One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  “No, that’s my reason for not realizing who you were at the beach. And it’s my way of reassuring you that even though I know you’re a solid scientist, I can understand why you’d be a little worried about being able to handle a project the scope of which I’ve proposed.”

  Dru stared.

  “You think I can’t handle it?”

  “I think you’re afraid to try.”

  “I’m not afraid, I’m irritated that you swooped in like a rock star, insisting we change to a bigger stage to accommodate your ego,” she retorted.

  “Because you don’t think you can keep up.”

  “Bullshit,” she snapped, stung.

  “Bet?” he suggested silkily.

  Bet? This was their career, not a Monday-night football game. It affected their entire lives and he wanted to put money down on it as if it was a horse race?

  Was he crazy?

  “Terms?” she accepted, unable to resist.

  His smile was a slow, wicked curve of his lips. She didn’t have to hear the clang of bars slamming shut to realize she’d just been trapped. All she had to do was look at the satisfaction in his eyes.

  “You spend the evening being charming and agreeable while I pitch the deal to Buck Blackstone. He’s about as nonscience as you can get, but he’s rolling in oil money and desperate to get his name on as many projects as he can,” he explained. “We act like we’re a team and you pretend you’re actually on board the supertelescope proposal. Then, if after pretending to love it and listening to me pitching Blackstone, you’re not sold on it being the best route for Trifecta, you win.”

  “I win…what?”

  “I’ll back off and accept the government grant.”

  Ooh, wouldn’t that be sweet?

  But…

  “And if you win?”

  “You ride with me back to my hotel tonight.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “That’s it? A ride?”

  “That’s it,” he agreed.

  Dru knew there was a catch in there somewhere. She knew the man had a brain the size of Rhode Island and surely had some sneaky strategy all planned out.

  Somehow, that only made the challenge more irresistible.

  Forty minutes later, Dru was doing her damnedest to win Buck Blackstone over. She’d lost sight of whether she was trying so she could win the bet or simply because the argument had hooked her.

  “But think of it,” she told the aging cowboy sitting next to her. “The Buck Blackstone Telescope Project,” she improvised. “This is going to be the scientific find of the decade and you can be a part of it. Imagine, your name, backing a project of this stature. It would definitely bring even more shoppers to your malls.”

  Right. She mentally rolled her eyes at that particular line of bullshit. Like any self-respecting teenage shopper would give a rat’s ass about a telescope. She noted Alex’s smug look.

  She notched up the wattage of her smile and leaned closer to Buck.

  By dessert, she had him eating out of her hand. And Alex eating her up with his eyes.

  “Young lady, I insist you take a ride on my yacht, the Lady Bountiful. Nothing like it in the world. You can even bring your sidekick, here, if you’d like.”

  Noting the way Alex’s mouth tightened, she quickly slid her hand out from beneath Buck’s, careful to keep her smile both cool and friendly at the same time.

  Who knew her laid-back beach boy could get that rip-a-man’s-throat-out jealous look in his eyes?

  “What an interesting invitation,” she sidestepped. “And you’ll have to visit the labs at Trifecta. I’ll admit, I’m more comfortable there than I would be on a boat. Seasickness, you know.”

  Buck gave one of those idiot-man nods, part disappointment, part condescension, part smug satisfaction. Alex’s look was all ego. She couldn’t really blame him. Considering how many ways they’d done it on the waves, he knew damn well she didn’t get seasick.

  “Well, I have to say, I wasn’t as much interested in the actual project as the write-off when I came into the restaurant tonight,” Buck said. “But between the two of you, you’ve definitely convinced me. What do you think this little project will actually cost in dollars and dinero?”

  Alex offered a charming smile and began outlining the financial options while Dru leaned back in her chair and took a cooling sip of champagne.

  She couldn’t blame Alex for his smug smile. She felt the same. Not because they’d sold the backer on the deal. The guy was as dim as the candlelight in this room, so that hadn’t been a hard sell.

