Deceptive Innocence (8 page)

Lander chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him look uncomfortable. “He’s a womanizer.”

“Mm-hmm, so was Bill Clinton. That didn’t stop Janet Reno—”

“See, like that. How is
that
a reference you can just pull up at the drop of a hat? Who the hell are you?”

“Well, I
was
a bartender—who followed politics somewhat—but I’m about to be your brother’s personal assistant, at least I will be if you can’t pull up an objection that doesn’t reek of complete bullshit. Give me
specifics
,
Lander.”

“He sleeps with his assistants, Bell.”

“Really? Your sister-in-law told me that his last assistant was a guy, so if that’s the way Travis rolls, I think I’m covered.”

“Fine, he probably didn’t sleep with the last one—”

“
Probably?
”

“
Definitely
not with the last one, but . . . Bell . . .” Again he chews his cheek, and his eyes move aimlessly around the room. “I wish you could just take my word for this.”

“I can’t,” I say dryly. He winces at my refusal, making me soften slightly. “Look, I’m taking the job . . . but I will promise you that if your brother steps out of line or does anything blatantly . . .
unethical
, or immoral, I will let you know about it.”

His eyes snap back to me.

I just offered to spy on his brother for him. He knows it; I know it. Now all that’s left is for him to take me up on it. Or not.

And his decision will tell me so very much about Lander’s relationship to the Gable family dynamics.

The restaurant noise that seemed held at bay in the background throughout our conversation now envelops our table, ringing in my ears, making me wonder how we were even able to hear each other speak only moments before.

Seconds pass, then a minute, and as the waiter takes away our plates, behind us someone’s cell phone rings the notes of Vivaldi . . .

. . . and then Lander nods and just like that, the noise of the restaurant just sort of falls away again, and my ears, my eyes, and my . . . well, my everything . . . are tuned in only to him.

“I still wish you would just walk away from this. But if you insist, then yes, you should tell me about anything . . . anything my brother does that makes you uncomfortable or makes you . . . wary.” He’s choosing his words so carefully now. It makes me smile. “I want you to be okay, and if you let me know what’s going on I can make sure of that.”

I shift in my seat as new dishes are brought back to our table. “Okay, I promise to tell you if things get weird, or even if I think they’re about to. But you have to do something for me too.”

He raises his eyebrows, digs into his fettuccine.

“I want this job to work, Lander.” I bring my voice down an octave, emphasizing my earnestness. “Assuming everything’s basically on the up-and-up, of course. But I worry . . . if your brother knows that we’re . . . well, that we
know
each other like we do, then it could make things difficult for me.”

Lander takes another sip of wine in lieu of answering.

“I just . . . I don’t want him or his wife to think of me as the woman his brother is fucking.”

“Bell.” Lander says the name softly. “It’s not like that.”

Actually, it’s
exactly
like that
, but I keep the thought to myself and wave his concern away with a flick of my hand. “I don’t want them to think of me as the woman Travis’s brother is
dating
either. I don’t want any kind of special treatment any more than I want them to look at me like I’m some little gold-digging whore.”

“Bell!”

“Just let me establish a relationship with my new employers on my own merits. If the job goes well and this”—I gesture to myself and Lander with a quick swing of my fork—“if this goes well too, then we can act like we met and started dating well after I took the job. But if the job ends or
this
”—again I gesture with my fork—“ends, then . . . I mean, why screw things up by revealing everything too soon? Why not just let it all run its natural course before we start merging things together, like work and family, too soon?”

“I’ve been merging work and family all my life,” he points out.

“Well, I haven’t, and I don’t want to start quite yet. Are you okay with that?”

Are you okay with lying to your brother and his wife?
That’s the real question. I look at him calmly as my heart pounds against my chest.
What’s the answer, Lander?

“Yes, I think we can hold off on letting them know.”

I have to stuff my mouth with fish to keep myself from grinning ear to ear.

Travis doesn’t trust his wife. Lander doesn’t trust Travis. And now Lander has just given me what I need to make sure that Travis doesn’t trust Lander either, if he ever did.

It’s the trifecta of family dysfunction.

It’s going to make it so much easier to do what I need to do.

chapter ten

B
y the time
we leave the restaurant we’ve each had a cocktail and shared the bottle of red. The streets of New York seem to have a warm, hazy glow and the honking of horns and growl of engines almost sound musical. I have to resist the urge to clap my hands in time, adding my own harmony to the city’s symphony. Lander gestures to his limo. “I’ll take you home.”

I shake my head. “Not necessary.”

“It’s no trouble.”

I look up at him, into his perfect smile, at the little crinkles that are just now beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. They make him look . . . kind.

