Wild Hawk (22 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“YOU STILL DON’T trust me, do you?”

Jason watched as she toyed with one of the foam cups full of coffee he’d brought to her room, along with breakfast rolls and muffins from the bakery down the street, early this morning, as soon as he’d heard her up and moving. The rather vicious mood he’d awakened in had been ameliorated somewhat when he’d seen her tossed, tangled bedcovers; her night, apparently, had been no more restful than his.

“Let’s just say I’m as wary of this sudden change as you were of me in the beginning,” she said at last.

“I guess I can’t blame you for that,” he said, leaning back in his chair as he picked idly at the sweet roll he didn’t really want. He met her gaze. “Do I need to apologize again for not believing you from the beginning?”

“No.”

“I just didn’t trust anybody who had anything to do with my father.”

“I understand.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

She held up a slender hand. “Jason, stop. You’ve apologized. Nicely. I’ve accepted it. Once is quite enough.”

He grinned suddenly. “You sure you don’t want to milk this some more?”

He saw her lips quiver, as if she was fighting not to laugh or at least smile back at him. He concealed his satisfaction; he’d used that crooked grin to his advantage before, although not in a long time. It was working on Kendall, as it had worked on countless other women, and that gave him a reassurance he hadn’t even been conscious of needing.

“You wanted me to take you on faith,” he pointed out after a moment.

“I know.” She tapped a finger against the rim of the cup absently. “I guess I didn’t realize just how much I was asking for until now.”

Until the tables were turned, Jason thought. Ironic, that now it was he himself who was trying to persuade her to trust him. And Kendall Chase was proving to be harder to finesse than he’d guessed. When she’d responded so swiftly last night, he’d thought it would be easy. She’d gone hot and soft in his arms so fast it had made his head spin.

At least that’s what he’d finally decided had made his head spin, in the dark hours of the night when he’d lain awake and alone and painfully aroused, aching for the woman who no doubt lay sleeping peacefully on the other side of the wall between them. It had been her unexpected reaction that had thrown him, not the sweetness of her mouth, not the tiny, incredibly erotic sounds of need she’d made, not her tentative caress of his body with her own. He’d been startled, that’s all.

What he needed, he thought, was to remember what this was all about. Over and above the unexpected, sizzling fire that leapt between them, he was enjoying himself so much, relishing the quickness of her mind, the easy way she smiled, and how she laughed when she finally began to relax a little, that he had to remind himself regularly that he wasn’t doing this just because he wanted to, that there was a reason behind his efforts to charm her. He’d almost forgotten, had lost track of his game plan.

And it was time to get back to that game plan, no matter how wary Kendall was feeling.

“So, tell me about Aaron,” he said, able with an effort to get the name he hadn’t spoken for years out fairly evenly. “I know he started out with just that little manufacturing company, but how did he get from there to Hawk Industries?”

“By being able to adapt.”

“Adapt?”

“That first manufacturing company was geared to postwar defense contracts when Aaron took it over. He soon did well enough to buy several more companies, most along the same lines, each catering to different types of military needs. He consistently delivered high quality for an acceptable price.”

“What, no seven-hundred-dollar toilet seats?” Jason asked wryly.

She did smile then, and in that softening of her expression he saw again the tremendous esteem and affection Kendall had had for his father. And again he wondered what it took to inspire such feeling in such a woman. His father had been damned lucky, Jason thought, envying the dead man for a reason he would never have expected: because he’d had the love and respect of Kendall Chase.

Don’t be an idiot,
he ordered himself silently. That kind of softness was for fools.
Tend to business, here.

“No,” Kendall answered, “and no thousand-dollar ashtrays, either. That wasn’t Aaron’s way. He’d squeeze every ounce of profit he could out of a contract, but he never cheated, in billing or on quality.”

He’d read somewhere, years ago, he thought, that Aaron Hawk’s reputation had been built on a combination of hard-nosed, dogged, aggressive bargaining, and honesty once the bargain was struck. He remembered reading it because he’d spent a long time afterward bitterly wishing his father had wanted his son as badly as he wanted his next business deal.

And he remembered suddenly where he’d read it. In one of the business magazines his mother had had, hidden away in a cupboard. He’d found the small stack one day and had gone through them, puzzled at their presence in the small apartment. There had been several different publications, with no preponderance of any one, and no pattern of dates. He hadn’t understood why she had them until, after looking through the first two or three, he had realized that they did have one thing in common: each of them had an article about Aaron Hawk.

He’d been thirteen then, and hungry for knowledge about the man his mother had forbidden him even to mention and never discussed herself, the man whose name wasn’t even on his school records, whose name she had somehow even obliterated from his birth certificate. Overwhelmed by his curiosity, he’d read the half-dozen magazines, not just the articles on his father but the rest as well, wanting to know something about this world his father was apparently a sizable fish in.

That had been the beginning of his quest; he’d searched out more, putting his hours in the library to good use. He’d found out a great deal; Aaron’s progress was followed closely by those who kept track of the power barons of the business world. And in the process, he’d learned things about that world he hadn’t even been aware of learning at the time.

The gradual realization that Kendall was looking at him rather oddly brought him out of his fruitless memories. He spoke hastily, to divert her.

“What did you mean about adapting?”

Kendall shrugged. “Aaron saw the end of the defense dollars coming long before most people. He even predicted the cold war would end and what would happen afterward. So, he diversified. Early on. And had a good head start on most of the rest of the people who had always counted on the Pentagon for their livelihood.”

He knew that. In fact, he knew more about his father’s work— successes and failures—than Kendall would ever imagine he knew. And for a reason he hoped she would never guess. Aaron might be dead, and Kendall might have no use for his widow, but he doubted she would stand by quietly while he carried out his plans.

