Caught on Camera (23 page)

“Look at me, baby. Look at me.” He ground himself against her. “Let me see what I do to you.”

Glazed eyes remained trained on him, and an overwhelming desire consumed him. He would do anything to satisfy this woman. Pushing them both higher, he pumped, meeting her thrust for thrust, while never taking his gaze from hers.

And then it was there, ready to shoot them both to the pinnacle, and he collapsed. He fell on her, holding his hands on either side of her head to keep her from looking away, and surged.

“Vega,” he cried, the guttural sound seeming to come from somewhere else. He pumped twice more, then let out an anguished cry as he emptied himself, his shoulders and neck tense as he kept his eyes trained to hers.

She jerked in his arms, uncontrollable spasms shaking her, tightening her thighs to the point that he wondered if she would hurt herself. Her eyes begged him to release her, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Her mouth opened with silent screams as they both stared, trembling in each other’s arms until there was nothing left.

When the moment calmed, he latched onto her lips, unwilling to show her any more of what was in him. He kissed her until no breath remained anywhere in his body, then dropped his face into the curve of her neck and panted. He’d known it would be like this. This powerful. This instant need for more.

And he knew whatever her demons were, he had to help her overcome them.

So she could be his.

Rolling off her, he pulled her to his side and tucked her against him. That meant he’d also have to let her into his life.

She seemed as content as him to say nothing, so he held her until their breathing returned to normal, then grabbed a tissue and quickly rid himself of the condom. When steady puffs of airs whispered across his shoulder and her breaths grew deep, he ran a palm over her hip. “Babe?”

“
Hmmmm
?” Her lips pressed into his neck, and his chest tightened. God, he could do this forever.

“Will you spend tomorrow here with me too? Make it two days instead of one?”

She edged a leg between his and murmured, “In bed or on the island?”

He smiled at the ceiling. “Either.”

He felt her own mouth curve against his throat. “Yes.”

Happiness flooded him to the tips of his toes, urging him to spring out of bed and get busy at that very moment. He had only twenty or so more hours to convince her they should date for real. It wouldn’t be easy, but he wouldn’t accept anything but a yes.

She lived in Savannah, but they could work around that, at least for a while. He could drive down for weekends, or she could drive up. Or—something nudged him from deep inside—he could let her do the interview. That would keep her in town a while longer.

It wasn’t like he would be able to keep his private life that way for too much longer, anyway. Once he publicly agreed to accept the position, reporters would come out of the woodwork to dig out every piece of dirt on him they could find. Luckily, they wouldn’t find much. He may have snuck out of the house as a teenager, but the media hadn’t been all wrong. He’d pretty much been a perfect person all his life. With the exception that he dated too many women—which everyone knew already—and he hadn’t been able to read for a good chunk of his childhood.

And that he was now keeping his father’s love child a secret.

He rolled to his side and faced her. Better to try the Savannah option first. “You need to call the station and tell them you’re taking tomorrow off. Will they mind?”

“No.” Her body was so relaxed she’d be asleep within minutes.

He’d already called Beverly earlier to cancel his morning appointments. He would e-mail her in the morning to do the same with the afternoon ones, and to ask her to call the school to get Daniel enrolled this week. He wasn’t one to use his name to call in a lot of favors, but for this he would.

Reaching across Vega, he grabbed the room phone, studying the instructions on how to call the States. “Tell me the number and I’ll dial it for you.”

She shook her head and dug in deeper against his side. “It’s too late.”

“It’s only eleven thirty.” He nudged her shoulder to wake her up. “Come on. Someone has to be there you can talk to. What’s the number?”

One dark eye peeked up at him. “They won’t care.”

He paused. “That you aren’t coming in tomorrow?”

“That I’m not coming in ever.” She closed her eyes and rolled to her other side, her rear now nestled to the front of his crotch. “I got fired,” she mumbled.

“What?”

One slim shoulder moved up and down in front of him. “Practically.” Her muffled voice barely made its way to him.

Anger on her behalf burned through him. “What does that mean?” He dropped the phone back into its cradle and rolled her over onto her back so he could see her, but she didn’t make eye contact. “When did this happen?”

“Last night, before the auction.” Her eyes remained closed, and her voice broke his heart. She sounded younger, more lost than he’d ever heard her. No fire in her at all.

“But you worked last night.”

“I’m not officially fired yet. Bob told me the call had come down, and since he can’t talk me into being in front of the camera, he’s going to have to let me go.”

“But you’ve won awards,” JP said. “I’ve seen them.”

Her eyes finally opened, and she stared up at him with dark, solemn orbs. “You Googled me too.”

Heat threatened to tint his cheeks at the unintended admission. He could tell her it had been purely about making sure she wasn’t a threat to his family or name, but the fact was, the more he’d searched, the more he’d been interested in her rather than in whether she had some deep, dark secret he needed to know about. With only a bit of reluctance, he nodded to confirm her suspicions.

A slight smile touched her lips, and he had to fight the urge to lean back in and kiss her. They needed to finish this discussion, not skim over it because he wanted her again. In fact, they needed to do more than have the discussion.

“We should go back so you can go to work tomorrow. You have to change their minds. I’ll call Michael to ready the plane.” He reached for the phone, but her small hand stopped him.

“Don’t,” she said. “It won’t help.”

He looked down at her, desperate to remove the lost sound from her voice. “It will help. You said it wasn’t official yet. You can—”

“It will be in two weeks,” she interrupted. “They aren’t even expecting me back.”

