Desert Jewels & Rising Stars

by Sharon Kendrick

  “Did you like that?” he asked. There was no arrogance in his voice. He didn’t behave as though he already knew the answer, he wanted to know. And that made her heart squeeze tightly in her chest. Gage wasn’t the kind of man who questioned himself, and that he would do it for her … it was impossible to feel nothing.

  “Very much. It was incredible.”

  He circled her waist with his arms, bringing her closer, and she curved her leg over his thigh. They just lay there for a moment, catching their breath, letting their heart rates return to normal.

  “This isn’t the way I pictured your bedroom,” she said finally.

  “Really? What did you picture?”

  “Stripper pole.”

  He laughed and kissed her hair. “Sorry to disappoint. For you, I would have one installed, trust me. The possibilities are fascinating.”

  She smiled against his shoulder. Surprisingly, the idea of putting herself on display for him like that didn’t horrify her in the least. How could it when they’d shared so much?

  “I don’t bring women here,” he said.

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “You’re actually the first woman I’ve had here since Maddy came to live with me. I got used to conducting my affairs away from my home. I don’t even have them in my own hotels.”

  “Why is that?”

  His body tensed slightly. “Probably for the same reason we both live alone.”

  “Then why … why did you bring me here?”

  He shrugged. “You’re different. I know you. I was feeling very impatient.”

  Her stomach tightened. His words thrilled her and scared her. She was different. He knew her. He had brought her back to his apartment, a place he didn’t bring other women.

  She wasn’t supposed to be different. She was supposed to be another in a long string of purely physical affairs, a woman he wouldn’t want anything from. And she was supposed to feel the same way about him. He wasn’t supposed to matter.

  Of course she liked him, but there couldn’t be anything beyond that.

  She should get up. Get dressed and go home. He would probably expect it. He should expect it. It was different when they were both staying in Thailand. But here in San Diego they both had their own houses, their own space.

  But he was still cradling her against his chest, and for some reason, even though he was the source of her fear, he was also a source of comfort. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. Nothing had changed. It was just a part of their fling. It couldn’t be anything more.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I THOUGHT you could use some.” Gage held a mug of coffee out to Lily and she sat up straighter in the bed, letting the covers fall around her waist.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking it and inhaling the heavenly scent. She was such an addict, but at least he understood. Understood and shared in it.

  It was an interesting reversal of their morning routine. And an interesting setting for it. She’d always thought there was an undercurrent of domesticity in their office routine, but this took it to a whole new level.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his own mug in hand, dressed only in a pair of jeans, his chest still bare. There were certain aspects of this that were a definite improvement to their office mornings.

  “What are your plans for the day?” she asked, a little embarrassed once the question had escaped. Was it really any of her business what he was doing? It wasn’t a workday and they didn’t have a real relationship.

  “Nothing. A total rarity. Usually I try to visit Maddy on Sunday, but she’s still in Switzerland, and having a lot of fun. She says she’s been totally untouched by the scandal there.”

  “That’s great, Gage.” She could see the relief on his face and it made her feel the same feeling, swelling inside of her. She knew how much he loved Maddy, knew even more now. She felt as though she could feel his emotions sometimes, as though her own matched his.

  Gage was enjoying Lily’s newfound boldness in bed. Even now she was sitting up with her breasts bare, acting as though she hardly noticed. He noticed. She was truly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen naked. And he’d seen his share.

  Usually, after a few encounters, the mystery had worn off and he wasn’t as captivated by his lover’s beauty. Or, as was the case when plastic surgery was involved, sometimes a woman actually looked better in her clothes than out of them.

  But not Lily. She fascinated him. Clothed or naked, dressed up, or in a bikini.

  He kept waiting to regret bringing her back to his apartment, letting her into his personal space. But it hadn’t hit him yet. It felt better, having her here than it would have felt taking her to an anonymous hotel and having sex with her on a bed that was there almost solely for that purpose.

  It had never bothered him before. That was how he’d always conducted his affairs. If it weren’t for those years raising his sister, his room may very well have ended up with a stripper pole in it. But he had raised his sister, and that had changed things. It had likely changed some things for the better.

  He didn’t know what was happening with Lily. Didn’t want to know why it felt right to have her in his home, when he had never wanted to bring another woman here before. Didn’t want to know what it meant that he couldn’t imagine ever tiring of her.

  Last night had been the hottest night of his life, hands down. The only other experiences that came close were the other times he’d been with Lily. She wiped memories of other women from his mind. He couldn’t even remember what appeal those other women had ever held. They were too blonde, too tanned, too thin, too surgically enhanced. There was nothing genuine about them.

  They weren’t like Lily. Lily, who was soft and beautiful, who didn’t cling to him. Lily, who he gladly held all night long, when he’d never wanted to do that with any other woman.

  “I need to go home,” she said suddenly.

