His Challenging Lover (7 page)

“There’s definitely been a mistake,” she said. “Some of these shoes are way out of my price range. I can’t spend this much money on shoes!”

Mary was sighing as she held up a pair of lime green, leather shoes with a gold bow on the side. “Can you keep them for a day or two? I just like holding them,” she said with awe in her eyes.

Autumn didn’t even answer her, too busy looking up the phone number of the department store. It took her several tries, but she eventually was connected to the shoe department. And miracle of miracles, the salesclerk who had helped her earlier was actually still there.

“Hi there,” she said with as friendly a tone of voice as she could. “I was there earlier today and you helped me try on several pairs of shoes.”

“Yes ma’am,” the clerk replied with a friendly, deferential tone. “Did you receive the delivery?” he asked politely.

“Um,” Autumn stared around at all the boxes of shoes. “Well, yes. I got more than ten pairs of shoes, but there’s been some mistake. I didn’t buy all of these,” she explained. “I need to return them.”

“No mistake ma’am. You won a sort of lottery this afternoon. All those shoes are bought and paid for. I hope you enjoy them!” he said with enthusiasm running through his voice.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Absolutely. Please come back and visit us soon! And let me know if I can be of any future assistance.”

Autumn thanked the man before she hung up, her eyes still staring at all the shoes around her office. Mary had pulled out several more shoes, trying on all of them in the vain hope that they might be a different size, several sizes larger, so she could steal one or two of them. No such luck, she accepted when the last of the boxes of shoes was opened.

“What did the guy say?” Mary asked, running her finger down the side of a black, patent leather shoe with a gold tipped heel that almost looked lethal.

Autumn picked up a grey flannel pair. She’d thought they were like slippers but they had a slightly higher heel. “He said I won the afternoon shopping lottery.” She’d loved these so much but they were way too expensive. Oh, she knew that some people spent two or three thousand dollars on one pair of shoes and these were only in the two or three hundred dollar range, but still! Her price range was more along the lines of fifty to one hundred dollars, a bit more when it was a high quality pair or something she simply had to have.

And she’d never bought this many pairs of shoes at one time!

Something just didn’t sound right about the whole thing. Windfalls like this simply didn’t happen to her. She’d never won anything in her life.

“I wish I’d gone with you,” Mary said and put the last pair of shoes back in the box, carefully pushing the tissue back in place. “Well, better get back to work. Since no shoe fairy is going to hand me twelve pairs of shoes, I need to earn more money so I can buy my own.”

Mary laughed at her silly joke as she walked back out to her desk.

Autumn stacked the boxes of shoes back up, pushing them into the bags while her mind whirled through the possibilities. The shoe lottery didn’t make any sense!

Then she looked at her desk and spotted the box of chocolates. Chocolates? She never got chocolates because she ate them all! She couldn’t have chocolates around or she’d gain ten pounds!

Ignoring the chocolates, she continued to work, even pulled up a few more resumes but rejected them since they didn’t look better than the ones she’d already discussed with Xander. She didn’t realize the passing of time, but by the time she looked up, it was past eight o’clock at night.

Autumn leaned back in her chair and stared at the stack of shoes. If it didn’t make sense, she couldn’t accept it. Maybe if she spoke to the store manager tomorrow, she would feel a little better about the windfall. But right now, she didn’t understand it, so she didn’t get excited about all the shoes.

“Autumn I was wondering…” Ash stood in the doorway, his eyes frozen as he took in the stack of shoes in their bags. “Man he must have really pissed you off,” Ash said as he counted the number of shoe boxes. “Twelve pairs of shoes?” he exclaimed. “What did that ass do to you that you needed to buy twelve pairs?” he asked, becoming angry on her behalf.

Autumn was completely confused. “What are you talking about and who made me angry?”

Ash shrugged. “Xander of course. He’s pretty much the only one you fight with. Did he do this to you?” Ash demanded.

