Without missing a step, even though the back of her dress was wide open, Natasha waltzed out of the party.
And vowed to make Drew Walker pay dearly for costing her the account, her dignity, and the best sex she’d had in a long time.
Chapter Four
Natasha did what any smart woman would do after a lousy night. She complained to her best friend over wine and chocolate. Lanie had been wonderfully sympathetic, viciously derogatory about Drew and his sleazy girlfriend. And completely exhausted.
So, despite still feeling like crap, and just a little ill from the wine and hot fudge combination, Natasha made her way down the gold and black carpeted hallway to her own hotel room.
Could this day have sucked any worse?
She rounded the corner. And stopped short. Well, well, looked like it could.
Because leaning against her door like nothing had happened was the instigator of all her misery. The wine and chocolate churned in her stomach as she debated turning around and crashing on the spare bed in Lanie’s room. Except she wasn’t a chicken, and that bed was a mess.
So she squared her shoulders and, chin high, marched forward.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear when I said we were finished?” she snapped.
Drew looked up from his cellphone and grinned, clearly not put off by her tone. Idiot. Natasha ground her teeth and resisted the urge to swat him with her purse.
“Hey, babe. I was hoping you wouldn’t be too long.” He held up his phone so she could see the tiny video game on the screen. “You just saved me from losing big time.”
“I wish I’d taken longer.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know that scenario might have been a little embarrassing for you.”
“A little?” Sure. If the Grand Canyon was a little hole in the ground.
“C’mon, Tash, don’t be pissy. Nobody saw anything.”
Natasha hissed through her teeth. He had to be kidding? As if her underwear weren’t anything?
“Look, I had to take care of things back there or I’d have left with you. It’s not like I wanted to hang out and deal with that joker. But I couldn’t just leave while he was drooling all over Audra.”
“How chivalrous of you. And now you’re... what? Here to finish our little tête-à-tête? I hardly think so. Go find your hootch if you want to, but we’re quite through.”
Drew’s brow wrinkled and he gave her a blank look before shaking his head in confusion. “What’s the deal? Don’t be upset because we were almost caught. Rufus doesn’t care what we were doing.”
“I’m not upset,” Natasha lied politely. Then realizing manners were a waste in this situation, she tossed them aside to clarify. “Upset would be mild compared to how I feel, Drew. Angry would be closer. Livid, irate, totally pissed off, even. But upset? No, I’m not upset.”
With each word, Natasha had leaned in closer until she was right in his face to hiss that last word.
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word, his gaze drifting from her tight lips to her narrowed eyes. “I guess you’re a bit more than upset. When the hell did you get this temper, by the way? The Natasha I remember was a lot mellower.”
And, from his tone of voice, a lot more preferable.
Too damned bad.
“The Natasha you knew was a doormat, too worried about making other people happy to let her anger show. But it was there, buddy, believe me.”
“What’s the deal here? Are you pissed that we got hot and heavy? Or are you bent out of shape over the Randall account? Because I don’t want that guy’s business.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s why you stooped to such a cheap, underhanded method to get it.”
“Care to elaborate?” Drew’s voice was nearly as cold as hers now, which was saying a lot. But rather than making Natasha hesitate, it just spurred her on.
“Let’s see, what’s the first thing you did when we got to the party? Oh yeah, I remember. You ditched me and made a beeline for Ruf so you could lay the groundwork to nab that account. Then when I found you guys, to keep me from having my shot, you whisked me off to screw around in the bedroom so your girlfriend could slink in and seduce him. How many accounts have you nailed that way? Or should I say, has she nailed?”
“Excuse us,” a passing guest said quietly over Natasha’s ringing voice.
Her partner, who’d obviously had too much to drink, wasn’t so polite. “Dude, are you going to take that crap from her?”
Natasha turned to give him a mouthful too, but his girlfriend punched his arm and mouthed ‘sorry’. The interruption was enough of a wake-up call for Natasha to realize she was pitching a fit in a public hallway. And there was still enough of her starchy upbringing in her that she cringed.
“Maybe we should take this inside?” Drew murmured.
“Maybe we should just end the entire discussion. I can’t see that we have much more to say to each other.”
“Believe it or not, I’m actually here for more than your scintillating conversation.”
She paused in the act of opening the door and glared at him.
“You don’t actually believe I want to finish what we’d started at that party? Not even you are that arrogant.”
“Babe, believe me, I remember how hot you are, and how good you are. Even though there’s nothing I’d like better than to relieve some of the frustration that’s been dogging me since I got you off a few hours ago, I’m here to cut a deal.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “At least I was, until you started throwing around crazy accusations.”
Natasha gasped, and with a stiff gait, she stomped into the room and set her purse and keycard on the desk. Chin high, she spun around to face Drew. Anger gave a steely edge to her tone.
“Crazy, you say? Are you denying it?”
“Hell, yes, I’m denying it.”
“Which part?”
“All of it. Get real, Natasha. In the first place, I’m not about to concoct some elaborate scheme to try to eliminate the competition for some piddling little panty account. That’s just too much work.” Drew let the door close with a bang, then strode over with a ferocious look in his face. Natasha bit her lip, but she held her ground.
