He also knew that there was no way that the man would not come over to introduce himself in person, now that he’d seen him.
“What is his version of the VIP treatment?” Maddy whispered, though Santorini could not have heard her from across the crowded casino.
“Expensive liquor and even more expensive whores.” Alex eyed Maddy speculatively, curious to see if she thought that was what he was used to anyway.
He smiled slowly, possessively when her cute little lips pursed with displeasure. Unless he was very much mistaken, she was getting to the point where she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of another woman’s hands on him.
That was good, because the only woman whose hands he wanted on him was the one sitting so close that her freesia scent clouded his brain.
Alex got one hell of a surprise when, after inhaling deeply, Maddy placed her hand on his thigh and leaned in closer, until her hair brushed over his shoulder. If Massimo hadn’t been heading toward them, he might have taken that moment to thread his fingers through her hair, to finally possess her mouth with his own. Still, with the muscles of his leg hard beneath the flat of her palm, he found himself loath to move. He wanted to nip at her neck, to inhale her scent.
Swallowing thickly, he tried to shake off the lust that was riding him. He needed a clear head to gauge Santorini.
“What are you doing?” Alex’s words were a warning, but he wasn’t sure if the warning was for Maddy or for himself.
“You don’t want to be noticed. Maybe he didn’t actually see you. Now you’re hidden. We look like a couple stopping for a drink during their day of gambling.” Alex turned his head to find her lips close, so close.
Unable to resist, though it went against every bit of business sense that he had, Alex leaned in and brushed his lips over Maddy’s in the briefest but sexiest kiss he’d ever had in his life. Her mouth was hot, wet, and tasted ever so faintly of strawberries.
He wanted to drag her upstairs, to fist his hands in that wealth of golden brown hair, and to slide inside of her waiting heat until he forgot his own name.
Unfortunately, right at the moment, it wasn’t an option.
Pulling back a fraction, Alex saw the rejection run over Maddy’s face. He shook his head, needing to explain that he wasn’t pulling away because he wanted to.
The women he knew wouldn’t have felt rejected—they would have slid onto his lap, grasped his cock in long, greedy fingers, and continued right on with what they were doing.
Maddy wasn’t like those women. He had to remember that.
Desperate for one more taste, he nipped at her ear before whispering into it, “You’re playing a dangerous game, Miss Stone. If you knew what I truly wanted to do to you, you would run screaming into the night.”
She inhaled slowly, as if trying to offset the rise in temperature that surrounded them.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Again, he didn’t hold back that warning tone.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she protested, and he withdrew fully. He was a whisper away from clearing the table where they sat with one arm and sliding his fingers into her liquid heat after laying her on it.
He could breathe a bit more easily when her sweet floral scent wasn’t invading his every sense.
“Mr. Fraser!” The name was shouted from halfway across the room, yet was still discernible over the noise. The man speaking was loud and had a heavy accent. Wincing—he had indeed been made—Alex and Maddy turned as one to find the man Alex recognized from his research as Massimo Santorini bearing down on them, his beefy black-clad bodyguards following closely in his wake.
“Shit.” Alex felt his muscles stiffen underneath Maddy’s fingers. Though he wanted to wrap her away where she couldn’t be touched by this man—what the hell had he been thinking, bringing her here?—he did the next best thing he could think of, stepping into his ruthless tycoon suit so fully that when Santorini reached their table, it was the eyes and smile of a shark that waited for him.
“Mr. Fraser, why didn’t you tell me you would be here?” Massimo took Alex’s hand before it was offered and shook it vigorously. Alex didn’t stand, but stayed seated.
It was deliberate, a tactic Alex often used to tip dealings in his favor. Make yourself seem larger, more important than your opponent. It makes them want to please you.
“Massimo.” Alex used the other man’s first name, which was again deliberate. He watched Santorini’s lips pinch together briefly at the perceived slight.
For all of Santorini’s exuberance, Alex’s instincts, which were finely honed after so many years, told him that the man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The wolf had to be smart to get as far as he had . . . so why was he turning to a stranger to bail him out of trouble with a cash deal?
Maybe Alex had simply been too suspicious for far too long. After all, it was only his gut telling him that something was off. Everything else about the deal checked out.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming, Mr. Fraser?” Santorini emphasized the mister.
“I wasn’t aware that I needed to inform you that I would be on the premises.” Alex’s voice was low, layered with steel. He couldn’t quite understand his own hostility, only that he was responding to something that the other man was giving off.
“Of course. Of course.” Again, the wolf gave every impression of being genial, but the tension radiating from him was palpable. “But if I had known, I would have arranged for you to be treated like a king. In fact, can I get you anything now? Something to drink that’s better than this swill? Some . . . entertainment?”
In his peripheral vision, Alex saw Maddy’s glare. She swallowed it down, probably not wanting to interfere in his business, but rage washed over Alex that she felt put down at all.
He stood abruptly, and deliberately taking Maddy’s hand, pulled her with him. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, his arm sliding down, down, until his hand came to rest on her waist. It was an intimate touch, a possessive one.
