The Secretary's Bossman Bargain (5 page)

When the pilot announced they were clear, he signaled with an outstretched arm toward the plane steps. “Ladies first.”

She warily stepped around his broad, muscled figure. “I admit I’m not used to your silences still.”

His gaze never strayed from hers as she went around. “So talk next time,” he said. “To me.”

Right. Next time. Like he inspired one to make intimate revelations. And like he’d have another company to take over with the help of a “lover.”

As both pilots conversed with the customs officials, Virginia stopped a few feet from the gaping doorway. Warmth from outside stole into the air-conditioned cabin, warming her cool skin. But she found she couldn’t descend just yet.

She’d do anything to get her father out of his mess, yet suddenly felt woefully unprepared to play anyone’s lover. Especially Marcos’s lover. No matter how much she ached for the part and planned to get it right.

She pivoted on her heels to find him standing shockingly close. She craned her neck to meet his gaze. “Marcos, I’m going to need you to…tell me. What to do.”

He wore an odd expression on his face, part confusion and part amusement. The smile he slowly delivered made her flesh pebble. “You may step out of the plane, Miss Hollis.”

Laughing, she gave an emphatic shake of her head. “I mean, regarding my role. I will need to know what you suggest that I do. I’m determined, of course, but I’m hoping to get some pointers. From you.”

His lids dropped halfway across his eyes. He lifted a loose fist and brushed his knuckles gently down her cheek. The touch reached into the depths of her soul. “Pretend you want me.”

A tremor rushed down her limbs. Oh, God, he was so sexy. She was torn between latching on to his tempting, unyielding lips and running for her life. “I will, of course I will,” she breathed.

A cloak of stillness came over her—so that all that moved, all she was aware of, was his hand. As he trailed his thumb down to graze her shoulder and in a ghost of a touch swept a strand of hair back, he swallowed audibly. “Look at me like you always do.”

“How?”

“You know how.” There was so much need in his eyes, a thirst she didn’t know how to appease, which called to a growing, throbbing, aching void inside of her. “Like you care for me, like you need me.”

“I do.” She shook her cluttered head, straightening her thoughts. “I mean, I am. I will.”

She shut her eyes tight, fearing he would see the truth in them. Fearing Marcos would realize she’d been secretly enamored of him all along. Since the very first morning she’d stepped into his office, she had wanted to die—the man was so out of this world. So male. So dark.

And now…what humiliation for him to discover that, if he crooked his finger at her, Virginia would go to him.

He chuckled softly—the sound throaty, arrogant, male. “Good.”

His large hand gripped her waist and urged her around to face the open plane door a few feet away. She went rigid at the shocking contact. Longing flourished. Longing for more, for that hand, but on her skin and not her clothes, sliding up or down, God, doing anything.

Dare she dream? Dare she let herself long just a little, without feeling the remorse she always did? Like she could indulge in a healthy fantasy now and then?

She wiggled free, sure of one thing: dissolving into a puddle of want was not what she should be doing just now.

“But…what do you want me to do, exactly?” she insisted, carefully backing up one step as she faced him. His eyebrows met in a scowl. He didn’t seem to like her retreating. “This is important to you, right?” she continued.

“Señor Allende, pueden bajar por favor?”

Spurred to action by the voices on the platform, Virginia descended the steps. Marcos quickly took his place beside her.

They followed two uniformed officials toward a rustic, one-story building rivaled in size by Marcos’s jet. A small control tower, which looked abandoned at this hour, stood discreetly to the building’s right. A gust of hot, dry wind picked up around them, bouncing on the concrete and lifting the tips of her hair.

Virginia grabbed the whirling mass with one hand and pinned it with one fist at her nape. Marcos held the glass doors open for her. “No need to pretend just now, Miss Hollis,” he said. “We can do that later.”

His eyes glimmered dangerously with something. Something frightening. A promise. A request.

