The Talented Mr. Maxwell

by Julia Harlow

  He grunted but complied, slowly turning so that he rested on his stomach, arms folded under the pillow. Dorrie gazed at the expanse of broad shoulders and muscled back, narrowing to a slim waist. She sighed. His thighs, dusted with dark hair, were perfect, too, as well as his calves and feet. But his butt was spectacular in his relaxed state: so perfectly rounded she couldn’t have stopped her hand from cupping it if she’d wanted to.

  “I bet a lot of men have come on to you, especially in the fashion world.”

  He raised his head off the pillow and frowned at her. “Where the bloody hell did that come from?”

  “Oh, calm down. You’re just so beautiful. I can’t imagine anyone not drooling over you. And you’re half naked during all those photo shoots with people fawning all over you.”

  “It’s just business. Nothing sexual about it.”

  “Maybe not for you . . .”

  “Speaking of sexy.” He effortlessly turned over and grabbed her to him, nuzzling her neck. There was no mistaking it; he was hard again.

  Just then they both heard a knock on the door.

  “Bloody fucking hell, Dorrie! Who the fuck is that?” he seethed.

  She put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. No idea. Just be quiet and they’ll go away.”

  The next knock was more insistent, followed by a female voice. “Miss Applegate?”

  When Dorrie pulled away, Grant grasped her arm. “Don’t go. Stay with me.”

  She shook her head and grabbed her slacks and blouse, quickly dressing as she headed for the door.

  “Yes?”

  The desk clerk’s cheeks flushed cherry red. Dorrie saw from the badge on her navy jacket that her name was Marla. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, Miss Applegate, but there’s someone in the lobby insisting on coming up to your room.”

  “What? Who?” At first, Dorrie couldn’t imagine who it could be. Then it dawned on her.

  “Mr. Carlton. He’s quite determined and maybe a little drunk.” The desk clerk stared down at her black pumps. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  At the woman’s obvious discomfort, Dorrie softened. “It’s okay, Marla. Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “You are not fucking going down there to that fucking cocksucker!” The roar that came from Grant was so unlike him Dorrie was momentarily startled. She turned to see him standing behind her in his slacks, bare chest, and bare feet, dark eyebrows slammed together.

  “I have to go down for a minute, Grant. I can’t have him storming up here. He’s a client.” She placed her palm on Grant’s rock hard chest. “I’ll only be gone a minute.”

  He glared down at her. “I’m going with you.”

  She shook her head. “That will only make the situation worse. Please, Grant, just give me a minute. I promise I’ll come right back.” She held his face in her hands and stretched up to kiss him. He closed his eyes and exhaled after she pulled back.

