The Tycoon Meets His Match

by Barbara Benedict

  Not waiting to see what Clay might do next, Rhys charged.

  Hitting the man was like banging into the proverbial brick wall. No more seeing red; all Rhys could see now were stars. Staggering, he shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision.

  “Rhys,” Trae screamed. “Watch out!”

  Ducking instinctively, he took a glancing blow above his right eye. Not much impact, but it broke the skin, causing it to bleed profusely. Blinking away the dripping blood, he jabbed upward with his left and caught Clay under the cheek. This sent the drunk stumbling over a chair and banging into the wall.

  Reaching out, Rhys seized Trae’s arm and pulled her to him. By the time Clay could recover enough to focus, Rhys had her safely behind him.

  “Why, you little…” Clay snarled as he came at Rhys, murder in his eyes. “I’ll show you what’s what.”

  Rhys merely smiled, his fists poised and ready, his legs planted firmly. “You’re welcome to try.”

  Before either man could land a punch, a gruff voice called out from the doorway.

  “That’s enough, fellas,” boomed Max. “I suggest you both move it along if you don’t want any trouble. The law is on the way.”

  The words had more power to stop the drunk than any punch Rhys could have landed. With a look of abject horror, Clay stopped in his tracks. “What’d you go and do that for, Max? You know they’re gonna lock me up this time.”

  “Can’t have you busting up the place, Clay. Bad for business.”

  Muttering curses, Clay pushed past them in his haste to get out of the bar. Rhys turned instantly to Trae. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Her low, raspy tone belied the assurance. “I’m more worried about your eye.”

  “It’s just a simple cut.” Rhys reached up to his forehead, applying pressure to the wound to stop it from bleeding. “You should see the other guy.”

  “It’s no joking matter. You could have been badly hurt.”

  “So could you. Sorry, Trae, I don’t know what I could have been thinking, leaving you alone in a place like this.”

  He expected her to argue, to protest that she was a big girl and could take care of herself, but the incident with Clay must have shaken her considerably. Laying her head against his chest, she let him wrap his arms around her. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “But there you were when I needed you most.”

  His chest tightened, as did his grasp. Trae “I-can-take-care-of-myself” Andrelini had just said she needed him, a prospect that both soothed and exhilarated him. It felt right, somehow, as if it were always meant to be. Breathing in the sweet scent of her, he lost himself in the moment.

  Until Max spoke out behind them. “Sorry about that, folks. Clay gets carried away sometimes.”

  They broke apart, like kids caught making out in the basement. “What’s with that guy?” Rhys asked, trying to sound normal, while inside he felt shaken to the core.

  Max looked over his shoulder, as if half expecting Clay to be eavesdropping. “Let’s just say things haven’t been going so well for him lately. Second time this week he went on the prowl. Been having troubles with the little woman at home.”

  “Go figure,” Trae said quietly beside him.

  “Yeah, well, he’ll sleep it off and not remember half of it in the morning. Though he’ll probably be taking his nap in the county lockup.”

  “So you did call the police?”

  “Hell, yeah. Business comes first. Speaking of which, you folks about ready to settle up?”

  More than ready, Rhys thought. With all that had happened, he couldn’t get out of the bar fast enough.

  Insisting on carrying the backpack after they’d paid their bill, Rhys led Trae outside, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. Once outside, he noticed with relief that the big red truck no longer sat under the Fill-Er-Up sign.

  Looking up, he spotted the tow truck on the highway, their rental car attached to the back of it, making a hard right turn into the truck stop.

  “Finally,” Trae said, echoing his relief aloud.

  “I suggest we go over to the garage and light another fire under Jerry. Apparently, that’s the only way things get done around here.”

  “While we’re there, let’s see if he’s got a first-aid kit.” She reached up to gently brush the hair off his forehead. “If we don’t do something to stop the bleeding, this ‘simple cut’ is liable to drain you dry.”

