Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  Chapter Six

  I’ve never been inside the spa here at Litraeon. I have my hairstylist and groomer back home. My treatments are done in my office, away from prying eyes. Yes, men get aesthetic treatments, too. When you’re a CEO and the paparazzi click click click, one stray hair becomes fodder for negative media.

  The only reason I let Amanda drag me downstairs is because our security detail keeps the press out of Litraeon. Being this hungover means that no amount of lighting can save us from bad pictures.

  “My God! You look like Lucifer himself took you home and chained you to a wall, with tentacles entering every orifice!” shouts an accented voice.

  I look at Amanda, whose face is surprisingly angelic, ethereal and captive, as she searches the room for the source of that statement.

  “Lüq?” she whispers, enraptured. I straighten.

  She’s never said my name with that kind of reverence. She’s come damn close a few times in bed, but I think calling me God was justified then.

  I have zero desire to see Lüq again, and the idea of a conversation with hu and Marie at the same time makes me want to rip my hair out, strand by strand.

  Which would reduce the need for any grooming treatments for a while, but leave me looking like The Rock, muscles and all.

  “Entheogenic Twins! How are you, Le Hawk?”

  My fingers curl into fists as Amanda embraces Lüq, hu’s face calm and appreciative as hu’s hands sink into Amanda’s body, caressing and touching her like hu has a right to do so. Lüq’s got to be my dad’s age, right? Hu isn’t my competition.

  “You are the most beautiful creature in this resort,” Lüq says to her, pulling back and stroking her hair.

  “That’s my line,” I say. I’m not joking.

  “You are orange,” hu declares, examining my face under the bright lights next to a fountain that has a strange, salty musk scent. “Evangi! Gagai!” Snap snap. “Get Mr. McCormick in the hot seat immediately!”

  Hot seat?

  A tiny little pixie of a girl with enormous eyes brings me a latte and we follow Amanda and Lüq. I take a sip. Not bad. a little watery, and the milk tastes sweet. Must be skim. I take a bigger gulp and wonder if Declan and Shannon are right.

  Is the coffee next door better?

  I hold out my palms in protest. “I’m not here for a treatment. We’re looking for Marie.”

  “Marie?” Hu shudders. “That vile woman who is poor Mr. Declan McCormick’s mother-in-law? She is not here, but let us delight you with a surprise of self-care and compassion for your poor little pores!” Hu’s fingers flutter to my jaw. I stiffen, but let hu, wanting to gauge how far hu will go.

  Studying people is a crucial part of being a CEO. In fact, it’s quality #1. You have to be able to map out people and understand their motivations and needs in any given situation so that you can exert authority.

  “What did you do to them? They cry out in pain, my ears hearing them, the torture too much.” Hu’s voice goes falsetto. “Help us, Lüq! We are so dry and cramped, we need to be scratched smooth!”

  He’s talking about my pores like they’re balls.

  If he’s hearing my pores screaming in agony, then the entheogenic wine makes more sense. I look around for an empty bottle.

  “Just go with it. Trust me. But don’t drink the hot spring water,” Amanda whispers in my ear, right before a tall, lithe woman wearing eye jewelry yanks me into another room.

  “What?” I look through the threshold between the rooms.

  Amanda gives me a little wave as Lüq undresses her.

  Undresses.

  “Hold on!” Definitely time to exert authority. Maybe I’ve underestimated hu. Lüq’s hands are on Amanda’s creamy, bare shoulders, and as her shirt slides down around her waist, she stands in the doorway wearing only a bra, the mist from what looks like a pool behind her curling around her, making her look like a Siren from Greek mythology.

  I’ve got a siren going off in my own body all right. In my pants.

  Which are being stripped off me by a woman who is wearing eye jewelry.

  “Whoa, there! That’s my girlfriend’s job!” I choke out.

  “Americans,” she mutters.

  As I bat at her hands and try to maintain some sense of control and dignity, Amanda’s bra comes off. She’s half naked, twenty feet from me, and Lüq is helping her finish.

