The Texas Billionaire’s Bride

by Crystal Green

  What do you know, she thought, he’s working.

  She shut the door behind her and he looked up, sitting straight, his jaw tensing.

  The nightgown, she thought. The robe.

  She pulled the silk robe even tighter around her, but the whisper of it against her skin only made her realize that the hairs on her arms were standing at attention.

  “I’m sorry for bothering you,” she said, “but I thought we might have a word, since Livie’s down for the count.”

  He tore his gaze away from her, and she actually reveled in the effort it seemed to take.

  But she shouldn’t be reveling with him.

  “I can guess what this is about,” he said, pressing a button on his keyboard, shutting down the machine.

  “Then it’s no surprise I’m here.”

  “Ms. Grandy,” he said, finally glancing at her again, but this time he was all coolness. “I’m never surprised when you approach me on Livie’s behalf. But you don’t seem to remember something I told you during our second interview.”

  “I remember. You told me advice wasn’t appreciated.”

  “So why do I have the feeling you’re about to give me some anyway?”

  She forgot about the robe and approached his desk. “Do you realize what it’s like to sit by and watch her suffer? If I didn’t say anything, I’d never forgive myself. I’m only too glad to overstep my bounds.”

  He rose from his chair, and she couldn’t help but think of a pillar of fire. His eyes certainly had a flare to them.

  She pressed on. “Is it that painful for you to give Livie even some indication of what her mother was like? She has no idea, and more than anything, she wants to know. A child needs a mom, whether or not she’s actually there.”

  “That’ll be enough.”

  “No, this isn’t nearly enough.” Her emotions were spilling out of her; she’d held on to them so tightly that she couldn’t stop them now that she’d uncorked herself. “Livie’s got a heart of gold, but she’s buried it so deep that I wonder how long it’ll be before she can’t find it altogether. People have a tendency to shove their feelings away when they’re rejected over and over again, and one day, you’re going to find that’s what happened to your daughter.” She took a deep breath, exhaled. “If you’re around to see it.”

  “I will be ar—” He cut himself off, and she wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t deign to have this conversation or if he didn’t know how to respond.

  He hid whatever it was well, but then again, he always did.

  She started to talk again, but he drilled her with a glare while beginning to come around the desk with such a deliberate pace that her adrenaline raced through her, prodding her to back away, to run.

  But she stayed, even if she was getting pummeled by her heartbeat.

  “I’ve seen how much you love Livie,” she said, her voice sounding tangled. She tried to recover. “So I just can’t understand why you constantly push her back. Why you push—”

  Pressing her lips together, she saved herself just before she said “—everyone back.”

  He’d rounded the desk by now, coming to stand only a foot away. Tall, overbearing.

  She raised her face to meet his intense gaze, and anything else she might’ve added to her impassioned diatribe only disappeared, taken over by the brutal pounding of her blood in her veins.

  “If you have more for me,” he said, low and contained over a fierceness she knew he was keeping in check, “put it on the table.”

  She wanted to. Lord knows she did. But since this discussion had seemed to go beyond his daughter now, how could she keep lecturing him on shortcomings when she had so many herself?

  He was so close that she could smell the soap on his skin—fresh and manly, like he’d lathered himself after a hard day of work. She could imagine him under the pelting force of a shower, his skin bare….

  Her mind got fuzzy, her judgment was gone.

  And when he leaned even nearer, daring her again to keep on talking, she reached for the desk, knowing it was the only thing that could hold her up.

  Yet, like her, he seemed to have lost his train of thought.

  He was so close she could feel his breath on her face.

  So close that all she would have to do was—

  It was as if something had pushed her forward, and she canted toward him, pressing her lips to his, knowing it was wrong but unable to stop herself.

  At the feel of him, a sparkling bouquet of color popped through her, showers of heat jerking through her limbs, all coming together in the center of her to explode in one spray of bliss.

  Fireworks, she thought, her brain scrambling in a whirl of sensation.

  At first he seemed surprised at what she’d done, and as her common sense returned, she started to pull back from him, keeping her eyes closed so she might hold on to the kiss.

  But then she kept them closed in dread of what she would see on his face.

  My God, had she just surrendered the job she loved for a kiss?

  Granted, it’d been a real kiss, yet still…

  Bracing herself, she opened her eyes to see the helpless desire returned in his own gaze.

  “I’m…” she began to say.

  Yet, before she could finish, he slid his hands under her jaw and crushed his mouth to hers, sending jags of white light through her head and blanking out all other thoughts.

  There was just him, his lips sucking at hers, devouring as he dug his fingers into her hair.

  With something near to a sob, she grasped at his business shirt, wanting more.

  As Melanie returned his kiss with a fervor that matched his own, Zane realized at this moment that he needed her more than he had ever needed anything.

  Nothing else existed—not the pictures around him, not the walls of the room that seemed to be tumbling down with every passing draw of their lips.

  Not the world outside of those walls.

  She helped him to escape it all, and for better or worse, that was all he wanted right now. Her borrowed serenity.

