"Not if you're scared. If you're really scared, Janey, you don't go into a situation. You follow your instincts."
"I wasn't really scared, just nervous. You seemed to be upset with me before I left for the store and I didn't understand why."
"Don't you? I'm getting tired of your telling me I'm a rich asshole all the time. Most of my life I've been just an upper middle class asshole." He stood up and pulled her up with him, smoothing his hand down her sides and surveying her nude body.
"I don't think you're any kind of asshole," she said, subdued. "You've actually been very kind to me. It's just that socially, economically, and experience-wise, I'm out of—"
"If you say the word 'league' again, so help me, woman, I'm going to tie your legs apart and go down on that pristine pussy of yours until you make the floor shake and the downstairs neighbors start banging on—"
"I'll stop talking about it," she said hastily, her face flooding with heat, though it was tempting to see if he meant it. "I'll try to remember."
"Good. Maybe you will now." There was that wolfish smile again.
"But I do still wonder what you see in me. I mean, do you have a thing for virgins? Like some trauma in your deep past where a virgin —"
"No, it's simply that I want to fuck you every fucking hour of the day and you tell me you've been wanting same. So now, yeah, I'm frustrated. Last night wasn't enough. This morning wasn't enough."
"Wow," she said. "Is real sex better than what we did? What you just did to me? Because I can't imagine that.
"A thousand times better. At least I think so. Nothing's the way it usually is these days, so what the hell do I know?"
Janey's head swam at the implication that he wasn't anywhere near cool right now. What it meant was a mystery, apparently to both of them.
"We could do it right now," she said. "I'm ready."
"Grow some patience, Janey. God knows I'm learning to." He sighed. "At least you're finally naked."
She opened her mouth to argue that the whole nakedness idea was really not a good one, but remembered the ground rules just in time.
"I'd better put the groceries away," she said. "And then teach you how to make cheesecake."
"You seem reluctant. I thought you were looking forward to bossing me around." He was looking at her figure again, sauntering in a circle around her. Janey turned with him. He stopped her. "No, I want to look at your ass."
She stood stock still. "I'm only reluctant because I'm not used to having somebody ogle my naked body."
"You'll get used to it. I plan to do a lot of ogling."
"I'm seeing that."
The fact that she wasn't in the heat of passion right now and he was fully clothed made her want to guard her breasts and sex with her hands while he perused her. She didn't exactly feel like a piece of property but it was close.
"I have a body just like everyone else," she said almost to herself. "People are born naked. If I ever have surgery, I'll be naked. Also you get naked in locker rooms."
"What are you going on about now?"
"I'm trying to convince myself this is no big deal."
"That's the way, just keep thinking that." She felt something stroke down her spine and jumped, then shifted her feet uneasily.
Something occurred to her. "Why shouldn't you be naked, too? If we're both walking around without clothes that would make things more fair." Just the thought of what that would be like made her start feeling hot again.
"Because I'm not a bashful virgin," he said. "I don't have modesty issues."
Janey giggled at the image that conjured up—a shrinking, coquettish Nyall—caught herself rotating again and forced herself to stay motionless while he circled her a couple of more times.
"Are you just going to keep doing that?"
"Just getting you used to things. I'm guessing when those sleazeballs grope you, it's your ass they go for."
"How did you know?"
"If I explain, you'll slap me."
"Oh." She regarded him uncertainly. "You look a lot less frustrated now. I'm glad."
"So naive," he said, shaking his head. "Janey, when you went shopping, did you buy anything perishable?"
"What? Oh—oh, yes, I'd better go put all that stuff away." Janey was halfway to the kitchen before she realized what he'd done. He was trying to distract her from the fact that she was naked.
It was nice of him. Still, it didn't much ease her feelings of self-consciousness to have a task to focus on. In fact, as she bent down to pick up the plastic sacks, she found it hard to concentrate on anything except the fact that his attention was clearly on her bottom. While she was aware of her breasts and the way they hung down freely.
She straightened quickly. "I don't know where anything goes."
"Then you'd better look around, hadn't you?"
She went through all the cabinets and the pantry, upper and lower, while he followed her around. He did try to answer all her questions, but it quickly became apparent how little time he spent in his own kitchen. Like that was a big surprise.
He knew where the microwavable dishes were, though. While she put away groceries and unpacked her totes, he popped two dinners from the freezer into the microwave and set it going.
She recognized the luxury containers, so these were no standard supermarket frozen meals. Not that that was surprising. What was surprising was that she'd forgotten even for a few minutes that he was filthy rich.
She took the opportunity to sneak glances at him. He'd draped his flannel shirt over a chair and his clinging t-shirt reminded her exactly why earlier he'd had no problem lifting her up with one hand. Especially when he crossed his arms over his chest like that. He didn't look like a professional bodybuilder or anything, but he was all solid and bunching.
"Do you have a gym membership?" she asked as she straightened from scooping up several empty supermarket bags.
He glanced over at her, then kept on doing it.
"Nyall, I thought you were trying to get me used to being naked," she said exasperatedly. "If you never look at my face, then how will that ever happen?"
"Downtown," he said, making a big show of looking into her eyes. "You want to go there?"
