Tycoon Takes Revenge

by Anna DePalo

  He looked into her eyes. “I’ll tell you. Bentley Mathison. You were thrown for a loop.”

  He saw too much, and she still didn’t want to talk about it. She gave him a shove, intending to get him to loosen his grip, but instead, she threw off his center of gravity, and he fell backward onto the couch, taking her with him.

  They landed in a heap. Her breasts pressed against his chest, his erection nestled against her and their legs tangled together.

  She froze. She felt him everywhere, and he felt so good. It had been months since she’d had sex, and before that she’d hardly been a swinger. Despite her seemingly glamorous life, a lot of her socializing was work-related.

  And now here was Noah Whittaker: Heartthrob. Former racing stud. Playboy millionaire. Scion of one of Boston’s leading families. Underneath her. On her couch.

  Oh boy. She lifted her head and her eyes connected with his green ones.

  The sides of his mouth had teased upward. “If you wanted to be on top, all you had to do was say so.” Then he kissed her.

  It was easy to kiss him back. After all, gravity was in Noah’s favor. All she needed to do was relax—relax into him. It was all too easy.

  He didn’t grope. He didn’t come on too strong or too fast. It was all seamless and smooth. She realized it took a lot of skill to make things seem so natural.

  She was barely aware of his fingers slipping up her stockinged thigh, raising her skirt in the process, until his hand slid between her legs and made contact with the spot that was already hot and wet and wanting him.

  She felt his touch—light, feathery and quick—and tensed against it. They really shouldn’t be doing this.

  Still, he was evoking a response from her. She moaned, pressing into his hand. Being with Noah felt delicious, wicked and, yes, forbidden.

  “Let go, Kayla,” he breathed into her ear. “Let go.”

  Yes. The whisper of his breath in her ear was the last push that led to her unraveling. She came then, responding to the sure touch of his fingers at her center, the tension of the evening rolling away from her, leaving her sapped and languid.

  Slumped against him, she let out a shaky breath, surprised to find tears pricking her eyes, her head relaxing on the curve of his shoulder.

  He stroked her back, not saying anything. At some point he caressed her hair, moving the sheet of it back to uncover her face.

  She found it all very soothing—tender, really, which was the last emotion that she would have expected to experience with Noah.

  “All right, now?” he said, his voice deep, and she felt his question as it rumbled up from his chest.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. And yet, she’d never been less all right in her life. A lot of things that she’d accepted as fixtures in her life had come unstuck tonight, and there was no putting them back into place.

  Over the next few days, Kayla had a lot of time to ponder what had almost happened in her apartment on Saturday night and what, in fact, had.

  Noah had taken down her defenses and had had a glimpse of what lay behind them, and there was no undoing that. He’d just been so persistent, but she couldn’t seem to find it in her to get mad about it.

  She’d also seen a side of him that, she was sure, was rarely on public display. He’d been amazingly kind and concerned when he’d seen her reaction to Bentley Mathison.

  The only problem was that along with the newly found peace that had descended on her relationship with Noah came the realization she’d gotten intimately involved with the subject for her news story. A definite nono in journalism.

  And, she couldn’t let herself forget, Noah was well skilled at seduction, just like Bentley Mathison had been twenty-eight years ago.

  Therefore, there was no doubt in her mind, as she followed Noah around Whittaker Enterprises later that week, that she had to lay down the law: no kissing, no sexual touching and, above all, no orgasms. Just thinking about how she’d responded to him on Saturday night caused her to heat.

  She jotted notes as Noah kept up a running monologue about nanotechnology, among other things, as they strolled the halls, occasionally stopping to talk to a team leader or other tech employee. The conversations were sprinkled with references to proton-powered molecular biomotors, zero-dimensional objects, quantum computing and entangled particles.

  Finally Noah stopped and slanted her a look. “Are you getting all this?”

  She looked up from her scribbling. “Yes.”

  “Great.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already after six. Want to catch some dinner?”

  She took a deep breath. She had to do this. “Sorry. I can’t.”

  “How about tomorrow night then?”

  She shook her head.

  Following him around today had been doing fluttery things to her pulse, not to mention making her all nervous and quivery. Being so close to him now, looking into his deep green eyes, she felt the full force of his compelling charisma, the type of charisma shared by the best sports stars and that sent their fans into paroxysms of screaming worshipfulness.

  Plus, now that she’d experienced his warm and caring side the other night, she’d just lost her best defense against him. But resist him, she had to.

  “Okay,” he said easily, “what about the night after next?”

  She took another fortifying breath. “Noah, we—I can’t. It would be wrong. I’m here to do a story about Whittaker Enterprises. I can’t compromise that. Thank you for being so supportive when I needed a shoulder to lean on after the charity benefit on Saturday night, but what happened afterward…”

  “Shouldn’t have?”

  “Right.” This was so hard, especially since she wanted him like crazy, and even though she was crazy for wanting him.

  He took his time answering, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You should know I don’t give up easily. Saturday night something started between us. I don’t know about you but I vote for doing some more exploring.”

