Slow Hands (7 page)

“Maybe we will be by the time we go out.” Today would, hopefully, be the start of that.

“Let’s call it a…business arrangement.”

“Business arrangement?” He couldn’t help snorting a laugh, wondering if she had any idea what she was implying. “You know, in some circles, a woman paying a huge sum of money for a man to take her out, saying she wanted a
business arrangement
, could be construed as something very naughty.”

She stopped, turning her head to look up at him. Behind them, an impatient businessman humphed but followed the pedestrian traffic as it immediately separated into two streams and went around them. Her dark eyes flashed almost black, despite the brightness of the June day. “There’s nothing naughty about this, Mr. Wallace. I’m not in the market for anything like
that
.”

Well, he certainly hoped not. Not only because he sure wasn’t up for playing any reverse
Pretty Woman
games, but also because there was no way this woman would ever need to pay a man to spend time with her.
Any
man would want to be with Maddy, despite the tall, self-protective wall of ice she kept firmly in place around herself. And not just for her money or her background, or for the beautiful exterior package.

There was a smiling, laughing, earthy and passionate woman lurking inside her. He knew it. “Of course not.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I went to that auction because I wanted to give some needy kids a good Christmas. Having to share an evening with you was entirely incidental.”

Lifting one brow, he had to ask, “Why couldn’t you just mail a check?”

Her mouth opened, but quickly snapped closed again. And for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her from behind that curtain, Jake realized the woman was completely flustered. Speechless. He’d
finally
gotten the best of her.

But he didn’t revel in it. Instead of tormenting her with it, Jake merely took her arm, and resumed their walk, glancing occasionally at her face and seeing by the way her lips moved that she was mentally composing a cutting retort. Even though it was far too late to make one.

Jake couldn’t keep a tiny smile from his mouth. Damn, he was going to enjoy watching this woman lose her self-protective shell, even if he took a few hits in the process.

Maddy Turner was most definitely worth it.

L
YING IN A DEEP TUB
of bubbles in a bathroom awash with candlelight that night, Maddy tried to empty her mind. She slowly sipped from a glass of wine and let the water ease away her cares and worries, hoping one of her greatest pleasures would distract her from the thoughts running rampant through her head. She’d been soaking for a half hour, adding hot water when it became lukewarm, nursing the glass so she wouldn’t have to step out too early.

Her mind, however, wasn’t cooperating. Instead it kept going over the lunch she’d shared with Jake today.

It was lunch. Just a planning meeting, as he said. Didn’t mean a thing and their ball game date on Tuesday would be exactly the same way.

“Liar,” she murmured, sinking deeper, watching the way the slick water caressed the curves of her breasts, making her skin shimmer and gleam in the candlelight.

It had been far more than just a business meeting. First off, most of her business meetings did not take place on a bench in the park surrounded by happy Chicagoans. Nor did they usually entail her actually
eating
anything rather than grabbing a protein bar on her way to the next appointment.

She’d never have imagined such a thing, but he hadn’t given her a chance to refuse. He’d led her where he wanted her to go, as easily as he’d taken her arm to usher her across the street.

Maddy wasn’t used to letting any man take the lead. But while she’d never admit it out loud, she had
almost
enjoyed it.

“Almost?” she whispered. “When did you become such a liar?”

Jake could have been a jerk after teasing her into silence about mailing a check rather than attending the auction. But he hadn’t been. He’d made her relax. He’d made her smile. Made all her inhibitions disappear, at least for a little while.

How?

She had no answer. She only knew that all these hours later, even after returning to the bank for meetings and endless paperwork, she hadn’t been able to forget the way his hand had felt on her arm, and the solidness of his body against hers as they’d sat on that park bench.

That’s not the only place you wanted his hand
.

No, it wasn’t. Blowing at a bubble on the puckered tip of her breast, she reached up and lightly brushed it away, acknowledging, at least here in the privacy of her bathroom, how much she wanted the hand on her body to be Jake’s. Her fingers were slender and soft, smooth and easy as they slid down, beneath the water, gliding across her wet skin. His were big and strong and would feel deliciously rough.

“Especially
here
,” she whispered, closing her eyes as she touched herself even more intimately.

