The Ultimate Treasure

by Anne, Melody

  Savvy pretty much had figured it all out. So much for Lexie being able to play poker. She obviously had a face that told the world exactly what she was holding in her hand.

  “You’re sort of right. He asked me to come and play his girlfriend, but then that kind of turned into a friend-with-benefits situation, and now I don’t know,” Lexie said. She desperately wanted to glance over at Lance again, but she refused to allow herself to do so.

  “Why don’t the two of you talk about it and see what’s really going on?” Savvy asked.

  It sounded so reasonable. But that wasn’t going to happen, because Lexie was afraid of what he’d say. She wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of him letting her go or wanting to keep her.

  Before she was able to say anything more, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see a freshly untied Lance heading in her direction. Lexie turned and gave her sister a warning look before he stopped in front of the two of them.

  “Need a refill?” he asked, looking at their empty glasses.

  “That would be great,” Lexie said. Both she and Savvy handed him their cups, and he moved across the room to the eggnog.

  “Don’t say a word,” Lexie warned her sister.

  “I promise not to if you promise to talk to me when we have some privacy,” Savvy threatened.

  Lexie glared at her sister, but Savvy wasn’t backing down, and Lance would return within seconds. She would avoid being alone with her sister for the next few days, and then she wouldn’t have to make a promise she wasn’t planning on keeping.

  “Deal,” she said before Lance stepped back up to them.

  “Here you are, ladies,” he said, handing the cups over and sitting down next to Lexie, his thigh connecting with hers in the most appetizing way. She drank half her eggnog in one gulp. He raised his eyebrows at her but didn’t say anything.

  Savvy began a conversation about the kids getting the upper hand on Lance, and the tension eased in their small group. Lexie began to relax as much as she could.

  Focusing on other people in the room and all the beautiful decorations and not on herself eased a lot of the stress. She managed to relax as Lance leaned back, his arm behind her on the couch, his fingers caressing her shoulder. She was growing so used to his touch that it now felt wrong when she didn’t have it.

  And for now she wasn’t allowing herself to care.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Shopping two days before Christmas hadn’t been the best idea. The mall was crowded with brightly dressed people frantically browsing clothing racks and cleaning toys off the shelves.

  But Lexie hadn’t gotten her sister anything yet, let alone Lance, and she’d been left with no choice but to join Lance at the mall. She’d managed to get away from him for an hour while she’d searched for the perfect gift. It had been harder than she’d imagined.

  What did you get for the guy who wasn’t your boyfriend, but you were sleeping with, to whom you had no commitment, but whose family thought you were a couple? She’d settled on something, but she wasn’t sure if he’d like it or not. She didn’t have time to second guess herself before he’d found her and dragged her into a clothing department while he searched for ugly sweaters for his brothers.

  Lexie had never understood the ugly sweater thing. Why anyone would want to wear hideous clothes was beyond her. Maybe the tradition started with someone who thought they were wearing a nice sweater that, to the rest of the world, looked like a train wreck. Whatever it was, the uglier the sweater, the better for those who participated.

  “When is this ugly sweater party?” she asked as he picked out a lime green sweater with a sparkly tree and the most unattractive reindeer she’d ever witnessed on the front.

  “Oh, this isn’t for a party. This is a gift to my sibling,” he said with glee.

  “That’s disturbing,” she told him. She couldn’t watch when the next one he pulled out was grey with multicolored animals on the front and back and “Hairy Christmas” written across the chest. “I need to find an outfit for dinner tomorrow. Take your time.”

  She went to the women’s department and looked through rack after rack of clothing. Lexie wasn’t a huge shopping fan on the best of days, but when she had to try to do it on the eve of Christmas Eve, it put her in a particularly bad mood.

  “This.”

  The sound of Lance right behind her made Lexie drop the dress she’d been examining with a critical eye. She turned to tell him to quit sneaking up on her when she saw the beautiful red dress he was holding.

  She examined it for a moment and decided it wasn’t too bad, not something she would normally wear, but she was dining with billionaires for the holidays so she wanted to look like she fit in. She’d better not look at the price tag though, because she knew it wouldn’t be cheap. She’d been searching the clearance racks. She was sure Lance didn’t know what those looked like.

  “Thanks. I’ll try it on,” she told him and took the dress, moving to the back of the store where the fitting rooms were.

  A light was out in the back of the store with a ladder by it, but no one was around. It made the surprisingly unpopulated area of the store a bit spooky, and she was glad Lance had followed behind her.

  “I’ll be quick,” she told him.

  “I want to see you in it,” he said.

  “You will tomorrow night if I like it.”

  “Nope. I picked it. I get to see it today,” he insisted.

  “We’ll see,” she said with a sigh. She closed herself into a fitting room. Stripping down, she looked at herself in the mirror before holding the dress up to her. The color worked perfectly with her complexion. She undid the buttons on the back and slid it on, and sighed in pleasure at how soft the material was against her skin. She couldn’t reach the buttons to do them back up, but even without buttoning it she was desperate to have the dress after seeing herself in the mirror.

