Under the Millionaire's Influence

by Catherine Mann

  She relaxed into his chest as they sat leaning back against the sleigh-bed headboard with her draped across his lap—too comfortable. Too easy to stay this way. “I’m not sure I can fully express to someone like you how much that meant to us, finding out we were special.”

  “To someone like me?” He went still against her, his voice rumbling under her ear.

  Oops. She’d stepped in it, but there was no backtracking. “Someone born knowing his place in the world. Someone valued from birth. Someone encouraged to stand out…” She shook her head again, embarrassed, wary in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. Putting her whole self out there got tougher rather than easier with age.

  He caressed the back of her neck in a gentle massage. “Don’t stop there.”

  Apparently even if she’d stepped in it, he wanted her to keep on wading through. She swallowed down that darned persistent lump. “Why, Special Agent, that was positively sensitive of you, urging me to continue with this emotional discussion.”

  “I work to understand people for a living. It strikes me that understanding you should have been my number-one priority and yet I worked like hell to…”

  “Keep your distance while getting me naked?”

  He didn’t answer, simply rested his chin on top of her head. An affirmation of sorts.

  “So I’ll talk.” Because if she ever wanted to figure this thing out between her and David, they would have to stop hiding from each other. She wasn’t sure where this would lead—to more closeness or the final heartbreak—but this time, they would have to see it through. “Most of us came from situations where it was best not to be noticed. I had problems in my childhood, no question, but David, some of the things I heard from the other girls would break even your hard heart.”

  “Ashley.”

  “For one.” She thought of so many others, ones who’d found homes, ones who’d gone to mended homes, ones who’d been forced to return home, even though nothing was fixed at all….

  Starr blinked back the gritty craziness of the world and focused on what she could repair. “We couldn’t exactly take out a hit on Ashley’s heartless birth parents who gave her up rather than take on the cost and stress of dealing with her birth defects, but we’ve given her a family, a home, and we hocked ourselves up to our ears to give her the college education so she could achieve more.”

  “The education both of you wanted.”

  She shrugged, not ready to admit that yet, because heaven forbid Ashley should somehow even catch a whiff of the feeling radiating off Starr.

  “Babe, you may be right that they could put a dent in my hardened heart.” David swept her off his lap and onto her back beside him. “But right now, you’re the one chipping away at that pounding rock in the middle of my chest.”

  Staring up at David looming over her, Starr wondered if she would be able to deny this man anything he asked of her right now.

  Nine

  D avid twined his fingers through Starr’s hair and watched her sleep, in no real hurry to wake her and launch the morning. The day would start soon enough and he would resume his campaign to persuade her that following him around the world wasn’t such a hardship after all. Convincing her wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d led himself to believe setting out on this trip.

  He thumbed the off button on his cell phone and rested it on the bedside table by the remains of their midnight feast. Thank God the call hadn’t woken her because as far as he was concerned she didn’t need to know.

  Her mother had been picked up by local cops, questioned and ultimately released. There was a chance she was involved in a purse snatching, but Gita had spun the attempt to make it sound as if she was only trying to catch the real thief and—lo and behold—she caught him so she had the woman’s stolen purse, which she turned over.

  She’d waltzed out of the station on lack of evidence.

  Already Starr carried such a chip on her shoulder. Hell, call it what it was—an inferiority complex. Damn. He just didn’t get it, because she was the smartest, sharpest, most amazing woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Convincing her, however, helping her overcome the hell of her childhood and find an inherent new sense of self…He still had some work to accomplish in that arena.

  He refused to doubt that he could win. But for now, he allowed himself a window of time to forget about the fact they had past problems or a future to settle.

  The desert sunrise shone through the hotel skylights, glinting off her skin, reminding him of how he’d worshiped every inch of her through the night. Being with her that first time in the desert had been mind blowing, and damn near control shattering since he hadn’t been with anyone else in the past year since he’d last left her.

  Something he hadn’t told her. Of course they always played these little games with each other, holding back pieces of themselves.

  It didn’t escape him that she still hadn’t told him what had brought her next door to Libby Sullivan’s doorstep. Starr was efficient at dodging questions, far better than anyone he’d ever encountered, and he’d interrogated the best. Of course, he didn’t want her to feel threatened.

  Still he couldn’t escape the driving need to know more about her. And what better time than now to gather up as much info about her as possible to use in his quest to win her over? Winning her to his side grew more important the more time he spent with her.

  Being with her—well, damn it all—he’d been deluding himself that a couple of days would be enough. So he needed to come up with a way to sway her into taking more time off from that business she loved so much. Why couldn’t she see it was just a house? Bricks and wood and nails.

  He’d hoped that the excitement of making love out in the open would give her a taste of what was out there to be experienced—beyond the limiting boundaries of home.

  Starr sighed and stirred beside him, stretching. He slowed his strokes through her wildly tangled mass of hair, letting her find her own pace waking. Besides, he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure of watching her. They’d woken together very few times, only last year the one weekend they’d spent together. While they’d slept together as teens, they’d never been able to share a night.

