Hold Me Tight: Heartbreakers (15 page)

She rose slowly and stretched, her whole body aching from the day before—and from Alexi’s possession. Her breasts were sensitized, her body aware that it had been shared intimately with Alexi.

He’d gently undressed her—completely—and now with the colder air hitting her naked body, Jessica smiled. Alexi had obviously had his own plans while putting her to bed, but waylaid them because of her exhaustion.

She wasn’t exhausted now and a rendezvous with Alexi in that enormous bathtub was too good to ignore. In her lifetime, Jessica never explored her sensuality, and it was now definitely awakening her hunting instincts to seduce a very fascinating man. She glanced in the mirror on the wall and frowned at the tiny waves the tight braids had created in her hair. She used her fingers to soothe the wild tigress-woman look, but nothing would change the way she felt or those shadows of a well-
loved woman. It was a new look, softer, more feminine, almost shocking her—a woman who had never really explored her personal needs.

Jessica eased the bathroom door open to find Alexi in the tub, his head leaning back against the top, his eyes closed. His arms rested on the edges of the tub, his long legs extended past the other end. Jessica quietly closed the door and leaned against the wall, admiring Alexi—a ripcord-hard, muscled male, almost savage in his beauty—amid a bubble bath.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked very softly.

“Yes. Definitely. Are you?”

He moved quickly to grab the edges of the tub and surge to his feet. Tall and tan, with water and soapsuds sliding down his body, he stood in the water, his eyes the shade of frost on the window, pinning Jessica. “You’ve been a busy girl.”

She stared at his fit body. “And you’re tan all over.”

“Skinny-dipping in a Wyoming creek on a hot day does that.” Alexi stepped out of the tub and briskly wiped himself dry. He wrapped a towel around his waist and slashed a cold look at Jessica. “So you thought you’d buy me a present, a nice little toy to keep me busy and happy? And I’m not talking about Ed’s worry stone.”

He walked out of the bathroom, leaving her breathless and shaken.

Alexi tossed away the towel and glanced at the bathroom door that had just slammed behind him. Apparently Jessica had decided to give herself thinking room.

He took a pair of folded jeans from the laundry basket and tugged them on. Jessica’s pale curves, those breasts and hips and long legs, the intriguing V between them, had already stoked the hunger in his body. Her hair had added a sexy new look; her eyes were shadowed and mysterious, almost absorbing him from head to toe. He’d known the taste of her lips, of her skin, of the nipples peaking upon those soft breasts and beneath the bathwater, and his body had stirred, aroused so fiercely that he didn’t bother to hide it as he stood.

Her gaze had taken him in, stroking his flesh with heat, even
as the water cooled it. He’d almost tugged her to him, taken her as she wanted.

It would all be so easy, to step into what she wanted—to make love—but Alexi’s pride wouldn’t allow that—

A heartbeat later, the door slammed behind Jessica and she walked across the room toward him. The flannel shirt he’d hung in the bathroom earlier reached her midthigh as she walked to her luggage. She bent to open it, the sound of the zipper ripping through the quiet room. With a disdaining look at Alexi, she crouched to select clothing and then stood, her stare cool and hard.

They’d known each other intimately; she was giving him notice that she could equal him on any level. When she started to walk to the bathroom, Alexi said quietly, “That isn’t necessary. I’ve seen everything.”

Jessica paused midstep and straightened her shoulders. With her back to him, she tossed her fresh clothing onto a dresser. She let his shirt fall to the floor and raised her arms to let a soft green lounging gown with long sleeves slide over her body. Then, with her arms folded across her breasts, Jessica said briskly, “Okay, let’s have it, Stepanov.”

“What, Mrs. Sterling? Sex or a discussion about why you are
not
buying the Seagull’s Perch for me?”

“I was going to tell you—”

But Alexi’s anger wouldn’t wait. “The notes you left on the table were interesting. Was the tavern some little gift of appreciation? A buy-off? What? I called Barney last night while you were sleeping. He said you were thinking of buying and if you did, that you wanted me to take the place on full-time, managing it. He wanted me to know, so I’d have time to get my finances up for a purchase price—he wants to know that his place is going to someone he knows will take care of it. And he prefers me.”

