Loving the CEO (bundle of five romance novels)

by Noelle Adams

  He made a sound deep in his throat when her muscles contracted around him. Even though he’d decreased in size, it still stretched and filled her to completion.

  Kaya gazed out the wall of windows. A full moon was peeking its way through the line of pine trees that bordered the lake. In a few hours she would have to leave this bed and return to life as it was before. But for now, she would enjoy this new experience of the aftermath of lovemaking.

  She started when Bryce rolled over on his back and pulled her on top of him without breaking the union of their sexes. He sat up briefly, searched around for the tangled duvet, and yanked it up and over them.

  He kissed her forehead and settled back down. “You okay?” he asked, stroking his hands down the length of her body.

  “Perfect.”

  “I didn’t hurt you too much?”

  “You were as gentle and patient as a man could possibly be in this situation. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. What about you?” she dared to ask. “Did you enjoy every second of it?”

  “Oh, God, yes. You’re a very sensual woman, Kaya Fontaine, highly charged. I just have to touch you and you begin to tremble, kiss you and you come all over yourself and me,” he said with a soft chuckle.

  Kaya shivered at the tender feel of his hands on her body. Her skin loved his hands. “I guess that’s a good thing?”

  “The best. It’s been a very long time since I made love like this, Kaya. Years, actually,” he added with a hint of desolation in his voice. “I know you worry about the women I’ve been with over the past few years. Don’t, my darling. With them, it was just sex, and it was always extremely basic. I never pleasured any of them the way I pleasured you tonight.”

  “Well you do have some special skills.”

  He chuckled. “I only use them on special women. You satisfy me, you complete me in a way I never expected to be satisfied and completed again.”

  He didn’t have to say it, but Kaya knew he was referring to his time with Pilar. She wasn’t jealous of the woman, just sad that Bryce had to go through the horrible experience of her death. She was grateful he felt comfortable enough to be honest with her. “I didn’t expect this tonight,” she said on a lighter note. “You were supposed to be drunk and stupid and back at your penthouse. But here you are sober, satiated, and in my arms.”

  “Maybe I was a little stupid for calling you out in front of our friends. I’m sorry for that.” He squeezed her. “I was just wound very tightly with my need for you, for this.”

  “It’s okay,” Kaya said. If he hadn’t called her out, Michelle and Libby wouldn’t have given her advice about making the next move, and she wouldn’t be in his arms right now. “I have no regrets. But you seemed quite drunk when you left the table, yet you definitely have your wits about you.”

  He chuckled again. “I was just putting on a show for the others. I’d decided to stay here before the evening began.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to leave you here alone, and since this is Alyssa’s first night away from home, I wanted to be here in case she woke up crying for you during the night. I told Michelle to call my cell if she did. I would have gone to bring her home.” He stroked his hand down her hair, playing with the tendrils, spreading them over his chest.

  Tears escaped from the corners of Kaya’s eyes and melted into the hairs on his chest. No wonder she loved this man. He was thoughtful to his core. He risked her hearing his nightmare to make sure she was safe and that Alyssa was taken care of.

  In Kaya’s eyes, Bryce Fontaine was a true hero. But sometimes heroes were just as lonely, vulnerable, and scared as the people they protected. Sometimes, heroes needed someone to rescue them. She wanted so much to ask him about the scene she’d walked in on, but knew this wasn’t the time.

  They’d just shared something wonderfully new and present; she didn’t want to bring his shattering old past into it. “I’m glad you stayed, Bryce.” She pressed her lips into his chest.

  “Me too.” He cradled her face in his hands and raised her head. He rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping at a lingering tear. “Thank you for this unexpected, beautiful gift,” he said, his eyes intent as they bore into her very soul. “I could never have hoped for anything so precious. I cherish you and our vows even more now. I hope you believe that.”

  Before Kaya could respond, he kissed her lips softly then placed her head tenderly back on his chest. “Sleep now,” he murmured, wrapping his arms possessively and protectively about her. “You must be exhausted.”