Her mind worked quickly through his comments, trying to interpret what he was saying. “Did Xander make me so angry that I bought twelve pairs of shoes? Is that what you’re asking me?”

Ash shook his head. “I’ll talk to him Autumn. I know that something is wrong, but I promise, I’ll get him to apologize.” He glanced at the stack of shoes once more.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, standing up and looked up at him. “How is Xander involved in the shoe issue?”

Ash looked at her, then at the shoes. “This afternoon, when you were leaving I could tell that you were in a better mood.”

“And?” she prompted when he didn’t go on.

“And,” he laughed, “Xander was right next to me and I mentioned you looked happy because you were going shoe shopping.”

Autumn simply stared at him, trying to connect the dots.

Ash was starting to look uncomfortable. “Isn’t that what you do when he pisses you off?” he asked, obviously still confused by the intricacies of the female mind.

“He’s been…” she searched her mind for an appropriate word, careful since Ash was Xander’s younger brother. They were the closest siblings she’d ever met so she didn’t want to insult anyone.

“Xander’s been an ass, Autumn. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll talk with him.”

Ash turned and walked out of her office, forgetting whatever it was he was going to ask of her. She looked at the stack of shoes, her mind whirling with the possibilities. She pulled out a black and white polka dotted pair, her finger smoothing over the fabulous material.

And then it hit her. She hadn’t won any ridiculous lottery! Somehow, Xander had paid for these shoes!

She grabbed the polka dotted shoes and stormed out of her office, straight down the hallway. Everyone else was pretty much gone for the night but she saw the light in his office and was thrilled that her prey was still available.

“You bastard!” she called out, completely ignoring all office protocols as her anger took over. She wasn’t thinking, just reacting to the fact that Xander had bought her all of these shoes as a way to placate her!

Xander had been sitting behind his desk, the papers he was working on illuminated by just his desk light so when he looked up to watch her storm into his office, she couldn’t see his face very well. She didn’t care. Not one little bit. He’d tried to buy her! “You’re a horrible, evil, ridiculous scoundrel!” she said and threw the shoe across the room at him.

Xander was never so glad that he’d played football in high school and college. And that his instincts hadn’t diminished over time. His boxing workouts probably helped here as well. He was easily able to duck the flying shoe-missile. When he looked up again, he saw that she had another shoe primed and ready to fire and he went into survival mode, his face breaking out in a huge grin as he took on the challenge of a furious Autumn. Damn, she looked hot in her new shoes!

He rounded his desk, his hands open in a placating gesture. “Autumn, I have no idea what you’re thinking, but let’s talk about this,” he said. No sooner had the words left his mouth that he had to duck when she threw the second shoe right at his head. Thankfully, he was pretty good at dodging fists in the ring, which lent itself well to dodging shoes.

“You bought all these shoes, didn’t you?”

Xander realized he was caught but he was too busy trying to figure out how to avoid getting bashed in the head to come up with a good lie. She was so angry, she reached down and whipped off the shoe she was wearing, firing it just as hard.

Xander knew he had to hurry up and tackle her before he was impaled on those shoes. And he also had to stop thinking she looked incredibly sexy when she was threatening him with bodily harm.

“Let’s talk, Autumn.”

“NO! We’ve been talking for the last three days and all you do is drive me crazy! I’m done talking with you. And just when I have things worked out in my mind, you go out and buy me shoes! How crazy is that?” And there flew the last shoe.

He didn’t take any chances. Going in low, before she could grab the books on the bookshelf, he dove for her middle. With both grace and gentleness, he plowed into her and pinned her back against the wall. She struggled for all she was worth but he wasn’t letting up. His hands held her arms above her head and his body pinned the rest of her. He just watched, fascinated while she struggled, writhing against him. In the end, his pinning her didn’t stop her. It was her realization that she was turning him on that froze her movements.

When she was finally still but out of breath, he smiled down at her. “So how about you tell me why you are so angry with me,” he said, but his mind was on the way her breasts were now flattened against his chest. He didn’t really give a damn about her anger. Well, he did, but that was for later. After he…

Autumn groaned when he bent low and nibbled on her earlobe.

