“Am I to take it then that you’d do it here with someone else?” A devilish light of humor danced in his pure blues.
She gasped. “You could twist—Yes,” she said, realizing how to take the wind out of his sexual sails. “I’d do it here in broad daylight with Gerard Butler.
“You would?” His grin bit the dust as if she’d grown horns.
“Of course. Now what do you want to know about Roger?”
Jesse frowned and she could see he was reluctantly letting the Gerard Butler discussion go. “What kind of temper does he have? What sort of hobbies is he into? Does he operate on an even keel, or is he a bit unbalanced?” Jesse’s voice had just a slight nose-out-of-joint tone to it, and she smiled.
“I would have said Roger didn’t have much of a temper at all, but then I’ve never seen anyone cross him until today. He was more animated today than ever before, even stood up so fast that his chair flipped. But he didn’t make any violent actions or threats. Golf is his hobby. What else can I say?”
Jesse exhaled. “Nothing at this point.” He started the car engine. “Where to next?”
“My father’s office. We’ll be early, but I have a question or two for Benny.”
“I’m not sitting in the car this time, so don’t even ask.”
“You have my permission to come inside, love slave,” she said, with more than a hint of an imperial tone in her voice. But she spoiled the effect by laughing at his incredulous look, which then faded to a you’re-going-to-pay-later gleam.
She shivered at the idea, and heaven help her, she was still feeling the aftershocks of remembered pleasure twenty minutes later when they walked into the building where the corporate offices of Jordan’s Shipping Company were in the penthouse suite. It was difficult to think about looking her father in the eye when visions of what Jesse had done to her while she’d been tied to his bed danced in her head. She fanned her cheeks as they got onto the mirrored elevator. They were the only ones in the car. The second the doors closed, Jesse flipped open the security panel then shut it.
“What are you doing?” she asked puzzled.
“Just checking the security.” He moved behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, he whispered in her ear, his deep voice stroked her senses. “We’re surrounded by mirrors, Lex. Wouldn’t you love to do it here where any direction you looked you could see me loving you? There’s even a mirror above us. You could lay on your back and watch me slide in and out of you. You could watch me spread you open and feast on you first.”
She closed her eyes and listened to him describe what he’d do to her with his tongue. A hot flash of desire raced through her veins. Images of them making love with nothing but mirrors around them filled her mind. Her nipples hardened, her breath caught, and she felt that she’d have an orgasm if he even slid his hand closer to where she ached to feel him.
“Jesse,” she panted. “We can’t.” Even as she spoke, she pressed her hands over his and pushed them just a little closer to where she wanted him. Just one little touch and she’d come. Her underwear felt damp and her toes were curling. Damn. He’d done this to her by whispering in her ear. “We can’t.”
“Yes, we can. But right now the security cameras are rolling, unless you want to star in a triple X for the guards.”
Her eyes shot open and she froze in horror.
Jesse laughed. “Relax, sunshine. They can’t hear us and they didn’t see anything but a man hugging a woman.”
She swore a word she’d never said before in her life. “How can you be so sure they can’t hear us?”
“Age of the building and the equipment in evidence. Besides, audio on elevators is only used in top security situations. I have to say you’re a quick study. It hasn’t been much more than seventy-two hours ago that the worst curse you could manage to utter was darn.”
She turned to face him, her back to the elevator door, and crossed her arms, totally annoyed with him. “You did this elevator bit on purpose, didn’t you? You knew about the video before you led me down that mirrored fantasy. You set me up for the fall, didn’t you?” Her voice rose with every word.
He held his hands up, pleading innocence. “Hey, I didn’t realize how much you’d buy into the fantasy.” He shrugged. “I mean you wouldn’t go for it in a closed car at the bank. I thought you’d tell me to shut up the minute I started whispering. Then, well, I sort of got into it, especially when I sensed how hot you were getting. It was like I could feel your excitement. You were about to come weren’t you, Lex?”
