“Told you,” she said.
He squeezed her fingers. “You got away?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t press charges?”
“No.”
His gut burned like it was riddled with ulcers.
“I did tell my school and was assured no student would be assigned a place there ever again.”
“That’s good.” He forced air into his tight chest. “You feeling like you need a protective shell around you isn’t.”
“It wasn’t as conscious as you think. I see it now, five years later, but in the beginning…I just felt more comfortable being able to fade into the woodwork.”
Guilt coursed through him because he’d been damn glad she covered up like that on the job—he’d found her already too damn appealing in her nondescript wardrobe.
“You should have told me,” he said, his voice gruff.
“That’s sweet.” She pressed a kiss to his chest.
He felt it much deeper.
And then lower. The possessive beast inside him awakened. After hearing that story, he needed her again, if only to assure himself she’d survived the scare.
“Girl,” he said. He heard the sex in his own voice, knew it was already oozing from his pores.
Honey went still.
Then his mind halted, and his libido braked. Hell. The little power dynamic they’d engaged in earlier…was that wrong now that he knew about that ugly episode? In the past, under traumatic circumstances, she’d had control taken away from her.
“Honey,” he began.
She rolled on top of him and gazed into his face. Her eyes were heavy, her mouth swollen from his kisses. It was a sensual look, and his cock responded as cocks were wont to do, hardening, clamoring, insisting that he indulge in her again.
And indulge her. But he wasn’t sure the right way to go about that now.
Honey outlined his mouth with one fingertip.
“You’re still the boss of me,” she whispered.
Fuck yeah. Relief and heat swept through him, and he caught her finger with his teeth.
She shuddered. “That still turns me on.”
He replayed the sentences in his head, relishing them. You’re still the boss of me. That still turns me on. God. The words did him in, the concrete evidence of her trust in him cranking his shaft…and doing something to his heart, too.
Sliding up to the headboard, he shifted her to straddle his lap. She looked down at his erection, already engorged.
“We’ll get to that later,” he promised.
“What if I want to get to it now?”
“Too bad for you,” he said, his tone callous. “I want to play with your pretty breasts.”
Her breath caught, and he watched her nipples tighten. He pinched one, heard her sharply inhale through her nose.
“I was going to get some ice for these,” he said, “but they’ve perked up without any prompting.”
Her blue eyes were wide again and trained on his face. He could see her pulse fluttering against the thin skin of her throat.
Warmth welled inside him once more. Affection mixed with lust made one fucking heady cocktail, he realized. Add to that a little power exchange…
“Clasp your hands behind your back,” he ordered, adrenaline shooting through him when she instantly obeyed. “Now lean up a little, and feed me that hard little nipple. I want to suck.”
He closed his eyes as the tight bud brushed against his lips. Opening his mouth, he took it in and pushed it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Her desperate noise attested to her arousal and gratified the shit out of him.
He cupped one hand beneath her breast and used the other on her hip to steady her. The scent of her perfume and of her sex surrounded them like a cloud. Another bubble.
If all this suddenly didn’t feel like fun and games, he pushed the niggle of worry away. They’d made a promise to each other, and even sex that felt as serious as a sacrament wouldn’t break it.
Honey woke slowly, and with her eyes still closed, fumbled for a reason behind her sluggish body and the low throb of a mild headache at her temples. Oh, yeah. Tequila, she remembered. Limbo.
Walsh. Her eyes flipped open.
She lay face down in his bed, taking up more than her half of the large mattress. The narrow space remaining was empty, but on one of the abandoned pillows sat a small pile of scarlet hibiscus flowers. Last night, they’d scattered when he’d flung the duvet off the sheets. This morning, he must have picked each up…and arranged them where she’d see them first thing?
Her finger reached out to stroke a soft petal. Was there some way to preserve one of the blossoms to bring home with her?
“You’re awake.”
At Walsh’s voice, she snatched back her hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed her gesture. It wouldn’t do for him to think she was getting all sentimental about their night of sex.
Turning her head, she saw him standing in the doorway, his hair damp, and dressed again in casual slacks and another linen shirt. He looked as smooth and sophisticated and unruffled as she wanted to appear.
She cleared her throat. “Good morning.” With a quick roll and a desperate clutch of the sheets, she managed to sit up against the pillows and face him, the covers concealing her from her collarbones on down.
“You’re a freer spirit than I ever guessed,” he said, a faint smile on his face. “Especially when you sleep.”
“Did I push you out of bed?” she asked, mortified.
How do people do this? she wondered, feeling her face heat. The last thing she wanted to be was a Blushing Betty.
“You were curled sweet as can be at my side,” Walsh came forward to slide a wide ceramic mug onto the bedside table beside her, “until I got up. Then you claimed all the territory you could reach.”
Feeling marginally less embarrassed, she glanced at the mug. “A latté?”
“Your favorite morning beverage, right?”
