Taming the VIP Playboy (12 page)

“I'm not. I didn't want you to have to deal with him on your own.”

“Me, either,” she admitted. “So what are you doing today?”

“Celebrity golf tournament,” he said. “Do you have time for dinner tonight?”

“I can't. Alison and I are meeting with the show dancers from the main room to go over some new routines.”

“I guess I'll have to try to make it up to the show tonight.”

“I'll look forward to it,” she said.

Nate left her alone in the rehearsal room. She pondered how close they'd grown over the last few days.
Last night she'd almost told him she loved him. She knew that she cared that deeply for him.

But she had no idea if he was ready to hear that or if he'd ever be. For all she knew, if she ever confessed her love he'd run for the hills.

“You're early today,” Alison said as she came into the rehearsal room.

“I couldn't let you keep beating me here.”

Alison laughed and they continued joking around with each other as they warmed up. “You're in a good mood today.”

“Life is good,” Jen said and realized that she meant that. Her life was very good right now. Probably in the place that she'd long wanted to be in. And she was very happy to be finally finding it.

“Life is good with me, too. I talked to my brother today.”

“When does he ship out?”

“Another week. We are having a party at the beach house this weekend. Want to come?”

“I might. Can I bring a date?”

“Yes. Who would it be?”

“Just a guy I've been seeing.” She didn't want to say that she was dating Nate Stern. They had been keeping a low profile so far. But what kind of relationship could they have if they were both keeping each other secret from their friends?

“Well, let me know if you are going to come.”

“I will. Have you done a lot of country-type dancing?” Jen asked.

“Just some line dancing but this tape Ty Bolson and Janna McGree sent calls for more than line dancing.”

“Yes, it does. I think we should incorporate some of your line dancing into it. That way our patrons will
be able to dance to the music. Not everyone can do a country waltz.”

“That's true,” Alison agreed.

They spent the rest of the afternoon working on a few routines and then recorded themselves on video for Ty and Janna. “I think this will work better for the event.”

All the while, Jen tried to keep her focus on work. Not on the man she was fast falling in love with.

Love.

No. She couldn't love a man like Nate. He wasn't the kind of guy she wanted to fall in love with but it was too late. She already had.

N
ate stayed out of the club the next day when it was time for Jen to make the money exchange with Carlos. He knew that if he were there he'd once again be battling with himself to go and take Carlos out.

The forty-five minutes he spent outside waiting were the longest of his life. They rivaled even that time when he waited for the doctor to tell him he could no longer play baseball. He knew then that Jen meant more to him than he wanted to admit.

He should drive away. Get the hell out of here and do something that was fun. He needed to go back to his playboy life but he couldn't. Not while Jen was in there dealing with a scumbag.

He waited in his car until the cops escorted Carlos out of the building. It was over. He didn't need to worry anymore about Jen.

He hurried inside and found her. She was visibly
shaken and he wanted to pull her into his arms but he knew that doing so in the club in front of his employees and her coworkers wasn't a good idea. So instead he took her to his home.

“Do you want to hear about it?” she asked, as they entered his apartment.

“No. I don't. I'm glad he's been arrested and I hope you never have to deal with him again.”

“Me, too. Thank you.”

“Justin did all the work on this one,” he said. “Go sit down while I pour us both a drink.”

“Make mine club soda. I have to pick Riley up from school this afternoon.”

Nate made both of their drinks nonalcoholic and came to sit next to her on the leather couch. “Why are you picking him up?”

“Marcia has a late appointment with one of her clients and the normal sitter isn't available.”

Damn. He'd been hoping to have her to himself this afternoon but he forgot that with Jen came her family. She had commitments and a life that had nothing to do with him.

“Do you want to come with me? Riley wants to show you his baseball skills. He's been showing off what you taught him at school.”

“Has he?”

“Yes, he talks about you a lot. Marcia said we'd been neglecting him by not having a man in our lives.”

Nate thought they probably had been, but two women wouldn't think of having a guy around for a little boy. “I…can't,” he said.

He wasn't a family guy and it was time for Jen to realize that. Today had shown him how vulnerable he was where she was concerned and he needed to make
sure she never knew the power she had over him. That kind of feminine power had ruined his father.

“Oh, okay. Are you available on Saturday?”

“For?”

“A beach party that Alison's throwing for her brother. She's got a house on Marathon Key. He's being deployed again to the Middle East and she wants to give him a good send-off.”

