Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (38 page)

“Let me take care of—”

“No.” He held her hand. “I’m good. Really.”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Good and hard.”

“That, too.” He kissed each of her eyelids. “You need to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Oh, they’d talk, all right. She wasn’t letting him seduce her into agreeing to live with him—no matter how much pleasure he gave her.

~*~

A shaft of morning sunshine slipped between Hannah’s bedroom blinds and stabbed Jordan in the eye. He shifted to his side and rubbed his growling stomach. At least, his gut’s griping took his mind off his gnawing hunger for Hannah.

He stared down at her sexy pout and the thick lashes spread over her rosy cheeks, and his breath turned ragged. Damn, she was beautiful. Slowly, he folded down the sheet, revealing her pink nipples and the patch of mink covering her mound. What he wouldn’t give to have a picture of her sleeping naked like
this.

Lightly brushing one of her velvet crests with the soft pad of his finger, he watched, fascinated, while they both instantly beaded into two hard points. Her head slipped back, and the tip of her tongue peeked between her teeth. Her taut peaks jutted toward the ceiling in her long, sensual stretch. A little moan escaped her, and her legs parted in a wide welcome to him.

Damn it. What the hell was wrong with him? He was desperately trying to prove how much he loved her and that his feelings weren’t just physical, and all he could think about was sinking
himself
inside her tight heat and staying there for the next fifty years.

After getting so little rest the last two nights, she needed to sleep late. He might as well call Robert to pick him up and go get his car. If he stayed in bed with Hannah, he’d never be able to wait for her to wake up.

Pulling the sheet back over her, he pressed his lips to her hair and breathed in her summery fragrance mixed with the earthy scent of sex. She smelled like a woman
well-loved
, and he planned to spend the rest of his life seeing to it she stayed that way.

~*~

After retrieving his Lamborghini from Kevin’s townhouse, Jordan picked up a box of doughnuts and two containers of steaming hot coffee. By the time he arrived back at Hannah’s, it was nine-thirty. He rang the bell and when he heard her on the other side of the door, he smiled into the peephole.

“Go away, Jordan. I’m not going to let you keep seducing me. I would’ve thrown you out last night, but as you’ve proven, I’m weak when it comes to resisting you.”

Damn. He never should’ve left her apartment without talking to her first. “Come on, sweetheart. Open up.”

“No way. First it’ll be my door and then my legs.”

“No, I promise. I just want to talk.”

“What’s the point? You were right. The only thing between us is mind-boggling sex.”

That wasn’t true. He enjoyed her company more than any other woman he’d ever known. Granted, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but that was only because he was so crazy about her. “If it’s just physical for me, would I have stopped last night? Don’t you understand what I was trying to show you?”

“What? That you can get your jollies by making me so hot I forget my dignity and self-respect?”

He couldn’t deny that knowing he could get her so excited with just a few kisses was a major turn on.

“—Or that you’re just biding your time,” she continued, “and watching me pant for you like a bitch in heat is enough to satisfy you until I agree to shack up with you?”

Okay. Evidently treating
her
to a night of one-sided pleasure hadn’t convinced her of his feelings. “That’s not what I was doing.”

“No? On one hand you talk as if you hate the way women have used you for sex all these years, yet on the other hand you seem to get a major ego trip from making me squeal like—”

“Damn it, Hannah, I don’t deny it feels incredible to please you. I told you making love is different with you, but I’m not just interested in you for sex. Open up so we can talk about this without a door between us. I brought doughnuts,” he added in a coaxing tone.

“Good, then you won’t starve on the way home.”

“Come on. We can spend the afternoon on my boat. We’ll take a picnic and just talk.” He waited several silent seconds. The only answer came from the birds chirping in the trees overhead. “Hannah, baby?”

Not a peep from her.

Great. She was ignoring him. He squeezed behind the shrubs and listened at her bedroom window. It sounded as if water was running. She must be taking a shower.

