by MJ Rodgers
She had also seen evidence of this trait as she typed the endless revisions he made in his legal thrusts—never satisfied, constantly expanding them, honing them. She could see it now as she watched every stroke of his powerful arms and shoulders diving deeper, then lifting higher.
How smug he probably felt, having successfully battled his desire for her. What he didn’t realize was that she had been making it easy. She was finished making it easy.
He’d be getting out of the pool and drying off soon. He’d wrap that skimpy towel around his lean middle, exchange a few words with the night guard, and then he’d head for the kitchen for something cool to drink.
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was getting to be about that time. She checked on Nicholas. He was sleeping soundly, beautifully.
Just before leaving the bedroom, she glanced at herself in the dresser mirror one last time. A small smile circled her lips.
* * *
MARC STEPPED INTO the kitchen, locked the door behind him and reset the alarm for the night. He didn’t need to switch on the light. It was only a few steps to the refrigerator and the orange juice.
He had taken the first two of those steps when the overhead light suddenly flashed on.
Startled, he spun in the direction of the switch, adrenaline causing his heart to pound. What he saw didn’t slow it at all.
Remy was leaning against the wall by the light switch, her thick hair full and falling to the tips of her breasts. She was wearing a pink silk teddy with slits up the outer thighs that nearly reached her hips. Marc’s eyes traveled from the tips of her breasts to the tips of those long, bare legs, thirstily drinking in every luscious inch.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said nonchalantly in that languid, liquid tone of hers. “For a moment I thought I had startled a burglar.”
He opened his mouth to respond. Not one coherent word would materialize in his mind.
“You hair is wet,” she said. “Have you been swimming?”
Marc managed a nod. At least he thought he did.
She smiled a knowing smile, raised her arms over her head and stretched. He watched her breasts rise with her arms, their nipples pointing beneath the sheer pink silk. The breath unraveled right out of his lungs.
“Warm night, isn’t it?”
It hadn’t seemed to be a minute ago. But it was certainly heating up fast.
“Looks like you were heading for the refrigerator. That’s where I was heading, too. I’ll get us both something nice and cool to drink, shall I?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She swayed sensuously toward him on those long, luscious legs, that hot, sultry jazz beat immediately pulsing through his blood, beating in his brain, vibrating inside the very marrow of his bones.
She was heading directly toward him. Some survival instinct screamed at him to move. But there wasn’t a male corpuscle in his body willing to heed its warning.
Then, at seemingly the last millisecond, she veered slightly, her hair brushing his arm as she passed by on her way to the refrigerator. His taut, aroused body reeled anew at the electric shock of that soft, brief touch and at the sweet feminine scent, kissed with pepper, that she left in her wake.
He turned to watch her.
She opened the refrigerator and then very slowly, very deliberately, bent over to bring out the container of orange juice. A curvy, creamy bottom flashed invitingly up at him.
Marc groaned audibly, uncontrollably.
Remy straightened up and turned at his sound, a look of pure innocence on her face that came nowhere near to reaching the golden flecks in her eyes. “Something wrong?”
Marc never knew what exactly happened in that next moment. He didn’t remember taking a step toward her at all. But he must have. Because suddenly he was pulling her into his arms and pressing against all that lovely, soft, sensuous heat of her body.
His mouth took hers with a need more basic and primitive than mere hunger and thirst. She answered with a gasp of pleasure that spun him in so many circles he knew he was lost.
He released her lips, picked her up and held her tightly, possessively, in his arms. He needed her so badly he was shaking. His breath tore painfully through his laboring lungs. The last thing he wanted to do was talk. But he knew he had to say this before it was too late.
“Remy, if you don’t want me, say no now. Please.”
In that fraction of a second that he looked into the flashing golden flames leaping in her eyes and watched her moist, pink lips parting to give him his answer, he knew it was already too late.
Desperately, ravenously, his mouth took hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers raking through his scalp. His senses reeled with the sweet, eager heat of her tongue and touch.
He flew out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time as he carried her to his bedroom.
* * *
REMY HAD INITIATED this game. Deliberately. Because she wanted something. But as the heat danced down her spine at the first shimmering touch of his lips, Remy forgot what it was that she had once wanted. All she wanted now was him.
An ache of pure, sweet desire exploded inside her when he crushed her to him, claiming her lips in earnest as he laid her back on his bed and lay on top of her. And it was in earnest—sweet earnest—she knew that with every vibrating cell in her body. His mouth ravished hers with tongue and teeth as his body branded hers with every lean, hard inch of him.
Remy’s senses reeled in reckless abandon at the strength of his desire, while her mind struggled valiantly to understand the rules of a game that had been so suddenly and unequivocally changed on her.
And all the while her mind fumbled, her body melted into the heat of his kisses and embraces.
His hands roamed over her body, removing the skimpy teddy she wore. She felt the quivering need inside her womb as his hand cupped her breast and his fingertips caressed her nipple. She sighed in pure pleasure as his tongue replaced his fingers while they weaved their way to the moist heat between her thighs.
