Can't Buy Me Love

by Rin Daniels

  The door wasn’t locked this time.

  He didn’t care.

  His shoulders strained, arms trembling as he held himself over her. He pulled away, locking his teeth around a hoarse groan, and managed, “We’ve already talked about this.” He tucked a finger into his tie, jerked it loose around his throat.

  It didn’t help.

  “We—” She flattened a hand against her chest. “We have?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Every word killed him. “I’ve already offered you a way to earn however much money you want.”

  Kat blinked a few times. Then her beautiful eyes clouded.

  “It’s no hardship,” he continued. He stripped off his jacket, draped it over his desk. “You feel good. I feel good. We’ve already proven how great sex between us is.”

  She stared at him, her mouth pressed into a slanted, trembling line.

  Such a good actress. Did her mother teach her that?

  It wouldn’t surprise him. The imperious command in her mother’s voice on that phone call had left no room for argument, and Adam had been swept completely into the net.

  Kat stood up, but she didn’t storm out. Didn’t slap him, either. She simply hesitated where she was, her gaze flicking to the door. Back to him.

  There it is, sweetheart. She could play all she wanted.

  She wanted his money and he knew it.

  He held out a hand.

  * * *

  There was something certifiably wrong with her.

  On the one hand, Kat wanted to ask for a drink just so she could throw it in his face.

  But on the other hand, he stood there in front of his desk, his gray dress-shirt lightly rumpled over his athletic chest, and brown eyes steady as a rock over his outstretched hand. He never failed to speak to her libido.

  The problem was, he was putting strings on it.

  She looked down at her clenched hands. Twenty thousand dollars. It’d be a clean slate. No more loan sharks. No more worries about her mom’s safety. She could pay him back with a reasonable interest rate. He’d let her, right?

  She was good for it.

  Slowly, something painful twisting in her heart, Kat slipped her hand in his.

  Adam’s smile was all teeth. “Good girl,” he said again, and pulled her hard against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist, unable to help herself from spreading her fingers over his back. It was warm to the touch, his body firm beneath her palms.

  He caught her chin in cruel fingers and tipped her head up for another kiss that claimed—a bruising kiss, lips and tongue and disciplinary teeth nipping at her lower lip when she shuddered.

  It was wrong. But it was good.

  Whatever else, it was so good.

  She reached for the buttons of his shirt—his fingers closed over her hands, tugged them down to her sides. “No,” he said against her lips, but didn’t offer anything else. He simply tugged the bow of her halter blouse free. She stood, a little awkward and more than a little breathless, as he peeled the material down her body.

  The nude strapless bra she’d worn wasn’t the sexy kind, but Adam didn’t seem to care. With unerring precision, he unhooked it, tugged it free and left it discarded on his desk.

  The cool air in the office slipped over her skin, overly sensitized and tingling.

  Where his eyes touched—her throat, her waist, and with a flare of wild amber heat, her nipples beading in the air conditioned chill—she burned.

  And still, she fought the urge to fold her arms over herself.

  She couldn’t do that. She wasn’t a virgin, she wasn’t some hopeless girl to be swept along by a happily ever after. This wasn’t her Cinderella story. She was Kat Harris, as strong and amused and untouchable as every woman he’d ever dealt with.

  As if he knew, he slipped his fingers loosely around each wrist and held her arms away from her body. “You must know how beautiful you are,” he said roughly.

  The phrasing etched a line between her eyebrows. “I... Do I?” Wrong answer. She should have laughingly agreed.

  Wasn’t that what he expected from her?

  “Oh, yes, you do.” His lips hiked up in that sexy half-curve, but his eyes blazed like anger. Like recrimination.

  Kat shivered.

  Charming Adam Laramie was one thing, but this cool-on-the-outside, smoldering-within Adam Laramie was something altogether different. She didn’t know if she liked it.

  But God, it turned her on.

  That didn’t seem fair.

  He reached out, skimmed his fingers over the slope of one breast.

