Taming the Tycoon (7 page)

Visions of the huge bed waiting for them upstairs tightened everything another notch.

“Such a cute couple,” Eunice beamed at them. “Aren’t they cute, Delphine?”

Nathaniel’s mother nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, definitely a keeper, this one.”

Addie’s smile felt one hundred percent fake, but that was the least of her worries as Nathaniel’s hand started a lazy stroke back and forth along the length of her thigh.

For a moment everything froze.

And then melted into a puddle as lust spread to her muscles, undulating like sultry saxophone music, licking flames to every erogenous zone she owned and a few new ones she hadn’t realized she possessed.

“So, about your knitting,” Addie said desperately, trying to get her mind off the heat that was practically melting her clothes off. “Have you ever thought of selling it in the retail market?”

Another pass of his hand. Rippling through her pelvic floor like a serpent, fanning heat deep inside her until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She placed a stilling hand on his. He looked down at her, then at their hands and then back at her, confusion in his gaze.

Had he not been aware he was doing it?

Good.
Hopefully he hadn’t also been aware of what it was doing to her. She removed her hand from his.

“Oh no, dear,” Eunice said. “It’s just a hobby.”

Nathaniel’s cessation and Eunice’s words dragged Addie back from the broiling pit of lust marinating her insides and she was able to think a little straighter. Although the warm press of him down her side was still distracting.

“I think these would sell like a bomb in London,” she said. “I’d take some for my business in a flash.”

Eunice stopped knitting. She looked at Delphine then back at Addie, peering at her over the top of her glasses. But it was Nathaniel who spoke first.

“Come now…
darling
…you know how competitive the retail market is in London.”

Addie blinked as he frowned down at her.
What on earth was his problem?
“Natural fibers are huge,” she said, fixing a smile on her face that hurt like blazes. “Particularly in my field.”

“Yes, but you couldn’t promise that anyone would go for them when there are so many high-end women’s fashion stores around.
Particularly
at the docks.”

Addie gritted her teeth as their gazes locked. “I know my clientele fairly well.”

“Do you really think there might be interest?” Eunice interrupted.

Nate looked at his grandmother. “Grandy…”

“Nate,” his mother said. “Let’s hear Addie out.”

Addie felt suddenly self-conscious as all eyes settled on her. She was aware of Nate’s broodingly intense ones in particular. “I do. I
really
do. Nate’s right, you can’t always predict the market, but I could certainly trial some for a while.”

Eunice sat forward in her seat. “Really?”

Addie smiled her first genuine smile since Nathaniel had parked his delectable backside next to her. “Really.”

“I don’t think you should get your hopes up, Grandy,” Nathaniel interjected.

“Wouldn’t that be marvelous, Delphine?” Eunice beamed, ignoring her grandson’s caution.

“Have you got some more stock?” Addie asked.

“Oh yes.” Eunice nodded. “I’ll show you in the morning if you like.”

The lights came on as Addie nodded. “See,” Eunice said, beaming at Nathaniel. “It’s a sign!”

Nathaniel went to say something but Eunice was standing and gathering her knitting. “Right. Time for bed. Farm life starts early,” she chirped.

Nathaniel’s mother also stood. “I’m off, too.”

Addie rose to her feet, missing the warmth down her side but not the skip in her pulse. “I’ve had the most wonderful day,” she said to them, her pulse tripping again as as Nathaniel stood beside her all large and warm and male.

“It’s been our pleasure, Addie,” his mother said, reaching out to squeeze her arm, “definitely our pleasure.”

Delphine kissed her son on the cheek. “Good night, darling,” she said. “It’s so great to have you home.”

Eunice also pecked him on the cheek. “Here,” she said to Addie, thrusting a plastic tub at her. “This is for his thigh. A little pot of magic.” She patted Addie’s hand. “Make sure you massage it in good and hard.”

Eunice shuffled past them with a spring in her step as Addie looked down at the offering.

And tried not to think about good. Or hard.

…

Nate rounded to the far side of the bed and threw his crutches on the snowy white quilt. He needed some barrier between them. He wasn’t sure if it was about the shawls, the enforced snuggling on the couch, or the instructions his meddling old biddy of a grandmother had given Addie, but he was pissed.

Good and hard
.

He hadn’t been able to think of anything else for the time it had taken him to traverse the distance to the bedroom with his damned hindering crutches. Especially with Addie’s butt swaying like a hypnotist’s watch in front of him with every swing of her hips.

“Don’t encourage them,” he said testily. “I don’t want their hopes up, only for you to dash them when nobody buys some weird alpaca ponchos.”

They may exasperate him, but he loved those two women and would defend them with his life. He didn’t want anyone taking them for a ride.

And the very last thing he wanted was for Addie to ingratiate herself into his life even more.

Addie raised an eyebrow. “You obviously know zip know about women’s fashion.”

He snorted. “I know plenty about women’s clothing.”

Addie shoved her hands on her hips. “Peeling women out of it doesn’t count.”

Nathaniel ignored the jibe because he did not need to think about peeling Addie out of those denim cutoffs. “I won’t have them hurt, Addie.”

“You think that’s what I want?”

“I think you’re going to waltz out of their lives as quickly as you waltzed in.”
With any luck.

He took a step forward, about to make the point about being the one left to pick up the pieces when the fashion world was not laid asunder by quaint Devonshire alpaca fashions, but his thigh twinged and he grabbed for the bed.

Addie frowned and headed toward him. “Are you okay?”

Nathaniel held up a hand to ward her off. He did not need her fussing over him. She needed to stay on her side of this bloody debauched bed!
“I’m fine,” he said irritably. “Just not used to farm work anymore, I guess.”

Addie stalled by the end of the bed. “You overdid it.”

