The Highest Bidder. Maureen Child
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it. It was smooth and soft and smelled, he thought, of peaches. The woman was edible, head to toe.
She took a sip of her wine and said, “That’s good, thank you.”
He gulped at his own wine, hoping to ease the knot of need that was now lodged in his throat. Everything about her called to him. The way she licked a drop of wine from her lips. The way she shook her hair back over her shoulder. The way she reached one hand out to cup his cheek, sending lines of heat shooting through his body.
“I’m suddenly not very thirsty,” he admitted. “You?”
“Not very,” she agreed, handing him her glass so he could set both of them down on the table beside the bed.
Her fingers caressed his cheek and he caught her hand in his. “Think you can read my thoughts?” he asked quietly. “What am I thinking now?”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she murmured, “I’m thinking it, too.”
“Good to know,” he said and dropped his head to claim a kiss. The first taste of her exploded in his mouth and rocketed through him. Just like the first time he had kissed her, in the shade of a willow tree, he felt that pitch and roll in his stomach and a weird sort of ache in his chest. But he didn’t want to consider what any of it might mean.
For now, all he wanted, needed, was Charlie. The feel of her, the hot silk of her body surrounding him when he entered her. Everything else in the damn world could just wait its turn.
He loved the feel of her soft hands sliding over his skin, the heat of her touch, kindling the fire inside him into something wild and uncontrollable. He caressed her, she responded, she ran her fingernails along his back and he shivered.
This woman got to him on levels he hadn’t even known he possessed. She invaded his body, his soul, his mind and, he suspected, his heart. And that was something that no one had ever managed to do.
He shook his head, deliberately dismissing his own thoughts. He wanted nothing interfering with this moment. He was hard and tight and ready for her again and couldn’t wait to get back inside her. Where he belonged, a voice inside whispered. Where he most wanted to be. He grabbed another condom and sheathed himself quickly.
Shifting, he sat up, and dragged her with him. She came willingly and when his back was braced against the headboard, he lifted her up to straddle him.
She whipped her long hair back from her face, but it slid forward again, lying in blond ribbons across her full, truly amazing breasts. Her nipples peeked through the golden strands like hidden treasures waiting to be discovered.
With her hands on his shoulders, she went up on her knees, and slowly took him inside, inch by glorious inch. His hands at her hips, he guided her down as his eyes locked with hers. He saw the flash of wonder, of want burning in those pale blue depths, and lost himself there. In the heat they built together. In the need that had them both by the throat.
Why was that need even more desperate now? Shouldn’t it have been assuaged by their first joining? Shouldn’t he be feeling satisfied instead of hungrier for her than ever?
“You’re killing me,” he muttered when she was fully seated on him and his body was locked within hers.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she admitted and ground her hips against him, dragging a groan from each of them.
“I wanted to take this time slow,” Vance told her after a long minute when he fought for control. “But I don’t think so.”
“Who needs slow?” she asked, then let out a “Whoop!” when he moved fast and tossed her onto her back, keeping his body joined with hers.
“There’s lots of time for slow,” he told her, voice low and scratchy. “Later.”
“Right. Later.” She lifted her legs, hooked them around his hips and pulled him in deeper, higher. “Right now, I just need. Need …”
“Me, too.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, shut down his racing mind and gave himself up to instinct. The raw, pure hunger roaring through him demanding to be sated.
His hips moved like pistons. He took her fast, hard and completely. He heard her sighs and they fed his desire. He felt her body shiver as her climax jolted through her. She screamed his name as her body trembled and, moments later, he shouted victoriously as his body exploded into the heat of her, leaving him locked in her arms—and he didn’t let her go.
“Weird afternoon,” Charlie whispered to herself an hour later as she sat at her desk, going over Vance’s mail.
She’d been in his bed. Held his body in hers. And now they were back at Waverly’s as if nothing had happened.
But it had, she reminded herself with an inner smile. She just didn’t know what that meant for either of them.
One corner of her mind asked if it really had to mean something. Wasn’t it enough for now to simply enjoy what she had while she had it? And though that was good advice, she would never be able to follow it. Charlie never had been the girl to accept “for now.”
She’d always been more the home-and-hearth type rather than the use-’em-and-lose-’em kind of girl. So where did that leave her, exactly?
Living with her boss. Sleeping with him.
And worrying about what happened next.
For whatever reason, Vance was being kind and very protective of her and her son, and Charlie was grateful. But she knew that soon enough, he was bound to move on to one of the empty-headed beauties he usually dated. And that was just depressing.
Her desk phone buzzed and she picked up. “Yes?”
Vance’s voice came across loud and clear, “Come in here, Charlie. I’ve got an idea.”
She walked into his office and paused for a second to enjoy the view. He sat behind his desk like a king. Power emanated from him and when he smiled, everything inside her drew up into tight knots.
Oh, God. It had happened. She’d gone and done it.
She was in love with Vance Waverly.
And doomed to misery because he would never return that feeling. How could he? He knew the whole sordid truth about her now. Where she was from, what kind of family she had had. They were night and day, light and dark, power and powerlessness.
Heart aching, she forced a smile onto her face and prayed he couldn’t see what it was costing her. If all she had left was her pride, then she was going to cling to it.
“What kind of idea?” she asked, taking one of the chairs in front of his desk.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “I want you to email that bastard who’s been hounding you and tell him you want to meet.”
“What?” Fear closed her throat as she stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I want to find out who he is. That way we’ll know who’s behind all this.” He stood up, came around the desk and took the chair next to hers.
Charlie stared into his eyes and saw the gleam of anticipation there. “I don’t know.”
“I do. You can do this, Charlie.” He reached over and picked up her hands from her lap. Holding them in his, he met her gaze and reminded her, “We already figured out this isn’t a coincidence. Your first threatening note arriving the same day as the article on Ann and Dalton showing up in the paper? No way. Whoever’s behind the threats to you has to be involved in whatever’s being planned for Waverly’s.”
“But, Vance …”
“I’ll be there. Well,” he hedged, “not with you, but close by. I swear I’ll never you out of my sight. You’ll be safe, Charlie, but I think this is our best chance of stopping this guy.”
She