How To Host a Seduction (16 page)

Suddenly his hard body was sliding against hers, and his mouth brushed her ear. “I do.”

And then he pushed that hot length inside her, sinking in all the way to the hilt, until she felt filled—not just her body, but her senses. She could smell his familiar male scent with every breath, feel the strength of muscle beneath skin that sealed them together in a thin sheen of sweat.

He was inside her, outside her, blocking her view of the world with his big body, crowding out her thoughts with each silken stroke. Long hot strokes that filled her, lifted her…

His arms slipped under hers, locked her against him to add leverage to his movements. Somehow she found enough energy to arch her hips to meet his powerful thrusts, abandoned herself to the building climax that took over her body. Took over his, too, because she could feel his muscles gathering, knew he was being swept away right along with her.

She sensed he was about to come a second before he
did. Maybe it was the way his body pressed into hers, rigid for a breathtaking instant, or perhaps it was the way his breathing suddenly stopped, a tight hiss between them—but she knew. She dragged her hands down his back, sank her fingers into his butt and thrust up to meet him.

His low growl burst against her ear. His body drove hard into hers, again and then again, as if he'd lost control. Ellen went with him, unable to think of anything but the way her orgasm cascaded through her, a huge rush of sensation that left her knowing that Christopher had been right.

Sleeping all night in his bed was a rule worth bending, no matter what the consequences.

The Garden Suite

“G
OOD MORNING, LOVE
.” The sound of Christopher's voice dragged Ellen through the groggy layers of sleep.

“I've brought coffee and beignets. I decided we'd skip breakfast on the gallery and go through these newspapers.”

The man sounded more chipper than anyone had a right to, given the amount of sleep they'd sacrificed during the night.

Ellen didn't bother opening her eyes, just rolled over and nestled against the warm pillow. She still wore the Toni Maxwell original, though the lace was all bunched up around her rib cage and she could feel a breast had popped out of the bodice. The rest of her was naked, and deliciously achy from being made love to so thoroughly.

“Time to get up. It's almost nine o'clock.”

“All right.”

Forcing an eyelid open—just one, because two would have required lifting her head from the pillow—she found Christopher smiling down at her, apparently very entertained.

He also seemed unfazed by her inability to move, and smiled wider as he slipped a hand beneath her arm and urged her to sit.

She forced herself into motion and he propped pillows behind her.

“There, are you comfortable?”

She was upright. That was saying a bunch. “I had no idea you were a morning person.”

He waited while she straightened the bodice of the Toni Maxwell, then handed her a cup from a tray on the bedside table. She accepted it and took a grateful swallow. The coffee scalded all the way down, strong and supercharged with caffeine. She gave an appreciative sigh.

“I had no idea you weren't,” he said genially. “Hasn't come up in conversation, has it. It's one of those intimate quirks we had to spend the night together to discover.”

He was obviously trying to convince her of the merits of her foray into rule breaking, but it was far too early for analysis. Her head was fuzzy and her body still felt too sated from his steamy attention to even attempt any sort of objectivity or analysis, which brought her back to…

Rule number two of sound business strategies:
Understand your limitations and work around them.

Coherent thinking when she'd just opened her eyes was
not
one of her strengths.

Taking a bite of a beignet, Christopher chewed and poured himself a cup of coffee before he sat down beside her.

She took another sip. “This is wonderful—coffee and beignets waiting for me when I open my eyes. Thank you.”

“Just think, you could wake up every day like this if you married me.”

“You are just amazing. See how you jump right to the end, skipping all the steps in between.”

“That's where we differ in philosophies, love.” He
lifted his cup in salute. “You're thinking of marriage as the end. I'm thinking of it as the beginning.”

“Another reminder of exactly how opposite we are.”

“On the contrary, a reminder of how well we compliment each other. We cover all the bases together.”

She couldn't exactly argue that point, so she savored another long draw of turbocharged coffee, instead. It was too early for debate, and just how could she sway a man who'd already made up his mind, anyway?

But Christopher clearly didn't intend to be ignored.

Brushing wisps of hair from her neck, he gazed down at her thoughtfully and said, “Tell me something. Did you like being over? Were you happy without me?”

She paused with the cup at her lips and stared at him over the rim, realizing he'd sucked her into one of his emotionally honest moments. All she could claim was that her still-groggy brain cells hadn't consumed enough caffeine to see it coming.