  But, Dru reluctantly admitted to herself, somewhere between fending off flirtations and volleying the pitch back and forth with Alex, she’d actually started getting excited.

  Not about Alex, she lied to herself. About the idea of taking the cosmic string study from a safe, simple process to a more concrete, decisive approach. Doing it her way wouldn’t hurt, but it wasn’t going to lead anywhere astonishing, either. Not for science, not for Trifecta and definitely not for her career.

  And dammit, she wanted excitement.

  “Shall we share a cab?” Alex invited a half hour later, his smile wickedly amused.

  She gave him a hard look, still trying to figure out when and where he’d outmaneuvered her. One minute she’d been firmly behind government funding. The next she’d been explaining the long-term benefits and myriad options of the telescope as if her life depended on it.

  “I drove myself.”

  “Good,” he said, wrapping his hand around her waist as he led her from the restaurant. “You can give me a ride to my hotel.”

  10

  “I’M NOT SLEEPING with you,” Dru muttered to him for the third time as Alex followed her out of the restaurant.

  He’d love to tell her he wasn’t interested just to see that stubborn frown wiped off her face. But he figured the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her deliciously long legs would prove him a liar.

  “If she won’t, I will,” an attendant said, giving him a naughty sort of look as if he was imagining Alex naked. It was the first time Alex had ever had that happen, he admitted, unsure if he should be flattered or not. The kid gave him a wink as he took Drucilla’s valet stub. “I don’t get off until ten, though.”

  Dru smirked as Alex waved the guy away with an embarrassed grimace.

  “I didn’t ask you to sleep with me,” Alex pointed out. “I asked for a ride to the hotel. The ride you owe me, given that I won the bet.”

  “You didn’t win the bet.”

  “You sounded pretty convincing back there.”

  “I agreed to sound convincing,” she pointed out in a tone that dropped the temperature about five degrees.

  He was starting to understand her better, though. She went for the chill when she was nervous and trying to stay in control.

  “You sounded convincing because you were convinced. You believe the project would be stronger if we switched to a practical model using a supertelescope. Admit it,” he urged.

  “That was subterfuge.”

  “Hardly.” He rolled his eyes. “I’d know if you were faking it.”

  She gave him a long, considering look. It was the kind of look no man ever wanted to see. For one brief second, he had actual doubts. Could she have faked it with him? Ever?

  His ego shuddered.

  “I’d know,” he repeated firmly.

  She just smiled and leaned back against the flagstone-covered wall next to the valet station.

  His head filled with visions of her smiling, just like that, as she was poised over his body. As she leaned in for his kiss. As she rolled away from him with a satisfied sigh. Really satisfied, dammit.

  He gave her a narrow-eyed look as he considered the images. His gaze swept from the top of the hair he’d felt draped like silk over his naked hips and down to the lips that’d sucked him like a tasty lollipop. His eyes drifted over the body he’d felt shudder—shudder, dammit—down to the legs that’d held h
im in a vise grip during those shudders.

  No way she’d been faking it, Alex decided. If he knew one thing, it was that people wanted what he had to offer. After all, he’d spent most of his life being used for one thing or another. His brains, his name and, dammit, his prowess.

  She was just messing with him. Another brick in that wall she was building to try to keep him away. Or maybe it was revenge for his taking control of the project.

  As if he’d let that work. Alex had promised himself two things when he’d seen Drucilla walk into the restaurant on those glorious legs. That they’d be substantiating the string theory with concrete evidence provided by a supertelescope.

  And that he’d feel her long, silky legs wrapped around his waist again.

  “Are you giving me that ride?” he asked, challenging her to deny he’d won the bet.

  Her jaw worked. Then she heaved a deep sigh that did interesting things to whatever she had going on beneath that glittery jacket and straightened from the wall.

  “Fine,” she said as the valet pulled up with her reliable blue Volvo. “But if you’re looking to get off, you’ll have more luck waiting for this guy.”

