The Bride Means Business

by Anne Marie Winston

  She heard him coming back down the stairs and she moved to meet him, removing the top two packages from the pile he carried.

  “I think you got a little carried away with the giftbuying,” he said as he eyed the pile.

  “You told me to go ahead and use my best judgment,” she reminded him. “You should know better than to send me on a shopping spree. I take shopping as a serious mission.”

  He grinned, rolling his eyes as he took her hand and pulled her toward him. “Some things never change.”

  She allowed him to draw her against him. Her body yielded and her breath caught in her throat when he ran his hands down her back and cupped the soft globes of her bottom, pulling her up against him. It simply wasn’t fair, this instant response that he, and he alone, could call from her.

  The fact that she seemed to have the same effect on him was beside the point.

  “Thank you for planning this,” he said above her head. “I wouldn’t have had a clue.”

  “I know,” she said smugly. She kissed his jaw and ran her lips down his neck to the hollow of his throat.

  He groaned. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Just playing.” She smiled against his neck as she laid her head against his shoulder. Touching him whenever, however, she liked, was a pleasure she hadn’t gotten used to yet.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” he said, chuckling ruefully.

  “You started it,” she reminded him. And then the doorbell rang as the first children began to arrive, and she stepped away from him, flicking her hair back and smoothing his shirt. “Are you ready to party?”

  “Why do I think my idea of a party isn’t quite what you have in mind this afternoon?” he asked rhetorically as he followed her through the house.

  On Friday, Jillian got home from Kids’ Place early. To her surprise, Dax’s car already was parked in the garage, and she hurried through the back door to find him. As she walked through the kitchen, the telephone rang.

  She hesitated, grimaced, and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Jillian?”

  “This is she.”

  “Hello. It’s Roger. Roger Wingerd.”

  “Hi, Roger.” Her voice warmed. She genuinely liked Roger. He’d been a good friend to Charles and she’d dated him a few times. She’d been glad when Dax told her he hadn’t felt it necessary to eliminate Roger’s position.

  “Um, Jillian, would you have a drink or dinner with me tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s Saturday. And Roger, now that Dax and I are married, I don’t think—”

  “It’s business,” he said. “Though I was sorry to hear you’d married him. Purely selfish,” he added hastily. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” She was amused. She could only imagine what quiet, easygoing Roger thought of Dax’s take-noprisoners approach to management.

  “I really do need to talk to you. As a stockholder.”

  “Oh. Well, I can’t manage it this weekend, but Wednesday after work we probably could grab a drink. Dax has more shares than I do. Do you want him to come along?”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll talk to him at the office.” Roger sighed dramatically. “At least give me one last shining moment with the girl of my dreams.”

  She laughed. “Charmer.” They decided on time and location and she replaced the handset and moved on through the house to find her husband.

  He was in the study, and he looked up in surprise as she paused in the door. “You must be psychic. You’re just the person I want to see.”

  “What are you doing home?”

  He waved a hand at the papers covering the top of his desk. “I brought some things home to work on. Actually, I didn’t want anyone else to see what I was looking at.”

  She crossed the room to stand at his right side, putting an arm across his shoulders and leaning forward. “What are you looking at?”

  “This is a list of the stock that’s been bought and sold in the past few weeks. I’ve had a funny feeling about it, and this only adds to it.” He shifted his chair to one side and pulled her into his lap, tapping the paper he pulled toward him. “I think major transactions of Piersall stock have been taking place throughout the last week couple of weeks. I hoped it was only a market fluke, a reaction to Charles’s death and my appointment to the company’s presidency.”

  She tensed at the mention of Charles, but he didn’t appear to mind talking about him. Hastily, she said, “And what makes you think it’s something more?”

  “Here’s the name of the corporation who acquired nine percent last week.”

  She read the small print aloud. “Shallot, Limited.”

  “Now look at this one.” He pulled another piece of paper toward them and pointed to an underlined section. “This was from the last week in September.”

  “Shalott, Inc. They bought a seven percent share.” She twisted to face him, bewildered. “I don’t get it. Similar names?”

  “I didn’t get it either, until I saw this.” He handed her a third page. “This is the transaction record for this week, through lunch today.”

  Shalot, L.L.C. The name jumped out at her. They’d bought another five percent. “You think one corporation is behind all three of these buys?”

  “It was just different enough that I overlooked it a dozen times,” he said in a disgusted tone.

  “So whoever this is owns twenty-one percent of the company now.”

  “At least,” he reminded her. “We don’t have any way of knowing if they hold stock in any other name as well.”

  She drummed her fingers on his forearm where it lay across her lap. “I still don’t see what the problem is. Our family controls more than half the voting stock.”

  “I know.” He shrugged, though she could see he was still uneasy. “But it bothers me that this is being done in such a sneaky way. Someone clearly doesn’t want us—me—to see what they’re up to.”

  “Probably because you’ve managed to terrify just about everyone you’ve met who had anything to do with managing Piersall Industries while you were gone,” she said, smiling.

