Embraced (7 page)

“I – “

“What, Honey?” He didn’t want to crowd her, so he stayed where he was. She looked a little lost and hesitant, which was unlike her. He, as usual around her, was full blown aroused.

Barrett was becoming used to uncomfortably fitting pants.

Now she was looking everywhere
but
his eyes. “You’re not making this any easier for me, you know.”

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He had a flash of insight when he saw a golden red curl twisting around her index finger. “Are you trying to tell me that you accept my offer?”

“As long as you’re willing to take that money off the salary figure you quoted me, then, yes.”

Barrett couldn’t resist teasing her a little more. “And which offer will you be accepting?” A couch pillow hit him squarely in the face. “Oh. That offer.”

“Yes, the respectable offer, you lech.”

“Damn. You’re sure you won’t reconsider about the other one –“ The other couch pillow caught him in the chest. Meagan was thinking he was so big it would have been like missing the broad side of a barn. “You’re out of ammunition now, aren’t you?”

he pointed out, starting toward her with a playfully menacing look.

Meagan turned tail and ran, laughing, to the door. Before she had a chance to open it and escape, a big paw slammed it shut from behind her.

All kidding aside, he said in a serious voice, “I appreciate you staying, Meg.”

Meg turned and looked over her shoulder at him. “You’re welcome.” Impulsively, she smacked him loudly on the lips, then ducked under his arm and out the door. He rubbed the lips she’d just kissed, and grinned like an idiot. He loved it when a plan came together. No one saw him punch the air once, then go back to work like a normal, average, highly paid executive.

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Carolyn Faulkner

Barrett decided that in order to achieve his ultimate goal he would need to help Meg see him as something more than Mandy’s brother, a successful businessman, disciplinarian, family man. He wanted her to get to know him, and vice versa. So he began to court her. Mandy was an infinite font of information about Meg’s likes and dislikes, and was very keen on helping him once he told her his intentions. A fresh apricot rose appeared on her spare pillow occasionally in the mornings, as he usually got up well before her. He stepped up her riding lessons as it gave him another reason to be close to her, and for her to see him in a different light.

Their mutual love of horses was a nice building point, and he enjoyed teaching her. She was a quick pupil, and very eager to learn whatever he could teacher her – about the horses, anyway.

The people at his downtown headquarters couldn’t believe their workaholic boss was taking so much time off, but Barrett did as much as he could from the house, which was pretty easy to do with telecommuting. He cleared his schedule as much as possible for the rest of the summer, and planned on spending it concentrating on one Ms. Meagan O’Reilly.

He began to take her on formal dates, into San Antonio for dinners and to the Monet exhibit she’d mentioned she was interested in seeing. Barrett tried to make sure he was there for family dinners, and realized in the course of this campaign to win her affection how much he’d missed being around his whole family at night. They’d all grown up and out, and he hated the silence of the house with just him and Mandy in it, so he’d filled his time with work. It was a big, beautiful house that should echo with the sound of laughing children, and it would shortly if he had anything to say about it.

Family dinners were an experience, and always had been.

None of the Costas were shy, and Meagan wasn’t the least intimidated by the boisterous teasing, insults, and arguments that

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erupted in the course of a meal. Information, ideas, and opinions were consumed as readily as all of the food, along with puns, plays on words, and lots of “in” jokes. Both of his brothers obviously liked Meg, Hayden a little too much perhaps. Barrett had had a long talk with him and explained that his intentions were honorable, and that Meg seemed at least somewhat interested.

Hayden, who had had a great chance with Meagan because she already truly liked him, realized that there was an undeniable spark between the bubbly redhead and his more staid, dark-haired brother. He bowed out gracefully, mostly because he’d never seen Barrett this interested in anyone or anything besides making money and keeping the family together. It was nice to see Barrett chasing a woman, instead of vice versa. He usually had to shoo them out of his bed. His tanned, muscular good looks and dominant, brooding manner drew women like a magnet, but Hayden knew that it had been a long time since his brother had been serious about a woman.

He was glad it was Meg.

The more Barrett monopolized her time, the less cooking Meg actually did. They ate in the city, or met for lunch if he actually had to go into the office, and more often than not, neither of them wanted dinner when they finally got home. Poor Mandy was going to starve, but it was all in the name of Barrett’s happiness and she was glad to make any sacrifice, as long as she was allowed to whine about it to annoy him.

As he was working a lot at home, some of their time together was spent in his office – him clacking away on the computer or making phone calls, and Meg curled up on the sofa with whatever book she was consuming at the moment. She’d discovered his cache of books on archeology and read through them one by one, and had taped all sorts of PBS, Discovery Channel and TLC specials on the subject that they watched curled up together with popcorn. Lately, after he’d taken her to his favorite used bookstore in town, she’d hit on a series of vampire

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Carolyn Faulkner

novels that she hated to put down, and, as he watched her from his chair instead of getting any work done, he knew that she was so engrossed in her book that a nuclear bomb could go off beside her and she’d never notice.

She was wearing a pink tank top that looked like it had seen better days, along with an old, soft pair of blue jeans. Her hair was long and loose, in deference to his tastes – he was forever running his hands through it, fascinated by its silky softness. Barrett could imagine it fanned out on the pillow beneath her head as he made love to her . . . He shifted in his chair. Well, it had been at least fifteen minutes since he’d groped her last, and that was fifteen minutes too long for him.

Meg screeched as he ripped the book out of her hands just as she was getting to a fantastic sex scene between the human heroine and the vampire. “Give that back, you snot!” She kept grabbing for the book but he easily held it an arm’s length away from her. Barrett finally threw the book across the floor and pressed her down onto the couch beneath him.