  She kicked the covers, inching her feet free, curling her toes until a subtle crack, crack, crack echoed in the otherwise silent room. Turning from his side, she stretched, clutching the sheet to her chest—damn shame—and rolled onto her back, tucking her head into the pillow, her neck arching. Okay, only a saint could hold strong against this enticing goddess greeting the morning.

  “Good morning, babe.” He kissed the crook of her neck, the first of her erogenous zones he’d discovered in making out with Starr.

  “Mmmmm,” she answered with a groggy groan, reaching to stroke his chest while tipping her head to give him better access to her neck.

  He definitely liked mornings with Starr. Sliding a leg over hers, he trapped her still and trekked toward her breasts. She fidgeted under his touch.

  “Morning.” She pressed a quick kiss to his shoulder and slid from beneath him. She rolled to her feet, gloriously naked. “Teeth. Gross. Gotta brush them.”

  From her brusque tone, apparently she wasn’t much of a morning person. He grinned at the bit of knowledge and filed it away in his mind as she disappeared into the bathroom. David stuffed a second pillow behind his head and sat up, resting back against the headboard, staring at her stroll back to bed. She crawled across the sheets to rejoin him, pressing a proper good-morning kiss to his mouth before settling in beside him.

  “How about room service, or do you want to compare their buffet to your own?”

  “If I’m going to call this a true vacation, I guess I should forego the buffet in lieu of room service.”

  “That’s my girl.” He nuzzled her neck again before reaching for the phone and placing their order. He considered resuming their lovemaking, but didn’t particularly want to be interrupted by room service. “You know, babe, as much as I’m enjoying this, I really don�
��t want to stop halfway through to answer the door for your eggs Benedict.”

  “So we’ll ignore it and order more.”

  As her hand made its way up his leg, he considered her proposition, seriously contemplated it, but then he remembered last night and how pleasure delayed was pleasure doubled. What better time to advance his goal of learning more about her?

  David clamped a hand around her wrist with an inch to spare before she would have been hands on the target and able to talk him into ignoring food through the whole day. “Not yet. Soon though, and I’ll make the wait well worth your while.”

  Starr eased away, studying him through narrowed eyes, crossing her arms over her perfect breasts. Her bottom lip jutted out in an honest to Pete pout. He couldn’t stop his grin.

  She grabbed a pillow and swatted him. “It’s really ungentlemanly of you to revel in my pain.”

  “Your pain? You’re actually hurting you want me so much?”

  As he ducked the next swat of her lethal pillow, he couldn’t stop the full-out smile that spread over his face. Call him a knuckle-dragger, but he liked that he had sway over this woman. Heaven knew she pulled him inside out with a look, a touch, a simple wish for a damn cat plate because he knew she still longed for a pet.

  He let her rain her downy swats at him for another couple of swings before looping his arms around her waist and pinning her to the mattress. Tickling. Laughing. And oh, yeah, kissing.

  David eased his mouth from hers and brushed a kiss against her ear. “You’ve had the power to knock me on my ass since the first day I saw you.”

  She stilled under him. “You seem so self-confident. I didn’t think anyone rocked you.”

  How could she not know? Of course he’d done his best not to let her into his head. Which brought him back around to his wish to crawl inside her brain. As much as he balked at ponying up facts about his life, sharing a piece of himself only seemed fair for what he expected from her. And it was a good interrogation technique. Right?

  Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day, pal.

  He twined one of her curls around his finger. “Actually, there was one other woman who could put the fear of God in me.”

  “Your mom?”

  Staying silent, he shook his head. “Your aunt Libby.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  The luxury sheet started to itch against his bare flesh. “Because she knew what we were doing.”

  “Aunt Libby knew?” She shoved him off her as if somehow the woman could see them now. Starr inched up higher against the headboard, sheet gripped to her breasts. “She knew I was crawling up into your room?”

  How the woman had managed to mother anywhere from eight to eighteen children at once he would never know, but his admiration for her ran deeper than the dark Atlantic off Charleston. “She sure did, babe.”

  “Why didn’t she talk to me?”

  “Because you’re as immovable as a tree stump.”

  “Why, thank you. I do believe that’s the most romantic thing a man’s ever said to me. How can I ever resist climbing onto your private jet for another getaway to an exotic locale?”

  He considered apologizing for the statement and then figured he might as well opt for the truth. A relationship built on lies to make the other feel better wasn’t worth a crap. “You grew up with bullshit flattery and downright lies. I figured you were a woman who would respect the God’s honest truth.”

  She skimmed a finger along his collarbone in an innocent touch that shouldn’t have had so much arousing power over him, but it did. He gripped her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her palm, more to give himself some distance, control over the situation.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  He pressed a final kiss to her wrist. “Stay put. I’ll get it.”

  Rolling from the bed to his feet, he grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms from his suitcase and yanked them on before heading out to the sitting area. She was tougher to win over than he’d expected. But then when had anything ever gone the way he’d expected or wanted with Starr? Damn it, he wasn’t a quitter. He’d vowed to make the most of these couple of days together and he would push it to the wall on all levels, if that was what it took. Even if it meant doing something far more difficult than staging impromptu cross-country trips. He would do that thing chicks seemed to want most—share feelings.

