“Then get one.”
“I can’t afford an attorney, Jax.”
He swallowed at the mention of his nickname. Moistened his lips, shifted his weight in the chair. Intrigued by his response, I momentarily forgot about the contract. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“It’s a legitimate question. If we’re going to be married, I should probably know these kinds of things.”
He glowered for a while, then said, “You’ve made me uncomfortable since the moment we met.”
I smiled in spite of myself. He was throwing my own words back at me and avoiding the question, all at once. He liked avoiding questions, which of course made me more curious than I otherwise would have been.
I said, “I’ve been thinking about the rings.”
He leaned back, crossed his legs, and blasted me with his baby blues. Then he said, “I can’t concentrate with these fucking roses staring down at me like a dozen bloody middle fingers.”
Was he mad that I didn’t throw them away? “I was going to toss them in the garbage as soon as they arrived this morning, but Eeny said she’d take them. Something about a ritual involving rose petals and goat blood. I didn’t ask for details.”
Jackson stood. He grabbed the vase of roses, opened the office door, set the vase outside in the hallway, closed the door, and sat back down, looking slightly less inclined to engage in a murder spree.
“Better,” he said. “The rings. Shoot.”
Amused, I shook my head. “I want a five-carat flawless Tiffany brilliant-cut center stone with a pair of flawless one-carat stones flanking it, set in a platinum band.”
One of his eyebrows slowly lifted.
I smiled. “You got me. A simple gold band will do. What should I get you?”
He cocked his head and stared at me with new interest. “You want to get me a ring?”
“I’m not marrying a man who refuses to wear my ring. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. Jewelry included.”
“Why does it matter?”
Good question. I didn’t think I could tell him I wanted every other female who looked at him to see that small gold “off-limits” sign on his ring finger, because that would make no sense. Other than legally, I’d have no claim on him. In fact, since sex wasn’t part of the contract, as he’d so kindly pointed out, I had no reason to believe he’d be faithful to our pretend marriage.
Interesting that it hadn’t occurred to me to ask. Or to ask myself if I would be.
He said, “Whatever conversation you’re having with yourself, I’d love to join in. It looks fascinating.”
I chewed on my lower lip. It made his eyes flare, so I stopped. “I was just . . . wondering . . . about the sex stuff.”
How can someone go from blistering anger to amusement to whatever this molten, dark energy thing was that he was doing now? However he managed it, I found myself squirming a little in my seat under the heat of his stare.
“What about it?” he asked in a neutral tone that didn’t match his eyes or the tension in his body.
Feeling shy, I looked down and fiddled with the pen. “Um. What if you get a girlfriend? How do we—”
“I won’t.”
Startled by the finality of that pronouncement, I glanced up. “You can’t know that. You could meet someone the day after we get married and fall madly in love with her. We should talk about what will happen in that scenario. Would she come live with us?”
In a move I was beginning to recognize as his tell for whenever he was really agitated, he raked a hand through his hair. He sat forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and pinned me in his gaze.
“There won’t be any girlfriends,” he said. “There won’t be anyone else while I’m married to you.”
The air was sucked out of the room again. I really needed to take a look at the ventilation. “So the ‘no sex’ clause is actually like a ‘celibacy’ clause?”
He leaned back in his chair, none of the high-tension electricity leaving him. “You should go over it with your attorney.”
“I want to go over it with you.”
One of his fingers started a restless staccato beat against his thigh. “It clarifies that there’s no expectation of sex between us. It’s not a requirement to fulfill the contract.”
I mulled that over for a while. “So, then, it’s voluntary.”
He’d been looking at a print on the wall of a kitten hanging from the branch of a tree by one paw that read, HANG IN THERE! but his head snapped front and center, and he stared at me with such intensity I almost thought he was angry.
I said, “I mean, it’s not against the rules.”
I can’t describe his expression. It hovered somewhere between serial killer and starving animal.
He said softly, “Why, Future Mrs. Boudreaux, are you propositioning me?”
And here came the blood flow from my neck straight up to my hairline like my head was dipped in a bucket of red paint. I looked down at the contract, hiding.
“Sorry,” I said. “This is just all very strange. I suppose I’m nervous. Forget I even asked.”
“Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easily. Look at me.”
I peeked up at him from under my lashes.
He asked, “When was the last time you had sex?” and I swear I almost fainted.
“That’s none of your business,” I said primly, and sat up straighter in my chair.
He said, “The last time I had sex was more than four years ago.” His chuckle was wry. “I mean, with anyone other than myself.”
Wow. And I thought my dry spell was bad. “No! Really?”
“Really.”
“Are you a monk?”
He got that burning look again, the one I expected would ignite me. “Do you get the impression I’m a monk?”
Something unhealthy was happening to my heart. Being around him was causing a terrible arrhythmia that might eventually kill me. I decided to ignore his question and hazarded a tentative, “Did you . . . go through . . . um, a time when you weren’t sure . . .”
Jackson looked in aggravation at the ceiling. “I already told you I’m not gay, Bianca.”
I said, “So . . .”