“It is in incredibly bad taste to offer me a whore in front of Miss Stone.” Alex barely suppressed the anger in his voice, and Santorini blinked at its intensity.
Alex had half a mind to walk out of there with Maddy right then, deal be damned. The only thing stopping him was the idea that had taken root when he’d analyzed the profit of turning around Massimo’s casino.
He’d been wanting to start up a charitable foundation for years, a philanthropic side to his empire. The clear profit he’d projected he would make could fund whatever it was he wanted to do on that end.
Plus, he thought as he looked into the other man’s eyes, given the strange undercurrents of hostility from Santorini that he didn’t appreciate, given that he was here to bail the man out, it might prove somewhat satisfying to play the bigger man.
“I do apologize, Mr. Fraser. I didn’t realize that this young lady was . . . with you.” Those cold black eyes finally looked at Maddy, though they had pointedly ignored her before. Santorini looked her up and then down, slowly, and Alex clung to the last shred of his civility.
He didn’t like the way Santorini looked at her. She was his, damn it.
“Watch yourself.” Alex waited, satisfied, as Santorini took a physical step back, though he didn’t look happy to do so.
As if he’d only just realized that he’d overstepped, Santorini assumed the demeanor of contrition, and he was good enough that Alex would have believed him, if it weren’t for that gut feeling.
That instinctive feeling that kept getting canceled out by his desire to build a foundation for teens and young adults who needed support when their families rejected them for their lifestyles.
“I assure you, Mr. Fraser, I meant no ill will.” Santorini held up his hands in a pleading gesture, though there was still a malicious spark in his eye. “I will treat your . . . companion . . . as if she were as precious as a child.”
For a moment Alex was taken aback, something that didn’t happen
often. Why had Santorini chosen those precise words?
He decided that he didn’t care as his puzzlement was replaced with the red flare of horrible, hideous rage. Though he rarely lost his temper, preferring to channel it into the discipline of tae kwon do, he wasn’t entirely certain that he wasn’t about to strike the other man.
When he felt the soft fingers of the woman beside him curl into his arm, he knew why. It was Maddy. He wanted her so badly that his reactions were on the far side of extreme.
Knowing it didn’t help to ease the reaction. Alex tightened his grip on Maddy’s hips, his fingers kneading her flesh. “We are leaving.”
She reached hastily for her purse before he all but carried her out the door. “Thank you for sticking up for me . . .” Maddy’s voice was tentative as they stepped out the front doors, into the late-afternoon sunlight, and walked the short distance to the dilapidated hunk of junk that was her car. Alex shook his head at it.
Surely that thing wasn’t safe. That was something that needed to be taken care of right away.
There it was again, that need to protect this woman. It went far beyond what he normally felt for a submissive.
He had no idea what he was doing. He didn’t date—he couldn’t date. Lydia had made damn sure of that.
Maddy looked up at him questioningly as he exhaled with frustration. The way that she worked her lower lip between her teeth when she was uncertain drove him crazy.
He couldn’t resist anymore.
Yet he had to. His life couldn’t offer her any more than a place as a lover, and this kind of woman wasn’t cut out for that.
With one hand still on her hip, he nudged her backward until she was pressed against the driver’s door of her car. The searing heat of the metal pressed into Alex’s palms, and he worked his hands between her body and the car so that she didn’t get burned.
He fit his body against her front, delighting in her curves, the feel of his hard angles against her softer flesh, another layer of heat.
I have to have her. He’d never wanted a woman so much, and he wasn’t in the habit of denying himself. He was going to kiss her again, was finally going to let himself sample those lips that had haunted his dreams. Beneath him, her lips parted in anticipation. Alex pressed the hard ridge of his erection into the curve of her belly, and he moaned with something near pain as she arched against him.
“You should run, Madeline.” He wasn’t an altruistic kind of man, but somehow he found that he didn’t want to hurt this perfect creature. And he would—he wouldn’t be able to help it. His lifestyle, which was a need ingrained deep within him, wouldn’t hold any appeal to an innocent like Madeline Stone.
One hand still cupping her hip possessively, Alex used the index finger of his other hand to trace Maddy’s lips slowly, first the upper and then the lower. He felt her knees quiver. He was so close that he could have kissed her without moving at all. His body was pressed in to hers, and the heat surrounding them burned away thoughts of anything beyond her. “Or maybe I am the one who should run. A woman who can make me drive this far to see her must be a witch, casting a spell over me.”
With supreme effort, Alex took his hands from her body, stepped back away from her.
Maddy was too much of an innocent to do the things he wanted to do with her, no matter how much he craved her. And his life was too much of a shit show for a woman clearly dealing with her own issues.
He hadn’t spoken to his family in years. He worked all the time, except for when Rae was with him, and she wasn’t someone he was willing to share.
No, he could see no part for Maddy Stone in all of that. It was nearly painful for him to take yet another step back, unable to take his eyes off of her as she stood openmouthed at his words.
“You drove out here to see me? But . . . the casino . . .” Maddy’s words trailed off, and Alex shook his head with wry amusement.
