Holiday Treasure (Billionaire Bachelors - Book 10) (17 page)

Chapter Thirty

T
anner signed the
last of the documents and sat back with a genuine smile. He knew he was doing the right thing, because he felt good about himself. The last time he could remember feeling like this was when…hell, he couldn’t remember having this feeling before.

“Sir, it’s time to head out to the news conference.”

“I’ll be leaving in a moment,” he told his secretary. He handed her the sheaf of papers and stood up.

He whistled as he made his way to the elevators and rode downstairs. With luck, he would be seeing Kyla today. He in no way expected her to give in easily, but wasn’t that part of the fun in all of this?

For the first time in his life, he was enjoying the chase, enjoying that there was a woman out there who wasn’t afraid to tell him what she really thought. And he wanted to be with this woman, not just for a night of passion, or ten nights of passion for that matter, but for the kind of time that ended after forever.

He slipped into the backseat of the waiting car along with his assistant and thought of only one thing as the driver wove through the heavy Seattle traffic — seeing her again. If all went well, he’d soon have her in his arms. He couldn’t expect it too quickly, of course. It certainly wouldn’t happen tonight. But he’d stick with his pursuit of her for as long as it took. She was worth it.

A crowd was waiting in front of the apartment building as he emerged from the car. Reporters were asking questions; cameras flashed. He smiled, waved and continued forward, stepping up on the podium that had been set up for this event.

Tanner waited for the crowd to quiet down, and then he spoke. “When I received this building from my father, I didn’t look at it — really look at it. I just saw dollar signs, with an old building standing in my way. I didn’t look at the architecture, at the historic value. But a woman who lives here helped me to see it through new eyes. That is why I have decided to renovate this beautiful piece of history in a city that I’ve come to love. The project will take two years to complete, but when we are finished, this apartment building will stand proud, regaining all her former glory. And I’ll be proud, too. The residents who live here will have a home as long as they want, and we will keep the costs down for those who move in when we’re finished fixing the place up. I want to thank my father, a very wise man, for showing me that the bottom line isn’t what counts above everything else, but that having justifiable pride in oneself is just as important — in fact, more important. He believed that the restoration of this building would remind me of who I am. And he was right.”

“Mr. Storm! Mr. Storm!” Hands shot up as every one of the reporters tried to get his attention.

“Yes?” he said, pointing to a freckle-faced young reporter, a young Jimmy Olsen who seemed ecstatic to be the first one picked.

“Who is the woman? Could there be a romance involved?”

Tanner was quiet for a moment. He smiled and looked out into the crowd and locked eyes with Kyla. Oh yes, there was a romance, at least if he had anything to say about it.

“I sure hope so,” he said, a huge grin splitting his face, and a gasp surged through the crowd. The reporters shouted out more and more questions, but Tanner tuned them all out and let Randy handle things. He only had eyes for one person right now and she was giving him an assessing look. He could see that she didn’t trust him, was leery of his motives. But he’d expected that. He was here to show her that his intentions were pure.

After the reporters had what they needed, he stepped down and shook hands, searching for any sign of Kyla. She was apparently long gone, but that was all right with him. He would be here a lot over the next several months. Tanner had decided to don his construction hat and work on the building himself, along with the prestigious firm he’d hired for the project. If Crew could do this kind of thing, he most certainly could, too.

Chapter Thirty-One

T
wo weeks dragged
by, and though Tanner spotted Kyla often, she always walked past him without a word. A few times, he’d seen the way some of the crew checked her out; after a stern look from him, they’d soon backed off. He had no trouble at all with letting them know she was off limits. Even if she didn’t know it yet, she was his and he wasn’t letting her go.

It hit him like a flash flood one afternoon when he was up on a ladder and she went by him in the hall. It was like a picture show in his mind — the two of them laughing in her kitchen, holding each other on the couch, her falling asleep in his arms… He’d tumbled headfirst into love with this woman, this beautiful, tragic, compelling woman.

Everything he was doing was because she’d changed forever the way he thought about his life. She’d changed his thinking for the better. What the…?
It’s a Wonderful Life
was turning into his reality.

Now, he just had to persuade her to give him another chance, to let him love her. No, he had no idea how the hell he was going to manage to do that. But with new determination, he climbed down the ladder, set down his hammer, walked to her door, and pounded on it.

“Open up, Kyla,” he yelled through her door. “I have something to say and I refuse to leave until you hear me out.” He didn’t even even notice that the noise in the hall had stopped as his workers unabashedly listened in as their boss prepared to play the lovesick fool.

“Go away, Tanner. We have nothing to say to each other.”

“Dammit, if you don’t open this door, then I’m going to shout it all out for the neighbors to hear!”

“There are children here, Mr. Storm. You watch your language.”