  Hers was a simple gesture, one of caring and concern, but that didn’t stop the hot flash of desire. Gazing down at her, aware of how she continued to tremble, he marveled at how Trae needed him now. Far more than Lucie. All this time, not one cry for help from his fiancée, while here stood Trae, shaking like a leaf, trying to reassure him with false bravado. Overwhelmed by emotion, he reached out to shelter her in his arms.

  “No,” she said suddenly, taking a step backward.

  At the same time, a loud siren pierced his eardrums. Following where she pointed, seeing the flashing lights of the approaching police car, he realized Trae hadn’t been rejecting his gesture but rather reacting to the situation unfolding before them.

  As the troopers wailed into the truck stop, a battered green pickup wove toward the same exit. Rhys didn’t need to see Clay’s angry face through the windshield to know it was the drunk. The zigzag pattern told it all.

  Though there was sufficient space for the pickup and the police car to pass without incident, Jerry, who’d stopped under the sign, chose that moment to release the rental from its moorings.

  The emergency brake isn’t up, Rhys thought in alarm, even as the rental car began to bounce into the path of the approaching squad car. Though the police swerved at the very last minute, Clay delayed his reaction by too wide a margin. Ramming into the car with a resounding crash, he sandwiched it between the front of his truck and the now blinking Fill-Er-Up sign.

  “No,” Rhys echoed Trae’s protest aloud.

  But, of course, it was already too late.

  “It’s late,” Rhys was saying dully as Trae dug through the first-aid kit they’d gotten from Jerry. “I should be going.”Sitting on the bed in front of her, staring off into space, he made no real effort to stand, much less move to his own room, three doors down. Once they’d realized they were stuck for the night, they’d agreed to stay at the hotel but opted for separate accommodations. Irv made it easy, offering two rooms for half the price of Chad’s tacky love nest.

  “Stay where you are,” Trae told him firmly, looking up from the night table, where she’d set up the ointment and bandages. “We need to clean that wound and dress it with a butterfly bandage. We don’t want it opening up and bleeding all night. Need I point out how little I need you dying of blood loss and leaving me alone in this place?”

  She couldn’t control a shiver as she looked around her.

  She was referring to the truck stop, not the room itself. As Jerry had promised, Irv did keep the place clean, if a tad quaint. Gazing at the water bed, multicolored beads and tie-dyed fabrics, she decided he’d last redecorated late in the sixties. She could almost hear the strains of a sitar and smell patchouli incense. No wonder her head was spinning.

  Then again, maybe her sudden inability to focus could be attributed to tonight’s series of improbable events.

  “I feel like I’m in the middle of some fever dream.” Reaching up, she swabbed his forehead with the damp cloth. “What a night. I can’t believe the Neon is gone. You’re sure it’s totaled?” Silly question. She’d been there, felt the impact, witnessed the tangled remains of the poor car.

  “Dead and buried. They’ll be holding a memorial service in the morning,” Rhys sighed. “And there goes our road trip. Hard to tour about the country without wheels.”

  He winced as she dabbed at his cut, and she winced at the finality in his statement. Applying the antiseptic ointment to his bruised skull, she felt a sudden need to grab hold of him and not let go.

  “Clay sure left us one fine m
ess to clean up,” Rhys went on, oblivious. “I’m not looking forward to calling the rental car company.”

  Rhys winced again as she applied the bandage to his head. “We should have pressed charges. If you ask me, that table leg qualified for assault with a deadly weapon. And I hate to think of what he might have done to you had I not shown up when I did.”

  “Clay’s in lots of trouble.” All too vividly she could picture him, hands cuffed behind his back as he was shoved into the police car. “And really, all he did was kiss me. Besides, it would mean coming back here to testify. You think I want to face that man again?”

  Turning at the sudden break in her voice, he reached up for her hand. “You’re trembling.”

  Her hand, her voice, her entire being shook. She couldn’t seem to stop. “I—I’ve never felt so powerless,” she blurted out. “I took all those defense classes. I couldn’t have been better trained. Yet when my moment of truth came, I couldn’t do anything.”

  Rising, he took her in his arms, cradling her against his chest. “The man was twice your size and you had no room to maneuver in that hallway. I don’t see who could have stopped him.”

