Playing the Playboy (13 page)

“No,” she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes lifted to meet his. “I know you’re not that kind of man. I know what kind of man you are.”

“Do you?”

“You’re so good. And so generous. And…and so brave.” She swallowed hard, dropped her eyes, and then look up at him again. Said so softly he almost didn’t hear, “And I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t stop wanting you.”

They stared at each other for a long time—on the cusp of understanding so deep it ached. Then finally Andrew couldn’t hold himself back.

He leaned into her, curled one hand around the back of her head, and sank into a kiss.

She gave a little moan against his mouth and grabbed his damp t-shirt in both of her hands, leaning forward into him.

Her eager response fueled his need, and he deepened the kiss, easing her back down onto the bed. He moved over her, slightly awkwardly since her legs were still off the side of the bed. He couldn’t stop kissing her, compelled by a mingling of desire, excitement, and need he’d never experienced before.

Laurel seemed to be feeling it too. She arched beneath his weight, her hands grabbing for fistfuls of his shirt. He broke the kiss long enough for her to pull his shirt off over his head, and then he claimed her mouth again.

“I want you too, Laurel,” he murmured against her mouth. He kissed his way down her jaw and neck, loving the salty, natural taste of her skin, the way he could feel her pulse fluttering under his lips. “I want you so much.”

It was true. And it was terrifying.

He’d never wanted anyone as much.

***

Laurel had never felt like this in her life, so completely out of control—as if her body and her heart had revolted against her mind.

She should have been hiding in fear, trying to recover from having to rely on Andrew so much, from having to admit to herself her own insufficiency. She should have escaped until she could work back to her normal, controlled existence.

She didn’t want to, though. This felt too good—and not just to her body. Every part of her wanted to give herself to Andrew, seek strength and solace and pleasure and bone-deep understanding in him.

He started to pull off her dress, and she raised her arms to let him. Then he lowered his lips to one of her breasts, and she pressed up into his mouth, moaning softly as pleasure rippled through her from his touch.

She felt him hardening against her thigh as she writhed beneath his caresses. After a few minutes, her arousal pulsed with such insistence that she gasped, “Andrew, please. I want you now.”

He’d been mouthing her belly, fondling her breasts with both hands. But now he sat up with a jerk, panting and staring down at her. “Condom,” he managed to mutter. He was flushed, aroused, tense, rumpled, and almost dazed. Utterly irresistible.

Since he looked to be in worse condition than her, she managed to climb off the bed, although she could feel arousal intensely between her legs. “Where?”

“In the bathroom. In my case.”

She hurried to get one and returned to the bed. He was still sitting on the side of the bed, and he reached for her as she approached.

She pushed him back onto the bed, stroking her hands up and down his bare chest. He was still sweaty and so was she, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She moved on top of him as they kissed, rubbing her breasts against his chest, humming at the feel of the coarse hair against her nipples.

She fumbled at the button on his shorts and finally managed to undo it. He lifted his hips as she pushed down his shorts and underwear, and then she took his erection in both hands.

She loved the way his breath hitched when she touched him, the way he groaned when she stroked her fingers up and down his length.

She felt so strange—not just aroused but deep, tender, and possessive. She slid out of her panties and then rolled the condom on.

She was about to mount him the way she had the last time, but he rolled them over before she could.

She gasped in surprise and then gasped again in pleasure as she felt him between her legs, nudging at her entrance. “Andrew, please,” she breathed, rocking her hips up impatiently, wanting to feel him inside her more quickly.

He entered in a series of slow thrusts and retreats, reangling every time her channel resisted the penetration. When he was fully sheathed inside her, he raised himself up on straightened arms, panting and closing his eyes as he evidently fought for control.

She didn’t want him to be controlled. She wanted him to be as out of control as she was. She writhed around the tight penetration and fisted her hands in the bedding.

“Andrew,” she gasped at last. “Please now.”

