Irritated he marched around the corner, heading for the elevators, and came to an abrupt stop. Vaughn quickly stepped back around the corner out of sight. Feeling like a schoolboy, he peeked his head around the wall to make sure he’d seen what he’d thought he’d seen.
Fumbling with a key card to get into a standard room was Vanessa Hartwell. And kissing her and making her falter in her progress was none other than Jack Devlin.
Her laughter floated down the hall toward him. “That coffee you got me made me all jittery!” she squealed when he bit her earlobe.
Vaughn couldn’t hear what Jack said in response but whatever it was made Vanessa break into peals of scandalized giggles. She got the key card to work and the door swung open. She whirled around to throw herself up into Jack’s arms, her legs wrapped around his waist, her fingers curled in his hair as they dirty kissed all the way into the room.
The door slammed shut in their wake and Vaughn stepped out from hiding.
Anger froze him in place for a moment as his suspicions overcame him.
It hit him immediately:
The Devlins hadn’t stopped in their plans to get Bailey’s inn from her. They were just being smarter about it. Of course, Jack could just be interested in Vanessa for sex but somehow Vaughn doubted it.
The sex was just a bonus.
The payoff was Bailey’s inn.
“Mr. Tremaine.” Graham caught up with him. “I was hoping we could discuss that promotion we talked about.”
“What?” Vaughn frowned up at him, his mind on one thing and one thing only.
“The promotion. To daytime manager. I feel like I would be doing what I do already but with more authority and perhaps a salary increase. If—”
Vaughn held up his hand to cut him off. “I need to be somewhere right now. We’ll sit down later to discuss the particulars of your promotion.”
“So I am getting promoted?”
“Yes. We’ll talk later,” he called, hurrying toward the elevators. “I need to go out. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”
“Yes, sir!” Graham called back.
Five minutes later he pulled up outside Ian Devlin’s office building in his dark blue Aston Martin Vanquish. The car barely slid into place behind Devlin’s black Cadillac CTS-V when Vaughn swung out of it and marched on a mission into the building. He burst onto Devlin’s floor, startling the pretty receptionist behind her desk.
Her eyes widened when she saw Vaughn and she jumped to her feet when he spotted the door with the plaque that had Devlin’s name on it. He started to stride past her toward it and she cried, “Excuse me! You don’t have an appointment!”
“I don’t need an appointment.” He grabbed the handle on the door and thrust it open.
Ian Devlin shot to his feet from behind his desk at the interruption. “What is the goddamn meaning of this?”
Vaughn slammed the door in the receptionist’s face and stared the older man down.
Devlin, much like his own father, looked good for his age. Distinguished, well-dressed, and fit. But that was where the similarities between the two men ended. There was a chilling hardness in Ian Devlin’s eyes, an oily slickness to his smile and manner.
From the moment he met Devlin, Vaughn had not trusted him.
And for good reason it would seem.
This was a man who was trying to hurt Bailey; trying to take everything she’d worked so hard for away from her. He thought he was some kind of kingpin, that he was immune because he had all this power in a small town.
Well Vaughn understood power and if he had to he would squash this fucker. On that thought he slowly made his way over to Devlin’s desk.
He stopped when the piece of furniture dug into his legs. “I’m onto you.”
Ian smirked. “Really? You barge in here like a lunatic to deliver that cliché of a line.”
“If anyone is a cliché, Devlin, it’s you. It amazes me what you think you can get away with.”
“And what is it you think I’m trying to get away with?”
“You have one of your little lackies fucking Vanessa Hartwell.”
Nothing. No surprise. No disgust. No triumph. Nothing. Instead he shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about Jack using my hotel as a stage for his escort services. Because that’s what it is, right? You’re paying him to fuck Vanessa . . . to get to Bailey and her inn.”
“My, my, you have quite the imagination.”
Fury blasted through Vaughn and he slammed his fist down on the desk rather than into Devlin’s face. “I let that other piece of shit son get away with breaking into Bailey’s place, but I haven’t forgotten, and I haven’t forgiven. I swear to God”—he pushed his face into the old man’s—“you come after Bailey again and I will end you. I will end the lot of you.” His voice lowered with vitriol. “And don’t think I can’t do it. You are a big fish in a small pond. I’m a fucking shark in the ocean.”
For a moment Vaughn thought he saw uncertainty flicker in Devlin’s eyes, but if it was there, it was gone in an instant. Still sure he’d made his point, and sure that the message had sunk in, he turned on his heel to leave.
He’d just opened the door when Devlin’s smug voice stopped him.
“Not very smart.”
Not wanting to give him the satisfaction but not liking the threat in his tone, Vaughn looked back at him.
Ian was grinning. “Not very smart, Mr. Tremaine, is it, to unmask your vulnerabilities to someone you so clearly see as a threat. All this time I had to wonder, what is Vaughn Tremaine’s weakness? And what do you know? It’s a redhead with a smart mouth.”
