He smiled. Anne was charmed, but she felt bad that he’d taken her emotional overload the wrong way and looked for a way to fix what she’d done.
“I won’t bother you more this evening, but I would greatly welcome you scheduling a one-on-one meeting to discuss anything on your mind. I’m making that offer all over the hotel. I’m hoping to be swarmed.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing I won’t be, though.”
“Thank you, Mr. Grand, but I haven’t been here all that long to have ideas. Anne’s been here nearly a decade, though, and she’s smart.”
Anne wasn’t sure how much she appreciated her friend’s show of confidence in her, nor the spotlight cast on her, but she tried to smile through her embarrassment.
“Then promise me, Miss Ruby, that you will make an appointment. If nothing else, I’d truly like to hear of your experiences here. Ten years is a long time to stick with something, and I’d love to know why, if nothing else. I want the transition to be as smooth as possible, but there will be changes, so your input would be invaluable to me.”
Since she didn’t see any way to refuse, she nodded agreement.
“Wonderful! And with that, I will leave you to your night”—he nodded to Jordan—“and your reading.”
As he left, Anne felt an almost irresistible urge to run after him. He knew something she wanted to know. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in his presence. The man had found real true love, and maybe she simply hoped he could somehow assure her she’d find it, too. Because though on the surface she was very vocal about never even trying again, deeper inside, she still longed for it as much as she fought it.
Her real trouble lay in her desperate shyness and her deep-seated double personality. She’d been raised to be the epitome of the good girl by a very religious mother, but she just knew the heart of a harlot beat beneath that good-girl exterior, something that had gotten her into more trouble in her youth than she’d been able to handle. So she had packed up that bad girl and swore never to let her out again. Oh, but she wasn’t immune to her. The whispers, the longings, and Grey had set fire to all of them. He was dangerous. She never should have agreed to go out with him, but even as she said it, she still knew she was going, come hell or high water.
“He was hot.” Jordan sat back down behind the desk.
“You were very uncharacteristically quiet.”
She shrugged. “He’s married.”
“And?” Anne didn’t want to point fingers, but she knew of several married men Jordan had been with.
“Nice, Anne.” She stuck her tongue out. “There’s married, and then there’s married. That man is married.”
Anne’s head was beginning to hurt. “And the difference would be?”
Jordan sighed and turned to face her, crossing her legs, looking like a fashion model with her perfect posture.
“I don’t know what the magic that holds two people together is—I doubt I’ll ever know—but some people do have it. It’s what songs and movies are written about.” She narrowed her gaze. “It’s what all those books you read that you don’t think I see are written about. It has to exist. I just don’t think it does for everyone.” She turned back to the desk and picked up a magazine. “But that man found it.”
Anne sighed and decided she’d be best to go back to her cleaning. It kept her calm, and it kept her more wayward thoughts at bay. Between Aiden Grand’s romance and her breakfast date with Grey Hendrix, she needed all the help she could get wrangling and tying her thoughts into submission.
* * * *
Anne slid along the buttery-soft leather bench seat inside the limo. Grey slid in behind her, and though she still had her doubts about his motivations, all in all, she was pretty damn happy. He’d dressed in white slacks and a baby-blue shirt made of a sheer fabric, his feet were no longer bare but instead dressed in sandals, and he wore a watch on his left wrist that looked like the nicest piece of jewelry she’d ever seen in her life. She felt less than adequate beside him in her jean shorts and pink babydoll top, but it was what she’d worn into work the night before and all she had with her at the hotel. As he’d been insistent about leaving the second she got off work, she had no other options.
“I’m glad you agreed.” He spoke firmly but with an underlying softness that was a strange combination and something she found uniquely him. This was likely the most surreal moment of her life, but she figured at best, he was right, and he had the answer to questions she didn’t even know how to verbalize. At worst, she still had a great story to tell her potential grandkids someday about the Hollywood hunk who took her out one day for breakfast. She’d probably skip the whole part where she sucked on his finger though.
When the limo pulled onto the main thoroughfare and headed toward the freeway, she wondered if she should ask where exactly they were going to breakfast, but he probably wouldn’t tell her anyway.
“When do I get to ask my four questions?”
She had no idea what she would ask, but she wanted to keep the man on his toes and not think she’d crumbled at his feet like she actually had. He laughed and reached in front of him for a bottle of sparkling water. “You’re a hellcat, aren’t you?”
She twisted her lips. She couldn’t think of another person who knew her who would ever describe her that way.
“No. I don’t think so.”
He poured the water into a tumbler over some ice that crackled and popped as the liquid filled the glass.
“You want something? I don’t drink anymore, but I can handle it if you do.”
His bouts with rehab and substance abuse were widely documented. It was surprising to hear him speak of it so casually, though.
“No. I’m fine.”
He held his glass up to her. “Well then, here’s to breakfast and questions.” He took a long sip, put the glass down, and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her nearly into his lap. “And to answers, Anne.”
