I let my head drop back as his lips left mine to travel across my jaw to my neck. “This is the wrong place for this.”
“I know.” His hands curled into fists against my back and then loosened his hold on me. “You wore the suit.”
Swallowing hard I pulled my hands from his shoulders and shook my head as he released me. “Not on purpose.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Hell, I didn’t believe me either. It had crossed my mind as I’d dressed that he’d mentioned liking it. “It’s my favorite.” I crossed my arms over my breasts as he backed away from me. My nipples were hard and aching, and it took very little effort to remember the feeling of his very talented mouth on them. “We agreed that we wouldn’t be personally involved after the weekend.”
“It was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever suggested in my life.”
“But you suggested it. You did this, Mathias. I could have been fine without all of this emotional crap. This can’t happen again. You and I both know the chances of you not winning this contract bid are slim. You impressed the hell out of James Brooks already, and that’s hard to do. My work is important to me, and I worked too damn long and hard to have it endangered by a sexual liaison that shouldn’t have happened and won’t happen again.” And I couldn’t even look at him while I said it. I met his gaze but couldn’t repeat it.
“Why?” he asked softly, his voice bearing none of the frustration that showed clearly on his face.
“I don’t have room for complications.” I pressed my lips together firmly to avoid saying anything else.
“What would you call your friend Charlie? He isn’t a complication?”
Boring. I shook my head. It was obvious that I couldn’t defend the nonrelationship I had with Charlie. “My relationships are none of your business.”
“I’ve been in this game long enough to know when I find something special. You can’t make me believe that what you have with him can even compare to what moves between us.”
My attraction to him was so deep and elemental that I could barely comprehend it entirely. Closing my eyes, it was easy to remember his body moving on mine, within me.
“He isn’t part of this conversation.”
“No, why would he be? He’s just the man you allow to stay in your life even though you couldn’t care one way or the other if you ever laid eyes on him again. Is that why it’s so easy to say that you aren’t involved with someone?”
“He’s a distraction.” I admitted, and then shrugged at the shocked look on his face.
“Christ, that’s cold.”
“I never claimed to be more than I am.” Resisting the urge to rub my face in frustration, I took a deep breath and demanded, “Can we just get this over with?”
“By all means.” He pushed the door shut as I tried to pull it open and pressed against me. For a few seconds we stood there, his cock pressed against my ass showing me exactly how much he wanted me. “We aren’t done.”
“You said you were finished fucking me.” My hand tightened on the door knob.
“I lied.” He slid one hand down my side and around to my stomach to press me back against his erection. “You think about how this feels…because before the day is out I’m going to be in you again. Hard and fast or gentle and slow—any way you want it—but it’s going to happen.”
“No” was my first reaction, and I regretted it immediately. Denying the attraction I had for him was stupid and juvenile, but it was too late to take it back.
“Yes, and you know it.”
He released me then and opened the door. I slid past him and took a deep breath as I entered the show floor.
Suddenly, he was way too much for me to handle.
“How did the tour go?”
I glanced up and focused on Mercy. “Matchmaking?”
She shrugged and pulled the door shut behind her. “He’s pretty, you’re pretty…seems like it could be fun.”
Yeah, it was fun. But it had to be over. I didn’t have room for a man like Mathias. Demanding, aggressive, and complicated. “I’m not ready for anything serious, and when I am it won’t be a problem for me to locate a man.” She sat down in front of my desk and crossed her legs. I watched her bounce her foot for a few seconds before I met her gaze. “No more matchmaking.”
“Can’t make that promise. Being in love has made me into some creature that has to plot the romantic lives of others.”
I laughed and shook my head as she smiled. “Well, be prepared for me to ignore you.”
“Granted.”
“You chose an interesting way to get James’s attention.”
“The security is bad. I’ve been saying it since I got here, and after I became director I realized that I needed to take drastic measures.” She shrugged. “The point was made, and it also served to highlight the risks to the staff in the building after hours.”
“I feel bad enough as it is.”
“I’m not trying to lecture you. If it hadn’t been you, it might have been someone else. I do hope that if the situation were to happen in the future, you would use better judgment.”
“I sure would.” I’d pick up a weapon on my way to the disturbance. A big, heavy blunt object. I tapped my fingers on the desk and thought about those first few moments with Mathias when I’d thought he was a criminal. His body pressed against mine, and the heat he’d teased in me before I’d even seen his face. “How many more contractors do we have to see today?”
“James called four firms including Mathias’s. Their bids are due before end of business today.”
“No pressure.”
“I got my point across. He’s hired ten off-duty cops to be in the building after hours until we have a new trained guard service and the new security system.” Mercy stood and looked around my office. “You know, I kind of miss this fishbowl.”