  The same woman whose worst fear was being naked in public is undressing willingly in front of my spa manager.

  Did we just have an entheogenic latte? Because this cannot be happening.

  Pushing the Blade Runner chick’s hands aside, I march over to Amanda, my pants undone and belt clicking as it hits my fly. My hands are on her shoulders, brushing Lüq’s aside, as I turn my head and look at her.

  She is enchanted by the pool before us, a hot spring designed to look like a rainforest.

  And I am enchanted.

  By her.

  “Get out,” I say through gritted teeth. Lüq leaves instantly, abandoning Amanda to me.

  As it should be.

  “Marie’s not here, Amanda. Let’s go.” My mouth says let’s get out of here, but my hands say breasts.

  Just...breasts.

  Beautiful, slightly orange breasts that are bare in front of me, the hot spring mist wafting into the space between us, which I remove the second my hands find the soft, slight weight of her deliciously bare skin. They rest in my palms, a little larger than the span of my fingers, abundant and ripe.

  Her sigh makes me glad my belt is undone, my zipper lowered, because I have room for the growing need that blooms when she sighs like that.

  “Isn’t it beautiful here?” she asks, looking out at the lagoon-like pool. We’ve designed this part of Litraeon to be an oasis, a hothouse for orchids and stress relief, a place where women can hide from the cares of the world.

  I stare at her chest, the rosy nipples tightening under my touch. “Yes.”

  “I meant the hot spring.”

  “I’ve got something hot that’s about to spring on you.”

  “You make everything so porny.”

  I frown. “Your point is...”

  “This is bliss.”

  I squeeze. “Sure is.”

  “Not my breasts!”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “I mean....this. This place. It’s enchanted and magical. You can float and relax, crawl into a part of yourself where no one needs anything from you.”

  “Like sex.”

  “That’s how sex feels for you?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowns, eyes clouding with confusion as she looks up at me. Both of my hands are planted on her breasts like her nipples are magnets and I am the Iron Giant.

  One part of me certainly is.

  “But during sex, you do want and need something from the other person. Isn’t that the point of sex?”

  “Not the same as being in the world. With sex, you give so much that eventually you get back what you need.”

  “That’s really how you view sex?” She moves closer, my fingertips grazing up. Her skin is wet and yielding, the room’s heat making her glow.

  “With you, I do.”

  She sinks against me, our lips meeting, and I take a step back to catch my balance as she pushes against me, my hard-on pressing against her hip, her bare breasts crushed between my chest and my palms.

  And then we tip.

  That’s not a metaphor for a deep, layered kiss that transports us emotionally.

  We literally tip over, falling into the water half clothed, the wrenching difference between being incredibly aroused by her words and breasts and the sudden onslaught of wet, buoyant water jarring.

  A mouthful enters me and I find my footing, pushing up and spitting at the same time.

  “Oh, no! You swallowed! How awful!”

  Said no guy, ever.

  “Andrew, do you know what’s in this water?”

  I roll my tongue around in m
y mouth. “Salt water?”

  “Semen!”

  “I haven’t even come yet!”

  “Not your semen!” she shouts, sputtering, wiping her face, displaying those gorgeous globes. “There is whale sperm in the water.”

  Huh?

  “Whale sperm?”

  “It’s supposed to have anti-aging properties.”

  “Says who?” I ask, eyes crawling over her face, taking her in. We’re in three feet of water, and her knees are bent, arms under water. Those breasts bob like two little tugboats waiting for a big boat to come along and get pulled into harbor.

  She may have a point.

  I am a little porny.

  “Says Lüq. Just like the breast milk latte.”

  At the word breast, I defer to my inner pervert, eyes back to her tits. “Breast milk?”

  “Lüq says—”

  “Lüq was indirectly responsible for getting us high as kites and for your cat wedding.”

  “I did not marry Chuckles!”

  “As far as we know.”

  She splashes me.

  I lunge.

