Deep Blue Impact (Deep Blue Series) (8 page)

             
I step out into the main room to see if there is anything of mine out there when I'm hit with the sight of him.  He has his back to me staring out the window wearing only his black trousers.  His back is amazing muscle that tapers down to his slim waist, and that ass, oh, it is a very nice ass.

             
The red scratch marks I left on his back last night make me smile. I marked his perfect skin, so if another girl looks at him within the next couple days they will know that he had been with someone else,
me
.  I shake my head trying to get the jealous thoughts out of my mind, at the possibility of another woman seeing him like this. 
No he's mine. Stop that, Aubrey
!

             
He turns around and flashes me that dimpled smile and takes me in with his deep blues. 
Hi baby! Son of bitch!  What the hell is my problem?

             
"Good morning, gorgeous." He beams, coming over and taking me in his arms like it's the most natural thing in the world. 
Please don't kiss me, please don't kiss me. Too late
. He grabs my chin with one hand and brings my lips to his pressing into me.  His soft velvet tongue enters and slides against mine. 
Damn this boy can kiss
. 

             
"Good Morning," I whisper rubbing my hands down his chest as I slowly try to push away from him.  His chest is a magnificent hard chest that felt so good pressed against my naked skin.

              "I'm sorry, but I have a flight in a couple of hours.  I really do need to get busy," I tell him avoiding his deep blues.  I’m also trying to ignore how very turned on I am right now, and by the bulge in his trousers so is he.  I search for my purse and pull out my phone texting Ethan.

             
Get your ass here now
. I need a buffer, a buffer will help.  I turn and Ian is right there, but my phone beeps and I look down at the text.

             
I was there but lover boy sent me away
.  "Ethan was here?" I look up at him. 
Big mistake.  Damn those deep blues
.

             
"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you before you left," he answers unapologetically. 

             
"Ian, I can't. I really do have stuff to take care of before my flight." I avert my eyes and head into the bedroom to dry my hair so I can get packed up.

             
"Aubrey, why do I get the feeling that you're avoiding me?" he says now leaning up against the bathroom doorway as I reach for my hair dryer. 
Because I am, you've got good feelers Ian Brady
.  I watch him in the mirror behind me and he doesn't look happy. He lowers his head and crosses his arms at his chest.  It’s not helping seeing him like this, all brooding and sexy, his forearms tight with the veins bulging.

             
The hell with the blow dryer, I will let it air dry.  I start packing my toiletries in my make up bag.  I’m trying to avoid Ian at all costs, but the only way back in the room is to get past him first. 

             
"Excuse me," I say not looking at him as I squeeze pass him.  He grabs my arm not moving his body at all and pulls me back in front of him.

             
"Aubrey, I want to see you again and soon. I don't have to get back until tomorrow. Stay with me one more day." He's not asking, he is telling me. 

             
"I have to get back, I have things to do." I am standing firm here, I can do this.
Do I want to stay? Hell yes I do, but I need to go. I need space so I can sort my head out
.

             
"Things you can't take care of from here?"
Yes, I could, but I'm not going to OK
. I shake my head no and move away from him to start packing again. 

             
"Why are you fighting this, baby?" Don't call me baby. He is frustrated now.
God, you are not going to make this easy on me are you
?

             
"I'm not fighting anything, Ian.  I told you last night I don't have time for a relationship," I snap. Maybe now he'll get the hint.  I made my decision a long time ago that I was going to have a career before I got into something serious with anybody.  Now there is so much on my plate, so much I have to prove to myself, that I just can't right now.

             
"I'm not asking you to marry me; I'm asking to see you again," he snaps back at me.
OK, I deserved that
.  There's nothing wrong with that. We’ll see each other next week in New York, maybe by then both our heads will be clear.

             
"You're going to see me in five days in New York when we do your contracts." I tell him hoping this will appease him for now.

             
"Yeah fine, if that's what you want." He is not appeased, he is upset. I am saved by Ethan coming off the elevators with a ding, which seems to make Ian more upset.  "What the hell is he doing back here?" He's brooding again.  Now might not be a good time to tell him that Ethan is always going to be around.

             
I don't answer him. He comes behind me pulling me into his arms. Pressing my back to his chest, he buries his face in my hair and I feel him inhale deep before he lets me go, grabbing his shirt, socks, and shoes as he walks out.

             
A few minutes later I hear the elevator ding and Ethan is standing at the door of the master suite. 

             
"He did not look happy," Ethan says grabbing one of my packed suitcases. I shrug,
he'll get over it and I hope to God I do too
.

             
I finally get packed and into the limo to head to the airport.  God help me if I don't think of Ian all the way there and almost tell the driver to turn around at one point. 

