Billionaire With a Twist (7 page)

Say, what would Hunter look like in
Union blue or Confederate grey? Neither matched his eyes, but he
would still look so scrumptious in a uniform, all buttoned up and
proper, any uniform, and then I could unbutton it and run my hands
down his chest and press myself up against him and—

Not the kind of planning you’re
being paid to do!
I reminded myself with a firm shake of my head.
I forced myself to stop squirming in my seat, and pay attention to
the record of one of Alphonse Knox’s impassioned speeches.

And all this was only the history of
the company in the nineteenth century. I couldn’t take notes
fast enough; how was none of this information common knowledge? If
the company had maintained even a quarter of its philanthropic
interests during the last hundred years, this was a goldmine of
advertising catnip.

This was exactly the angle I wanted to
work. Social responsibility was hot these days, particularly with the
younger crowd that Knox needed so desperately to attract. I couldn’t
just slap a social justice sticker on the label, though—that
might have worked back in the nineties, but today’s young
consumers had been burned before, and the Internet made fact-checking
easy. I would have to back up my claims with solid proof, but in a
way that didn’t make the company and the product sound boring,
overly earnest, or self-congratulatory.

I certainly wouldn’t want Hunter
to think I was any of those things, either.

I mean, for the good of our business
relationship.

Could I do it? Could I get the company
to back a cause both local and global in a way that wouldn’t be
written off as cynical or dismissed as a media show? I jotted down a
reminder to look up the current components of the packaging and see
if Knox could start using anything more environmentally friendly. It
joined a long list on my tablet with the rest of my ideas, notes,
sketches, and first drafts of e-mails to my art partner. It made a
beautiful addition, and made me feel incredibly productive.

This could work. This could really
work.

I was so absorbed by the library and by
my ideas that it wasn’t until my stomach gave a particularly
painful rumble that I looked up and realized how low the sun had
dipped in the sky. My stomach gave another rumble like it was trying
to imitate Mt. Vesuvius, and then twisted painfully until I got the
message. Well, with the map I could probably make my way back to the
kitchen before I starved to death. Probably.

I packed up my things as quickly as I
could and speed-walked out the library—

Right into the broad chest of Hunter
Knox.

It was not quite the way I’d
wanted to be sprawled across that muscular expanse.

“Just the lady I was looking to
see,” he drawled in that gentlemanly tenor voice. “Though
I confess I wasn’t thinking so up close and personal.”

It was entirely unfair how nice he
smelled, like salt and spice, cedar and oak and clean sweet sweat.
Without thinking, my hand opened, fingers spreading to stroke where
they rested against the T-shirt over his chest…
No!

I snatched my hand away, blushing.

“Uh. Why were you looking for
me?” I asked quickly, trying to distract him from my accidental
almost-groping. “Was there something you needed to tell me?”

“Indeed there was,” he said
with a grin that told me he had definitely noticed that too-long
touch, and hadn’t quite decided whether or not to let me off
the hook. “I wanted to tell you that the cook has made her
famous pork chops for dinner.” He offered his hand. “I
was hoping that might tempt you to join me.”

Like that man needed to offer pork
chops to be a walking temptation.

Too bad it was one I couldn’t
give in to.

“My room has plenty of food in
the kitchen, I don’t want to intrude—” I began,
though I really did, in the worst way. But then my stomach rumbled
like a dying bear, betraying me. I blushed so scarlet that the Red
Sea would be a pale pink in comparison.

“Sounds like someone disagrees
with you,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“Just my body,” I said.
“It’s an idiot. I try not to listen to it.”

“Oh?” he said, raising an
eyebrow. “I’ve found that
my
body offers excellent
advice.”

Well, why don’t we reintroduce
them and see if yours is a good influence
, my mouth urged me to
say. I bit it back down and said instead, as lightly as I could,
“Care to trade?”

That was a mistake. He eyed me up and
down, and I felt my blood heat up in some extremely inopportune parts
of me.

“It is an excellent body,”
he murmured.

