An Heiress to Remember

by Maya Rodale

  When it came down to it, he felt chosen.

  It had all been for her.

  He never really wanted revenge.

  It had always been about the girl.

  He had done nothing but work for sixteen years, all on the rare chance this moment could be real and not just a fantasy.

  Years.

  Now Beatrice was in his bedroom and they were going to make love.

  He thought he might explode. The tightness in his chest. The suppressed roar in his throat. The pounding of his heart and the throbbing of his cock. He’d never felt so much, all at once.

  He shrugged out of his jacket and his shirt, or what was left of it.

  The removal of her dress was more complicated.

  Nevertheless, he persisted.

  For a moment he just looked at her, skin aglow in the moonlight. Puddles of silk and satin on the floor.

  She said these things about her freedom, yet she was here and her lips were close and there was no mistaking the desire in her eyes. She wanted him. Just as much as she wanted her independence—but not more.

  Her lips, inches from his.

  Could he be content with something even if it wasn’t everything?

  Dalton honestly didn’t know, but it was a risk he was going to take.

  Especially when her hair tumbled around her shoulders and she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. Hot, sweet, dangerous all at once.

  Sixteen years. One did not get this close and then slink off to sleep in the guest bedroom. Not when she brazenly toyed with the waistband of his trousers. Not when she looked at him like she’d been hungering for him for years. Not when she teased him with kisses.

  So Dalton kissed her back.

  He slid his hand around her waist, urging her against him to close that last little distance between them. He breathed her in and it did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest, the pounding of his heart, or the throbbing of his cock. Touching her only made him feel more.

  “I fantasized about this,” he whispered. “You. Me. Here.”

  She touched him, tracing her delicate duchess hands across his bare chest, lower. She was touching him brazenly, possessively.

  I’m yours, he thought. For better or for worse.

  And so began the clumsy, backward waltz toward the bed. Falling back in a tangle of limbs and kisses and pent-up feelings of desire. He wanted her and she just wanted to burn.

  Rule: give the woman what she wants.

  So he sucked her lip and dragged his hands along the curve of her thighs, her waist, up to her breasts. God. He’d never get enough of her breasts, full and so easily teased and aroused. When she was breathing hard and writhing for more, he moved lower, pressing a trail of kisses across her belly.

  “Not exactly eighteen anymore,” she murmured, stupidly apologetic.

  He gave a little laugh. “Me, neither. And here you are, more beautiful than ever.”

  “You know just what to say to make a girl fall for you.”

  “The truth? It works wonders.”

  “Stop being so perfect.”

  He hovered over her, his strong arms supporting him. She could feel his arousal against her entrance, hot and hard. He gave her a rakish grin. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

  “No. Yes. Dalton . . . just kiss me. Just take me.”

  Beatrice lay back on his bed, her hair tumbled around her. Nowhere she had to be, nowhere she’d rather be. Dalton above her. His body was glorious—all muscles and naked and hers to touch and pleasure. And his touch was exactly what she had been starving for.

  He had been hell-bent on destroying her and tonight he was hell-bent on pleasing her.

  Sigh. Even though she had been headstrong and outspoken and the wrench in his machine.

  Not all men looked upon women like that with such lust, and maybe even love.

  She knew. Oh, she knew.

  She could just be herself. She could let go and enjoy herself. Thoroughly. Completely. Unapologetically.

  He caressed her, everywhere, with a touch that was something like reverential but less delicate. Like he knew she wouldn’t break. Like he was intent on enjoying her and learning her and knowing her. And she gave him the same attention—curve of his biceps, the planes of his chest that tapered to his waist and . . . the evidence of his arousal for her. She took the length of him in hand and the soft hiss from his lips made her feel like a siren.

  He continued to kiss his way down her belly and lower still.

  It was the easiest thing in the world to moan softly in anticipation and part her legs when she felt the stubble of his cheeks on her inner thighs, when she was achingly aware of how close his mouth was to bringing her to climax.

  “Ooooh,” she sighed as she felt his mouth, hot and tender, expertly teasing and stroking her, making the pleasure and the pressure build and build. Her hands gripped the bedsheets.

  He made up for years of cold loneliness with just his mouth. And his hands. And then things he said earlier and the promises she knew he would keep if she’d let him and oh.

  “Oh, God.” She breathed hard as he slid one then two fingers inside of her, stroking smoothly. She writhed around him, pulling him closer, holding him tighter. He was making her feel the more feeling. Like she couldn’t get enough of his touch, or the intense way it made her feel.

  More. She wanted more and she wasn’t sorry.

  She wanted more and he was giving and she was taking.

  More. More. More.

  The orgasm snuck up slowly and then hit her all at once.

  She cried out her pleasure and he didn’t stop.

  There was still more.

  Beatrice felt more alive than ever. She felt born again. She felt like she was flying. She felt free.

  And before she could even catch her breath, he was moving to kiss her on the mouth, to capture the last of her cries, and his cock was throbbing at her sex, wanting more and she was wanting more, too.