  She jumped.

  His fingers spread over the center of her chest. Pushed. Gently.

  She fell back a step.

  Then another.

  He prowled after her, guided her step by step until the leather couch she supposed was for office meetings hit the backs of her legs and she yelped in surprise, tumbling to the buttery soft cushions.

  “Stay just like that,” he ordered.

  With her legs splayed in surprise and her hands clutching the black cushions on either side?

  Kat looked down at herself, at the pink blouse bunched around her waist and the rosy tips of her own breasts, taut with anticipation, and was pretty sure she blushed from the roots of her hair.

  Adam knelt in front of her, the planes of his face set in rigid lines. “God. Can you blush on command?”

  She bit her lip, shook her head.

  “I don’t believe you,” he whispered, a velvet slap, but she couldn’t protest. Not when he bent, hands curved under her thighs, and pulled her ass further down the seat.

  She squeaked.

  His lips closed over her left nipple. Searing heat twanged from his mouth to her insides, slid a shocking pulse between her legs. The fabric of her capris, already fashionably tight, suddenly felt too confining.

  He tugged gently, sucked and licked until her back arched, her eyes closed. She reached for his face—wanted to tangle her fingers in his short hair—but he caught her wrists again, held them at her side as he licked and kissed his way across her chest.

  He gave her other breast the same attention, and the line of heat coiled between her skin and her sex tightened, ripened.

  Sweat bloomed over her flesh, rippled through her body.

  Adam lifted his head. His breathing was labored, she could feel it against her flesh. That she turned him on as much as he did her made all of this seem surreal. Weird.

  Wrong, but so damned sexy.

  Adam let her go to ease the button of her pants free. He pulled them over her hips, took the thong she wore with it. He hadn’t bothered with her shoes. He didn’t bother with them now, leaving her pants peeled to her knees and looking at her. Just looking. Half-bared, breasts and belly and that aching flesh between her legs.

  “Christ,” he said harshly, and leapt to his feet. He stalked away, left her shivering on his couch. He came back with a square foil packet in hand.

  Kat sucked in a trembling breath. “Your clothes?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He took her hand, pulled her upright with such ease that she grabbed at his chest. He drew in a sharp breath.

  Flattened one hand over hers, captured it against his heart.

  His eyes closed. Mouth tightened.

  Then his fingers curled hard around hers and pulled her away, turned her around and dragged her back against him. They fell back to the sofa together, his thighs hard under hers, his legs splayed to allow his erection to rub against her ass.

  He reached around her to unzip his pants. She watched, hazy and hungry and trapped in her own wanting, as he rolled the condom on his cock. As he slid two fingers over himself.

  She gasped as his hips tilted underneath her.

  “Like this,” came the order from behind her, thick and ragged. “Just like this.”

  Everything in Kat’s body clenched. Her nerves. Her sex.

  Her heart.

  “Here?”

  “Here.�
��

  “But the leather,” she whispered. A feeble protest, and she knew it.

  “Damn the leather,” Adam said roughly, and grabbed her hips in his hands. His fingers bit. “Move, Katherine.”

  Katherine.

  He hadn’t called her that since their first real reintroduction. He was angry.

  And so very aroused.

  Reaching out with trembling hands, she wrapped them around his cock, bit her lip when he hissed out a breath that might have been a foul word. He pulsed hard and hot in her palms, leapt involuntarily.

  She knew this part of him, knew its taste and shape and what it felt like inside her.

  She’d never really forgotten.

  And as she eased herself over him, as the muscles in her thighs bunched and the slick heat of her body widened over the head of his cock, she knew that she never would.

  Even if this was the last time she’d ever have to take him in.

  Kat closed her burning eyes as she sank down against him. Her body shuddered, her breath escaped on a long, low groan as he angled his hips and lifted up to meet her, to drive himself inside her flesh. To brand himself on her, inside her, with the heat of his own body.

  Kat understood.

