by Lynda Chance
“I’m escorting you to your room.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
He stopped and turned to face her. “You think I’m going to leave you on the stairwell, all alone?”
She recognized the uncompromising set of his features and chose not to argue with him about it. Clamping her lips shut, she began walking toward the steel door of the stairwell. He pushed it open and held it for her, never once releasing her wrist.
As they began walking down the hall to her room, he slid his hand from her wrist to her fingers and encapsulated her palm within his. The movement caused an imbalance in her already messed-up system. When he came to a halt at her suite, the fact that he knew exactly which room was hers somehow didn’t surprise her.
With trembling fingers, she pulled her card from her pocket and swiped the door. It opened with a ding and when she went to move through, he stopped her by pulling on her hand. She stood in the threshold, and he leaned against the doorframe with a look of intractable command. A barrage of emotions hit her belly as she pulled on her hand.
Once again, he transferred his fingers from her hand to her wrist where he held her in place. “Stay still.”
His words only made her pull harder.
His fingers clenched more tightly and a look of menacing retribution touched his features. “Stay still and listen up. If I catch you in the stairwell again, there’s going to be hell to pay, understand me?”
She remained infinitely still and totally silent, staring at him from under her lashes.
He flexed his jaw and antagonistic displeasure screamed off him in waves. “Follow me, babe? I get that you think that you’re the boss around here, but there’s one person who can tell you what you can and can’t do, and that’s me. Whether you like it or not, you don’t get a fucking choice, you have to do what I say, understand?”
Although her stomach was jumping around in crazy little feminine quivers at the primal caveman holding her captive, her anger came to the rescue and stomped all over any residual hints of desire she was feeling and pushed them below the surface. And thank God for that. “Fine. I’ll stay out of the fucking stairwell, mister boss man,” she hissed in sarcastic anger. Then she stood on tiptoe and brought her face as close to his as she could reach and glared up at him. “But if you want to be the fucking boss man, you better stay the fuck out of my panties, understand me, asshole?”
When a look of stunned comprehension crossed his face, she used his momentary shock to pull on her hand with all her might. She broke away, and not giving him a second to recover from her outburst, she slammed the door in his face and locked it and then bolted it for good measure.
****
The next day was brutal for Maria. As much as she tried, she couldn’t get the memory of that amazing orgasm, or of his words, out of her head.
Garrett made his displeasure with her exceedingly obvious. He slammed doors all day and went out of his way to make sure she knew that he was ignoring her. He didn’t speak to her, even when he needed to. Several times, she heard him bark for Beth and then question the poor girl about something or other. Beth, in turn, would come from his office, stand in front of Maria’s desk while shaking, and ask the question that Garrett should have asked her in the first place. Maria would answer Beth as calmly as possible, trying her best not to bring the girl into the middle of their fight. At that point, Beth would walk back and give Garrett the answer, and then he’d bark out her dismissal.
This went on for hours, until finally, at about two in the afternoon, with Beth questioning her about something ridiculously trivial, Maria felt her temper erupt. “Surely you know the answer?”
“Of course,” the other woman answered with a look that said she was beginning to understand that something was going on. “I told him but he said I had to check with you.”
Maria stood to her feet and pasted on a smile. “It’s all right, I’ll handle him, okay?”
Beth looked relieved. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, don’t worry. This isn’t about you. Go back to work.”
As Maria headed in the direction of Garrett’s office, Beth went back to her station at the front. Trying to contain the fury racing through her veins, Maria walked into his office and shut the door with a silent click, and then turned, leaned against it and waited for him to raise his head from the document he was perusing.
After a long moment went by, she realized he knew that it wasn’t Beth in his office, and now he was blatantly ignoring her, or possibly, playing some sort of demented game, waiting for her to speak first.
She accommodated his wish without hesitation. “I think it’s time for you to go back to St. Louis,” she said without inflection.
He immediately raised his head and seared her with a look that spoke volumes. His expression clouding with fury, he bit out contemptuously, “What, exactly, makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do?” He continued to stare and then bit out way too softly, “Who do you think you are?”
An abrupt chill hung between them at his question. Refusing to allow a river of hurt to unfold at his callous words, she focused on the tide of rage seething inside. “I can do this job with my eyes closed and you know it. There’s no reason for you to be here anymore. You’re unbalancing the operation … you’re upsetting Beth. You can’t keep pulling her from the reservation desk. It can’t continue to go unmanned the way it’s been today.”
He swiveled his chair and stood to his feet, a glowering mask of condemnation reflected on his face. “I’m warning you. You best be careful what you say to me.”
For some reason, insanity perhaps, she wasn’t scared of his threats, at least not as far as her job was concerned. He could rant and rave and threaten all he wanted. For some inexplicable reason, she knew her job was secure, no matter what the personal outcome between them turned out to be. Being secure in that knowledge, it made it easy for her to continue fighting with him. “Seriously, Garrett. You need to pack your shit and leave. Go to the Keys or to St. Louis or wherever the hell you want, but there’s no damn reason for you to stay here.”