  She experienced a little thrill at his words despite herself. Stop it, she warned herself. Aloud, she said, “You promised you’d cooperate for this story.”

  He smiled wolfishly and leaned down toward her. “Yeah, but I didn’t promise not to pursue you.”

  Suddenly she felt as if she’d been caught in a Venus flytrap. From what she’d already seen, Noah’s seduction skills were well honed. And she was weak. Weak.

  He searched her face, then sighed and straightened. “How much more time did I promise you for this story?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Okay, you’ve got them, but after that, sweetheart—” he gave her an intense look “—the gloves come off. You’ve got two more weeks to finish this story. After that, I’m coming after you.”

  She should have responded that he could pursue all he wanted—she had no intention of giving in—but the words wouldn’t come. Weak. Weak. All she managed to say was a lame “But people will think we were involved while I was writing this story, despite all our denials up until now. It’ll undermine everything.”

  He took a step forward and rested his hands on the cubicle wall behind her so that she was trapped between his outstretched arms. Fortunately, it was after regular business hours and most of the staff had already departed.

  “Let people think what they want,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I got used to ignoring most of what people say a long time ago.”

  “But—”

  He ducked in for a quick kiss. “But nothing. Are you going to deny you’re attracted to me?”

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t. And, if it was up to her to hold out against jumping into bed together, they were in big trouble.

  Noah made his pursuit of Kayla more dogged as the days passed. He lured her to dinner one night. Two days later, when she was at Whittaker Enterprises again, he coaxed her into having a drink with him after work.

  He was fiendishly persistent. But, because he’d promised not to, he didn’t put any heavy moves on her—as much as i
t killed him not to. Now that he’d had a taste of her, he found himself wanting more.

  Yeah, she was still a gossip columnist, and he was often gossip fodder. But she was also a leggy blond with a great shape, and he was weak. Weak.

  Not only that, he liked the way she challenged him, refusing to be cowed. Sometimes, he admitted to himself, he worried about losing brain cells when talking with Huffy, Fluffy, Buffy or any of the rest of them. He remembered Kayla’s jibe at the book-launch party about his taste in women, and now he let himself admit that what she’d said may have contained an iota of truth.

  Still, he was patient with her. He bided his time. After the night at the Charlesbank Association event, he knew that building trust with Kayla was key. Now that he understood the nature of her relationship to Bentley Mathison, he figured being left by her biological father—even if she was too young to remember when it had happened—had done a lot to influence her relationship with men. Particularly men like him.

  So, he pursued her unfalteringly but quietly. On Saturday afternoon, he got her to go out with him to a racetrack near the New Hampshire border where he still occasionally raced cars for fun. She’d tried to demur, but he’d argued it would give her a fuller picture of Noah Whittaker, computer guru.

  So, she’d agreed to come along, ostensibly for research purposes, and he’d tamped down the well of satisfaction at having her along. If nothing else, it meant he could keep an eye on her. Because he’d be damned if he held back only to see some other guy take advantage of her availability.

  When they arrived at the racetrack, he watched as she looked around. “Do you come here to keep your driving skills honed?” she asked.

  “That, and doing a few laps around the track is a good way to blow off steam. It gets my mind focused on something different.” He didn’t expect her to understand about his love affair with fast cars. Nevertheless, he cocked his head and said, “Want to tag along and find out what it’s like?”

  “How?” she said. “Don’t Indy cars have room only for the driver?”

  “There are two-seater stock cars here at the track that they keep for instructors and students.” Unlike low-to-the-ground, bullet-shaped Indy cars, stock cars superficially resembled regular cars on the road; they could be modified to include a front passenger seat.

  “Didn’t you race Indy cars professionally?” she asked quizzically.

  He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “Sometimes I race stock cars down here. I like the variety. Besides, stock-car racing’s taken off in the past few years.” He slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “So, are you game?”

  She looked at him, then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  “Yes?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you expected me to say no,” she said wryly, her lips quirking.

  Well, well, he mused. Apparently, his Ms. Rumor-Has-It—he didn’t stop to analyze when she’d become his Ms. Rumor-Has-It—didn’t shy away from a challenge. He found he liked that about her, and he filed the information away for future reference as they went to get the correct protective equipment and wait for their race car to be pulled out.

  At the administrative office, they signed the required forms, and then he grinned as she tried on a helmet.

  “How’s this for a fashion statement?” she asked, amused.

  “Would you believe sexy?” he replied.

  The moment stretched out between them—fraught with need and suppressed desire—until she cleared her throat and said, “We should be getting back outside. The car’s ready.”

  He had it bad. Since when did a woman in a helmet send his temperature shooting up?

  When they’d walked back outside and were strapped into the race car, he said, “Last chance to bail. You know, no one will fault you for reporting from the sidelines on this one.”

  “Forget it.”

  “If you beg for mercy, I’ll stop,” he teased.

  “Fat chance,” she retorted.

  He grinned. “Anyway, I plan to go easy for the, uh, virgin riders in the car.”

  She lowered her visor with a click and, chuckling, he angled the car onto the track.

