"Isn't it much much hotter that way?"
She leaned in and kissed me again. Fuck. Who cared about names. She was right. She'd made it clear how far she'd go and I could play ball. I reached for her kaftan and untied the waist, reaching my palms past the fabric and pressing my hand to her skin.
Every inch of her skin burned with heat and I couldn't resist laying her back on the sand and kissing her there. She wrapped her arms around my back and spread her legs so I could lie between them. The fabric of my suit and the fabric of her bikini provided surmountable but crucial barriers.
The waves crashed louder against the shore and in the distance, the flickering light of an evening bonfire roaring to life . The moonlight reflected off the diamonds in her ears and her dark eyes carried a perfect reflection of the moon in them. I kissed down her neck and her chest as she writhed in my arms, both avoiding and craving the ticklish sensation of my lips trailing along her skin.
"Don't stop..." she whispered.
I kissed her chest and kissed her breasts through the fabric of bikini, refusing to take another item of clothing off until she'd downright demanded it. She'd flung her kaftan off. My pants grew uncomfortable and hot as we kissed more and as my cock strained for an escape.
I reached for the soft point in the middle of her back where her flimsy bikini strings held her bosoms in place. Her fingers clawed at my flesh as she provoked me towards a point of torment.
I yanked the string undone and the bikini top crumpled, sliding off her body into the sand. Her breasts exposed to the moonlight and to my view for the first time sent a shuddering wave of desire through me. My cock stiffened further. She reached down and grabbed it through my pants.
Not yet...
I nudged her hand away from my hardness and focused my attention on her breasts. My lips clamped around her engorged nipples and I sucked on them hard until she moaned loudly...
"Shh," I whispered.
She arched her back, allowing me greater access to her breasts. I couldn't resist flicking my lips along her hardened blackberry nipples again. She gasped and I moved to another breast until she exploded with another loud moan. I shifted my lips from her breasts down to her stomach.
Her tight stomach converged at her small protruding belly button with a piercing through it. Three large diamonds hung from a white gold chain from her belly and dangled right above her tiny yellow bikini bottom.
I reached for the string on one side of the bikini.
"When I take this off... you'll be naked," I whispered.
"Go ahead," she replied...
I pulled one string undone and then a piercing laugh echoed over the beach. The noise was close. Too close. The beautiful woman propped herself up and snapped her head around to the right.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes..."
We lay there quiet and still for a moment. Another laugh -- this one even closer.
"Shit..."
"C'mon, get dressed."
I hurried to my feet and tossed her kaftan over to her. The woman rushed to her feet, stringing on her bikini and then wrapping herself in the kaftan just as the two people approaching us were close enough that they were more than just figures.
Moonlight illuminated a short, walnut colored girl with waist length black curls and a tall platinum blonde woman.
"Oh my goodness is that Indie?!" one of them shrieked.
"Indie?! Indie FREAKIN' Holloway is that you?!"
The woman waved.
"Hey! Talia?"
"No way!"
The women rushed her and they embraced. My stiffness softened instantly. I hadn't heard wrong. This woman... the woman I'd kissed...
My mouth hung open. The women who greeted Indie waved and walked away from us. She sauntered up to me.
"I guess the cat's out of the bag."
"Yeah, I guess it is.”
"What's wrong?"
"I'm Richard Carmichael."
"Oh no..."
"Oh yes."
"No!" She said. "No fucking way!"
"I'm not any happier about this, trust me."
"This is..."
"Disgusting?" I finished for her.
"Yes! It's disgusting! Ew!! You're Richard Carmichael?!"
"Ew!"
"You look nothing like your brother!"
"I thought you'd be... shorter!"
"Shorter?"
"Oh hush!" She huffed, "people saw us together. Oh, my goodness..."
"I don't think your friends recognized me."
"Not yet, but what if they do! If Jamal finds out, he'll kill me."
"If my brother finds out I'll never hear the end of it."
"This was a mistake," I countered.
"Yes," she replied, "I agree. A mistake."
"We can go our separate ways and pretend it never happened."
"Pretend? Nothing happened.”
"Right, nothing happened."
She turned to walk away.
"Wait!" I called.
"What?”
"It's not safe for you to walk home alone. Let me walk you back."
She snorted, "It's the Hamptons honey. I can handle myself."
"Good night then."
"Yeah. Whatever."
She stormed down the beach and I thrust my hands into my pockets watching her go for as long as possible. She might not have wanted me to be a gentleman but I couldn't watch her disappear into the night without the slightest concern for her safety.
Once she was out of sight, I picked up a rock and threw it into the sea as hard as I could.
Shit.
