“She knew what I’m studying.”
He shrugged and left the room without a word. Lily finished her tea and set the mug on the nightstand. The painkillers had worked their magic, as had the food. She might be able to rest if her mind ever slowed down.
Now it was busy making a list of all she had to do before classes tomorrow as well as coming up with myriad explanations for how the good doctor knew so much about her. Since she studied story and motivation for fun, she had a million ways the plot could twist, and none of them in her favor.
“I’m going to work in the den.” Jake leaned against the doorjamb and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it mussed for the first time she’d ever seen. “You should sleep. If you need anything, I’ll be right here.”
“I need to go home, Jake. Besides, I don’t want to cramp your style. What if one of your girlfriends was to find me here? I’m not in any shape for a catfight.”
“I think you hit your head harder than you think.” He crossed the room and sat down next to her on the bed. “Just because you want to be with me doesn’t mean every woman in the free world does. Half of them maybe, but not all.”
Lily closed her gaping mouth. “I don’t understand why you don’t find someone more suitable for your breeding plan.”
“Breeding plan?” Jake laughed and leaned back against the padded headboard. “No one is more suitable for either of us.” He let out a long sigh and turned to look at her. “Nothing has ever come easy for me. I’ve had to fight for everything I have. If I gave up on everything that didn’t fall in my lap, I’d have been a junior partner at the firm, and we would have lost the house. And you still wouldn’t have looked twice at me.”
Lily turned toward him, anxiety trilling through her veins. She didn’t trust herself this close to him, an intimate distance that belied their relationship. But for once, they were talking without yelling, so maybe he’d hear her this time.
“Marrying me is part of a game to you, something you don’t want to lose out of pride. You see me as some token of success that will validate all you’ve attained. But once you’ve had your fill of me, you’ll toss me aside like all the others. There are women that can handle that, some that would welcome it for the alimony payments alone, but not me. I do appreciate everything you’ve done to protect me, and I’ll even admit a month ago I needed it. But we have to stop this.”
“I agree.”
At his words, Lily breathed a sigh of relief and closed her eyes, thankful he’d finally heard her. She glimpsed freedom until she felt his mouth touch hers. He tasted of rich coffee and persuasion. Flames of desire licked through her, and she kissed him back, not consciously, but because she couldn’t not. The mingling of lips and tongues felt as natural and comforting as breathing, as soft and gentle as his fingertips against her scalp tilting her head back for more.
Jake eased his lips from hers and framed her face in his large hands. “I’ll never have enough of you, Lily. This kind of chemistry doesn’t happen often, if at all. I will go to my grave still wanting you, and as much as I want to run from it, to keep us both safe from being consumed by it, I’ve never taken the safe route.”
When he looked at her like this, as if there was more behind his words than lust and ambition, she almost believed him. He slid his hands from her face, skimming her body, and she wanted there to be more. She wanted to buy the dream he was selling, wanted to believe. The more time she spent with him, the less she thought about their stupid bargain, about his ridiculous proposal, about anything but the way he could make her feel with a look, a smile, the touch of his hand.
He cupped her breast, and she leaned into him, winding her arms around his neck and threading her hands into his hair. The silky softness surprised her, as did Jake when he pulled away to tug his sweater off.
Desire thrummed through her veins as she looked at his bare chest, the powerful swell of his arms. She couldn’t keep herself from touching him, feeling the strength of the muscles beneath his taut skin. He groaned his approval, his mouth claiming hers once more.
He moved closer, the sheet covering her drifting down to tangle with her legs. As his kisses moved to her neck, she was unsure what to do. Should she try and remove the T-shirt she wore or let him do it for her? She’d never had to worry about the next step when kissing a man, because she’d never had the desire to move things beyond that point. She’d done more with Jake than with all the other men she’d dated combined. But now she wished she knew, wished she had the suave assurance of the women he was used to.
She felt her body’s response, her breasts growing heavy, her nipples tightening, her sex swelling in anticipation. His kisses trailed back up her neck, to a spot right behind her ear that made her moan. Jake shifted, propping himself up on an elbow next to her while one hand traveled over her body.
“You have no idea how badly I want you, want you to feel that you’re mine, completely.” He rested his hand between her breasts, the thin cotton no barrier to the heat of him. He traced his thumb around the peak, drawing her nipple tighter without even touching it. Her breath quickened, and he pulled the tip between his thumb and finger, making her toes curl into the mattress. “We need to end this game soon. Walking around like this can’t be healthy for either of us.”
Anxiety niggled at her. Warning bells rang in her mind, yet a part of her she never gave a voice to made her brave. She covered his hand with her own, pressing his palm harder against her breast.
“There is something we could do about that.” She lifted her head, kissing his lips softly.
Jake returned her passion, tugging her shirt from below her hips up and over her head. She moved to kiss him again, but he held her back with his hands on her shoulders, his gaze raking over her nakedness like a caress.
“You’re absolutely perfect.”
