The Tycoon

by Molly O'Keefe

  He leafed through the four pages of details. “Do you have a pen?”

  “You don’t want to have someone look at it?”

  “Are you trying to fuck me over?”

  “A little.”

  His smile was dark and rich. “I can take it.”

  I reached into my purse, where I always had at least four different pens, and handed him one. “I really think we should have a lawyer look at this.”

  “We can,” he said and signed it. His big scrawling signature across the bottom of the last page.

  I took my favorite red one for myself and signed, as well.

  We stepped back, each of us, like we were a little stunned.

  “That…was fast.”

  “We’ve known each other for years. It’s not that fast.”

  “I guess it’s not really binding,” I said, for some reason immediately offering the both of us an out.

  He put an arm around my back, pulled me right into the forward curve of his body and kissed me. Softly. Sweetly. No tongue. Just lips and his breath against my cheek, and the memory of a thousand kisses like this flood me.

  I meant to stop it. I meant to put my hand against his chest and push him away.

  But it felt too good. He…felt too good.

  That thought registered and I stepped away.

  “Sorry,” he said. “But I’ve waited a long time to kiss you again.”

  “You kissed me the other day.”

  “Like I said. A long time.”

  A swell rose up in my chest and it felt like a giggle. A delighted chirp. A flirtatious…I didn’t know what, but I swallowed it. Because I didn’t want this feeling. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Flirt.”

  His finger touched my cheek, traced the inside curve of my cheekbone. “You always were bad at taking a compliment.”

  There was no point arguing the truth of that statement. Compliments, at one point, had literally given me hives.

  He poured me a glass of wine and nudged the cheese board in my direction. “We’ve still got a few minutes before dinner is ready. And if you won’t let me kiss you—”

  “Do you like dogs?” I blurted.

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  “Can you swim?”

  “What’s going on here?”

  “These are things I never found out about you. And if we’re going to do this, I’m going to be informed.”

  “I can swim. I don’t love it. But I can do it.”

  “How did you vote in the last election?”

  “Politics? So soon?”

  “You can’t lie.”

  “I voted Democrat.”

  Relief, deep in my belly. He pushed the wine glass toward me.

  “Relax,” he said. “Please. This is supposed to be fun. There’s cheese. You love cheese.”

  I did love cheese. And Clayton saying please—I loved that, too.

  I sat down at the counter and took a sip of the wine, which, of course, was delicious.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Better.”

  The soft, creamy Brie called my name and I cut off a slice.

  “What did you want to be when you were a little boy?” I asked and put the cheese in my mouth, where it melted, salty and sweet on my tongue.

  This easy-going man, the soft, smiling flirt who was so different from the Clayton of five years ago, stiffened. Turned away to fiddle with something on the counter behind him. A salad.

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  “What?” I helped myself to another piece of cheese and noticed he had a little pot of currant jelly beside it. Oh, he remembered that, too. Cheese with a little extra business on the side was my favoritist favorite. “Everyone remembers what they wanted to be when they were a kid. I wanted to be a florist.”

  He looked at me over his shoulder. “A florist?”

  I put a drop of the red jelly on the cheese and popped it into my mouth. It was hard work restraining myself from doing a little shimmy on the stool. Honestly. So good.

  “My dad,” I said, after I swallowed the cheese, “used to take me to the florist in town. And every week he’d pick something out. A bouquet of something. Sunflowers. Tulips. Roses. He would take Bea and I with him. It was, literally, the only thing he’d do with us.”

  “Where did the flowers go?”

  I laughed without much humor. “Well, I thought they were going to my mother’s grave. But I’m pretty sure they were going to whomever was his mistress those days. Or maybe he was trying to get the florist to sleep with him. Hard to say.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be. My dad’s nature stopped hurting me long ago.” I took another sip of wine. “The lady who ran the flower shop let us go back into the cooler full of flowers and pick out our own stems and play around with arranging them. It was really nice. And I thought that would be the perfect job, all those ribbons and flowers to play with. So?” I smiled, enjoying myself despite being scared to. “Now you go.”

  “When I was a boy I wanted to be strong,” he said, finally. “I wanted to be bigger. A man.”

  The cheese was suddenly a lump in my stomach. “Why?”

  It was obvious he didn’t want to answer. That he’d said far more than he was comfortable with. I sat there on the stool unable to move. Barely able to breathe. Had he ever told me about his childhood? Ever?

  “Clayton,” I whispered, but the buzzer for the oven went off and I jumped so hard I nearly knocked over my wineglass.

  With a tea towel Clayton pulled a covered dish out of the oven. The air was so thick with the smell of roasted beef that I could practically lick it.

  “Ouch, ouch,” he breathed and set the dish down with a clatter on top of the stove.

  He took two plates out of a low drawer and set them next to me on the counter. There was sliced bread in a bowl, wrapped up in another tea towel, and the salad.

  “Wow,” I said, taking in everything he’d done.

  “Well,” he said. “Since I signed the agreement and everything, I should probably confess.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “The salad and the short ribs came from that restaurant you love. With the fountain out front.”

