by Sierra Rose
“Is this a date without the paparazzi?” he asked.
“Not really a date.”
“Really? It feels romantic to me. I’m sitting here with a beautiful woman in a remote spot enjoying a picnic lunch. We’re surrounded by breathtaking beauty. What’s not romantic about that?”
She nudged him with a smirk. “Not a date. But thanks for the compliment.”
“Not a date? Wow. You sure know how to hurt a man’s ego. So no hot make-out sessions?”
“I’m afraid not. Try not to look so disappointed.”
He glanced down at his phone. “I think I need to text to the paparazzi our precise location. Then we’ll be forced to give them a show.”
She playfully slapped him. “Stop that! No calling the press. I just want it to be us. I brought you out here to show you that there is more to life than being chained to an office desk. You’re feeling the stress from everything. And I wanted to take you to a quiet, peaceful, tranquil place to de-stress.”
“It’s working wonders for my soul,” he said.
“Good. Because that was the plan.”
An eagle flew overhead in the bright blue sky, soaring right past them. They enjoyed their time in the serene canyon and enjoyed Arizona’s breathtaking beauty all around them.
“I noticed how much you love the outdoors,” Harvey said.
“Yeah. I used to come out here to get away from my dad when he was drunk. My sister and I used to spend hours outside, and we both loved it. Whenever I’m stressed, I find a place outside and soak it all in. You can’t run from your problems. But it was nice to get away and enjoy a few moments of tranquility. I had lots of bad times, but there were good times too. When my dad was sober, we’d used to go to the beach. I can still remember the smell of salt in the air, and the sound of seagulls flying overhead, my feet squishing in the soft sand, and the waves crashing on the shore. We’d all play volleyball, then get ice cream, then feed the seagulls some bread. So I guess I associate happy moments with being outside.”
“Those are nice memories.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the desert. And now I have. I can cross it off my bucket list.”
He glanced around. “It’s beautiful out here. So majestic, so mind-blowing. I’m so glad you made me stop and smell the damn roses.”
She laughed at his comment.
“Yeah. It’s just gorgeous. I’ve come out here a few times on my days off. I was so amazed by the sights that I thought I’d drag you out here kicking and screaming.”
“I didn’t kick or scream. I love spending time with you, Bella. You’ve shown me all the things I’m missing out on. Living life in an office isn’t right. In the short time we’ve known each other, you’ve shown me things nobody else ever has. You’ve made me see things nobody else has.”
“If I can leave you with anything, it’s…go out and live life. Life is not all about money, status, and power. Take a deep breath. Look around you. You know I’m right.”
She gazed into those pretty eyes of his and felt her stomach flutter.
“You’ve taught me a valuable life changing lesson I’ll never forget. Constantly checking my email is wasting my life. I guess I never realized how consumed by my work I actually was.”
“If you live to work, you’re missing out on the best parts of life.”
“I am beginning to see that. Sometimes, I find it hard to relax.”
“Sometimes?”
“All right. A lot.”
“It’s all about balance. And right now, the scale is tipped all the way down, and work’s winning.”
“My father told me I’d never amount to anything,” he confessed, his voice soft. “And I guess I want to prove him wrong. I’ve never told anyone that.”
“You’ve done so much. I think you’ve proved to your dad how much you’ve amounted too. He’s proud of you, and so am I. So try to slow down a little.”
“I don’t want to be how the press sees me,” he said.
“You’re used to seducing women and getting what you want.”
“That’s not who I want to be. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I had a bad role model. My old man chased women all the time. And sadly, I followed in his footsteps. I had women. Money. Status. Power. A mansion. A plane. A yacht. I thought I had a perfect life, but I’m seeing, it’s not really so perfect after all. I want to be a better man so that one day I can truly deserve someone like you.”
Their eyes locked, and they shared a moment of silence.
And man was the eye contact intense!
He lowered his head, and his lips brushed across hers. His lips felt soft and smooth. She felt her breathing quicken as the electricity rushed through her.
He backed away. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not right for me to get involved with a valuable employee. You could be running one of my companies one day.”
She grinned. “You can count on it.” He had so much confidence in her. “But that’s the future. For now, let’s talk about the present when this job is over?” she asked. “Will I still be working for you? And what will we tell the others?”
“You want to go back to housekeeping?”
“I know you’re giving me money for this job, but I’ll be using it for college, to pay off debt, to help with my sister’s tuition. I’ll need to make a living until I graduate from school.”
“If you want to stay, I can give you a job at the office. I can start teaching you stuff, and once you get your degree, I can get you a better position at the company.”
“So I guess my cleaning days are over. No more working for somebody to make their counters shine.”
“That job was a stepping stool and nothing more. There’s no reason ever to be ashamed of it. You’re smart, intelligent, and driven. You’re going to go far in life. You’re a strong, confident woman, and I know nothing is going to stop you.”
He touched her hand, and she felt a shiver shoot up her spine.
“But I can’t live in your house as an employee. Especially after the fake break up. I’ll have to go back to the guesthouse. And then I have to pretend we dated and broke up. And I don’t want to have to lie. Maybe I’ll just get my own apartment. They don’t work at your office. So I wouldn’t have to lie.”
