The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

by ALLISON LEIGH,

Want screamed through him with the speed of a freight train. He dropped the sash and tucked a none-too-steady index finger beneath the robe, drawing the slick fabric aside as if unwrapping the rarest of treasures. And inch by inch, he slowly revealed her. Full, taut.

  So achingly beautiful he couldn’t look away even when he saw the peach blush tinge her creamy skin. It crept down her throat, bloomed over her breasts. And as he watched, he saw the baby move.

  He stared. She pressed her hand to the spot near her navel. ‘I’

  He drew her hand away. ‘Does it hurt?’ His gaze was glued to her abdomen, anticipation roaring inside him. Only it wasn’t purely sexual. It was more. He’d deliberately put away any likelihood of having a family of his own. And now, not only did he want Nikki and this child, but he was beginning to realize he might want even more. He hadn’t changed his decision for Val even when she’d been desperate after her miscarriage. But now he was considering changing everything. Because of Nikki.

  And it scared the life out of him.

  Her fingers curled over his. ‘No, it doesn’t hurt. Not this time, anyway.’

  Another visible thump. ‘Look at that.’

  She made a soft sound. He slanted a look up to her face.

  ‘It’s one thing to, um, to see me the way you have before.’ She’d been mostly clothed when they’d been intimate. ‘It’s another to ’ She trailed off.

  ‘You’re amazing, Nikki,’ he murmured. ‘You look amazing.’

  Her eyes darkened even more, appearing nearly black in the gentle light from the foyer lamps.

  He pressed his palm over hers, which still covered the place where the baby had kicked.

  She was trembling.

  He lifted his other hand, cradling her belly, her baby, her. ‘And I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you right now.’ He sat forward and pressed his mouth to the center of her stomach, right above her navel.

  Beneath his hand, her fingers curled, then slid away, only to settle, hesitantly, on his shoulder. ‘I look in the mirror sometimes and don’t even recognize myself,’ she admitted softly.

  ‘You’re always beautiful.’ He kissed her smooth skin. Tasted her navel. Felt the shudder work through her when his hands moved farther, settling on her slender hips, slipping behind her back, edging her closer to him. ‘And I can’t remember what it was like not to want you.’ He pressed his mouth to her abdomen again, open, hot, his control increasingly nebulous.

  Her hand sank into his hair, flexing against his scalp like a greedy cat.

  He rose suddenly, his hands skimming up her spine, dragging down the robe. It slid off her shoulders, clung for an instant to her damp skin, then drifted to the floor, reminding him of when he’d watched and waited that first night in the cabin for the bedspread to fall off the foot of the bed.

  Nearly blind with need, want, he caught her head in his hands, lifting her lips to his. She kissed him back, the soft sound she made filling his mouth. Her hands sneaked between them, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, finally just yanking the shirttails free.

  His control snapped. Her mouth clung to his as he tore off his shirt, kicked off his boots and dragged at his belt. The sound of her gasping breaths spurred him. He finally caught her up against him, lifting her right off the floor, skin to skin, breast to chest. She moaned his name, her arms twining around his shoulders, her wet hair clinging to him as well as her.

  ‘Have to slow down,’ he muttered, as much a reminder to himself as to her. But he didn’t slow. He pulled her over him, sinking down on the couch, and felt all that glorious wet heat graze over him. More than tantalizing, more than enticing. He needed to be inside her more than he needed air.

  ‘Now,’ she gasped, her breath warm on his neck. ‘Now, Alex, oh, please.’

  He caught her hips, lifting them. Pulled her back down, sinking deep.

  She cried out, her fingernails digging into his shoulders. He barely felt them. His own fingers were tangled in her hair, and he arched up into her, baptizing himself in the fire that was Nikki.

  She trembled like a wild thing. Gave everything she was, unstinting and generous, a match where he’d never before felt matched, and he knew that no matter how many times he made love to her, he would spend the rest of his life never having enough.

