Snowbound with the CEO (5 page)

Even now, the memory made his heart clutch. And, judging by her misty eyes, his emotion wasn’t lost on Rachel, either. But before he could say anything else, her phone rang. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t ignore it.

It wasn’t anybody from the office. She was on friendly terms with the entire staff, and it sounded like the person on the other end wasn’t somebody she knew very well. She mostly listened for a few minutes, and then thanked whoever was on the other end before ending the call.

She sighed. “Good news. They’ve got the roads open, which means we can head back to the city if we’re careful.”

He didn’t think that was good news at all. As soon as they got in his SUV and he pointed it toward Boston, he had no doubt Rachel would start calling him Mr. Blackstone again.

“Of course, if you’re not comfortable driving in iffy conditions, we can wait until morning,” she continued.

He got the feeling she wasn’t any happier about the highway being cleared than he was. “Or we can take the weekend.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Friday and it would be late by the time we got home. Why not enjoy the weekend here and go home Sunday?”

“I...I don’t know.” She looked down at her phone, as if it would offer up an answer. “I don’t even know if our rooms are available.”

Logistics, he could handle. He wanted to know how she
felt
about spending the weekend with him. “I’ll take care of that. And I was thinking we’d only need one room, which makes it easier.”

He couldn’t really make the invitation any more blatant than that without spelling it out. And now that they were free to leave, he was surprised by how much it meant to him that she choose to stay.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.” He gave her what he thought of as his charming smile, since that’s what his mother had always called it when he tried using it on her. “What happens in New Hampshire stays in New Hampshire. Like Vegas, only a lot colder.”

“How can I pass up an invitation like that?”

Her eyes met his, simmering with everything he felt inside, and he knew that one of the best days he’d ever had was going to turn into one of the best weekends ever.

Chapter Four

Rachel transferred the contents of the top dresser drawer back to her suitcase, then added the few items left hanging in the closet. If she hung them up again as soon as they got to Adrian’s room, she shouldn’t have to press them again.

“It’s two doors down. Why can’t we just carry it all in a few trips?”

She looked at Adrian, who had sprawled in the armchair after she refused his help packing. “I’m not carrying my underwear down the hall, no matter how few doors it is.”

“I could walk behind you and pick up any you drop.”

She laughed and carefully double-checked each drawer to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Then she went into the bathroom to do a final sweep of the vanity. When she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she stopped, staring at her reflection.

Sharing a hotel room with Adrian Blackstone. Even though she’d gone through the motions of packing up her belongings, she could still hardly believe it was happening. And she wasn’t sure it
should
be happening.

Spending one night together after a few too many drinks in the bar was one thing. Then they’d spent the day together, which wasn’t particularly newsworthy in and of itself. They spent many days together in the office and while traveling. But today had been different. They’d been almost like a couple. Sharing a hotel room was only going to amplify that sense of being a couple rather than two people having a quick fling to burn off the chemistry between them.

When Adrian’s face appeared in the mirror, Rachel jumped a little and watched the blush spread across her cheeks. When he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, their reflected gazes locked.

“While your mind is one of the things I find sexiest about you,” he said, “I get the feeling you’re thinking too hard right now.”

There was too much at stake not to think hard about it. Thinking, however, was hard to do now that his body was pressed against hers and his breath was blowing across her cheek. “It’s too late now. We told them I was vacating this room.”

“It’s never too late.” He kissed the side of her neck before meeting her gaze in the mirror again. “We can get a second room. Or, with the roads open now, I can go stay at that motel we passed on the way in.”

While the words were comforting to hear, as soon as he said them, Rachel knew that wasn’t what she wanted. If this time in New Hampshire was all the time she’d have with Adrian outside of work, she intended to make the most of every minute. “Are you trying to get out of that romantic dinner you promised me?”

“Not a chance.” His hands slid down her hips. “Let’s give this room back to housekeeping before I forget we’re not supposed to be here anymore.”

They were able to move her belongings in one trip and, when his door closed behind them, she suddenly felt incredibly awkward. Even though she’d spent the night in this room, it was different somehow. Now it was
their
room.

Housekeeping had been through it, obviously, as the bed they’d messed up together was neatly made and everything was immaculate. Habit got her moving and she hung her clothes in the closet next to Adrian’s and took the empty second dresser drawer.

“They didn’t give me any decaf for after dinner,” he muttered, digging through the coffee packets housekeeping had replenished.

Now
that
she could handle. Back on familiar footing, Rachel started for the phone. “I’ll call down and have them bring some up.”