He groaned and opened his eyes, gazing down at her as he began to thrust. His eyes were so deep, so intense, she couldn’t look away, even as the sensations intensified.

His motion was slow and pleasurable, but it wasn’t what she needed. She made a whimpering sound. “I need more, Andrew. I need it fast.”

He choked on a rough sound, as the last thread of his control snapped. He thrust harder, faster, and Laurel panted in pleasure as she eagerly matched his motion with hers.

There was nothing gentle, rhythmic, or graceful about their lovemaking. It was raw, sweaty, and primitive, and they were both almost clumsy in their urgency. Andrew started to grunt, low in his throat, and Laurel kept making sobbing sounds that got louder and louder as she rode toward climax.

She clawed at his back and his ass, trying to get him even closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed as tightly as she could, and she still couldn’t look away from his intent gaze, even though she felt completely vulnerable, completely known.

She surrendered to it, surrendered to the agonizingly intense sensations that overwhelmed her. She cried out helplessly as she reached climax, unable to hold anything back.

He came right after her, as if he’d just been holding on for her. He let out a loud, uninhibited sound before she felt him come in shudders and gasps above her. His release was as powerful as hers, and it took as much out of him.

He collapsed on top of her, and she clung to him desperately.

“Laurel,” he said hoarsely, his face buried against the curve of her neck. “Laurel.”

She loved the sound of his saying her name like that. She loved the way his body slowly softened above her, as if she’d given him what he desperately needed. She loved the way her own body yielded to draw him in.

She didn’t want him to ever get up.

Finally he did. He had to take care of the condom. He raised himself up with a reluctant groan and gently pulled out of her, making sure the condom didn’t leak.

She lay in an exhausted heap as he walked naked to the bathroom. She saw red scratches on his smooth back and his tight butt where she’d clawed at him. She heard the water in the sink running.

She wanted him to come back to bed with her. She wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her. She wanted to feel safe and treasured in his embrace. She didn’t want to let him go.

She sat up with a surge of panic as she realized what she was thinking.

It was wrong. It was wrong and dangerous. It was everything she’d spent her life protecting herself from.

Andrew was walking back to the bed. His face was relaxed and his eyes almost tender, as if he was coming to take her in his arms.

And it was so much more than she could handle.

She almost leaped out of the bed, grabbing for her dress and pulling it over her head in a clumsy rush. She couldn’t see her panties, so she didn’t take the time to look.

“What’s wrong?” Andrew asked, bewildered.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

She fled.

She ran out of the building and then up to her own quarters, her own room. She jumped into the shower, trying to wash Andrew off her body. She cleaned off the dirt. She cleaned off his sweat and hers. She cleaned off the evidence of her arousal. But none of it helped.

She cried a little bit, her tears streaming down with the water, and she wondered how she’d done this to herself and how she could get herself out.

She didn’t feel any better as she dried off and got dressed. She was still so terrified she was shaking with it.

Plus, she couldn’t help but think about Andrew, about how he must have felt when she ran away.

She went to check on Theo, but the dog was sleeping comfortably. She got a glass of water and drank it all the way down.

If she’d had sex like that with someone who had run away afterwards, she would be devastated and deeply offended.

She didn’t want Andrew to feel that way. He’d been so good to her. He didn’t deserve it. Even if she was scared about letting down all of her defenses, that didn’t justify being a coward.

She went back to his bedroom, but he wasn’t there. So she looked around the other areas of the inn until she found him on the pool deck.

He stood near the rail, looking out at the lowering sun over the caldera. He must have showered and was now dressed in a clean t-shirt and another pair of shorts.

He turned when he heard her approach.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run away.”

“Why did you?” His expression was quiet, careful, guarded in a way it almost never was.

She knew she’d hurt him.

She shook her head and lowered her eyes, but that was cowardly too, so she gave him an honest answer. “I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of you. Of everything. I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t know what’s going on here. It really scares me.”

