Kitabı oku: «At The Playboy's Command», sayfa 4

They arrived at the hotel, the oldest and best respected in Royal, so the maître d’ had told Daniel this morning on his way out. Elizabeth had stopped before a monster of a potted palm, looking like an earthbound angel as a dry breeze combed her long fair hair.

She peered up at the hotel’s stone facade. “Well, this is it.”

He braced his legs, shoulder-width apart. “Yes, it is.”

“Good luck again.” Her tone was sincere.

So was his. “You, too.”

“Don’t work too hard,” she said over a slender shoulder as she turned and walked away.

Daniel watched as those sexy pink heels clicked a provocative tune all the way down Main’s wide pavement. When she’d disappeared around the next block, he sucked down a breath and moved inside the quiet, high-ceilinged lobby then crossed the plush Oriental carpet to the lifts. In his suite two minutes later, he stopped to study his Cattleman Club’s mock-up and grunted. Giant steer horns. Not one of his better ideas.

Decided, he snapped his cell phone from his belt. No use delaying.

Abigail’s number was ringing when the doorbell sounded.

He tossed an impatient glance over. Damn. He’d meant to put out the Do Not Disturb sign. Housekeeping could make the bed after he’d vacated.

He strode over and fanned open the door. Rand stood in the corridor, surprise on his face.

“You’re back already?”

Daniel huffed. “No thanks to you.”

“Boss, you pay me the big bucks to read your mind. You might not have wanted me to leave but you most definitely wanted to be alone with Elizabeth Milton.” Crossing his arms, he leaned up against the doorjamb. “How’d it go?”

“Actually, very well,” Daniel conceded. “We had coffee. Chatted about the town’s history, how that might play into a new design.”

Rand straightened. “Are we back on?”

“No. We’re out of here,” Daniel confirmed. “Let me make a call and I’ll get back to you in ten with an exit plan.”

“Want me to let the pilot know?”

“Midday takeoff, if he can do it.”

Rand pivoted away and had disappeared inside his own suite next door when the elevator pinged. Daniel’s door was halfway shut when the earth stopped revolving and, off balance, he nearly toppled sideways.

What the devil was Elizabeth doing here?

She emerged from the elevator like a star stepping onto a red carpet. Spotting him, she bowled him over with an innocent, dimpled smile.

“Why, Daniel, you look stunned.”

He remembered to breathe. To think.

“Stunned would be the word. Elizabeth, what are you doing here?”

Had Abigail sent her for some reason? No, that made no sense. Her being here didn’t make sense at all.

A mysterious glint in her eye, she moved closer. “Invite me in and I’ll tell you.”

He got his whirling thoughts together enough to step aside and motion her in. She brushed past, that irresistible scent drifting over him, and, breathing deep, he closed the door.

“Is something wrong?”

“Depends on how you look at it.”

She continued on toward the center of the room, her behind hypnotizing him as it swayed in the pale pink fitted skirt. He swallowed against a suddenly dry throat.

“I’d offer you a drink but nine a.m. seems a little early.”

Pivoting around, she shrugged. “If I wanted a drink I’d have stopped at a bar.”

“What do you want?”

“Guess there’s no way around it,” she said, “except to come straight out and let you know.”

As she closed the distance separating them and stepped into his personal space, Daniel’s respiration cranked up and sparks began to fly. When she pushed up on tiptoe, looped her arms around his neck then brought her lips to within a whisper of his, those sparks transformed into a more dangerous form of heat. Then, to really confuse him, she gifted him with a kiss that turned that heat into a world of fireworks. Compared to this, last night’s experience was child’s play.

As her breasts pressed in and her tongue wound out to loop sensually around his, a steamy rush of carnal pleasure swept through him, something similar to the back draft from a twenty-story fire. Hypnotized, he shaped a palm over the back of that silken hair and followed his instincts. He held her tighter, kissed her deeper and told himself to hell with consequences.