  His first thought was that he didn’t want her to leave. And he’d definitely never felt that way about a woman before. He hated to admit that that first reaction, the desire to hold her to him, keep her with him, scared him.

  There was no point in caring. No point in wanting.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have any clothes. I only have that dress.” She gestured to the black fabric pooled at the foot of his bed. “And when I leave, everyone’s going to know what was going on. No one wears a dress like that on Sunday morning.”

  “My simple solution is that you could forgo clothes altogether.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll drive you back to your place. Is there anything else you need?” he asked.

  “I usually work out today.”

  He wasn’t surprised to know that she worked on her body. She took a lot of care with her appearance, not to the point of obsession, but just enough that she projected a very polished image. That was one thing that made ruffling her so much fun.

  And if he could just focus on the fun and ignore all of the other things, their affair could continue for as long as they both wanted.

  “I’ll go with you. I work out on Sundays, too.”

  She nodded slowly, but he could tell she wasn’t thrilled with the idea. She was extremely cagey and very closed off with her emotions, something he normally wouldn’t notice or care about, but for some reason, with her, he cared.

  When they were in bed together, or on the beach, her walls started to come down, and he reveled in those moments. He shouldn’t. There was nowhere for their relationship to go. Even if he wanted love and marriage, she was the wrong woman. What could they bring to a marriage? A mutual obsession with their own businesses, their own lives? And if he didn’t have his business, what other attraction could he possibly offer?

  In business, they were well-suited, in bed, they were incredible. But that was all it would ever be. That was all it could ever be.

  “Remind me never to work out with you again,” Lily said, rubbing her shoulders as s
he settled into Gage’s low-slung sports car.

  “Too much for you?”

  She groaned and leaned her head back against the seat. “Normally, I don’t like to admit defeat, but in this case, I’ll concede.”

  “Are you hungry?” Gage asked, maneuvering the car into traffic.

  “Very.”

  “Do you want to go out?”

  She grimaced. After a workout that intense, she wasn’t fit to be out in public. “I can cook for you. My condo is close.”

  Gage hesitated for a moment before changing lanes and heading in the direction of her home. She didn’t know what she was doing, why she was inviting him to come home with her. Because she was certain that he would end up staying. That they would end up in bed together, and she was sure that was the wrong thing to do. She should have told him to drop her off at home, should have tried to start putting distance between them.

  But she hadn’t. And even now that she recognized what she should do, she wasn’t going to do it. She wanted to be with him. Maybe she should stop analyzing everything and just be with him.

  “It’s a two-car garage,” she said when he pulled into the lot of her condo. “Just stop here for a second.”

  She got out of the car and keyed in the code for the garage and the door opened. She got back into the car while Gage drove it inside, parking next to her little commuter vehicle. For a moment, it seemed shockingly comfortable, to have his car parked next to hers, almost like they shared the space.

  She shook her head and got back out of the car and moved to unlock her side entrance. Gage followed her in. She had always been proud of her house, and had hosted a few dinner parties for her friends when she’d had the time, not since she’d started working for Gage. It wasn’t as luxurious as his house, but it was hers.

  “You have a view of the ocean from here?” he asked.

  “From the bedroom.”

  “I’ll have to take a look,” he said, giving her a wicked grin.

  “Later,” she said, “but now I’m hungry.”

  “Later,” he said, hooking his arm around her waist and bringing her in for a kiss. He hadn’t kissed her at all today. They’d spent the day together but he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t acted like there was anything between them. She was surprised by how much she’d missed it.

  “Definitely.” She moved away from him and went into the kitchen and started rifling through the produce drawers in her fridge. “Stir-fry?” she asked.

  “I didn’t imagine that you would cook.”

  “I have to eat.”

  “My mother didn’t cook.”

  Lily laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Neither did mine.” She put a head of cabbage on her cutting board and began to slice it. “I learned when I moved out here. Otherwise I existed on frozen pizza and whatever my friends’ parents fed me when they felt sorry for me.”

  “Do you have any family here?”

  “No. I left home at seventeen. My main requirement was that none of my family be where I went,” she said, hearing the bitterness edge into her voice.

  “And you wanted to be near the ocean,” he said.

  “Yes. I did.”

  “Did the men your mother dated hurt you? Is that why you avoided relationships?”

  She took a breath and tossed the sliced cabbage into the wok on the stove. “They didn’t hurt me in the way that you mean. But my mother was so dependent on them, and most of them were terrible. She let them control everything she did, and by extension, everything I did. We always lived in these tiny little houses with no privacy. I could always hear them fighting, or making up. I’m not sure which was worse.”

  She put the rest of the vegetables and some precooked chicken into the wok and pushed them around vigorously with a spatula for a few minutes before turning the burner off.

  “Not all relationships are like that,” he said.

  “Not all of them are like your parents', either.”

  He didn’t say anything to that. Conversation turned back to business, and she was thankful for that.

