Sinful Attraction (6 page)

Claudia craned her neck, trying to take it all in.

Off in the gleaming granite kitchen, which was a football-field length away on the other side of the great room, pots steamed atop gas flames, and a woman of indeterminate age added spices to something that smelled savory and delicious. Claudia didn’t want to act like an uncouth idiot and shout a greeting to her across the vast space, so she raised a hand in a wave.

The woman nodded, then raised a wooden spoon and ducked her head to taste her creation.

One of the men whistled with appreciation.

“Great place,” Marcus said.

“We get that a lot around here,” Summer said with pride.

“Hang on.” Claudia ventured to the edge of the vast rug just inside the door, her attention snagged as she took a closer look at the moody black-and-white mantel photograph. “Is that an Ansel Adams?”

“Freeze!” Summer barked.

Claudia jumped with surprise, one booted foot hovering over the polished hickory floors, and looked wildly around, half expecting to see a dangerous creature like, say, a rattlesnake approaching. Marcus, acting quickly, grabbed her arm to keep her from losing her balance.

“What is it?” Claudia cried, getting both feet back onto the rug.

“We don’t wear shoes inside the house,” Summer admonished as though the rules inside Judah Cross’s house were well-known facts drilled into every kindergarten child in America. She had, Claudia noticed, already ditched her awful pink shoes, which were now sitting on a corner of the rug. “We don’t want to track any impurities into Judah’s haven, do we?”

Claudia, who tracked impurities into her own New York haven on a daily basis, blinked. “No?”

“No!” Smiling with that bottomless enthusiasm that Claudia was beginning to find a bit tiresome, Summer pointed them to a bench and set of cubbies next to the front door. “So we have a surprise for you—slippers!”

Each cubby sported a label with one of their names written in the kind of flawless calligraphy that Claudia normally saw on high-end wedding invitations. Inside her cubby was a pair of admittedly expensive sheepskin moccasins with fluffy shearling liners.

The slippers were pink.

Looking sadly down at her favorite Stuart Weitzman riding boots, which she’d had for years but had specially polished for this trip West, Claudia stifled her sigh. She tried to smile her thanks for the slippers and plunked herself down on the bench to put them on.

Marcus and Cooper sat on either side of her, sandwiching her between broad shoulders, long legs and testosterone.

“Wonderful! You’ll love them! They’re so comfortable!” Summer clapped her hands with a delight that Claudia frankly couldn’t understand. Jimmy Choos? Yeah, Claudia would clap for those. Fuzzy slippers? Not so much. “And what about your juice orders? We have wheatgrass, kale or chlorophyll.”

Claudia recoiled but focused on keeping her face horror-free.

Cooper made a soft sound of disgust in the back of his throat.

“Do you have anything that’s not...green?” Marcus asked pleasantly. “I’m partial to orange when it comes to juice.”

“Oh, we don’t have orange.” Summer crinkled her nose and waved a dismissive hand. “That doesn’t have any cleansing properties. I’ll just bring a sampling of several for all of you. You’ll love it. Trust me. I’ll be right back!”

With that, she bustled off across the enormous great room to the kitchen.

Claudia, Marcus and Cooper exchanged aghast looks as they went to work on their shoes. Marcus looked so disgusted that Claudia had to grin.

“Oh, cheer up,” she told him. “It’s one shot, and you’ll swallow it down like that nasty Scotch you’re so partial to. No big deal.”

“I did not come out here to be
cleansed,
” Marcus said darkly.

“What do you Americans say? Oh, yes. Cowboy up,” she said.

Marcus glared at her as she put her slippers on. “I like the pink,” he told her. “It’s a nice pop of color against all the black. Great look.”

“Ah, but not as nice as your pumpkin slippers,” she fired back.

“So, Claudia.” Cooper stretched out his legs to admire his olive slippers. “Marcus was doing all this yammering about this amazing woman he met last night—”

Marcus, who now had his left foot in a slipper, stiffened, looked up and glared at his brother with murder on his face.

“Coop,” he warned, low.

“—and I put two and two together and used my amazing analytical skills to determine that you’re the woman he was talking about, aren’t you?” Cooper continued smoothly. “I couldn’t get him to shut up about you. Surprised the hell out of me.”