As she continued to curl around him and his every inch grew hard, Daniel couldn’t stop imagining the next step. The bedroom. Clothes falling off. Urgent cathartic sex first. Long and slow and gloriously deep sex after that.

When she reluctantly pried her mouth from his, Elizabeth’s breathing was ragged, too.

“I couldn’t have you leave without letting you know how much I enjoyed last night.”

His heartbeat booming, he stole another smoldering kiss. “Up until our discussion on family.”

“That had nothing to do with us.”

“I’m obviously slow, but I didn’t realize there was an us.”

“There can be—” she lavished a lingering kiss on the beating hollow of his throat “—in a here and now kind of way.”

Surging testosterone levels through the roof, he cupped her behind as she pressed against him.

“I know a man in this situation shouldn’t worry about questions,” he admitted as her soft, sweet lips brushed his again, “but where did this come from?”

His gut said she wasn’t the type to make a habit of offering herself up on a plate like this.

“I wanted to get to know you a little better. And with you planning on leaving today, that doesn’t give me much time.” Her lidded eyes searched his. “If you’re available, that is.”

Before his mouth slanted over hers again, he growled, “Oh, I’m available.”

Five

As his lips covered hers, Elizabeth gave herself over to the heat-infused magic and let her every inhibition go. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night for rehashing in her mind the roller coaster of emotions she rode whenever they’d touched. Especially when they’d kissed. Now Daniel knew.

She’d come here for precisely this reason.

To believe she would never feel this kind of intensity again was foolish. The world was full of attractive, interesting men. However, whether she confessed it to anyone else, she could at least admit it to herself: ten months of the year her world was limited. She could have quietly lamented Daniel Warren as a missed opportunity. But she’d decided to seize the reins and take what she wanted while she could.

Right now she wanted Daniel.

Her jacket had fallen to the floor. Zip undone, her dress was slipping past her hips, her knees. Her every nerve ending was burning, glowing white-hot. Wherever he touched, a brushfire followed.

With his mouth still covering hers, she was about to give up on unbuttoning and tear what remained of his fastened shirt wide open. Before she could, Daniel gripped her shoulders and gently eased her away. Vaguely she was aware of standing before a man she’d known mere hours wearing nothing but French white lace underwear and five-inch pink pumps. She was more concerned about why he’d broken their embrace.

She swept a fall of hair from her eyes. “Is there a problem?”

“Just thinking ahead.”

When he started walking away, an alarm bell rang in her head and all the pent-up breath left her body in a whoosh. She was about to ask where he was going, why he was leaving her, when she realized and relaxed. At the door now, he was slipping the Do Not Disturb sign over the outside knob.

His shirt three-parts open, his bronzed, hard chest unashamedly on display, he slid the cell from his belt, pressed a button—presumably to switch it off—then tossed the device on the hall table before he sauntered back.

“I figure we don’t want to be interrupted.”

She unclasped the bra’s snaps and, dropping her arms, let the cups fall.

“You figured right.”

Daniel’s eyes smoldered before he brought her near again. But rather than kiss her, he coaxed her around until they stood, his hard front to her back. The graze of his morning beard against the sweep of her neck sent a bevy of tingles down her entire right side while his palm, slightly rough, rode up over her quivering midriff. She sighed as the ridge of each finger one by one bumped over the sensitive tip of her breast while four hot pads slid down the front of her panties and between her thighs.

Sucking in a breath, she rolled her neck back and brought one arm up, knotting fingers in his hair as his teeth danced across the sensitive slope that led to her shoulder.

“I’m so glad I came.”

His smile tickled. “I thought I was working on that.”

His thumb and forefinger came together to roll and pinch her nipple while, below, he found the part of her that already wanted to burst into flame. He drew slow, tight circles around that pulsing, smoking spot. Within seconds, her every muscle was braced, preparing for the thunderous run of contractions that crouched, waiting, a thumping heartbeat away. But then his touch moved higher. He angled her head back and his mouth claimed hers once more.