  Water is my second home. Swimming twice a week keeps me sane. Lap after lap, stroke after stroke, I disappear into the pool at Declan’s place, the one in my apartment building too warm for miles of swimming. You fade into nothing but the differentiated cells of the body when you turn into a machine that reaches, kicks, breathes—and repeats ad infinitum.

  So I reach, I kick, I breathe—and I kiss her until I disappear into the water and Amanda, my own name fading as I become nothing but water and love, tongue and heat, fingertips and pulse. We kiss in the water, my arms steel bands that cage her, our bodies melting in the humid heat of a fake rainforest that contains too much real love.

  Releasing her, I wriggle out of my wet pants, kick off my shoes, and swim away, letting the water take me, a simple crawl speeding me to the end of the meandering pool. Designed to look like a naturally-shaped pond, there is no true side, and I misjudge, whacking my hand on the green-painted cement edge.

  I can’t do an underwater flip, so I pivot, returning to her, roaring up with a few butterfly strokes designed to cover her with a giant wave of foam.

  She’s laughing when I surface, her hair covering her like wet ribbons, her mouth open with joy, eyes wide and amused. I hope her headache’s gone. I hope her hangover has dissolved. I hope we can capture this moment for a few more seconds and laugh together, because it’s the first time in my life that I’ve felt like infinite good exists in the world, and I’m only touching a tiny grain of sand in a vast ocean of it.

  “You swim like Michael Phelps!” she gasps.

  “Michael Phelps swims like me.”

  A fit of giggles overcomes her and I watch, cocking my head to catch her at an odd angle, the tiny perspective change an order of magnitude in difference. Luminous and winsome, Amanda’s eyes catch mine, darting between them, as if she’s trying to look at me forever.

  I grab her and the brush of her breasts against my bare, wet chest takes my breath away.

  “You have the body of a swimmer,” she says, her voice rumbling, making me groan as she nips my earlobe.

  “And you have the body of a goddess.” I reach for her and she pulls away, giggling.

  “Not here!”

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t have sex in public!”

  I look around. “No one else is here. I own the resort.” I bridge the gap between us and watch her react to my words. Lust and restraint fight for dominance in those lush brown eyes, warm and tempted, her pupils big and open.

  “It’s not like we can just lock the door.”

  I walk out of the zero-gravity pool and grab the corded phone by the door. Two sentences later, it’s done. A red light on a control panel pops on. Locked.

  “Yes,” I say, turning to her with a grin. “We can.”

  It’s good to be the king.

  I can’t get back to her fast enough, the water welcoming me, the knowledge that we’re alone and will not be disturbed a titillating, erotic secret that makes me so hard I ache. She’s in my arms and I’m kissing her, bare, wet skin dominating every second, and if I can’t get inside her soon, I’m going to die.

  Bang bang bang

  “Amanda?” shouts a familiar voice. “Amanda? I heard you and Andrew are looking for me?”

  Marie.

  “Oh, God,” Amanda groans, the sound hot and tortured against my mouth, her tone matching my erection’s voice. If it had one, it would sound exactly like Amanda, and why not?

  Her mouth is pretty much where I’d want it to learn how to talk.

  “Ignore her,” I hiss.

  Bang bang bang

  “Amanda! Chuckles is here and he really misses you, and Pam’s worried about you. She’s in her hotel room and doesn’t feel well. If you’re in there, it’s okay. I’ve seen you naked plenty of times before. It’s nothing special.”

  Amanda rolls her eyes.

  “It’s everything special,” I rumble in her ear, my hands all over her as goosebumps pop up where my touch lands.

  “I am about as aroused as a woman at a gynecologist’s appointment.”

  I’m confused. “Give me a sense of where that falls on the arousal spectrum.”

  “Unless you’re a fetishist, it means I’m about as dry the Sahara now, Andrew. Having Marie pounding on the door while you pound me isn’t my idea of sensual.”

  And that single sentence makes me go soft.

  “Okay, then. Arousal spectrum calibrated.”

  Damn it.

  “Go away, Marie!” I shout.

  “But you said you wanted your marriage licenses!”

