“You need to wear closed-toed shoes when you work.” She gestured to Jada’s strappy sandals. “What if you dropped one of those totes on your bare toes? Or a knife? You could wind up in the hospital.”
Jada blinked, clearly taken aback by Meg’s tone. “I—I’m sorry. I’ll wear different shoes tomorrow.”
Meg winced inwardly. “That came out harsh. I’m sorry. I’m a little on edge today.”
“Sexual frustration?” When Meg looked sharply at her employee, Jada shrugged, tracing a finger over a dent in the island. “John didn’t call. That doesn’t happen very often, so I thought about it. And then I realized I’d been blinded by that face of his...which was only looking at you.”
“It is one hell of a face.” Meg groaned, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “Dammit.”
She admitted nothing, but when she heard the front door open and close again, and she perked up like a puppy whose people had just arrived, she knew she’d blown her cover.
“Ladies.” John stopped in the entryway to the kitchen, propping a hip against the door frame. Beside her, Meg heard Jada let out a wistful sigh.
“Jada, it’s time to take your lunch break.” She barely registered the younger woman’s quiet laugh.
“On it.” Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Jada dug through the pouch, palming something that she tossed onto the island.
Meg looked at the small foil square. It was a condom. Jada had just given her a condom. She looked at the girl with exasperation, cheeks flaming. Jada just winked.
“No glove, no love.” Laughing at herself, she scurried past John, clicking her way down the hall. “Ha, I sound like my mom.”
Meg waited, eyes closed, for the sound of the door opening and closing again. When it came, she cracked open one eye.
“Hi.” John pushed off the door frame. He crossed the room in three large steps, like he couldn’t get to her fast enough.
“Hi, yourself.” She couldn’t hold back the breathy little sigh when he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
She’d just parted her lips, opening for him the way she knew he would demand, when he pulled back. She blinked up at him, startled.
“So it seems your young employee has deduced our real relationship?” His lips curved with amusement, and her pulse tripped at hearing the word relationship on his tongue.
“I admitted nothing.” She smiled at him wryly. “She figured it out when she was working through your puzzling obliviousness to her rather direct charms.”
“Right.” Was that a hint of a blush she saw on those smooth brown cheekbones? “She’s... Ah. She’s a handful.”
“But she has a very talented tongue.” She grinned up at him. Dammit, why did she have to like him? Couldn’t she just want him for his body?
“‘You didn’t call,’” she said, mimicking Jada, her heart beating wildly in her chest. There was no denying the jealousy that had reared its ugly green head yesterday when Jada had given him her number and asked if he’d call. While she didn’t think he would, they had an agreement they were both standing up to, that didn’t mean he couldn’t call her when they were over. She had, after all, given Aaron her number.
In a fast move that shocked the breath from her lungs, John spun her around, bending her over the counter. He flipped her skirt up and pulled her cotton bikini briefs down.
“What the hell are you doing?” She had a pretty good idea, and an answering surge of wetness pooled between her thighs at the thought.
“You know we have an agreement.” He smoothed a palm over her cheeks, and she shivered.
“Yes.” Oh God. How had she so quickly come to crave this?
“You know that there’s no one else.” She tilted her head, waiting for him to add while we’re together.
He did not, but she couldn’t dwell on it, because he was tracing the divide of her cheeks with his hand.
“Tell me you weren’t jealous of Jada draping herself all over me, and I’ll believe you.” His voice was rough. “I won’t punish you.”
She stilled. No way was she admitting that.
“Either that’s not much of an incentive,” he started, quickly sliding between her cheeks and pressing his thumb to the rosette of her rear entrance, “or you can’t tell me that. Either way, I think ten ought to do it.”
“Ten?” She tried not to press back against him, but dammit, she was dripping at the thought. “Well, you’re the boss.”
“That mouth.” And then he started. As with the first time, the initial sting quickly morphed into liquid heat, more intense this time because she knew the pleasure that was soon to follow. She counted in her head as he delivered the light blows, both relieved and crushed when she reached ten.
Breath caught in her throat, she waited for his hands to move to the expected places. For him to ease the ache.
He did not. She heard the hiss of his breath as he slid both hands down her back to cup her cheeks. “These are mine.”
She swallowed. Hard.
“Say it, Meg.”
“They’re yours.”
Finally, finally, he slid a hand between her legs, dipping into her core, but only for a moment. He palmed her pussy and squeezed gently.
“This is mine. Say it.”
“It’s yours.” Her mouth was dry. She pushed back against him, desperate for more, but instead of sliding inside her again, she felt his fingers hooking in the waist of her panties. Her breath escaped on a shocked gasp as he tugged them back up and settled them in place.
Was that...it? While she struggled to grasp the idea of John turning away sex, he smoothed her skirt back over her hips, then turned her to face him. His hand slid under her long waves of hair to cup the back of her neck. The softness on his face, the unexpected tenderness excited and frightened her all at once.
“You know when lunch is a euphemism for a booty call that some booty is actually expected, right?” Trying to lighten the mood, she smirked up at him.
