Taking on the Billionaire

by Robin Covington

  “Your what?”

  “My band.” He winked at her. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I have drumsticks all over my office?”

  Tess had wondered but had figured that they were his version of those fidget widgets, something for him to mess with as he let his mind solve all the problems at Redhawk/Ling. And even though she’d purposefully left some things in his life unrevealed, once again Adam Redhawk had surprised her more than she’d considered possible. The drumsticks constantly lying around in his office weren’t props.

  It looked like Adam Redhawk was a secret rock star. Sweet Lord, this was a sexy tidbit she really didn’t need to know.

  “Why the Double E’s?” she asked, tugging on his arm as he moved to head to the stage.

  “We started playing together at Stanford. It seemed like a good name for a bunch of electrical engineering majors.”

  She watched him stride across the room with palpable excitement, and up onto the stage where he traded high fives and back slaps with the very-average-looking-not-a-rock-star-among-them group. They looked like a group of electrical engineers. Engineers who played in a rock band the second Tuesday of every month.

  Adam eased behind the drum kit, reaching down to grab a set of sticks and twirling them between his fingers. Tess laughed, startled by the tap on her shoulder.

  “I knew I should have bet on it.” Justin Ling was smiling, waggling his eyebrows up and down like the idiot he pretended he was. “I would have cleaned up.”

  Tess wasn’t fooled by his usual court jester act but she was thirsty. “I have no idea what that means but I know you don’t need the money from that bet to buy me a drink.”

  “True enough. But let me get one for you. I’m just going to put it on Adam’s tab anyway,” Justin answered with a grin, motioning for her to follow him over to the bar. He was slim, tall with an athletic build and possessed a presence that made the crowd part like the Red Sea. Once more she was thrown by the difference between Adam and Justin: one made every effort to fade into the shadows and the other was disappointed if the spotlight wasn’t bright enough.

  It was starting to get crowded; what looked like students piling in to fill the bar, all yelling drink orders and staking out claims to tables. It wasn’t a dive but it wasn’t a trendy Silicon Valley bar either. This had more of a local vibe; a neighborhood place where regular people came to meet friends and hook up. And from the snippets of conversations she was picking up, they were excited to see the band.

  Justin traded high-fives with the bartender and shouted their order, only waiting a minute to have their drinks served. He grabbed the two bottles, nodding toward a table in front of the stage marked with a reserved sign on it. They settled on the stools, both taking sips of their beer as they watched the band warm up.

  “Thanks for the drink.” Tess saluted Justin across the table. “Now tell me more about this bet you didn’t take.”

  He waggled his finger at her. “I’m not sure I should tell you. That might be breaking the ‘wingman code.’”

  “What the hell is the ‘wingman code’?” Tess asked, glancing over when the band started a short sound check. “They aren’t bad.”

  Justin threw a look over his shoulder at them and shrugged. “They don’t suck.”

  “And you’re his best friend? High praise.” Tess poked him in the arm to get his attention back to answering her question. “What is the ‘wingman code’?”

  “It means that I shouldn’t tell you that I almost bet Adam that he would eventually bring you here. You see, if I told you that I told him he was interested in you as more than an independent contractor and that I told him he would bring you here to try to impress you...well, that would be breaking the ‘wingman code.’” Justin saluted her with his drink and grinned from ear to ear. “But I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Of course not.” Tess laughed at him, shaking her head at his absurdity. Justin Ling was the very loose yin to Adam’s tightly wound yang and it was easy to see why they were such good friends and even better business partners.

  “Do you like him?” Justin surprised her with his question and shocked her even more with his attempt to look like it didn’t matter. But it clearly did matter and it should when you were just trying to look out for your best friend. It was sweet and it deserved a straight answer, so she gave him the most honest one she could.

  “I do like him.” She swirled her finger in the condensation formed on the glass of the beer bottle, mulling over how much she wanted to share about her situation with Adam. She couldn’t try to convince Justin that there was nothing going on; he’d never believe it. “But this isn’t anything to get excited about. It has a shelf life.”

