PhoenixKiss (7 page)

It wasn’t love. It was sex.

As she found her way back upstairs, she remembered that last
week she’d made a bargain with her conscience to only use men for sex now. She
wasn’t going to bother looking for Mr. Right anymore because he didn’t exist.
By having sex with Jordan, she was getting two for the price of one—great sex
and a story that would put her on the front page of the
Tattler
.

Hell, if she got enough information and her editor approved,
she could stretch the editorial out over a few weeks. She needed to get herself
back on track and mentally find a way to keep Jordan from distracting her with
sex again.

When she made it back to his room, she crossed to the
balcony. It was a beautiful night out. The sky was clear, the stars sparkled
and the neighborhood was quiet except for a few croaking frogs, chirping birds
and the occasional car that drove by.

She felt Jordan come up behind her more than she heard him
and that unnerved her.

He slid his hand up her back and moved her hair again,
kissing the nape of her neck. “I left your stuff on the bed. Want to join me
for a dip in the pool?”

“The pool? It’s after midnight.”

“And?”

“Why would you want to go swimming at this time of night?”

“For the same reason I can cook in the middle of the night.
It’s my house. It’s my pool. I can do what I want.”

She laughed. “Fine. Let me check my messages first.”

When she did, she saw she had three voice mail messages from
her editor, one from her mother and a text from her best friend. Why was her
editor calling her again?

Probably to check up on her because he knew what she was
trying to do tonight. No, he didn’t know the extremes she’d planned to take,
like breaking into Jordan’s home, but he knew she was going for the story.

Jordan smiled and started to tug the shirt over her head
again but she playfully squirmed away from him.

“Can the messages wait?” he asked.

“My editor’s called me three times. I need to call him
back.”

Somehow he managed to get the shirt off and when she was
once again naked, which seemed to be happening an awful lot around him, he
began to draw lazy circles across her back.

“You’re not being fair.”

He bit her shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t answered one of my questions.”

“Well, it’s hard to answer a question when you haven’t
really asked me one.”

She ducked away from his sensuous touch and moved around the
bed. “That’s because you keep distracting me with sex and food. Stop it.”

He shook his head. “Oh no. Sex is so much more fun than
talking.”

“Yes, true. But you promised. You get sex. I get a story.”

He tackled her and they fell back on the bed laughing. “But
isn’t this much more enjoyable than work? That other stuff can wait until the
morning.”

Jordan was on top of her now. When she reared up to try to
kiss him, he avoided it and began nibbling on her neck. Why did he keep doing
that? Who did he think he was? The male Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
?

Did he think not kissing her kept him detached? From feeling
anything for her? Falling in love with her? Ridiculous. Besides, she didn’t
want him to fall in love with her. Did she?

“You are not being fair,” she moaned like a petulant child
as his tongue snaked over the lobe of her ear.

“I think you said that already.”

He kept nibbling and found his way back to her breasts. When
her phone chirped again, he stopped. “Come on. Let’s go swimming.” He dipped
his head to her neck. “I still taste icing on your skin.”

As he began to pull her up, her phone continued to ring.
When she reached for it, he stopped her.

“It may be my editor again. Go on, I’ll be down in a
second.”

He acquiesced and headed toward the door. He removed his
pants on the way and she watched his firm, naked butt walk away.
Mercy
.

She slid her finger across the screen to answer. “Hello.”

“I’ve called you three times already, Martin.”

“I was busy. I was just about to call you back.”

“I hope you’re busy getting an interview with Jordan Gaines,
because the word came down from corporate late this evening.”

Her pulse began to race. She knew what was coming. Rumors were
circulating all over the newspaper. Jobs were probably going to be cut. People
were going to be laid off. She may be a star reporter but that didn’t mean her
job couldn’t be eliminated.

“They’re cutting positions across the board. It’s between
you and Emilia since you were the last two hired. So get me that story, Martin,
or I’m going to have to let you go. You
and
the story need to be in my
office at ten o’clock.”

“I hear you.”

She clicked off and slumped in the chair beside the balcony.

Chapter Six

As Layla walked to the pool, Jordan admired how the black
T-shirt he’d given her molded to her breasts and legs. Unaware of his perusal,
she didn’t know he saw the forlorn look on her face before she masked it with a
smile.

Ask questions. Get the information. Keep your job.

Each of her thoughts hammered into his brain like spikes and
he flinched away from them. It was a reminder to him of the real reason she was
there. It didn’t matter what he thought or how he was beginning to feel about
her.

And even though he shouldn’t care, he asked, “Is everything
okay?”

She gazed at him and smiled. “Yeah. It’s great.”

He walked to her, leaned down and kissed her forehead. The
need to kiss her, touch her, almost overwhelmed him sometimes, in stark
contrast to what he wanted to feel. “I didn’t think you were going to come
out.”

“Sorry. My editor…the call took longer than I thought.”

“Why don’t you forget about work?” He stroked a wayward
strand of hair behind her ear just for the excuse of touching her again. “Come
on. The water’s cool but this beautiful night is too perfect to waste.”

And it was a nice night. It wasn’t too cold or too hot and
the midnight-blue sky shimmered with stars. When Layla tilted her head up, a
slow, gorgeous smile lit up her face.

Taking her hand in his, he strolled to the pool, where she
dipped her toes in and shivered.

“You’ll get used to it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t even
have a bathing suit.”

“Did you forget that I’ve already seen you gloriously
naked?”

Watching him, she said, “You always do whatever you want to
do, don’t you?”

“Is that a problem for you?”

She looked baffled and a little off-kilter at the same time.
“I think living in this huge house all by yourself and running a major empire
has gone to your head.”

“Are you calling me self-centered?”

At that, she actually laughed, a sound he thoroughly
enjoyed. “Oh yes. You are a very self-centered man, Jordan Gaines.”