“Tell me what I did wrong,” he said, sincerely confused.

Autumn looked up at him, her body on pins and needles, wishing he would kiss her, make love to her just like he had that one night. And then she remembered all the other women in his life and she burst into tears.

All sexual need dissipated with Autumn’s first tears. He loved her anger and her passion, thought she was sexy as all get out when she was on a mission to fix something in the office. But tears unmanned him. He couldn’t handle tears, not from her! Which was ironic since women had used tears on him all the time and he was always completely unmoved. But when she looked up at him with those sparkling tears in her eyes, he felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

“Autumn, talk to me. How can I fix this?” he asked her gently, holding her close to him as he hugged her against him. When she sagged against his chest, the tears came stronger. He lifted her into his arms and carried her over to his sofa, sitting down with her in his lap, rocking her gently while she cried out her sorrow. He couldn’t believe he’d done this to her and he felt worse the longer her tears lasted.

When the tears finally subsided, he pulled back and looked down at her, his arms still around her waist. “Can you talk to me?” he asked gently. “I still don’t understand what I did wrong. I thought you loved new shoes.”

She sniffed, lifting her face out of his neck, almost bursting into tears again when she saw her makeup smeared against his collar. He probably paid a couple hundred dollars for those shirts of his and she’d just gone and stained one of them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed by her outburst. He handed her a tissue and she used it to try and wipe away the mess on his collar.

“That’s for you, Autumn,” he said and tried to stop her from cleaning his collar.

“But I messed up your shirt.”

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me what I did wrong.”

She sniffed once again and looked away from the mess on his shirt, trying to get off of his lap.

“You’re not leaving until you help me understand,” he said, his hands tightening around her waist.

She laughed slightly, but it sounded more like a hiccup. “You bought me the shoes, didn’t you?” she asked, but she could already see the answer in his eyes.

“What difference does it make if I bought you the shoes or not?”

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down. “It matters because of why you did it. And the cost of all those shoes.”

“The cost is nothing,” he said, dismissing the expense with a wave of his hand. “Why do you think I bought them for you?”

“Because you made me angry.”

“Yes. That’s part of it,” he said.

She slipped off his lap, needing to put some space between them now that her emotional outburst was finished. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said, feeling sad both because he’d bought her shoes to appease his guilt and because she knew she’d have to take back all of those lovely shoes. She shouldn’t have, but she’d fallen in love with some of those shoes this afternoon. Just looking at them in their boxes had been a painful temptation. She already had outfits picked out for some of them. “I know you were just trying to make me feel better. And appease your guilt. But I’m okay.”

Xander stood up as well, towering over her as only Xander could. Ryker and Axel were about the same height as him and Ash was even taller, but those men didn’t seem to do it the same way Xander did. He didn’t just stand there. He loomed. He intimidated. He….turned her on when he stood there looking so powerful and dominating. Some people needed oysters or asparagus. Autumn only needed Xander. He was a sexy and enticing aphrodisiac all by himself.

He bent down and picked up one of her shoes, then lifted her up unexpectedly, setting her back onto his desk. “I can’t really say that I bought you these shoes to appease my guilt. Although I do apologize for being such an obnoxious, irritating person lately.”

She swallowed, barely hearing his words because his fingers were holding her leg, his hand smoothing down the skin of her calf. It was almost as if she weren’t wearing stockings at all. When his hand lifted her foot while his other hand put her shoe back on, he said, “What about if you just accept that I like seeing you in these shoes? I like it when you walk down the hallway and you have these sexy heels on, you’re sexy skirts and you’re sexy makeup, looking like some sort of goddess of business or something.”

She couldn’t help it. The laugh just sort of escaped. “Goddess of business?” she repeated.

He nodded his head, his hand sliding back up her leg, sneaking under her skirt sensuously. “A goddess anyway.” He chuckled as well. “Maybe of more than just business.”