  Moments later, his breathing grew calmer and, finally asleep, he slipped softly from inside her. Her body missed him terribly, but her senses were filled with the smell of sex and love. He would have no other nightmares tonight.

  A smile spread across Kaya’s face as she surrendered to the thick blanket of fatigue hovering over her. She didn’t know making love was such hard work. But it was a leisure in which she looked forward to indulging herself over and over again.

  “I love you, Bryce,” she whispered into the night as her eyelids fluttered shut.

  Thirteen

  Bryce awoke to the soft, warm body of his wife tucked securely against him, the tempting swell of her buttocks pressed into his stomach, his morning erection trapped between their tangled thighs, and the aromatic aftermath of a long night of passion wafting up his nostrils.

  He remained quiet and motionless, savoring the simple delight of awakening with a woman—his woman, in his arms.

  He hadn’t had that for some time. Not since Pilar.

  He’d had sex with many women over the past few years, but he’d never slept with one. He’d always been anxious to leave their beds when his lust was slaked.

  Things changed for him last night. When he’d made the decision to sleep at L’etoile du Nord, he’d had no idea he’d be making love with Kaya, but once she was in his bed, there was no turning back. Once it was over, he’d honestly intended to steal away from the bed and the house after she fell asleep. But some unknown force had kept him grounded.

  His wings had been clipped, and he didn’t mind one damn bit. He’d finally found a cozy nest that made him feel at home, that offered him warmth from the cold, shelter from the storms of his life.

  Only now he realized how much he missed this intimacy of lazing around in bed the morning after a night of passion, of making love in front of the fireplace while snow or rainstorms raged outside. He missed the simple pleasure of going into the office with a smile on his face, knowing his woman was waiting at home for him at the end of the day.

  Bryce sighed deeply and tightened his arms about Kaya, grateful that their time of separation had come to an amazing end. He’d so wanted to spare her from the speculations surrounding their marriage he knew were fueled by his continued residency at Hotel Andreas. He’d wanted to move into L’etoile du Nord after they were married, but he couldn’t when his nightmares had been resurrected and were still so fresh. He wasn’t ready to discuss Pilar with his new wife. He couldn’t bear Kaya’s pity or her sympathy.

  But as fate would have it, she offered him neither of those emotions. Instead, she gave him love in the purest, most innocent and passionate form.

  She must have been curious about his nightmares and his screams ringing through the night, yet she’d asked no questions. He was certain she knew he’d been dreaming about Pilar, the wife he still loved, yet she hadn’t turned away from him. She’d loved him instead.

  I love you, Bryce.

  Bryce closed his eyes and opened his heart as the whisper of those four little words caressed his tormented soul.

  Kaya loved him.

  Her declaration had reverberated through him again and again long after she was asleep.

  Her love had kept his nightmares away at least for the rest of the night. He’d never been able to fall back to sleep after being jarred awake. But he had last night. Kaya had calmed him.

  Bryce’s mind reeled from the pleasure of his ser
endipitous discovery. Of all the things he could have imagined Kaya to be, a virgin was not one of them. He’d tried to go slowly then, but once he’d been sheathed inside her tight heat and felt her velvet muscles contracting around him, he’d lost all control.

  Bryce gritted his teeth. That jerk of her ex-boyfriend had lied to him. If he ever laid eyes on that worm again, Bryce swore he’d choke the life out of him. He was so happy Kaya had had enough sense not to let that weasel touch her. She would never know what he’d witnessed in her apartment the night he’d flown down to Florida to confront Jack. The thought of it still made his blood curdle.

  Even before he’d returned home or knew that there was a second will that gave him custody of the children, Bryce had decided to marry Kaya in order to keep her in Granite Falls, far away from Jack. He was determined to bring her under the protection of his house and his name. After what happened to Pilar, no one would dare question his motives when it came to protecting his wife.

  Bryce held his breath as Kaya turned completely around in his arms.

