Double-Cross My Heart (33 page)

Flinching with the pleasure of her mouth on his skin, her hands jerking at his pants waistband, Alex cupped her luscious breasts in his hands savoring their weight and texture. Just the feel of her tightened his groin further. He paused long enough to unzip her skirt just as she was managing to free him from his pants. Dropping them to the floor, he kicked them off with his shoes, bending over to strip off his socks.

When he straightened, she was naked, eagerly sprawled out on her wide bed in invitation.

He could have lost it at just the sight of her there and if he’d been the randy teenager she made him feel like, he would have. Thankful for a measure of control, Alex climbed onto the bed and lie down next to her. She was a feast of textures, enough to drive a man into insanity.

Her breasts with their dark erect nipples drew him first. He leaned forward, cupping a breast in his hand, the smooth round resilience of it beckoning. Laving the kernel of her nipple with his mouth, he smoothed his other hand over her stomach and hip. He loved the feel of her ass. Loved the roundedness of her there when he drove into her.

“I have a condom,” Eden said, her voice breathless, as she yanked open a drawer next to the bed.

“Not yet,” he said, bending to nip at her other nipple, his tongue following teeth.

Stroking her thighs with a palm, he shuddered as her questing hands cherished his body, as well. She was a woman who knew no shame in touching a man. He loved that. Loved too, that she apparently knew the expression of “going for the balls.” Never had he been so sweetly gripped.

Her tongue at his ear, her hands on his stomach, his thigh, clutching at his heavily engorged penis. She owned him at this moment and he loved the fact.

The sleek length of her thighs and the warm nest of curls between them called to him. Sliding a hand up her inner thigh, he reveled in the gasp his touch called from her.

She rose up on her knees next to him, intent it seemed on touching every surface of his body. He was emblazoned with her mark, her touch, the scent of her. Toying with his erection, she slipped a hand up his chest to sift through the hair there.

Still kissing him, her mouth hot on his shoulder, his lips, his abdomen. Alex shuddered. He could do this with her the rest of his life. No other woman, no other sensation shared his memory. She was everything. All he wanted.

Drawn to the cleft between her legs, he stroked her. The sweet damp folds notched his own excitement to a near intolerable pitch. He needed her, needed the feel of her all around him, engulfing him, hugging and squeezing his most sensitive flesh.

Her beautiful body sheltering his. The thought of consummation left him briefly immobilized as she kissed her way up his chest.

The bed shifted beneath her as she crawled up and straddled his legs.

“You better,” she panted, “get the condom ‘cause I’m going to ride you hard.”

Galvanized by the image, he scrambled for the foil packet. Opening it, he tossed aside the wrapper and yielded the condom to her, groaning while she smoothed it in place.

Poised over him, her heaven beckoned and he bracketed her hips with his hands to guide her to him. She allowed her self to be drawn forward, lifting to let the weight of his erection rest against her heat. Slowly, she sank over him, the sensation agonizingly perfect, slow and searing.

No words could describe the feel of her all around him, tight and welcoming. Alex cupped her breasts and muttered garbled words of encouragement.

“Oh, yeah. Oh…yeah. More. Like that.”

She was everything. Her flesh against his pushing erection, her body rising and falling above his. His universe narrowed to the touch of their bodies, the sound of their gasped breaths, the explosion of sensation within him.

This was so right…him and her together. This touch, this moment. If he died now, he’d have known the entire beauty of life, just being with her.

Over and over, she rose and sank against him, pausing as her body clenched and spasmed around him. Her head thrown back, her breasts jutting forward in her orgasm, she straddled him and…once again, showed him paradise.

“I love you,” he said, when she leaned forward, spent with pleasure. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Eden cried softly, her voice breaking.

***

The sound of Eden’s shower made a steady background to Alex’s soft whistling. He reached for his shirt, grinning at the sudden thought that he should join her in the bathroom.

They’d neither one end up back at work this afternoon if he did, which might not be a bad way to relieve her work-related stress. He didn’t act on the thought, however. For one thing, his heart had just started settling down. And he knew Eden didn’t need to be distracted from the job. Not yet. They were so close, but they weren’t at the finish line yet.

Buttoning his shirt slowly, he relived her startled, tearful reaction to his declaration of love. She’d just started crying, sobbing into his shoulder as if her heart were breaking rather than the other way around.

He’d been surprised by her intense reaction. But when he’d attempted to discover the problem, she’d just gasped out that she loved him, too.

Wearing what he knew was a goofy smile, Alex reached for his pants, a crumpled gray pile on the carpet. Stepping forward, his bare foot banged into something hard on the floor, partially under Eden’s bed. Her briefcase.

Remembering her dropping it on the floor there before she turned to fling herself into his arms, Alex laughed softly. He’d practically been scorched by the last half hour, she was so hot.

Scooting the case out from under the bed with his foot, he bent to pick the case up. Sprung partially opened from him slamming his foot against it, papers were sliding out one side.

Realizing as he lifted it from the floor that the case had sprung open, spilling out papers, Alex picked it up, careful not to drop anything. Crossing to Eden’s desk, he set the case down, intending to straighten the papers enough to close it.

On the top of the pile of papers in the briefcase was a thick report with the name “Bergere Laboratories” in the corner and the words “Final Report” emblazoned across the front page.

Alex frowned. This thick bound document didn’t look at all like the final Bergere report Eden had just given him earlier.

With a sudden foreboding gripping him, he lifted the document out of Eden’s case and opened it
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Results on the anti-aging formula cream are better than anticipated…minimal residual side effects…with these key ingredients, it should be highly profitable, as we’ve discussed by phone several times in the last month….”

