He thought of the luminous look on Mallory’s face as she’d made her vows. “I thought that was the point.”
“Oh, come off it.” Her temper flared for an instant before she banked it back. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t at least think about having one last fling before we married.”
“I didn’t. I thought about you.”
“Exactly.” She stared at him and the contrition slid into arrogance. “You’re not happy, Dev, it shows all over you. You’re missing something.” She flowed up against him, sliding her arms around his neck. “And that something is me.”
STEPPING TO HER OFFICE DOOR, Taylor watched Champlin walk down the room, across the lush, royal-blue carpet. With his graying beard and his tortoise-shell glasses, he looked more like a college English professor than a businessman. “Good morning, Alan,” she said, watching his bemused air turn into a smile.
“I was admiring your new digs,” he said, giving her hand a brisk shake. “Boy, they really did this place from the ground up.”“Pretty much. I’m glad I’ve got the long-term lease. I’m sure someone’s getting soaked to pay for all the renovation.” She turned back to her office and gestured for him to follow. “Have a seat.” She waited for him to sit in her client chair before she dropped in her own chair.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he said, giving her a direct look, all traces of the college professor evaporating. “I want a merger and I want you on my team. I’ve got a package that I think will make that happen.”
Taylor picked up a pen and ran it restlessly through her fingers. “Alan, we’ve been through this. I don’t want to sell out. Let’s not waste your time.”
“I don’t think it’s a waste. I’ve got fifteen stores in the mid-Atlantic, mostly in mall locations.”
“You mostly go after the vacation trade.”
He nodded. “We’ve been doing well, but I’d like to see us do better.”
“I’m not willing to be swallowed up just so you can get some prime office space.” She started to rise.
“It’s not about office space,” he said quickly. “I want to start a corporate travel division of Champlin and I want you to run it.”
Taylor froze and then slowly she sat back down. “You’ve got my attention. Go on.”
He smiled faintly. “I’ve been watching you scooping up the corporate clients.”
“That’s interesting.” A hint of frost entered her voice. “And just how have you managed that? Do you have a spy in my office?”
“No, I’ve just been on the receiving end of the thanks but no thanks phone calls from the clients.” He gave a thin smile. “Chasing your dust is not amusing.”
“What makes you think I can have the same track record working in your organization? In my agency, I’ve got the freedom to cut whatever deals I want and provide the services that will tip the clients into signing.”
Champlin didn’t blink. “You’ll have the same freedom if you come on board with us. It’ll be a separate division headquartered out of this office. You’ll be executive vice president and have a seat on the board.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Revenue,” he said simply. “You’ll have complete authority to run it as you see fit, I’m not about to mess with your magic.”
“The financial package…”
“Will be quite generous, both for the buyout and for your salary.” He opened his attaché case and pulled out a folder. “This hits the highlights, I believe.”
Taylor scanned the sheet and laid her hand on the desk in an effort to keep it from shaking. “I’m not prepared to make a decision today.”
“I’d think less of you if you were.”
“One other thing. I’m planning to go back to school in the fall.” The words were out before she knew she was going to say them. “If we do come to an agreement, it will need to include some provision for that.”
“Great. Go nights and we’ll cover your tuition if you agree to stick around at least a couple of years after you graduate. An investment in your education is an investment in the company. So am I correct in thinking you’re willing to consider my proposal?”
Taylor took her time in answering. One thing she’d learned in her business was negotiation. “I’d certainly like to review it. I can’t say more than that until I’ve spoken with my lawyer.”
“Fair enough. I’ll give you a couple of days.”
“A week,” she said firmly. “You’re asking me to sell out a business that I’ve devoted years to building.”
“So that you can build something bigger.” He waited for a beat. “All right, a week. I’ll look forward to your response.”
The bubble of excitement rose into her throat as they stood and she walked him out. This could be the professional opportunity she’d been waiting for. Suddenly everything looked different. Not even the drizzle outside could dampen her mood as she shook hands with him and watched him walk out the door. If anything, the bubble became bigger.
She had to tell someone or she was going to burst. Not the other agents; it was too preliminary for that. Her body had her heading out the door before her mind caught up with the obvious: find Dev and tell him.
The chill drizzle misted her hair as she walked out to the pedestrian tunnel and around the corner to the construction trailer. This was the pleasure of being involved, she thought. Not just the wild sex and the laughter. It was sharing triumphs and joys.
Taylor turned the handle of the door on the construction trailer. When it clicked and held solid, she blinked in surprise. The trailer usually remained open during business hours, but perhaps Dev was meeting with an inspector and didn’t want to be disturbed.
It didn’t matter, Taylor told herself, pushing down her disappointment. The evening was soon enough. Over dinner and a glass of wine, she’d tell him about Champlin’s offer, and she’d tell him what was in her heart.
She’d tell him she loved him.
17
LIFE WAS FULL OF SURPRISES, Dev thought later that evening as he unlocked his front door. The road was never straight. Every time he thought he knew where he was going, it veered without warning. When he’d woken that morning, the world as he’d known it had looked one way. Now, in a heartbeat, it had changed completely.
