He looked at her and his face fell.
Giggles burst out and she laughed at his obvious dismay. “I’m sorry. I’m not really allergic to eggs.”
“Why you little…” He was after her in a heartbeat. She dumped her coffee cup, which was thankfully almost empty, on the island and ran.
The giggles slowed her down as she rounded the island, but she made some headway when he knocked his knee on her bar stool.
“Dammit. I’m wounded. No fair.”
She made the mistake of slowing down so she could make sure he was okay and he snagged the edge of her towel and pulled it free.
She made a grab for it, but he won.
So there she stood, trapped in the corner of the kitchen leading to her pantry with her naked breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath. And there was the sexiest man alive stalking closer to her with her towel clutched in his hand.
She couldn’t remember a time when someone had chased her, just for fun. Just to be silly. Her dad was quite a bit older than her mom when they’d married, so he couldn’t have done it. No siblings. Things were normally very serious around their house. Full of love, but not very child friendly.
She smiled, feeling happy.
He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist again. He pinned her against the wall and latched onto her breast. He sucked it until she cried out.
His shoulders were hard beneath her fingers as she kneaded them.
He released her nipple, giving it one last lick with his tongue, and then let her slide down his body. “If I get started with you again we’ll never get breakfast, and the guys will walk into something more along the lines of their kind of buffet.”
Somehow he still had a hold of the towel so he wrapped it around her again and tucked it between her breasts. One more peck on her lips and he walked back over to his breakfast fixings.
“Why haven’t you ever asked me to be in the magazine?”
Her brain was still spinning from the game of cat and mouse, and her nipple still tingled from where he’d licked her. Her knees were weak and she really had to concentrate on what he’d asked.
“I just didn’t think you’d be interested. I know father asked your publicist several times and was shot down. Every time. Guess I just figured I’d get the same ’hell no’ if I asked and left it at that.” Her staff at the magazine had told her repeatedly how important it was for them to get him between the pages of Fame, but she hadn’t been willing to even try. He was dangerous to her and she knew it, even before she’d succumbed to his charm the first time.
Being close to him was treacherous, putting her on a crash course with emotions she wasn’t ready for, and she’d known it as long as she’d known him.
He cracked eggs into a bowl and looked up at her. “Well, maybe if you ask me nicely I might make an exception.”
Lovely crystal eyes snared her but she didn’t want to be a charity case. Not even for him. “Why would you do that for me? I’m not going to fuck you again just to get you to agree to be in the magazine, so if that’s all you want you’ll be woefully disappointed.”
A laugh the size of Montana shocked her coming from the normally reserved man standing in front of her.
“If all I wanted was to get laid again I could get that, Acacia. Can’t you thaw some of that ice for just a moment and ask me to be in the magazine?”
After several seconds, “Will you be in the magazine?” Groused out past stiff lips.
“Oh, I’m sure you can do better than that, sweetness. Just a few minutes ago you were rubbing your pussy on my cock, and answering with a yes Sir when I asked you a question.”
He was flirting with her. While making her pancakes.
He was, and she couldn’t get her mind around it.
They’d had sex. Yes.
Had a sort of ménage in her living room not that many hours ago, but that was different, carnal.
This was sweet and caring, and she had no clue what to do about it. She decided snark went with every occasion, so that would work.
“I’d really like it if you would come down from your high horse and allow me to make you a feature in the magazine. Our readers will love it. Your fans will love it, and everyone involved will come out smelling like roses.”
“Sweeten the deal, and just to let you know–the next time my hand is anywhere around your naked ass, it’s going to be red.”
Okay, she was a little bit afraid of that, but it was directly countered by an image of her naked across his lap, his erection pushing against her side, and her core went molten.
His mischievous grin turned the heat up as she whispered, “What would it take to convince you, Radigan? What could I offer that would persuade you to give me a few hours of your precious time?”
His hot stare held her in place and then he motioned for her to sit down.
She did, apparently unable to go against what he wanted.
He set a plate of food in front of her. It looked prettier than any meal she’d had in a long time.
Love.
His earlier statement echoed in her head and she smiled.
“Dinner.” His answer broke into her inner sappy moment. “I want you to have dinner with me.” He added, “Alone,” a second later, as if he could already see the wheels spinning in her head.
“Dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You know you are worse than most toddlers when it comes to asking that question. For once can’t you just say yes and see what happens?”
She swiveled on her bar stool and looked at his profile as he sat next to her with his own plate of food. He seemed sincere, he really did, but the last thing she wanted to be was gullible. “I’m not going to sleep with you again.”
“Do you have dinner with most of the people you have in the magazine?”
“Well yes, but–”
“No buts,” he stated, while he sprinkled pepper on his eggs and took a sip of orange juice she didn’t even see him pour. “I’m not asking for anything completely out of the ordinary here am I? I did my research before approaching you about doing a shoot.”
