and pushed the papers across the table toward him. “I made a few changes.”
He walked into the room, glanced at the changes and initialed all of them, including the clause she’d added, without any questions. “I’ll have my driver see you home. And I’ll pick you up tomorrow night around eight.”
“I’ll be at an event. I’ll send the address to your secretary in the morning.”
He nodded. The emotionless set of his face and his dispassionate eyes made her feel cold. She stood, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
He cursed under his breath, closing the distance between them in two long strides. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Not a tentative meeting of the mouths, but the kind of kiss that went beyond the barriers of two people attracted to each other and straight to the souls of two lonely people.
In his kiss she felt a desperation that echoed what was inside her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on to him like she’d never let go. Only she knew, deep inside, that she never wanted to.
Five
Jeremy checked his watch for the second time, realizing that Bella was late. He got out of his car, leaving the keys with the valet, and entered the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
“Sorry,” Bella said, hurrying over to him. She wore a blue crepe dress that ended just above her knees and she had her hair pulled back in a professional-looking twist. She smiled at him but he could tell she was harried.
“Is something wrong?”
“Just horribly short-staffed. I’m going to be at least forty-five more minutes. If you want to go ahead to the restaurant I can meet you at the bar there.”
Drinking alone had never appealed to him. Especially when Bella waited somewhere else. Thoughts of her had crept into his mind throughout the day until Daniel had text-messaged him to get his head in the game. It was the first time he could recall a woman interfering with his business and he didn’t like it.
“No.”
She put her hand on his wrist. Her slim, cool fingers rested right above the Swiss Army watch that his dad had given him. The watch was a constant reminder of his old man.
“I really can’t leave right now, Jeremy.”
He twisted his hand around to capture hers, rubbing his thumb over the back of her knuckles. “I’ll come with you. Putting out fires is my specialty.”
She didn’t pull her hand free as she led the way back down the hallway to the theater room in the museum.
“It is? You don’t look like a firefighter.”
“Well, there’s more than one kind of fire.”
“I know that,” she said under her breath.
“Are you feeling a few flames?”
“Don’t even start. Twice today I—”
He pulled them to a stop in the doorway leading toward the service corridor when she didn’t go on. “What?”
She shook her head. “I really need to go back to the ballroom.”
“Then tell me what you were going to say.”
She nibbled on her lower lip, a gesture that never failed to make him want to kiss her.
“Just that twice today I called one of our staffers by your name.”
“Does he look like me?”
“Not at all. I was just—” She pulled away from him. “Don’t let this go to your head, but you were on my mind.”
How could he not? He tugged her back toward the main hallway. “Let’s get your problems solved so we can go somewhere private. Then you can tell me all the details.”
“I don’t need you to solve my problems.”
“I know that. It’s just that I’m rather effective at it.”
“Really? What’s the most effective way?” she ask
ed, tipping her head to the side in a flirtatious gesture. “I’ve never had a billionaire businessman give me advice on managing my workforce before.”
“Keep being sassy and you still won’t.”
“Sassy?”
“Sassy.”
“Hmm…no one’s ever called me that before. Is that the key to keeping the staff in line?”
“Intimidation is. You scare the bejeezus out of your staff and then they work more efficiently.”
She laughed, just like he hoped she would. “I’m not very intimidating.”
“Have you ever tried to be?” he asked. He doubted she had. There was an innate goodness that surrounded Bella. He suspected that was part of what had originally drawn him to her. Despite the fact that she’d been down on her luck, she’d still been looking out for those around her instead of just focusing on herself.
“Well, no. That’s not my style, really. Even when Dare was rebelling and I knew I should be tough on him, I couldn’t.” In her voice he heard the echoes of what he’d heard that night three years ago when they’d struck their deal. Her doubts in herself and her abilities to pull her brother back from the edge.
He let go of her hand, sliding his arm around her waist and drawing her into his side. She held her body stiff until he stroked his free hand down her spine. Then she relaxed against him.
“He respects you,” she said quietly.
“He admires you,” Jeremy said. He didn’t know how he’d become a father-confessor to Dare McNamara, but somehow he had. The young man e-mailed him a couple times a week and called every few days to check in.
Jeremy knew part of it was that Dare expected him to keep an eye on Isabella. Her brother wanted to make sure she was looked after. And as Dare said, he wasn’t man enough to do it yet.
Since taking care of Bella played into his plans, that was an easy enough promise to give Dare. Sometimes he had a few qualms about how Dare would feel if he knew the nature of the relationship between him and Bella, but that was no one else’s business.
Six-Month Mistress (The Mistresses Book 2) Page 4