Protecting His Assets (17 page)

“I’ll have it fixed for you, and it’ll be good as—”

“Just get it off me. Hurry.” Her voice broke. He flipped open the fastening of her dress. It spread apart, a deep V down the beautiful slope of her back. “You inspire me,” he said. He wrapped his forearm around her waist and pulled her into the cradle of his body. He peppered kisses all the way down her spine, bending her over until she braced a hand against the wall. “I want to write poetry all over your body. With chocolate. And then lick it off.”

“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.” Her voice was already guttural and broken, which made him smile.

“I don’t.”

“How else do I inspire you?” she asked. Her ass pressed back into his hips.

“Let me count the ways,” he said, grinding the thick bulge of his aching cock against her.

With a gasp, she straightened and spun to face him. He took a few steps back to take it all in. Her eyes glimmered. Her face flushed. Her chest rose and fell beneath the gaping fabric of her dress.

He was spellbound. She was the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen…and he would have her tonight.

Chapter Eleven

T
hey were seriously beyond the point of no return. Even if she hadn’t been able to see it in his eyes, she felt it in her bones and coursing through her veins.

Was she absolutely sure about this? She was crossing more and more professional lines every second here. Shouldn’t she be more concerned about that?

She wasn’t. Maybe she’d still been a little uncertain about making assumptions when Nolan picked her up earlier, but not anymore. Any guilt about letting her professional and personal lives mix was gone.

She gazed at Nolan and hunched her shoulders, letting her dress fall. It slithered down her body to the floor, leaving her standing before him in nothing but her bra and thong…and her garter, which hadn’t been holding up her stockings ever since the car and she was lucky they hadn’t sagged down to her ankles by now.

He watched her with such intensity that her skin burned, but then she watched him, too. He shrugged off his jacket, tugged at his expertly knotted tie until it loosened, and started to undo the buttons of his shirt. She shivered with anticipation. With need.

They both kicked off their shoes at the same time, and then Nolan came after her again, sweeping her up in his arms. As one, they stumbled across the living room through the doors to the darkened bedroom.

He flipped on a small table lamp by the bed and she paused.

His brow lifted. “I want to be able to see every inch of you, all night long,” he said.

Boxing and training had kept her in good shape, and there’d always been guys around the gym to feed her ego if she’d wanted that. But her dad had always discouraged those relationships. The only guys who’d made a serious play for her had been the kind who’d been out to prove something. To her, to her father, to the world. In the ring, those guys went after one thing, and out of it, they’d looked for a different sort of prize. But she’d known better, and she’d been focused on her own goals. None of those boys had ever seriously tempted her. No one had ever
seriously
tempted her.

Except for one, and that had turned out…badly.

She crawled up onto the brand new mattress that had been covered with fresh sheets and a luxurious duvet, and motioned for him to join her there. It dipped with his weight as he obliged and immediately reached for her. She eased back across the width of the wide bed, with him on top.

Ah geez, he covered her like a big electric blanket, hot and heavy. It was the best feeling in the world…or so she thought for as long as it took for him to start kissing her again, and then so many new bests hit her one after the other it became impossible to rate them.

He removed her bra and panties and worshipped her breasts with his mouth, and—Jesus. His hands. His hands moved over her skin with both precision and urgency, raising goose bumps like a map to tell her where he’d been and where he still had to go. Everywhere. He went everywhere, playing her like a harp. A shivering, moaning, orgasming harp.

She was still shuddering with aftershocks when he reached into the dresser drawer and pulled on a condom, but he braced himself above her and entered her so slowly, making sure she felt every amazing inch of him sinking deep as he looked down into her eyes.

When he paused, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He reached between them to tweak her clit, and when he started to draw back she dug her fingernails into the tensed muscles of his biceps. Three long strokes, and she was going off all over again.

“Oh my God, Steve.” She gasped. She’d never directly addressed him by his first name before this moment, but if there was ever a time to dispense with formality, it should be now, right?

She opened her mouth over the thick muscle of his shoulder and bit down in an attempt to stem the flood of overwhelming sensation and complicating emotion.

“Ah fuck.” His whole body went beautifully rigid for several long moments, and then released.