God, he was right, but she just didn’t think she could be alone with him in public. What if she made a fool of herself?
What if she embarrassed him?
The last damn thing she needed was to turn up in one of the other magazines that vomited up gossip and bullshit every other day.
She wanted him too bad and didn’t trust herself to keep it professional. But he hadn’t posed for a magazine in years, and it would be amazing to get to see him at one of their shoots.
On location.
The wheels in her publisher mind were already spinning double–time. “Okay.”
A moment’s hesitation is all it took for a triumphant grin to pull his lips up at the corners. “Just okay. No Spanish inquisition?”
“No interrogation. We’ll work out the shoot around your schedule and do it on a day you aren’t filming all day. We’ll do part of the shoot at the mansion and the next part on location in Hollywood somewhere out of the ordinary that people won’t see coming. One day here, an overnight stay at a hotel, and the next morning to shoot on location should be all it takes.”
Now that her mind had gotten on board with the implications of the coup–de–grace he was serving up on a silver platter she couldn’t focus on anything else.
“What?” she asked a few moments later. “What did you say?”
A warm hand caressed her cheek and settled on her neck, as he leaned over and kissed her mouth. “Are you asking me to spend the night with you again, Acacia?”
She pulled away from him and picked up her fork, determined to eat with it, or use it as a weapon. Between her rioting nerves and his more than ample sexual appeal, she needed all the help she could get. “No, I am not. Where did you get that idea? I don’t sleep with people that have shoots for the magazine. That would reek of being unprofessional and I would never jeopardiz
e my position, nor my employee’s futures, for something as simple as sex.”
All suave charm and devastating heat sat next to her and she took a bite of eggs. They were good. Really good.
The pancakes were even better.
“You did say we’d be staying at the hotel that night. I just thought maybe it would cut down on costs if we roomed together. I know you’re a prude and all, but we could just sleep together.” He even made air quotes for sleep.
She tried to keep it professional, though she narrowed her gaze at him. “I’m pretty sure I can accommodate you, and who else will be joining you?”
“Ed and Javier, of course.”
“Of course.” She sniffed, tilting her nose up a tad at him calling her a prude, even if just in jest.
“The ice princess is back. Nice. A challenge is just what I need to get me through the next couple weeks.”
“Couple weeks?”
“Yep. Schedule the shoot for two weeks from now. I leave tomorrow for Europe. I’ll be back home then and we can have our date the night of the shoot.”
“I can’t possibly have an entire shoot put together in two weeks.”
He rolled his eyes and finished his breakfast. “Eat.”
“What?”
“Eat your breakfast and stop worrying.”
“How in the world can you tell me to schedule your shoot in two weeks and then expect me to eat more yummy pancakes?”
“Easy.” He took her fork, cut a piece of pancake, scooped up a bite of eggs with it and fed it to her. “See, this way you eat, and you don’t stress. And you can listen.”
She scowled and opened her mouth to tell him how many things were wrong with that statement. He had another bite of pancake ready and placed it in her mouth.
“Jackie said you don’t have a shoot scheduled for two weeks from now, and you have an entire staff at your beck and call for emergencies, such as this.”
“This isn’t exactly an emergency.”
He fed her more pancake and she finally settled into it, deciding to enjoy his attention.
“Seeing you again? Having to wait two weeks to do it? Having dinner with you, alone, in the city, where you don’t have to worry about anything but how to fend me off for the night? I definitely consider that an emergency.”
Her heart melted a little bit. She tried to lock it shut again but he was already inside.
She was so screwed.
He pulled her close and whispered in her ear as she held her breath. “You know I don’t bite. Well. Not unless we negotiate it.”
Instead of biting her, or kissing her or commanding her to accept him, he gently rubbed his nose against hers, and breathed her in.
He fed her another few bites of breakfast and then the door toward the back of the house opened behind them.
Male voices carried through the house and Acacia shivered, suddenly cold or hot or something.
“Morning, boss.”
“Afternoon is more like it.”
They walked in and Radigan got up from his stool, kissing her gently. He gathered their plates while Acacia clutched her towel as if it were the map to the lost city of Atlantis.
“Morning,” she hazarded a greeting, trying to find her typical ball–buster attitude.
Ed came up to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Sleep well?” Without waiting for her to answer he went to the sink, washed his hands and then began cleaning the dishes she’d just eaten breakfast on.
“Yes. You don’t have to do that. I can do them later.” When I finally wake up, she added to herself. ’Cause this was surely not the reality she now found herself in. Her shoulders slumped with the possibility that she really was still sleeping and all of this and the memories she thought she had from the night before were nothing more than a dream.
“While he cooks, I’ll clean. We’ll leave your place in better shape than we found it.”
Yep, she was dreaming. No dude said stuff like that who wasn’t trying to get laid.
“Beautiful.”
She turned around, wondering who Javier was speaking to.
She couldn’t help but jump since he stared directly at her. He closed the distance between them and held her face in his palms.