  Because when you are free to do whatever you want, when you are flying, when no scandal can touch you, when you are kissed like this, where there is love and lust and complications all tangled up, there is only one thing to do, one thing to say.

  “Yes. More.”

  She was, apparently, insatiable and he was hot, hard, and ready for her.

  “So tell me how you imagined this,” she whispered, stroking the rigid length of him. She still hadn’t quite caught her breath. Her heart was still beating wildly in her chest.

  “It already doesn’t compare,” he said as he moved to straddle her, press his cock up against her sex. She sank into the mattress as his weight pressed down on her—was there any more exquisite feeling? She writhed a little, wanting him inside her, but still he teased.

  He slid his fingers through her hair and kissed her deeply. For a moment. Before there was more.

  His heart was thundering so hard Wes had to wonder if maybe a man could feel too much, all at once, and it would be his undoing. This wasn’t his first time, it wasn’t even the first time he cared about the woman he made love to, but it was the first time his heart and soul were inseparable from every touch, every whisper, every moan.

  It was overwhelming as all hell.

  His beloved Beatrice was here, in his bed, and he had just made her climax and her cries were still echoing in his head and doing things to his heart, and now she was naked beneath him saying, “Yes, more.” And he was definitely going to explode.

  So he kissed her, as if that would help him catch his breath and his wits. He gave up, gave in and when she wrapped her legs around his lower back he was done for. When she licked the sweat from his neck he wanted to die. But was there any better way to go than a tangle of hot, sweaty limbs and making love to the woman he loved best in the world?

  He eased in. Inch by inch. It was a slow burn. A torture. But he’d waited years for this moment and by God he was going to savor every second of it.

  Because this—Beatrice
in his arms and all around him—it was everything he ever wanted. He knew that now. Ever since he first laid eyes on her and now it was better than he had ever imagined, and the devil only knew how he had imagined.

  Her closed eyes, lashes upon her cheeks, her hair a tussled mess across his pillow. Her lips parted, soft moans of pleasure escaping. He kissed her.

  He thrust in, harder now and harder again, and she sighed, “Yes.”

  And his heart was thundering with passion and madness all at once and all together. He thrust in again, deliberate full strokes. She grabbed a handful of his hair and kissed him. He linked his hand with hers and pinned her wrist to the bed and again she sighed, “Yes.”

  Her back arched up to meet him, dear God, and they found the rhythm that was a slow and steady beat to undo them both completely.

  Everything he ever wanted. Losing his head and his heart with Beatrice.

  Nothing else mattered, not the Marble Palace or this one, or all the years they had been stupid and so far apart. All the money in his bank account made no difference and he would have traded all of it for one more night like this.

  There was only his body and hers, connected at last. The thundering of his heart, the throb of his cock, her heady moans as she cried out again. And then he was shouting his release, his body trembling.

  He collapsed beside her.

  “That was . . .” she started, breathless.

  “Worth waiting for,” he finished.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Goodwin’s Department Store

  A week later

  Their days had been filled with matters of business, but their nights had been nothing but pleasure. By some miracle they were both rivals and lovers. By some miracle, she was free to do whatever she wanted and what she wanted was Wes Dalton. On her terms. He met them, respected them, and it was almost enough for her to fall in love with him all over again.

  Almost.

  She was already aching for him at closing hour. She stood in her corner office, overlooking the end-of-day bustle on Broadway, feeling like a pirate queen on the prow of her ship.

  And then she heard him.

  Beatrice held her pose for a moment, letting him see her like this: silhouette of a woman before the overlarge window overlooking the city. Letting him see how this was her office, no matter that he once upon a time aspired to claiming it as his own.

  Perhaps he still did? She didn’t think so, but her mother’s caution wasn’t tremendously far from her thoughts.

  She turned. Fixed her gaze on Dalton filling up the doorway. He wore a suit very, very well. She had ambitions to take it off him.

  “Oh, hello, Dalton.”

  “I do believe we have an appointment,” he said in a low, commanding voice.

  “Urgent business,” she replied.

  His gazed dropped down to the buttons on her jacket. “Terribly urgent. It cannot wait.”

  “Then we better get down to it.”

  He closed the door behind him and strode across the room to stand just before her desk. Her large, strong, heavy oak desk. She had ideas about him and her and this desk.

  Judging by his darkened gaze, he was of the same mind.

  It started with a kiss across the desk. Until that was ridiculously uncomfortable and they laughed and she tugged his tie, leading him around to her side. His hands were on her waist, his mouth crashing onto hers. She wrapped her arms around him, threaded her fingers through his dark hair and kissed him deeply.

  In a second he had her perched on the desk, her legs and skirts parted and hair tumbling down her back. The promise of this had powered her through the day and now the moment was here and she no longer wanted to think of departments or displays or lists or figures. Just this. She knew he felt the same.

  His strong hands making short work of her dress.

  His hot mouth blazing a trail of pleasure from her lips to lower and lower to her breasts, where did the wickedest things that had feeling the wickedest feelings. Like she was completely his, at his command.