Afterward, he held her close, dropping his head into the cradle of her neck. She felt him struggling to control his breathing, like her. She tasted the saltiness of his sweat-dampened skin, and saw the sheen on her own. She felt his heart hammering wildly, creating a musical beat in time with hers as their chests pressed together.

Here in the dark they were in perfect sync for a single brief moment, as if both of their very different worlds had stopped spinning just long enough to torture her with how perfect it could be between them. It was almost enough for her to believe that tomorrow morning would never come, and they wouldn’t have to get up to face different paths when the sun came through the big windows.

She closed her eyes. It was a lie, but she could pretend. Morning wouldn’t arrive for a few more hours.

Chapter Twelve

I
t was still early in the morning, although the sun had indeed risen and nothing would keep the day away. April slipped out from Nolan’s forearm and got up to give her teeth a finger brushing in the adjoining bathroom. She snagged his dress shirt from last night on the way and pulled it on.

When she was done, she returned to Nolan’s room but stopped halfway to the bed. She looked down at him, stretched out like a beautiful warrior prince waiting for his harem to come tend to him, and gulped as her imagination went crazy.

They’d made a deal for one night only, and the night was definitely over. She should probably turn around and get a move on. It would be smarter if she were already dressed before he awakened. The two of them would be less likely to submit to temptation again.

But she couldn’t look away. And then he stirred, and she was irresistibly drawn closer. One last time before they let the world back in? He had driven her over the edge so often last night but never let her take control, and she wanted a turn.

Slowly climbing back on the bed, she lifted the hem of the shirt she still wore and settled over his thighs, biting her lip at the naughty feel of her bare pussy pressed to his skin. She thought he must be awake and would open his eyes then, but he didn’t. Boldly, she spread her palms over his pecs and retraced the hills and valleys of the muscular figure she’d gotten to know so well last night, all the way to his hips.

His cock was filling out, growing hard. She touched a single finger to the tip and smiled when it jerked toward her. Oh yes, he was awake. And he deserved to be teased within an inch of his life.

“Are you going to join me?” she asked huskily and cupped her breasts. “Or am I just playing with myself here?”

He groaned and snapped his gaze open. She crossed her arms and pulled the shirt over her head and shook her hair back out of her face.

“Damn, you are without a doubt the most amazing thing I’ve ever woken up to,” he muttered in a voice hoarse with sleep and desire, while his eyes glittered with electric energy. He put his hands on her knees and slipped them up her thighs in silent but unmistakable encouragement for her to come closer. “I didn’t want to open my eyes, in case it was all just an overactive wet dream.”

She wasn’t ready to let him call the shots. She pinched her nipples and bit her lip at the stab of delicious pleasure-pain. “And do you have those often?”

“I have a feeling I’ll be having them a lot more, now that I know exactly what to dream about.” He put his hands on her hips and tried shifting her forward, but she shook her head. She wasn’t finished torturing him just yet.

She slipped her hands down her belly to the triangle between her spread legs and dipped one finger into her own slick heat while he looked up at her with eager intensity.

She circled her clit and shuddered as gentle waves shot through her.

“Go deeper,” he murmured, his grip on her hips tightening. He dragged her forward so she wasn’t sitting on his thighs anymore but right on top of his erection.

“Hey, I’m the one in control here,” she replied, but she lifted just enough to slide her middle finger deep.

“Two fingers,” he said. “Do it.”

She didn’t bother to argue with his bossiness this time. Two fingers. She was fucking herself with two fingers right in front of Steve Nolan, his hard cock an insistent presence under the crack of her ass.

He bucked beneath her, and she threw her head back and closed her eyes, giving in to the pounding of her heart and the throbbing pressure building in her core. She was so close. God, so close. But this wasn’t what she’d planned, so with a final stroke and a deep breath, she eased back again and wrapped her wet fingers around his penis.

She swiped her thumb over the head before leaning over him and licking up the drop of moisture that appeared there. His back bowed as she took more of him in, but before she could settle in to drive him right over the edge, he flipped her over and knelt between her legs.

She looked up. “I wasn’t finished!” she cried.

“Oh, we’re not finished,” he assured her with a wicked smile. “Not by a long shot.”

