by Carmen Green
“Unless you plan on kicking me out.”
“No, baby. You’re staying.”
CHAPTER 12
Hunter pulled his clothes off and sat at the foot of Alex’s bed, bringing her between his legs. He kissed her and noticed that she was more subdued.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, kissing her knuckles and the palm of her hand.
“I need to shower. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
She had the hem of her T-shirt in her hands and he lifted it enough to kiss her stomach.
“Four minutes,” she whispered, slipping out of one heel, limping on the other one. “I promise I’ll smell nice and sweet.” She pulled the T-shirt over her head and let it hit the floor.
He brought her closer, tasting her lips and neck, getting lost in the soft sensuality of her hair. “I like you just like this.” He pushed her shorts down the backs of her thighs, enjoying the feel of her skin against his hands. With his knees he kept her legs open so he could touch her smoothly shaved secrets. He ran his lips along her collarbone, wanting to make her breath come faster, make her head fall back, his name to drip from her lips until dawn splashed in orange and blues across the sky.
“Marc always liked for me to shower—”
He looked into her cinnamon-colored eyes and he kissed her hard until her mouth hung open. “This is you and me.”
“I didn’t mean that.” For a second she looked as if she’d committed an unforgivable sin, then he wrapped his arms around her and sucked her breasts until her moans nearly made him lose control.
He nudged her shorts all the way down, then pulled her to him by her bottom and squeezed until she brought her arms up and around his neck. “How does that feel?” he asked, running his mouth down her neck.
“Good.”
He squeezed her butt until she was up on her toes. “How does that feel?”
“It hurts.”
“Then you tell me what hurts.” His hands gentled and he kissed her, long and slow.
He unhooked her bra and her breasts slipped from the satin. They were already wet from his attention, but he liked that he was free to enjoy them at will.
“Yes,” she whispered, her hands against his cheeks.
“I didn’t hear you, baby.” He continued the ministrations, alternating between hard and soft, amazed that her nipples grew an inch in size on his tongue.
“Yes, that feels good. This one too.”
Suddenly Hunter pulled the bedspread off the bed and threw it on the floor, pulling Alex down with him. Caught off guard, she started laughing. “You’re crazy. What are you doing?”
“Making love to you. You’re a sexy, desirable woman, and you’re acting like you’ve never done this before.”
He sucked her breasts hard until she pushed at his head and forced him to kiss her mouth. Their tongues tangled in a battle that ended with her biting his jaw, her teeth gliding down his chin to his neck.
“Yeah, baby.”
“That felt so good it hurt,” she told him, laughing. “You knew it.”
He kissed her breasts softly, making up. “I know. Tell me what you want. Tell me what feels good. Make some noise, girl. You’re a part of this.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“You’re doing that again?” Before she knew what was going on, he flipped her over and bit her left cheek.
“Okay!” she said loudly, twisting when he bit her butt again.
“You want a cat, you got a cat.”
Flipping him, she rolled on top of Hunter and wrestled with him, their mouths mating in a battle of tongues and teeth. She tasted him with her whole mouth, letting her taste buds absorb the flavor of him as she slid her lips down over his entire body.
His fingers stretched her out and pulled at her, cupped her and caressed her, brought her to climax again and again, and made her cry out until she was hoarse.
When they were ready, she rolled a condom down him, and he entered her from behind as she lay on her side, as he whispered sweet words of ecstasy in her ear.
Alex felt her most powerful climax building, and told him.
“After you, baby,” he said.
And he meant it.
* * *
Alex opened one eye as she felt herself being lifted. She knew it was Hunter, but didn’t know where he was taking her.
Hunter laid her on the bed and sat beside her, his chest still bare. He had so many scars she wanted to ask him about, but more than that she wanted him to stay with her.
“What more can you do to me?” she teased, her voice sleepy, her body completely relaxed.
“That’s not the endorsement I was hoping for. Maybe we should start all over.”
“Yes, tomorrow.”
He covered her with the blanket. “You need your rest and I need to go home.”
“You can’t leave. It’s too late.”
“And I can’t show up to work in the same clothes. I’ll be back at six-thirty.”
She didn’t know when he’d lit the built-in fireplace, but it flamed in orange licks over the gas logs. Making love had never before left her so completely satiated.
So this is what everyone had been talking about. Alex was more than comfortable. This was the perfect fantasy. Why couldn’t this feeling last forever?
Because fantasies weren’t real.
Tomorrow’s hell was just a few hours away and her life was going to continue to change.
He pulled on his shirt and she felt a tiny measure of disappointment that all the pleasure he’d coaxed from her was leaving with him. “Are you going to be all right? Want me to come with you?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Alex, I’m a guy.”
“I’ll protect you, Hunter.”
He twisted on the bed and for a long time he stared into her eyes. She waited, wanting him to express himself.
He smoothed her hair over her breast.
“Girl, you’re something else. But thank you. I’m coming up early in the morning. Be ready.”
“Okay.”
Hunter buried his face in her hair and gave her a sloppy wet kiss that left her giggling until she fell asleep.
CHAPTER 13
“You left here knowing that your husband was dead and you didn’t tell us? What were you trying to hide?”