“Beautiful,” he said again, but this time it was against her lips. He kissed her, tilting her head gently to the side.
“Hey. Hands off the girl. The chick we rented her from said we had to have her turned back in by three o’clock or we don’t get our deposit back.”
Javier kissed her once more and then turned her around to face the men in her kitchen. “Then we’d better hurry.” He put his warm hands on her shoulders and kneaded her tight muscles.
“Oh God.” She slumped forward and thankfully he caught her.
He moved her hand, making her release the death grip she had on her towel. “Pillow your arms on the counter and get comfortable.”
She laid her cheek on her arms and he really went to work on her.
After a minute of trying to keep her eyes open she gave up, blocking out the light, and relishing the touch of the handsome man behind her.
“We’re doing the shoot in two weeks.” She’d recognize Radigan’s voice anywhere, even from her current state of nirvana.
“Maybe,” she mumbled, with a tiny bit of drool.
“She says it’s a go. Add it into the schedule. She and I will be going to dinner that night, we’re staying in a hotel that evening and then we’ll finish the shoot the next morning.”
Several blips and some clicking went off that sounded a lot like her phone. She assumed it was Ed entering the information into his.
She wanted to argue.
She did.
But more than that she wanted to see him in two weeks, so she relaxed and kept her mouth shut. Come hell or high water she’d make it work.
Heaven and Earth could be moved if she needed them to be.
Hard work came at a price and she had no problem paying her dues.
Chapter Five
He fed them, she remembered how to speak–eventually–and then they were gone.
They’d each kissed her goodbye at the door, and she was once again thankful for a privacy fence, the seven acres her house sat in the middle of, and a driveway long enough to keep any nosy neighbors at bay.
She clutched her towel as she closed the door and heard her phone going off.
She ran to get it, picking it up on the last ring, only to lose her terrycloth cover in the process.
“Hello?”
“Acacia? That you? You sound out of breath.”
Jackie.
She smiled and caught a glimpse of herself in a mirrored china cabinet and watched as well as felt her blush appear.
“You could say that.”
Silence for no more than two seconds, and then the questions started. “You let him stay didn’t you? Was it good? Are you okay? Is he gone? Do you want to call me back later?”
Acacia started laughing–and couldn’t stop.
She laughed until tears rolled down her face and she wiped them off with the back of her hand.
It took a few minutes but she told her about the night before.
No details of the kinky sex, or the fact that the other two men were involved, but the sweet stuff, and him making breakfast for her.
“You’ve got it bad.”
She sighed, grabbed her towel and trapped the phone between her ear and her shoulder. She wrapped the temporary cover around herself and walked back to the guest room. “I know. This is why I’ve been avoiding him.”
“Because he makes you feel? Sweetie, that’s exactly why you should be letting him in. You need that. Deserve that.”
“But he’s not someone I pictured myself with.” She opened the blinds just a tad, dropped the towel in the bathroom and climbed back into bed. Just because it smelled like him had nothing to do with it.
It didn’t.
She just didn’t want to dirty up her sheets.
S
ure.
“What? He’s good looking. Kind. Gives money and time to several charities. He has a job. Seriously. Maybe your standards are a little too high, girl.”
Jackie moved around on the other end of the phone and Acacia wondered what she was doing.
“He’s famous.”
“Sorry to tell you this, but you are too.”
Acacia rolled her eyes. “Not the same thing.”
“Exactly the same thing. You go out and people know who you are. People want you to wear their new fashions for free because it’s good advertising for them. You’ve signed autographs, you’ve been on television. And stop rolling your eyes at me.”
“How do you always know when I’m rolling my eyes? It’s creepy.”
“Then stop doing it.”
They laughed and Acacia settled farther down on the pillow. “Well damn,” she muttered as she tried to keep her heart from hammering.
“You okay?” Jackie asked, stopping whatever she was doing on the other end of the phone.
“Radigan. He agreed to a photo shoot for the next issue.”
Crickets. “How in heaven’s name did you get him to agree to that? He hasn’t done a magazine shoot for…ever? Did you sell your soul or something?”
She bit her lip, refusing to answer that question, since she was really worried it was something very close to that. “We’re starting at the mansion, and will move it to one of the boutique hotels downtown. We’ll finish up the next morning.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I’ve known you way too long, and I’m sure I have some embarrassing baby pictures of you around here still that I can dig out and have ready for Mr. Radigan in two weeks.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t push me. Spill.”
Acacia blew a breath out past her lips. “And…dinner. Dinner with me…” She almost said alone, which was supposed to be one of the stipulations. But she would need Jackie’s help chaperoning if she was going to make it through dinner with Radigan with her reputation intact. When she was with him, all bets were off. She was somehow immediately rendered down to nothing but basal hormones and her need to be dominated by him.
“Why can’t I be attracted to an accountant?”
Brought to His Knees-Tough Guys Laid Low By Love Page 59