* * *
“Will you at least tell us what you said to her?” Santigo’s concern was evident in his voice and dark eyes.
“It’s all right, T. We still have the deal.” Eli sat on the edge of his desk and toyed with the baseball paperweight.
“If you’re looking for a loose woman in her, you won’t find one,” Tigo promised.
“No.” Eli kept his gaze on the paperweight he shifted between his palms. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Linus dropped a quick knock to the office door and walked inside. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Mr. Echols,” Eli said.
Linus rolled his eyes while massaging his dimpled chin. “Look, Eli, we both go back a long way with the man, but sooner or later you’re gonna have to accept that Mr. Cleve just lost out on a deal.”
“Linus is right, man.” Tigo sat down on one of the suede armchairs in the office living area. “There’s nothing to prove that there was anything criminal about the investors having a change of heart.”
“And you two have no theories about how Waymon Cole took those investors?”
“El, man, the theory is money and business,” Linus drawled on a chuckle. “Sorry but we’re just not as suspicious about this as you are.” He went to sit on the arm of the chair Tigo occupied. “Mr. Cleve unfortunately was just slow to realize that there was blood in the water and his investors were the bait.”
Elias left the edge of the desk, slowly massaging his neck and grudgingly, silently admitting that his partners were probably right. His spite and disgust for Jazmina Beaumont had him seeing red in all kinds of directions.
He clenched a fist and banged it on his pant leg when he thought of how he’d treated Clarissa the night before. He’d virtually called her promiscuous to her face. It was a miracle that she hadn’t hit him.
“El? That it, man?” Linus asked.
Elias threw up a hand without looking at his friends. “I’m done,” he said.
When Santigo pulled open the office door, Desmond was right there and looking overjoyed that the meeting had ended so quickly. “Mr. J, you need to contact the Breck Humanitarian Committee. Ask for Leta Fields.”
“What’s the rush, Des?” Elias took note of the urgency in the man’s demeanor. He noticed the grins that Linus and Tigo wore and he frowned. “Des?”
“They need your official response on joining the committee for this year’s honoree.”
Elias felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Desmond swallowed. “Jazmina Beaumont.”
* * *
“Sorry, girl,” Clarissa was saying to Rayelle when she arrived at Jaz’s home that morning for breakfast. They didn’t get much business talk done the night before and had made plans to get together that day. “You could’ve used your key...I just got the coffee out—overslept,” Clarissa gushed while waving Ray inside.
“Understandable. That powwow with Eli Joss probably took a lot out of you.”
“Don’t remind me, Ray.” Clarissa was crossing into the softly lit living room. The hem of a beige cotton lounger whipped over the tops of her bare feet. “Bad enough being attracted to a man who hates your guts without having to be reminded of it every day,” she said, standing at the credenza to pour out two cups of an almond coffee blend.
“Attracted?” Rayelle stepped out of the coral-colored slippers and wiggled her toes. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word about a man you’ve known less than three weeks.”
Clarissa shrugged. “So what can I say?”
“Oh, you won’t have to justify it.” Ray curled up on the cream-colored sofa that faced a long bay window at the rear of the room. “Elias Joss is rich, intelligent, understatedly awesome and sexy as the devil—’nuff said.”
Leaving the credenza, Clarissa brought over the coffee. “For someone not good with words, you got quite a vocab.” She handed Rayelle a cup.
“Whatever—no changing the subject.” Ray waved off the compliment. “Tell me I’m wrong about him.”
“You’re not wrong.” Clarissa gathered up the hem of her lounger and curled on the other side of the sofa with her coffee. “I already said I was attracted to him. The rest goes without saying.”
“All right, all right.” Ray placed a napkin Clarissa had provided across her thigh and balanced her cup atop it. “I’ll cease the nitpicking and just say that I think you’ve made a perfect choice.”
The rim of the cup touched Clarissa’s mouth but she didn’t take a sip. “Don’t do that, Ray. I’m not making a choice for anything. The guy just caught my eye is all.”
“And he’s slowly reeling you in.”
“Are we gonna use this morning to get any work done?” Clarissa quickly sipped her coffee.
Ray looked to the crate filled with legal-sized hanging file folders that she’d brought over from Jazmina’s club office the day before.
“I thought we’d start with the things from her desk and then tackle that bigger cabinet in her office next,” Ray said. “That should get us caught up with everything she has in the works.”
“The will reading’s on the morning before the...funeral.” Clarissa sipped more coffee. “Maybe she cut me off completely and I don’t even need to know any of that stuff.”
“Humph.” Ray indulged in a low sip of the fragrant creamy brew. “Everybody knows Miss Jaz was a genius. Smartest thing she ever did was to involve you with the business.”
“Thanks, girl.” Clarissa nodded. “And thanks for stepping outside your job description to help me with this.”
Ray shrugged. “Miss Jaz knew what she was doing when she hired me, too.”
Cradling her cup carefully, Clarissa leaned over to draw her friend into a hug.
* * *
“You think there might be anything in this stuff about what she wanted to discuss the day she...died?” Clarissa asked the question in her softest voice after she and Rayelle had browsed the files for several moments.