  Justin leveled a look at her that gave away nothing. No surprise that he was so successful at the poker table. “That’s a real shame, Tess. Total bullshit but also a real shame.”

  She sputtered and spilled beer on the table, preparing to argue with him about the bullshit comment but the band started playing a really loud song and any chance for argument was lost. Tess glared at him, noted that Justin was no longer paying any attention to her, and then focused on the happenings on the stage.

  The band was tight, with a driving sound and excellent vocalist, but they really lacked stage presence. Not one of them really engaged with the audience, even though the crowd was completely riveted on them. Her attention was riveted on Adam.

  Adam was seated behind the drum kit, baseball cap pulled down low over his face while he wailed away in a rhythm guaranteed to get people on their feet. And it was working. The crowd was dancing, the energy enough to raise the roof, and Adam looked sexy-as-hell with his arm muscles flexing with every beat.

  Tess couldn’t take her eyes off him. Adam was a commanding man, quietly owning a room with his brilliant mind and determined focus but this was a wholly new outlet for all of that intensity. One song ran into the next, and the crowd got bigger and rowdier with every one.

  And then the set was over and she was on her feet cheering for the band as they took their bows. Without any fanfare, Adam jumped down from the stage and bounded over to her, sweaty and boyishly sexy with the baseball cap now turned backward. His grin was wide and contagious and she offered no resistance when he pulled her against him with a hand around her waist and took her mouth in a kiss.

  They broke apart, still laughing, and he looked down at the table and grabbed her beer, chugging down half of it in a few long swallows.

  “Hey! That’s my drink,” she protested, shoving against his chest. “Is this how you treat a groupie, rock star?”

  “If you were any good at being a groupie, you’d have my own cold beer waiting for me.”

  “Well, if you were Mick Jagger, I would.”

  “Ha! I knew I liked her,” Justin interjected, handing off a beer to both of them as he returned from the bar. “She won’t take any of your shit and she’s completely unimpressed by this ‘I’m in a rock band’ crap.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Adam shot back.

  “Well, of course I am,” Justin said with a comical roll of his eyes. “Women love rock stars.”

  Adam waved him off, looking down at her with curiosity. “So, what did you think?”

  “I think I’m pissed that I didn’t come to hear you sooner. You guys are really good.” Tess ran her hand over his chest, ending with a poke in his side. “And it really explains all of the drumsticks lying around your office.”

  Adam grinned at her, his gaze slipping down to her mouth, and her heart pounded, her mouth going dry at the heat in his intense focus. Tess wasn’t one to hesitate once she’d made up her mind and she’d made up her mind about this fling with Adam.

  He was smiling when their lips met, the pressure soft and teasing. Tess ran her tongue along his bottom lip and she felt rather than heard his groan at the touch. Adam tugged her around to face him, his large h
ands on her hips as he pulled them flush against each other. He slanted his mouth over hers, tongue now invading as he deepened the connection between them.

  The noise around them faded into a blur of music and voices as they sank into each other. He tasted of beer and heat and the promise of something darker. Her hands wandered over his chest, the softness of the T-shirt fabric covering the hard muscles underneath. Tess was dying to lift his shirt and find out what was hiding under the clothes but this was not the place, although they had decided that it was their time.

  Adam broke the kiss, his hands lifting to frame her face, fingers tangling in her hair. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “I’m pretty sure I want to see it,” she answered, allowing the leer to coat every word.

  Adam took a step back and held out his hand, the dimple showing when she slipped her hand in it. “Well, then, let’s go.”

  Seven

  “This is not what I expected you to show me.”

  Adam hooked the helmets on the back of the bike, turning to watch Tess as she paced the length of the long patio behind the Lick Observatory. It was clear tonight, the stars brilliant against the dark sky, so bright that you didn’t even need the huge telescope housed in the observatory building just to the right of where they stood to see them.

