Private Arrangements

by Brenda Jackson

  Jonas frowned, wondering where the hell that question came from and why Mercury was asking. He glanced across the dinner table at his brother. “I’ll do like I’ve always done and use a freelancer. Of course I’ll approach Nikki Cartwright first. She’s the best.” Jonas then quietly returned to his meal.

  “Yeah, but that won’t be possible now that she’s moving to L.A.”

  Jonas’s head snapped back up and his green eyes slammed into his brother’s. “What did you just say?” His tone had such a deadly and hard edge to it that everyone at the dinner table stopped eating and stared at him.

  Mercury pretended not to notice Jonas’s steely disposition when he answered with an insolent smile on his lips. “I said Nikki is moving to L.A. She got this job offer from some big-time producer and I understand she’s moving away at the end of the month.”

  Jonas shifted his gaze from Mercury to Brittany, who was sitting at Galen’s side. “Is that true?”

  She nodded slowly. “Yes. I thought you knew.”

  Jonas drew in a deep breath. No, he hadn’t known. For some reason he looked at his father, and when their eyes met, Jonas clearly remembered the conversation they’d shared before dinner.

  He pushed his plate back and stood. “Please excuse me. I need to leave. There’s some business I need to tend to.”

  Eden, who was completed dumbfounded, spoke up. “Surely whatever it is can wait, Jonas. You haven’t finished dinner.”

  He shook his head. “No, Mom, it can’t wait.”

  And then he headed for the door, only pausing to grab his motorcycle helmet off a table in the foyer on his way out.

  Nikki couldn’t sleep, but then that was the story of her life since she returned home. Too bad she couldn’t get thoughts of Jonas out of her mind. She wondered if he ever thought about her with the same yearning and intensity that she thought about him. Probably not. The only good thing was that his name hadn’t been linked with any woman in the tabloids since they’d gotten back, but she knew it was just a matter of time.

  She thought about her move to L.A. Of course her parents and brother who lived in San Diego were happy with her decision, since that meant she would be closer to them. She hadn’t lived in California since leaving home for college so perhaps the move would do her some good.

  And then maybe she would be able to forge ahead with her life and forget about Jonas. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of running into him unexpectedly or worry whether he was with another woman. Not that it mattered, really. Just remembering all they’d shared was enough to shatter her these days.

  And then there was another problem she’d encountered because of Jonas. Her body was going through sexual withdrawal. This time of night when she couldn’t sleep, she would remember everything they’d shared, especially the time she’d spent in his arms, making love with him, using all those positions. And during those last fourteen days they had made love. She wondered if he’d been able to tell the difference. Probably not.

  After a few more tosses and turns she finally sat up in bed. She clicked on a lamp and looked around. For the first time since she moved here she realized just how lonely this house was. Lonely and empty. Her bedroom was prettily decorated in her favorite colors of chocolate and lime green, and she’d hired a professional decorator to make sure things were just how she’d wanted them. But something was missing.

  It really didn’t matter now since she was moving away. Already her realtor had found a buyer so there was nothing or no one to hold her to Phoenix any longer. She would miss Brittany and their weekly lunch dates, but like she’d told her best friend, they were just an airplane flight away.

  Galen had promised to call her the minute Brittany went into labor. More than anything she wanted to be around when her goddaughter or godson was born.

  Since it seemed like sleep was out of the question for her at the moment, she slid out of bed and slipped into the matching robe to the baby-doll nightgown she was wearing. Both had been items she’d purchased while in Paris.

  She had made it downstairs when she heard the sound of a motorcycle. One of her neighbors had recently purchased a Harley and she figured he’d taken it out for a late-night ride.

  Nikki was headed for her kitchen to raid her snack jar. Thanks to Jonas she liked Tootsie Pops and always kept a bag on hand. Whenever she plopped one in her mouth she thought of him.

  She stopped walking when she heard a knock on her door. Who on earth would be visiting her at this hour? She tightened her robe around her and went to the door, pausing to take a look out the peephole. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw her late-night caller.

  She quickly entered the code to disarm her alarm system before opening the door. “Jonas? Why… What are you doing here?”

  He was standing under her porch light in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt that advertised Ideas of Steele, and biker boots. In his hand he held his bike helmet. “Would it be okay if I come inside so we can talk?”

  Although she had no idea what they had to talk about, she nodded and took a step back. “Sure. Come in.”

  Once he entered and closed the door behind him, she watched as he glanced around and saw the boxes already packed and sealed, ready to be picked up by the movers.

  “I heard tonight that you’re leaving town. I didn’t know,” he said.

  She nodded. So he didn’t know. Would it have mattered if he had? She doubted it. “Yes, I got a job offer in L.A.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were moving away, Nikki?”

  His question surprised her. Why would she tell him? It’s not like they meant anything to each other. Those two weeks on board the Velocity had been nothing but a game of pretend that he’d initiated under the disguise of a private arrangement. She’d gone along with it because she loved him. And she had no regrets.