Dissolving, she let her hands slide up over the hot, smooth curve of his shoulders as he wound out of his shirt then walked her back a few paces until her calves met the seat of the couch. He was dropping kisses along her neck, over her breasts then down her ribs. As that wonderful flame inside of her leaped higher, she lifted her face to the ceiling and, quivering, hoped her knees would hold.

He slid down farther and the tip of his tongue trailed lower, too. With his help, she held on to his shoulders and stepped out of her panties. When he drew a slow line between her legs and gently parted her folds until that most private part of her was exposed, she couldn’t contain a small cry of longing. His mouth covered her at the same moment he groaned with pleasure. The rumble vibrated through her blood while he flicked and swirled and then oh, so lightly nipped.

The glow of a million tiny lights quivered and swelled before, too soon, wave after breathless wave of release broke over her. Gripping his hair, she clung on to the thrill until the very last roll and he grudgingly drew away. As she buzzed and floated on the afterglow, through dreamy eyes she looked down and smiled.

She was still wearing her heels.

She swallowed her smile when she felt her weight being swept off the ground. With her safely cradled against his chest, Daniel carried her into the master bedroom.

Before he laid her on the rumbled sheets of the bed he’d slept in the previous night, he traced a line of tender kisses around her brow, her cheek and then murmured at her ear.

“You’re more beautiful than I even imagined.”

As she wriggled down into the cool cotton, blissfully content, he removed his shoes, the rest of his clothing and sheathed himself with a condom retrieved from his wallet. A necessity, particularly when she was unprotected. She hadn’t been with a man in too long to remember.

As he came to her, she closed her eyes and relished the feel of his hard warmth wrapping around her as he gathered her near.

“No regrets?” he asked in the quiet curtain-drawn room.

Driving her palm over the powerful plateau of his chest, she assured him, “Not a one.”

The white of his smile shone in the shadows before his long, strong frame covered hers. Again, Elizabeth gave herself over to the wonder of his kiss as her legs wound around the back of his rock-hard thighs and he moved, at last, entering her. A spike of pure bliss pushed from her belly all the way through to her tingling brain.

While one large palm scooped beneath to angle her hips up, his other hand curled around her head. As he moved above her, he nuzzled below her ear, growling every so often as if the feel of her surrounding him was so good it almost hurt. She removed herself from everything other than the sensation of physical abandon. When he stopped moving and his every muscle clenched and trembled above her, humming in her throat, she ran her fingertips up and down his slick sides and grazed her lips over the hot slope of his neck.

He took in a deep breath and, pushing up onto elbows, thrust again, deeper, longer. His hot gaze locked on hers and, his forehead and chest glistening in the dim light, he ground above her. With his steely thighs bearing down, pumped biceps strained on either side of her head. He brought them both higher, feeding a fire that left her giddy and breathless.

Then his eyes squeezed shut and a rumble set off through his chest at the same time he hit an explosive spot delectably high inside of her. An all-consuming burn ripped through her body, catapulting her heart, curling her toes, at the same instant he reached that point of no return, too. As he drove in, groaned and shuddered, Elizabeth arched up to meet him.

She’d come here to claim what she could while she could.

And Daniel Warren had turned out to be far more than she’d bargained for.

Six

Daniel was still holding on to the last of the I’ve-never-known-such-intensity feeling when, drawing a line down his shoulder and arm, Elizabeth asked, “Think I should take off my shoes now?”

His eyes snapped open. Thirty minutes ago he’d been ready to pack up and shove off. He’d decided Abigail and the Texas Cattleman’s Club might do better without his input. Rand, as far as he knew, had advised the pilot. And yet here he was, naked in a tangle of sheets. Elizabeth Milton lay beneath him, her hair creating a soft golden frame for her glowing face, and her legs wrapped around behind his, those sexy pumps hanging off her toes.

“If wearing your heels contributed to that experience,” he said, shifting to slip off one shoe then the other, “we’re on to something.”

