Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (41 page)

Instead of answering, he skimmed his lips lightly along her throat, her jaw, her temple. But just when she thought she would melt into a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet, he straightened. And then he began to lead her in the tango again, as if nothing had happened.

Well, nothing except a major tilt of the earth's axis that had just changed
every
thing for Gracie.

* * *

It was that damned dress.

That was what Harrison told himself as he and Gracie sat on opposite sides of a cab as it sped down Hamilton Avenue, back toward their hotel. Someone somewhere had put a spell on that dress that made men's brains turn to pudding whenever they got within fifteen feet of it. And when it was on someone like Gracie, with creamy skin and silky hair and eyes dark enough for a man to lose himself in for days, well... It was amazing all he'd done on that dance floor was kiss her.

But he had kissed her. And he'd told her he liked her. Very much. But he hadn't been able to answer her question about “since when.” Probably because he didn't know “since when.”

When had that happened? Today at the storage unit? Yesterday at the baseball game? That morning at the stock exchange? He honestly didn't know. He only knew he had been wrong about her. She really had been his father's friend and nothing more. She really was a decent person. She really was a girl next door.

Now he just had to figure out what to do. Almost since the moment they met, he'd been suspicious of her. But he'd also been attracted to her. He'd wanted to expose her as a fraud, but he'd also wanted to have sex with her. He'd been sure every word she said about his father was untrue, but he'd learned things about his father from her that he'd never known before.

Hell, no wonder he didn't know what to do.

Bottom line, he told himself. That was what everything came down to in life. What was the bottom line?

The bottom line was he liked Gracie. The bottom line was he wanted her. The bottom line was she'd kissed him back on that dance floor. The bottom line was she wanted him, too.

So why not do what he always did when he was attracted to a woman, and she was attracted to him? Once they got back to the hotel, they could have a nightcap and then hop into bed and enjoy themselves. No harm, no foul, a good time had by all. There was nothing in this encounter that was any different from any other encounter he'd had with a woman. Maybe the circumstances of their meeting were a little weirder, but the essentials were the same. Man, woman. Hormones, pheromones. Foreplay, play, replay. He'd done it a million times, a million ways, with a million women. So what was the problem?

He looked at Gracie again. She was staring out the window, the passing streetlights throwing her beautiful face into light, then dark, then light, then dark. Maybe that was the problem. All this time, he'd been trying to focus on her dark side. Now he was seeing the light. And he... Hell, there were times when he wondered if he even had a light side.

What would happen if his dark side mingled with Gracie's light side? Would it leave them both more balanced? Or would it just turn everything gray?

As if he'd uttered the question out loud, she turned to look at him. She really was beautiful, whether in light or dark. And he really did want her. He just wished he knew what the fallout of having her would be. And that thought was strange, because he'd never worried about fallout before.

Clearly, girls next door were a lot more dangerous than con artists.

* * *

When they arrived back at Gracie's hotel room and she turned to tell Harrison good-night, she could see he was no more ready to say the words than she was. In fact, the way he was looking at her now was a lot like the way he'd looked just before he'd kissed her at the Moondrop Ballroom. So it really didn't come as a surprise when he took a step closer and dipped his head to hers. Nor was it surprising when she took a step forward and tilted her head back to meet him.

The kiss was even better this time. Maybe because Gracie played an equal part in it from the beginning, or maybe because she had time to enjoy it from the very start. Something about the feel of Harrison's mouth on hers felt like coming home. But to a home where she didn't have to live all by herself.

Reluctantly, she ended the kiss. “Do you... Um, do you want to come inside?”

He met her gaze intently. “Yeah. Are you sure you want me to?”

She nodded.

“Because if I come inside, Gracie, I won't leave until morning.”

Actually, she was kind of hoping he wouldn't want to leave at all. But morning was good for a start. “That's okay,” she told him. “I don't want you to leave.” There. Let him make of that what he would.

He dipped his head forward in silent acknowledgment. Then he followed her into the room and closed the door behind them, taking care to tuck the Do Not Disturb notice into the key slot as he did.

She started to ask him if he wanted to order something from room service, a snack or a bottle of wine or a game of Jenga or anything that might slow this thing down. But he obviously didn't want to slow down, because he pulled her close, looped his arms around her waist and kissed her again. He brushed his lips lightly over hers, and then skimmed them along her jaw, her cheek, her temple. With each new caress, her pulse leaped higher. When she splayed her fingers open on his chest, she felt his heart thumping against her palm, every bit as ragged and rapid as her own. When his lips found hers again, he deepened the kiss, and she opened her mouth to invite him in.

