Kissing the Tycoon (4 page)

Intertwining her fingers into his hair, she moaned. She’d missed him. Time hadn’t healed that. Truth was, if he had just followed her that night she would have come back. But he hadn’t been able to share his past with her. In the last sixteen hours he had shared more with her than in the four years they had been together.

As he switched to give his attention to her other breast, all logical thought slipped away. She allowed herself to relish and feel the tides of sensation growing within her. He yanked the blankets off the bed and threw them to the floor. Ever so gently, they eased back together on the bed. The cool sheets under her were a sharp contrast to the heat of his body. He released her nipple from his mouth and worked down her body, kissing the tender under bust, nibbling down to her full belly as he grabbed her soft thighs and eased them apart.

“I have missed you,” he said between kisses. “I have missed this.” He kissed each of her inner thighs before taking his time to lick and savor her womanhood. Closing her eyes, she let the sensations envelope her. The building pleasure he created drove her to the brink of insanity and back again, dragging it out, not letting her come until he was ready, knowing he would make her crazy with need.

“No,” she whispered, her voice husky and not familiar to her ears.

Between her two thighs framing his face, he looked at her, incredulous. “No?”

“I want us together, face to face all the way.” After so many years apart, all she wanted, no
needed
, was him, them together as one.

“As you wish.”

As he slid up her body, she savored each inch of contact with his muscular body. It caressed every soft curve until finally, he lay cradled within the comfort of her thighs, his cock brushing against her wet opening.

He brushed his lips against hers once before pulling away. “Be right back don’t move a muscle.”

Coming up on her elbows, she watched his bare ass—every muscle beautifully chiseled as if an artist had created him—walk away from her into the connecting bathroom.

“Enjoying your view?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Ah ha.” He rejoiced, shaking a foil packet in the air like it was a prize.

“I thought you never came in this room.”

He came back to the bed and crawled up until he was kneeling before her. “I don’t, but I know my brother. He is ever hopeful that I will forget you and get on with my life and get laid.” Barret ripped the foil between his teeth. She savored the view as he covered first the tip of his cock and then slowly rolled the rest of the condom over the full shaft.

“Looks like his wish will come true tonight.”

“There was never a chance of me forgetting you, Riley.” He crawled back between her thighs, teasing her as he rubbed against her. “How bad to you want me?”

“More than I want to breathe.”

He stroked her apex once. Catching her breath she arched into him.

“Stay with me.”

Riley rubbed her foot up the back of his leg, over his thigh, and into his flanks. She urged him on where her words were now failing her. With a single forceful thrust, he entered her. Warmth engulfed her as his cock stretched and filled every inch she had to give. Every single push she met spurred on both their pleasures until she no longer knew where she ended and he began.

Their movements became frantic, his fingers gripping into her soft full flesh. She arched her hips to take him in more fully. The cliff of pleasure came far faster than she had expected, and without an ounce of hesitation, she dove over the edge. Her arms and legs wrapped tightly as if she were afraid to let go of him. Barret’s lips came down on hers, covering her mouth and taking her moans inside him. And just as the last shutter of pleasure racked her body, she felt him tense over her as he thrust deep and held himself still, until all at once his body shook and he collapsed over her. She held him to her, rubbing his back, letting his body spend itself, knowing what she had always known, that no one would ever touch her the way he did.

Minutes, hours, hell it could have been days later, she lay curled into his body. Riley didn’t dare make a sound. He loved and cherished her. He’d shown it with his body and with his words. So many words he never would have said before. Yet as every molecule of her body lay limp and sedated, she could feel the tension coming off him in waves.

She wondered how her tension could evaporate with their lovemaking and his seemed to escalate. He absently ran his hand over her shoulder and back, and every now and then he placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. She waited for him to make the next move.

When he finally did speak, it was far from what she expected. “I wasn’t completely honest with you last night.” His voice, hushed and hesitant, came out in a rush of air.

Unable to look at him, she pulled the light sheet over her naked body to ward off the sudden chill she felt. “What about?”

“Last night when I told you about the woman who put the restraining order out on my dad.”

“There wasn’t a restraining order?”

“Oh no, there was. It’s just that…”

This time she did look up and was shocked by the pain she saw etched into his face. She scooted off him and to her side so she could face him. She grabbed his hand, embedding into him the support he seemed to need. “Tell me please.”

“The woman wasn’t just some woman. She was my mother.”

Too shocked to say anything, Riley brought his hand to her lips kissing each knuckle. She waited, letting him get his thoughts together, steel himself for what he was about to tell her.

“She’d left to get some milk, and when she didn’t return, Dad was frantic. He’d called every ER and had just reported her missing when she walked through the door three days later—believe it or not with a gallon of milk. They fought, nothing new. They always fought, but this was different. This time, as I sat on the top step, I knew things were about to change. She walked over me in her haste to get to her bedroom. When she came out a few minutes later, she had a bag in her hand and she left without a word to my brother or me. Dad looked for her and finally found her a week later. Late at night, he piled Chandler and me into the car in our pajamas. I think he thought when we arrived at his destination that both of us were asleep. Chandler was.”

“You weren’t.” She shivered, partially from the chill in the air but mainly for the confused little boy she could hear in the man beside her.

He slid out of bed, paced for a second before covering her with a blanket with such care it brought tears to her eyes. He pulled on his jeans and sat in the corner chair. She wanted to go to him, wanted the intimacy back, but she understood. This was hard for him, perhaps harder than anything he had ever done. She doubted he had ever told anyone what he saw that night. She wondered if Chandler knew.

When he failed to say anything, she finally spoke. “I always assumed your mother had died.”

