by Faye Avalon
No sooner had he rolled onto his back, than Lissa began to pull the duvet out from beneath her.
“Cold?” he asked as he turned his head to face her.
“A little.”
Shifting, he tugged at the duvet so he could drape it over her. She wasn’t that surprised when he dropped onto his back again instead of pulling her close. She already knew she’d screwed up with the whole business and pleasure mix, so his cool attitude didn’t really disappoint her. What more could she expect? They’d barely met and here she was enjoying sex with the man, despite her resolve not to give in. Less than an hour before, she’d told him quite categorically that sex was off the table.
How would he see her now? As someone who wasn’t as good as their word? How would that figure in his decision to offer her company the contract for his work? If he changed his mind, she could probably kiss goodbye any extension of her temporary employment. She’d been hoping that Reed’s contract would give her those much needed brownie points with her boss. What if she’d now ruined everything?
She spared him a glance and noted he had his eyes closed, his head resting back on his folded arm. His lack of communication fed into her fears. “You’re not exactly excessive in the after-sex conversation stakes, are you?”
“Hard to form a coherent sentence right now,” he said without opening his eyes. “You fucked me good and proper.”
“I suppose that’s pretty coherent.” She lowered her voice to a mumble. “And I think I’m probably the one who’s been fucked good and proper.”
“You do that thing,” he said, opening his eyes and aiming his slumberous and sexy blue gaze at her. “Use your muscles to pump me so fucking hard I thought you’d blow my head off.”
“Pilates. It teaches good control of the pelvic muscles.”
He grinned. “If you can screw me like that because of a few exercises, I’ll throw in a subscription.”
“Subscription to what?”
He hiked himself up onto one elbow and looked down at her. “There’s something I need to run past you. A proposition if you like.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I keep doing Pilates and you’ll give me the contract for the development?”
“Not exactly.” He reached out and ran a finger over her breast. “And you’ve already got the contract.”
A heady relief filtered through her, which had nothing to do with the very pleasurable way his thumb stroked her nipple. “You haven’t had Tom’s quote yet.”
“I’ll pay what he asks, on one condition.”
“Which is?” She already feared what it was. Her. Sex.
“That I get you as the main photographer.”
This time she didn’t feel relief, just shock. “He won’t agree to that. Yours will be too prestigious a contract for him to send me.”
“Then there’s no deal.”
She frowned. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Being so nice to me. You don’t have to. We’ve had sex.”
“Always so suspicious.” He squeezed her nipple between his forefinger and thumb. “Why can’t I just be nice to you, without you thinking there’s an ulterior motive?”
“Because there always is. You said you had a proposition for me. That’s an ulterior motive.”
He gave a slow nod. “Fair enough.”
“Why don’t you stop doing that for a minute,” she said as his fingers continued their busy work. “And spill.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that. But it’s…distracting.”
“Maybe I like you distracted.”
“If you’re going to talk propositions, I’m going to need my wits about me.”
He looked at her for long moments, as if considering something, then moved away and got off the bed. “I need a drink.”
So did she. She scrambled off the bed and grabbed her panties.
At the door, he turned. “I didn’t tell you to get dressed. In fact, I didn’t tell you to get out of bed.”
She glared at him. “What makes you think you’re in a position to tell me anything?”
“My house. My bed. My rules. But seeing I’m a reasonable man, I’m willing to compromise.” He grinned as he tossed her his discarded shirt. “Just this once.”
She held the shirt to her body as he shrugged into a pair of jeans. He didn’t zip them and it elevated her lust levels again. He was all lean, solid muscle. His chest, with just a smattering of dark hair arrowing down below that zipper, made her mouth water. Not to mention wide shoulders that morphed into hard biceps. Big hands capable of destroying a woman, as she’d found to her intense pleasure.
With another drop dead gorgeous grin, he walked out of the bedroom, while Lissa continued to clutch his shirt. With a deep breath, she shrugged into it.
It smelled of him, as she imagined she did right then. Why did that make her smile?
She buttoned the shirt, deliberately leaving the top three undone to give him a healthy glimpse of cleavage. No reason she should be the only one unsettled.
In the living room, Reed stood pouring brandy into two fat crystal glasses. “I’m driving,” Lissa told him as he offered her one. “So are you, assuming you’re giving me a lift back to the parking lot.”
“I’m hoping you’ll stay. I’ve got plans.”
With her hands at her side, Lissa dropped her gaze to the glass then lifted it back to him. Her mind took a quick flight of fancy imagining what those plans might include, but she made herself focus. “I haven’t heard your proposition yet.” She held his gaze. “I might run a mile.”
“I doubt you’d run from anything.” He reached down for her hand and pushed the glass into it. From the gleam in his eyes, it was obvious they were thinking along the same lines. “But while we’re on the subject, are you into bondage?”
Lissa’s fingers tightened around the glass. “Is that your proposition?”
His lips twitched. “It’s in there somewhere.” He kept his eyes on hers as he raised his glass to his mouth. “Are you going to run?”