Out of all the women in the world, all the smart, sexy women, I had to end up stumbling across Indie Holloway. I should have known. She was too elegant, too decorated in diamonds, too damn beautiful for me to have thought she was anything other than a princess.
Revulsion should have tormented me but as she wandered out of sight, all I could feel were pangs of regret. For the first time in months, I hadn't been thinking of work or Natalia. She'd swept me up at the moment with her beautiful brown skin, her long dark hair and her athletic physique. Her looks weren't all that drew her to me.
She possessed an air of strength about her. She didn't need me. Her independence had been sexy to me.
She's Kendrick's heir. If she's anything like her brother, she's a stone-cold bitch.
I tried to convince myself as I walked home along the beach alone. Yet every time I thought of her, I couldn't see a Holloway. I only saw a woman, a beautiful woman who had roused more than my primal desires. She'd awakened desire in its purest form.
If Ames found out, he'd kill me. And Selena? She'd make me pay.
I wanted to find an excuse to see her again but I knew she couldn't. She was a Holloway, I was a Carmichael. Never in a million years could we ever have something between us without sending the entire world into chaos.
I was too loyal to my family to allow that to happen. And I was certain, so was she.
Arrangement
INDIE
I buried the secret of my disgusting encounter with Richard Carmichael deep inside me to the point where I hardly remembered it happened. When I arrived home, Donnie and Jamal teased me about where I'd ended up. I lied and told them the guy never showed. They teased me more but that was far better than admitting the truth about how I'd debased myself by allowing a Carmichael to see my tits.
Our Hamptons crowd raved about the party so Jamal and I considered it a success. Reluctant to get back to work, Jamal extended our stay in the Hamptons another month. Our restlessness had set all the Holloways onto planning another big bash. I'd vetoed the idea of another yacht party but Jamal refused to open up the beach house again for a more traditional yacht party.
The Lymans had already thrown a "hoedown" party for the season and I'd had enough country music and line dancing to last a lifetime. The Maurice family on South Hampton had thrown a star-studded couture banquet and the Carmichaels had thrown a Derby-themed garden par
ty which of course, we hadn't attended.
"We need something different," Jamal grumbled after a whiskey cocktail on the beach one afternoon.
"Agreed. I need a new distraction."
"A new boyfriend?" He asked.
I rolled my eyes, "you could say so."
"If you want a boyfriend, you should go to Dubai."
"Dubai?" I snorted, "why would I go to Dubai."
"Arabs are rich. You'll get a guy who can put up with your expensive tastes."
"I don't have expensive tastes."
"Yes, you do. You never leave the house without five diamonds."
"I've earned my Tiffany's!"
"From raiding daddy's wallet?"
"Shut up, Jamal," I huffed.
I sighed.
"I don't want to date another rich guy. They're all assholes."
"Maybe you're just too much of a handful."
"So what? I'm supposed to pretend to be weak to impress some asshole?"
"That's not what I'm saying. You could just be... nicer."
"Whatever. I don't want to talk about this with you."
"Fine. Don't talk about it. What's the next party you want to plan?"
I twirled one of my coils around my fingers as I stared off into the distance.
"More whiskey."
Jamal topped off my glass and I squeezed half a lemon into the drink.
"Hm..."
"What about an all white party?"
"Like a garden party?"
"Sort of. We'll get a bunch of artists to come. Like a gallery show."
"Know any artists?" My brother asked skeptically.
"Yes! Remember when I worked for Mr. Biggs? We curated some of his collections. I have some of the top art dealers in Manhattan on speed dial."
"Perfect. Let's do it."
"See? We can agree on something," I said to my brother with a smile.
"I can toast to that."
We clinked glasses together and within a few days, we had artists, a guest list of 400 and a venue. Before the party, I volunteered to drive into the city to meet with two of our best artists and select pieces from their uptown galleries for the show.
I hit Tatiana Rubenstein's gallery first. She was a short, biracial artist with one blue eye and one brown one and a splattering of freckles across her face. Tatiana's gallery wasn't busy, so we made quick work of her pieces. Her modern art on lesbian identity and gender dysphoria had been raging in the art world recently and I knew a few friends on the corporate scene who would have killed to get a hand on one of her pieces.
After Tatiana's, I had to find my way to Ken Grant's gallery. I didn't know Ken personally but he'd gone to Princeton with Jamal and the two maintained a business relationship for years. Ken's gallery should have been three blocks over from Tatiana's but when I arrived there, the doors were boarded up with a tiny sign with lettering that had been washing off by one of the spring rains.
I huffed and called Jamal.
"Jamal! Where the hell is Ken's gallery."
He read off the address where I stood.
"Uh huh... I'm there and he isn't."
"One sec..."
"You better not be playing with me..."