When she didn't answer, he said, “I wasn't happy without you, love.”

He was so bloody honest! He lay his heart there between them, for her to cherish or crush. It was a huge responsibility, one that forced her to think hard about her reply.

For a moment she felt cornered, trapped into dealing with something straight on, that she wasn't ready for and would much rather avoid. But there was no sidestepping his expression, which revealed her answer would mean the world to him.

That honesty disarmed her again.

He was willing to trust her with his heart. Even though she'd kicked him out of her life. Even though she'd buried her feelings deep inside and hadn't given him so much as a backward glance or a reason for her behavior in three months.

Christopher hadn't chased her, or fawned, or clung. He'd simply cornered her and taken advantage of a chance to argue his case. She couldn't help but admire his resourcefulness and respect him for having the courage to open up to her.

“No,” she said simply, not a little amazed the admission didn't come with more difficulty. “I wasn't happy being over.”

Again, proving himself the insightful person he claimed to be, Christopher backed off. He'd made his point and didn't push for any more emotional honesty. Setting his cup on the tray, he took another bite of beignet and appeared to savor a lot more than the taste of the New Orleans treat.

Until the telephone rang, at least. The sound made her jump, but even her fuzzy brain comprehended that if her father were calling with news of her mother's win, he'd call on her cell phone.

But Christopher frowned and shot her an accusing look. Slipping from the bed, he brushed powdered sugar from his fingers and grabbed the phone.

“Hello.” After a moment, he gave a decidedly sheepish grin, which she assumed meant the call was for him.

As she watched him cradle the phone against his ear, Ellen witnessed a transformation from a chipper morning person to a very focused businessman.

“Put him through,” Christopher said into the receiver, before hanging up the phone and turning to her. “Forgive me, love. It's my office. That Canadian ski resort deal I've spent the past six months trying to pull together has finally gone to the table. I need to take this call, but I'll take it on the other phone so I won't disturb you.”

Ellen only nodded, thinking that no apology was necessary. She understood the way he worked. Months, even
years sometimes, spent negotiating multimillion-dollar deals for commercial properties that could come together or fall apart in a minute. She wouldn't dream of interfering with a call. She just thought it ironic that he'd felt the need to apologize to
her
—the woman who never turned her phone off. Which made her consider how he'd turned his off with such important deals pending. An action that spoke volumes about his ability to balance work with his personal life.

When Christopher finally returned half an hour later, Ellen was showered, dressed and in the process of styling her hair. She didn't ask how his call had gone because he beelined for her, spun her toward him and gathered her into his arms.

His smile said it all.

“Closed your deal, did you?” she asked.

“You brought me good luck.” He brushed a kiss on the top of her half-wet head. “Now I can relax and get on with our search. I've done my good deed for the day.”

Ellen congratulated him on his success, but later, while Christopher was showering and she was sipping the last of the coffee, she couldn't help but think about that phone call.

Christopher, one of the most ambitious, driven men she'd ever known, had turned off his cell phone and had even taken off his watch to make rest and relaxation his priority during the training. He'd trusted that his office would track him down if something urgent came up, and they had.

There was a lesson here, Ellen decided. Not only about balancing work with pleasure, but also about Christopher. A man who could patiently construct a deal over so many
months and then put it out of his head to enjoy himself didn't strike her as impulsive, but rather very clear on what he wanted.

 

S
EARCHING THROUGH THE
newspapers revealed much about life in New Orleans during the war, a place where people were faced with supply shortages and other daily reminders of struggle, yet tried to live with some sense of normalcy.

While Christopher enjoyed spending a good deal of the morning in bed with Ellen, discussing the possible interpretations of various articles, only one item seemed of particular interest.

Governor Clayton's Daughter Lost at Sea

The headline had caught Ellen's eye and they had learned that Felicity Clayton's body had been lost en route to New Orleans for burial, when the boat carrying her had crashed into a lock. All efforts to recover her body had failed.

How this information might factor into their revenge theory was a question he and Ellen could only debate.

“We can safely pass our society column along now.” Christopher set their article on top of the stack at the foot of the bed.

“We should make a copy of it, just in case.”

