Mesmerized

by Ward, Alice

  “No, because I don’t want to abandon it all.” I glanced up at him through my lashes. “That’s the problem. If I didn’t care about giving up, then I’d just give up and move on without a second thought. Since I don’t want to do that, I’m a little lost.” Biting my lower lip, I turned my face to the cloudless, starry sky. “I guess I don’t know which way’s up right now.”

  “Hm.” He hoisted himself off the wall. “That’s a conundrum.”

  The response, in conjunction with the use of the word conundrum in his Oklahoma twang, made me gape at him. He was unnaturally blasé about being told the woman he was seeing couldn’t picture a future with him because of his career. I’d anticipated anger, hurt, maybe another argument. Nope. He was acting like I was debating between having pancakes or waffles for breakfast.

  “Don’t you have the same thoughts?” I asked. Perhaps he was keeping it all inside.

  He shook his head, and I could have sworn I saw him wink. “You might not know which way is up, but…” He pointed his finger to the heavens. “It’s that way. I’m good.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. This had to be an act. “You have no concerns about us?”

  “Not at all.” His hands slid to my hips, and I was jerked forward against him. God, his chest was deliciously hard beneath that cotton tee. “I’ve never been clearer about anything in my life.”

  I searched his face, wishing that I was a witch so I could understand all of his thoughts. “What exactly are you so clear about? Please fill me in, because I could use some clarity right now.”

  Boy, could I ever.

  “I’m clear about you.” He pressed his forehead to mine, staring me in the eyes and impregnating me with all the sincerity he had inside him. “And us. I want you, Gretchen. I want to be with you, to be able to call you mine. I’d take that over the approval of the damned board of directors at Pennington’s a hundred times over.”

  Startled and exceptionally flattered, I dropped my gaze to his sternum where the t-shirt creased slightly between his well-defined pecs. “Not to be a stereotypical rom-com chick, but… really?”

  He crooked his finger beneath my chin to raise my face back up. “Really. And I want you to look at me when I’m telling you I’d take you over the career of a lifetime.”

  “Wait.” My eyes widened. “I’m not saying I want to be the reason you walk away from your job. I’m not even saying you should walk away from your job.”

  “I know you’re not. You’re saying that our battle over this property is too much of an obstacle for us if we plan to move forward. Right?”

  “Right.”

  He brushed the tip of my nose with the tip of his. “We’re on the same page, as far as I can tell.”

  As I processed everything I thought he was telling me, I grinned. “You mean you’re done trying to get me to sell?”

  “Do I get brownie points if I say yes?” He gave an overly exaggerated shiver. “If you’d rather answer that inside where I won’t freeze to death, that’d be great.”

  I extricated myself from his hold to open the door and head back into the apartment. “All right. Come in.”

  “Thought you’d downgraded me to doorstep status.” He shot me that sexy grin and kissed my forehead as he slid past me. I shut the door and turned to him, but before I could reply, he swooped down on me and scooped me up into his arms. “Not that I’d let that happen.”

  “If I doorstepped you, you wouldn’t have a choice.” I stuck my tongue out childishly. My loins were burning in the most exquisite way, and I was on the verge of panting with need for him. The emotional rollercoaster I’d been riding was exhausting, but it always led me back to the place of intense need for relief, and that relief was best sought in Cash’s hand. He was sexier than was good for me.

  His teeth snapped forward to catch my tongue, and I giggled. He drank my giggle with a deep kiss as he ascended the stairs with me in his arms, and the kiss became more passionate with every step he took toward my bedroom. When we reached it, he deposited me onto the bed with a bounce. I anticipated him crawling up my body, but he remained at the side of the mattress and dropped to his knees. With slow, creeping hands, he edged my sleep pants down over my hips, my thighs, and my knees until he could remove them altogether.

  My panties were still on, but he didn’t bother taking them off like he did my pants. Instead, he pushed the crotch to the side, revealing me to his intense gaze.

