Seducing an Heiress

by Judy Teel

  When she reached the door, she dared to look back and the dread murmuring inside her began chattering louder. He sat at the table watching her, his expression triumphant.

  Had she done the right thing? Was the risk worth it?

  As she crossed the landing to her apartment she told herself to have faith in Harts Creek. The town and its people had won her over when she'd stumbled across it last winter. It could win Trey over, too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Pacing back to his bed, Trey shut his new phone and massaged the bridge of his nose. His conversation with Jamison had not been pleasant. Even knowing Trey would be bringing Dakota with him, Jamison had begrudged the extra week of time before delivery.

  His stomach knotted at the thought of subjecting Dakota to the man who was not her father in any way except biologically. In one of those strange twists that life had a fondness for, his own alcoholic dad had been a better parent than hers. Unlike Pop, Jamison at least had the means to give her every comfort and advantage, but instead he chose to use her for his own purposes. The man didn't deserve a daughter like her.

  He glanced at his watch. Two AM. No wonder he was getting maudlin.

  Tossing his phone onto the bedside table, he stripped off his sweat pants and got under the covers. He was just falling asleep when a low cry echoed through the wall from Dakota's apartment.

  He sat up, his exhausted brain struggling to form a cohesive thought. A muffled 'no' followed and adrenaline shot through his blood stream.

  Dakota was in trouble.

  Trey was out of the apartment and pounding on her door before he'd even realized he'd left his bed. When she didn't answer, he sprinted back to his bedroom and grabbed the building keys. The screams had turned to pain-filled moaning sending panic shooting into his pounding heart.

  Had Castella snuck back in to get some kind of revenge on her? Was a homicidal rapist on the loose? People didn't always lock their doors in small towns like this. Had she left herself vulnerable to attack?

  He fumbled with the keys in her lock, finally getting the door open. Her apartment was laid out just like Suzette's but in reverse, which put her bedroom on the other side of the wall from the guest room where he was sleeping.

  In less than a second he was across her living room and bursting through the door. Dakota sat straight up in bed and shrieked at the top of her lungs, her eyes wide in the glow of moonlight that seeped through the blinds on her window. Trey scanned the area for her assailant, ready to beat the man to a pulp.

  The room was empty. She wasn't in danger. His heart rate slowed.

  Dakota gulped in air, her eyes still as big as saucers. "I'm dreaming," she muttered, her gaze sweeping over him. "I'm still dreaming."

  "Are you all right?" Trey asked, feeling like a complete idiot.

  She lay down and pulled the covers over her shoulders. Then popped up, making him jump.

  "You're naked."

  Trey glanced down at himself and realized in his panic that he hadn't put his sweat pants back on. He shrugged, surprised that he felt a slight twinge of embarrassment. "I sleep better." She didn't react and he watched her warily, wondering if she were actually awake. "Did you have a nightmare?" he asked, carefully.

  A slow, sultry smile lifted her mouth. "Not a nightmare. You should know."

  "Should I?" He didn't understand the best way to handle this. Wasn't it dangerous to wake sleep walkers, or something?

  She pushed her covers down to her waist and pulled the little shirt she wore over her head. The bars of moonlight striping through the blinds curved across the firm mounds of her naked breasts. Trey swallowed.

  "You like this," she said, studying his growing erection.

  It would be like taking advantage of a drunk woman, he told himself. He couldn't do it. He cleared his throat. "Lie down and go to sleep. This is only a dream, remember?"

  She reached under her covers, wiggled around a bit, and came up with a pair of panties. Sweat broke out across his forehead. "Lie down, Dakota."

  "Come to bed, Trey."

  "Please cover up."

  She slid down and flung her arms over her head. "Make me." Her challenging tone belied the way her gaze caressed him.

  Trey rubbed his hand over his mouth. By all the saints.

  "If you tuck me in, I'll sleep," she purred.

