Curve Contract (Big Girls Next Door Erotica) (5 page)

Blake surged up the mattress. He rolled me onto my side, his chest pressed against my back. He was still clothed, only his shoes abandoned. I gripped the side of his pant leg, my nails threatening to shred the fabric as my ass bounced against his cock.

“Shhh, baby.” He reached around, cupping and squeezing my mound in an effort to control me. His teeth scraped along my neck before gently biting down. “You can't keep moving like that, Pippa.”

He squeezed again, his fingers dipping into the wet pulse of my hole to trace the ring of muscle as I groaned into the pillow. “You keep moving against me and I'm going to take you -- right now.”

I wanted him to take me, could feel through the cloth how thick and hard he was. I wiggled my ass, pressed it tighter against him.

“No baby.” His breath vibrated hot along my throat as a shudder rolled through him.

“Blake...please.” A whimper, a wiggle. I tried to reach between our bodies to find and palm his cock, to stroke the hard shaft until his will crumbled and he was buried balls deep inside me.

He captured my wrists, brought my hands up to cross over my breasts as he threw a leg over my lower body.

“I promised you, love, you're in good hands. Don't make me break my word.”

I tried to do just that but, in the end, he wrestled me into submission. Fatigue claimed me soon afterwards and I slept through to morning, waking to find a single rose on the pillow beside me and a fresh change of clothes.

**********

The clothes were a perfect fit and further evidence that he’d shopped in advance of coming to my office the day before. The pale gray skirt was loose flowing. He had paired it with an equally pale pink blouse with full sleeves and a plunging neckline. Pink lace bra and panties for underneath and gray suede flat-heeled pumps, finished the outfit.

The master bathroom was stocked with unopened toiletries and cosmetics. For the makeup, there was one each of the major brands. The thoughtfulness seemed excessive, but then I wondered if he kept it supplied for the line of women he likely had over the course of the average week.

“Ick.” I stepped into the shower, turning the water on cold and letting it stream over me until the queasiness passed. Switching to hot, I quickly finished. I wasn’t sure what time it was and my flesh was still sensitive from where he had so thoroughly touched me.

Dried and dressed, I went in search of my purse and Cross -- or at least a note from him. He was as notorious for being in the office before eight as he was for anything else.

“Good morning, Miss Jones.”

I froze, like a drunk waking up in the wrong house or a thief discovering the homeowner wasn't on vacation. Slowly, I turned to find a woman in her mid-fifties smiling at me. She had a tray and what looked like a cup of coffee from all the steam rising up from it.

“Mr. Cross said you take it black. Would you like some breakfast?”

I looked at the clock a few feet to her right. It was almost ten. I'd slept very late, the first full night of sleep I'd had since I'd discovered Gorman's theft. I was surprised by how well I had slept. While Blake’s money meant I would be able to keep the business afloat while I sorted out the mess, the deal came with its own set of problems that should have kept me awake through the night.

That is, if Blake hadn’t kissed and sucked and licked me to post-climactic slumber. Falling asleep the night before, I had felt like I was floating in his arms, his strong, masculine scent surrounding me and making me feel safe.

I shook my head -- I was anything but safe around Blake Cross. “I really need to get into my office -- they probably think I've been kidnapped or something.”

“Oh, I think your employees know where you're at.”

Her tone had been completely innocent but reality slammed into me.

The
Post!

“Do you have the morning paper?”

She hesitated a second and then shook her head.

“Was it that bad?” My stomach clenching, I started to look around for my clutch. “I really need to get into the office.”

What I really needed to do was get to a paper or the browser on my phone and find out just what horrid things they’d printed on page six.

Her face went all funny and I knew at that moment she was a woman who had been raised not only to be truthful but to keep her mouth shut if there was nothing good to report. Not answering my question, she turned and guided me with a tilt of her head and the disappearing cup of coffee into the next room. She set the tray down on a massive mahogany desktop, and picked up an envelope.

Handing it to me, she nodded at my clothes.

“Stunning outfit.” She followed the envelope with a warm mug of coffee that she pressed into my hand. “I'd wager Mr. Cross picked it out himself. I'm Abigail, by the way.”

Thanking her, I took a sip. Sumatra Black Satin Roast -- I kept fresh beans on hand at the firm for Blake's visits. Abigail handed me a small ivory card with her name printed above a cell phone number and email.

“Anything you want me to pick up for the kitchen, bathrooms -- whatever will make your stay more comfortable, just send me a little message and it's done.” She covered my stunned silence with an efficient grace. “I didn’t know what to buy for the bathroom yesterday, so I got a little bit of everything. Whatever you don’t want I’ll take to the women’s shelter.”

Opening the envelope, my gaze skipped over the rows of books lining the walls. Business, finance, design, art, psychology, tactical warfare. Not a volume of fiction or biographies that I could see.

“I'm surprised it's not all digital.” I nodded at the books as I shook out three keys. The first I recognized as my own. I assumed the second two were for the elevator and deadbolt to the penthouse. A sheet of paper held security codes and an address and time for the meeting with Blake's attorney to go over the prenuptial agreement.

Abigail pulled a book down from the nearest shelf and let it fall open to a well-worn page. “He'd have to get someone to transpose his notes first.”

She handed me the book and I looked inside to find margin after margin filled with the same bold hand that had written down the attorney's address. She practically beamed at me.

“He didn't finish his degree but he could teach all those fancy MBAs a great deal more than a thing or two.”

I nodded. I knew Blake's history -- on paper at least. Out of money, his father and grandmother dead, his mother long gone from his life, he'd quit college in the middle of his third year. He then sold pretty much everything he had to make samples of his first product. From there, he went from boutique to boutique, coaxing pre-orders out of the owners, most of them women unable to resist the charming, dead sexy twenty-something.

