“Don’t do that.”
She stopped. It took him a moment to realize the hoarse, ragged plea had come from him. She lowered her arm.
“Do what?”
The cotton molded to her chest, rose and dipped in the most attractive places. Aware of how hard he was, how hot under his clothes, he feared his own instincts when she set the brush on the nightstand and directed her full attention on him.
“I’m not Marissa,” she said, coming toward him.
He liked how candid she was. How she smiled with her eyes. How she walked. Talked. No, she was not Marissa.
Getting a grip of his thoughts, he shook his head. “I didn’t say that.” But it would be worse with her. If she ever hurt him. Deceived him. Betrayed him. He’d never trusted so fully, had never felt so many things at once.
“Marcos,” she said softly. Her eyes were examining his stiff shoulders, the stony mask on his face, as she halted before him. He was shocked at the raw emotion shining in her eyes. Not only desire. But tenderness. Concern. Caring.
Caring that tugged at some little strings inside him.
Caring that begged him to care, too.
Damn.
She was his lover. He had a right to touch her, take her, come with the pleasure of being inside her. It was all this was. Lust.
Lust lust lust.
“Never—” He could hardly speak as he lifted a hand to her silky, raven hair. She gasped at the touch, went very still.
“—ever—” he said gruffly, and tangled his fingers, fisted that lovely hair in his hand, using his knuckles to push her head up to where his lips waited “—lie to me.”
He took her gasp, rubbed her lips farther apart, and traced their seam with his tongue. They were flavored with toothpaste and mint, and they were wet and hot. “Never lie to me with this mouth.”
He licked into her, and she moaned. “I love this tongue, never lie to me with this tongue.”
She inhaled a ragged breath and his tongue followed its path inside her, searching deep. In one instant her hands curled wantonly around his wrists, went higher up his arms, opening around the width of his biceps. Her fingers bit into his shirt and skin.
It was instinct, need, something fierce he couldn’t understand, that pressed him to slam her back against the wall, take her, make her his mistress. It was so consuming to him, this passion, he was afraid if he followed it, he would break her apart. Or maybe he would break apart, feeling this—for her. With her.
Was this what his father had felt for Marissa? Was this why he’d given everything for her, everything to her? Let her slowly finish him off…so long as she kept on kissing him, looking at him, touching him like this?
When a cell phone rang, he tore his mouth away and she fumbled in a purse she’d left by the nightstand to answer.
“Yes?”
His hand flicked the buttons of his shirt as she walked away and softly spoke into the receiver.
His heart rammed into his ribs, his blood a thick, terse boil in his veins. He was losing his head—and he didn’t like it. He considered retiring to his study to work, put distance between them. No. No. He wanted her. He walked forward, shrugging off his shirt.
“Yes…yes, I didn’t want to wake you…and yes, I’ll see you…um…I’m working late and I don’t know how long I’ll be—” Silence. A soft, very soft, “Good night.”
She came back, smiled.
“You’re spending the night,” he said, rendering it a statement when in fact he wanted confirmation. She was seducing him—in her pajamas, brushing her hair, staring with those green, green eyes.
Gritting his teeth against the flaring lust, he readied himself briskly, his erection springing free.
He grabbed her hand and put it on himself. If that didn’t tell her, show her, how far gone he was, then he didn’t know anything anymore. Still, he recalled Monterrey, all those nights with her, the days, and gruffly spoke. “You’re staying the night here—with me.”
She nodded and met his gaze, her eyes bright and fiery. She stroked his chest with soft, fluttering hands, dragging her lips across his jaw, his chin. “I want you in me, Marcos.”
A primal hunger had overtaken his mind, his senses, until he felt as instinctive as an animal. An animal tantalized by the nearness of his mate. “You came to seduce me, didn’t you? You like being at my beck and call. You came to please me, service me.”
Smiling, she stepped back, and her hands went to her shirt, and Marcos watched as she began to unbutton it farther. Her fingers pulled another button free, then the next, and his eyes flicked up to hers. “I’m crazy about you,” he rasped.
