by Kylie Brant
Slow heat suffused her at the memory. No. He wasn’t a man who would be threatened by a woman in the driver’s seat, neither literally nor figuratively. He was too sure of himself, too secure in his own masculinity. She sneaked a glance at him. His head was cocked, as if he were silently cataloging the assortment of creaks and rattles her car was making.
Her palms grew slippery on the steering wheel, and her breathing quickened. The closer they got to her condo, the greater her anticipation. Fragments of their time together last night flicked across her mind, and the images were hotly provocative. She remembered his face when the bra had slipped off her arms, his eyes glittering and intent. She could feel again the weight of his body crushing hers and the roughness of his hairy legs between her smooth ones. She remembered the slickness of his body against hers in the shower as the water had sluiced over them. The way he’d taken her hand in his and carried it down his body, and his harshly indrawn breath when her fingers had closed around him.
She chanced another glance at him. His eyes were narrowed, his nostrils flared, and she knew intuitively that he was remembering, too. His attention was focused on her with that single-minded concentration he was capable of, even when he’d been making love to her. She knew he was acutely aware of the path her thoughts had taken, and she was too aroused to be shy about the realization. She wanted him again; she wanted his weight and heat inside her, his hips pounding into hers and his arms around her afterward. Seeing her need reflected on his face sent her heart leaping, her mouth trembling.
Tearing her gaze away from him, she forced herself to watch the road. He didn’t say anything. Neither did she. But the awareness grew with each instant, until the sexual tension in the car was suffocating.
Relief rushed up in her when she pulled the car into the space in front of her condo. He followed her up to the door, and when her shaking hands were unable to make the key work in the lock, he silently took it from her and opened the door. She hadn’t taken two steps inside before she was turning to him, and he was crowding her against the wall, one foot sending the door swinging closed.
Their mouths ate each other, their tongues doing battle. He shoved a hand in her hair and held her mouth under his. Impatiently, she pulled the T-shirt loose from his jeans, sliding her hands up his torso with a low purr of pleasure. His hand moved to her breast, fingers closing on her nipple, and she arched her back, pressing closer. He parted her legs with one of his and moved close between them, rubbing his hips against her. He was rock hard, and the feel of his arousal made everything inside her go soft and weak.
Her mouth was freed when his lips nipped a line up the column of her throat. Breathlessly she murmured, “I thought about you today. About us.”
She could hear the satisfaction in his voice, could feel it. “About us?”
“Yes.” The word was a moan as he chose that time to bathe the hollow of her throat with his tongue. She moistened her lips, trying to regain her scattered thoughts. “I decided it would be ridiculous to deny what’s between us.”
He smiled against the skin below her ear, then took the lobe in his teeth. “Good girl.”
She shuddered beneath his marauding lips, and her fingers skimmed over the layers of muscle on his chest to clutch at his heavy shoulders. The floor tipped crazily, and she leaned into him to steady herself. His mouth found hers again and she took time to savor, aware of just how easy it would be to drown in his kiss. Recklessly, she let herself do just that.
Every pulse in her body throbbed like a wound. She could feel his heart rocketing beneath her palm. When he released her lips, her head fell back dreamily, and she dragged his shirt up out of her way. She’d always thought decisions through carefully, but she couldn’t recall ever having been quite so pleased with one she’d made. Tangling her fingers in the mat of hair that bisected his torso, she pressed a kiss above his nipple, sending a jolt through him.
She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “It’s hard to keep my head around you.” Her reaction to him was completely unprecedented. She wanted to touch. The taste she’d had of him had only whetted an appetite that should have terrified her. But right now she found it exhilarating. She turned her head, letting her teeth scrape his nipple, and one of his hands splayed across her hips, drawing her closer to the cradle of his.
“I think I like it when you lose your head.” He released the catch on her bra, and she filled his palm, heat against heat. The sensations were excruciatingly exquisite, and need threatened to swallow her.
“I have it all worked out.” She was panting now, her head resting against the wall weakly. Both of his hands were full, and his fingers, those clever fingers, were busy. She paused a moment to absorb the sensation of being trapped between the unyielding surface of the wall at her back and the large, hard body before her. Some traps were made to be enjoyed.
“We can have this,” she murmured, going up on tiptoe to drag her lips over his chin. Catching his bottom lip in her teeth, she worried it gently for a moment before setting it free. “It can be enough. We can make it be enough.”
The stillness came over him gradually, as if her words took time to register. “What are you saying?”
“No demands,” she assured him, certain he would be relieved. “No strings.” She let her hands glide over the smooth skin on his sides to the sleek expanse of his back. Her fingers danced up his spine, then stroked down each individual vertebra. “Just…this.” The tips of her fingers caught in his waistband, and she exerted enough pressure to urge him closer to her. Leaning forward, she ran her tongue across his collarbone, drinking in his taste.
His fingers cupped her shoulders, and he forced a slight distance between them. “You’re not the kind of woman to suggest—just what the hell are you suggesting, anyway?”