That she truly had no idea of her appeal was an absolute mystery to him.
“Did you really think it was a coincidence that I showed up at your diner?” Reaching out, unable to resist, he rubbed a thumb over her cheekbone, his expression fading from amusement to something darker. Then he stepped back yet again, putting space between them.
To his surprise, sweet Maddy growled, showing her anger. She narrowed her eyes and stepped toward him, her hands fisted at her sides. Though he found her spunky attitude sexy as hell, he realized with a sinking heart that, if he were a halfway decent guy, he wouldn’t have come out to Paradise in the first place.
So as she stepped away from the car, he opened the driver’s side door for her, smooth as can be, and coaxed her in with a nudge of his hand on her hip again. Leaning in, he buckled her into her seat as if she were a child, then tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He had to end it, despite the palpable heat between them. It was what a decent man would do.
“Why?” Maddy was quick to speak, and her narrowed glance at him told him that she knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t bother to feign ignorance.
“There are secrets in my life that would scare you, and there are other secrets that I won’t share. These secrets mean that this isn’t going to work.” Maddy’s eyes widened as he spoke, and he forced himself to look away from the innocent stare.
“I don’t date, Madeline.” Alex made sure that his voice was firm as he summed it up. Even if she asked for an explanation, he wasn’t going to give it.
Telling himself that he’d get over it in no time—he barely knew the woman, after all—Alex found that he was still bitterly disappointed.
“Goodbye, Miss Stone.” When she bit her lip, hard, before he walked away, he very nearly changed his mind.
He couldn’t. No matter that during the entire time he’d been with Maddy that day, he hadn’t felt the least bit alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next day, when Maddy arrived home from work, there was a courier box on the ground in front of her door. Her mind immediately went to Alex . . . Well, actually, her mind had been on the man all day.
Though there was no return address, she knew, just knew that it was from him. Perversely, she set the thing on her tiny kitchen table and glared at it periodically as she made a grilled cheese sandwich and ate it standing at the counter, a folded paper towel as her plate. Though she told herself that she would just feel worse if she opened it, she finally couldn’t take it any longer and attacked it with a kitchen knife, sawing through cardboard and packing tape.
Some men sent flowers when they’d been an ass. Some sent chocolates. Alex Fraser sent a bottle of Mouton Rothschild, the 1943 vintage—the same ridiculously expensive wine that he’d bought Maddy the evening they met. Attached to the neck of the bottle was an envelope, cut from thick, cream-colored paper.
The note inside said simply, “It is better this way.” It was written by hand, on stationery monogrammed with his initials.
Of course he had monogrammed stationery. What other kind of man would send a bottle of wine like that, one that had meaning attached, no less, and a note like that to a woman he barely knew?
More money than sense. Maddy had heard the saying once, and she was pretty sure that it had been coined with Alex Fraser in mind.
“Fuck you, Alex Fraser.” Of course, the bottle of wine didn’t respond, instead sitting where it was, mocking her with its intrusion into her life.
She was tempted to pack the thing back up, drive to Alex’s casino in Vegas, and dump the box in the middle of one of his blackjack tables. He’d made her feel things that she hadn’t even known she was capable of and then cut her off at the knees, insisting it was for her own good.
If she wanted to do something stupid, well, that was her decision, damn it.
So instead of returning the wine, she uncorked the bottle, grabbed a juice tumbler and her iPod, and headed for the bathroom.
As hot water poured into her worn porcelain bathtub, she poured her first glass of the delectable wine. It tasted jus
t as good out of a cheap tumbler as it had out of a fancy wineglass. The first few slugs fortified her, and she wrapped herself in her bravado as she topped off her glass, added perfumed oil to her bath, and set her iPod to Adele. The singer lectured men about rumors as Maddy cranked the volume as loud as it could go and slid into the water and steam, careful to keep the device outside the water. The heat wrapped around her like a hug, and she snuggled into its embrace.
Half an hour later, she was warm, relaxed, and more than a little drunk. She also had to pee. As Maddy clambered out of the tub, she drained half the water, then topped it up again with more hot and more scented oil. She felt decadent—though it might have been the wine talking—and decided that she deserved another glass of wine.
As she stood dripping on the tile, Maddy noticed her phone sitting on the counter. She knew that she was drunk; she knew that she shouldn’t even pick up the thing, but she did anyway.
She wasn’t quite brave enough to call him, but her fingers, fueled by wine, flew nimbly enough over the keys, as she quickly wrote out a text to Alex.
U R AN ASS.
The phone rang no more than a minute later. Surprise, surprise, it was Mr. Fraser. Though her brain had been drenched with wine, she was still coherent enough to wonder why he would bother replying to her drunken, texted insult, since he’d made it so clear that there couldn’t be anything between them.
Maddy ignored the ringing and clambered back into the bath. She couldn’t achieve the same manner of peace, though, and decided that it was Alex’s fault.
Her phone rang again and then once more. Then all was silent, her iPod forgotten on the floor, nothing but the drip, drip, drip of water into the tub to distract her from her thoughts.
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