Tempting Aquisitions (7 page)

“So, Dan, about that schedule we were discussing for your new line of cookware.”

Dan gestured wildly with his glass. “A page in every issue for the next six months. I’m totally in.”

“Wonderful. I’ll follow up next week with the paperwork. We can also talk about a schedule on the website along with a promotion we’ll do for some of our lucky readers.”

The smooth way she handled Daniel, all the while slowly unwinding herself from his tipsy hold, was a thing of beauty. It was only as the chef was tottering away from them that Nathan turned to acknowledge her. “Nicely done.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t, however, take you for the type to roll drunks.”

A light gasp escaped her lips before she quickly recovered. “I’m in too good a mood to be offended by that. Besides,” she said, taking a sip of her champagne, “I don’t roll drunks. He already agreed to be in the magazine a few weeks ago. The website stuff was the new addition.”

He tapped his glass against hers. “So I have to repeat, nicely done.”

“Thank you.”

“Dan wasn’t kidding. I’ve never seen an event run better than this one. Usually, no matter how well run something is, you can see a few cracks around the edges. But this has been smooth as silk.”

“Except for the oh-so-elegant disaster with the wait staff this morning and that tray full of glasses.”

Nathan moved toward her, his hand finding purchase at the small of her back as his lips hovered near her ear. “Oh, I don’t know. Thanks to that clumsy waiter, you ended up in my arms.”

Her eyes widened. “Nathan…”

“You’ve done more than enough entertaining. Tell me you’ll leave with me. I’d like to show you something.”

She opened her mouth, the obvious urge to offer a token protest forming before a small light registered in her dark gaze. Agreement? Acquiescence? Or perhaps just the acknowledgment that it was easier to accept what was building between them than to deny it.

Nathan shifted, pulling the champagne flute from her hand and settling it on the silver tray of a passing waiter. “Come on.”

She nodded. “All right.”

…

Keira watched the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip as she stared out the window of Nathan’s limousine. He’d offered champagne when they’d gotten into the car, but she declined, opting for the glass of club soda that now sat cold and untouched in her hands.

“Where are you taking me?”

“I want to show you something.”

“Are you always this cryptic?”

His blue gaze bored into hers from across the car. “No.”

Keira shook her head at that, his one-word answer only reinforcing her point. “Fine, I’ll wait.”

“It won’t be that much farther.”

Seas of people milled over the sidewalks as their driver moved at a crawl through the traffic that crowded the Strip. “All these people. And it’s early enough in the evening for most to still have a smile on their faces.”

“Everyone loves Vegas.”

“Based on the event I’ve got going on right now, I can only thank the heavens for that simple fact.”

“What time does it start tomorrow?”

“Ten a.m. Which means the staff will be back at it around six.”

“No rest for the weary.”

She smiled at that. “None.”

Despite the darkened interior of the limo, she didn’t miss how the piercing light of his blue eyes never veered from her face. A wave of need blasted through her with the force of a rocket as their gazes met once again.

Of all the men in the world, why must she have this completely inconvenient reaction to Nathan Cooper? Even today, it had taken every ounce of her willpower not to keep looking for him walking in and among the various booths.

Her enemy.

The man who wanted to take over McBride Media.

And it was all she could do to stop herself from looking for him like a crazy schoolgirl with her first crush.
The real problem is
, Keira reflected as she fought to keep her gaze level with his,
he doesn’t
feel
like my enemy
. Which was the most dangerous reaction she could have.

Before she could dwell on it, the car pulled to a stop. With another peek through the limo’s tinted windows, she realized the lights outside had dimmed to the typical wattage found under a streetlamp, not billions of watts of neon.

“Where are we?”

“Come on.” Nathan’s hand was on the door as he tilted his head toward the window. “Let me show you.”

She didn’t miss the anticipation that lit up his features, and she reached for his hand as he held it from outside the car. Keira got her footing and looked around.

What were they doing in front of a large, empty patch of dirt?

