by Jayne Castle
She twined her arms around his neck and smiled dreamily up at him. “We can talk about it in the morning if you’d rather.”
“Samantha…!”
“But we are going to split with him. Don’t worry, Gabriel, I won’t make a practice of giving away the profits. It’s just that in this case I think ifs only right to share with that old man.”
“How much,” he asked forbiddingly, “were you thinking of giving the former owner?”
“Oh, say a hundred thousand. We split the rest between us.”
“You still owe me my fifty thousand investment,” he reminded her on a growl.
“Gabriel, we’re partners. You’re supposed to think of that fifty thousand as a mutual investment made by both of us.”
“Strange, mine was the only name on the check.”
“Details,” she scoffed lightly.
“Samantha,” he warned, his large hands slipping around her waist, “if you’re going to start giving away my portion of our investments, then you’re going to have to make it worth my while.” His fingers tightened meaningfully.
She frowned. “Gabriel, I’m not ready yet. I’m still talking business.”
“In a partnership,” he breathed, his mouth hovering an inch above hers, “you can’t always have everything your own way.”
“Gabriel, wait, I wanted to…”
But the words were sealed in her throat as his mouth took possession of hers. Samantha gave up the effort to discuss business and surrendered to the inviting warmth of him.
Gabriel felt the way her body softened against his hardness and sighed his satisfaction into the honeyed cavern of her mouth. Time enough in the morning to explain a few basic principles of venture capitalism. Right now the only thing which was really clear in his head was the need to take his woman to bed.
He found the fastenings of her leather jacket and undid them slowly, thrusting his hands inside to find the curves of her unconfined breasts. He heard her small, kitten-soft moan, and the desire surged through him. She was his. She would always be his. All he had to do was put his hand on her at any hour of the day or night and she would smile and come to him. He’d never had such power or known such extraordinary comfort.
But, then, neither had he ever been held in such thrall before, either. Because the other side of the coin showed him as deeply in this woman’s power as she was in his.
“Samantha,” he muttered huskily against her ear, “from the very beginning I wanted to lay you down and make you mine. Then I realized I wanted to protect you from your own recklessness and from people like Buchanan. But I never thought to ask who was going to protect me from you.”
“Do you want protection?” she murmured, smiling up at him with love.
“No. I prefer to operate under the ridiculous illusion that I can handle you.” He chuckled softly. He dropped his hands from the warmth of her breasts and refastened her jacket. Then he caught her wrist and started back toward the house. “Come home with me, sweetheart. I want to go over some of the details of this contract we have between us.”
“You’re so good at details.”
“You must let me know if I’m in any danger of boring you,” he drawled, “with my habitual thoroughness.”
“Avenging angels are never dull,” she told him on a note of laughter. “They always seem to unsheath their flaming swords whenever things need livening up!”
“Veiled sexual innuendoes yet!” he complained as they reached the door of the beachfront home. “As a business associate you lack a certain sober, responsible, conservative attitude, you know that, don’t you?”
She went into his arms as they stepped through the sliding glass door, her eyes very brilliant in the moonlight. “And as your woman?”
“As my woman,” he rasped heavily, his mouth coming down on hers with familiar, rough passion, “you’re quite perfect. The partnership, Samantha Maitland Sinclair, is for life, you know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. You’re a very thorough man, remember? I expect nothing less than the most binding of contracts.”