Again there’s that stab of guilt. Of course, it’s just an illusion. The kindness, the decency . . . It’s a trick of the light, like so many other good things in this world.

I swallow the moment of weakness as I slip my arms around his neck. “It’s not necessary, because
I’m
coming home with
you
.”

The crinkles deepen as his smile expands, his hands wrapping around me, pulling me into him so I can feel my breasts push into his rib cage, his breath in my hair.

“I like you, Bell. Why is that?”

“Because we’re two of a kind, Lander.” It might be true. He hides his ruthlessness as well as I do. His is tucked inside the corners of the friendship he offers and concealed inside his sleeve like a magician’s trick. Now you see it, now you don’t.

First I’m the upright rich kid who’s a little out of his element in a dive bar, and now I’m the guy beating the shit out of a Hells Angels prick.

Now you see it, now you don’t.

I shudder in his arms. I’ve studied, practiced, and prepared for this fight. Lloyd, the PA I’m about to replace, the one who now spends his day in an orange jumpsuit picking up trash on the side of the highway, he’s part of my history now. And there are others, other men I have quietly torn apart in my journey here . . .

. . . here to this battlefield . . .

. . . here, wrapped up in Lander’s embrace.

Lander is the first worthy opponent I’ve ever engaged with. He’s the first one who has surprised me. He’s the first one who’s inspired even an ounce of guilt.

And weirdly enough, he’s also the first one who has ever made the game fun. Really,
really
fun.

“Take me home,” I say again, and he leads me to the limo.

The driver comes out to open the door for us. He meets my eyes, making me blush. Before Lander I never blushed . . . not since I was a little kid, not since I learned to breathe anger and live with pain. I raise my hand to my own cheek and feel the warmth. There’s something . . . appealing about it, thrilling.

We get in the limo, the door is closed behind us, and the noises of the city are instantly gone.

As we drive through the streets, we’re quiet, like the first time we rode in a cab together . . . Was that only yesterday? It’s hard to keep track of these things when you’ve just started a relationship with a man you’ve been studying for years. Time gets all mixed up and confused. You have to remember what you’ve been told versus what you’ve secretly learned on your own. That’s what always trips people up in the movies and on TV.

I reach over, squeeze Lander’s knee, gaze at him with wide, innocent eyes. The trick is to not overthink. To always stay in the moment. To pretend that you don’t know
anything
, that you can’t even remember what he told you an hour ago. Pretend that all you can remember and feel is the sensations he provokes, the pulsing need you have for him when he smiles with those crinkly eyes.

With Lander I don’t have to pretend too hard.

In minutes we’re at Lander’s Upper East Side home, walking past the doorman, my hand firmly in his. Moving up the elevator, not touching but for our clasped hands, but feeling each other’s presence. His hunger for me is tangible. It tickles my skin and pulls at my heart.

When we walk into his penthouse, I lead the way. I don’t bother with the living room but instead crook my finger, beckoning him to follow me into his office.

I stand in the middle of the room, turn to him, reach out my hand. “I don’t know how much time we have,” I say softly. “Maybe we’ll last a month, if we’re really lucky a year. Maybe you’ll tire of me tomorrow.”

“Bell, I won’t—”

“But I want to treat every moment like it has value,” I interrupt. “I want to make love to you in every room of your home. I know what it’s like to be pressed up against your window, the entire city at my back. It wasn’t like flying—it was more unstable than that. It was like . . . like the only thing that kept me from breaking through that glass and falling was our lust. Like passion actually kept my feet on the floor.”

“Bell,” he breathes, but this time the word is not the beginning of a promise, or an exclamation. It’s the sound of admiration, maybe even respect.

It’s the way a goddess’s name
should
be spoken.

“On your bed it was all about the luxury,” I continue. “The softness of your blankets, the grandness of the bed frame, pricey comforts. Decadence.”

He doesn’t reply. He’s worshipping me with his eyes.

He worships me. Right here, in this moment, he worships me.
Me
, the embodiment of war. What does that say about his heart?

“And now . . . now I want to make love here, where you work, where you
think
.” I step forward and slide my fingers down his arm. “I want you to enter me here,” I say, taking his hand and pressing it between my legs. He immediately begins to move his hand, making me shiver. “And I,” I continue as I run my index finger along his forehead, “I want entry into
here
.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he continues to move his hand, adding pressure, watching as I respond. Then slowly he bows his head, lowers his lips to my neck, makes a trail of warm, sensuous kisses up to my ear before whispering, “Bell, you’ve been in my head since the moment we met.”

It’s not what I meant, but it’s not a bad start. Desire and longing make men careless.

And yet right now he doesn’t seem careless at all. Not as he deliberately pulls his hand away, removes his jacket, then mine, and throws them both on the desk already covered in papers . . . papers I’ll look through later. But not now. Now all I can do is look at him.