“That sounds like a great plan.”
Chapter 16
One night, Bella gave up on sleep entirely, wriggled into her bathing suit and went for a midnight swim in the pool. Her arms sliced through the lit up water, the rhythmic kick of her legs soothing as the soft splashing that lulled into the silence of the empty night all around.
She didn’t see him get in so much as she felt a disturbance in the water, a ripple of waves she hadn’t set into motion. Surfacing, she looked Harvey right in the face, his blond hair dripping wet, his clothes in a heap beside the pool. Shirtless and muscular and way too close for comfort, he swam up beside her. The moonlight shone down on him. Droplets of water ran down his beautiful face, and his hair was all slicked back.
He was so sexy, so alluring. All kinds of fantasies swirled in her mind, but she tried to play it cool.
“Long day?” she remarked.
His piercing gaze never left hers. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And I had to come and see you, because seeing you is the best part of my day.”
She touched his muscular chest. “You’re not supposed to think about me in a fake relationship.”
“That’s the thing, Bella. I don’t want this to be a fake relationship. It’s not fair that I only get to kiss you when the cameras are rolling. There aren’t any cameras here. So I know I’m not supposed to be here trying to sneak a kiss. But screw the rules. It’s just us. That’s all I want, Bella. Just us. No cameras. These feelings I’m having for you. They’re real. So damn real. And I’m not sure what to do with them.”
“I know we’re both attracted to one another, that much is clear.”
“It’s more than a
ttraction. You’ve stolen my heart. All I can think about is kissing you.”
She shot him a seductive look. “I want this too, but we have to keep it professional. And you said you were a man of your word. A kiss could be a deal breaker. And we wouldn’t to break our verbal contract.”
His arms wrapped around her. “I say we renegotiate the contract.”
Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Or just add in a clause.”
“Kissing without media attention would be okay.”
“Hmm,” she said. “That’s very interesting. So that would mean we could kiss anytime we wanted?”
“I’m thinking open-mouthed, tongue-included, wet kissing at any time, at any day. Can you handle such a clause?”
“I think we need bulletproof terms,” she said. “What if kissing leads to more?”
“Kissing can lead to great sex.”
“I love to kiss, and be kissed. I love great sex too.”
He touched her face, covered her mouth with his without saying another word. Her wet arms wound around his neck and she murmured against his lips, a protest perhaps that was lost to raging passion as his tongue dipped into her mouth, tasting of chlorine and heat and everything she’d been wanting.
“There’s something about you that keeps me wanting more,” he said against her throat. “I want to make you feel what you’ve never felt before.”
She practically purred when he licked her neck and pulled her fast against him.
Bella melted then, as if all her resolve, all her perfectly rational objections to hooking up with Harvey, to hoping for a real relationship with Harvey, evaporated, burned up in the inferno of his kiss. She held nothing back then. The only thing that had kept her apart from him was the belief fact that he didn’t want her. Now that she knew it wasn’t all an act for Harvey, she was his.
Bella wrapped herself around him, that was the only way to describe the way her long legs and her arms enveloped him, winding around his hips and kissing him crazily, like she’d never stop. She put every ounce of love and attraction she felt for him into that kiss.
Harvey moved his mouth to her neck, igniting sparks of desire in her, sending hot and cold chills all along her body. She wanted more. So she reached for him, clung to him. Bella held on to his shoulders as his mouth dipped below her collarbone and into her cleavage. She moaned and pressed his face closer.
He untied the knot at the back of her string bikini and stripped it off of her, leaving the twin orange triangles of spandex to float off away from them. The chill of the water along her bare breasts shocked her, and she felt goosebumps creep along her skin before his warm palms engulfed her breasts. Her nipples beaded hard with longing at his touch. She rubbed up against him, pressing her nipples into his hands eagerly.
With one motion, Harvey lifted her up and set her on the edge of the pool, topless and trembling for him. He vaulted out of the pool and grabbed a towel, gently wiping the water from her face, her neck, then rubbing the soft terrycloth toweling across her sensitive breasts, teasing her nipples with the rough texture of the fabric, then brushing it against her stomach.
Bella wriggled at his ministrations and finally sat up, gripping his face between her hands and kissing him hard. She climbed onto his lap, straddling his hips. She could feel the pressure of his thick arousal and she rubbed against it hungrily, reveling in the sensation.
Within seconds, they had stripped off the remainder of her bikini and freed his erection. He probed the softness between her legs with the stiff, hard shaft and she sank onto him with a groan of pleasure. She bit down on his earlobe as she rocked on top of him. Harvey’s hand pressed on the small of her back, moving her against him at the rhythm he wanted, schooling her in the proper way to get him off. The wet slide of him made her feel breathless and needy, her nails digging into his shoulder as she held on tight.
Icy droplets of water from her hair slid down her chest as he thrust inside of her. The trail of chilly water on her sensitive nipples aroused her even more, and she started to grind against him until he took her by the hips and held her down, pumping into her hard until something bright and cold and amazing seemed to explode inside of her. As her high screams split the night, she felt him come, felt the tremor in his arms, the quickening of his breath and his guttural groan into her wet hair as he climaxed.
