Executive Perks (15 page)

She was going to get the “no” out. She was. Any second. They both knew it, which might have been why he quickly unzipped his pants and freed himself, taking his bare cock in hand to rub it against her belly, skin to skin. She remembered this from last night. The feel of him, huge and hard. When he led her hand to him, as he had before, she could feel the burning heat of him as he wrapped her hand around his throbbing cock. God, it was so hot.

And so big, she could barely encircle it. But she tried, squeezing lightly, getting a gasp out of him.

“Go on. Jerk me off,” he muttered, making her stroke him harder, and she felt a drop of pre-cum along the head of him.

No meant no. He knew it and she knew it.

So she didn’t say it. She tugged the rigid, hot length of his cock harder, looking at his face, flushed, watching her handle him. His hands fell away, leaving her in charge. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine him thrusting right up into her.

“Kiss me,” he demanded through his teeth, squeezing her shoulders. At her hesitation, he said, “Just a kiss.”

And the hand job, it went without saying.

But at his low, excited tone, she considered it. “I’m still not going to sleep with you,” she murmured, closing the distance between their lips. She ran her tongue along his full lower lip.

“Yeah, I got that part.”

He waited for her to come to him and when she did, pumping him still, she played with his tongue and pulled his head closer with the hand that wasn’t tending to him.

The groan he emitted into her mouth was a fraction of a second before she felt the warm gush of liquid in her hand.

Wow. For the first time, as he shuddered, she felt as if she had the upper hand with Winston.

But quickly, he pulled away from her, turning his back and adjusting. “Good. Thanks. Now we’ve got some closure and we’re even. You came once. I came once. Fine.”

She washed her hands before she grabbed her robe.

* * * * *

Brendan glanced around the empty foyer of Bransport. There were a hell of a lot of cars still outside, but where was everybody? He recognized Missy’s little sports coup and a few of the junkers were most likely her friends’, but who belonged to that fine green Jaguar?

He flipped his keys on one of the side tables and headed upstairs. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before for a lot of reasons, some good, some bad. The sex with Linda was the good part. Her constant chattering was the bad. By the time he’d managed to get her out of his apartment and into a cab this morning, his ears had been ringing.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he heard somebody out on the courts. Excellent. He could use a little exercise—that didn’t involve his cock, that is. Virginia’s bedroom door opened. Funny, he hadn’t seen her car.

He started to laugh as he saw a figure coming out of her room. Jesus, did Virginia have a guy up here?

Would wonders never cease?

At the recognition of who it was, though, Brendan stopped dead.

What the hell was Winston doing here?

Virginia held the flaps of her robe together, standing at the bedroom door, her mouth a tight line, not making eye contact with Winston. Her hair looked damp and the front of Winston’s clothes was wet. “I think you’d better just leave. We shouldn’t have anything to do with each other.”

“Fine with me, but don’t forget I still own a chunk of your little company. If you thought I was hard to deal with before, just watch. “

“I knew I could always count on you to take the high road,” she muttered.

Winston swept past her into the hall and said casually, “Fuck your high road, lady. You aren’t on it anyway. I’ve never met such a deliberate cock-tease.”

Brendan heard what Winston called his sister and the scene all made some kind of crazy sense.

The fucking bastard. He’d kill him.

Winston glanced up and saw him, looking surprised and then actually gratified. “What is this?” he taunted. “A family affair? Some kind of a brother and sister act? Virginia teases the fuck out of me and then I get the pleasure of beating you to a pulp? But do you think maybe we could get the other sister up here afterwards for me to fuck? I bet at least she really puts out. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, isn’t that one a twin? It’s been a long time since I had twins.”

His fist hit Winston smack in the jaw, a trickle of blood running down from the jerk’s lip and staining the collar of the white polo shirt. Winston laughed, as if that had amused him, although it clearly must have hurt, and then charged, punching him viciously first in the stomach and then, as he crumpled over, in the face.

Virginia rushed over. “Stop it!” she cried, looking up at Winston, who was bloody, but smiling. “Get out of this house!” she screamed at him.

Winston cradled his punching fist in his other hand, kneading it. “I was just leaving. See you at the stockholders’ meeting, guys.” As he headed down the stairs, he passed Missy, who gasped at the blood on his face and shirt, and informed her airily, “Tell pretty-boy up there that I’ll be sure to have these clothes cleaned and sent back to him.” And then he was out the door without a backward glance.

Missy rushed up the stairs. “What’s going on here?” she demanded, as she followed them. “What happened with Aaron?”

“That bastard,” Brendan got out between his bloodied teeth, as he moved into the gleaming metallic bathroom of his suite, Virginia and now Missy hovering behind him. He turned on the hot water and began to splash his face.

“Brendan!” Missy squealed impatiently. “What happened?”

“I defended your honor, that’s what!” Brendan shouted at her, a little ironically, and Virginia smiled slightly.

“My honor!” Missy exclaimed. “Don’t be ridiculous! He didn’t lay a finger on me!”

“I don’t think Virginia can say the same thing,” Brendan muttered from behind the towel he had grabbed to wipe off the blood, directing Missy’s attention to Virginia’s rumpled state, her robe knotted hastily at the waist. “Besides, Winston had a few choice things to say about you, too.”

Surveying Virginia with concern, Missy asked hesitantly, “What? Winston attacked you or something?”

Virginia’s cheeks went red and she was very conscious of them waiting for her answer, especially Brendan, who had heard what Winston had called her. She guessed she owed her siblings the truth. “I got drunk and made a pass at him last night and out of some weird chivalrous impulse he just took me home. He showed up here today expecting a reward for his good behavior.”

“What an arrogant bastard!” Brendan muttered.

