Her Man Friday (45 page)

The touch encouraged him, because the hand hovering at the lace of her camisole dipped down over the garment, and he covered her breast with sure fingers, nudging the soft fabric back and forth over her already sensitized flesh. His other hand joined the first, cupping her, palming her, owning her, until Lily felt her knees going weak. He must have sensed her infirmity, because he suddenly scooped her into his arms and carried her over to the leather sofa.

He lay her down and covered her body with his, pushing her camisole up as he came, fastening his mouth to her breast without warning, and with a hunger unlike any she'd known a person could feel. It was as if he were trying to inhale her, sucking her deep into his mouth, laving her with the flat of his tongue, teasing her with the tip, before mouthing her completely again. Lily tangled her fingers in his hair, gasped at the fever of sensation that rocked her, and silently begged him for more.

She felt his fingers at the waistband of her tap pants, and then, suddenly, the soft kid leather of the sofa beneath her bare bottom. Without slowing his assault on her breast, Leo pressed his fingers into her naked thigh, urging her legs apart. Willingly, she allowed him the access he demanded. So he dragged his open mouth down her torso and flat belly, nuzzling the dark curls between her legs before dipping his head lower to taste her more intimately, more thoroughly. The fingers she had wound in his hair flexed tighter, and interpreting her action as a demand for more—which, indeed, it was—he buried his mouth against her.

Oh. It was so…
oh
.

Over and over again he devoured her, suckling, laving, plowing with his tongue. He cupped her bottom in both hands to push her higher, to facilitate his onslaught and drink his fill of her. A tight coil inside Lily wound tighter still, until she feared it would implode into a billion flaming pieces. Then, slowly, that coil began to unwind. Wider and wider, faster and faster, until she was insensate to anything but a white-hot explosion of unmitigated joy. Wave after wave pummeled her, until she could scarcely breathe, could scarcely think, could scarcely feel.

When she finally did catch her breath, if not her thoughts, she opened her eyes to find Leo positioned above her, grinning with much satisfaction, something she found odd seeing as how she had been the recipient of such utter bliss. He had shed his shirt, but still wore his trousers, and instinctively, she reached for the fastening at his waist.

"Now," she managed to gasp. "I want you inside me now."

"That may cause some problems," he said. But in direct contrast to his statement, his voice held surprisingly little concern.

Which was really neither here nor there, because Lily wasn't listening anyway. She was too busy cursing the inventor of the zipper, and the manufacturers who couldn't make it unzip at the speed of light. Once it
was
free, however, she shoved both of her hands inside his trousers, filling her fingers with him, stroking him, rubbing him, until he was ripe and erect. He growled something unintelligible under his suddenly ragged breath but didn't discourage her actions. Not until she curled her fingers around that most sensitive part of him with loving possession. And then he jerked backward. Fast.

"Lily," he tried again. "Did you hear me? I said me being inside you right now could cause problems. I didn't exactly come prepared for a party tonight. If you know what I mean."

So muzzy-headed was she, thanks to his skillful, savage, loving, that she had no idea what he was talking about. Nor did she honestly care.

And he finally seemed to realize that, because he told her flat out, "I don't have a condom."

"I don't care," she told him right back, voicing her thoughts out loud.

"I do," he said adamantly.

That sobered her for a moment, because, quite simply, she wasn't sure how to interpret it. But since tonight was a night of revelation and truth-telling, she decided she might as well go for broke. "Leo," she said, "I want to marry you."

He smiled, then lifted a hand to her damp forehead and swept her hair back from her face. "Good. That'll work out well. Because as luck would have it, I want to marry you, too, Lily."

A great weight that had settled in her stomach, a weight she had scarcely acknowledged before, dissolved then. In its place burst a bubble of delight that tingled and traveled to fill every empty place inside her. "Ah, that's, um… that's good. You're right. This will work out very nicely indeed."

He kissed her briefly, almost chastely, then pulled back. "And someday," he added, "I want to have children with you. But not yet," he went on when she opened her mouth to say more. "I'm selfish, and I want to have you to myself for a while, and you have a lot of work to do with Kimball Technologies. We have years ahead of us to make babies, Lily. But right now, all I want is you."

She drew her hand along the length of him, slowly, seductively, and he hissed out his satisfaction at the touch. "But you didn't—" she objected.

"Oh, believe me, I've had a very nice time tonight," he told her. "And it's not over yet. In fact, with your hands in my pants that way, I think we could come up with one or two ways to take care of my… condition."

Lily nodded. "Or three or four. I'd like to try a variety of different things. I'm kind of funny mat way."

Leo nodded, too. "I like variety. Variety is good. We can do variety. Over and over again, if you want."

"I want," she told him.

"Well then, Miss Rigby," he said as he lowered his head to hers once again, "I'm your man. It looks like we have a full night—and a full life—ahead of us."

"Order! Order, please, ladies and gentlemen. We have a lot to cover today."

Leo smiled as he watched Lily from where he stood unobserved at the entrance to the boardroom of Kimball-Rigby Technologies, Inc. The company had moved into its new—and much less ostentatious—digs last spring, and he had to admit that he liked the new environment much better. The boardroom was surrounded on two sides by windows that offered a spectacular view of the Philadelphia skyline beyond, and sunlight poured into the room to brighten every last inch of the place. Plants hugged every windowsili, and the soft pastels of the walls and carpet were very soothing, and not a little feminine. It was vastly different—and vastly improved—over the last boardroom Kimball Technologies had claimed.