  He snorted. “Too bad. I wouldn’t have had to step in this way if it had been in a sound financial position. Speaking of sound positions...”

  Startled, she glanced at him, and the look on his face telegraphed an immediate message throughout her body. Her thighs suddenly felt super-sensitive, and she was aware of the heat radiating from his flesh beneath hers.

  Her body was melting. She lifted her arms and encircled his neck, bringing her breasts into contact with his chest, telling him without words that she was his to do with as he pleased.

  His eyes narrowed, and she could feel his breathing quicken. Without a word, he placed his arms beneath her and lifted her into his arms.

  He carried her up the steps and took her into the bedroom they shared now. It was still broad daylight; Christine would be home from school soon.

  He stopped in the middle of the room and let her slide down to her feet, and she couldn’t prevent the whimper that escaped at the slide of her body over the iron-hard man flesh that distorted the shape of his trousers. Dropping his head, he kissed her, deeply and possessively, and she pressed herself against him and surrendered to his touch.

  He ran a hand down over the curve of her hip. “This still seems like a dream. I imagined holding you so many times—”

  She put a palm over his lips. “I’m real,” she whispered. Too many feelings were ricocheting from thought to thought inside her head to continue talking. Tenderly, she reached up and replaced her palm with her lips, kissing him sweetly, outlining the shape of his lips with her tongue while his breathing grew heavy and his fingers began to knead her flesh.

  He let her take the lead until his chest was heaving and his hard muscles were rigid with restraint, but finally, he took control of the kiss, thrusting his tongue into her in heady imitation of what his body told her he wanted. When she was writhing against him, he took her
hands and set them at the buttons of his shirt, while he undressed her in turn.

  She savored the first glimpse of curling hair at his throat when she slipped off his tie and opened the first buttons. Pulling his shirt wider, she stopped to press a kiss to the black curls matting his broad chest in the V neck of his T-shirt. She gripped the T-shirt in both hands and took it over his head, stroking her fingers over the wealth of black silk that extended under his arms and down his belly to disappear into the waistband of his pants.

  “I wanted you to be fat and bald,” she confessed as her nimble fingers undid his belt and the button on his pants.

  He chuckled, though his eyes were intense and the muscles of his abdomen contracted involuntarily when the backs of her hands brushed against him. “I wanted you to be fat, period. And wrinkled.” As he drew off her blouse and helped her step out of her skirt and half slip, he added, “But you looked as beautiful when I saw you at the funeral as you did the day I left. Like you had a private pipeline to the Fountain of Youth. It annoyed the hell out of me.”

  “It didn’t show,” she said wryly.

  He grimaced. “I couldn’t stop looking at your legs. It was an exercise in self-control not to reach out and touch.”

  She lowered her eyes flirtatiously. “I was grateful for all those hellish aerobics classes.”

  “So was I, believe me.”

  She laughed. But then he opened the clasp of her bra and slipped it from her shoulders, and the laughter died away at the raw wanting in his narrowed eyes. He shaped her breasts with his palms, his thumbs brushing her nipples until she clasped his wrists in protest. “Wait.”

  Placing her fingers on the zipper of his pants, she pulled steadily downward, conscious of the hard flesh pushing at the front of his briefs. Dax hissed in a breath, blew it out on a shaky sigh. She slipped her hands inside the waistband of his pants and slid them back and down until his buttocks were palmed in her hands and his trousers fell away. Beneath her palms, his skin was hot and silky, taut with sinew and muscle and arousal, and she felt the flesh flex in response to her touch.

  He stepped out of his pants and removed the last of her clothing, then took her hands and held them wide. “I want to see you,” he said hoarsely. “I want to touch you. I want to be inside you.”

  She shuddered, unbearably excited by his graphic words, by the unmistakable evidence of his desire as he stood naked before her.

  He knelt before her. His hands grasped the backs of her thighs, then slid down to stroke her calves, her ankles, and every inch again on his way back up. “I must be a leg man,” he said, his voice tight with strain, “because, honey-bunch, these turn me on.” He lifted one of her legs and bent it at the knee, hooking it over his shoulder.

  The action spread her wide, made her vulnerable in a way only other women could understand, and she felt heat bloom in her cheeks. But then he opened the pouting secret flesh between her legs for his caresses, and she shuddered again, embarrassment and shyness forgotten. She gasped as he drew a single finger down her belly, tracing the soft flesh he’d discovered. He leaned forward and placed a kiss at the top of her thighs, against the curling blond hair he found there, and his hot breath blew over her. She quivered at the startling, intimate sensation. The leg she still stood on began to shake, and he gently replaced her other foot on the floor, then pulled her down to her knees facing him.

  They were close, bodies brushing, and she could feel the throbbing strength of his arousal warm against her belly. Then he pulled her fully against him, seeking her mouth in a deep, questing kiss that had her clutching at his wide shoulders for balance.

  “Please,” she murmured when he let her breathe.

  “Please what?” His voice was deep and husky. He lay her on the carpet and came down on her in a single fluid motion that showed her just how strong he really was. “Please...this?” He opened her legs and touched her with his fingers. She cried out incoherently, and he said, “Or please...this?” And he parted her tender flesh and pushed himself slowly, steadily into her.

