The Jewel of His Collection

by Fae Mallory

  “Mr. Carlisle mentioned that he’d shown you to the egress when I noticed you disappeared. I don’t think he’s fond of reporters.” Her answer was technically true even if she left out the part where they’d both laughed about fooling Paul. Trying to redirect the conversation, she put her hand on Paul’s wrist. “I was disappointed I didn’t get to talk to you longer.”

  He nodded, seeming satisfied with her response. “Okay, but I don’t want you to think I’m an idiot,” he informed her. “I know what egress means. I just assumed it was the name of a painting.”

  “I thought it must be something like that,” Violet agreed, even though she’d thought no such thing.

  Mollified, Paul launched into a description of the community theater’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, spoiling the ending along the way. Fortunately, Violet had already read it because from Paul’s review, it sounded like it was worth seeing.

  When she mentioned that she’d like to see the show, giving him an opening to ask her on a third date, Paul chuckled. “You’re really into all this artsy stuff, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes,” she said honestly. “You’re not?” That seemed like a strange position for a man with a half-finished novel to take.

  “I guess I’m more interested in the act of creation. Like me—I’m writing a book, but I don’t read too many because I don’t want other authors to influence my style. I don’t really see the point in looking at something someone else did when you could be doing something yourself.” He took a long swallow of beer as Violet digested his words.

  While she could appreciate Paul’s focus on taking action, he seemed to be dismissing the entire realm of art, literature, and culture out of hand. “I think we can learn things by seeing how other people see the world,” she suggested.

  Paul laughed. “I should have known you’d argue! You look at other people’s art for a living.”

  Stung by his description of her job, Violet lowered her eyes. “I used to paint,” she told him, refuting his assertion that she did nothing but absorb what other people did. Even though she hadn’t painted in years, she’d still designed the Madden exhibit. She wasn’t just a passive observer.

  Paul draped his arm around her shoulders. “Oh, come on, Violet. Don’t be like that. I think it’s great that you like your job. Most people can’t say that.” He leaned closer, and only turning her head at the last second kept his kiss from landing on her lips.

  With a low whistle, Paul jostled her. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. Come on, smile for me.”

  Realizing that he was telling the truth, Violet found a smile for him. Nothing he’d said was meant to demean her, even though it did. The way he saw the world was simply so alien from her own perspective that there was inevitable friction.

  Violet reminded herself that opposites attract, reciting that well-worn cliché like a mantra even as a quiet voice deep in her soul told her that Paul could never make her happy. He hadn’t even asked about her painting. In fact, he’d barely asked her anything at all during either of their dates, content to talk about himself.

  She wasn’t being fair, Violet told herself later that night when she thought over the evening from the comfort of her bed. She’d peppered him with questions about himself with the express purpose of not talking about herself. She couldn’t blame him for taking the bait. The next time they went out, she’d talk about things that interested her and see how he responded. There was no reason to dismiss him as self-centered if she never gave him the chance to show interest in her. All she had to do was give him a chance, and he was certain to rise to the occasion.

  Before that could happen, there was something she needed to straighten out. Violet got to the museum early the next day, determined to ensure Leroy hadn’t sold her personal information to anyone besides Paul.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me about the premiere?” she asked, trying to look strict as Leroy fidgeted in front of her.

  “Like what?” he grumbled, looking up at her through his bushy eyebrows.

  “Like Paul Hallar giving you twenty bucks for my phone number?” she suggested.

  Leroy held his hands up defensively, “Hey, you said not to tell you about my ‘side ventures’.”

  Closing her eyes, Violet counted to ten, admitting that he had a valid point. She’d told him not to tell her about his bribes, but that was before she knew they involved her. “You’re right, I did. Would you please tell me now?”

  After a suspicious look, Leroy apparently decided he wasn’t in danger of being fired and lifted his hand, ticking off the list on his fingers. “Some guy gave me a hundred bucks to skip the line. Another guy gave me fifty bucks to distract his wife while he went to talk to some girl. The reporter gave me twenty bucks for your phone number, and Carlisle gave me a hundred bucks not to let the reporter back in.”