“Hawk Manufacturing switched from military components to sports equipment,” she explained as if he’d asked. “Hawk Propulsion shifted from jet fighters to public transportation. CeramHawk began to develop their composite materials for commercial rather than military uses.”

Jason nodded. He couldn’t fault the old man; he’d been ahead of his time, and had reaped the profit for his farsightedness. But then, he’d always known Aaron Hawk was a hell of a businessman. He was just a lousy father.

He reined in the long-entrenched response to his father, that kind of bitter coldness that had driven him for so many years. He had to keep it under control, or he would never get what he wanted from Kendall.

What he wanted from Kendall.

Fully formed, vivid, hot, and potent enough to slam the air out of his lungs, the memory of last night hit him. Kendall in his arms, her mouth soft and warm beneath his, her body pressed against him so invitingly, until it had been all he could do to wrench himself away from her. If he hadn’t been so certain it would have made everything impossibly difficult he never would have stopped last night. He would have pursued that auspicious beginning to its natural, inevitable conclusion, Kendall naked beneath him as he at last assuaged this crazy, raging need he’d suddenly developed.

He sucked in a deep, quick breath, battling for command over a body that had never betrayed him before, but was careening out of control now, responding with wild speed to the images flashing through his mind. Kendall naked beneath him, on top of him, letting him touch her, and touching him, him taking her, and her taking him until they were both mindless with it. His jaw clenched as he fought it; he’d never gotten so damned hard so damned fast, never been unable to contain his responses, but this was killing him.

Too soon, he told himself, it was too soon. He chanted it like mantra, as if it could give him the control he couldn’t seem to find anymore.

Kendall was staring at him, wide-eyed and a little pale, as if she could read his every thought. He wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t had much experience fighting this particular battle; no woman had ever affected him like this. Especially a woman he had other plans for. A woman he needed to reach a goal. A woman he planned to use to reach that goal.

But her expression confirmed his judgment; it was too soon. No matter how receptive she had seemed last night, no matter how eager she had seemed for his kiss, his touch, Kendall Chase wasn’t the kind of woman to fall into bed with a man she’d kissed twice. The irony of the fact that he’d once thought her the kind of woman who would sleep with an old man as a career move didn’t escape him. And it was that irony that finally allowed him to regain some remnant of control.

He didn’t try to deny what he knew she must have read in his face. He didn’t want to deny it; he wanted to acknowledge it, because he wanted her thinking about it; he wanted it in her mind, images and visions as clear and vivid as his had been; he wanted her imagining it, picturing it in her mind, what it would be like when the inevitable happened. He wanted her thinking about it so much that she was as hot as he was, so much that when the time came she would be begging for it, begging for an end to the torture of waiting.

So he didn’t try to hide the raw desire in his voice when he spoke.

“I told you I wanted you, Kendall. And I know you want me back. Did you think it would go away?”

“I . . .”

“We just postponed it, last night,” he said. “Because you weren’t ready. Yet.”

Her chin came up at that, and despite the fact that he knew she was going to deny it, that she was going to fight him, he had to smile; she never gave up.

“Don’t feel insulted, Kendall,” he said before she could voice an outraged reply. “You know it’s true. You can’t deny what happens between us. What happened last night.”

Color stained her cheeks, standing out against her still pale skin. But she didn’t look away. As usual, she faced him down. “Just because you’ve got fire and gasoline doesn’t mean you have to throw them together.”

“Ah, but what a waste if you don’t. The fire flickers out, and the gasoline evaporates into nothing.”

“But you don’t get burned.”

“You don’t feel the heat, either.” He shook his head as he looked at her. “Aren’t you the one who said if you don’t taste the tears, you don’t taste the joy, either? Why are you afraid now?”

“I’m not afraid. I’m . . . cautious.” She gave him a sideways look. “Besides, you’re the one who thinks love is foolish, remember?”

Jason went very still. This was a direction he didn’t want her taking. And something he should have anticipated, he thought with chagrin; once he’d realized Kendall hadn’t really been Aaron’s mistress, that she was the innocent she seemed in that respect, he should have known she was the kind of woman who had to dress up a need as basic as sex, a naive romantic who had to have it prettied up and called love.

Normally he wouldn’t care; if a woman was silly enough to mistake lust for love, then that was her problem. He’d never cared before. But for some reason it bothered him now. He wanted this clear between them.

“I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about something much more basic and a lot more necessary. Sex, Kendall. Pure and simple. You and me. Going up in flames.”

She went pale again, but her lips parted as if she were having difficulty getting enough air. His voice dropped even lower.

“Do you think I don’t know that I wasn’t the only one hot for it last night?”

“Jason—”

“You know what I wanted? I wanted you to unzip me, right there, outside the door. I was so hard, just from kissing you, and I wanted your hands on me so badly I didn’t care if the whole damned world knew it. Hell, they could have watched, for all I cared.”

She made a tiny sound, a strangled gasp. She moved, as if she wanted to rise, but didn’t have the strength. He went on determinedly.

“And I wanted my hands on you. I wanted to touch every inch of you. Slowly.”

He didn’t give her a chance to react, to speak, judging her reaction by the continuing acceleration of the pulse visible at her throat. He wanted her to think of this again and again, until every time her guard was down she pictured them together.

“I wanted it all, Kendall. Right up there against the door, I was that hot.”

She was staring at him, her lips parted wider now, breathing in visible gulps. Enough, he thought. He had to stop. He’d meant to get to her, but had wound up driving himself to the brink of insanity instead. He was as hard as he’d been last night, aching, barely able to keep from doubling over in the effort to ease the brutal tightness of his body. With an effort that made his voice sound strained, he softened his tone.

“But I knew that no matter how much you wanted it last night, you’d regret it this morning. And I didn’t want that to happen.”