Tycoon For Auction (HQR Silhouette Desire)

by Katherine Garbera

  “Why do you keep people at arm’s length?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “It’s just easier.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t laugh,” she said.

  He tugged her close and hugged her tight. “Never.”

  “Everyone always leaves.”

  The words were spoken so softly he could barely hear them. And he wasn’t sure he understood. But then he remembered her comment on the drive to the beach about her parents abandoning her.

  “Like your parents?”

  Her fingers nervously kneaded the fabric of his shorts where they covered his thigh. He knew she meant the touch to be impersonal, but he found it arousing just the same. He also knew now wasn’t the time for lust.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “How do you know they left you?”

  “My foster mother told me.”

  “How old were you?”

  “When she told me the truth?” He nodded. “Six.”

  “Why did she tell you?”

  “I kept crying for my real parents every night, hoping they’d come and take me from the home.”

  He heard all she didn’t say. That those words had cut her more deeply than any others could. He tightened his arms around her. Holding her closer, wishing he could go back in time and protect her.

  But he’d never been any good at protecting anyone other than Angelica. This time, he vowed he would be. This time it was extremely important that he keep her safe. The tension that always rode him sharpened and he shivered under the pressure it presented. He should get up and leave. Now. Before this thing went any further and he lost the little bit of sense he had.

  But he stayed all the same.

  She’d suggested a movie and they’d watched The Sixth Sense. He knew he should have left earlier, but he’d been unable to make himself go.

  “This is nice.”

  “Nice” again. He knew what she was doing. Creating a barrier between them so that she’d didn’t feel too much. He knew that he had no business being here with this woman. He was going to hurt her no matter what he did. And hurting her wasn’t something he could live with.

  He wanted more from her. He didn’t question why, only knew that he did. “It’s getting late. Should I be heading home?”

  She sat bolt upright and looked at him with those wide gray eyes. She was trying to shutter them as she usually did, but there was no real chance for her to do so. Good job, old man. Go right for the jugular every time.

  “I’m sorry. I guess that wasn’t subtle.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “If we’re going to get to know each other…” He let the sentence trail off, unwilling to be even more of a hypocrite than he was. He wanted to know every intimate detail of her life to figure out what had shaped her into the woman she was today, but he’d never share those same things about himself with her.

  “Rand, we work together.”

  “Unless I’ve lost my touch we’re going to do more than work together.”

  “Well…”

  “I’m not a heartless seducer,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t mind if you were,” she said.

  “You lost me, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not looking for anything long-term here. My career is finally on track, and if I play my cards right I could be a VP in the next year or so.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” he asked, not sure he liked being set up as her stud.

  “Everything. I can’t afford to get involved with a man.”

  “What does that make me?” he asked. He definitely didn’t like this setup.

  “You’re a man but you’re also one of those guys who has a new girl with him every month.”

  “I see.” It bothered him to realize that she had noticed his predilection. Maybe this was her way of protecting herself.

  “Do you really understand?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She took his hand in hers. “I…oh, God, this is harder than I thought it would be.”

  “Just spit it out.”

  “Well, I thought you weren’t a long-term kind of guy.”

  “Usually I’m not.” Rand had learned a long time ago that leading a charmed life extended only to the outer perception.

  She wrinkled her nose, something he noticed she did when she wasn’t sure of herself. It might be endearing if he wasn’t listening to her say she wasn’t as deeply affected by him as he was by her.

  “At this point in my life I can’t have more than an affair with you,” she said in a rush.

  He leaned back. An affair. The purely masculine part of him said so be it. He wanted her in his bed, and he didn’t have to make any kind of emotional connection to her. But his soul—that wounded sixteen-year-old boy deep inside—warned it was too late. That not getting involved with his woman physically was the only way to escape unscathed.

  He wasn’t the kind of man who should be involved with someone who threatened his self-control. He was more comfortable in complete control. And Corrine had other needs. She needed the kind of man who could give her the family she’d never had growing up. The kind of man who didn’t have problems of his own.

  Rand put his arm around her and tugged her to him until she rested right next to him. He tilted her head back and took her mouth in a deep, searing kiss. He tried to tell himself it was an experiment to see if she could still say she was objective at the end of it. He tried to tell himself it was to prove a point to her. He tried to keep it purely physical, but he couldn’t.

  She moaned deep in her throat and her mouth opened for his, her tongue curling around his and making teasing forays into his mouth. Her hands clutched his shoulders, fingernails biting through the thin barrier of his shirt. She shifted on the couch until she was straddling his lap, and her hands left his shoulders to hold his face. Her mouth was as much a participant as his. In fact, if he’d let her, he knew she’d take control of the embrace.

  He didn’t let her. He’d learned long ago that surrendering any type of control wasn’t a good idea. He slid his hands down her back, tugging down the zipper of her dress as he went. She wasn’t wearing a bra under the sundress, and he contented himself with caressing her spine and the sides of her breasts for long minutes. Until she thrust her hips against his. Settling her mound right over his aching erection.