When Jessica flinched slightly, Alexi regretted his harshness, but pride drove him on. He lifted her notations on the tavern’s profit and loss statements, the amount of the owner’s asking price, and slapped the paper next to her laptop. “Let’s get this
straight right now. You may buy presents for other men. You’re not buying me anything.”

Those green eyes glinted as she came to tap his chest with her fingertip. “How do you know it’s for you, Stepanov?”

Despite his leashed anger, Alexi couldn’t help admiring her spirit. “We’re lovers. You may call me Alexi. And because we are lovers, you are not buying that tavern. Do you think I’m going to work for you? Did you even think how that would look?”

Jessica’s hard stare flickered at that last charge. “No, I didn’t. I told you, I had quite the day, starting off with discovering that my best friend was wrangling my life. Willow intimated that she was in danger, knowing full well that I would be looking for ways to protect her—and, gee whiz, she knew me pretty well. I went straight for the best protection available—you.”

“Then you made deliveries, chased a goat and got into tentative negotiations for buying the Seagull’s Perch and establishing me as manager. I pay my own way, Jessica.”

“So do I. And I’m not Heather. You’ve got a big chip on your shoulder, Stepanov. I meant well. I only moved into a business opportunity and checked it out. Barney had heard that we—that we might be involved, and he said he liked you. And that the tavern is his lifelong baby and he really wanted to pass it on to someone who would take good care of it. That was when I said that you would probably make a good manager. I was going to talk it over with you—and will, when you’re not acting as if I’d committed grand larceny. I refuse to be intimidated, by you or anyone else, not at this stage of my life—I was once and I didn’t like it.”

“Then perhaps you are the one wearing the chip.” Alexi flicked his finger against her shoulder.

“Maybe I am. And maybe I know what it is to really want something. That you and I are lovers didn’t make a difference.”

“People will think—”

Jessica leveled a dark look at him. “You’re bigger than that.”

“You have a high opinion of me then. If so, you should know that
a man does not like his woman buying expensive presents for him.
”

Her head went back. “You’re yelling. Please desist. We are lovers. I admit that. I take responsibility for what I do. But I own myself. To think that my best friend stepped in to arrange my life, to worry me—I still haven’t gotten over that, and you knew, didn’t you?”

“She used onions to make herself cry. She printed the threatening notes herself. She’s been studying crime and stalkers. Yes, I had a good idea she was faking.”

His woman.
The echo of his previous words stunned him. In his heart he thought of Jessica as his—and himself as hers—not as a possession, but as a softer bond coursing between them. Frustrated, more with himself for not handling the situation better, Alexi reached to fist that soft hair and demand, “You never yell, I suppose.”

Her hands shot up to hold his face. “Never. I can control my temper, but you’re pushing it, Stepanov.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, looking straight into those emerald eyes. “You are a complicated woman.”

“No more than you.”

He had to shrug and smile at that. “But, observe—I am a man. With a man’s pride—”

With his free arm, he jerked her closer, to let her know that she was his, in the soft place in his heart, one he guarded very well. “And a man’s desire.”

Jessica tensed, her face lifted to his. Those green eyes glittered up at him. “You like this, don’t you? This sparring? Challenging me?”

“Yes, because then I see inside you, past what you do not want others to know. Tell me more about you. Tell me what you’re struggling so hard to prove.”

He tapped her forehead. “I already know that you probably didn’t make love with Robert, that yours was a marriage of convenience. You probably loved each other, and with the son he had, he needed you to be the protégée who took care of a business he loved. With the age difference, Robert could have
been a father to you, which meant you either lost your own father or you didn’t like him…. Something is going on in there and it isn’t letting you rest. It’s holding you. And you can’t let it go.”

“Okay, here’s one basic. I like to give gifts. I couldn’t once, but now I can afford it. I work hard for my money. Nothing was handed to me, despite what Howard says. I knew you would be upset, but I was only querying about the tavern. I know you are—temperamental…emotional…deeply proud, and wounded. I was going to see what you thought, and that a payment schedule could be—”

“But now? Now that I know?”