  She served their dinner in the dining room and Gage sat in the chair next to her, instead of sitting across from her, his hand on her thigh, stroking her absently. It was very domestic, the two of them eating a dinner she’d cooked. It certainly didn’t fit in to the parameters of an affair.

  Neither did sharing the gory details about a dysfunctional childhood. But Gage had always made her want to open up. It had always been easy for her to say too much to him.

  They ended up watching a movie in the living room before heading to her bedroom and making love. It was amazing, like it always was, and, like always, she felt a little piece of the wall around her heart crumble when she came apart in his arms.

  And when he gathered her against him she felt tears trailing down her cheeks again, all of the emotion rising up inside of her again, needing a way to escape.

  She didn’t know what it was that made her feel this way. Not for sure. She had a suspicion, but she hoped, more than anything, that she was wrong.

  * * *

  They drove to the office together the next day, despite her protests. She also conceded to packing an overnight back, just in case. She shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have left it open. She should be ending it. They’d had an agreement and they weren’t sticking to it.

  The relationship, because it was growing into that, was now beyond her control. She wanted to be with Gage almost more than she wanted her next breath, but she didn’t want to want it. She didn’t want to want him.

  She was sitting in her spot in his office, notebook in hand as he briefed her on a new resort property in Goa, India.

  “Any concerns regarding the location?” she asked.

  “Not that I can foresee. It’s an older resort, and basically we’ll be renovating it and bringing some more tourism into the area.”

  “Excellent. I love it when you make my job easy.” She looked up at him and her heart fluttered in her chest.

  There was no compartmentalizing. She had thought that Gage, her lover, could be someone different in her mind than Gage, her boss. After all, she’d always been able to set everything aside and focus on her work. But it wasn’t possible. Whenever she looked at him she was flooded by memories of them making love, of him looking at her, his expression tender.

  “And I don’t do it very often,” he said.

  “You’re getting better.”

  “Don’t let that get out.”

  She smiled. “I won’t.”

  Gage stood from his desk and walked around to where she was sitting, coming to stand behind her before leaning down and kissing her lightly on the neck. “You’re a terrible workplace distraction.”

  She closed her eyes. She knew he was making a joke. But it was true for her. He was distracting. She couldn’t think about her job when she was with him. She could only think about him.

  “I want to take you out tonight,” he whispered, his hands moving over her shoulders, sparking a fire in her belly.

  “You took me out a few days ago. To the wedding reception.”

  “No, I want to take you out on a date. Not to a work event designed for networking.”

  “Why? So we can have our picture taken together?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  It was important, of course. Gage was always seen in public with his woman du jour, and it wouldn’t do for his fiancée to be the exception.

  “All right. What do you want to do? And do I need a new dress?” she asked.

  “It’s a surprise, and I’ve taken care of everything for you. You’ll come home with me after work, just like we planned.”

  She moved away from his touch and stood. “Then I’d better get to work.”

  He cupped her chin and kissed her lightly on the lips. “See you later.”

  She smiled, and she was afraid it was a little bit of a punch-drunk smile. “See you later.”

  She didn’t need to buy a new dress, because there w
as already one waiting at Gage’s home for her. It was on his bed, zipped up into a garment bag.

  “Did you pick this out or did David?” she asked, turning to face Gage, who was standing in the doorway.

  “David has terrible fashion sense. I chose it at lunch, but I sent a picture of it to Maddy to make sure it was right.”

  It felt a little strange letting him pick out her clothes. She’d never liked it when any of her friends chose an outfit around a boyfriend, or let him dictate their wardrobe. Of course, she was already starting to think of Gage when she shopped. And he wasn’t even her boyfriend, not really. Boyfriend was too insipid of a word for a man like Gage. Lover was more accurate, and more fitting. More arousing.

  “I want to see how it looks on you.” He stood there, eyes fixed on her.

  “Not with you standing there.”

  “I’ve seen you naked before,” he said dryly. “I hope that’s not a shocking revelation for you.”

  “It’s different than getting changed in front of someone.”

  “It is?”

  She nodded. “Yes, it is. So …” She gestured for him to go.

  “I’ll go, only because I was taught it was polite not to impose on a lady, but, and this is a promise, I will be stripping that dress from your delectable body later, which renders this show of modesty entirely worthless.”

  “Then it’s worthless.” She turned away from him, then said, “I hope you’re a man who keeps his promises.”

  “Always.” The door clicked shut behind her and she turned again. Gage was gone, giving her the privacy she’d asked for.

  She bent down and unzipped the bag. And laughed. It was bright red, made in a heavy satin fabric, the exact opposite of the type of thing she normally wore. No black, no navy, nothing flowing. Of course. She would have been annoyed, but she appreciated his humor too much.

  And the dress was gorgeous, which further absolved him. The sweetheart neckline was sexy, but not overt, which earned him major points since he could have gone plunging. The hem fell just above her knee and there was exquisite pleating at the waist that was extremely flattering to her figure.