The dizzying heat that had spiraled up so rapidly was dissipating. Not vanishing, she reflected. That would be impossible this close to him. But ebbing enough for her to think a little clearer. Enough for her to read the carefully blank expression on his face and to wonder at it. The touch on her shoulders turned caressing, as if his fingers had a mind of their own. She was quite sure that without the hum of excitement still so vibrant in her blood, she’d never have had the courage to meet his gaze and answer. “I’m suggesting what we both want. An affair.” She gave a little shrug. “Or whatever it’s called these days.” The intriguing muscles beneath her palms went tense, and she massaged them soothingly. “A mutually satisfying physical relationship.” She was proud of the way the term rolled off her tongue. She didn’t have the experience to know exactly how it was supposed to be referred to, but she was certain that he’d recognize it. Accept it.
“And what if I want demands?” he asked. Something in his voice had her observing him cautiously. His face wasn’t blank now. It was set and hard. His eyes held a narrow pinpoint of light, that gleamed dangerously.
“You’re the last person I expected to complicate this, Michael.”
He took a deep breath and released her, thrusting a hand through his hair and turning half away. A part of her mourned the loss, even as another part was grateful to be released from his piercing regard.
“And you’re the last person I expected to simplify it,” he muttered. When he faced her again, he wore a baffled expression. “You don’t want it like this, Kate.”
One of her brows arched. “Are you telling me what I want?”
He had the sense to deny it. “Of course not. But it’s not what I want. There was a time when I wasn’t exactly discriminating when it came to women.”
The admission, although it didn’t come as a surprise, still made her want to punch him. “Do tell.”
“I’m not proud of it, but the experience taught me a valuable lesson. A relationship like that leaves something missing. Mutual affection, trust, respect.”
“Why do those things have to be missing?”
He blinked, as if her ingenuous question took him aback.
“Because…” His
voice stumbled for a moment. “Invariably one person wants more than the other, so one starts feeling guilty and backing away. The other one is hurt, angry and disillusioned.”
Her lips curved, and she closed the distance he’d put between them. “You don’t have to worry, Michael. I’m not going to get needy and start clinging.”
His voice was bleak. “You aren’t?”
She shook her head, smoothing her hands up the front of his shirt. “I’ll admit that I don’t have your…level of experience. But a no-strings relationship is exactly what I want, too.”
His hands came up and caught hers. “There’s no such thing as a no-strings relationship, Kate.”
“Who says?”
He brought his face close to hers, close enough for her to see the muscle twitching in his jaw. “I say. Do you know why I stopped seeing a different woman every week?”
Her lips went flat. She wished he’d quit referring to them. The thought of those faceless, nameless women didn’t exactly fill her with confidence. “Sheer physical exhaustion?”
His fingers tightened on hers. “I wasn’t getting what I’d been searching for. Intimacy. That’s what was missing from those relationships, Kate, and that’s what I want from you. That’s my demand, and it’s a deal breaker.”
She shook her hair back, her mind blank. This scene was not going the way she’d envisioned it. She hadn’t considered that, far from being relieved at her words, he’d be offended. He picked that moment to free her hands and press a warm kiss at the center of one of her palms, then closed the fingers on it gently, trapping the heat.
Her throat went dry, and her muscles turned to warm wax. “This isn’t one of your business deals.”
“Damn right. It’s personal. Very personal,” he added as he slowly urged her backward. It wasn’t until she felt the wall at her shoulders that she was aware of moving. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of her face, effectively caging her. “And I’m clarifying the conditions.”
“Fine,” she managed to say as his lips cruised along her jawline. “But I have conditions of my own.”
She flinched at the not-quite-gentle nip behind her ear, then shivered when his tongue soothed the spot.
“So you’ve said.”
“We can’t complicate this.”
“Too late.”
“It can’t be.” The licks of panic dancing in her stomach sounded in her voice, and his touch changed, growing impossibly gentle.
“There’s nothing simple about this,” he murmured, once again dropping a necklace of kisses across her throat. Because she was desperate to, she let herself believe that he was referring to their desire. “Or this.” His lips captured hers in a slow, devastating kiss that lingered until every muscle in her body went weak. He deepened the kiss by degrees, each instant just a whisper warmer. By the time he lifted his mouth, she would have slid down the wall without his support.
“Michael.” Her voice was thready, and she tangled her fingers in his hair. Only moments ago the passion had been a cauldron of churning emotion, threatening to overflow. It had changed to an aching tenderness so exquisite that she could weep.
His lips brushed over hers, once, twice and again. “Negotiations are over. This deal is closed.”
“I don’t see how both of us are going to get—” She fisted her hands on his shirt to hold his mouth steady on hers, but after the soul-satisfying kiss, she broke away “—what we want.”
It was gratifying to note that his breathing wasn’t quite steady. “Who’s the expert deal maker here?”
Her neck arched beneath his mouth, thought fading in the face of the slow, lovely drift into sweetness. “You are.”
“Then you’ll just have to trust me.”
She was dimly aware that the issue remained unresolved. His lips sipped the hollow at the base of her throat and attempts at logic shattered. Her fingers tightened in his hair, urging his mouth back to hers. The heated pressure of his lips had thoughts fading, priorities shifting. Her last conscious thought was that he was right about one thing. There was certainly nothing simple about this.