  “Okay. But I’m timing you.”

  ~~~

  A tousled-haired Cody Carlton met Dorrie at the bottom of the stairs with a scowl, his muscular arm stretched up the balustrade and his foot propped on the bottom step. “What the fuck, Dorrie? You left with that dickwad and didn’t even say goodbye to me.” His shirttail had come loose, and he swayed slightly, looking hurt and vulnerable, not at all what she’d expected. Suddenly, she felt guilty for leaving with Grant when Cody had taken her out.

  She gazed up into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Cody. I should’ve talked to you before I left. It was turning into a volatile situation, so I thought it best to diffuse it and leave.”

  “You coulda diffused it by staying with me and sending that asshole packing. I was worried ’bout you. I didn’t know if you were all right.” His bottom lip actually stuck out in an adorable pout.

  Dorrie took his arm and led him into the lobby toward the door. “You’re right. I should’ve handled it better. Get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning.”

  He snaked his fingers through his thick hair, causing tufts to stick up. As he swayed a little more, he reached a hand out on the wall by the door to steady himself. That’s when Dorrie spied his pickup through the door and realized he shouldn’t be driving, either.

  “I can’t believe you drove yourself here! Are you nuts, Cody? I’m calling a cab for you.” She took a step toward the front desk only to have his hand grasp her arm.

  “I’m not riding home in a fucking cab.”

  “Well, you’re absolutely not driving in your condition.” She tried to pull her arm away, but he tightened his grip.

  “You drive me home, then.” His half-lidded eyes gazed down at her while she imagined Grant’s reaction if she told him she was driving Cody home. This was a disaster.

  “Give me a minute.” Dorrie hurried to the front desk and asked Marla if anyone on staff could give Cody a lift home.

  Marla’s pale brows flew up, but she answered quickly. “I’m sure Lawson, the night security guard, would be thrilled. Let me get him.”

  Dorrie smiled and added, “I’ll pay for his cab fare back here.”

  “Oh, no need, Miss Applegate. Lawson would pay you for the honor.”

  Chapter 21

  Dorrie was awake before dawn even though she and Grant had made love and talked on and off for most of the night. She’d convinced herself that it was worth it to make love with Grant again even if he was marrying Carly Ann. That’s how pathetic she was. A flicker of dawn light shimmered through the wooden shutters of the inn, and she heard the hum of engines in the early morning traffic outside the windows.

  But now she had to face the awful reality that he would fly back to New York, or wherever, and she would never have his big beautiful body sprawled next to her again. Her gaze left the dawn light and resumed where she’d left off. Grant was on his back with one muscled arm flung over his head. Black lashes fanned over his tanned cheeks. His chest rose and fell in deep, steady breaths. Suddenly, he rolled onto his side, an arm stretched out searching for something. Her. He sighed deeply when he found her and tightened his grip across her body.

  “Dorrie. My precious Dorrie,” he mumbled. She peered at him. He was still asleep, his softly murmured words part of some dream or memory of last night. Nevertheless, the tender utterance caused her eyes to sting with tears. She drank in the scent of their hard sex, the sexiest smell she could imagine, and tried to capture this moment in all its minute detail so she could pull up the memory someday in the future and remember what it felt like to be intimate with this incredible man, to be the object of all his attention and affection. If only for one night.

  His arm felt heavy draping over her body, deliciously heavy. One of his legs entwined with hers, and his warm breath tickled her neck and ear. Her nipples tightened with want. Again. She’d lost count of her orgasms during the night, yet she was more than eager for another. Or three. This fantasy had to end.

  She waited until Grant sank into a deeper sleep and gingerly wriggled out of his grasp. A shower—that’s what she needed to sponge away both the delicious sex and the intoxicating fairy tale that Grant loved her. She’d rinse both down the drain and emerge ready to resume her real life. As she arched her head back to sluice out the last of the shampoo, two strong hands grabbed her waist and drew her to an iron hard body.

  “You left me and the bed was cold.” Grant’s mouth zeroed in on hers in a bone-melting kiss. He drew back an inch to ask, “Why?”

  An impressive erection vertically spanned her belly, making her shudder with desire. “Um, I needed to get started on the day.”

  “We’ll get started on the day, all right.” Sliding on a condom, he gripped her thighs, lifted her effortlessly, and pushed her against the slippery white tile of the shower stall. “I can’t get enough of you, Dorrie.” His eyes were smoldering, and with a practiced flexing of his pelvis, he entered her.

  A groan escaped while her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Oh, you fee
l so good, Grant. Stretching me, oh, Christ . . .” Her legs tightened around his waist, drawing him further into to her. He thrust in and out forcefully in the early morning urgency to climax.

  “No, you feel so fucking good, Dorrie. I’m going to come so hard. You ready?”

  “God, yes!” She arched against him as she came, and the release was so powerful she shuddered as the spasms made it all the way to her toes.

  “Fuuuck!” With one last powerful thrust, Grant came, his cock twitching as she clenched around him, milking every last drop of his cum. He clung to her with what felt like desperation, burying his head in her neck.

  He lowered them both down to the tiled shower floor, resting his head on her shoulder and rubbing his hands up and down her back.

  Their hearts pounded in their chests, both of them dragging in air. When they’d finally calmed, Dorrie was the first to speak. “I need to get dressed.”

  Lifting his head slowly, he asked, “Why?”

  The shower still peppering their bodies like tiny BBs, Dorrie answered, struggling to sound calm, “I need to meet with Cody to work on the interview.”

  Grant stood, easily bringing her body up with him. “You’re not serious.”

  She stared up into steely blue eyes. “Very. That’s the only reason I’m in Dallas.”

  He exhaled and glared at her. “We need to talk. Wait for me.” Grant reached for the body wash, hers, and she watched for a second while he efficiently scrubbed his torso and underarms with a washcloth before she stepped onto the thick ivory bathmat.

