Her Tycoon to Tame (17 page)

Each thrust rekindled her passion, carrying her along on his journey to yet another climax. And then he rolled over, pulling her on top so that he lay on his back and her legs straddled his hips. She braced her hands on his pectorals.

“Ride me, Hannah,” he ordered hoarsely. He covered her breasts, tweaking, teasing, tormenting, as she lifted and sank over him again and again until her thighs burned and her muscles strained for relief. Then his thumb found her spot. The combination of his deep penetration and deft touch, the blackness of the room and the echoes of lovemaking hurtled her over the edge. Spasms of ecstasy racked her.

Even before her body quit quaking, Wyatt's fingers dug into her bottom, holding her close as he plunged harder, deeper and faster. Then he groaned and went still beneath her.

Drained, she melted onto his bellowing chest and rested her ear over his booming heart. She'd never been so perfectly attuned to anyone. And she was very,
very
afraid she'd crossed the point of no return and let herself get too attached.

A
n unfamiliar sound jolted Hannah awake from a dead sleep. She squinted at her clock, but it wasn't there. Her room was dark. Too dark. Power outage?

Then she heard steady breathing beside her and remembered where she was.
Wyatt's bed.
She'd agreed to become his mistress.

A bolus of adrenaline raced through her system, erasing all traces of sleepiness. Doubts assailed her. What did she know about being any man's mistress?

She turned her head. She couldn't see him, but she could hear Wyatt beside her, feel his heat beneath the sheets and smell the heady aroma of their passionate night.

An overwhelming urge to escape beset her. She wasn't ready to face him. Not yet. Not until she understood the rules and boundaries of her new position and charted a way to get past his guard and teach him to trust again.

She eased onto her elbow. The red digital clock on his side of the bed read 5:06. Hannah bit back a groan. Nellie would
be up and about, starting coffee and tinkering with whatever recipes she'd chosen for the day. If she caught Hannah slipping out of the house, Hannah would never hear the end of it.

While Nellie might play matchmaker and push Hannah in Wyatt's direction, Nellie was too old-fashioned to accept a sex-only arrangement and Hannah didn't want to disappoint her.

She cautiously felt her way to the edge of the mattress and slid her legs over the side, all the while listening and thankfully not hearing a change in Wyatt's respiratory pattern. The sheet dragged across her bare, hypersensitive skin, stirring a hormonal response that should have been exhausted last night.

Her feet landed on something sharp.
Ouch.
Her shoes. Wyatt had removed them last night—sometime during the second round of Braille sex in the dark.

Her pulse jumped and her skin prickled at the memory of that slower and even more intense last session. She'd been so sated afterward her brain had shut down, and instead of leaving as she'd intended, she didn't have the slightest recollection of what had happened after he'd tucked her head into his shoulder.

Scooping up her shoes with one hand, she inched blindly across the thick carpet toward where she thought Wyatt had dropped her dress. She found her bra first, then the crumpled Shantung silk, and eased each on, wincing at the sound of the zipper tearing through the room. Shoes in hand, she shifted on her feet. Now what?

How was she going to make her escape? The front stairs seemed too exposed. But the back staircase passed directly by Nellie's suite. That left only one option. The hidden staircase between Hannah's old room and her parents' suite led directly to the garage. Surely she could slip out undetected from there?

She sent up a silent thank-you that her mother had been an avid devotee of historic houses and European castles with
their secret passages and rooms and had insisted the architect incorporate a hidden staircase in their home.

Hannah crept toward the concealed door, hoping Wyatt hadn't blocked it with furniture. She'd loved playing in the passageway as a child, pretending she was a European princess hiding from the dark knight who'd come to kidnap her and make her his bride.

Did Wyatt know about this exit? Running her hand along the chair rail, she felt for the telltale seam in the wood. When she found it, she pushed and the spring-loaded panel clicked open. She paused, ears straining for any sound from the bed, but Wyatt's breathing remained slow and steady.

Cool, slightly stale air drifted over Hannah's bare skin. She hesitated, yearning to spend a few more moments in his arms, but knowing she must go. Then she slipped inside, gently closed the door behind her and stopped on the landing to get her bearings.

She hadn't used this passage since her senior year in high school when she and Megan had missed curfew. Hannah had been terrified that her father would find out and ground her for the rest of her life.

