by J. R. Ward
“Fine, then just get out one plate. You talk. I’ll eat.” When she hesitated, he looked across the room. His eyes held a frank challenge.
Girding herself, Carter marched over to the cabinet and took out two plates.
There was no damned way she was going to look weak in front of him. Even if it took every lick of strength she had, she was going to get through the meal, make the report, and then get the hell back to camp. Pride would carry her through, if nothing else.
Besides, she thought, the night was young. She’d still have plenty of time to lose it in her tent later.
“In here or the dining room?” she demanded. When he nodded toward the oak table, she took the plates over.
“Silverware?” she asked stiffly.
He glanced to his left. “Napkins are in the drawer under it.”
Before she knew it, she’d set the table, he’d brought the turkey platter over, and they were sitting down across from each other in his kitchen having dinner.
While wondering how in the hell it had come to pass, Carter started eating. The food was good. The silence was awful. All she could hear in the kitchen was the sound of silverware hitting plates. Halfway through the meal she realized she couldn’t take it any longer. She put her fork and knife down, knotted up the napkin, and was about to leave when his voice stopped her.
“The last woman I said the words to was my mother.” Nick put a piece of turkey into his mouth.
“What are you talking about?” Her eyes narrowed.
In the ensuing quiet, Nick just kept eating. He had perfect table manners. Cutting the meat carefully, laying the knife down, shifting the fork to his other hand, lifting a piece to his mouth.
“The words I love you. Last time was to my mother. And I didn’t mean them.” His voice was characteristically direct. “I remember distinctly because I told myself I wouldn’t say them again until I did mean them.”
Carter held herself very still. “What does this have to do with me?”
“I’m…glad we made love.” Heat flickered in his face and then impatience. “Glad. What a stupid goddamn word. Ruined, is more like it. All I’ve been thinking about since yesterday is how lucky I was to have been with you. And what an idiot I was to blow it all like I did.”
A flush bloomed in Carter’s body and she twisted the napkin in her hands. “I don’t want to talk about what happened.”
“Yesterday meant so much to me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You are the first woman…to really have affected me.” Nick wiped his mouth and leaned back in his chair. “I regret the fact that I couldn’t put into words how much yesterday meant. And how damn scary it was for me.”
She searched his face. He was regarding her with such frankness and honesty, she couldn’t find a toehold to mistrust him. As hard as she looked for one.
This was how she’d gotten hurt, she reminded herself. By believing in him.
“I don’t have to listen to this.” She rose from the table and he stood up with her.
“Carter, I don’t have a clue where this is going between us.”
“Well, then let me spell it out for you. Try nowhere.”
“I will not accept that.”
“You don’t have a choice!”
He brushed a hand through his hair. “This whole thing scares the hell out of me. I like to be in control and, when I’m with you, I’m not. I panicked and I said some really stupid, god-awful things.”
When she didn’t reply, he said roughly, “I’m a clueless son of a bitch when it comes to real relationships, but I’m willing to try harder. With you. You’ve got to believe me. No one has ever made me feel like you do.”
Carter shook her head. “I’m not listening to this.”
He reached out and took her hand. “I just want another chance.”
Her body flushed as the memories of them making love came back. She found herself wanting to believe him. Heaven help her, she did.
“Nick, you hurt me.”
“I know. And I’m so goddamn sorry.”
Looking into his eyes, she saw torment and tenderness. “You’re not an easy man to trust.”
He opened up her hand and stroked the pad of his thumb across the inside of her palm. The sensation was hypnotic. Slowly, he raised her hand up and brushed his lips against her skin.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” The word hung between them.
When he drew her closer, Carter went reluctantly into his embrace.
“I want you,” he groaned against her hair. “And I don’t want to hurt you.”
She pulled back and studied him closely. He looked truly contrite and seemed to understand, and regret, the pain he had caused. There was a vulnerability in him, too, as if he were unsure whether he would be forgiven.
She wanted him. And she wanted to forgive him even though she would remember the hurt. She made up her mind.
“If I give you my body, that doesn’t mean I’m giving you my heart.”
With those words, meant as much for him as for herself, she lifted her lips for his kiss. When their mouths met, she melted into his solid body.
“I hate this,” she moaned as his hands cupped her breasts. “I hate you.”
“I’ll take it,” he said hoarsely. “Whatever you’ll give me, I’ll take.”
They stayed only a moment longer in the kitchen. Next thing she knew, they were fumbling toward the stairs and doing an awkward pas de deux to the second floor. As they made their way down the hall, pieces of clothing marked their path as shirts were stripped and then pants.
“What about Cort?” she mumbled breathlessly.
“Out at a friend’s house. God, I need you so much,” Nick growled against her mouth. His hands were under her bra, cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing over the aching tenderness of her nipples, making her cry out.
They burst into what she assumed was Nick’s bedroom. She had a fuzzy impression of deep red, royal gold, and dark green, but vision left her entirely as his mouth took her breast and he lifted her onto the bed. She felt the mattress come underneath her and then his weight on top of her. Carter raked her nails into his back as she felt his body press against her.
