by Kim Law
And that he was now keeping his father’s love child a secret.
He rolled to his side and faced her. Better to try the Savannah option first. “You need to call the station and tell them you’re taking tomorrow off. Will they mind?”
“No.” Her body was so relaxed she’d be asleep within minutes.
He’d already called Beverly earlier to cancel his morning appointments. He would e-mail her in the morning to do the same with the afternoon ones, and to ask her to call the school to get Daniel enrolled this week. He wasn’t one to use his name to call in a lot of favors, but for this he would.
Reaching across Vega, he grabbed the room phone, studying the instructions on how to call the States. “Tell me the number and I’ll dial it for you.”
She shook her head and dug in deeper against his side. “It’s too late.”
“It’s only eleven thirty.” He nudged her shoulder to wake her up. “Come on. Someone has to be there you can talk to. What’s the number?”
One dark eye peeked up at him. “They won’t care.”
He paused. “That you aren’t coming in tomorrow?”
“That I’m not coming in ever.” She closed her eyes and rolled to her other side, her rear now nestled to the front of his crotch. “I got fired,” she mumbled.
“What?”
One slim shoulder moved up and down in front of him. “Practically.” Her muffled voice barely made its way to him.
Anger on her behalf burned through him. “What does that mean?” He dropped the phone back into its cradle and rolled her over onto her back so he could see her, but she didn’t make eye contact. “When did this happen?”
“Last night, before the auction.” Her eyes remained closed, and her voice broke his heart. She sounded younger, more lost than he’d ever heard her. No fire in her at all.
“But you worked last night.”
“I’m not officially fired yet. Bob told me the call had come down, and since he can’t talk me into being in front of the camera, he’s going to have to let me go.”
“But you’ve won awards,” JP said. “I’ve seen them.”
Her eyes finally opened, and she stared up at him with dark, solemn orbs. “You Googled me too.”
Heat threatened to tint his cheeks at the unintended admission. He could tell her it had been purely about making sure she wasn’t a threat to his family or name, but the fact was, the more he’d searched, the more he’d been interested in her rather than in whether she had some deep, dark secret he needed to know about. With only a bit of reluctance, he nodded to confirm her suspicions.
A slight smile touched her lips, and he had to fight the urge to lean back in and kiss her. They needed to finish this discussion, not skim over it because he wanted her again. In fact, they needed to do more than have the discussion.
“We should go back so you can go to work tomorrow. You have to change their minds. I’ll call Michael to ready the plane.” He reached for the phone, but her small hand stopped him.
“Don’t,” she said. “It won’t help.”
He looked down at her, desperate to remove the lost sound from her voice. “It will help. You said it wasn’t official yet. You can—”
“It will be in two weeks,” she interrupted. “They aren’t even expecting me back.”
Selfishness flared as he realized that meant she could stay in Atlanta while he figured out what this was between them, but that fact didn’t ease the knot in his gut. He couldn’t help feeling like he needed to fix this.
He reached for the covers that had gotten shoved to the foot of the bed, and pulled them up. “Then we’ll find you another job.”
He could even rent her a place in the city if she preferred to take time off until she decided what she wanted to do next. Something told him it wouldn’t be that simple.
“Maybe you’ll still get that job in Atlanta you wanted. Surely they’ll still consider you for the position.”
Instead of answering, she rolled to her side to reach toward the lamp. He watched her smooth, narrow back stretch away from him until the light clicked off and they were cast into shadows. A strip of light from the bathroom trickled into the room, but it didn’t make it to the bed.
When she settled back under the covers, she didn’t lie as close to him as she had before. He closed the distance and wrapped an arm and a leg around her, relaxing into her when she didn’t protest. He curled his hand lightly around her breast. “The Atlanta job will come through.”
A thin sigh slid through the night before her quiet voice hit his ears. “Since I didn’t get the interview with you, I won’t get that job either.”
A slab of concrete settled right in the middle of his chest. He had cost Vega her job.
Damn.
Before he could figure out what he could possibly say to that, she drifted off to sleep, her deep breaths comforting him in a way he couldn’t recall feeling since he’d been a very young boy.
He closed his eyes and held her tight. He would worry about fixing it tomorrow. Right now he just wanted to hold her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VEGA WOKE TO the smell of bacon and the sound of JP’s voice. At first she thought he was talking to room service, then realized from the lack of any other voice during his pauses, he must be on the phone. She glanced at the clock. It was barely six. It was far too early for her, personally, to consider working, but she was curious as to whether he’d so quickly gone back into business mode now that the night was over. It was Monday morning, after all.
She slipped from the bed and edged closer, hoping to make out his words.
“She won’t be pleased to hear it.” Pause. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing. She jumped into the ocean without thought to anything but the kid.”
He was talking about her?
“Of course she wouldn’t have let him drown, but there were others around. She could have easily brought it to someone else’s attention.”
