Caron pushed off the seat and once again found herself straightening her clothes but with the full intention of seeing them messed up again. She had been Baxter’s Marilyn; he’d just have to be her Don Juan tonight. And then she’d end their short acquaintance with a delicious memory-worthy kiss before saying goodbye.
“I’M NOT GOING TO JAIL for something I didn’t do,” Jett hissed through the phone line at Baxter. “The Feds manufactured their so-called proof. They want me to go down.”
That accusation didn’t sit well with Baxter. He’d believed Jett innocent but doubts were forming. “And why would they want that?”“You tell me,” he growled. “The corrupt bastards are obviously covering something up.”
Baxter clamped down on the budding anger threatening to surface. “Your attorney will deal with it. Running isn’t the answer. Aside from shaking up your family and friends, it’s made Remington’s stockholders uneasy.” His lips thinned. “And that is putting employees’ jobs on the line.”
“Fuck the stockholders! I am not going to jail.”
“Then why are you calling?” he said. “What do you want from me?”
“I can’t get to my funds right now,” he said. “I need help. I need money.”
Money. He wanted money? Not a chance in hell. Baxter ground his teeth and issued an undeserved warning. “If you haven’t turned yourself in by Monday, I’m going to the FBI myself.”
“You don’t know anything to tell the FBI,” he blasted back. “What happened to friendship, Remington? Or is that reserved for only those lining your pockets at the time?”
“Friendship and my dire need to believe in you,” Baxter replied in a steely voice, “are the only reasons I’m giving you until Monday.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he spout out. The line went dead.
“Damn it,” Baxter cursed, his hand holding the receiver in a death grip. “Damn it.”
He replaced the phone on the cradle. Ran a hand through his hair and stood, feet rooted into the carpet, pulse pounding in a fierce beat, his temple throbbing.
Baxter was loyal to those he trusted, loyal to those who counted on him. But he expected the same loyalty in return. He’d given that loyalty to Jett. A decision that was fast appearing to be a bad one, a decision that had hurt other people—his family, his employees, those people who’d believed their company a worthy investment. And he had no one to blame but himself. He’d hired Jett, vetted him through a process that had left only himself as the final decision-maker. Trusted Jett to make decisions in the best interest of the company, and its stakeholders, not his own interests.
Tension balled in his muscles and he started pacing. It felt like the world was caving in on him. Night after night, day after day, he had bled for this company, worked tirelessly to build success—so many times with Jett by his side. Had it all been a lie? A setup for ultimate betrayal? Or had Jett simply found trouble and not known how to get out of it? Not that it really mattered either way—Jett had chosen the wrong path regardless. And Baxter knew in his core that Jett wasn’t going to turn himself in. Baxter would be forced to turn on Jett.
A knock sounded and his head jerked toward the door. Caron. He’d forgotten to give her the remote. He inhaled the soft scent of her perfume, still lingering on his skin. The sweet taste of her lips still flavoring his tongue. Meeting her had been the only escape he’d found from all of this; she was the only person who’d made him smile, made him forget. And he needed to forget now. He needed to get lost in Caron. He hit the remote, a primal, wild burn pulsing through his veins as he charged toward the door.
CARON BARELY CROSSED the threshold of the Red Room before she found herself wrapped in Baxter’s embrace and drawn into a long, drugging kiss. One of his hands laced roughly through her hair, the other wrapped around her hips and then curved along her backside. It was a hungry, desperate kiss laden with emotion. He pressed her against the wall, tugged her leg to his waist. Pressed the long, hard length of his erection between her thighs. Caron moaned with the intimacy of it.
His lips brushed her ear. “I want you, Caron,” he murmured hotly, one hand cupping her breast, unmercifully caressing her nipple.Another moan escaped her lips, but she sensed the wildness in him, the shift in emotion to something dark and out of control. This was not the man she’d left minutes before.
“Baxter,” she gasped. Her hands pressed into his shoulders, her chin tilted upward as she searched his face. She noted the tortured look in his eyes for a flash before he kissed her again, his tongue relentlessly demanding.