  The hairdryer blocked out the sound of the shower as her fingers ruffled her waves dry. She flicked it off just as Grant emerged, a towel slung low around his trim waist. The lines between his brows told her he wasn’t happy. Well, too bad. She didn’t like the way things were either. After she slipped a sleeveless navy pinstriped sheath over her head, she started on her makeup.

  Grant crossed his arms tightly over his bare chest, beads of water glistening on his skin, his big body leaning against the doorjamb. “I don’t want you to see Cody Carlton again.”

  The eye pencil slipped in Dorrie’s fingers, clattering to the floor and rolling several feet. “Why are you being like this?” She tracked down the errant eye pencil, blew off the tip, and resumed applying a thin line on her upper lids in front of the makeup mirror.

  “Like what? I just don’t want you around Cody Carlton. Why are you being so difficult?”

  Dorrie slapped the eye pencil on to counter and turned to glare at him. “I’m being difficult? What the hell, Grant? How would you like it if I told you not to go on a shoot?”

  He moved in front of her. “It’s not the same.”

  “So explain how it’s different.” Her voice softened as he loomed over her.

  “You once said that your career didn’t mean as much to you as I did. Do you still feel that way?” Those intense blue eyes were going to be her downfall, especially with the raw pleading in them now. Her hand automatically went to his cheek to comfort him.

  “That was before, Grant.”

  “You don’t feel that way anymore?”

  Dorrie exhaled a shaky breath and stared at down at her fingers, finally managing to whisper, “I’m trying to survive without you the best way I know how. You’re committed to another woman, so why are you toying with me like this?”

  “Toying with you? How can you insult me like that? I’ve never felt as deeply about any woman as I do you.”

  Her head jerked up at that. “What about Carly Ann?”

  “She’s not the woman for me. You are.”

  Even as Dorrie’s knees felt as if they were buckling, she asked, “Just when did you realize this?”

  Grant raked his fingers though his damp hair and shook his head. “I don’t really know. I only know it for certain now, and I feel physically ill every time I think about you with Carlton or any other man.”

  “How would you feel if Carly Ann were with someone like Cody?”

  Grant cocked his head, considering it. “It wouldn’t bother me at all. She’s not you, Dorrie.”

  As her legs gave out and she crumbled to the floor, Grant scooped her up and carried her to a chair in the sitting room. He knelt down in front of her, studying her face. “Let me get you some water.”

  Reaching for his hand, she tried for a little smile. “No. I’m okay. Just in shock.”

  “In shock? What do you think last night was?”

  “I thought you were engaged to Carly Ann. That’s what I thought.”

  “And you made love with me anyway?”

  Her hands cupped his jaw, her thumbs grazing over the prickly stubble. “I love you, Grant. I took what I could get. I know it’s pathetic, but it seems I couldn’t resist you if my life depended on it.”

  His hands rubbed up and down her pinstriped thighs as he gazed into warm brown pools. “You love me?”

  “How could you doubt it?”

  “You never told me.”

  Dorrie kissed his forehead and eyelids while he held very still.

  “Well, we’ve had sort of a complicated past, haven’t we? I never had a chance.”

  Grant’s eyes were still closed. “Say it again.”

  After a light kiss on his lips, she repeated softly, “I love you.”

  Grant pulled her against his bare chest, one hand cupping the back of her head. “So what are we going to do about Carlton?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “You? Yes. Him? No.”

  Dorrie let out a sigh. “Why don’t you put some clothes on that amazing body and we’ll grab a bite to eat and talk things over?”

  The Stafford Inn offered a lovely continental breakfast with mounds of fresh fruit, an array of healthy cereals and muffins, and, to Dorrie’s delight, beignets. They sat in ladder-back chairs with wicker seats by a window overlooking a small rose garden at the back of the inn, and by silent agreement, enjoyed breakfast before discussing the prickly topic of Cody Carlton.

  In the end, Grant acquiesced to Dorrie’s finishing the Carlton biography with specific stipulations: no night meetings of any kind; all meetings to take place in public during the day; as much communication as possible done by text, email, and phone; if face-to-face meetings necessary, Grant to be present whenever possible. Although she shot down this last stipulation, her heart warmed at Grant’s potent possessiveness where she was concerned.

  Dorrie relaxed in her chair, sipping coffee, and wondered if the next obstacle would be dispatched as easily as the particulars of Cody’s biography. “So, what about Carly Ann?”

  Grant’s smile faded. “Afraid I may have screwed up there. I’ve wanted a family so badly that I tried to fit her like a square peg into a round hole. Sorry. Best way to put it. I realize now that Carly learned enough about me from a mutual friend to convince me that we shared the same interests and values, when in actuality, we have so little in common it scares me.

  “You are my soul mate. You share my inner most dreams. You are my best friend and the love of my life.” His smoldering gaze practically paralyzed Dorrie, her coffee cup suspended midway to her lips. “But let me deal with Carly first. I have to end things with her before we can move on.”

  “Based on my knowledge of her, that’s not going to be easy. Did you know she followed me after our lunch at the Russian Tea Room and confronted me?”

  Grant shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. I’m sorry that happened.”

  “She’s tenacious. She’s not going to give you up without a fight.”

  “Let me handle Carly.” The arctic glint in those azure eyes took some of the edge off her concern.

  Chapter 22

  Grant flew back to New York that evening. Dorrie met with Cody for the rest of the day and made more progress than she thought possible. Cody had started the meeting off by sincerely thanking her for getting him home safely the night before and apologizing for being too forward with her. She made it clear to him that she had an ongoing relat
ionship with Grant that began even before writing his biography. Cody was smart enough to figure out that it was serious without asking.

  Cody had an upcoming meeting in New York with his reps about an ad campaign for a major soft drink company, so it was decided that they would meet at Omni Publishing for the next segment of interviews. Dorrie knew Grant would be happy because he needed to be in New York for few days for a photo shoot and they could be together. She just prayed he had things with Carly Ann worked out by then.

