Love's Gamble (11 page)

Chapter 14

M
ax wasn’t there when Pru woke up on Wednesday morning. She wasn’t surprised this time. At first she’d pegged Max to be the kind of guy who stayed in bed until after lunchtime and filled his days with leisure and partying. But so far he’d proved the opposite. Not only had Max attended all the meetings for the retreat but when she’d woke up the morning before, she’d found him typing something into a laptop. A tool she hadn’t even been aware he possessed, much less brought on the trip.

“What are you doing?” she’d asked him.

He’d immediately closed the laptop and swiveled to face her, claiming it was nothing.

Pru didn’t think it was nothing. But she already had a case she was working on, so she’d let it go.

However, this morning he wasn’t even in the room when she woke up, and the sight of the empty bed caused a small twinge to go off in her heart. One she didn’t care to examine, since what she had with Max was technically a job. A job that Max had chosen to overcomplicate with his stupid sex demands, but a job, nonetheless. The best thing she could do right now, she thought, was forget what happened on Monday night and work on solving the case as quickly as possible. Then she’d have a good excuse to leave Utah before Max could redeem too many more of his wallet hours.

With her plan made, she moved to get out of bed, only to be served up another reminder of Monday night. Her sex was still tender nearly a day and a half later. It released a dull ache as she sat up, making it impossible for Pru to forget how his lips had felt against her core, the way his tongue had worked in perfect synchronization with his fingers inside her. Or about the rough way he’d taken her, his battering strokes so good, she wouldn’t have stopped him, even if she could have predicted the soreness it would cause her later.

As she gingerly climbed out of bed, she remembered his response to her question about whether they’d done it on their wedding night.

If we had hooked up last night, you’d have no doubt about what had happened, because you would be feeling it this morning. All over your body.

She had to admit he’d been right... A cold shower. The thought dropped down like a lifeline in an otherwise stormy ocean. That would be her first order of business and then she’d get back to work.

But when she said
cold
, she didn’t mean ice-cold, which is what the shower in their en suite bathroom produced.

“Sorry about that,” the lodge manager said when she called down to the front desk. “Those upstairs bathrooms are on a separate water heater from the rest of the lodge. I’ll call maintenance in. Meanwhile you can use the common showers downstairs if you don’t want to wait.”

She didn’t want to wait. Five years of mothering her brother had taught her to take care of personal hygiene first thing every morning. That, or risk the day and any chance of a shower completely slipping away from you.

Plus, she wasn’t at all squeamish about the common-shower situation. She’d shared a dressing room with over forty other women and at least a dozen male dancers for most of her working life. Common showers were nothing compared with that.

But before she went downstairs, she called over to Harrison’s room. Last night at dinner, she’d volunteered the use of their en suite bathroom to the older executive, after finding out that he’d been forced to go all the way down to the common bathroom on the first floor in a boot, because of the ankle he’d sprained shortly before coming to Utah.

Her research into Harrison had revealed the nearly retired exec to be a sterling employee who had served the Benton Group as a vice president for over twenty years. And, he was an even more first-rate citizen. Not only did he tithe to his church, but he had also given generously to several Las Vegas charities, including Nora Benton’s lung-cancer nonprofit.

Making the offer hadn’t felt like a hardship, but the exact right thing to do, given what Pru knew about him. But now she was calling him to renege on the offer, which made her feel almost as guilty as fake marrying Max for money.

However, it wasn’t Harrison who answered his room’s phone, but Gus.

“Oh, did I call the wrong room?” Pru asked, looking at the phone’s digital readout display. “I’m looking for Harrison.”

“And you found him. Nearly everybody else is on that team-building canoe trip, but I stayed behind with Harrison to work on a presentation. I came up to his room, because—”

“Because he sprained his ankle,” Pru finished for him.

She then quickly relayed the information about their out-of-service bathroom for Gus to pass along.

“Sure, I can tell him that,” Gus said. “Anything else I can do for you, Pru?”