“Today, lunch isn’t a euphemism for anything.” Closing his eyes, he lifted the hand that had sampled the wetness between her legs up to his nose and inhaled. “And this isn’t on the menu, to my everlasting regret.”
“I...” she started, thoroughly confused. “What?”
He shook his head like a dog coming in from the rain. Not taking her on the steel island seemed to be hurting him just as much as it was her... So why were they abstaining, exactly?
She opened her mouth to ask but stopped when he smiled fiercely, looking not unlike he was in pain.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’m actually feeling a little faint,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely certain it was from lack of food.
“Let’s get you fed.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JOHN’S CELL RANG as he pulled out into traffic. He took his eyes off the road to glance at the Bluetooth display on the dashboard.
Lhane Todoroki. Dammit.
Turning his eyes back to the road, he let the phone ring. Finally, it stopped, being channeled to voice mail, but five seconds later, the ringing started again.
“Someone wants to get a hold of you.” He felt Meg’s eyes on him, inquisitive but too polite to ask.
He grunted, instinct telling him that answering this call would reveal far more of him than he liked people to see.
The call clicked over to voice mail again, but this time the caller left a message.
“John, I know darn well you’re sitting there staring at the call display.” Lhane Todoroki sounded more amused than annoyed. “You’re planning on pretending that you didn’t hear this message until it suits your purposes, but that’s not going to work this time. A little birdie told me you’re in Boston, and guess what? So am I, today only, so stop avoiding human contact and pick up the damn phone.”
Shit. John hissed
out a breath as Meg shifted on the seat beside him.
He didn’t let people know about this part of him. It made them feel for him, and feeling for him invited attachment.
But wasn’t that what he wanted from Meg?
“I’m going to keep calling, John.” Lhane’s voice singsonged through the car. “My meeting was this morning, and my flight isn’t till tonight. I have all day...”
At that moment, he had a taste, just the slightest taste, of what submission felt like. Sometimes it was easier to do hard things when someone you trusted took your choice away.
John answered the call, letting the connection remain on the speaker.
“Hi, Lhane.”
“John!” The delight in the woman’s voice was genuine. “Ha, I wasn’t sure that would work. But now I’ve caught you, and we’re going to have lunch.”
John waited for the panic to claw at his chest.
It didn’t come.
“I’m afraid I have a prior lunch engagement.” He cast another sidelong look at Meg. She was looking out the window intently, but of course, she could hear. She was wondering who Lhane was to him—his mother? A girlfriend? An ex-wife? A current one?
Any other woman, he would have let them wonder—his private life was no one’s business but his own.
Meg, though? He didn’t want her to wonder.
“Do you need more money this month?” He sensed Meg finally looking away from the window. He realized, belatedly, that it sounded like he was paying someone off.
He swallowed a groan. This—stuff with feelings—he wasn’t any good at it.
“John, we’ve talked about this.” He could hear the gentle amusement in Lhane’s voice. “Sometimes two people who hold some regard for one another will meet to break bread.”
He swallowed thickly, hands clenching on the wheel. Meg would likely hear him being scolded for being antisocial, but what she didn’t know—couldn’t know yet, because he hadn’t told her—was that once, many years ago, he’d been so neglected, had been taught so few of the skills humans used in their interactions with one another, that he’d had to have things like this explained to him plainly, then demonstrated so he understood.
When he wasn’t surrounded by people as demonstrative as the Marchandes, sometimes he slipped back into old habits.
He didn’t want old habits. He wanted to make new ones with Meg.
Sucking in a deep breath and gathering his courage—ridiculous, really, for a man who’d clawed his way into a small empire—he made the decision. This was something he could show Meg, could use to demonstrate that there was more to him than his former womanizing ways.
“Lhane, why don’t you join us?”
* * *
Tension was visible in every line of John’s body as he pulled to the curb in front of the Italian restaurant that Lhane had directed them to. Meg stayed still and silent, letting him sort through whatever it was that had him wound so tight.
“I donate money. Every month, to an organization called the Universal Boys and Girls Club.” He swallowed audibly, still facing straight ahead. “Lhane is the head of the American branch. She...likes to touch base, once in a while.”
Meg had questions...a lot of them. She knew of the Boys and Girls Club, and knew that they aimed to provide positive adult role models for at-risk kids. Much as she liked him, John didn’t seem like an overly philanthropic type—she’d never even heard him casually mention tax write-offs. And yet something about this particular organization had him tied into visible knots; ergo, it was something very important to him.
If it was important to him, then she could tamp down her rampant curiosity, so she swallowed the questions dancing on her tongue.
“I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
He opened his mouth like he was about to say more, then gave a curt nod and reached for his door handle. Meg stepped from the vehicle and met him on the sidewalk. She felt a pleasant jolt when he placed two fingers at the small of her back as he led her inside the Italian restaurant. She hadn’t expected to feel all warm and fuzzy from the tiny display of public affection, but in truth, she wanted to preen.
Look at this man, she wanted to shout. He’s big, and he’s beautiful, and he’s mine.