Virginia didn’t seem to hear the truth in his words, the worry they carried. He felt out of control, and he didn’t like it.
“C-can I try something with you?” she asked hesitantly, easing her top off her shoulders.
He nodded, mute with desire and anticipation.
“Would you stay still, please?” she asked.
“What are you going to do to me, Miss Hollis?” he asked in a guttural voice. He fisted his hands at his sides, watching her hands like a man about to die under them. He stood utterly still, admiring her flesh as she revealed it. His voice was barely audible, his eyes on the gentle curves of her breasts as she stepped out of her pants and at last stood as naked as he.
“Just don’t move, okay?”
So he waited, his chest expanding on each breath. She trembled when she stepped closer. “Can I touch you?”
He swallowed thickly. “Please.”
He sucked in a breath when she set her hand on his chest and began kissing his neck, his ear, his jaw. His breathing became a wild thing. He was motionless as her hands began to roam down his chest. She hesitated at his waist.
His jaw clamped, his nostril flared, when she wrapped her hand around him.
“Is this okay?”
Ecstasy surged through him in a tidal wave. His breath made a strange whistle. “Yes.”
“Do you want—”
His head fell, forehead against hers. “Just keep touching me.”
She eased her fingers between his parted thighs, to gently cup him in her palm. She began to rub.
He hurt under her stroking hand. His mind spun with images of her and him, losing themselves in his bed like he’d wanted to. His hands idle at his sides, he softly, so softly, said, “You’re not pregnant, are you, amor?”
She tensed for a moment, and he frowned. He reached down and pried her hand away.
“Are you? We didn’t use protection the first time, and I’d like to know if there were consequences.”
Ignoring him, she took his shoulders in her little hands and urged him down on the mattress. “The only consequence is this, Marcos. Me. Wanting more.”
He sat there, on his bed, like a man in hypnosis, and watched her straddle him.
They kissed.
Marcos was dying with pleasure, his body rocking as he feasted from her lips, lips that were soft and warm against his, lips that were wide open for his tongue to search in deep, so deep. Her sex cradled his hardness, her legs twined around him as tight as her arms while he ran his hands up her sides, into her hair, groaning at the way she whimpered his name. Marcos. All he could say was, “Virginia.” Oh, Virginia.
He pulled roughly at her hair.
“Why?” His voice was a cragged sound.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why do you look at me like this? What are you playing at?”
Watching him through heavy, sooty lashes, she kissed his nipples, his abs. She was smiling—teasing him with her teeth. Her tongue. Driving him out of his mind. Out. Of. His. Mind. “Must it be a game for you to enjoy it, Mr. Allende?” she purred. “Must we play at another pretense for you to let me in?”
He snatched her hair to halt her wandering mouth, suddenly trembling with thirst for not only her body, but for something else. Something he’d always, always, seen and sensed and tried to
grasp in her eyes. “Are you trying to drive me insane?” he demanded.
She pulled free and lovingly cupped his jaw, kissing him softly on the lips. “I’m trying to make you remember.”
He framed her face, engulfing it between both hands, and before he took her lips in the hard, hot way his screaming soul demanded, growled, “I’m trying to forget.”
Ten
“With luck, the negotiations will advance, then my lawyers will fly down to…” Marcos trailed off as Virginia strolled into his office the next morning, bringing those long legs with her, her raven curls bouncing with each tiny step her tapered, knee-length skirt allowed.
She stopped to check discreetly on the coffeemaker—directly in Marcos’s line of vision. A bolt of lust arrowed to his groin. Marcos, oh, please, more, more.
Her gasps of last night echoed in his head.
This morning they’d gone at each other like—hell, like two wild animals—before they’d separately headed for the office. He’d asked her to buy something special to wear to the Fintech dinner, to splurge. She hadn’t seemed to be impressed. He wanted to please her, to give her something, and yet the only thing Virginia Hollis seemed to want was him.
