God, she was a slut. Something had gone very, very wrong with her sense of right and wrong the night she let him into her hotel room. If her poor mother had lived . . . she couldn’t even think about what her mother would say. Good girls didn’t do the things Trinity had done.
Good girls didn’t love doing them, either.
“Daddy, I’m begging you. Please don’t try fixing me up.”
She could only pray her father listened to her. Because she certainly hadn’t shown any sense of control or restraint around Scott up to this point.
SCOTT slumped in front of his office computer, staring blindly. The entire afternoon, his mind had been all over her. Back at work, he’d slammed Rudd’s idiotic scenarios for messing with the bottom line, snapped at Elton, forgotten a conference call, then holed up in his office waiting for the end of the day. He’d been alone half an hour, contemplating her. Driving himself crazy.
Outside, the night had turned dark and moonless, and a biting rain rolled in, slashing at the windows. The fresh storm fit his mood.
He knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he researched her on the Net and came across a wedding announcement not even six months old. Why the hell hadn’t Herman Green come right out and told him to back off because she was married? Instead, the man had seemed encouraging. Dammit, this last month had probably been some lark for her while Harper Harrington the Third was out of town somewhere. What the hell kind of name was that anyway? It stank of rich and gaudy.
Scott knew he sounded petty, like a kid who’d gotten his favorite toy taken away from him for bad behavior.
But fuck, fuck, fuck, he wanted to—
His e-mail beeped. Sure as hell, his pulse rate kicked up hoping it was her. She needed him, wanted him. Yet, she was married. He couldn’t tear the solid steel block out of his gut.
He maximized the e-mail program only to find it wasn’t her.
Shit. He sat up. The infamous e-mail address, with another attachment. Why come back after three weeks of silence? He opened and read, and the steel block rose to choke him.
“Do you really want to throw yourself away on a slut like her? She could cost you big-time if you’re not careful.”
For five full seconds, he couldn’t move, rage immobilizing his muscles like handcuffs. He ached to punch his fist through the monitor and come out with his hands wrapped around the e-mailer’s scrawny throat. She was not a slut. She was passionate and mysterious, gorgeous and tantalizing.
And cheating on her husband.
He clicked on the attachment, and a stunning, high-resolution photo filled the screen. Norman was clearly visible, as was Scott, but his profile obscured her face. Still, she made his insides steam up, his cock hard, his mouth water. Sitting on the barstool that night, she’d allowed him to slip his arm around her shoulders as she seduced Norman with a smile on her red lips. A need had boiled in Scott during that moment. He’d wanted to hoist her up on the bar and take her for all to see. His cock had been a raging, painful ache he couldn’t slake.
Until he had her in Norman’s hotel room. And even then, it wasn’t enough, would never be enough. Need and desire etched into the lines of his face just as someone snapped his picture.
Primitive tribes felt that a picture stole one’s soul. Whoever took this one had stolen that moment, perverted it.
Flipping back to the e-mail, Scott hit Reply.
“Who the hell are you and what exactly do you want? I’m sick of your fucking games.”
Trinity Green had already ripped out his heart, and he was done with this crap. Almost in the blink of an eye, his computer beeped. He opened.
“I know what you did in that hotel.”
His heart stopped altogether.
The two people who knew what he’d done in that hotel room were in the photo with him.
Had Trinity Green set him up?
She and Norman had been there when he arrived. She said Norman was from out of town, but Scott didn’t know for sure. How did he know for sure that Norman was a stranger to her? Until today, he didn’t know anything about her.
And look how she’d struggled to keep it that way.
Norman could be the infamous Harper Asshole Harrington the Third. Had they set him up together? A cameraman in the bar, then a hidden camera in the hotel room? Did she have someone following them the whole time, snapping pictures? He’d knocked on her door that first night, and she’d seen an easy mark. She hadn’t figured that he’d ever find out who she was.
His whole body screamed in agony, his flesh stretched over his cheekbones, a stabbing pain like a nail driving through his temple into his brain.
Punching the Forward key, he tapped in her address, and his fingers actually shook as he typed his message.
“Are you fucking blackmailing me now? And I understand you’re married as well. Maybe Norman is your husband, and you two are out to make a buck. What kind of woman lets another man go down on her in front of her husband?”
He didn’t feel one goddamn bit better after he pushed Send. He was overreacting, getting carried away, jumping to unwarranted conclusions, but he felt like a gutted fish with the hook still stuck in his throat.
