Gilded Secrets

by Maureen Child

  “Not yet,” he whispered, “but soon.”

  Then he dipped his head to take one pebbled nipple into his mouth. His lips and tongue tortured her with exquisite care. He lavished attention on first one nipple, then the other, until he had her twisting wildly beneath him while holding his head to her, making her half afraid he would stop.

  He suckled her, drawing deep at her breasts, and Charlie whimpered with the sexual need that grew and grew until it was all-encompassing. Vance’s mouth on her breasts. Vance’s hand at her core. Vance’s breath dusting her skin.

  A sensual haze dropped over her vision, blurring him, the room, even the slant of sunlight that now looked like a simple wash of gold across everything. She didn’t need to see, she told herself. All she needed was him. All she cared about now was the next touch. The next stroke. The next pull at her breasts.

  “Time to lose these,” Vance murmured as he lifted his head to claim a quick, hard kiss. Then he flicked his wrist and the elastic band on her panties snapped.

  “Good,” Charlie said, swallowing past the knot in her throat. She parted her thighs for him and he caressed her heat, drawing a sigh from her as she whispered, “That’s good.”

  “About to get better,” he promised.

  Sliding first one finger then two into her depths, he stroked her, inside and out, until she was trembling, quivering, from head to toe. She clutched at him—arms, shoulders, back. She dragged her nails down his skin, loving the feel of him beneath her hands. His thumb moved over the most sensitive spot at her center and Charlie jolted at the lightninglike sensations that shot through her.

  Wild now, hungry beyond the telling of it, she rocked her hips like crazy, trying to take him deeper, higher, and she groaned because it still wasn’t enough. She needed to feel his thick, hard body pushing within. Charlie felt her climax building and coiling inside her and she yearned for it, ached for it.

  “More, more,” she whispered, voice broken on a gasp.

  “Want it, Charlie. Want it more than your next breath,” he said softly, lifting his head to watch her face.

  Her gaze caught with his, she managed to choke out, “I do. Want it. Want you. Always have.” She shook her head from side to side on the cool silk and licked her lips as he pushed her closer, higher, faster. “Always wanted you. Now have to have you. No more waiting, Vance.” Her gaze pinned his. “Now.”

  “Now.” He lifted his hand from her core and she nearly wept with the loss of him.

  But in seconds, he shifted on the bed, tore off what was left of her panties and tossed the ruined scrap of lace over his shoulder. He ran his palms up and down the length of her legs and smiled when he glanced at the high heels she still wore.

  Charlie managed a short laugh in spite of what she was feeling. “Your fantasy?”

  “Not until you’re wearing that satisfied smile.”

  She wiggled her hips and parted her thighs even farther. “I’m ready when you are,” she said.

  “Almost.” He reached for the bedside table, yanked open the drawer and grabbed a condom.

  “I didn’t think. I—” Charlie was grateful. She’d been so caught up in the sensual delights, she hadn’t given a single thought to protection.

  “Only one of us had to,” he told her as he tore open the foil square, then sheathed himself.

  He knelt between her thighs, scooped his hands under her behind and lifted her slightly off the mattress. She looked up into his eyes and saw a need that matched her own. She had never known anything like this before. Hadn’t realized that sex could be so…much. Always before, it had been…nice. Pleasant. But there was nothing “pleasant” about sex with Vance. This was raw, powerful, all-consuming need. If she didn’t feel him inside her soon, Charlie knew she would lose what was left of her mind.

  And as that last coherent thought twisted through her brain, Vance pushed himself inside her in one hard stroke.

  He was big and thick and oh, so good. Charlie gasped, then groaned his name as she lifted her hips into him, taking him even deeper until he filled her so completely, so totally, she couldn’t imagine ever being without him inside her again. It was as if she had been waiting her whole life for this moment. For this man. She felt it. Knew it deep in her soul.

  He moved in her and her body tightened around his, her inner muscles clenching and releasing as he led her into a dance as old as time. Her back arched, her hips rocked furiously as she rode the crashing wave of pleasure he induced.

  He set the rhythm and she matched it. He touched her, she stroked her hands up and down his chest, his abdomen. He lifted her legs and set them on his shoulders, allowing him to go deeper, higher within her.

  Charlie gasped at each invasion and nearly wept at each retreat. Passion exploded between them and as her climax peaked, sending her shrieking into a world filled with light and color, she heard him shout her name just before she felt him follow.

  And as their bodies reached completion, they clung to each other like shipwreck survivors huddled on the shore.

  Moments later, Vance whispered, “It’s those shoes, Charlie. Never get rid of those shoes.”

  And she laughed, delighted.

  Ten

  In the kitchen twenty minutes later, Vance rustled up some cold Chardonnay, crackers and some cheese. As he took down two wineglasses, he paused for a moment and thought about the woman waiting for him in his bedroom.