The way he leaned on her name conveyed all sorts of innuendo, and Pru shook her head. Apparently the wedding ring that she wore whenever she left the room mattered nil to Gus.

“No, that’s it,” she answered, deciding against asking him if he had a robe she could borrow for her trip downstairs to the common showers. Gus totally struck her as someone who would take that kind of question as a double entendre.

Besides, like Gus said, nearly everyone, including her temporary husband, was on the canoe trip anyway. She jogged down the stairs and into the common showers as fast as she could, reminding herself that a towel covered up a lot more than an itty-bitty rhinestone bikini.

The shower was just the thing she needed. Not only did it take her mind off Max, but it also gave her some time to think about her next move.

She’d have to return all the wallets and phones today, which meant she would no longer have the benefit of tracking the execs’ communications without being detected.

Also, her most promising lead was turning out to be a bit of a bust. Despite her strong initial gut feeling that Gus wasn’t quite what he seemed, she couldn’t find any evidence that he was the mole giving away corporate secrets.

As far as she could see, he didn’t intimately know anyone in high positions at Key Card. Partly because he’d always worked for the Benton New Orleans, and partly because he was so much farther ahead in his career than his peers. Key Card was actually based in Arizona—not Louisiana. And no one in Gus’s graduating class three years before or after outranked him. Even his classmates who’d found jobs at Key Card weren’t in important enough positions to coordinate this kind of information steal.

Added to those facts, Gus’s record was totally clean. No arrests. No large debts, and he’d finish paying off the few college loans he had the year before. The only large purchase he’d made had been very recently—a Corvette convertible, bought the day after he officially moved to Las Vegas. Again, not a red flag. Buying a car after receiving a huge promotion was pretty much an American rite of passage as far as she knew.

However, that meant she was no further along in her case than she’d been before she received the wallets. No closer to solving it, and no closer to getting away from Max.

But that would change today, she decided, turning off the shower and pulling her towel down to dry herself off. She’d managed to secretly sign all of the phones up for a tracking service that would let her know when and where all the devices were at any given time. She’d also concocted a plan for Cole to drop a key piece of information at tonight’s not-yet-announced camping trip. Material so tantalizing their mole would definitely want to pass it on to Key Card as soon as possible. Between being able to track the phones and the fake-info plant, she should be able to bring this case to a close by midday Thursday.

Feeling optimistic after her shower and plan review, Pru wrapped the towel back around her body and stepped out of the stall with a new spring in her step.

Only to run straight smack into Gus.

She stumbled backward with a gasp, but luckily Gus, who evidently hadn’t even been swayed by their collision, caught her by the arm.

“Whoa, Pru, you okay?” he asked, flashing that easygoing smile of his.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered, quickly taking her arm back.

Apparently Gus hadn’t been as worried about covering up with a robe as she had been. He was also dressed in nothing but a towel. Probably because, with all his thick muscles, he looked like the after picture her brother had been pursuing all summer.

And he seemed to enjoy flaunting it. While she used her hands to make sure her towel was firmly in place, he put his hands on his hips, giving her a full view of his broad chest and accompanying six-pack of abs.

However, Pru was way more curious about the long thin scar running down the center of his chest. It was only barely noticeable on its rock-hard tableau, but the evidence that he’d had heart surgery still drew her eye. Until she realized that Gus probably thought she was checking out his impressive body.

“Sorry, I didn’t think anyone else was in here,” she said, quickly raising her eyes to his face. “I should have been watching where I was going.”

Unlike her, he didn’t bother to hide that he was checking her out. “I should have been watching, too. But I can’t truly say I’m sorry I bumped into you,” he answered. “I’ve been up all morning, working on this new presentation with Harrison, and I’ve got to confess, looking at you is a nice break from looking at him.”

“Um...thank you, I guess,” she said, feeling more than a little bit uncomfortable.