  “You’re mine.”

  The growl sent tingles through me as he descended upon my most sensitive flesh. Tongue met nerves, mouth encircled folds. Slow, tempting strokes of his tongue caressed me, and I dug my fingers into the comforter. He exhaled against me. Hot breath cascaded up the length of my slit, making my legs quake with lust.

  “You’re delicious, darlin’.” He circled his tongue against my clit, then flicked it around my opening. “I could eat you all damn night.”

  “Ungh!” It was the only sound I could manage through my haze of arousal.

  He chuckled deep in his chest and dove in again, this time sucking my clit between his teeth to stimulate it from all sides. My hips started rocking, lifting to meet him while also wiggling from one side to the other to escape him. The sensation was a complete contradiction because it was utterly… well, sensational, but it was also extremely intense, and my body tended to pull away no matter how much my mind craved more.

  He refused to let me react as I was inclined, however. His fingers dug into the creases of my hips to hold me in place, and he squared his shoulders against the insides of my knees to keep them spread apart. I moaned again, and he responded by picking up speed with the suctioning of his lips and the lapping of his tongue.

  I was building, heightening, on the verge of soaring. My fingers and toes were growing numb from flexing them so hard, but I was quickly losing feeling everywhere except within my sex anyway. I sighed, shuddered, panted, and started to plead as he brought me nearer and nearer to the edge.

  “Cash! Cash, please! Oh! Oh… my god… please!”

  “Tell me you’re mine,” he murmured into my sex.

  I tried, but my tongue was clumsy, and my brain was disintegrating. He slowed to taunt me into complying, and I forced the words out in a shout. “I’m yours!”

  “Never forget it, darlin’.”

  He applied dense pressure against my clit with the flat of his tongue, and I fell to pieces. My orgasm claimed me as powerfully as he had a moment ago. I writhed against his hold, barely moving thanks to his strength but unable to stop trying despite myself. The best I could do was clutch my hair or the blankets or his hair, whatever I could reach in my frenzied lack of control.

  My moans flew from my mouth and rained from the ceiling, filling the room with the soundtrack of my pleasure, and when I started to recuperate, he eased me back down with the gentle massaging of my thighs and belly.

  “Delicious.” He licked his lips, and I blushed. His eyes were bright with delight. “Now, do you need anything? Water? A snack? Another orgasm?”

  I blinked at him through bleary eyes. “I think I’m good.”

  “Good. Then get under the covers.” He stood and started maneuvering me to tuck me beneath the comforter.

  Furrowing my brow, I frowned. “Are you leaving?”

  “No.” He pulled his t-shirt over his head, baring his bronzy chest. “I’m going to hold that tight little body of yours until you fall asleep so you can’t get mad at me for staring at your afterglow.”

  I smiled, burrowed into the sheets, and nuzzled up against him as he tossed his jeans aside and cuddled up behind me. He planted a delicate kiss on the back of my neck and began running his fingertips ever so lightly up and down my back. I was asleep within minutes. Whether he stared at my afterglow once I drifted off, I had no idea, but I didn’t care either way. It was heaven just being there with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Cash

  After speaking with my mother and receiving her blessing r
egardless of my choice about my role at Pennington’s, I’d shed most of the emotional weight I’d been carrying since Dad’s heart attack.

  I hadn’t made a decision about going forward as CEO or going my own way, but it was a huge burden off my shoulders to know Mom wouldn’t feel like I was shitting all over the family business if I opted to follow my own path.

  Because of my newfound lightness, the next few days I spent with Gretchen were more relaxed and pure than any had been so far. And that was saying something because all the time we spent together was more relaxed and pure than any time I’d spent with anyone else.

  We went sailing the next day after I told her I wanted us to be a committed couple, and then froze our asses off when we revisited the beach on the following afternoon until we were rained out by a cold drizzle. She tried to convince me to do yoga with her again, and I worked on getting her to join me fishing sometime.

