by Paula Roe
Then she shifted her weight and leaned into the balcony, treating him to a view of her beautiful bottom.
His mouth went dry. That would fit perfectly in my hands…
Memories of last night flashed past—her soft skin and warm limbs, her gentle sighs of pleasure teasing and taunting as his body stiffened.
Then she began to hum.
He blinked, surprised, as her head started to bob, then her shoulders swayed. Her humming became indistinguishable words, something about “party” and “starting tonight”…
She actually had a nice singing voice, kind of smoky and breathy. He grinned when he spotted the earphones, then finally recognized the song. He’d never pick his assistant as a closet Lionel Richie fan.
She suddenly turned, eyes closed, a small smile on her face as she began to dance.
Good God, she was absolutely luscious. Her hips swiveled, shoulders swayed. He choked out an appreciative groan. She made his blood race and his breath stutter. She filled him with a burning need to touch, to kiss, to taste. A dangerous need.
His drink sloshed over the rim of the glass as he abruptly dropped his feet to the floor with an audible thump.
And still she moved, her grin wide, mouthing the words as his vision began to glaze over.
Then his phone rang.
He grabbed it from the table, seizing a ragged breath as he jammed his finger on the off button. Too late.
Emily had yanked the earbuds out, her wide eyes skimming the shadows until they finally settled on him.
“Zac?”
Busted. He sighed. “Yeah?”
“Were you…” Her self-conscious hesitancy was so endearing that he couldn’t help smiling. “Watching me?”
“Yep.”
“Uhhhh…” She threaded, then unthreaded her fingers until she realized what she was doing and dragged her palms over her thighs.
“‘Dancing On the Ceiling’?” he teased. “You like the eighties, huh?”
He fully expected her to turn tail in a haze of embarrassment. Instead she surprised him with a chin tilt and a nod. “It varies. Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran. Some Prince. ‘Baby I’m a Star’ is great running music.”
“You run?” He tried to stop his eyes from skimming down her legs. He failed.
“Most mornings.”
He shifted in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “I must admit I’m more of a commercial rock guy.”
“Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing.” She palmed her iPod, wrapping the ear buds around her hand. “One of my major year-twelve assignments was comparing the relevance of eighties music to the political and socioeconomic climate at the time.”
She’d never cease to amaze him. “Wow, that’s, uhh…”
She chuckled. “A challenge? I knew my music teacher had a thing for retro.” Her eyes creased mischievously. “She gave me an excellent grade.”
“Clever.”
They grinned at each other, until Zac’s phone once again shattered the moment.
“I’m…” She glanced back to her suite. “I should go and take a shower. You’d better get that.”
He turned his phone off and stood, pinning her eyes with his. “It can wait.”
He walked casually to the balcony. Even from this distance he could see caution warring behind her eyes, reminding him of a day long ago when he was living in Sweden. A cat had suddenly appeared around his apartment block, wary of the kindness of strangers. Yet beneath those almond eyes there had been an almost heartbreaking desperation for affection.
He’d eventually worn her down with a mixture of food, patience and space.
“Come here.”
“Why?” she squeaked out.
His grin spread wider as he heard her breath catch nervously in her throat. That makes two of us, sweetheart. “So I can kiss you.”
“Ahhh….”
Impatience propelled him over those terra-cotta pots before he finally managed to tamp on the brakes less than a foot away.
The breath rattling in Emily’s throat threatened to choke her as Zac’s hard body came into unhurried full-on contact with hers.
Shock hit first, and she instinctively recoiled. But as his arms snaked around her waist, heat quickly engulfed her. She felt like melting into him, all commanding, six-foot-two of hard muscle and hot skin. Muscle she wanted to touch and knead, skin she was aching to taste. A body she wanted to claim and to be claimed by.
Yet the blunt reality of having Zac up close and personal, his groin pressing hard into her belly, kept her frozen to the spot. Her back arched, hands clutching his arms, almost as if she’d changed her mind and decided to stop him.