Tanner turned to find one of the neighbors’ doors open and an older woman glaring daggers at him. But he didn’t care who listened in. He wasn’t leaving until he got what he had to say off his chest. Hell, he wasn’t leaving without carrying Kyla away in his arms.

Considering he’d lied to her and had wanted only to use her for her body, then walked away as if she meant nothing, he figured he had to perform some penance. Maybe more than a little. But whatever it took, he would do it, even if that meant groveling.

“Granted, I didn’t tell you who I was. I lied by omission, Kyla, and I admit I wanted to get you into my bed more than anything else. I was selfish, shortsighted, and a complete idiot. It took spending three or four of the most meaningful weeks of my life with you to realize how foolishly I was behaving. I should have never left you on Christmas. I should have waited on your doorstep and then held you all night as you let out your grief. I’m begging you to give me another chance to do just that.”

“Tanner…you have to stop this,” she said, sounding choked up, sounding…hopeful?

Was he actually getting through to her?

“Please, just let me prove to you that I’m a new man. I know some men say they will change when they have zero intention of doing so, but I
have
changed. I’m a better man for knowing you, and I want to prove to you every single day how much I care — how much I love you. I do, Kyla Ridgley. I love you so much, my heart is bursting.”

The onlookers gave out a muted
awww
.

But Kyla’s door stayed shut, although he kept staring at it, willing it to open.

“Please, just open the door, Kyla. Look into my eyes. You’ll see that I’m telling the truth!”

“You’re making a fool of yourself, young man,” said the woman down the hall. But the look she now gave him was far less harsh than the one she’d treated him to before. She seemed almost sympathetic to his plight.

That hurt, he had to admit. He knew things were bad when he was getting pitying looks from elderly women.

Finally, just when he thought he was going to have to pitch a tent outside Kyla’s door, he heard her undoing the locks and sliding the chain away. Then she was standing before him, looking even more beautiful than ever, with her hair in a ponytail, and wearing a tight red sweater and a pair of fitted jeans that showed off the perfect flare of her hips.

Tears were shining in her eyes as she gazed into his. He could see myriad emotions crossing her features, as if she were hoping he spoke the truth, but didn’t trust herself to be a good judge of his character.

“I’m such a fool, Kyla. But I’m a man who will only make a mistake once before I’ve learned my lesson. I know we haven’t had a lot of time together, and I know it all seems like it moved too fast, but since I’ve been away from you, you’re all I think about. I can’t concentrate on work; I can hardly sleep, or eat. I’m just surviving, not living. I need you as a part of my life — a permanent part of my life. I won’t terrify you by asking you to be my wife…at least not today…but I am asking for a chance, a real chance for us to know each other. I love you, Kyla. I’ve never before said that to a woman.”

“Oh, Tanner, I…I don’t know. My first instinct is to throw my arms around you and say yes, but this is too fast. We don’t know each other. We spent less than a month together and…” She dropped her voice briefly to a whisper. “We made love only twice. I want to believe this is real, but things like this don’t happen to somebody like me. You’re a man who has the world in the palm of his hand. I’m just a lost girl, someone who’s pretty much alone in this world, and I have nothing to bring to the relationship,” she said, hugging herself tightly.

“How can you say that? You are
everything
, Kyla. You’re strong and beautiful, funny and caring. You have a heart of gold. Though you’ve been dealt some difficult cards in life, that doesn’t define who you are; it only shows how much strength you actually have. I fell in love with you because of your strength and your goodness and…everything about you. Please let me prove to you how much.” He reached out and gently pried her arms away from her body so he could take her hands into his.

“I…I stopped believing in love when I lost my family,” she said, the pain so clear in her eyes that he felt it to his very soul.

“Then let me show you how to love again.”

She allowed him to fold her into his arms, and she rested her head against his chest and sobbed. A flood of emotions she’d been holding in for so long broke free, and he was strong enough to carry her through.

“Please just let me love you, Kyla. I promise to cherish you, promise to help you carry the burden you’ve been carrying alone for too long.”

“I love you too, Tanner. I don’t know when or how, but I’ve missed you, missed your smile and your jokes, missed the way I felt when I was with you. The pain faded, hid away for a while when I was with you. I think I felt guilty about that, felt as if it were wrong for me to keep living my life, to be happy when the rest of my family couldn’t be here to experience such wonderful emotions. I know now that’s not what they would want. I know they’d want me to be happy.”

“Yes, they would,” he said, and leaned down and captured her lips.

As he kissed her, his heart flooding with love, he suddenly noticed the clapping. Lifting his head, he looked around and saw the hall filled with people who had just witnessed his groveling. But he didn’t even care. The old Tanner would have, but he was a new man. Hadn’t he said that much to the world?