  Slapping both hands to the granite counter, he let himself remember the incredible feeling of being deep inside Charlie’s body and how he’d had the momentary thought that he’d like to stay that way forever. Almost instantly, he’d instinctively pulled back from that word.

  He didn’t do forever. What he did was weeks. Maybe months, tops. Forever was for people too dumb to know that lust wasn’t love. Desire wasn’t lasting and passion cooled off just as fast as it burned.

  Reluctantly, he scraped both hands across his face, then pushed them through his hair. He glanced across the room at the view through his windows and told himself to get a grip. What he had with Charlie was damn good, but that’s all it was.

  All this self-exploration only went to prove that he’d waited too long between women. It had been more than three months since he’d stopped seeing Sharon—Karen—something.

  Scowling now, he realized he not only couldn’t remember her name, he couldn’t remember anything else about her, either. While Charlie, on the other hand, was indelibly etched into his mind. If he never saw her again, he’d still recall everything about her. Never see her again. Okay, he didn’t like that thought, either. But that was only natural, he assured himself. At the beginning of an affair, which this most certainly was going to be, everything was brighter, hotter, better than anything that had come before.

  Wasn’t it?

  A silent voice inside him argued that Charlie was different from any woman he’d been with. What he’d just shared with her had shaken him right down to his bones and he didn’t even want to try to figure out what that might mean.

  Instead, he grabbed the tray of snacks and the glasses in one hand and the bottle of wine with the other and headed back to the bedroom. Just outside the doorway, he muttered, “Keep it simple, stupid.”

  Charlie was sitting up in the bed, waiting for him, and everything in Vance stilled for a long second or two. The woman was stunning and just looking at her made him want her all over again. Scowling, he told himself it meant nothing. But a voice
in the back of his mind whispered something else entirely.

  “Are you arguing with yourself?”

  He blinked, looked at her and asked, “What?”

  “You had this look on your face, like you were having a silent battle.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he lied, disconcerted to discover he was so easy for her to read. Hell, his opponents in business had long told him that he had the best poker face in the world. That nothing he didn’t want to reveal showed up on his expression. But Charlie took one look at him and knew what he was thinking.

  Yeah. Disconcerting.

  He walked naked across the room, set the tray of crackers and cheese on the bedside table, then poured each of them a glass of wine. Just like in his fantasies, her long, blond hair was spread across the dark blue duvet like spun gold and he couldn’t resist touching it. It was smooth and soft and smelled, he thought, of peaches. The woman was edible, head to toe.

  She took a sip of her wine and said, “That’s good, thank you.”

  He gulped at his own wine, hoping to ease the knot of need that was now lodged in his throat. Everything about her called to him. The way she licked a drop of wine from her lips. The way she shook her hair back over her shoulder. The way she reached one hand out to cup his cheek, sending lines of heat shooting through his body.

  “I’m suddenly not very thirsty,” he admitted. “You?”

  “Not very,” she agreed, handing him her glass so he could set both of them down on the table beside the bed.

  Her fingers caressed his cheek and he caught her hand in his. “Think you can read my thoughts?” he asked quietly. “What am I thinking now?”

  “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she murmured, “I’m thinking it, too.”

  “Good to know,” he said and dropped his head to claim a kiss. The first taste of her exploded in his mouth and rocketed through him. Just like the first time he had kissed her, in the shade of a willow tree, he felt that pitch and roll in his stomach and a weird sort of ache in his chest. But he didn’t want to consider what any of it might mean.

  For now, all he wanted, needed, was Charlie. The feel of her, the hot silk of her body surrounding him when he entered her. Everything else in the damn world could just wait its turn.

  He loved the feel of her soft hands sliding over his skin, the heat of her touch, kindling the fire inside him into something wild and uncontrollable. He caressed her, she responded, she ran her fingernails along his back and he shivered.

  This woman got to him on levels he hadn’t even known he possessed. She invaded his body, his soul, his mind and, he suspected, his heart. And that was something that no one had ever managed to do.

  He shook his head, deliberately dismissing his own thoughts. He wanted nothing interfering with this moment. He was hard and tight and ready for her again and couldn’t wait to get back inside her. Where he belonged, a voice inside whispered. Where he most wanted to be. He grabbed another condom and sheathed himself quickly.

  Shifting, he sat up, and dragged her with him. She came willingly and when his back was braced against the headboard, he lifted her up to straddle him.

  She whipped her long hair back from her face, but it slid forward again, lying in blond ribbons across her full, truly amazing breasts. Her nipples peeked through the golden strands like hidden treasures waiting to be discovered.

  With her hands on his shoulders, she went up on her knees, and slowly took him inside, inch by glorious inch. His hands at her hips, he guided her down as his eyes locked with hers. He saw the flash of wonder, of want burning in those pale blue depths, and lost himself there. In the heat they built together. In the need that had them both by the throat.