  ~~~

  The sunset over Dallas was one of the most glorious Dorrie had ever seen. Hues of rose, pink, pale orange, and amber filled the sky as the cab swept her toward Dallas International Airport. A smile crept to her lips as she acknowledged that, even if it was in the middle of a thunderstorm, everything was glorious now that Grant was back in her life. She almost couldn’t believe it, but his ardent calls and texts over the past twelve hours had begun to make it real.

  He’d met with Carly Ann to tell her it was over between them. Grant dismissed her hysterics as part of her personality. To his mind, she was pissed that she wasn’t the one to end the relationship. Dorrie could only imagine how the conversation went from there. But at least their relationship was over.

  Grant told her that he was counting the minutes until he and Dorrie could be together again. He wanted to take her out for a special dinner as soon as she got back. He had just called to go over their schedules and make plans. She was to go straight to his hotel when her plane got in at midnight.

  ~~~

  The only reason Dorrie was able to still be on her feet was the thought of feeling Grant’s arms around her again. Her steps slowed as she neared his suite. Anticipation jolted through her entire body, zapping every single nerve, and her heartbeat thudded in her chest. As she raised her hand to knock, the door swung open and Grant lifted her up, cementing her to his warm, solid body.

  “Jesus, I thought you’d never get here,” he whispered in her ear, and goose bumps pebbled her flesh as she shivered at the groan in his deep voice. Clad in jeans and a tight charcoal T-shirt, his biceps straining the fabric, he took her breath away. The man was stunning in whatever he wore, but this casual look was her favorite. She drank in the smell of him, aching to lick every inch of him.