Chapter 7

IAN

              The moment I saw her walk into the bar in that sexy black dress I thought she was a call girl.  A mind blowing, gorgeous call girl that I was willing to pay every cent I had to be with.  I didn't do that ever. I was not the pick-up girls at bars kind of guy.  I was a guy though, so I did have the occasional one night stand with the random stranger.  It was easy as hell for me, and I had my pick, but it was always physical and never emotional.   I have never looked at a woman and wanted to take her in the bathroom to fuck her up against the wall then take her back to my room to make sweet love to her.

             
It didn't take long to figure out that the stunning woman in the black dress was not in fact a call girl.  She spent the whole time chatting up some older woman instead of scanning the room for potential rich victims.  

             
I tried to get into the conversation with my men that were here to help with my presentation, but goddamn I couldn't take my eyes off of her.  She was a force to be reckoned with and I knew from the moment I saw her I had to have her. 

             
Then some idiot sits next to her hitting on her and I want to smash his face into the bar. 
Where the hell did that come from?  I don't get jealous, ever, for anyone
.
Especially over someone I haven't ever met before.

             
Sending over a drink was the first step.  This usually brought them to me, but not this one.  Our eyes met, the fire started, and just like that she turned away.  She is trying to blow off the jerk hitting on her and he is not taking the hint. 
Back off dickhead this one's mine
. 
WTF, mine, what was I some sort of cave man?

             
She sent over drinks, I'm sure only being polite, but when I saw her fumbling with her purse I had to go to her before she walked out and I never saw her again. It was easy to get rid of the idiot, because she was not interested in the least.

             
She's witty, not falling for the stupid cheesy lines I deliver.  Then I catch her off guard and she laughs the cutest laugh with the cutest little snort I've ever heard.  It makes her blush and damn if her rosy cheeks against her creamy skin was not the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Her body is amazing. Slim, but toned.  It was obvious Aubrey took good care of herself. That in itself was a huge turn on for me. 

             
She wouldn't tell me her last name and was in hurry to get away from the chemistry I know she felt too. Thank God she almost fell because I was able to touch her.  I knew by the way her lips parted and how the hollow of her throat dipped as she swallowed hard.  Oh yeah, she felt it. I was a millisecond from kissing her when the twerp showed up.  Damn him. At first I was insanely jealous thinking he was her boyfriend.  I was trying to work out in my head how I was going to break them up.

             
Luckily he wasn't, he's just some yes man assigned to her by the hotel.  He touched her arm and I wanted to punch him into next week. She didn't even seem to notice it, so he could live another day.

             
She was leaving and I didn't know her last name. I was panicked trying to think of something.  It was a long shot, but I told her I was going to be back at the bar at 9:00 the next night, and hoped and prayed that she'd show up. 

             
As quickly as she came into my life, she left just as fast.   I was frantic to know who she was. I asked the bartender if he knew and he was tight lipped about it.  That made me glad and mad at the same time.  Being in security, I was very pleased that they wouldn't hand a random stranger a woman's name.  Wanting like hell to know who she was, I was about to reach over to grab him by the neck and not let go until he told me.

              I would try the waitress, maybe with some flirting I could get it out of her. She must be an important guest to have a personal concierge.  I was rich and stayed here often and was never offered that.  The waitress wouldn't talk either.  Even flashing my dimples didn't get her to give it up. It did back fire though, because then she thought I was going to take her back to my room. 
Don't think so sweetheart
.

             
I spent the whole night lying in my bed wide awake. I kept trying to go over the presentation I was giving tomorrow to the board of trustees of one of the largest companies in the world.  If we got this bid it would make me millions and take my company that I started from scratch to the next level.  Hell, it would take us up ten levels...but my mind kept going back to Aubrey, that striking ginger hair, and her flawless peaches and cream skin.  I wanted to have my lips all over her body, but I had to find out who she was first.

              "Earth to Ian."  I was sitting at my desk in my office in North Carolina and my best friend, and business partner, Sam Cooper was sitting across from me going over some schematics.  I look up at him in my daze.  It has been two days since I left Vegas, and Aubrey Jackson has not left my mind for more than a minute. 

             
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" I directed my attention back to Sam.

             
"What is with you? It’s like you're on a different planet," he says pointing at the memo he is talking about.  I sign it before he takes it back. 
I was on a different planet.  Planet Aubrey Jackson
.  There was no hope of returning to earth.

             
"Sorry, just a lot on my mind." I hadn't told Sam about Aubrey because I didn't know if there was anything to tell.  Right now all she was was the most amazing sex of my life. Even though I know she was feeling it too, she was hell bent on fighting it. 
God, I can only hope that she is suffering like me right now
. So that when I see her in three days in New York she will not fight this goddamn chemistry we have. 

             
The girl was tough, I had to give her that, but I was not going to stop until she was mine.  I had to have her, and right now I can't picture my life without her in it.  Was I crazy? I've had woman say the same thing to me more times than I could count, even some to threaten suicide if they couldn't have me. 
God, I'm an asshole.
  There's no way those girls felt like this.  Most of them, if not all of them, saw eye candy with money.  I could see right through it and I used them for sex then tossed them away like trash.