PhoenixKiss (9 page)

His heart rate increased as he studied her. He was certain
she could see the hunger in his eyes for something he’d only wanted to sample a
few hours ago. Now, now he wanted to own it, possess it.

When she came up on her toes, he lowered his head, warning
signals blazing in the back of his brain. Her tongue slid out and coated her
top lip and more than anything he wanted to take it into his mouth and taste
it.

Heat suffused his body. He wanted inside her mouth in the
worst way possible. Before he allowed the flames to take hold, he kissed her
cheek.

“Let’s go,” he said and whisked her out the door and down
the stairs, through the kitchen to another door and down some more steps.

“Where are you taking me? Did you decide to lock me in the
dungeon instead?”

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

After they moved down a long hallway, he walked through
another door and flicked on the lights.

“You have a bowling alley in your house. A bowling alley?”

Moving away from her, he turned on the two lanes and opened
the cabinets with the balls and shoes. “And you’ve been challenged to a game,
madam. A game of strip bowling.”

Layla rolled over laughing. “Are you serious? That’s why you
had me put on all these clothes?”

The melody of her laughter tugged at something inside him.
The genuine smile and delight on her face opened a part of his heart that
wasn’t open mere seconds ago. He shook it off, stored it away, trying to
remember the plan, what he wanted to accomplish. Make her fall in love, not
vice versa.

“That’s right.” He motioned to the cabinet. “Go pick out a
ball and a pair of shoes.”

She shook her head. “This is too much,” she said, a hint of
laughter still in her voice. As she made her choices, she told him, “I hate to
tell you, Mr. Gaines, but you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into. You
have challenged a master.”

Jordan sat at a console and began to set up the lanes. “Oh,
is that right?”

“Yep. When I was in college, we bowled all the time.”

He peeked at her over his shoulder. “That was like, twenty
years ago, right?”

She took a quick look at him, a sardonic expression on her
face. “Oh, you got jokes now,” she said and resumed tying her shoe. “You’ll
see. You might have met your match, mister.”

In more ways than one,
he thought as he moved to the
second station. She was turning him upside down and inside out. He’d worked
hard to avoid this. Every woman he’d dated his adult life, he’d made sure they
knew the rules, understood that what happened between them was temporary. And
that had worked fine with all of them.

But Layla…Layla had stormed into his life and changed
everything, changed him…changed his heart. But he had to stomp it down. He
couldn’t let it happen.

When he was done, the right lane had his name and scoreboard
on it, the left had hers.

“What are we playing for besides the joy of watching the
other lose and seeing the other naked?”

For the last few hours, Jordan had tried to come up with
something to keep her from writing this story—from all-out seducing her, which
he’d done, to bribing her not to tell his story, his secret, which he hadn’t
done, hoping to use money as a last resort.

But when he’d been in the shower, he’d thought about how
much he enjoyed himself with Layla. The sex was outstanding but having her in
his bed, cooking and sharing a meal with her, joking around, playing like kids,
it was something he never did with a woman.

It was usually dining out at some fancy restaurant and then
sex. That was it. With Layla, he was forced to do something completely
different. He’d come up with playing strip bowling as he’d stepped out of the
shower, because he wanted to continue having fun with her and to enjoy himself
for a change.

He’d never let someone in his home before for the sole
purpose of having fun. It had always been
his
sanctuary. The one place
he could be alone and be himself. Besides the guy from the cleaning company who
came twice a month, there hadn’t been a soul in his home in years until Layla
broke in and disrupted it all.

And little did she know the wager she’d offered him was the
perfect solution to make this story go away. Although he wasn’t so sure anymore
that he wanted her to go away with it.

“If you win, I’ll answer any questions you want me to
answer.” He watched as her eyes lit up at this prospect.

He frowned as he digested the look on her face. It quickly
reminded him this was the reason she was here. She didn’t care about him. She
was a reporter. The thing she wanted most was her story.

His voice, once warm with amusement, now cooled. “If I win,
you forget your story and forget you were ever here. Forget that you ever met
me.” The look that crossed over her face was almost stricken. But with a shake
of his head, he shut the part of himself down that cared one fucking iota about
it. “Deal?”

After a few seconds, she answered. “Deal,” she said quietly.

They lost themselves in the game, each somewhere in his or
her private thoughts. They took turns tossing their balls down the lane, and
when she did, he couldn’t help but watch her. She aroused him with her wide,
expressive eyes and the delicate, luscious lips he so achingly wanted to kiss
but knew he couldn’t. And as she peeled each layer of clothing off her body, he
wanted to be inside her.

Every once in a while she’d look at him as if he were some
type of tantalizing treat she couldn’t wait to sink her claws into. But that
was sex. He wouldn’t confuse himself by thinking it was anything more. His
decision to make it
strip
bowling was a way to keep her mind on sex and
not the exposé she planned to write.

He’d planned to play the game, reduce the amount of clothes
she wore and have sex with her again. They were so lost in their own thoughts
now, it hadn’t turned out the way he’d wanted.

When they got down to the last few frames, Layla still had
on a pair of socks, a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. They’d decided that after
each frame, whoever had the fewest points had to take off an item of clothing.
Jordan had on a pair of shorts and a pair of socks.

She swung her ball down the lane and asked him, “Is it true
that when you die, you’ll be reborn?”

He looked at the score and saw that she still held a slight
lead. “You’re supposed to win before I answer any more questions or did you
forget the wager of this game?”

“No. I didn’t forget.” She paused before tossing her ball
down the lane again. When she turned back, there was something earnest in her
face that made him answer her. “I really want to know, wondered if the legends
I read about are really true.”

“I don’t live a lifetime to die and be reborn all over
again. It’s not that simple and that would be too horrible for anyone, living
your life over and over again.”