“In the second place, I don’t use sex. Not for accounts, not for crazy schemes. Not for anything but the pure pleasure it brings.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. Even though she knew she was asking for trouble, she ran her tongue over lips suddenly as dry as the desert outside. Drew’s eyes met hers again, smoldering desire clear in their rich brown depths.
“You do remember that pleasure, don’t you, Tasha? What good sex feels like? Like a flash fire. Hot, fast, intense?” He raised his hand and traced his finger over her jaw. She jerked back to try to hide her shiver of excitement. The man already had enough or an edge. “That can’t be faked.”
No. She hadn’t been faking. She’d never faked anything with Drew, except her current indifference. Her libido would love nothing better than to dive onto the waiting mattress, but she knew better. Knew he was trouble. For her. For the future she was trying so hard to secure for the aunt she owed so much. But her body didn’t care. Nope, it craved his like an insidious drug.
“And in the third place,” Drew said, reclaiming her attention. “The hootch you keep referring to is my little sister.”
Natasha’s jaw dropped as her head buzzed with shock. No way. She tried to remember if she’d known he had a sister, but Drew had never talked about his family. Heck, for all she knew, he’d crawled out, full-grown, from under a rock.
“Oh,” she said faintly. To accuse a man of sending his sister to whore for him was in really bad taste, to say the least.
“Oh?”
“Yes, oh.”
Drew crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“The two of you don’t look anything alike. Are you sure she’s your sister?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. She costs a fortune in upkeep, and I’m the one stuck paying the bills.”
“So what’s the deal then? It’s her company? Your company? What?” Giving in to exhaustion, Natasha sat in the desk chair and slid off her red stilettos, leaning over to rub her aching arch. Drew’s gaze followed her movements, his smoldering gaze indicating that he wouldn’t mind taking over rubbing her feet... and a whole lot more.
But he didn’t make a move in her direction. Instead he dropped to the bed and leaned back on his arms. Natasha pretended she wasn’t disappointed. She’d have slapped him down anyway. She eyed the width of his shoulders and silently laughed at herself. Sure she would have.
“Twisted Knickers is Audra’s company. I mean, I might have pushed a little to get her started but she came up with the business plan, designs, all that. She put a lot of time into researching the field, her target market. To be honest, I was blown away by the amount of prep work she did. I really think this could be her thing, you know?”
From his sigh, Natasha figured there was more to the story, so she stayed silent.
“See, when our dad died, things got a bit messed up. Audra’s always been a handful. But when she went to live with her mom, she totally cut loose. Got in with a wild crowd, went a little crazy.”
“Her mom?”
“We have different mothers. Mine took off way back when I was in grade school.” His matter-of-fact tone told Natasha that he didn’t feel the same horror that she did at the idea of a mother abandoning her child.
“Lorna, Audra’s mother, wasn’t much better. She gave up custody to Dad and hit the road when my sister was around two. But when Dad got sick and it looked like there might be some money to be had, she came back and laid claim to Audra.”
The indifferent look on Drew’s face did nothing to whitewash the bitterness clear in his words.
“So...” he continued in an offhand tone, “...once Audra was old enough to shake Lorna loose, she found me. I owed her, but no way was I handing her over a pile of money. That’d be too easy for Lorna to get her hands on. Besides, I didn’t want Audra blowing it. So I told her I’d set her up in any kind of business she wanted. Twisted Knickers was her choice.”
That was sweet. Natasha didn’t say so, though. She didn’t figure Drew’s ego needed any stroking, nor was she willing to let him know her anger was abating.
But she couldn’t resist asking, “So why are you at the lingerie show?”
“Like so many things Audra starts, once she got as far as getting her ideas made into those frilly panties and such, she began flaking out. She’d make appointments with potential accounts, then take off with some loser for a long weekend and miss her meeting.”
Natasha couldn’t tell if he was bothered more by his sister blowing off meetings, or by the fact that she was doing so because of a guy. From the look on his face, a combination of protective bulldog and irritated impatience, it was likely both.
“That’s what she did with this convention?”
“I’m here because she woke up this morning and claimed she was too sick to come. Some female thing. Believe me, I didn’t ask questions.” Drew shuddered, clearly horrified. Natasha smirked.
“And she just amazingly happened to arrive in time to come to Rufus Randall’s party? Remarkable recovery, hmmm? And how clever of her to look for you there.” Not that she didn’t believe that the woman was trouble personified. But Natasha wasn’t falling for Drew’s declarations of innocence. Naïve she was not. Not anymore.
“I’d called her cell to see if she was on her way but couldn’t reach her. I left a message so she’d know where to find me.” Natasha’s skepticism must have been clear on her face, because Drew rolled his eyes and heaved a disgusted sigh. “Look, Natasha, I don’t want the account. It’s not worth the trouble of watching some weird guy with a Clark Gable fetish chasing after my sister. This business thing is supposed to keep her out of trouble, not get her in deeper.”
Drew sat up and shoved a hand through his hair, mussing the russet strands and making Natasha’s fingers itch to tidy them.
