At the Billionaire’s Wedding (40 page)

She turned her head and he lifted his.

“You travel all the time but you hate hotel rooms? What kind of life is that?”

“Not much of one.” He curved his hand around the lower part of her butt. The skirt bunched in his fingers. “Take this off and lie down on your stomach.” He released her and went into the bathroom. “I think there’s a first-aid kit here.”

Abruptly nervous again, she did as ordered. She shouldn’t be nervous, but she now discovered that furtive, explosive sex in public places was a lot easier to handle than a bedroom scenario. “Find anything?”

“No antiseptic.” He came back into the room, halted, and looked directly at her bare behind with such stark appreciation that she couldn’t help smiling.

“So…?” she said.

He seemed to shake himself from a stupor and opened a cabinet. “How about vodka?”

“I’ve had more than enough to drink already today.”

“I mean for the prickers.”

“You’re going to bathe my wounds in
vodka
?”

“They do it in Russia.”

“Is that true?”

“I don’t know. Probably. I’ve never been wounded in Russia. I said it to impress you with my worldly experience.” He palmed two tiny bottles. “Chopin or Grey Goose?”

“What’s the difference?”

“One was a composer. The other is a bird.”

“Chopin.”

He sat on the bed beside her, and she watched the fluid flex of muscles in his chest as he passed his fingertips over her lower back.

“Nothing here now but red marks,” he said, dousing a cotton ball and dabbing it lightly over her lower back where her skirt had ruched up while he’d been driving into her on the ground. The alcohol was cool on her heated flesh, and only stung a little. “Would you like me to call the desk for some Benedryl?”

“It’s not that uncomfortable now. Does it look bad?”

“Not too bad.” His touch was incredibly gentle.

“You’re an excellent medic. Thank you, Doctor.” She smiled against her shoulder.

“You are so beautiful.” She could hear the restraint in his voice.

“Even with a rash from prickers?”

“Even so.” His hands bracketed her thighs near the top.

“What are you doing?”

“Entertaining you. As promised.” His fingers dipped to strafe her clitoris. She sucked in air. “And me,” he said and caressed again. She watched him, her body tightening as he stroked. He circled her entrance and her eyelids fluttered closed as she tilted her hips up, feeling him. Wanting him moving in her again.

“Let’s do it again,” she whispered, astounded at herself. She’d never been this forward about sex. Apparently throwing caution to the wind meant abandoning it entirely. “Now.”

“I could mount you like this,” he said. “From behind. It would be easier on the area.” His voice smiled.

She’d never done it like that. There was something dominating about it that’d always made her squeamish. But her world was spinning from his caresses. “Do you want to?”

“I want to be with you any way you’ll allow it.”

“Yes.” She pushed into his touch. “Yes. Do it.”

“What happened to ‘Do
me
’?”

“Me. It. Just
do
. Please. Now.”

“Your wish…”

He did it. He did
her
.

He reached for a condom. Then, pressing her knees apart and drawing up her hips, he penetrated her in one, steady, agonizingly slow thrust. They groaned together.

He stroked into her again, and again, caressing with his fingers, trapping her between his hand and his cock. She heard herself panting and backed against him hard. But he drew out, controlling the pace, never giving her everything, taking her slowly from needing him to craving him.

“Wow,” slipped through her parted lips. “You’re good at this.”

“I was thinking the same of you.” His voice was low, strained. “I’ve got to have you.” He gripped her hips in both hands and dragged her onto him and finally let her have his entire cock. She shuddered uncontrollably. She couldn’t believe it, but she was coming. Already. With nothing but him inside her and the rhythm of their thrusts. He went deep. Incredibly deep. Touching her core. She clutched him. Tightening.
Tighter.
Imploding. Pleasure everywhere. She cried out.

He withdrew from her. But she hadn’t felt him finish.

She turned onto her back. Taking her up in his arms like a rag doll, he dragged her onto his lap. He entered her again and tangled his hands in her hair, and his gaze claimed her features one by one. Gripping his shoulders, she sank onto him. He kissed her.

They did it like that for a long time. She didn’t know how long, but she’d never had a man inside her for more than the few minutes it took them both to come, and sometimes only him. Piers didn’t seem to be in any rush. He stroked her hair back from her face and kissed her mouth and neck and moved in her in a long, slow, sensuous rhythm, as if the pleasure for him wasn’t in orgasm but in being joined with her like this. When finally she climaxed again, he was watching her face.

“California, you are incredible. I can’t get enough of you.”

She clung to him and let the shudders ripple through her and told herself that they were only words and that words couldn’t hurt her.

“Did you?” she said softly beside him.

Piers’s veins hummed with energy. He couldn’t sleep. No rest for the wicked. Especially not for the wicked whose years of wickedness were swiftly coming to an end.

But he’d thought he was alone in wakefulness.

Hands tucked under her cheek, she had curled up on her side beneath the sheet, disguising the beauty of her body. The lids drooped over her dark eyes. But wariness lurked in them.

“Did I what?”

“Did you really throw the chair through the fifty-seventh-floor window?”

This was it. Truth time. And when he told her, there was every chance she’d bolt.

“No. I left the building and told the driver to take me anywhere in the city that my grandfather had never been. Turned out he’d never been to a lot of places.” His smile arose from deep in his chest. “That was a good day.”