She respected Gus a lot for what he’d been through and the obstacles he’d surmounted. But this was the third time he’d unapologetically flirted with her despite knowing that she was a married woman. Even in her wildest years, she’d carried a basic respect for marriage vows. One that Gus didn’t seem to share.

As if reading her mind, he gave her another up-and-down look. “Like I said before, Max is a very lucky man, landing a wife like you. Beautiful, savvy, willing to settle.”

She inclined her head, feeling weirdly defensive of Max, despite the supposed compliment on Gus’s part. “I doubt any other woman would think I settled.”

“That’s because they only notice Max’s appearance. A lot of women don’t mind dating a man without any ambition, but you seem smarter than that to me. More like your friend Sunny. Someone who can easily move in and out of Las Vegas circles. Someone who’d be comfortable at a charity ball or a nightclub opening. Not every woman has what it takes to serve her man well as a Vegas wife. And women who do—women like you—shouldn’t settle on just any man.”

Pru kept her face carefully blank, trying to figure out if he was serious or if this was some kind of deep corporate spy game he was playing with her. “Well, thank you for letting me know your thoughts on my recent marriage,” she said after a few disbelieving moments. “I’ll keep them in mind.”

“You do that,” he said with another killer smile. “And if anything changes after this Friday, look me up when you get back to Vegas. I know someone on his way up who would be very interested in a girl like you.”

This time Pru couldn’t keep the shock off her face. Friday was Max’s birthday. The day he’d officially receive his trust money—the day he’d officially be free to divorce her.

Gus knew about Max’s inheritance.
Knew and must have guessed that what she and Max had was more of a monetary agreement than a true marriage.

She narrowed her eyes, prepared to press him further on the subject. But before she could, a voice said, “What are you doing in here with my wife?”

Chapter 15

M
ax had never been a jealous man. In his life. In fact, the few women he had officially dated for longer than a few nights had been the type who went out of their way to turn heads. And it had never bothered him that other guys coveted what he currently had.

But walking in on Gus and Pru, both dressed in nothing but towels, bothered him. His lips curled into a sneer as he directed his attention toward Gus. “What are you doing in here
with my wife
?”

Gus turned to him with a condescending smirk on his face, muscles flexing as he lowered his hands to his side.

“I just came down here to take a shower before this morning’s round of presentations,” Gus answered, his voice a near drawl. “Imagine my surprise when I found such a beautiful sight. Must have been serendipity.”

The towel and the new set of clothes Max had brought to change into quickly ended up on the shower room’s floor as Max started toward Gus.

But Pru stepped in front of him. “Max,” she said, “you dropped your clothes on the floor. Do you want to go back to the room with me? Get some more?”

“No, I don’t,” Max answered between clenched teeth. “I’d much rather stay here and punch this guy out for daring to look at another man’s woman.”

Gus tilted his head. “Really? Because that’s how I heard your parents met. Wasn’t your dad still with Cole’s mom when he got her sister, your mom, pregnant? Or is that just hotel gossip?”

Max pushed forward. Only Pru’s hands pressed against his chest kept him from going farther.

“Max, please don’t...” she said, her voice desperate. Though she hadn’t looked all that surprised when Gus had dropped that nugget of scandalous Benton family lore. Yet another thing she must have found out before hunting him down in New Orleans.

Feeling like a fool, Max decided to back down. But not politely.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I won’t hurt your sad little admirer,” he said to Pru, throwing Gus a cold smile. “Looks like you’ve had some major heart surgery there, desperado, and I’m a charitable man from a charitable family. I’d never forgive myself if I did anything to make you need more surgery, which of course we Bentons would have to pay for, just like we pay your salary.”

Pru’s eyes widened. “Max!” she gasped.

But he didn’t care. It was true, he wasn’t about to go after a guy who’d had heart surgery. But he also for damn sure wasn’t going to just let him get away with flirting with Pru.

