“Harry…”
On her lips, his name was a magical incantation and, unexpectedly, it stirred him. Emotion raged through him and he tangled himself with her and, driving harder, they took each other.
* * *
Her stomach rumbled and Bianca sighed deeply, sliding a hand over her bare belly. She felt his smile and opened her eyes. Propped on his elbow, Harry looked down at her, then drew his hand over her skin, stopping when it covered hers. He pushed his fingers between hers and watched when her eyes closed lazily. Apparently gifted with the ability to sleep easily anytime and anywhere, she sighed and slipped into sleep. Lying there with her hair spread on the pillow around her and her golden skin still flushed from what they’d shared, she looked exposed and innocent. Harry fought the urge to scoop her up and hold her.
Her stomach rumbled lightly again.
I need to feed my woman. He traced her lips with a single finger and her mouth curved in a tiny breathy kiss.
My woman. The thought felt good as he watched her. It felt damned good to watch her and still feel her touch on his skin. It amazed him to know that what they’d shared came from the same deep and ravenous place, that her hunger matched his.
This is nothing like what I had with Karen. With Karen, there had been curiosity and momentary thrill, tempered by the threat of her leaving. With Bianca, there was curiosity, and sensual thrill. With her, he wanted to see what lay beyond the next turn, to let her passion wipe the slate clean and rewrite the man who expected so little, but wanted so much.
What they’d shared was brought on by lust, but, lying by her side, a sense of permanence licked at Harry—something else he’d never had with Karen. Bianca’s hand crept along his hip to drape gracefully at his waist. The weight of her hand against his skin made him smile. I’ve waited a long time to enjoy something like this…
Listening to the sound of her breathing, he found no regret in the places that had been empty before Bianca. Maybe Kemi had a point; maybe there was a place for love in his life after all. Of course, a first time is always special…
The veil of her sleep lifted modestly, and sated, she smiled as she pulled the pale green sheet higher. Her leg swept his and pressed against her, he resisted the mystery of her eyes, but just barely. She murmured his name and he read her gaze, cherishing the look on her face.
She had her own reasons for warning him away, and for now he would let her keep them. Everybody was entitled to a little privacy, especially when learning to trust. In her kitchen, she’d held passion at bay long enough to be sure he knew where they stood, and in her bed she‘d found a way to willingly give as much as she took.
Bianca Coltrane was as different from Karen Dodge as day was from night. Maybe, just because she would never ask, this was the woman he could imagine feeding ice cream to, reading the newspaper with, cooking with. If she wasn’t meant for forever, maybe she was meant to heal a heart forever. Only time would tell.
She stretched and her lashes lifted when he murmured against her skin. The words were lazy and sweet, almost enough to make her smile into a soft laugh. “What did you say?”
His words poured over her like fine wine. “You are not a frog, never a frog.”
CHAPTER 12
That Akemi Jordan has a whole lot of nerve, looking at me like he knows something. I swear, if I hadn’t rushed off yesterday and forgotten my wallet, there is no way I would have gone back to Kin Kura this morning and had him questioning me like I was trying to run away with something valuable.
She wasn’t planning on running very far or very fast, but she was going to do it with Harry, and she saw no reason to explain it to his nosy brother. She’d already dodged a call from her own prying sister, and she giggled when she thought of Julia screaming, “I know you can hear me!” as she hung up on her.
Selective deafness just might save my relationship with her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk with her sister; Julia simply called at the wrong time and asked the wrong questions—repeatedly. And Julia’s call couldn’t have come at a worse time—seconds after Harry left the condo.
Bianca sucked in a breath and looked up at the floor indicator. The elevator in Peachtree Center’s Harris Tower was nearly as slow as the one in their building. When nothing happened, she pushed the button and willed the elevator to move faster. She wouldn’t even be here if Harry hadn’t gotten that call from Japan last night.