“I’d hoped this convention would get her enough work to keep her on track, get her focused, so I can stop being her babysitter. Audra takes a lot of... well, guidance. If she hooks up with this Randall guy, I’ll be stuck constantly watching that jerk to make sure he doesn’t try anything.”
Natasha wanted to point out that his sister was obviously an adult. Quite obviously. And that she hardly looked like she needed protection. More like the other way around, she thought uncharitably.
But this conversation was actually working to Natasha’s advantage, so she’d keep the obvious to herself.
“So, what? You’ll just walk away? Let Perfect Passion go, just like that?”
“Me? Sure. But it’s not me you have to worry about, it’s Audra. I’m just the temporary bankroll. When it comes to Twisted Knickers, she calls the shots.”
Natasha licked her lips and considered his claim. To give herself time, she asked, “If it isn’t your company, what do you do?”
“I own a sports bar in Auburn.”
If he’d told her he was a white slaver who imported Amazon women to square dance at bowling conventions, she wouldn’t have been more shocked.
“A bar?”
“Yeah,” Drew said with a smile tinged with pride. “It was my dad’s, and my granddad’s before him. That’s where I learned to play pool, actually. When the old man got too sick, I took over. Having to take time off work to babysit Audra is a definite pain in the ass. So you can see why your accusation just doesn’t work.”
“Look, maybe it’s been a long night and my brain is shorting out, but I’m not getting it. It sounds like your sister intends to get Ruf’s account, whether you like it or not. And since she’s already got his interest, there isn’t anything you or I can do about it.”
“Sure there is.”
“What?”
He leaned back on the bed again with a naughty grin.
“C’mon, Tash. Between us, we can get you that account—hell, that and the next three on your list. And keep my little sister out of that jerk’s clutches in the process.”
Was this how Pandora felt as she’d eyed that box of temptation? A tingling in the belly, excitement and anticipation buzzing through her ears? Natasha knew better. A wise woman would cut her losses and move on. And Natasha had always considered herself a wise woman.
“How?” she asked.
“C’mere, babe.” Drew patted the bed next to him. “I’ve got a plan.”
* * *
His eyes closed, Drew mentally cursed mornings. Not just this morning. All mornings. Mornings sucked.
“Five minutes, ‘kay,” he mumbled into the bed sheet.
“What the hell do I look like, dude? Your alarm clock?”
“No, you look like a pain in the ass. I’d be home in my own bed if it wasn’t for that stunt you pulled yesterday. The least you can do is turn those stupid cartoons down and give me five more minutes to sleep.”
Drew shifted his head so he could squint at his sister, who looked oddly young without her usual mask of war paint. Or maybe it was the tongue she was sticking out at him that made her look like a kid. Without makeup, Audra could pass for at least five years less than her twenty-two. Seven, if it weren’t for the black and red streaked hair smashed up against her head, the silver stud pierced through her nose and the T- shirt inviting him to kiss her right on the ass. Drew’s chest tightened when he realized how much Audra looked like their father.
“Dude, you are one major nag. You’ll make someone a great wife someday,” Audra sneered. “I’m here, right? So quit bitching and chill. Before the end of this weekend, I’ll have it made. Then all I’ll have to do is figure out how to spend all the money that’ll come
pouring in.”
Drew didn’t even bother to sigh. Despite countless lectures, Audra seemed to believe she didn’t have to work hard for success like the rest of the population. It was just another reason that the Perfect Passion account was wrong for her. She was plenty of trouble on her own, but who knew what kind of crazy a creep like Ruf Randall could add to the mix.
Tasha, though, could handle the guy. She saw him for what he was and had no interest in anything from him but a business deal. Besides, she was only fronting Sensual Supports for her aunt. She was probably using this little foray into the lingerie business to explore her sexuality, he figured. Once that account was nailed down, she’d hand it back to her aunt and retreat to her safe little world.
“I think you should pass on that Perfect Passion account. The guy is a bozo. A total lech. You had a solid plan and a list of accounts to chase. Why are you ditching it to put up with a jerk like Randall?”
“Puleeeze, I can handle a pussycat like Rufus Randall. I figured it out at that party last night. If I play my cards right, I can hook up with him for the long term. Work my way into his company, be his right hand chick, you know?”
Drew rubbed his fingers over his eyes with a groan. He was going to have to scrub his brain to erase the creepy images her words evoked.
“He likely has a right hand chick already, Audra. One who worked her way up the ladder, not flirted her way into a job she wasn’t qualified for.”
“Then she’s gonna be outta luck, isn’t she?”
Drew frowned in frustration. It was like listening to Lorna all over again. Audra’s mother believed in the importance of taking care of number one, and she’d passed the skill onto her daughter.
For the first time, Drew gave thanks that Tasha was here, for reasons other than her glorious body and sexy mouth. She was the only thing standing in the way of a creepy pervert and his idiot sister. And as he’d promised her last night, he was going to do everything hi his power to make sure she got the account.
Starting now.
* * *
Natasha ground her teeth, wanting to scream.
Lucky 7 Bad Boys Contemporary Romance Boxed Set Page 40