“Speaking of, the vertical blinds have arrived and will be installed by the end of the week.” I looked toward the glass wall and the bull pen area that was almost empty. “How are things going with the lawsuit against Storey?”
Mercy sighed and slouched in the chair a little. “James is a little frosty with me on that subject, though he was just as aware of Storey’s behavior as I was.”
“It was his problem and he ignored it.” I shrugged. “There were complaints against Milton Storey in the past, long before you arrived, and the board should have dealt with his sexist and abusive behavior long before now; perhaps being sued was exactly the kind of wake-up call that James Brooks needed.”
“Ladies.”
I sat up a little in my chair and offered James Brooks a smile. “I meant that in the best way possible.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. Even white teeth gleamed against his neatly trimmed black beard. The man was quite fine, but I’d never thought of him sexually, which was weird for me, as I can imagine almost any attractive man in a freaky sexual position of my choosing. It’s a talent I’ve always sort of reveled in.
“You couldn’t have said it better. My willingness to put up with that man to avoid paying him a severance package is going to cost me big.” He came in and sat down in a chair next to Mercy. “I’ve decided to settle with the woman.”
“Oh really?” I raised an eyebrow in shock.
“Yes, the board isn’t all that happy with it, but I’d rather settle now than deal with a public relations nightmare a year from now.” He checked his watch and then glanced between the two of us. “She took far less than I thought I’d have to pay. I guess she’s really planning to stick it to Storey pretty hard.”
“Well, he did use his position in the gallery to lure her into a sexual relationship where she was promised advancements.” Mercy sighed. “Her judgment was poor, and she never realized that he was using her to get back at me until the very end.”
“You almost sound like you feel sorry for her.” I frowned at her. “She wasn’t a victim in that relationship. She traded sexual favors for professional
advancement and then sued when she didn’t get what she wanted.”
“I feel like I failed her,” Mercy admitted softly. “I should’ve intervened sooner or maybe fired her when I realized the situation was going on. Instead, I let her stay in the hopes that she would be enough of a distraction that Milton wouldn’t be too difficult to deal with until we could oust him.”
“You weren’t alone in that decision, Mercy.” James sighed. “Let’s just chalk this up as a lesson learned.”
“And the moral of the story?” I asked softly.
James chuckled. “Let’s just all take our own lessons from it. I have a feeling you wouldn’t appreciate my point of view on the subject.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, tell me about the security firms that came through.”
Mercy cleared her throat. “Well, I briefed all but Mr. Montgomery. All of them asked good questions about the history of the gallery.”
James focused on me, and I frowned. It was uncomfortable reporting on Mathias, and after a few seconds, I nodded. “I would say the same of Mr. Montgomery. Though he does consider art somewhat silly, he understands the value that we place on it. He asked questions about the current system and mentioned several improvements during the tour.”
“Are you still angry with him?”
“For what?”
“For the break-in,” James answered patiently.
“Oh.” Shrugging, I thought about how I felt about his behavior that night. “No. My pride has recovered.”
He nodded and rubbed his beard in thought. “The bids are due this afternoon.”
“Why so soon?”
“The bid process itself can take a long time. To avoid it and to test them, I set a one-day deadline. I want to know what they are made of.”
“What he is made of,” I correctly softly.
James laughed. “Well, yes. If he’s as good as his reputation, then this little challenge will be nothing for him. His firm in New York does very well. Boston can be fortunate that his brother lives here.”
Mathias had come to Boston to be closer to his family, and I’d moved here to avoid mine. Staying in Savannah, seeing the pity and the concern in their eyes every damn day, had seemed impossible. Unwilling to indulge in those feelings, I stood from my chair. “Well, I believe I’ll do a walk-through of the sales floor and then take a break.”
“Ms. Rothell, we’re being dismissed.” James stood, an amused smile lighting his nearly perfect face. I’d always wondered how he broke his nose, but I would never ask. Knowing would ruin the mystery of it, and we all need a little suspense in our life.
“She’s been putting on airs since she moved into this office.” Mercy pushed her red hair over her shoulder as she stood.
I laughed as James offered her his arm and they headed toward the door. “The two of you define ‘putting on airs’.”
People spend entirely too much time shopping. I’d watched the women browse through the gallery sales floor like vultures. Vultures with expensive and very specific taste. They’d spent half a million dollars in thirty minutes without blinking an eye. The sales staff were jumping to their every demand, just like they’d been trained to do.
