by Lyric James
“Why don’t you forget about work?” He stroked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear just for the excuse of touching her again. “Come on. The water’s cool but this beautiful night is too perfect to waste.”
And it was a nice night. It wasn’t too cold or too hot and the midnight-blue sky shimmered with stars. When Layla tilted her head up, a slow, gorgeous smile lit up her face.
Taking her hand in his, he strolled to the pool, where she dipped her toes in and shivered.
“You’ll get used to it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t even have a bathing suit.”
“Did you forget that I’ve already seen you gloriously naked?”
Watching him, she said, “You always do whatever you want to do, don’t you?”
“Is that a problem for you?”
She looked baffled and a little off-kilter at the same time. “I think living in this huge house all by yourself and running a major empire has gone to your head.”
“Are you calling me self-centered?”
At that, she actually laughed, a sound he thoroughly enjoyed. “Oh yes. You are a very self-centered man, Jordan Gaines.”
He dove into the pool, let the cool water sink him under then rose to the surface. “Sorry,” he replied, shaking the water from his hair.
“Oh no, you’re not. You’re exactly the person you want to be.”
That tugged a grin out of him. He made waves in the water. “Are you coming in or what?”
She took the shirt off. “You are conceited, vain, used to getting your own way and probably a pain in the butt to everyone who works for you, though I doubt any of them would say it to your face for fear of getting fired.” She placed her shirt on the edge and sat, sliding her legs in first. She rocked them back and forth in the water.
That she was brave enough to speak her mind to him spoke volumes. There was no pretense. No guile. Any other woman would pander to him, let him have his way and wouldn’t dare criticize him. It was refreshing to be with a woman who didn’t care what he thought.
He swam forward, took her feet and pulled. “Come on, you might as well get it over with.”
She pushed off and slipped in, shivering from the cold.
“You should have phoned ahead to let me know you were stopping by for a…visit. I would have turned the heater on for you.” He grinned. “You’ll get used to it in a minute.”
The strand of hair he’d tucked behind her ear stroked her face again. As her legs swirled around to keep her elevated in the water, he swam closer and put his arms around her waist. He enjoyed the feel of her thighs brushing against his. To savor the full experience, he tried to wrap her legs fully around him but she deflected him and swam away.
“Nope. Not a chance, mister. You need a lesson in not getting your way for a change.”
He laughed and went for her. But she gracefully pivoted and avoided his reach.
“Oh, so you want to play games.”
“No. You invited me for a swim, so I want to swim.” She dove under the water headfirst, her legs swinging and kicking above the surface before she swam up again. “And ask a few questions.”
Great. The reporter was back.
Jordan chased her around the pool for a few minutes. He was determined to have her in his arms again but surprisingly she was a pretty good swimmer. They laughed, splashed water on each other, raced each other from one side of the pool to the other. He couldn’t remember when he’d had so much fun.
Later, they were lying in the gazebo face-to-face, propped up on their elbows, warm, fluffy towels wrapped around them. Since he never brought women into his home, he’d never realized how romantic the setting could be. The panels turned into sheer but private walls if you released them from their ties. He’d picked the chaise lounge because it was bigger than normal and he often liked sleeping out there on warm evenings.
“Why is it the public never hears anything about your family?”
He tilted his body to lie on his back. “I don’t have any family, biological anyway. The family that raised me died about fifteen years ago.”
She didn’t say anything. He knew she’d been performing mental calculations in her head when she said, “That means you were sixteen years old when they died.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“I know some of this because I looked you up. There wasn’t a lot to find. And believe me, I tried. What happened to you?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “I came here, to California. It was one of the places my…guardian was stationed.”
Layla gasped. “By yourself? Because you didn’t want to go into the foster care system or something like that?”
He let out a harsh laugh. “I ran away before they could try. Another family wouldn’t have understood who I was, what I was. I thought it was best that I go out on my own.”
“You lived on the streets?”
Reaching over, he ran a finger over her temple and pushed the wayward strand of hair behind her ear again. “What else could I do? When I turned eighteen I applied for my G.E.D. and got a job, found a dirt-cheap apartment to live in.”
Remembering those days now, it wasn’t as painful to talk about as it used to be. Why he’d decided to tell Layla, he didn’t know. Their worlds couldn’t have been more different, yet those differences fascinated him and for some reason, he felt she needed to know who he was.
“Where I worked, my boss was really nice to me, his family sort of took me in. Showed me what I needed to do to get into college. I applied for grants and scholarships, loans. I did whatever I had to do. I knew the only way I was going to be anything, succeed at anything, I needed to go to college.”
“So how does the kid who runs away at sixteen and gets his G.E.D. end up running a Fortune 500 empire?”
He grinned. “Oh, I had a thing for numbers, the stock market. It was happenstance really. When I was living on the streets, I always picked up people’s throwaway newspapers and read them from front to back. The stock market pages, I could understand easily for some reason. I could see the name of a stock and know immediately if it was going to go up or down.