  Both were lost causes because I had no intention to contorting myself in unnatural positions, and she was too much of an animal lover to kill them, but the banter we maintained back and forth was more than enough to remind me what it was about her I coveted so much. She was feisty, brilliant, and beautiful to boot. All the money in the world couldn’t buy a woman like that.

  I was damn lucky.

  Luck had an expiration date, though, and mine came a week after we became an official item. Gretchen had given both her employees the day off, so she was busy manning Auras while I was back in my hotel room studying the Pennington’s blueprints for the new Fawn location. I was hoping to find a way to work around the Auras property, leaving it in Gretchen’s possession while still managing to build the store we intended to build. Architecture was hardly my forte, however, and I was toying with the idea of sending the prints over to Drew for his analysis when my phone rang.

  “Uncanny.” I looked at my cell, but instead of seeing Drew’s name, I saw Harlan’s. Immediately, my veins protruded in my wrists as my blood started racing. I toyed with the idea of ignoring him, but I wasn’t going to be a pussy ducking the guy I was pissed at, so I answered in a less than friendly manner. “Yeah?”

  “How you been, Cash?” He sounded equally dismissive of me, which I found laughable.

  “I’m surprised you need to ask that.” I leaned back in the desk chair and tapped the pen I’d been using to scribble notes against my temple. “From what I heard, you’ve been keeping tabs on me.”

  He barked out a laugh. “Your source is misleading.”

  “I doubt that.”

  He laughed again. It wasn’t the deep, genuine laugh I knew him to have in social situations. It was forced and backward in intention. “I haven’t called to passive-aggressively argument with you, Cash.”

  “What’s the reason, then?”

  “Business,” he snarled a little defensively. “Everything I do is business.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get to the point, Harlan.”

  “Watch your tone.” I was reminded of my father more than I cared to be, except this man wasn’t my father, which sent my irritation through the roof. “I’m calling to let you know the board has decided to go ahead with reaching out to the Fawn Town Council for continuation on our currently stagnant project.”

  The blood boiling in my veins started rushing to my ears, and white fog surrounded the edges of my vision. I was so angry that I was tempted to send my fist flying through my laptop screen, but I kept my cool enough to keep my free hand on the desk, and my teeth clenched tightly together. Through them, I spat my furious question. “What happened to giving me more time?”

  “We feel we’ve given you more than enough time, and it’s come to my attention that there’s been no additional progress made since our last meeting.”

  The outrage of Harlan’s backhanded phone call to Gretchen coupled with the betrayal of shutting down my efforts without discussing it with me first was nothing compared to the hellishness I felt when I thought about how Gretchen would feel when she heard about this. We’d just reconciled, as well as taken the next step in our relationship, and now all the things she’d told me that concerned her were coming back in full force.

  How the hell was I supposed to convince her I had nothing to do with this again?

  “You can’t do this.” My hand balled itself into a fist.

  “Not on my own, but the board as a singular entity absolutely can, and we did.”

  I couldn’t stop myself. I slammed my fist into the desk, making my entire computer bounce with the impact. The blueprints on the screen wavered. “Then, undo it.”

  “The decision has been made.” He was as unapologetic as anyone could ever be. “We’re not undoing anything.”

  “You need to put a stop to this!” The shout sprang from my throat without my control, and it was loud enough that I was positive anyone else staying in the bed and breakfast heard it plain as day. “I’m not fucking around, Harlan! Get the board together today and put a fucking stop to it!”

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  He was taunting me. I heard it in his gruff, hoarse voice. And it enraged me further to the point of losing my composure completely. I leaped to my feet, the chair rocking backward and cracking against the hardwood, and jammed my finger aggressively at the wall opposite me. He already knew why it was important to me, but he wanted me to say it. The jackass wanted me to say it out loud. “This is bullshit. You’re bullshit. The whole board is bullshit.”