  “Nikki?”

  She met his gaze, suddenly feeling angry when she recalled how he’d started withdrawing from her the last day of their trip. They’d made love true enough, but she’d felt he was pulling back in ways he hadn’t before. Now she placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin to glare at him.

  “I really didn’t think you’d want to know, Jonas. We had an agreement and you made sure I understood the terms. I did. When we returned to Phoenix, things would go back to the way they were between us. So excuse me, but did I miss something?”

  He blew out a long breath and rubbed his hand across his face; then he looked back at her. “Yes, you missed something, and so did I.”

  She lifted a brow. “Really? Then please enlighten me because I have no idea what we could have missed.”

  “The fact that I have fallen in love with you.”

  His words took the wind out of Nikki’s sail. She sucked in a deep breath, and it seemed that every muscle in her body tensed. She stared at him, saw his unreadable green eyes staring back at her. She slowly shook her head. “Impossible. You don’t know how to love.”

  “I do now. You taught me, remember? For two weeks you taught me there’s a difference between having sex with a woman and making love to one. I know that difference now, Nikki. I’ve always made love to you because I’ve always loved you. Since our first kiss, and possibly before it. But I fought it tooth and nail.”

  He paused a moment and then said in a low voice, “I probably would still be fighting it if I hadn’t heard you were leaving. Once I heard I knew I couldn’t let you go without telling you how much you mean to me. Just how much I love you.”

  Nikki closed her eyes, fearful when she opened them he would be gone and his presence would have been only a figment of her imagination. Evidently he’d read her mind, because when she opened her eyes, he said, “I’m still here.”

  Yes, he was still there, standing in the middle of her living room with
his helmet clutched to his hand, his feet braced apart and his hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked like a rebel, a rogue, a man determined to defy the odds. A man who’d managed to claim her heart.

  “Why do you love me, Jonas?” she asked, wondering if he really knew or if he only assumed he was in love with her.

  “Why don’t I love you?” he countered. “But to answer your question, I love everything about you. But I especially like how you handle your business. I admire that. And I love the way you make me feel when I’m inside of you, lying beside you in bed, or sitting across from you at a table. I think I fell in love with you that day we met at my office and you came in from the rain. I was so totally captivated by you then, but I tried denying it. And then that day we kissed in your office, I was so taken aback I couldn’t think straight. That’s why I tried avoiding you for eighteen months. You pulled out emotions in me that I wasn’t use to feeling, and I was afraid that you would encompass my whole world. In fact, you do. My only question is how do you feel about me?”

  She drew in a deep breath, fighting back tears and thinking only a man like Jonas would have to ask. Anyone else would have been able to see it on her face. “I love you, too, Jonas. I think I fell in love with you that rainy day as well, but I knew for certain how I felt while on the Velocity. But I thought loving you was a hopeless case on my part, although I wanted to use those two weeks to show you what love was about.”

  “You did, sweetheart. I know the difference between sex and making love. Each and every time I touched you, we made love.”

  “Oh, Jonas.”

  He placed his helmet on the table and then slowly crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. “Just so you know, me loving you is not about making any demands. More than anything I want you to follow your dream. Move to L.A. if you have to, but I’ll be coming with you. I can set up a satellite office and work from just about anywhere.”

  Nikki’s eyes lit up. “You would do that for me?”

  “I would do that for us. I don’t want to be away from you. I got used to having you around on the Velocity, and I’ve been miserable these past three weeks without you.”

  He paused a moment and then said, “And I need to be completely honest about something, confess to something I did just to keep you around me.”

  She lifted a brow. “What?”

  He reached out, captured her finger and wrapped his bigger one around it. “That night you turned down my job offer I took measures into my own hands.”

  “How?”

  “By playing a favor card. I called a guy I knew whose brother is closely tied with Senator Joseph’s election campaign. I had him renege on your job offer.”

  She stiffened in his embrace. “You did?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared at him. The multitude of emotions revealed in his eyes nearly took her breath away. Even then he had wanted her and had even been willing to play dirty to get her. But she would have to admit that the end result had been worth it.

  “I hope you know doing something like that is going to cost you,” she said, making sure he heard the lightness in her voice when she began seeing a wary look in his gaze.

  “Hmm, what’s the charge?”

  She paused as if thinking about it and then said, “You’re going to have to love me for the rest of your days.”

  He drew her closer. “Baby, I had planned on doing that anyway.”

  And then Jonas lowered his mouth to hers, kissing Nikki with the hunger he had only for her and no other woman. Only with her did he want to feel free, be loved and give love. Only with her did his emotions rise to the top. And only with Nikki was he not afraid to want more than what he’d been getting. He wanted commitment. He wanted to abolish his one-and-done policy and replace it with one-and-only, because that’s what Nikki was to him.