  He shuddered even though there wasn’t an air conditioner or fan in sight.

  Starr slathered raspberry preserves on her whole-wheat toast, studying David across the small table the entire time. What was he up to now? She could see the wheels turning in his handsome head, although he’d been nothing but charming from the moment they’d sat at the romantic little table with its wrought-iron legs and seat backs shaped like hearts.

  Adjusting a button on the pajama top she wore—his pajama top—she figured she would have to look into purchasing a table like this for Beachcombers…. But hadn’t he done this a ka-zillion times? Chosen something in their outing that would speak to her and her life?

  What about him? What did he want from these couple of days away? Besides the obvious naked time.

  She swallowed down her toast with a swig of orange juice. “Okay, so back to the Aunt Libby discussion. I’m stubborn and sometimes I’m so focused on my goal I don’t have time to weigh in other people’s plans and opinions.”

  He nodded that blue-blooded regal head of his. “And I have my own strong opinions. But when it came to you, your aunt Libby knew I had a…”

  She’d never seen him wrestle for a word before. Did he not know? Or did he not want to own up? The possibility shimmered through her veins like the glitter spread out on her table in her studio.

  “I could be less inflexible when it came to you, and that old lady knew it. She stood nose to nose with me.”

  Had he just admitted to vulnerability? He had. Ohmigod.

  Starr set down her juice. His memory must be faulty, although Aunt Libby had had a larger than life quality. “She was a full foot shorter than you. How could she stand nose to nose?”

  “Libby Sullivan was a savvy lady.” He refilled his coffee, adding nothing else to the steaming cup of java. “She knew how to set the stage for her interrogation and made sure she stood a few porch steps up, on her turf, not mine.”

  “Did she threaten to tell your mother?” Obviously she hadn’t, though, since his mother hadn’t found out until prom night. The beautiful evening had been tainted by his mother’s sniffy, haughty demeanor and yes, Starr still resented the old bat over a decade later.

  “Like threatening to tell my mother would have made a difference to me. I wanted you and that’s all that mattered.” He shrugged with the easy attitude of a man who could have anything he wanted.

  And he wanted her. The depth of that discovery made her forget to chew her toast for a full two seconds.

  He wouldn’t have cared what his mom thought? All these years she’d worried about his mother and he brushed aside her concerns with a simple sentence. Starr darn near went deaf for a moment as the notion settled and she faced the reality of her own insecurities and how she’d let Mrs. Hamilton-Reis play on them.

  Starr shook herself free of the past and back into the moment. David was laying out some heavy stuff here and she didn’t want to miss a word of it.

  “Miss Sullivan told me I was hurting you by making you sneak around. That you had walked in the shadows and been ashamed too long. You deserved to be proud of who you are.” He studied the handle on his coffee mug for an extended moment before taking a long swallow.

  Aunt Libby’s words had obviously bothered him.

  It made total sense now. “That’s why you asked me to go to the senior dance with you.” It made total sense—and stung even now that he’d had to be pushed.

  “No. I had already asked that.”

  Relief sluiced over her far stronger than she liked to admit. Something that had happened so long ago shouldn’t have had
this much power over her. But it did. He did.

  “I’d already figured it was time to do the dating thing. We’d gotten things out of order because you made me so freaking hot I couldn’t make it to dinner. I wish I could blame that impulsiveness on teenage hormones, but the hell of it is, I’m still as hot for you as I ever was.”

  Her skin heated all over at the admission. Did that make a second vulnerability he’d confessed? No. It didn’t count when he knew full well she shared every bit of the impulsive, undeniable passion.

  “We ditched our clothes pretty quickly around each other once you came back from that fancy boarding school of yours.”

  “You grew. God, did you ever grow up.” His heated gaze scorched right over her, firing her up when her body should have been sated from their night of lovemaking. How could a woman with thighs that still ached be so totally entranced by a glance?

  “As did you.” She soaked up the hard-muscled look of him. Would she ever tire of simply seeing him? A scary notion because it scratched out the possibility of finding happiness anywhere else. “What did you do after Aunt Libby’s big intimidating talk?”

  “I asked you to come with me to college, to follow me around the world.” He lifted a lock of her hair and teased it over the curve of her breast exposed by the gaping pajama top she wore, which made the satiny fabric feel all the more sexy against her skin because it was his. “I’m asking you again.”

  Why did he always have to try and distract her with sex? She only just now realized his every offer came with a sensual touch.

  Starr met his gaze dead-on and tried her best to stifle the arousal zinging through her veins. “Nothing’s changed, David.”

  “Sure it has. We’re older. You can study the art you used to spend all those hours studying in pictures.”

  He really knew how to go for the jugular in a nonsexual way after all. She’d never been able to afford college, but had soaked up as much of art history as she could on her own. Still, growing up in a neighborhood of privilege, money, Ph.D. This and Dr. That, she couldn’t help the occasional tweak to her self-esteem as she longed to go back to school.