Taming the Tycoon (9 page)

“Thank you, my dear.” Eunice beamed. “Born on the autumnal equinox eighty years ago.” She sucked in a mammoth breath and let it go. “Fills my pagan heart with joy.”

Nathaniel rolled his eyes but then his mother was up fixing a vegetarian omelet for Addie and the three women chattered nonstop about the plans for the day.

“I’m just not sure we’ll have enough fairy lights,” Delphine fretted.

“How many have you got?” Nathaniel asked.

“Heavens, I don’t know. Thirty-two strings of twelve point eight meters each—”

“Four hundred and nine point six meters,” Addie interrupted. “There’s usually five lights per meter, which will give you two thousand and forty-eight lights. Oodles, I’d say.”

Silence descended upon the table as three sets of eyes blinked at her.

“Oh yeah,” Nathaniel murmured, forgetting for a moment that he was going to spend all day stringing almost half a kilometer of lights. “She does that.”

“Wow,” Eunice murmured.

“Impressive,” Delphine agreed.

Addie shrugged. “Sorry, I forget how much it freaks people out.”

“Not at all,” Eunice said, patting her hand. “Just remind me not to play cards with you.”

And then Addie laughed and his mother and grandmother joined in and the moment passed. Pretty soon he and Addie became separated as they pitched in to help with a party whose attendance list included everyone in the nearest three villages.

Sometime around midafternoon, he spied her sitting with his grandmother and Kathy on the terrace, weaving flowers into garlands and patiently playing a mental arithmetic game with them like a performing seal. She was refusing a glass of wine for the third time when he stopped at the top of the ladder to admire her for a minute. Every time she leaned forward, her T-shirt rode up and her jeans pulled nicely against her butt and he forgot all about her intimidating math genius as he was transported right back to five a.m.

He smiled to himself as he realized they had one more five a.m. to go before their fake relationship weekend was over.

But those thoughts—along with a significant portion of his circulating blood volume—were going straight to his groin and when he was working with a drill up a ladder, he really needed to keep as much blood flowing to his brain as possible, so he tried to put them aside.

The next time he saw her was several hours later and she was greeting guests at the door. She was dressed in a flowing white lacy dress with a v-neckline that revealed the swell of her breasts, shoe string straps, and little buttons running right down the center from her cleavage to her hem. Her hair was out now, but falling in long, crinkly waves. A flower garland with ribbon tails flowing down her back crowned her head. Her crystal-encrusted necklace sitting at the base of her throat matched perfectly.

She looked like a wood sprite, like something from
A Midsummer’s Night Dream
.

Or a pagan goddess.

Very appropriate on the autumnal equinox.

“Here,” she said as he approached, handing him a garland. “One for you, too.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “Ah, no. I don’t do flower garlands.”

She pushed it toward him. “You do tonight. Your grandmother was very specific about that. Shall I find her?”

He shot her a sarcastic smile. “Pulling the Grandy card, I see?”

Addie shrugged and everything shifted nicely in her dress. “I know your soft spots.”

He watched as her smile faded and he didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that it wasn’t his soft spots she was thinking about. “Fine. I’ll wear it. But only for Grandy. Shall I get you a glass of wine?”

Addie shook her head as she smiled at the next couple through the door, handing them their garlands. “I don’t drink. I’ll grab some water when I’m done here.”

He blinked. He’d seen her refuse several today but he figured that had something to do with the early hour rather than being a teetotaler. “You don’t drink?”

Her laugh fluttered around him, reminding him again of some woodland fairy. “I gave it up a couple of years ago. Along with meat.”

“Because of the leukemia?”

Even saying it made him feel ill. She was so vibrantly alive in front of him—it was hard to believe she’d come out the other side of a terminal illness. He remembered her saying she hadn’t quite had her five-year clearance and he felt a momentary spike of worry.

She nodded. “Just want to keep healthy.”

“Good.”

His grandmother’s voice called him from across the room and she smiled at him. “She wants to show you off. She’s very proud of you.”

Nathaniel nodded and excused himself, uncomfortable with that look on her face. He was used to it from his grandmother and mother, but not from her. Women looked at him with lust in their eyes and sex on their list. Addie didn’t. She looked at him like he had promise and she was the one who was going to bring it out in him.

He preferred lust and sex.

Their paths crossed on and off over the course of the night, but it wasn’t until people were starting to leave that he had a chance to share more than a few words with her. Addie had been popular and his grandmother seemed to be enjoying showing her off just as much she had him.

He found her standing on the terrace, the fairy lights playing in her hair and shining in the crystals of her necklace, talking to possibly the most boring man alive—Bill Hodges, who owned the farm next door. Fortunately, he was able to quickly dispense of the older man by telling him his very scary wife was looking for him.

Addie’s eyes looked glazed as she thanked him. “I didn’t think he was ever going to stop talking about his new effluent drainage system.”