As he kissed her, he scooted one hand from her waist to the top of her dress. He pulled the zipper down down down, until it stopped at the base of her fanny, and the dress fell completely open. Then she felt his warm hand on her naked skin, his fingers pressing into her, pushing her more closely against him. He traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, and then darted it inside to explore more thoroughly. His fingers went exploring, too, down to the waistband of her panties, dipping lower until his palms were pressing into the tender flesh beneath.

Gracie tore her mouth from his at the contact, gasping for breath, wondering again if this was such a good idea. But when her gaze met his, when she saw how dark his eyes were with wanting, how ruddy his cheeks were with his desire, how damp his mouth was from her own, she moved her fingers to his shirt, carefully slipping the buttons from their fastenings, one by one.

Harrison watched, his own breath shallow and warm against her temple, his hands still where he'd left them, curving over her bare bottom. Her fingers began to tremble after the third button, but she managed to undo them all. He released her long enough to shrug out of his shirt and jacket at once, leaving him bare above the waist, an absolute feast for her eyes.

His torso was long and lean, his shoulders wide and rugged, all of him corded with muscle. Her hands were on him before she even made the decision to touch him, her palms flattening against his smooth flesh, her fingertips raking gentle lines along each salient ridge until she reached his shoulders. Then she ran her hands down over the bumps of biceps, triceps and everything that came after.

When she reached his wrists, he turned his hands so they were grasping hers, and then urged her arms down to her sides. With one deft move, he hooked his fingers in the sleeves of her dress and nudged them over her shoulders, tugging on the garment until it pooled in a heap of frothy mint at her feet. Beneath it, she wore only white lace panties and a strapless bra. His gaze flew to the latter, followed by his hands. Without hesitation, he cupped one over each breast, making his claim to her absolute. Gracie fairly purred at the contact, and then lifted her hands to his torso again, touching him just as intimately. After squeezing her breasts gently, he moved his hands to her back, unhooking her bra to let it fall to the floor before pulling her body flush against his.

The sensation of finally touching him, flesh to flesh, heat to heat, was breathtaking...literally. Gracie's breath caught in her throat at the contact. He lowered his head and kissed her again, driving a hand between their bodies to grasp her breast once more. He moved his thumb over her nipple several times, before cradling her fully in his hand. She felt him swell to life against her, getting harder with each touch, until he was straining against his zipper. When she lowered her hand to his fly, he began backing her toward the bed. The action moved her hand more intimately against him, making him harder still.

By the time they reached the bed, his pants were open, and she was stroking him over the silk of his boxers. He growled something unintelligible against her mouth, and then sat down on the edge of the mattress, bringing her down on his lap to face him, her legs straddling his. For a moment, he only held her there with a hand on each hip, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her. Then he moved his mouth to her breast and kissed her there, too. First one, then the other, licking her, sucking her, driving her mad. Gracie twined her fingers in his hair and held him there, relishing each new touch of his tongue. Then she felt his hand between her legs, pressing into her over her panties, gently rubbing her with one finger, then two, creating a delicious friction that nearly drove her mad.

And then he was pulling the fabric aside, pushing his fingers into the damp folds of her flesh, slipping one finger easily, deeply into her. Gracie cried out at the contact and instinctively tried to close her legs. But Harrison pushed his own wider, opening her more, making her even more accessible to him. For a long time, he fingered her, until she thought she would explode with wanting him. Only when her entire body shuddered with her orgasm did he slow his movements. And only when her body relaxed in her release did he let her rest.

For all of a minute.

Then he was rolling her onto her back on the bed and pulling down her panties, until she lay blissfully and wantonly naked. She sighed with much contentment and threw her arms above her head, dissolving into a pool of something sweet and hot. The sensation doubled when she opened her eyes and saw Harrison shedding his trousers, his cock fully erect and ready for...oh, anything.

When he lay down beside her, she closed her hand over him, dragging her fingers slowly down his heavy length and up again, palming the damp head before repeating her actions. He closed his eyes as she caressed him for long moments, his breathing deep and ragged, his body hard and tense. When she sensed he was close to coming, he grabbed her hand and stilled her motions, and then opened his eyes.

“Not yet,” he murmured.