“I was not about to have an orgasm,” she said her voice rising louder in embarrassed irritation. The elevator doors opened and she swung around to see Benny gaping at her. The file he held fell to the floor, scattering papers everywhere. She had no doubt that he’d heard her declaration.
This was not happening again. Before Jesse, orgasm wasn’t a word she went about shouting. Before Jesse there’d been nothing to shout about either. She didn’t look at either Jesse or Benny, but she marched off the elevator and went directly to her father’s office. Before Jesse, things like this never happened to her. He’d taken her to Oz and every yellow brick road he led her down she ended up wishing she was back in Kansas.
Really? Do you really want to be where you were before he re-entered your life? Vanilla sex? No, her heart cried out. Never, her body screamed. It hit her then as she crossed the threshold into the executive suites. She and Jesse weren’t having a one-night stand that ran into overtime or a weekend fling in the middle of the week. They had a relationship, a more involved relationship than a few days together warranted. She was in love with the man. She walked into her father’s office and the world suddenly tilted. Spots appeared before her eyes and she thought she was going to faint. She saw the surprised faces of her grandmother and her father fade from her vision.
“Alexandria! Dear Lord. What’s wrong?” Robert Jordan’s concerned face wavered before her, and she felt her father’s strong arm wrap around her and help her over to a couch in his office. Her grandmother, looking extremely pale, hovered near.
“I’m sorry,” she said as the spots cleared. “I’m all right. I just had a moment of dizziness.”
Her father squatted in front of her, examining her closely. “You turned white as a ghost and are still two shades of pale. Are you sure something isn’t wrong?”
Katherine Jordan clutched her son’s shoulder, and spoke as if the world just came to an end. “God help us, Robert. She’s pregnant! That riff-raff has ruined her.” Katherine fanned her cheeks as if she were about to faint. Before Alexi could inform her grandmother that she was way off base, everything snowballed.
Her father stood, shocked horror widening his eyes. “Pregnant!” His voice boomed throughout the room.
“Is there something I should know about?” Jesse said from the doorway. His blue eyes appeared arctic.
“You got her pregnant?” Benny yelled.
“Three days and you’re claiming what?” Jesse’s said, looking at her, his tone mocking. “It’s not mine.”
What Jesse said and how he said it stabbed at her. But could she blame him? His reaction may have been natural, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
“That’s it! Nobody say another word. I’ve had it.” She stood up and glared at her grandmother. “First of all, Jesse isn’t riff-raff, he’s a fine and decent man. So I don’t ever want to hear you malign him again. Grow up and stop emotionally blackmailing everybody to get your way. God gave everybody their own life to live and He didn’t ask you to be in charge.”
Then she looked at her father. “Second of all. I am not. I repeat. I am not pregnant. But if I were pregnant, I would not be ruined. I’d think a child a blessing and hope that every member of my family would feel the same. It’s time you stopped living in the grief of the past. Wake up, or you’re going to waste the rest of your life. As things are now, if you do have a grandchild, he or she will never really know your love, because you keep all the good p
arts of yourself bottled up in the past.”
Tears filled her eyes as years of lost opportunities between herself and her father flashed before her. She saw too many barriers between them, barriers she’d never had the courage to face or plow through. Or was it he’d never let her through?
Blinking, she turned on Benny. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with Roger? Why did you lie and say he’s broken hearted and pining away for me?”
“You saw Roger?” Benny squeaked, then sighed. “I was just trying to help. I know deep down that Roger loves you. He’s just angry about whoever is behind the lewd photographs.”
It was like Benny to try and smooth things over. He didn’t like problems. Ever since he was a kid and his parents fought constantly until they divorced, Benny went around keeping everything smooth for everybody. “It doesn’t help to lie to me. That’s not being my friend.”
She swung her gaze to Jesse. “And you’re the worst.” She choked on the words. He still stood in the doorway, his blue gaze still accusing and glacial; his sensuous mouth still set in a firm denial. His reaction hurt. Maybe it was because she realized she loved him and had loved him since the night he’d nearly run her down in that back alley. And what she felt had nothing to do with a getting-her-needs-met euphoria.