As he came up to kiss her again, she caught an image of the desperation in him. Whatever else was going on inside of him, he wanted her. That much she knew for sure.
Lips fused together, she removed what was left of his clothing by pushing his boxer shorts off his legs, and he did the same for her by flinging her panties to the floor. Hungrily, she kissed him and opened her legs so that he could come between them. When she felt his hardness brush against her, she cried out.
“I want to go slower,” he groaned. “But I can’t.”
He drove inside of her and she held on tight as he thrust again. Wrapping her long legs around his hips, she urged him on with her own pumping. It was a dizzying, frenetic ride, born out of pent-up anger and frustration, and she called out his name as she was hurled toward the sky.
Afterward, he fell against her. His magnificent body utterly spent, she felt him relax as a peaceful euphoria passed through her as well.
When he lifted his head, his voice was grave. “I didn’t sleep last night.”
“No?”
“I shut my eyes but all I could see was you. I missed you. I couldn’t stomach the idea that I’d never be with you again. That I had lost you.” He kissed her, a long slow caress of lip on lip, tongue on tongue. Inside of her, she could feel him growing big again.
Rolling over and moving her on top of him, he stroked her with his eyes and his hands. With abandonment, she sat up, and he moaned as he cupped the weight of her breasts. This time, they made love more slowly, savoring the feel of the touching and teasing until passion won out over patience and they came together in an inferno of sensation.
As they lay together afterward, Carter felt an unexpected sadness. In spite of how close they h
ad been physically, she still didn’t trust him completely. The distance hurt but she wasn’t going to talk about it. Words were not going to bring them closer.
Maybe time. Perhaps in time there could be trust.
“When does Cort get home?” she wondered aloud, looking toward the open door and the clothes strewn out into the hall.
“Eleven.” Nick glanced over at the brass clock. “We’ve got ten minutes!”
Scurrying from the bed, they went after their clothes frantically, bending down, picking things up, switching boxers for panties, khakis for trousers, racing out into the hall after shirts. In a mad dash to the finish line, they came to a screeching halt before the front door just as the grandfather clock in the living room began to make its announcement of the hour.
“Your shirt,” Nick said, as he was tucking his in.
Carter saw that her buttons were in the wrong holes and scrambled to reorder them.
When the clock fell silent, their panting breaths sounded loud in the quiet house.
“After all that, he’s really going to get it for being late,” Nick said dryly.
With their clothes back on, Carter felt surprisingly more vulnerable. She cleared her throat. “I guess I’m going to leave now.”
His eyes locked onto hers. “You don’t have to go.”
She didn’t answer the subtle inquiry in his eyes. She just turned and walked away.
“I left my backpack in your study,” she said over her shoulder.
Carter went into the dim room and picked up her pack. Before she left, she wandered over to his desk, amazed at what had happened since she’d sat in his chair and talked to Grace. Her eyes passed over the papers and caught the word CommTrans again.
“You’re looking at my desk as if it holds an answer for you.”
She looked up, not hiding the uncertainty in her eyes. Nick was leaning against the door jamb, the light from overhead cascading down on him. It illuminated his high cheekbones, his strongly molded lips, and the rigid length of his jaw.
“Tell me, Carter, what answer are you looking for?” His voice was husky and she was reminded of what it sounded like in her ear as he drove into her body.
“The one that tells me who you really are.” She shrugged on her backpack and started to walk out.
She passed by him only to be pulled into his arms. The kiss he gave her had an urgency that was not just about passion.
“You are different to me,” he vowed.
Carter reached up to his handsome face and ran her fingers down his cheek. “Right now I might be. We’ll see about later, won’t we?”
And then she left the house.
Under the clear night sky, she walked across the lawn and through the meadow. It was chilly and she paused to get her fleece out of the pack before she went into the woods. As she was pulling it over her head, she heard a chorus of cracking twigs.
Cort came charging out of the brush at a dead run and careened into her.
“Carter!”
“Easy there, rough rider.” She grinned as she helped steady him.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Just met with your uncle.” She was grateful for the night’s cover as blood rushed to her face. “What about you? I thought you went into town with friends.”
“I did—for a little while. It wasn’t much fun so I, er, went up to see…”
So she wasn’t the only one blushing in the dark, Carter thought.
“Anyway, I think I’m a little late for curfew.”
With a sheepish wave, the kid took off in the direction of his home.
“Yes, you certainly are late,” she said softly.
Shaking her head, she took out her flashlight, shined a shallow beam in front of herself, and penetrated the forest.
As she followed the trail, she replayed the evening over and over again in her mind. The way Nick had spoken to her, the way he’d touched and kissed her. Her heart pounded as she hiked up to camp, and not just from exertion.
She was not going to fall in love with Nick Farrell, Carter promised herself.
Nick was sitting at the desk when he heard Cort come through the door. The kid called out but didn’t stop and talk on his way upstairs. He was ten minutes late but Nick wasn’t going to get on his case about it.
