That was true. Although they had removed most of the broken glass the evening before, Kristy still had the storm-soaked linens, and rugs and other furnishings to deal with. She wanted to get the twins’ room put back together as soon as possible, but because of the tiny shards of broken glass that still remained scattered about, it wasn’t a task that her eight-year-old daughters could assist with. “That would be a big help, thanks,” she said, giving Winnifred a hug. The last thing they needed was a trip to the pediatric minor emergency center.
As soon as Winnifred, Harry and the girls left for Charleston, Kristy turned back to Connor. As much as she wanted his company, she knew she had taken advantage of his generosity. She didn’t want to wear out her welcome, so to speak. “I know you have business to attend to, so…you don’t have to stay and help.” She could manage the work on her own.
“Are you kidding? I want to! Although,” he added with a perplexed frown, “without electricity we won’t be able to do the linens.”
Kristy sighed as they walked back into the lodge, hand in hand. “I was hoping it would have been turned back on by now,” she lamented.
“I heard on the car radio that a substation out here was knocked out, so it could be late this evening before they get it up and running again,” Connor warned, as they headed for the staircase leading to the second floor.
“Well, we can at least bring the mattresses and toys downstairs and put them on the porch to air out.”
When they went to pick up the mattresses, however, they realized just how wet and heavy they were. “I’m not sure these are going to be salvageable,” Connor said as, between them, they carried a twin-size mattress downstairs.
Kristy had been thinking the same thing. As she contemplated the price of replacing all that, she flashed him a weak grin that was a lot more cheerful than she felt. “You know what they say,” she said, as they laid the mattress near the end of the piazza, to begin drying out. “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’ve have no luck at all.”
Connor walked upstairs with her to get the other mattress.
“Will your insurance pay for it?” he asked, as they moved carefully around the shards of glass still glittering here and there.
Kristy grabbed the broom and swept all the glass she could see into a pile in the corner.
“After I pay the deductible.”
“Which is…?”
“One thousand dollars.”
“Ouch.” Connor regarded her sympathetically.
“Yeah. I know.” Kristy felt a self-conscious flush warm her cheeks as she picked up one end of the second mattress and Connor got the other. “I opted for lower premiums and a higher deductible, figuring nothing would happen. I figured wrong.”
They turned the mattress on end, and he took the lead—as well as the bulk of the weight. Backing out the door, he gave her a concerned glance. “If you want to borrow money…” he offered generously.
“Thanks,” Kristy said, feeling even more embarrassed by yet another poor decision on her part. She should have let him board up those windows yesterday the way he wanted! “But I’ve got it covered,” she continued resolutely. “When my house in North Carolina sells, I should have a nice sum to add to my bank account.”
“Have you had any offers on it?”
Kristy shrugged as they headed down the stairs, being careful not to scrape the just-painted walls. “One, a few months ago, that I refused because it was so low.” Now out of sheer necessity Kristy was thinking about revisiting it, to help her cash flow problems caused by the cancelled conference and the storm damage. It was twenty percent less than what she had hoped to make off the sale, but it would also rid her of the mortgage payments on that property. And that would help her a great deal. She could only hope the architect and his wife who had made the offer were still interested.
“That’s the downside of owning real estate,” Connor replied easily. “Since it’s in a constant state of flux, you never know what the value will be when you decide to sell.”
Kristy caught his glance as they set the mattress down and walked back in, side by side. It wasn’t hard to imagine what Connor must be thinking she should do. What he—and Skip and her family—had thought all along. “I think,” she commented dryly, feeling so discouraged she could barely look him in the eye, “that this is the point where you encourage me to cut my losses and sell out to you and Skip.”
Connor paused at the foot of the stairs as if he didn’t know what to say. “I thought you wanted to bring the resort back to its former glory,” he stated carefully, after a moment.
Kristy sighed with a weariness that came straight from her soul. Suddenly she couldn’t hold back her feelings anymore, and the words came pouring out of her. “That,” she said, her voice breaking, “was before Imogene. And the palmettos coming down with some mysterious malady and the tree crashing through the window. And the cancelled conference. And extra food. And people I hired that I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pay very much longer. And the lack of electricity and hot water today.” Her smile wavered and then, to the distress of both of them, she burst into tears.