“I don’t know,” Missy said. “I think it was kind of sweet of him.”

“Not when he attacks Virginia for saying no!”

“He didn’t attack me, Brendan.” She left it at that. No need to mention the bath or the hand job or the rest of this mixed up, crazy tableau.

“Why don’t you just go out with him?” There was that logical streak in Missy again.

“Maybe because he said he wants to take over our company.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that, Missy. I don’t know what got into me last night. I think the pressure has been a little too intense lately.” She didn’t even want to think about what Winston had suggested. She knew it wasn’t someone in her family, but could there possibly be anyone else out there who hated her enough to do something like that to her?

Besides Winston, of course.

“Who are you dating?” Missy asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just like I thought. Nobody.”

“Never mind that. But I hope that in view
of what’s happened, you’ve
reconsidered any plans you might have had to start seeing Winston?” She waited anxiously for Missy’s response, fearing that her sister could go in the opposite direction, finding this all somehow romantic and thinking of herself as a star-crossed lover and Winston as the dashing man her family had forbidden her from seeing. Because from what Winston had said, it was clear he would sleep with Missy if given
the chance, probably even
more so now in light of the day’s events.

To Virginia’s relief, Missy cast a dubious eye on her brother and said, “Well, I can’t have Brendan going around getting beaten up defending my honor, now, can I?”

Virginia laughed, hugging her little sister, and Brendan insisted grumpily, “Hey, he got as good as he gave, believe me.”

“Besides,” Missy went on. “I wouldn’t stoop to going after a guy who had a thing for my sister.”

Chapter Five

Aaron stormed out the front door and headed to his car, pissed as hell. The force with which he slammed the Jaguar door after he slid into the front seat tested the sturdiness of the luxury car’s engineering. He fumbled in his pants pocket for the keys, pulled them out and jammed the appropriate one into the ignition. Before turning it, though, he rested his head on the steering wheel. Just for a minute. He needed just a minute. Then he’d get the hell away from Virginia Beckett and her whole damn blue-blooded family.

His fist was aching and he was dripping blood from his nose onto the polished teak wood of the steering wheel. What a fucking joke.

If he was honest with himself, Virginia Beckett wasn’t the only one he was mad at. He wasn’t too crazy about his own role in this whole fiasco. Face it. Despite all his success, he had somehow just reverted to the insecure street-fighting foster child. And he didn’t like that feeling. Christ, he’d practically begged her for a hand job, something he hadn’t done since…well, probably had never done, and then he’d punched out her brother. How juvenile was that?

But when she refused to sleep with him, yet again, even though he knew she was attracted to him, he’d felt just like that kid with his nose pressed against the window again, wanting something—whether it was family or wealth or status—that he could never have.

He wasn’t good enough.

Christ, maybe he should see a shrink, which was an even more depressing thought.

The smell of smoke prompted him to lift his head. He took a deep breath. There it was again. And his window wasn’t even open. They were probably having some kind of idyllic autumn bonfire. He looked around for the source of the smell and saw it. That was no bonfire.

Oh shit.

He should just drive on out of here. Or at least call 911 and then drive on out of here. Let the professionals take care of this.

His hand went to the key in the ignition.

Of course it was awfully close to the main house. And who knew how far away fire trucks were in the boonies like this.

With a sigh, his hand fell away from the key, and he got out of the car and trudged back to the doorway, noting disgustedly that it was unlocked. In the Becketts’ rarified world, people apparently did not break into houses.

Or set fires.

He opened the door.

* * * * *

“Hey, you people got a fire extinguisher?”

Brendan, Missy and Virginia traded incredulous looks at the voice shouted down the hall at them.

“Jesus,” Brendan said. “Is the bastard torching the place?” He threw down his towel and raced out, Virginia and Missy right behind him.

And there was Aaron Winston on the landing at the top of the stairs, glaring at them.

“What did you do?” Brendan shouted.

“Your shack or greenhouse or whatever the hell that structure is connected by some kind of glass tunnel to the house is on fire.”

“What?” Virginia ran to look out the hallway window in that direction. The leaping orange and yellow flames testified to a many alarmed blaze that must have been going on for quite some time, too long for Aaron Winston to have set it, though probably not even Brendan would have believed he had. A corporate titan probably would get kicked off the stock exchange for that kind of thing.

“Oh my God!”

Virginia didn’t know if it was Missy or herself who’d cried that, but she said quickly to her sister, “Call 911.”

She dashed into her room to throw on jeans and a shirt and then rushed downstairs to locate the fire extinguisher in the butler’s pantry.

She found it and ran out outside madly toward the greenhouse, which was now almost white with fire. Somebody grabbed the extinguisher from her hands and she saw it was Winston. He directed it toward the blaze while Brendan aimed the garden hose full force into the fire as well. The combined force of their efforts wasn’t going to be enough, given the stage the fire had gotten to.

Winston repeated the sentiment over the sound of the fire and water. “How far is the nearest fire station?” he shouted to Brendan.

“Not sure. A few minutes at least.”

“Let’s hope they don’t take long or you’re going to see this reach the house no matter what we do. Is there anybody still in that part of the house?” Winston pointed toward the wing closest to the fire.

“No, that’s the servants’ quarters,” Brendan answered, both of them still shouting as they aimed their respective implements at the flames, dimming the inferno only slightly. “The servants usually vacate the house on the weekends if the family is in.”

Winston arched one black eyebrow. “Isn’t the point of servants to be around to, ah, serve?”

“We have a skeleton staff on most of the time to take care of the house year-round, but when we’re here we don’t need anybody waiting on us. We can put our own dishes in the dishwasher.” Brendan unexpectedly grinned at Winston and Virginia was relieved to see a ghost of a smile in response on the other man’s face.