When Bella lay against him, spent and shaken, he kissed her face, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips a hundred times. He stretched out at full length on the stone and let her lay on top of him, his arms closing around her. She felt the wetness between her legs where he had been and she wanted to cry from yearning to have him back there. She nuzzled against his chest.
He just stroked her hair, not questioning her rush of emotion. She scolded herself that he was probably used to having women so overcome with pleasure and affection that they got emotional in his arms. It was probably an everyday occurrence for Harvey Carlson. Momentary girlfriend. The hookup too moved by his prowess to realize that skill is no substitute for devotion. She reproved herself for thinking their coupling by the pool could be more. All he had said was that he wanted her. Which was hardly a declaration of love. She disengaged from his arms.
“I’m sorry, Bella,” Harvey said. “I got carried away. I know I promised our bargain would be platonic.”
“Please don’t apologize. I insisted on our little clause. I wanted this just as much as you did.”
“We wanted each other. We’ve been together so much, and all the posturing for the media is bound to build some sexual tension. For myself, I’ve had feelings for you for weeks. I was thrilled to find out that you reciprocated those feelings and had an interest in me beyond the payday.”
“We crossed a line. We had a deal and…”
“Why is a business arrangement the only way to be together? The world already thinks we’re a couple. Why not make it real? Why not be together all we want?”
“Because I don’t think it’s possible for me to be with you and not believe in it. I’d start to think it was true love or something, just the way we’re showing it to the world.”
“Why can’t it be?”
“Because life doesn’t work like that. Boys like you don’t fall for girls like me, Harvey. They might flirt with us or dance with us, or even have a roll in the hay, but it’s nothing but a fairy tale beyond that.”
“Do you really think you and I are bound by some sort of class system? You’re the girl I chose out of everyone to be my pretend-fiancee, after all.”
She laughed. “Is that supposed to be funny? Because I’ve told you. I don’t sleep around, and I’m at risk for falling for you very hard. It’s no joke.”
“I’m not joking, honey. I mean it. I like you, Bella, and I think we have a chance, as good a chance as anyone. Now come upstairs with me and let me prove it to you.”
“You have no idea how much I want to believe you, but it’s too risky for me. I washed dishes at the Hog n Tater! You went to Wharton. There’s a gulf there that no amount of—of sexual attraction could bridge.”
“I don’t think you can technically bridge an entire gulf. A moat maybe, or a great divide. But a gulf would be too huge, geographically speaking.”
“Your attitude isn’t helping your case here, buddy,” she said, cracking a smile in spite of herself.
“Maybe even a canyon but definitely not a gulf. Like the Gulf of Mexico is something like five hundred miles across at the narrowest point. Mississippi Delta to the Yucatan Peninsula. I read that when I researched our Mexican trip, just so you know.”
“How do you even know that?”
“I told you. I looked up information about Mexico.”
“And decided to memorize facts about the gulf? Really?”
“I’m a Renaissance man, what can I say? I like you and want to spend more time with you. I’m not saying I’m ready to settle down because I’m not, but that shouldn’t be an obstacle for us. Not when I want you this much,” he grinned.
> He was so damn appealing when he grinned that something inside her lurched terribly.
“I like you, Harvey. I’d like to be with you, but I don’t trust it.”
“So don’t trust it, whatever IT is. Trust me instead. I’m not going to do you wrong, honey. There’s no risk of that. I’m exactly what you think I am—a rich guy who’s slept around too much and spends most of his time at work. Who doesn’t appreciate dessert and who works out to keep from thinking about you all the time.”
“Really?”
“Sexual tension, as you termed it, comes with a truckload of extra physical energy. I had to do something to keep my hands off you.”
“Why? I mean, why did you keep your hands off me? I’ve wanted them to be on me,” she said, a little bashfully, her cheeks flushing.
“Then definitely come upstairs with me. We have things to settle, and I think my hands would like very much to be on you.”
She giggled, a feeling of joy rising in her, a belief blooming in her heart that maybe, just maybe a man like Harvey Carlson could learn to love a girl like her.
Chapter 17
They were happy. They spent the next day in bed together. He left Greta a message to cancel his meetings, that he needed a personal day. Then he turned off his phone and devoted all his considerable attention to awakening Bella’s body. He kissed parts of her that had most definitely never been kissed before. He made her laugh, and he made her scream, and he was everything to her. She thought of nothing else.
“There is only you,” she told him, still too afraid to admit she was falling in love, even to herself. He had kissed her then and told her she was his. These were the finest, most beautiful days she had ever known.
When he went to work, he called her, he messaged her, he sent her hilarious Snaps and even asked her opinion about business matters. She blazed through coursework faster than ever before, bringing in stellar grades and outpacing the syllabus to turn in assignments listed before the topics were even due. She felt that she was inside of a rainbow, swirls of brilliant color all around her and everything was easy and beautiful with Harvey by her side.
