by Rose, Carol
He frowned. “I thought I knew a lot about you and what makes you feel good, but I need some help in understanding right now.”
“You’re right!” She glared at him. “You certainly do need some help.”
“So help me,” he ordered her, getting angrier himself.
“I’m sorry,” she snapped. “I don’t know how to help someone like you.”
“Like me?”
“Yes,” she shot back. “I’d thought you had some understanding about people and business and women and what they face in the business world, but I was obviously wrong.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded irritably.
“I’m talking about we women who don’t know how to pay our dues, apparently. I’m talking about women having the nerve to expect a fair shot at a job.”
Alex scowled at her. “Would you talk sense? Who said you haven’t paid your dues?”
“I’m fucking tired,” she declared, stalking over to the window, “of idiots who don’t have a clue about how to run a business—how to keep it alive in treacherous financial times—telling me how I should behave.”
“And I’ve done that?” he asked angrily, baffled by the entire conversation. But Eden’s distress was genuine and he felt his own anger subside a little to be joined by curiosity. Who the hell had riled up the woman tonight?
“I don’t know.” She paced the shadowed room. “I found out that jerkoff Keith whats-his-name inherited his position in his place of business, but he feels really okay condemning someone who’s apparently working her ass off to get ahead.”
“Keith? This is about Keith?”
“No! This is about you and how easily you declare that woman in his office to be ridiculous for asking for a damned interview for a damned promotion!”
The light was dawning, clearing up some of Alex’s confusion. “You overheard us talking about that woman who’s suing Keith because she didn’t get a promotion.”
“She didn’t sue him!” Eden yelled. “She just asked for an interview and you all acted like she was raping your bank accounts and killing your babies.”
“Calm down,” he said automatically.
“Go fuck yourself!” She glared at him, her chest rising and falling with her agitation.
“Okay, okay,” he said, tamping down his own frustration at being lumped in with Keith—Keith of all people. “Will you tell me exactly what you thought you heard me say? I’m just trying to understand.”
Eden was too lost at that moment, he could tell, to moderate her response. “You will never understand because you are too big a jerk to get it!”
“What did I do, Eden?” he asked, his voice angry. He’d never, in all the time he’d known her and all the stress she’d been under, seen her this upset. She was normally the calmest, most reasonable of women.
“You sat there,” she practically spit the words out, “and agreed with that asshole that women are asking for too much to be considered equal partners in business!”
“I never said that.”
“Yes,” she glared at him, “you did. It’s like the last twenty years never happened!”
“I don’t think I said anything like that,” he said again, “but if it sounded like I said anything like that then I am an asshole like Keith.”
It killed him to say that. Keith had been a friend of his since high school, but that didn’t mean he was blind to the guy’s faults. Something, however, was really wrong with his woman and he had to figure out what.
“It takes more intelligence and more grit,” she declared, her words biting, “to keep a company going than to do what you do. You come in and kick it over, all the structure, the business, like a kid tearing down a sand castle—you don’t have the talent or the brains or the endurance—“ her words broke at this point and she sat abruptly on the loveseat opposite him.
Alex waited, his nerves stretched. She was important to him and he’d take some temporary abuse if he could just understand what she was struggling with now. It wasn’t really about him, he knew.
Tears thick in her voice, her hand covering her eyes, she said, “It’s scum like Keith and Wendi who sweep into situations on their damned DNA. They inherit positions. Other people have to earn them! We learn to build something for ourselves.”
Aching to go over and gather her into his arms, he forced himself to sit wordlessly on the couch while she sat opposite him, vibrating with rage and hurt. He knew he was likely to lose a hand if he tried to touch her now.
Finally, he said, “I didn’t inherit anything, honey. I’m not Keith or Wendi.”
“If I thought my company was going to exist more than a year,” Eden said, not responding to what he’d said, “if I thought I had any power to help, I’d call that woman at that jerkoff’s business and offer her a job.”
“And if she was smart,” he said immediately, “she’d take it. You’re a damned good boss.”
“It just pisses me off,” she said, angrily wiping at the tears on her cheeks, “that some of us work so fucking hard and don’t get where we want to be. Where we deserve to be.”
Alex got off the couch and went to crouch in front of where she sat.
“Eden, I don’t remember exactly what I said to Keith tonight, but it was just bullshit. He was whining about some woman employee, I said something like ‘yeah, yeah. How about them Bears.’ I’ve known him a long time. We went to high school together. He’s a goofball and a dork who desperately fears he’s not good enough. We’re all used to that. It’s just Keith. We kind of feel sorry for him, but I don’t agree with him not giving any employee a job interview—man or woman.”
“Well, that’s not what you said.”
“No,” Alex said with honest regret. “If I remember correctly, I shot off something about her needing to earn her promotion. I probably sounded like as big a jerk as Keith.”
“Yes.”
“I was just responding to his being upset. I didn’t pay attention to the details of the situation. I do that with Keith sometimes, but, you’re right. I shouldn’t have agreed with what he said tonight.”
