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“It was nice. She’s very excited. Thank you.”
He sat back in his chair, as if trying to distance himself from the sizzling electricity. “Why do you seem a little, ah, agitated?”
“Agitated.” She inched forward, not about to give up any ground, and her knees grazed the insides of his thighs. “I am agitated. Because I don’t get why you won’t ever acknowledge the wonderful things you do.”
His gaze flicked down the length of her body and back up again slowly. “What would be the point of that?”
Her husband was nuanced all right...and also incredibly frustrating. He likely refused to take credit for his actions because that would require too much of an investment from him. Someone might want to reciprocate and make him feel good, too, and then there’d be a whole cycle of emotions. That would never do.
She huffed out a noise of disgust and poked him in the chest, leaning into it as her temper rose. “You do these things and it’s almost like you’d prefer I didn’t find out you’ve got a kind streak. Jig’s up, Leo.”
He removed her finger from his rib cage, curling it between his and holding it away from his body instead of releasing it. Probably so she wouldn’t wound him, but his skin sparked against hers and nearly buckled her knees.
The memory of that kiss exploded in her mind and heightened the gathering heat at her core.
But she still didn’t know what was happening between them—friends, lovers, more? Maybe it was actually none of the above. If she gave in to the passion licking through her, would he disappear afterward until the next time he wanted sex? Or could this be the start of something special?
“You have an active imagination,” he said.
She rolled her eyes to hide the yearning he’d surely see in them. “Yeah, I get it. You’re a ruthless, cold-blooded businessman who’d rather be caught dead than disclosing your real name to a couple of students. What’s it going to take to get you off the sidelines and into the middle of your own life?”
That was the key to unlocking his no-emotional-investment stance on marriage. It had to be. If he’d only wade into the thick of things and stop cutting himself off, he’d see how wonderful a real relationship could be. How satisfying. Fulfilling. Surely their marriage could be more than an occasional crossing of paths. He needed her to help him see that.
Leo’s frame tensed and slowly he rose from the chair, pushing into her space. “I like the sidelines.”
Toe-to-toe, they eyed each other, the impasse almost as palpable in the atmosphere as the swirl of awareness. “Why did you book my mother on a cruise?”
He shrugged, lashes low, shuttering his thoughts from her. “I thought she would like it.”
“That’s only half the truth. You did it for me.” A huge leap. But she didn’t think she was wrong.
Their gazes locked and the intensity shafted through her. “What if I did?”
Her pulse stuttered. Coffee, then dinner. Now this. What was he trying to accomplish? “Well, I’m shocked you’d admit that. Before you know it, we’ll be buying each other birthday cards and taking vacations together. Like real couples.”
Like the marriage of her dreams. Just because neither of them had expressed an interest in a love match didn’t mean it was completely impossible to have found one. What better security was there between two people than that of knowing someone would love you forever?
He threw up a palm. “Let’s don’t get out of hand now.”
She advanced, pushing his palm into her cleavage, burning her skin with his touch and backing him against the desk. She wanted to bond with her husband in the most elemental way possible. To complete the journey from A to B and see what they really could have together.
“I like getting out of hand.”
“Do you have a response for everything?” His fingertips curled, nipping into her skin.
“If you don’t like what I have to say, then shut me up.”
His expression turned carnal. He watched her as he slid an index finger down the valley between her breasts and hooked the neckline of her dress. In a flash, he hauled her forward, capturing her lips in a searing kiss.
On legs turned to jelly, she melted into it, into him as he wrapped his arms around her, finally giving her what she’d been after since she walked in. Maybe since before that.
Greedy for all of him, she settled for the small, hot taste of Leo against her mouth. With a moan, she tilted her head and parted his lips with hers. She plunged into the heat, seeking his tongue with hers, and he obliged her with strong, heated licks.
His arms tightened, crushing her against his torso, aligning their hips. Need soaked her senses as his hard ridge nudged her. She cupped the back of his neck as his hand snaked under her dress to caress the back of her thigh.
Yes. As seduction techniques went, he could teach a class.
Soft cotton skimmed under her fingers as she explored the angles and muscles of his back. Delicious. Her husband’s body was hard and strong, exactly as she liked, exactly perfect to keep her safe and satisfied at the same time.
The kiss deepened and the hand on her thigh inched higher, trailing sparkling warmth along with it. She tilted her hips in silent invitation, begging him to take those fingers wherever he so desired.
But then he pulled away, chest heaving, and spun her to face the wall, his torso hot against her spine.
“Daniella,” he murmured in her ear, and his fingertip traced the line of her dress where it met the flesh of her back, toying with the zipper. “I’m about to pull this down and taste every inch of you until we’re both mindless. Is that what you want?”
