When It Hits You (The It Series Book 1)

by Nicki Elson

  “I’ll have to take your word for it. Do any women ever make it into your fantasies?”

  Gravel crunched outside, and Lyssa jumped at the opportunity to escape. “Oh darn, looks like this conversation has ended.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Lula came in carrying a covered tray and a bag with a logo of a winged pig. “Didn’t figure you’d be up for slaughtering your own swine. That corn almost done?”

  Dinner passed pleasantly with Lula talking more about her granddad and asking them questions unrelated to anything to do with Project Pineapple. Hayden proved sincere in his desire to leave business talk until morning and joined in the conversation. After clearing the table, Lula told them to leave the dirty dishes on the counter. “Someone will do them in the morning.”

  She then revealed that the farmhouse had an excellent Internet connection, so Lyssa and Hayden settled into opposite corners of the spacious living room with their electronics. Lula said goodnight and went upstairs to where Lyssa presumed she was spending the night. After nearly two hours, Lyssa yawned. She was reluctant to return to the creepiness of her designated bedroom, but sleep called.

  Changing out of her clothes as swiftly as she’d rushed into them, she crawled under the covers, turning her back to the window. She’d forgotten to pull down the shade, and moonlight filtered through the lace curtains, casting shadows onto the opposite wall. A breeze blew through the branches, making the shadows dance. She watched their eerie movement until her heavy lids closed and she slipped out of consciousness.

  She bolted upright as a clamorous bang woke her. The breeze had picked up, and branches of nearby trees flailed wildly. Figuring the wind must’ve blown a loose branch against the window, she settled back into her pillow and closed her eyes. Before sleep reclaimed her, she recalled the fuzzy details of the dream she’d been having. Hayden was there. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been wearing a shirt. And he’d been delivering the morning news. While he talked, he’d pulled out a…a corncob? Oh my, it’d been a vibrating corncob, and he’d been using it on her. Another bang on the window distracted her from the memory, and by the time she’d recovered from the new fright, only the barest details of the dream remained.

  The sun shone through the window the next morning, giving the bedroom a less threatening aspect. Lyssa showered and dressed, running through the list of questions she and Hayden would have to force Lula to answer. When she entered the big room, she found Hayden sitting in a wingback chair. He held up a piece of paper. “I found this on the kitchen counter.”

  Lyssa came over and took the message, reading:

  As my granddad said, it all comes down to the individual. You’ve met me, the real me, and now you need to decide whether or not I’m a person you can trust and believe in. I’ve left and won’t be back before you leave, so I’ve hired a limo to take you to the airport. It’ll be at the house by ten thirty. That should give you plenty of time to wash the dishes from last night. Eggs are in the fridge and cereal in the cabinet. ~L

  “Wow,” was all Lyssa could say at first, and then, “I thought we were supposed to be saved by the bell. Instead, we keep getting it rung.” Hayden raised his eyes to her without an ounce of emotion in his expression. “Er, sorry for the bad punnage. I presume she’s officially off the list of potential candidates?”

  “Are you kidding?” A spark of determination flickered across his handsome features, and his cocky grin returned. “Now I want her more than ever.”

  Chapter 10

  LYSSA WOKE AN HOUR BEFORE her alarm went off. She was in a premium hotel room in Dallas, nervous about meeting Delicious Hawaii’s full board of directors. She knew she’d never be able to fall back asleep. Rather than lay there and work herself into an anxiety attack, she went to her makeup bag and pulled out Vibrizzio. Back in the bed, under the puffy, down-filled duvet, she sighed upon feeling the gentle vibrations against her flesh. But as her mind drifted toward Jean-Luc Picard telling her she was the only woman he’d ever loved, she thought of the pie graph.

  “Arg!” Jamie had screwed up the first version and was supposed to have revised that section of the presentation, but Lyssa realized she’d never verified the change with her own eyes.

  Pulling her bikini briefs back on, she went to the desk and pushed the button on her laptop. While she waited for it to warm up, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and inhaled the fresh scent of the ultra-clean hotel room. She had the mini-suite and its king-sized bed all to herself. Since DH was hosting a party at the hotel later that night, Hayden had sweet talked Beecher into letting him and Lyssa exceed the usual hotel budget and book rooms there. She even had her own private soaking bathtub.