“That depends.” Ray scanned a page skeptically. “Do you think what she wanted to discuss was business or personal?”
Clarissa chewed her lip. “Can’t be sure... Only thing she’d say on the phone was that she was taking a chance having me come out here to discuss it.”
“Mmm...” Ray observed the paperwork dismally. “I can keep my eyes open for anything weird that might pop up in all this, but you might want to start going through her stuff here in the house.”
“Yeah...” Clarissa studied the living room’s high ceiling, settled for a time on the way the light hit the chandelier above. “It’s gotta be done anyway, I guess.”
“May be for the best if you do it on your own, but you know I’m here if you need help,” Ray offered.
Clarissa smiled and squeezed Rayelle’s bare foot closest to her. The two resumed working diligently until the front doorbell buzzed a half hour later.
“Damn...I’m really missing Miss J’s house staff right about now.” Ray groaned, not wanting to leave her spot on the floor.
Clarissa moved to her knees. “They were all close to my aunt’s age anyway. More like companions than employees. Waymon said she made sure they’d be set financially so...”
“Let me get the door, Clay.”
“Nah, nah...my butt’s fallin’ asleep anyway.”
“You’re not even dressed.”
Clarissa was already up and sprinting for the foyer. The hem of the beige lounger whipped about once again. While the garment covered more of her body than it showed, it held greedily to her form in further emphasis of the heart-stopping curves she possessed.
Clarissa was laughing over Ray’s reminder. “It’s not like I’m naked!” The words rang out just as she pulled open the door to discover Elias Joss.
Chapter 5
“Is my timing bad?” Elias asked while half smiling down at Clarissa.
“I, um...” Clarissa waved a hand in the general direction behind her, trying to find an explanation. She gave up. “Come in.” She stepped aside.
Elias obliged slowly. “I don’t mind coming back out if you’ve got company.” His stirring gaze made a leisurely appraisal of her attire.
Clarissa raked her fingers through her short crop of hair. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
Eli appeared as though he’d expected that response. “What do you think I’m thinking?”
“That I’m probably having an orgy to rival anything that my aunt ever did.”
Elias’s laughter brought Rayelle out of the living room. She greeted him in a demure tone, but her eyes were alight with interest and approval for the man in her line of sight.
“Sorry for interrupting.” Ray barely glanced at her watch. “Damn, is that the time? I really need to get going.”
“But we haven’t even had breakfast,” Clarissa said.
“Yeah, Clay, um...” Ray sprinted back to the living room for her shoes, tote and sweater. “I’ve got things to take care of in the city before the club opens tonight.”
Clarissa propped her hands on her hips. “What about the files?”
“Oh, we’ll get to ’em.” Ray stopped moving long enough to give a proper goodbye. “It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Joss.”
“Eli, please.”
“Eli,” Ray almost gushed.
Clarissa rolled her eyes.
“Clay,” Rayelle said before hurrying out the front door.
Elias studied the closed door for a moment. “Didn’t think I’d been here long enough to offend anybody,” he said.
Hands still on her hips, Clarissa began to tap her fingers there. “I’m sure you know you haven’t done that, but you have to know that you surprised me by coming out here. Or was that the plan? Trying to ease your curiosity about me by catching me in the act of...something?”
Elias smiled a broad smile. “So are we going to talk about this in the foyer or will you ask me in?”
Clarissa dropped her hands and simply turned and led the way to the living room.
Elias whistled. “The woman really loved her space.”
Clarissa rubbed her hands down the lounger’s long sleeves. “Yeah, she did.”
Her tone gave Elias pause and he understood that he’d best get to the point. “Your aunt’s affair with my dad lasted many years during my parents’ marriage. My dad was so...infatuated with her that he wanted to leave us—me and my mom—for her. I was eight, maybe nine.”
Clarissa’s steely demeanor melted. She walked over to the sofa, sat along the back of it.
“I’m sorry, Elias.” Genuine regret pooled in her dusky gaze. “That had to be awful for you at that age.” She shrugged her brows. “At any age.”
“Yeah...” He smoothed a hand across the wavy dark hair tapered at his neck. “But that doesn’t give me the right to treat you the way I’ve been. I really am sorry, Clarissa.”
She shook her head and pressed her hands deeper into the sofa. “At least I understand your feelings a lot better now, but you didn’t have to make a trip all the way out here to tell me this, you know?”
“That’s not the only reason I came out.”
Clarissa raised her brows and waited.
“I got a call from Leta Fields this morning.”
Clarissa squinted. “Why do I know that name?”
“She’s with the Breck Humanitarian Committee.”
“Aah...and you’re telling me this because...?”
Eli leaned against one of the columns nearest the sofa. “You know your aunt was up for an award.” He watched her nod. “They want me to sit on the merit board.”
Clarissa’s smile held a hint of wickedness. “And did you tell them that you doing that pretty much guarantees she won’t get the award?”
“I turned them down.”
“Should I thank you?”
“I wouldn’t.” Eli focused on one of his dark loafers peeking out beneath the cuff of his tan pinstriped trousers. “My motives were very selfish.”
