by Cara Summers
She raised her hand and knocked on the door, and the moment she heard Lea’s muffled “Come in,” she entered and closed it behind her.
Lea rose from behind her desk, and even though she was impeccably dressed and groomed, she looked older. And tired.
“Congratulations on your story,” Lea said stiffly.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t imagine that my call surprised you.”
“As a matter of fact, it did. I can’t imagine what you want to talk to me about.”
Lea’s brows shot up. “You might as well can the act. I know that you’re not nearly as naive as you make yourself out to be. The shit pretty much hit the fan yesterday when your story came out. My boss learned that you used to work for me, and he was unhappy that you didn’t bring the story to us. When they asked why you weren’t working here anymore, I told them you quit.”
“I see.”
“If you deny that, it will be your word against mine.”
“That’s why you wanted to talk to me? To tell me that?”
Lea circled her desk and propped a hip on one of the corners. “For starters. I also wanted to see what it was that I’d missed. I’m usually a good judge of people. But you really fooled me. I didn’t expect you to double-cross me, and I certainly didn’t expect you to sleep with Hunter Marks just to get a story.”
Rory lifted her chin. “I’m not surprised that you believe that because that’s what you did, didn’t you? You had an affair with him in the hopes that it would help your career. And it did.”
Lea smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Touché. I guess we’re even more alike than I thought.”
“No.” Rory took a step toward Lea. “I don’t think we’re alike at all. I would never have written that story ten years ago.”
Lea’s brows shot up. “It was news. The public had a right to know.”
“He was in love with you, and you believed what you wrote, didn’t you? You believed that he’d embezzled the money?”
Lea folded her arms across her chest. “Of course, I did. Everyone did.”
“Did you even ask him if he was guilty?”
“No. He confessed.”
“He needed someone to believe in him.”
Lea stared at her for a minute. “Good Lord. Don’t tell me. You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Rory felt the heat rise in her cheeks.
Lea started to laugh. “You little fool. Sleeping with him is one thing. But falling in love?” She shook her head. “Maybe I wasn’t so wrong about you after all. You can’t think that Hunter Marks is going to settle down with someone like you.”
Rory said nothing. There was nothing she could say about what Lea was implying. She and Hunter hadn’t had time to talk about the future. Or they hadn’t made the time. Pushing the nagging worry out of her head, she said, “Why don’t you ask me why I agreed to see you?”
Lea’s smile faded. “That’s easy. You have to know or at least suspect that Celebs wants to make you a job offer. I’m authorized to make it a very generous one.”
Rory shook her head. “That’s not why I came.”
“No? Well, if you’ve come to gloat because you got the story and I didn’t, forget it. I may not have broken the Hunter Marks story, but my bosses are pleased that I’ve landed an exclusive interview with Michael Dennison Banks. My agent is already shopping around for a book deal.”
“Congratulations.” Rory knew for a fact that Lea was lying through her teeth. Michael Banks’s lawyer wasn’t letting Michael speak to anyone until the trial was over, and she had the inside track for an interview once the verdict was in. For the first time since she’d walked into the room, she felt a little sorry for Lea Roberts.
“That’s not why I agreed to see you, either. I came because I wanted to thank you for hiring me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t had faith in me and given me a chance here at Celebs.”
Lea merely stared at her. Rory knew as she turned and left the room, she wouldn’t forget the stupefied expression on Lea’s face for a long time.
Nor would she forget the laughter. It was the second time that Lea Roberts had laughed at her.
So she was a fool if she believed that Hunter Marks would settle down with someone like her, was she?
Ha. She’d just have to see about that.
15
“GOOD LUCK.” Irene Malinowitz took one last look around Silken Fantasies and Rory followed her gaze. Natalie was lighting the tall pillar candles that rested on nearly every surface in the store, and Sierra was unpacking the contents of a small picnic hamper and checking each item against a list she held in her hand.
“Not that I think you’ll need luck,” Irene added as she turned back to smile at Rory. “I think you and your sisters have the plan completely under control. When is he due?”
Rory glanced at her watch, then at her sisters. “Soon. You’re sure you don’t mind my using your shop?”
Irene smiled. “It’s not my shop anymore. I’m just managing it during the transition period. Jared—I mean, Hunter—convinced me to stay on for a while. Besides—” Irene paused to wink at Rory “—you can’t spend a large part of your life in the lingerie business unless you’re a true romantic at heart. Have fun.” She leaned closer. “And I hope you’re planning on making good use of some of the merchandise.”
Rory smiled at her. “Thanks. I’ve already picked up several of your red thongs. You were right that first time I came here. I’ve been getting pretty good mileage out of them.”
“Good,” Irene said. “I’ll just let myself out the back way.”
Rory watched as Irene slipped through a curtain behind the sales counter. Then she gave her gum two quick chews and blew out a bubble.
“Everything is here,” Sierra said as she tucked her list back into her canvas bag.
Natalie lit the last candle. “When exactly is Hunter due to arrive?”
Rory glanced at her watch. “Any minute.”