  Her body tightened around him, his name a soft, keening sound on her lips, again and again. Like quicksilver, he felt his soul rising inside him. And then he felt more: the ripples that tore her apart and spun her back together. A rough sound ripped out of him as he poured himself into her, an endless aching pulse driven by the heart inside her.

  And when they finally collapsed against each other, a tangle of long, wet hair, shaking legs and clutching arms, he realized with some dim portion of his mind that instead of feeling emptied, for the first time in his life he felt filled.

  Shudders were still quaking through her, gentler now. And impossibly, he felt himself hardening all over again.

  ‘Oh,’ she whispered, obviously aware. ‘Alex.’

  He groaned. His legs were weak. His lungs felt like he’d run a marathon.

  He felt reborn.

  He carefully disentangled them, even though it was about as easy as cutting out his heart. He managed to get to his feet, and pulled her up with him. ‘This time,’ he said, forming the words with some difficulty, ‘bed.’ Her bed.

  Her lips curved softly, as if she’d just been given a fresh dose of adrenaline. Casting a glance at him over her shoulder, a look full of promise, she walked over to the stairs and slowly ascended them.

  He caught up to her before she made it to the landing, and slid his arm around her, stopping her progress long enough to press his lips to her shoulder. To drag his hands over her breasts. To cradle the swell of her baby. To delve downward, to where she was soft and swollen and heated. For him. From him.

  He groaned, so greedy for more that he could have taken her right then and there, standing on the step. And she seemed to know it, the little witch, for she arched her back, pressing her shapely bottom against his rigid length even as she caught his wrist between her fingers, holding his hand intimately against her.

  He spun her around suddenly, glad of the fact that he could surprise her, and lifted her off her feet, hustling up the remaining three steps. ‘Bed.’

  She laughed a little, a breathless sound of eagerness and yearning that went to his head faster than any liquor ever could. In her bedroom, he ripped back the comforter. Pillows flew everywhere.

  Then he bore her down in the center, and she folded her arms around him, her hips cradling his, wordlessly offering.

  He sank inside her.

  And again it seemed that everything he’d ever wanted in this world flooded through him.

  The soft bleat of a phone woke Nikki.

  She sat up, focusing on the sound for a moment before she recognized it as Alex’s cell phone.

  The phone was downstairs. Where his clothes still were.

  Sunlight filled the room. She’d hadn’t bothered to close the drapes, simply because Alex hadn’t given her a moment to think of such mundane matters as they’d made love, again and again, until dawn slid its silvery fingers through the window.

  He murmured something and wrapped his arm, warm and possessive, around her waist, pulling her close again.

  No contest.

  The phone would stop ringing, eventually.

  She lay back down next to him, greedily taking in the view. His hair was rumpled. His cheeks were bristled. His face was relaxed.

  The phone beeped again.

  Imperious.

  Alex still didn’t move.

  The alarm clock on the nightstand shouted the fact that it was after ten.

  She carefully moved his arm and slid off the bed.

  He rolled over, burying his head in her pillow.

  Her heart squeezed and she quickly, silently, left the bedroom before whoever his impatient caller was could wake him.

  Downstairs, h
is clothes were still strewn across the living room, and she snatched up his shirt, tugging it over her shoulders as she hunted for the ringing phone. She finally found it in the pocket of his coat and flipped it open.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m looking for Alex Reed.’ The voice was tentative, but Nikki would have recognized it even without the caller ID readout.

  ‘Miriam? This is Nikki.’

  She could practically feel Miriam relax a little. ‘Oh, thank heavens. Nikki, where is Alex? I know he was in the office last night because he left me a massive amount of notes. He has a new administrative assistant who’s starting today, and Mr. Reed Senior, is here.’

  Alarm skittered down Nikki’s spine. She started gathering up Alex’s clothing. His pants. His gold cuff links. ‘Alex’s father?’

  ‘Yes. He’s been here for an hour and he refuses to leave. He says Mr. Reed needs to stop hiding, and that he’s going to own Huffington before he’s finished. Everyone’s in an uproar. Mr. Reed doesn’t hide from anyone!’ Her voice went indignant. ‘Do you have any idea where he is?’