  And God, it hurt, even as it sent waves of pleasure through her.

  Adam’s breath shook with every thrust. She sat back hard against him, lifted herself up until her thighs burned and did it again. He bit back another word, swallowed it down on a groan that rattled Kat’s senses and scraped her nerves raw—she wanted him, his voice, his encouragement.

  Wanted his body, and his smile, and his intense stare.

  She got his hands holding her wrists down by the cushions, his body angled so she had no choice but to hold herself up as he lifted his hips up, over and over, thrusting into her until the pleasure overwhelmed whatever discomfort the position demanded.

  Until the pain in her heart dried up under a tidal wave of heat and hunger and overwhelming gratification.

  She didn’t know if he came. Didn’t know if he said anything when he did. His hips slammed into hers, his fingers bit hard around her wrists, and she couldn’t hold back a high, embarrassingly loud wail as her orgasm cracked through everything else to blind her, deafen her.

  A brief moment of mindless bliss.

  Adam panted for breath beneath her. She wanted to turn, to see his face—to meet his whiskey bright eyes and read whatever it was he felt in that unguarded moment—but he grabbed her waist, pulled her up and off him in a smooth movement.

  She gasped as his flesh left hers. Grabbed at the couch cushions as he stood up, as he left her to strip off the condom and tuck himself back into his pants.

  A chill stole into her thrumming nerves.

  Adam bent behind his desk. She heard a cabinet open. Heard something else she couldn’t define.

  The sweat on her skin cooled, left her shivering.

  No, it wasn’t the temperature.

  Kat’s hands shook viciously as she pulled her pants back up, adjusted her panties. She cast about blindly for her bra—it was all the way on his desk.

  She couldn’t do it.

  She wasn’t sure her legs, her courage, would hold.

  She pulled her blouse back up over her breasts, fumbled with the wide halter ties.

  Adam rose again, his face a mask of cool appraisal. The curve to his mouth didn’t reach his eyes, which fixed on her in a golden accusation.

  Stacks of money tumbled from his hands, slapped the leather around her, fell into her lap. Against her feet.

  Kat had gotten good at counting over the years. She’d never managed to learn how to count cards, but when high-rollers flashed money, she’d learned to estimate the amount.

  It paid to know how much a mark was worth.

  He’d overpaid.

  The laughter that bubbled up in her chest tasted like acid.

  “Come back for more,” Adam said, in the same tone he’d used when he’d all but ordered her to go on a date with him.

  Damn him.

  She picked up the two stacks that fell into her lap. Two stacks of hundreds, ten thousand apiece. Her skin crawled.

  The pleasure she’d found in his lap, in his arms—even in the past couple of weeks—crumbled.

  Hit it and quit it, huh?

  The hole in her chest threatened to swallow her whole.

  She stood without his help. He didn’t offer. She didn’t ask. Her fingers cramped around the bills. “Thanks,” she said lightly. Her smile felt frozen. Brittle. “But I don’t think so.”

  Adam slid one hand into his pocket. “Take the rest.”

  She stepped over the fallen money—more money than she’d ever seen in one go, short of a casino carry. At least three hundred thousand.

  Enough to buy a house out in the county.

  Not enough to own her. Not enough to bring her into his world, no matter what sad little dreams she’d had.

  Choice would only get her so far. She’d put the price tag on herself.

  “I don’t want it,” she said flatly. “I can at least pay back this much.” She was proud of herself when her legs carried her all the way to the door. She opened it with every intent to slam it behind her.

  “Just take it,” he said at her back. “Thirty thousand dollars won’t cover you for long. You’ll need more eventually.”

  She caught the door knob in her free hand. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to risk it. Her shoulders were straight, her spine firm. She knew she looked fine from the back. The very model of an untouchable woman.

  But she wasn’t sure her face wouldn’t crack from the pressure.

  So she clutched the money to her chest, closed her eyes, and said, “Go to hell, Adam Laramie.”

  Kat didn’t slam the door after all.

