“Do you have a man, Zora?”
It was another zinger, taking her off guard. “You know I don’t.”
“Would you like one?”
Zora’s mouth moved but words eluded her.
Jaxon lifted a single groomed brow. “Need to think about it?”
Zora closed her eyes, which gave her the chance to collect herself. When she finally opened them again, she was laughing. “I have to hand it to you, Mr. Landon. You are smooth.” She tossed back her drink, but this time it burned down the wrong pipe. She started coughing and then hacking.
“Whoa, there.” Jaxon eased next to her on the chaise and lightly patted her on the back. “I take it you’re not a bourbon girl.”
The only problem was his proximity only robbed her of more oxygen so her hacking turned into a full-fledged choking fit.
Jaxon took the glass from her hand and set it aside. “Put your hands up over your head.”
In no position to argue, Zora shot her hands high into the air while Jaxon slapped her back just a little more forcefully. She had no doubts that she had turned a new shade of purple for a moment. It was probably about the time she started seeing white spots dance before her eyes. Luckily, a couple seconds later, her lungs finally accepted oxygen and started dragging it in for the lifesaving sustenance that it was.
“There you go. Now deep breaths,” Jaxon coached.
When it was all over with, there were fat tears rolling down her face and probably doing quite a number on her makeup and Jaxon’s black gaze was locked on her heaving chest. She bolted up from the chair. This had gone on for too long. “I better go.”
“We haven’t finished striking our deal,” he said too calmly. “There’s no need to run. I don’t bite…hard.”
Zora stopped and faced him. “I need to get home…and you need to get back to your fiancée.”
Jaxon stood and the room shrank. “I told you. She’s not my fiancée.”
“Oooh. Right. I forgot,” Zora said, rolling her eyes.
Jaxon’s smile disappeared. “You’ll learn, Ms. Campbell, that I am many things—but I am not a liar.”
“Sure you are,” Zora said smugly. “Either you’re lying now or you lied to every single person at your grandparents’ party. Which is it?”
Jaxon’s brows jumped and then the restaurant was suddenly filled with his rich, melodious, baritone laughter. “You know, I really hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“How did you think of it?”
“As a practical joke to get my grandparents off my ass about settling down and turning one of their selected trust-fund debutantes into a baby-factory machine for two years until we divorce and I’m strapped into paying an outrageous sum of money for child support and alimony.”
The handsome devil was full of surprises.
“Silly, I know,” he conceded. “I was just looking to buy myself a little break from their constant hounding. Everything was going along swimmingly—until you showed up that night.”
“Your grandmother?” A light went off in Zora’s head. The pieces of the puzzle were snapping together at lightning speed—especially Melanie’s part in all this. If Jaxon didn’t hire Melanie, then it stood to reason that perhaps his meddlesome grandmother had.
Next thing Zora knew, she was laughing again. However, after she went on for a full minute, Jaxon started looking at her as if wondering whether she was playing with a full deck. She started to explain herself, but then remembered her promise to Melanie. So instead, she just said, “I believe you.”
“Good,” he said, pleased. “Can I fix you another drink?”
“I don’t know about that,” she conceded, shaking her head. Just because she had figured out the moving pieces to this puzzle didn’t mean that she had arrived at any decisions about the man before her. “I, um…”
Jaxon cocked his head. “Do I make you nervous, Ms. Campbell?”
Deny. Deny. Deny. “A little.”
That half smile that she was starting to adore tilted his lips. “Then what can I do to relax you?”
Zora nearly fainted at the possibilities.
He smiled as if he’d just read her private thoughts. “I’ve never said this to another woman before, but Ms. Campbell, you simply fascinate me.” His eyes tenderly roamed from the top her head to her painted toes. “Absolutely and completely.”
She could easily say the same about him. He was a walking, talking fantasy that was causing her body to tingle and throb all over.
Jaxon’s eyes traveled back up to her face. His gaze focused on her full lips. “I wonder,” he whispered.