His hand lashed out in hostility. “There’s every fucking reason for me to stay here and you don’t get a vote in the matter, understand?”
Maria steeled her insides. “What reason?” she shouted. “What possible reason do you have?”
There was a pause of only about one second before he exploded. “You, goddammit!”
A sudden ridiculous, horrible, inappropriate thrill shot down her spine and rippled through her bloodstream. That he would voice the admission out loud shocked her silly. Why, she didn’t really know. But she never expected him to admit to the reason he continued to hang around, not in a million years, even if she’d known the truth deep down. And now, as he began stalking toward her with punitive, sexual intent blazing from his eyes, she was damn sorry she’d opened what was quite obviously, a can of worms. She breathed deeply for a moment, until she realized she only had a second left before he reached her.
She took it and ran, turning and escaping from his office, slamming the door behind her.
She thought about running upstairs, running somewhere, but she didn’t. She took a stabilizing breath and walked as calmly as she could and sat down behind her desk. Running her hands over the keyboard, by rote she pulled up the next month’s reservation calendar and pretended to study it.
The door to his office clicked open and without looking up from her computer screen, she was aware that he came to stand directly in front of her desk.
Her eyes stayed glued to her screen as he placed his palms on the edge of her desk and leaned into them. “Don’t question my actions, Maria.” His voice was harsh, pissed, and Maria slid her eyes over and saw that his fingers were pushing down so hard on her desk that his knuckles had turned white. Two of those fingers had been inside of her last night. Her heart beating wildly with the thought, she surreptitiously slid her eyes back to her screen as he continued even more antagonist
ically, “You want the right to question my actions? You want the right to have a fucking input into my life? Don’t tell me to stay out of your panties. Denying me what I want won’t ever get you close enough to have an input.”
With that, he turned around and stalked from the offices altogether.
Maria took her hands from the keyboard and leaned back in her chair. Somewhere in the pit of her stomach, she knew that her day of reckoning wasn’t going to be avoided for much longer. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding … and silently admitted that the river of lust she felt for him couldn’t be held behind the dam much longer anyway.
****
Garrett slammed out of the hotel and got into his rental, a black Cadillac Escalade. He put it in reverse and spun the wheels, the burn of rubber against asphalt sending an admittedly immature satisfaction coiling through him. As he tooled down the streets of Miami, he knew something was going to have to give and damn soon. He literally couldn’t keep up with what he was doing for much longer.
She was going to have to give in… or he was going to have to give up and leave, just as she’d vociferously told him not five minutes before.
But how could he leave without fucking her first? He wouldn’t be able to forget … he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind when she had only been a voice in his head. And now … hell, no. He couldn’t just leave. It wouldn’t work. His need for her was too strong. And on top of all that, after getting to know her, it was more than just her voice and her exotic good looks. It was the goddamn way she sighed when she was tired … it was the way she twisted her neck when she’d been at the computer too long … it was the way she smiled when she was pleased about something.
No, he wouldn’t leave. Fuck that shit. He couldn’t leave until this was finished. The orgasm he’d given her the night before would fuck with his brain for the rest of his life if he couldn’t find a way to have her. With a new determination, he braked and then turned around, heading back toward the hotel.
And if he still wanted her even after he’d accomplished his ultimate goal of getting her into bed?
He shook off the thought. He’d worry about that when the time came.
****
At six that evening, Maria walked into the restaurant bar area where a complimentary happy hour was served every evening from five until eight. It was her habit to pop her head in to make sure that there was at least a bartender in attendance, and then she’d usually leave.
Tonight, however, Luis Calderon and a couple of other guys from their party were sitting at a bar table and motioning her over toward them.
With an unsettling feeling in her stomach that was telling her she was damn glad that Garrett was nowhere in sight, she strolled over to them, her high heels clicking on the brand new porcelain tile. Standing next to the table, she smiled. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
Luis pushed out a bar chair for her. “Hey, hon. What’ll you have?” he asked as he switched to Spanish, introducing her to the Hispanic men he was with before motioning to the waiter who was making rounds.
Maria smiled at the men in greeting, and as she sat in the chair, she made eye contact with Mario, the server in attendance. He watched her carefully in return. The two of them had been through this drill more times than she could count and they had it down pat. “I’d love a Crown and Diet Coke,” she said, and then she lifted her hand, holding her finger and thumb only slightly apart. “But make it light, okay, Mario?”
The word light together with her hand motion was a secret signal that she’d perfected with the waiters and bartenders long ago. It meant that she wanted a Diet Coke only, but both she and the employees pretended she was drinking alcohol, usually because one guest or another expected it of her, and she always tried to please her guests if she could. She wasn’t a teetotaler by any means, but she didn’t care to drink every night and the small deception had never hurt anyone; her drinks were certainly never added to anyone’s tab.