Damn, he was totally taken—in a way not even Marissa had taken him before. Virginia’s moans, her body, writhing against his, with his. It maddened him. Heated him. Excited him. Appalled him.
Aware of the abrupt silence in the vast carpeted space, a quiet that magnified her noises as she innocently fiddled with spoons and cups, Marcos jerked his eyes back to the open proposal and tapped his Montblanc pen against the sales projection chart. He cleared his throat. “Where was I?”
“Allende. Marissa Galvez. Negotiations,” Jack said, sprawling on a chair across from his desk.
“Of course.” He dropped his pen and lounged back in his high-backed leather chair, stacking his hands behind his head. He met the Texan’s electric-blue stare. “As soon as negotiations take on a serious note I’ll call in the cavalry and we—”
Virginia leaned down to refill Jack’s coffee, and her proximity to the man made Marcos’s jaw clamp in anger. He felt ridiculously jealous. Yes, diablos, he was totally had.
“We’ll close,” he finished tightly, and slapped the proposal shut. She had no idea, no idea.
Or was she doing this on purpose?
The sunlight that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Art Deco building shone over her loose hair. But she was frowning, he realized then, somehow worried, and the noose tightened around his neck.
“Miss Hollis,” he said. Last night’s seduction? That ridiculously simple but mouthwateringly sexy outfit? Was all this some sort of plan of hers?
She spun, shocked as if from out of her thoughts. “Yes?”
He reclined in his seat and crossed his arms. She was pale this morning. Guilt assailed him. He hadn’t let her sleep much, had he? “I was telling Mr. Williams about Monterrey.”
She spared a fleeting glance at Jack’s lean, jeans-clad figure, and he shot her one of his disarming grins. “How nice,” she said absently, and lifted the glass coffeepot to Marcos. “More coffee?”
He shook his head, searching for warm emotions in her expression, all of which usually showed on her face as she experienced them. There were none this morning either.
Her desperation last night, her need, her wanting…he’d felt them all. He’d throbbed with every one of them. Today she looked distant. Why?
I’m not Marissa…
His body clenched. No. No. She was not. Virginia was even more dangerous.
“Marissa Galvez is flying in this weekend,” he then offered. Why did he offer this information? Because deep down, her words continued to pull at his heartstrings. Mend Allende. Make it gold again.
Did he dare? Did he even want to?
“Oh. How nice. I’m sure she’ll be more agreeable this time.”
The reply was so noncommittal and so lacking in generosity of feeling that he frowned. When the carved oak doors shut behind her, Jack murmured, “I see.”
“Hmm?” Marcos took a long, warm gulp of coffee.
“I see,” Jack repeated, propping a shiny lizard boot atop his knee.
He drank again, savoring the scent, the warmth of her coffee. Was she sick? “Mine, Jack.”
“Yes, I see.”
Marcos grunted. Jack wouldn’t even begin to comprehend the pain of his sexual frustration. The looks she gave him—tenderness, desire, admiration, respect. When would he tire of her? He’d expected to tire within the week, and yet it had been over a month now. He could not get enough of her. Was she tiring of him? Good God, was that a possibility?
His friend’s dry chuckle wafted in the air. “I assume your plan worked with Marissa. She no doubt thought you were taken with Virginia.”
Marcos pushed to his feet and headed to the wide bay window, his coffee cradled against his chest. “My bid has been rejected, Jack.”
Silence.
His chest felt cramped with anger, frustration. “She controls the board and somehow made sure they declined.”
“Ahh. Then I assume we’re getting hostile? Why are we even discussing Allende if not?”
“We are getting hostile.” He spun on his heel. “If we could.”
Jack made a scratching noise. “Meaning?”
Damn Marissa and her sneaky ways. Marcos had discussed for the tenth time the purchase of her shares, and she still held off selling to him. In the back of her warped mind, she no doubt believed she could bend Marcos like she’d bent his father—who else would save her company but the son? What else would ensure her continued ownership but marriage?