  “Well, one of us needs to get their mind out of the gutter,” he said, sputtering out a laugh when she whirled around, green eyes wide and hands on her hips in indignation.

  “Oh really?” Tess sauntered toward him, her stride half dangerous swagger and half sensual invitation. “If you haven’t noticed, this place is closed. Are the cops going to show up and arrest us for trespassing?”

  Now it was his time to swagger, and it was easy when being with Tess made him feel ten feet tall. He moved toward her, meeting her in the middle of the patio, reaching out to pull her flush against him. Adam loved her curves, her breasts, hips and ass reminiscent of the pin-up girls of the 1940s. But what made her absolutely mouthwatering was the way she owned her body, the utter confidence she had in her power as a woman.

  Women in his family’s wealthy circles lived as though their money or connections gave them what Tess had naturally. They hid behind designer labels and expensive vacations that were handed over to them on a platter and never had to fight or scrape for their place in this world.

  But Tess was a self-made woman, independent and strong, and he didn’t even have to know all of her story to know that she’d had a rough time of it. She was everything he wanted and even more than he was sure he could handle.

  But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t give it his best try.

  “We don’t have to worry about the cops.”

  “Sure about that?” Tess asked, running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, her fingers tangling in his hair. Her touch was electric, lighting him up from the inside out, brighter than any star in the sky.

  “I’m as sure as a half-million-dollar donation to the observatory foundation last year.”

  “And I thought my twenty-five-dollar donation to the fire department was living large.”

  “Did I tell you that this is one of my favorite places?” Adam asked, taking her hand and leading her over the stone wall running along the edge of the overlook that led to the wooded valley below. He stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other gesturing toward the broad swath of sky surrounding them.

  “I used to come here and stare at the stars. We came here on a field trip in school and I fell in love with the way this sits so high above everything. It reminded me of the mountains where I lived when I was little and how you could hike to the top of the ridge and the stars seemed like they were so close you could reach out and touch them.” He pointed to a different area as he named each constellation in turn. “The Big and Little Dipper. Orion’s Belt. The North Star. I could come here and I knew that the stars I saw here were shining down on my family...wherever they were.” Adam kissed her neck, noticing her little shiver at his touch and ramping back his surge of anticipation. Tess was here and there was no hurry. He buried his face in the soft fall of her hair, pressing kisses and tiny love bites over the exposed skin of her throat. “Pretty sappy, I know.”

  “Not sappy,” she replied, nuzzling back. “Have you talked to your brother and sister?”

  He nodded, resting his chin on her shoulder and his cheek against the silk of her hair as he recalled the phone calls it had taken him three hours of psyching himself up to make.

  “Yeah. Roan was cool, running off to some gallery thing so he couldn’t talk long. We set up another time later this week.” Adam had been relieved to hear the genuine interest in his brother’s voice. “He sounded really glad to hear from me.”

  “And Sarina?” Tess asked, the tentative edge to her voice betraying her worry.

  “Sarina wasn’t an easy call.” He sighed, voicing the concerns that had almost kept him from hiring Tess to find his siblings. “When I first started looking for them, I was worried that they were dead, that I was too late. But, since I heard that you found them, I’ve been up nights worried that they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

  Tess’s fingers wove together with his own, a squeeze that let him know he wasn’t alone. “Did Sarina say that to you?”

  “No. No.” Adam replayed the very brief phone call with his sister. “She was just...flat. I’ve had more interest from Siri.”

  “Keep trying. Sarina has had a hard life, built ways to protect herself.” Tess leaned back and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “She’s worth the extra work.”

  “Have you met me? I’m never giving up on her. She’s my sister.” He paused, wondering how they’d swerved onto this topic. This wasn’t what he’d had planned and it wasn’t a place he wanted to be right now. Not when he had Tess in his arms under the stars. “Sorry. Pretty sappy.”