In her mind, though, the touch was all his. And within moments, the possibilities playing in her mind had her thrusting against her own fingers, longing to be filled but taking the only form of pleasure she could manage at the moment. Maddy sighed, gasped, stroked the lips of her sex and the hard nub of flesh at the top of it, wondering how on earth she’d gone for so long without a man’s hands on her.

“Not just any man’s,” she reminded herself. There was only one pair of hands she wanted. One mouth. One body. One person she visualized as she spiraled toward a climax.

The tension built like a carefully tended fire before erupting in a soft wave of pleasure that had her shaking and gasping for breath, even as she whispered one word, over and over.

His name.

She hadn’t even floated back to earth when she was interrupted by a stark ringing sound. Jerking like a kid caught playing with herself under the covers, Maddy sat bolt upright, her hand flying instinctively to the receiver.

She’d thought it incredibly silly to have a phone in the bathroom when she’d bought this condo last year. Looking back, however, she knew it was a good thing. She did enjoy her baths.

“Hello?”

“How did it go? Have you done him yet?”

Tabby. She should have known. She’d lay money her father had pronounced it to the world when she’d left for a lunch date today. Sinking back down in the water, she replied, “It was lunch.
Just
lunch.”

“But with
him
, right?”

Tabby had already pumped her for all the details of the bachelor auction, calling her late the night it had taken place. Maddy had somehow managed to remain noncommittal, pretending it had gone as planned and she hadn’t been affected by her
prize
.

“Maddy? Come on, spill. You did have lunch with that dark-haired, dark-eyed stud from the auction, didn’t you?”

“How do you know what he looks like?”

Her sister made a dismissive sound. “You probably described him really well on the phone.”

Possible, though Maddy remembered trying to be extremely nondescriptive and brief, not wanting to ever think about Jake Wallace again after that night. But she supposed she could have waxed a little poetic about the guy, under Tabby’s relentless prodding.

But something in her sister’s tone—a note of mischief, of amusement—made her suspect it wasn’t true. “I don’t think I described him that well.”

Silence.

And suddenly she figured it out. Gasping, she sat straight up in the tub again, nearly dropping the phone into the mountain of bubbles. “You were there!”

“Don’t be ridiculous…”

“You came to the auction. Despite all your claims about how you couldn’t be trusted and I had to be the one to do it, you went anyway.”

“Well, I couldn’t very well send you up against a professional without making sure you were okay.”

Against a professional…Mmm, she could think of worse places to be than up against that man’s rock-hard body. Especially after having experienced what just
fantasizing
about him could make her feel.

“After all, you are my baby sister.”

That was about one layer too thick. “Bullshit. I bet you were the one who told him how to find me, even after I intentionally left without giving him my name.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Yeah, right
.

“And don’t try to claim you were looking out for me,” Maddy added. “You were dying of curiosity.”

As usual, when busted, Tabitha didn’t even try to act repentant. “Well, it’s not every day all the rich bitches of this town go into heat over the same hound dog.”

“He’s not a…” She quickly bit her tongue, not wanting to give Tabby any more ammunition.

Too late. “Whoa-ho! You’re falling for him!”

“Of course I’m not.”

“But you want him.”

“Of course I do.” Maddy wasn’t one to prevaricate, either.

“So what’s the problem? Take him. You are in such desperate need of a good fuck you might as well be wearing a Please Take Me sign.”

“Charming. Do you kiss your fiancé with that mouth?”

“My future husband is very proper. He hasn’t yet learned of the miraculous things I can do with my mouth,” Tabby said with a catlike purr. “But seriously, you know you want to have sex with that guy.”

“Any woman would,” she admitted.

“Of course they would. He’s gorgeous. It really is a good thing I talked you into doing it. I wouldn’t have been able to walk out of the hotel without at least a little taste.”

A little taste. Sounded yummy. Only, she knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough. That would be like offering a four-year-old a little taste of his own birthday cake.

“And I really can’t afford one more broken engagement. I’ll get a reputation.”

“You love your reputation. And so do all the men who want to be the one to make you settle down.”

Tabby chuckled. “Maybe.” Then she lowered her voice, sounding serious—tender—for a change. “But I really don’t want to do anything to risk losing Brad. He…he calms me. Settles me. And I think he’s exactly what I need.”