Eden looked at him for a long moment, the anger on her face wavering. She bent her head, covering her eyes with her hands, soft muffled sobs escaping, her shoulders trembling.
“If I’ve ever said anything that sounds like I don’t believe in you,” he paused, his throat tight, his gut feeling punched at the sight of her tears, “I’m an asshole, honey, and I’m sorry.”
She sobbed harder.
Edging closer, he rubbed her knee with a finger, wanting to comfort her but not wanting to upset her further.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, wiping at her face. “Stupid. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I never cry.”
“You’ve been under a lot of pressure,” he said, glad she wasn’t spitting fury at him anymore. What he’d said earlier to Keith had been dumb. He’d never had a problem admitting when he was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized again, her words muffled.
“It’s all right,” Alex told her, sliding on to the loveseat next to her. “You’re dealing with a lot right now.”
She gasped back a shuddering breath. Her voice husky, her hand still shading her face, she said, “I hate all the lying I’m doing lately.”
“I know. Michele has seemed to be a good friend to you all these years. It sucks that she’s put you in the position to lie to her now.” He put his arms around her, tucking her head in the shelter of his shoulder. Spinning situations for his best interests had never bothered him before, but he was beginning to see how dishonesty led to an anxiety that stained a relationship.
“I’m glad you told me what was upsetting you,” he said. “Don’t ever be afraid to tell me when I’m being a jerk.”
Eden took another shuddering breath, turning to bury her face agai
nst his chest. Drawing her closer, he savored the scent of her, the clean, soft smell of her dark hair tickling his nose.
“Sweetheart,” he said softly. “I think you’re the best damned thing that company has going for it. Never doubt that I believe in you. If you’d been at the helm these past three years, I wouldn’t be prowling around Michele Cosmetics as it teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.”
“God,” she muttered, “you say all the right things.”
Lifting her face to look up at him, she asked softly, “How do you say all the right things?”
“I’m glad I’m saying what you want to hear,” he admitted, “but I’m only saying the truth.”
That at least was honest, he thought, a little desperately. He was being honest with her now, anyway. Everything real between them was based on the honesty he felt. He cared for this woman.
Staring into her green eyes, he said, “You are amazing—intelligent, passionate and…beautiful.”
Seeing her tear up again, he bent and kissed her soft mouth, drawing her hard against his body.
This fierce, sometimes opinionated, determined woman just grabbed him by the heart. He’d met thousands of women in his life and been involved with his fair share. In business, he knew his power, knew he could strike fear in some hearts. Hell, he pretty much ruled his world. But not Eden. Not completely. She’d walked into his life and sucker punched him in the gut.
He’d never wanted so much to pull a woman close to his heart and shelter her there. She thought she was so damned tough.
Never before had he worried so much what a woman thought of him.
Now, lifting her face to him, she kissed him back, her soft tongue questing against his, the hunger springing into his flesh echoed by the tension in her. Tipping her head back, he plundered her sweet lips, drinking her in. He didn’t know exactly what it was about this woman. She tempted him, challenged him…hell, she stood up to his face and called him an asshole. And he still wanted her.
He needed her.
God, she kissed with enthusiasm. He loosened his hold on her to stroke her cheek, angling their faces better for their kiss. He took her moan into his mouth and held it, feeling her body move and heat against his, knowing she wanted him as much as he ached for her.
Literally, physically ached.
His erection sprang up heavy against his leg and he tried to steady himself against rushing her. There were times for fast, hard sex. Hungry bodies straining and pumping…he wanted all of that with her.
But now he waited…for her. He wanted her with him in every way.
Eden seemed to flow around him, her arms around his neck, her body soft and pliant against his, smaller and giving. He felt bigger and stronger and incredibly desirable…she did this to him with just her kiss. The soft sounds in the back of her throat, her questing hands, restless and hungry on him. How could he feel so vulnerable and so damned invincible at once?
Sliding his hand over her back, he felt the tautness of her muscles, the smoothness of her skin seeming pliant beneath her thin sweater.
Body against body, he reveled in her soft, full breasts against his chest, hungering to shape her with his fingers. Tugging her sweater out of her waistband, he drew her down to the thick carpet on his living room floor. Laying her out beneath him, Alex rediscovered the exact color of her aureole, peachy pink with a hotly flushed nubbin. He cherished her with his tongue, suckling and laving her with the tip of his tongue.
Moaning and writhing beneath him, Eden lie back on the carpet, her short dark hair like a witch’s halo around her head. With her sweater pulled up and her bra shoved aside, he ministered to her lovely flesh, took her in and tasted her. One hand cradling her breast while the other rubbed at the juncture of her thighs, Alex felt himself throbbing and swelling in an exquisite torture.
Soon, he’d kneel between her sweet thighs and drive himself into the hot, welcoming heaven there. The fragmented thought drove him nearly insane with an urgent, throbbing need.
“Alex,” she gasped. “Oh, yes. Sweet Jesus.”
“Yes,” he muttered, lifting his damp mouth from her breast as, through her pants, he nudged a knuckle against the tender flesh between her legs.