Chapter 12
Two days. Michael could feel the headache throb at his temples as if to mark the passing of each slow second. It had been two days since he’d left Kate sleeping, still tangled in the pool of bedcovers. Sleep hadn’t been as accommodating for him that night. He’d lain next to her, cradling her close, but his mind had refused to succumb to slumber. The passion had been sated for the moment, freeing him to deal with the more troubling emotions that had persisted in colliding beneath the surface. He wasn’t an expert at self-analysis, but there had been one feeling that had been pretty easy to identify. Sheer, unadulterated panic.
He sent his gaze across the table and nodded soberly as Jake Winslow talked leverage buyouts and stock options with Hummels and his attorney, but his mind was occupied with far more serious matters. He could still feel the cold fist of fear that had gripped his insides when she’d made her little speech, laid out her terms. Keep it simple. Her phrase had slapped him neatly across the face, making a mockery of his carefully laid plans. He could never before remember being so far off base when estimating a woman.
He’d had entire business deals go sour and never come close to the helpless terror that her words had inspired. He’d made love to her over and over that night, as if his touch could wipe away her words. Even as he’d held her close, he’d been unable to shake the feeling that she was slipping away from him. With each passing moment it seemed the distance between them grew, until he’d freed himself from the intimate hold and left the bed at dawn, sweating and shaking.
Derek was talking now. Michael tuned in to the conversation long enough to ascertain that his vice president was pointing out Hummels’s lack of options. Derek loved this part of the job, loved going in for the kill. Michael wished vaguely that he could whip up even a portion of the other man’s enthusiasm. It wasn’t like him to display such a lack of interest in a deal he’d worked so hard putting together. But, he thought gloomily, he’d never before had anything this important vying for his attention.
It was bitterly ironic that his conversation with Kate had reduced their relationship to a deal, complete with conditions to be met. She’d had only one term, really. Keep it simple. He rubbed an absent hand over his throbbing temple and contemplated the phrase again with baffled amazement. He, of all people, should be comfortable negotiating terms. He’d planned her seduction and wooing with all the corporate stealth of which he’d been capable. But to hear her refer to it that way had washed his vision with waves of red.
There was more between them than sex, and she was deliberately blinding herself to it. Voices around him rose as Hummels argued a point vehemently with Derek. Michael didn’t even make an attempt to focus on the words. He’d come up smack against a truth and was still reeling from the impact.
There was more here than sex. He’d never denied that himself. But identifying just exactly what that “more” encompassed was a bit like opening a door without knowing what stood on the other side. He thought hard, then gave that mental door a cautious push. He liked Kate, had from the first. All right, her looks had caught his eye at the start, and then he’d reacted strongly to her concerns about Chloe, but he respected her, too. She was smart and funny, and she loved kids. That wall of reserve came down when she was around Chloe, and something about watching the two of them together made his throat go tight.
Deciding the process hadn’t been too painful, he gave that mental door another shove. He knew her well enough to know that they wanted the same things…warmth, intimacy, family. They could find it together, if she’d just let him get close enough. He worried about her. That car she drove was a death trap, although he’d known better than to give her his opinion. The thought of her on the freeways in it, with its list of ailments, made his blood go cold. And she didn’t have enough security at her condo to suit him. He frowned fiercely. Dammit, he cared about her. He wasn
’t a cold-blooded idiot. He wouldn’t have decided to marry her if he was. Maybe it was even more than caring. Maybe it was…
The thought remained unfinished, and he backed away from it with a speed that, had it been physical, would have sent him stumbling. Cautiously, he skirted the idea, mentally examining it from the edges. Caring. That was a safe emotion he could admit to comfortably, and he felt that for Kate, in abundance. She cared about him, too, no matter what she’d said the last time they’d been together. She was simply too fastidious to have slept with him otherwise.
Feeling a little cheered, he scrutinized the realization, vaguely aware that the voices around him had calmed once again. So she cared about him, she had to, but she wasn’t at ease with the feeling. Maybe she hadn’t even yet admitted it to herself. She had a neat, tidy little mind and liked to keep things orderly. Admitting him into her life, into her trust, would upset that order, and she would naturally fight that.
The only way to get her to admit her true feelings for him was to make her trust him, which she didn’t yet. She wouldn’t let herself. He pondered the problem. Before Kate would trust him, he’d have to convince her of how much he cared. But how to do that? He’d been relying on his background in the corporate world to plan the relationship thus far, and trust simply wasn’t a quality he’d ever needed to generate in the businesses he was taking over.
Suddenly he snapped his fingers, delighted with the idea that came to him. The men at the table stopped talking and looked at him expectantly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, rising. “Let’s take a break. I’ve got some arrangements to make.”
The sunglasses shielded her eyes from the worst of the sun’s glare, but it was the perfection of the day that threatened to blind her. Temperatures hovered in the low eighties, the sky was cloudless, and the warm blue water of the pool sparkled against white tiles. Kate sighed contentedly.