When I’d come to Boston, I took jobs as sales clerks in several galleries around the city. I paid for college and lived a cushy life on commissions. The galleries, including Holman’s, had been thrilled to have a sales clerk with a law enforcement background on the sales floor, even if I was female. My former career had paved the way for the new one.
I walked outside and took in a deep breath. Winter had been slow coming, but the wind had started to bite a little. As I came from the south, my first year in Boston had been a mixture of wonder and misery. Too cold at times but beautiful in a brisk, different way from home. I’d fallen in love with that difference and had learned quickly to deal with it.
A block down from the gallery, I walked into a deli and grabbed my usual. An espresso with a double shot of caffeine and a coffee-flavored brownie. Caffeine and chocolate weren’t the ideal lunch but they satisfied a craving. The walk back to the gallery helped me settle a little; the last thing I needed was to be all jittery in front of James and Mercy.
I’d worked long and hard to earn a place in Holman’s and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. No man was worth the expense of my dreams.
Any way you want it. I wanted it a couple hundred different ways, and I figured that Mathias would be game for most if not all of it. I was sitting behind the wheel of my car and had been for about twenty minutes. I’d spent the afternoon avoiding practically everyone and trying to forget Mathias. That had been painfully unsuccessful.
There were a few options. I could go home and wait for him to show up, find a place for dinner and let him wonder where I was…or I could go to him. Maybe it was time I turned the tables on him.
I pulled out my handheld and found the e-mail he’d sent to the gallery with his bid. I’d received copies of all of the bids. He hadn’t cut corners on his despite the fact that he knew James Brooks liked to torture Abe Lincoln on an hourly basis. I’d expected to be impressed and hadn’t been disappointed. Mathias was thorough, professionally and intimately.
He was staying in a swanky hotel downtown. The knowledge was both disconcerting and comforting. I knew where he was…but a hotel room didn’t spell anything permanent. He’d come to Boston to start a business but would he move on if he found a better opportunity elsewhere? Did I even want him to stay in Boston? He represented a huge and practically insurmountable complication.
So I argued with myself all the way over to the hotel, through valet parking, and on the swift elevator ride up to his floor. I let the doors to the elevator slide shut without leaving. It wasn’t nerves that made me hesitate…but the pure lack of them. I rested against the wall and closed my eyes briefly. I pulled my skirt up my thighs, hooked my fingers into the sides of my panties, and slid them off.
After shoving them into my purse, I pushed the button to open the door and left the elevator. The hall was wide and empty. The walk to his room gave me plenty of time to consider what to say when he opened the door. I stopped in front of his door and stared at the number for a few seconds. The gold swirly numbers embedded in the door below a peephole reminded me yet again of the fluid condition of his lifestyle.
I knocked briskly and heard activity on the opposite side of the door briefly before it swung open. My gaze drifted over his bare chest and muscled stomach to the worn jeans that clung to his slim hips. “Nice.”
Nice barely described an inch of the man much less the whole package. He did it for me three ways from Sunday, and I figured that was the reason coming to his hotel room had been such an easy decision.
“This is a surprise.” He leaned against the door a little and looked me over. “I called your apartment but there was no answer. I figured you were going to hide from me.”
“That wouldn’t be my style.” At least it wasn’t the style I’d worked very hard to perfect. He might rock my world sexually, but I was in charge, damn it.
“I see.” There was a cool tone to his voice as if he, like me, was calculating risk and reward while we talked.
He backed up and motioned me inside. I dropped my purse on a small table near the door and watched him flip the lock on the door. A suite. Somehow I figured he wouldn’t be the type to suffer with just a simple room. I turned and watched him as he walked toward me.
Oversized furniture dominated the impersonal sitting area. A television sat dormant in one corner. The walls were a rich burgundy to match the pillows tossed artfully around the couch and chairs. It probably should have felt inviting. But no matter its trappings, it was a hotel room.
“Is this you making a move on me?” he asked softly.
“Maybe I don’t like waiting around for people to act.” I glanced him over as I spoke.
“I didn’t expect you to show up here,” he admitted, and shoved his hands into his jeans. “I figured we were about to enter that st
age of things where you played hard to get.”
I unbuttoned my jacket and started to shrug it off.
“No.” He came to me and took my hands. “Not yet.”
Flushing a little, I frowned. “I wasn’t about to take off all my clothes and beg for sex.”
“You aren’t the type of woman to beg for anything.” He brushed his fingers along my jaw. “Just looking at you makes me a little stupid.”
He knew exactly what to say. I leaned into him as he pulled me closer and wondered why that didn’t bother me. In the past men as smooth as Mathias would have had me on edge immediately. Of course, the difference was that I believed him. “I came over here because I wanted to be in charge of this situation.”
Deanna Lee Page 9