Sierra put the final touch on a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries, then turned to survey the rest of the room. “I think this is so romantic—to return here.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Natalie frowned. “Desperate? I thought everything was going well between the two of you.”
“Everything is just…” Rory blew out another bubble, then licked the burst bits of gum off her bottom lip. “It’s just that… Things have been… For the past two weeks, since Michael Banks was arrested, we’ve both been so…”
“You’ve been busy,” Sierra said.
“Yes.” They had been busy. When she’d sold her story to Vanity Fair, the magazine had wanted a follow-up on the whole Marks family in Oakwood. And Hunter had been swamped, too, flying back and forth from D.C. to Dallas. They’d both gone to Oakwood when Carter’s wife had delivered the twins. Rory shrugged and took the bubble gum out of her mouth. “We just haven’t spent much time…” She waved a hand. “You know…”
“Alone together,” Natalie finished for her. “In other words, you’re sex starved.”
Rory smiled. “Well, there’s that. He’s been gone for two days. Although we usually manage to fit in making love—sometimes in the oddest…” She thought of sitting on the street in Georgetown between those two parked cars.
“Places.” Sierra finished the sentence this time as she stepped forward to take Rory’s hands. “Have you told him yet that you love him?”
Rory felt a familiar jolt of panic and wished that she hadn’t gotten rid of her gum. “No.”
“Tell him,” Sierra suggested.
“I’m planning on doing that tonight. But he has a way of distracting me.”
“You’ll do just fine,” Natalie said.
Rory swallowed hard. “What if he doesn’t want to hear it?” The panic had morphed from a jolt to an earthquake in her stomach. “What if he…?”
Natalie patted her shoulder when her sentence once more
trailed off. “I’m in thorough agreement with Sierra on this one. Just tell him.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Speak of the devil,” Natalie said as she leaned down to kiss Rory’s cheek. “We’ll exit through the back door the way Irene did.”
Sierra hugged her and whispered, “Remember Harry’s advice. You can do anything you want if you just dare to take a shot at it.”
There was another knock as her sisters disappeared through the curtain. Rory straightened her shoulders, turned toward the front door and reviewed her game plan. Two simple steps. First tell him and then seduce him.
She took one last look around the room as she walked to the door of the shop. Pushing her luck had never seemed this important before.
The moment she opened the door and saw Hunter, her plan began to fade from her mind. He was dressed just as he’d been the first time she’d seen him in that lobby—sunglasses, black leather jacket, black boots, black jeans. Her Terminator and fantasy man all rolled into one.
HE’D HAD A PLAN. When she’d left him the voice-mail message to meet her at Silken Fantasies, the idea had sprung full-blown into his mind, and on the three-hour plane trip from Dallas he’d had plenty of time to hammer out the details. He’d even stopped at a jewelry store on the way from the airport.
But seeing her now, wearing the same clothes she’d worn in the lobby of Les Printemps…those damn red boots had his throat going dry. And he knew she was wearing the thong. Would it always be this way? Hunter wondered. Would she always stir up needs in him until his whole body pounded with them?
“Hi,” he said.
“You brought me flowers.”
He glanced down at the bunch of daffodils he’d picked up on impulse from the stand at the end of the street. He’d completely forgotten about them. “Here.”
She took the flowers and looked at them as if they were dozens of red roses. Stepping into the shop, he shut the door behind himself and locked it. “I had this plan. I worked it out on the airplane.” Perhaps if he stopped looking at her for a moment, his brain cells would resuscitate and he’d be able to remember it.
“Me, too,” she said. “I mean about the plan. I had one.”
He managed to tear his gaze away from her long enough to take in the candles, the champagne and the tray of food, and his heart took another tumble. “I think I’m going to like it.”
“You are. But I’m already thinking it needs revision.”
She moved to him, placed her hands on his cheeks and drew his mouth to hers. “Because right now I want to make love to you in that dressing room.”
“Yeah,” he managed to say as he gripped her hips and raised her so that she could wrap her legs around him. “We can do that.” When she began to rain kisses on his eyelids, his cheeks, his neck, his mouth, he stumbled and wondered if he was going to make it. But he did.
“Clothes,” he said as he pushed her through the door. She was already unbuttoning his shirt. “Let’s lose them.”
“Right.” She allowed him to pry her legs loose. Then they went to work on what still separated them. Flesh to flesh was what he had to have. Her skin, already hot and damp, made his mouth water and his fingers fumble. Shirts, jeans, boots fell to the floor until finally, he was naked and she was wearing only the red thong. He could see all of her in the three-way mirror. Images of the first time they’d made love flooded his mind, and desire hardened every muscle in his body.
“One kiss.” He barely recognized his own voice. “One kiss.” That’s what had started it all. But when he reached for her, she placed a hand on his chest.
“Time for another revision. Lie down on that bench.”
He glanced at it in the mirror. “It’s small.”
“It’ll be fine, but we have to move it first,” she said, grabbing the end and angling it in front of the three-way glass. “Now, sit down on it.”
He was never going to be able to predict her, Hunter thought as he sat down on the bench. His own plan had involved making love to her slowly, thoroughly, building the pleasure, layer by layer. Then when she was fresh from his loving, he would take out the jeweler’s box.