“Good idea,” he said. “We'll make a pit stop in the office before we return the newspapers to the library. I'm sure Olaf won't mind.”

Ellen only replied with a vague “Hmm,” as her attention was fixed in the dresser mirror where she applied makeup, a ritual he found rather fascinating, although he couldn't remember any other woman he'd dated raising a similar interest with her grooming habits.

Not so with Ellen. He noticed everything about her, from the way she'd tucked her hair behind her ears this
morning in a sassy look that showed off her face to the way she'd dressed in a simple gown of blue and green checks with puffy sleeves. Even better, the accompanying long yellow apron had extended him the pleasure of fastening not one, but two sets of buttons.

He'd opted for much more casual attire, as well, wearing comfortable trousers held up with suspenders and knee-high boots that lent themselves to searching the nooks and crannies of the guest bedrooms for the diary.

And that was how they began their day. After stopping by the office to make the copy Ellen had suggested, they headed straight to the second floor.

“If Mac convinced Harley not to leave the diary in the library, then I'm voting for one of these bedrooms. Young girls are notorious for hiding diaries under their pillows. Keeping them handy to jot down their dreams.”

She sounded so matter-of-fact, but he found the idea of a young Ellen penning private fantasies charming. “Did you keep your diary under your pillow, love?”

She paused in the doorway of the sunrise bedroom, slim fingers curving around the doorjamb as she turned to glance up at him. “Um, well, I suppose so. For a while.” A thoughtful frown settled between her brows. “A very little while. I didn't really have much time for that sort of thing.”

She'd missed too many opportunities for fun, in his opinion. An oversight he'd take great pleasure helping her correct. Hooking a knuckle beneath her chin, he tipped her head toward him and dropped a kiss on those kissable lips. “If I buy you a diary, will you write your dreams about me in it?”

She took a step backward and laughed lightly. “The whole point is privacy, Christopher. If you knew about my diary, you could read all about my deepest secrets.”

“That's also the point. I'd like to see you make time to indulge that fanciful streak you try so hard to hide.”

She stared down her nose at him, a look that implied he didn't know what he was talking about. Christopher let her retreat to a comfortable distance, but didn't buy her denial for an instant. Ellen was a romantic at heart. He knew it. She knew
he
knew it, which is why, he suspected, she worked so hard to present herself otherwise.

Unlike the plantation's spacious suites, the guest bedrooms were spread along the second floor in the east and west wings, each area offering a different view of the grounds. The east wing boasted the manicured oak alley leading to Félicie Allée; the west, the lush gardens leading to the bayou.

Charting the bedrooms with the map revealed a great deal about Brigitte's personality that Ellen found significant. “The waiter told us she decorated all these bedrooms to accommodate her different moods. Look at the names, Christopher. Summer, sunrise, vineyard, pearl, rose, forest. Brigitte must have had a very whimsical side to her personality to come up with names like these.”

“I'll bet she named the garden and sky suites, too.”

Ellen nodded, sending a lock of sable hair onto her cheek before sweeping it back behind her ear. “Even more important, she wasn't afraid to indulge herself.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“The fact that she didn't take one of the suites her brother offered her. She commandeered his whole house, instead.”

“Makes sense,” Christopher said. “And reinforces that the captain indulged her. I don't know what that means to us.”

“Maybe we will if we can find that diary.”

Pleased to see Ellen enjoying herself, Christopher
helped her search the sunrise bedroom, a decidedly feminine room decorated in pastel shades of pink and gold, with cypress furnishings and rush-bottom chairs from the period.

Ellen dug through a dresser, armoire and desk, while he went through the closet and the sea chest at the foot of the bed. Though they turned up nothing significant there, or in the nearby pearl and forest rooms, Christopher couldn't be more pleased.

Today Ellen seemed to have taken a huge step forward in allowing herself to be swept up in the fantasy of the game, taking charge of their investigation and dragging him from room to room in their search. Christopher let her take the lead, enjoying a glimpse of a very focused Ellen who was clearly comfortable in charge. An Ellen who seemed to be opening up to share her thoughts and discuss her theories more readily than she had the previous day.

He guessed this new closeness between them was a result of their lovemaking of the previous night. They'd overcome the hurdle of sleeping together, and the press hadn't arrived to plaster news of the event in the papers to publicly humiliate her and her family.