The desire to punch him was so great, Vaughn felt his hand curling into a fist. Instead he threw him one last look of revulsion and stormed out of the building.
Back inside his car he let go of the breath he’d been holding in and slammed his hands down on his steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Exhausted and worried, Vaughn laid his head on the wheel and tried to will himself to calm down.
These past few weeks he’d been fighting with himself, knowing that he was in love with Bailey, but not knowing whether he could sacrifice his autonomy for her. But there really wasn’t anything to think about.
Not after he’d acted like a lunatic based on a split-second assumption he’d made. Vaughn had great instincts and he knew he was right about Jack. But driving over to threaten Devlin, revealing his weakness . . .
Ian Devlin was right. Bailey Hartwell was his Achilles’ heel.
On that thought he started the engine and pulled out of the parking spot. However, he didn’t drive back to his hotel. Instead he drove down the coast, to the outskirts of town, to his beautiful house on the south side.
Inside, he wandered through the spacious house that was too lonely to call home and out onto the balcony that sat right on the water.
Then he called his dad.
“I’m just about to go into a business meeting,” William said in lieu of “hello.”
“I admit it. I’m in love with Bailey.”
Silence greeted him on the other end and then he heard his dad say to someone quietly, “Can we move that meeting to two o’clock? Apologize to them, tell them something came up.”
After a few more seconds of background noise, his dad’s voice came on the line. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never put myself into a situation I wasn’t ninety-nine percent sure I’d be able to control the outcome of.”
William grunted in amusement. “Well let this be your first.”
“What if I’m too late? I’ve fucked this up a lot. I’ve been immature. She doesn’t trust me and I don’t blame her. And what if she does end up saying she wants to give us a shot and it falls apart?”
; “I can’t tell you whether it will or not. There’s no guarantee. But I’m guessing I’m getting this call because you know you can no longer put off what you feel for her.”
“No.” He couldn’t. It was driving him crazy. The torment he was feeling had to be worse than facing his fear of commitment, right? “Every time I try to stay away or stay out of her business, I end up in it. Because I put myself in it.” He grew quiet, slightly embarrassed. “I can’t help but want to protect her.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“She wants it all. Marriage. Kids.”
“And you don’t.”
“No, it’s not that . . . I just . . . I gave up on believing I’d have those things.”
“And now?”
“It would mean sacrifice, of my autonomy, some of my career . . . to give her those things.”
“But you’re willing to give her those things?”
Vaughn took a deep breath, saying the words that had been buried deep inside him for a long time. “I think I’d do anything to make her happy.”
There was no hiding the joy in his father’s voice. “Then go tell her that.”
TWENTY
Vaughn
Once he made the decision to tell Bailey that he wanted to be with her—to see what was possible between them—Vaughn had to tell her. Immediately. He drove back to the boardwalk and parked the car in his spot in the lot behind the hotel, his body thrumming with impatience.
His intention was to go directly to the inn.
But it seemed providence was on his side because as soon as he stepped a foot onto the boardwalk he caught sight of a familiar redhead in his peripheral.
Bailey strolled down the boardwalk from the direction of Emery’s.
Blood rushed in his ears as Vaughn stalked toward her watching her eyes grow round at the sight of him coming at her. “Tremaine, what—whoa!” She startled when he took hold of her upper arm. “What are you doing?”
“We need to talk,” he said. Impatient was now an understatement. He’d never felt such a burning sense of urgency in his life.
“Okay, so let’s talk.” She pushed at his hand but he didn’t let go. “We can talk without the manhandling.”
“We need to talk in private.”
“Has something happened—ah, where are we going?” she asked as he stole her off course to the inn and into his hotel instead. “Can you slow down and tell me what the hell is going on? I haven’t seen you in days and the first time I do you accost me in the middle of the boardwalk, literally jerk me around, and haul me into your hotel and I’m just supposed to—”
“Bailey, usually the rambling is fucking cute, but can you just shut up this one time?” He was trying to work out in his head what it was he was going to say to her once he got her in his penthouse. They stopped at the elevators and she pulled at his hold.
“Vaughn.”
What were the right words? Were there right words? There had to be right words . . .
“Vaughn.” This time she moved into him, and his whole being came alive at the sensation of her soft curves pressed against his hard body.
“Your staff and guests are looking,” she whispered, her gaze appeasing. “Why don’t you let me go and I’ll promise to come upstairs with you. And while you consider that, why don’t you think about how much my having to ask you that makes you sound like a kidnapping bastard?”
Her words pierced through his single-minded determination to tell her how he felt. His grip on her eased and he found himself smirking at her teasing. “I want to kiss you,” he murmured.
Bailey’s lips parted in surprise, and her voice sounded a little breathy when she told him, “Maybe I shouldn’t be alone with you after all.”
The elevator doors opened and Vaughn placed a possessive hand on her lower back. “Or you definitely should.” He led her inside, grateful for the guests who joined them. If he’d been alone in the elevator with her, he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her. And she knew it. He sensed it in her appraisal, in the way her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, and in the flush high on her cheeks.