Even the possibility that she was using him shouldn’t fucking hurt like this. She was nothing more than a good lay. And hell, they’d only done that once.
She was a fantasy, a figment of his imagination—the woman he wanted her to be rather than what she truly was. Yet it was like watching someone trample your dream into dust. And yeah, it was far worse than the night Katy asked for the divorce. By that time, he’d already lost his expectations and hopes.
With Jezebel, his dreams had only just begun.
18
TRINITY had driven round and round the downtown parking garage beneath Scott’s offices, then found his sedan in the same space he’d occupied before. He hadn’t left work yet, thank God, because she didn’t know where he lived. She hadn’t called his office or his cell phone because she’d been afraid he’d hang up.
The night was cold, the downpour incessant since five thirty. She tugged her coat tight as she waited by the side of Scott’s car. The things he’d accused her of in his e-mail punched a hole right through her heart. She could not have him think she was a cheat, a liar, a blackmailer, and a whore.
Her tummy trembled. Harper had to be the culprit. He wanted his cut before he got out. But how had he known Scott’s e-mail address? Had he been sneaking into the condo, looking at her computer? However it was done, she’d stuck Scott in the middle of it. Involved him. She shivered.
Light spilled out from the elevator as the door opened with a whoosh. He was so tall, he ducked automatically as he exited.
A pulse ticked at her temple. He was beautiful. Men could be beautiful, or maybe it was in the eye of the beholder. The dark suit jacket set off the silver streaks in his hair, the white shirt contrasting with the tan he hadn’t lost from the summer. His legs ate up the concrete with a determined stride. And she wanted to melt at his feet.
He didn’t see her until he beeped the remote, and then he was close enough for her to see the pupils of his eyes dilate.
She wanted to touch him, but though he was feet away physically, he was miles off in emotional distance.
She’d memorized the lines of his e-mail and answered every question. “My name is Trinity Green. I would never blackmail you. Norman isn’t my husband. I am married, but I’m getting a divorce. I was at the hotel that first night”—something flared in his eyes and was gone an instant later—“because I found my husband cheating. ” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t know what kind of person . . .” She couldn’t say it, not the way he had. “I don’t know how I could have done that with another man watching.” Her mother, rest her soul, would turn over in her grave.
Maybe she was a slut, just as the e-mail had said, but one thing Trinity Green had never been was a coward, and she held her head high waiting for him to speak.
He switched his briefcase to a two-
handed grip, car keys dangling from his fingers. “I’m sorry about your husband, but you should have told me.”
“You asked to watch me. You didn’t ask if I was married.”
He closed his eyes for the count of two. “You’re right. Still, I wouldn’t have gone on if I’d known you weren’t divorced.”
“I told you in the beginning that I was recently divorced,” she defended, although there was no defense. “I didn’t think any further details were your business.”
He closed the distance, towering over her, his eyes deep, dark, rich with anger. “I fucked you. It was my business.”
The backs of her eyeballs ached, and her lids stung when she blinked. “You called it lust. It was just for fun. I didn’t owe you anything.” Yet how could fun hurt this badly?
He set down his briefcase, the scent of his body erotic, laced as it was with the aroma of rain and ozone on wet concrete that seeped down from street level. “Again, you’re right. I pushed for more than you wanted to give.”
This close, he made her head swim. She couldn’t think. “That’s why I did . . .” Again, she couldn’t say it. “I did that thing with you and Norman because I wanted to . . .” Articulating her thoughts would make it worse.
He cupped her jaw, and the touch almost made her fall, it was so sweet, so gentle.
“Because you wanted to put me in my place,” he supplied the correct answer.
“Yes,” she whispered, then listened to herself. “No. I mean, I didn’t do that to put you in your place. I wanted to tease you when you arrived.” That wasn’t sounding better.
“But you got carried away with the whole idea.”
She blinked. His eyes were such a deep gorgeous brown, no longer biting with anger. “Yes.”
With one last step, his body nearly flush with hers, he dropped his voice to a mesmerizing level. “You were so fucking sexy, I needed it all. Your mouth on me, your juice on my lips.” He tipped her chin up with his thumb. “I wanted him to see it, want it, and know he couldn’t have it, that you were mine.”
Trinity couldn’t breathe. It had been so intensely exciting despite her conflicted emotions about it later.
He dipped his head until his lips were so close she could almost taste him. “We were both guilty of getting carried away. And I did trick you on Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry for that.”