  After clicking into the PowerPoint document and verifying that Jamie had come through, she thought of several more items to quadruple check. By the time she’d reassured herself that everything was as it should be, her alarm blared. She rushed over to the bed and clicked it off, then fished through the bountiful blankets to retrieve her little friend and found it still vibrating at a low hum.

  “Dammit.” She hated to waste precious battery life.

  The meeting went smoothly and ended with the board voting to approve Ardent Capital Management. A lengthy tour of DH’s facilities followed, leaving Lyssa and Hayden with just enough time to get back to their hotel, log their notes from the day, and get ready for the party.

  Lyssa entered the banquet room alone, greeted by the twang of traditional island music. Strings blended with the ping of a xylophone and the winds of some kind of bizarre flute. Wearing a bright pink V-neck, white capris, and a pair of flip-flops, she suddenly felt underdressed compared to the grass skirts and vibrant flowered shirts surrounding her. The DH employees took the Hawaiian theme all the way. Splotches of color in the form of tropical flowers decorated the center of each of the dozens of round tables. Bamboo tiki torches stood near the three long bars and the stage.

  “Hey, there she is,” said an accountant—or was it a quality control specialist? Lyssa had met him earlier that day. He pointed both of his index fingers at her and lifted his thumbs, curling the rest of his fingers in. “Bang. Bang.”

  Lyssa smiled. She was used to being associated with Al Capone whenever she introduced herself as a Chicago native. “Hi, how are you?”

  “Charles,” he said, reminding her of the name she’d completely forgotten.

  She nodded and splayed her fingertips across at the top of her chest. “Lyssa.”

  “I remembered. Have you met Karen?”

  “I don’t think so.” Lyssa chitchatted with Charles and Karen. Every once in a while, someone else she’d met during the day strolled by and teased her about being a Cubs fan, even though she didn’t really care one way or the other about baseball. Sometimes the newcomers stayed to talk, sometimes they didn’t. Somewhere along the way, she got “lei’d.”

  As the DH crew consumed more drinks and the heavy appetizers that substituted for dinner, they drifted away into their natural cliques. At one point, even Charles and Karen moved on. Lyssa hadn’t seen Hayden yet amid the crowd. She scanned the huge banquet room and spotted him talking and laughing with a small group across the way.

  He somehow maintained his professional air despite the small paper umbrella tucked behind one ear. His blue, radiant eyes shifted to meet hers, as if he’d sensed her looking. His grin widened into something warmer than what it had been moments before. She took an instinctive step toward him, and then picked up her pace, suddenly eager to get to him.

  “This is Ken,” Hayden said as soon as she approached, “and you remember Larry and Jean from earlier.” After exchanging smiles, the four of them went back to the conversation they’d been having. Lyssa was satisfied to stay quiet and listen—she’d reached her limit of small talk with strangers. While letting her gaze wander around the festive room, she was surprised to feel Hayden’s hand slip around hers.

  “You don’t have a drink,” he said. If the umbrella in his hair hadn
’t been enough of a clue that he’d been imbibing along with the rest of the guests, the slight slur in his voice confirmed it. “Hey guys, I’ll catch up with you later.” He nodded to the others before moving his hand to the small of Lyssa’s back, guiding her away.

  As he steered her to the nearest bar, he bent close. His breath tickled her ear when he said in a low voice, “I had a good talk with Shep out in the lobby earlier, filled him in on our visit with Miss Lula Bell two weeks ago. He’s all in for pursuing her and offered to have his team give it a go.”

  At the bar, he ordered a Mai Tai. As he turned to hand Lyssa the voluptuously curved glass, his eyes scanned her from painted toenails to shimmery lips. He quirked an eyebrow and frowned. “Where’s your coconut bra?”

  “It’s with your Speedo. Does Shep want me to set something up with Lula?”

  “Nah, he said he’d take care of it. Just e-mail his assistant her contact information and files when we’re back at the office. Tonight, we enjoy ourselves.” He clinked, or rather clunked, his pineapple to her glass, then pulled the umbrella from behind his ear and tucked it behind hers.