Her lips had some glossy stuff on them that glittered in the subtle lights and almost made him forget the ache in his thigh from standing all night. “You sure you don’t drink? One conversation with Bill is liable to drive most teetotalers to liquor.”

As if they’d been organized to do so, Eunice and Kathy chose that moment to interrupt them with a bottle of Kathy’s elderberry wine and four glasses. “Now come on, you two,” his grandmother boomed. “Drink up. Don’t want to insult my dearest friend in the world, do you?”

“Thanks, Grandy,” Nathaniel said, smiling apologetically, “but Addie doesn’t drink and seriously, Kathy, real men do not drink elderberry wine.”

Kathy looked at him with an unwavering gaze. “You have flowers in your hair.”

Addie burst out laughing. “She has you there.”

“Here, dear, get this into you,” Eunice urged Addie, pouring her a glass. “It’s one hundred percent organic, isn’t it, Kath?”

Kathy nodded vigorously. “Always wins best in show, too.”

Addie looked at him and he could see she was wavering. “Okay, as long as you do, too,” she said to Nathaniel.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

A glass of organic wine once in three years wouldn’t bring the leukemia back, surely? But he didn’t blame her for being hesitant.

Addie nodded. “Just the one, though. I get flirty after two.”

Nathaniel grinned at his grandmother. “Better top it up a bit.” Addie laughed as she took a sip and actually gave him a playful shove.

Maybe it was working already?

“Here,” Addie said to Eunice, passing her the little gift bag he hadn’t noticed she’d been toting. “Nate and I got you something special.”

Eunice actually blushed and beamed at him. “You did?”

Nathaniel cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the deception. “Well—”

But then Addie interrupted. “I guided him a bit,” she said, smiling, and his grandmother looked so thrilled, he let it be.

They watched Eunice pull out the box and snap open the lid. Her delighted gasp grabbed at his gut. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered in her crackly voice as she fingered the earth mother. “Just perfect.” Then she ordered Kathy to put it on her.

Nathaniel smiled and leaned in to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Just like you, Grandy.”

Eunice gathered Addie up in her arms for a big hug and Nathaniel felt an odd shift in the vicinity of his heart. “Thank you, my duck,” Eunice said pulling away. “Now, I must show Delphine.”

And then she and Kathy disappeared and it was just the two of them. He looked down at her and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “The gift was a great idea.”

Addie gave a faux gasp. “What, better than a farm voucher?”

“Yes.” He grinned at her. “You were right.”

“Goodness,” she said, grinning back. “I feel like I should get that in writing.”

He chuckled. Bringing her hadn’t been the disaster he’d been expecting. In fact, he was enjoying himself. Hell, he couldn’t even recall thinking about work much at all today. And that was pretty much all down to this woman.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself tonight,” he said.

She nodded. “Eunice and Delphine have interesting friends.”

“Apart from Bill and his effluent.”

Addie’s laugh was high and he noticed she’d already drunk a hefty amount of her wine. She took another gulp as he watched. She seemed suddenly nervous.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Addie nodded. “Yes. No.” She stared into the bottom of her glass. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something. But I think I need some more Dutch courage—can you top me up?”

“Thought you got flirty after two?” he asked as he reached for the bottle he’d left on the ledge and filled her glass.

“I won’t drink it all,” she said, and then took a decent slug.

Nathaniel waited for a few moments as Addie fidgeted with the wine glass and consumed half more.

“I want to thank you for not…taking advantage of the situation this morning. I seriously do not know what came over me.”

Nathaniel took a decent slug of wine himself as his body took a walk down memory lane. “I don’t take advantage of women who are half asleep, Addie. I’m assuming you
were
half asleep?”

Addie nodded vigorously. “Yes…of course.”

He hid his smile behind his own glass as Addie took another swig of her wine.
She’d been awake as he had.
“Okay then. No harm, no foul.”

She seemed to sag a little at his words. “Thank you,” she said, and the relief in her smile was palpable. “Now, do you think we could never talk of it again?”

Nathaniel laughed. “Sure. Although I should give you fair warning. I can’t promise to be so gentlemanly again should you get horny at five a.m. tomorrow morning.”

Nathaniel watched the bob of her throat as she threw back the last of her second glass.

Chapter Seven

Two hours later, with the last guest gone and the cleaning-up taken care of, Addie collapsed back on the bed fully clothed. The room spun pleasantly and she shut her eyes on a happy sigh. “That was a bloody
great
party,” she announced.

Nathaniel’s chuckle settled around her and she opened her eyes to his, “I think you had too much elderberry wine.”

“That’s some bloody
great
wine,” she said pointing at him. “No wonder it wins the blue ribbon every year.”

He laughed again and she joined him. “And you have a great laugh,” she said. “You should do it more often.”

“I’m too—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Addie interrupted, propping herself up onto her elbows to locate him. He was standing by one of the wing chairs, his foot up on the arm, undoing his shoelaces. “You’re too
busy”—
she bugged her eyes at him—“to laugh.”