She didn’t need the apology. She needed him to kiss her. Instead he trailed his fingers along her jaw, down her throat, the pads a little rough, lighting up every nerve ending. Dipping down inside her coat, blunt fingernails tracing the swell of her breast against the scooped neckline, he shifted her brassiere to find her nipple inside. He flicked, she moaned, unsure if her legs would hold her.
Then there was six inches of air between them, and she was dizzy with the change.
“I screwed up sending you that e-mail. I don’t believe you’d blackmail me. You wouldn’t intentionally set out to hurt me.” His chest rose and fell beneath his shirt, and she detected the rapid beat of his heart against the white material.
She put her hand over the pulse, his heat racing through her palm, up her arm, straight down to her clitoris. “Thank you.” She thought of telling him about Harper, her first suspicion that her almost-ex might be capable of blackmail, but Harper had a right to answer the accusation first. Despite what he’d done. “I know it seems silly that I rushed here rather than call.” She waved a hand at his car. “You might have already gone home.”
He captured her hand. “Come home with me, Trinity Green.”
Her heart stopped, stuttered, sparked, and finally beat again. She had all sorts of excuses. It was late, after seven. They both had to work tomorrow. She didn’t have any fresh clothing with her. No toothbrush. Or makeup. “Yes.”
“I’ll drive.”
“No, I’ll follow you.” She told herself this was for tonight. She’d go cold turkey tomorrow. Things she’d been afraid of, that he’d have control, she’d have to wear her mask again, she’d fail to find her identity, they were all still true. But for tonight, she needed to be with him.
He blocked her in. “You’ll come with me. I’ll take you back tomorrow. ” He was done letting her run things, of course.
She tried again. “I want you to drive me back tonight.”
He held her gaze. “You’ll spend the night.”
It was all a test. “Scott—”
“Trinity.” He seemed to enjoy saying her name, as if it were a victory sign.
He smelled so good, but she could have resisted if it were mere sex he offered. What she couldn’t resist was how he’d made her feel all those nights. Free to be anything she wanted, to step outside herself, to experience every tantalizing touch, to savor each new taste. He approved of everything she did to him, all that she begged him to do to her. She needed to feel wanted and accepted one more time. “We’ll have to get up very early.”
He wound her hair around his finger. “That’s not a problem, because we won’t be going to sleep.”
THE marked contrast between the two women he’d had in the car today exhilarated him. With Jezebel—Trinity—his sense of anticipation and excitement was tangible, physical, a third presence in the car. He could feel his own heartbeat throb in his ears, and his skin tingled as if he stood beneath the sting of a shower. Every touch she bestowed, every breath she took, every move she made enthralled him. It was a damn good thing his subconscious knew the route over the mountain highway.
She wasn’t married. The elation that hit him with her revelation almost brought him to his knees, but he’d managed to stand before her appearing unaffected. He’d been an idiot, jealous, angry. Nor could she have engineered the photos. Someone with a guest badge had done that, an auditor badge. It couldn’t have been her.
As he turned onto his street, his home a mile away, she curled in her seat, pulling her knees up. “Is your house clean?”
Scott laughed. It was the last thing he expected. “Why?”
He felt her shrug as if he were touching her. “It tells about you as a person. Like if you’re the beer-guzzling sports-fan type with empty cans and pizza cartons all over the place.”
Damn, she amused him in every incarnation. “I have to admit,” he said, negotiating a curve on the hill, “that I’m not the beer-guzzling type.” He glanced sideways. “Does that make me less of a man in your eyes?”
“No,” she whispered, “it makes you heavenly. No woman likes to compete with beer and football.”
That she thought of him in terms beyond sex ratcheted his anticipation higher. She would not be a onetimer, he’d make sure of it. “I sometimes like a good Bordeaux in the evenings, and I’m pretty damn sure I left last night’s empty on the living room coffee table.” The road curled round a magnificent oak the developers had left, splitting the two lanes down the middle. His car passed under the branches, a natural arbor.
“Naughty, naughty,” she said.
“The sheets are clean. I have a woman in once a week.” He wasn’t a neat freak, but he did have limits.
“I’m glad you’re not a total slob.”
He wondered if he should share the story of once finding the vibrator from the side table drawer directly in the center of the freshly made bed. He’d let that lady go, of course, but he’d always wondered what the message had been. Disgust or a desire to test it out? Whatever, he couldn’t allow someone in his house who went through his drawers. The vibrator had been something he’d hoped to use on a female friend, but she’d preferred her own, and shortly after, the relationship ended. Pulling into the driveway, he pondered the possibilities in the untried toy.
Show and Tell Page 28