“Sex break,” he breathed into her mouth as he captured her lips with his. While his mouth was busy plundering hers, his hands were equally busy moving the hem of the tank top slowly up her torso until her pretty breasts were exposed. He had asked her not to wear a bra, as they were not going anywhere today, and he loved the idea of being able to touch them almost at will. Meg felt personally that she was a little too well-endowed to go braless, but he had had that eager puppy-dog look that said it would make him so happy, and it was a very small thing to do, so she complied. The touch of his sweet, wet mouth on her nipple still shocked her every time, and he basked in the moans each flick of his tongue wrung from her.

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Her hands and mouth were busy returning the favor, and it stroked her ego when she heard him catch his breath as she lightly ran her short nails over his sensitive nipples. She enjoyed touching all of him; just his size was an incredible turn on for her. Each time she was given the opportunity, she measured the breadth of his chest with her open mouth and tongue, enjoying the rasp of coarse chest hair against her delicate lips.

Meg was driving him insane – she was the most natural sensualist he’d ever encountered. A lot of women treated men –

particularly large men – like a piece of meat, only waiting for the final unveiling to indulge in any sort of petting. Meagan was obviously enchanted with every inch of him, and she hadn’t even
seen
every inch of him yet. Her assumption seemed to be that if it felt good to her, it probably felt good to him, and that was a very refreshing approach. Her hesitant touches, eager suckling of his nipples and his very obvious response to those tender ministrations were no threat to his masculinity or manhood. Exactly the opposite, they served to bolster it.

But when his hand began to undo the button at the waistband of her jeans, she balked, pushing against his chest with both hands. “I want to get up,” she insisted, struggling against his weight.

“Shhhhhhh,” Barrett stroked her hair soothingly, but didn’t move a muscle.

“I’m not kidding, Barrett, let me the fu-“

His eyebrow rose. “If you use that word with me I
will
turn you over my lap and tan your bare fanny right now.”

Meg had a mutinous look on her face, but kept quiet. He let her up slowly, grudgingly. “Apparently, you do have a language

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problem, Angel. I don’t usually give a second warning on it. I should have just let you go through with it and given you the spanking you deserve. Next time, there’ll be no avoiding it, I’m afraid.”

She had gotten up and was tucking the tank top back in, wishing she was wearing a bra only to help to hide the way her tight-tipped nipples were outlined by the clingy fabric of her shirt.

He really frazzled her to a nub with his casual sexual forays. Meg walked around in a continual state of arousal around him that was inestimably worse since she'd let him touch her for the first time.

The only reason she’d called a halt to their loveplay – and she’d barely had the presence of mind to do that – was that if his hand explored between her legs, he’d find out just how soaking wet he made her. Meagan just wasn’t ready for him to know about that yet.

“Come,” he held his arms out to her. “Sit.”

She stayed put, hands on her hips. “Arf, arf.”

He laughed. She had an uncanny ability to do that for him; he’d not had a lot of laughter in his life. “Come here,” this time a little bit more forcefully.

“I don’t want to,” which was the truth. She didn’t want to indulge in another wrestling match. It was getting much to hard to stop at the appropriate moment.

His arms were still out to her as he said in the same quiet, firm tone, “You really don’t want me to have to come and get you, little girl.” It was working nicely to his advantage that she didn’t know what he might spank her for. If she had continued to defy him, he would simply have gone and gotten her; she assumed he’d

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do that and then spank her. He declined to disabuse her of that notion because it was working too well for him.

Of course, she ended up where he wanted her, and she gave in with little grace, humphing her way into the stronghold of his arms. Barrett kissed the top of her head. “No more sex, Darlin’.

I’m only human, too.”

Meg loved to cuddle against him, and, sighing, rested her cheek against his chest. “Ahhh. Human. You’re more Klingon to me.” She yawned, and snuggled further into the safety of his embrace.

“Klingon? Thanks! I think I’ve been insulted!!”

“Not that you look like a Klingon, Dear. Just that you have a lot of the same values. Family. Honor. Etc.”

“Humph.” Her explanation placated him, barely. There was a comfortable silence, until Barrett began to hear a light snoring coming from just above his pectoral muscle. She’d fallen asleep on him, literally. Instead of being insulted, he was elated.

Sleeping on someone required trust. Maybe, she was finally beginning to trust him, just a little.

Carrying her was becoming a habit, he thought as she burrowed further against him while he transported her slowly and carefully to her own bedroom. He shooed Butchie off the bed, wondering if it would be worth the screeching to put her into his bed for the night and sleep with her. Nah, he didn’t want to have to deal with the furor that would create tomorrow morning, despite the fact that he would love to hold her while she slept cradled by his body all night.

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Instead, he undressed her sleeping form as clinically as possible, trying not to look at the frilly, peach scrap of lace she called underpants when he got her out of her jeans. He left her in tank top and undies, then slid her under the covers. For a second, he ducked into his own room, and came back with a morning present for her, a stuffed Gund bear for her to add to her collection.

Barrett positioned it carefully, so that it would hopefully be the first thing she saw when she woke up, then indulged himself in a slow, sexy goodnight kiss of his sleeping beauty.

Meg awakened, barely, and knew who was kissing her.

Halfway between asleep and awake, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him aggressively, holding his head to hers until she had thoroughly bussed him.

“Night, Barrett,” she rolled contentedly over onto her right side, and he stood there for a moment, watching her even breath rise and fall.

His sleepy little girl was certainly full of surprises, he mused, turning out the light and closing the door behind him.

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andy noticed a basket full of food on the counter, and peeked in, only to have her hand slapped by Mher best friend. “Get your fingers out of Barrett’s lunch,” Meg cautioned, putting a huge piece of plastic wrapped homemade coffeecake into the basket then snapping the lid closed.