She crossed the room and planted her finger in the middle of his chest. “You of all people should know that I’d always be honest. I’d never be with a man if I was pregnant with another man’s child. And babies are not ‘its’.”
Everyone stood quiet in the wake of her outburst, as if she were a stranger who shouldn’t be there. And maybe she shouldn’t be. She decided that it would be up to her grandmother and father to bridge the next gap. Benny and Jesse could take care of themselves. “Please excuse me while I call a taxi.”
She left the room with her head high despite the tears in her eyes. She’d call a taxi and go somewhere so she could figure out the jumbled mess her life had fallen into.
She felt rather than saw or heard Jesse behind her. He stabbed the elevator button before she could then stood next to her. Looking his way, she knew from the tense set of his mouth and the way he folded his hands and stared at the elevator doors without even batting an eyelash that he was ticked off.
Good. She was too. He stepped onto the elevator and she saw him bend down, pick up a piece of paper, glance at it then put it in his pocket. They rode in silence all the way down. The mirrored walls of the car that had held such sexual promise on the way up only reflected anger now.
“Don’t bother with a taxi. I’m driving you.”
She suddenly felt exhausted and getting a taxi to take her to Jesse’s to get her things was a bit irrational. She’d been burning her candle at both ends by setting the world on fire with him and at it seemed the fire had consumed her now. “Fine.”
Neither of them spoke as they walked through the plush lobby out into the bright June sun. It was funny. She’d been to her father’s office hundreds of times over the years, so much that she’d ceased to notice the details around her. But she saw them now as she avoided looking at Jesse.
She had no illusions. His feelings had come across loud and clear when he talked to his brother last night, and had been driven painfully home in her father’s office.
She was with Jesse for one reason; she loved him. And she’d leave him for one reason; he didn’t love her, didn’t believe in love at all.
He shoved the car into gear and took off. He was back into his silent pissed off mode and Alexi settled back into the seat to endure the ride home. It seemed another argument was on the horizon. Good. She had a few things to say to him too. Things he needed to hear before she left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jesse held his tongue as he tried in vain to figure out how he’d become the bad guy in the situation. By the time he followed Alexi into his house, he’d floundered until he couldn’t take any more. But she disappeared into the bathroom before he could say a word.
Fine. He’d just ignore her, too. He flipped on the stereo to distract himself, only to find that the sway of the music made him want her. So he wandered into the kitchen to look for something sweet. The frozen Snickers Bar he found barely took the edge off his hunger. He padded his pocket and found the paper he'd picked up in the elevator. Pulling it out, he read the invoice for Sugar Girls cleaning service for a huge sum. Then put the paper back in his pocket. He wanted something more, but couldn’t find a thing. Finally, he heard Alexi making noises in the bedroom and he went after her.
“Why in the hell are you so pissed off over what I said?” He marched into the bedroom. “I in no way said anything to demean you. I reacted like any normal male would if he heard the woman he’d been with for three days was pregnant.”
She swung around and breathed deep as if to brace herself. She’d showered. Damp hair hung in ringlets about her face and her soft skin was flushed with moisture. She had on a peach silky robe and the black heels. Hell.
Instead of being angry, as he thought she was, she sounded sad when she spoke. “I agree. Your response was a rational response given the time we’ve been together.” She turned from him and put something in the open suitcase on his dresser.
She’s packing. The realization sucker punched him. He ran his hands through his hair, trying to fathom why her packing stabbed at him. "If my response was reasonable, then why are you pissed off at me? How did I suddenly become the bad guy?”
She folded a shirt, put it in the suitcase and snapped it closed. Only after she set the case by the bedroom door did she turn and look at him. “It’s an issue of attitude. I don’t think yours will be any different three months from now than today.”