  Violet listened with an amused smile until he reached the part about Ian. “Mr. Carlisle gave you a hundred dollars to make sure Paul didn’t get back into the premiere?”

  Leroy nodded. “Yeah, he tried to give me twenty bucks to let him back in, but he settled for your phone number when I told him to get lost.”

  “Why?” Her voice was shrill.

  “I don’t know. I guess he thought you were cute.” Leroy ducked his head at the glare she shot him.

  “Why did Ian bribe you not to let Paul in?” Violet bit out.

  “How the hell should I know?” Leroy asked, baffled. “He gave me a hundred bucks. I didn’t ask questions.”

  “Thank you, Leroy.” Violet sighed to herself as Leroy went back to work. How could it possibly benefit Ian to have Paul out of the way during the premiere? She’d asked him to keep Paul busy, not get rid of him entirely. Nothing about this made any sense, but as she opened the museum for the day, Violet vowed that she’d get to the bottom of it.

  * * * *

  “Sir? We’re about to land.” Ian jolted awake at the soft-spoken words, stretching his aching neck from one side to the other. The short flight from New York back home to Maine wasn’t nearly enough time to catch up on his sleep, leaving him feeling groggy and completely out of sorts.

  It had been a hell of a week.

  After the most shattering sexual encounter of his life, the last thing Ian had wanted was to be torn from Violet’s side to attend to business matters, but upon his arrival in New York, he’d quickly established that his presence was necessary. The company was hemorrhaging money, a leak that was finally tracked to the desk of his vice president of research and development, a man his father had hired and trusted absolutely.

  Apparently he’d been embezzling for years, growing steadily bolder when his misapprehension of funds went undetected. It had taken a week of twenty-hour days to ascertain the full extent of the man’s duplicity, and when Ian finally left New York, criminal proceedings were underway.

  With a sigh, he gazed out the window, watching impatiently as the landmarks gradually grew larger as they approached the ground, bringing him home to Violet. For the past week, he’d scarcely had time to think about her, but now he indulged himself, closing his eyes as he relived their passionate encounter.

  He’d assumed he’d need to win her over gradually, intending to use the promise of loaning Geminids to the museum to get her to spend more time with him. Instead, she’d gone up like a powder keg, unleashing all the passion that he’d known was simmering inside of her. He’d envisioned a long, slow seduction, but Violet had rendered all of his plans moot by grabbing his shoulders and kissing him, proving that his shy little mouse wasn’t shy at all.

  The mere thought made his cock twitch as Ian remembered the bliss of having Violet’s soft, curvy body arching into his touch. She’d been exquisite in her pleasure, her face flushed and eyes wide with wonder as she moaned for him. Never had he been so overcome by a woman that he couldn’t even take the time to get his pants off before plunging into her.

  Ian groaned aloud at the memory of Violet’s tight b
ody clenching almost painfully around him. He’d never done it without a condom before, fearful of being trapped by a woman who would use a pregnancy to gain a permanent foothold on his life. With Violet, the thought of protection had been utterly alien. Anything that would blunt the feeling of her hot, wet pussy was anathema to him. He wanted to be in her to the hilt with nothing between them. He wanted to always be inside her.

  Surely she would have stopped him if she wasn’t on birth control, but even the thought of a pregnancy couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. Violet would be gorgeous with his child growing inside of her, announcing his claim to the world. Her curvy little body would round even more with the pregnancy, lush and feminine.

  Ian hissed as his cock throbbed, strangled by the constriction of his jeans, and he reached down to adjust himself. If he got Violet pregnant, he’d marry her. He, who’d always shunned the idea of committing himself fully, found no fear in the thought. Violet was everything he’d been unknowingly searching for his entire life. If she was pregnant, he’d marry her, and if she wasn’t, he’d just have to try harder.