  He had to resolve this and get out before he forgot all his principles and pounced on her. Gritting his teeth, Trey went over to the bed and reached across her for the covers. She made a quick slide downward and her hot, wet tongue swept over the tip of his erection.

  "Sweet mother!"

  And then her mouth slid down his length enclosing him in heat.

  Trey gripped the head board, breathing heavily. "Dakota, ahh," he moaned as she pulled up and slid down again sending waves of pleasure into his groin and up through his gut.

  She released him and her hand cupped him gently. "I should have finished my sentence," she said running her palm up and down his length. "I meant to say 'Tuck me in and I'll sleep with you.'" She flicked her tongue across him again.

  Trey pushed off the head board. He didn't give a damn anymore if Dakota thought she was dreaming or not, but he still couldn't do a thing about it. "I won't make love to you without protection," he said through gritted teeth.

  "Bedside table drawer behind you," she murmured, running her hand over his stomach before biting him lightly next to his naval. Flinging herself back onto the bed she watched him through hooded eyes as he pulled open the drawer and fumbled around for a foil packet.

  Placing it on the bedside table, he turned back to her.

  "Why don't you put it on?" she asked, her voice low and sultry.

  "I'm not ready, yet."

  Her gaze traveled lower. "Really? You look ready."

  "Not yet." Feeling more in control, now, Trey knelt beside the bed and grabbed her legs. She squealed when he gave a quick tug, pulling her to the side of the bed. Her sweet, musky perfume, spiced with desire, drifted up to him. He pulled in a deep breath and lust for her crackled through his body, firing his senses, filling his erection with heavy heat. The drive to claim her as she'd demanded sizzled through Trey's blood.

  But instead, he gently parted her slick folds and lowered his mouth to her sweet center. Dakota sighed. He played his tongue over her clitoris, suckling gently. She moaned, the sound just like what he'd heard earlier.

  In a flash of understanding Trey realized she had been dreaming. Of him.

  The powerful, irresistible need to be the center of her world in that moment rolled over him. He drove his tongue in and out of her center in a shadow dance of things to come until she dug her hands into his hair, clinging to him like a drowning woman.

  "Trey, please," she groaned, making him ache to be in her.

  Returning his attention to the apex of her smooth folds, he licked and suckled her lavishly while he fumbled to open the small foil packet. When he was ready, he stood and lifted her closer to the edge of the bed. The silvery glow from the window flowed across the graceful curve of her waist and hips, the peaks of her breasts. He ran his hands up her thighs, the silky feel of her skin sending ripples of pleasure deep into his being.

  Wrapping her legs around his waist, Trey placed himself at the gate of heaven, her warmth touching the tip of his erection and driving his urge to be in her to a mind-spinning level. Her gaze, heavy with passion, locked onto his.

  His heart turned over in his chest with a stuttering lurch and he hesitated. With a shock of self awareness, he realized he wanted more than quick gratification. He wanted Dakota. All of her. Present and for him.

  "This isn't a dream," he said, softly. "I'm really here and I want you."

  The softness in her eyes cleared a little and she focused on him. "I knew all along." She gave him a gentle, mysterious smile that shattered his control.

  Trey sank into her.

  * * *

  A wave of urgency engulfed Dakota. She pulsed her hips agains
t Trey, meeting him thrust for thrust, straining to bring him closer.

  The aching energy in her center built, tightening, hardening, reaching inward and flowing outward at the same time--a wondrous miracle mimicked by the longing throbbing in her heart.

  She spread her hands across Trey's chest, caressing the hard mass of his muscles, running her fingers over the ridged contours of his stomach, then as the pressure built, clutching the solid columns of his arms where they bracketed her waist.

  A frantic joy danced through her body and burst free in waves of bliss. She rode the pulsing ecstasy filling her mind and soul and embraced it fiercely. Clamping hard onto Trey's waist with her legs, she exploded in a shower of star dust.

  He pumped into her faster and faster. With a shout he drove himself home, his granite heat radiating deep into her being. Ripples of pleasure wove through her body and she arched her back against the soft blanket beneath her.