Damp heat flooded her and she shuddered. “Only if you call me Dannie while you do it.”
He strangled over a groan and moved her forward a confusing foot, then two. “I can’t do this.”
“Don’t say you don’t want me.” So close. Don’t back off now. She whirled and tilted her chin at the bulge in his pants she’d felt branding her bottom. “I already know that’s not true. You don’t kiss someone like that unless you mean it.”
“That’s the problem.” Breath rattled in his throat on a raw exhale. “You want me to mean it in a very different way than I do mean it. I’d rather not disappoint you and that’s where this is headed. Making love will not change the fact that tomorrow I’m still going to work a sixteen-hour day, leaving little time for you. Until both of us can live with that, I need you to walk away.”
He was blocking himself off from her again, but for a very good reason. The rejection didn’t even bother her. How could it? He was telling her he didn’t want to treat her like a one-night stand.
That set off a whole different sort of flutter.
“I’m walking.” For now. She needed a cooler head—among other parts—to navigate this unexpected twist to their marriage.
She skirted the desk, putting much-needed distance between them.
Raking a hand through his hair, he sank into the chair with a pained grimace. “Good night.”
“This was the best date I’ve ever been on.”
With that parting shot, she left him to his paperwork, already plotting how to crack that shell open a little wider and find the strong, amazing heart she knew beat beneath. He thought they were holding off until she was okay with no-emotional-investment sex, but he was already so emotionally invested, he was afraid of hurting her.
That’s what had changed. Somehow, she had to help him see what he truly needed from her.
If a large percentage of success happened by showing up and then outwaiting the competition, she could do that. Yes, her competition was an intangible, unfathomable challenge called work, but the reward compensated for the effort.
Time for a little relocation project.
Seven (#uae3ebd81-e0de-564f-9430-cfd82415e816)
The silky feel of Daniella’s thigh haunted Leo for days. And if he managed to block it from his mind, her fiery responses when he kissed her replaced that memory immediately.
It didn’t seem to matter how many spreadsheets he opened on his laptop. Or how many proposals for new ventures he heard. Or whether he slept at the office because he lacked the strength to be in the same house with Daniella. Sleeping as a whole didn’t work so well when his wife invaded his unconscious state to star in erotic dreams.
There was no neat, predefined box for her. For any of this. It was messing him up.
He hadn’t seen Daniella in four days and the scent of strawberries still lingered in his nose.
Fingers snapped before his eyes and Leo blinked. Mrs. Gordon was at his desk, peering at him over her reading glasses. “I called your name four times.”
“Sorry. Long night.”
Mrs. Gordon’s gaze flicked to the other end of Leo’s office, where a sitting area overlooked downtown Dallas. “Because that couch is too short for a big, strapping young man like you.”
He grinned in spite of being caught daydreaming, a mortifying situation if it had been anyone other than his admin. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Depends. How much trouble are you in at home?” Her raised eyebrows wiped the smile off his face. “Enough that an old woman looks pretty good right about now?”
“I’m not in trouble at home. What does that even mean? You think I got kicked out?” He frowned.
It bothered him because deep down, he knew he’d taken the coward’s way out. Being friends with his wife hadn’t worked out so well. She was too sexy, too insightful.
“Au contraire. You’re in trouble. It’s all over your face.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Leo scrubbed his jaw, not that he believed for a second he could erase whatever she thought she saw there, and fingered a spot he’d missed shaving that morning. The executive bathroom off his office left nothing to be desired, but two hours of sleep had affected his razor hand, apparently.
“Forget her birthday, did you?” Mrs. Gordon nodded sagely.
Soon we’ll be buying each other birthday cards, Daniella had said, but he didn’t even know when her birthday was. “Our marriage isn’t like that.”
Mrs. Gordon’s mouth flattened. Her favorite way to remind him she had his number. “Why do I get the feeling you and your wife have differing opinions about that?”
He sighed and the hollow feeling in his stomach grew worse because she was right. “Did you hear from Tommy Garrett’s people yet?”
“Don’t change the subject. I’d have told you if I heard from Garrett and you know it. Just like you know you’ve got a problem at home that you better address sooner rather than later. I’ve been married for thirty years. I know things.” She clucked. “Take my advice. Buy her flowers and sleep in your own bed tonight.”
He had the distinct impression Mrs. Gordon believed his wife would be in the bed, as well. He didn’t correct her.
After all, what sort of weakness did that reveal?