Adrian caught her halfway to the phone and hauled her up against his body. “Hey. You’re off the clock, Ms. Carter.”

“It’ll only take me a second.”

“I bet it would only take me a second to get you naked.” He made a growling sound against her neck that made her laugh.

“I haven’t finished unpacking yet.”

“Am I disrupting your organizational plan?”

He was disrupting everything from her organizational plan to her ability to form a coherent and logical thought. Then he kissed her, his fingers working at the buttons on her blouse, and she forgot all about her halfway-unpacked suitcase.

“Let’s go over my schedule for the evening.” He freed the last button and pushed her blouse off her shoulders. “We can go down to the dining room and have a fancy, romantic dinner.”

That sounded so much less appealing than it had earlier, before his thumbs were stroking her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra. “Or?”

“Or, I can make love to you, order room service and then make love to you again.”

Rachel threw back her head as he began blazing a trail of hot kisses down her throat. “I do believe, Mr. Blackstone, that option B would be the most efficient use of your time.”

He tugged her toward the bed they would share for the rest of the weekend, his dark gaze smoldering as it ran over her body. “Then let’s see how efficiently I can get those clothes off.”

* * *

Saturday morning dawned calm and clear, with the sun reflecting off the icy trees and landscape. The sun’s glare was deceptive, though, and Rachel shivered in the chilly air.

“Are you cold?”

She squeezed Adrian’s glove-covered hand. “Not cold enough to go back inside.”

After they’d finally rolled out of bed and devoured a room service breakfast to replenish their strength after a long night of lovemaking, Adrian had suggested they go outside for a walk. Since her muscles were just slightly sore, though in a good way, and she was thankful the activity didn’t involve skis, she’d agreed.

They each had a coat, gloves and boots in Adrian’s SUV, since only idiots went on a winter road trip in New England without them, but Rachel had stopped in the hotel shop to buy a pretty scarf that had caught her eye on Friday. Now they were walking hand-in-hand along the resort’s scenic paths, which had already been cleared by the grounds crew. It was quiet and romantic, and it would have to turn a lot colder for Rachel to want the walk to end.

She felt a need to fill the silence, though. If she gave her thoughts too much freedom to wander, they started wandering toward how this weekend would affect their working relationship and she was trying not to do that. This was like a Christmas present she was giving herself and she’d worry about the repercussions later.

“The sun’s beautiful when it reflects off the ice in the trees,” she said. “I don’t spend a lot of time outside in the winter, plus we don’t really have views like this in the city.”

“What
do
you do when you’re not at the office?” he asked.

“Sleep.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Come on. I don’t work you
that
hard.”

“When I’m not at work I do errands and my laundry and clean my apartment. Stuff like that. I’m not really a club kind of person, but I go to the movies a lot with my friends. Then there’s shopping. And reading. I like to cook, too. How about you?”

“If I have a few days off in a row, I usually try to go home to Vermont. Other than that, I work a lot. I read a lot of trade publications and I like to travel, so to speak, via the internet. You can see almost any place on the planet online. And I try to take in a Bruins game with some friends now and then.”

It was first-date chit-chat, and that made Rachel smile. They’d known each other a long time but, when it came to their personal lives, there was still a lot of mystery. For instance, she hadn’t had any idea he was a hockey fan. Unlike some employers she’d worked for in the past, he didn’t ask or expect her to manage his personal affairs.

“I don’t know a lot about hockey,” she confessed. “But my dad’s a huge baseball fan. It’s one of the reasons he didn’t fight my mom when she suggested moving to Florida. Spring training.”

“I played baseball when I was a kid. Star pitcher, actually.”

“Nobody ever says they were a lousy pitcher. Everybody was a star.”

He made an affronted sound and stopped walking. “You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. I was just making an observation.” She tried not to laugh at his offended expression, but failed.

“Watch this.” He walked off to a snowbank and packed a snowball. Then he pointed at a sign a ways off. When he threw the snowball and it smacked the center of the sign, he turned with a smug grin.

The snowball she’d hastily packed hit him in the chest and she laughed until he bent to scoop more snow into his hands. Then, with a squeal, she ducked behind a huge tree and tried to build a snow arsenal of her own.

The battle raged for a while, both of them dodging from cover to cover, until she was breathless and roasting in her coat. Then she caught him out in the open, unarmed, and launched her last snowball. He turned at the last second, so the deliberately soft ball exploded in his hair.

With a roar, he charged and took her down into a snowbank, landing on top of her. “I think you left out a little detail about your upbringing.”