A wave of heat rolled up Claudia’s neck and engulfed her cheeks in flames that felt hotter than the ones crackling in the fireplace. Ducking her head to avoid eye contact with either man, she concentrated on her shoes and her composure.

“I’m sure you misunderstood—”

“Oh, no misunderstanding,” Coop said cheerily, standing up and rocking back and forth to test his shoes. “You know why?”

“Cooper.”
Marcus sounded quietly apoplectic now.

“Because,” Cooper continued, “the thing about Marcus is, he doesn’t mention women to me. Ever. The last woman he mentioned to me? He married her.”

“Cooper!”

“You know, these are really comfortable,” Cooper pronounced, looking happily down at his slippers. “I may have to keep these when we leave—oh, hey, Summer looks like she needs some help.”

With that, he strode off to the kitchen to help Summer with a tray of juice, leaving Claudia alone with Marcus.

Chapter 9

A
sudden attack of nerves made Claudia regress into a twitchy preteen trying not to stare at her crush during recess. She cleared her throat. Brushed nonexistent lint off her jeans. Lined her boots up next to the bench, toes together. Caught herself fidgeting and tried to get a grip.

After a few minutes of letting her twist in the wind—she knew he was going to say something, so why didn’t he just get it over with?—Marcus leaned closer.

“So.” His low voice was as unabashedly sexy as a naked man sprawled across a rumpled bed first thing in the morning. “Fancy meeting you here.”

She snorted back a laugh but couldn’t conquer her grin or her blush. Marcus’s humor was, she decided on the spot, the most disarming thing about him. How could she hide behind her aloof demeanor and protective shell when he made it so easy to laugh with him?

“Yes. Fancy that.”

“Sleep good?”

Her unwilling grin widened, and she dared not look at him unless she wanted to melt into a puddle of milk chocolate on Judah Cross’s pristine floor. No melting for her! She would keep her wits about her, no matter how hard Marcus made it.

More fidgeting ensued, though. She shook her head and tugged an earlobe, then tried to disguise the ear tugging by smoothing her hair. Idiot! She was an absolute idiot!

“I slept wonderfully,” she finally replied, a lie.

“I couldn’t sleep at all.”

“Oh?” She kept her determined gaze on the proceedings in the kitchen, which seemed to be moving at a dead snail’s pace, and inched down the bench a bit, away from the solid heat of his thigh next to hers. “How unfortunate for you. Perhaps some warm milk...?”

He put a hand over his heart. “I’m touched by your concern.”

Silence for a beat or two. She crossed her legs, trying to look bored.

“Why did you walk out on me last night?” he asked when the tension had risen to screaming level.

Despite the increased distance between them, his voice seemed to be directly in her ear—under her skin—and it was disconcerting, especially when it had that hurt note in it.

Do not let this man get to you,
she told herself sternly.
Do not let him in.

“If you check the record,” she answered crisply once she was reasonably sure she had her voice under control, “I’m sure you’ll see that I didn’t walk out on you. And we did talk. You told me that you were also trying to land Judah Cross’s auction, we agreed that we’d dodged a bullet just in time, because we’re competitors with no business canoodling with each other, and I left. End of story.”

Marcus shook his head and looked irritated. “First, you walked out on me without giving me a chance to explain how we could manage our relationship—”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“—while still pursuing our business interests. Second, we didn’t dodge a bullet, we missed a beautiful opportunity to consummate our relationship—”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

“—and, third, it’s not canoodling when you have a relationship, so it’s not the end of the story at all, is it, Claudia?”

“My God,” she said around a disbelieving half laugh, “you really don’t listen, do you? Is it a hearing impediment? Is that the problem?”

She turned to face him and shoot off some further response that would no doubt be both cutting and witty, but that was when she noticed how close they were. Their thighs were once again touching, and he now had his arm slung across the back of the bench, dangerously near her shoulder. Worse, he was leaning closer to her again, and she, bleeding idiot that she was, had eased to within kissing distance of him without even noticing.

Why did these things happen whenever she was around him?

It was as if the man had a magnetic core and she’d ingested several pounds of iron shavings: her body couldn’t stay away from his no matter what her outmatched mind wanted. Or maybe she was a silly mouse whose leg had been snared in a trap but still couldn’t resist a few licks of the peanut butter that had lured her to her doom in the first place.

This man was not for her, she told herself firmly.

And yet she couldn’t get her muscles to move away.

