Ulterior Motives

by Laura Leone

  “You have no soul,” he sighed, sitting down across from her.

  “But plenty of appetite.” Her look was full of promise as she added, “For all sorts of things.”

  Thus encouraged, Ross applied himself to breakfast. When they were done, he applied himself to Shelley.

  “Hmmm,” Shelley sighed as he pulled her down onto the bed. “Are you sure you’re not using that aphrodisiac you read about in college? Your energy is quite remarkable.”

  “You’re all the aphrodisiac I need,” Ross said gallantly, loosening the belt of her bathrobe.

  Shelley affectionately pushed his jet-black hair away from his forehead and stroked his cheek, tracing the beginnings of his five o’clock shadow.

  “You look really sexy when you don’t shave,” she murmured.

  “Right now, I feel really sexy,” he confided.

  “But Ross, we had agreed we would visit two more horse farms today. Daylight’s burning.” She rolled away from him and tried to hop off the bed. He grabbed her arm to keep her from getting very far away.

  “I propose a change of itinerary,” he said huskily.

  “Now, Ross,” she chided breathlessly. Her pulse raced as his eyes deepened to a dark, smoky blue.

  “Face it, Shelley, when you’ve seen one multi-million dollar racing farm you’ve seen them all. Actually, after yesterday, I feel like we have seen them all.”

  “I thought that was the whole point of our trip down here,” she said, letting him pull her a little closer.

  “No, this was the whole point of our trip down here.” He shoved her down into the pillows and kissed her lingeringly. “The horse farms were just something for you to tell Wayne and Francesca about when you get back.”

  Shelley grinned mischievously as she avoided another drugging kiss. “Then we’ll have to see a few more to keep my cover story credible.”

  “Undercover work is my specialty. Get under the covers and leave everything to me,” he whispered, pulling apart the front of her robe as she tried to slide away from him.

  She gasped as his hands found her breasts. He touched her with the sureness of a familiar lover, knowing so well how to excite her. She wondered how it was possible that every time they made love it got better and better.

  “Horse farms,” she said weakly.

  “Your heart’s pounding, darling.” He smiled as he slid his hands down her flat stomach. “Is the thought of wandering around a bunch of smelly stables that exciting?”

  “Don’t we have to check out of the room now?” she asked, rapidly losing interest in everything but him.

  He kissed the soft hollow between her breasts. “I requested an extended check-out time.”

  “You did?” Shelley fumbled at the belt of his bathrobe.

  “You should know by now that I always think of everything.”

  She pushed his robe off his shoulders then ran her hands across his back, loving the smooth play of his muscles as he shrugged out of the sleeves and then lifted her slightly to pull her robe out from underneath their entwined bodies.

  “How much time do we have?” Shelley whispered against his lips.

  He rolled over with her so they were closer to the bedside table. He peered at the clock. “About an hour.” He arched a brow inquisitively as he looked down at her. “Think it’ll be enough time?”

  “If it’s not, I’m not paying for another day in this room,” she warned him.

  “In that case...” he began suggestively, his hands sliding down her body to draw her thighs around him.

  “We’d better get down to business,” she finished for him.

  Closing her eyes, Shelley pulled his face down to hers and kissed him lingeringly, opening her warm mouth to his questing tongue, clinging to him as passion chased away their teasing mood for more serious matters.

  She arched her back and pushed her hips up to meet his thrusting entry into her body, welcoming him physically and emotionally.

  “Open your eyes. Look at me,” Ross whispered.

  She did as he asked, wanting to please him in every way possible. The tenderness and vulnerability in his eyes swept through her, making her feel more womanly than she’d ever felt before. With their gazes locked and their bodies joined, she felt powerful emotion pouring through her. It was too strong for words, and she expressed it naturally, in the only way she could, by tightening her arms around his back, her legs around his hips, her softness around his hardness.

  Ross shuddered and kissed her roughly. They moved against each other with a slow, burning intensity that robbed Shelley of breath or speech or thought. Her breasts were pressed so tightly against his chest that the labored rhythm of his breath became her own. Through the swirling fire of her passion she could hear fast ragged breathing and soft moans of pleasure, but Ross had become so much a part of her that she didn’t know which sounds belonged to whom. She knew only that their pleasure was shared, mutual, and ever soaring, lifting them both to a higher plain before shattering them and letting them drift back down, softly, slowly, to return to the sweet weariness of their entwined bodies on a sun-soaked bed.

  “Shelley?” Ross murmured a long time later, stroking her hair, as she lay curled against him.

  “Hmmm?”

  “We should get dressed,” he said reluctantly, unwilling to give up the special warmth of afterglow he always felt in her arms.

  She rubbed her face against him and inhaled deeply. “Five more minutes,” she mumbled, tightening her arms around him.

  He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Have I ever denied you anything?”

  Tired as she was, Shelley found the strength to pinch him.

  “Can I drive?” Shelley asked hopefully as they put their luggage in the Porsche that afternoon.

  “Of course.”