Alex stared down at the heavy report in his hands, the sound of Eden’s shower in the background, puzzlement and surprise giving way to a gut-punch realization, followed swiftly by an intense, searing anger.

She had lied to him? Why on earth would she lie about the results of the anti-aging cream? Why deliberately keep him in the dark about this fantastic asset?

An angry buzz resounded in his head, filling his ears. Had she deliberately compiled a false report to hand over to him? Why the hell would she do that?

Even as he asked himself the questions, an answer erupted into his brain.

The Bergere cream had the potential to be very profitable and, for some reason, Eden didn’t want him to know that fact.

His jaw tightening grimly, Alex stared down at the summary page, his brain trying to grasp the pertinent facts. It made no sense. He loved this woman…and she was deliberately lying to him? According to the results of this study, Michele Cosmetics had a major money-maker in the new face cream.

Trying to grapple with the information in his hands, he stood frowning at the report in his hands.

If the new product was very valuable, that changed the financial situation at Michele Cosmetics. That’s why Eden hadn’t wanted him to know. She’d withheld important facts from him.

If she was lying to him about that, what other lies was she feeding him? Was she feeding him false information…about more than the cream? Had she been playing along with him all this time? Pretending? She must have been lying to him about cooperating with him while she was actually setting him up for a fool, she and Michele Broussard together.

Refusing to acknowledge the searing sensation of having been kicked in the nuts, Alex tried to force himself to think.

How the hell did the situation with Michele and Wendi and Eden figured into this deceit, he couldn’t know for sure. His original research into the company had indicated a genuine rift between Eden and Michele. That part had to be true, but how that reality fit with Eden’s lies he couldn’t see.

It didn’t really matter. Maybe Eden was using her role in warning Michele about the takeover to secure her job for the next ten years.

For a second, he felt pity and disgust, mixed into a scorching rock of anger in his chest. Had she betrayed him in attempting to solidify her future with the company? If she thought Wendi Williams would actually keep her around for very long, she was a tremendous fool. Not that Eden was a fool generally, but he knew the company meant everything to her. It had been her life.

His teeth clenched in anger, he still was aware of a wave of piercing, sickening disappointment. She’d lied to him, repeatedly. Spent time to him, slept with him and told him she loved him—all while she was lying to him for Michele Broussard.

Eden…lying. And lying so well. A woman who’d seemed—who had been such a straight-arrow. And now she was doing this….

He couldn’t stand the thought of who Eden had become. His original assessment of her couldn’t have been this wrong. Somewhere along the way, she’d taken a turn and pitched aside her integrity. How could she have done this? Did she even know herself anymore?

And it was all for such a lost cause. Michele or her minions didn’t have much they could do to deflect his takeover bid. Eden had to know that. The company was ripe for picking, teetering on the brink of insolvency.

Of course, now there was that damned anti-aging face cream. The new product would bring greater revenues.

In the background, the sound of Eden humming above the water in the shower penetrated Alex’s thoughts and jolted him into action.

Sitting the bulky report on her desk, he quickly and efficiently rifled through the other contents of her briefcase. Realizing how completely he’d been deceived reduced to zero any hesitation he might have to this invasion of her privacy.

At a slim file at the bottom of the case, Alex paused. Inside were three letters from different department heads at Michele Cosmetics, all giving factual statements indicating that Eden Merritt had been essentially running the company for the past two years. Each letter was headed with the words: “Memo To Directors.”

On a Post-It note attached to the front of the folder was written the list, “Info from WW’s last position. Department head statements. Questions about M’s health?”

Trying to decipher the meaning of this cryptic list, he paused in the act of pushing the file back into her case.

But the sound of the water in the shower being turned off galvanized him. Stashing the contents of the briefcase back in as near an original order as he could, he took the case—carefully latched—back over to where she’d dropped it.

Whatever was exactly going on, he needed some time to get his head straight. His instincts over-ruled by his brain, he quickly decided against storming into the bathroom and ripping into her with his discoveries.

A big part of him wanted to confront her and hear her explain it all away. He couldn’t do it, though. He needed to think. To get beyond the hurt.

But he sure as hell didn’t need any tender moments right now.

Putting the case back on the floor, half-under the bed, he stuffed his feet into his shoes, picked up his suit jacket and over-coat and went to the door of the bathroom.

“Eden, I’ve got to go,” he said to the steamed-over shower door, careful to keep his rage and betrayal out of his voice. “I got a call from the office.”

“Okay,” she answered immediately from the shower stall. “Shall I meet you at Emiliano’s tonight?”

Damn. He’d forgotten their dinner plans.

“Sure,” Alex agreed, edging toward the door. He didn’t want to see her now, couldn’t stand the possibility of her getting out of the shower, hot and clean and naked.

As beautiful and erotic as the sight would be, he just didn’t feel like fucking her in anger.

He’d told her he loved her. He’d been planning marriage and a future. And she been lying to him. Over and over—lying to him. At this moment, his gut ripped open by her betrayal, he almost hated her. He had to get out of here.

“Around eight?” she asked, her voice muffled by the towel over her head.

“Yeah. Eight is good. See you then,” he agreed, turning to stalk out of the apartment, feeling he’d spilled out half his blood volume in her bedroom, along with his guts.

His heart ripped out and shredded by the one woman he’d truly ever loved.

Shutting her door behind him, he crossed the hall to the elevator. Just an hour before, they’d practically run across this hall, eager to be alone and make love.