“Alison from the club?” Nate asked. He thought that she was a dancer but he wasn't sure.

“Yes, she's my assistant.”

“I think I'd like to attend. Let me know what time it is.”

“I gave Alison the night off so she'll be there all day. It's a drop-in party.”

“We could take the yacht down to her place,” Nate suggested.

“That sounds like fun…do you think Riley and Marcia can join us?” Jen asked.

“I don't think I can handle your entire family,” he said. To be honest, he knew he couldn't. They made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin and made him wish…well he was a different man. The kind of man who could make Jen's dreams of family come true.

She shook her head. “Well, okay then. I didn't realize my family was hard to handle.” There was an awkward silence.

Jen left a few minutes later to go and pick her nephew up from school. As Nate watched her leave he was struck by the scariest thought he'd ever had. He imagined this was what life would be like if they had a child of their own.

He'd never considered having kids, though he knew that he might someday. But Jen was the first woman
he'd met that he could conceive of as a mother to his children.

He quickly turned his attention away from that thought.

 

That Saturday, back on his yacht after a pleasant but long day, Jen relaxed in the living area in front of the plasma screen TV. Nate was watching the highlights of the Miami Heat game while she rested her head in his lap.

“Thanks for a great time,” she said. Realizing that most time spent with Nate was great. In fact, since the mess with Carlos, they'd grown so close that it was hard for her not to tell him she loved him.

Only her fears that he might not love her, too, and that he was still afraid of commitment kept her quiet. But she didn't like to live her life hiding something as big as her love for him. She had started this new life when she'd met Nate and that life was meant to be better than the one she'd left behind.

How could it be if she was afraid to tell him that she loved him?

“It was a fun day. I didn't realize your sister was going to be there.”

“She's friends with Alison as well. Thanks for giving them a ride back on your yacht despite the fact that you're uncomfortable with my family. I know Riley enjoyed it.”

“It was nothing.”

“It meant the world to Riley and to Marcia.”

“I'm still not your sister's favorite person.”

Jen was aware of that. No matter how many times she'd explained to Marcia that Nate had his picture in the papers with other women for the club and not because he
was dating them, her sister just didn't like it. She thought a man should honor his commitment to one woman.

“She just doesn't want to see me get hurt,” Jen said.

Nate clicked off the television. After Carlos, he could understand how her sister would be worried about him hurting Jen. And given the fact that he was trying to figure out how to protect himself from caring too much about Jen, he thought maybe Marcia should be worried.

“How could I hurt you?”

Jen sat up, tucking her leg under her body to face him. “By…”

“What?”

She had no idea how to say the words out loud.
By not loving me,
she thought in her head and just kept staring at him like she'd been struck mute.

“You can tell me. Is it the fact that I had my picture in the paper with those two models this morning? You know that was club business and had nothing to do with romance.”

“We spend so much time together, I'm not afraid that you are seeing someone else behind my back. Besides, I know you well enough now that you'd tell me if things were over between us.”

“Yes, I would. I still don't know what's going on between us, Jen. I keep expecting that we'll grow tired of each other or start to drift apart but the opposite is happening.”

Each word he spoke made her feel stronger about the love in her heart and she knew that she was going to tell him how she felt. Tell him that she loved him. And she had the feeling that he'd confess to loving her, too.

“That is exactly how I feel, Nate. I wake each morning looking forward to the part of my day when I know I
will see you. And sometimes when you surprise me by dropping by early…well, I get so excited just to see you.”

Nate reached out and pulled her close in his arms, hugging her tightly to him. He whispered something into her hair that she couldn't understand.

“What?”

“Some days I just have to see you,” he said. “When I know our schedules are busy and we might not have time for each other, I make time.”

She smiled up at him, knowing she was doing a horrible job of hiding what she felt at that moment. “I know that's hard for you with your schedule.”

“Not hard at all. Now tell me what you were going to say,” he encouraged.

“I have been thinking about us all day, Nate,” she said. “When we were on the yacht, it made me realize that we could have a family…that we were already becoming a family together and I want that to continue.”

“I'm not ready for a family yet,” he said.

“I know that,” she assured him. Because she did know that he wasn't ready for anything beyond a commitment to her. She wasn't sure she was. She only knew that having Nate in her life and by her side was the most important thing for her right now.

“I meant that I'm looking to my future and seeing a family. That isn't something I'd anticipated. I mean, when I couldn't return to dancing I thought that…I thought that I didn't have a future. But being with you has given me back dreams.”