“I was listening then and I’m listening now,” he said reasonably. “But it’s hard for me to listen when you walk out in the middle of an important conversation.”

The thinking part of her brain—what was left of it—told her to blow him off, hightail it to the kitchen, where there was safety in numbers, and avoid him for the rest of their shared time in Jackson Hole. But when they were face-to-face like this, and his entire being seemed poised and alert for whatever she might deign to say next, it was hard to remember that he was a danger to all her interests—professional and personal. Or that it was best not to get tangled up with him in any way, ever.

How the hell had she gotten herself into this mess?

“Look,” she said, turning all her frustration and irritation inward, on herself, because she was the problem here, not him. Marcus was only trying to get laid, which was what men did, and he was just more persistent than many. “I’m going to make this as clear as I can. And then at the end, I can draw you a diagram with little stick figures if you like. Anything to help this get through your thick skull.”

“Stick figures?” One edge of his mouth curled. “I look forward to that.”

“This trip out to Jackson Hole to land Judah Cross’s auction may be a fun jaunt for you and your brother, the mighty Davies men of the mighty Davies and Sons auction house. And you have several advantages over me, because your house’s reputation precedes you and Judah Cross is apparently an old friend of yours. For all I know, he’s your ‘godfather’ or ‘uncle’—” she made quotation marks with her fingers “—or some such nonsense.”

A shadow darkened his face.

“And if for some reason you don’t get this auction, you’ll just wait until next week, when some other icon, like Bruce Springsteen or the Stones or someone like that, decides they need you for
their
auction.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened, as though he was grinding his teeth.

“But
I
have moved to a new continent to try and jump-start my career,” she continued. “I mostly handle rare books, yes, but this is a brilliant chance for me to broaden my horizons and make a name for myself in my new job. Because for some bewildering reason, I’m on Judah Cross’s radar, which is why he invited me out here. And I don’t want to blow the biggest opportunity of my career.”

“I get it,” he said quietly.

She was in no mood to be pitied. “No, you don’t get it. You don’t get the half of it. Because on top of it all, I haven’t even reminded you of my younger brother, whose university bills I’m footing even though he’s too idiotic to appreciate what I’m doing for him. But I have to do it, because I don’t want him moving in with me and sleeping on my sofa, and an education is the best way to get him on his way to becoming a functioning member of society.” She paused for a breath. “So that’s why this opportunity is important to me.”

“Claudia,” he tried again.

“Tell me, Marcus, who’s depending on you? I really want to know. Who will suffer financially if you don’t land this client? The tailor who cuts your suits? The detailer who takes care of your fancy car for you? Who, Marcus? Anyone?”

“Look,” he said, then had to break off to swipe a hand over his head. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. Even then, he didn’t quite seem to know what to say. “Look,” he began again. “You’re right.”

This was a surprise. “What?”

“You’re right.” He shrugged, abruptly turning and nailing her with a look of such open earnestness that she almost needed to turn away. He continued, his color high and his voice husky. “You’re right, okay? This would be a great auction for our house, but it won’t make or break us. We’ll go on either way.”

“Oh.” There was something about his concession that took the wind out of her sails. She was used to fighting for everything she had. She wasn’t used to winning.

“So we can withdraw from consideration.”

She cocked her head, certain she’d misheard. “Withdraw?”

“Yeah. Pull out. Coop won’t be happy, and he’ll take a little convincing, but—”

“Hang on.” Humiliation flickered to life inside her, building heat and swelling through the wall of her chest. “You’re saying you’ll...
what?
Give me the auction because I’m so pathetic I can’t win it on my own? Am I getting this right?”

His brows straight-lined into a frustrated frown. “Don’t twist my words, Claudia.”

“By all means, then.” The heat had now climbed up her neck and risen to her cheeks, probably making her incandescent. “Explain how you don’t think I’m a charity case.”

“That never crossed my mind. That’s not what this is about.”

“What’s it about, pray tell?”

“It’s about the fact that exploring a relationship with you is more important to me than an auction. It’s about my willingness to do whatever it takes to make you and me happen.”

Claudia gaped at him, as much from shock that he’d say such a thing—oh, the pretty words!—as from dismay that the words meant so much to her. Even now, as she told herself not to get her head turned or her feelings hurt, another part of her brain was wondering if he might mean it...if they could figure this out...if he could possibly want her as much as she wanted him.