  She took a sip of the fruity, rum-heavy beverage and watched the musicians play. The island-flavored music had all been instrumental, but then a portly man wearing nothing but a boldly colored skirt and a puka shell necklace moved up to the microphone, and the tunes turned distinctly modern.

  Clusters of people moved toward the dance floor, and Lyssa officially felt like an outsider. It was nice of Shep to invite the consultants to the employee event, and everyone had been politely friendly, but she was ready to get a Mai Tai buzz on, head back to her room, fill the soaker tub, and see if Vibrizzio was truly waterproof.

  “Are they…are they playing Hall and Oates?” Hayden asked.

  “Who?”

  “Daryl Hall and John Oates…my God, Bates, it’s as if you’ve never even heard of the spectacular decade known as the eighties.”

  A familiar lyric caught her attention, and her eyes snapped to the skirted musicians. They could only be described as bebopping as they plucked their strings and tapped their bongos in a unique rendition of “You Make My Dreams.” She’d never before seen moobs quite so active and bouncy.

  Hayden busted out laughing. “Oh man, we’ve gotta dance. Drink up.”

  A minute ago, Lyssa would’ve told him to forget it, but there was something about the enthusiastic swivel of the lead singer’s bulky hips and the high pitched “Oowooh ooh ooh” of the backups that made her want to get out there and cut loose. She slammed back half her drink, stopping before giving herself in ice headache, and took Hayden’s outstretched hand, letting him pull her to the center of the bobbing bodies.

  They stayed close, and she followed Hayden’s lead. As he lip-synched, he somehow managed to combine total dork with sexy, keeping his brilliant eyes on her and sliding his hands loosely over her hips in an attempt to bring her movement in time with his. She gave up trying to pretend she could dance and jumped back, shouting, “Cabbage Patch!” Sweeping her hands in front of her in a circle, she fisted and jerked them in toward her body.

  Hayden didn’t hesitate to shout, “The lawnmower!” He dropped his hand at an angle toward the floor and pulled it back, kicking his foot behind him at the same time.

  Lyssa laughed. “Do the swim!” She alternately shimmied her arms out in front of her to imitate swim strokes and then plugged her nose, holding her free hand in the air and wiggling her fingers as she swayed her hips almost all the way down to the floor and back up again. Hayden had joined her in that last move, and they noticed a circle forming around them.

  “Looks like they want a show.” Hayden winked, and they continued to shout out ridiculous dance moves that got steadily stupider as the song went on. By the time it ended, Lyssa was almost out of breath, and a sheen of sweat covered her.

  The notes of another song began, this one a bit slower, and Hayden wrapped his hand around the back of her head. Leaning forward, he planted a kiss on her damp forehead. “I think we’ve embarrassed ourselves enough for the night. Want some fresh air?”

  “Sounds great.”

  Hayden grabbed two bottled beers from the metal trough near the door to the patio before they strolled outside onto flat, sand-colored stones. The expanse spread out toward individual vignettes—each one with a small, round fire pit surrounded by deck chairs on one side and a curved bench on the other. A half wall backed the benches to provide privacy. The soothing flicker of flames and the barely audible whispers of the patio’s few occupants made it feel like a different universe from the raucous one they’d just left. The music was only muted background out here, and cool night air replaced the heat of the dance floor.

  Lyssa and Hayden passed several seating areas in silence before he gestured toward a vacant one. They both sat on the bench. Its stone was close enough to the fire to have absorbed some of its warmth. Hayden spotted a basket with blankets in it and pulled one out for Lyssa to drape over her lap, covering her bare ankles and toes. They faced away from the building and out toward the lights of the city.

  “Pretty,” Lyssa commented.

  “Yeah.” Hayden took a sip from his bottle and leaned back, looking up toward the inky sky. “Nice to have this meeting over, isn’t it? I’ll sleep a whole lot better tonight.”

  “You were nervous?”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “You weren’t?”

  “Well, yeah, of course I was, but you…you seemed to take it all in stride. I didn’t know you ever got nervous.”

  “Are you forgetting the night of the Boston Massacre? I was freaking out from the moment Carlo called.”