Caron fought the meltdown overtaking her, the fast tumble into passion quickly destroying her will to resist. She stopped kissing him. “Baxter! Wait. Please. Are you okay? You seem—”
“I will be once I’m inside you,” he murmured hoarsely, reaching between her legs and sliding a finger beneath her panties to stroke her sensitive flesh. “Ah, so wet.”
She gasped with the intimate invasion, panting as he slid a long finger inside her. Yes, she was wet. Embarrassingly so, considering she’d barely walked in the door, and they were both still fully clothed.
“Baxt—” A hot, primal kiss swallowed her intention to object, though she wasn’t quite sure why she felt the need to do so. Except there was something different about him, something wild, unleashed—dark. But she had no will to fight, no will to debate the difference in one pleasure over the other. Caron whimpered helplessly into the possessive kiss, the invasion hot, demanding—the licks, nips and strokes taking her to the shadows of all-consuming passion.
She barely knew when he picked her up, scooped up her backside with his hands and carried her to the couch. Willingly she straddled him, her skirt hiked to her upper thighs as his heavy-lidded stare dropped to the red silk panties she wore, his thick lashes lowered. His fingers formed a V around her clit, the wet silk of her panties shoved aside as he teased the sensitive nub.
His gaze lifted to hers, held her spellbound, touched her in a way that his hands, and even his mouth, could not. It made her shiver from the inside out with the depth of passion radiating between them. A second later, it was as if their connection snapped. Moving as one, their mouths slanted together in a crazy, hot kiss, hands desperately traveling each other’s bodies.
Baxter’s pants were soon unzipped, his thick erection shoving aside her panties, the steely hard length sliding along the slick, swollen lips of her core. Caron writhed against him, burning to feel him inside her. That was all she could think. Get. Him. Inside her.
And so she made it happen, slipping his silky head past her sensitive lips, and pulling him into the depths of her body.
“Condom,” he half whispered, half moaned, and she took him deeper.
“Pill,” she panted and then had a moment of clarity that drew embarrassment. Her hands went to his shoulders. Her eyes latched on to his. “I’m not on it to have sex. I mean—it’s not because I do this all the time.” She didn’t want him thinking she had some disease. “I don’t. It’s because—” He covered her mouth with his, and she never finished the explanation.
Wild kisses and long, hard strokes of his cock followed. Their bodies melded, hips rocked. Wild. So wild. Caron had never felt so hot and out of control. They moaned into a fast, hard rhythm that had her pumping her hips, had him thrusting his. Had her leaning back to find that perfect spot that delivered a new surge of energy. That spot that said release was in sight, that it was one more swivel of her hips…just one more. Or maybe one more. That feeling that drove her to keep going, to keep reaching.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” Baxter moaned, and her body spasmed around the hard length of him, buried oh-so-deliciously deep inside her—pulling at him, taking and taking.
He thrust again and again, then exploded inside her, hips lifting her, hands pressing her hard against him. Caron buried her face in his neck, clung to him as their bodies climbed to release. Her body melted against that rock-hard chest, melted into those powerful arms as they closed around her.
>
For a long while afterward, they lay there as one, unmoving, satisfied, a wonderfully comfortable silence between them. His hand stroked through her hair.
Reality slowly seeped into Caron’s mind, and she sensed a heaviness in Baxter’s emotions. Seeking confirmation, she shifted, searching his face. One look into his turbulent eyes, and she whispered, “Are you okay?”
“It was Jett.” A stark quality touched his low voice. “On the phone.”
Her stomach knotted. There was the information she didn’t want to know. Didn’t need to know. But now she did. Now there was no place to go but into the fire. “And?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I gave him until Monday to turn himself in or I’ll go to the authorities.”
Relief washed over her. He was the man she’d sensed. A man of honor who would do the right thing. “What did he say?”
He grimaced. “In short. That I’m a self-serving bastard.” The betrayal he felt etched his face.
