Executive Perks (27 page)

“They weren’t blonde, were they?”

He kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know, but I’m going to go with no. Dark hair, definitely.”

“Whew. That’s a relief.”

* * * * *

Hours later, they had made it up to the bedroom, but had never made it out again. In the dim twilight outside the bedroom window, Aaron continued his slow exploration of Virginia’s recently sated, much sated, body.

“Are you still planning to take over my company?” she asked.

He ran a hand down the curve of her bare hip. “Hell of a time to ask me.”

“No, really. I’ve ignored it because…well, you know why.”

He kissed his way up her bare shoulder. “No, I don’t. Why?”

Instead of answering, she asked, “How did you get to be who you are, Aaron Winston?”

“I’m sure you read all the bios.”

“I did. But I feel like something is missing.” His hand slipped between her thighs. “Like that. How did you get to be so good at that? At sex?”

“I don’t usually include those details in my bio,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder.

“No, really. I haven’t had that many boyfriends, but none of them have made me feel like you do. Is that just a natural talent or is it learned?”

“If you haven’t had many boyfriends, honey, then you have quite a natural talent yourself, no doubt about it.”

“I think you must inspire me.”

“Right back at you.”

He proceeded to try to inspire her further with that hand between her legs and his persuasive lips, but she persisted. “No really. What’s your story on the, ah, bedroom front? I know you’ve slept with a lot of women.”

She waited. He said nothing.

“Didn’t you?”

He withdrew his hand and flopped back on his back. “Do you dissect everything?”

“Duh. Yeah.”

“I like sex. I’ve never shied away from that. It’s one of the few pleasures in life even a poor guy can enjoy.”

“A poor guy who looks like you.”

“I guess.” His face clouded. “If you want to know the truth, and I’m sensing here you won’t let me alone until you do, I learned about sex early and used it to pacify this incredible anger I felt all the time. To have a pretty girl flirt with me, let me kiss her—”

“And more.” She ran her hand lightly along his taut lower abs.

“Yeah, more. It made up somehow for the rest of the crappy time. I’m not being very eloquent here.”

“No, I understand.”

“Then, ah, I guess you could say I used sex for something else.”

She waited for him to elaborate, balancing her head on one hand as she looked down at him.

“To get information. Corporate wives tell tales in bed.”

She couldn’t help the purse of her lips at that one, the sense of disappointment.

“It wasn’t as sordid as you might think. At first, it was almost by accident. I had read everything I could about business and had all these ideas, but I didn’t know how to start. So there were always these charity things they trotted us out at where big guns would donate a lot of money and give a speech and we all had to act grateful.”

“How old were you?”

“I’d just turned eighteen. I remember because I was on the verge of moving out on my own. Anyway, I had ducked out into the alley and was sneaking a drink, when this older woman in jewels and furs comes up to me and…well, ah, we had sex.”

“You had sex with an old woman in an alley?”

He grinned. “When I say older woman, remember who you viewed as older at that age. So I’m talking thirty-five maybe. The truth is I enjoyed it. So we started meeting regularly. I learned a lot, almost accidentally at first as she talked about her husband and how little time he had for her because he was working on this deal or that. Later, I did it a little more surgically, asking to meet certain of her friends, targeting this wife or the other.”

“Insider trading?” she asked, a catch in her voice.

He laughed. “No, that’s not what I did with the information I learned. So no need to turn me into the SEC. No, it was more in the nature of giving me insight into the planning of certain companies so I could envision how to approach them. But hell, sometimes it was just blackmail. Amazing how fragile some of these guys’ egos were. But I guess that still didn’t change what I was, what I did. I guess that’s a line you’d never cross, princess.”

She remembered the photo she had seen of him when she ran a Google search on him at Bransport so long ago. She had wondered then how he had managed such a large deal at such a young age. Now she guessed she had her answer. But it wasn’t so simple. “I don’t know what I’d do in your situation. It’s inconceivable to me. I’ve always had money, family, my place in the world.”

His lips thinned.

“You’re so brave,” she said and almost laughed when his mouth fell open.

“What?”

“To be alone and thrive like you have. I admire it.”

“I thought you thought I was a cutthroat robber baron.”

“That was the drug talking.”

“No, that was you talking, loud and clear.”

“I may have thought that, but I don’t now. Our business methods might be different, but I understand now why that is. I’m not saying I always agree with it, but I understand it.”

“Well, while we’re on this mutual admiration session, let me just say that I admire quite a few things about you too.” His hand wandered over to the curve of her hip as he went up on his side too so they were facing each other.

“They’re not all physical, are they?”

“Well, the top ten are. No, I’m just kidding. Really, since I’ve made money, I’ve been around it long enough to know that being born into it has its own challenges and temptations. You don’t get somebody like Paris Hilton without that being the case. But you took responsibility and really made something of yourself.”

The compliment went straight to her head. If he had written her a sonnet, she couldn’t have been more touched by it.

And she proceeded to show him.

Nudging him over on to his stomach, she began a slow, deep massage of his broad shoulders, his powerful neck. His muscles underneath her fingers were tight at first, but as she worked them, they loosened up. His skin felt smooth and velvety, despite his unquestioned—and personally verified by her many, many times—masculinity.

She made her way down his back, lingering at the small of it for some time before she found her way to the tight cheeks of his ass. Massaging still, she heard him moan, and by the time she lowered her hands to the top of his thighs, it was clear he’d had enough of the spa service and was looking for something a little more personal.