He snapped, “I’m not bisexual, either, if that’s where you’re heading! I’m not confused about which sex I prefer, and I don’t have a disease I’m trying not to spread! I just haven’t had a girlfriend for a while, for Christ’s sake!”
I had to backtrack before he exploded into full Hulk mode and his clothes were ripped to shreds. “Okay, I hear you, you’re not confused, you’re not diseased, you’re just unusually . . . nonsexual.”
That was the wrong thing to say. I sensed the change in him the way you sense a change in the weather. The electricity that crackles dangerously in the air before a thunderstorm, the spike of pressure in the barometer. If his eyes had been black before, now they were the pitch of the deepest pit of hell.
He rose, stood over me, and lifted me to my feet with his hands under my armpits like I was a doll. He said, “Tell me if this feels nonsexual to you.”
Then he took my face in his hands and kissed me.
TWENTY-ONE
BIANCA
This time it was me who froze in shock when our lips came together. It took him several long moments of gentle coercion with his tongue before I finally opened my mouth. When I did, it was on a soft groan that he stole when he inhaled.
He was so big, and warm, and hard everywhere, except for his mouth, which was like cotton candy. I melted into it. He slid his thumb under my ear, and I shivered. His fingers pressed into my scalp. When he sank his teeth gently into my lower lip, lightning flashed through me.
I fisted my hand into the scruff of his neck and pulled him closer.
Suck, slide, nip, repeat, feel your pulse in all the hidden places in your body. This kiss was cashmere. It was luxuriant. It was decadent, unhurried, sweetly delicious, like stretching out on
warm sand and drinking a mai tai. His scent was in my nose: pine and musk and something earthy and fresh, the way the woods smell after it rains.
He made that masculine sound deep in his throat that I found weirdly thrilling and pressed his hand into the small of my back. It brought our lower bodies together and provided me with impressive evidence that Jackson Boudreaux was anything but nonsexual.
“Oh,” I breathed.
His laugh was soft and dark. “Yes, oh. Stop talking.”
I couldn’t catch my breath, but it didn’t matter because his lips were on mine again. Little puffs of air through my nose would have to sustain me.
His hand in the small of my back became the iron band of his arm around my waist. My nipples tightened. His heartbeat crashed against my chest. The kiss turned from slow and sweet to hard and hot, first melting me and then lighting me on fire.
He tangled his hand into my hair, pulled the clip loose that held it all in place, and let it fall to the floor. He made that sexy, manly noise again when my hair spilled into his fingers. I fought the urge to press my hips against his, then softly moaned in relief when he did it for me, one big paw cupped under my bottom. Yes, yes, yes, thrummed my heart, aching for more.
He broke away, breathing heavily. My eyes drifted open. He stared down at me with a look like he might devour me.
Good thing I was in the mood to be devoured.
“We’re not done yet,” I whispered. I stood on my toes and wound my arms around his neck.
The kiss changed again. Desperation took over. Need took over. There was no more gentle exploration, no more unhurried pace. Now everything was white-hot and burning, clutching hands and greedy mouths, bodies straining to get closer. His fingers tightened in my hair. His hips rocked against mine. A new heaviness settled between my legs, and I wanted to violently rip off all his clothes and—
Someone knocked on my office door.
“Boss? Sorry to interrupt. Meat delivery finally arrived.”
It was Hoyt.
I was going to kill Hoyt. Probably with my bare hands.
“Thank you,” I called, sounding like I’d swallowed a handful of gravel. “I’ll be right out.” I glanced at Jackson and thought I might go up in a puff of smoke.
His eyes were heavy lidded, dazed and lust filled, glittering silver like the flash of a cat’s eyes in the dark.
I said, “I have to . . .”
“I know. Give me a second.” His voice was raw. He blinked slowly, combing his hand through my hair, watching the strands flow over his fingers.
Without thinking, I touched the scars on his jaw. He closed his eyes and made a soft noise like he was in pain.
“What are these scars from?”
My question broke whatever spell he’d been under. He dragged in a deep breath and reluctantly released me. With a cruel twist to his lips, he muttered, “A man-eating shark.”
He turned away and raked both hands through his hair, and I knew that mysterious response was as good as I was getting.
Flustered and unsteady, I hastily scooped my hair clip from the floor. I had all my hair stuffed into it in record-setting time, though I probably looked like an escapee from the mental asylum, goggle-eyed, wild haired, shaking and sweating. I smoothed a hand down the front of my white chef’s coat, which did absolutely nothing to calm me, but at least wicked the moisture from my palm.
I said, “Well. That was . . .”
My mind was as blank as a fresh sheet of paper.
Without turning around, Jackson blew out a hard, shuddering breath. Over his shoulder he said, “Get the contract reviewed by an attorney as soon as possible. Send the invoice to me. And I need to meet your mother.”
He opened the door and was gone.
I sank slowly into my chair and allowed my knees to stop knocking and my heart to slow down before I went out to see about the meat.
The next day I visited an attorney in town who looked at Jackson’s contract for a long time while the wrinkles on his forehead multiplied faster than rabbits. More than once he glanced up at me across from him as I nervously twisted my fingers together, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a continent.