She heard clicking as if he were on a computer keyboard. Then he laughed.
“Cute.” Pause. “Huh?” Pause. Laugh. “Yes, fine. You were right. I wanted her to win.”
Who was he talking to? She grabbed the robe she’d so boldly tossed off the night before, and tiptoed to the doorway. JP stood in the living room, nothing on but his slacks, looking out the open patio doors. There was a room service cart near the dining room table, and the sound of waves crashed in the background.
He remained quiet for so long she began to think he’d lost the connection. She took a step out of the room, but froze when he started talking again.
“I gave it thought, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I’d rather put it off as long as possible.” Long pause. “You’ve got to be kidding me. President isn’t even something I can consider for another five years.”
Vega’s eyes widened.
President?
She shook her head. Of course. President. That was the plan, after all. Everyone had expected that for years. But it still took her by surprise to hear him talk about it. That had been one of the things about him that’d shocked her so since meeting him. He barely talked politics.
For a man about to step into the limelight, and who would someday be gearing up for a presidential run, it certainly never seemed to be foremost on his mind.
“Yes, I know. I’m a Davenport. Of course I want to be president someday.”
Vega stared at the long, sinewy muscles of his back, now bunched, and noted the dry tone of his voice. He didn’t want to be president? She flashed back to their first conversation when he’d said his accepting the senatorial seat wasn’t yet decided. She’d assumed he was kidding, but was that the reason for the delay in making the announcement? Did JP not want to be a politician?
Suddenly realizing she was eavesdropping, she turned around to leave but got caught in the act.
“I’ve got to go, Cat. Vega’s up.” Pause. “Fine. Yeah. I’ll think about it some more.”
She faced the man she’
d just spent the better portion of the night exploring, and smiled, awkwardness filling her at the thought of everything they’d done to each other. “Good morning.”
He crossed to her and planted a kiss on her mouth that came close to having her shucking the robe and dragging him back to bed. “Morning,” he murmured.
“You must have gotten Cat out of bed early.” She didn’t want to pry, but they had been talking about her.
One eyebrow rose. “She’s the one who called me.”
“Oh.” She rounded the food cart and peeked under a lid, finding what she wanted. She pulled out a piece of bacon, holding it up in the air as she talked. “I just assumed you’d been up a while.”
JP bit off the end of the crisp pork she held in her hand, then grinned at her shocked gape. The man had a bad habit of snatching food out of her hand. But then, she kind of liked that he was comfortable enough with her to do that.
“I have been up,” he began. “I routinely rise at five, so when I woke, I got some work done, then decided we would both probably need more than chocolate cake to refuel us.” His eyes glinted at the implication of why they might need reenergizing. “Cat called before I could serve you in bed.”
The naughty look on his face made her wish she’d stayed in bed. “Something wrong with Cat?”
He motioned to the computer screen on the corner workstation. “We made the Internet.”
Anxiety straightened her spine. She’d known being out with him would cause this to happen. She took in the picture on the monitor and let out a breath of relief that it was only one of her looking like a drowned rat, while he stood by her side, holding her hand. The caption indicated they didn’t know who she was, but that would be righted soon enough. Someone had wanted this up overnight, but as soon as they put two and two together and reviewed the video from the auction, she’d be found out.
She glanced up at him. “The alley? Anything show up from that?’
“Not yet.”
Yet. They both knew it was only a matter of time.
Nodding, she crunched on another piece of bacon and scrolled down the screen. There was another shot of them darting off toward the trees, but not one of him carrying her across the parking lot.
She smiled at the memory. “Sorry I lost the shoes you bought me yesterday. They were really nice shoes.”
He stepped up behind her and circled her waist. “And you looked really good in them.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She giggled. She’d tried to talk him into a less expensive pair, but he’d insisted they were the ones that went perfectly with the dress. And she did like awesome shoes. She tilted her head back and squinted up at him. “I imagine the dress is ruined too.”
“Not even on my radar, sweetheart.” He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her mouth and she turned in his arms, but he ended the moment before it could develop into something more. “Let’s talk about your job situation. I’ve been online most of the morning—”
“No,” she interrupted vehemently. The last thing she wanted to do right then was think about the fact that she had nothing to go back home to. “We’re here to have fun, right?”
He gave a slight nod. “Yeah, but we need to talk about this. It was my fault, so I should—”
“You should do nothing. It wasn’t your fault, JP. They were planning cuts whether I got the interview or not.”
“But if I’d agreed…”
His words trailed off because they both knew what would have happened if he’d agreed to do the interview. She’d have created a potentially award-worthy piece and gotten a new job. But none of those things would happen now, and she didn’t want to talk about that either.
“Maybe you should reconsider being on camera,” he started.
Pain clustered in her midsection. If only things were different. She shook her head. “It’s not an option.” She slid her hands up over his chest to link around his neck. “Can we get back to that kiss, please? You kind of left me riled up.”