After setting the pair on the floor, he scooped her close. As he searched her eyes, he wound hair behind her ear then leaned forward to tenderly kiss her lobe. At the same time, he caught the time on his wrist and frowned. Midday wasn’t far enough away. Elizabeth must’ve been thinking the same.

Sighing, she burrowed in against his chest. “I’m going to make you late.”

“You’re going to make me later yet.”

Cupping her jaw, he angled her face higher then kissed her again, but this time the pleasure his mouth on hers stirred was different. There was a tenderness and understanding. This morning was totally unexpected, as well as utterly off-the-charts amazing. He hoped she knew he would remember every moment … even if he couldn’t stay.

As the kiss slowly broke, he wished this could be some kind of beginning rather than an end. But there was no way around the fact that he was headed out. He’d decided it was best not to pursue the Cattleman’s Club project. He was done here. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was here to stay.

They lay together in the muted light, each in their own thoughts.

“Daniel, can I ask you something? Something personal.”

“Sure.”

“Why did you choose New York to settle down?”

His gut jumped and tightened. Yep, that was personal.

“That’s a long story.”

“I understand,” she said in a small voice.

His stomach tightened more and, relenting, he tipped up her chin and pressed his lips to her cooling forehead. “But I’ll tell you,” he said, and grinned, “if you promise not to be bored.”

Her expression melted and dimples appeared. “Cross my heart.”

Inhaling, he thought back. Not pleasant memories, but since when could memories hurt you? People who were supposed to care for you did that.

“My parents split when I was five. My mother never got tired of telling me that my father and his family were to blame.”

“That must have hurt to hear.”

He huffed. Big-time. But as a young boy he soon developed a tactic that worked.

“After a while I stopped listening.”

“Did your mother’s family come from New York?”

“Connecticut. She wanted me to live up there with her. My father was adamant I would remain under his roof.” Actually, it was “we.” He’d had a younger brother, a friend he missed dearly. But that was something Daniel never discussed. “Given my father was a lawyer at the time, I’m stumped how he didn’t win sole custody. The law isn’t about justice,” he told her, running a hand down her arm. “It’s about who has the most money. The most clout.”

“Your mother got custody?”

“It was split, straight down the middle. Half my time was spent in South Carolina in my father’s empty, angry mansion, having to contend with my grandmother calling my mother a—”

His throat constricted, he cut himself off. He’d leave it to Elizabeth to fill in the blank.

“And the other half you spent up north,” she said for him.

He thought back to last night at the Milton Ranch dining table. “You asked if my mother could cook.”

“I remember.”

“She was a health nut. Constantly lecturing about the body being your temple and pumping herself full of vitamins. When I left her home for the last time, I ate nothing but junk food for a month.”

Her grin was small and sad. “How old were you when you left?”

“I was eighteen when I told them both to go to hell.”

Elizabeth drew back. “Your parents?”

He lifted one shoulder, let it drop. He was sorry he’d offended her Southern sense of duty. He was sorry about a lot of things.

“By that time I’d had it up to here with being shuffled back and forth like a parcel with no voice.” No feelings.

His voice had grown louder and his hands had bunched. He breathed in deeply, pushed it all out and dragged his thoughts away from incidents that couldn’t be changed.

“When they both threatened to disinherit me if I didn’t come around, I said I didn’t want anything to do with their money. I put myself through college and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Have you seen them since?”

He set his jaw against the hollow, dark feeling rising from deep inside. “Not my father.” He couldn’t bring himself to speak to that egocentric, self-serving man again. “And my mother knows if she starts with telling me what’s best for her boy, it’ll be a long time before I darken her doorstep again.”

“It makes sense now. Why you had such a strong opinion about my parents’—” she searched for a word “—requests. If my folks had behaved like that, I’m not sure I’d be falling over myself to please them, either.”

Her situation was vastly different from his. “You love your ranch.” She wanted to stay. Or at least she’d convinced herself that she did.

As if she’d read his mind and had grown uncomfortable, she sat up, hugged her sheet-covered knees and made a confession he had no trouble believing.