“Where are we, Nathan?”

“It’s a surprise.” His grip tightened as he pulled her forward. “I want to see how good your imagination is.”

“My imagination? For an enormous patch of dirt?”

She wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion of the last few days or a complete lack of understanding, but she couldn’t figure out what her imagination had to do with anything. Despite the lack of sleep, her curiosity allowed him to take her arm as they walked gingerly over the sun-dried, hard-packed dirt.

A heavy warmth that relaxed her limbs floated through her as Nathan shifted his hand, entwining his fingers with hers. She couldn’t miss the unmistakable connection that hummed between them in the light evening breeze as they came to a stop. With an inward sigh, she forced her thoughts to the empty land before them and off the way her hand disappeared in his. “So tell me, please. What does my imagination have to do with this?”

Nathan gestured before them with his free hand. “What do you think of my new hotel?”

“Here?”

“I just closed on the land this week. We’ll be the next major property on the Strip.”

“You’re building a hotel? In Vegas? Are you even into hotels?”

“I am now.”

The simple words full of supreme confidence washed over her. This was a man who could accomplish anything he set his mind to.

For the first time, Keira was forced to acknowledge that she really was in over her head. No matter how she spun it, she simply couldn’t compete with the money, power, and influence that Nathan Cooper wielded.

“You okay? Are you cold?” He turned toward her, his jaw going tight as his gaze skipped over her face. “I’m sorry. Let me get my jacket from the car.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m not that cold.”

He hesitated briefly before nodding, as if satisfied with her answer.

Suppressing her unease, she tried to put the conversation back on track. “So what do you see?”

“You tell me first.”

A nervous bubble of laughter escaped, the residual effect of the sudden wash of worry that any man who could build a hotel in Vegas would be equally successful at taking over her birthright. “I see a field of dirt.”

“Oh, come on, a woman with your business sense and ability to envision all sorts of solutions for your advertisers has to see something when you look.”

Keira refocused on the large acreage that spread before her, shaking off the unease. “First I see the extensive gardens and wide drive that leads up to the
porte coch
è
re
.”

“Excellent. What else?”

She tilted her head back, stars visible now that they were away from the heavy neon of the Strip. “I see the hotel rising before me, twenty stories high.”

“Thirty,” Nathan corrected softly.

“Wow.”

“Set up in four separate towers.”

“How many rooms?”

“Eight thousand.”

Keira turned toward him. “Eight thousand rooms?”

“Absolutely.” Lines crinkled around the bold blue of his eyes. “What fun is it if you don’t go big?”

“For once, something we agree on.”

Nathan’s gaze returned to hers once more as he pivoted to face her. “For once?”

“What’s the point of playing if you’re not in it to win it?”

“I’m not sure I took you for the win-or-die type.”

“I’m not quite that bad, but why play in a game if you’re not interested in playing at the top of it?”

“People underestimate you.”

That heady light returned to his eyes, the one that said he saw
all
of her, and it sent shock waves through her. The memory of her conversation with Mayson came flooding back.

No man before Nathan had made her feel as if he actually saw her.

“No one expects my competitive streak.”

“I meant it as a compliment. Everyone thinks you’re sweet and nice, and you are those things. A consummate professional who treats others with courtesy and respect.” Before she could react, his fingers were on her face, brushing a wayward strand of hair that had come loose in the evening desert breeze. “But you’re so much more.”

Keira swallowed around the lump in her throat, the feel of his fingers on her face another form of subtle torture. Her skin grew tight from head to toe and she could feel her nipples pucker under the silk of her bra as a telltale surge of desire flooded the apex of her thighs.

Think, McBride. Think. Don’t give him an inch.

Her voice was unusually husky when she spoke. “It’s not that complicated. I work hard, expect the same from those around me, and I want to be the best. When it’s a man thinking those things, no one bats an eyelash. When it’s a woman, suddenly it’s noteworthy?”