He took off his coat and hung it over a hook on the hall tree. The lingering hint of Melissa’s perfume clung to his shirt, reminding him of what he had learned and what he had lost. Without the right woman, a man was nowhere, he thought. Without the woman he loved. How could he have not realized what she meant to him? And what was he supposed to do about it now?He crossed into the dining room where he’d temporarily exiled his refrigerator. He leaned on the open door and studied the contents, but what he was really seeing was—
The knock on the door made him jump. “Dev?” Taylor’s voice called.
Taylor, he thought, and immediately he remembered the perfume. In his own time and place, he’d tell her what had happened. Maybe it would upset her, maybe she wouldn’t understand when he told her what he’d learned about himself, but she’d accept it, he thought. Whereas if she smelled another woman on him, he was pretty sure the conversation would begin and end right there.
“It’s open,” he called, vaulting up the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt as he ran.
“Where are you?” she said from the entryway.
“Get yourself a drink,” he called. “I’m taking a shower.” He tore at the laces on his boots and kicked them off; his shirt and jeans landed on the carpet. Even as he turned on the taps in the shower, he heard the front door shut.
He jumped into the stall while the water was still icy.
“Sweetheart, are you upstairs?”
“In the shower,” he said, trying not to curse as the cold water sluiced through his hair. It wasn’t nearly as cold as Taylor would be when she found out about Melissa. He’d tell her—he couldn’t hold it back—but in his own way and in his own time.
TAYLOR PULLED OFF HER GLOVES an
d hung up her coat. One of the small annoyances of winter was having to go everywhere piled with clothing. Oh, for the sultry air of Mexico.
Water from upstairs rushed through the pipes in the walls. She climbed up the staircase, her hand sliding on the satiny oak baluster. The house was such a strange mix of restored, run-down and work in progress. The kitchen, she imagined, was still a confusion of plaster dust and torn out bits of lath. Here in the entryway, though, she could have walked back in time to the year the house had first been built.How could she not love a man who would put such focus, such pride into bringing back part of the past? She thought of him showing her the photographs of the house in its heyday. Other men might renovate because it was a good investment. Dev was doing it because he loved the house and its history, because bringing beauty back to life satisfied him. And knowing all that only made her adore him all the more.
So when, she wondered. Tell him now, before they did anything? Lure him out to dinner somewhere romantic and tell him? Wait until evening, when they could sit in front of the fire? It seemed both momentous and liberating, a feeling within her that was crying out to be said.
She’d know when the time was right, Taylor decided as she turned into his bedroom and saw the steam drifting out of the bathroom. A smile played about her lips as she began unbuttoning her shirt. For now, she’d just go keep Dev company and leave the rest to fate.
Though the other parts of the house were chilly, the bathroom was warm and damp with steam. Even the mahogany floor was cozy against her feet. Shower curtains hanging from a metal ring shrouded the claw-foot tub. “Can you spare a cup of water, neighbor?” Taylor slipped her hands in the seam where the curtains met and stepped in.
Dev pulled her against him.
“Mmm. Naked, wet. We need to start meeting like this more often.”
Giddy joy surged through her. This man, this beautiful, wonderful man, was her lover, her love. The stream of water had stripped his hair back from his face, letting her admire the carved out cheekbones, the taut line of the jaw, that enticing cleft in his chin, and his eyes, deep set, glowing green, casting their spell on her.
“And do you need to clean up after a hard day’s work?” he murmured, leaning close to her.
“Well, if you can spare a little soap.”
Slick with suds, his hands slid over her body, running over her breasts until her nipples swelled. “I don’t know,” he said, holding up his dwindling soap on a rope. “There isn’t too much here. Maybe we should reuse it.” He pulled her against him and slid up and down her body. She could feel him stiffening against her.
“I’m all for recycling,” she said breathlessly, then gasped as his slippery fingers trailed down her hip and up her thighs to unerringly find that place where she didn’t need soap or water to be wet, slick and achingly sensitive.
Dev turned her back into the hot stream of water so that it sluiced over her shoulders and back. Taylor groped for the soap, but it slipped through her fingers before she could get a grip on it, tumbling onto the bottom of the tub.
“I’ll get it,” Dev said and crouched down, reaching through her legs and behind her even as he kissed her thighs. Taylor felt the warmth of his lips move up as his fingers traced the back of her calves, then spiraled higher, the soap in his hand making a tantalizing trail. She shivered at the feel of his tongue licking at the indentation where her thigh met her flat belly. For a whirling moment, he nuzzled at her, pressing her legs apart as she struggled for balance, clutching at his shoulders.
Then his mouth was hot against her, his tongue slipping into the folds and creases to find the swollen bud that was at the center of the tension that had her strung tight as a wire. The first stroke sent her jolting and gasping against him. The second stroke made her moan. And then it was simply a vortex that immersed her in a dark seduction where emotion and sensation catalyzed into something far greater. He’d taken her before to places she’d never been to physically, but this blazing desire roaring through her was something more.