The door to the next apartment sprung open and a wrinkled crone, who had to be none other than Mrs. Newton, stepped out and scooped up the newspaper from her step. One of her bright green eyes winked at him. “You can
come
wait inside with me. I
love
doughnuts.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll go wait at home.” He handed the woman the bakery box and the bag with the containers of coffee and sprinted back to his car. Obviously, he had to try something different. If Hannah wouldn’t open the door for him, maybe the florist would have more success.

~*~

Soaping
herself
under the shower’s fine needle spray, Hannah’s nipples hardened into two swollen points. She mentally replayed the way Jordan’s tantalizing fingers and tongue had teased her body, sending it into mindless ecstasy until he wore her out the night before.

She scrubbed herself furiously with a coarse
loofa
, trying to scrape away the hot tingling flush that spread through her. It made her sick to think how shameless she’d been—not just in allowing him to stay and make love to her, but in surrendering so eagerly to his seduction.

A few minutes later, showered and dressed, she peeked out the window to make sure he’d left. She wasn’t up to another tug-of-war between her head and heart.

It’d been two weeks since she’d gone grocery shopping, and her pantry looked like
Old Mother Hubbard’s
. She’d told her grandmother she would spend that evening and all day Sunday baking with her, so she needed to buy the ingredients for making cookies.

After pulling on her sneakers, she headed out the door and nearly ran over a florist deliveryman carrying a stack of boxes. “Miss Oliver?”

When she nodded, he handed her all four boxes. She gasped. “Are you sure these are all mine?”

“Absolutely. The fellow paid me an extra fifty bucks to bring them right over.”

She dug a tip for the deliveryman out of her purse, hauled the cartons inside, and opened them. Two dozen ruby red, long-stemmed roses filled each box and surrounded her with their sweet scent. She opened the card.

Sweetheart,

Please call me. I don’t want to lose you.

All my love,

Jordan

Flinging herself face down on the sofa, she sobbed into the throw pillow. Why was he doing this to her? He knew how much she wanted to believe he loved her. And he knew the significance she would read into him sending her dozens of red roses.

His note said he didn’t want to lose her, but what about next year or the year after that? She couldn’t spend her life wondering and waiting for the day when Jordan might realize he’d been brainwashed into pursuing a relationship with her or he ultimately decided he’d had enough of her.

She wiped her cheeks and scrounged around the kitchen cabinets for several containers large enough to hold eight dozen flowers. Finally, she found two vases and a couple of pitchers. Once she finished arranging the flowers, her apartment looked and smelled like a funeral parlor.

How appropriate. After all, Jordan wanted her to live in a relationship that had a death sentence.

She yanked down the embossed business card she’d tacked on the small bulletin board in the kitchen and stabbed out the home phone number written on the back. It rang several times before the line
was answered
.

“Mr. Preston? This is Hannah Oliver. If you have time to talk about the sales potential for my cookies, I’m ready to listen.”

~*~

Two hours later, Hannah’s head was still buzzing with the arrangements she’d made with Kurt Preston. As she unloaded her groceries from the trunk, a bonded courier van pulled up to the curb behind her. The driver followed her to the door with a clipboard and a small slender box gift-wrapped in gold foil.

She signed for the package and left it lying on the end table in the living room, determined to return it to Jordan unopened. He’d insisted he wasn’t trying to buy her, and yet she hadn’t a doubt in her mind the box contained some obscenely expensive piece of jewelry.

While putting the food away, every few minutes she wandered into the living room and stared at the box. During one trip, she opened the card, which simply read—
To
wear with your necklace and earrings. Love, Jordan.
She’d been trying to return his grandmother’s jewelry to him for two weeks, and he refused to take the extravagant diamonds back.

Finally, after a half hour, curiosity got the best of her, and she tore into the box. She held up a sparkling diamond tennis bracelet, and her breath caught in her chest. Princess-cut stones, at what must be close to a half carat each, alternated with glittering baguettes of nearly the same size. She pulled a folded piece of paper from under the velvet insert in the box’s bottom and nearly choked when she saw the figure on the insurance appraisal.

What kind of lunatic would strap over thirty-thousand dollars onto her body? And if the bracelet cost that much, what must his grandmother’s earrings and necklace be worth? She broke out in a cold sweat just having the jewelry in her apartment.