The entire Wright family had come for the emergency meeting and Alex was the star of the show. Dressed conservatively in a cream-colored suit, gray pearls, her hair pulled back in a bun, she looked the part but seemed ready for the worst.
The meeting hadn’t been going for more than five minutes and her father had already started yelling. Mervyn Jr. and Jerry were seated across from each other, but neither had spoken to the other.
Mervyn Sr. hadn’t even offered condolences.
Hunter couldn’t stand the man.
He’d walked in with a bad attitude, slamming a folder on the table as if he was establishing his authority right then. To Alex’s credit she didn’t blink, but continued with her instructions to Willa.
Refreshments were brought into the room and Hunter poured himself and Alex a cup of tea.
The cup rattled against the saucer each time he jarred the table. And each time the cup rattled, Alex jumped ever so slightly.
Mervyn Sr. seemed ready to eat her alive. He marched around the table, gesturing wildly, moving behind Alex’s chair, shouting, and she flinched one too many times.
“You act like you can just come in and dictate how things are run around here, and you can’t. I don’t take orders from you, Alexandria. You may have controlling interest in the company, but you will not tell me what to do!”
Hunter got up. “Take your seat and conduct yourself like a professional, or you’re excused.”
Incredulous, Mervyn Sr. looked at his daughter. “You’ve got a henchman, now? You replaced your husband with a bodyguard?”
Alex folded her hands on the table. “Dad, we’re waiting on you. Please, have a seat.”
“This is
an outrage,” he said, but sat down next to Mervyn Jr. who hadn’t said a word.
“To answer your first question, I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” Alex began. “I left here believing Marc was alive. I went to find out for sure. I was wrong. I’m sorry to have kept it quiet for so long, but I’ve had a lot to deal with.”
“What else? We’re your family, Alexandria. What else are you hiding?”
“Marc had other business that will take me away from time to time until it’s all settled. So we’ll need to pull together and work as a family. I’m prepared to offer you your job back, Mervyn, if you’d like to come back.”
Her brother glowered at her and grunted, looked at the table and didn’t respond.
“Well, good luck then. Right now the economy is in a recession. We’ve got to watch our money carefully. Instructions were left—”
“Your husband hasn’t been dead a month and you have a new boyfriend?” her father practically screamed. Hunter wished he could give the old man a real reason to scream, but this was Alex’s family.
How she’d dealt with them all her life was beyond him.
“My personal relationship with Hunter is none of your business, Dad. But just so you know, Hunter is important to me. Let me tell you something else…if I ever come back and find that one thing has been changed in the company without my consent, you won’t have a job either. You’re disrespectful and mean. Grandma Letty would have never tolerated this. She gave me controlling interest in this company for a reason. Hasn’t anyone ever wondered why?”
“I have.”
Alex rushed to her feet. “Mother.”
The entire family stood and Mervyn Sr. ran over to help his wife. “Thank you, Mervyn. It’s good to see you.”
Hunter watched the entire family snap to attention as the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen walked into the room.
Alex’s mother had long wavy silver and gray hair that hung past her shoulders, with flawless skin the color of sand. She moved with a slow grace, leaning heavily on a black cane with a gold handle.
No one spoke as she entered and walked toward the table, but they were all surprised to see her. Alex had told him she was a virtual recluse.
“Dorothy,” Mervyn Sr. said, “I’ll be home in a few hours. We can talk then.”
“How old are you, Alexandria?”
“Twenty-three, Mama.”
“We haven’t talked in twenty-three years, Mervyn. Why would we start now?”
Hunter winked at Alex and she jutted her left hip out at him, then composed herself and watched her mother.
“Mervyn, take me up to sit next to my baby.”
“No. You can sit next to me.”
“I can sleep next to you, too, but I don’t. Do I?”
“No, Dorothy,” he said, his head down like his son’s.
“And I didn’t decide that, you did. A long time ago. Now, what did I say?”
Everyone held their breath while Dorothy Wright was seated at the conference table next to her daughter.
The balance of power had shifted.
Dorothy leaned her cane against the table.
“I apologize for being late. Alexandria had an announcement and nobody thought I was important enough to come to the family meeting except my daughter, who offered me car service. She’s been offering me rides to these meeting every month for three years. I always said no. Today I said yes. What was your announcement, Alexandria?”
“Mama, Marc died in a plane crash three weeks ago.”
Mrs. Wright’s head went down for a moment then she whispered amen. “I’m so sorry for your loss. My baby’s a bride and a widow. You holding up okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve got so much to tell you, Mama.”
Hunter’s heart twisted and he wished it wasn’t involved with his feelings for Alex.
“Okay.” Her mother studied her for a long moment, then looked at Hunter. He felt as if he’d met a disciple. “I’m Dorothy. Come talk to me sometime.”
Hunter shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Hunter Smith.”
Dorothy smiled at him. “Yes, sir. I like you very much. Now, I’ve got something to say.”
Hunter went and stood behind Alex. He did the one thing he said he wouldn’t and caressed her arm. Mervyn Jr. saw him and shot him a dirty look.
