Give Me All Of You (7 page)

Yester
day had brought this about. She desired Hunter but hadn’t wanted to. Had fought against it but it had happened.

Now he
knew it.

Would he use his
power to force her to the altar or would he have the courtesy to wait for her to decide?

Her eyes glittered with
customary determination. She wouldn’t wait for him to decide her life.

Hastily she slipped on
shorts and a shirt over her wet bikini.

Hunter Roades was about
to get an unexpected visitor.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hunter glared daggers at Joseph who lounged beside a cavernous window.

“Those beams are an inch too thick,”
his statement cracked like thunder in the belly of the house, silencing the pounding hammers, drawing all eyes to him and Joseph.

“
Joseph, please explain why the support beams are thicker than specified?”

“Because that’s the si
ze they’re supposed to be,” Joseph replied unconcerned, splaying his legs apart, hands on his lean hips, defiance leaking from his eyes.

For a moment Hunter
couldn’t believe his ears. Not trusting his voice he stared stupidly at Joseph, who returned his stare with disinterest.

Hunter’s inner voice screamed at him to remain where he was but he
shoved it aside and took a step closer to Joseph.

He had an extra inch or two on the man
, but Joseph stood his ground and there was an unmistakable leap of anticipation in his black eyes. Joseph obviously wanted to prove something but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Hunter reigned in a portion
of his fast rising anger. “Joseph, the last time we discussed this issue, I gave clear instructions-”

Joseph reared back
onto the balls of his feet, his eyes narrowed and his broad face contorted with disdain, “yeah … yeah,” Joseph waved dismissively, “but your measurements were wrong, these support beams are exactly the size they’re supposed to be,” he said blandly, his eyes saying much more as he dared Hunter to refute his claim.

Hunter
rolled his shoulders in an effort to redirect his fast escalating need to wipe that smug expression off Joseph’s face. As it was his control, always iffy, was now hanging by a thread.

He pinned Joseph with an unrelenting stare.
“I designed these buildings according to the dictates of the Bronsworts’ and your only job as my foreman is to follow my instructions, got it?”

Joseph
’s eyes became flat, he opened his mouth … the roar of an approaching car brought them both whipping around.

Hunter stalked to
the window. His heart stalled then went into free-fall.

Mina.

But he couldn’t let Joseph go without a stern warning. There was too much riding on this for both the Bronsworts and himself especially since yesterday.

He
eyed Joseph stonily. “From now on, we’ll consult about every approaching phase of construction.” Joseph’s face turned ashen with anger, Hunter’s misgivings about the man’s competency blossomed further into reality. He held Joseph’s furious stare, and dropped his voice low, there were many listening ears, “this will be your only mistake,” he warned softly, then left.

Mina watched as Hunter’s long strides brought him to her.

His tall, raw
body moved with a grace that would transcend the quality of any clothing, even the faded jeans and paint splattered t-shirts he seemed to prefer.

H
eat blossomed in her cheeks, she tore her attention away from him and fidgeted with her fingers.

He stopped a few feet away.
“Hi,” he whispered his voice surprisingly gentle.

She risked a glance,
he was watching her keenly from beneath hooded lids.

Bolder, she faced him square on. Dark fire burned
in his eyes, he was devouring her, soggy shorts and all.

She said the first thing which popped into her mind. “H
ow has today been going?”

Immediately a
guarded expression came over his face.

She tensed.
“Is something wrong?”

His gaze
flickered down to her mouth, then quickly back up to her eyes. The muscles in his jaw jumped, he moved back a fraction. “No,” he said flatly, “why do you ask?”
Mina snorted, “You’re lying.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his thick, ebony locks
which glistened with dampened sweat. Would his hair feel clammy or would the strands feel like wet silk, smooth and sensuous beneath her fingers?

“Up until a few minutes ago, all I could
think of was you,” he evaded softly.

Her
wits scattered and she blushed. He was proving a deft hand at circumventing her questions with little effort. The heat of the day seemed to condense in the small space between their bodies and her mouth went dry.

“Have you thought of me, little
Mina?” he whispered.

A jolt went
through her at the carnality implicit in his words. She gulped down dry heat, tried to stay on her feet, withstanding the intensity in his eyes was the hardest part. “That’s why I’m here,” she sounded breathless.

“Really?” He sounded stunned, unsure
.

It gave her
back some confidence. She stomped her foot in exasperation, risked a saucy smile at him, “Hunter, please drop the brainless act!”

She moved
off briskly in the direction he’d just come from, “do you mind?” she beckoned to him.

He fell into step beside her.

She stared straight ahead, aware of nothing but the man who walked beside her. “Please stop trying to force me to marry you.”

He
muttered a soft curse. She ignored it. This was too important. “Yes. I do desire you but I don’t want to marry …”

“Me?” h
e asked, his voice a low, threatening growl.