  And command he did; Dalton took control. Urging her legs apart. He kissed her there, teased with his tongue and fingers until she was writhing hard and crying out as the climax crashed over her.

  She waited, breathlessly.

  But not passively.

  She had to touch him, too, feel the strong planes of his back, his arms around her as he stood and kissed her. This, this was what she’d been missing, what she had been hungering for. The sweet friction of his body against hers, the hardness of his cock wanting entrance, the drunkenness from his mouth on hers.

  “Yes,” she breathed, arching her back.

  She felt him hard, throbbing with wanting. Or maybe that was her wanting. His touch, the scent of him, everything had her practically panting with desire for more of him, all of him.

  But only if it meant something.

  It had to mean something that he could kiss her with a passionate intensity that she thought of more and forever, and Take off my clothes and take me right here, right now, on this desk where I conduct business.

  It had to mean something that he was the only man who would understand her—the real her, the woman she was becoming. Dalton understood her days, he knew just how she wanted to spend her nights. She couldn’t imagine any other man sharing both those things with her.

  She doubted any other man would meet her like this—her office, her terms—so agreeably and without judgment.

  And all Dalton wanted was meaning.

  She was thinking about it. If she was thinking at all. His thumbs were flitting over the dusky centers of her breasts, bared to him and the night, and it brought a soft hiss of pleasure to her lips. The man knew how to tease her.

  And then, she stilled.

  “What is it?”

  “I . . . nothing.”

  He pulled back and gazed right into her eyes.

  And then she heard it again. They both heard it again. Now that they both weren’t breathing hard and driven to distraction.

  They heard the sound of low voices and footsteps in the hall.

  Dalton pressed a finger to her lips, motioning for her to stay silent. He pulled himself together and crept to the door before flinging it open with a loud bang that made her flinch with the sudden bang of it.

  “Who’s there?” His booming voice echoed down the empty hall. But there was no shaking the feeling that someone had been there. And they had both heard it. She wasn’t crazy.

  She had hoped she was crazy. She hoped she had imagined the sound tonight and all the other times that she’d been the last to leave or the first to arrive. The sound of footsteps, the click of a door locking, the feeling that someone was near.

  She hastily buttoned her shirt—with whatever buttons remained; Dalton was proving perilous to her wardrobe but also lucrative to her buttons and trimmings department on the second floor. She met him at the door.

  “Anyone there?” she asked.

  “They’re gone. Hopefully not thieves. Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “We should go. I’m not quite in the mood now. Here.”

  He nodded, understanding.

  Only when she went to close the door behind her—and lock it—did they see. It hadn’t been thieves, but vandals.

  Someone had painted the words Whore Go Home on the door.

  Nothing had been stolen other than her peace of mind and sense of equilibrium. It was disturbing enough to see such violent language, especially directed at herself. But it was worse to consider that someone had been there while they had been intimate. They would have been close enough to hear. Or perhaps even see.

  Beatrice turned away, revolted by the invasion of her privacy. But the fury bubbled up swiftly. How dare someone violate her sacred space, her privacy, her domain?

  Again. This hadn’t been the first time someone had snuck into the store to make mischief. But this was the first time she had been so terrifyingly close to it.

  “Beatrice . . .”


  But she was already bustling toward the closet where the cleaning things were kept and getting scraps of old cloth and soap and water to wash it off before the paint dried and settled in permanently. It wouldn’t do for the staff to arrive first thing and see this.

  Seeing the words whore go home painted on the door was no way to start the day.

  Even though the hour was late, even though her lips were still warm and tingling from Dalton’s kiss, she started to furiously scrub and scrub and scrub. The repetitive motion of cleaning soothed her; the immediately apparent effect of her efforts gave her back some sense of power and control.

  And Dalton. Well, Dalton wasn’t a man to stand idly by. Wordlessly, he picked up a cloth and started cleaning the higher parts where she couldn’t reach. Side by side they worked, neither one of them remarking that this was hardly the evening plans they’d had in mind but nevertheless here they were.

  And then it was all clean, like it had never happened, except it had.

  “Are you all right?” Dalton asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Actually fine or the way ladies say they’re fine when they are actually experiencing a multitude of powerful emotions?”

  “Yes, that one. Fine.”

  “I see.” He was looking at her, she could feel it. She could feel his gaze searching every inch of her face, looking for the truth. And lowered her gaze. She didn’t miss the sharp intake of his breath as he realized the truth.

  “It wasn’t the first time was it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Someone smashed the mirrors. I was there.”

  “Right. I had forgotten.”

  He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “I read about the vandalism to your reading room.”

  “Not the sort of news I hope to make.”

  “There were more. So many that you could forget one. Or even two.”

  Beatrice shrugged. “A few incidences here and there. Rude statements painted on walls of my office, broken typewriters, broken mirrors, that sort of thing. Idiotic pranks of an irate employee, most likely. We have Detective Hyde on the case.”