She was tempted to open the door on the opposite side and visit her old bedroom, but she didn't know which of the four suites Sam and his nurse were using.

Without turning on the light because she didn't want to risk the faint trace around the door to Wyatt's room alerting him of her escape, she carefully descended the stairs, counting down. Twelve, eleven, ten… She'd made it to six when she heard something below her and froze. A footstep. A human footstep.

Heart racing, she gulped and listened and heard another shuffled tread. “Who's there?”

“Hannah? Is that you?” a quiet masculine voice replied.

The familiar tone pulled the cork on her fear. It drained from her like water from a rain barrel. “Sam?”

“Yep.”

The overhead light flicked on. She blinked at the sudden brightness. Sam stood at the bottom landing. He wore his usual jeans and a flannel long-sleeved shirt and heavy down coat despite the predicted high temperatures for later in the day.

“What are you doing here, Sam?”

“I live here. What are
you
doing here?” he parroted.

Her cheeks burned. “Going home.”

“Sneaking out, you mean. I'm sneaking in.”

“Is this how you've been getting out of the house without Carol or Nellie seeing you?”

“Shh. Whisper. Yep. Wyatt can't keep me locked up like a prisoner.”

She sighed. “He believes he's protecting you. I'll talk to him again. How have you been? Phoenix and I have missed our workouts with you.”

“Phoenix hasn't missed me. I can't leave during the day when Wyatt's here or Carol's hovering, so I've been seeing Phoenix every night.”

Uh-oh. “Alone?”

“Yep.”

That explained the horse's improved behavior. Hannah and her staff had been amazed by the mare's rapid progress now that her wounds had healed.

“How have you managed to avoid security?”

He shrugged. “I learned the guard's schedule.”

A good sign cognitively, but a bad one as far as Sam's safety was concerned. “Sam, you promised not to go to the stables alone.”

“I did? Oh. Yeah. Guess I did. But you promised to let me work with Phoenix. So I did.”

“I promised to let you work
with me
and only with me.”

He eyed her clothing. “You're all dressed up.”

“I had dinner with Wyatt and a client last night.”

“And you stayed. With Wyatt.”

Another blush worked its way from her chest to her hairline. She stalled by descending the last few steps.

“His room and mine are the only ones at the top of this staircase,” Sam pointed out.

“Yes. I stayed with Wyatt. I don't mean to be rude, but I need to get home. I have to be at work soon.” She laid a hand over Sam's forearm. “Sam, as much as I appreciate what you've done with Phoenix, promise me you won't go to the barn alone anymore. It's incredibly dangerous for you to be there without anyone knowing where you are. And if Wyatt finds out I've encouraged you to work with the horses behind his back, we'll both be in trouble.”

Sam tilted his head and put a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

The door beside them opened unexpectedly, revealing Nellie with Wyatt right behind her. Hannah's stomach dove to her bare feet. This was not going to be good.

“Land's sake, child, I thought we had talking mice. What are you doing in here?”

“Yes, Hannah. What are you doing?” Wyatt asked, his voice and eyes ice hard and showing no signs of last night's intimacy as he took in the duo huddled in the stairwell. Jeans and a white T-Shirt outlined his lean, muscular form to mouthwatering perfection.

“I didn't want to wake anyone on my way out.”

Lame, Hannah.
Staying in bed with him would have been less awkward than this.

Wyatt leaned into the stairwell to examine the space, crowding her against the wall. The smell of their lovemaking still clung to his skin, and his nearness made her body flush hot from her scalp to her toes. A delicious beard stubble darkened his scowling face. Fighting the urge to test the roughness of his jaw, she tightened her fingers around her shoes until a heel dug into her palm.

Wyatt's eyes pinned Sam. “Is this how you've been getting past Carol?”

Sam shifted on his feet. “I wouldn't have to slip out if you didn't keep me caged like a rabid dog, son.”

“That's for your safety. Remember the penthouse?” Wyatt's attention shifted to her. “In my office. Now.”

A lump rose in her throat at the fury in his eyes. “Wyatt—”

“Now, Hannah. Unless you want to be fired before you've had a chance to make excuses for your deception.”

Her gasp echoed up the stairwell. How could he threaten to fire her after last night? She couldn't ask, not with Nellie and Sam listening to every word.