  He took her buttocks in his hands and pressed her down against him. She felt so damned good. He held her to him and thrust slowly. She lifted her mouth from his and stared down at him, her eyes wide and questioning. He thrust against her again.

  “It’ll kill me to stop but I need to know that an affair is okay with you.”

  He thought about it. Knowing himself and his weaknesses, he should get up and leave. But he was rock hard and holding a lapful of woman who excited him more than any had before. And frankly, leaving wasn’t an option. “At this point I’d agree to anything.”

  “I know,” she said.

  He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t stop. And her attitude seemed to be the best one—for him. If she wanted a red-hot affair he could give her that. “Okay.”

  She smiled and shrugged her shoulders until the bodice of her dress fell around her waist. And then she leaned toward him. Her naked breasts pillowed on his chest, her mouth lowering toward his.

  She kissed him the way he liked it, hot and deep. He focused solely on the physical. If all she wanted was this, he’d make it the best either of them had ever had. Rand Pearson didn’t do things by half measure and he always played to win.

  Though she was in the dominant position she knew she wasn’t in charge. She hadn’t been in charge of herself or anyone else since she’d gotten in the car with him earlier today. This entire episode marked a departure from the person she’d always believed herself to be. And she was glad to see this new woman emerging tonight.

  Rand wasn’t her kind of guy. She usually preferred men who were bland and ordinary. No, that wasn’t ri
ght. Just being with him made the others seem bland.

  Rand made her feel things too sharply for her to really be able to control them. She’d decided on an affair as the only safe way to burn out the fire that raged between them and to protect herself. Her mind said she’d made the wrong choice, but her body rejoiced in that decision.

  She felt flooded with sensations that were generated by the man underneath her. Her center was dewy and wet, and though he wasn’t touching her—only watching her—she felt like he was caressing her skin.

  He palmed her breasts, plumping them up and staring at her closely. She’d always felt too small in the chest department, but the look in his eyes said he found her just right.

  “You’re so pretty here,” he said, dropping soft kisses on the globes of her breasts.

  A feeling of voluptuousness assailed her. She thrust her shoulders back, hoping to entice him closer. He murmured his approval. One of his hands burrowed through her hair and urged her to arch her back even farther.

  “That’s it, baby.”

  But he didn’t move any closer to her aching flesh. Instead, he kept about an inch of space between his mouth and her nipple. Each exhalation of breath brushed over her, like a silk scarf. Bringing her aroused body to rigid attention.

  She tried to move her hands to his head, to force his mouth onto her flesh, but he grasped both of her wrists in one of his big hands. She tried to shift to bring them closer together but he controlled her easily.

  “Why?” she asked when it became apparent he wasn’t going to move until he was ready.

  He brought his mouth to her collarbone and whispered the words against her skin. She shivered. The sensation made her feel so acutely aware of herself as a woman. His woman.

  “Because waiting makes the pleasure more exquisite,” he said.

  He was right, but she didn’t want him to crash through any more barriers. They were just having sex. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. “I can’t take much more.”

  “Oh, yes you can.”

  He gave her a wicked grin. This time he scraped his teeth from the base of her neck down her chest, stopping at the globes of her breasts. He repeated the caress until every part of her body was on fire. She was unable to keep her hips from rolling against him.

  “Rand,” she moaned.

  “Want more?” he asked, breathing right over her nipple this time. His mouth was so close, she felt the humidity of his words.

  “I’ll get even,” she said, hardly recognizing the breathy voice as her own.

  “Give me your breast,” he said.

  She shifted her shoulders, and this time he supported her back and finally she felt his lips close over her nipple. Again he waited. Not sucking on her but letting her hardened nipple fill his mouth. She needed more. The ache between her legs was growing stronger. Rocking against his erection no longer satisfied it, but intensified it. She wished they were both naked.

  Needed them both to be naked. She tugged her wrists free of his grip. She unbuttoned his shirt and caressed the rock-hard planes of his chest. He began to suckle at her breast. His hands roamed over her back down to her waist, then slid underneath the barrier of her clothing to cup her buttocks again.

  He bit lightly on her nipple and thrust his hips up toward hers at the same time. The sensation was incredible. She shuddered and moaned his name.

  “Like that?” he asked, moving to her other breast.

  “Like is too tame a word.”

  He suckled her other nipple until she felt that she’d explode. He pulled back just short of that. “Rand, please.”

  “Not yet. Will you strip for me?”

  She didn’t know if she could do it. Her first instinct was to open his pants, free him and take him. But Rand had made her feel more during foreplay than most of the men she dated. And she wanted to please him.

  “Okay.”

  She climbed off his lap and pushed her dress and panties off in one swift movement and then returned to him.

  “That was the quickest striptease in history.”