Which was ridiculous. She didn’t want to stop him.
Then his lips went to her neck, tasting her racing pulse, and all thought crumbled as need took over.
Hot, solid male. Heady, musky scent. Arms that wrapped around her, strong and protective. She registered it all, her body twitching with remembered delight.
She gulped and squeezed her eyes shut as his mouth drew soft kisses along the length of her neck.
Yes. Oh, yes. Emily let the pleasure of his mouth pull her under as his hands cupped her cheeks.
Beads of sweat pooled down the small of her back, her body singing with anticipation as his lips stroked, caressed, teased hers, before firmly pushing them apart to boldly explore her mouth. His small murmur of appreciation filled her with pleasure and she leaned in closer, desperate to feel him.
A sudden craving thundered through Zac’s veins, making his groin swell, forcing his breath out. She tasted so good, felt even better. Her lush breasts pushed up against his chest, an erotic teaser of things to come. Chaos swirled behind his eyes as he continued to kiss her, running his hands over her arms, to her waist, then leisurely over the curves of her rounded butt. She moaned in his mouth, ending in a gasp as he roughly pulled her closer.
“Can you feel that?” He growled beneath her lips.
She got out a muffled affirmation, a kind of half sigh, half whimper that fired his blood even more.
Gradually he pulled back, taking in her languid, desire-filled eyes, her thoroughly kissed Cupid mouth. Images of her wearing nothing but that expression sent an urgent bolt of heat straight to his erection.
With a thick swallow, he said roughly, “Emily. Look at me.”
She blinked, breath hitching, before reluctantly dragging her gaze to his. Those thickly lashed, wide blue eyes, shining with vulnerability and uncertainty sent a jolt of protectiveness into his heart.
“You can feel how hard I am but you can’t meet my eyes?”
The corner of her lip dipped inward, those teeth worrying the swollen flesh. “Zac,” she breathed out, her grip tense on his biceps. “I need to—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Just one kiss. Then you can go.”
With eyes at half-mast she sighed, her warm breath grazing over his skin, stoking the flames below. When her hands skimmed up his arms, goose bumps rose even as his skin heated. “Okay.”
The surge of victory melted into desire as he claimed her mouth once more, her decadent curves pressing into his arousal.
They kissed for long minutes, until he felt her begin to pull away. Everything screamed in protest, his groin throbbing unbearably, but he let her go, his fingers loosely trailing down her arm as she turned away.
She didn’t glance back. If she had, she would’ve seen the burning need on his face, need echoed in every rigid muscle as he stood there with only the mild November night as relief.
As her door slid closed, he muttered a dozen colorful curses under his breath before grabbing his empty glass and storming back inside.
It was only then that he realized someone was at his door. And given the energy with which the caller was thumping, they’d been there for some time.
He stalked to the door and grabbed the handle.
“Zac. It’s Cal.”
His hand stilled as he glanced
through the peephole. “What do you want?”
“Victor was really sick, you know,” came the muffled reply.
“What?”
Cal paused. “You’re not answering my messages. Can we not talk through a door?”
With a muttered curse, Zac yanked the door open.
Cal’s palms were up in a conciliatory gesture. “I didn’t come here to start a fight.”
“So what are you here for?”
“A truce. An olive branch. Whatever it takes.”
Zac’s hand dove into his hair, guilt, anger and a tiny, faint hope churning together to make a huge confused mess in his brain.
“So can I come in?” Cal asked after a moment.
Zac shrugged, turned and stalked over to the bar.
Cal closed the door behind him.
“I’ve got nothing to say. Everyone knows VP’s yours.”
Cal’s expression was a mix of chagrin and apology. “Yeah, well, let’s just say becoming the next Victor Prescott isn’t what I want for the rest of my life.” His expression softened then. “The baby’s due in January and I’m getting married in March. I’d like to have an actual relationship with my wife and child.”