Despite her intimidation, she couldn’t resist trying the bracelet on. Regrettably, it looked even more incredible on her wrist. But once she’d fastened the safety catch, she couldn’t open it one handed. She tried desperately for five minutes to remove the bracelet until her wrist was so raw she had to accept she was stuck wearing it until she saw her grandmother that evening.

Damn him.

Shortly after noon, a huge bag arrived from a Chinese restaurant, containing cartons of all her favorites. The order included a box with four sets of ebony chopsticks inlaid with mother of pearl.

At two o’clock, the doorbell rang again, and the florist delivered another eight dozen scarlet roses. She had nothing left to put the flowers in, so she ran water in the bathtub and stood them in it. Her entire apartment smelled like a garden.

As soon as she finished with the flowers, the bell chimed again. This time she received a huge box of Godiva chocolates, a one-ounce bottle each of Opium, Joy, and Shalimar perfume, as well as four
Steuban
crystal vases large enough to hold three dozen flowers each.

A half hour later, the most exquisite antique jewelry box she’d ever seen arrived, followed by a fragile red porcelain rose the size of her fist.

By three-thirty the doorbell had been silent for almost an hour. Did she dare hope Jordan had run out of things to buy? After tipping all the delivery people, the only cash she had left was the loose change in the bottom of her purse.

As she was preparing to leave for her grandmother’s house, the bell rang again, and she cringed. A tuxedoed young man stood on the porch with a portable electric keyboard and proceeded to serenade her with a haunting rendition of
If I Give My Heart to You
that Nat King Cole ghost would applaud. Through the entire love song, the guilt over her deception mounted. She would give anything for Jordan’s supposed love to be real. But she knew better.

When the man finished crooning, she choked back the sob clogging her throat. “That was beautiful. Thank you.” She spread her hands in apology. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money to tip you.”

“It’s okay. It’s always a pleasure to sing for a beautiful woman. Besides, Mr. Calder paid me very well.” He smiled and pressed a key into her hand. “He asked me to deliver this to you.”

Hannah studied the Jaguar logo on the key in her palm.
Oh, no
.
He wouldn’t
. “Please tell me he didn’t buy—”

“Right over there.” The
guy
pointed to a shiny silver convertible. He grinned, folding the stand to his keyboard. “He asked me to tell you the color reminded him of your eyes and that he remembered to get a model with a back seat.”

A hot flush crept into her cheeks at recalling the risqué way Jordan had interpreted her innocent remark. The next thing she knew, he’d be buying her a
hous
—

No
. She didn’t even want to think what he’d move on to. She stomped back into her apartment and punched his number into the phone. “Jordan!” She blasted him the second he answered. “You have to stop sending me things.”

“I guess you got the car.” He chuckled. “How about I take you to dinner in it tonight?”

“Forget it. I’m going to my grandmother’s to spend the rest of the weekend baking.” With as frustrated as she was feeling, he’d be lucky if she didn’t eat all the cookie dough before it made it into the oven.

“Don’t you want to know what the IT guy found on Wendy’s hard drive?”

“I do, but not enough to give in to your emotional blackmail. You can tell me now.”

“Okay. The bitch not only saved the cancellation letter, she also had several early versions of the Love Machine cartoon on her computer. I should’ve connected the dots when I read her employment file last night. After I found out she was the illustrator, I remembered she’d listed a minor in art as additional training on her application.”

“I’m glad you’ve found the culprit. Now, good-bye.”

“Come on. Call Ruth and tell her you’re not coming until tomorrow and have dinner with me,” he coaxed. “I’ll take you someplace really nice.”

“No. Stop trying to impress me with your money. It’s not going to work.”

The line was silent for several heartbeats.

Finally, he asked softly, “Is that what you think I’ve been trying to do all day?”

“Isn’t that your MO? You believe the only thing any woman wants from you is soul-shaking orgasms and expensive gifts. Last night, you delivered the first part. How much did you spend on me this afternoon? I’m guessing close to a hundred and fifty grand.”