  Nikki had already started up the steps. ‘Don’t worry. Give him a few minutes, and he’ll be at the office.’

  She folded the phone, disconnecting the call, and hurried into the bedroom, where Alex was still sleeping, sprawled across her bed as if he owned it. She sat beside him and gently shook his shoulder.

  ‘Alex. Wake up.’

  One deep brown eye slitted open. His lips started to curve. ‘I like you in my shirt,’ he murmured, his voice husky with sleep.

  She felt a glow of pleasure at that. ‘Miriam called. Your father’s at Huffington.’

  His half smile died. ‘At Huffington.’

  Nikki nodded and dropped his clothes on the bed. ‘Evidently he’s got the staff in quite a state. I’ll make you some coffee while you shower. You can drink it on the way.’

  Amazingly, he smiled again. ‘Feeling a little bossy this morning, are you?’

  She blushed. ‘I ’

  He tugged on the shirttail covering her thigh, pulling her closer. ‘I’m teasing.’ He sat up. Pressed a hard kiss to her lips and, in one smooth move, slid his shirt from her shoulders and dragged his gaze over her for a lingering moment. Then he was heading to her bathroom, his somewhat rumpled clothes hooked in his hand.

  Nikki wasted a few precious minutes sitting there, shaking from that look of his, then gathered her wits about her and shrugged into a loose T-shirt and a pair of fleecy sweatpants and went down to make the coffee.

  When he came downstairs a short while later, his hair was gleaming wet and slick, his jaw still unshaven. His shirt looked a little worse for wear, given the wrinkles in it and the missing button midway down. He hadn’t bothered with his cuff links, nor had he bothered tucking in the tails, and there was something incredibly intimate about that fact.

  Which was silly.

  Hadn’t they been as intimate as two people could possibly be? Still, her hand trembled a little as she fit the lid on an insulated coffee mug. ‘Why would your father actually come to Cheyenne? Could he be recanting his intention to acquire Macfield and Huffington?’

  Alex shook his head and shrugged into his coat. ‘Only thing that would bring my father to the land of the uncivilized his words, not mine is the opportunity to gloat.’

  She handed him the coffee. ‘Drive carefully.’

  Alex brushed his mouth over hers.

  A moment later, he was gone.

  She hugged herself. The town house seemed suddenly empty without Alex’s vitality. She turned off the coffeemaker and padded back upstairs. The bed was tumbled, silently broadcasting that for the first time since she’d bought it, she hadn’t been alone in it.

  When she married Alex, would he expect her to live at the Echelon with him? Would he come here, to her place? Would they find something of their own? Together? And why was she worrying about where they might live when he was on his way to meet his father? When he stood a very real chance of losing his life’s work to a man he detested? She hurried into the bathroom and flipped on the shower. The mirror was still edged with steam from Alex’s shower when she stepped under the hot water.

  Alex had stood by her when she couldn’t even stand.

  It was time she started standing beside him.

  ‘You don’t own Huffington and you never will,’ Alex said flatly, watching his father pace back and forth inside his office. ‘Coming here, throwing your weight around as if you have a right, upsetting my staff, is not going to change anything.’

  Alex Sr. snorted. He stopped pacing long enough to flick a disdainful glance out the window. In the light streaming in, his color looked high. ‘Somebody is going to own it. It might as well be me.’

  ‘I’d choose anyone over you.’

  ‘Macfield is mine. It’s only a matter of crossing a few t’s. You’ll never find another company to take their place. If you don’t keep expanding, you’ll die. Face it, boy. You’re between a rock and a hard place.

  You can’t even go public, because you know RHS will be right there, waiting.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what RHS is doing. You’re not going to pollute my company with one finger of yours. I’ll close and lock every clinic door myself before I’ll let that happen. And I’ll make damn sure every single one of my employees finds work with your competition.’

  ‘High and mighty,’ Alex Sr. snapped. ‘Always thought you were above the rest of us. Too good to take your place in RHS.’

  ‘RHS wasn’t the problem, Dad,’ Alex drawled. He sat on the edge of his desk, his arms at his sides.