Her heart flew like the wind inside her, bouncing between her ribs, almost lifting the tips of her feet from the ground. Warily she passed through the bridge of his arm, one word’s haunting echo resounding in her mind. And for the dread that began to take hold, it might have been a death sentence.

Later.

Fifteen minutes later, after a brisk “Bienvenidos a Mexico” from the aduanales, they were settled in the back of a silver Mercedes Benz, their luggage safely tucked in the trunk.

“A Garza Garcia, si?” the uniformed driver asked as he eased behind the wheel.

“Por favor,” Marcos said.

His palm tingled. The one he’d touched her with. The one that had reached out to cup the lovely curve of her waist and caused Virginia to back away. From his touch.

Frowning, he checked his watch—it was ten past midnight. Wanting had never been like this. You wanted a watch, or a house, or money, but wanting this particular woman was no such whim. It was a need, something pent-up for too long, something so valued you were hesitant to have, or break, or tarnish, or hurt.

The car swerved onto the deserted highway and Virginia tipped her face to the window, lightly tugging at the pearls around her neck.

“You had a decent trip, Señor Allende?” their driver asked.

“Yes,” he said, stretching out his legs as far as he could without bumping his knee into the front seat.

Miles away, the distant core of the city of Monterrey glowed with lights. The sky was clear and veiled with gray, its shadow broken by a steady stream of streetlights rolling by.

“It’s lovely here.” Virginia transferred her purse to the nook at her feet then tapped a finger to the window. “Look at the mountains.”

Her skin appeared luminous upon every brisk caress of the streetlights, and in the shadows her eyes glittered uncommonly bright. They sparkled with excitement.

He felt a tug at his chest. “I’ll show you around tomorrow in daylight,” he said curtly.

Her eyes slid over to his, grateful, alive eyes. “Thank you.”

A heroic feeling feathered up his chest, and he pushed it aside.

During a lengthy quiet spell, the driver flicked on the radio and soft music filled the interior of the car. Virginia remained way over on the other end of the seat.

Not near enough…

He studied her figure, becoming fixated on the rounded breasts swelling under her clingy dress, the curve of her thigh and hip and small waist. Swirly black bits of hair tickled her shoulders. Her long, shapely legs had a satin shine to them, inviting him to wrap them around his body and spill days and weeks and months of wanting inside her.

He whispered, in a low murmur that excluded the driver, “Are you afraid of me?”

She stiffened. Pale, jade-green eyes rose to his for a second before her lashes dropped. “No. Why would you ask?”

Her shyness brought out the hunter in him, and it took effort on his part to keep under control. Go slowly with her…His heart began to pound. He patted his side. “You could come a little closer.”

Ducking her head to hide a blush, she smoothed her hands along the front of her dress. Then she flicked a tiny knot of fabric from it. “Just haven’t traveled in ages.”

“You cringe at anyone’s touch, or merely mine?”

She blinked. “Cringe? I’d never cringe if you…touched me.” The words touched me hovered between them like a dark, unleashed secret, an invitation to sin, and when Marcos at last responded to that, the thick lust in his voice was unmistakable. “You moved away when I urged you out of the plane. And when I helped you into the car.”

“I was surprised.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her eyes held his in the darkness. “I told you to tell me what to do.”

She was whispering, so he whispered back.

“And I asked you to come closer just now.”

A tense moment passed.

In silence, Marcos once again patted his side, this time more meaningfully.

After a moment’s debate, Virginia seemed to quickly make up her mind. Thrusting out her chin at a haughty angle, she began to edge toward him. “If you’re thinking I’m not good at this, I’ll have you know I can pretend just fine.”

Her scent stormed into his lungs. His nostrils twitched. His heart kicked. His temperature spiked.

Cautiously, as though petting a lion, she turned his hand over and set her cool, small palm on his. She gingerly laced her fingers through his. Lust kicked him in the groin at the unexpected touch. His head fell onto the back of the seat, a groan welling up in the back of his throat. Crucified by arousal, he dragged in a terse, uneven breath, squeezing his eyes shut.