In that moment, she felt it, beautiful and sexy and bold enough to be like him. To chase down what she wanted until she got it. She reached for the waistband of his jeans, undid the button, and slid down the zipper, the back of her hand brushing along the hard ridge of him.
Suddenly, her wrists were pinned over her head. Jake’s weight was on top of her, his bare chest crushing against her breasts. The thrill of the movement gave her a rush better than any drug she’d ever imagined.
“I only have so much restraint.”
She grinned at the quiver in his voice. She’d done that to him, brought him to the edge of control. It should scare her, but it only thrilled. She felt more alive than she ever had. Maybe this was why she’d always been afraid of him. She’d known he had the power to unlock this part of her she’d kept so carefully hidden. It wasn’t him she feared, but her response to him. He’d always made her heart pound and her blood race. A more experienced woman would have known what was happening long ago, but she hadn’t known until now with his hard body pressing into hers.
“We can’t, Lily. Not now.”
“We could.” She pulled her lip between her teeth, her bravado faltering as the feelings he’d left her with in the kitchen all those weeks ago came swirling back.
“You hit your head today. I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and think I took advantage of a concussion.”
“If you wake up with me, I won’t.”
He shook his head, his dark eyes gleaming. “When I make love to you, angel, you’ll be fully aware of what’s happening and why. I want you to look in my eyes and know there is no going back from that moment.” He released her and rolled away, leaving her scrambling to cover herself with the sheet. “Now you know why it’s such a struggle for me to hold back. I’ve known we’d be like this from the first time I touched you.”
He turned his head, smiling at her as she tried to cover her mortification. Last time he’d rejected her inexperienced advances, this time she must have done something as equally awkward, and she didn’t even have a clue what it was. Her throat grew tight and hot, and she clenched her teeth to keep from giving in to the tears.
“I don’t mean to hurt you, angel. If you would only marry me, I could make you forget all the hurt.” Jake’s finger traced down her cheek, but she swatted it away.
She rolled away from him, wishing she hadn’t kissed him, touched him, let him take off the damned shirt. The humiliation of running into the street naked couldn’t be as bad as she felt at this moment.
Chapter Ten
Jake stood in the doorway between his office and where Lily sat, the fingernails of one hand tapping on the desk as she read through the stack of papers. Her thesis. He knew she had to defend it tomorrow and had made sure to route as much as possible through the Tolliver Enterprises office this week. But he still had designing to do, and his office on this floor was the one set up for that.
Not that he could get much done with Lily here. He’d tried his best to keep busy and not get too close to her ever since the day of her fall, the day he’d almost ruined everything he’d worked so hard for by letting his body run the show. In the last few weeks, he’d been careful not to even touch her.
On one hand, he hoped his reaction to her would calm down once they were married, but then it also thrilled him to think of how long he’d felt this way about her. His lips twitched in a grin as he thought about still feeling this way forever.
He glanced down at the printout in his hand. He’d come out to show her the elevation changes on the Clairmont hotel. It amazed him how quickly she’d learned about the firm, how easily she’d taken to scanning designs and finding the flaws. He was so proud of how hard she was working to learn what mattered to her father, to him.
If it weren’t for her stupid bargain, he would have told her, but he’d only agreed to the deal to give Lily time to learn about herself and to grow in ways he knew she still needed to. He didn’t know how other men married younger women without a second thought. He’d been waiting so long for Lily to grow up, and there were only eight years between them.
The phone on her desk rang, and he almost turned around and went back to his desk until he heard the name that always raised his blood pressure. Ian. He had half a mind to call the partner of the tool’s firm and have him fired. After all, he’d been the one to get the jerk promoted just to get him away from Lily. Now he’d turned up like a bad rash, refusing to go away.
“I can’t today. I’m not angry. I’ve been busy with work and finishing up my classes. Tomorrow I have to defend—”
Now why would Ian cut her off when she was saying what was obviously most important to her? Lily had been working on her thesis since Jake met her. He didn’t have a clue how she pulled all the details from books, but then, he hadn’t made the effort to understand what she did the way she had with him. His gut felt like lead at the realization.
“The holiday break is starting, but I’ll still be working. And on weekends I’ll be doing the admission forms for the doctorate programs and looking for an apartment.”
That twisted like a knife. She still wanted an apartment, wanted to put things off even longer. And did she mean she was applying to multiple schools? She couldn’t be seriously considering leaving the area. Her grades had always been stellar; any school would be crazy not to accept her.
“I can’t invite you to the house.”
She bloody well better not. He didn’t like the idea of Ian near her in restaurants—he wasn’t going to allow it in his own house.
“Because, Ian, it’s not mine. Jake bought the house from my father before he died. He’s been letting me live there and work at the firm until I get my feet back under me. After the New Year, I’ll move into an apartment and temp for a while until things are settled about the doctorate program.”
Jake leaned his back against the wall and wished she didn’t sound so confident about her plans. That was the double-edged sword of giving her time. She was coming into her own. It would mean more when she chose him, but it terrified him that he might have to wait years for that to happen.