  “The board has been around making decisions for this company since you were in diapers, boy. Don’t you forget that.”

  I scoffed, throwing my arm up in the air. “Times change. Maybe the board should change too.”

  “Speaking of change…” He was warming up, getting ready to deliver a bomb, and I braced myself for the blow. “There might be some change in your future.”

  “Yeah? How so?”

  He sighed heavily. It took all I had not to remark scornfully into the phone that, of the two of us, he was the least frustrated with this conversation. “Look, Cash, I don’t want to waste time with you. Time is money.” I hissed a snarky, sardonic laugh. “You know that I called Ms. Laughlin. You know that I’m aware you two have developed some kind of relationship outside that of doing business. Do you plan on denying it?”

  I almost did. I almost told him he was insane, not because I was embarrassed about my relationship but because it boggled my mind that he was challenging me about the issue. But I wouldn’t stoop to his level. I would be honest and let the cards fall where they would. “No. I won’t deny it.”

  “While I doubt you paid much attention in college where they would’ve taught you this in the first business class you took, I knew your father very well, and I’m sure he taught you mixing business with pleasure is the fastest way to ruin your career.” My lip curled, but I didn’t interrupt him. “Unfortunately, you decided to dismiss that sterling piece of advice. The board has to address this.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you might want to polish up that CEO plaque while you still can.”

  I moved over to the chair and sank onto it. To my surprise, Harlan’s threat barely affected me. I bristled at his tone and resented the smug attitude he was oozing through the phone, but the part bothering me most was still Gretchen’s imminent reaction to the coup that was soon to hit her domicile and place of business.

  “Threaten me all you want, Harlan. I don’t care.” I drew in a deep, steadying breath. “What I care about is how little it seems to matter to you that this woman’s entire life depends on this store, and how much of her history is connected to it.”

  “Physical attraction has skewed your judgment. Exactly why it’s a shame you chose to trot down that route at all.”

  With a grunt, I snapped, “My opinion would be no different if Gretchen was nothing more to me than a stranger.”

  “That’s not true.” He chortled cruelly. “If I remember correctly, you were the one who volunteered to go to Michigan. You were the o
ne who suggested meeting with her face-to-face for Pennington’s benefit. You were the one who asked to return there, though on this particular point, I’m pretty convinced you were already bedding her, which would explain that one.”

  Something in the way he said bedding her made my hackles raise. He talked about her like she was a piece of meat, a prized item rather than a woman worthy of being prized.

  Unfortunately, his other points stood.

  “You know what? You’re right. Initially, I was trying to be the guy my dad would have wanted me to be. Why, I couldn’t tell you. The whole world knows how little he thought of me. Even my mom confirmed his doubt in me being anything but an embarrassment.” I was ashamed to even admit it, but the truth was the truth. “But that’s not me. I’m not somebody who can step on others to get to the top like Dad did. If that’s what you need from your precious CEO, I’m not your guy.”

  He didn’t say anything for a second, which surprised me because he’d had his quips at the ready for the whole conversation. I started thinking maybe I’d gotten to him, but that notion was quickly eviscerated.

  “You may be right. You might not be the guy for us.” He sniffed. “That will be something for the board to discuss, and I can promise you, son, we’ll be discussing it in the very near future.”

  I’d had enough. “Cool. Let me know what you decide.”

  With that, I hung up the phone and discarded it into my lap. After so much adrenaline, I felt spent, but I needed to figure out how and when I was going to tell Gretchen. The last thing I wanted was for her to hear it from someone else.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Gretchen

  “Hey!”

  The door swung shut behind Cash as he entered the store. There hadn’t been a single customer all day, but I wasn’t surprised because it was the middle of the week, and it had grown considerably colder outside. I was alone in the shop, having given my employees the day off, and Cash’s appearance made me grateful for that. His presence tended to send me into uncontrollable frenzies of swooning and arousal — when I wasn’t falling victim to the emotional rollercoaster.