by Lucy Monroe
She frowned at that, acknowledging she'd have to think more on that angle.
"And, for the last time, I'm not using you."
"But you are using Mr. St. Clair. He's not only your client, he's your instrument of revenge." She'd gotten him with that, she could tell, because Alex's face closed up like a book left on the library shelf.
Then, surprisingly, his dimple showed in his cheek once again. "I'm hungry. Watching you throw away those chocolate chip cookies just about did me in."
"I waited until you got here to do it," she confessed.
"You've got a mean streak, Isabel," he teased. "I hope our child doesn't inherit it."
"Between the two of us, it's almost a given."
His expression turned serious. "I'm not a cruel man."
She sighed. "I think, given the right set of circumstances, you could be."
"You mean like having a client who wants to buy your father's company?"
She couldn't deny it, so she said nothing.
"Do you believe that I have no desire or intention to use you to hurt your father?"
"Yes." But she didn't believe the destruction of Hypertron was a matter of justice and somehow she was going to make him see that.
Chapter 16
« ^ »
Isabel got ready for bed in the master bathroom, her frustration level at a boiling point.
They hadn't discussed Alex's plans for Hypertron over dinner or when they returned home. Isabel had tried, but Alex refused all overtures to reopen the conversation. He'd used the excuse that they should be celebrating the news of their impending parenthood. She'd countered that she couldn't celebrate anything, even pregnancy, with the cloud of so many lives being hurt hanging over her head.
They were at a stalemate, neither one having said anything meaningful in the last hour or more.
She came out of the bathroom to find Alex already in bed. He sat against the headboard, his eyes catching hers the moment she opened the door. "I like what you've done to our room."
"Thank you." She headed toward the door.
If he thought he could placate her with compliments after spending all evening ignoring her attempts to talk about such an important issue, he wasn't as bright as she'd always given him credit for being. "I don't like what you plan to do to Hypertron." And she didn't like knowing he had married her with ulterior motives. In fact, she hated it. "Goodnight, Alex."
Her hand was on the doorknob ready to pull it open when he spun her around to face him. She gasped. He'd moved so fast she hadn't even realized he'd left the bed.
"You're my wife."
Were they back to that again? She stifled a sigh of irritation bordering on out-and-out anger. "I'm not denying that."
The fingers on her arms tightened their hold. "Let me make this very plain, sweetheart. You are my wife. My wife sleeps in my bed. Is that clear?"
"This isn't the Middle Ages, Alex. I can sleep wherever I want to."
"Fine." He released her.
She opened the door, not quite believing he had given in so easily.
"But wherever that is, I'll be there."
Isabel shivered at the implacability in his voice. He wasn't threatening her. He was stating a fact.
"I don't want to sleep with you," she bit out. "After what I found out today, I need some space."
"And what did you find out today? That your dad's company is not as solvent as he wants everyone to believe. That I have a client interested in capitalizing on that fact. Why do you need space to digest those facts?"
"Maybe not but knowing you married me so I wouldn't walk away from you when I found out your part in the hostile takeover of Hypertron is something I need space to digest." She sounded like a sarcastic shrew and was actually quite proud of the fact.
"That's too bad."
She glared at him. Mr. Sensitive he was not. "What if I decide to sleep on the couch?" she asked a trifle smugly. "There isn't room for both of us there."
He smiled, the expression sending a shiver through her. "There is if one of us sleeps on top."
She didn't really want to sleep alone. She wanted to cuddle up to her husband, and she wanted him to tell her that he married her because he loved her—not just because he desired her body so badly that he wanted to make sure of getting and keeping access to it through the bonds of matrimony.
It wasn't going to happen and she wasn't going to sleep with him.
"I'm going to the guest room." She didn't raise her voice, but she put every ounce of her determination in it.
Alex's eyes narrowed. "Then I guess I'm sleeping in the guest room tonight, too."
"You aren't invited." Before he got a chance to answer, she added, "I mean it, Alex. I'm sleeping alone."
"So, this is how you're going to try to manipulate me? You're going to refuse to sleep with me until you get your way?"
She wanted to cry. It didn't have anything to do with manipulation. "I just hurt too much right now to be with you," she admitted in a sad whisper.
Alex drew back as if she'd slapped him. She took advantage of the movement and scooted out of the room.
* * *
She didn't find the guest room bed any more comforting than she had the first night she'd tried sleeping in it. Alex's accusation that she was leaving their bed in an attempt to manipulate him and the look of pain on his face when she left their room haunted her. Why did he have to be so stubborn?
She punched the pillow and curled up on her side, cuddling the other pillow in an attempt to satisfy the void she was used to Alex filling. It didn't work. She flipped over onto her back.
She didn't belong in this bed, even if she and Alex were fighting. She wasn't accomplishing anything but making herself miserable. Oh, Alex had looked pretty miserable, too, when she'd left their room, but it wasn't worth it.
She wasn't the one into revenge scenarios.
She fidgeted with the covers as she thought about what Alex had said earlier in the kitchen: that her picture had haunted him and he'd found her completely irresistible in person. That kind of admission wasn't to be scoffed at, even if she was mad. His feelings had to run a lot deeper than mere desire and a liking for her company.