Gus took a step toward Max. “That surgery was a long time ago, man, and I assure you, I can more than take care of myself if you want to do this.”

“He doesn’t,” Pru answered for Max. “And more important, I don’t want you to, because there’s nothing to fight over. Max, we were just talking, I swear. And Gus, if you’re going to take a shower, go take it, please. More people are probably going to be getting back from the trip soon, including my brother-in-law.”

Gus looked between her and Max as he clenched and unclenched his fists. But perhaps sensing that it might not be the wisest thing for his career to get into a physical fight with the younger Benton, he backed down.

“Never let it be said that Gus Martinez would turn down a beautiful woman’s request. Sure, I’ll go take my shower now,” he said, his eyes outright challenging Max. “See you later, Pru.”

Pru didn’t answer, which was a good thing. Max couldn’t have been responsible for his actions if she had in any way responded to the heavy flirtation in Gus’s voice.

Pru stood there, her hands still on Max’s chest as they both watched Gus disappear into one of the shower stalls. A moment later the water came on, and Pru let out a breath of relief.

A breath was all she got, because in the next moment, Max had her lifted up in his arms, carrying her to the closest hidden space.

“What are you doing?” she demanded in a whisper when he set her down and shut the door behind them. The bathroom’s metal locking device slipped closed with a jingling clang.

The front of her towel was nearly undone now, hanging on to its tuck by just a tip. A tip Max reached out and undid with just a flick of his finger.

His nose flared when the towel fell away, and his member came to thick life inside the jeans he’d worn on the canoe trip. It was angry and ready to be inside her.

“Cashing in a wallet,” he answered.

He cupped her newly uncovered sex then, needing to feel her, needing to know if she was slick with her own arousal. Her sex pulsed in hot invitation.

It was an invitation he took, pushing three fingers into her and biting down a groan when her tunnel clenched around his fingers with hot need.

Her head fell forward onto his shoulder, her whole body melting into his touch, even as Detective Pru protested, “You said I had thirty-six hours.”

“You need to revisit the language of our agreement. I said I could give you thirty-six hours,” he murmured against the top of her head. “
Could.
I never guaranteed I would.”

She whispered a word, one that wasn’t very kind, but she didn’t push him away. Just whimpered and gripped his shoulders, helplessly watching him guide her hips as he made her ride his hand.

Damn if she wasn’t just about the sexiest sight he’d ever seen. So sexy that his own painful need became background noise as he watched her naked body pumping into his hand. Her whimpering became louder and louder until eventually her mews turned into full-on moans and her hips started moving faster against his hand.

Max’s own arousal became untenable then, and though he hadn’t meant to take it this far, he stopped.

“What...why did you stop?” Pru looked adorably dazed and confused, which made Max move even faster with the condom he’d brought out of his pocket. He didn’t want to leave her feeling abandoned any longer than he had to.

In mere seconds he was fully sheathed, his jeans around his ankles.

“Pru, sweetheart, I know you don’t want anyone to hear us, but—” he lifted up one of her long legs and wrapped it around his waist at the same time that he began the long push into her wet tunnel “—I’m going to need you to get loud for me. Think you can do that?”

He pushed the rest of the way in, and Pru gasped, her eyes widening with pleasure. But then she shook her head. Shook her head even though Max could feel her core tightening around his shaft, already milking him with her need.

She was fighting it. Fighting him, and that made Max pick her up, pressing her hard into the stall’s wall as he wrapped her other leg around his waist, too.

“Are you trying to make me mad, Prudence?” he asked, pushing into her with short, jerking strokes that rubbed her clit both on the way up and on the way down.

Her body caved into his, obviously overwhelmed by the sensations Max was producing inside her. But she remained mutinously silent, clamping her lips together and shaking her head. Refusing to do his bidding. Refusing him.

Max’s strokes became vicious. He barely held on to a thin edge of self-control as he took his wife. Marked his claim. “I need you to understand something, sweetheart,” he whispered viciously in her ear. “While you’re here, you belong to me. No one else.”