  Giving a final push against her, Trey ran his hands up and over her hips, and then covered her with his body. Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled back onto the bed and pulled her snugly against his side.

  "My God, Dakota," he said, his voice rough. Wonder filled his gaze as he bent and gave her a light kiss.

  She settled contentedly next to him, relaxed and warm. She didn't know if she'd done the right thing encouraging him to stay, but she was glad. What she had with Trey, whatever it was, was magical. Nothing like her experience with Jack, who mostly had been appealing because he was a man her father had never liked.

  Trey was beyond that in a way she didn't really understand. How could she? She hardly knew anything about him. The urge to understand what drove him crept through her, diluting her contentment slightly.

  She stroked her finger tips across the light dusting of hair on his chest, not wanting to lose this unexpected intimacy, but driven by the hope of deepening it. "Why did your grandfather have to raise you?"

  He shifted the shoulder under her cheek as if shrugging away an annoyance. "I had nowhere else to go," he answered quietly, his tone tight.

  Not an annoyance. An old wound.

  "I lost my mother when I was thirteen," she offered, very familiar with lasting pain and its sting. "That's when I went to live with Dad. He wouldn't let me take anything with me, said it was all garbage. But I threw such a fit over my mother's jewelry box, he finally gave in. It was the first and last time I ever won an argument with him. Until the night I walked out."

  "Did you take the jewelry box?"

  "I couldn't. The only way I was able to escape was to tell security I had to meet clients for drinks." She traced the contours of his chest with her finger, remembering how she'd almost changed her mind because of that jewelry box.

  "Before she died, my mother made me promise to always keep it with me," she reflected. "She said someday I might need what was inside it to keep me safe, but I never understood what that meant. There was nothing of value, but I always kept my promise. Until that night."

  "I was fifteen when my mother died. I didn't know until years later."

  Surprise coursed through her and questions flooded her mind. Questions she wasn't sure she had a right to ask.

  She rocked her head back to look up at him. He stared at the stripes of the blinds illuminated now by the street light in the parking lot. His face was blank, as if the classic lines of his profile had been captured in marble.

  "When I was seven, social services took me to live with Grandfather" he said, his tone flat like he was talking about someone he barely knew, or had only heard of. "I guess I was too much for Mom to handle, but my sister stayed. For a while, anyway."

  Dakota clamped down on her gasp of distress and surprise, catching the sound before it escaped. She sensed that the least noise, the least movement would ruin the spell cocooning them.

  "I ran away four times because Rosie needed me. Mom didn't know how to take care of her." Trey's chest expanded on a deep breath, his gaze still locked on the window seeing things she couldn't. "Grandfather never punished me for it. He'd give me this sad look...it broke my heart.

  "Eventually I stopped running and hoarding food and a hundred other strange behaviors that even I didn't understand. I put on a little weight. I made friends, learned to play. After a year, I hardly ever thought about them."

  "You became a normal kid," she said, softly.

  "Yeah. Selfish. But happy." He pulled in another breath. "I was happy for the first time in my life. Then Grandfather died of a heart attack. I found him in his chair when I got home from school. They told me he went in his sleep."

  Tears stung her eyes. She tried to hold them back, knowing he would hate it, that he'd think she pitied him. But she couldn't. They slid down and splashed onto his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice.

  "Social services came for me, again," he continued. "I was eleven by then, but I was just as scared. And pissed. Lived in nine different foster homes before they cut me loose at eighteen."

  She blinked back her grief, not daring to speak. She had no idea what she could say, anyway--that she wished she could get his childhood back for him, that she ached to erase his pain?

  "What about your dad?" she asked in a rough whisper.

  Trey shifted onto his side and looked down at her. "I barely remember him. He was drunk a lot and left not long after Rosie was born. A year or so later the cops came and told Mom he was dead."

  She swallowed. "I'm...I'm so sorry, Trey."