He leaned forward, and for one second,
I thought he was going to kiss me.

Then he linked arms with me instead.
“Come on. Let your body lead you to some new experiences.”

When he put it like that, how could I
refuse?

“And don’t come back here
for thirty minutes!”

Turns out that those pork chops were
still simmering, and the cook didn’t take kindly to two people
standing over her shoulder drooling, even when one of those two
people was a hunky guy with a body that belonged on the cover of
Playgirl.

A blast of hot air accompanied us out
of the kitchen doors, before the cool air-conditioning enveloped us
once again.

Then I looked up at Hunter, grinning
that easy grin with those perfect teeth and those golden eyes…

Yeah, suddenly all the air seemed very
hot again.

“Sorry about that,” he
said, grabbing my wrist and tugging me down the hall. I tried to
concentrate on his words and not the gentle firmness of his hands.
“She’s got a bit of a temper, and the whole kitchen is
her sovereign territory.”

“I didn’t notice you
disabusing her of that idea,” I pointed out.

His grin grew wider. “Because
she’s entirely correct. I couldn’t microwave popcorn if
you duct-taped the instructions to my face.”

I laughed, and let him pull me along.
“So where are we going now?”

“Well, I can’t let my
expensive new advertising consultant starve because of a territory
dispute,” Hunter said dryly. “I’m going to have to
take drastic measures.”

“Drastic measures?” I
echoed sarcastically. “What, are we going to go shoot a bear?
Because my shot would put you to shame, just warning you.”

He turned back towards me, raising an
eyebrow. “You can shoot?”

“Since I was a teenager,” I
said. “My dad used to sneak me out to the range; Mom never
would have approved.” That was putting it lightly; if she ever
found out, I would shortly thereafter be finding out exactly what it
looked like when a human head exploded.

“Well, that’s good to
know,” Hunter said. “But the measures tonight aren’t
quite so drastic. I just happen to have a secret snack stash.”

I raised my eyebrow even though he had
turned back away and couldn’t see it. “When did you turn
into a teenage girl?”

And when had I decided it was a good
idea to mouth off to my boss/client? I knew the words coming out of
my lips weren’t appropriate, and yet somehow every time we
talked, I just got more and more sarcastic. But it was either that or
lust-struck declarations of wanting to be swept away in his arms, and
I definitely couldn’t let those out. Unprofessional as my snark
might be, at least it kept a tiny part of my dignity intact.

A tiny, tiny bit.

Meanwhile, Hunter’s shoulders had
tensed. “Who says teenage girls are the only ones who get to
have a snack stash?”

His voice was trying to be light, but
there was a tension underneath.

Maybe I had gone too far with my
teasing after all. “I wasn’t trying to say—”
I started.

“There was a time in my life when
I didn’t have any food at all,” he said, so softly that
for a second I thought I had imagined it. “I feel…safer,
knowing I have something stashed away. Just in case.”

What the hell? Hunter Knox had grown up
the pampered scion of a wealthy family—hadn’t he?

I realized the assumptions I had been
making, and I suddenly felt very small.

“I’m sorry,” I said
quietly.

He turned again, giving me a gentle
smile. “It’s all right.”

He took my hand then, and my breath
caught in my throat.

“I’d better guide you the
rest of the way,” he said. “It gets pretty cramped from
here on out.”

He tugged gently on my hand, and led me
down a narrow hallway, through a gap in the walls of stacked boxes
emitting the soothing smells of chamomile and old cloth. He shifted
so that I led, his warm hands on my shoulders steering me ably
through the dark.

Such warm hands. Their heat radiated
through my shirt, and I felt his breath ghosting over my ear, as if
any second now he might lean down and—

“We import the tea from
Singapore,” he murmured.

“Oh,” I whispered,
shivering involuntarily. It was hard to think of anything else to say
with my heart pounding so hard. Was I imagining the way his fingers
tightened slightly on my shoulders? Was that a slight caress as his
finger swept downward an inch towards my collarbone, rustling my
blouse, or was I daydreaming?