Pru answered this time, her voice little more than a broken gasp. “Y-you need to revisit...th-the language of our agreement. I was—I was speaking to Gus, for the case...case is my first priority—not your st-stupid pissing contest with G-Gus.”

Her breathless words burned through Max, and that wild feeling came over him again. The one that made him feel as if he couldn’t get close enough to her even though he was all the way inside her.

“Unless you want me cashing in my wallets at very inconvenient times, I suggest you make
me
your first priority,” he growled, thrusting into her even more savagely.

Then, before she could even think to respond, he brought his hand down and pinched her most sensitive place, brutally triggering her orgasm.

She did scream then, but soundlessly. Her head falling back as her hand circled around his wrist, trying to push it away.

“Too much,” she seemed to be saying, and he could feel the intensity of her climax, her core nearly locking him in.

But he didn’t stop. He continued to drive into her, continued to torture her clit, so that she couldn’t escape the orgasm, couldn’t escape the pleasure’s unrelenting assault.

And she soon lost her battle to stay quiet, helplessly screaming out. So loud that there was no way Gus couldn’t hear her, even with the noise of the shower.

What Max didn’t expect was to join her. Instead of reveling in the satisfaction of her surrender, the entire lower half of his body involuntarily pushed him into Pru’s tight space as deep as he could go, releasing into the condom as if compelled by her helpless screams.

He yelled out then, just as loud as Pru, and then he went completely mute. For moments on end, he couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, still couldn’t get close enough to Pru as he finished releasing into the condom.

Not enough...

He was in trouble. He knew now that what had just happened between him and Pru wasn’t his usual fun and games, but something much more. Because he hadn’t broken their implicit agreement and taken her in the bathroom stall just because he could.

No, the real reason he’d taken her like this was because he wanted her to know that for the time being, she was his. His alone. Not Gus’s.

This was crazy. This needed to stop. This needed to stop right now.

Not enough...

What the hell was he going to do? he wondered as the orgasm finally subsided. How was he going to get this girl out of his system by Friday? Breathing hard, he looked down at Pru and saw his own fear reflected in her brown eyes.

A tap suddenly sounded on the stall’s door.

Pru’s eyes went wide, and she began shaking her head frantically.

Her unspoken request brought a much-needed dose of amusement back into the situation for Max, and he arched his eyebrows at Pru. That cat was most definitely out of the bag, thanks to her screaming.

“Yes, Gus?” he answered, unable to keep the self-satisfied note of triumph out of his voice.

“It’s not Gus, it’s Cole,” came his brother’s dry voice on the other side of the door.

Now Pru was really mortified. She shook her head and covered her eyes with both hands.

Max just answered, “Yes, Cole?”

“A reminder that the other execs weren’t allowed to bring significant others on this trip,” Cole said. He somehow sounded both annoyed and amused. “Let’s not give them any reason to be jealous.”

Max had to work hard to keep the chuckle out of his own voice as Pru uncovered her eyes and shoved at him. Perhaps she hadn’t realized that both her legs were still wrapped around his waist, and that he was the only thing keeping her pinned to the wall.

“Will do, bro,” he answered, clamping one of his hands around one of her wrists to keep her from battering him. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You’re welcome, Max.” Cole waited a beat before saying, “And good morning, Pru. Sunny told me to tell you she’s looking forward to seeing you on Friday when she gets here.”

Pru cringed for several seconds, seemingly stuck in a paralysis of complete embarrassment.

But eventually she managed to squeeze out. “Good morning, Cole. I’m looking forward to seeing Sunny, too.”

“Perhaps the four of us can go out for lunch that day. Celebrate Max and me signing his papers.”

“Sounds great,” Pru answered, her voice laced with discomfort.

“Good, good, I’ll have my assistant make reservations,” Cole said. He then finally walked away, leaving a very embarrassed Pru and a rather amused Max in his wake.