  The valet grinned and waggled his brows. Alex gave him a rueful shake of his head as he slid into the passenger seat. He gave the interior a quick glance and grinned. Tidy and well preserved, the ten-year-old car’s leather was obviously regularly conditioned, the carpets vacuumed and he was sure the engine was perfectly maintained.

  But there, hanging from the rearview mirror, was a dried lily that he knew had once been red, wrapped in a silky ribbon.

  Faking it, his ass.

  She saw him grinning at the flower and pressed her lips together but didn’t say a word. Not that he’d believe her if she’d try to deny that was the same flower he’d given her on their first date. Instead she flicked the ignition on with an irritated slap of her hand, making his smile even bigger. Just yesterday he’d been doubting his judgment and thinking her an ice princess.

  “Why physics?” he asked, needing to know what made her tick and figuring that was as good a key as any.

  “Why not?”

  “A woman like you?” He gave her his most charming smile. “Gorgeous, smart, ambitious? You had plenty of options. Why physics?”

  After shooting him a suspicious look, she pulled out of the parking lot. So much for charm. She drove a whole mile before glancing at him again, then shrugging.

  “I like science.”

  “I like surfing,” he pointed out, “but it’s not a living.”

  “You know, I thought that myself once,” she said with an arch look.

  Alex grimaced, not willing to have that particular discussion again. Yes, he’d kept his true career from her. But she’d kept hers from him, too, dammit.

  “How about you?”

  “Me, what?” he asked.

  “Why’d you choose science over riding the waves, since that’s something you like so much?”

  He was grateful that her words were amused now, instead of angry.

  “I never considered anything else,” he said with a shrug. “Never had a chance to consider anything else, if truth be told. My grandfather is a physicist. My father was, too, although I don’t remember him. It was understood that I’d follow along.”

  “I thought your mom was…”

  He smiled. “A wandering new age fluffy bunny?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Is she really?”

  “Mom is…” Alex paused, trying to find the words that would describe the one inconsistent constant in his life.

  “Parent issues?” she asked when his pause turned into a hesitation.

  “No,” Alex shook his head. “I’m just trying to figure out how to explain a woman who uses the pendulum to plan her next road trip and tarot cards to decide what school I should attend.”

  She shot him a startled glance, then checked again as if gauging his honestly. After taking in his Boy Scout look, she asked, “Were there a lot of schools?”

  “You mentioned once that your mom kept her vegetables in flowerpots so she didn’t have to leave them behind.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I spent my elementary-school years with my shell collection in a suitcase and comic books in a backpack for exactly the same reason.”

  “Poor sweetie,” she murmured.

  Alex realized that he could run with this. The door to her sympathies was cracked open. He could totally play that. He could tell her the story about having to leave the first-place T-ball team midseason. Maybe throw in the one about how they’d moved right after he’d snagged the lead in the Christmas pageant playing the angel on high.

  He could trot out all his boyhood disappointments as sympathy-inducing, nooky-guaranteeing ammunition.

  Hell, if he threw in the fact that by eight, he’d learned to recognize his mom’s “itchy feet” vibe and stock the car with juice boxes and snacks so he’d have something to eat on those inevitable middle-of-the-night adventures, he could turn that nooky into naughty kink.

  But…

  “It wasn’t that bad,” he said instead.

  The look she shot him clearly said she didn’t believe his assertion. He didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t sold it well enough or if her own childhood of moving around had left her a touch bitter.

  “Did you eventually settle into one place? You know, so you could do the normal kid things. Letter in swimming, act in the school play, attend prom with your dream girl?”

  “I got to third base with a girl at science camp in Moscow when I was thirteen,” he boasted with a grin.

  She gave him the same kind of look his mom used when he’d bragged about yet another award. They had just reached the hotel, but instead of pulling up to the front door, she turned right, into the almost deserted parking lot.