  He gazed down at her delicate face bathed in the early morning sunlight streaming through the glass wall. She was so beautiful, and she was his. He kissed her forehead and stoked his hand down her back.

  “Hmm,” she murmured, and snuggled closer to him.

  He bent his head and kissed her lips.

  Her eyelids fluttered open, and her chocolate eyes peeked up at him.

  “Hey, you,” he said, smiling at her.

  “Hey.” She seemed confused for a moment then color rose to her cheeks when his erection brushed the insides of her thighs. Her lashes crash-landed and her chin dropped to her chest.

  “Oh, no,” Bryce said, hooking a finger under her chin and raising her face. “You don’t get to play coy, Mrs. Fontaine. Not after the night we just shared. You practically seduced me.”

  “I seduced you?” She was immediately on the defense. “The way I remember is you had a nightmare. I came to wake you up. You knocked me over. Held me prisoner in your arms. Made me take my panties and your boxers off, and had your way with me. I didn’t seduce you, Mr. Fontaine. You seduced me.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re right. I did do that, didn’t I? I’m sorry. Wouldn’t happen again.”

  “I’m sure you are. And it better happen again.” She socked him playfully.

  “Ouch,” he uttered on a laugh. He captured her hand and flattened her palm against his chest. Compared to him, she was so small. His protective instincts mounted inside him. He caught her other hand and laced his fingers with hers, their wedding bands fusing together like their bodies had fused last night. He wondered if she remembered saying she loved him, or if she knew he’d heard her.

  Bryce had declared his love for only one woman in his lifetime, and he’d been unequivocally certain when he’d spoken the words. He cared about Kaya; he enjoyed being around her, and now with her, but he didn’t know if he loved her. He’d closed his heart to love and bared it to lust for so long that he’d forgotten what love felt like.

  “I was dreaming about Pilar when you woke me last night,” he said, feeling it was time his current wife knew about his late wife. Maybe opening up to Kaya would help clear the cobwebs from his mind. “I was dreaming about the night she died.”

  “I know.” She squeezed his hand. “Do you have the nightmares often?”

  Bryce gave the room a swift sweep of his eyes. It was the one floor of the house he never had the heart to finish after Pilar died. This is the place where they would have fallen asleep each night and awakened each morning locked in each other’s arms, just the way he was locked with Kaya right now.

  He took a moment to let that awareness sink into his brain. It wasn’t as troubling as he’d expected, but surprisingly comforting instead.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” Kaya said.

  “I want to,” he responded, realizing she’d taken his silence as hesitation to talk about Pilar. “One of the reasons I don’t live in this house is because it reminds me of Pilar.”

  “You used to live here together?”

  “No.” He took a sharp intake of air into his lungs. “We spent countless hours, days, weeks, planning this house, our dream home where we would raise our children. Pilar died shortly after we broke ground. It was just too painful being here on the site so I just walked away with no intention of ever finishing it. But then I realized that it wasn’t just the site of our home that brought about the raw aching pain in my gut, the crushing heaviness in my chest. I hurt when I did the things we did together, visited places we’d gone as a couple.”

  “Like church?”

  “Especially church. Music was Pilar’s passion. She played the piano, the harp, and the violin, and she composed songs. We used to sing together, you know.”

  Her eyes caressed him, undressed his soul. “Libby told me. We sing her songs in worship service. Such beautiful lyrics and music. Did she write the lullaby you sang to Anastasia that day we met?”

  He nodded. “It was the last song she wrote.” He’d found the sheet of music on the dining table. Pilar must have been working on it when Victoria arrived at their mountain villa.

  “What happened, Bryce?” Kaya’s voice was a choked whisper, barely audible above the hammering of his heart in his ears.

  “Pilar thought I’d been unfaithful to her.”

  “You, unfaithful? Why would she think something so absurd?”

  Bryce frowned as he studied Kaya’s face.

  Well, were you? was the question everyone had asked, including his parents and his minister. He even had to defend himself to Pilar as she lay dying in his arms.