“I imagine it would. I never really thought about it like
that.”

“We’re not immortal. We do live abnormally long lives, if
nothing unforeseen happens like a car accident, an illness or something like
that. But when we do die, another phoenix, another life is born in our place.”

“So you never had parents?”

“Something similar. We have guardians, people we live with
as a family unit, who teach us our heritage and take on the role of parents.
Each family of guardians passes the knowledge of our people down from
generation to generation.”

“So you have no sisters or brothers either?”

He smiled thoughtfully. “No, not biologically like a regular
human. But there were other phoenixes raised with me. For all intents and
purposes, Soren and Khyler are my sister and brother. Soren lives in Texas and
Khyler lives in Florida.”

“I’ve never heard anything about them.”

“Which is exactly what I wanted.”

“So before your guardians died, where did you grow up?”

“I was an Air Force brat. We spent time in Alaska, Greece,
different parts of the United States. I liked California best. That’s why I
came back here before they could put me in a foster home.”

“There wasn’t another guardian family who could take you
in?”

“No. I would have had to wait in foster care before someone
came to claim me. Besides, I’d learned everything I needed to know about my
heritage by then.”

“You struck out on your own, became this well-adjusted,
rich, powerful man who has a secret no one else can know.”

That wasn’t exactly true, his mate could know. But
she
didn’t need to know that.

“This is why you value your privacy so much.”

“Exactly.”

“You do make headlines when you begin dating another
superstar or one of your companies makes some major multimillion-dollar deal.”

“Yes. So why does the public need to know any more than
that? Why is it so important to know what I eat for breakfast or what kind of
soap I use or what size shoe I wear for that matter? Who cares?” He tossed his
ball down the lane with so much strength, the pins made a crackling sound as
loud as a crash of lightning.

When he turned back to her, her fingers were splayed over
her chest and she was breathing heavily. “Everyone does. Don’t you understand?
Everyday normal people live vicariously through you, or people like you. Some
look up to you. Some love you. Some hate you. But they still want to know. They
want to know why you and not them? What do I need to do to be like him?”

He advanced on her as his ball rolled back into the return.
“But that’s not what the
Tattler
wants to know. That’s not what you
wanted to know. You broke in here expecting to find me with two, three women in
my bed, tied up and dressed in women’s clothing or black leather and chains,
with a dildo up my ass. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I…I…”

Everything that had happened came crashing down on him like
a three-hundred-pound weight. He’d begun the night with a plan to seduce her,
make her fall for him and convince her not to write her story, or to bribe her
if he really had to. But instead he’d fallen for the damn woman. A woman like
the one who’d ruined his guardian’s life, his life.

“Don’t lie. You know I’m right. That’s what you write about.
People’s secrets, the things they want to keep private. Intimate secrets that
embarrass and make them go into hiding for years until someone else’s misery is
exposed. You swoop in with your flashes and your cameras and your zoom lenses.
One byline and a life is over. No coming back. No redemption. Even if they were
innocent of everything, it takes months or even years for the truth to come
out. By then it’s too late. They’ve gotten into a car, suffering from a hole of
depression so deep they plunge everything that is good and decent inside them
over a cliff to their deaths.”

He was panting when he was done, anger slithering through
him like a snake. She reached out to touch him but he jerked back.

“Who did this happen to, Jordan?”

He retreated and slung his ball back down the lane again and
got another strike. He was up by two points now. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does. It does to me.”

They were in the last frame and Jordan had one more roll.
He’d been so upset he was surprised he’d knocked down all the pins. But as he
calculated their points, even if he did get another strike, it didn’t matter.
She still had three more throws and she was a damn good bowler, just as she’d
said.

He was still going to lose. “Why, Layla? For your story?
Finish the fucking game.”

“After everything we’ve done tonight, shared tonight, you
really think that’s still true?”

Damn, she was good. She even managed to look aggrieved and
offended by what he said. “The
only
reason you’re here is because of the
story. That’s it,” he spat.”

“It’s true. I did come here for that, in the beginning.”

He walked right up to her and leaned in, his face inches
from hers. “What? Now you feel different? You like me now? Is that it?”

She didn’t blink. “I do like you. Everything about you,
everything I’ve learned. You’re a wonderful man.”

Jordan took a step back, told himself to calm down. “But
you’re still going to write your story, right?”

Chapter Nine

Layla was torn. If she didn’t write the story, she’d be out
of a job. That would mean running back home to her parents. She shook her head.
Ooooh no, she couldn’t do that. Yes, she had a little savings, enough to get by
for a few months, but what would she do after that? The economy freaking
sucked. It wouldn’t be easy finding another job.

Plus, Jordan hadn’t promised her anything. He hadn’t told
her he loved her. He wouldn’t even kiss her, for goodness’ sake. The one thing
she was truly sure of was that he hated reporters.

And she was a reporter.

“That’s what I thought. You enjoy exposing people’s secrets,
making people miserable. That’s what you’re good at. Right? You’re proud of
that. Instead of choosing a career that makes you happy, following your dreams,
you decided to pick a job that destroys the lives of others.” Jordan walked
past her to the door and flung it open. The knob slammed against the wall like
thunder. His voice was flat and final. “You need two pins to win.” And then he
was gone, his footsteps echoing up the hallway.

Layla didn’t need to finish the game.

God, is that what he really thought? That she enjoyed
it…making people miserable? On some level, she had to admit that in the past,
she did. She’d felt self-righteous. Obligated. In her mind, since they were
stars and chose to be in the public eye, everyone needed to know everything
about them.

What kind of human being was she? Didn’t everyone, no matter
who they were, deserve some semblance of privacy? She gazed around at the room.
Isn’t that why Jordan had chosen never to give interviews, because that’s all
he wanted? A little privacy to be himself?