  “Bishop’s?”

  “Yeah. But I did cut the bread.”

  Somehow…this was more touching. Somehow this was harder to process than his cooking the meal. Because this was the man I remembered from five years ago. This was Clayton Rorick.

  And he was as beguiling as ever. As handsome and thoughtful, while still imperious and difficult. The man who’d taken such good care of me and then broken me in two.

  That was the real danger. Remembering the good things and forgetting the bad.

  That was what I couldn’t do.

  “You going to tear up that contract because I lied?” he asked, pointing to the papers we’d signed.

  “It’s not a real contract,” I felt compelled to point out. That stupid stack of papers that I’d honestly thought would make me feel safer. Like this man couldn’t touch me.

  He was Clayton fucking Rorick.

  He could do whatever he wanted.

  12

  VERONICA

  The short ribs were amazing. The salad was delicious. The cheese perfection.

  My glass was never empty, and by the time dinner was over I was in trouble.

  Not because I was drunk…I wasn’t. But because I was talking again. Talking to him. Like I used to. I opened my mouth and the words just fell out of me. It was a relief to be telling someone about Bea and Frank.

  “You didn’t tell Bea that you didn’t like him?” Clayton poured more from the second bottle into my glass. I was outrageously proud of myself for pushing the glass away.

  “Have you met Bea?” I joked. “Tell her you don’t like something and she will effectively make it her favorite thing. I was…waiting, I think, for her to realize what a bum he was.”

&
nbsp; “I guess she’s realized,” he said with sympathy. I tilted my head, trying to gauge that sympathy. Real? Not real? Act or truth? “Have you heard from her?” he asked. “Since she went back to Austin?”

  “A couple of texts. A friend of mine, a lawyer, is with her.” I rubbed my forehead and it was like this avalanche of worry that I had put aside or ignored so I could handle the disasters of the last few days, suddenly fell on me and it was…crushing.

  Endless.

  The nonstop worry for Bea. The never-ending work of getting her out of trouble.

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  “You’ve done it. I mean…the money.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  Oh, man.

  That was the dangerous one–two punch of Clayton.

  I was turned on. And I was comforted.

  His hand drifted from my shoulder to my neck, cupping the muscles and tendons there with such complete strength, such total control, that I…relaxed.

  More than the wine. The cheese. This man offered…relief.

  “Who takes care of you?” Clayton breathed. He was close. Closer than I should allow.

  No one was the answer, no one since you, but I swallowed the words.

  His thumb stroked my cheek as he shifted closer. I knew what he was thinking, planning, and I should have pushed him away.

  Instead I closed my eyes and rested my head fully in his hand.

  His low, dark chuckle should have outraged me. But it didn’t. Because he deserved his moment of victory.

  I submitted.

  Whatever he wanted right now. Whatever he asked—I would give him.

  But I wasn’t a fool. I would protect myself.

  “I want you,” I said. The sound he made in his throat was growly and hot. “But not the way we were.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not here to be seduced. You don’t have to treat me like the virgin daughter of the man you work for.”

  “Ronnie,” he said. My name and nothing else.

  “I don’t want…careful. And I don’t want sweet. The girl who wanted that is gone.” I wanted hard and wild but I wasn’t brave enough to say it.

  “Can you do that?” I asked.

  He pushed back his stool with such force it screeched against the floor. My eyes stayed closed. My surrender had its own requirements.

  His kiss, when it came, was not sweet. Or restrained. It was not polite.

  He claimed me. Devoured me. His mouth over mine. His body over mine.

  His will was something I bent myself into, toward. His will was something I longed for.

  “You want dirty, Veronica?” he whispered against my lips. “Hard? You don’t want me to make love to you. You want me to fuck you.”

  I was flooded with heat and absolutely soaked between my legs.

  I didn’t answer and his hand knotted in my hair. “Say it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I want you to fuck me.”

  He kissed me like I’d unlocked his cage. I opened my mouth and kissed him back the same way. I wanted his tongue and his fingers. Even if it was a lie. Even if it was a means to an end.

  It had been so damn long.

  He pulled me to my feet and my stool fell over. His fingers bit into my hips, clutched at my ass. My back.

  He was desperate, just like me.

  And his wildness was better than the wine. Stronger. I wanted more. I wanted to be drunk on it.

  I pushed my hips against his, felt his erection. Reveled in the hiss of his breath.

  He turned us, lifted me, pushed me up onto the counter, sending our wineglasses to shatter on the floor.

  “Leave them,” he whispered against my lips before kissing me again. His hands cupped my breasts and I felt the cloud of bliss coming for me. That mindless, delicious place of pleasure.

  “So long,” I gasped, arching harder against him. Looking for the right friction. The right pressure. I was hungry and thirsty and needy against the hard planes of his body.

  “What?” he asked against the skin of my neck.

  “It’s been so long.”

  He leaned back. My hair in his hand. “What you said at the funeral?”

  I leaned forward for more of his mouth but he pulled me back by my hair. The pressure delicious. Violent. I loved this fucking. “Ronnie? What you said at the funeral. About a million men.”