  The ride was like it usually was for him: the next best thing to sex. He accelerated to a cool one-hundred-fifty miles an hour, and they were jostled and bumped as the well-tuned machine roared beneath them and raced over the asphalt. His attention was focused on the racetrack ahead and on every pull and jerk of the car beneath him. Everything else faded into a peripheral blur as he took oncoming turns with smooth calibration, correcting for the car’s tendency to head in a straight line.

  It was fifteen minutes later when he finally pulled into the pit and stopped. When they got out of the car, he looked over at Kayla. Whatever he’d been expecting to see, it wasn’t the grin that greeted him. She looked exhilarated.

  “That was great!” she said, still holding her helmet.

  His lips quirked up. Not a single one of the women he’d dated had shown any interest in racing, let alone riding in a car with him. The helmet alone would have ruined their hair—but Kayla was apparently a different breed.

  “Are you sure you’re not a speed addict?” he teased.

  She arched a brow. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I love roller coasters. I guess that was one thing Samantha forgot to mention to you.”

  Her smile almost undid him. After that, it was a real effort to keep his hands off her. He wanted to make love with her again and again, mate with her, and stamp her as his.

  It was crazy to get an acute stab of primal lust just because a woman liked speed, but there it was.

  Fortunately, he knew his days of having to take cold showers were numbered. Soon, their remaining week and a half would be up and Kayla would announce she had enough to write her story.

  “Really?” Noah said as casually as possible on Kayla’s last day visiting Whittaker Enterprises on the following Tuesday.

  “Yes,” she said. “The article will be appearing in Thursday’s paper. I want to thank you for your cooperation.”

  The way she said that last part had him focusing on her mouth. He wanted to kiss it. Now. He’d been patient, but his self-control had started to ebb.

  “No problem,” he murmured.

  She shifted, seeming suddenly nervous. “Yes, everyone’s been very helpful.”

  “Yeah.” He strove to stay focused. “I hope you got enough about nanotechnology and its application to quantum computing.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got enough to know you’re on the verge of some real breakthroughs here.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’ll be great when we finally succeed in making a portable supercomputer.”

  He realized their conversation was becoming inane, but neither of them seemed able to stop talking. Suddenly struck with an idea, he said, “You know, the development team that just launched that new B-Smart PDA product on the market is going down to the Cayman Islands this coming weekend for a few days to celebrate at the firm’s expense.” At her raised eyebrows, he grinned. “Yeah, we treat our employees well. We have to. They’re highly skilled, and our competition is stiff.”

  “Right,” she said, looking like she was wondering where he was going with this.

  “You should come down with us. It’ll be a good postscript to the story you’re writing and—who knows?—you may even get another story out of it.”

  He didn’t have to add what they were both thinking: now that her story was about to be written and filed, her time was up and the gloves were off. If she came down to the Caymans, there was a good chance they’d wind up sleeping together. Pushing his luck where she was concerned had served him well so far, so he figured the tactic had a decent chance of working now.

  “I don’t know—”

  “If it makes your journalistic soul feel better,” he cajoled, “we’ve overbooked plane tickets. It’d be no different than journalists r
iding along on Air Force One when writing about the President.”

  She looked like she doubted it, so he changed tactics. “I’ve booked a hotel suite. It’s got two bedrooms and two baths.” He didn’t have to state the obvious: he wouldn’t pressure her to sleep with him, but if the opportunity arose…

  “Traveling in style, huh?” she quipped.

  He shrugged and said unapologetically, “One of the perks of the job.”

  She paused, then said, “Okay.”

  As he looked into her upturned face, her golden-brown eyes wide and limpid, he knew, as she did, that there was a wealth of meaning behind that “okay,” and he planned to explore every nuance of it.

  Eight

  The Cayman Islands. They’d arrived at the airport on Grand Cayman just after lunchtime, having taken an early morning flight. From the moment Kayla had stepped off the plane, it had been warmth, sunshine and fun wherever she looked. Fun in the sun with Noah Whittaker. She still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to come.

  Noah had booked the penthouse hotel suite in one of the best island resorts, located right along the well-known Seven Mile Beach. The view from their hotel balcony was of endless ocean, which was bright and inviting in the daylight sun, and, Kayla supposed, dark and mysterious under the moon at night.

  Looking down now at the bikini that she was wearing, she wondered whether it had seemed so small when she’d packed it—or whether it had just lost inches while airborne.

  She spun in front of the mirror on the bathroom door. As she turned to the side, her gaze came to rest again on the king-size bed that dominated the hotel bedroom.

  She’d known from the moment she’d accepted Noah’s invitation that they’d wind up there together.

  Yet, he hadn’t pressured her. Instead, he’d taken over the other bedroom in the suite. But she knew, as surely as the sun rose in the morning, they would end up making love.

  “Ready?” Noah called from the living room, causing her to jump a little.

  She took a deep breath. “Just a minute.”

  She put on a sarong-like wrap that matched the tropical colors of her bikini, then grabbed her beach bag off the bed.