The Billionaire Bargain 3 (7 page)

• • •

He
guided me to his bedroom, laying down next to me as he kissed slowly
down my neck. He teased and nipped around the collar of my silk
shirt, slowly pulling it off over my head. He looked at my breasts in
awe, and then buried his face between them. He growled. I tried to
remember how breathing worked.

Sliding
my skirt up my legs, he slipped a finger under the lace of my
panties, massaging me in a delicious and tantalizing rhythm. Oh how I
wanted him inside me again, and I bucked against his fingers as he
stroked me. So good. So right.
Wait
.

Was
this a good idea? Maybe it wasn’t a good idea—maybe—his
lips trailed kisses back up my neck, his mouth claiming mine again,
and oh
yes
,
it was. It was a very, very good idea. Consequences be damned. I
fisted the bed sheet in my hands, writhing beneath him.

“Come
for me, Lacey,” he demanded, sliding in his finger, first one,
then two, and then the third, stretching me, still not quite filling
me up, oh God, I needed him to—

His
questing fingers found my g-spot, and I moaned as he intensified the
pressure. Using his thumb to tease my clit, I felt myself getting
closer to the edge. His strong fingers continued thrusting into me,
perfectly, and the whole world went a blinding white as red-hot heat
rippled outward from my core, leaving me helpless as an epic orgasm
tore through my body like an earthquake.

I
slowly came back to myself, feeling Grant settling himself on top of
me, the lovely weight and heft of him, the strength of his arms and
legs, the warmth of his skin.

I
stroked his hair, his cheek, the strong line of his jaw, before
taking his hand and pulling his arm around mine. He squeezed me
tight.

The
cool night air danced in through an open window and ruffled the silk
sheets, but I was warm in Grant’s embrace all night long. And
as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a single place in the
world I’d rather be.

The
tropical sunlight played teasingly over my skin, warming me, though
not as much as Grant’s gaze as it traveled the line of my
bikini-clad body. The spray of the waterfall made his skin glisten as
though each muscle had been made of polished marble, and the sun off
the water wasn’t one bit more brilliant than his smile.

“
Come
on in, the water’s fine,” he drawled, beckoning me into
the turquoise pool surrounded by bright flowers. “And don’t
feel as though you have to bring the bathing suit…”

I
slid into the pool, the rushing of the waterfall nearly drowning out
the rapid beating of my heart, the cool water doing nothing to quench
the fires he had lit inside of my veins…

Beep-beep
beep beeeeep. Beep-beep beep beeeeeep.

“Goddammit,
not again,” I muttered, and slapped the alarm off before
whacking the pillow in frustration. When would my subconscious stop
torturing me with visions of myself and Grant together again? When
would I be able to get a good night’s sleep without torrid
dreams which, to add insult to injury, got cut off right before the
good stuff by the sound of my ancient alarm clock going off, leaving
me with only the scent of Grant on the silk pillow—

Wait
just a damn second.

My
alarm made an entirely different sound than the one that had just
gone off. I didn’t have any silk pillows, and they sure as hell
didn’t smell like Grant.

Also,
why could I still hear a waterfall?

Memories
of last night came flooding back in HD and surround sound, and I sat
upright in shock. I gazed around Grant’s bedroom. So…it
hadn’t been a dream. There was the evidence right before me—the
clothes on the floor, the rumpled sheets, the half-open door to the
bathroom, steam drifting out of it from Grant’s morning
shower…ah, so that was where my dreaming mind had gotten the
sound of the waterfall.

I
let my mind drift to last night, to the way Grant had consumed me
with his mouth and his hands, to that tender look of passion in his
eyes, to the—

I
wanted to rest in the amazement and the afterglow, but unfortunately
my common sense had woken up with the rest of my brain, and Grant
wasn’t right there to send it back to sleep. Shit, what had I
done? And what did it mean for him?

What
did it mean for…us?

Was
there an us?

The
sound of the shower cut off abruptly, and I fidgeted with the
blanket, suddenly shy.