“Mum is in her sixties. Grandy is eighty.
Eight zero!
They’re doing the work of much younger people. All that heavy lifting and carting can’t be good for them.” He absently massaged his thigh. “I keep employing farm hands to help them and they keep sending them away.”

She took a step toward him. “That must be frustrating.”

He snorted at the understatement. How was he supposed to achieve his own goals when he was worried that one of them was going to fall and break a hip? “You have
no
idea.”

“There’s this?” she said holding up the tub.

Nathaniel looked at it. A little tub of temptation.

Good and hard
.

Was that how Eve offered the apple to Adam? All big gray eyes? All
good and hard
?

She rolled the pot in her hands. “Your grandmother seems to think it’s magic.”

Nathaniel followed the circular motion of her hands. Could almost feel her rubbing it into his aching thigh muscle. So damned close to another muscle he did not trust to behave itself during such an encounter.

“My grandmother thinks the sun rising is magic,” he said. “And that fairies play at the bottom of the garden. And trust me, that—whatever homemade remedy it is from the great white witch Eunice—is going to smell. Really, really bad. I know this from many unforgettable childhood incidents. Apparently if it doesn’t smell bad, it doesn’t work.”

Addie looked at the pot. “Okay. But you can’t sleep on the floor tonight.”

Nathaniel doubted he could even get down on the floor at the moment. His frustration level cranked up another notch. “Fine,” he conceded.

They both looked at the bed. Big and large and white.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” Addie mused.

Nathaniel nodded. “Nope,” he agreed, staring some more. It was the same bed he always slept in. He’d just never noticed how decadent it was before.

“The pillows down the middle idea doesn’t seem so crazy now, does it?” she asked.

He looked at her, all big gray eyes and lovely mouth and that stretchy T-shirt molding her breasts to perfection.

She so wasn’t his type.

And he still wanted her.

How on earth was he going to lie next to her all night and not wind up reaching for her when his body was telling him that was exactly what he should do?

He couldn’t control his subconscious. His five a.m. wakeup call was a classic example of that.

He looked at her across acres of mattress.
They were going to need a bigger bed
.

Chapter Six

The ensuite door opened and Addie quickly shut her eyes, pulling the sheet over her head as her heartbeat rocketed into the stratosphere.

“I’m perfectly decent, Addie.”

Unfortunately, while the thick luscious sheet with the gorgeous antique lacy edge blocked out his image, it did nothing for the derisive tone in his voice. She pulled the sheet down and glared at him.

Or at least that was her intention until she discovered that their definitions of decent were completely at odds.

He was absolutely, one hundred percent, wickedly
in
decent.

His plain black T-shirt was snug against him and she could practically see every muscle in the sculpted perfection of his chest. A pair of boxer briefs clung to his muscular thighs—thighs that, thanks to a pair of scissors belonging to a paramedic, she’d already caught a glimpse of but somehow looked even more potent upright and moving toward her despite the limp.

They also clung to other aspects of his anatomy outlining every detail.

And there was a
lot
of detail.

Good God. She
had
been sleeping with boys!

She suddenly understood the delightful Victorian habit of swooning that seemed appropriate in this room.

He might as well have strutted out naked.

Addie could feel her cheeks warm and her glare turned to a scowl as he lifted the sheet and sat on the side of the bed. She felt the mattress dip and shifted closer to her edge.

He eased his injured leg in first, then slid the rest of his body in beside her. His just out of the shower aroma—soap and toothpaste—wafted toward her as he ruffled the covers and her belly clenched.

Please, God, let him snore like a train. Give the man one imperfection!

“I have some reports to go over. Will the light bother you?”

Addie looked at him surprised—did the man never sleep? But that was a mistake. Up close she could see that his hair was damp and curled slightly at the back. His teeth were white. His mouth truly was as wicked as she remembered.

“You do know what they say about all work and no play, right?”

The instant it was out and a very distinct gleam formed in his eyes, she regretted it. She hadn’t meant it like that. She just meant that he was missing out on his life.

He raised an eyebrow. “You wanna play?”

Addie swallowed as his low suggestion fanned the hum in her blood to a roar. She doubted very much this man played fair.

“No,” she said so primly even she winced. God, she sounded like Sister Mary Agnes at the strict Catholic girl’s school she’d gone to.

Sister Mary Agnes would not have approved of this scenario.

“But for what it’s worth, I think you’re heading for a heart attack—didn’t your father die of one in his forties? Genetics play a pretty scary role in heart disease.”

She noticed a nerve ticking at his jaw as he grabbed the paperwork from off his bedside table and regretted mentioning his father.

She sighed. “Maybe it wouldn’t kill you to take a night off.”

“You don’t build an empire by taking nights off,” he said tersely.

She rolled up on her elbow and looked across the breech between them. He seemed a long way away, hardly conducive to conversation.

Or intimacy.

Which was a good, good thing.

“What’s your rush, Nate?” she asked.

Nathaniel looked at her. “I’m a driven kind of a guy. Something wrong with that?” He bristled. “You want to drift along in life smelling the roses, that’s fine.
I
have goals.”

Addie didn’t doubt him for a second—she’d need a saw to cut through the conviction in his voice. “Those roses smell pretty damn good.”

She felt his glare all the way down to her toes. “Please tell me you’re not going to start in on me about the bloody garden.”

“Why not?” She smiled innocently. “When I have such a captive audience?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in my underwear.”

In case she hadn’t noticed
? She was practically drooling all over his grandmother’s antique sheets. But she shrugged anyway, reaching for nonchalant. Like she debated the merits of English heritage in bed with men she hardly knew every night of the week.

“So am I. I think that’s called a level playing field.”
For once.