  As the plane finally came in for a landing, Ian shook his head at himself. It seemed that underneath all the pretenses of culture and civility, men truly were animals at heart. Violet was his mate, and he’d make her his in any way possible.

  The moment the plane was on the ground, he reached for his phone, then shoved it back into his pocket, and grabbed his bag. A mere phone call was too impersonal for what he wanted to do with Violet. It was an hour drive to the museum, forty-five minutes if he bent a few traffic laws, and then she’d be in his arms again. One kiss would soothe all the unpleasantness of the past week. Then he could lift her up onto her desk and lick her sweet pussy the way he’d been denied last time. If the museum was still open, all the better. Violet was his, and he wanted all of Owensport to know.

  It took only forty-two minutes to reach the museum, the promise of a blissful reunion with Violet burning through his exhaustion. Later they could curl up together and he’d sleep for ten straight hours, but for now, he was desperate for something more primal than sleep. He needed to be sheathed inside Violet, reaffirming their connection after being separated for too long.

  He staggered inside, the cricks in his soul smoothing out at the sight of Violet perched behind her desk and smiling as she handed out tickets. Her blond curls were pulled up in a ponytail, and she was wearing another of her hideous gray tents. To his amusement, the sight of her dress only made his cock ache more. Let her wear her tents—he knew what was hiding underneath them.

  When she lifted her gaze to meet his, Ian sucked in a breath, waiting for her exclamation of pleasure at the sight of him. Instead her smile faded, her blue eyes going distant. “I’m back,” he said, loping closer to her desk.

  “I see that,” Violet murmured before devoting her full attention to the next person in line.

  Her voice was cold, and Ian frowned. This wasn’t going quite the way he’d pictured it. He’d assumed Violet would take one look at him and throw herself into his arms, but instead she wouldn’t even meet his eyes. “I missed you,” he hazarded.

  At that she did look at him, her blue eyes flashing a challenge. “I could tell from all the times you called me.”

  “Oh, hell.” Ian groaned. He’d promised to call her before he left, but in his frantic attempts to save his company, he’d completely forgotten. For the past week, he’d been either working or unconscious, but Violet didn’t know that. She thought he’d been neglecting her.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said in his most conciliatory tone. “It’s been a hell of a week.”

  Instead of responding, Violet reached for the phone on her desk and paged Leroy. When the burly man appeared a few moments later, she requested, “Could you please mind the desk? Mr. Carlisle and I need to have a meeting.”

  With a grumble, Leroy took her place, and Ian followed Violet through the door marked Staff Only and down the short hallway to her office. Although her desk was bare save for basic office supplies and a few pieces of paperwork, the small, windowless room was lined with shelves stuffed with a thousand odds and ends not fit to go on display, giving it a feeling of comfortable clutter.

  The moment her door closed behind them, Ian sighed in relief and reached for her. Since Violet was a consummate professional, he’d been foolish to daydream that she’d allow him to embrace her in public, but they were alone now. Instead, she evaded him and moved to sit behind her desk, putting a barrier between them. “Would you like to explain to me why you bribed Leroy to keep Paul out of the premiere?”

  “How did you find out about that?” he asked in bewilderment. It was probably an unwise thing to say, but since he’d gotten a total of about fifteen hours of sleep in the past week, his mind felt a little sluggish.

  Violet’s eyes flashed. “Paul mentioned something funny on Friday, and when I asked Leroy about it yesterday, he admitted you bribed him.”

  “I guess I didn’t pay him enough to guarantee his silence,” Ian said ruefully, the full impact of her words belatedly catching up to him. “You saw Hallar on Friday?”

  “We had a date to go out for drinks.” Violet folded her hands primly in front of her.

  “You had a date?” Ian asked, his voice rising dangerously. After what they shared on Sunday, Violet had gone out another man. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached, his nostrils flaring as he tried to breathe and regain control of himself because if he didn’t, he was going to go find Hallar and break his neck.

  “Yes. I went out with him because he called me,” Violet sniped.