“No. You have to sit back farther.” When he complied, she straddled him on the bench, placing one knee on either side of his hips. His breath backed up and burned in his lungs when she rubbed her damp heat against his erection, and his fantasy of how the evening was going to go evaporated in the wake of the desperate need she was creating. All the urgency that had exploded in him when he’d first stepped into the shop bubbled up again.
“Now,” he said as twin urges battled inside of him. He wanted to drag her mouth to his for that kiss. But his hands went to her hips instead. He couldn’t get a handle on his hunger. He had to be inside of her.
“Look in the mirror,” she urged as he dug his fingers in and lifted her. “Watch me take you in.”
Hunter’s head began to spin as he did what she demanded. He could see everything. As he lifted her a bit higher, he saw her reach down to move the thong aside and then he watched the two people in the mirror as he pushed himself into her and felt that wet searing heat grip him. He had to close his eyes then as bright explosions of pleasure ripped through him.
“Watch. Keep watching,” she said as they both began to move.
And he did. The two figures in the mirror seemed to be two other people there in the room with them, matching their movements stroke for stroke. The woman had thrown her head back, and her nails were digging into the man’s shoulders as she raised and then lowered herself to take him in again and again. He felt like a voyeur at the same time that he was experiencing everything he was seeing. The added thrill brought a dark, erotic edge to the feelings streaming through him.
“Hurry,” she said.
He managed to drag in a breath as he turned his gaze back to Rory. Her slim, strong body moving faster now.
“Hurry. Hurry.”
She filled his vision as his body responded to her commands. He thrust himself into her, feeling helpless and powerful at the same time. She obsessed him. Possessed him.
His mind and vision had begun to blur when she raised her head and gripped his in her hands. Then her eyes fastened on his.
“Come with me, Hunter. I love you.”
Something snapped inside of him then, and he allowed everything that was him to pour into her.
WHEN RORY OPENED HER EYES, she saw that they weren’t on the bench anymore. She was sitting on Hunter’s lap in much the same position they’d ended up in the first time that they’d made love. She didn’t want to move. She wasn’t even sure she could.
But the seconds turned into minutes. She could feel his heartbeat slow under her ear, and he still wasn’t saying anything. She’d told him she loved him. Not the way she’d planned, but she’d said the words.
When she couldn’t bear the suspense of the silence any longer, she said, “Wow.”
He ran a hand down her back. “I can second that. That was some revision. And it’s all your fault that it was wham-bam.”
“Sometimes I like wham-bam.”
“Me, too. What was your original plan?”
Raising her head, she met his eyes. “I was going to strip for you, very slowly, all the time luring you back into this dressing room.”
“Well, we sort of did that, just in fast-forward, and I helped with the stripping.”
“The bench was something I thought up on the spur of the moment,” she said. But before I did all that I was going to tell you that I love you, she thought. He hadn’t said anything about that. Maybe he hadn’t heard her.
“The bench was a very nice touch. You’re beginning to convince me that even the best plans are meant to be revised.”
Distracted by the compliment, she said, “No kidding?”
“I had a plan, too,” he murmured as he leaned down to drop a kiss on her bare shoulder. “I was going to seduce you slowly—very slowly. And then when you were still weak and thinking only o
f me, I was going to show you something.”
“What?”
“Are you weak and thinking only of me?”
She pretended to consider that for a moment. “Close enough.”
He reached for his jeans and dug something out of his pocket.
Rory felt a tightness around her heart when she saw the small velvet box. A jeweler’s box.
“Aren’t you going to take it and open it?” he asked.
Her hand trembled when she did, and she nearly dropped the box when she saw the ring. “Wow…I mean…I didn’t expect…” She met his eyes and then hurriedly glanced back down at the ring—a diamond surrounded by tiny rubies. “I…I need some bubble gum.”
It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, but then when had she ever reacted the way he’d expected? He dug into his jeans again and pulled out two pieces of bubble gum and unwrapped them. The suspense, the uncertainty, had tied his own stomach into knots. Together, they chewed in silence for a while.
Rory blew the first bubble and licked it off her lips. “A ring. I wasn’t expecting it.” Rory pressed a hand against her stomach. “The gum isn’t working.”
Hunter tried a bubble. No, it wasn’t, he thought as the knot of nerves in his stomach tightened. He turned her then on his lap and drew her chin up so that her eyes met his. “Look. I know you might feel that it’s sudden. And I know we haven’t talked about the future. But we’ve been spending so much time apart lately, and I don’t like it. I want you with me. I want to start something with you. I—” For the first time in years, Hunter felt at a complete loss. He had to find the words and he wasn’t sure he could. “Did you mean what you said while we were making love?”
Rory drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Yes. I love you.”
The knot began to loosen. “Look, for years I didn’t have a family. I didn’t think I’d ever want one. But you helped me find them again.” He paused again to search for the right words. “I want you with me when I’m old.”
Her gaze remained steady on his. “Why?”
His lips curved into a smile, despite his jangled emotions. “A tough question.”