He dove into the pool, let the cool water sink him under
then rose to the surface. “Sorry,” he replied, shaking the water from his hair.

“Oh no, you’re not. You’re exactly the person you want to
be.”

That tugged a grin out of him. He made waves in the water.
“Are you coming in or what?”

She took the shirt off. “You are conceited, vain, used to
getting your own way and probably a pain in the butt to everyone who works for
you, though I doubt any of them would say it to your face for fear of getting
fired.” She placed her shirt on the edge and sat, sliding her legs in first.
She rocked them back and forth in the water.

That she was brave enough to speak her mind to him spoke
volumes. There was no pretense. No guile. Any other woman would pander to him,
let him have his way and wouldn’t dare criticize him. It was refreshing to be
with a woman who didn’t care what he thought.

He swam forward, took her feet and pulled. “Come on, you
might as well get it over with.”

She pushed off and slipped in, shivering from the cold.

“You should have phoned ahead to let me know you were
stopping by for a…
visit
. I would have turned the heater on for you.” He
grinned. “You’ll get used to it in a minute.”

The strand of hair he’d tucked behind her ear stroked her
face again. As her legs swirled around to keep her elevated in the water, he
swam closer and put his arms around her waist. He enjoyed the feel of her
thighs brushing against his. To savor the full experience, he tried to wrap her
legs fully around him but she deflected him and swam away.

“Nope. Not a chance, mister. You need a lesson in not
getting your way for a change.”

He laughed and went for her. But she gracefully pivoted and
avoided his reach.

“Oh, so you want to play games.”

“No. You invited me for a swim, so I want to swim.” She dove
under the water headfirst, her legs swinging and kicking above the surface before
she swam up again. “And ask a few questions.”

Great
. The reporter was back.

Jordan chased her around the pool for a few minutes. He was
determined to have her in his arms again but surprisingly she was a pretty good
swimmer. They laughed, splashed water on each other, raced each other from one
side of the pool to the other. He couldn’t remember when he’d had so much fun.

Later, they were lying in the gazebo face-to-face, propped
up on their elbows, warm, fluffy towels wrapped around them. Since he never
brought women into his home, he’d never realized how romantic the setting could
be. The panels turned into sheer but private walls if you released them from
their ties. He’d picked the chaise lounge because it was bigger than normal and
he often liked sleeping out there on warm evenings.

“Why is it the public never hears anything about your
family?”

He tilted his body to lie on his back. “I don’t have any
family, biological anyway. The family that raised me died about fifteen years
ago.”

She didn’t say anything. He knew she’d been performing
mental calculations in her head when she said, “That means you were sixteen
years old when they died.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I know some of this because I looked you up. There wasn’t a
lot to find. And believe me, I tried. What happened to you?”

His mouth twisted wryly. “I came here, to California. It was
one of the places my…guardian was stationed.”

Layla gasped. “By yourself? Because you didn’t want to go
into the foster care system or something like that?”

He let out a harsh laugh. “I ran away before they could try.
Another family wouldn’t have understood who I was, what I was. I thought it was
best that I go out on my own.”

“You lived on the streets?”

Reaching over, he ran a finger over her temple and pushed
the wayward strand of hair behind her ear again. “What else could I do? When I
turned eighteen I applied for my G.E.D. and got a job, found a dirt-cheap
apartment to live in.”

Remembering those days now, it wasn’t as painful to talk
about as it used to be. Why he’d decided to tell Layla, he didn’t know. Their
worlds couldn’t have been more different, yet those differences fascinated him
and for some reason, he felt she needed to know who he was.

“Where I worked, my boss was really nice to me, his family
sort of took me in. Showed me what I needed to do to get into college. I
applied for grants and scholarships, loans. I did whatever I had to do. I knew
the only way I was going to be anything, succeed at anything, I needed to go to
college.”

“So how does the kid who runs away at sixteen and gets his
G.E.D. end up running a
Fortune
500
empire?”

He grinned. “Oh, I had a thing for numbers, the stock
market. It was happenstance really. When I was living on the streets, I always
picked up people’s throwaway newspapers and read them from front to back. The
stock market pages, I could understand easily for some reason. I could see the
name of a stock and know immediately if it was going to go up or down.

“When I guessed right a couple times, I really started to
pay attention. I was never wrong. When I realized that, I saved a thousand
dollars and invested it. I got my money back plus five thousand more six months
later. I invested it again, over and over, the entire time I was in college. By
the time I got out, I’d saved and earned close to a hundred thousand dollars.”

She sat up and crossed her legs. “I know this part. That’s
when you opened your first video rental store that became a nationwide chain.”

“I gave the people what they wanted. After a few years, I
sold it and started something else.”

“The business software company and the hotel chain.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“Well, there’s not that much out there about you but what I
read, I remembered.”

“And you were going to add it all to your story once you
broke my sex scandal, right?”

Her mouth opened and closed.

Jordan waited and eyed her with amusement but knew she
wouldn’t have much to say after that. She couldn’t deny it. He knew what she
wrote. It was the whole reason for her being there.

It was always about the story.

She eyed him with an arousing mix of wariness and
excitement. He could never forget the real reason he’d made the arrangement
with her.

He stood and released the cotton curtain ties from each pole
of the gazebo. No one would see them even if he hadn’t but after tonight,
making sure his privacy was kept intact would be one of his top priorities.

He retraced his steps, got back on the half bed, half chaise
lounge and crunched the cotton ties in his hands as he crawled toward her.

When he stood and closed them in, Layla knew she was in
trouble. She’d gotten to know him now. She admired what he’d done with his life
and even though he could be self-absorbed, she liked the man he’d become.
Taking care of himself from the time he was sixteen had to have been hard,
scary even. It took guts. But he’d done it.