The exquisite shock of the simultaneous circling of his tongue and fingers on the most sensitive parts of her flesh had ripples of scorching heat shooting through her. She gasped for breath, hardly able to stand the intensity of feeling, while at the same time pressing against him for more.
And he gave her more. Indeed, his hands and mouth seemed insatiable as they savagely rubbed and licked until every inch of her was moist and wet with fire. She writhed and moaned frantically beneath him, the sounds growing deeper and hungrier in her throat.
He slipped on protection and pushed against her. She opened for him and took him inside, wrapping her legs around him. It was mindless and magnificent, this melding and molding of their heated flesh. With every thrust, she rose with him, cresting and falling in wave after wave of climactic pleasure. He cried out with her as the last one claimed them both and he took her where she had never been before. And he was with her all the way.
It wasn’t until several minutes later, while lying in his arms, that even a semblance of reason returned and the enormity of what had happened finally registered with a sobering jolt inside Remy’s brain.
This was supposed to have been an opportunity for her to seize back control over her life. Instead, from his first kiss tonight, his first touch, he had taken complete control over her body and mind.
She had spent so much time trying to thoroughly understand her opponent and his motives that she had failed to take the time to thoroughly understand herself and her motives.
She could deny it no longer. She was in love with this man who could be so incredibly controlling and so incredibly tender—this man who had so swiftly and completely taken all rule of her life out of her hands and now held it firmly in his own. He was her worst nightmare and her fondest dream.
The fighting was all over. She had played the deadliest game of all with the deadliest opponent of all, and she’d lost...her heart.
* * *
SHE LAY WITH THE
BACK of her head on his stomach, the rest of her beautiful limp body sprawled between his splayed legs. Marc combed her hair with his hands, fascinated at the depth of its rich chocolate color and by how it slipped so silkily through his fingers.
He had given his word he would not come on to her, and, in all good conscience, he knew he had not. What had happened between them this night had been at her choosing. That excited him. Amazed him. Troubled him.
Because he didn’t know why she had done it.
He hoped he knew. He hoped she had allowed this to happen because she finally trusted him enough to allow an intimacy to develop between them. The way she moaned and melted beneath his caresses, it certainly had felt that way. But Marc knew that where Remy was concerned, he’d best not count on anything for certain.
That, too, excited him. Amazed him. Troubled him.
He let his eyes roam over her breasts, her tummy, down her long, lovely legs. He couldn’t remember any other woman ever being this beautiful. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t remember any other woman at all—certainly not this close to her with his senses so filled with her.
He knew what had happened between them had been the culmination of feelings that had been growing for weeks. Still, he hadn’t anticipated the depth of her desire—or his own, for that matter. She was not a woman to make love lightly. He was glad. It made tonight even more special. And his feelings for her even more special.
Maybe too special? He took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. Before he got in any deeper, he warned himself to have this out now and find out what he was facing. Anxiety put a gravelly touch to his whisper.
“Remy, I love being with you like this. But I must know, why did you let it happen?”
She rolled over suddenly, the movement sending new sensations to every part of his body as she rubbed deliciously against him. She faced him squarely, resting her elbows on his chest and her chin on her hands. Her eyes seemed overly bright.
“It’s too late for questions, Marc.”
His hands cupped her face. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry?”
Her answer drifted out on a small sigh. “No.”
His fingers skimmed down her neck, across her shoulder blades and down her back. He could feel the response in the quiver of her skin and the way her body nestled more closely and intimately against his.
“I’m glad you’re not sorry, Remy. It would have ruined it for me if you had any regrets. I promise you that I’ll never—”
Her hand suddenly shot out to clamp down on his mouth. “Don’t, Marc.”
He sat up in surprise, removed her hand from his mouth and imprisoned it within both of his. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t give me any promises.”
An uneasy suspicion swirled in Marc’s thoughts. “Because you won’t believe them?”
“Right.”
So, he’d been wrong. She still didn’t trust him. The disappointment hit him harder than he would have believed possible. Suddenly, he realized how badly he wanted her trust. No, how badly he needed her trust.
“Damn, you’re a tough cookie, lady,” he said with frustration.
“That’s so I won’t crumble,” she said, almost sadly.
“Was it your father’s betrayal? Or that fool Kevin from college?”
Her voice was unbelievably mellow. “When my father deserted my mother and my sister and me, I learned to be wary of men’s promises. When Kevin professed his undying love and asked me to marry him, only to pin a note to my dorm room door six months later saying he couldn’t ‘handle it anymore,’ I learned to discount men’s promises altogether.”
“And you never heard from either of them again.”
“Kevin called one night, right after the Bio-Sperm business. He wanted to get back together. He claimed he had made a mistake leaving me and had regretted it every day since. What he had really regretted, of course, was losing out on the chance to get his hands on a billion dollars.”