  “You wanted a show?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “I might be persuaded to do a little more for you, but you’re going to have to lose your clothes.”

  “Happy to oblige.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt and then stood to remove his shorts and boxers with a quickness that belied his need to go slowly. There was a fine line of hair that tapered down his belly to his groin. He was…bigger than she’d expected him to be. He noticed her staring and held his hand out to her.

  “Enough waiting?” he asked, with a gentleness she hadn’t realized he had.

  “Oh, yes.”

  He hugged her to him. And she nestled against his chest. Her blood pounded through her veins and the scent of him surrounded her. His heart beat a steady tattoo under her cheek. He settled back on the couch, pulling her over him and taking her mouth in one of those deep kisses of his that made her question why this had to only be temporary.

  While his mouth consumed hers, his hands swept over her body. She settled over him. Felt his erection probing at her entrance. He pulled back.

  “Are you on the pill?”

  “Yes,” she said. No way would she ever bring an unwanted child into the world.

  “I’m clean. Gave blood last month,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she said. In fact, she’d seen him at the blood drive.

  “Ready?”

  “Almost,” she said.

  His roaming hands found the aching flesh between her legs, seeking out the center of her desire and caressing her lightly. His other hand stayed at the small of her back, urging her hips to rock against him. She felt everything inside her start to tighten, and knew that the end was near. She wanted him inside her.

  Reaching between their bodies, she took him in her hand and guided him to her entrance. He held her hips in both of his hands and lifted his mouth from hers.

  “Ride me,” he said.

  She did. She felt too full at first and had to wait for her body to adjust to him. Then she started moving on him. Braced her hands on his shoulders and tilted her head back because the expression in those deep green eyes of his made her feel things too intensely.

  She kept the pace steady until everything inside of her tightened and her climax washed over her. Rand’s hands on her hips changed from guiding to controlling. He held her still for his thrusts. He suckled strongly on her breast and surged up into her three times before he came with a shout of release that echoed in her mind.

  He hugged her to him, letting the sweat dry on their bodies. And Corrine could only think that Rand was never going to be a temporary man in her life. She would be remembering him and this moment until the day she died.

  Six

  “That was nice,” Corrine said long minutes later.

  “Nice, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. I never knew that I could share something so profound with a man.”

  Profound? He didn’t do profound. In fact, she’d insisted it was just a red-hot affair. Why then had it felt like soul sex? The kind of physical bonding that he’d always dismissed as bragging by other men, and fantasy by the women they’d shared it with.

  He’d isolated himself from the world a long time ago. He worked hard to give the impression that he was open and gregarious, but the truth was he felt safest by himself. Felt most comfortable when he was in his dark cave. Why then did he have the urge to drag Corrine back there with him?

  There were maybe three moments in his life that he’d felt this intensely since he’d given up the bottle. The first had been when Roger had died. The second had been when he’d joined Angelica to create Corporate Spouses. And tonight with Corrine in his arms he felt it again.

  Something deep inside him shuddered and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stay here. He needed to get away from her. To get away from this place where he felt too vulnerable. And there was no escape. She was murmuring something soft against hi
s chest and he didn’t want to separate their bodies and leave.

  But he had to. He lifted her from him and she smiled shyly at him. The tension, always his constant companion, tightened the back of his neck. He stood abruptly, tugging on his pants and zipping them.

  Her smile faded and she grabbed a blanket from the back of one of the end chairs and wrapped it around herself. She looked incredibly small standing there, her thick blond hair hanging around her shoulders, her gray eyes not frozen for once but alive with questions and a lingering desire. Her mouth was still swollen from his kisses. And there was a flush on her skin from the climax she’d just had.

  Leaving now was the last thing he wanted. His recently satiated body still craved more. He needed to make her his again and again until he’d made her his completely. Until all her secrets had been found.

  Inside his head a war raged. He wanted to stay. Hell, his body screamed he had to stay. He longed to scoop her into his arms and carry her down the hall to her bed. Then he would take her in every way he’d ever taken a woman.

  He felt the man he was expected to be colliding with the man he really was. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

  “Rand?” Something in her voice revealed the vulnerability he’d never expected her to experience.

  He glanced up at her. Why did he always seem to hurt those he wanted to protect? How many times was he going to have to fail at this before he learned the lesson?

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  No. He’d never been okay. He’d been running all his life, and for the first time had met someone who made him want to stop. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop now and bring her into his world. She deserved better. In fact, she wanted a better man—from him. She only demanded sex from him.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You seem—”

  “I’m okay. Listen, I’ve got to go.” He walked around her living room, grabbing his clothing, shoving his boxers, socks and tie into his pockets and shrugging into his shirt.

  “You don’t have to leave.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  She trailed behind him to the door, and he knew that this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. His body urged him to stay, as well. Stay through the night and twist with her on her bed. But he knew himself well enough that he had to leave now.