He quietly removes my shirt and then steps back, just a little, as he runs his fingers down my bra straps.

“That’s nice.” He runs his thumb over my nipple as it hardens, his touch making me jump ever so slightly. “I like that.”

I grab the bottom of his shirt, yank it off him with considerably less grace and much more urgency. In a moment I feel my bra loosening, then falling to the floor, right as I move into him, pressing my bare flesh against his, feeling the competing drumbeats of our hearts. His lips press against mine again, making my whole body warm and vibrant. My jeans loosen around my waist, and as his lips move back to my neck and then to my shoulder, my jeans are pushed down inch by inch until I finally bend over to pull them off. Again he sweeps me off my feet and into his arms, but instead of bringing me to the bedroom, he lowers me onto the black leather sofa. And there he is, by my side, on one knee, his fingers looped into the waistband of my panties. With the perfect precision that I’ve come to associate with him, he pulls them off slowly, their motion both scratching and caressing my skin.

And when they’re off, he just stares at me.

“If you don’t run away from me, if this is more than a moment, then one day I want you to pose like this, for a painter. I want a master to paint you, as you lie here, naked, on my furniture. I want him to paint you when you’re exactly as you are now, all sex and longing, aching for release.”

“And what would be done with this painting?” I breathe.

“It would hang in the best gallery in New York . . . or perhaps it would be presented at Christie’s . . . and men would bid for the right to hang you on their wall. They’d bid and compete for you, because they would never have seen anything so beautiful in their lives.”

“You want my image to hang on some rich man’s wall for everyone to leer at?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t leer, warrior. They’d admire you, like I do. You’re a work of art. You’re everything that’s beautiful about eroticism.”

His words border on insanity. He doesn’t know me . . .

. . . does he?

Does he know who I am? Am I being made a fool of?

But then, I’m not the only one whose desire is exposed here. I can see that even now. I reach my hand out, touch his pants where the fabric is now pulled taut. Slowly I raise my arms above my head, naked but no longer trembling, no longer hesitant.

His hand caresses me, from my breast, down my leg again, and then he bends down, kisses my stomach and navel, then my hip. I feel his tongue flick against my inner thigh and then he blows gently on that one spot, making my skin feel cool and alive. He continues to nip and tease until finally I feel his tongue against my very core, circling my clit. I begin to writhe against the sofa, the leather gently pulling at my skin as he increases the pressure, his tongue just a little more demanding, pressing flat against my clit now, making me moan. And it’s then that I feel his finger press inside me. I suck in a sharp breath as his index finger makes a circle inside my walls and his tongue circles in reverse around my clit . . .

And when the second finger enters me, the world explodes. My nails scratch at the leather as I search for something to hold on to, something external to stabilize me as I lose all sense of control.

But there is no stability, not right now, not anymore. All I have is this fiery, unpredictable passion for Lander. When he raises himself up, pulls off his jeans, it’s all I can do to keep from tearing into him, throwing him on the floor and mounting him.

He steps away, but I grab his hand, easily reading his unspoken intentions. “I’m on the pill; you don’t need a condom.”

He looks at me questioningly. But I smile, squeeze his hand. “It’s okay,” I say again. “I want to feel you, the real you.” He takes a step closer, strokes my cheek, lowers himself over me slowly, hesitantly. “Now, Lander,” I whisper. “I want you inside me now.”

It’s as if my whisper has sparked a wildfire. Immediately he enters me forcefully, pressing deep inside me as I arch my back and clutch his shoulders, feeling his skin against mine. Nothing’s keeping us apart. Nothing’s dividing us. I kiss his neck, my hands sliding down his back as he puts my leg over his shoulder and thrusts even deeper.

“You feel . . . perfect, this is perfect,” he breathes, lowering his mouth to mine. I respond by gently biting his lower lip, letting him know that given the chance I would devour him.

He pulls my other leg up so they are now both hovering over my head and again he thrusts inside of me, even deeper now than before, the friction driving me wild, making me cry out.

In this moment there is no plan. There is no revenge.

There’s just Lander.

And as he thrusts again, his eyes penetrating me with an equivalent force, I realize that in this moment that’s all I want.

I don’t even blush as I call out his name; I react with unadulterated pleasure when he calls out mine. I feel him pulsing inside me as he comes.

As he eases away, bringing my legs down to the leather, his breathing uneven and labored, I whisper his name again. “Lander.” My eyes slide away, almost too tired to focus, my body spent. His jacket is on the floor now, having fallen at some point during our revelry. Peeking out of one pocket is the drawing of the biker . . . along with another drawing.

It’s a drawing of me.