Horrified to be breaking down in front of Connor like this, Kristy turned and rushed away, her hand pressed to her mouth. He rushed right after her, catching her as she reached the reservations desk, where he turned her to face him and wrapped his arms around her. “Come on now, Kristy,” he soothed. “It’s not that bad.”
“It is!” She cried all the harder. She had been kidding herself. Kidding him. “I can’t do this!”
“Yes,” Connor told her sternly, “you can.”
“N-n-no, I can’t!” Kristy sobbed, her whole body shaking. “Don’t you understand, Connor? I’m broke. Broke! This conference would have given me operating costs through the end of the year, but to do any more than that, I need a lot more guests coming in. I need to be full over the holidays. And I just don’t see how that is going to happen with that mess out there—” she waved her hands at the sick and fallen palmetto trees “—this mess upstairs in our suite…”
Connor wasn’t sure whether this was the time to tell her about Bruce Fitts and his part in the sabotage or not. Particularly since he didn’t know if Fitts was going to do the honorable thing, ante up and pay for the damages, or continue to be a jerk, make it unnecessarily hard on all of them and force them to go to the district attorney or file a civil lawsuit. Both would take time and money. And an emotional strength and energy Kristy seemed to be lacking right now.
“Look,” Connor said, wrapping his arms around her tightly, “you have insurance on this place, and it should pick up a lot of the costs.”
“You’re missing the point. It will take several weeks, at the very least, to get the outside looking good again. And until the outside looks good again, I can’t book rooms here. If I can’t book rooms, I go further and further into the red. It’s a downward spiral that never seems to end!”
“Are you telling me,” Connor asked evenly, searching her face, “that you are ready to flat-out give up and throw in the towel and sell Paradise Resort to me and Skip?”
Kristy bit her lip, looking for the first time as if she was ready and willing to lean on him completely. “Tell me the truth, Connor. Is that what you think I should do?”
“I’m asking you what you want to do,” he replied, just as seriously, willing to do not what would serve him and his partner and the consortium they’d put together, but Kristy and her girls. Willing, for the first time, to forget the bottom line and the task of making everybody involved in a deal happy, and focusing only on one. Only Kristy. Even though that was going to tick off and disappoint a lot of people who had been counting on him.
But he had to make a choice here, Connor knew. And as far as he was concerned, he had made it.
A tense silence fell between them. Kristy gulped. Finally, she said in a very small voice. “I don’t know what I want to do, Connor. I just…don’t…know.” She shook her head, her body slumping
in defeat.
CONNOR CALLED WINNIFRED from the car, en route to Charleston. “Hey, Winnifred, it’s Connor. Kristy’s exhausted. Yeah. I don’t think the twins should see her like this. Could you? Just for this evening? And don’t tell them—I don’t want them to worry…. I think with some sleep… Absolutely. All right. We’ll see you tomorrow morning, first thing.”
Connor turned to Kristy. “Winnifred and Harry are going to keep the girls at her place tonight.”
Kristy nodded as tears of defeat and exhaustion continued to roll down her face. His expression determined, he continued authoritatively, “So you’ve got a choice. A hotel…”
She laughed shakily at the irony of that, wiping the tears from her face. Her spirits rose, crashed and rose again. “Didn’t I just leave a hotel?”
“Or my loft on Chalmers Street,” he offered, even more deliberately.
Kristy felt a lump the size of a walnut gathering in her throat. “You don’t want me there,” she murmured wearily. Not when she was such a basket case.
“Au contraire, babe.” Connor flashed her a sexy, single-man-about-town grin completely at odds with her disheveled state. He took one hand off the wheel, reached over and squeezed her knee. “Besides, don’t you owe me a date? After all—” he slanted her an even sexier glance “—I did win our bet, did I not?”