She swallowed hard and found it next to impossible to hold onto her hard exterior one more minute. She just wanted him to kiss her, but instead he ran his fingers along the outline of her face, down her nose, across her bottom lip. It was so tempting to suck that finger back into her mouth. She’d been almost too overloaded to notice the flare in his eyes when she’d done exactly what he’d told her to earlier. Almost, but she caught it, and that look set fire to her insides, a fire still burning even now, hours later.
“I find myself ever curious about your choice of word, Anne. Prude? Really? I take you in my arms, and you turn incendiary. You sucked on my finger earlier, and I very nearly came in my pants. You have a fire in you that doesn’t fit any definition of prude I’ve ever known.”
“W–well, prude was m–more Jordan’s word.” She could barely force the words out, as he’d lowered his finger and was now playing with the neckline of her top, skimming the flesh just under the fabric.
“But you agreed.”
“I…” She swallowed and tried not to notice that he’d just pulled loose the strings that held her blouse closed in the front. “I…” she looked into his gaze, burning hot with pure lust, and lost herself there.
“Are you very proper, Anne?”
“Mostly.” She glanced down at her voluptuous cleavage now showing. “I’m pretty much the epitome of a good girl.”
He smiled devilishly like he just accepted some challenge she’d thrown down.
“Really?”
She chewed on her lower lip and nodded. She was too old to be feeling like a sixteen-year-old virgin.
“Yes?”
He chuckled.
“Then you wouldn’t like it if I did this?” He slid his hands up her back under her top, and she shivered in response to his touch. “I’ll take that as a positive.”
But it had been so long since anyone had touched her like that, it was perfectly natural to shiver. She refused to accept that it was simply his touch that caused that reaction.
Her gaze widened and locked on his. He had his hand in the cl
asp of her bra. He wanted to undress her, and he hadn’t even kissed her. Somewhere she found her senses and pushed him back.
“No.”
She slid to the far side of the seat then rounded the corner and sat perpendicular to him. She drew a breath and stared him down. “I am not a groupie. You can’t just fuck me in the back of a limo then discard me. I’m worth more than that, Grey Hendrix. You wanted to take me to breakfast, so breakfast is all you get!”
She had no idea where she’d found the strength to say no to him, but it felt really good. She’d never stood up for herself like that before with anyone and had let too many people take grave advantage of her over the years. This moment felt wonderful even as a part of her wished she’d just let him take anything he wanted from her. She felt his touch deep into her soul, and she wanted to experience so much more, but she wasn’t going to allow another man to dictate all the rules to her, even if it meant there’d be no other men ever.
He reached for his glass and brought it to his lips, watching her the entire time like he was trying to decide if she was for real. She got that he was probably rarely told no by anyone, but whatever she was, prude or slut, she was not easy.
He brought his right foot up to rest on his left knee. He had such an easy manner about him, and he truly was sexy, but she would withstand his advances, at least until she felt comfortable accepting them.
“I imagine you’re a lot of things, Anne. I can see already that you’re a very complicated woman, but one thing I’ll tell you for damn sure, prude you are not.”
Something about the tone of his voice made everything inside her quiver. Her body reacted to him in such a primal way. It was shocking, even though she secretly loved it. She wanted to beg him to find the deeper part of her that he clearly saw and yank her to the surface. She was most likely staring at what she’d chased her whole life, but it scared her. What if he awoke the demon inside her that she couldn’t control and, in the end, was her ruination?
“Tell you what, Anne. Why don’t you throw that first question at me?”
Oh great.
Despite the big deal she made out of the questions, and how much she liked the idea of being able to ask him anything, she didn’t have a first question ready. Now her mind was in a race to find something to ask that didn’t sound entirely inane. She already knew so much about him. He was born and raised just outside of Mount Airy, North Carolina. He followed his high school friend, Vaughn Taylor, to Hollywood when he was seventeen, and a short five years later, he was a Hollywood A-lister. His nasty custody battle currently fueled more bad gossip rags than Jennifer Aniston’s love life and baby watch, Lindsay Lohan’s latest escapade, or the rumored affair between a reality-show judge and contestant, combined. He had a sister who was at his side every time court convened, but both his parents were dead. He was heavily involved over the years with Pink, Elle Macpherson, Jennifer Anniston, and Angelina Jolie. Made her want to ask what the real deal was with the Jen-Angelina war, but she never would. However, thinking about them brought back to her mind Jordan’s question yesterday about Brad Pitt, and her traitorous mind found the real question she had, if the three of them had ever—
“Speechless, angel?”
She blinked. She’d been lost in thought, and realizing it, she became flustered and threw out the first thing she thought of.
“Have you ever had a threesome?” Her eyes flew open wide. She brought her hands up to cover her mouth. She had no idea why she would verbalize such a thing, but at the end of the day, at least she hadn’t asked about the size of Brad Pitt’s…“I cannot believe I said that! Please don’t answer.”
He laughed and slid over beside her. He ran his finger down the bridge of her nose and smiled. “But it’s such an easy one to answer, and to be fair, I am going to count it against you whether I answer or not.”
“That’s fine. I just don’t want to know.”