  An ironic smile played around his mouth. "He was as good as he knew how to be. One of my memories is of him dancing Mom around the kitchen and singing 'Yellow Submarine' at the top of his lungs. I laughed so hard I almost wet myself." He cupped her face in his palm and his gaze skimmed over her features. "It could have been worse."

  "You said your mother was dead. What about your sister?"

  His expression shut down so quickly it was like a door slamming in her face. Just like that the moment was gone. Disappointment closed over her.

  She wished she could take back the words, but there was nothing she could do except watch him tug the covers up over them.

  "It's late. We better get some sleep." He pulled her into the curve of his body and closed his eyes. In moments, his breathing slowed and grew steady.

  A long time later Dakota still lay awake, her thoughts tangling and knotting with a deep and quiet fear as she wondered about his life and the secrets that lay within him.

  Trepidation crept over her mind and a cold wave of dread went through her stomach. Something terrible had happened tonight.

  She was afraid she was starting to care.

  * * *

  Dakota stretched, feeling pleasantly sore. Sleep had restored her and she'd realized that Trey's impressive skills as a lover had taken her somewhat unawares and led to conclusions that were completely unfounded. In the light of day she felt ready to put aside crazy late night illusions that her heart might be softening to him and just enjoy the moment. She rolled over ready to do just that.

  The bed was empty.

  Ruthlessly pushing down her disappointment, she snuggled back under the blankets, determined to enjoy sleeping in and not give Trey a passing thought. He did live right next door. It was perfectly reasonable for him to go back to his own bed to get some sleep.

  Her determination to keep a light touch where their relationship was concerned faded and morphed into an itchy restlessness that she couldn't shake. Giving up the pretense of relaxing, she tossed aside the covers and got out of bed.

  Showered and dressed with the need for a cup of hot coffee foremost in her mind, Dakota wandered into the living room.

  Wonder froze her in mid-step and her mouth fell open.

  Shiny clean and with a chewed bow dangling from his collar, Hamlet sat in her living room tied to a chair. At the sight of her, his tail swept the floor, wagging vigorously.

  Dakota snapped her mouth closed. "What are you doing here?" She rushed over to the dog, fielding enthusiastic kisses while she t
ried to loosen the knot of the leash. "Did Trey do this?" Giving up on the knot, she unsnapped the leash from his collar.

  Hamlet jumped on the sofa and lay down. That's when Dakota noticed the white card sitting on the end table.

  Snatching it up, she plopped down next to Hamlet. "Dakota," she read to the dog, "your new landlord allows pets. Coffee is in the pot."

  She lowered the card and looked at the dog. Her dog. "Short and to the point. Welcome home, kiddo." She ruffled his ears and a hesitant joy welled up into her chest, filling her throat and bringing a sheen of moisture to her eyes.

  Her dog. Because of Trey. Because he'd bought the building and kicked the oppressive and horrible Mr. Castella out on his butt.

  A piece from the shell around her heart fell away and she flung her arms around the animal's neck, wishing Trey was there so she could thank him.

  Scrubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand, she kissed Hamlet on the head and jumped to her feet. She needed something to distract her from the cozy feeling spreading through her heart. Something like coffee and breakfast. She wondered if Trey had thought to get dog food.

  Tramping into the kitchen, she found another note next to the coffee maker.

  "I got a job. See Chelsea," she read out loud. Hamlet sat down at her feet and cocked his head.

  "That was fast." She squatted down next to the dog and hugged him again. "I guess I'll have to see Chelsea if I want to know more, huh?" Hamlet licked her chin.

  She stroked his sweet face with her hands. "Why am I so happy? I'm falling for a man who's leaving my life forever in two weeks. What kind of a sucker does that make me?"

  The worst kind, that's what.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Stepping into the reception area of Look the Part, Dakota froze in disbelief for the second time that day and it wasn't even lunchtime, yet. "What are you doing here?"

  Trey looked up from the papers spread across the secretary's desk. "You told me to get a job."