Zora swallowed and then whispered back, “Wonder what?”
“If you taste as good as you look.”
Cocking her own confident smile, she answered, “Better.”
He laughed. “We have a date?”
Laughing, she prayed that she wouldn’t regret what she was about to do. “All right.” She stared into his hypnotic eyes. “We have a date.”
“Good. Now just one more thing—I’d like to give you a ride home tonight.”
Chapter 10
“You owe me, big-time,” Clint Blackburn said, pouting from the back of Melanie’s black limousine. “I still can’t believe that I just threw away the chance of a lifetime with the Zora Campbell.” He smacked a hand across his forehead. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“Oh, stop being melodramatic,” Melanie said, pulling her BlackBerry out of her purse. “It would have never worked between you two. Besides. I have the perfect woman in mind for you. Trust me on this.” She answered the ringing phone while Clint cast a dubious look.
Hell, it was too late now. Zora would forever think he was a lowlife that stiffed her with the check in one of Manhattan’s überelite restaurants. His stomach hadn’t stopped twisting into knots since Melanie first laid out tonight’s plan.
“Hello, Jamie? How’s it going in there?”
Clint frowned when he recognized the name. “You even had our waiter involved in this mess?”
“Shhh.” Melanie waved him off, and then in the next second, a huge smile monopolized her face. “Oooh, reeaally? They’re in a private room?” She turned toward Clint with her hand held up for a high five.
He didn’t give her one.
She covered a hand over the mouthpiece. “Don’t be a spoilsport. I told you, I’ll hook you up. Trust me. I’m one of the best in the business.”
“It’s a little scary seeing how you operate behind the curtain.”
“All that matters is that I have a ninety-five percent success rate—and I’m not about to let a silly little thing like a fake engagement set me back.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” She waved him off again and then returned her attention to the phone. “Thanks, Jamie. Keep me posted.” She disconnected the call and quickly dialed a number. “Hello, Sylvia. We got them. Hook, line and sinker.”
“A ride home?” Zora asked, wide-eyed.
“As a part of our deal,” he added, licking his lower lip and staring at her as if she was a five-course meal on Thanksgiving Day.
“I don’t…”
“Now look who’s chicken,” he taunted. “What the heck do you think I’m going to do—kidnap you?” He sat down next to her. “Maybe tie you up and have my way with you?”
That two-hundred-pound frog squeezed back into the middle of her throat and this time threatened to choke the daylights out of her.
“I mean, I could—if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.” He winked.
Zora slammed her eyes shut to break the trance she’d fallen under, but not in time to stop another miniorgasm from coursing down her spine and exploding at the tip of her clit. When she opened her eyes again, he stood so close to her face that his warm breath caressed her like a lover’s touch.
“It’s just a simple ride.” He cocked his head and his lips came so close to hers that she sighed aloud.
Jaxon smiled. “I’m going to take
that as a yes.” Then, as if he couldn’t control himself any longer, his head descended and his warm, hungry mouth ravished hers in a kiss she knew she would remember for the rest of her life.
He tasted like spearmint and bourbon and his tongue performed this erotic dance inside her mouth that instantly made Zora wet. Next thing she knew, her body was smashed against his hard frame.
Again, she thought she would faint, this time from the feel of the wonderfully hard ridges of this black god’s body. There didn’t seem to be a soft spot on him. Zora had spent a lifetime knowing and working her body in front of a camera. This was the first time in memory that she didn’t have control over what she was doing or feeling. The more she drank from his lips the more she wanted.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
But it was happening. Right there in a private wine room in the back of a restaurant. And to make matters worse, her horny body had shut off all pathways for her brain to do anything about what was going on. Her body wanted this, craved this, and by hell or high water, it was going to get it.
Served her right for psyching herself up for two days to make a booty call.