The DIY set-up in the living area didn’t run to anything so fancy, which meant he’d had to fetch it from the hacienda or…
“Room service delivered breakfast a few minutes ago,” he added. “I ordered fruit for you and an omelet.”
“Thank you.” She lifted the coffee drink to her lips, hoping he’d dismiss the flush on her face as heat caused by the beverage. He’d ordered her breakfast! It was ridiculous to be so pleased by the courtesy.
He sat on the edge of the mattress by her hip.
Instead of looking at him, she focused on blowing cool air over the surface of her coffee.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice quiet. His palm covered her sheet-shrouded knee.
“Of course.” She wanted to play this as maturely as he, so she chanced a glance at him. “The sound of the waves is a great soporific, don’t you think?”
His grin came fast and blinding. “Oh, yeah, last night those waves really worked to induce sleep.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
He squeezed her knee. “Just a little.”
Warmth from his touch was moving through her body. Restless, her legs shifted, and he removed his hand. Then the back of his knuckles traced her cheek as he leaned close.
“You’re so pretty.”
Okay, now she definitely was turning as scarlet as the flowers on the pillow. “Thank you,” she mumbled again.
He seemed content to merely stay in place beside her after that, so she sipped her coffee and stole the occasional look at his handsome face. The silence wasn’t tense or awkward—it was the typical kind she was accustomed to around him. Walsh was likely working through the details of some design problem he had with a device in development or running numbers in his head for the MadSci bid on a new government project.
It gave her time to explore her reaction to what they’d done together the night before. It had been beyond exciting. God, so thrilling. Not just the pleasure, but to discover that he’d been drawn to her physically, and that their desi
res dovetailed in such a gratifying—okay, explosive—way that the memories were still smoldering all these hours later.
“Regrets?” Walsh asked now, pulling her from her reverie.
Her chin jerked up and she met his gaze. Those dark eyes that had watched her with such intent last night were staring at her with the same concentration. Her spit dried in her mouth, and she felt stripped of every defense.
Regrets?
Only one. That he couldn’t be hers forever.
No. No.
Rejecting that thought, she shook her head.
He narrowed his eyes for a moment, and she held them with her own, attempting to mirror his own insouciance. Of course she could be as carefree about this as he.
“Good,” he finally said, rising. He glanced at his watch. “I’ve gotta go. Meetings.”
“Oh.” She placed her mug on the table and sat up straighter, struggling to return to her admin role. “I can get ready in a flash.”
“You’re off until the afternoon.”
“That’s not necessary.”
Had her suitcase arrived? Email needed to be checked immediately. She mentally added a few other items to her business-day agenda as she swung her legs out of bed while keeping the sheet—mostly—intact.
Walsh clapped a big hand to her bare shoulder. “Honey.”
She froze, her gaze jumping to his face as the sensation of his skin against hers flushed out goose bumps over her naked flesh.
“It’s not necessary, but it’s an order.”
Her breath hitched, her eyes widened.
One corner of his mouth curled up. “Yeah, baby. I’m still the boss of you.”
Thank goodness he left before she lost all semblance of sophistication and slid off the bed into a puddle of blushing, wanting woman.
By lunch, Honey needed to get out of the villa to give the housekeeper time to clean and to give herself a reprieve from wallowing in all things Walsh.
Certainly a sophisticated woman would manage to take her sexual escapades in stride, and she was determined to be that kind of female. Or at least she’d fake it until she made it. In any case, she needed fresh air.
Under the shade of an umbrella on the hacienda’s second-floor terrace restaurant, Honey picked at her lunch and checked through email on her laptop. The scrape of chair legs being dragged across tile caught her attention, and she smiled at York Featherstone, who stood above her.
“Aren’t you going to sit?” she asked, nodding to the seat.
“I supposed I should ask first. You look engrossed.”
“Please join me.” She shut the computer’s cover. “I could use a distraction.”
York settled into the chair. “Now how could I distract you any better than that?” He gestured, indicating the sparkling blue-green water that stretched toward the horizon.
She made a face. “You know, I hadn’t even looked up.”
He tsked. “You young people.”
“As if you’re so old,” she scoffed.
A server came by right then to take his order, which gave her time to study the CEO. Late forties, fit, he had a kind smile and a laidback manner not often found in very successful people.
She supposed it might be due to the tragic death of his wife. He’d learned to enjoy the moment…and to see the monkeys. She smiled a little, remembering that thought was the one that had tipped her over last night…straight into Walsh’s arms.
“You look happy,” York said, turning to her once again. “And I should tell you how much I like your new hairstyle.”
“Please do,” she said, smiling as she touched the curls.
They’d pleased her all over again in the mirror that morning, and she’d found to her surprise they needed little tending.
York laughed. “How glad I am that I went off the consortium’s schedule and escaped up here. Spending time with a pretty young woman is much better for my mental health.”
They chatted after that, gliding from topic to topic. He was an easy person with whom to while away the warm afternoon. She wondered if he’d find another romance some day. A man who knew how to completely love a woman—that had been obvious in the way he spoke of his late wife—was a beautiful thing.