She started to object—she certainly hadn't stopped him—but he sat up and rolled on a condom. Then he pulled her up beside him, grabbed her by the waist and set her astride him again. As she draped her arms over his shoulders, he rubbed his cock against the wet flesh between her legs until he was as damp as she. Then he pushed himself inside her—deep,
deep
inside her. So deep, she wasn't sure where his body ended and hers began. Still gripping her hips, he pushed her up until he almost withdrew, and then urged her back downward. Over and over he entered her, seeming to go deeper with each stroke. Then he withdrew and levered both their bodies onto the mattress until Gracie was on her knees with her shoulders pressed to the mattress, and he was entering her again from behind.

She clutched the sheet in both hands, hanging on for dear life, knowing they were both close to coming now. Harrison rose up on his knees and held her hips, pulling her back toward him as he thrust forward, until finally, finally, both of them came.

For one long, lingering moment, it seemed as if neither of them would ever move again. Then he rolled onto his back beside her, and she straightened until her belly and breasts were flat against the bed. She felt his hand on her bottom, gently stroking her sensitive skin, and she somehow managed to move her own hand to his chest. The skin she encountered was hot and wet, his chest rising and falling with his patchy respiration. She turned her head to look at him, only to find him staring intently at her.

Neither of them said a word. For Gracie, that was because she had no idea what to say. Never, ever had it been like this with a man. No one had made her feel so desirable and so desired. She'd never felt the things Harrison made her feel and would never feel them with anyone else. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did. There was something between them, right here, right now, that was different from anything she'd ever known before. Anything she would ever know again. And she just wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Until he smiled. And she knew he felt it, too.

Only then could Gracie close her eyes and let sleep take her. For a little while, anyway. Because she knew she hadn't had nearly enough of Harrison. Not tonight. Not forever. She only hoped he felt that part, too.

Nine

H
arrison awoke to a buzzing sound, and wasn't sure at first what it was. A hum of satisfaction after a night of unbelievably good sex? The fizzing of his brain when he recalled some of the finer moments of that sex? The thrum of his heart at the sight of Gracie, naked and rosy beside him?

She lay on her stomach, the sheet dipped low enough to reveal the expanse of her tantalizing back and the soft indention of the two perfect dimples over her ass. He stirred to life at the sight of them, and it was all he could do not to run his tongue down the length of her spine. He wanted to hear her make that sound again, that little gasp of delight when he moved his hand between her legs and dragged his little finger higher, inserting it softly and gently fingering the more sensitive, sultry part of her.

He bit back a groan at the memory and did his best to stifle the response of his erection.
Later
, he promised himself. After she was awake. They could both probably use a little more sleep. Even if he knew his body and brain both were done sleeping for a while.

He couldn't remember a morning after with a woman when he didn't want to race out of her bed or chase her out of his. Normally, at a moment like this, he was considering the scenario in the same way a jewel thief plans a heist, tracing his route from leaving the bed without waking his companion to completing his escape without setting off an alarm. At this point, he probably could be a jewel thief, so expert had he become at vanishing without detection.

But he didn't want to vanish this morning. And he kinda did want to wake his companion. And not just so they could have another round of riotous lovemaking, either. He was actually looking forward to having breakfast with her. Just the two of them, sharing coffee and toast and quiet conversation. And that, probably, was the weirdest thing of all. That he wanted more from Gracie than sex. He never wanted anything from a woman but sex. And once he'd had sex he seldom wanted a woman again. And breakfast? Conversation? Ah, no.

It finally dawned on him that the buzzing that had awoken him had come from his phone, lying on the nightstand beside him. He palmed it and held it up where he could see it. A text from a number he didn't recognize, one with a New York City area code. He thumbed the prompt and found a message from the private investigator his attorney had hired after the reading of his father's will. The one who was supposed to prove Gracie was the gold-digging con artist they'd all been so sure she was.

Damn, what a waste of money that turned out to be.

The text was short and to the point:
Check your email.

In spite of Harrison's certainty that his original opinion about Gracie was wrong, something pinched in his chest when he read the message. He told himself that a terse direction to check his email meant nothing. The PI's initial report probably said something like “You're an idiot, Sage. The woman you hired me to expose as a predator is actually one of the nicest, most decent people in the world.”

So why the pang in his chest? Why did he suddenly want to check his email? Why did he want to see a report if he already knew what it said?