Stubbornly, Kristy ignored the tingles of desire he was creating. “You did. And to be honest, I’m in no condition tonight for a date.” Even if the selfish part of her wanted nothing more than to spend the entire night wrapped in his arms, alternately pouring out her troubles and crying her eyes out, and making love with him.
Connor parked in front of his building. He looked at her the way he had the night they had been all dressed up, attending the benefit for the teen shelter—as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. Heck, the only woman for him. “Then I get a rain check?” he asked softly, taking her in his arms.
Kristy sniffed and rested her forehead on his strong shoulder. She supposed a bet was a bet. “If you want one,” she allowed, ashamed that she still couldn’t seem to get hold of herself, or stop the tears that kept leaking from the corners of her eyes, no matter how hard she tried.
“I insist,” Connor said gently, pressing a light, loving kiss to her temple.
“I’m not going to be very good company,” she warned as he held the door for her and they took the freight elevator up to his place.
“You don’t have to be any company at all,” Connor said, wrapping a strong, comforting arm about her waist. “You just have to shower and sleep, and later eat.”
She’d forgotten to bring clothes, so after she’d had a long, hot shower, he lent her a V-necked T-shirt and a pair of his pajama pants to sleep in. Then he led her over to his bed, tucked her in and stayed beside her until she fell asleep.
When she finally stirred, the digital clock beside the bed said 7:30. Confused, she looked at the dusky light outside the windows of the loft and, yawning, struggled to sit up. “Is it morning?”
Connor came out of the chair he had been sitting in and sauntered over to his bed. “Night.”
Kristy blinked the sleep from eyes that still felt puffy from her crying jag. Not that Connor seemed to mind. He was still looking at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. She pushed herself up on her elbows. “How long was I asleep?”
“About four hours.”
Kristy groaned and stretched. It felt like too long, and not long enough. He had showered, too. And changed into casual slacks, a crew-neck knit shirt and deck shoes.
He perched beside her on the edge of the bed, favoring her with a sexy smile that did funny things to her insides. “Hungry?”
Kristy had to think about that. “Maybe. A little,” she allowed, as she regarded him with the same measure of satisfaction he was giving her. Her heart was suddenly thumping so hard she could hear it in her ears. “How about you?” she asked breathlessly.
His eyes still holding hers, Connor inclined his head slightly to one side. “For just one thing,” he admitted, smiling. Then he slid over next to her, took her in his arms and captured her mouth in a soft kiss that made her heart soar and had her senses spinning. Realizing all over again how much she loved the warmth and strength of him, Kristy wrapped her arms around Connor’s neck and kissed him again and again, savoring the taste of him, even as she inhaled the faint fragrance of shampoo and soap and shaving cream.
Without breaking the kiss, he slipped off his shoes, lifted the covers and slid in beside her, taking her fully into his arms. He was warm and solid, the best reality in her problem-laced world, and she moved against him, needing his quiet strength and the safe harbor of his strong arms.
He kissed her again, until passion swept through her and her body arched and her hands clung. He kissed her until she lost what was left of her restraint and was inundated in the pleasure and the wonder of the moment.
Kristy hadn’t meant to fall in love with Connor. Hadn’t wanted to fall in love ever again. Because that meant being vulnerable, meant she could get hurt again. But Connor wasn’t going to hurt her, shut her out or deceive her, she realized as he eased the T-shirt over her ribs, past her breasts.
Her pulse jumped as he bent and brushed light, butterfly kisses across her skin. A soft moan—or was it a sigh of surrender?—shuddered through her as he palmed her breasts and stroked his thumbs across the pearling tips.
“Oh, Connor…” Kristy murmured, already feeling the dampness between her legs and the restlessness building inside her. “I want you so much.”
He looked into her eyes, and she saw an answering tenderness and need that surprised her. “I know,” he murmured back, divesting her of the T-shirt and then the pajama pants. “I want you, too.”
