What’d happened to all the making out?
“Dammit, I forgot the salad,” he said as he opened the door of the ancient avocado-colored fridge. Next to it, a ceramic cookie jar painted with a smiley face and a Have a nice day! rested on the Formica counter. “I should’ve grabbed it before we left the saloon.”
“That’s okay.” She edged into the kitchen, sat at the yellow-and-white retro table with vinyl chairs. A small pile of paper was waiting for her. The contract.
This was why he’d been in such a hurry to get back here? Truly?
She slumped, her body as thwarted as a broken toy that’d been shut down.
He took out two TV dinners from the freezer and closed it. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and corn. Seriously to that, too? This was billionaire food?
“Oh, brother,” she said, getting out of her seat. She reached around him and opened the fridge, where she found an opened carton of four eggs, water bottles, a slab of butter, and two sandwiches that looked like they’d come from the general store. “Holy moly—you’ve got nothing in here.”
“Bachelor’s pickings.” He shrugged, freeing the dinners from their boxes and putting one into the microwave. Meanwhile, he liberated two waters from the fridge and set them on the table. At least those were a designer brand.
“Slim pickings, you mean,” she said, sitting down again. She crossed one leg over the other, hoping he’d like her boots as much as Jimmy Beetles had.
Ben glanced over, his gaze lingering on her legs, then slowly focusing on the microwave again, watching the numbers count down.
For heaven’s sake. “So you dragged me back here for contracts.”
“We need to go through them, get this out of the way.”
Boy, he was a rigid robot when he wanted to be. What about the kiss that’d gotten him motored up in the saloon? Had he forgotten about that?
Anyway, after the food had been nuked, they ate a heavier meal than she’d been expecting, and that was okay, especially since the TV dinner reminded her of the old days, when her mom wouldn’t have time to cook and Liz would sit in front of the tube, listening as Mom tried to conjure some kind of audition or another for Maddie on the phone. And Maddie hadn’t minded the dinners so much, then. She’d been thankful enough for sustenance.
Now, Ben talked her through each contract clause, asking her if she would like a lawyer to look over the terms—paid for by him, of course. Liz turned him down, but she didn’t mention why: Mom had acted as her business manager for years, and if there was one positive thing about their relationship, it was that she’d taught her a savvy thing or two about contracts.
In the end, when Liz signed this one without a fuss, Ben sat back in his chair, brushing a look down her that flared every cell in her body to life—a hot, satisfied look.
“So you don’t think I’m out to screw you over,” he said softly. “If I actually worked for the Hughes Corporation, I’d think that’s a refreshing change.”
“You don’t work for them?”
“Not unless you count my token title.” His smile was cynical. “But that could change very soon, thanks to you.”
So remote. What had gone wrong between them during the walk from the saloon to here? Why had he cooled off so sharply?
Liz feared she knew. The walk had given him an opportunity to get his head together. This was a man who yearned for control in his life, and the closer he came to it, the less playful he was. But Ben Hughes couldn’t erase the playful from him—she’d seen it in the Rough & Tumble when they’d both been knee-deep in acting like they were in love enough to have gotten quickie married.
Could she bring that out in him again?
She drank some water, measuring him up as she stretched back in her chair, bobbing her foot as she crossed those moneymaker legs, attracting his focus for a scorching moment before he glanced away again.
“I’m trying to put two and two together with you,” she murmured. “Most billionaires jet set to Europe or private islands for their amusement. But here you are, making yourself at home in this town instead. I don’t get it.”
Ben negligently piled her empty food container into his. “Easy to answer. I’ve always liked to get a rise out of the old man. It started when I was a kid. Dad had everything planned out for me and my two brothers—prep school, Columbia Business School, then high-level positions running the company he built from the ground up. But when I was six, I told him that I wanted to be a baseball player.” Ben clenched his fingers around his water bottle. “He laughed, and even at that age, I knew what he wanted of me. I’d had my flight of fancy and no more would be tolerated. But there was something inside me that didn’t want to be ordered around. I heard Mom was like that before she died, too.”
“You didn’t know her?” Liz had angled her head, caught up in the image of golden Bennett Hughes pitching a no-hitter. A dream. A nonstarter.
“Actually, she passed away in a small plane crash shortly after having me. I wasn’t old enough to remember. Evidently, Dad wasn’t, either, because he moved on quickly with a new wife. He never did have kids again, though. I guess he realized a woman with opinions and sons to champion was no fun, even if my mother had provided him with heirs.”
“An heir and two spares,” she said.
“Exactly. I’m not even the first in line for succession. But if I were, I’m too rebellious to run things the way Dad would want. My attitude only got worse as I grew up, too, going wild, keeping our family ‘fixers’ busy, knowing that making him angry was the only rise I would get out of him. In a strange way, that mattered. I’d also decided that I was going to disappoint him no matter what I did, so I didn’t do much at all. I invested my money, lived it up in all the glitzy places this world has to offer. But none of it felt good, and on a trip to Vegas a few years ago, I stopped in Rough and Tumble and . . .” He grinned. “And I felt more at home here than anywhere. It’s a place where no one cares where you come from or what you’re supposed to be like.”