Probably. I was definitely probably
reading too much into it. I tried to even out my breathing, hoped he
couldn’t feel me tremble under his gentle touch. I resolved to
banish all thoughts of that night we’d spent together in my
hotel room and focus on the business at hand, but the low throb
pulsing between my legs was undeniable.

“Stop.” And his arm
encircled my waist, sending a jolt through me as I stumbled to a
halt, his strong body pressing up against mine, there in the
half-darkness where no one knew we were, where no one would see if he
were to pull me even closer, if he were to bend his lips to my neck,
if his hands were to wander from my waist to my breasts or down my
thighs—

He pulled away.

“It’s right here.”

It took several embarrassingly long
seconds for me to realize that he was talking about his secret snack
hoard.

I watched, squinting through the
dimness, as he jimmied away the back of a cabinet to reveal a small
tin, just starting to rust at the edges. Watching him, the careful
care he took, the way his eyes lit as he picked it up, I was filled
with an overwhelming gratitude for the trust he was showing me.

Because this was private. This was a
secret. This was something very nearly sacred to him, I could see
that in his eyes, and he was sharing it with me.

And I had no idea what I could have
done to deserve that honor.

He opened the lid and looked at me
almost shyly, his hair falling into his eyes. “It’s not
much…”

I took his hand. His hands were so
large and capable; why did I feel so much like I wanted to take care
of him in this moment? He didn’t need anyone to take care of
him. But I wanted to. “It’s perfect.”

A flash of white in the shadows as he
smiled. “You haven’t even looked.”

We were both whispering. I wasn’t
sure why; the house was so big that we might as well have been in
another county as far as the staff were concerned. But the darkness
and the secrecy and the soft touches somehow made this moment illicit
and stolen and not to be spoken aloud.

“I trust you,” I murmured.

There was a pause as Hunter took in my
words. “Thank you,” he finally said.

My hand was still on his. As if they
had a will of their own, my fingers began to stroke his palm—I
blushed, glad that the poor light would hide it, and pulled away
under the pretense of selecting a snack.

The tin was small, but it held a solid
assortment of sweets, dried jerky, and home-made trail mix. I chose a
chocolate in a bright green foil and unwrapped it, the foil rustling
like a secret waiting to be told. When I bit down, a sweet cognac
liquor burst across my taste buds, and I couldn’t keep from
groaning in ecstasy.

Hunter laughed.

“Hey, you try eating this and not
expressing your appreciation!” I shot back at him in a whisper,
waving the chocolate in his face.

He raised an eyebrow at me, and then he
bit right down on the chocolate in my hand, his soft lips just
moistening the tips of my fingers.

I froze.

Calling all doctors, calling all
doctors, Allison Bartlett’s heart has just stopped cold.

His rakish grin set my blood on fire as
he leaned forward and carefully licked a smudge of chocolate from my
thumb.

I swallowed, hard.

“Not bad,” he allowed. “But
I think you’ll really like this much better.”

He unwrapped another chocolate, and
slipped it between my lips. My eyes fell closed as the sweet taste of
butterscotch melted across my tongue, and a little sound of perfect
contentment escaped my chest in a sigh.

My tongue darted out to catch the last
of the taste against his skin, and I could hear his breath catch in
his throat, and my blood quickened further. I could feel my own heart
pounding, blood rushing through my veins, warmth pooling between my
legs as my arousal tightened within me like a spiral, my nipples
suddenly hard against my silk bra, wanting his hands on them instead.

My eyelids parted slowly, and I was
gazing up into his eyes, so dark with desire in that dim hallway that
I could no longer see the line between his irises and pupils. They
were only dark and determined, the golden light no longer dancing
playfully in them but serious as anything I had ever seen.

He leaned closer, and I could taste the
chocolate on his breath, as intoxicating as his gaze, I could so very
nearly taste his lips—

I can’t let him kiss me.

Not with so much riding on this job.

So much for both of us.

I broke away before we made contact,
stumbling backwards in my haste to save us from the dastardly
destruction of our own hormones.