“Sloan?” she asked again, using his name like a caress.
“Relax. Trust me,” he urged, even as his hands pressed her knees wider.
When he looked down at what he’d revealed, Maria had a hard time keeping her hands from trying to hide herself. But then she caught the look in his eyes and…well, that look was the end of her resistance! Or maybe it was the way his head ducked lower, his mouth latching onto that sensitive nub and she almost screamed out with the intensity of that feeling.
This was crazy, she though. Absolutely crazy! They shouldn’t be doing this. Not here! Not in her office! What if…
His tongue flicked that nub and she almost shot off her desk. She’d been leaning back against her hands, but with that flick and the subsequent others, her fingers dove into his hair and she could barely breathe as he took her closer and closer to that delicious release.
Then he played his trump card as his fingers joined in the fun. As soon as she felt those strong fingers sink into her heat, she lost all control. Biting down on her lower lip, her body convulsed, shattering apart as the waves of release hit her over and over again. A slight moan, a gasp of breath and then he was standing up, kissing her, and she tasted herself on his lips. She tried to pull back, horrified by the taste but he wouldn’t let her. And once she’d accepted her fate, it wasn’t so horrible.
“Damn, you’re gorgeous!” he grumbled as his lips moved down her neck once again.
He started to pull away, but she wrapped her fingers around his arms. “What about you?” she asked, her heart pounding once again at the thought of all the possibilities.
He shook his head. “I’ll wait until tonight.” He looked at her sternly. “I’m picking you up for dinner, Maria.” It was a command, not a question.
She laughed, feeling light headed all of a sudden. “I can’t have dinner with you tonight. One of my employees called in sick, so I’m covering the evening shift.”
“Tomorrow then. I’ll pick you up for breakfast. We need to talk.”
Once again, she shook her head. “I can’t tomorrow morning. I have an important meeting.” She laughed softly at the frustration on his rough features, feeling on top of the world since he still wanted to spend time with her. “But tomorrow night, I might have some exciting news! Would you…perhaps have time to meet me at my place for, hopefully, a celebratory dinner?”
His lips pressed together in frustration, but she could tell that he was trying to be patient. Obviously, he wasn’t used to a woman telling him no. “Fine. Tomorrow for dinner. We’ll talk,” he warned her. He slid her skirt back down over her hips and legs, but his fingers teased, trailing along her skin and making her body respond. She watched him carefully and knew that he understood exactly what he was doing, dratted man! When he lifted her back up onto her feet, his fingers easily finished covering her even as he teased her a bit more. With a quick peck to her lips, he moved towards the doorway.
Maria started to shake her head, but he was already opening the door. “Wait!”
He paused, looking back at her. “What’s wrong, honey?”
She clenched her hands together over her stomach, cringing. “You still have my…” she gestured with her hands towards the pockets of his slacks. “You know!”
He smiled. Yes, a genuine, triumphantly-wicked, stomach-tightening, toe-curling smile. “You’ll get them back tomorrow night. They are my reward for a job well done.” He moved back to where she was awkwardly standing and kissed her, a light, breezy kiss that still caused her head to spin. “Careful when you bend over.”
Before she had a chance to react, he was gone.
When she’d finally pulled her mind away from the image of…the man had actually…!
Maria ran to the door of her office and stared down the hallway toward the front of her coffee shop. All she saw was his broad shoulders a moment before he walked out of the store.
With a sigh, she leaned back against the doorframe, feeling more than a little crazed after that whirlwind experience.
“Oh my! Looks like our little Maria got some!”
Maria stiffened and looked to her right, dreading what she might see. Sure enough, Samantha and Melvin were sitting at one of the tables, a cup of tea on the table in front of them. And she was texting!
When Samantha texted, it was never good.
The jingling over her doorway indicated that her premonition was right on target.
Cassandra and Catherine burst into the shop, crazy hats on their heads and jewels dangling from wrists, necks and ears. “I knew it! Our Maria has a beau!” Cassie clapped her hands with delight, then put a gnarled hand to her chest as she looked around.
Catherine was a bit more skeptical. “Where is he? I need to meet this man!”
The ringing over the doorway preluded the next embarrassing revelation and Maria’s whole body started to cringe in anticipation.
“I have just the thing!” Suzy announced, carrying in two completely different and yet equally insane outfits. One was made up of leather straps complete with spikes where…well, other things should be. The other outfit, using the term loosely, was completely transparent material that would drape over everything and hide absolutely nothing!
“Honey, now don’t give me that look,” Suzy warned, ignoring the muffled snickers of Maria’s other customers. Suzy walked around Cassandra and Catherine, determined to voice her opinion on this matter. “You are a beautiful woman and I’m thrilled that you’re finally getting down to business…but honey, this will seal the deal.”
Melvin was holding Samantha’s hand when he observed, in his gentlemanly southern drawl, “Ay think she’s already sealed the deal, sugah.”
Maria looked over at Melvin, who had always been the most upstanding southern gentleman a woman would ever run into. The man kissed women’s fingers, for goodness sake! Now he was…she blushed when he nodded and winked at her.