With the orders in hand, he sold a note on the receivables for half the value just to buy the material to fill them. Day after day he'd kept pushing that snowball up the hill, hoping it wouldn't finally roll back down and crush him.

I turned back to Abigail to find her moist-eyed and smiling. She reached forward, her hand brushing my shoulder for an instant before she dabbed at her eyes. My confusion must have shown in my face.

“I'm just so happy Mr. Cross has fallen in love. Seven years I've worked for him and...” She looked up, shook her head as if she was asking the Lord to have mercy on Blake Cross.

“A lot of women have passed through, I know.”

“Come now, you've seen through that facade of his or you wouldn't be marrying him.” Abigail laughed, shook her head again. “I just knew something was up, all the questions he’s been asking...would you believe I even found him reading an issue of Cosmo that wasn’t about him!”

I smiled. She had a soft spot for him, a mother's blindness almost. If the Blake Cross the rest of the world knew was reading Cosmo, it was because of the cleavage on the front. Still, I was curious. “What kind of questions?”

“Oh, you know!” She waved a hand at me and started moving around the room, straightening the rows of books. “Like when did I first know I was actually in love with my husband, what drew me to him...all of a sudden Mr. Cross went from having business on his mind 24/7 to love. It was like stepping into a room where a tiger has been living and finding a puppy has taken over. Adorable, really.”

Abigail looked me over, her gaze approving as a fresh smile lit her face. “I can see why he is so taken with you, too, if you don't mind my saying.”

She was either mistaken as to Blake’s feelings or the identity of the woman with whom he had fallen in love. Some masochistic streak had me itching to know which it was. “And when did you first suspect this?”

“Oh, a good six months I'd say.”

I swallowed the number down, its texture like broken glass sliding through my throat to slice open my stomach, my guts falling onto Blake’s polished slate floor. It was six months ago that Anna Burke had turned in her resignation.

Last night in the limo and in his bedroom flashed through my mind. I'd enjoyed every second of his touch but it had been a slow building consent. He didn't ask if he could kiss me or put his hand on my thigh -- he just did. Was that it? Had Blake confessed his love to Anna Burke, his hands and mouth roaming her body until she'd been forced to turn in her resignation to escape his advances?

An image of the sleek, towering blonde rose up in my mind. Hair extensions, false eyelashes, surgically enlarged breasts -- she had a harsh couture appeal, beautiful even if one had an aversion to artifice.

Frowning, I tried to think the scenario through. It wasn't that I couldn't imagine Blake lusting after Anna. Hell, he’d been all over me last night and I wasn’t even his type. It was just that I couldn't imagine her turning him down. Maybe I was projecting my own desires, but even if she didn’t find him handsome and absolutely thrilling, Blake definitely had something Anna found irresistible.

Money.

Lots and lots of money.

“Is anything wrong, Miss Jones?” Abigail stared at me, her brows knitting together as she pressed one hand against her chest.

Realizing I was scowling, I forced a smile onto my face. I flashed the sheet of paper with the attorney's address on it. “I'm just worried I'll be late for the appointment, I need to call a cab. And please, I'd prefer it if you call me Pippa.”

“Oh, is that all, dear?” She waved her hand at me. “The limo is parked downstairs, at your disposal. No more smelly New York cabs for you!”

She was right. No more cabs -- at least until Blake no longer needed me in his little war against Anna Burke.

**********

The drive to the attorney’s office was a long one. My cell phone wouldn’t pull up a data signal and Carson politely told me he was under strict orders not to stop for anything once we left Blake’s building.

“I want to pick up a copy of the
Post.
” I tried to keep a smile on my face and not stamp my feet in the back seat like a two-year-old.

“Definitely not that, Miss Jones.”

Shit, it was that bad?

“Carson, public relations is my job—”

“And this is mine, miss. I’m sorry.”

Hell, was he really going to pull the Cross-will-fire-me-if-you-do card? That he thought he could was half my fault, I guess. I had to look like a soft touch, particularly compared to the female barracudas Carson must have chauffeured home when Blake was done with them.

I settled back against the seat, staring out the window as I bit at my lip.

No phone, no paper -- that left me with too much time to think. By the time I arrived, I was positively seething. Not only was Blake controlling what I was reading, but he had also assured me Burke was in the wrong, neglecting to mention he was in love with her -- or with some other woman he wasn't willing to drag through the mud with a fake marriage.

Walking into the conference room, I had half a mind to punch Blake in the nose and march back out. Until he smiled at me and pushed his cell phone in my face. A picture of Gorman was on the screen. I squinted, trying to make out the words on the building behind him. I could just read the first few letters
B-a-n-c-o d-o...

“Is that Spanish?”

He took the phone back and pocketed it as he led me to the conference table. “Portuguese. He's in Brazil.”

A legal pad and paper were on the center of the desk and I reached for them, my mind racing with possibilities. “Where in Brazil?
Banco
means bank, right? Does he have an account--”

“Slow down, love.” Blake put one hand on my wrist, the other plucking the pen and paper from me. He pointed at the suit that had just walked into the room. “I've got people following him and the firm is working with the Brazilian authorities to find out. There are a lot of people looking into this -- you weren't the only one he embezzled from.”

Maybe that was true but I was the only one who was going to have to either marry Blake Cross or lay-off my entire staff while Gorman spent my money on Brazilian hookers. I glared at Blake. Could I really go through with marrying him? Abigail knew him far better than I did and she thought he was in love with someone. Even if it was a fake marriage, some woman was going to be hurt by what I was going to do.