She knew exactly where he was going when his head dipped down, and she shook with anticipation. His hands were a firm weight on her inner thighs, pushing her legs wider.

She bucked almost completely off the bed when his tongue licked all the way up her pussy like a cherry Popsicle. Nolan shifted so he was flat on his stomach. He cupped her ass cheeks and held her right up to his face. She could only see his eyes, and they looked all the way up her body right into her face and held there.

His tongue pierced her again and again, while keeping her orgasm maddeningly out of reach. But finally he lifted his head and reached into the drawer for a condom. She lifted her arms to take him, but he shook his head and guided her onto her stomach.

He’d seized control from her just like that, and he tormented her for a long, erotic hour. But as she lay by herself in the middle of the bed afterward, trying to regulate her breathing and savoring aches in places she hadn’t ever felt before, somehow she didn’t mind having given in once again. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

The shower came on in the bathroom. That meant the new day had indeed come. April stretched and her stomach growled. She got up and looked around for Nolan’s shirt again. It had ended up crumpled at the foot of the bed. She grabbed it and padded out to the kitchen before remembering that there hadn’t been much to eat the last time she was there.

She opened the refrigerator door. It was full. There were eggs, milk, juice, fruit, and vegetables. All normal things one expected to find in a refrigerator.

“The maid brought a few things for me after the insurance crew was done in here.”

Of course he had a maid to do groceries for him. Only regular people went out to buy their own food. Yep, reality was definitely poking its ugly face into her glow.

She looked up to see him standing there, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. His skin gleamed, and his damp hair stuck straight up on top of his head like he’d just rubbed the towel through it a couple of times.

“You look good in my shirt.” He was looking her up and down like he would rather eat her for breakfast than anything she could put on the stove. “Your legs go on for miles, and I’m already devising reasons to make you bend over and show me more.”

Self-conscious, she tugged, but the hem already hit her almost to the knee. If she turned and bent over, he wasn’t getting that good a look at her ass.

He shook his head with a grin. “Not the back,” he said, gazing pointedly at her gaping neckline. She hadn’t done up all the buttons, and if she bent even just a tiny bit, he would have a perfect view of absolutely everything.

Nolan crowded her into the open refrigerator and nuzzled her neck. The cold made her nipples poke through the white fabric of the dress shirt. “Let’s stay here today and forget about everything else,” he murmured.

The urge to say yes was almost crippling, but if she agreed, how hard would it be to leave tomorrow?

Maybe he won’t want you to leave then, either.

No, maybe not tomorrow, or even the next day. But one day he would be telling his friends that it was time to get serious. Guys like him fucked girls like her, but they didn’t get serious about girls like her. They got serious with girls who looked natural in an evening gown on a Wednesday night and went to the country club after hosting a dinner party the night before, while their kids scavenged the pantry for gourmet crackers.

Someone had to leave; that’s the way it worked. She’d rather it be her, and she’d rather it be now, while she still had a chance of doing it without losing another piece of her soul to the pain of loss.

“You wanted to get answers from Edward Fielding,” she reminded him with a sigh. “And I’ll probably have a new assignment waiting for me.”

“What if I’ve decided that I like having a bodyguard?” He traced a finger across her collarbone and dipped into the neckline of her shirt. “Maybe I’ll just keep you.”

“Don’t.” She stiffened. “I’ve already screwed up my chances in one career and what happened last night was
this
close to crossing the boundaries of the only respectable job prospect that I have left open to me.”

“Are you saying you regret what we did?”

“I have no regrets, but I won’t pretend it was anything more or less than—”

“What?” His jaw clenched. “What do you think this was?”

She sighed. “You know. It’s no secret. We’re from different worlds, Nolan. We have different paths. You’re on the verge of becoming a household name, and I…” She paused.

“You’re…?”

“A convenient way to keep your mind off everything.”

He dropped his arm. “So, let me get this straight. You’re nothing but my convenient distraction so that I won’t have to deal with being targeted by a psychopath.” She wouldn’t nod, but she didn’t deny it. He stepped back, his expression blank. “And I suppose I’m your distraction, too, aren’t I?”