“Congratulations, sonny,” the nosy neighbor said, then went back into her apartment now that the show was over.

The construction workers didn’t move.

“Get back to work,” Tanner told them, trying to sound stern, but not able to pull it off, since he couldn’t get the goofy grin from his face.

“Let’s have some privacy,” Kyla said, pulling away and holding out her hand for him to take.

She didn’t have to tell him twice.

The two entered her apartment, and he couldn’t believe how nervous he was. He couldn’t mess this up now that she’d finally let him in.

“I don’t want you to think this is about sex, but I want you so badly,” he said, unable to quit running his hands up and down her back.

“It’s definitely about sex. I want you too, Tanner,” she admitted, then pressed up against him and kissed him with a hunger that could only match his.

Lifting her up into his arms, he carried her to her room and stood her in front of her bed, slowly taking off each piece of her clothing, his fingers shaking as he bared her body to his enraptured eyes. After laying her gently on the covers, he yanked off his own clothes without taking his eyes from her.

Then he climbed up on top her, lying between the perfect heat of her thighs, and he kissed her again, enjoying the slow tangling of their tongues as they reacquainted themselves with each other.

He moved his head down her neck, sucking her skin and rejoicing in her taste. After skimming his lips across the tender mounds of her breasts, he proceeded to her stomach, enjoying the quiver in her belly while rested his chest against her core.

Lightly, he kissed her stomach while he caressed her sides and arms, her skin a perfect silk beneath his rough hands. Bringing his arms beneath her, he lifted her up and moved lower, cherishing this moment.

She pushed up against him, her body knowing exactly what it needed, and slowly, inch by mesmerizing inch, he approached her very center, letting his tongue trace the sexy bone of her hip and then going to where her heat was calling him.

The quiet moan escaping her throat floated around him and made his body throb with even greater need. He pressed his lips downward, then fluttered kisses on the soft folds of her womanhood.

Lifting one of her legs, he placed it on his shoulder, opening her fully up to him so he could gaze at her perfection before leaning down and tasting her again, exciting her, building her pleasure to nearly unbearable levels.

Unable to take it slow any longer, he kissed her heat intimately, worshipping her beautiful folds with his hot tongue and making her cry out when he sucked her swollen bud into his mouth and swiped his tongue across it.

“Tanner, please take me,” she gasped out, and though he wanted to sink within her, he also wanted to keep drinking her in, feeling her, making her burn.

His arousal pulsed with incredible need, and he reached down and gripped it, trying to ease the ache. It didn’t help. It had been too long since he’d been inside her, and his body remembered all too well how good she felt.

But Tanner continued to tease her, at first slowly, and then with growing speed, kissing, licking and sucking her tender flesh until he felt her tense, felt her body find the release he’d been taking his sweet time building for her.

When he slipped his finger inside her, the walls of her womanhood pulsed around him, and her wet heat showed him she wanted more, needed to have him inside of her.

When the last of her tremors died down, he let his tongue caress her core one last time, enjoying that her taste had become even more exquisite than before, and her hips pushed upward, seeking him.

“Please, Tanner,” she begged.

He thought he wasn’t going to deny the two of them any longer. But as he kissed his way back up her flawless body, he had to stop at her hardened peaks and suck each into his mouth while holding the other one, his fingers pinching and teasing, making her gasp and pant and moan.

Finally, their bodies were lined up, his arousal pressed against her, and he looked down into her eyes, feeling that he could get lost there forever, feeling that he was finally home.

“I love you, Kyla, love you more than I ever imagined anyone could love. I know I said I wouldn’t bring up marriage, I know I said this was too soon, but when you know something is right, you just know. I want you to be my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life with you — making love, laughing, crying, learning and growing. I never want to spend another night without you. Please let me have you forever.”

Kyla’s eyes widened. “It’s too soon,” she said, though there was no conviction in her voice.

“Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Just tell me what you want,” he said, pushing forward the slightest bit, connecting their bodies together, but just barely.

“I want you,” she said, her head turning as she tried to push up closer, to have more of him — all of him — inside her.

“Forever,” he demanded, driving in another inch, the torture nearly undoing him.

“Forever,” she conceded.

With that one word, he thrust deeply inside of her, and their cries mingled together as they became one. There was no more talking now. He lifted them both higher and higher, built their pleasure and then spilled his seed within her.

By the time their passion was spent and he was holding her in his arms, caressing her skin and thanking heaven that he’d seen the light, Tanner could barely hold his eyes open. But he did have one final thought.

If he ever ran into Judge Kragle again, he’d probably have to tell him that he was a pretty good guy. The man had altered Tanner’s life for the better.

On second thought, why encourage such a meddling old guy? Tanner decided that he probably wouldn’t admit a thing.

He’d just think it when he finally came up for air.