  I’m up in a flash, across the room, opening the door. I’m wearing wet boxer briefs, but no worries. It’s not like anything’s being outlined right now, other than a package of unfulfilled expectations.

  “Did you file all those marriage licenses last night?” I demand, in her face, furious and self-righteous. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but hell really hath no fury like a guy with a boner untapped.

  The hell drains into the balls and turns blue. All those pictures of a red devil? Nope. Should be blue.

  “Did I...what?”

  Amanda picks up her wet shirt and wraps it around her chest like a bandage. “Hi, Marie. Did I really marry Chuckles last night?”

  She sounds so defeated. I become angrier.

  “No, honey. The people at the Love Me Tenderly drive-thru wedding chapel said even they had standards.”

  Amanda’s sigh of relief goes straight to the root of my heart.

  “Did you seriously think that you married that damn cat?” I ask, unable to keep the outrage out of my voice. This should be funny. It would be funnier if I weren’t standing in a misty hot spring wearing wet underwear, skin screaming and body buzzing, my ring catching on the elastic waistband of my briefs while I plant my hands on my hips and glare at everyone.

  “I didn’t really think so, but it doesn’t hurt to know I’m not Mrs. Charles Kulls!” She looks wounded, but a bitter beast inside me sets that aside. I’m spiraling through rage that needs to be expressed, frustration at being out of control, like a monster that has discovered the bolt attached to his chain is loose in the stone wall.

  “Didn’t the Supreme Court make inter-species marriage legal last year?” Marie asks.

  “Shut up!” Amanda and I shout in unison.

  Marie cowers. Good.

  “Where are the marriage licenses?” I demand.

  Her eyes go wide and shifty at the same time.

  “How would I know? Is that why you’re looking for me?” She laughs nervously.

  “Kari told us she saw you holding one of them, and the rest were in your purse.”

  Marie’s eyes land on my left hand, then jump to Amanda’s. “You want to know if you’re married to each other.”

  “Or anyone else,” I snap.

  Her throat moves as she swallows. S
he’s in her fifties and done to the nines, all makeup and hair product and style. Unlike most of the older women I associate with, Marie doesn’t broker in aloofness, using sophistication as leverage against a world that quietly dismisses them as washed up.

  She’s bold and weird, flighty and unpredictable, and that combination makes me seethe.

  She’s cagey. This does not add up.

  “I did exactly what you asked of me last night,” she says slowly, backing out the door.

  I rush her, planting one palm on the doorjamb, stopping her from exiting. Water from my legs drips on her shoes.

  “Define that.”

  “Define what?”

  “What did we ask of you last night?”

  Her eyes ping between me and Amanda, who has her back turned to us, her arms like noodles as she tries to dress.

  Silence.

  “Damn it, Marie, are we married to each other?”

  Marie’s eyes narrow, then soften, telescoping as she focuses on my face, then on Amanda, over my shoulder.

  “Do you want to be?”

  “That’s not the question!” Amanda shrieks, turning around, her shirt buttons in a crooked line between her breasts. “What did you do with those marriage licenses, Marie? Were they real?”

  “Oh, yes. We all went down to the Regional Justice Center downtown and you pulled them.” Marie has sidestepped the real question here, and I give her just enough rope to hang herself. Intuition plays a major role in business, and right now she’s setting off every alarm bell inside me. But for what reason?

  “We really did have a marriage license made up?” Amanda squeaks, pointing between us.

  “Yes.”

  Marie’s not the one-word-answer type. I approach her slowly, chin down, eyes up, sending every intimidating signal I can.

  “Start from the beginning.”

  “What?”

  “Tell us exactly what happened last night, from beginning to end.”

  “I don’t have time! Jason’s waiting for me back in our room. Our flight leaves in less than an hour. Carol and the boys are already boarding!”

  “Are you taking the Anterdec jet?”

  “Yes.”

  I reach for the phone. “Easy. I’ll have them hold it.”

  “But Jason needs to get to work tonight! So does Carol! And Jeffrey and Tyler have missed school.”