His words hit her like a slap to the face, even though he hadn’t said as much as he could have. He hadn’t said that she was using him to stem her fear for her father, for example. Or using him to forget her failures for a little while. And yet, the way he looked at her, he was really saying all those things and more.

Her hand fluttered at her throat.

He waited. Waited for her to say something.
What?
What was she supposed to say?

All the words choking her felt so…vulnerable. If she said them, gave him what he seemed to want, and he took her back into his arms, into his bed…into his
life
, how long before she loved him completely?

Based on her feelings now? Not long.

She stepped up to slip past him, her shoulder and the side curve of her breast brushing his arm.

The electricity was immediate. She made the mistake of looking up at him instead of starting out of the room like she should and went completely still. He drew in a sharp breath, and his gaze flared with heat. Could he see it in her eyes? How much she still wanted him? How badly she was failing at denying it?

“April,” he whispered.

She curled her fingers over his shoulders and pulled him closer just as he buried his hand in her hair and tugged her head back. He crushed his mouth to hers without any finesse, but it was exactly what she wanted. It wasn’t the slick, polished Steve Nolan in his business suit that made her hot. She wanted this raw, real Steve Nolan. The one who put on boxing gloves and wasn’t afraid to sweat, and ate cookies on the kitchen floor, and made her feel like an Amazon.

And the knowledge that she couldn’t really have him only made the want sharper.

She kissed him back with every bit of the frustration, anger, and disappointment that she’d felt ever since waking up this morning.

They were as desperate to touch one another as they’d been in the beginning, as they’d been all night long.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
She was supposed to let go today. The morning had come, and with it, revelations that made it even smarter for her to keep her distance. And yet here she was, reveling in the feel of his tongue slipping into her mouth, the feel of his arms holding her so tightly she almost felt…cherished.

She pushed against his chest with a gasp. “Steve…Nolan, I can’t.” The taste of him was still heavy on her mouth, and the words stuck thick in her throat, but she squared her shoulders. “Our night is over,” she reminded him.

He grinned and reached for her. “What’s the point of making rules, if you don’t get to break them?”

She jerked back and shook her head. “Not this time,” she whispered. “It’s too complicated.”

He saw the hesitation in her eyes. He saw the tremor in her arms. Her nipples were still so tight with need they were hard points through the cotton of his shirt. She wanted him so badly, she was shaking from it even as she moved to go.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” he said. “We could have some fun together. Who knows what might happ—”

“I know what will happen, and I can’t do it,” she interrupted. She had to get out now or she’d give in to his unspoken promise and sign on the dotted line, knowing full well that he’d be lying to himself and her.

She bit her lip. It could be worth it.

What are you doing?
Her heart sputtered, froze. She couldn’t. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t give him what he wanted. Couldn’t let…

His frown deepened with disappointment as the silence stretched across the ocean suddenly between them.

“You don’t want anything more than this,” she murmured. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

“You’re so sure about that?” He paused for a long moment, but then he shrugged as if all this talk had only been hypothetical. “Well, I guess you’re right. Why ruin something fun with a lot of seriousness? It’s not my style, anyway.”

“Bad for the colon,” she whispered. Her own smile wouldn’t quite come.

“Exactly.” He kissed her. Light. No pressure, no urgency, no expectations.

She let out a fractured sigh and tried to ignore the heavy ball of lead in the hollow pit of her stomach. “You’re cold,” she choked out.

“We
are
standing inside my refrigerator, and I
am
pretty close to naked,” he murmured.

How she could have forgotten with all that male flesh staring her in the face… “Oh! I was going to make some eggs,” she said.

A loud buzzing startled them both just as she turned to get the eggs and let the fridge door close. “The door.” He started for the front door.

She followed and stopped him before he could open it. “Don’t answer it. Let me check first.”

“I’m not your assignment anymore, remember?” He gave her that look, but she pointed to the towel barely clinging to his waist with a grin. He crossed his arms and propped his shoulder against the kitchen entrance.

She couldn’t figure out why he was grinning back at her until he raised an eyebrow at
her
attire. She stretched onto her toes and squinted through the keyhole, but when she saw who was on the other side, she spun around and put her back to the door, eyes wide.