“When I guessed right a couple times, I really started to pay attention. I was never wrong. When I realized that, I saved a thousand dollars and invested it. I got my money back plus five thousand more six months later. I invested it again, over and over, the entire time I was in college. By the time I got out, I’d saved and earned close to a hundred thousand dollars.”
She sat up and crossed her legs. “I know this part. That’s when you opened your first video rental store that became a nationwide chain.”
“I gave the people what they wanted. After a few years, I sold it and started something else.”
“The business software company and the hotel chain.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Well, there’s not that much out there about you but what I read, I remembered.”
“And you were going to add it all to your story once you broke my sex scandal, right?”
Her mouth opened and closed.
Jordan waited and eyed her with amusement but knew she wouldn’t have much to say after that. She couldn’t deny it. He knew what she wrote. It was the whole reason for her being there.
It was always about the story.
She eyed him with an arousing mix of wariness and excitement. He could never forget the real reason he’d made the arrangement with her.
He stood and released the cotton curtain ties from each pole of the gazebo. No one would see them even if he hadn’t but after tonight, making sure his privacy was kept intact would be one of his top priorities.
He retraced his steps, got back on the half bed, half chaise lounge and crunched the cotton ties in his hands as he crawled toward her.
When he stood and closed them in, Layla knew she was in trouble. She’d gotten to know him now. She admired what he’d done with his life and even though he could be self-
absorbed, she liked the man he’d become. Taking care of himself from the time he was sixteen had to have been hard, scary even. It took guts. But he’d done it.
Those things, combined with the sensual hold he somehow had on her, made him damn irresistible.
Layla’s breathing became a little bit faster, a little bit shallow. Jordan took one of her wrists, circled it with the cotton tie and attached it to the legs of the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Trust me.”
When he repeated the process with the other wrist and both her ankles, she lay there, helpless.
“I promise I won’t hurt you. Whenever you want me to release you, ask and I will. Okay?”
She nodded and didn’t resist when he removed her towel. The heated gaze he gave her, seeing her like this, excited her, undid her, made her want to give him anything he wanted, anything he desired.
Her breathing quickened and she fought hard not to panic. She didn’t do things like this, had never before been tied up during sex. She’d never been this vulnerable to anyone.
“You look so sexy lying there like that.” The timbre of his voice had changed. He stood at the foot of the chaise. “Are you ready to scream my name? Are you ready to beg me to start? To stop?”
His words had her panting.
He began at her feet, kissing, nibbling, rubbing. His touch felt like heaven, warm and assertive. Powerful. Tiny spasms shot upward, made her thighs tremble, and she strained against the ties at her wrists.
A delicate air stream of heat went up and down her leg and she realized that it was him, blowing on her skin. A series of hot flashes broke out across her body, her nipples hardened and she felt the first release of hot cream between her legs.
Jordan made circles over her knees. “Are you ready for me to taste you?”
She bucked against him. “Yes…oh yes.”
But he didn’t oblige her. He only grazed his finger over her clit, causing her to groan in ecstasy. He moved higher, teasing her stomach, licking the dent of her navel.
A gasp hitched in her throat as she felt his breath over her nipple before he took it inside his mouth and pulled.
She screamed, unable to help herself, as he went from one breast to the other and back again, kissing and teasing, sucking. White-hot pleasure seared her body from the inside out.
Jordan’s mouth became an instrument of both pleasure and torture. He licked and bit, grazed and nipped. From her head to her feet and everywhere in between, he tasted her. Over and over he teased her, pleasured her. It was an utter blissfulness she’d never experienced in her life.
Even though she twisted up and bucked out, cried and begged, he wouldn’t give her the release she craved. Finally, he untied her legs, grabbed her behind the knees and pushed them upward so her vulva rested against his throbbing length. She stretched her neck and moaned, loving the feel of him so close to her, sliding over her clit.
“I can’t take this. Please, Jordan.”
Jordan smoothed his hands over her waist and ribs, and up higher to cup her breasts, gently squeezing them. He bent and fastened his mouth over one straining tip. “You taste so sweet.”
With her knees, she gripped him. “Please. Please,” she begged on a whimper. Fire swept through her limbs, filling her with a restless need. She wanted him inside her, pushing deep.
“I’m not done. There’s more. Always more.”
His arousal stroked her, made her buck off the bed, stole her breath, until he finally sank himself inside her and filled her in a way she’d never thought possible.
He had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen. When he looked at her, she felt like the center of his universe. “My God. What are you doing to me?”
In her mind, she heard making you love me in his deep timbre but his lips never moved. Why? She didn’t know. Was he projecting his thoughts into her head? Was that possible? Was that what he wanted?
She knew it was unlikely, knew that when this night was up, she would most assuredly never see him again once she revealed his secret. He wouldn’t want her love. He wouldn’t want anything to do with her.
He ran his tongue up her neck, nibbled on her ear, moved to her mouth and licked. Tugging at her bottom lip, he dipped his tongue inside, stopped and groaned then tilted his head to her neck, where he stayed.