  ‘You know that. It was you.’

  ‘I will have what I want,’ Alex Sr. said through gritted teeth.

  Alex studied his father for a moment. Beads of sweat stood out on the man’s forehead, yet he didn’t shrug out of his suit coat. God forbid. It might show some sign of weakness. ‘You need to retire, Dad.

  You’re what? Sixty-five years old now. Hell. Let Hunt have a chance at the chairman’s seat for a while.’

  ‘I will not be put out to pasture!’ The man’s voice rose. ‘Particularly by that whelp, who can’t even keep his pants zipped.’

  Alex laughed suddenly. ‘Is that what this is about? Hunt’s finally moving on the chairmanship?’ He wouldn’t have expected it of his cousin. Hunt didn’t have that much ambition.

  ‘The only thing Hunter moves on are women.’ Alex Sr. was practically shouting. ‘And the only thing you do is clean up after him. I hear you’re doing it again. What’s the matter with you, Son? Can’t have a kid of your own, so you have to keep taking up with Hunter’s tramps?’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Both men whipped around and looked at the doorway. Nikki stood there. Her face was pale. ‘Perhaps you should close the door for this discussion,’ she said evenly. ‘Your shouting can be heard down on the first floor.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Alex Sr. demanded.

  Alex started toward Nikki, stretched out his hand to her. ‘I’m one of the tramps,’ she said stiffly. Her bruised gaze collided with his for a long moment.

  And he knew she’d heard more than enough. ‘Nik’

  She shook her head a little. Took a step back and closed his office door in his face.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Can I stay here?’ Nikki stood on the small porch of Belle and Cage’s home at the Lazy-B.

  Belle blinked away her shock at her twin’s appearance and hurriedly pushed open the glass storm door. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Nikki swallowed. ‘Everything,’ she whispered. ‘He lied.’

  Her sister’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Who? Alex?’

  Nikki nodded.

  Belle tsked. ‘You told me Alex never lies.’ She closed the door and herded her to one of the old-fashioned chairs that filled the small living room.

  ‘I was wrong.’ Nikki opened her hand, and found the car keys clenched in her fist had left indentations.

  She looked dully
around her. ‘Where are Cage and Lucy?’ It was nearly dinnertime. She’d driven straight from Huffington to the Lazy-B.

  ‘Lucy’s spending the night in Weaver with her friend, Anya. Cage’ll be in soon.’ Belle crouched in front of Nikki’s chair, holding her hands. ‘What happened? Last night, you and Alex looked like you could barely keep away from each other, even with the family around.’

  ‘Family.’ Nikki swallowed. ‘I should have paid more attention to Valerie. She came to Lucius, you know. To see Alex. She certainly didn’t expect to see me.’ Nikki rested her hand on her belly. ‘Especially this way. She even said it. They never are.’

  Belle rubbed her forehead. ‘What?’

  ‘I told Val the baby wasn’t Alex’s. And she said ‘They never are.’ I just let it slide by.’ She shook her head. How stupid she was.

  ‘If the baby isn’t Alex’s, then whose is it?’ Belle’s voice was calm.

  Nikki’s eyes burned. She’d managed not to cry during the drive from Cheyenne. ‘I’ve been so stupid, Annabelle.’

  Belle huffed a little and slid her arms around Nikki’s shoulders. ‘You’ve never been stupid a day in your life,’ she declared.

  ‘I let myself believe that he actually wanted me. Turns out, it really was just about the baby. I overheard his father. Alex can’t have children.’

  ‘Did Alex say that?’ Belle’s question was careful.

  ‘He didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Okay. You have to start at the beginning here, Nik, because I am totally lost.’

  Nik. The only other person besides Belle who called her that was Alex.

  Nikki covered her face with her hands and cried.

  ‘I think we should be waiting to do this,’ Belle said the next morning.

  ‘Is that why you insisted on coming back to Cheyenne with me? To talk me out of packing?’

  ‘You were awake most of the night crying,’ Belle said evenly. ‘I didn’t think you should be driving.’