Before she could register the movement, Nathan had his other hand flush across her lower back and was pulling her close. “It’s you, Keira.
You’re
noteworthy. God help me, I just can’t keep my distance. And I don’t want to.”

Pleasure exploded across every nerve ending as his lips came down over hers. The pressure on her lower back increased as he pulled her flush with his body, and she knew immediately his arousal was 100 percent real. And pressed against her stomach with insistent need.

A million thoughts hammered through her brain, chief on the list what a bad idea it was to get any further involved with Nathan Cooper. But whatever she rationally knew was quickly being squashed by the hard, driving desire that flared between them like a bonfire.

She wanted this man. Wanted him in a way that jumbled her thoughts and fired her bloodstream. Her fingertips ran over the hard ridge of muscles in his shoulders, his skin searing her through the starched material of his dress shirt.

His mouth pressed to hers with mind-numbing urgency as their tongues met and mated, retreated and returned for more. One kiss led to another, the desperation flaring between them ensuring neither pulled away. Fireworks exploded behind her eyes as sensations lit the length of her body and Keira let herself go, enmeshed in the feel of him. In the way he made her feel—full of restless need she couldn’t deny.

Nathan shifted from her lips to press kisses along her jaw before whispering hotly in her ear. “I want you.”

A soft moan escaped her lips as his tongue ran along the rim of her ear. “Nathan.”

“Please tell me you want the same.”

Shifting, she pulled her head back to stare into his eyes. His electric-blue irises had turned a deep indigo, his pupils large and his eyelids at half-mast, all very clear signs of his arousal. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the heavy gaze and knew it matched her own.

“How did we end up here?”

“We got in a car and drove here.”

Keira tried to take a step back, but Nathan kept his arms firmly around her. Unwilling to make an issue of it, she remained in his embrace but placed a hand on his chest to steady herself. Instead of giving her the distance she craved, the firm muscles underneath her fingertips nearly had her wrapping herself around him once again. Forcing her wayward thoughts to calm down, she landed on the argument neither of them could ignore. “You know what I mean. We’re on opposite sides, Nathan.”

“Not when it comes to what’s between us.”

“That’s the problem. This is lust and need. A temporary state that we’ll sate and then make go away. But who we are and what we do won’t go away. It can’t.”

“Why are you making this about work?”

“Because it
is
about work. We met because of work. And you know damn well you’re not going to walk away from my company.”

His jaw set, hard as granite. “No, I’m not.”

She thought of the work she and her sisters had already done. Thought of the e-mail from Camryn she’d reviewed just that morning outlining their next steps in presenting their own financial plans to the board. “And I’m not walking away from fighting you for it.”

“So don’t walk away. In the boardroom, we’ll fight it out. In the bedroom, we won’t.”

His words incited another round of fire underneath her skin, tempting. Tantalizing.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Actually, it is.” His arms fell from her sides and he took a few steps back. She immediately felt the loss of warmth, even though the night breeze was comfortable.

“I want you. I can separate that from my business interests. Rather easily, in fact, without a single shade of gray marring the decision. The real question is, can you?”

…

Desire pounded heavy in his veins as Nathan waited for Keira’s answer. He hadn’t had to ask a woman into his bed since he was a teenager, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized how spoiled he’d been by that. Of course, the stakes had never been higher.

“You really believe that? You honestly can stand there and tell me you think you can separate the work from what’s between us?” She stared up at him. “Just put all of it into compartments?”

“Yes, I can.”

She shook her head at that. “And tomorrow morning, when the heat has passed. What then?”

He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his features at her words. “Baby, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than one night to cool the fire between us.”

Although the comment had sparked to life as a tease, as he spoke the words, he knew there was more to it. He wanted this woman with a ferocity that caught him off guard, even as it tempted him in ways he’d never felt before. This insatiable desire scared him, he admitted to himself. He’d never been a man to allow his wants to interfere with his ability to think, but he’d done damn little thinking in the last week.