“Yes!” she said again. “Touch me there.”
Within a moment, he had her naked, her lacy white underpants tossed aside. Hot. So hot and delicate, her body called to him. He stroked her while she frantically drew her sweater over her head and struggled to free herself from her bra. A gentleman would probably have helped her get completely naked, but he found himself engrossed in touching her, stroking her.
Naked now on the floor in front of the loveseat, Eden scrambled at his belt, tugging his shirt off, pressing hot, sweet kisses over his chest, his shoulders.
“I’ve thought about you like this,” he said, touching her, kissing her bare shoulder as she pushed his pants down. “In the night, I’d wake thinking about you. All day, too.”
“Me, too,” she panted, pulling him down next to her on the floor. “Me, too.”
As she lie with her head cradled on his bent arm, she ran her hands over him. Flat over his chest and stomach, curling over his biceps…and all the while kissing him, her mouth open and hot. Alex braced himself, bending over her as he smoothed her waist, her silky tummy, the beautiful dark curls between her legs.
Eden groaned, sinking her teeth gently into his bicep, her body arching up into his hand. Rubbing her there, he heard the change in her breathing, the short, hungry pants and mewling cries. He felt like he was made of concrete, so hard was his erection, heavy between his legs. He’d have to be careful, so careful, not to rush in.
Her head thrown back against his arm, her legs closed around his ministering hand, she stiffened and cried out, her body trembling. In the pale light from the one lamp, he could see the sheen on her beautiful body, faintly glistening between her perfect breasts. Leaning forward he kissed her there, drawing his tongue along the valley between her breasts.
She clutched at him, her hand curling around his penis, stroking and stroking him.
The sensation threatened to send him over the edge and he grasped her hand.
“Wait. Wait.”
Within seconds, he’d found the condom and sheathed himself in the latex barrier. He hated it. Wanted to feel her, all of her, surrounding him, but there was no option…not yet. And this, this was so good…
Positioning himself between her bent knees, he paused a moment, gathering his control, focusing his awareness. He wanted this to be so great for them both.
Moving forward, he inched into her slickness slowly, her moan of satisfaction nearly shattering his restraint. And then they were moving, her rising to meet him as he dove into her body again and again.
“So good, so good, so good,” she chanted, her voice rising.
Clenching his teeth, Alex held back and loved her. Losing the sense of time, he drove into her body, suffered the wonder of her hands on him—his back, his butt—she touched him, urged him into her. With her legs splayed wide, she welcomed every inch of him over and over…he thought he’d lose his mind.
Twice she clenched around him, tantalizing, tempting. The beauty of her satisfaction tightened his body as he felt her response. Finally, as she cried out again, sobbing, he thrust himself into the wet, intense heat of her…and felt his own release shudder through his body…endlessly.
They lie on the carpet panting, still joined, the room sighing with the central heat he hadn’t heard before. After a few minutes, he pulled out of her and got shakily to his feet.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said bending down and scooping her into his arms. “I want to sleep with you.”
Snuggled in bed later, Eden sat propped up against the headboard, Alex half sprawled across her lap, his head heavy on her thighs. She realized as she sifted her fingers through his short hair, her body replete
and deeply relaxed, she’d never felt so comfortable with a man.
“You know,” he said, his voice deep and slow with drowsiness, “I don’t sleep much, usually, but making love with you just knocks me out.”
Eden frowned. His sister had said something about him having an insomnia problem.
“You’ve always had a problem sleeping?”
His breathing was slow and even, and for a moment she wondered if he was awake.
“Since I was about ten,” he said, his voice odd.
“When you were ten you just stopped sleeping?”
“I usually get four or five hours a night,” he assured her.
“Wow.” She loved sleeping. What would it be like to only sleep a fragment of every night? “So when you were a kid you used to sleep all night? And then you just stopped?”
He took a deep breath, letting it out like a sigh. “When I was eight, my mother got really ill. Breast cancer. She fought like the dickens for a couple of years, both she and my father. The doctors did everything, but she didn’t make it.”
Breast cancer research. Hospice charities. She’d never guessed his philanthropy was so personal.
“I’m so sorry,” Eden said, her heart wrung at the thought of the small confused boy he must have been. “That is so incredibly hard.”
“Yes,” he said.
Her hand stroking the broad planes of his strong back, she found herself longing to comfort him. What could she say to ease a hurt that deep?
“Lauren must have been really young.”
“She was eight when my mom died.”
“So you just stopped sleeping after she passed on?” What had he done in the long, lonely hours of the night? A young kid, concerned about his sister, missing his mother. “Did you have trouble sleeping before she died?”
For a moment, he said nothing. “No. Not then. When I was a kid we didn’t have a lot of money and my dad took extra shifts at the factory to help pay for the medical bills. Towards the end, we had a retired nurse Dad hired to come in on the nights he worked. She was a neighbor woman who picked up a few hours at the hospital, too, and then came to our house to sit with my mom. When Mom started getting worse, she needed someone with her all the time.”