Judging strictly from his expression, he thought I might be wearing a hidden camera.
“Miss Hardwick,” he began carefully, pushing the contract toward me across his desk as if he thought it might burst into flames. “This is . . . unusual.”
My laugh was closer to a donkey’s bray. “You don’t say!”
“I’ve never seen anything quite like this before,” he said, disturbed. Under the fluorescent lights, his bald head glowed like a streetlamp. “I assume that you’re entering into this agreement due to . . .” he coughed politely into his hand. “Financial problems?”
“Bingo. So give me the bad news.”
He looked startled. “You’re marrying a man solely for his money. What other bad news do you need?”
He was lucky this was on Jackson’s dime, because that little zinger would have made me get up and walk out before he could dispense whatever sage advice he’d be dispensing.
“I’m talking about the contract. What’s bad in there for me?”
He gave me a look like I’d completely failed to listen to his first question.
I sighed. “I know. You can stop judging me now, okay? Just tell me if there’s anything in the contract we should counter. For instance, the part where it talks about me not having to have sex with him. Is that in order?”
It was obvious I was shortening the poor attorney’s life span. No one blinked that rapidly who was long for this earth.
“Yes,” he said after a rough throat clearing. “But we should counter for more money. One million dollars for five years is only two hundred thousand dollars per year. That works out to”—he did a mental calculation faster than I could stand up—“five hundred fifty-five dollars per day. Give or take. In my professional opinion, that’s not nearly enough compensation for the length of time involved. You should be asking for five million at least, ideally double that.”
I waved an impatient hand in the air. “The amount stays the same. That’s not the important part.”
He leaned back in his chair in slow motion, his liver-spotted hands spread flat over his desk. I imagined he was trying not to fall over in shock. “I don’t concur, Miss Hardwick. When you’re marrying for money, money is the only important part.”
I said, “It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it for me.”
When my lips twisted, he sorrowfully shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Hardwick, but my advice to you is not to sign this document. It isn’t in your best interest. You could conceivably make one million dollars in five years with the income from your restaurant.”
Not in my wildest dreams, sir. And I don’t have that much time.
I drummed my fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. “Aside from the money, is there anything else in there I should worry about? Any language you want to tweak? Any offensive codicils we should remove? Anything?”
After examining my face in silence for what was definitely longer than polite, he said, “A few minor points. It’s very straightforward, actually, and fair, if such a word could be applied to this situation.”
“Good,” I said, standing. I couldn’t wait to leave. “Can you have the changes to me by tomorrow?”
He squinted up at me from behind his eyeglasses. “May I say something?”
“No.”
I could tell right away he was going to anyway, which he did.
“You’re an attractive young woman, Miss Hardwick. You also seem intelligent and pragmatic, a combination that in my experience is rarer than a unicorn sighting. There’s no need for someone like you to sell yourself short.”
I winced at his choice of words. He had the grace to look apologetic.
I said tightly, “Just have the changes to me by tomorrow,” and left, slamming the door behind me.
I had to lean against
the wall in the corridor outside for a long time before my stomach settled enough to keep walking.
A few days later I had the finalized contract in hand. I decided to celebrate by having a mental breakdown.
I was facedown on my desk when the phone rang. Inconveniently, it kept on ringing, even when I ignored it and let it go to voice mail twice. After a short pause it started to ring again. I had the sense it was shouting at me, and I knew who was on the other end of the line before I even picked up.
“Hello?”
“Bianca. It’s Jackson.”
He sounded agitated. What a surprise. “As if I couldn’t tell from the growl.”
“Why weren’t you answering? I called the front desk and Pepper insisted you were in your office.”
I added Pepper to the list of my employees I was going to kill. “I am in my office. I’m just . . . thinking.”
There was a short pause. “That sounds ominous.”
“I had an attorney review the contract.”
Another pause, then his voice, dry as bone, “Please contain your excitement. I don’t think my ego can handle such enthusiasm.”
I sighed, flopped back into my chair, and propped my feet up on my desk.
He demanded, “Talk to me.”
I fought a childish urge to stick my tongue out at the phone. “Just prewedding jitters, dear, nothing to worry about.”
His voice changed to the soft, stroking murmur he so rarely used. “Getting cold feet, are we?”
The intimacy in his voice raised gooseflesh on my arms, which I defiantly credited to the air-conditioning. “Are you deliberately talking about me in first-person plural pronoun to irritate me?”
“I only have to breathe in your presence to irritate you. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
I closed my eyes and spent a few seconds deciding where to start. “It’s a little overwhelming, this whole thing we’re doing. I never imagined getting married would be like applying for a line of credit.”
“It’s always like that,” he replied instantly. “What else is wrong?”
My eyes snapped open. He sounded a little too sure of himself there. “Are you speaking from experience?”
His silence was fraught. I bolted upright in the chair. “You’ve been married before?” I attributed my unnecessary shout to my breakdown and gave myself a pass.
Burn for You (Slow Burn Book 1) Page 18