Wanting to touch him, she pulled against the ties at her wrists. She wanted to feel his sinewy muscle beneath the tips of her fingers, curve her arms around his neck and pull him so close he’d never want to relinquish her.
“Let me go,” she whispered.
His gaze went to hers. Her breathing was ragged, shaky. He released her but locked his fingers with hers and raised them above her head.
Jordan’s face was a mask of pleasure and pain, the cords of his neck standing out, the muscles in his shoulders tense.
“Kiss me,” she breathed, unable to tear her eyes off him.
At that, he lowered his head back to her neck and thrust powerfully, sinking into her, stretching and filling, an action that ripped a helpless cry from her throat.
“Kiss me, damn it,” she hissed at him again, her head angling upward.
But he still didn’t. Putting his forehead against hers, he thrust into her again and again, leaving her gasping for air.
Layla went over the edge, falling, careening, no landing in sight. And Jordan leapt with her. A thundering cry ripped from his throat, his head tilted to the sky, eyes closed.
After he collapsed on top of her, he pulled her against him and held her tight for a very long time.
Chapter Seven
“This is a movie lover’s wet dream.” Layla stood back, hands at her waist, staring at a wall of shelves filled with DVDs. “How many do you have?”
“A little over a thousand, I think, the last time I entered the new ones into my database.”
They were in Jordan’s theater room on the second floor of his home. It was completely windowless and a giant one-hundred-and-ten-foot screen took up one wall. The movies took up another. There were two rows of theater seats, one about two feet higher than the other. All the walls were a deep navy blue and so was the carpet.
“You have a database?”
“I keep a record of every movie I buy, yes.”
Layla shook her head.
“For insurance purposes.”
“Sure. I, however, think you do it because you’re anal.”
“You’ve been standing there for ten minutes. Pick one already,” he told her as he made a huge batch of buttery popcorn on the old-fashioned maker sitting in the corner.
“How can I? There’re too many. I mean, this is like telling a kid to pick out his favorite candy in a warehouse.”
He laughed. “Either choose something or I will and you won’t like it because it’ll have blood and guts and car chases in it.”
She peered at him over her shoulder. “Hey, I don’t mind a good action film.”
“Good. Sit down then. I have just the thing,” he said as he gave her the tub.
“Oh, this smells heavenly.”
She sat in the front row in the middle set of chairs and pulled her legs up under her. After they’d showered, Jordan had given her a pair of shorts, another T-shirt and warm socks. Once he put in the movie, he turned off the lights. When he saw her rub her arms, he tossed her an afghan and joined her in the next seat.
Layla stuck the popcorn between them as the movie started. Once the title sequence came up, she exclaimed, “Oh, this is one of my favorites. I love Matt Damon. He kicks major butt in this series.”
“Unwrap yourself,” he said and took her legs and placed them in his lap.
The gesture was so unexpected, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, which surprised her. She’d almost made the mistake of thinking they were on an actual date again, thinking this was something they always did. The third or fourth time she’d made that error tonight.
As she ate her snack, she couldn’t help but thin
k about her predicament. She knew she had the story of the century but now she wasn’t so sure she wanted to tell it. But if she showed up for work tomorrow with no story, she’d be out of a job.
She’d spent an incredible evening with Jordan and it wasn’t even over yet. He had a magnetic personality and she realized it was why he was so successful and what drew women to him.
She was really beginning to like him and deep down she wished their relationship could turn into something more. But other than a few touches here and there, a casual gesture like putting her feet in his lap, he’d given her no indication they could be anything more.
Layla knew she couldn’t have the best of both worlds. She’d broken in Jordan’s home, his private sanctuary, and had every intention of exposing his secret to the world. He wouldn’t want anything to do with her after she did.
Did she save her career or follow her heart?
After the movie, she accompanied him into his living room. They were facing each other on a large, cream-colored couch with dozens of multicolored throw pillows, sharing warmed-up cinnamon rolls and orange juice. Two matching chairs sat adjacent to the couch, and in between the set was a square, glass coffee table.
It was so domestic, it scared her.
“How is it that instead of spending your evening with a boyfriend or spouse, you broke into my house and now you’re spending the night with me?”
“Well, let’s be clear. If you would have graciously answered my questions, I wouldn’t be here.”
“True. But where’s the fun in that?”
Layla lowered her head. “Tonight has been fun.” She didn’t look at him, and became weirded out that she had actually confessed it.
“Why don’t you have a husband or a boyfriend?”
“I can’t seem to find anyone who…” She didn’t know how much she wanted to reveal with her answer. Did she tell him the last few relationships she’d been in had ended because the men didn’t believe in her, didn’t support her or have confidence in her abilities? Exactly like her parents.
“Who what?” he probed.
She stood and walked to the window facing the front of the house and stared into the darkness. “I haven’t found anyone who fits, who fits me. Does that make sense?”