Nate kissed her softly on the top of the head. “I'm very glad to hear that.”

“Nate, I'm not sure you are ready to hear this but…”
I love you,
she thought. I love you. Why was it so hard
to say those three little words out loud? There was never going to be a better time to say them than right now.

“Yes?”

“I…I love you,” she said. She spoke the words softly, and he leaned in as if he had trouble hearing her.

But then his eyes widened and he looked down at her. “What did you say?”

“I love you. You're the man I've been waiting for all my life and never knew that I needed. But being with you has completed me in a way that I never expected. I didn't realize I was incomplete without you. Not until this very moment.

“And I know that you might not be ready to hear those words, but I can't keep quiet anymore. The words have been growing inside me for a long time. My love has been growing for you,” she said.

He kept his arm around her, letting her speak, but he had nothing to say. She sat there next to him so afraid she'd just made the biggest mistake of her relationship with him but then he moved and drew her closer to him.

“Jen, you mean more to me than I can say,” he whispered against her hair.

He brought his mouth down on hers and she felt in his kiss all that he didn't say. He held her so close and kissed her so carefully that she knew they were going to be okay.

 

Nate didn't want to think about love or the fact that she scared the crap out of him with that confession. Each day he was with her…he wasn't going to think about that right now. Instead, he was going to do what he did best—make love to her. He wanted to have her
lithe body under his again so he'd feel in control and not so unsure of things between them.

He reached for the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her arms. She shifted on the couch to straddle his hips and he leaned back against the pillows looking up at her slim body, the mounds of her breasts encased in the pale yellow bra.

“You have such a pretty body, honey. I can't get enough of touching you,” Nate said.

She smiled down at him. “I'm glad you like it. I like your body, too. Will you lean up and take your shirt off for me?”

He did as she asked. And her hands immediately went to his chest, stroking and petting him. “I love the way you feel.”

“Do you?” he asked, unhooking the back of her bra and drawing the straps down her arms.

“Yes, I do,” she said, shifting forward so that the tips of her breasts brushed over the light covering of hair on his chest.

He shuddered, enjoying the feel of her nipples against him. She shivered delicately and rubbed herself over him as she took his mouth with hers. He let her set the pace for their lovemaking tonight.

He just wanted her. When she took the lead in their passion it was a full-out turn-on. He felt so hard and ready, it took all of his self-control to wait for her.

He put his hands on her waist and shifted on the couch so that he could take her right nipple in his mouth. He teased her with his tongue at first, circling her areola and then gently closed his lips over her and sucked gently.

She dug her hands into his hair and pulled him closer to her. Her legs shifted next to his hips and she rubbed herself against his erection.

“You feel so good, Nate.”

He kept teasing her nipple with his mouth and brought his fingers to her other one, plucking at it gently until she was squirming and calling his name.

“I love the sound of my name on your lips.”

“Nate.”

“Yes, Jen. Tell me what you want,” he said. He wanted this to be for her. To show her how much the gift of her love meant to him.

“I want you, Nate. I want to feel the hair on your chest against my breasts. I want you inside me and I want to be together with you—completely yours.”

He wanted that, too. He almost came from her words and the remembered feeling of being inside of her. He put his hands around her waist and lifted her up so he could reach between them and free himself from his underwear.

Her hands immediately went to her own pants and she had them off in a minute. Then he was holding her naked in his arms. Here was where he wanted and needed her. Here was where he knew they were doing what they needed to do.

She came down on top of him and let the humid warmth of her center rub up and down his aching hardness. He ran his hands up and down her back and then put them on her hips and drew her up and over him.

She moaned his name again and this time he came up to kiss her neck. He dropped nibbling kisses along the length of it until she shifted, trying to bring the tip of his erection to the portal of her body.

But he made her wait for it. Even though he was close to coming, he wanted this orgasm to be stronger than any of the other ones he'd given her. He wanted her to
always remember this night and the passion between them when she thought of loving him.

She reached between their bodies and stroked her hand up and down his length. A drop of precum beaded at his tip and she caught it with her finger and rubbed it around the head of his sensitive shaft. He felt another drop on the tip.

“I need to be inside you now,” he said.

“I thought you wanted to wait,” she said, a teasing note in her voice.

“Not anymore. You are too much temptation for me tonight.”

“Good. I want to be the woman who pushes you over the edge,” she said. “You are too controlled in life.”