  It was a perfect fit, hugging her in ways she hadn’t known a dress could and dipping low enough to feel sexy without going too far as to appear slutty. It stopped just above her knees, but it had a hidden slit that went halfway up her thigh if she twirled in a circle, which she did four times, making her smile.

  She knew she should look at the price tag, but she was afraid to. Maybe she should just take the dress to the cashier, hand over her credit card, and ask the person to please not tell her how much she was wasting on a dress she’d only wear once. Wait! Heck with that, if she bought the dress, she was going to wear the thing every single holiday from here to eternity, including Halloween.

  Sold. She was sold. Besides, it would be worth it to feel like she fit in with everyone else at the table. And she would be done trying on clothes. She’d rather order online and, if the item looked too awful, return it.

  She was about to slip the dress off when there was a knock on the door. “Lexie, I know you have it on by now,” came Lance’s low voice through the doorway, making her knees shake just a bit.

  “I like it. I’m getting it,” she said.

  “Nope. I want to see it,” he told her. “Don’t make me kick the door in.”

  Lexie was worried he might actually do that. The thought of causing a scene was so abhorrent that she lifted her shaking hand and unlocked the door, turning the knob.

  “Okay, a quick look and then I need to change so we can go,” she said as she thrust the door open and stood there, unwilling to go out onto the floor. Her back was exposed since she hadn’t been able to finish buttoning the thing up.

  His eyes flashed, looking at her from head to toe and then slowly going up again. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. She felt her body heat from his glance alone. Maybe the dress was too sexy, she worried.

  Lance stepped forward, and she automatically stepped back until he was in the fitting room with her, shutting the door behind him. The spa
ce was too small for the two of them, and she felt her chest compress as she inhaled his intoxicating scent.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

  “It’s worth it,” he told her in a low growl as he stunned her and dropped to his knees, his hands attaching to the outside of her thighs and moving upward beneath the material of the dress. “You turn me on so damn much.”

  Lexie was grateful for the wall behind her because at his words, she leaned back, unsure her legs were going to continue to hold her up. She had never had a man look at her the way Lance did, and it made her feel powerful, sexy, and desired. She wanted to continue to put that light in his eyes.

  “We’re in a store, Lance,” she said, but there wasn’t much protest in her tone. With him looking at her that way, she was willing to give him just about anything he wanted.

  “Don’t worry. You can bite into my shoulder to keep from screaming,” he said as he lifted the front of the dress and buried his head beneath.

  Lexie nearly fainted when his hot breath caressed the outside of her thin panties before he slid a finger beneath them and pulled, ripping the material away. She didn’t have time to think, though, because his mouth quickly replaced his breath, and he was licking her hot core, and she was coming undone.

  “Lance,” she sighed as the pressure built within her. He didn’t slow down as he pushed her thighs farther apart and slipped his fingers deep inside her.

  “So wet . . . so hot,” he groaned before he sucked her tender flesh inside his mouth and gently bit down.

  Lexie bit her hand to keep from crying out as her orgasm overtook her, her body shattering beneath his touch. He continued licking her until the tremors faded, and only then did he stand.

  “Yes, that’s how I love your face to look,” he said as he gently cupped her cheeks. Then he pushed her against the mirrored wall and lifted her leg while he undid his pants and pulled out his powerful erection.

  Lance knelt and then surged upward, burying himself inside her before gripping her other leg and lifting her off the floor. She wrapped both legs around him and he slid the rest of the way into her. She leaned forward, pushed his shirt out of the way, and bit into his shoulder as he took her hard and fast against the wall.

  She clenched around him with her second orgasm. At the same time, he groaned low in his throat and released deep within her. The two of them shook in each other’s arms at the power of what they did to each other.

  Lexie didn’t release her legs for several moments as she held on tightly, not wanting to let this man go. But all good times must end. Slowly she untangled herself from his arms then felt empty when he pulled from her and set her down.

  She looked in the mirror across from her and saw her messy hair and flushed cheeks, and she liked the dress even more. Lance stepped back and admired her as he fixed his pants and smiled.

  Then he turned her around and pulled the dress off before carefully laying it over his arm. He pulled out a cloth napkin from his pocket and handed it to her, fidgeting a moment.

  “Sorry about the panties,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound sorry at all.

  “I just hope a bathroom is close by,” she told him.

  He pointed at the napkin and she looked at him in disgust. He just smiled even bigger.

  “The dress is on me,” he said as he began whistling and turned toward the door and began to open it.

  “Lance,” she hissed, grabbing her shirt and covering herself. He walked out and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop him. She heard him whistling the entire time she threw on clothes and tried to fix her appearance so she wouldn’t look like she’d just been screwed to within an inch of her life in a public dressing room.