She touched his cheek. “You’re doing the right thing. Don’t let him get to you.”
He drew her hand into his, examined her expression. “You should stay away from me.” The words were spoken as if he felt he had to say them. As if he didn’t want to say them.
“I know,” she whispered, wishing it weren’t true, knowing it was.
“I could drag you into something you don’t want any part of. Probably already have.”
She nodded. “I know that, too.”
His hand caressed her waist. “I want you to come home with me, Caron. Tell me, no.”
“No,” she murmured, their eyes locking, the magnetic pull of their attraction crackling in the air because they both knew no meant yes. And that Caron was already in the fire, already burning with the heat of a bad position that felt too good to deny. At least tonight. Tomorrow, she told herself, was a new day. Tomorrow she’d say no and mean no.
But not today.
11
AFTER A DECADENT NIGHT of lovemaking, conversation, and more lovemaking, morning arrived far too early—especially considering Caron had to be at work, and Baxter had to catch a flight to Texas. Just before 8 a.m., wearing only Baxter’s T-shirt, Caron fumbled her way around his barren kitchen cabinets and managed to find two mugs. She filled them with the piping hot coffee she’d brewed and then mixed in some vanilla creamer before heading back to the bathroom where she’d left Baxter to shave. It seemed coffee supplies were the only plentiful thing in Baxter’s kitchen.
“Coffee is served,” she said, finding Baxter at the bathroom sink with shaving cream slathered over his jaw, looking sexier-than-sin in nothing but boxers. Blue. With little black checks on them. Her gaze traveled his long, muscular legs brushed with dark hair. She really liked his legs. But then, she liked a lot about Baxter.She set the cup next to him on the marble countertop and then claimed a seat on the tiled step leading to the gorgeous sunken tub, tucking the T-shirt under her backside. “A few hours from now, you are going to hate me for keeping you up all night,” she said, her palms wrapped around the mug, the warmth heating her chilly hands. “What time did you say your flight is?”
“Eleven o’clock.” He stopped shaving long enough to cast her a look in the mirror. “And you were well worth some lost sleep.”
Her eyes met his and the spark of that connection sent a warm flush over her skin. “We’ll see if you say that a few hours from now,” she teased.
“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, refocusing on the task of shaving. “I’ll sleep on the plane.”
For several seconds, Caron was spellbound by the way he moved, the way he held the razor. She’d never known a man so powerfully male—so dominantly present in every room he entered—yet, still so gentle and unassuming in all the right ways.
“I’ve never liked sleeping on planes,” she said finally, trying to snap herself out of this lusty longing for more Baxter, when the goodbyes were about to come. The final goodbyes. “I always worry about doing something silly in my sleep like snoring. Not that I snore, but what if I chose a public place to start? Or what if I drool?” She shuddered.
He cast her an amused glance and chuckled. “You’ve given this some thought, I see.”
“I flew to one of my suppliers’ distribution centers a few months back and did so with very little sleep. My eyes kept trying to shut on the plane but, needless to say, I managed to stay awake.” She sipped her coffee. “Hmm,” she said. “Remington coffee is pretty darn good.”
“But expensive,” he said, reminding her again of her verbal faux pas when they’d first met.
“Way, way expensive,” she joked, glad to take his bait. “You should have a day a week that is some sort of budget promotion for people like me.”
He snagged the towel on the rack and wiped his face, turning to study her with a thoughtful expression on his face. “That’s not a bad idea. Not bad at all.” Absentmindedly, he ran light fingers over his cleanly shaven jaw, checking his work. “I’ve been looking for ways to bring positive attention instead of negative, and get my stockholders excited again. This might fit into that agenda.” He homed in on her. “That is, if you don’t mind me stealing your idea?”