Attraction raged as hot as ever between them.
Vaughn needed to keep it together long enough to tell her how he felt.
When the elevator emptied they were alone. Holding on to the last measure of his control he stopped himself from reaching for her, placed his key card in the panel by the door, and pressed the button for the top floor.
Bailey jumped out as soon as the elevator doors pinged open.
Vaughn directed her down the corridor to his penthouse. He held the door open for her, watching her face as she absorbed the space. The first thing she did was walk over to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the ocean.
“Wow,” she said. “This is beautiful.”
So are you.
As if she heard him Bailey whirled around. “What am I doing here?”
He found himself moving toward her, unable to stop, needing to touch her. It was inexplicable how much he was feeling now that he’d given himself permission to feel it.
“Don’t.” Her lips trembled invitingly.
“Don’t what?” He continued toward her.
“Look at me like that. I’ve warned you about that smolder.”
Amusement, tenderness, love . . . need filled him. “I can’t help it when it comes to you.”
“Holy hell,” she muttered. “Vaughn . . .” She closed her eyes for a brief second. When she opened them they blazed with anger. “It’s not fair. Why does it have to be you?”
“Why does what have to be me?” He reached up to cup her face in his hand.
“That makes me lose all sense of willpower,” she whispered.
Gratification swelled inside him, as did something else, something headier, consuming . . . and not a little possessive. “Good.” His fingers curled around her nape. His mouth took hers. And he poured everything he was feeling into the kiss.
Bailey whimpered, hesitating a second or two, before he felt the resistance melt right out of her.
Her tongue swept over his, and the sweet taste of her filled him as the slender curves of her body crushed against him. Her light fruity perfume filled his senses, taking all thought but the urge to have her. He groaned at her surrender, his hands roaming her body frantically, wanting to feel all of her at once.
Plucking at the buttons of her shirt he tore his mouth from hers, wanting to taste every drop of her. He brushed kisses down her chest, following the skin that was revealed with each button he undid on her shirt. At the revelation of her beautiful, peaches-and-cream skin, so smooth, so fine, the blood that wasn’t currently in his dick rushed to it.
“God, Bailey,” he groaned again, kissing the soft skin of her stomach as he pulled the shirt down off her arms. Vaughn dropped the fabric at their feet and tilted his head back to look up at her.
Bailey’s chest heaved, her breathing ragged with arousal.
Vaughn stood to look directly into her eyes, wanting to make sure she wanted this as much as he did. Satisfaction roared through him as she stared up at him in dazed lust.
Wanting.
Needing.
Silent supplication in those beautiful green-gold eyes.
Yes.
That look shredded his control. This time his kisses were bruising. Before she had time to think Vaughn relieved her of her bra and edged her across the room toward the bed. Bailey’s legs hit the frame and they fell onto it. Vaughn came down over her, and he pushed up her tight skirt to her waist so he could insinuate himself between her legs. Finally he broke their kiss to focus on her breasts.
They were beautiful. Perfect. Every inch of her was.
He captured a nipple in his mouth and sucked.
“Vaughn,” she gasped, her thighs tightening around hi
s hips while her fingers curled in his hair.
He growled with satisfaction and licked her nipple before moving on to its companion.
“Oh, my God,” she whimpered, her hips undulating against him, teasing his arousal.
A haze washed over him.
He wanted inside her.
Desperately.
Usually he loved spending time tormenting a woman, building her up and up until she thought she was going to die with pleasure. He got off on the sounds of their pleasure-pain pleading, and nothing had turned him on more than the night he’d heard Bailey’s pleas in his ears as he drove her to the brink of orgasm over and over. Because nothing was more fucking rewarding than watching a woman come that hard.
Nothing was more breathtaking than watching Bailey come that hard.
Yet right then all Vaughn could think about was getting inside her as fast as possible. The desire felt animalistic, instinctual, like he was trying to claim her.
If he wasn’t so overwhelmed with need, he might have been appalled.
He stared down into her flushed face. She stared up at him beneath her lashes, pure craving in the depths of her eyes. Her beautiful hair spilled in rich red across his pillows. Her large dark pink nipples were tight buds, her creamy, perky breasts swollen with arousal as they rose and fell with her shallow, excited breaths.
Fuck, but he’d never seen anything more provocative in his life, his dick agreeing as it strained to be free, to be inside of her. Fingers slipped beneath her underwear and he found her already wet with anticipation.
It was his undoing.
Straddling her, Vaughn stripped off his jacket, pulled the condom out of his wallet first, and then he unzipped himself.
“Shirt off,” she begged.
He cursed, ripping buttons off as he tried to rid himself of it and his tie as quickly as possible.
Bailey’s elegant, soft hands gripped his hips as he worked the condom on, and then caressed his stomach and his chest as he lowered over her. “Why do you have to be so beautiful?” she whispered, and the words were almost mournful.
Every Little Thing Page 23