Closing her eyes at his knowing look, she took a deep breath, trying to regain control of this situation. “Thank you all, but...”
Cassie put her arm around her shoulders, stopping whatever it was she was going to say. “Honey, you’re young. Take it from old fogies like us and grab that man by the…”
Catherine put her hand over her sister’s mouth, stopping whatever it was she might have said. “Wut mah sistah was so inelegantly goin’ to say is, you gotta take what life offers you, sweetie. Don’t lingeh. If this man is hot for you, enjoy him. Experience life and all the wonders a man can provide!”
The five of them laughed, but they all agreed.
Maria looked around, painfully aware of her panty-less state. Goodness, what these five would say if they knew that Sloan had stolen her underwear! No way was she going to tell them that she’d already experienced some of Sloan’s “wonders”!
“Um…well, thank you. I sincerely appreciate your concern about my love life.”
Samantha snorted. “What love life? You’ve been hiding behind your career and this shop for years!”
“I only inherited this shop a few months ago!” she said with exasperation.
Cassie laid a soothing hand on Maria’s shoulder. “Honey, you’ve been coming here to visit Jenny for years. You’re like our own granddaughter.” She said that with a sweet smile, but then her look turned admonishing. “Trust us, don’t let your girly parts wither away, like you’ve been doin’!”
Melvin chuckled but the ladies all nodded their heads in agreement.
Maria stared at them, aware that her cheeks were turning red. “I’m not having this discussion.” She turned around, only to be confronted with Suzy and her leather-strap…thing. “Wear this tonight! You will get laid. Promise!”
Maria pulled back, not even sure where all of the straps on that outfit were supposed to go. And she didn’t even want to contemplate the purpose of the spikes. “No!” she said with as firm a tone as she could muster as her embarrassment skyrocketed to new levels.
Suzy sighed and lifted the other ou
tfit. “Fine, you’ll accomplish the same mission with this one, but you might not have quite as much…fun,” she said, her faded blue eyes twinkling with mischief.
Maria wasn’t sure what kind of “fun” Suzy was dreaming up with the spikes but she shook her head, not wanting the see-through thing or the leather-strap…contraption. “Nope. Not going to happen,” she told the endearingly sweet, but meddlesome, group.
She started to walk away when Suzy called out, “Do you have a vibrator?”
Maria froze, not sure even how to answer that question. If she said no, she’d look like a prude. If she said yes, Suzy might try to confiscate it, telling her it was for her own good and she needed to get the real thing.
But even worse, the other customers were all staring at her. How had the whole shop filled up with customers? Where had they come from?!
Of all the times for business to pick up, why had they all come in today?!
Turning around, Maria glared at the elderly group. They meant well, but…! “Don’t you all have stores to mind?” she demanded.
With that, she walked back into her office, slamming the door amid bursts of laughter from the other customers. Good grief, she thought, leaning her head back against the closed door. She would have to leave. Alaska. Nope, not far enough away. Antarctica? Yeah, that might work. She was fairly sure that her little posse of elderly meddlers couldn’t find her in Antarctica.
Sighing, she pushed away from the door and saw the open bottle of champagne. She’d been having such a good day until she’d walked out of her office. Maybe it was time to get drunk.
Except she didn’t like being drunk.
Groaning, she picked up the bottle and carried it out to the front area. “Here. Enjoy,” she told the five that had settled in. Well, four of them had settled in. Suzy was making a sale with one of her other customers. Thankfully, Maria wouldn’t have to wear the studded leather straps tonight, she thought, as one of her coffee customers was paying for the…thing…and winking to the man across the table from her.
Small favors, she thought and headed back into her office.
Ollie barely even lifted his head at the chaos, content to sleep in his doggie bed over in the corner. She lifted her laptop open again and tried to concentrate. Unfortunately, her desk reminded her of what Sloan had done to her earlier. And what she wanted to do to him. Goodness, she was becoming wanton with that man’s looks heating up her imagination!
Chapter 6
“This has to work,” she whispered, sliding her hands down over the black wool skirt. Walking into the bank was one of the hardest things she’d had to do. Yes, burying her mother and grandmother had been brutal, but this was different. Her grief had cocooned her during those events.
Nothing seemed to be able to minimize the fear that was almost choking her. The happiness of too many people rested on her shoulders, and Maria didn’t know if she was smart enough to get through this.
Yes, her marketing plans were working. Apparently, not fast enough though. The letter had arrived yesterday afternoon, informing her that the bank was foreclosing on the coffee shop. Suzy, Melvin, Catherine, and Cassie, as well as Samantha, had all received duplicate letters yesterday. And all of them had brought their letters to Maria, asking her to fix the situation.
Maria’s throat closed up, almost choking her, as she forced a smile to her face, dread filling her.
“You must be Ms. Ellis,” the receptionist said with a smile. “Mr. Barclay is expecting you. Have a seat and I’ll inform him that you’ve arrived.”
Maria felt an odd sting of dismissal at the woman’s words, and yet, there was also a note of encouragement. Surely, if a bank had such a professional atmosphere, they would be willing to hear her out. Wouldn’t they?