He rolled over onto his back, fully erect from her handling, she was not surprised to see. He came up on his elbows and she drank in the sight of him, narrow hips with that light line of black pubic hair framing his proud cock. She just stared, wondering how she had gotten so lucky, until he said, “Is this giving you any ideas?”

“What do you want me to do, Aaron? Anything.” She meant it too.

He laughed. “Do you know how many wet dreams I had before we got together where you asked me that?”

She smiled. “What did you say?”

“Well, I mixed it up a bit, seeing as how you had me so frustrated.”

“Pick one.”

“Hmm, there is one thing you did in my dreams quite a few times, but I don’t think you’ve treated me to in real life.”

She found that hard to believe. She felt as though they had done everything. “I hope you don’t plan on bringing the Vincents to bed with us.”

He made a face. “Not hardly. Groups aren’t my thing.”

“What is it then?”

He fluffed a pillow behind his head and leaned back on it, folding his hands behind his head. “Play with yourself.”

She laughed. “That’s it?”

“Yep. Put your fingers on your sweet pussy and make yourself come.”

“Tired of doing it yourself?”

“Never. But it’s very hot to see a woman pleasure herself. Go on, put your hand to your clit.”

Coming up on her knees, straddling him, she took her middle finger and delicately dipped it between her thighs, spreading the moisture she had generated just by rubbing his back all along and around her clit. He watched the motion intently, and his interest spurred her on.

“Stick your finger inside yourself.”

She closed her eyes briefly and obeyed. “I’m pretending it’s yours,” she murmured, fingering her wet, tingly passage, and suddenly he laughed and clutched her, rolling on top of her.

“You’re no fun,” he chided, as she heard the crinkle of foil and then he was pushing his cock into her, thick and pulsing and much more pleasurable than her own finger, if anybody was interested.

“You are,” she muttered.

He stretched her arms up above her head, linking his hands in hers as he started to move in her. Putting the soles of her feet flat on the mattress, she tilted her hips up to receive him.

“Open your eyes.”

She obeyed the soft command without really thinking. In fact, she hadn’t realized her eyes were closed. His heavily lashed eyes bore down on her, blue like the twilight filtering through the window. One lock of black hair fell forward, brushing her temple.

“I want you to look at me while I fuck you,” he said.

One long, slow thrust made her gasp with the shot of pleasure. Her fingers curled in his and she bit her lip, involuntarily letting her eyelids droop again as she arched against him.

“Look at me.”

The urgency of his plea as his cock set a more demanding rhythm caused her to lose herself in that blue stare again. “I am looking at you, Aaron.”

“Looking at me,” he continued to thrust hard, “while I fuck you. Say it.”

Her legs fell helplessly wider as he pushed his cock in even deeper. She sucked in a breath.

“While you…” He held her arms stretched above her, her body wide open for him below, his eyes asking something of her she couldn’t quite understand.

“While I fuck you,” he prompted, so low she almost couldn’t hear it.

“While you make love to me,” she whispered.

At her words, he let go of her hands and skimmed the back of his fingers along her jaw, staring down at her.

“While I make love to you,” he whispered.

The admission finally made her break eye contact, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

They came together, both of them shuddering.

Love.
Such a dangerous word between them.

* * * * *

He couldn’t use the investment banker now. The man was close to useless. Once he’d found out about Samantha’s murder, the moron couldn’t stop asking about it. He’d even hinted that he knew some “people” who could arrange the same thing for Virginia Beckett.

The man was insane.

As if he would hire someone to do what he was so looking forward to doing himself.

Now, if he could just find out where that bitch and her boyfriend had flown off to. For all their silly precautions, he didn’t doubt their location would be easy enough to recover given his own facility with computers. By hacking into real estate databases, he could narrow it down to where Winston owned property. It would be a short step to checking credit card receipts to make a match. And even if they thought themselves too clever to use credit cards, he’d just discover what he needed to some other way.

There was a whole big internet out there to hack into.

It wouldn’t be long until Virginia Beckett was as dead as his poor forlorn Samantha.

* * * * *

Virginia and Aaron managed to make it out of bed the next morning, driven by hunger since they had skipped dinner the night before. They had barely finished the breakfast that was once again silently laid out for them when the phone rang. The shrill sound startled Virginia.

It wasn’t hard to get used to no sound other than the waves and her lover’s voice.

“Hey, Rye,” Aaron said when he picked up the receiver.

The call was still going on after a few minutes. Since Virginia could hear only half of Aaron’s conversation with his lawyer, she gave up trying to make sense of it and wandered out the front door. Aaron’s back was turned to her or else she would have gestured her intentions, but she was sure he’d figure it out.

It was just a few steps from the wide front porch down to the gravel path leading out to the ocean. Unless she was imagining it, the waves looked higher than they had the day of their arrival on the island. The path sloped downward for a hundred feet or so until it met the wooden steps leading down to the water’s edge. She glanced back to the house, wondering if she should tell Aaron, but shook off the impulse. God, what was she, three years old? She could certainly take a walk down to the beach by herself.

Her sneakers afforded her a steady step on what did not appear to be too steady steps. The lack of a railing and the steep angle added to the impression that this jaunt might not be for the faint-hearted. The view when she made it down to the bottom, though, was worth it. A grassy bank gave way to a thin strip of sand that traveled the length of the island as far as she could see. Lest the sand give the misimpression this was a harbor, huge boulders dotted the waves only a few feet out and Virginia knew from what Aaron had said that below the water line further rocks lurked, capable of ripping off the bottom of an unsuspecting boat.