He couldn’t have sex with his own wife because he’d backed himself into an impossible corner. She wanted some kind of intimacy, which he couldn’t give her, and he didn’t want to hurt her. He’d thought friendship might be enough, but friends apparently talked about aspects of themselves that he just couldn’t share. Especially not drawing. It was tied to his obsessive side, which he kept under wraps.
How long would Dannie remain patient before finding someone who would give her what she wanted? Women in his life usually lasted about two months before bailing.
He’d never cared before. Never dreamed he’d experience moments of pure panic at the thought of Daniella going the way of previous companions. They had a convenient marriage, but that meant it would be easy to dissolve when it was no longer convenient for her.
By 9:00 p.m., Leo couldn’t argue with his admin’s logic any longer. His body screamed to collapse in a dead sleep, but he couldn’t physically make himself lie down on that couch.
What was he really accomplishing by avoiding his wife? When he’d told her to walk after nearly stripping her bare right there in his study, she had. No questions, no hysterics, no accusations. She was fine with holding off on advancing their relationship.
Daniella wasn’t the problem. He was.
He was a weak daydreamer who’d rather scratch a pencil over pieces of paper all day and then spend several hours exploring his wife’s naked body that night. And do it again the next day, abandoning all his goals with Reynolds Capital Management in a heartbeat for incredible sex and a few pictures. He’d done exactly that before, and he feared the consequences would be far worse if he did it with Daniella.
If he could resist the lure of drawing, he could resist the Helen of Troy he’d married. As long as he didn’t kiss her again, he had a good shot at controlling himself. Of course, the real problem was that deep down, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to.
He drove to the house he’d bought with his own money, where he’d created a safe, secure home that no one could take away. The lights always shone brightly and the boiler always heated water. And Leo would die before allowing that to change.
Daniella wasn’t downstairs. Good. Hopefully she was already asleep in her room. If so, he could get all the way to his bedroom without running into her.
As he passed the study, his neck heated as the dream from last night roared into his mind—the one where he finished that kiss from the other night by spinning Daniella facedown onto the desk, pushing up that sexy dress and plunging into her wet heat again and again until she convulsed around him with a cry.
That room was off-limits from now on. He’d buy a new desk and have it moved into his bedroom.
So exhausted he could hardly breathe, he climbed the stairs and stumbled to his bedroom. No lights. Too bright for his weary eyes.
His shin cracked against something heavy and knocked him off balance. He cursed as his hand shot out to break his fall and scraped across...whatever he’d tripped over.
Snick. Light flooded the dark room via the lamp on his bedside table.
“Are you okay?” Daniella asked.
His head snapped up in shock. “What are you doing here? Why are you in my bed?”
His wife, hair swept back in a ponytail and heavy lidded with sleep, regarded him calmly from beneath the covers of his bed. “It’s my bed, too, now. I moved into your room. If you’d come home occasionally, you might have known I rearranged the furniture.”
The throb in his shin rivaled the sudden throb in his temples. “I didn’t... You ca—” He sucked in a fortifying breath. “You had no right to do that.”
She studied him for a moment, her face contemplative and breathtakingly beautiful in its devoid-of-makeup state. “You said I should think of this as my home. Anything I wanted to change, you’d be willing to discuss.”
“Exactly. Discuss.”
The firm cross of her arms said she’d gladly have done so, if he hadn’t been hiding out at the office.
“You’re bleeding.” She threw the covers back, slipped out of bed and crossed the room to take his hand, murmuring over the shallow cut.
As she was wearing a pair of plaid pants cinched low on her slim hips and a skintight tank top that left her midriff bare, a little blood was the least of his problems.
“And you’re cold,” he muttered and tore his gaze from the hard peaks beneath the tank top, which scarcely contained dark, delicious-looking nipples.
Too late. Heat shuddered through his groin, tightening his pants uncomfortably. Couldn’t she find some clothes that she wasn’t in danger of bursting out of? Like a suit of armor, perhaps?
“I’ll be fine.” She tugged on his hand, flipping the long ponytail over her shoulder. “Come into the bathroom. Let me put a bandage on this cut.”
“It’s not that bad. Go back to bed. I’ll sleep somewhere else.” As if he had a prayer of sleep tonight.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Muscles strained to reach for her, to yank on the bow under her navel and let those plaid pants pool around her ankles. One tiny step and he could have her in his arms.
He tried to pull away but she clamped down on his hand, surprisingly strong for someone so sensuously built.
“Leo.” Her breasts rose on a long sigh and under her breath she muttered something about him that sounded suspiciously uncomplimentary. “Please let me help you. It’s my fault you’re hurt.”
It was her fault he had a hard-on the size of Dallas. But it was not her fault that he’d been avoiding her and thus didn’t know the layout of his own bedroom any longer. “Fine.”