That explained a lot. Honestly, Maddy had wondered about Tabby’s latest choice in husband. Because, though he was extremely wealthy, Tabby’s soon-to-be-hubby was average looking and staid compared to the other men she’d been involved with.

“You might be right,” Maddy murmured, smiling at the thought of her wild-child sibling truly settling down.

The serious, tender sister quickly disappeared. “Maybe you can bring the stud-muffin to the wedding. Wouldn’t Deborah just choke on her chateaubriand?”

Shaking her head, Maddy said, “I’m hanging up now.”

“No, I want details.”

“I’m in the tub.”

“Alone?”

“Of course alone.” She might have said that a bit too sharply.

“Bet you wish you weren’t. Are you…keeping yourself company?”

Was it possible for someone to hear a person blush? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Tabby’s throaty laugh said how much she believed that one. “Oooh, little sister’s having a date with her shower massage.”

God. “I’m hanging up…”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That would be utterly impossible.”

“True. Remember to call me after your
real
date. You are going, aren’t you?”

Hating to admit it, she said, “Tuesday afternoon.”

“And hopefully it will last into Wednesday morning. Call me just as soon as he leaves. I want to know—”

But before Tabby could finish, Maddy hung up the phone. Shaking her head, she sank back down into the cooling tub of water, now wanting the rapidly disappearing bubbles to wash away her humiliation.

Her first time in ages doing something to take the edge off and she got busted. Absolutely the only thing that could have been worse would have been if Jake had been the one who’d called.

Then she thought about it. Jake calling while she’d been touching herself. Whispers on the phone. Shared fantasies. Secret desires.

And she reached for the handle, sending another stream of hot, steamy water into the tub.

T
HE INTRINSIC INNER
“gentleman” who had been pounded into Jake’s personality since he was a kid rebelled at meeting Maddy for their date, rather than going to her place and knocking on her door. There had been a rule growing up in his house—dates, especially first dates, came inside and got the full family third degree, or nobody went anywhere. More than one of his sisters’ boyfriends had been introduced to their father while he was wearing his camouflage hunting gear and cleaning his shotgun.

But
not
coming to the door was worse, as one of his younger sister Jenny’s boyfriends could attest. The first time he’d tried beeping from his car, their father had gone outside, reached in through the passenger side window and attached The Club to the pimple-faced teenager’s steering wheel.

He wondered what his old man would make of Maddy Turner. He didn’t wonder for long. Hell, nobody in his family was judgmental. They’d see past the name and the family connection to the woman beneath.

Just as Jake had.

They judged a person by his or her character, not their bank balance. And a good character meant being courteous…bringing flowers for a date, knocking, holding doors.

None of which he was allowed to do today.

But when he saw Maddy leaning against a sporty little car in the commuter parking lot where they’d arranged to meet, he forgot about that concern. A smile slowly widened his lips as he studied her, head to toe, acknowledging that the woman looked even better in cute-knee length pants, a hot pink tank top and a ball cap with her ponytail hanging out the hole in the back than she had in her silky blue cocktail dress.

“See?” she said as he parked beside her and got out of his pickup. “I do own something other than a suit or an evening dress.”

Right. He’d wager the sleeveless top came from one of those high-end shops on the Magnificent Mile and had probably cost as much as Jake spent on clothes in a month. It was too deceptively simple to actually be cheap.

Simple…but way sexy.

“You look very cute.”

Wrong thing to say. Her lips twisted the tiniest bit.

“I mean, very pretty.”

“I was going for girl-next-door.”

“Sure. You look just like the girl who lives next door to Bill Gates.”

“Are you going to harass me about being rich all day?”

“Well, it’s better than being harassed for being poor, isn’t it?”

“As if you’d know anything about that?”

They hadn’t really talked much about his family, beyond him admitting it was big, so he didn’t take offense. “Believe me, I grew up strictly blue collar, middle class. My family never lived in the lap of luxury. More like the lap of just-enough-to-get-by.”

She stared at him, her lips slightly pursed, as if assessing the truth of his words. “Which probably gave you the drive to succeed, to be financially stable on your own, no matter what you had to do to make it happen.”