Everything had started out so well: him cooking, doing the dishes together, thinking they were going to just sit and enjoy a quiet evening. And then his stupid phone rang and he just had to answer it…
“Konbanwa,” he’d said into the phone, easing her from his lap.
Feeling dumped and deserted in her darkened living room, left sitting in the shifting light of a television program neither of them had really been watching, she was prepared to pout. Across the room, Harry held the phone to his ear and transformed from lover to CEO in an instant. Pacing, still wearing the gray crew-necked shirt and casual pants, he might have just as easily been dressed in a suit and tie, ready for the boardroom when he stepped away from her. Intense, speaking only in Japanese, he’d addressed his caller, and from across the room, she had felt his power.
Trouble. I knew it from the way he moved, but damn, he looked good doing it.
He had changed right before her eyes, and, cast in sepia and shadow, the dark eyes that were usually filled with melting tenderness and endless inquiry toughened, taking no nonsense. His lush, full-lipped mouth, made for long kisses and softly whispered words, tightened and firmed. “Sayonara,” he finally said, and turned back to her.
Judging only from the grave look on his face, she’d thrown her hands into the air and moaned, “No, don’t say it.” Clapping both hands over her ears, Bianca pulled her feet onto the sofa and squeezed her eyes shut. “Not our first holiday.”
Infinitely patient and amused, Harry sat next to her.
“No, I don’t want to hear it.” She knotted her features and turned her face from him.
The kiss he dropped to her ear earned him a swat. “Keep your stale old kisses.”
When she straightened in his lap, the sheen of her unshed tears surprised him. “Does it really mean that much to you?”
She clamped her arms together. “That call was trouble, wasn’t it? You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?”
“It was one of my project managers, Yamada Taro.” Harry’s hand ran along her arm, trailing heat.
Tempted, but not buying the distraction, Bianca shook off the hand. “Trouble.”
“The Roppongi project has a few problems.” His finger traced her throat and rested at her rapid pulse.
She sighed and leaned back against him with her arms still tightly folded. “That’s in Japan. Half a world away, Harry.”
He rested his chin on her hair, and his sigh joined hers.
“Promise me we’ll have some time together.”
“Bianca, I promise you we’ll have time together.”
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “This weekend. Promise me.”
“Nothing will make me break that promise.”
Taking his mouth with hers, not caring about the rush, she felt him run through her. “Starting now?” The question trailed off into a heartfelt sigh when he cupped her face in his palm. She twisted in his arms, surrendered. “This is kind of like starting now.”
Holding her, he trailed his fingers to the shadowed cleft of her breasts, lingered at the deep wrap of her top, then lifted it and moved forward. Tracing the fullness of her breast, savoring the fullness and weight, he found the nipple and gave it full attention, watching her eyes change as he did. “We’ll have the whole weekend,” he whispered.
Bianca sighed against him and he felt her breath hot and sweet through his shirt. Sliding her low on the sofa in the darkened room, Harry ignored the droning television and let his mouth skim over her. His cheek, grown rough with the passing of day, moved acros
s her. When he rubbed his cheek against her tender flesh, she tensed beneath him, and he heard her heart run wild. Covering her with his hands, Harry fixed his mouth on hers and took her to the edge before she had the chance to brace herself for the delicious fall.
The sun was slanting through her bedroom windows when Harry left her bed, and she was already missing him when Julia phoned. And now that she thought of it, she wasn’t all that sorry for blowing her sister off. She wanted Harry all to herself, and Julia tried to get in the way. But standing in front of the elevator, on her way to meet him, she softened a little and thought she might someday share a little of what she was feeling—but just a little.
Today she was going to share some of who she was with Harry, and she wanted him to like it. More importantly, she wanted him to respect her and what she wanted to make of Vive la Reine. She wanted his respect with a passion she’d never felt with KPayne.
Bianca looked up at the floor indicator again; it felt like she’d been waiting for hours. But an afternoon with Harry was worth the wait. They planned to make Memorial Day weekend memorable by spending it together, using the time to get to know each other better. It was Harry’s idea. He didn’t come right out and say it, but Bianca had the feeling there had been another woman in his past, one he regretted not having taken the time to get to know, and it had been a mistake.