  “That was freaking out?”

  He shrugged and lifted his bottle for another sip. “Guess I keep it well hidden, mostly. But everyone gets stressed. A certain level of nerves is a good thing, keeps you alert, doesn’t allow complacency to set in.”

  “True.” After a moment of not-uncomfortable silence, she asked, “Is that why you switched from Taft-Hartley to corporate? You were getting too comfortable, complacent?”

  His gaze traveled back up to the sky. “That was part of it, but not the whole reason. I don’t intend to stay in consulting forever, and it seemed like a good idea to broaden my experience, beef up the résumé.”

  “Oh.” Lyssa hid her frown by taking a long swig of her beer. Of course he was planning to leave one day. Wasn’t that what everyone did, eventually?

  “Hey, I said no work talk. Tonight’s supposed to be all pleasure.”

  “You want to head back in?”

  His lips sparked into a small smile. “No. Quiet conversation with a beautiful woman is all the pleasure I require.”

  Lyssa shook her head and flicked her eyes up toward the night sky.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Look away whenever I say anything the least bit flirtatious?”

  “I guess it’s my natural response to rubbish.”

  “It’s not rubbish. I mean everything I say.”

  “Have you ever looked up the word flirt in the dictionary? I have, and the words superficial and not genuine are in the definition, i.e. flirtatious equals rubbish.”

  “Does it also say fun and harmless in there? You’re just going to have to get comfortable with it because I’m a flirty guy and you’re a sexy girl.”

  Her reaction was so automatic that her eyeballs made it halfway up her lids before she even noticed they’d moved.

  “Seriously, Bates, enough.”

  Her eyes froze for a moment and then slowly lowered to look at him. His chiseled features were half in shadow and half illuminated by the erratic pulse of flames.

  “All I’m asking is that you maintain eye contact,” he said.

  “Fine. Can we move on now?” She fought the urge to shift her gaze self-consciously away.

  Mischief tweaked at the corners of his mouth. “Sure, and since I’ve already got you so adorably blushy, let’s get b
ack to something else I’m curious about.” He downed the rest of his beer and set the bottle on the ground before saying, “Andre Agassi.”

  “Hayd—”

  “Eyes on me, please.”

  She kept them steady on him but tightened her lower eyelids in warning.

  “Thank you,” he continued. “What I want to know is, do you really, truly, honestly believe an electronic device can replace having a man in your life?” He watched her with the same intensity she remembered from Indiana, the look she hadn’t been able to decipher when they’d been boiling corn at the farm. Now she thought she might understand where it came from.

  “Afraid you might be replaceable?” she asked.

  “I would be if I thought it was in any way possible—which it’s not.”

  “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that.” She looked down at her bottle, swirling it. “Do you want the rest of this? I’m not in a mood to drink tonight.”

  Hayden shrugged and took the bottle, tilting it for a long pull before he set it next to the empty near his feet. When he straightened, his mouth flattened into a perfect straight line. He leaned back and turned his face toward her, resting his head against the half wall. His thick eyebrows lowered over his darkened blue eyes that glinted in the firelight. “Can I ask you something else?”

  The tender earnestness in his voice inspired her to join him in reclining against the wall, mirroring him as she rested her head and tilted her face toward him. “When have I ever stopped you?”

  “This little friend of yours…can it do this?” He lifted his arm and traced his fingertips down the side of her face before cupping her jaw. He kept his thumb at her cheekbone, lightly stroking.

  If she hadn’t promised to maintain eye contact, she’d have shoved not only her eyes, but also everything else she had away from him. Alcohol had obviously inspired his open show of affection, but she was still sober and couldn’t as easily explain away the electrified thrill that ran through her at his touch.

  He dropped his thumb to her mouth and tickled back and forth over her lower lip, daring her to hold strong. “Can it do this?” His mouth moved to hers, pressing against her lips in the slightest of kisses and pulling back just long enough for her to reluctantly acknowledge that she wanted him back on her. As if divining her wish, he answered with another small touch of his soft, warm, sensuous lips to hers. Again and again he repeated the kiss, growing bolder each time. She leaned into him.