It wasn’t slow and gradual. It wasn’t gentle. It flung her over the edge and into freefall, giddy, spiraling down for an endless time.
Dev rose and pulled her against him.
“I don’t think I can stand,” she murmured.
“Sure you can stand. You’re not entirely clean yet,” he said, running the soap over her body, resensitizing it. “We need to get you lathered up some more.”
“Uh-uh, my turn.” Taylor reached out for the egg of soap, working it in her hands until it lathered. “You can do interesting things with a soap this size,” she said teasingly, feeling his erection nudge against her belly, heavy and hard. Then she ran the soap down the underside of his cock, running it up and down until he groaned.
Feeling her move against him while she was in the throes of orgasm had had him nearly coming himself. Now, with her body slick and warm under his hands and the teasing touch of the soap running against the sensitive skin, he fought to hold himself back. He wanted to feel her around him, tight and hot, for a long, long time before he let himself go over.
Dev turned her away from the water so that she would be focused only on his touch, and gently pried away the soap. He wanted more even as he wanted to pull back from the edge. Running the soap over her breast, he circled the nipple. He focused on it, trying to concentrate on something besides the way her fingers on his cock sent tremors of desire through him with each stroke. He moved the soap lower, sliding it over her hips, the cheeks of her ass, along her thighs, then slipping it up between them.
He heard Taylor catch her breath as he brushed the soap between her hidden lips, stroking it over her clit until he felt her tremble and clutch at his shoulders. “It’s important to be clean all over,” he murmured in her ear.
The silky soft touch brought the barest friction to her but it was enough to have her shivering, all her nerve endings, all the passion reignited.
Taylor jolted as she felt his fingers slipping into her. “More,” she muttered into his ear, moving against him, her hand moving steadily up and down on him. “I want you inside me. Fill me up.”
“Don’t be so impatient,” he said and she shivered at the brush of the soap against her clit again, against those sensitive folds that surrounded it. “I want to get you nice and slippery and ready.”
“Now,” she whispered against his neck. She made a little sound of satisfaction as she felt him press her legs apart. Then she gasped as he slid the soap up inside her instead.
There was something deliciously different about having that feeling of solid fullness in her even as she held his cock in her hands. The soap was solid and slick as he slid it out of her and across her clit, then back in, stroking across excruciatingly responsive nerve endings until she cried out. His soapy fingers slid down her back and over her buttocks, caressing them and slipping into the cleft in between, touching the fragile, sensitive spot there that sent shocks through her system.
It was too overwhelming, too much pleasure coming from too many places at once. Taylor cried out in no known language, on the edge of going over.
“I have to be in you,” he muttered, dropping the soap and turning her so that her back was against the wall.
And it was as though everything that had come before was just a game, child’s play compared to what rocked through her when she helped Dev slide himself up inside her. When she cried out, her voice blended with his. When she shuddered, the movement began in her body and ended in his. And when he began to move, the flow of desire surged between them.
She clutched at his shoulders. He pulled her to him and buried his face in her neck. And when the orgasm hit, she had no way of telling in whose body it began and in whose body it ended. It was the two of them together.
MAKING IT TO HIS BED was as far as they could manage. Clothing would have to wait. Taylor lay with one leg draped between Dev’s, leaning her arms on his chest. “We got your sheets all wet.”
“I didn’t think I could stand
up long enough to find a towel.”“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she began, touching her fingertip to a bead of water on his neck and spreading it into a circle.
“So have I.”
“What about?”
He smiled faintly. “Ladies first.”
Taylor stared into the green of his eyes, trying to dive into the depths, willing him to connect with her. “I’ve never had anything like the time I spent with you in Mexico. It was really special. Part of it was that it was a gorgeous resort, but most of it was due to you. It wouldn’t have been nearly as great if you hadn’t been there.” She stopped. Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. Why couldn’t she get it out? She’d thought about it for two days, she was absolutely certain of how she felt, and he needed to know it. All she had to do was say those three words. She’d said them before, after all.
But this would be the first time she’d ever said them and really meant them.
Dev stroked a hand over her hair. “It was special for me, too,” he said.
“There’s something you ought to know,” she began again. “Something I need to tell you. I—”
The phone shrilled in the silence and Taylor’s words died in her throat. Dev made no move to get it.
“Don’t you want to answer that?”
“I’m more interested in hearing what you have to say. Besides, it’s probably a telemarketer or something.” He brushed her hair back gently from her face and raised his head to kiss her. “Talk to me.”
But the noise of the ring had her rattled, and the brief surge of courage had deserted her. She began again, dragging together the backbone to tell him the way she felt, to lay it out for him to do as he would.
Across the room, on the highboy, the answering machine beeped, then a woman’s sultry voice poured into the room. “Hi gorgeous, are you there? It’s me. Melissa.”
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