  Her.

  He would think about the consequences later.

  “Melanie,” he murmured against her lips, saying her name by itself for the first time out loud.

  She moaned, sending a shot of lust through him—a feeling he hadn’t enjoyed for years.

  Not since…

  No, he couldn’t think about anyone else, not even his ex-wife, as the passion he’d built up all this time threatened to crash.

  All he wanted was to tear off that robe he’d bought Melanie the other night, push her back onto the desk and release all the pressure straining to burst within him.

  But he forced himself to slow down, to absorb the summer scent of her hair and skin, then let the reality catch up with the fantasies he’d harbored ever since first seeing her.

  He tilted her back in his arms, running his lips along her neck, nipping at her warm skin, taking her ear into his mouth and hearing her groan this time.

  Her little sounds overwhelmed him, sending him beyond the realms of control he clung to so fiercely, and he yanked at the sash of the robe he’d given to her.

  That sense of possession rocked Zane again. She belonged to him—his to take and his to let go when the time came.

  But he wasn’t going to think about letting go right now….

  He slid the silk off to reveal her bare shoulders, then ran his hands over her skin. He’d known how soft it would be, but now he shuddered at the feel of such smoothness under his fingertips.

  His libido took over, and he found himself whispering, “I’ve wanted you so badly.”

  “Me, too.”

  His mouth brushed against hers, yet they hesitated in kissing. Instead, they stayed like this, panting, her breath entering him in a profoundly intimate moment, one he’d never thought to experience again.

  Swept away by that, he touched her neck, just as he’d wanted to do last night after shopping, then lightly dragged
his fingers downward, over her chest, between her small, firm breasts.

  She hauled in a sharp breath, and the blood rushed to his groin, getting him ready for her. And he stayed ready as the tips of her breasts hardened under her nightie.

  He traced the outline of one, bringing it to a more stimulated peak. Then he bent to her, touching his tongue to the nub as she lifted one of those gorgeous, long legs and wrapped it around him, urging him even closer.

  Close enough so that he was against the center of her, pressing, letting her feel how much he wanted her.

  He moved his hips, barely grinding, and she let her head angle back, exposing her throat.

  Guiding her backward, he used one arm to clear a spot on his desk, papers and file holders falling to the ground before he laid her on it.

  There, where he spent so many of his hours in the blank numbness of business, her hair spread like rays.

  Like sunshine, he thought, bending to her breast again and catching her scent, taking more of her into his mouth, dampening the cotton of her nightie while he sucked and worked her with his tongue and teeth.

  Now both of her legs were around him, clamping, bringing him to her, where he nudged against her undies.

  “Zane,” she said, and the sound of his name made him even harder.

  He slipped a hand under her nightie, feeling for her panties.

  Her hand stopped him, pushing his questing fingers away.

  “The door,” she said unevenly, “not…locked.”

  His mind raced around that, but he was too far gone to stop.

  Too far gone to even think of what it would be like between him and Melanie after they…

  Scooping her into his arms, he walked purposefully to the door, but instead of locking it, he opened it, peering around the hall to see that they were alone, then continuing to his bedroom.

  Nothing could stop him. Not even common sense.

  His door was already ajar, and he kicked it open the rest of the way, crossing the threshold and then leaning back against the door to shut everything out.

  He locked it behind them.

  Then he went to the bed, barely realizing that Melanie was gripping his shirt, her face buried against his neck.

  As he laid her out on the mattress, she said his name again.

  “Zane?”

  It was a question, dizzy, uncertain, almost slurred with what he knew she had to be wanting, too.

  Yet his name had also been steeped in…feeling. Emotion.

  For a torn second, he wondered if they should be doing this—what the price would be for getting it on with the nanny. But then, from somewhere deep inside, a roll of warmth swamped him.

  He knew that this woman had been more than just a nanny. She was more, and his body had just realized it before any other part of him had.

  And it was his body that was in command now. Thankfully, it shut down his brain, and his feelings. It blocked the possibility of emotion from entering this equation—if he even had more to give than the temporary warmth he’d just experienced.

  Even so, just looking at her made him want to please her, and he found himself stroking the hair back from her face.

  Just one time, he thought. Just for a moment.

  She closed her eyes, giving into his caress. Then, easing his hands lower, down her chest, her stomach, her hips, he came to her legs.

  Her amazing, endless legs that had been driving him wild.

  As he’d dreamed about before, he skimmed a thumb over one slim ankle, then upward, exploring every contour until he got to her knee.

  She shifted under his touch, asking for more without even a word.

  “Dancer’s legs,” he said, a strange hint of wonder and appreciation in his tone.

  A flush settled over her face, and there was something in her eyes…

  Before he could decide what it was, the look disappeared, and he couldn’t help embracing a sense of relief.

  And…disappointment?

  No. He couldn’t afford disappointment.

  “Once you start dancing,” she said softly, a quiver to her tone, “it’s hard to stop.”