He looked at Gracie again. She was still asleep. So, with all the stealth of a jewel thief, he eased himself out of bed, slipped on the hotel bathrobe he had shed a couple of hours ago and retreated to the other side of the room. He cracked the curtains enough to allow in a slice of morning sunlight, and then thumbed the email icon on his phone and waited. There were a lot of new messages, since he hadn't checked his mail since yesterday morning. Even so, his gaze flew immediately to the one from the PI. With a subject head of
Re: Grace Sumner
, the body of the email read,
As per agreement, initial report attached. Information gathered to date.
Harrison skittered the cursor over the link to the attachment. But something made him hesitate before clicking on it.

Would opening this file after last night constitute a violation of trust? He supposed it depended on what last night was. If it was just sex, then no, this wasn't a violation of trust, since no trust had been established. Sex and trust didn't go hand in hand unless the people having the sex had some kind of agreement. If they were married, for instance. Or if they had made a commitment or developed feelings for each other. Feelings of love, say.

None of those things applied to him and Gracie. Did they? They certainly weren't in love. They'd only known each other a week. And they really hadn't made a commitment to each other. Last night was just...

Well, he still wasn't sure what last night was. But even if he did feel different this morning from the way he usually felt after spending the night with a woman, there was no reason for him to hesitate. And hell, the PI's report probably just confirmed that she was on the up-and-up.

Before he could second-guess himself again, Harrison clicked on the attachment. Immediately, a document opened on his screen. And he began to read.

* * *

Gracie awoke slowly and squinted at the bedside clock, startled to discover it was after ten-thirty. She never slept this late. Of course, she'd never spent the night the way she spent last night, either. Harrison Sage was certainly a thorough lover. She stretched languidly and smiled at the pleasant stiffness in her muscles, marveling again at how quickly things between them had changed. Not that she was complaining—she liked this new direction. A lot.

Blame it on the ballroom, she thought with a happy sigh. Or on Harrison's sweet, wistful expression as he sorted through his father's things yesterday. Or on his cheering for Roxanne at the top of the ninth inning and his genuine delight when the Rockets won their game. Or on their intimate conversation at the stock exchange, or even those minutes in the library that first morning, when he'd charmed her out of her anxiety. Those blue, blue eyes. That luscious smile. That wounded soul. How could she not fall for a guy like that?

Any rancor Harrison had shown since meeting her had been the result of hurt and grief. Any chilliness had come from his fear that she was taking advantage of his family. Had the situation been reversed, had Gracie been the one who'd lost her father and felt as if Harrison were threatening her family, she would have behaved the same way. They'd just needed to get to know each other, to understand and trust each other. Anything that had happened before last night didn't matter now. Because all of that had changed. They never could have been as good together as they were last night if they didn't know, understand and trust each other now. If they didn't care about each other.

And Gracie did care about Harrison. She cared about him a lot.

She shrugged into the remaining hotel robe and crossed the room to where he sat with his back to her, reading something on his phone.

“Good morning,” she said as she approached him.

He jumped up from the chair and spun around so quickly, she might as well have fired off a shotgun. And when she saw his face, something cool and distressing settled in her belly. Because he didn't look as though he thought it was a good morning at all.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

For a moment, he only stared at her, as if he were searching for the words he wanted to say but had no idea where to find them. Or maybe he was searching for something else, something just as nebulous and elusive.

Finally, he pulled himself up until he was ramrod-straight and crossed his arms over his midsection as if trying to keep himself that way. “Two words,” he said. “Wilson Braun.”

Gracie's heart dropped at the mention of Devon's father. How on earth had Harrison heard about him? More to the point,
what
had Harrison heard about him?

“He's Devon's father,” she said. “And like I said, anything that happened between me and Devon is in the past. You seemed to be okay with that. What does Wilson have to do with anything?”

Harrison studied her more intently, as if he'd been expecting a different reaction from her. “I was okay with the past when I thought Devon Braun was just an old boyfriend.”

“He is just an old boyfriend.” Among other things. Things Gracie preferred not to think—or talk—about.

“An old boyfriend you tried to extort a lot of money from.”

The accusation washed over Gracie like a wave of polluted water. She closed her eyes in an effort to block it out, but that only made it worse. So that was what he'd heard about Wilson. The same thing a lot of other people had heard. Exactly what Wilson had wanted them to hear.

She opened her eyes again and met Harrison's gaze levelly. “That isn't true,” she said, surprised by how calmly the words came out.