Telling him the truth like that was brutally hard, but she knew it was the right thing when she saw his face transform.

He reached out for her and pulled her into a hug. She shook against him for a minute, releasing the pent up emotion, hugging him back as hard as she could. He smelled clean and felt strong. His body and his heart were so incredibly warm. And she needed him.

“I don’t know what’s going on either,” he murmured thickly, holding her tightly against him. “But please don’t run away from me again.”

“I don’t know why you can’t just trust me,” Laurel said, staring down at her folded hands on the table. “I have the deed. My husband inherited it from his grandfather, and then he gave it to me. I’m not making it up. The inn is really mine.”

Andrew sat across the table from her, leaning back in his chair. They’d just eaten breakfast on the kitchen patio, delaying the discussion for as long as they could.

They had to figure out what to do about the inn. They couldn’t put it off forever.

“I do trust you,” Andrew said, reaching over and covering one of her hands with his big, warm one. “And I know you’re not making this up, but that doesn’t solve our problem. You’ve acted in good faith in everything you’ve done, but my uncle has well-documented evidence that your husband’s grandfather didn’t legally own the inn at the time of his death so your husband should never have inherited it.”

Andrew’s face was utterly serious, not a trace of irony or humor. That alone made Laurel’s blood run cold, since it proved how firmly he believed his uncle’s claim was valid. He was telling her—probably in direct defiance of his uncle’s instructions—what the Damon claim on the inn was. This was the whole story she’d never known, and it might prove the inn wasn’t hers at all.

“I don’t understand how that’s possible.” She tried to sound natural and composed. “Surely Jerry wouldn’t have been able to inherit if the inn didn’t legally belong to his grandfather. Don’t they look into all that when they execute a will? How did he have the deed in his hands if he didn’t own it?”

“I don’t know. They should have looked into everything, but obviously they didn’t. You have to understand this was many years ago, and it involved several people over two continents. The lawyer who executed his grandfather’s will was not…” He cleared his throat. “He doesn’t appear to have been as careful as he should have been.”

“So why didn’t his grandfather legally own it? What does Damon Enterprises have to do with it?”

“His grandfather took out a large loan from a local bank, putting the inn up as collateral, and he defaulted on the loan. Ownership of the inn transferred to the bank.”

Dread built up in her stomach, her chest, her throat—as if she were about to hear something devastating. In an attempt to ward it off, she said, “No. That can’t be right. If the bank legally owned the inn, why didn’t it take possession years ago?”

“The bank itself went bankrupt and its assets were sold off in the process—to a subsidiary of Damon Enterprises. It was a very complicated legal process. The inn just slipped through the cracks because of the timing. No one followed up as they should have, and I guess your husband’s grandfather hoped the whole thing wouldn’t be discovered.”

“So that’s why you haven’t come after the inn until now. You didn’t realize it belonged to you?” She couldn’t believe what she was saying, what she was allowing herself to consider.

If she didn’t have the inn, she didn’t have anything.

Andrew would never try to cheat her, though. He just wouldn’t.

“So what do you think we should do?” She still felt uncomfortable asking anyone for help—even Andrew—but she didn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his face strained. “The only way the inn legally belongs to you is if his grandfather did in fact pay off his debt, but the bank’s records are pretty clear. If there was any evidence in your favor, I’d recommend to my uncle that possession of the inn should remain yours. I’d recommend it in a heartbeat, Laurel. But I have to have some sort of justification for it, or he’ll never agree to it. He’d just assign someone else to this, and they wouldn’t… they wouldn’t care about the outcome as I do. Evidence that your husband’s grandfather did in fact pay off the debt isn’t likely to turn up.”

She sat in silence for a moment, staring down at the table where Andrew’s hand still covered hers. She could feel him watching her. She knew he was hoping she was all right, that she wasn’t too hurt by this revelation.