"No." She blushed. "I'm just wondering how you got those muscles. Weight training in your fitness room is my guess."
"I swim. I play tennis."
"That's all? You're very strong in your arms. I know because, because of, uh, what you did in your office."
"Maybe I should start a daily workout with you." He smiled lazily and leaned back against the sink, then ducked and caught the block of cheese she threw at him. "I don't care for feta cheese," he remarked helpfully and tossed it back to her.
She caught it and went to open the refrigerator door. "But you do like lasagna, right?"
"Sure."
"Then it'll be fine. Most people use ricotta cheese, but I've always found that for a male clientèle, the more salt and tang the better." She set out five packages of cream cheese on the table. "It must be fun to go swimming throughout the year. I'm not a very good swimmer but I like playing in the water."
"I'll be happy to teach you. And take you hiking."
Janey looked up, blinking. "Why?"
"Because you might like it."
"No, I mean do you usually do that kind of stuff with your sex partners?"
He sighed and scratched his chin. "Not usually, no."
"Why would you want to take me?"
"Oh, I don't know, for fun?"
"But why me?"
"Why not you?"
"But with your connections you could go mountaineering with professionals and swim with Olympic—"
"Janey, I thought I warned you about this."
"Oh." She stared at him. It hit her she'd actually forgotten for a few minutes that she was unclothed, but now the fact was impossible to ignore. He advanced on her slowly and she backed up till she was against the counter.
"Put your hands on your head," he said.
"Why?" she stammered.
"No questioning me. Just obedience. Remember?"
"O-Okay." She lifted her hands to her scalp and swallowed, her heartbeat going from regular to thundering in the space of a few seconds.
"Spread your legs apart."
She bit her lip and shifted her feet a few inches apart, then at his warning look, wider…and wider.
"That's better. You know what I could do right now, don't you?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
"You know that I know you're pussy's creaming for me right now?"
She pressed her bitten lips together.
"Uh-huh. You know how hard I am just from looking at you like this?"
She started to shake her head in the negative, lowered her gaze to the front of his jeans, then quickly nodded.
"If I tell you I want to take you hiking with me or to a movie or on a fucking drive in the country, it's because I want to. No other reason. Don't read deeply into it."
She started to lower her arms. "I guess—"
"Did I say you could move?"
Her nipples peaked until they were tight and hurting. She shook her head. "Are you angry?"
"No. Look at yourself, Janey. Your tits are begging to be touched and you're asking me why I want to teach you to swim. You'd be better off asking me if I'm going to let you finish putting all this crap away before I shove my cock into you."
"Um, are you going to let me—"
"Not if you don't shut up about my supposedly elite social set. My dad's a professor of electrical engineering. My mom's a nurse practitioner at UC Davis. We were hardly poor but we're not the fucking Rockefellers. What is it with you with this reverse snobbery bullshit? You can put your hands down."
She straightened and scowled at him. "I'm not a snob. It's just that I've been average everything all my life except when it comes to boys and there I'm not even average, I'm invisible. To people like y- to some people I'm not even on their radar."
"So half the human race is blind. Get over it. I want you and you want me. And by the time I'm done with you, all those supposedly normal pretty boys you're so hot for will be chasing you down like a pack of hyenas."
"Because of how famous you are?" Her eyes were like saucers. "People will know I'm that good at sex?"
His eyes shut briefly. "No, because you'll be sending out enough pheromones to knock out half the city."
"Is that your plan?" She whistled through her teeth.
"It's the reality. Now there's a lot of stuff I'd like to eat right now, but I need calories first. Finish what you were doing."
She stood there for a bit first to calm down her metabolism. A few minutes later they were seated at the oblong table in the kitchen, dining from hard plastic trays filled with thick shepherd's pie. Sitting down naked to eat was…very peculiar.
Janey sighed as she dug into the food.
"It's not that bad," she said fairly. "Though it is too salty and the sauce needs wine and more thyme."
He reached across the table and fingered her nipple. "For dinner tonight I'll order in something gourmet to please your finicky palate."
She almost choked. "Don't do that!"
"Why not? I thought you'd appreciate someone else cooking for you."
"I mean what you're doing with—with your hand."
"Aw, Janey, how can you sit there without a stitch on and tell me not to touch you." One more teasing pluck and he released her.
Her eyes shot flames at him. "Things could get stuck in my windpipe."
"Not this mushy stuff." He gestured with his fork. "Besides, I know from that day in the elevator that you can control yourself if you need to. You did a great job of looking casual while you were coming."
She crammed a huge bite into her mouth so she wouldn't have to answer.
His mood seemed to pick up as he ate. By the time he was done, he was looking at her expectantly. "If we make that cheesecake now, when will it be ready?"
"Not until after dinner. It takes a few hours to prepare and bake, and then hours to chill. If we're lucky it'll be ready to eat after dinner."
"When do—damn, that's my phone."
He went into the other room to take the call. Janey finished eating and got equipment and supplies out. The cream cheese had softened. The eggs were warming in a bowl of water. She sat down on a chair and twiddled her thumbs, waiting.
It occurred to her it wouldn't hurt to check in on her people, too. She called her full-time assistant.