When the elevator arrived, she stepped on board and pressed the elevator button. Riding alone, she was surprised to hear herself humming “Baby Come to Me”. Our song. She wondered if he remembered, thought of kissing him for the first time, and hoped he’d never forget. She knew she wouldn’t. She was still humming when she stepped off the elevator.
Turning to her right, she discovered Harry’s firm took up the whole floor. He said this was his headquarters, that his international accounts were handled from here. She walked further and found the main lobby at the next turn.
Open and startlingly modern, the space was oddly unlike the man. High walls of polished cement, interspersed with glass bricks and steel accents, were punctuated with colorful modern acrylic paintings and unexpectedly comfortable-looking cushioned sofas and chairs. Though the weatherman had predicted rain, the persistent sunlight of early summer touched the smart brightness of the tech-enhanced space, softening the hard edges.
On second thought, the contrast was exactly like Harry.
“Good morning, may I help you?” The woman’s voice was crisp and efficient, only loud enough to reach Bianca’s ears. The speaker stood beside a long, cool-looking chrome and glass table. She was tall, would have been tall even without her pencil-thin high heels. Her hair was sleeked back close to her head and her eyes were sharply focused.
Looking like she’d just stepped off the pages of a European fashion magazine, this stunning sister was comfortable with her body, but still looked like she meant business. She was maybe mid-thirties, but with her precisely applied makeup and obviously expensive jewelry, she looked like a woman afraid of forty. The men she’d seen in the hall were casually dressed, with their sport shirts and summer slacks. But this woman was wearing couture and those sexy shoes like armor, and Bianca felt completely underdressed. Thinking of her own feet after a full day at Kin Kura, she knew she would never have made the same shoe choice this woman had.
Wondering who the woman was dressed to impress, jealousy lapped eagerly at Bianca’s thoughts and caught her off guard. Searching the woman’s face, she wasn’t sure whether she was looking for signs of jealousy or turf guarding, but the woman’s lovely face registered only mild interest in her. Bianca’s shoulders went back and she stood a little taller. Maybe she was suspicious of a femme fatale lurking in Harry’s orbit just because he was Harry. My Harry.
Forcing herself to smile pleasantly, she almost had the chance to state her business, but the woman beat her to it.
“You must be Ms. Coltrane. Mr. Jordan asked me to watch for you.” She extended a hand and made the gesture elegant. “I’ll take you back.” She floated gracefully away from the chrome and glass table that might have served as her desk and led the way across the floor.
Crossing the cement floor, Bianca had the feeling Harry’s office would probably look like a factory workshop. When her guide stopped in front of a walled glass cube, she saw that she was wrong. Harry’s office wasn’t a factory workshop, it was an aquarium.
He stood at the head of another long glass and chrome table studying a manual. Around him, matching chairs had been pushed away to allow space for moving. Operations sheets and blueprints littered the table and were tacked along one wall. At his side, a laptop computer flashed on a small auxiliary table when he spoke into a tiny microphone clipped to his shirt.
Her guide pushed open a nearly invisible glass door and stepped into the room. “Your guest has arrived, Haru.”
He was wearing jeans, a turquoise polo shirt, and glasses. She didn’t know he wore glasses. But they looked good on him, rather added to her sexy nerd perception, and then she thought of singing with him, making love to him, and decided he needed no accessories to be the sexy anything. Looking up, seeing Bianca, Harry removed his glasses and the microphone. “Thanks, Deb.”
Bianca followed her guide through the glass door. When she stopped at Harry’s side, the smile he gave her made her forget her jealousy. Deb’s eyes were quick, but Bianca felt the swift once-over when Harry took her hand and knew she was being appraised. Deb said something low, and eased her way out of the door.