The rest of that unspoken sentence lay between them, reluctantly bonding the two men for a long moment. As a boy, Zac couldn’t remember a time when Victor hadn’t been coming from or going to a meeting, the office, a business trip. Up until he was seven, when his mother had abruptly left, he’d grown up in an absent-father home, albeit a fantasy home filled with more toys, gadgets and electronics than a kid could wish for. He couldn’t blame Cal for wanting a normal life.
Cal finally broke the silence. “We need to sort this VP mess out.”
Zac eyed him carefully as he wrenched off the cap of a long-neck beer and tossed it in the sink. “I don’t have a mess. You do.”
“You’re a Prescott. It’s yours, too.”
“You keep saying that like it means something to me.”
“It should.”
“Well it doesn’t. I stopped being part of the family a long time ago.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, what the hell did he do to make you so damn cynical? To turn your back on everyone who—” With blazing eyes, Cal bit back the last words, hands on his hips, before averting his gaze with a derisive snort.
“Have you asked him?” Zac asked slowly.
“He won’t talk. You won’t talk.” Cal glared. “No one will bloody talk.”
“Cal…” What could he say? To Cal, Victor was a savior, marrying his mother and transporting them from a life of hardship and struggle to wealth and privilege. Cal worshipped Victor, and Victor had basked in the glow. Long ago, Zac had furiously resented that connection, the attention that should have rightfully been his. Cal had been determined to prove himself, the boy with the razor-sharp mind who dissected, then rebuilt computers for fun. Of course he and Victor had bonded over that. Then there was Zac: a quiet thinker, a lover of visual arts and drawing. While he’d been seething with teenage angst and rebelling against everyone and everything, Cal had developed what would eventually become One-Click, Australia’s number-one software package.
Zac was an adult now, with an adult’s understanding and perspective. It wasn’t his place to destroy whatever bond Cal and Victor had, no matter how terrible a father Victor had been to his own flesh and blood.
“It’s…in the past, Cal,” he finally got out.
“Bull. It’s still happening.” Cal put his hands on his hips, a direct challenge. “It started ever since you took off overseas to study.”
It had started long before that, but still… “I was eighteen. Nearly ten years ago.”
“Yeah.”
“Cal…” The thick warning was clear. “Don’t push it. You won’t like what you hear.”
Cal’s humorless laugh startled him. “Nothing Victor does surprises me anymore. He’s stepping back from the company, donating to charity, talking about investing in small business. And this from a man who tried to marry me off instead of telling me the truth about his tumor.”
Shock jolted Zac back a step. “What tumor?”
“Victor had a brain tumor,” Cal said softly. “He actually died on the operating table. For a while there, we didn’t know if he’d make it.”
What the hell was he supposed to do with that? Past and present swirled into a dozen churning emotions, humbling him. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Cal’s expression was astute. “Would you have taken my call?”
Would he have? A surge of guilt and cold, hard truth flooded Zac’s conscience. Probably not. “Is he…?”
“He’s fine now,” Cal said firmly. “But you know what he’s like—Victor manipulates, that’s what he does. It doesn’t mean the company should suffer for it.”
Neither man spoke for a long while.
“Okay,” Cal finally conceded. “You don’t want to talk to me. After the last few years of silence, I don’t blame you.”
“Cal—”
“No, I get it. I wouldn’t want to talk to me,” he added with a twist to his mouth. “Can we just put that aside for now? I need your help. I might not want the top job, but that doesn’t mean I want to see the company crash.”
Guilt twisted inside. “So you’re really giving it up.”
“There’s more to life than working.”
“Jesus, don’t let Victor catch you saying that.”
Both men laughed, a welcome moment of levity.
“Look, mate.” Zac began. “Me and Victor—” Cal shook his head, but Zac forged on. “It’s a complicated, toxic relationship, you know that. I had to get away.”
“And not one call. I know,” Cal added at the look on Zac’s face. “I didn’t, either.”
