The Billionaire's Bauble (5 page)

“Thank you for bringing the papers today. I’ve signed them and sent them back with Nate so we could enjoy lunch. Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said as he grabbed a bunch of grapes and began eating them. His words hit her like cold water. As his lips covered each grape, Sloane nonetheless felt her body temperature rise.

“That was my job, Mr. Grant. I was asked to return them once you had . . .”

“I know. I took care of it. Would you like something more—a sandwich perhaps?” He sat on the chair nearest her, and he was framed perfectly by the sunshine.

Despite his gentlemanly airs, Sloane couldn’t refrain from becoming irritated with his presumptions, so she stood up to leave.

“I’m going back to work now.” Sloane tried to sound cool, hold her temper in check. How dare he interfere on her very first day on the job? His rash actions might jeopardize her new position.

“Leaving so soon? Please, let’s share this lovely luncheon Veronica prepared. Sit. Sit.” He gestured broadly to the chair she’d hastily vacated. His tone revealed no signs of urgency, while her own voice was about to rise.

“I can’t sit here and chew cud all afternoon. Today is my first day, and you might have just lost my job for me,” she accused.

His cordial expression didn’t waver. “Tony acted on my recommendation. You needn’t worry. He definitely won’t fire you. Sit, please, Sloane. You’re getting overheated.”

That was it. He’d gone too far. Sloane felt her shoulders pinch down hard as she leveled her finger at him, and shook it accusingly. “My job isn’t your business. Tony, I mean, Mr. Forster, may be your nearest and dearest, but he’s my boss. I want to honor my commitment, my word. I said I would return those documents, and I didn’t, thanks to you. I need to get right back to the office, so he can see I didn’t bail out on my first assignment.”

“I’ll call him,” David said, reaching inside his suit coat pocket for his phone.

“Don’t you dare!” Sloane made a move to grab the phone, and David held it away from her. Playfully, he snatched her around the waist, turned her about, and sat her hard in his lap. She could feel his knees on her backside, and she felt foolish, like a chastised child.

“Let me go,” she said between gritted teeth, trying to wriggle out of his immovable grasp.

“Not until you forgive me.”

His statement surprised her so much, she instantly softened.

“Please, Sloane,” he cajoled, perhaps sensing his advantage. “I promise you won’t lose your job.”

“That isn’t the point,” she said, still struggling to escape his hands. They held her ribcage firmly, just below her breasts, and she could feel each finger like an iron band. “Mr. Grant, again my job is not your business. Let me go, I said, or you’ll get a taste of . . .”

“I want to taste you, Sloane.” His voice tickled her ear, and most frustratingly, she heard amusement.

“Taste this,” she said as she jerked her elbow into his rib. The blow shocked him enough to let her go, and she jumped up and ran toward the door like a deer in flight. David was a cougar, though, and he was on her tail in an instant, smoothly inserting himself, palms up and facing her, between her and the terrace doors.

His brown hair flopped in his face, and Sloane could see in his mischievous expression this was a fine game for him. She ran right into him, so strong was her impetus, and he captured her, holding her tight against his broad, hard chest.

“There, there,” he soothed, as he patted her hair. “I just wanted to say hello, have a quick bite, before you returned to Forster. It’s a long time until 7 o’clock. I couldn’t wait until this evening. Does that make me the bad guy?”

His words filled her ears and she laid her head against his breastbone, defeated for a moment. She could hear his heart beating quickly beneath the fashionable fabric of his suit, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one worked up.

“Are you a bad guy?” she asked. She looked up into his incredibly sexy eyes. Her voice caught at her throat, and she swallowed. “I need to know.”

“I am
your
guy,” he said, and his lips came crashing down upon her open mouth.

Sloane received his kiss like a woman starving for sustenance. As their tongues lashed each other’s mouths, Sloane moaned and then relaxed against his torso.

David tore his lips away and said, “Are you my girl?”

Her half-lidded eyes and the way she pulled his mouth roughly against her own was all the answer she offered.

David reveled in Sloane’s mouth, drinking her in like a man who’d been denied water for days and days. She filled his mouth, his ears, his hands. She was everywhere at once, and this was just a kiss. David couldn’t imagine how greedy they would be in bed, but he intended to find out immediately.

He lifted her in his arms. Light as goose down, she reposed for a moment, before whispering, “I need to get back to work. You can carry me to my car if you want.” David shook his head no, as he strode with her into the drawing room.

“I can’t wait any longer. Two years is too long,” he growled into her upturned, angelic face. Her eyes flashed as green as the summer pines. David had never encountered such jeweled orbs, and they mesmerized him.

Sloane leaned her head against his chest and giggled. “Five hours is too long to wait? I need to go. Please.” Her final entreaty buckled his resolve.

He groaned into the top of her head, his mouth tasting the delicate strands of her perfumed hair, “As you wish, sweetheart.”

He carried Sloane through the drawing room and down the hallway to the front door. He easily maneuvered the door handle without losing his grip on her. He carried her to the car as she snuggled against his chest.

When he reached her vehicle, he set her down gently beside it. His arms felt so empty without her fulsome form. He opened her car door, and she slipped into the driver’s seat, smiling into his desire heavy eyes.

“See you at seven . . .” She hesitated before she spoke the word he had waited years to hear. “David.” She blushed prettily, and David could swear his own heart nearly scudded to a halt.

“Oh, and before I forget, thank you so much for the flowers. I loved them.”

As the little vehicle drove away, David stood and watched her go. When she was out of sight, he turned and walked back to the empty house. He would see her soon, but that did little to tether his unleashed emotions.

He had told her he was her guy, that she was his girl. Where had that pithiness come from? The woman undermined his composure, made him say what he thought rather than what he intended to say. Exposed by his own emotions, David slammed the door behind him. Testy. Pent up. Hungry. All that and more roiled through his hot brain, his tense body.

Yet underneath it all, David also felt relief. He hadn’t been honest with anyone about his heart in too long. Heart? There was that word again. David chortled to think he might actually have one. Had the little farm girl all done up for corporate America actually unearthed that long lost muscle?

No.

Impossible.

He chalked it up to horny, and flew up the stairs to his home office where he planned to immerse himself in anything, anything at all, not Sloane related.

Within minutes of arriving at his desk, he heard a loud, disturbing noise. He immediately felt a sickening twinge in his stomach. He bolted to the large glass window nearest his desk and peered down the driveway. He couldn’t see a disturbance, but something inside his body, instinct maybe, made him turn and run down the stairs. He took them two at a time, pausing at the foot of the stairs to yell, “Did anybody hear that sound?”

No answer.

Where was the staff?

David didn’t waste any more time. He exited his home, suddenly terrified when he smelled smoke.

“Sloane!” he shouted, panicked. “Sloane!”

He ran toward the black whorls of smoke now wafting up the long drive.