  She’d confessed her fantasies about the car to him, and he was glad to be able to make them come true for her. He wanted to make everything she’d ever dreamed of come true. But in their current position he was the man who would destroy some of her dreams. She was a woman of generous spirit, but he wasn’t certain she could forgive him for that. He was growing increasingly certain he would never forgive himself for it. So, what was he going to do about it? There was always an alternative if one wanted something enough, he reminded himself. And he wanted her most of all.

  “I had a wonderful time this weekend, Ross,” she said before starting the engine.

  “So did I, darling.” He kissed her cheek and admitted, “I even liked the horse farms. All of them,” he added wearily.

  “Thanks for humoring me yesterday. It was something I’ve wanted to do ever since I came to Cincinnati.”

  “I wasn’t humoring you. This is humoring you,” he said as she stomped on the brake to avoid hitting a tractor. “I had fun, anyhow.”

  “Where did you learn so much about horses?” She added, “You can let your breath out, Ross, I see the Stop sign.”

  “My family had horses, here and in France.”

  “Oh. Do you visit your family much?” she asked curiously.

  “When I can. I’d like to see some of them more than I do. I’m always moving around so much.”

  “Yes,” she said hollowly, feeling the weight of that reminder. She couldn’t imagine her life once he moved on to some other city. “Ross...” she began hesitantly.

  “Yes?” He wondered whether she, too, couldn’t bear the thought of their living apart. His mind was already working on possible solutions to that problem.

  “I read that you disappeared from Elite for about six months last year. No reason why, no knowledge of your whereabouts.”

  “That’s comforting,” he said dryly. “I didn’t broadcast my reasons.”

  “Why did you quit? Only the truth,” she added.

  “I was tired. It’s really that simple. Henri has always rewarded me well for the work I do. I had made enough money to give up work and just live on investments. I was tired of continent-hopping and sleeping in
hotels and firing people and having no roots. I was exhausted, depressed, short-tempered. I quit. Henri asked me to consider it a leave of absence and to come back to work for him when I felt better. I refused because... because that seemed like a safe way out.”

  Shelley nodded, understanding a decision in him that she would have regarded as impractical in herself. “So where did you go?”

  “I bought a seventeenth-century farmhouse and some land in Provence.”

  Shelley glanced at him in surprise. “You really did mean to settle down then?”

  “Absolutely. I just wanted to live simply.”

  “And were you happy?”

  “For a while. I renovated the house myself. It’s a fabulous place, and it wasn’t in bad shape really, but the work gave me satisfaction. It seemed positive and productive. And it was tiring in a healthy way. I was glad to be near my family there. I enjoyed the slow pace, the simplicity. If I got bored, it was an easy drive to Nice. I had time to read books I’d been putting aside for years, time to think about my life and my past and get some perspective on it. It was good for me.”

  “So, why did you leave and go back to Elite?”

  He frowned thoughtfully before replying, “Once my battle fatigue wore off, I discovered that I liked to work for a living and missed it. I could have been one of the idle rich just by living off my trust fund and coaxing an allowance out of my mother. I realized I had never done that because I wanted to work. The farmhouse stopped seeming peaceful and started seeming pointless.” He shrugged. “I decided to go back to work. I considered all my options, which were considerably broader than they had been when I’d first won my job from Henri in a poker game. But there was nothing that suited me as well as my job with Elite. It gives me more scope and freedom than anything else I could do, and it’s always interesting and challenging. And, as a line of work, I like the language schools. It’s a people-oriented business.”

  “Hmm,” Shelley agreed. “Henri must have been very glad to have you back.”

  “He was. At the risk of sounding immodest—”

  “Who, you?”

  “I’m the best at what I do. And he’s fond of me. He was hurt when I said I wanted to quit, and he nagged me incessantly to come back.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she murmured. She, too, would be hurt when Ross left and would long for his return.

  They were silent for most of the rest of the drive, each lost in thought. As they neared Cincinnati, Ross said, “Would it be entering forbidden territory to ask what future you would like for yourself at Babel?”

  “I don’t mind. I like running the school. I’d like to be promoted so I could operate with less of a stranglehold. Eventually I’d like to go to a bigger school with more challenges and a more diversified clientele. Sometimes I think I’d like to have one of the administrative jobs, because I think I could do a better job than the people doing it now. But I like my day-to-day dealings with people, so I think I’m probably happiest as a school director.”

  “Hmm,” Ross said absently, and for once Shelley wondered whether he’d been listening to her. They were both silent again until they reached her apartment.

  She parked the car near her building. Ross pulled her overnight bag out of the car and carried it up to her apartment for her. She made a pot of coffee and offered him some.

  “Let’s have it on the balcony,” he suggested.

  It was a small balcony, but the view was lovely. Shelley had once fantasized about sipping coffee out there on a Sunday afternoon with an exciting man. She wondered whether Ross knew. How like him to make her fantasies spring to life.

  After a pleasant interlude on the balcony, he stood up. He met her questioning eyes. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a lot of phone calls to make.”

  “You can use my phone,” she offered, reluctant to see him leave.

  “Business calls, Shelley.”

  “Oh. I see.” She stood up.