“Yeah.” Zac reached into the minibar and pulled out another beer, offering it to Cal. “So we’re both crappy brothers.” He flicked his head to the sofa. “Want to sit?”
For one second, caution warred on his stepbrother’s face. He’d put that there when he’d walked out all those years ago. That realization made Zac’s jaw clench.
“If you want me to,” Cal said.
Regret seeped into Zac’s bones, the years they’d lost gaping wide. He’d done this, had driven cracks into their once-amiable relationship so that Cal no longer trusted him.
That was wrong.
“Please,” he said gruffly. “Sit.”
They drank too much, stayed up too late and, Zac thought fuzzily as Cal left around 2 a.m., probably said way too much.
The alcohol had done its job and taken the edge off, relaxing them enough to openly discuss the company while studiously avoiding any personal stuff.
Lying in his bed, hands behind his head, Zac lazily blinked at the ornate ceiling frescos, the beer buzz still warming his veins. Was it before or after they’d shared their fifth drink and memories of one tenth-grade Julie Jenkins and a see-through shirt that he’d suggested advertising for a new CEO and floating the company on the stock exchange?
Cal had nearly choked. “An outsider and going public?” He finally got out, wiping beer from his chin.
“Yeah.”
“Victor would never go for it.”
Zac had shrugged. “Then you have a problem.”
They’d sat in silence until Cal’s phone rang. From the soft dip in his voice to the way his face had relaxed before he turned away, Zac knew exactly who was on the other end of the line. Ava, Cal’s fiancée. Which, for some reason, had made him suddenly think of Emily. Curvy, luscious Emily.
With a groan he flipped to his side, punched the pillow and glared at the shadows through the half-open bedroom door.
Emily—now probably asleep—in the room next to his.
Emily, who’d kissed him so sweetly his body got hard just thinking about it.
Did she sleep on the left or the right side of the bed? On her back or front?
What did she wear to bed?
Stop.
Yet his
body ignored him, his groin slowly stirring to life as a myriad of pictures flashed behind his eyes: Emily in a skimpy bra and knickers. Emily in high heels and black garters.
Emily in his boxer shorts…
With a growl, he flung the sheets off and swung from the bed. There’d be time to do it right. He’d been patient, he could wait a little longer.
But now, a cold shower couldn’t.
Seven
Their 9 a.m. flight was delayed by an hour. Emily had always laughingly joked about AJ’s belief in omens, but right now, seated next to Zac in Virgin Blue’s executive lounge in Sydney’s departure terminal, she wasn’t amused.
More time in his presence, more time to feel awkward and embarrassed.
More time to rethink her decision?
On their drive to the airport Emily had shamelessly used her phone as a buffer. She’d talked with the Valhalla staff about the Point One project, texted ones who couldn’t be reached…and yes, faked a few, too.
Tiredness nipped at her heels as she stared at her phone, reading the same e-mail for the fifth time. A night in the most heavenly bed in all the world and still she couldn’t sleep. Her brain had teased her with various scenarios of Zac there beside her, touching, kissing, making love to her.
She frowned, reached for her cappuccino and took a sip before glancing over at Zac, who sat directly opposite.
His expression was hidden behind expensive sunglasses, but she was directly in his sightline, even if he was busy with his text messages.
“Cal stopped by last night,” Zac said suddenly.
Emily looked up. “Really?”
A small pause, then, “I suggested floating the company and bringing in a new CEO. Cal didn’t outright refuse.”
“That’s good.”
“Only if he can convince Victor.”
“And the wedding? You’re free that weekend,” she reminded him.
“Not sure. There’s lots of…” He hesitated, as if searching for the right word. “Baggage.”
She nodded. “Sometimes it’s better to go forward than to step back.”
“Exactly.” His gaze tripped over her, studying her expression (she’d gone for inscrutable), her mood (professional yet distant), her clothes (hmmm…yeah). Dark gray jacket, long skirt, plain cream shirt, sensible kitten heels.