Before they could speak to the hostess, a tiny dynamo was standing beside her table, waving them over. At first, Meg took her for midthirties, then adjusted that estimate up by a good two decades when they got closer and she saw the fine lines bracketing the sleek Japanese woman’s eyes and mouth.
“Fifty-seven.” The woman caught Meg looking but didn’t seem affronted—she just grinned. “Coconut oil, and lots of it.”
Meg laughed, instantly at ease. Sitting when John pulled out her chair, she offered a hand. “I’m Meg.”
“Lhane Todoroki.” The woman looked her over, assessing, then nodded as though she’d decided that Meg would do. “I must say, it’s a relief to see that John has a friend besides me.”
Meg’s mouth fell open. She looked at John, appalled, and was shocked yet again to find him rolling his eyes, a grin playing around the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t be jealous, Lhane.” Slowly but deliberately, he laced his fingers with Meg’s and placed their linked hands on the checkered tablecloth. “You’ll always be my first love.”
“Flatterer.” The woman sniffed, but Meg didn’t miss the fact that she looked at the hand-holding for just a second too long...and then smiled, just a little bit.
She was pleased to see John...well, with Meg. And though hand-holding had been nowhere in their initial agreement, Meg liked it.
She liked it more than she should.
The waitress appeared, and Meg ordered white wine to match what was in Lhane’s glass. John ordered a beer. Feeling a sudden pressure to impress this woman who was a part of John’s life, Meg found herself starting the conversation.
“I hear you’re with the Boys and Girls Club.” Meg took what she hoped was a delicate sip of her wine. “It’s a wonderful organization.”
“Were you a part of it when you were younger?”
“No, but I have friends that were.” There. She wasn’t going to ask John, not directly, but she hoped that she’d steered the conversation to what she most wanted to know—what was John’s connection here?
“Meg has her own catering business.” John pushed back in his seat, his arm on the back of her chair. He touched her shoulder lightly with his thumb as he spoke. “Best food in Boston. You should hire her for any events the organization holds here.”
“John,” she admonished him, her cheeks flushing, but Lhane simple raised her glass.
“When our biggest benefactor speaks, we listen.” She rolled her eyes at Meg’s confusion. “Oh, John. Always so private.”
She waved a dismissive hand, then continued, “You must already know the kind of man he is, or you wouldn’t be here,” she added, reaching across the table to pat John’s hand. “So I’ll brag a bit on his behalf. This man here donates fifty cents on every dollar he makes. Every single one. He wants to ensure that every child who passes through our doors has a role model.”
“I...had no idea,” Meg said, her curiosity piqued. Fifty cents of every dollar? That was huge. Why was having a role model so important to him? She wasn’t sure, but what she did know was there was more to this man then he let the world see.
But he’s letting me see.
“You’re ruining my reputation, Lhane,” John said, his voice half teasing...half serious.
Lhane laughed again and reached for her wine. “He’ll have you believe he’s a playboy interested in nothing but the next good time. Don’t let him fool you.”
“He can’t fool me,” Meg said, and as she looked at him from beneath her eyelashes, she felt her heart do a slow somersault. To cover, she spoke again quickly. “This all sounds so amazing. This is su
ch a worthy cause.”
“We’re always looking for volunteers.” Lhane sat up straight, pinning Meg with a stare that revealed a predatory glint in her eyes. “Any interest?”
“Absolutely.” Meg sat up a little straighter. “When can I start?”
“We have a new girl here in Boston, and she’s been, well, a wee handful.” Lhane leaned forward, eager. “She is the reason I’m in Boston today, so understand what you’d be getting into. Do you have any experience with teenage girls?”
Beside her, John snorted. She cast him an arch glance.
“What John is trying to convey oh-so-politely is that I have three younger sisters.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve refereed a catfight or twenty.”
“Really?” John sat forward, suddenly interested. “Who? You and which sister?”
“Perv,” she laughed before remembering there was someone she was trying to impress at the table. She flushed. “I mean—”
“I think you’d be perfect,” Lhane cut in, lifting her wineglass in celebration. “John, forward me Meg’s contact information so I can send her the paperwork and information about training.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” John squeezed her hand, and she turned to meet his inquisitive stare. Her heart broke a little when she realized that he didn’t understand that she wanted to be part of something that was a part of him.
“Um, have you met me?” She smiled, trying to signal to him that all was well. “Have you ever known me to do something I didn’t want to do?”
His warm chuckle curled around her, and the appreciation in his eyes surrounded her heart like a warm blanket. “Well...no.”
“Then drink your beer and don’t worry your pretty little head.”
“Oh!” Both John and Meg turned to Lhane, concerned, when the other woman started to cough, clutching her throat. Waving her hand in front of her face, she laughed breathlessly. “Sorry, the wine went down the wrong tube. But, Meg, I think you are just the mentor for Roberta.”
The waiter came, and they ordered food. Lhane finished the wine in her glass and ordered another, then excused herself to go to the washroom. Once she’d gone, Meg turned to John, who smiled but couldn’t hide that he looked a bit sad and a whole lot reflective. His pale eyes softened when they met hers. “That was nice of you,” he said.
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