She pursed her lips, as her hormones pumped wildly. “No.”
Eyes gleaming, he sipped his brandy. Lissa took a fortifying swig of hers.
There was an uneasy silence, but then Reed took in a breath. “I have this problem, and I’m thinking since you also have a problem we could join forces and solve them both.”
So far so good, Lissa thought, even as panic fluttered in her stomach. She watched him walk to the window and look out toward the sea beyond. Tension had moved into his shoulders and he’d slipped his free hand into the pocket of his jeans. Okay. She was starting to get a funny feeling about this, starting to wonder what the proposition involved that would make him so edgy.
She didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“What would you say if I agreed to pay off your debts and help you start up again on your own?”
I’d say I’d died and gone to heaven.
The thought of having her debts cleared made her heart leap, but Lissa remained circumspect. “Now why on earth would you do that?”
He took another swig from his glass before turning to face her. “My part of the bargain.”
Since she knew she’d need it, she imbibed a healthy nip of her own brandy. “You’re starting to scare me.”
“Nothing to be scared about, princess.” He put down his glass and slipped both hands into his pockets. “I just want you to marry me.”
Chapter Six
Lissa gaped at Reed. If he hadn’t said it so clearly, she might have questioned if she’d heard him right. “Are you completely out of your mind?”
“Quite possibly. But I don’t exactly have a whole lot of options to choose from right now.”
Since he looked deadly serious, and much like a man about to feel the rope of a hangman’s noose, Lissa stepped to the side and placed her glass down before she dropped the undoubtedly expensive crystal. “Are you actually expecti
ng me to believe this is anything but some kind of ludicrous joke?”
He scoffed. “Don’t think I haven’t thought the same, but like I said, my options are limited.”
She folded her arms across her chest, but said nothing. She felt ridiculously hurt and not a little furious. How dare he make something as serious as marriage sound like a vaudeville joke? And how dare he make her part of his preposterous suggestion?
“I was young, stupid, and drunk,” he said as he picked up his glass and walked across to the drinks cabinet where he topped up his brandy. “I made this pact, I suppose you’d call it, with a woman who was equally young, stupid, and drunk. Turns out she was far from stupid.”
She dreaded to ask, but when he fell silent she felt like she didn’t have any option herself but to ask. “What was the pact?”
He scoffed. “The old favorite. If neither of us was married by the time we were thirty, we’d hook up. She blew out thirty candles on her cake two weeks ago.”
“And now she’s turning the screws?”
“You could say that.”
Lissa didn’t want to delve too deeply into the feelings flowing through her. She didn’t care much for the thought that Reed simply saw her as a means to an end, nor did she like the little buzz inside her head that prompted her to hear him out.
“Surely she can’t hold you to a drunken promise?” Lissa tugged at the hem of Reed’s shirt as it skimmed across her thighs. “Anyway, it’s her word against yours.”
“Like I said, she wasn’t stupid. Apparently, she got me to sign on the dotted line, or at least some scrap of paper that my legal man says is likely to hold up if she wants to push it.”
“You must have been really drunk.”
He shrugged. “Can’t remember a damn thing, except that we got it on in some back alley and then headed to her place. After that, it’s all a blank.”
Considering her track record, she could hardly think badly of him for his reckless behavior. And she hadn’t had the excuse of youth to fall back on.
“Can’t you pay her off or something?”
“Tried that. She wants a ring on her finger rather than a check in the bank.” He rocked back on his heels. “I won’t hold you to anything other than a temporary arrangement. If you agree, we can do the legal thing, stay together long enough to make it look genuine, have some irreconcilable differences, then sever the knot.”
Her stomach sank to her knees at his offhanded tone. “How romantic.”
“You’ll have your debts cleared. I’ll set you up in your own business, plus throw in a healthy bonus.”
“For services rendered?”
He narrowed his eyes at the snap in her tone, obviously taking her inference. “I can’t deny the sex isn’t an attractive added extra, but I don’t intend chaining you to the bed. At least not without your consent.” When she remained silent, he shrugged again. “You’ll get what you want out of this. We both will.”
“There’s a name for women who sell their bodies for money.”
“We’ve already had sex, and no money changed hands.”
“What you’re proposing would change things.” Lissa drew the edges of his shirt together, painfully aware of her nakedness beneath. She wanted to run, to grab her clothes and hightail out of his claustrophobic presence and the insane scheme he’d cooked up. Still, something kept her rooted to the spot. “Am I supposed to move in with you?”
“Yes.” When she didn’t move, Reed stepped forward. “Look at this as a business arrangement with personal benefits.”
Annoyed with herself, both that she hadn’t yet run and worse that she was actually weighing his proposition in her mind, Lissa scoffed. “Marriage with benefits. There’s a novel idea.”
“We already know the sex is good.”
Well, yes. She couldn’t argue with that. “Don’t you think this woman will get that you’re playing her? If she wants that ring on her finger, something tells me it’ll take a lot more than a fake marriage to stop her.”