“Anything I say right now is going to sound cheesy, but I’m really glad to see you,” Harry whispered. Bianca vaguely registered the woman’s departure, but not before Harry caught the fleeting question crossing her face.
“Deb is a systems engineer,” he told her, lightly caressing her cheek. “Georgia Tech, and really good at what she does.”
“She called you Haru.”
“It’s my name,” he said simply.
“I thought your name was Harry.”
His thumb stroked the corner of her mouth and laughter lit his eyes. “Haru is my given name. Harry is what my friends and family—and beautiful women—call me. Deb has been a member of my team from the beginning.”
Pulling back to look into his eyes, Bianca narrowed hers to appraising slits. “How much longer are you going to sing her praises?”
Harry’s eyes crinkled at the corners, touching her heart. “Until you forget you ever saw her and believe me when I say that I only have eyes for you.”
“I believe you, if only for the sake of our weekend.”
“Good. I need to finish one more thing in my office.”
“This isn’t your office?”
“The fishbowl? No, this is a conference area. Come on, I’ll show you my office.”
Following him, she let him give her the ten-cent tour, but caught her breath when they turned the corner into a space that was very different from the all-glass conference area. His was a large corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows along two walls, and the same polished cement floors as the rest of the administrative center.
Bianca couldn’t possibly have named the weaver or the style of the richly colored Oriental rug warming the floor. A small bonsai forest grew on levels near the windows, but it was the pale green and white hand-carved jade and polished wood accents that reminded her of Akemi’s office. Like his brother, Harry had chosen a water accent. His was a moving wall of water facing his desk.
“I couldn’t work in here if my life depended on it,” she whispered, watching the water shimmer and ripple. “As beautiful as it is, it’s too distracting.”
“One of the best reasons for having it.”
He crossed to his desk and rapidly moved his fingers over his laptop computer, closing out his working programs. Leaning on the desk, waiting for the system to power down, he watched Bianca. Standing there in her white jeans and sandals, with the pink halter top baring her shoulders and arms, she was far more distracting than the water.
Her bright hair was cau
ght up, almost the way it had been the first time he’d seen her, and she looked like summer to him. Patti-cake is gonna love you…Harry smiled. Truth was, Obaasan Ran would be just as fascinated by Bianca as her American counterpart. Both grandmothers would feel relief that he’d found a woman, and the fact that she was smart and beautiful would only add fuel to their fierce hopes for beautiful great-grandchildren.
He felt the hazel eyes run over him in a trail of smoky heat and dropped his eyes to the computer. There was too much glass around for him to follow up on the impulse her gaze generated. But we have time for that later, he promised himself.
Funny, I just left her a few hours ago, and I missed her. He focused on the shifting computer screen. That never happened before. Not even with Karen, and I thought I loved her.
Since Karen Dodge, he had worn love and passion like a loose fitting garment: if they touched him, they did, and if they didn’t, well, that was okay, too. But with Bianca…Harry chanced a look up from the computer. She had crossed the room, and, wearing a dreamy smile, leaned forward and trailed her fingers in the water, changing the sound to a soft babble. Powered down, the screen went black on his computer and he closed the lid. She turned at the snap, then shook water from her fingers while he locked the computer in his desk.
“Ready?”
He nodded, glad it hadn’t taken quite as much time from their day as he’d first feared. The Roppongi project was proving more problematic than it should have been. Snatch-and-grab theft was hard to deal with because there was no art or rhythm to it, just brute force; take what you want and damn the consequences.
And it was snatch-and-grab theft that forced NeoTech to rework all of the security plans for Roppongi. And it was in the reworking of the plans that Harry found his fun. Weight-sensitive floor plates, computer-generated anticipation codes, and electronic gadgetry that not even James Bond could foresee were part of his upgrades, and doing it all within the project budget made it more interesting. Wondering why in the world was there even a need to protect against people who were willing to work harder at stealing than they would have had to at a real job, he pushed away from the desk.
Wayward Dreams Page 18