His lids lowered as she could see him fighting with himself on whether to let her change the subject or not. With a muffled growl, he finally gave in. “Fine, but this conversation isn’t over.”
He pressed his mouth to hers so that they picked up right where they’d left off. With the flick of a wrist, he had her sash untied, then had her stripped bare a mere two seconds later.
She looked down at her naked parts. “You’re awfully good at that.”
“I’ve had some practice.” The smile coming back at her was worthy of the devil himself.
Jealousy reared its head, but she fought the urge to show it. As she’d stated the previous evening, being jealous meant she cared. She might not be able to turn off her feelings, but he certainly didn’t have to know about them.
The last thing she wanted was for him to think she would be one of his fawning women, doing anything and everything to get a few more measly minutes of his time.
It was simple. She was enjoying the date she’d humiliated herself to get. When they got home, she’d go back to her life and he’d go to his. Liking him or not would never come into play, and the fact that she’d known she was in way over her head when she’d darted off to hide in the shower the night before certainly didn’t matter either.
“Lots and lots of practice,” he teased, his voice low and sexy. He trailed a finger around the base of one breast until she whimpered and pushed into his hand. He closed over her, shooting a path of heat down her body that landed in her clit. “You’re still not jealous?”
She shook her head. She was definitely turned on though. “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve slept with plenty of men too.”
His eyes turned stormy at the admission, but she wasn’t about to tell him she could count the number of her lovers all on one hand. Without warning, he picked her up, and she squealed in surprise. She clutched her legs around his waist as he began striding, carrying her through the rooms until he reached the master bath, where he deposited her on the cold countertop.
She squealed again, rearing up off the granite, but he didn’t let her escape.
He pressed his hands to her hips and pushed her down, holding her there and leaning his agitated face into hers. “How about if I tell you the thought of you with other men does make me jealous?”
She eyed his square jaw. It had a little twitch toward the back on the right side. Was he trying to tell her he cared? She licked her lips and turned her nose up in the air, refusing to accept such. “It’s ego. I’m sure you say that to all your girls.”
“Vega.” He shot her a frustrated look. “Honey. You can be a pain in the butt when you want to, did you know that?”
Reaching inside the shower, he kept one hand on her, holding her down on the counter, and used his other to turn a knob. He then picked her up and unceremoniously dumped her under the freezing water. He closed the door and held it shut as she squeaked and squealed and jumped around, trying to keep the stinging water from turning her to ice.
“Let me out!” She banged her fist on the shower door.
“Tell me the thought of me with other women drives you crazy.”
“Never.”
He lost his pants and stood on the other side of the glass door, and she totally forgot the cold water or the fact that she could adjust the temperature herself if she was so inclined. Though he was acting jealous, it was clear there was a much stronger emotion churning through him at the moment.
She swallowed and licked her lips. She hadn’t had nearly enough looks at that thing the night before.
“Want to join me in here?” she asked.
His fingers wrapped around the top edge of the shower door and gripped tight. “I hear the water’s cold.”
“Not so much.” She couldn’t take her gaze off his burgeoning dick. “It’s getting warmer by the second.”
She slid her hands up over her breasts, catching her nipples between thumb and forefingers and pinching. She moaned as she tugged, then tilted her head down to watch a
s she let go and her breasts sprang back into position. She repeated the action once more just because it felt good.
“Come in here and play,” she taunted.
He shook his head. “I can play out here,” he scratched out.
One hand released the shower door and lowered to grip himself, then began moving slowly back and forth, tantalizing her with its rhythm. Calling to her. He didn’t pick up speed, just stroked, over and over, as she continued to watch.
A drop of fluid appeared on the tip and she groaned. She sucked the end of a finger into her mouth and brought her gaze up to his, locking onto his dark pupils as she slowly pulled the finger deeper behind her lips, letting him know what she wanted to do to him.
His jaw tensed. “I’ll join you if you’ll admit the thought of me with other women makes you jealous.”
Her head moved slowly back and forth, and she released her finger. “Why does it matter?”
She reached to the side without taking her eyes off him and adjusted the knobs, turned the showerhead so it wasn’t hitting her so directly, then picked up the bar of soap. No way was he winning this round.
“I just want the truth,” he said. “I thought you were a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of girl.”
“What makes you think you’re not getting the real me?” Her hands rolled the soap between her breasts until they were foaming with bubbles, then she dropped the bar and slid both palms once again over her breasts. She closed her eyes as she soaped them, rubbing and squeezing them together until her nipples stood as erect as he did.
Next, she rested her head on the tile wall behind her and roamed her fingers up over her neck, letting out a tiny breathy moan as she traveled.
Without missing a beat, back down she went, touching and teasing herself until she found the spot he’d finally gotten around to touching with his lips in the early-morning hours. She was more than ready for more of that. She slipped her fingers between the trimmed hair and cracked opened her heavy lids to watch JP watch her pleasure herself.