  She pulled back a bit to look up at him. “You did.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” he said with a rueful grin. “Someone was swinging a pretty hefty backpack, as I remember. It took two of us to bring that jerk down.”

  “Still, if you hadn’t shown up…”

  “But I did.” Staring into her eyes, his expression went grave. “You’re safe now,” he said quietly, his hand gently brushing her cheek. “And I’m here to keep you that way.”

  She felt his words as much as heard them, down deep inside the core of her being, and all at once it was as if the rest of the world no longer existed. All she could see, hear or feel was this man before her, bruised and battered from the battle on her behalf. How beautiful he seemed to her, how precious, from the cut on his forehead to the bruises forming on his knuckles.

  “Your poor hands,” she said softly, bringing the injured one to her lips.

  She’d meant it as a “here, let me kiss it and make it feel better” gesture, but the instant her lips touched his skin, a fire was lit within her. With her last coherent thought, she heard his sharp intake of breath, saw the answering spark ignite in his eyes. He, too, felt the pull, saw the futility in resisting it.

  With a low groan deep in his throat, he took her head in his hands. Sliding his fingers into her hair, he covered her mouth with his own.

  She moaned as their lips met, her body acknowledging how deeply she’d craved this. Craved him. Opening her mouth, she welcomed him in, going weak with sensation as he used his strong, warm hands on her body. Sliding his fingers down her neck, along her sides, he touched her like a blind man, taking his time, savoring every inch. Through it all, he kept seducing her mouth, his tongue encircling hers in a dance as slow and as sensual as a moonlit tango. Dazed by longing, Trae could only follow where he led.

  Until he drew back, his lips clinging to hers until the last possible second. In some scattered part of her mind, she understood that this was it, that he was pulling away and breaking all contact, but all she knew for certain was that she couldn’t allow it. Not now, not yet. Not ever.

  Moaning in protest, she reached for him, exerting her will, pressing her body up against his as she deepened their kiss. Rhys no longer fought her. Grasping her tighter, he acknowledged the urgency, the inevitability of their coming together.

  And as if a switch had been flipped, their kiss came alive, became frantic. Their hands moved everywhere in a desperate need to pop open buttons, undo zippers, remove whatever stood between them. In a flurry of movement, shoes were kicked across the room, socks flew in the air, pants and shirts landed helter-skelter in piles about the floor.

  Trae barely noticed the flurry of activity, focusing on the hard, virile chest in front of her. Running her hands across the muscled expanse, rasping her palms across his bare nipples, she knew she could never get enough of this. Of him.

  “My turn,” Rhys said huskily, sliding his large, capable hands across her breasts. Cupping them, he circled his thumbs over the swelling nipples. As he leaned down to take her breast in his mouth, a pure, white heat exploded inside her. And in that instant, her knees gave out on her.

  Rhys was ready for her, sweeping her up into his arms to lay her down on the bed. The mattress rippled as the warm water ebbed and flowed beneath her. She found it an unbelievably erotic sensation, floating on the shifting mattress while Rhys stared down at her naked body, devouring her with his gaze.

  She held out her arms to him, and with a groan, he joined her on the bed, rolling them back and forth on the mattress as he continued to kiss her. Helpless under the renewed onslaught of his tongue, Trae clung to him, drowning in sheer pleasure as he again kissed her breasts, his tongue performing the same magic it had unleashed in her mouth. As he alternately sucked, then twirled his tongue around them, Trae could feel her nipples reaching out for him, growing tight with need.

  Mindless with desire, she ran her tongue over his ears, his neck, his chest. Her hands went everywhere, her fingers tracing the tight, hard lines of his arms and legs, the swell of his buttocks, the slick warmth of his groin. As her hands closed around his stiff, swollen shaft, he moaned again, a guttural sound this time.

  As if yet another switch had been flipped, a new current flowed between them, a new urgency fueled their actions. Water sloshed around them as they writhed on the mattress, limbs tangled, tongues entwined. She continued to stroke and fondle with a frenzied motion, the need to have him inside building to a fever pitch. She could feel his hands on her waist, her hips, sliding between her legs, his fingers dipping into her hot, wet core. She arched her back, offering herself to him.