  His tenuous patience gave out. Stalking closer, Ian slammed his hands down on her desk, grimly pleased when she jumped at the bang. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing this week?”

  In spite of himself, he was impressed by the way she held her ground. “How could I? I haven’t heard a word from you in a week.”

  “Unlike you, I haven’t been dating other women,” he snarled. Violet was flushed with anger, and his cock surged as his mind conflated his current image of her with his mental picture of her in the throes of passion.

  “What do you care? You got what you wanted.” Violet was breathing hard, her breasts heaving under her dress, and Ian snapped.

  “Oh, no, I didn’t,” he growled, coming around the desk. Violet shoved her chair back, looking ready to run, but when he dropped to his knees and put his hands on her thighs, she froze. “I didn’t get anywhere near everything I want from you.”

  Grabbing her calves, he yanked her forward until she was perched on the very edge of her seat. Violet yelped at the rough handling, but she didn’t say a word of protest as he shoved up the hem of her skirt, baring her generous, milky-white thighs. With a predatory smile, Ian grasped her panties and tugged them down, stuffing them into his pocket as he inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of her arousal hanging heavy in the air. “You want me, too. I can smell how much.”

  “Ian…” He wasn’t sure if she was protesting or pleading with him, and Ian wasn’t sure if he cared. Violet shifted nervously, her thighs parting just enough to give him a glimpse of glistening pink flesh. She was dripping for him, and his mouth watered with the need to lick up all of her sweet juices. “Please.”

  “Please, what?” he asked, massaging her calves with his hands and coaxing her to part her legs more, letting him see her gorgeous pussy.

  “Please!” she sobbed, her pearly-white teeth sinking deeply into her bottom lip. “Do it.”

  He was half-tempted to make her wait, to tease her in punishment for daring to go out with another man, but her musk was ticking his nose, and he couldn’t wait another second. With a groan, he dived in, her strong thighs cradling his head as he ran his tongue over her folds in a long, firm lick, desperate to taste her.

  “Ian!” Violet’s fingers plunged into his hair, pulling it free from its ponytail, and he relished her possessive grip. With his face buried between Violet’s legs, all o
f the fatigue and stress of the past week was burned away in the fire of their shared passion. This was where he belonged—kneeling at Violet’s feet with his tongue lapping hungrily at her hot little pussy. He was never going to let them be separated again. He’d keep her so busy that she wouldn’t have time to think about Hallar, much less see him.

  Ian was practiced in this art, but no woman had ever been as delicious as Violet. The taste of her honey-sweet juices left him reeling, all of his technique deserting him in his desperation to drown in her. Reaching around her, he buried his fingers in her dimpled bottom and pulled her forward, burying his face against her. He couldn’t breathe, but as his tongue stroked through her folds in search of the places that would make her gasp and pull his hair, Ian couldn’t care less. He didn’t need air. All he needed was Violet.

  Above him, Violet let out a moan and draped her leg over his shoulder, giving him better access. At this sign of her approval, Ian felt a modicum of sanity return, bringing thoughts of Hallar with it. The other man was trying to steal his Violet, and he growled at the thought. That was unacceptable. With grim determination, Ian forced himself to slow down and bring the bulk of his experience to bear. Violet deserved better than frenzied licking. She deserved the best he could give her.

  He drew back just enough to take a full breath, trying to clear his head enough to formulate a plan of action. At his withdrawal, Violet moaned a protest, and he smiled at the sound, pressing a long kiss to her most private area, his tongue thrusting into her in shallow strokes. Using his hold on her hips, Ian encouraged her to rock against him as he explored her damp folds, uncovering her mysteries with ruthless determination. He was going to be the best she’d ever had and ruin her for any other man. Once he got through with her, Hallar would never be able to satisfy her.

  A gentle flutter of his tongue against her clitoris made Violet squeal and jerk her hips, and he pulled back to lavish licks and kisses on the sensitive area beneath until she was panting and whining with frustration. Only then did he reward her by sucking hard on the tiny nub before easing off to repeat the process, denying her what she wanted most.