They had to listen! Her elderly friends were worried, nervous and unsure of their futures. Maria could get another job, she told herself as she sat down in one of the comfortable leather chairs, setting her laptop bag and purse down at her feet. But her friends…they were past retirement age and the odds of them finding jobs somewhere else, much less jobs they loved as much as they enjoyed owning their own stores, were pretty much nil. Age discrimination might be illegal, but it was still in practice and thriving.
Oh, Maria suspected that her friends had hefty nest eggs stashed away, enough money to keep them going. It wasn’t the money that they were so worried about. Those five wonderful people needed their jobs. They thrived on coming into their stores each morning, greeting their customers and each one of them received a genuine thrill when they sold something to a customer. What would they do with their days if they didn’t have their shops to come into?
Maria didn’t want to know. She couldn’t handle losing them. She’d lost her mother and her grandmother. The five wonderful people in that cove were now her family. She just couldn’t let them down!
“Ms. Ellis?” a trim, kind looking gentleman appeared at the doorway to the lobby. “I’m Mr. Barclay. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Maria stood up, grabbing her bag and purse while shaking the man’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you as well. We’ve conversed over the phone several times.”
The short man smiled warmly as he eagerly shook her hand. “I agree. It’s wonderful to finally meet face to face.” He shifted slightly, indicating Maria should follow him through the frosted glass doors. On the walk to his office, they discussed the weather and her move from Virginia to North Carolina. The man seemed to be sincere when he offered his condolences on the death of her grandmother.
But when they were in his office, Maria sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, she instantly knew that the cordial atmosphere had changed. He worked in an area that had a wide open space in the middle, with several people industriously working at desks, while Mr. Barclay rated a small office on the outer edge of the space. His window might look out onto the parking lot, but at least he had a window. He must be high enough on the food chain to merit such a perk.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” she said, pulling her laptop out of her bag. “I wanted to show you the numbers so far and…”
Mr. Barclay extended his hands out towards her, slowing down her progress. “I suspected that this would be the topic of conversation. You’re going to ask for an extension on your mortgage payments, correct?” he asked.
Maria swallowed, fearful that he was going to reject her proposal outright instead of at least listening to her. “I wanted to just…”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid it is too late, Ms. Ellis. The problem is out of my hands. I couldn’t give you an extension on your payments, even if I wanted to.”
“So you’re saying you want to?” she asked, latching onto his words.
He tilted his head slightly. “Well, the bank does acknowledge that you have made huge strides in changing the equation over the past few months. You’ve caught up with many of the outstanding payments in a timely manner. But…”
Maria knew where he was heading and tried to circumvent his rejection. “And sales have picked up even more over the past week. I have implemented additional marketing strategies that could bring in even more money, more sales. We’re eliminating waste as well, which will result in higher profit margins.”
The man’s eyes turned pitying. “As I said, this is not my decision to make. The bank issued those letters so, unless all of the payments are made within the time frame laid out in the letters, then the bank will move to foreclose on the shops.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but she wasn’t sure what she could say.
“But…why?”
“I don’t know all of the details, but I’ve heard rumors that a big conglomerate now owns the land all around you. This bank has been approached with a very profitable offer for the land your shops are on and would like to move forward. Since the mortgage payments have been in arrears for the past two years with your grandmother and the other shop owners slowly catching up, then falling behind sporadi
cally over that time period, the bank no longer has faith that the enterprises are still viable. We are cutting our losses and moving to a more profitable action plan.”
Maria couldn’t believe what he was saying. Then something else hit her. “I’m sorry, what did you say about the land being bought? All of it?”
Mr. Barclay nodded with eagerness. “Yes. A large resort has plans to move in and set up high rise buildings there.”
“High rises?” she asked tightly. Her vision of a larger, more environmentally friendly, shopping area was dissipating with his words. If someone had already bought up that land, there was no way her idea could move forward. “But…what’s going to happen to the wetlands?”
He shrugged as if the wetlands weren’t his concern. “The new resort will bring in thousands of additional jobs to the area.”
Low paying jobs, she thought with resentment, anger starting to bubble up inside of her. Low paying jobs with only seasonal sustainability. Her idea would create fewer jobs, but more stable revenue streams. “That doesn’t seem right. Just two weeks ago, that property was…”
He interrupted her with a shake of his head. “I am not privy to the details. Suffice it to say that the land is no longer available, although I could be wrong about the future plans. All I know is that our bank is foreclosing on your shops.”
Maria’s shoulders slumped and all of the hope she’d been trying to maintain died. “Unless we can pay off the mortgages in the next few days,” she stipulated, but there wasn’t much hope of that and her tone suggested as much to the man behind the desk.
“That is correct,” he stated, clasping his hands in front of him on top of the desk.
Maria looked down at her computer, not sure what to do or say. There had to be a way! Maybe another bank would lend her the….
Looking out the door of Mr. Barclay’s office, she spotted an unusually tall man with dark hair. She only saw him from behind, but something about his shoulders, the way he stood…was that…? The man looked like…it couldn’t be!
Billionaires On the Beach: The Anderson Brothers Page 6