"I'm not. Shit. It's all the way in Tribeca. I just saw in my email that he moved. I'm sorry. You don't have to go today if you don't want to."
"No I came all the way out to Manhattan and Ken deserves to sell a couple paintings."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Tell my assistant I'll be back tomorrow. I think I'll just overnight in the city."
"Okay. I'll get you a room at the Ritz."
"Thank you, Jamal."
"See you tomorrow."
Jamal kept together so many details at once, it wasn't shocking one had slipped through the cracks. I'd foolishly opted to drive myself into the city rather than getting a driver, so I sat in traffic for two hours to cross Manhattan. By the time I found street parking near Ken's gallery, I couldn't wait to get to my hotel room.
I opened the door to Ken's and noticed a few people milling around his large installations. A black woman with a giant afro approached me.
"Hi there, welcome to Grant's Gallery. Can I get you anything? We have champagne, red wine, cappuccinos, and water."
"May I have a cappuccino dear? And do you mind telling Ken that Indie's here."
The woman gasped, "Indie Holloway?"
"Yes, that's me."
"Oh my goodness! I watched your talk on black women in business last year and I loved it."
"Thank you," I replied, "I'm glad that it meant something to you."
"Oh honey, come right back to Ken's office. He's with a client right now working out a deal on his hurricane Katrina installation but he can make time for you."
I followed her as she scurried through the crowd in the large, industrial gallery. She knocked once on Ken's office and opened the door. The client Ken was busy with? Rich Carmichael.
My mouth dropped open and I averted my gaze.
"Indie!" Ken greeted me, rushing over to me and wrapping me in a large hug.
"Hi Ken, I see you're busy right now. Maybe I should come back later."
"Nonsense!" Ken boomed.
His thick New Orleans accent and warm smile could have tempted me to stay.
"You know what, I think I'll head out now," Rich said.
Ken furrowed his brow, "are you sure Mr. Carmichael? We can work out a deal for the second installation. No need to wait for it."
"We'll talk in a bit. See you, Kenneth."
Rich pushed past me and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're working with Rich Carmichael?" I asked.
Ken chuckled, "Y'all still got beef?"
I shrugged, "I'm not the one with the problem."
"Rich is a nice guy. You don't have to worry about him."
My face grew hot.
"I'm not worried about him. Just surprised you're doing business with him..."
"Come on, don't worry about it. But uh, don't tell Jamal."
"Say no more. Show me the paintings so I can get out of here quickly."
"Busy day?"
"You don't know the half of it, Ken."
As we looked through Ken's latest collection of ten-foot-high art installations to decide which ones to truck out to the Hamptons, he explained that Rich Carmichael had been searching for a new painting for his apartment bedroom. I couldn't have cared less but Ken was an artist paying city rent who had just made a huge sale. He deserved the right to celebrate.
Annoyed that I had to hear about Rich Carmichael, I hastened Ken to decide on the pieces and we arranged to send all five installations out to the Hamptons.
"Say hi to Jamal for me!" Ken called after me once I'd left.
I walked out of the gallery and turned left to walk towards my car which I'd parked a few blocks away.
I'd only walked a few steps when a hand tapped me on the shoulder.
I'd turned around, expecting it to be Ken, but Rich Carmichael towered behind me.
"Hello, Indie."
I turned away from him and started stalking away.
"Indie! Where are you going?"
"We shouldn't be seen together, Richard! Goodbye."
"Richard?! No one calls me, Richard."
"Goodbye Richard," I repeated, hoping I'd irritate him into leaving me alone.
Rich jogged around me and stopped in front of me, blocking my path.
"What?!"
"Fancy running into you down here."
"I'm working."
"Right. On the big Holloway art exhibition. I didn't get the invite."
"I double checked my guest list this time. I wouldn't want to make any mistakes."
He laughed.
"You think you're so tough, don't you?"
"I am tough. And if you don't step out of my way, you'll find out just how tough I can get."
"Wow, now you're baiting me."
"Baiting you into what?"
"I
think we need to talk indie," he replied.
"We really don't."
"I think we do. Otherwise I'll have to talk to Jamal about this."
"Oh, so I'm baiting you into blackmail?"
"Maybe."
"You're such a prick."
"You didn't seem to think so the other night. “.
"Shhh!" I hissed.
"What you think the walls have ears?"
"Go away," I snarled.
"I won't go away until you talk to me."
"About what?"
"Did you really feel nothing for me?"
"Yes!"
"Really? So those kisses... none of it was good?"
I inhaled sharply. The kisses hadn't been bad. They'd been amazing. In fact, every bit of that night had been amazing until I'd found out the man I'd been fraternizing with was Richard Carmichael III.
Alpha Bait_BWWM Billionaire Romance Novel Page 4