Selfishness flared as he realized that meant she could stay in Atlanta while he figured out what this was between them, but that fact didn’t ease the knot in his gut. He couldn’t help feeling like he needed to fix this.

He reached for the covers that had gotten shoved to the foot of the bed, and pulled them up. “Then we’ll find you another job.”

He could even rent her a place in the city if she preferred to take time off until she decided what she wanted to do next. Something told him it wouldn’t be that simple.

“Maybe you’ll still get that job in Atlanta you wanted. Surely they’ll still consider you for the position.”

Instead of answering, she rolled to her side to reach toward the lamp. He watched her smooth, narrow back stretch away from him until the light clicked off and they were cast into shadows. A strip of light from the bathroom trickled into the room, but it didn’t make it to the bed.

When she settled back under the covers, she didn’t lie as close to him as she had before. He closed the distance and wrapped an arm and a leg around her, relaxing into her when she didn’t protest. He curled his hand lightly around her breast. “The Atlanta job will come through.”

A thin sigh slid through the night before her quiet voice hit his ears. “Since I didn’t get the interview with you, I won’t get that job either.”

A slab of concrete settled right in the middle of his chest. He had cost Vega her job.

Damn.

Before he could figure out what he could possibly say to that, she drifted off to sleep, her deep breaths comforting him in a way he couldn’t recall feeling since he’d been a very young boy.

He closed his eyes and held her tight. He would worry about fixing it tomorrow. Right now he just wanted to hold her.

V
EGA WOKE TO
the smell of bacon and the sound of JP’s voice. At first she thought he was talking to room service, then realized from the lack of any other voice during his pauses, he must be on the phone. She glanced at the clock. It was barely six. It was far too early for her, personally, to consider working, but she was curious as to whether he’d so quickly gone back into business mode now that the night was over. It was Monday morning, after all.

She slipped from the bed and edged closer, hoping to make out his words.

“She won’t be pleased to hear it.” Pause. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing. She jumped into the ocean without thought to anything but the kid.”

He was talking about her?

“Of course she wouldn’t have let him drown, but there were others around. She could have easily brought it to someone else’s attention.”

She heard clicking as if he were on a computer keyboard. Then he laughed.

“Cute.” Pause. “Huh?” Pause. Laugh. “Yes, fine. You were right. I wanted her to win.”

Who was he talking to? She grabbed the robe she’d so boldly tossed off the night before, and tiptoed to the doorway. JP stood in the living room, nothing on but his slacks, looking out the open patio doors. There was a room service cart near the dining room table, and the sound of waves crashed in the background.

He remained quiet for so long she began to think he’d lost the connection. She took a step out of the room, but froze when he started talking again.

“I gave it thought, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I’d rather put it off as long as possible.” Long pause. “You’ve got to be kidding me. President isn’t even something I can consider for another five years.”

Vega’s eyes widened.

President?

She shook her head. Of course.
President
. That was the plan, after all. Everyone had expected that for years. But it still took her by surprise to hear him talk about it. That had been one of the things about him that’d shocked her so since meeting him. He barely talked politics.

For a man about to step into the limelight, and who would someday be gearing up for a presidential run, it certainly never seemed to be foremost on his mind.

“Yes, I know. I’m a Davenport. Of course I want to be president someday.”

Vega stared at the long, sinewy muscles of his back, now bunched, and noted the dry tone of his voice. He
didn’t
want to be president? She flashed back to their first conversation when he’d said his accepting the senatorial seat wasn’t yet decided. She’d assumed he was kidding, but was that the reason for the delay in making the announcement? Did JP not want to be a politician?

Suddenly realizing she was eavesdropping, she turned around to leave but got caught in the act.

“I’ve got to go, Cat. Vega’s up.” Pause. “Fine. Yeah. I’ll think about it some more.”

She faced the man she’d just spent the better portion of the night exploring, and smiled, awkwardness filling her at the thought of everything they’d done to each other. “Good morning.”

He crossed to her and planted a kiss on her mouth that came close to having her shucking the robe and dragging him back to bed. “Morning,” he murmured.

“You must have gotten Cat out of bed early.” She didn’t want to pry, but they had been talking about her.

One eyebrow rose. “She’s the one who called me.”

“Oh.” She rounded the food cart and peeked under a lid, finding what she wanted. She pulled out a piece of bacon, holding it up in the air as she talked. “I just assumed you’d been up a while.”

JP bit off the end of the crisp pork she held in her hand, then grinned at her shocked gape. The man had a bad habit of snatching food out of her hand. But then, she kind of liked that he was comfortable enough with her to do that.

“I have been up,” he began. “I routinely rise at five, so when I woke, I got some work done, then decided we would both probably need more than chocolate cake to refuel us.” His eyes glinted at the implication of why they might need reenergizing. “Cat called before I could serve you in bed.”

The naughty look on his face made her wish she’d stayed in bed. “Something wrong with Cat?”

He motioned to the computer screen on the corner workstation. “We made the Internet.”

Anxiety straightened her spine. She’d known being out with him would cause this to happen. She took in the picture on the monitor and let out a breath of relief that it was only one of her looking like a drowned rat, while he stood by her side, holding her hand. The caption indicated they didn’t know who she was, but that would be righted soon enough. Someone had wanted this up overnight, but as soon as they put two and two together and reviewed the video from the auction, she’d be found out.

She glanced up at him. “The alley? Anything show up from that?’

“Not yet.”

Yet
. They both knew it was only a matter of time.

Nodding, she crunched on another piece of bacon and scrolled down the screen. There was another shot of them darting off toward the trees, but not one of him carrying her across the parking lot.