“My PI says it is,” Harrison told her.

The PI, she remembered. The one his attorney had hired to prove Gracie was a predator who'd seduced an old man and stolen his fortune. The PI she'd been so certain wouldn't be a threat because her life was an open book. She should have realized he would eventually get to the chapter about Devon and his family. The problem was, he'd undoubtedly read a heavily edited version of the story—since Wilson Braun had made sure no one would ever hear the real one—and that was what he'd relayed to Harrison.

She sighed. “And of course you always trust people to tell the truth right off the bat, don't you?” The way he had with Gracie. Hah.

The charge had the desired effect. His brows arrowed downward and he looked less sure of himself. “He has no reason to lie.”

“Maybe he's not lying. Maybe he's just misinformed.” Hey, Gracie would give the PI the benefit of the doubt. She didn't like to jump to conclusions the way a lot of people obviously did. Even if there was a good chance the PI had been paid a pile of money by Wilson Braun to bury the truth like so many others.

Harrison's expression fell a bit more, as if it hadn't occurred to him that the PI could be wrong. Nevertheless, he said, “This guy doesn't make mistakes. He's one of the best in the business.”

Yeah, so was Wilson Braun. At least, when it came to the business of silencing other people or smearing their reputations.

“What did your PI tell you?” she asked.

Harrison hesitated again before replying, “He spoke at length to Wilson Braun about your relationship with his son, and he sent me copies of emails from Wilson to you that indicate you tried to blackmail the family for six figures in exchange for your silence on the matter of an alleged assault Devon committed—a story that you manufactured in the hope of profiting from it.”

The first part of Harrison's statement didn't surprise her. Devon's father had always made sure his emails were worded in such a way that they never quite sounded like what he was actually trying to do—bribe Gracie in exchange for recanting what she'd witnessed so the charges against his son would be dropped. It was money Gracie had refused to take. It was the second part of Harrison's statement, the part about him believing she would lie about something like that in order to pocket a pile of cash, that did surprise her. If after everything the two of them had shared, and after the way they had been together last night, he could go back to thinking the worst of her this easily and this quickly...

Very quietly, very evenly, she said, “The story wasn't manufactured. Devon tried to rape a friend of mine at a party. Thankfully, I walked in on it before it became an actual rape, otherwise that's what Devon would have been charged with, and that would have been the story his father would have been trying to suppress.”

She paused, letting that sink in. Judging by the way Harrison's expression changed, it did. Some. So Gracie told him the rest of it.

“But Devon had beat her up pretty bad, so I took her to the hospital, and she filed a police report and told the cops what happened. I corroborated her story. Then Wilson Braun tried to bribe both of us to shut up and pretend it never happened. Did your PI find his emails to my friend, too?”

Harrison shook his head, still looking a little torn. “No. He was only interested in information on you.”

“Then do you have copies of
my
emails in response to Devon's father?” she asked, already knowing the answer. If he'd read those, they wouldn't be having this conversation, because he'd already know the whole story.

He sounded even more uncertain when he responded, “He's working on it. Your old service provider won't release them without a warrant. Wilson Braun volunteered his.”

“Yeah, I bet he did. He was super careful about what he said to me and my friend in his emails. Too bad neither of us was wearing a wire when he spoke to us in person. And he did everything he could to discredit us.”

It was why the case had never gone anywhere and the charges were ultimately dismissed. Because the Brauns were one of Cincinnati's oldest and most revered families. They had more money and power than an entire Mount Olympus full of gods. People like that thought the world was at their disposal. They couldn't be bothered with things like the truth if it meant their perspective had to be changed or defended.

And Harrison was just like them, she realized. He'd decided a long time ago that Gracie was someone who couldn't be trusted and only cared about herself. And in spite of everything the two of them had shared, he'd gone right back to thinking that the minute he was given a chance. If his feelings for her were even a fraction of what hers were for him, he would never—could never—suspect her of doing what he was accusing her of now. He would trust her because he knew what kind of person she really was. Instead, when another member of his tribe said Gracie Sumner was a liar, then by all means, she must be a liar.

“You don't believe me, do you?” she asked anyway.

His expression revealed nothing of what he was thinking or feeling. Which probably told Gracie everything she needed to know. If he couldn't trust that she was telling him the truth... If the past few days hadn't changed the opinion he'd originally held of her... If last night had meant nothing to him...