Liz propped her elbow on the table and leaned her chin in her hand. “Why do I get the feeling that you haven’t told many people about yourself?”
“I never married any of them. Why bother?”
The cynicism was still there, but it was crushed under a bigger message. Maybe Ben didn’t consider this marriage to be real, but he felt comfortable enough to talk with her.
Don’t think you’re special, Liz thought. Remember the Rolex.
But then why was there something in the air that couldn’t be denied? A feeling like they were being pulled together, heartstring to heartstring?
Or was it all in her lovelorn mind?
She had to know the answer, and she stood. He watched her, his gaze traveling down to her boots. His eyes had gone from thoughtful to spark-ridden, just in one banging second, and her libido responded with an agonizing throb.
“Back in the saloon,” she said, “we did a hell of a job acting for the crowd. Why were you so worried about appearances around them if no one cares what you’re supposed to be like?”
When she rested her knee on his thigh, her skirt gaped in invitation.
He swallowed. “Because everyone in that bar will vouch for us when the press comes around after someone at the Marriage License Bureau or the chapel eventually recognizes my name tied to yours in marriage. I’m not even sure I gave Te’o enough money to buy his silence forever.”
“Sounds like you need to make him sign one of your nondisclosure agreements.”
Ben grinned up at her. “Boomer’s lawyer is going to have that covered soon enough, after he tracks Te’o down.”
Her husband’s hair was so rich and thick under the buttery kitchen light that she gave in to temptation and smoothed it back from his face. And such a face, matinee idol striking, lips that she knew were extremely talented.
Her clit pounded, hoping, anticipating . . .
“Liz,” he said on a choked whisper, “you know where this is going to lead.”
&n
bsp; “To a matrimonial bed?” She traced her fingertips down his cheek. “Not necessarily.”
His laugh was harsh. “You’re teasing me, just like I messed with you earlier. But I didn’t do it on purpose, Liz. You know that.”
“I know.”
Still, she’d promised herself that she’d show him she wouldn’t be taken for granted. Anita would’ve given her the same advice.
Seduction, she thought. There was a reason Cleopatra had kept Julius Caesar and Marc Antony in thrall, pleasing them, winning them over in the end.
A girl didn’t spend so much time at places like Caesars Palace and never learn a bit of useful history.
Liz rubbed her thumb over his bottom lip, and he closed his eyes. Was his sex drive screaming as much as hers was?
When he opened his mouth to take her thumb inside, sucking on it, she just about misted to the floor. God, his mouth, what it could do to her . . .
As she moved her thumb in and out of him, her lips parted with breath that was coming faster and faster. He reached under her skirt, pressing his fingers against her pussy, stroking her in time to each suck.
Tightness, gathering, agony twisting inside her and making her wet, making her take her thumb out of his mouth so she could reach down with both hands and grab her dress’s hem, yanking the material up and over her head and tossing it away.
She’d put on her fanciest bra and undies for him—deep copper satin that complimented her hair. That’s why she’d bought the set a few years ago and rarely worn it, because it made her feel special and she had been waiting for the right man . . . wishing for so long . . .
Ben took a moment to visually devour her, an appetite raging in his gaze.
“Take them off before I tear them off,” he said.
She almost obeyed, but then thought about the whole taken-for-granted part. Make him work for this.
Turning her back to him, she looked over her shoulder, a showgirl’s sexy move. “You take them off.”
With a low laugh, he lightly rested his fingertips on her waist, then deliberately slipped them up and up. She squirmed so hard at the ticklish sensation that she dropped back onto his lap. He hooked one arm around her, keeping her there as he deftly undid her bra.
He didn’t let it fall away from her, though; he slid his hands up higher, catching the cups against her breasts, pressing against them so that her tits bulged. They were so sensitive and aware that she made a small sound of pleasure. He kissed her spine at the back of her neck, his fingers massaging her in front, forcing a quaver from deep in her belly until it bloomed outward, a burst of drifting desire.
He kissed lower, talking against her. “Sex isn’t a part of the contract.”
“It’s just an option. I know.” She wanted her undies off so badly that she almost did it herself, but . . . work. He needed to work for this.
He seemed to read her mind, her body, and he tugged the panties away from her. She wiggled out of them as he pulled them over her boots, leaving those on.
Panting and naked in his lap, her gaze latched on to the yellow-curtained kitchen window. It was uncovered, darkness lurking outside, and a tiny thrill jolted through her at the thought of being watched. The honeymooning couple. “You seem to have a thing for my shoes, sweetheart.”
“Well, honey buns,” he said, his mouth still against her skin, “we all have our fetishes. I’ve been thinking about how you’d look walking down the hall to the master bedroom in nothing but these ass-kickers.”
She laughed, still short on oxygen. “You must remember that number from Blaze! We brought . . .”—need a breath—”. . . motorcycles onstage and wore . . . knee-high boots, thongs, leather straps, black wigs . . . not much else. Except for maybe the whips we danced with.”
He nipped at her shoulder. “I remember, all right.”
Why was she talking about being a showgirl? She had so much more to offer.