“She’ll have no option but to back off. The paper I signed said the deal was only if neither of us was married. I will be. To you.”
Lissa shook her head in the hope that the movement would clear the fuzz that had taken up residence in her brain. It didn’t help, but one thought ran clear of the jumble of others. And if it were true, she wouldn’t touch Reed’s proposition with a ten foot pole. “Is she in love with you?”
He gave a humorless laugh and put down his glass. “She’s in love with what being married to me can do for her.”
“And what’s that?”
“Keep her in the manner to which she’d like to be accustomed. Hell. She insinuated that when I tried to reason with her. She’s interested in being married to a wealthy man who can take her to the places she wants to go, buy her stuff she wants to own, and all around make her life easy.”
Lissa tried to take it all in. She tried to understand how a woman could want all that without having her own life, her own dreams, her own goals. Where was the satisfaction in allowing someone else to provide it all for you? Where was the motivation? The sense of achievement?
She didn’t want to admit there was a part of her that currently yearned for all those things he’d listed. A small part that wanted to agree to his proposition. To say, yes, take all my troubles away from me, why don’t you? Make everything all right.
If she gave in to Reed’s suggestion, she would be no better than the woman he was trying to evade. He would be taking her where she wanted to go by helping her set up her own business. Buying her off by giving her the means with which she could keep the house. He’d all around be making her life easy.
When she looked up, she found Reed watching her closely. “Well?”
With a sigh, Lissa shook her head. “I can’t possibly agree to what you’re asking.”
“Want to tell me your reasons?”
“Because I’d be marrying you for all the things she wants. Money. An easy life.”
“The difference being this is a business arrangement.”
“An unequal one. It seems I’d be getting more from it than you.”
“We both get what we want. We give each other the opportunity to keep what’s most important to us so we can get on with our lives. It’s that simple.”
Was it that simple?
As she hesitated, trying to come up with more reasons to reject his offer, he stepped up close to her. “What have you got to lose?”
Only what’s left of my self esteem.
Lissa thought of how stupid she had been to put her trust in Debbie the way she had, and how she had failed to keep a tight check on the financial side of their business. What sort of fool does that? When she’d found out about Debbie’s treachery, it had knocked her self esteem to the floor.
Then there was Ethan and Marco. Enjoying that threesome had colored her view of herself still further. The experience had been amazing, and she couldn’t fault the courteous way the two men had treated her, but instead of boosting her confidence she had been shocked by her wanton behavior. It was fabulous, and she didn’t regret it, but…
A shudder worked through her. If she agreed to Reed’s request, wouldn’t Ethan find out? The chances were pretty strong that word would get back to his family. What if Ethan mentioned to Reed that he’d once enjoyed a ménage with his cousin’s new wife? She could only imagine how that would go down.
While she didn’t know Reed that well, she knew enough about him to realize he was possessive, arrogant, and controlling. How would he react if he found out about her sexual proclivities with Ethan and Marco? Didn’t she already have enough complications in her life without adding to them?
She stepped away and thrust the glass she still held toward him. “I can’t.”
When he took the glass, she started to walk past him, intending to make for the bedroom, dress, and get the hell out of there before she started bemoaning the loss of perhaps the biggest opportunity she would have to put her life
back in order. One that had been presented to her on a silver platter.
She heard the clink of glass on wood, and seconds later Reed caught her arm. “Stay.”
Not wanting to look at him, she kept her gaze on the door. “There’s no point. I won’t change my mind.”
Slowly, he drew her around to face him. “Stay anyway.”
At the first touch of his mouth to hers, Lissa knew she wasn’t going anywhere soon. He tasted of the brandy they’d shared, his mouth hot and welcoming. She slipped her hands up the warm, muscular wall of his chest, letting her fingers glide over the thin covering of silky black hair. His hands traveled around her and he cupped her naked ass. With a firm grip, he raised her hips, and she felt his erection press against her.
When he hoisted her up, she wound her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She felt the cold slide of steel as his unfastened zipper pressed against her naked pussy, then as he shifted her, the toned muscles of his abdomen.
As the kiss grew fevered she thought he’d head for the bedroom, but he took a few steps in the opposite direction and lowered them down onto the couch. At the cool touch of leather she drew in a breath, but her gasp was immediately swallowed as his mouth took hers in an almost brutal assault.
He made short work of the shirt buttons and tugged it off her with adept speed. Shifting her so that she lay along the couch, he came down over her.
It felt amazingly decadent to be spread out for him while he still remained partially dressed in his jeans, but as his hands began a slow, determined kneading of her breasts, she gave in to pure sensation and let her thoughts dissolve under the onslaught of pleasure.
When he took one engorged nipple into his mouth, Lissa gave out a low moan and closed her eyes. His tongue flicked her sensitive bud before his teeth bit lightly. She moaned again, stretching like a well pleasured cat.
Threading her fingers through his hair, she gently held his head in place to make certain he didn’t get any idea to stop anytime soon. She continued to let herself get lost in sensation as he subjected her other breast to the same delicious torture.