She pounded the bed with both fists in disgust. She was never going to get to sleep like this. She wanted to feel Alex's arms around her. She needed assurance that he'd married her for something other than revenge. He might not say the words of love she longed to hear, but when he held her, she always felt at peace and cherished.
Besides, she had just found out she was carrying his child. A woman needed the comfort of her husband's presence after such a discovery.
She tossed back the covers and padded back to their bedroom. She crawled onto her side of the bed without saying a word. From Alex's stiff posture, she could tell he wasn't asleep, but he didn't pull her into his arms.
"Thank you." His voice whispered in the black velvet darkness.
"For what?" But she knew.
"For coming back to our bed." If he'd sounded the least bit arrogantly satisfied by her return, she probably would have left again or made him sleep on the floor, but he didn't.
He sounded humble, which shook her, but still he didn't take her in his arms.
It was a long time before she fell asleep.
* * *
Isabel teetered on the brink between dreams and wakefulness. Alex whispered words of need and longing into her ear while touching her in all the places that drove her crazy. His mouth covered hers and the warm, spicy taste of his tongue invaded her mouth. The kiss went on and on and she eventually realized she wasn't dreaming. The arousal of her body was all too real and so was the feel of Alex inside of her mouth.
He slipped his hand between her legs to caress her aching femininity and Isabel came fully awake, but for several seconds of disorientation she continued to respond to his kiss, allowing her body to move against him in utter abandon before reality came crashing back. She was angry with Alex. She couldn't let him make love to her. She
stiffened and tried to move away, but he refused to let go.
"Please, baby. Don't fight it. I need you so much. If you want to go back to fighting again tomorrow, we can. But please give me tonight."
The words didn't affect her nearly as much as the desperate pleading in Alex's voice. He did need her and she loved him, but making love right now wasn't the answer. They needed to talk. "I don't want to go back to quarrelling tomorrow—"
His mouth cut off the rest of what she'd intended to say. "I don't want to, either," he whispered against her mouth before the kiss turned incendiary.
That's not what she'd meant. She'd meant they shouldn't make love tonight, but his mouth was robbing her of her ability to think and tell him so. His kisses always had this affect on her—since the first time she'd all but offered herself to him on the doorstep. Part of it was the way her body responded to his, but equally important was the desperation to possess her that she tasted on his lips.
Alex needed her on a fundamental level that she could not deny, but he'd had too many things his way that day. It was time she asserted herself. She pushed against his chest. Hard.
He lifted his head, his face set in stark lines. "Please, sweetheart."
Her heart tripped at Alex's continued pleading. Her stubborn, proud husband was not given to begging, and she reveled at this further evidence of the depth of his feelings toward her. He might not love her yet, but he was close.
"Lie back, Alex. You want to make love, so we'll make love, but we'll do it my way."
He rolled over onto his back. "You can do anything you want with me as long as you don't leave me."
The fervency of his words excited her. Unbearably. And the ache between her legs grew intense. Although they had been married for more than a month and they made love often, she had pretty much allowed him to set the pace and style of their lovemaking. Everything he did felt so wonderful, and it was all so new to her, and she was always too out of control to try anything else. Tonight, that would change.
Tonight, he'd be the one to lose control.
She climbed astride her husband, settling herself against his rigid penis, and stopped. Alex shuddered under her and lifted his hips off the bed, pressing his hardness against her wet swollenness. She gasped as her body gave an involuntary jolt at the contact. Although she loved the way it felt, she needed to set the ground rules. She wasn't naive enough to believe that just because she was on top that Alex would let her control their time together.
"Lie still," she commanded.
"I don't know if I can," he said, but he let his body settle back against the bed.
"I'm in charge and I don't want you to move. At all," she added to clarify.
He groaned. "Honey, is this some kind of punishment?"
She smiled at the strained tones in his voice. "No, I do not consider making love with me punishment."
"We are going to make love?" He wanted her promise.
She nodded and rubbed herself up and down his shaft just once. "Oh, yes. We're going to make love, but we're going to do things my way."
Alex's body went rigid under hers, but he didn't arch off the bed again. She lowered her head to kiss him, slipping her tongue between his teeth mimicking what their bodies would do later. Although he didn't move his head, Alex allowed his tongue to play erotic games with hers and soon they were both breathing heavily.
She broke off the kiss and took her lips on a mapping journey of his body. When she reached his chest she circled his small nipple with her tongue before gently nipping. Alex gave a harsh exclamation and grabbed her bottom with both hands. His fingers bit into her flesh, but she didn't mind. She loved having him so close to the edge of his control.
She moved to his other nipple and gave it the same loving treatment while moving her lower body sinuously against him. Then she gently pried Alex's fingers loose from her hips and slid downward, her mouth blazing a trail of kisses down his stomach. She stopped at his belly button and gave it her entire attention, kissing and stroking the area with her tongue. Alex made mindless noises and forgot to remain still as his lower body moved in a vain effort to find relief against her body.