But how could she not be hurt, when everything she’d worked for, everything that had given her security, was about to be ripped away from her.

“Can we…” She had to start over when her voice cracked. “Can we at least look to see if there’s any evidence that he paid off the debt. I know it’s not likely, but it seems like things were kind of a mess with the bank and the lawyers and everything. Maybe there was a mistake. Jerry really believed the inn was his. I didn’t know his grandfather, but Jerry wouldn’t have lied to me about that.”

“Okay. We can look. Do you have any sort of business records from your husband or anything passed down from his grandfather other than what you’ve showed me?” Andrew straightened up in his chair and looked relieved to have something to do.

Laurel was pretty sure he thought the attempt was hopeless, but it meant a lot that he was willing to try anyway.

“Jerry kept most of his stuff on computer. I’ve saved all his files. And then there are some boxes in storage of old papers and stuff. It all looked business-related but didn’t have to do with the inn, so I just boxed everything up and stored it after he died.”

“Okay. Let’s go get them and start looking through everything,” he said, standing up.

Laurel swallowed hard and stood up too. She smiled at him, trying to hide how upset she was.

She didn’t fool him. “Oh, Laurel,” Andrew murmured, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry.”

His compassion almost undid her. She shook against his chest, clinging to his strong body, taking comfort in how secure it made her feel. She couldn’t believe that someone really cared about her the way he did.

She couldn’t believe she cared so much about
him
.

Andrew pulled away, just far enough to kiss her gently on the mouth. Her lips clung to him as much as her body had.

“We’ll figure this out,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “I promise.”

She took one more shaky sigh and then felt strong enough to pull away. They had work to do, after all.

She was about to suggest they head to the storage room when Andrew’s phone range.

“It’s my uncle,” he said, checking the display.

“You take it. I’ll get Hector to help me with the boxes.”

He was greeting his uncle as she walked away. Before she found Hector, she went to an empty guestroom and sat on the bed, needing to be alone to pull herself together.

She was going to be all right. Even if she lost the inn, maybe Andrew would be willing to let Hector and Agatha stay on. Maybe she could get a job as a maid—since the Damons would probably want a bigger housekeeping staff than Laurel had ever kept.

She wasn’t afraid of hard work. She actually liked cooking and cleaning. It wouldn’t be the same, but maybe she wouldn’t have to leave her home after all.

The only problem would be the dogs, but Andrew might let them stay, as long as they didn’t interfere with the guests. They could sleep in her room. They wouldn’t need a big yard, since she could walk them. They’d adapt.

It was a possible plan anyway, and it gave her enough reassurance to feel better.

Underlying all of the other emotions was something else—something small and quivering but undeniable. Something that felt like hope.

She might lose the inn, but maybe she wouldn’t have to lose Andrew. Whatever was going on between them was real—for him as much as for her. She’d never let herself hope for a relationship like that, one that offered and expected everything, but maybe it wasn’t impossible.

It was too early to tell, but she couldn’t help but wonder. She couldn’t help but hope. If they could get through the situation with the inn, then maybe…

She couldn’t stand the thought of Andrew slipping out of her life completely.

Suddenly, guilt sliced through her, so sharp it actually hurt. Everything she felt for Andrew was completely real, completely genuine. But she’d lied to him—gone to great lengths to play him the first time they’d met. She’d actually been planning to fuck him and then use the footage from the security camera to get the Damons to back off. While she hadn’t been anything but genuine after that first day, she’d lied to him from the beginning. He didn’t know any of that.

She hugged her stomach and leaned over slightly as the weight of it suddenly pressed down on her. So many things had distracted her over the last weeks that she hadn’t thought about how she’d tried to use him at first, but she couldn’t forget forever. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to Andrew.

She had to tell him the truth.

He was such a sweet, generous man beneath the confident, charming persona. Maybe he could understand. Maybe he could forgive her.