  Why was that need even more desperate now? Shouldn’t it have been assuaged by their first joining? Shouldn’t he be feeling satisfied instead of hungrier for her than ever?

  “You’re killing me,” he muttered when she was fully seated on him and his body was locked within hers.

  “I was thinking the same thing about you,” she admitted and ground her hips against him, dragging a groan from each of them.

  “I wanted to take this time slow,” Vance told her after a long minute when he fought for control. “But I don’t think so.”

  “Who needs slow?” she asked, then let out a “Whoop!” when he moved fast and tossed her onto her back, keeping his body joined with hers.

  “There’s lots of time for slow,” he told her, voice low and scratchy. “Later.”

  “Right. Later.” She lifted her legs, hooked them around his hips and pulled him in deeper, higher. “Right now, I just need. Need…”

  “Me, too.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, shut down his racing mind and gave himself up to instinct. The raw, pure hunger roaring through him demanding to be sated.

  His hips moved like pistons. He took her fast, hard and completely. He heard her sighs and they fed his desire. He felt her body shiver as her climax jolted through her. She screamed his name as her body trembled and, moments later, he shouted victoriously as his body exploded into the heat of her, leaving him locked in her arms—and he didn’t let her go.

  * * *

  “Weird afternoon,” Charlie whispered to herself an hour later as she sat at her desk, going over Vance’s mail.

  She’d been in his bed. Held his body in hers. And now they were back at Waverly’s as if nothing had happened.

  But it had, she reminded herself with an inner smile. She just didn’t know what that meant for either of them.

  One corner of her mind asked if it really had to mean something. Wasn’t it enough for now to simply enjoy what she had while she had it? And though that was good advice, she would never be able to follow it. Charlie never had been the girl to accept “for now.”

  She’d always been more the home-and-hearth type rather than the use-’em-and-lose-’em kind of girl. So where did that leave her, exactly?

  Living with her boss. Sleeping with him.

  And worrying about what happened next.

  For whatever reason, Vance was being kind and very protective of her and her son, and Charlie was grateful. But she knew that soon enough, he was bound to move on to one of the empty-headed beauties he usually dated. And that was just depressing.

  Her desk phone buzzed and she picked up. “Yes?”

  Vance’s voice came across loud and clear, “Come in here, Charlie. I’ve got an idea.”

  She walked into his office and paused for a second to enjoy the view. He sat behind his desk like a king. Power emanated from him and when he smiled, everything inside her drew up into tight knots.

  Oh, God. It had happened. She’d gone and done it.

  She was in love with Vance Waverly.

  And doomed to misery because he would never return that feeling. How could he? He knew the whole sordid truth about her now. Where she was from, what kind of family she had had. They were night and day, light and dark, power and powerlessness.

  Heart aching, she forced a smile onto her face and prayed he couldn’t see what it was costing her. If all she had left was her pride, then she was going to cling to it.

  “What kind of idea?” she asked, taking one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “I want you to email that bastard who’s been hounding you and tell him you want to meet.”

  “What?” Fear closed her throat as she stared at him. “Why?”


  “Because I want to find out who he is. That way we’ll know who’s behind all this.” He stood up, came around the desk and took the chair next to hers.

  Charlie stared into his eyes and saw the gleam of anticipation there. “I don’t know.”

  “I do. You can do this, Charlie.” He reached over and picked up her hands from her lap. Holding them in his, he met her gaze and reminded her, “We already figured out this isn’t a coincidence. Your first threatening note arriving the same day as the article on Ann and Dalton showing up in the paper? No way. Whoever’s behind the threats to you has to be involved in whatever’s being planned for Waverly’s.”

  “But, Vance…”

  “I’ll be there. Well,” he hedged, “not with you, but close by. I swear I’ll never you out of my sight. You’ll be safe, Charlie, but I think this is our best chance of stopping this guy.”

  She didn’t like any of it. The thought of meeting someone who had been threatening her was terrifying, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Charlie understood why Vance wanted to do this, but her son was at risk. “What if he sees you? What if he makes good on his threats and tries to take Jake from me?” Shaking her head, she tried to pull her hands free of his, but he held on even tighter.

  “That won’t happen.”

  “You can’t guarantee that.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  Charlie bit her lip. “Why can’t we just call the police?”

  “Because the press would be alerted. I’m sorry, Charlie. Waverly’s can’t risk that.”

  “No, of course not. I don’t want this in the papers, either,” she said with a shudder.

  “But I can arrange for a member of Waverly’s security staff to be in the area. I’ll be there, too. You won’t be in any danger, Charlie. And I promise you that you won’t lose Jake. If it came to it, I’d hire the best attorney in the city to fight for you. You won’t lose your son, Charlie. You just have to trust me. Can you do that?”