  “But it won’t take more than a few hours. Why don’t you take a long hot bath...”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, her interest perking.

  “And get into that sexy little black dress I bought for you...”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I’ll be by at about eight o’clock to show you what I had in mind when I talked you into getting it.”

  “I’ll be ready, willing, and waiting,” she murmured against his lips as his strong hands massaged her back. She burrowed against him, loving the hard feel of his body, the musky smell of his skin, the way his smooth voice vibrated deep inside his chest.

  It was only after he had left that she wondered what business he was making on a Sunday afternoon. Something important was brewing. She tried to quell the sense of dread rising inside her. It was silly, since it had no basis in fact. But it wouldn’t go away.

  Ross showed up at eight o’clock, looking elegant and handsome in his evening attire. His comments about her appearance made her insides melt, and she suggested they just stay home and explore his theories. He grinned wickedly and said anticipation would create the necessary conditions for their experiment later this evening. Besides, he added, she would hospitalize him if she kept making so many demands on him. She reminded him in graphic detail just how unfair that accusation was.

  He took her to a special performance given by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for a charity that night. Afterwards they ate a late dinner at an elegant restaurant.

  “I’m getting so spoiled,” she confessed. “Before I knew you, men usually just took me out for pizza and a movie.”

  “Before I knew you, no one forced me to do laundry or eat reheated Chinese carry-outs.”

  “It’s been a broadening relationship for both of us.”

  She talked him into taking her back to his hotel suite. She was surprised by his acquiescence, since he had always been adamant about preferring her apartment. She’d insisted that they were too well dressed to end the evening in her cluttered little apartment, and he had good-naturedly agreed.

  His hotel room was as spacious and luxurious as she had expected, based on the hotel’s reputation. Ross dimmed the lights and swept her up in his arms, telling her the suite wasn’t what he had brought her here to admire. He carried her to the bed, and there she discovered all the potential he had seen in her little black dress when he bought it.

  With slow-burning sensuality he pulled the straps down her shoulders and hiked the skirt up around her waist. Later, when she was moaning and tearing at his clothes, he unzipped the dress and pulled down her silky panties.

  Shelley woke up hours later, disoriented at first, since she was lying diagonally across a strange bed in a strange room. She recognized the weight on her stomach as Ross’ head. One heavy arm was slung across her legs, and he lay naked above the covers, sleeping peacefully after the turmoil of their passion. The uncomfortable stricture around her middle was her black silk dress, now bunched around her waist in a thick, wrinkled band.

  She closed her eyes, astonished at how wild he had made her, at how she had begged and demanded and devoured. She took a deep breath, straining against the weight of Ross’ head and the silk band around her waist. Tonight had been another fantasy—one of his, since her imagination had never before conjured up some of the things they’d done together in this bed. Like all the moments she had known with him, however, it was too earthy, too real, for fantasy. It was love.

  The thought surprised her at first, then blossomed into certainty. She glanced down at his sleeping face, his features pressed trustingly against her body. He was a magnificent lover and a fascinating man, true, but she could never have abandoned herself to him the way she had done tonight if she hadn’t been in love with him.

  She smiled wryly. In love with Ross Tanner. She should have realized. She had taken so many risks to be with him, had demanded so much of him, and offered so much in return, more than she had ever offered to another human being. She was pressured every moment at work and enthralled by every moment
in Ross’ company, so she hadn’t even stopped the whirlwind long enough to realize why she was doing all this.

  Of course, this complicated matters. But for now all she could do was bask in the warm knowledge that she had found the man she was meant to love and that she was lying in his arms the moment she realized it. She stroked his dark hair, lightly so that she wouldn’t disturb his sleep, and dwelt on all the wonderful, fascinating, exasperating qualities that made up the man she loved.

  And Ross? Did he love her? she wondered suddenly. He adored her; he had said as much. And she knew instinctively that he was more honest with her than he had been with anyone else in his life. But he was a complicated man, and she didn’t know how deep his feelings for her ran. She also didn’t know what love meant to him and what he would want out of it.

  His story about his time in Provence had told her one thing: he wasn’t the settling-down type. He’d recognized the pleasures of a settled existence and had made a good effort at it, but he’d become restless and dissatisfied within six months. He had returned to his globe-hopping life at Elite, the job to which he said he was best suited. Where did a woman fit into that?

  He wanted to install her at Elite. Maybe in his mind that was as close to marrying her as he could come. Or maybe he just figured his infatuation for her would wear off when it was time for him to move on. Always one for the direct approach, Shelley nevertheless didn’t think she could ask him a straight question about all this. She could be too hurt by the wrong answers.

  She sighed, slowly returning to reality. She was in love with the man from Elite, but she was still the director of Babel. She was a woman of commitments, and despite her feelings, her only definite commitment was still to her job.

  “Oh, my God,” she said suddenly, realizing that the sky was starting to lighten. Her job! She couldn’t leave Ross’ hotel room and go to work in a little black silk dress. Especially not one in this condition. “Ross, wake up.”

  “Hmm?” He grunted sleepily, and burrowed against her side.