“How?” She frowned.
Pushing off the column, Eli walked the stunning room. “If your aunt gets the award, they’ll want you to accept on her behalf.”
“Right...” Clarissa let the word hang, intrigued to know what he was getting at.
“Committee rules state that there’s to be no contact between committee members and honorees or the recipients of their awards.”
“Right.” Clarissa spoke the word that time in a tone of understanding. “But you didn’t have to decline sitting on the board. I really do like working with Linus and Tigo.”
“Clarissa, that’s not it.”
“Well, I’ve had the chance to talk with them a lot, especially when the project was in the very early stages.”
“Clarissa—”
“Elias, please, I’m not that fragile. Working together is contact. I understand that. What? Did you think I’d believe you were backing out because my aunt might be the honoree? I mean, I’m pretty sure the possibility has a little to do with your decision, but I don’t think you’re that petty.”
“Thanks.” Eli couldn’t mask his amusement.
“But it’s probably for the best anyway. Last thing we need is for anything improper preventing Aunt Jaz from getting an award she deserves.”
Elias was standing near the sofa again and accepting that he wouldn’t get more than a word in with Clarissa. He selected another course of action and in one fluid move plucked her off the sofa.
Clarissa found herself set high against a wall with Elias Joss’s broad hard frame snuggled in against her. His hand loosely cuffed her neck, an effective deterrent to speaking.
“None of what you said has anything to do with why I turned them down.” He lowered his eyes to watch the rise and set of her bosom against his wrist. “No contact with you doesn’t interest me.”
Clarissa could only blink rapidly and often. Silently, she commanded her lashes to cease moving but it was hopeless.
Elias took great pleasure in watching the emotions change her expression as she worked to accept the meaning of his words and sudden actions.
“We’ll be working together.”
She tried to warn him of the imminent drama that contact and work could bring. Her voice held a weak, unconvincing tone and Clarissa shuddered over not being able to manage more.
Elias understood though and nodded slowly once, twice, three times. Seconds later, he was kissing her.
Clarissa took the kiss without giving anything in return. The pressure of his tongue testing the texture of hers was maddening and stirred all sorts of sensations that she wanted to lose herself in. He abandoned her tongue to trail his across the ridge of her teeth. Then, he outlined the shape of her mouth before starting the kiss all over again.
Whimpers escaped Clarissa’s mouth as the frenzy of arousal stirred in the most treasured part of her anatomy. He had her immobile against the wall yet her hips writhed minutely as the frenzied stabs of arousal intensified.
Clarissa needn’t have worried about slipping. Eli held her fast. His massive frame was snug inside her thighs and sealed effectively and provocatively there. Even so, she kept her hands folded over the biceps straining beneath the cream-colored shirt that hung outside his trousers. She didn’t trust her hands to roam elsewhere. Elias didn’t have that problem. The position in which he held Clarissa offered him the chance to test the lush portion of thigh and derriere barely covered by a wispy pair of lace panties. The movements of her hips made her bottom nudge his palms in a manner that had him in an almost painfully rigid state inside his pants.
>
Clarissa smoothed her bare feet up along the crisp material of his pants and wrapped her legs about his waist. The move gave Elias the opportunity to pull her from the wall. The kiss had turned her wetter, hotter. Clarissa was then thoroughly engaged in the act of their mating tongues. She kissed him with a hunger that bordered on desperation.
For a time, Elias simply stood there holding her and kissing her to madness. Clarissa let herself grow heady off the scent of his cologne. She pushed her hands across his broad shoulders, taking great pleasure in the breadth and power that was barely concealed below the surface of his skin. She felt a sound easily resembling a growl vibrate from his chest and through hers. Moments later, he was rounding the sofa and settling her to her back.
Her whimpering was slowly, consistently driving him out of his mind, fueling Elias’s hunger that was already peaked at a ravenous level. He kept his weight off her by lying alongside her on the broad sofa. The position left every part of her accessible to his eyes and touch. Of course he played that to his considerable advantage.
Finally, Eli broke the kiss to nibble Clarissa’s earlobe. His hands meanwhile tested the appealing fullness of her breasts. She arched her back when his thumb circled a nipple.
Elias raised his head to study her reaction to what he was doing to her. He was stunned by the slash of possessiveness that knifed through him then. He didn’t know what to think of this woman’s ability to instill such an emotion. Whatever the reason, he decided that it was too heavy a topic to be considered just then anyway.
He dipped his head to replace his thumb with his lips. He applied the lightest suckle with just a bare brush from his tongue to moisten the nipple. When she whimpered yet again and arched more sharply into him, he suckled harder.
Clarissa knew that she should be resisting or at the very least offering a hint of protest. But she didn’t want him to misunderstand. She wanted this. Stopping him was out of the question.
Elias used his free hand to span her hip and then thigh. His fingers curled into the material of her lounge dress and slowly he hiked the garment upward. He lost himself in the satin feel of her thighs, which were drenched in a warm color a few shades lighter than his own dark caramel-colored complexion. Elias was at once greedy to feel more. He began to squeeze the fleshy portion that he cupped.
Provocative Territory Page 5