She delighted in tormenting him by holding herself just far enough from his thrusting manhood that he barely brushed against the skin of her torso.
"You're killing me, Isabel."
From the hoarse tenor of his voice, it almost sounded like it. She moved just a few inches lower. When her mouth closed over the jutting tip of his erection, Alex once again came off the bed. He pushed more of himself into her mouth and she took him, wrapping her hands around the base of his sex and moving them up and down in a steady rhythm. She didn't know if she was doing it all properly, but if the sounds her husband was making were any indication, she'd gotten at least something right.
She loved the taste of him. So male. So uniquely Alex. Touching him like this affected her like his most knowing caresses and her body throbbed with the need to find completion, but she didn't want to stop what she was doing.
Alex took it out of her hands when he put one hand on either side of her head and gently tugged her back. "You're going to have to stop, sweetheart. I can't take anymore."
"But I like doing this." She moved her hands against his shaft again and a small bead of moisture developed on the tip.
His groan sounded suspiciously close to a roar "Stop, baby. When I come, I want to be inside you."
"But I'm the one in charge," she reminded him while moving her thumb to rub the moisture over his tip.
This time there was no mistaking the sound that came from his mouth as anything but a roar. He put both hands under her armpits and lifted her until she had to let go of his penis, then pulled until she was once again straddling him. "So be in charge, but do it with your body wrapped around mine."
Somehow she felt that his demand diluted the effectiveness of her position, but she was past caring. Her body ached and pulsed in its need to feel him inside of her.
"Okay, Alex." She pushed herself off his chest with her arms and settled her hands over his nipples, rubbing them experimentally with the pads of her thumbs.
He smiled and she knew he planned to return the favor before his hands came up to squeeze her breasts and play with their rigid peaks.
Isabel threw her head back and positioned herself so that his jutting shaft was poised on the brink of her opening. Then ever so gently, teasing both Alex and herself, she lowered her body by centimeters over his hardness. Alex tried to thrust upward, but she lifted her body with his, thwarting his obvious desire to completely seat himself.
"If you don't watch it, baby, I'm going to lose it the second I get completely inside of you." Although the words were meant to be a threat, they came out sounding more like a desperate plea and she laughed.
Her laughter turned to a groan as she took more of Alex's shaft inside her. By the time she had him completely sheathed in her wet heat, they were both panting. She didn't move for almost a full minute, simply allowing herself to revel in the closeness of their joining while she contracted her inner muscles around him.
Isabel could feel Alex's bunched muscles under her thighs and knew he was desperate for completion, but his control hadn't broken yet. She wanted to know that she had the power to push her totally self-disciplined husband past his limits. She needed to know that at least in one area of their marriage, Alex was as vulnerable to her as she was to him.
She kissed him slowly and with lots of heat. "I could do this all night," she lied, as she slid carefully back up the length of his shaft and once again took an excruciating amount of time letting him fill her.
"Well, I can't." Alex erupted up off the bed, tossed her down under him and took over.
She would have laughed in victory, but his mouth covered hers in a hard, carnal kiss while he reentered her ready body. He hammered against her until her entire being was filled with the sensation of their joined flesh. Her pleasure spiraled out of control and she shattered, screaming out her
pleasure, but she didn't go alone.
Alex came with a loud shout, his entire body going rigid while she moved under him, glorying in the final spasms of her release. Afterward, Alex collapsed on top of her. She pressed against his chest, needing to take a deep breath and unable to with his weight pinning her to the mattress. He groaned and rolled off of her onto his back, his arms and legs sprawled out.
"You're a tease, you know that?" His voice sounded like he'd used his last reserve of energy to get the words out.
She smiled in the darkness, though there was still a twinge of hurt in her voice when she spoke. "You deserved a little teasing after refusing to cuddle me to sleep."
She'd been wrong. He had a small store of energy left, enough to come up on his elbow and loom over her. "You wanted me to hold you?"
She shrugged, though he probably could not see it. "You insisted I sleep with you. I came back."
"You wanted me to hold you," he repeated, this time his voice rising. "How was I supposed to know? You were trying your damnedest to sleep without me. You'd even gone to the guest room. I thought if I tried to hold you, you'd have some kind of hissy fit and insist on sleeping somewhere else again."
Were all men this dense? "I do not have hissy fits," she informed him grandly, or as grandly as a totally sweaty, satiated, exhausted woman could.
He snorted.
She was struck by a thought. "So, you waited until I was asleep and set about seducing me?" she asked with mild interest.
He curled his fingers around her waist and pulled her into the curve of his body, this time making it clear that he didn't intend to let go for the rest of the night.
"Not exactly. I waited until I was sure you were asleep and then I pulled you into my arms because I needed to hold you," he admitted. "Once I got your body next to mine, I discovered I needed a lot more than my arms around you."
Well, at least he hadn't found it any easier to sleep without their physical connection than she had. And she'd made him lose his precious self-control. Now all she had to do was make him give up his plans for revenge against Hypertron.
Somehow she knew that wasn't going to be nearly as easy.