  He broke off the kiss and swept her off her feet and into his arms. “I need to make love to you. And just so you know, I haven’t touched another woman since you. I couldn’t because they weren’t you and I didn’t want anyone else.”

  He leaned down and kissed her again. When he released her lips, he asked, “Let’s go to the bedroom?”

  He slowly carried her there, kissing her intermittently along the way. When he reached her bedroom he placed her down in the middle of her bed. He glanced around. “Nice room.”

  She looked him up and down and smiled. “Mmm, nice man.”

  He chuckled and likewise, let his gaze travel all over her. “Nice woman.”

  And then he began removing his clothes, and she watched as he removed every single piece. He then moved back to the bed and with a couple flicks of his wrists, he had removed the robe and gown from her body.

  “You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you?” she said when he’d gotten her naked.

  “Only for you, sweetheart,” he said against her throat before trailing a path with his tongue past her ear. “And there is something else I’d like to ask you.”

  “What?” She was barely able to get the word out before his hand lowered between her legs and he quickly moved to the honeyed warmth he knew awaited him there.

  “Will you marry me?”

  It seemed she had stopped breathing, and he leaned back and stared into her face. She returned his stare and he knew what she was doing. She had to see the sincerity of his question in his features, in his eyes, in the lips he then eased into an earnest smile.

  He saw the single tear that fell from her eye before she smiled and said, “Yes, yes. I’ll marry you. I’d almost given up hope that I would find him.”

  He lifted a brow. “Find who?”

  “My knight in shining armor.” She chuckled. “Little did I know he would be riding a motorcycle instead of a horse, but I’ll take him any way I can. My Mr. Wrong became my Mr. Right. I love you so much.”

  “And I love you, too.”

  And then he was kissing her again, pulling her into his arms while their limbs entwined. And then he eased over her, slid between her legs, lifted her hips and stared down at her while he penetrated her. He’d never tire of looking down at her while they made love.

  “Damn, I miss this. Damn, how I miss you,” he said in between deep, languid thrusts. He didn’t intend to rush. Instead he made love to her with the patience of a man who had all day and all night. He wondered if she noticed the difference in their lovemaking and figured eventually she would. She wrapped her legs around him and, lifting her hips off the bed, met his thrusts, stroke for stroke.

  “Oh Jonas, I miss this, too,” she said, as her inner muscles clenched him hard, trying to pull everything out of him.

  He threw his head back and screamed her name at the same moment she screamed his. He gripped her hips tightly, needing as much of a connection with her as he could get.

  And that’s when he knew she felt him, felt him in a way no other woman had felt him before. He was exploding inside of her, christening her insides with his release.

  Her shocked eyes looked up at him with delight when she realized he hadn’t put on a condom. He didn’t intend to use one ever again. This was the woman he would marry, and he wanted babies with her. No other man who would be her babies’ daddy. With her he would share everything.

  Moments later, when they were both spent, he slumped down in the bed and gathered her into his arms. They would sleep, wake up and make love, sleep and then make love some more. Later. Tomorrow. They would talk and lay out a strategic plan to tackle how they would make things work with her new job in L.A. They were and always would be a team.

  “You forced me to realize I wanted the very things I thought I would never desire, Nikki,” he whispered, emotions clogging his voice. “But I can see so clearly now and I know what I want, sweetheart. More tha
n anything I want you.”

  And then he leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers, knowing this was the beginning, and for them there would never be an end.

  Epilogue

  A beautiful day in June

  Nikki glanced around the ballroom that was filled with over five hundred guests who’d come to witness one of Phoenix’s most notorious bachelors tying the knot. It had been the kind of wedding she’d always dreamed of having, with her mother and her mother-in-law working together. Her dream had come true.

  She glanced across the room at her husband, who was talking to his father and some of his cousins. There were a lot of Steeles, more than she’d known existed, and now she was a part of the family. She and Jonas had decided to alternate living in L.A. and Phoenix. His idea for a satellite office had been a good one.

  “You’re such a beautiful bride,” one of Jonas’s female cousins, Cheyenne, the mother of triplets, told her, pulling her back into the conversation. They were standing there talking with Brittany and two more of Jonas’s female cousins from Charlotte. Brittany was showing already, and she and Galen had found out a few months ago they would be having twins. Everyone in the Steele family was excited at the thought of multiple births again.

  “Thanks.” And she felt beautiful, because of Jonas. When she had walked down the aisle to him at the church, it was as if the two of them were the only ones there. The gaze that had held hers spoke volumes and had sent out several silent messages, ones that only she could decipher. That was a good thing. If anyone else had read his thoughts, they would have been scandalized.

  “Ladies, I need to borrow my wife for a minute.”

  She glanced up when Jonas suddenly appeared by her side, sliding his hand into hers. He looked devastatingly handsome dressed in his white tux with his wavy hair flowing about his shoulders. His green eyes were sharp when he glanced down at her. “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes and I thought we should say goodbye to our parents before we took off.”