  She didn’t feel like that kind of exit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SOMEHOW, SHE DROVE home. In retrospect, it was the stupidest thing she could have done. Kat didn’t remember a moment of it.

  She stumbled inside the house. Her mother’s voice sailed out of the kitchen in off-key accompaniment to pop music on the radio.

  Kat closed the door. She leaned against it, her temples throbbing in twin points of blinding pain.

  She wouldn’t cry. She couldn’t.

  It was over. And she’d brought it on herself.

  The hole that opened up inside her threatened to take whatever was left of her resolution. She straightened, flattening a hand over her belly, and took a slow, shaking breath.

  It didn’t help.

  A clatter from the kitchen drew her attention, sharpened her focus before she lost it right there against the front door.

  Kat made her way inside.

  Barbara shimmied, a ripple of bright blue silk wraparound pants and another one of the boat-neck tunics she loved. Her hair bounced in a ponytail that made her look younger than she was as she sang along with a song made for wild teenagers.

  Kat’s sudden presence earned a startled shriek, a dramatic whirl and hand pressed against her chest. “Good heavens, Katherine! Don’t sneak up on me like—” Her pale green eyes sharpened on Kat’s face. The twins tacks of money she clutched to her stomach. “Oh.”

  And then, as Kat’s face crumpled, she added, “Oh, sweetie. Come here.” She opened her arms wide, and for the first time in years, Kat let herself huddle into her mom’s embrace.

  But she couldn’t cry. Her eyes burned hot and desert dry, her head thumped, but she couldn’t.

  Her mother cradled her, swaying back and forth, and crooned nonsense. She stroked Kat’s hair. Patted her back. She did all the things a mom was supposed to do, but Kat rested against her mother’s shoulder and couldn’t even summon one tear.

  “There, there,” Barbara said against her hair. “It’ll all be okay.”

  Kat stared over her in miserable silence. The pile of notices she’d picked up earlier from the yard were piled neatly on the table.

  The money
she held onto burned.

  Kat straightened, shoved the stacks at her mom. “This is for the loan sharks,” she said numbly. “Give them all of it.”

  Barbara’s eyes widened as she took the money. “But, sweetie, what about your salon?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Kat wiped her hands down her pants. It didn’t remove the grimy feel the money left on her skin. She didn’t think anything would. “We can leave it.” It meant walking out on the tab she owed Dale, walking out on her commitment—on her dreams—but what else could she do?

  She had nothing else to lose.

  It wasn’t like she couldn’t pay Adam Laramie back from anywhere in the country.

  Her mother ran a thumb along the edges of one stack. The crisp hundred dollar bills fluttered. A critical line to her mouth eased into a smile.

  Kat gave her a moment with the money. Twenty thousand dollars was a lot. She knew that.

  She tottered to the kitchen table, sank into a chair and dropped her head to the surface. It thunked dully.

  Maybe they could go further south. Start new somewhere.

  Somehow.

  “Let me make you some coffee,” Barbara announced, sympathy oozing from every word. Kat didn’t have to look to know that she still held onto the money. “Do you want some ice cream, too?”

  “Sure,” she mumbled against the table.

  “Coming right up, sweetie.”

  Kat heard the sounds of the coffee maker, heard the freezer door open and close. Barbara fluttered around the kitchen like a colorful butterfly, humming along with the music drifting out of the radio on the counter.

  Kat squeezed her eyes closed. “Do we have any aspirin?”

  “In my purse,” Barbara replied. “Now, I’m going to give you a double-helping of ice cream before dinner. Don’t tell anyone, it’ll be our little secret.”

  A faint smile tugged at her mouth. Her mom had defaulted into the tone she used to use with them when they were just kids, breezy and cheerful and a little bit patronizing.

  She reached across the table, over the papers, and pulled her mom’s Coach bag closer.

  “I’ll tell you what, too,” her mom continued. “Whatever that man of yours did to make you look so sad, it’s not worth sticking around for.”