A few moments later, she had a Diet Coke served in a highball glass garnished with a lime wedge. She thanked Mario, and he gave her a small, conspiratorial smile in return before he turned to leave. Taking a moment to squeeze the lime into her drink, she felt Luis’s arm slide behind her seat. He wasn’t touching her person, only her chair, so she pretended his arm wasn’t there as she turned to all three men and began an animated conversation in fluent Spanish about nothing in particular.
Some ten minutes later, Luis’s arm was still hanging on to the back of her seat, and she’d finished maybe half of her drink, when she happened to glance across the room. Her eyes clashed forcefully with Garrett’s as he stood in the threshold watching her, a storm brewing on his features.
He was wearing blue jeans, boots, and a tight black t-shirt that molded his chest, abs and biceps. He looked literally good enough to eat, and the territorial look in his eyes was both alarming her and doing a number on her femininity. Her stomach twisted in knots and her fingers grew clumsy, so she set her drink down before she spilt it.
Garrett’s eyes left hers and lazered in on the arm behind her chair, before moving to study the man next to her. He walked about halfway to the table where she was sitting before coming to a halt. His gaze came back to her, his lips flattened in a distinctive line of displeasure, and he tilted his head with a jerk, calling her to his side without so much as a single word.
The man beside her noticed. “Who is he?”
Maria began sliding from her seat. “The new owner. I better see what he wants.”
As she stood to her feet, Luis’s hand slid to her shoulder, his low, Spanish words concerned. “It’s obvious from the look in his eyes what he wants, babe. You going to be okay?”
Maria picked up her drink and responded in the same language, telling herself that she was unconcerned by the fact that Garrett was within hearing distance, his large body looming only a few feet away, “He can look all he wants, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever have.” With that, she gave the three men a radiant smile that she knew Garrett couldn’t fail to miss. “I’ll catch you guys later, okay?”
“Sure, hon.” Luis said, picking up his drink and lifting it toward her, making the motion of a toast.
Maria smiled once again and tipped her head, and then turning on her heel, she began walking toward Garrett. When she reached his side, he put his hand on her elbow with a pissed, precise motion and began leading her out of the room.
Keeping his hand at the underside of her arm, he walked her to the bank of elevators. The car was already waiting, so they stepped inside and the doors slid closed with a silent whoosh. He pressed the number for the fourth floor, and then with a rapid, impatient movement, he maneuvered her against the wall.
Maria held her drink out to the side, attempting to keep the liquid in the glass from sloshing her skirt and blouse.
Garrett leaned both arms on either side of her head, enclosing her in his space. “What’d I tell you last night?”
Her stomach twisted into a tight knot. “I’m sorry?”
“Last night,” he said again, “What’d I tell you?”
“You told me a lot of things.” She took a quick breath, knowing good and well he was referring to Luis Calderon and the arm the man had wrapped around her a few moments before. “You told me to stay out of the stairwell.”
His eyes turned glacial. “I told you nobody touches you.”
She lifted her chin and clenched her jaw. “And I called bullshit on that, didn’t I?”
Just as a ferocious look crossed his face, the door pinged and the elevator slid to a halt on her floor. Garrett stepped back and held the door open, obviously expecting her to step out. Where the hell else was she supposed to go? She had no choice but to follow him out.
He grabbed hold of her arm again and began marching her toward her suite. The butterflies in her stomach expanded into a ribbon of need that began rocketing through her system, even though her brain was in a contest with her body. Why not? her
girl parts wailed. Because he’s an arrogant ass, her brain replied.
As he all but frog-marched her down the corridor, she almost stumbled and he immediately gripped tighter. “How much have you had to drink?” he asked, pissed.
“Nothing.”
They’d arrived at her door, and he swung her back against it. “You’re drinking now. Are you telling me that one’s your first?”
“I’m telling you that this is Diet Coke.”
He looked more than skeptical; his expression said she was lying. “Bullshit.”
Fire lit her spine. “Smell it. Take a drink,” she challenged.
“Why’s it dressed up to look like a cocktail? And why’d you stumble?”
“I didn’t stumble.” Stumbling meant ending up face-first on the ground, right? She prayed her little trip-up hadn’t been nearly as ungraceful.
He growled as if out of patience with her answers. “Where’s your key-card?”
Seeing another couple leave their suite a few doors down and not wanting to continue standing there making a scene, Maria slipped her card from her pocket and slid it into her door. When she did it, a hard, dark hand reached around her and pushed the latch down and the door opened.
She gasped and tried to turn, not expecting that he’d try to get inside her room. She thought his intention earlier had only been to try to separate her from the men she was sitting with. She mumbled, “You can’t come in,” but it was already too late.
He propelled her forward into the suite with a firm hand at her back and then he stepped inside and turned and latched the door. As if in a daze, she stood still as he took the glass from her hand and put it to his nose. Looking her in the eye, he took a sip, obviously testing her, and then set the glass on the bureau next to the television.
Ignoring his lack of faith in her word, she swallowed and tried again, “I don’t want you in here, Garrett.”
“Don’t much care,” he bit out succinctly as he took a small white card from his back pocket and tossed it on the bureau next to the glass.