No. She wouldn’t get away with it, not anymore, and yet even in the midst of this surety, the fact that a woman would have power over his future made his blood boil.
“Meaning I must pressure her to sell, Williams. She’s flying to Chicago this weekend—I invited her to the Fintech dinner. As long as she owns the majority of the shares, a hostile takeover is close to impossible. She must sell, and she must sell to me.”
“Pardon my slowness, but you invited her to Chicago?”
“I want Allende, Jack.”
“You want to kill it,” Jack added.
Marcos absently scanned the busy sidewalks below. “And if I don’t?”
Jack’s usually fast retorts seemed to fail him this time.
Marcos’s mind raced with every new discovery he’d made about Hank Hollis today. The man had lost his way—not unusual after the heartache of losing a beloved wife, Marcos supposed. But he’d been visiting AA meetings, seemed to be struggling to get his life back on track. He’d been a risk-taker on the job, and ruthless when it came to disciplining those beneath him. Years ago, he’d pushed his chain of stores, every single one of them, to be better, more efficient, and the admirable numbers he’d produced for them didn’t lie.
“What if I told you,” Marcos began, “that I’d save Allende. What if I told you I’ve found a man to do the dirty work—one who’s driven and who’s thirsty to prove something to someone?” Maybe he’d enjoy coming to Mexico.
“Marcos, I’m on your board as a professional, not as a friend. The same reason you’re on mine.”
“Of course.”
And Virginia would be free of the pain her father had been causing. She would be free to be with him. Marcos.
“Well, as both, I have to tell you,” his friend continued in a thickening drawl. “It’s that damned prodigal apple. Any opportunity man or woman has to get a bite out of it, ten out of ten times, they will.”
“Amen.”
“I’m serious.”
He swung around. “All right. So we get to play gods and kick them out of the kingdom. New management, new rules, no thieving, no blackmailing, no mafia.”
“I agree. But who’s heading new management?”
His eyebrows furrowed when he realized there was no clear space on his desk to set down his cup of coffee. The last fifteen years of
his life—hard, busy years—were in this desk. A heavy oak Herman Miller, the first expensive designer piece he’d bought after his first takeover. It was old—he was superstitious—and it was a keeper and it was packed. The surface contained no photo frames, no figurines, nothing but a humming computer and piles and piles of papers that would later go into a roomful of file cabinets. He planted the mug over a stack of papers. “You are,” he flatly repeated.
Jack’s gaze was razor sharp. “Me.”
His lips flattened to a grim, hard line as he nodded. “You. And a man I consider may be hungry to prove himself.”
Jack hooked his thumb into his jeans pocket. “Go on.”
Marcos folded into his chair, grabbed a blue pen and twirled it in his hand as he contemplated. “I negotiate for Marissa’s shares and agree to allow her to stay in the company temporarily, while you and Hank Hollis will get the ropes and start a new team.”
“Hank Hollis.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re not serious.”
He smiled the very same smile the Big Bad Wolf might have given Little Red Riding Hood. “Oh, but I am.”
Hank Hollis would redeem himself in Virginia’s eyes, right along with Allende. Marcos would make sure of it.
If Virginia had had any worries regarding her poor emotional state for the past twenty-four hours—other than having stupidly, blindly, foolishly fallen in love with Marcos Allende—she now had more proof for concern.
Pale-faced, she walked into the long tiled bathroom to stare for the twentieth time at the sleek white predictor test—the third one she’d used today—sitting next to the other two on the bathroom sink.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
All three were pink.
Of course. Because when it rained, it poured. Because when one thing went terribly wrong, everything went wrong. Because when your world collapsed on top of your head, really, nothing you could do would stop the crash.
Letting go her breath while the sting of tears gathered in her eyes, she leaned back on the white tiles lining the bathroom walls and slowly, weakly, dragged her body down its length until she was sprawled on the floor.