“What?” He was so incredulous that he almost fell over. He wanted to yell, but forced his voice to stay even and low. “You can’t possibly believe that I’d deny and abandon a woman I was involved with if she became pregnant. You can’t possibly believe that I wouldn’t take responsibility for my own child.”
“No. You’re misunderstanding the point. I have no doubt that you’d always live up to any responsibility. You probably take on more than your share of them. Take me, for instance. You’ve already written it in stone that you have to protect me. What I am saying is that you’re afraid of relationships, of emotion. My father hides behind his grief because he’s afraid to reach out to the people around him, and you hide behind things, too. Things like responsibility and sex and years ago you wouldn’t let yourself become involved either. Back then you hid behind that wrong side of the tracks chip on your shoulder.”
“That’s bullshit.” He couldn’t even believe he was having this conversation with a woman he’d only slept with for just a few days. Stuff like this didn’t happen until way on down the road and by then he’d already moved on. Afraid? Fear had nothing to do with reality. She had him all wrong. “You haven’t known me long enough to be able to say something like that. ”
“I haven’t? What’s knowing? Two people can know each other for years and never see inside each other. Or people can be together for just a few hours and know each other’s heart, body, and soul. I think we fall closer to the latter. We connected twelve years ago on some deep level and that connection is still there, only more consuming now because we’re adults and we are indulging our desires.”
“That’s it. We’re indulging ourselves and having a good time. Why are you complicating it by blowing a rational reaction out of proportion?”
“Is that all it really is?” She sighed and shook her head. “Do the words, ‘I suck at meeting needs beyond the bedroom so I do what I do best and then move on,’ sound familiar?”
Jesse cupped the back of his neck and leaned his head back to ease the sudden tension wracking his muscles. Those words sounded suspiciously like what he had said to James. A world of hurt showed in her green eyes. “Shit. You were listening?”
He wasn’t ready to lose what they had going here, so that told him there was a little more than sex on the ta
ble, but hell, three days didn’t constitute a relationship, right? “Listen, I’m sorry if I said anything that—”
She turned away from him, but not before he saw a hint of tears in her eyes. He clenched his fists. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. It’s nice to know I’m good in bed.”
He winced. Hell. He came up behind her, gently touched her shoulders and eased her back against his chest. “Listen, whatever I said to James, I in no way meant to hurt you. If I did I’m sorry. But you have to be realistic here. We’ve had a few days of great sex between us. And more, if we want it. We can ride this thing out and see where it goes. We’re both adults and I didn’t—”
“Lie to me?” Moving from his embrace, she turned to face him, standing only inches from him. “A woman knows where you stand before she comes through the bedroom door, right?”
She fed his own words back to him, but somehow he didn’t like the taste of them now. If he’d thought he’d seen tears in her eyes, then he’d been mistaken. Her green eyes were steady and cool. So why did he want to kiss the fire back into them? Hell, he wanted that same fire that had licked him into a lather and ran him hell for leather more than a dozen times. He didn’t like this cool distance. He leaned over and kissed her, easing his lips against hers, pulling her body close enough to feel her heat. She responded immediately and a sense of relief kicked through him. She wanted him. She wouldn’t leave yet. Whatever else was going on inside her head, she didn’t deny him. He eased back and slid his hands to the lapels of her robe. “You don’t have to make me sound so cold-blooded. We both crave this fire between us. Isn’t that enough?”
Alexi felt her heart tear even as she kissed him back. Enough? No, she wanted more. She wanted all of those warm feelings of mutual love and acceptance that filled the spaces between great sex. And she’d been a fool to think that she could have sex with a man and not want the other things, too. She deepened the kiss and amended her last thought. It was Jesse she couldn’t have sex with without wanting all of those other things. She needed him. She needed to love him and touch him one more time. To feel the thrill of his seduction, to let him lead her deeper into the sexual play that he made so wonderfully exciting. And she kissed him ruthlessly, desperately, as her body craved him and her heart reached out to embrace him one last time.
Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Brothers Series) Page 19