The vehemence and raw earthiness of Marc’s immediate verbal reaction to Kevin’s behavior brought a shocked look to Remy’s face.
“Sorry for the language,” he said. “I hoped you told the bastard where to go.”
“Not quite as eloquently as you, obviously, could have,” Remy said, a small smile twisting her lips.
It amazed him how cool and aloof she could still look, even lying naked across him. He had yet to convince her of anything. As close as they had become, they were still so very far apart.
A kind of desperation made him grab her shoulders. “Remy, there is something we’re going to get settled between us. Right here. Right now.”
She moved firmly out of his grasp, sat back on his thighs, put her hands on her hips and watched him warily for a moment before asking, “What?”
Looking at her straddling him like that, her long thick hair in magnificent disarray around her bare, beautiful body, literally took his breath away. When he finally answered her, his words were harsh with desire.
“I told you once. I’m telling you again. You’re not going to get away with dismissing me like you have those other men.”
Her lips slowly circled into a smile. “Is that right?”
“You’re damn right that’s right.”
Marc pulled her forward to kiss that smile, letting her taste the firmness of the pledge on his lips. Then he deepened the kiss, letting her taste the hunger on his tongue as he slipped his hands down to her breasts.
When he finally released her mouth, it was only to watch the golden flames emerging in her eyes.
“What are you grinning about?” she demanded, growing more and more breathless as he flicked his thumbs across her sensitive nipples.
“I was just thinking how cold and untouchable I thought you were when I first saw you.”
She deliberately whipped her long hair against his chest, sending streamers of new sensations through him. “And now?”
“Now I feel the flames from your eyes light my very soul.” He released her breasts and ran his hands down to caress that lovely, creamy bottom, luxuriating in its hot, silky feel.
Her eyes flashed at him. “When I first saw you, I thought you were brash and arrogant.”
He deliberately slipped his hand between her thighs and felt her quiver and moisten beneath his touch.
“And now?” he asked as he leaned forward and ran his teeth across the back of her neck.
She gasped, moving eagerly against him as she circled her arms around his waist. “Now I know you’re brash and arrogant.”
He laughed into the rich chocolate of her hair, until she robbed him of his breath entirely by pulling her hips forward and sheathing him inside her.
Then he was lost to all but the deepest and most ancient of life’s rhythms pulsing between them.
* * *
LATER, AS HE HELD ALL of her in his arms, he knew he wanted more. Much more. And he would have it. Getting her trust would be a challenge, but he had never been a man to shrink from a challenge. And she had challenged him from the first, like nothing and no one had ever challenged him before.
She would be his. All his. No matter what it took.
Chapter Eleven
Marc had gotten permission to bring Remy into the courtroom through the back hallways of the judge’s chambers. During the two days it had taken to select a jury, Remy had become familiar with the route.
On this, the third day—the day that marked the real beginning of the trial—she found herself stopping before the final door that led to the courtroom, reluctant to go inside.
“It’s a minute to ten,” Marc reminded her from behind.
She felt the brush of his arm; she smelled the warmth of his familiar, woodsy after-shave. These last few days and nights with him had been stolen pieces of heaven.
She had forcibly shoved out of her thoughts the reality of their inevitable separation. Just as she had forcibly shoved out of her thoughts the possibility—however remote—that she could lose Nicholas in the
custody battle in four weeks’ time.
She’d had to. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to enjoy a moment of her life. And she certainly wouldn’t have been able to let Phil take Nicholas out of her arms that morning. Or to face this trial.
Focus on just one thing at a time, years of scientific training urged her mind.
Enjoy whatever pleasure the moment brings, basic logic advised her heart.
“Remy?” Marc called as he stepped beside her.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, steeling herself. “All right, I’m ready,” she said.
Marc threw open the door and gestured for her to precede him.
The first thing she noticed was how packed the room was. During the two days it took for jury selection, the judge had kept everyone but the main players out. But now, newspeople and spectators jammed every available seat and stood against every available inch of wall.
As she made her way to the defendant’s table, Remy could see Lyton, Pechman and Voyce sitting at the plaintiff’s table. Her stomach jumped uneasily as she felt herself the focus of all their eyes.
The din of the room’s rising speculations roared in her ears like a malfunctioning muffler on a revving motorcycle. Marc held a chair out for her. She sat down quickly, leaned forward to rest her arms on the table, and concentrated on staring straight ahead.
Judge Swellen came out of his chambers almost immediately and called the room to order. Remy barely paid attention to the court clerk’s reading of the case, or to the introductory remarks by the judge. The first voice she really heard was Steve Lyton’s as he got up to give his opening statement.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, David Demerchant died when he was only twenty-eight in a tragic plane accident. He left a billion-dollar estate. It is the disposition of that estate that you will be asked to decide in this trial.
“In order for you to make that decision, I think you should know what David wanted to do with his money. After all, that is what really matters in this case, isn’t it?”