“Damn, you do taste good,” he whispered and then planted his hot mouth against the column of her neck, where she giggled and quivered. Yet at the same time, she clung to him like he was the last life preserver on the Titanic.
Jaxon’s head swam. He just meant to steal one little kiss, but the moment his lips made contact, his head went into another zone. Somehow he was falling and flying at the same time. Next, he was sinking his fingers through her hair, then down her long back and around her firm, tight ass.
Comfortable in the role of being the aggressor, he gave it a good squeeze and then swallowed her responsive gasp greedily.
Slow it down. You’ll scare her away.
However, reason had a hard time penetrating his—admittedly—thick skull. She just tasted and felt too good to be true. He leaned her back, stretched her out over the thick, upholstered chaise while his hands roamed over her famous curves.
I’ll stop in a minute, quickly turned into I’ll stop, if she tells me to—then finally, Please, don’t tell me to stop.
Please.
Don’t.
Zora couldn’t breathe. At least, that was what it felt like. She was hot, dizzy and losing the fight against insanity. Especially now that she could feel Jaxon’s strong fingers creeping up the inside of her thighs. We shouldn’t.
She tried to gasp for oxygen; instead she felt as if she’d inhaled some kind of drug for all the help that it had done her. One finger brushed along the seat of her panties and she damn near came unglued. Her nails sank into the hard muscles along his broad back and she heard a long steady hiss escape from Jaxon’s clenched teeth—but he didn’t stop.
I can’t.
Two fingers ran against the bottom of her panties and then circled around her throbbing clit. Automatically, her hips soared upward and when they came back down, Jaxon had shoved the damp material over to the corner of her thigh so that her exposed wet clit mopped the pads of his finger.
“Sssssh,” she gasped.
“Damn. You even feel good, too,” he praised.
Zora Michelle Campbell, you stop this—right now!
“Sssssh,” she responded to her badgering inner voice when his index finger started making lazy figure eights inside her.
“Aww. Yes, baby,” Jaxon whispered. “You’ve been wanting this from the moment we laid eyes on each other, haven’t you?”
No! No!
She opened her mouth to talk, but all she could manage was a long moan and a couple of whimpers.
“You just like giving a brother a hard time, don’t you?” His fingers sped up, slowed down and sped up again. “You just like playing hard to get, don’t you, baby?”
Zora tried to listen, but that small inner voice grew further and further away. It didn’t matter that she was in the back of an exclusive restaurant with a man she couldn’t stand just a couple of hours ago, but was now on the verge of an orgasm. It was cheap and she didn’t even want to review what had led her to this point. That would come much later. Right now, she just wanted and needed this building orgasm more than she needed something as overrated as oxygen.
“Oh, shit,” she gasped.
Jaxon blinked in surprise. She was such a pretty thing with a dirty mouth.
“Fuck. I’m coming.” Zora started inching up the curvy chaise, her eyes wide and locked on the man in front of her.
Jaxon matched her bold stare with one of his own and drank in the vivid emotions that played across her face. As her orgasm crested, her mouth slowly sagged open and her upper lip quivered. Then—Bam!
“Ahhh!” Instantly, her legs sprang closed and her knees tried to lock together.
Jaxon couldn’t help but laugh as he struggled to pull his hand out from her thighs’ death grip.
Big mistake, because all Zora heard and understood was that he was laughing at her. She sprang to her feet, shoved her dress back down her waist and bolted toward the door.
“Zora, wait!”
She took off, oblivious that she looked like a disheveled mess as she rushed through the restaurant like a three-alarm fire.
Jaxon was right on her heels, but conscious enough to smile and give reassuring nods to his eating patrons as he went. Of course he still probably looked ridiculous carrying a woman’s clutch purse, but he was determined to make it work.
The moment Zora stepped out onto the sidewalk, her hand shot high into the air. “Taxi!”