Grant
wandered back into the bedroom, naked except for the towel he was
using to squeegee his hair.

Even
as nervous as I was, I couldn’t help but take a moment to
admire the long lean lines of his body, the way his muscles rippled
as he walked. His cock jutted at half-mast from a triangle of
golden-brown hair, and my fingers twitched on the blanket, wanting to
trace a line down his chest until they rested just above him. I
wanted to look up teasingly into his eyes as I very deliberately kept
from touching where he wanted me to, and I wanted to say—

Grant’s
head swung towards me and he started slightly as he saw that I was
awake. “Ah. Good morning. Fancy running into you here.”

His
eyes darted all over my body, as if checking that I was really there.
A smile crept onto his face, and he couldn’t seem to decide to
do with his hands, starting to lower the towel and then raising it
again as drops of water began to drip onto his shoulders.

I
couldn’t help but return the smile. God, but I loved him. I
loved him when he was imperious and when he was nervous, when he was
angry and when he was sweet. I loved each line of his face and every
way they changed, in every mood and every situation. I could watch
this beautiful man all day. “What a coincidence. Good morning
to you, too.”

“I
was thinking, ah, eggs?” he said. “Or fruit. Or pancakes.
Toast? It occurs to me that I don’t know your favorite
breakfast food yet.”

You,
I thought but didn’t quite have the confidence to say. “All
those sound good. Any of those. I mean, one. Or two. You don’t
have to get all of them.”

“I,
er.” He elected to lower the towel, finally, not quite covering
himself but not keeping his arms awkwardly raised anymore. Now that
was more like it. “I may have already ordered all of them.”

“Good,”
I said. There was a dizzy, fizzy, soaring singing in my blood, as if
I’d downed a glass of champagne just by looking at him. “That’s
good.”

There
was a silence, probably not as long as it seemed to be, where we were
both frozen across the room from each other, me sitting and him
standing, both of us naked and grinning our matching goofy nervous
uncertain grins.

“Oh,
come here!” I burst out finally, opening my arms, and he
laughed—a real laugh, at ease and hardly nervous at all, and
came into my embrace, pillowing his head against my breasts as I let
myself fall back against the headboard, holding the man I loved.

“You
don’t—I take it you don’t…regret it, then?”
Grant said against my skin. He was curled up against me, seeming in
that moment so vulnerable. So lost. “Staying over? Letting
me…touch you?”

I
stroked his hair gently, feeling yet more love bloom within my chest.
How was it that each time I thought I couldn’t love this man
more, I found there was yet room to grow? “Not one bit.”
I hesitated, my hand stilling as my insecurities struck. “Do
you?”

“Never,”
he said, pressing a kiss against the swell of my breast as he found
my hand and gripped it with reassuring warmth. “Never in a
thousand years.”

I
let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Good.”

He
chuckled gently. “My sentiments exactly.”

Silence
fell again, a little awkward, but not entirely uncomfortable. I found
myself wishing we could stay like this forever, and not have to rise
and deal with all the problems in the world.

But
the world wouldn’t wait for us.

“It’s
all right,” I started, at the same time Grant began to say: “If
you’d like to talk about it—”

We
stuttered off into nervous chuckles, and I caressed his lightly
stubbled face.

“How
about we talk about it when this is all over?” I suggested
finally. “We can figure out what we’re doing here—what
this is—after we’ve figured out what Portia’s up
to.”

He
reached up and covered my hand with his, caressing my fingers. “That
works for me.”

• • •

The
first step in what I was mentally calling Operation Snowplow—‘cause
she was an ice queen, get it?—was to figure out what Portia was
plotting. And what better place to look for clues than the castle of
the ice queen herself—by which of course I meant her office at
Devlin Media Corp headquarters.

Grant
and I had managed to keep a low profile all the way into the
building—it helped that we went through a service entrance, and
it was the weekend—but we were stymied by the appearance of
Portia’s secretary bustling down the hallway towards her office
door, holding a steaming latte she must have picked up on her lunch
break.