Seated at the head of the table, surrounded by her board of directors, Lily looked like exactly what she was—the leading businesswoman in the country, and the CEO of a corporation known for its cutting edge technology and its limitless philanthropy. This year alone, she'd been featured in
Forbes, Inc., Working Woman, Cosmopolitan
, and
Cigar Aficionado
magazines—that last one still bugged the hell out of Cohiba Man—and she had made appearances at dinners for the United Way, Planned Parenthood, and NOW. She was, as he had always known, a force to be reckoned with. It was something a few of her directors—the male ones—still didn't quite get.

"Denise," she said to the woman seated next to her, the one Leo had come to think of as Silk Woman, "how are we coming on the Denby acquisition?"

"Moving right along, Lily," she said. "Smooth as silk."

"Excellent," Lily replied. "Angela?" she added for the benefit of the next woman down the line, the one seated between Halston Man and Versace Man, whom Leo had dubbed, for reasons that were obvious, Mousse Woman. "What's up with Richard Steiner? Is he coming around?"

"He will," Mousse Woman said with conviction, touching a finger to her permanent wave—but not too hard. "Don't you worry about a thing."

Versace Man and Halston Man looked a bit miffed for some reason, but kept their comments to themselves. Leo shook his head and bit back his laughter. Lily sure had shaken things up in the last five years. Sure there had been some problems in the beginning, after she and Schuyler had gone public with their arrangement. The billionaire had put Lily firmly in charge of the company, so that he could focus on all the research and development that he'd always enjoyed most. A lot of the old boy network hadn't liked that much. But Lily and Schuyler had stood firm, and they had stayed a team.

A very effective team, too, not surprisingly. Because it hadn't taken them long to recover from the brief downturn the company had initially suffered. And now that she was unhampered in her position, Lily was able to function in a way that outpaced even her earlier performance. The company was growing by leaps and bounds. And nothing would stop them now.

A cry of dissension erupted then, something that turned every head at the big table in Leo's direction. Leo himself scarcely noticed, however, because he bent down over the stroller beside him and picked up a blue-flanneled, three-month-old Andrew, rocking him gently to quiet him. But Andrew would have none of it, clearly had something else on his mind, so Leo shrugged and threw Lily a resigned look.

"Oh, bring my sweet baby boy over here," she cooed, reaching for the top button of her high-powered executive blouse.

On her other side, Cohiba Man blustered and coughed and started to object.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Look, Cyrus, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times. That breastfeeding policy
stays
. You do
not
want to challenge me on this."

As quickly as he had started to object, Cohiba Man settled down. He reached inside his jacket and lifted his cigar to his mouth, then, obviously not thinking clearly, reached back once more for a lighter.

"And that no-smoking policy holds, as well," Lily told him.

He opened his mouth to protest again, but she narrowed her eyes at him fiercely. "There's an opening in the Abu Dhabi office that I need to fill," she reminded him.

He shut his mouth, then shoved the unlit cigar into his pocket with his lighter.

Leo chuckled again as he carried little Andrew to Lily for his lunchtime feeding, but no sooner had he placed the baby in her arms than another hungry cry erupted from the stroller. Figures, he thought. Julia always had to have 'whatever her twin brother was having. He retraced his steps to the stroller and extracted the other baby, then glanced down at his watch.

"Look, Lily, I have to be in Haddonfield in thirty minutes to meet with the carpenters," he told her. "Can I leave the twins with you for the afternoon? Schuyler and Caroline and the baby have already left to go visit Chloe at Juilliard. And don't forget—the New York Symphony is performing her piece at the Met this weekend. I want to be out of Philadelphia early Friday morning to be sure we get there in time."

Lily nodded as she gazed down with undisguised and unadulterated love at the tiny boy nestled to her breast. "No problem. Let Marvin take Julia for a few minutes. He's great with her."

Leo surrendered his daughter to Charlton Heston Man, who cuddled the little baby in his arms and, in that voice of God, stated quite adamantly, "Cootchie. Cootchie. Coo."

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" said Thesaurus Man beside him. "Delicate. Well-favored. Bonny."

"Just like her mother," Leo agreed, adding to himself,
strong, commanding, smart
.

Yeah, things had worked out pretty well, all things said and done, he thought. Life didn't get much better than this. He moved to stand behind Lily, ostensibly to give her a quick kiss goodbye.

But as he leaned forward, he couldn't help whispering a few choice, and very erotic, promises into her ear. She chuckled low as she nodded and murmured a single word in response. "Tonight."

So Leo brushed his lips over her cheek one final time, and bid her a very reluctant goodbye. And as he left the boardroom, he heard the newest board member, the one who'd begun working just this week, Scarf Woman, ask, "So that was Lily's Mr. Rigby, huh? Very cute."

He halted just outside the door, to see what the response would be. "No, no," he heard Silk woman pipe up, her voice laced with good humor. "That was her man Friday."

Smiling to himself as he headed out, Leo conceded that that was certainly true.

Dear Reader,

If you love westerns the way that I love westerns, then you won't want to miss Connie Mason's latest love story,
To Tempt a Rogue
. When Ryan Delaney—the third Delaney brother—leaves the family ranch on what he hopes will be a great adventure, he never expects to get mixed up with Kitty Johnson. Is Kitty really running from the law, or is this a case of mistaken identity? And as passion flares between them, Ryan must determine if he's thinking with his head… or his heart.