  But even after doing that, she was more than grateful to see no one was there when she walked out. By the time she caught up to Lance, he’d already paid for the dress and had it in a hanging bag that rested over his arm. She was going to argue, but that’s when her sister and Ashton caught up to them.

  Lexie kept her gaze on the floor and let the three of them talk. She feared they’d be able to read on her face exactly what had just happened if she so much as looked at them. But even though she was embarrassed beyond measure, she felt unbelievably good. Her current mortification didn’t matter — it really had been worth it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was just a dinner. Lexie had to repeat that to herself several times. It was only a dinner, not a big deal. But the racing of her heart told her it was much more. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was with these incredible people who also happened to have a hell of a lot of money, or if it was because she was dressed up and would be sitting beside Lance at this formal meal on a special night.

  Whatever it was, she was a mess as she put the finishing touches on her makeup and then stood there, looking in the mirror. Maybe her nerves had to do with the fact that it was Christmas Eve. She only had two days left in this fantasyland she’d been living in for nearly a week. Truth be told, the fantasy had begun over a month ago when she’d first stepped onto that private jet and found Lance Storm joining her on the trip of a lifetime.

  If she really thought about it, it had begun the moment she’d been visiting her sister on those docks she was working at and had run into Lance for the first time. When she’d met him she’d been tongue-tied and nervous. That had been completely unusual for her. She never ran from men. She flirted shamelessly and then walked away, not thinking of them again.

  She hadn’t been able to do that with Lance. At her sister’s wedding, she had finally caved to her own desires and spent that spectacular night with him. She’d run away scared. This time she hadn’t been able to run anywhere, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of running anymore. She wondered what she would say if he were to tell her he wanted to be with her for real. That she was unsure told her how much she had changed during her time with Lance.

  He wasn’t in the room when she stepped from the bathroom, and she was grateful. For some reason, descending that massive staircase on his arm while they were both dressed up would seem more like a fairy tale. She was trying to come back to reality a minute at a time so it didn’t all hit her at once on December twenty-sixth when she would return to what she was sure would feel like an empty home.

  Lexie trailed her hand down the banister as she followed the sound of voices. She knew her way around the lodge now, but hearing the family in all their happy glory was comforting. She imagined the lodge would be spooky when no one was there.

  Stepping through the doorway, her eyes caught the fashionably set table. A gold cloth ran down the center, with holly centerpieces and candles placed every three feet or so. Fine china plates and elegant crystal goblets were set in front of each upholstered chair. The silverware was shined to perfection, and it felt like she was stepping into a Christmas painting.

  No one was sitting yet, and she followed the sound of their voices to the living room where she was stopped in her tracks. She’d been happy with her elegant red dress until she looked around the room.

  The women wore gorgeous dresses, the men were in suits. But what really stood out to her were the jewels. She zoned in on her sister, who wore a diamond and emerald necklace that looked as if it cost more than most people’s houses.

  Lexie reached up and rubbed her earlobes where she wore her nicest pair of earrings. They had been a gift from Savvy when she’d graduated from college, a pair of half-carat diamonds that sparkled in the sun. Lexie didn’t fit with this group. She wanted to turn around and run away but had decided after her sister had gotten her out of her parents’ home she would never run again out of fear.

  Sucking it up, she stepped forward and tried to act as if she belonged. She’d managed to do it many times before when she felt uncomfortable. She was glad she’d chosen the more expensive dress. If she’d shown up in a twenty-
dollar clearance item she might have broken her rule and headed for the hills.

  “That dress is putting very naughty images in my mind.”

  Lance’s whispered words sent a shiver through her as his hot breath warmed her neck. He leaned down and kissed the back of it, and she felt goose bumps ignite her skin. She was afraid to turn and see how handsome he looked. But she did so anyway.

  And her breath was stolen from her. The man looked good in nothing but a pair of sweats, or in a tight pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but in a dark suit with a red tie that matched her dress to perfection, he was absolutely lethal. She licked her lips as hunger stole through her.

  “I have to say you and that suit are putting some pretty naughty images in my own head,” she replied and smiled at him.

  The hunger in his eyes made her forget about how insecure she’d been feeling moments before. This was Lance, who’d been nothing but good to her. She’d gotten to play out a fantasy without having to take any risks. She should be thanking him — she would be thanking him when dinner was over.

  Lance circled around her as he looked at her from head to toe. There was a mischievous look in his eyes she’d already learned not to trust. She waited to see what he was up to.

  “There’s something missing,” he said with a smile.

  Lexie looked down and ran her hands over the back of her dress to make sure it wasn’t caught in her stockings. That would have been mortifying.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. She desperately wanted a mirror to double check.

  “No. There is definitely something missing,” he said again, then pulled a velvet case from behind his back.

  Lexie’s heart skipped a beat as she looked at the case. It was far too big to be a wedding ring — which she was relieved about. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was inside.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.