He’d never make a list of necessary qualities in a life mate.
“Now I’ve made you frown,” York said.
“Oh, no.” Reaching out, she put her hand over his. “My mind went somewhere else.”
“To him, maybe?” York asked, nodding in the direction of a long-legged man striding onto the terrace toward them.
The sight of Walsh put everything and everyone out of her head. His gaze was fixed on her, and she found herself instantly beginning to rise. Then she grabbed for a little semblance of cool and settled back in her chair.
His greeting to the other man was surprisingly curt, and his expression wasn’t any warmer when he looked down at her. Her eyebrows rose as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. Figures were scribbled on it.
“I need you to run these for me while I catch the next program on the schedule.”
“Of course.” She reached for her laptop.
“You’ll concentrate better back in our villa.”
“I…sure.” Rising, she scooped up her computer.
It wasn’t as if she could confess her rube status and say she couldn’t think of anything besides sex within the walls of that place. So she bid York goodbye and headed back to their rooms, the space between her shoulder blades itching, she thought, from Walsh’s strangely displeased stare.
As the afternoon wore on, she figured she must have imagined it. He didn’t return with any further instructions, so after doing what he’d asked, she sat on the small outdoor patio with a bottle of sparkling water. This time, she allowed her gaze to play on the tranquil ocean and breathed deeply, trying to put herself in that same serene state.
Enjoy the moment…
But when the ding of her laptop signaled an incoming email, she thought she’d better attend to business. No matter what had happened with Walsh the night before, she was still here as his admin.
When she sat on the couch in the living area and opened the email, she found it wasn’t about MadSci. It was from her little sister.
She was rereading the words when Walsh walked through the entry door.
Glancing up, she tried pinning on a smile. “Oh, hey.”
He frowned, and strode right to her. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing to do with MadSci. And I ran those numbers like you wanted. They—”
“What’s the matter?” he repeated, dropping to the cushion beside hers. He glanced at her computer screen. “And who’s writing to you in all caps?”
“Lucy.” Though Honey shut the cover and set the laptop on the coffee table, she couldn’t get her mind off the email.
“That delinquent ex-boyfriend of hers isn’t around again?”
“No, thank goodness. He’s still locked up. But Lucy…” Honey waved a hand. “Both she and Jeb are mad at our mother. They stayed out past their curfew and now aren’t allowed to leave the house this weekend.”
“What are you supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I wish I could advise them on how to handle things with our parents better.” Not that she was any more adept.
Walsh frowned. “I don’t know why they always dump on you.”
“They don’t,” she said, her defense automatic. “I—”
“Never mind. All teenagers are self-absorbed and do foolish things. I know I did.” He sat back on the cushions.
“I want so much for them to be happy.” Frustrated, she buried her hands in her hair, her heart aching. “They should be enjoying this time in their lives. Instead, they seem more miserable every day.”
“Which, when they complain to you about it, makes you unhappy, too.”
She grimaced. “They’re saying next fall when they apply for colleges it will only be to out-of-state schools. And that when they leav
e California, they’re never coming back.”
“Maybe that would be good for them,” Walsh said.
But it would be terrible for Honey. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “It would be difficult to let them go. I practically raised them.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she tried resisting, but his hold was strong.
“Come on,” he said, patting her back. “It’s not so bad.”
“You don’t understand.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt. “They’re…they’re all I have. Before them, no one ever loved me.” Hearing herself, Honey’s spine shot straight.
Oh, God. She sounded like a pitiful loser. Jerking free of him, she jumped to her feet and cleared her throat. “Please excuse the whimpering,” she said. “Probably delayed jet lag or something.”
Her feet double-timed it toward her bedroom. Once inside, she’d lock herself away and be pathetic alone.
“Honey.”
At his deep voice, she paused. Turned. “Um, yes?”
“What the hell are you wearing?”
She glanced down. “Oh. My suitcase showed up.”
Inside were the resort clothes she’d picked in L.A. Now she was comfortably dressed in a pair of loose capri pants and a camp shirt that might be a bit too big, but it allowed a nice air flow. Not that Walsh would know, but underneath she was wearing her very own practical cotton panties and bra.
“Strip,” he said.
Her gaze flew to his. “What? Why? I’ll change before dinner to something less casual.”
“If it comes out of your suitcase, I don’t want to see it. And right now, I don’t want to see you in anything at all.” He rose from the couch, looking dark and intimidating. “Now strip.”
Honey’s stomach flipped, and all thoughts of her brother and sister and, well, anything beyond the hot look in Walsh’s eyes, vanished. Any semblance of sophistication disappeared too as her knees trembled, and she felt a flush begin at the roots of her hair. He looked so…so bossy.
“What’s going on?” she managed to ask.
“It seems you need to spend some more time in our bubble.”
She swallowed, excitement making her heart race. “Really? Why?”
Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5) Page 14