“Go ahead, Mama. You have the floor,” Alex said.
“It seems to me that there’s a lot of funny business going on in this family. Members are fighting against member. Folks are stealing from the family. People are doing things they know are wrong to each other in the name of money. So this is what I’m going to do. I own fourteen percent of the company stock, and I was going to give it to my grandchildren.”
Mervyn Jr. slapped the table. “That’s right, Mama! Give them to me. With mine and yours combined with Daddy’s, I have the majority. I’ll show you, Alex! I know what I’m doing. I’ll show you how to run this company from the outside. You’re out and I’m in. Thank you, Mama. Thank you.”
He laughed, his eyes watery, the strain he’d been under showing in his cracked features. He wiped his nose. “She’s giving them to me. Right?” he said to his father. “That’s right. Right?”
A heavy silence stretched into an even longer minute.
Hunter tried not to think about shooting Alex’s brother. He looked like a junkie and probably was but had been able to disguise it with all the money he’d been taking.
“Daddy, we should be celebrating,” Mervyn Jr. told him.
“Shut up,” his father said under his breath.
“Okay, Mama.” Alex sat tall in her chair. “If that’s your decision, I respect it. I’m so glad you came down here to see us.” She grasped her mother’s hand. “And I’m glad you go out of the house. You’re so brave. I love you.”
“Hold on a minute. I said I was going to give them to the kids. But I’m not.” She looked at her oldest son.
“Mervyn Jr., when you were stealing that money all these years, you were stealing from all of us. That’s like coming into mom and your daddy’s house and walking off with some of our furniture. Or walking off with your grandma’s jewelry, or your granddaddy’s war medals. I can’t reward you for that. Your outburst just now proves you’re not thinking about us, only yourself. That’s the same reason I can’t give the stock to my husband. I listened to how you treated this girl, and you’re so disrespectful, it’s sad. No. My shares go to Jerry. ’Cause he and Alex will do the right thing for this company.”
She reached inside her purse and passed an envelope to her youngest son. He smiled at his mother and then came around and hugged her.
“Mama, I gotta tell you, I don’t want any part of this,” Jerry said. “Alex knows she can count on me to answer the phones, but I’ve got a less complicated lifestyle in mind, and it’s about being happy with Willa. So I’m bowing out. Alex gets my shares.”
“You see what I mean? I knew you’d do the right thing,” their mother said.
Mervyn Jr. started crying and Mervyn Sr. leaped to his feet. “Fine. I quit. But I’m taking my biggest clients with me.”
“You’re not quitting, Mervyn,” Dorothy told him. “Our health insurance is here and we need that. The company you spent a good part of your life in is here. You’re going to get your pride off the floor and drive it and me home. Then you and I are going to have a talk. You’re going to come back tomorrow and work with our daughter to continue this company’s success.
“There’s more going on with the money in this company. It needs to get resolved and quickly.”
“Mama, what are you talking about?” Mervyn Jr. demanded.
“This meeting is adjourned,” Alex declared.
“We’re owed some kind of explanation, because if there’s more money missing, we need to know all about it. You ruined my life. I want the same treatment for anyone else.”
Alex nearly stumbled over the chair as she tried to get around it. “Mervyn, you’re being irrational. You�
��re too stubborn to take your job back, so fine. You won’t get a second chance. But you’re not dictating what goes on here.”
“I ought to—” he said with a menacing twist to his lip.
“Son,” his father said, trying to keep his voice under control. “I already told you to shut up. I’m taking your mother home. Where are you going?”
Mervyn Jr. looked at all of his family, but he saved his most scathing glare for Alex. “You’re going to get what you deserve.”
“You’re not going to touch a hair on her head. But I welcome your effort,” Hunter said and stepped in front of Alex.
Mervyn Jr. slammed out the door and walked away. Everyone watched his stormy exit but said nothing.
“Daddy, Mama?” Alexandria said. “He’s not allowed back in the building. He scares the employees, and I don’t feel safe when he’s here.”
“Mervyn hasn’t ever hurt anyone. There’s never been any proof of that,” their father said.
“I’m not going to let him hurt anyone,” Jerry said. “He’s ridiculous. I loaned him some money last week to pay his bills, but his ex, Danisha, called and said he didn’t pay them and the water was disconnected.”
“How are she and the kid making it?” Alex asked, and Hunter could see the guilt she was shouldering. She wasn’t hard enough to be a corporate raider. She was still very young and easily influenced. Her family was manipulating her and she didn’t recognize it.
“Danisha has a job so she paid the bill,” Jerry told them. “But she was just expecting the money from Mervyn.”
“From my experience, he looks like he may be on drugs,” Hunter added. “It’s best if you all take extra precautions. He threatened Alex twice and all of you were here. What if you hadn’t been able to stop him? You say he’s never done this before, but he did it and in front of his mother and father. Think about this, what won’t he do?”
Mervyn Sr. waved his hand in the air. “Fine. I’ll deal with him.”
Dorothy shook her head. “If he’s on drugs, that’s only going to land him in bigger trouble. Mervyn, take me home. I’m tired and then you need to look after the monster you created before he hurts someone or gets hurt.”