He was going to plead for it by the end of the night, too.
She grinded back against him, feeling how hard his cock was getting, the ache in her clit pulsing.
“Let’s really get this honeymoon started, Mr. Hughes,” she said, standing, then pulling him out of the chair.
With a sizzling gaze, he followed her out of the kitchen like a good husband.
One who would keep coming back for more by the end of the night.
14
Ben had hit the fake-marriage jackpot.
Liz had turned around, walking backward, taking him by the hand out of the kitchen and toward the dim hallway. There, a bank of plastic beads was drawn back like a curtain, draped over half the entrance. His body pounded, beating with a need so raw that he didn’t know if anything would ever appease it.
Except for her.
God, she was a sight as she pulled him along, a mysterious smile on her lips. She was as long, slender, and dangerous as dynamite, but with some curves: breasts with pink, stimulated tips, a waist that swerved inward, and a belly with flat, planed abs that led to gently flaring hips. And her legs—endless and shapely, especially with those boots coming up to her knees.
Dynamite. But what really enflamed Ben was the flash of pink pussy he could barely see—damp, sinful pink covered by a brushing of ginger hair that’d been waxed to a landing strip.
She urged him past the beaded curtain and leaned back against the wall, spreading her hands against the plaster . . . spreading more than that, too.
Planting one boot down, she sent him a lowered gaze, the edges of her bobbed hair tickling the tips of her smile. Then she stepped down with her other boot, showcasing the lovely area between her legs.
Yeah. Pink and ready for him.
He grinned. “I think I’m going like this arrangement.”
“Do you like how I’m arranged now?” She raised her hands above her head, posing seductively, her breasts flattening and inviting him to take one of those nipples into his mouth.
Blood rushed him, brutally and ferociously, and she seemed to get off on how he was trying to keep his composure.
When he spoke, his words were throttled. “You want me to suffer for misleading you yesterday. Is that why you’re teasing me now?” He wouldn’t be surprised if this had something to do with the Rolex he’d gifted her with, too.
“Oh, I forgive you, Ben.” She dragged her hand down the wall, sliding it against her face then, slowly, between her breasts, over her stomach and her belly. She paused there, grinning just before she eased her fingers to the pink.
Damn.
As she stroked herself, closing her eyes, biting her lip, he suffered like a son of a bitch, his gut gripping itself into a tangled network of hungry impulses.
He watched as she moaned softly, her hips moving a little with every caress.
“Know what I’m thinking?” she asked.
“That the teasing is working?”
Her smile grew. “I’m thinking of what you’re going to do to me if you ever decide to get your ass over here.”
Damned if he was going to let her get away with toying with him.
He looked at her. Looked at the beads to his right. Smiled.
He moved toward them, undoing the tie that kept the beads gathered. They showered down with a clicking tumble, orange and yellow, decadent and full of possibilities.
That got her attention, because she looked at him through her eyelashes, one hand still above her head, the other pausing between her legs.
Let the games really begin.
He reached over, took her by the waist, pulled her to him, then urged her back against the wall. Her gaze had gone wide, the corners of her mouth tipped up in expectancy as he slipped down a hand to squeeze one of her ass cheeks.
“What’re you thinking of now?” he asked.
“I’m not really sure.” She eyed the beads.
He’d played with all kinds of toys in the past with women, accoutrements from sex shops like vaginal beads, even anal beads. Was a fast-lane woman like Liz into those things?
It’d be fun to find out, starting with this.
“Trust me,” he said, reaching over to handle a string of beads, running it through his fingers. “I’ve never put these to use before, but I think they’ll come in handy.”
She watched him with that Bambi-eyed gaze as he kneaded her ass, pushing her closer against him, then lowered the beads to her pussy. At first, he pressed one to her clit, rubbing lightly.
“Mm—” It was a soft, quick sound, and she turned her face away from him.
“Look at me, Liz.”
She shook her head as he continued to work her, so he upped the ante.
Slipping his hand down from her ass, he pushed the string between her parted legs and grabbed the other end until she was straddling the beads.
He pulled them toward him, then back, and she buried her face against his jaw, biting him.
“That’s right, baby,” he murmured. The beads were lubricated by her juices, easily going back and forth, making her grip his shirt until he thought it’d tear. “Just tell me when you want me to stop.”
A sound, a gasping groan.
“Now?” he asked.
“No.” She bit him again, sounding desperate for him to go on.
“Look at me,” he repeated. “Or I will stop.”
She looked at him, her gaze lust-steeped. She fiercely clutched his shirt as he kept sliding those beads, a little harder, a little faster. Her face went dreamier with every change of pace, his cock getting harder.
“Keep . . .” she said, her voice getting higher, thinner. “Going . . .”
She sucked in a startled breath and halfway let it out, then stiffened until she fell against him, crying out again and finally sinking to the floor. He let the string of beads go and caught her, bringing her back up to the wall.
He’d waited long enough, famished for the taste of her: the skin of her throat, the dip between her collarbones, her breasts. He sampled all of them on the way down her body. She tunneled her fingers into his hair, pulling at it, especially when he got to her pussy, kissing and devouring the drenched honey of her.
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