  “I want you so bad,” she whimpered into his ear.

  For Rhys, the words were like a siren’s call, a lure he couldn’t imagine resisting. Gazing down at Trae’s naked, writhing body, he was completely captivated. She seemed so beautiful to him, so precious. He had to have her. “Me, too,” he rasped, the need rising up and tightening in his throat. In truth, he couldn’t remember ever wanting anything this badly. “I want to touch, taste and feel every inch of you.”

  Proving this, he trailed his tongue along her throat, over her breasts, down her belly, between her thighs. She called out his name as he delved into her, but if she meant it as a protest, it was a feeble one. He thrilled at the sound of her moans, the feel of her body arching into him. He heard his name once more, deep, hoarse and urgent, as she began to spasm with pleasure.

  For Rhys, all that existed was this warm, vibrant woman beneath him. He felt consumed by her heat, engulfed by her maddeningly indefinable scent, ensnared by her very essence. He had to have her. Had to make her his own.

  Unable to hold off any longer, he knelt between her legs, sliding into her hot, wet body with an all-consuming fervor. They gasped in unison as they came together, moving with one rhythm as nature took over. Being inside Trae felt so good, so right, as if he’d belonged there forever. As if everything in his life had been leading up to this moment.

  Wrapping her arms and legs around him, she clung fiercely to his back as he rapidly lost control, driving into her faster and harder, each stroke probing deeper, reaching, straining, climbing until Trae cried out, “Oh, Rhys!” and sheer, unadulterated pleasure exploded inside him.

  He buried his face in her hair, taking a deep, cleansing breath. Even now that they were done, now that he was tired and spent and aching in every muscle, he still couldn’t bear the thought of breaking away from her.

  Still clinging to Rhys, Trae could feel a thousand sensations engulfing her body, but she could think of only one word to describe them. Perfect. She could weep with the overpowering beauty of it all. She knew she could make love a million times, a billion, but no other man could ever make her feel this deep, soul-shattering sense of rightness.

  Sighing with happiness, she looke
d up into his beautiful face. Rhys smiled, one of those heartbreakingly genuine smiles, and darned if the tears didn’t start dripping down her cheeks.

  His expression clouded. With a long, drawn-out sigh of his own, Rhys slowly withdrew, rolling over to lie on his back on the bed beside her. Afraid to speak, Trae listened to his breathing as the rolling motion of the water slowly subsided beneath them. Bit by bit, the sense of enchantment drifted away.

  “Sorry,” he said tightly, taking the last fragment of illusion away.

  Trae didn’t trust herself to speak. After what they’d just shared, all he could say was “Sorry?” And what was wrong with her, that she still wanted to hold onto him, cling to him, beg him to give her yet another chance? Had she no pride? She had to know that in the end, he’d always go back to Lucie.

  She flinched, feeling ugly inside, as she remembered her friend for the first time. “Yeah, me, too.”

  He said nothing, remaining stiff and silent and so out of reach. Unable to bear it an instant longer, Trae got out of the bed, holding the tie-dyed spread against her. “What was I thinking? But I wasn’t, of course. Thinking, I mean. I was feeling. Feeling way too much.”

  “A lot of that going around.”

  Shoulders drooping, she stood at the side of the bed, looking down at him. “Oh, Rhys, how could we do this to Lucie?”

  “Do what, Trae? He sat up, his expression pained. “She left me at the altar, remember, and then went traipsing around the country with her old boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “It’s not as if she’s sitting around, waiting for me to show up,” he interrupted. “She hasn’t even once thought to call me.”

  Wincing again, Trae knew she could no longer keep the truth from him. “Yes, she has,” she told him, her voice as small as she now felt. “She wanted to call, but she felt bad after what she did to you. And just for the record, she is expecting you to show up.”

  Resting his head against the wall behind him, he closed his eyes. “And you’re telling me this now because…?”