  Flicking off the ignition, she turned in her seat to face him, the cutest little frown worrying her brow and a sad look of compassion puffing out her bottom lip.

  Alex shifted in his own seat, feeling a little naked. His mom had always known he’d hidden behind the boasts, too.

  “That had to be such a rough time,” she commiserated, patting him lightly on the knee. A little boy inside, one he’d thought he’d left behind decades ago, wanted to climb into her lap for a comforting cuddle.

  How freaking manly was that?

  Despite his uneasiness, he had to grin. She was so sweet. “I started college when I was fifteen,” he reminded her.

  “That’s my point. Don’t you ever feel like you missed out? Or like you have to, oh, I don’t know, prove that your willy-nilly nontraditional childhood didn’t mess you up?”

  Alex hadn’t been shipped off to college before he’d had his first shave for being an idiot. She was thinking about her issues, not his.

  “Prove to who?” he asked. “I’m doing great. I have a slew of awards, I’m one of the most sought-after physicists in the country and I call my own shots and pick the jobs I take. What’s left to prove?”

  Or maybe he did have a few issues in there, too. He winced when she shot him a look that said that yes, indeed, she’d caught his version of the he-doth-protest-too-much.

  His plan for this ride was to lure her up to his room and get her naked. To feel those amazing legs wrapped around his torso as he drove his way to heaven between her thighs. The noises he’d been hoping for were orgasmic, not sympathetic.

  Which meant it was time to change the subject.

  “Um, just one question,” she asked.

  He tensed.

  “How, exactly, does one use a pendulum to make decisions?” Her warm smile said that no matter how much he tried to blow it off, she was going to have sympathy for his childhood.

  “Swings to the left for yes, to the right for no,” he quoted the oft-heard directions. His laugh was tinged with just a hint of desperate gratitude. His gaze met the soft amusement in hers, noting how welcoming she looked with her eyes all gentle and sweet.

  Am
usement faded. Passion, always simmering just beneath his surface when she was around, heated.

  Alex leaned closer and her eyes grew wide. He brushed two fingers down the silky skin of her cheek, then along her jaw to slide beneath her hair. With just those two fingers and his most seductive look, he pulled her toward him.

  Their mouths met in a slow, sweet slide of pleasure. He simply absorbed her taste. Time stopped. Space shifted. It was as if they were back on the beach. As Alex’s mouth moved in a familiar dance with Dru’s, he could almost hear the pounding roar of the waves. Or maybe that was the sound of his own heart hammering away.

  As his fingers speared through the curls loosely pinned at the back of her head, he gave in to the need that’d been shoving at him all night. He trailed his other hand—just the tips of his fingers, actually—along the smooth, bare flesh of her thigh.

  She gasped.

  He shuddered.

  Giving her pleasure was the greatest turn-on he’d ever experienced.

  Slowly, gently, he pulled his lips from hers and watched as her eyes opened. Hazy with desire, she gave him that I-give-you-permission-to-do-me princess to sex-slave look he loved so much. Unable to resist tasting more, he nibbled his way over the delicate curve of her jaw.

  God, he’d missed her. With a small grimace, Alex moved one knee along the seat to try to ease the pressure of his erection against his zipper.

  Oh, yeah, he’d missed her like crazy.

  “You’re delicious,” he whispered against her ear, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of her hair. It reminded him of bonfire smoke and the ocean and midnight walks in a flower garden.

  Something inside him, something tucked away deep in his heart, melted a little. He had no idea what it was since he usually made a point to ignore all things heart related.

  Drucilla tilted her head to give him better access to that soft, sensitive spot there in the curve of her throat and hummed.

  “Let’s go up to my room,” he invited as he nibbled, ready to explode if he didn’t get her naked soon. Or beg, which would be much worse. Because Albert Alexander Maddow had never begged in his life. But for a taste of Drucilla, he was pretty sure he’d actually do it on his knees.