“You’re being ridiculous, and you don’t know anything about the situation. Jake didn’t coerce my father into anything. The house had to be sold, and better it go to him than a stranger. He’s been very patient and kind to me since my father became ill. He could have turned me out on the street with nothing, but instead he’s made sure I have everything I could possibly need.”
He stood up straighter, glad she praised him to someone, even if it was to that idiot of an ex-boyfriend of hers.
“Please. Jake hasn’t done any of this to get me into bed. Trust me. He has plenty of company on that front.”
He sighed. He couldn’t spend his life defending every business relationship with another women. He’d watched that tactic destroy his mother, and he wasn’t about to travel a road he knew was treacherous.
“Ian, really. He stares at everyone. Now, I have to get back to work.”
She mumbled a few more times before hanging up. She had a wonderful soft voice, warm and bright. He’d found himself doing this, listening to her conversations, far too much lately. It was the easiest way to find things out about her, but it had also showed him exactly what she thought of him. Or what she would let people know she thought.
She knew what he felt for her. There couldn’t be any doubt in her mind that he’d wanted her since he first saw her, that he’d moved heaven and earth to make sure she was safe. She could have ended the line of questioning from Ian if she’d simply told him they were getting married. But then she didn’t seem to have that worked into her plan for the holidays.
The ringing telephone on his desk whipped his head around. He crossed the office quickly, not wanting to make Lily suspicious as to why his calls weren’t ringing through her.
“Tolliver.” He sat in his chair, spinning around to look out over the skyline.
“It’s Ian Landon.” The polished voice tried to sound gruff and menacing but failed. “I don’t know—”
“I’m sorry, who is this?” Jake grinned, trying not to snicker.
“Ian Landon. I’m sure you know who I am.”
“Right, you dated Lily…what was it, two years ago? Short fellow with an oddly flesh-colored beard.”
A choked sound came across the line. “I don’t care what you’re playing at, but I want you to know we’ve contacted a lawyer.”
“The royal we?”
“Lily and I. What you’ve done is despicable. To take advantage of a dying man, to rob Lily of her home, I won’t stand for it. You can’t turn her out onto the street. I’ll be taking her back to Florida with me. After we’re married—”
“You are sadly misinformed. I bought the estate for Lily as an engagement present. Lily isn’t free to marry as she is already engaged. To me.”
Again with the choking sound.
“Not to worry, Liam.” Jake smiled wider to keep from laughing. “We won’t be inviting you to the wedding.”
Jake hung up and then stretched his hands behind his head. He was quite proud of himself for not getting angry. Lily might be willing to remain friends with the boy, but he knew she had no intention of doing something stupid like marrying the fool. She was too smart for that.
A soft knock on the wall spun him around and out of contemplation. Lily stood just inside his office, her silky blue wrap dress settled invitingly on her curves. He’d been drawn to her beauty at first, but now that he’d grown to be more interested in her wit and spirit, it sometimes shocked him how beautiful she was.
“I’m going to grab lunch from the deli. Would you like me to bring you back something?” She tilted her head, her honey-blond hair cascading over her shoulder.
“Maybe I should take you to lunch. Celebrate.”
“Did you finish the design for the Clairmont?” She stepped closer to his desk, her gaze scanning the top until it rested on the printout he’d meant to bring her earlier. She picked up the sheet of paper and studied it. “Structurally, it’s sound enough to remove those wretched columns?”
He looked up at her sparkling eyes, wondering how in the world s
he’d gone from his ideal woman to perfect in a few short months.
“The columns were added sixty years ago to make the elevation more ornate.”
She pulled a face that made him laugh.
“No accounting for taste. But they can come down, and with the other changes, it will look true to period, just earthquake safe.”
“You did a wonderful job.” She set the paper back on his desk. “Not that I am much of a judge.”
His brow furrowed. “You’ve learned more in the last two months than most do in a year. If I thought you’d be happy here, I’d have you step in as president.”
Her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed. “If you are trying to make some kind of deal…”
“No, I wouldn’t ask that of you. Just like I need to be able to design here to be happy with the rest of my business, you need to be surrounded by your books and other people who understand what you see in them. It’s all too intellectual for me.”
“You’re an intellectual.”
“Business and literary criticism are very different.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not a critic.”
“What are you then, a theorist?”
She stood a little taller. “That’s more accurate, I suppose.”
“And you need it to be happy. When do you start your doctoral program?”
She bit her bottom lip and brushed something from the skirt of her dress. “I’m not sure. It depends on the program I can afford.”
He stood and rounded the desk to stand next to her. “You know money won’t be an issue once we’re married.”
She looked up at him. “Jake, we’re not getting married.”
“You don’t actually plan on marrying that Ian idiot, do you?”
She released a sharp bark of laughter. “Of course not.”
“You might want to tell him that. He just called, accusing me of all sorts of devious acts. Even threatened to sue me.”
The Billionaire's Reluctant Fiancee (Invested in Love) Page 10