Feeling restless, Nick left his desk and walked out of the French doors onto the porch. Taking a seat in a wicker chair, he was watching the moonlight on the lake when he heard a voice drift down through the night air.
“Uncle Nick?”
Wicker creaked as he looked up at the porch ceiling.
“Cort?”
“Can I ask you something?” The kid’s voice was tentative.
“Of course.”
It was a long time before Cort spoke again. “What do you do if you like someone?”
Nick was stunned. It was the first time Cort had ever asked him for advice.
But why the hell couldn’t it have been about treasury bills? He’d gone to school to answer questions like that.
Trying to buy himself some time, Nick asked, “Do you like someone?”
“Maybe.”
“What makes you think you do?”
“Whenever she’s around, my head doesn’t work right, my legs feel like I’ve run a sprint, and my stomach feels queasy. Like I ate too many tacos.”
That about covers it, Nick thought.
“Do you think this person likes you back?”
“Maybe.” There was a pause. “It’s not Carter, you know. She’s too old for me.”
The edge was almost gone out of the kid’s tone, and Nick was relieved they seemed to have weathered that crisis.
“So, what do you do?” Cort prompted.
Nick sighed. “Be yourself. Spend time with her. Listen to her. Make sure she knows how special she is.”
Drive yourself nuts fantasizing about her, he added to himself. Brace yourself for a bout with insomnia. Get ready to put your foot in your mouth and have to beg for forgiveness.
“That wasn’t how you were with Candace,” Cort challenged him.
Nick winced. “I know. I didn’t really like her.”
“I don’t think anyone did.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be with someone you don’t really like.”
“I know that. I didn’t think you did, though.”
Nick laughed softly at the boy’s candor.
Funny, he thought, that it had taken him so long to learn the lesson.
Silence stretched out between them, the sound of waves against the shore marking the passing moments.
“I think you’re right,” the kid said with resolve. “I’m just going to be with her. Thanks.”
“Cort?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you asked me.” Nick took care to make sure the words were spoken clearly and that Cort heard them.
There was a long pause.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
Above, the door into Cort’s bedroom was closed softly.
Nick, for once, didn’t feel shut out.
Staying on the porch, he got lost in memories of Carter until he became so agitated he had to go back to the study. When he sat down in his chair, he picked some papers off the desk and tried to distract himself.
The deal for CommTrans was progressing nicely, he thought, as he reviewed the memorandum of understanding that had been faxed to him earlier in the day. If all went well, by the end of the month the transaction would be complete. Wessex would buy the company, then immediately sell most of it to Nick.
And at the end of all the paperwork, Nick’s prey would have a new boss.
He smiled grimly. Payback was a bitch.
The year before, Nick had been forced to sell off some holdings because of antitrust concerns. Bob Packert, CEO of CommTrans, had bought the manufacturing companies and proven to be incapable of running them. He was so bad at it that the value of the rest of the man’s holdings had been dragged down into the sewer. Share
prices had plummeted and his stockholders had gone ballistic.
Instead of fixing the problems he’d created, however, Packert had gone to the press and alleged that Nick had falsified financial documents during the sale, making the company appear more healthy than it was. The man had declared loud and wide that fraud was the cause of the failure, not his own incompetence.
It was all lies and Nick wasn’t one to let that kind of attack go without retribution. This was where William Wessex came in. Wessex was only too happy to buy up all of Packert’s stock in a hostile takeover and pass the bulk of the holdings on to Nick for a fair price. To keep it all legal, he’d retain the manufacturing plants that Nick couldn’t own because of the antitrust laws—a little reward for doing the favor.
Courtesy of the maneuvering, Nick was going to own Packert’s ass, and his first move as the new chairman of the board of CommTrans was going to be discharging Packert from his own company for cause. The next step was going to be having him blackballed among Nick’s friends on the Fortune 500 list so Packert wouldn’t be able to get another high-paying, high-profile job. Then Nick was thinking about getting the man kicked out of the private clubs and golf courses he belonged to and ensuring that his wife found out about his various mistresses.
Wessex was critical to the revenge because, legally, Nick couldn’t resume ownership of the manufacturing businesses and therefore couldn’t be the front man in the CommTrans acquisition. The situation put the two raiders in a difficult position, however. Nick had to trust that Wessex would divest as soon as the ink was dry. Wessex had to have faith that Nick would pay him the agreed amount for CommTrans.
Even though they had interests that were aligned, the deal was only as safe as any situation involving two hungry lions and one piece of meat.
This was why Nick had wanted to give the man a chance to meet with his daughter. Wessex’s gratitude would have made Nick feel more secure about his position, and would have added a personal obligation to ensure that the professional one would be adhered to.
He shifted in his chair, feeling trapped by his own maneuvers. When he’d started down this road, he’d had no idea what would happen between Carter and him. Abruptly, the idea of leveraging her struck him as totally wrong.
Disturbed, Nick went to the bar, poured himself a scotch, and then walked over to the bookcase. He knelt down in front of a five-volume set of Victorian travelogues. With the flip of a lever, that part of the bookcase came forward and revealed a safe.