  The trust he read in Kaya’s eyes told him that she didn’t doubt him for one fleeting moment. No one had ever had such unquestionable faith in him. Except his grandmother. She wouldn’t have doubted him, either.

  Bryce took another deep breath. “There was this woman, Victoria. She was my personal assistant. She was a hard worker, extremely intelligent. Never too tired or too busy to do anything I asked. We spent a lot of late nights working, sometimes over dinner. We were getting along well—professionally, I thought.”

  “But she wanted more,” an insightful Kaya murmured.

  “I didn’t know that until I brought Pilar to Granite Falls.”

  “She wasn’t from here?”

  “No. I met her in a hotel elevator in Chicago while I was there on a business trip.” He smiled with the memory. “She was crying because she’d just been turned down for an audition she’d had all her hopes set on.” He held Kaya’s gaze. “Well, you know the rest.”

  “It was love at first sight.” She dropped her gaze so he couldn’t read the expression in her eyes.

  Bryce had felt an intense connection with Kaya when he’d met her in Steven’s office two months ago. It was possible for one to fall madly and deeply in love more than once in a lifetime. But there were too many other issues going on at the time for him to analyze those feelings. There was still a lot to be sorted out between them. He was old enough and wise enough to know that sex wasn’t some magical pill that fixed troubled relationships. He and Kaya were troubled. Their marriage was not built on trust and love.

  “Anyway, Victoria’s attitude to me changed after Pilar and I were married,” he continued. “She was very professional when we were in public, but cold and calculating when we were alone. She called my home at odd hours of the night to ask silly questions. I had our number changed. But when she left a naked photo of herself on my desk, I fired her.”

  “And that made her mad.”

  Bryce nodded, wishing for the millionth time that he’d seen how deranged that woman was. “She threatened to sue me for sexual harassment if I didn’t pay her a substantial amount of money. I told her to go right ahead. You see, my logic was that paying her off would make me appear guilty of her accusations. I wasn’t about to let her defame my name, malign my reputation. What I didn’t know at the time was that she’d befriended Pilar behind
my back. They’d been having lunch together, gone shopping together, and whatever else women do together. Pilar was lonely; she had no friends here, so it was easy for Victoria to ingratiate herself into her life, become her best friend, her confidant.”

  Bryce thought he’d been enough for Pilar, but he’d been so wrong. Women need women, just as men need men as friends. Victoria was the catalyst for the creation of the Billionaires’ Brides Club. He and his friends realized the importance for their future wives to be as close as they were. He was glad Kaya was getting along with Michelle and Libby, two women he knew would never hurt her.

  “Go on,” Kaya whispered, bringing him back to the present.

  He breathed deeply. “A few days after I fired Victoria, Pilar called me at the office and asked me to hurry home because she had wonderful news for me.” The blood began to pound in his veins. His hands tightened around Kaya’s. “When I walked into our home, Victoria was holding a gun to my wife’s head.”

  “Oh, Bryce.” Kaya pulled her hands from his grasp and wrapped her arms about him, holding him close to her heart.

  “I tried to reason with her at first, then I began taunting her to make her angry at me. It worked. She let Pilar go and aimed the gun at me. I implored Pilar with my eyes to get out of there. I would have taken a thousand bullets for her.” Tears streamed down his face, and melted into Kaya’s hair.

  “As Pilar inched toward the door, Victoria started talking about she and I making love together. I heard Pilar gasp just before she knocked over a table laden with crystal ornaments. The shattering glass startled Victoria. She fired toward the noise. I watched in horror as Pilar fell to the floor, her blood pouring from her body in a thick, crimson stream. That’s when I begin to scream in my sleep, like I did that night.”

  “Oh, Bryce.” Kaya’s voice broke as she began to shiver in his arms.

  Bryce wrapped his hands around her, his sobs echoing hers. His friends and family had cried over Pilar’s death; they’d cried for his loss, but no one had cried for his pain, for the years of torment he’d endured, until this very moment.