With all those feelings jumbling around in her head, Laurel found Hector, and together they went to the storage room. They were starting to pick up the boxes when Andrew walked in.

“There you are. I thought maybe you’d gotten lost.” He grinned at her. He looked so adorable and so affectionate that she couldn’t bear to break the mood by telling him the truth right now. Besides, the idea terrified her—the possibility of losing everything she’d gained in the last two weeks.

“Sorry. These are the boxes with the old records. If we each take one, we can get them down in one trip.”

Andrew wouldn’t let Laurel carry one, since he thought it was too heavy for her back, so he carried two instead.

***

They brought the boxes to the office so they could go through Jerry’s files on the computer as well.

They spent six hours going through everything, looking at every sheet of paper and every computer document that had anything remotely to do with the inn, bankruptcy, debt, or collateral. They ate lunch as they worked, and Laurel had to lie on the floor a couple of times to rest her back when her chair got too uncomfortable.

They found nothing that could help them.

Finally, Andrew closed the last file. “I’m sorry, Laurel. It doesn’t look like there’s anything here. I’m not sure what else we can do. I’m just not any good at this. We need Harrison here.”

“You
are
good at it,” she objected automatically, not liking the slightly defeated note in his voice. “You’ve done everything you could. No one could have done better. If there’s not a way to figure this out, it’s not your fault.”

He gave her a fond half-smile. “Thank you for that. But what I said is unfortunately true. Harrison always had the mind for business. He can look at a complicated scenario and have it figured out in thirty seconds. Then he can envision the perfect plan to make it happen. If I have to, I’ll call him up and ask for help with this.”

She studied him, reading the conflict on this face. “Why don’t you want to do that? I thought you got along well with your brother.”

“I do, but he’s supposed to be taking a break from the business. I’m supposed to handle this situation.”

Laurel understood the self-deprecating irony in the tone immediately, and she understood why he was reluctant to ask his brother for help. Ridiculously, she wanted to hug him.

“Well, in all fairness, you did come up with one excellent plan for dealing with this situation—giving me money to make me go away. I’m the one who’s making it difficult.”

“You
are
making it difficult,” he murmured, a familiar smile warming his face and mingling with an affection that took her breath away. “I had a perfectly uncomplicated life before you came around. What am I going to do with you?”

They gazed at each other for a long time, until Laurel felt so soft and tender it made her nervous. She lowered her eyes.

“If this is all you have from your husband and his grandfather, I’m not sure there’s any evidence to find.” Andrew sounded overly matter-of-fact, as if he had to shake off similarly soft feelings.

“Oh,” she said, remembering. “There’s an old trunk that has some of his grandmother’s clothes and some books and things from his grandfather. I doubt anything would be in it, but I guess we should look.”

Andrew agreed, so they traipsed up to the storage room again and opened the trunk.

Most of it was old clothes and books, just as Laurel had remembered.

But in the old family Bible they found a number of folded documents from the family history—birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, and a letter from a local bank notifying Jerry’s grandfather that his loan had been fully repaid.

They both stared at the letter speechlessly.

“This is it,” Laurel said, bringing a hand to her mouth in amazement. “This is the evidence we need.”

Andrew tugged at his hair, his expression reflecting an odd mingling of excitement and disbelief. “Maybe. Maybe. We’d have to get it verified, of course, but this might be the answer we need.”

“So what should we do? Will you recommend to your uncle that…” She trailed off, not wanting to be presumptuous but so relieved it was hard not to be.

“I don’t know. I can’t make a recommendation until it’s verified. I better call him and see what he thinks.”

Laurel tried to repress the surge of hope as Andrew called up Cyrus Damon. She didn’t want to be crushed if things fell apart. She could only hear one side of the conversation, and most of it was Andrew explaining what they’d found and what it might mean. His uncle must have suggested he run it by Harrison first because Andrew said, “I know he’s the one who handled the assets from the bank, but he’s in France and isn’t here to deal with it.”