  No kidding, he thought. He’d been dancing away from a lot of things for years.

  He pushed up her nightie, and she squirmed under his hands as he touched places she’d probably never expected him to explore.

  Damn, her waist was tiny, her stomach flat, delineated. He ran his thumbs lower, over her hip bones, then down into her panties.

  Melanie pressed a hand to her face as he came back up to rub her belly, up and down, making her shift her hips with his every motion.

  He was pulsing, eager for her, and he wasn’t going to last much longer, but he couldn’t stop watching her face—how she bit her lip, how she arched her neck.

  Hell, was he really enough to elicit such emotion from her?

  Something deep and low within him responded to the matter of whether feeling truly wasn’t a part of his life anymore.

  As he blanked out that question—he was tired of fighting it, ramming against it—he coaxed Melanie’s undies down her legs, then off. He helped her to a sitting position, taking her nightie by the hem and whisking it off her body.

  She sat before him, naked and so beautiful that it made his belly tighten.

  Steam driving his every move, he started to unbutton his shirt, but he didn’t do it fast enough.

  Not for her.

  She helped him, fumbling with his buttons.

  Her insistence got to him, and while she worked on his shirt, he took care of his trousers and the rest of his clothes, until he was as bare as she was.

  Now she was looking at him with such yearning, with such—he had no idea what else was in her gaze, or maybe he just didn’t want to know—that her attention stoked him to a new level of need.

  He had a few condoms in a nightstand, just as he kept one in his wallet—an option, he’d always thought, even though he’d never pursued it. But the expiration date on one in the nightstand was still good. He ripped open a packet and sheathed himself.

  She backed toward his headboard, reached behind her for a pillow and reclined against it.

  He moved at the same time, kneeling between her legs, resting himself there.

  “Oh,” she said as his tip smoothed over her folds. “Inside. Come inside.”

  He wanted to be there, too, and an inner pressure pounded at him, persuading him to hurry it up.

  Taking her by the hips, he slid into her, wallowing in the sensation of her around him, clenching, slick.

  And tight, too.

  When was the last time she’d been with a man?

  His thought process crashed as he thrust inside her again; she took him, grasping his hips, urging him on as they found a rhythm, their own dance.

  But this time, instead of dancing away, he moved toward something—a brightness, a lightness, a feeling that he was floating and leaving the rest of it behind for as long as he could.

  They churned, their rhythm quickening as he pushed into her again, again…

  “Zane,” she said once more, as if his name had turned itself inside out to become something different. Something that only she could see.

  She arched under him, rocking, riding the cadence of his thrusts as he disappeared into that light he’d seen.

  Blinding, lifting, heating and burning…

  It singed him with a blaze of fire, eating at his skin and roaring through him in an explosion that blasted him apart.

  She held him through all of it, even as she came soon afterward. Their skin glistened with sweat, their bodies sticking together as if not wanting to separate.

  But he had separated, he knew as their breath battled, chest to chest.

  He’d come undone.

  And much to his shock, it hadn’t done him in after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Afterward, they ended up resting next to each other in his bed, and Melanie had no idea what to say or do, except to just lie there and…


  And just breathe, she guessed.

  She’d never participated in anything close to a one-night stand before, but as the all-encompassing sensual fog dissipated, she wondered if this might be the first instance, because she didn’t see how anything could ever develop between her and Zane.

  To think, it’d seemed like such a wonderful idea when he had first kissed her. It’d seemed…right. Perfect. As if life had been a rehearsal for everything that had led up to his lips touching hers and making her lose all sense of reason. She’d never felt that way about any man.

  Her pulse seemed to stop now.

  But just how did she feel about Zane Foley?

  Did it even matter now that they’d stopped kissing and embracing and…

  Her temperature rose during the replay of it, sending her heartbeat back into motion while she pushed her damp hair back from her forehead, then tugged the disheveled covers up and over her body. For some reason, she was suddenly shier than before.

  “Well,” he said from his side of the bed, where he’d also pulled up the covers, but only to his chest. Just as she’d expected, it was muscled and defined, making her want to put her hands back on it.

  “Well,” she echoed.

  Maybe he would go ahead and fire her, if things would be this unimaginably awkward from now on.

  It wasn’t just that he was the boss, either. Sex wouldn’t erase the issues he still had with his first wife. Plus, getting in deeper with him would mean that Melanie would have to come clean about her past, and she couldn’t imagine that ever going over well.

  Just imagine if the press got a hold of that one.

  For a man like Zane, who shielded his private life from public scrutiny the best he could, it would be a complication he couldn’t afford.

  Melanie drew the covers up even more. She didn’t intend to tell anyone about where she’d come from or who she’d been. She’d left all that behind, and having to keep her secrets from a lover wouldn’t be fair to him at all.

  “I sure wasn’t planning on this,” she said lightly, hoping to introduce the subject, to let him know that she’d lost her head this one time.

  As she waited for his response, she thought that this was one of the hardest conversations she’d ever made herself take part in.