She watched as he stood beside the bed and began to remove his clothes, his eyes never leaving hers. Shirt, slacks, boxers fell away. The soft light on the other side of the loft clearly illuminated the hard ridges and masculine contours of his body. His desire for her apparent, he climbed back into the bed. For a moment, he let his gaze trail over her. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
She reached for him, smiling, letting her hand trace the ridged muscles of his abdomen and the silky hair covering his well-defined pecs and shoulders. There was a time when she would have felt this was a mistake, Kristy knew. But the events of the last week had shown her it was inevitable. The two of them were meant to be together. She didn’t know for how long, or in precisely what way. She just knew she needed and wanted him with every fiber of her being. “I love the way you look and feel, too,” she said, almost shyly.
He bent to kiss her throat, pausing to trace a lazy circle where her pulse throbbed. Kristy let her head fall back as her heart took up a steady, mesmerizing beat. Sliding a hand beneath her hair, he brought her lips to his again. He kissed her gently, his tongue mating with hers. His lips traced the shell of her ear, the slope of her neck, leaving her feeling deliciously distraught, and then his mouth moved even lower, to the slope and curve and jutting ends of her breasts, kissing and caressing, sending her into a frenzy of yearning. She arched against him, burying her hands in his hair.
Groaning, Connor shifted his weight, settling between her thighs, his hips nudging them apart. She drew in a shaky breath as he slid ever lower. She gripped his shoulders hard, arching up to meet him as he touched her languidly, knowingly, taking her to heights and depths, teaching her every nuance of desire. Only when the excitement inside her had subsided to a gentle tremor did he find his way back up her body, pulling her knees to his waist, pushing his erection into her silky, trembling wetness.
He moved with tantalizing slowness, filling and retreating, going ever deeper, encouraging her to give back everything, even as she, too, demanded more. She wanted everything—passion, pleasure, tenderness, surrender. She wanted Connor, Kristy thought as the two of them went spiraling over the edge. Heart and soul.
WORRIED THAT HIS WEIGH
T was too much for her, Connor eased away from Kristy and onto his side the moment he caught his breath. Wrapping his arms around her, he brought her close, and with a shuddering sigh of what sounded like utter contentment, she went willingly into his arms, placing her head on his chest, an arm on his shoulder, a leg draped across his waist.
Connor had never been much for cuddling, but the feel of Kristy beside him, all pliant, giving woman, combined with the wild, wanton pleasure of their lovemaking and the clean, sexy fragrance of her hair and skin, made him never want to let her go.
He knew he could make love to her every night for the rest of his life and it still wouldn’t be enough, would never be enough. He didn’t know how or why she had become such a huge part of his life, he just knew she had. And that being with her completed him in some fundamental, essential way.
Kristy pressed her lips to his chest. His body responded. She kissed the curve of his shoulder. He felt himself throb like a nineteen-year-old kid. She stretched out overtop of him and began to kiss him again in a way that was reckless and relentless. There was no denying her passion, no denying the feelings swirling around in him.
Their relationship might have started out as a battle of wills, but it had evolved into so much more. Connor wanted her, needed her, needed this. He moaned as she kissed her way downward, settling between his thighs. Her lips and hands moved over his skin, touching and caressing and loving, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. Whatever shyness and reservations she’d had initially were gone now. She cradled him with one hand, while stroking him with the other. Aware that he’d never experienced anything sexier in his life, he watched as her head lowered, her hair spilling across his stomach like ribbons of silk. Her lips moved over the rigidness of his erection to the base, and lower still to the part of him that sheathed his seed, before moving ever closer, once again, to the sensitive crest.
With a mixture of eroticism and tenderness he could only have imagined, she traced every inch of the ridgelike seam. Connor hadn’t known that he, too, could be seduced into surrendering, but that was exactly what he did as she continued tantalizing and arousing. Loving him with her fingertips, palms, lips, before finally drawing him into her mouth. Over and over she lashed him with her tongue, teeth, lips and kissing and caressing, working her tender magic until he shuddered uncontrollably and beads of lubricating moisture appeared on the tip of his shaft. Knowing that if he didn’t change gears it would all be over way too soon, he started to move, to shift her so she was beneath him and he was in charge once again.
Taking Over the Tycoon Page 20