“I’d be thrilled if you used it.” Her mind started to race, and she set her cup on the edge of the tub and straightened. “You could do it in a way that generates revenue for you, too, which logically would please stockholders. Pick the time of day you sell the least coffee and offer incentives during those times. It’s affordable for people with less money and you generate revenue you wouldn’t normally generate without cutting into your expected sales. Maybe some sort of catchy saying that you use to promote it—‘The Remington two-dollar, two-hour dash.’” She cringed. “Okay. Forget I said that. Something better, but snappy.”
He reached for her and pulled her to her feet, lifting her and setting her on the sink, slicking a strand of her hair behind one ear. “It’s adorable, just like you.”
Adorable. She had never liked adorable. Cute was even worse. Her stomach started to roll. Who was she fooling? Baxter wanted a bombshell. Why else had he sent her that package? “I guess I have to put the wig back on to be sexy?”
His finger slid under her chin, his eyes held hers. “You’re adorable and sexy,” he said, his voice a bit smoky, a bit aroused. She liked aroused and liked when he added, “It’s a perfect combination.”
She wanted to believe he meant that, but she was afraid to. “So suave,” she rebutted, her fingers threading through the soft dark hair of his chest, despite the ache in her heart. “You must be very good with the ladies.”
“Just one, I hope,” he promised, and slid a hand around her neck, fingers tickling her with sensation as they caressed, but he offered no more reassurances. Both his expression and his tone sobered as he said, “I’m worried about you getting out of here unnoticed. The press has been stalking me. When I leave, I’ll make sure I’m seen so they think hanging around here is unnecessary. But your safest exit is to wait awhile, stay here and get some rest if you want. I can have a car on standby for you in the basement, and you should be able to slip out unnoticed.”
Surprised, she asked, “You want me to stay in your apartment when you leave?” She wasn’t sure she understood correctly. Surely not.
“That’s right,” he told her. “Make yourself at home. Sleep. Take a bath. Explore the library upstairs and make sure I meet your book quota for a home.” His lips lifted with that last suggestion. “Whatever pleases you. I’d feel better if you waited awhile to leave.”
“But I have to open the store.”
“I know this is an imposition, and I feel like a selfish bastard for bringing you here.” He slid his hands to her face. “But I can’t say I’m sorry because it would be a lie. Worried about you—yes. Sorry you came—no. Kasey seemed like a nice, responsible girl. Can’t she open for you?”
He was probably right, but she felt awkward staying here when he was gone. “Aren’t you worried I’ll snoop around? And what ab
out locking up?”
“You have my permission to snoop,” he said, amusement dancing in his eyes. “And I’ll give you a key to lock up. I trust you to get it back to me. After all, you owe me a birthday gift for my sister, who incidentally is the ultimate snooper and does not have a key, so be sure to keep the key separate from the gift. If she gets her hands on it, she’d rearrange everything I own, and fill my kitchen with groceries that will go bad and that I’ll end up throwing out. She thinks I live on coffee and takeout.”
Caron laughed at that. He talked about his family a lot. She wondered if he knew how much. “Do you?”
“Yes, but I’d never admit that to her, and certainly not to my mother. Say yes to staying, Caron.” His hands settled on her waist. “I need to know I didn’t turn your life upside down.”
Smooth like whiskey, his voice was a gentle caress, coaxing her into easy submission. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll stay.” She could always leave once he’d gone.
A smile touched those sensual lips before he kissed her, a kiss that led to one last wonderful round of pleasure. A kiss that almost made her feel she really was his bombshell. At least for a little while longer.
An hour later, her body sated, her stomach knotted, Caron stood in the foyer of the apartment, with Baxter by the door preparing to depart. Dressed in a black pin-striped suit, he looked good enough to eat, a picture-perfect, hunky image to remember. Her chest tightened, fearful of the final, awkward goodbye she’d tried to avoid by leaving that first morning. But was it goodbye? Her mind kept going back to that key. Was it an excuse to see her again?
Contemplating that thought, she found herself wrapped in Baxter’s arms, his spicy cologne teasing her nostrils. “I’ll call you when I land and make sure you didn’t have any trouble.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, preferring that the end would just be the end. It was easier that way. “Really. It’s not necessary.”