“Damn,”
I muttered, frustrated, peering around the corner as the secretary
fumbled with a set of keys. “If we’d just gotten here
fifteen minutes earlier!”

“Don’t
lose hope yet,” Grant said. He stretched, showing off the way
his tight shirt clung to his abs, and grinned wickedly as he undid
several buttons on his shirt. “I’ve always wanted to play
a
homme fatale.”

“Isn’t
that supposed to be
femme
—”
I started, but Grant was already sauntering down the hallway towards
his prey.

The
secretary looked up and her whole face filled with the expression of
a deer in headlights, if headlights had ripped abs and a smile so
charming your panties gave up and fell to the floor of their own
volition.

“Why,
fancy running into you here, Emily,” Grant purred, resting an
arm against the wall next to her so that he could loom into her
personal space and, by way of a bonus, block her view of the rest of
the hall.

“Oh,
um, er, hi,” she stammered. I could see her flushing red over
his shoulder. “Ms. Smith’s not in, I didn’t know
you had an appointment, I mean—”

“No
appointment,” Grant murmured, his voice low and intimate. “But
lately I’ve been taking a rather…personal…interest
in these matters.”

The
secretary blushed so hard I was amazed that there was any blood left
for the rest of her body.

Grant
ran his hand along her sleeve. “I like the way this feels,”
he said. “So soft.” His hand lingered right on the
collar, just where the fabric met her skin. “Your hair looks
soft too.”

“I—I—I—”
Emily the secretary stuttered like a faulty tape recorder.

Grant
slid his arm around her shoulder, one finger playing with a ringlet
of her hair. “It’s a pity Portia isn’t here, but it
does give us some time alone—to discuss business, of course.”

“Of
course,” Emily echoed, dazed.

Grant
began to lead her down the hallway. “Perhaps we could discuss
the matter over wine…I know a nice intimate restaurant not too
far away…you can take a break, can’t you?”

“Intimate,”
she whispered, gazing up into his eyes as though someone had written
a winning lottery number there.

“Tell
me, Emily,” Grant’s voice carried to me as they
disappeared from sight, “do you believe in mixing business with
pleasure?”

Meanwhile,
around the corner, I was rolling my eyes so hard I almost sprained
them. He was going to give that poor girl a heart attack. And if her
choice of employment was any indication, she already had enough
trouble in her life.

But
there’d be time later for pitying those caught in the
crosshairs of Grant’s charm.

Right
now, it was time for a little good old-fashioned breaking and
entering.

Sending
up a little mental thank-you to my bad-influence high school
boyfriend for teaching me how to pick locks—I should definitely
send him a fruit basket or something, did they let you send fruit
baskets to prison?—I pulled a bobby clip from my hair and had
the lock jimmied in less than thirty seconds. That’s what you
get for refusing to upgrade to the passcard system, Portia.

I
began to rifle through the papers on her desk. There wasn’t
much—a dry-cleaning bill, a routine memo from accounting, and
projections for quarterly growth. I had to rifle very carefully,
taking note of exactly which spot on the desk I lifted each paper
from; Portia’s office was a fascist’s dream, neat to the
point of insanity. Papers were crisp, mahogany and steel were
polished, and personal effects were nonexistent.

I
found her datebook in the second drawer on the left, and quickly took
several photos of its contents for the next week with my phone. A
moment’s thought, and I copied her call sheet too. I couldn’t
tell now whether or not they held any useful information, but give me
a little more time, Google, and all of Grant’s passwords to the
company database, and there was a good chance that they would paint
me a distinctly un-pretty picture of what Portia Smith was up to.

The
computer was the only thing in the office that looked in less than
pristine condition; my guess was that Portia didn’t relish
showing her age by having to ask for help with an upgrade. I quickly
logged in using the password Portia had helpfully jotted down on her
memo pad, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a file on the desktop
labeled ‘Accounts Payable.’

Now,
what was such a boring and out-of-her-job-description sounding file
doing right there on her desktop, where she could immediately access
it? I clicked it, and whistled under my breath.

It
was an entire presentation on the takeover. Undeniable proof in black
and white.