She gave him an innocent look. “Oh, didn’t I mention the high school softball championships?”

“Star pitcher?”

“Catcher, actually.”

“Ah. That explains your cynicism toward pitchers.”

She slapped his shoulder. “I’m not cynical. I’m just saying, somewhere there has to be somebody who was a suck pitcher back in the day.”

“And he’s telling nobody.”

“You’re heavy and I’m not dressed to roll around in snowbanks with you.” The cold was seeping into her body just as surely as the moisture from the snow was soaking into her jeans.

He pushed himself to his feet, then put out his hand to haul her up. “At least you don’t have snow melting down your back.”

“Because I was smart enough to put my hood up.”

“We should go back to the room and get you out of those wet clothes.”

Heat curled through her body, chasing away the chill. “I hope housekeeping brought my laundry back or I won’t have dry clothes to put on.”

“I’m not seeing the problem there.”

Rachel laughed and took his hand, trying to keep up as he walked back to the hotel a lot faster than they’d walked away from it.

* * *

Adrian restrained himself until they were safely behind the closed door of their room, but as soon as it clicked closed, he pressed her up against the door and kissed her like he might never get to kiss her again.

He managed to get both of their coats off without taking his lips from hers, but her shirt was a pullover so he had to break away to further his cause of getting her naked. She obviously had the same plan because she was working on the buttons of his shirt. He undid his fly to release some of the pressure and to allow her to yank the shirt out of his pants.

“We need to get you out of those pants,” he said. “Don’t want you catching a cold.”

“They’re a bit damp.”

“Really?” He grinned.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Funny. Help me get my boots off if you want these pants off me anytime soon.”

He led her to the bed and had her sit on the edge so he could pull her boots off. Then he grabbed the hems of her pants and started tugging on them. With each yank, she slid a little down the bed. Laughing, she worked them down over her hips before she ended up on the floor. Then he paused to enjoy the view.

“Do you need help with your boots?” she asked.

“There’s a reason I wear pull-on boots with no laces.”

“In case you have a sudden urge to have sex with somebody you shoved into a snowbank?”

“Exactly. I would have been a Boy Scout if there was a badge for that kind of preparation.” He kicked off his boots and ditched the rest of his clothes in less time than it had taken to get one of her boots off.

“‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.’”

“I love a woman who can quote classic movie lines during sex.”

She laughed, opening her arms as he climbed onto the bed and lowered himself over her. “I had no idea you were so easy. I would have added some movie channels to my basic cable.”

“Get some of those pay-per-view channels and you’ll get some movie quotes that would blow my socks off.”

“Speaking of socks, I have more clothes on than you.”

“Not for long.”

He started by pulling off her socks but skipped over the lace panties, heading north to the bra that lifted her breasts. The satin material did little to hide her nipples and he sucked one into his mouth. His tongue slid over the bra, teasing her until she whimpered. Hooking his finger under the lace, he pulled down the damp fabric to expose her entire breast. Then, while he lavished attention there, he reached down and pushed her panties down far enough so she could kick them off.

Adrian took his time touching her. He loved the feel of her skin and the taste of her. And when she finally begged for him to be inside her, he loved the heat of her. He moved slowly, with an easy rhythm, hoping to prolong things even while knowing it was futile. She felt too good.

He quickened his pace as her fingernails bit into his shoulders, and groaned when her climax hit. She tightened around him and said his name on a breathless pant. That was all it took. He moaned, spilling into the condom as his body pulsed.

With his muscles sapped of strength by their snowball fight and another orgasm, he rested for a moment before dropping the condom in the trash and stretching out next to her.

“‘Are you not entertained?’” she mumbled.

He turned his head to look at her. “What?”

“It’s from
Gladiator.
With Russell Crowe.”

He laughed and tucked her against his body before closing his eyes. Just for a minute.

* * *

Rachel jerked awake, which took her by surprise. She hadn’t napped in the middle of the day for so long, she couldn’t remember the last time. Of course, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had incredible sex in the middle of the day, either.

When she heard a chime, she realized her cellphone had woken her and reached for it. Adrian resisted, trying to hold her back, but she stretched her arm out and snagged it.

The office number was flashing on the caller ID screen, and a guilty flush heated her skin. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help it. She was naked next to the boss.

But she couldn’t bring herself to let the call go to voicemail. The staff never called her just to chat. She just prayed Adrian would be quiet. Not that whoever was on the other end of the line would jump to the conclusion they were in bed together if Adrian’s voice was heard in the background since that happened fairly often, but Rachel knew. That was bad enough.