He cocked his head and stared into her eyes. Something about the way he looked at her stroked her softly and made her want to purr.
“Fair enough.” He touched her cheek. “But I think you do want to know, and furthermore, I think the idea intrigues you. Layers, my dear. I’m telling you, you have layers.” His smile made her heart hitch. “And I just love a good puzzle.”
She chewed her lower lip and focused on breathing. She felt so safe and protected and had no idea why. He wrapped his arm around her and placed the flat of his hand on her lower back, providing enough pressure that she moved closer. He was dangerous, to her heart at any rate. Sitting here like this, she realized just how easy a girl could fall for a man like him, and it wasn’t the Hollywood hype or even the idea of him, either. At the end of the day, Grey Hendrix was simply one damn-fine man with just enough complexity to draw her in and make her want to stay.
She ran her tongue along her lower lip in a somewhat nervous gesture and watched as he followed it with his gaze. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. She wished he’d just kiss her already, but she knew in her gut he wouldn’t, not until the exact moment he decided was the right moment. He was so controlled, and she was coming to realize what that meant for her. In a way it was comforting. In her other relationships, she’d had to always be the one in charge. Trying to figure out what another person wanted was difficult at best. She realized with Grey, she wouldn’t have to figure anything out. Whatever he wanted, he’d tell her.
“Tell me your fantasies, Anne.”
Her breath seized.
He pushed his hand into her hair. His fingers skimmed the skin along her neck. He cupped her head in his palm and pulled her closer until his lips grazed her earlobe.
“I understand your shyness, Anne, but shyness is not to be confused with disinterest. Your body burns for me. I can see it. I can feel it. Find one fantasy in that beautiful mind of yours, and share it with me.”
She pulled back enough to look into his eyes. He was so handsome and damn sexy and all in all irresistible. She wanted to tell him, but the words caught in her throat. She struggled with the desire to tell versus her need to not be humiliated or laughed at. Her palms began to sweat, her heart raced, and she began chewing the life out of her lower lip.
He pushed back her hair, tucking it behind her ear on one side.
“I’m very attracted to you, Anne. There’s nothing that you could tell me that would shock me. Trust me.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, and she melted against it.
She just needed one fantasy, the easiest one.
She drew a shaky breath.
“I…” She closed her eyes, but somehow that made it worse, so she opened them again and stared into his. “I sometimes fantasize about having sex in public.”
She held her breath waiting for his response.
“Good girl.” He kissed her left cheekbone. “Where do you fantasize about having sex?”
She scratched her head and drew another breath. Here she thought she’d be off the hook, but he wanted more.
“I don’t know, um, lots of places I guess.”
“Anne, I don’t believe you don’t have a specific place, or places, in mind. Inhale.”
She did as he told her, and he laughed when she didn’t exhale.
“Anne, breathe.”
She exhaled with an audible whoosh.
He linked his fingers with hers and turned her hand, then began to trace the lines of her palm.
“Do you fantasize about me, Anne?”
She swallowed. “I do.”
She shivered, amazed at how easy it was to confess that to him…of course, he did sort of already know.
“What do I do to you when you fantasize about me?”
She moaned. Something shifted inside her, and arousal swept through her body like a flame in a paper factory. She surrendered to it. She had no clue what was going on with them, but she liked how it felt, and she didn’t want it to end. If she had to embarrass herself to keep this going, it suddenly seemed not too much to ask.
“Sometimes
…” She paused, trying to compose herself. “There’s a hotel in Dana Point, near the highway. Some of the windows face out into traffic.” She drew air into her lungs and stared into his eyes. “I think about being naked in the window.” She ran her teeth over her bottom lip. “I think about you…”
She moaned as she struggled to get the words out. She wanted to sound all seductive and alluring, but it wasn’t happening.
“I fantasize about you fucking me in the window from behind.”
Her heart beat double time, and her cheeks burned so hot, but she was thrilled with herself for getting the words out. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever said the word fuck out loud before but found it strangely empowering.
“And in this fantasy, your breasts are then pinned against the glass for anyone outside in the streets to see?” His voice had grown deep, his words came out slower, and the tone was so rich it felt like a physical stroke across her skin.
“Yes.” She brought the image to her mind that she’d conjured a hundred times or more.
“And your pussy, it would be visible as well?”
She looked down at her fingers, unable to withstand his stare any longer while she told him about the desires of her heart.
“The hotel has full-length windows. Floor to ceiling.” It wasn’t exactly what he asked, but his answer was in there.
“And while I am fucking you from behind, am I biting your neck, touching your breasts, rubbing your clit?”
“Yes.”
She felt her brain cells starting to shut down and warmth spread throughout her body. Something in the tone of his voice was like a tranquilizer. She’d do near about anything to get him to just keep talking to her like this.
He moaned against her ear, took the hand he’d been holding, and placed it against himself. She was shocked by his size and hardness, even through the layers of clothing, but she was also intrigued and aroused.
“You have a very nice effect on me, Anne.”
Lucas, Samantha - The Seduction of Anne Ruby [The Seduction 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 5