She stared at his mouth. “Tell me why you went to work for your grandfather.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “When my brother was fifteen, he ran away from home. He was an unusual kid, genius intelligence and always acting out against our grandfather. Still, Grandfather was already grooming him to become his successor, enticing him with gifts and driving in the guilt one toy, one bike, one expensive electronic gadget at a time.” The anger he’d felt on behalf of his little brother back then stirred again in him. “But J.T. wasn’t wired that way. When he disappeared, my mother flipped out. My father was still recovering from his first heart attack, so I left Stanford in the middle of the semester and drove to every place I could imagine my brother would be. It took me weeks to find him. He was in a very bad way. On the edge of doing serious harm—to someone. So I promised him I’d take over his destined place in the family’s business if he promised to never disappear again. We made a deal: if he always told me and our parents where he was, we wouldn’t tell Grandfather.”

“You saved his life.”

Piers ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know. Maybe. He’s still unpredictable.” He chuckled. “But he’s okay now.”

“When did he get okay?”

“He joined the Marines when he was nineteen. When his tour ended, he went into the Secret Service. And three years ago he saw our grandfather for the first time in years. It went fine.”

“So.” Her voice was soft. “After that, why did you keep working at Prescott Global?”

He turned his face to her. In the dim lamplight that shadowed her eyes, with her hair falling over her shoulder, she took every word he knew and made them mean nothing.

“Maybe you like it,” she said, “or you wouldn’t have stayed for so long.”

“I like winning.”

“You could win at something that’s good for other people. People who aren’t rich stockholders, that is.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is. You have no idea how fortunate you are, Piers. You have money, education, and influence. Unless you turn into a lying drunk like my father did, I don’t see how anything stands in your way of doing what you want.”

“I’ve been thinking that lately, actually.” She had inspired it. But he had to end the worst lie right now. “How did you get so smart?” he murmured instead.

“I read.” She shrugged a naked shoulder and he wanted to bite it. Then the rest of her. He wanted to win
her
.

“While you’re working?” he asked, because otherwise he’d say, “I funded your project and bought you the ticket to England,” and he would not win her. This independent, wary woman would not like having been played as his party favor. That’s how she would see it, no matter how he apologized. His gut ached.

“It’s one of the perks of the job.” She gave him a sparkling smile. “The bookmobile is much more work for the same pay. And the hours are insane. I’m doing a lot of overtime.”

“I give you back your question: why do you do it?”

“A few years ago our house burned down and we lost everything. Other than my sister’s beautiful face, the only things I missed were my books. There are people out there who can’t afford an e-reader or a trip to Barnes and Noble or even Wal-Mart. Those people deserve to be able to escape their troubles for a few hours in stories, just like the rest of us.”

“This is the first time I’ve escaped in years.”

“If you read books you could escape every day.”

He smiled.
“Pride and Prejudice?”

A tingly dance started up in Cali’s stomach. He paid attention to her when she spoke. Men didn’t often pay attention, not even when they wanted to have sex with her, and never after sex.

“Do you know why women love
Pride and Prejudice
?” she said. “Because it’s the fantasy of having it all, no matter how humble or poor, being smart and showing the rich guy that he’s got something to learn.” She lifted her hand and let her fingertips travel up his corded forearm to the impressive biceps. She traced the muscle’s arc. “There are a lot of guys like you that need to learn a few things. Humility. And compassion for people who are different from you. I think that’s why I applied to your family’s foundation. It’s definitely why I did an interview in the
City Paper
. I wanted to tell my friends’ story, so the rich guys could learn.”

He took her hand in his and turned onto his side to face her. “They did.”

“Who?”

“I read the interview.”

Her heart did a little flip. “You read it?”

“You told it straight, without sentimentality, but with wisdom and understanding. It was amazing.”

“Amazing?”

“Yeah.” Piers’s gaze was shifting back and forth between her eyes, as if looking for something. It seemed like he was about to say more, but that maybe he wasn’t sure about it. Cali’s heart beat too fast. She wanted to hear what he would say. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and ask him to hold her so close that no air would fit between them. She wanted this night to last longer than the weekend. Much longer. And she wanted it far too much.

Wedding party hookup.

Rebound sex.

She made her voice casual. “Were you and Caroline Colby ever engaged?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. “No.”

“Not after four years?”

He lifted a single brow. “You follow the gossip news?”

“Know thine enemy,” she said with a shrug.

“I was never your enemy, California.” His thumb stroked across her palm, sending shimmers of sleepy desire through her.

“Four years is a long time. Why didn’t you get engaged?”

“It was casual between us. Business. And social.”

She didn’t know how that was possible for four years. Or four weeks. Or four days. The problem she always had, the problem she’d inherited from her mother, was that when she gave her heart even a little, she couldn’t help giving it all—like to her father who’d left them repeatedly. After every abandonment, then every return and heartfelt apology, Cali had forgiven him and kept loving him. Until the doctors removed Zoe’s bandages. At that moment, she swore she would never let herself love him again.

Suddenly the room seemed airless, her lungs suffocated. Cold panic thrummed in her limbs.

She slid out of bed, fumbled with her panties and skirt, and pulled them on.

“Are you leaving?” Piers’s voice sounded strange. She couldn’t look at him. She tugged her tank top over her head and stuffed her bra into the waistband of her skirt, then jammed her toes into the flip-flops.

“Tomorrow’s a big day. Rehearsal dinner and all. I’ve got to get at least an hour or two of sleep.” She whipped her hair into a ponytail. She had to look at him. She couldn’t just use him for fantastic sex and leave without even meeting his eye. She
could
. But she’d have to see him again this weekend. Then maybe she would see him someday down the road, like at Jane and Duke’s tenth wedding anniversary bash or something.

Who was she kidding? After this week she would never see Piers Prescott again unless it was in the news.