  “You’re not sappy,” she repeated, her ass pressing against his rapidly hardening dick. “Pretty sweet and crazy sexy.”

  “Sexier than being a rock star?” he teased, ghosting a kiss over her lips and relieved to be back on track for tonight’s planned events.

  Tess chuckled at that, the laugh evolving into a moan as his lips grazed her earlobe and his hand traveled up her stomach, cupping her breast at its final destination. Her nipple was hard, jutting against the soft material of her dress, and he could not resist rubbing the pad of his thumb over it, softly pinching it and grinding his erection against her when she gasped and dug her fingernails into his thighs. The pinch of pain was electric, sending the aftershock of pleasure racing along his nerve endings, emphasizing every rub of his own hard nipples against the softness of his T-shirt, the press of his zipper against his long, stiff length.

  This moment was the manifestation of a fantasy he’d lived on for months. His need for Tess had been there since the first meeting and he’d worked so hard not to give in and so had she; both were aware of the high-tension wire attraction that sizzled and snapped between them at every interaction. And here they were, on the verge of a moment that would destroy all of the carefully created walls that kept them apart for very good reasons. And while they’d agreed earlier, agreed to set everything on fire and contain the blaze, he wanted to be sure. They needed to be sure.

  “Tess, I’ve got to know if this is still what you want,” he growled against the curve of her jaw, surrounded by the sweet scent of her citrus perfume and the arousal-fueled aroma of her skin. She was writhing against him, falling with him into the enticing bliss of their pleasure, and he needed to hear her say yes just one more time before he let them both fall over the edge. “We can stop if you want to. No repercussions, no fallout.”

  Tess turned in his arms, backing up against the stone half wall as she met his gaze head-on. Her eyes were sharp with their intensity, clear even in the midst of the haze of sex they were currently stirring to life betwe
en them. He watched in fascination as she inched up the miniscule skirt of her dress, each tangle of her fingers in the fabric exposing another sliver of the soft pale skin of her thighs.

  Her panties were black, a lace pattern that covered the place he longed to touch and taste, and with slow, deliberate movements they were sliding down her long legs and then lying in a puddle on the patio. Tess’s curls were dark red and neatly trimmed; his attention was riveted there for a few moments by the sensual weaving of her fingers in their springy tangle. He forced his gaze to return to her face, needing to see that she was one hundred percent in this with him. If she backed out, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone home horny and hungry for Tess; it hadn’t impacted their working relationship in the past and if the brakes went on now, it wouldn’t be a problem in the future.

  Tess’s voice was clear. “Adam, I know what I want and it is you. Like we agreed—no strings and we both walk away when we’re done.”

  Adam took two steps forward, taking her mouth and inhaling her words as if they were the very life force he needed to keep breathing from one minute to the next. Tess opened to him immediately, her surrender echoing his own demand, and the heat between them rose with every rub of tongue and slide of lips.

  She wasn’t sweet, but Tess’s brand of need was addictive and he already knew he’d have to tread carefully on this path or he’d find himself on the wrong side of what this was supposed to be about. He didn’t have time for a relationship and he really didn’t have time to be nursing a yearning for a woman he couldn’t have.

  Adam leaned her against the half wall, pressing kisses along her jawline, and down the pale column of her throat. The V-neck of her dress allowed him access to the delicate line of her collarbone and the shadowy top of the sweet cleft between her breasts, and he tasted, licked, nipped as much as he could reach. Tess writhed against him, bracing herself against the edge of the wall as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  Adam slid his hands down her body, cupping her bare ass and lifting her up in the air so that he bore all of her weight. From this position, Tess gazed down at him and he could see every detail of her expression. He observed the way her lids fluttered halfway closed when he grazed the folds of her sex. Observed the way she tried to bite back her moan when he found her slick and hot and spread it over her clit. Groaned out his own desire when he dipped a finger inside her heat and she lifted herself up and down on the digit, taking her own pleasure. He was absolutely at her service.