He shook his head. “I knew you would make that assumption, and I didn’t want to correct it, to be honest. She is, as far as I am concerned, dead.”

Edging her body to the side of the bed, Riley got as close to him as she could without falling off the edge. “Tell me what happened that night.”

Leaning back into the chair, he ran a hand through his gloriously messed hair. “There isn’t much to tell. Dad banged on the door. Some other guy came out and told him something about a restraining order. I found out later she had signed away her all her rights as a parent in exchange for him leaving her alone. She wanted out of her marriage, out of motherhood, just out. Dad was served the next day at the docks in front of all his coworkers. And both of us grew up being told never to go after a woman who left. If she left, let her stay gone.”

This time she did get out of the bed. She wrapped the blanket around herself and sat on the floor between his legs. “I am so sorry she wasn’t the mother you deserved.”

“She came to see me a year ago.”

“How did that go?”

“I was shocked, but not really as surprised as I should have been.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was the same week our company made the all-important top 500 list. We made it, Chandler and I. I took the article to my father, offered to buy him a new house, a new boat, anything the man wanted. He might not have been a loving or even understanding father, but he did his best with what he had. He turned us down. Said he was proud of us, and he had all a man like him could want for. But he added that we needed to take care. Piranhas would descend, wanting what we bled for.”

“Your mother showed up.”

He nodded. “She came to the office and made the mistake of meeting me over Chandler. Had she seen him, her payout might have been bigger.”

“You never told your brother, did you?”

“How could I? He loved our mother. She played the sob story about how she was wronged and had tried to see us, but out father was the villain, keeping a poor mother from her children. It’s very unfortunate I was old enough to understand what went on all those years ago.”

“What did you do?”

“I wrote her a check for a measly amount of money. She had two choices. She could tear up the check and rebuild a relationship with her sons that she claimed to love, or she could cash the check and never darken our door again. And if she did, we would slap her with a restraining order.”

“You didn’t?”

“Put out a restraining order? No, but I did get some satisfaction in watching her face fall as she understood that I knew the full story.”

“So she cashed the check?”

“Within minutes of leaving my sight.”

Words failed her. Nothing seemed to be the right thing to say. She held his hand, placed it against her cheek and laid her head on his leg. They sat there in peaceful silence until the sun was low in the sky.

Chapter Three

B
arret cleared the dirty dishes from the table before asking the question that had been dogging him all afternoon. “When do you need me to take you home?”

“I don’t have a curfew.” She smiled with that cheeky grin of hers that shot straight to his cock.

“I’m aware of that, but you do have to work tomorrow. Don’t you?”

“Actually, Spencer told me to take Monday off, Tuesday if I needed it.”

He didn’t want to push. He was afraid to ask her stay, even though she seemed to be hinting that way. He let past experiences blind him. Just having this chance to make things up gave him some light in the cavernous existence he called his life.

“What time did you want to take me back? I know you have to be back at work and I am sure you want to head back to the city.”

“I sold the apartment in the city once I had this place livable. I’ll work from home tomorrow and spend some time working on the living room.”

“Would you like some help?”

“Are you asking to stay the night?”

“Do you want me too?”

“I always want you here.”

She walked around the island to stand closer to him. “I feel like we’re walking on eggshells.”

Leaning against the counter, he sighed. “What are you hoping for?”

“I don’t know. I just ended it with Chad—please know that that relationship was over long time ago. I never should have accepted his proposal, but I am not a hundred percent confident about my decision making when it comes to relationships.”

Hearing those words and knowing he was partially to blame sliced him to the core. “Perhaps it would be best if I took you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“I don’t want to push you.” He didn’t, but every ounce of self-control kept him from getting down on one knee and begging her to marry him. But when he did, he knew he had to do it right. It had to be everything she had dreamed about. And now wasn’t the right time.

“I don’t feel pushed, but I’m not ready to be in another relationship yet.”

He raised his eyebrows, confused by that statement. “So what do you want? A fuck buddy?”

“Barret!”

“Sorry, that wasn’t fair.” He ran a hand down his face, exhaustion seeping into him. “We can take this as slow as you need to. I’m not going anywhere.”

“So I can help you work on the living room tomorrow?”

“Know much about priming a wall for painting?”

“Not a darned thing.” She smiled and some of the tension eased. “But I can learn.”

Jet lag was the devil, and by eight p.m. Barret was feeling the weight of the hour difference to his very toes. He went out to the truck, grabbed her suitcase, and found her in the bedroom remaking the bed. The simple act filled him with such love, and just having her in this room made every hour he spent in this house worth it.

“Here’s your bag. There should be clean towels in the bathroom, as well.”

“Where are you going? Aren’t you sleeping in here too?”

Shaking his head, he walked over to her, lowered his lips to her forehead, and smiled. “Nah, you sleep in here. I’m down the hall if you need me.”

He closed the door behind him before his baser self out rode the gentleman he was trying to be. If she wanted slow, he would give it to her, no questions asked. He wanted nothing more than to make love to her all night long, and although they might have made love this afternoon, that could be chalked up to years of yearning and desperate passionate need. But in truth, she said she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and he had no defenses against her should she decide to walk away again. Of course, if she walked, she would find him fighting tooth and nail to get her back this time.

It was best all-around to sleep alone. Well, that’s what he kept telling himself. He was still repeating it when he walked out of the shower a few minutes later and found her standing in his bedroom doorway. It didn’t matter that she may have been standing there for ten minutes; he still pushed her back into the hall and closed the door behind him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” She stood hugging a pillow against her breast. “You’re sleeping down here as far from me as you can get and you have the nerve to ask what’s wrong?”

“You said you weren’t ready for a relationship.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to sleep alone. Why won’t you let me into that room?”