She tried to joke it away because she couldn’t think what else to do. “That’s a lot of effort to go through to get laid, isn’t it, darling?”

“Darling.”
His frown deepened. “I could get used to the way you say that. So don’t say it unless and until you mean it.”

Outrage got the best of her. Why couldn’t she win a point—even a tiny one—in this mating game between them? And why was it feeling less and less like a game and more like something...real?

“There are millions of other women in the world, Marcus. Any of them would be happy to screw you.”

He shrugged, looking irritated. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s irrelevant because I want
you.
”

Flustered, she clasped her hands in her lap. “You don’t really—”

“I. Want. You.”

His voice was soft but his gaze was intent and unyielding, and she suddenly realized that she’d have better luck asking Mount Everest to move six inches to the left than she would talking Marcus out of pursuing her.

The thing was, it made no sense. Men, starting with the father who’d disappeared before she was born and never made an appearance in her life, had never seen anything special about her. Hence, the unfortunate series of short romances and breakups, dotted with the occasional one-night stands that she’d endured over the years. If there was a loser, she attracted him, and her ego had the dings to prove it. Oh, sure, she puts lots of time and energy into projecting the facade of the sophisticated career woman, but that was the thing about facades—there was no reality behind them.

Shooting a glance into the kitchen, where Summer was still chattering and Cooper was warily peering into the juicer, apparently trying to decide whether he dared drink its beet-red contents, she decided it might be best to disabuse Marcus now of the mistaken notions he seemed to have about her.

“I’m not special, you know. In fact, I’m guaranteed to be a pain in your arse—”

“Worse than you are now?”

“—and you’re bound to regret any involvement with me.”

His eyes narrowed with clear hostility to this idea. “Do tell.”

“Now is not the time for me to catalog all the various neuroses my absentee father caused in my life. Or how this makes me a clingy nut job when it comes to relationships—”

He laughed.

“This is not funny,” she cried. “I bare my darkest secrets to you, and you laugh? Perhaps you’re the nutter here, Marcus. You’re certainly rude.”

“Sorry.” He made a show of wiping the smile from his face even if he couldn’t quite tamp down the amusement in his eyes. “But I disagree with everything you just said.”

“That’s because you want to get laid! You’ll say anything! Talking to you right now is like talking to a drug addict who wants his next fix! Your brain chemistry is all screwed up— Why are you glaring at me like that?”

He leveled her with a look that plainly said the fun-and-games portion of the conversation was now over. “First of all, I’m a grown man,” he told her. “Do I want you? Hell, yeah. But I can still think straight. Appreciate the concern, though.”

That shut her up.

“Second, I don’t know what happened with any previous relationships you may have had, and I don’t want to think about that too much, because thinking of some other man touching you makes me want to put my fist through the nearest wall, and since the walls here are made of logs, that doesn’t seem like a very good idea. So I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that you’ve never met the right man.”

Claudia stilled, stunned.

“Third, I’m going to educate you about what the right man looks like, so that when you meet him, you’ll know what you’re dealing with.”

“Marcus,” she tried, “I just think—”

“Be quiet, Claudia. That’s your problem in a nutshell. You think too much.”

Wait,
what?
Did he just tell her to be quiet?

“Don’t you dare—” she began, swelling with indignation.

“Be. Quiet. You’ve already had your say. Now I...am...talk-ING.”

Wide-eyed and breathless, she shut up.

“The right man, Claudia,” he continued sharply, “is the one who’s as fascinated by this—” he tapped her temple with his index finger “—as he is by this.” He waved a hand up and down her body. “He’s the one who wants to hear what you have to say and know what you’re thinking. He’s the guy who looks at you and sees a kick-ass woman who’s brave enough to go out there and take risks and stretch her wings to support her family even though she’s afraid. He’s the guy who sees you’ve got the heart to do the right thing by your brother even though it’s the tough thing for you.”

Claudia made a choked sound, probably because she could no longer breathe.

“The right guy,” Marcus went on, his voice softening, “is the guy who sees that your fear and your tough past are making you throw up roadblocks as fast as you can, even if you have to manufacture them. And he’s the one who’ll stick it out with you as long as it takes.” He paused, his mouth twisting with some emotion she couldn’t quite read. “He’s not going anywhere.”