  Oh, my God. He was bothered by that.

  Keeping my lie would have been a comfort. And I longed to wrap myself in the distance it would give me.

  “No lying,” he whispered against my mouth and bit at my tongue. “Your rules.”

  “There…were no other men,” I said. The truth felt as vulnerable as I’d thought it would. Turning my head away made my hair pull and my scalp sting, but I did it anyway. The pain cut away at the bliss. The fog of pleasure.

  He tugged my head back to face him, but I kept my eyes shut.

  So childish.

  “Open your eyes.”

  The truth of me, the painful truth under all my work of the last five years, was that I couldn’t resist him. I never could. It’s why I’d had to run. Because if I’d stayed I would have let him convince me of whatever it was he wanted me to believe.

  My eyelids fluttered open and his face was there, filling everything I saw. It was him and only him.

  “There hasn’t been anyone else for me, either,” he said. “Not since you left.”

  I shook my head, pulling my own hair. “I don’t believe you.”

  “No lies, remember? Your rules.” I swallowed and looked at him, taking in every feature on his handsome face. “No one,” he assured me. He leaned into my face and whispered it against my skin. “No one but you, Ronnie.”

  It was too much, an absolute overload, and I kissed him. I kissed him to bring back the bliss. I kissed him to stop talking. So I could stop thinking.

  I kissed him and I kissed him and I kissed him until he wrapped those arms around me and pulled me against his body and I was hungry again.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. More,” I moaned. “More.”

  He shoved my sweater off my shoulders and I started to lift his shirt but he stopped me, holding my hand still in one of his while the other slipped under the cream shell I wore under my sweater. Instinctively I sucked in my stomach, aware that how I was sitting made my belly roll. And then I thought fuck it. This was me. His fingers found the edge of my bra. No lace, just plain pink cotton.

  And that was me, too.

  Truly, really and truly, I hadn’t thought the evening would end with Clayton’s hand up my shirt. But here we were, me in my ugliest underwear and him pulling it down under my breast, his fingers finding my nipple.

  He remembered. He remembered every way I liked to be touched. The pressure and release. The rough touch with the soft finish. But it was more this time. Wilder. The rough rougher.

  When he dropped my hand, I wasted no time and clutched at his belt, pulling the end free from the loop.

  “No,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You.”

  His hand dropped from my breast to the top of my jeans. I clamped my legs shut.

  “Ronnie,” he breathed. “Let me. Let me make you feel good.”

  Oh, God. The fucking magic of those words.

  I would regret this. I knew I would. This moment of pleasure would bring me nothing but pain later. But to have some sweet with all the bitter I’d been living with lately was impossible to refuse.

  I opened my legs. I fumbled with my own belt and zipper and then shimmied my pants down under my hips. My cotton hipster underwear went down with it.

  “Yes,” I said and leaned back. My hands shoved aside what was left of our dinner. “Make me feel good, Clayton.”

  His grin was sex. It was devilment and orgasms and the dark thrilling knowledge he had of me. And then his hand cupped me. The hot, wet center of me.

  “Like I
used to?” he breathed.

  “Do you remember?”

  He pressed his lips to the spot just under my ear. I shuddered. Shivered. Before Clayton I’d had brief, fumbling experiences with men going down on me. Mostly it just seemed uncomfortable. Far too intimate. But then I met Clayton and he blew my mind. And I realized the difference between him and those other men.

  Clayton loved going down on me. He wasn’t careful or hesitant. He was all-in—like he couldn’t get enough of me—and it felt so good.

  “Do I remember?” he whispered there against my skin. “I have dreamt of you. So many nights. I wake up hot and shaking. My cock in my hand, your name in my mouth.”

  I shook my head, trying to deny those words. Trying to deny that he’d missed me, too. Wanted me.

  “Truth,” he said. “Your rules.”

  No, my rules were no lies. The truth seems remarkably different than that. So much more dangerous than that.

  “Are you saying you didn’t dream of me?” he asked. I didn’t answer because this truth game was too risky. He pulled his hand away.

  “What?” I gasped, cold where his hand made me so hot.

  “Tell me.”

  “Of course,” I snapped, frustration a fist in the center of my body. Jesus. I just wanted to come. “Of course, I dreamt of you. Nightmares. Wet dreams. Everything in between. After some dreams I woke up crying. Some were so happy the realization that it was just a dream was heartbreaking all over again.”

  I didn’t mean to say all of this. And I didn’t want to say it. I was ready to give him power over my body. But this was too much.

  This was the difference between no lies and truth. No lies was going to protect me.

  Truth would destroy me.

  “You know something?” I pushed at his chest, got enough distance that I could put my feet on the ground. “Forget it. This is a mistake.”

  He was unmoveable, his body big, his strength so much more than mine so I stepped sideways, pulling up my pants, zipping up my jeans. “I’m going home.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Clayton—”

  He turned me, my stomach pressed against the edge of the counter. My hands spread wide to catch my fall. He stepped up behind me, pressing against my body. His chest against my back. He breathed, and I could feel it, the rise of his chest.