“You just have to push, don’t you? I’ve only been here one night and one day, and already I know that I’ll never meet anyone as aggravating as you. This is only money, Alexi, not life’s blood.”

Alexi had never felt that need before—to strip away everything but the truth and leave it clean and good. And Jessica didn’t want herself exposed to him. Too bad. Yesterday his insecurities about Jessica had prowled around him and now, stretched raw with pride, they had to be served. “And you thought to bargain with me? Is that how you handle relationships? Tell me about your first marriage.”

“Bargains are made all the time, Stepanov. Good ones that work for both sides. But I see that you’re not one to take the easiest road possible to what you want.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Jessica inhaled sharply and pushed back from him. She wrapped her arms around herself and went to look out at the night, the ocean waves catching the moonlight. “You wanted to know about my first marriage. I was young. We were both too young. I wanted to get away from my family. Not all families are like yours, Alexi. My mother wouldn’t leave my father, an alcoholic, and life wasn’t sweet. But it wasn’t reason enough to marry or to have children with Travis—I saw that instantly, if a little late. After the divorce, I started working at whatever I could find, moving up a job at a time. I cut off relations with my family and I moved away. Then I met Robert,
when I was managing a Sterling Stops. You know the rest. End of story.”

Not all families are like yours, Alexi….
The wound was there, still bleeding, and Alexi ached for her. “So this is what you protect so fiercely—you still think of your family. You still hurt. And you’re covering that with a smile-it-doesn’t-hurt attitude.”

“They didn’t miss me. They wanted my paycheck, though. Sometime ago, Howard dug them up and started trouble. Robert was dying and, to keep him in peace, I made arrangements for monthly payments to them. That’s the deal—they stay away from me, they get money.”

Alexi wanted to go to her, to hold her. But that would be too easy and Jessica clearly didn’t want sympathy. She wanted closed doors between them, and Alexi wasn’t a man who liked to deal with unexpected shadows. How long had she gone disliking that part of herself that had to survive?

“If Robert was kind to you and someone hurt you, a man, then it would have been Travis?”

Jessica’s fingers tightened on her upper arms. “Let’s just say that he was young and didn’t understand anything past his own needs. He really just didn’t understand that women—that sex—wasn’t wham-bam. He was raised that way. I don’t blame him.”

“But you should. Scream,” Alexi ordered quietly as he stood and crossed his arms.

She pivoted instantly to him, her expression puzzled. “What did you say?”

“If you have never yelled, then scream. It is good for you…cleans out the throat and the mind. Scream. Yell at me. I am listening.”

“I refuse. You should have told me that Willow was setting me up.”

“It was for her to say.” He shrugged and admired the way Jessica’s hair flowed back and away from her face as she stalked toward him. Her gown was slit to the thigh, flowing around her body, pronouncing her breasts, the sway of her hips, defining that V between her legs. His body was hard now,
needing to feel hers taut and hungry, and yet soft and hot against his. He steeled himself against reaching for her, from sealing her lips with his own.

“I don’t like being manipulated and if Willow weren’t such a good friend, I would really be angry. She thinks I’m overworked and need a rest, and she thinks that here is a good place to do that.”

“It is.” But despite his bruised pride, Alexi remembered Howard and how he had looked at Jessica, the harm he could do to her. Alexi had to keep her close and know that she was safe. Because of that, he told himself, he served her a challenge. “I’m surprised you’re still here. I didn’t think that you would lower yourself by staying here—in this house with me… It’s not exactly the luxury suite at the Amoteh. You might have to work once in a while. I mean physical work, not just calling your secretary—”

She scowled up at him. “You think I don’t work? That I don’t work every day? That I can’t do physical labor? Listen, Mr. Stepanov—I fought my way through every inch of my life. I do so know how to work.”

“You’re raising your voice, Mrs. Sterling. I’m only saying that I need help here, and if you think I could work for a business you owned, then maybe you might want to work for me. But then, I can’t see you doing that—settling into small-town life, helping me, letting the world know that uptown Jessica Sterling—”

“I run a corporation. There are obligations, major ones. You’re asking a lot, Alexi.” She was almost sizzling now; Alexi could feel the waves of heat and temper flowing from her.