Who was the real Wyatt Jacobs? This coldhearted bastard? Or the man who cared for his stepfather and made Hannah's body sing?

The first she could hate. The second she could lov—

No. No!

She couldn't love Wyatt. She didn't know him well enough. Or did she? A sinking sensation provided her answer. She'd fallen for the man he was deep down inside—the one he tried to hide from the world.

Head and heart reeling, she stared at Sam, torn between fighting for him and self-preservation.

“Hannah,” Wyatt threatened in that low tone that rumbled over her like thunder.

Sam patted her shoulder. “Go on, child. I'll be fine. Wyatt's more bark than bite.”

She hoped Sam was right. She risked a glance at Nellie. Surprisingly, Nellie looked cantankerous rather than disappointed, as if she were more than willing to go to bat for Hannah, thereby risking her own job. Hannah couldn't have that.

She headed for the office and reckoning. The once familiar room now seemed like foreign territory. Enemy territory. How could her life have changed so much in barely over a month? She'd gone from gliding along in a contented rut to life on the edge of disaster and loving a man who might never heal enough to be able to love her in return. If she couldn't find a
way to fix this, she could lose her horses, FYC, her job, her home…and her heart.

Wyatt's deliberate footsteps approached and her mouth went dry. He entered the office and slowly, precisely closed the door, his controlled movements revealing his anger more clearly than shouted words.

He stopped inches from her. His eyes weren't cold. They burned with fury. “You knew my concern for Sam's safety and you encouraged him to work with the horses anyway.”

Guilty. “He didn't ride.”

“Can you be sure of that, Hannah? Were you with him each time he visited the stable? From what I overheard, you weren't.”

How long had he been listening? “No. I can't be certain. But he promised and I trusted—”

“You trusted him? Sam's memory is like a sieve, and his reasoning is faulty. How long have you been lying to me and working with him behind my back?”

The anger and betrayal in his eyes stung like disinfectant on a fresh wound. She swallowed, struggling to find words to make him understand. “It was only a few times. But I knew if I could show you the value of horse therapy, you'd realize FYC is an important part of Sutherland Farm.”

“You lied to me and you selfishly jeopardized Sam's safety.”

She cringed. “Maybe you should tell me about the incident at the penthouse so I'll understand why you're so overprotective of him.”

His lips flattened in refusal and seconds ticked past. “The only reason I am explaining something that is clearly none of your business is to make you realize how stupid you've been. Sam took a bar stool from inside my apartment out onto the patio to change a lightbulb in the eaves.”

She frowned, not understanding. “And that's a problem why?”

“We were forty stories above the ground. One slip and he'd
have gone over the wall and landed on the concrete below. He was inches from death on a wobbly stool.”

Nausea rolled through her. “Did he not realize—?”

“No. That's the point. Sam saw a task that needed doing but not the big picture. Poor judgment, as you should know, is only one symptom of his condition. Usually his errors are as innocuous as dressing inappropriately for the weather or forgetting he's eaten, but other times he makes life-threatening miscalculations like crossing the street without checking for traffic. Some days he's the stepfather I remember. Others he's as careless as a three-year-old and needs a keeper.”

She hadn't realized the range of Sam's behavior. As Wyatt had said, she'd been so worried about herself and her horses that she hadn't considered Sam might have issues she'd yet to see.

“I'm sorry. I should have asked for his medical records the way I would for any of FYC's students. But each time I've been with him he's been quite lucid—except for the clothing mix-up.”

Wyatt's eyes narrowed. “Were you befriending him in hopes of finding another sugar daddy for your horses?”

Surprised, she blinked. “No. I— Why would I do that?”

“Don't play the innocent, Hannah. I saw the way you worked Shakkar. The man was practically salivating over you. And we both know you've done your research on Triple Crown Distillery. You're too smart not to know Sam's net worth.”

“I didn't.” But Wyatt's disbelief was clear on his face. “How can you accuse me of being mercenary? Especially after last night.”

His hardening expression told her bringing up last night had not been a wise choice. “All women use sex to manipulate men into giving them what they want.”

Ouch.
She might have underestimated the depth of his emotional damage. “Maybe you've been associating with the wrong women.”

He stalked to the French doors. “You lied to me. I can't trust you. And I can't trust Sam. I had planned to keep this place until Sam's no longer cognizant of his surroundings. That's no longer an option.”