"Leese? It's Janey. How did the Greenlieber wedding brunch go? Or is it still going?"
"We're cleaning up now," Leese said cheerfully. "We could have used you when there was a minor misunderstanding about the availability of the kitchen, but the bartender helped out so the beignets were still warm when we served." Janey translated that to what she probably would have said if she were alone, which was, The guy was hot for me and did anything I asked him to. "I called around ten," Leese continued, "but you didn't answer."
"I forgot to charge my phone last night and it's been off," Janey said.
"You never said where you were going this week." Leese didn't even bother to try to hide her curiosity. She wasn't the only one who'd been nagging Janey for details about her upcoming vacation, but she was the most shameless. So far Janey had avoided giving out particulars, just claiming she needed some time away.
"I'm staying at a—kind of resort," Janey blurted. "One that accepts last-minute bookings 'cause it's the off-season."
"Cool. Where?"
"Oh—it's local. Not too far from—from town. But private."
"You mean like a spa? Hot tub, stone massage, the whole shabang?"
"Well. Um. I guess they pamper you here, but—I don't think there's even a sauna. It's not all that fancy."
"Hi, sweetheart," Nyall's voice said in Janey's ear, loudly and clearly. She nearly jumped out of her skin, then glared at him when he added blandly, "Actually, the building does have a sauna."
"Ooh," Leese said. "Is that the hired help? He sounds hotlicious."
"No, he's kind of, uh, my host."
"Reeeally." Leese's juicy gossip sense was obviously tingling.
"I've got to go, Leese," Janey said. "I'm late for a lesson."
"Rightzies," Leese said and raised her voice so it resonated. "So long, mysterious stranger."
Nyall laughed and held out his hand, eyebrows arched. Janey shook her head emphatically and he grinned and reached for her nipple. The chair screeched as she shot back out of reach and flung the phone at him.
He caught it neatly. "Nyall Anderson," he said smoothly into the phone. "Nice to meet you—Leese, is it? You work with Janey?"
"She's my boss," Janey heard her assistant say before she hung her head, feeling helpless to stave off impending disaster.
"Is everything okay? No problems? Good. Janey's staying with me all this week, so if you can't reach her phone because she's forgotten to charge it, any of you should feel free to call me on mine. Here's my cell." While Janey listened in utter shock, he rattled off the number.
Chapter 7
"Leese is a gossip," was all she could say, over and over, after Nyall handed her back her phone. "Gossip. As in, blast it all over social media gossip. And you gave her your mobile number?"
"This one goes directly to voice mail. Resort, Janey?"
"It doesn't matter. She'll keep it always. She'll probably sell it to the highest bidder. And if she doesn't, she knows my friend Morris, who works in a yoga studio. Do you know about the yoga community, Nyall? It'll be all over Oregon and southern California by Christmas."
"You overestimate my newsworthiness," he said dryly. "I'm one small island in a vast sea of tech. If I'm hounded, I have an assistant for that."
"Mary?"
"Mary. But let's not let ourselves get off track here. Off-season bookings? Really?"
"I lied," she said. "I couldn't think what to tell people."
"Well let's see." He pulled her up out o
f the chair and smoothed his hand over her bottom. "I'm staying at a friend's place for a week. No, too implausible. Too scandalous."
"I didn't think of that," she admitted.
"I can't keep my hands off you," he said, spreading his palm up her back and around to smother a breast. "Whose brilliant idea was this?"
"I could put on a bra." The thought of wearing a bra and no panties was somehow worse than being naked, though.
"But I'd know they're there, sticking out like little sugar cones. No, this is good for me, to have you prancing around my home in the buff. People are always telling me things fall into my lap too easily."
"I fell into your lap pretty easily," she pointed out.
"Yes, but you jumped right back out again."
"They fixed the elevator."
"And you ran away like the hounds of hell were chasing you." He kissed her clavicle.
"Cheesecake," she said, panicking because he was moving south and she had the awful feeling he was going to…
He did. His tongue sipped her nipple up, right into his mouth.
"You are," he said caressingly when he lifted his head a few minutes later. "You totally are. Sweet and delicious."
"I can't bear it when you do that," she said. "I ache between my legs. It's like something's pinching me."
"Good." He stood back suddenly. "What do I do first?"
Janey gasped at being abruptly let go. She stared vaguely around. "Ah. I guess…I need an apron. It's in my suitcase in the bedroom."
"Go fetch it, then come back here. I want to be the one to put it on you."
Janey had been looking forward to the idea that she could wear something to preserve her modesty while teaching Nyall how to cook. It turned out that bib aprons, even unisex white professional ones, were not designed to serve any function remotely related to modesty.
"I wondered," Nyall said with satisfaction as he rotated her body around in front of him. "I hope we don't have to boil water. It would be a shame to risk these getting scalded." He pinched both nipples sticking out to either side of the stark white rectangle.
"I thought the bodice would cover them," Janey said, squirming.
"Alas, no. I like the rear view, too."
"Stop," she said. "I can't concentrate when you do that."
Heat Exchange (The Alpha Billionaire's Virgin Book 1) Page 8