“I do get a little restless by the end of the ten months,” she said. “I can break up the time I spend out of Royal, but I usually go through my two months away pretty well straight out the gate.”

“There are no loopholes?”

“I get more time if I want to study away but there are stipulations on that, as well.”

“Sounds as if they wanted their grandkids to be pure Texan.”

She cut him an amused look. “I’m not thinking about having a family just yet.”

That makes two of us.

“You’ll find your own way,” he assured her. Even if it turned out to be her parents’ way, too.

“Do you think so?” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not sounding so sure today.”

“You’re young.” He sat up, too, and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ve got plenty of time to grow old and set in your ways.”

“Like you?” she teased.

“That’s right,” he said, only half joking.

“Guess you’ve earned the right given you’re, what? all of thirty-three?”

“Thirty-five.”

She covered her heart and pretended to lose her breath. “If I’d known, I would never have seduced you.”

His smile faded as the obvious question begged to be voiced. “Would it be impolite to ask your age?”

Please not twenty-two.

“I’m twenty-five.”

“Don’t tell me.” His lips twitched. “Twenty-six next birthday.” The idea of racking up another year wasn’t so appealing once you hit thirty.

She narrowed her eyes, but playfully. “I know what you’re thinking and ten years isn’t that big of an age difference. I’m well over twenty-one.”

A knot low in his gut pulled and he held that breath. They’d just made love, were sharing some secrets, but that last comment sounded a little too much like, Where do we go from here?

He tempered her challenging tone with a fact he’d come to appreciate more and more the older he got. “My father was ten years older than my mother.”

“Sounds like they had bigger problems than a gap in birth dates.”

“A lot of married couples do.”

A hint of suspicion swam up in her eyes and she looked at him hard. “You’re not a fan of the institution.”

He leaned back against the strong timber headrest. “That’s right.”

Her gaze searched his until Daniel felt her unwarranted pity seep into his bones.

“Your parents failed,” she murmured. “You didn’t. You don’t have to run all your life.”

Somewhere a phone began to ring. His heart thudding, Daniel snapped a glance to his left. The bedroom extension. Five minutes ago he’d have cursed the interruption. Now? It seemed this distraction was right on time.

He picked up and blinked twice at the voice on the other end. He’d expected Rand or one of the boys.

“Daniel, is this a bad time?”

“Abigail?” He brought the sheet up higher, flicked a glance at Elizabeth. “I was going to call.”

“I just wanted to let you know,” Abigail said, “despite yesterday’s hiccup, I have faith in you. You weren’t voted American Architect of the Year for nothing. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”

Daniel was gnawing his bottom lip.

“Well, see, Abigail … that’s the thing—”

“Word around town is you’re seeing my friend, Elizabeth Milton,” she cut in, an interested and approving note in her tone.

His smile was thin. “Nothing like a well-watered grapevine for spreading rumors.” Photos would probably be in the Royal newspaper come morning.

Abigail laughed. “Anyone would think you didn’t want a gorgeous, refined lady like Elizabeth Milton hanging off your arm.”

He wanted to clear his throat. He’d done more than that this past hour. They’d got close enough for Elizabeth to assume she knew him, to tell him that he didn’t need to keep running.

She had it wrong. He hadn’t run away. When he was old enough, he’d finally stood up and pledged to do things his way and to hell with anyone who didn’t like it.

But then Daniel thought about that design, Abigail’s belief in him, the story behind that plaque. Mostly he thought about Elizabeth and the voice in his head telling him that, after what they’d just shared, he should do more than thank her for her time and bolt.

“When can we meet?” Abigail was asking.

“Let me get back to you, Abby. I have something to take care of.”

He disconnected and, after a contemplative moment, found Elizabeth’s gaze. Hugging her legs, her chin resting on her knees, she was grinning—grinning as if she could read his every thought.

“You’re staying, aren’t you?” she asked.

Hoping he wouldn’t regret it, Daniel tipped her back onto the sheets.

“Yeah,” he murmured against her lips. “I’m staying.”