She shook her head. “No
… it’s not so much you. It’s this whole thing,” she stopped in the middle of the dirt road. “I won’t accept being given to you like … like a prize or spoils of war,” she said venomously, “I don’t love you and you don’t-“

“Stop,” Hunter held up hand, halt
ing the flow of her words, his eyes had become hard, unreadable, “you don’t know what I want or feel,” he clipped.

She
raised a haughty brow, “You want me.” She challenged unblinkingly up at him.

A lopsided grin split his mouth, some of the hardness fled fro
m his eyes, a shard of tenderness returned. “Yes, I want you. All of you,” he said simply.

Every pore in her body seemed to contract under
the impact of his blunt words.

She fought against the consuming sensation.
“Why? I don’t understand. We’ve barely had a decent conversation in all these months.” She desperately needed him to put together some sort of explanation for his unwavering pursuit of her.

Hunter
turned away from her scrutiny, stared into the greenery behind her. “That’s where you’re wrong. I was here months before I started working for you.”

Mina stilled
. “You were watching me the whole time?”

Hunter laughed, but there was no humor in his
dry voice, he looked down at her, the corners of his blue eyes crinkled charmingly in his tanned face. He was undeniably handsome.

An odd sensation washed through her. Did he really care for her?

Reaching out he skimmed a large fingertip over her lips, she trembled at the sudden warmth of his touch. She didn’t mind the roughness of his hands at all.

“I wasn’t watching you
at first, it was only later … Your company was starting to crumble, you were struggling to pay your workers. I decided to help but I realized … I wanted you as much, maybe more than anything else,” he finished softly.

She should be frightened
, outraged even but oddly she wasn’t. Her heart thumped frantically, trying to keep pace with her warring emotions. She felt faint. Nervously she shifted her feet, but inexplicably her body tilted closer to Hunter’s, not away.

Before s
he’d hated his eyes on her every time she’d come to the work site but it had been only because she had found it hard to look away.

With a flash, she now knew that some
part of her had accepted him that day in her father’s office.

Perhaps
it wouldn’t be so bad.

She would enter a
n arranged marriage. Hunter would finish the job on Jacobe Aisle, which until he came along had been postponed because they were broke. There were several other locations which were either closed or decrepit enough to warrant his skills.

She
took a deep, sustaining breath. Beside her Hunter stilled, probably also sensing that what would come next would alter his world.

She searched
his dark blue eyes, and immediately fought against staggering back and running for the hills.

The intensity burning from h
is gaze was almost crushing, it consumed her.

Hunter would consume her one way or another. And she had to decide whether she’d be able to come to grips with
it.

She would try.
“Let’s start afresh,” her lips trembled but she pushed on, “win my trust Hunter, then you may have my hand and my body.”

She was
snatched up into an iron grip before the last words left her mouth. Relenting she gave in to the overwhelming cocoon wrapped tightly around her.

Burying her face against
the thick muscles in his warm neck, she wrapped her arms around his massive shoulders which unbelievably trembled beneath her touch.

His heart was thundering. S
he smiled, perhaps this would work.

Perhaps.

The steel lid of the toolbox snapped home with a bang. Hunter stood up and worked the last kinks of the day out of his shoulders. The last of the workers were leaving.

He grinned self-
consciously. Today had been awful … and incredible.

Mina had finally come around.

He still couldn’t believe it. His body stirred as he basked in the remembered feel of her in his arms.

He grinned. She’d
felt it too. After her declaration she’d mumbled a hasty goodbye.

He gathered his
toolbox and walked to his car.

His brows clouded.
He needed to fire Joseph. How he would do that without alerting Mina to the full extent of his power, he didn’t know.

He ne
eded his ring on her finger before he revealed the fact that he wasn’t actually working for free, in a sense.

He owned Bronswort. All of it. E
ven her home, which Hermile had mortgaged in a desperate attempt to keep the company afloat. The fortune he’d accumulated over years as a hedge fund manager was now slowly being put to good use absorbing some of Bronswort’s larger debts.

The rebuilding of the ancien
t Bronswort line of hotels and resorts would make him even richer in the long run. But he needed time.

Did he lov
e her? No, but he burned to possess her, to make her smile, to watch her develop the passion he felt for her.

Giving h
er back her company through marriage would do that.

He’d get her. She’d get her company. It was a fair exchange.

He checked his watch, six-thirty. An hour before Desiree’s dinner would start.

He sniffed his pits, winced. A long, hot shower was definitely in order.

His cell throbbed against his hip. He frowned, he wasn’t expecting a call.

“Roades.
” He listened and all his carefully nurtured plans began to come apart.
“I won’t be threatened,” he replied coldly, he gripped the phone, his eyes black with growing rage. As the words flowed into him, an unfamiliar sensation he’d rarely encountered before inexorably began to suck away at the hope he’d just experienced.  He was trapped.

He closed his eyes against a rush of hate even as his body tensed with pleasurable shudders over Desiree’s. Hunter slipped off her before the last ripples of his climax left his frame and rolled onto his back.

He stared with unblinking eyes at the timbered roof, hand
s clasped behind his head.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been manipulated, h
is mouth twisted with self-loathing, however it was the first time he’d lost.