  “Ah, that’s good,” he muttered when he was snug and deep within her. “Does that please you?”

  She was too caught up in sensation to form a coherent answer. Her only response was a moan as her head began to thrash from side to side. He felt strong and solid where he pulsed inside her, huge and hungry. Her lips lifted as tense need tightened her muscles, and she moaned again when he began to move within her. Fast, faster, hard and harder he moved, slamming against her with a sweet violence that incited an equal reaction deep in her abdomen. She felt herself gathering as if for some great feat, his body pounding and pressing her, and with a thin cry she gave in to her body’s demands, her back arching, heels digging into the rug, breath rushing in and out in a marathon of madness. Above her, his pace doubled, grew frantic as he surrendered himself to his body’s urgings and thrust against her in rhythmic, rolling motions that slowly slipped to a halt as he spent himself inside her and gasped for breath denied.

  “My God,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “How did I live without you?”

  “I didn’t live.” Her heartbeat was slowing, but she lifted her legs and clasped them around his waist when he shifted. “I existed.”

  Dax gave a long groan of satisfaction as her action carried him even deeper. “We’re going to start living now.”

  Long minutes later, Dax stirred, rousing her from a twilight state of dreaming.

  “I wanted to be tender.” His voice was a deep rumble beneath her ear.

  They still lay on the rug, too content to move to the bed. “If I wanted tender, I’d have ordered a filet,” she said. “But if you weren’t happy with that effort, I suppose I can let you try it again.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I was happy with that effort. But I want you to be happy, too.”

  His words made her uncomfortable. She’d reentered this relationship with no expectations, and she didn’t want to start expecting anything, not even his concern—that way, she couldn’t be disappointed. To change the subject, Jillian raised her arm and looked at the watch she still wore. “School just ended. We have about fifteen minutes to make ourselves marginally presentable before we get company.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” Dax rolled so that she was beneath him again.

  “More like ten, really. And I didn’t have any lunch and I’m starving.” On cue, her stomach gave a loud gurgling growl that made them both laugh.

  As he rolled to his knees, stood and reached down to lift her to her feet, he said, “You’re obviously not one of those people who can live on love alone.”

  “I guess not.” The words only increased her uneasiness. It was the first time the word “love” had been mentioned between them. He’d obviously only meant it as a figure of speech, but it cut too close to the heart of her tender feelings for her to joke about it.

  She began gathering up her discarded clothing, then moved to the door. “I’m going to get a quick shower. I unpacked inventory all day and it always makes me feel grimy. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  After a shower as quick as she’d promised, she went down to the kitchen. Mrs. Bowley left at three-thirty on Fridays, and she was just putting on her light jacket as Jillian walked in.

  “He’s making omelets,” the older woman said, winking at Jillian. “Don’t let him wreck my kitchen.”

  “I never wreck kitchens,” Dax said. “I’ve had to clean up after myself, so I’ve learned to avoid making messes in the first place.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence.

  Then Mrs. Bowley picked up her knitting bag and her pocketbook. “Your mother would be glad to hear that,” she informed him. “She was sure Jillian would whip you into shape when you got married. I guess it happened, anyway.” She moved to the door, opening it and turning for a last warm smile. “I’ll see you on Monday. Have a nice weekend. Oh, I almost forgot.” She pointed to a piece of paper by the phone. “A man named Sullivan called. He wanted to
know if you wanted to go to a ball game with him. You’re supposed to call him back,” she said to Jillian.

  “Thank you.” As the housekeeper closed the door on her way out, Jillian rose and reached for the handset. “Let me call him now before I forget.”

  “You’re not going anywhere with him.”

  “Pardon?” She looked at Dax, surprised by the naked aggression in his tone.

  “I said you are not—”

  “I heard what you said.” She knew her own voice was rising in volume but hurt and anger were rapidly taking over all else. “I just want to know why you said it.”

  “You’re my wife.” He set down his spatula and picked up a stack of plates with controlled motions. “I’m not one of those modern men who turns a blind eye to his wife’s little liaisons.”

  “Little liaisons?” She spit out the words. “For your information, you dolt, Ronan’s invitation would have been for both of us, and his wife would have been included in the party. It was probably a friendly gesture instigated by Deirdre.”

  There was sudden silence in the wake of her words. The air between them crackled with tension.

  Finally, Dax blew out a breath. “Hell.” He sounded more unsure of himself than she’d ever heard him sound in her life. “I guess I have to apologize, don’t I?”

  “I guess you do.” Her voice was acid. She was still mad enough to airmail him to the moon. “I have never dated Ronan. I’ve only known him for a few years. In fact, Deirdre and I have been friends since we met at a business seminar six years ago. He and Deirdre met once while she was married to her first husband, and they met again after she was divorced. I think they got married two months later.” She whirled around and stared out the window, tapping her toe in annoyance. “And why am I explaining myself to you?”

  “I, ah, I’m sorry.” The words were diffident, uttered slowly.