From across the street, Melanie Harte’s head shot up from the extensive questionnaire she was filling out with Clint Blackburn. She even had a DVD playing introducing new clients to the Platinum Society when she glanced out of the limo’s dark tinted windows in time to see a yellow cab practically screech to a halt in front of the restaurant.
“What the hell?”
“Zora, wait!” Jaxon yelled, racing out the restaurant. He didn’t make it to the cab before it peeled away with a cloud of smoke jetting from its tailpipe.
Melanie slumped back against her seat. “That doesn’t look good.” Her phone rang. It was Jamie, the waiter. “Yeah. Yeah. I saw. Thanks.” She disconnected the call as she watched Jaxon swear and kick at the curb.
“Looks like this one is going to fall into that little five-percent failure column,” Clint said smugly.
Melanie grounded her teeth together and did a little mental swearing herself. But she refused to believe that she was wrong about Zora and Jaxon. She just had to figure out a way to make her see what she already knew: they were perfect for each other—damn it!
Chapter 11
Zora was embarrassed—no—mortified. No matter how hard she tried to review exactly what happened tonight, she couldn’t come up with a single plausible answer to how the hell she’d lost her mind. And she had most certainly lost it.
“Where are we going, lady?” the cab driver asked.
Jarred out of her scrambling thoughts, Zora’s eyes jumped to the rearview mirror where she met the driver’s gaze. “Um, the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle,” she answered.
“Heeey, don’t I know you?” he asked, squinting. “Yeah, yeah. You’re that sexy model, um.” He snapped his fingers. “Zora Campbell!”
Zora smiled while she raked her fingers through her tousled hair.
“Wow,” the driver went on. “Who was that chasing you out of the restaurant—your boyfriend?”
“N-no. Not exactly.” She cleared her throat and glanced out of the side window.
“Oh. Why—did you two have an argument or something?”
Zora clammed up. Why did people assume that they were entitled to know all her business just because they knew her name?
“Ah. Don’t worry. I’m not the kind of person that’ll blab to the tabloids. Hassan hears no evil, sees no evil and speaks no evil.” He pretended to zip his lips. “Trust me. In this job, it’s best to keep you
r mouth shut. You know what I mean?”
Zora didn’t answer.
“Yeah, I see famous people all the time. How can I not? This is Manhattan—home to thousands of celebrities. Like this morning. Who gets into my cab other than—Robert De Niro. The Robert De Niro. You can’t imagine what it’s like to get the most famous Taxi Driver into your cab.” The man’s face exploded into a smile. “I mean, c’mon. De Niro. You know, ‘Are you talkin’ to me?’” He laughed. “Aw, man, I must’ve done my impersonation of him for like twenty minutes. He loved it.”
Zora tuned out the chatty cab driver so she could again replay tonight’s fiasco back in her mind. Maybe she’d had too much to drink. But that couldn’t have been true because she was definitely sober now. She nibbled on her bottom lip. She could only imagine what Jaxon Landon thought of her.
Crazy.
Pathetic.
Easy.
Desperate.
The sad part was that every one of those adjectives had a snippet of truth to them. While she was now trying to act all indignant, she had called and arranged this evening with the full intent of getting laid—with a handsome loser who skipped out on the check. Maybe she did need help in the dating arena because clearly she didn’t have a clue to what she was doing.
“Annnd here we are,” Hassan announced. “The Time Warner Building.” He tried to glance up at the building. “Pretty fancy digs.”
“Thank you. How much do I owe you?” She reached for her purse only to find the seat next to her empty.
“Thirty-six seventy-five—but you can just pay me thirty-six dollars.” He smiled.
“Oh, God, I don’t believe this!” Zora started searching around.
“Problem?”
“Hassan, tonight has been nothing but one big problem.”
“Sooo, you’re not engaged,” Carlton asked, making sure that he was keeping up with his grandson’s explanation.
“No,” Jaxon answered simply and then castled his king on the marble chessboard. Even after making the move, he questioned whether he’d made the right one.
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