She inched a little closer, tightening her grip. Her lips came to within a breath of his ear. “Does that satisfy you, Your Highness?”

He didn’t let it show, the emotion that swept through him, but it made his limbs tremble. He said, thickly, “Come closer.”

He wanted to jump her. He wanted all of her, right here, right now.

He inhaled deeply, his chest near bursting with the aroma of her. Clean, womanly, sweet. “Closer,” he said, hearing the growl in his own words.

When she didn’t, he glanced down at their joined hands. Hers was tiny and fair, nearly engulfed by his larger one. He ran the pad of his thumb along the back of hers, up the ridge of her knuckle, down the tiny smooth slope. She felt so good. And he felt eighteen again. “Soft,” came his trancelike murmur.

Transfixed, she watched the movement of his thumb, her breasts stretching the material covering them as she inhaled. He dipped his head and discreetly rubbed his nose across the shiny, springy curls of her hair. Christ. Edible. All of her. He could smell her shampoo, wanted to plunge all ten fingers into her hair, turn her face up and kiss her lips. Softly, so he could savor her breath, go searching deep into her mouth.

Ducking his head so the driver wouldn’t hear him, he whispered, “You might try to appear to enjoy my touch.”

Their bodies created a heat, a dark intimate cocoon in the confined car interior, enhanced by the warmth of their whispers. “Marcos…”

His hand turned, capturing hers as she attempted to retrieve it. “Virginia.”

Their gazes held. Like they did across his office, over the tops of people’s heads, in the elevators. Those clear, infinite eyes always sought out his. To find him looking right back. Their fingers brushed at the pass of a coffee mug, a file, the phone. At contact their bodies seemed to flare up like matches—tense, coil, heat up the room. Even with a wall separating them, his awareness of her had escalated to alarming levels. And she’d been more fidgety with him than she had in months.

“We’re pretending, remember?” he said, a husky reminder.

Pretend. The only way Marcos could think of that wouldn’t involve her feelings, or his. The only way they might be able to—hell, what was this? It had been going on so long it felt like surrender—without anyone hurting in the end. Without their lives changing, breaking or veering off in separate ways because of it.

“Yes, I know.”

“Then relax for me.” Lightly securing her fingers between his, he delved his thumb into the center of her palm with a deep, intense stroke, aware of her audible intake of breath as he caressed. “Very good,” he cooed. “I’m convinced you want me.”

“Yes.” Her voice was but a whisper, hinting at how the sinuous, stroking circles of his thumb affected her. “I mean…I’m trying to…appear that I do.”

But she seemed as uncertain and startled as a mouse who didn’t know where to run to, and Marcos was very much taking to the cat’s role. He wanted to play, to corner, to taste.

He glanced up. “Don’t tax yourself too much, hmm.”

Her warm, fragile fingers trembled in his. The excitement of a new country had left her eyes, replaced by a wild, stormy yearning. “I’m trying not to…get bored.”

His thumb went deep at the center then eased back. “Hmm. Yes. I can see you’re fighting a yawn.” His eyes ventured up along the top of her head, taking in its gloss. “You have pretty hair. Can I touch it?”

He did. It felt soft and silky under his fingers, tempting him to dig in deeper, down to her scalp.

She made a sound in her throat, like a moan. A hunger of the worst, most painful kind clawed inside him. She had a way of staring at him with those big eyes like he was something out of this world. It was a miracle he’d resisted her this long.

“A man,” he gruffly began, massaging the back of her head as he greedily surveyed her features, “would be lucky to make you his.”

Her eyes sealed shut so tightly she seemed to be in pain. She squirmed a little on the seat and, unbelievably, came nearer. “You don’t have to convince me. I’m already pretending.”

Her breasts brushed his rib cage, and the heat of her supple body singed his flesh through their clothes. He intensified the strokes of his fingers. “A man would be lucky to make you his, Virginia,” he repeated.