Nathaniel laughed again as he kicked off his shoes, and it went straight to internal muscles that were really getting a workout this weekend.

Who needed Pilates?

“I was going to say—”

“Important?” she suggested as he reached for the buttons of his very sexy open necked shirt that he’d rolled up to his elbow. “Rich?”

He grinned. “No.”

“Jaded?”

He made deft work of the buttons as he said, “You’re not very good for my ego, are you?”

Addie watched as he shrugged out of the shirt and his broad shoulders and magnificent chest came into view. She figured his ego could stand a little heat.

She dropped back to the mattress as Nathaniel reached for his belt buckle, shutting her eyes again. Some things were better off left unseen after three glasses of elderberry wine had loosened her tongue and hijacked her inhibitions.

She listened to his rustling as he got changed. The bed was soft and snug around her and seemed to rock her gently. The feeling from last night of being an old married couple returned and she smiled to herself.

“Are you going to bed like that?”

Addie opened her eyes to find him over his side of the bed in his briefs and black T-shirt. Way, way over. Which was just as well, because if she thought he’d looked good—
indecently
good—last night, he’d exceeded that tenfold through her wine goggles.

He was everything and more from last night.

Last night upsized.

Dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles.

With a cherry on top.

“Nope,” she said. “Any minute now I’m going to take this dress off and sleep in my underwear. Can you handle that?”

He chuckled again and she practically purred under his lazy blue gaze. “As long as you stay on your side of the bed.”

Addie smiled as she recalled his earlier threat should they again find themselves in the same predicament they had this morning. She shivered at the possibilities, her nipples tightening in response. His gaze drifting to the hard points felt like a caress and it took all her willpower not to arch her back.

She opened her mouth to make a pithy comeback, but he grimaced as he maneuvered his leg into bed.

Guilt pricked at her. “Is it your ankle?”

“Damn thigh,” he muttered. “It’s fine. I’ve just been standing on it a lot today.”

It didn’t look fine to her as Nathaniel sat rigidly in bed for a few moments. He’d gone all day without his crutches and was obviously paying for it now. She rolled her head to the side, spying on her bedside table the pot of ointment Eunice had given her last night.

Good and hard
echoed through her head.

“Here,” she said holding it out for him. “Maybe this will help.”

Nathaniel snorted. “No, thanks. I’d rather have an amputation with no anesthetic. Besides,” he said collapsing back against the mattress, eyes shut, “I’m too bloody tired to be bothered.”

Addie frowned at his tough-guy act. Typical male. She unscrewed the lid, bracing for the awful stink Nathaniel had warned her about. Instead, a sweet, heady aroma embraced her. Honey and vanilla she could make out instantly. And something floral.

It smelled good enough to eat, certainly pleasant enough to use for its intended purpose—especially if it worked.

Had she not been tipsy, she’d have thought twice about her next move. About the line it would cross. About the ground she could lose to him. But she
was
tipsy. She vaulted upright. “Okay, then. Allow me.”

Nathaniel’s eyes snapped open as she crawled toward him on her knees, hiking up the skirt of her dress to enable her free movement.

This was potentially a very,
very
bad idea.

Playing with Addie might be fun, but he wasn’t too far gone to not be mindful of the consequences.

But then she threw her leg over his until she was straddling his knee, her skirt settling around her. She looked down at him with purpose in her big, gray eyes and said, “You have got to smell this.” She pushed it toward him. “It’s incredible.”

Her nipples were still erect and his knee was damned close to that part of her that had rubbed against him so intimately this morning.

Okay—now he was too far gone.

He was back to Adam and Eve and that damn apple again.

This time he took it. What the hell—he’d never been a saint. And it did indeed smell incredible.

The perfect entrée to sin.

He handed it back to her. “For once, my grandmother’s secret potions don’t smell like Bill’s effluent system.”

Addie smiled as she dabbed two fingers in the pot. “Please don’t remind me.”

Nathaniel swore his skin actually sizzled when Addie smeared the dollop of ointment mid-thigh. His breath grew choppy. His belly tensed. His pulse leapt.

As did other parts of his anatomy.

Addie looked up from his thigh. “Tell me if I hurt you,” she murmured.

Nathaniel grunted, pleased to hear her voice was husky, that she was as affected as he was. It was gratifying to not be in it alone as her fingers lightly massaged the cream into the now-yellowing bruise on his thigh, expanding her motions out in wider and wider arcs.

He held himself rigid as he walked the fine line between pleasure and pain.

It hurt
so damned good
.

She didn’t lift her gaze from the job at hand as her fingers applied more pressure, working deeper into the muscle. It was as if she was in the zone as her hair fell forward in a wavy blond curtain, the flower garland still in place.

Which was a good thing.

He was now obviously aroused and not exactly wearing clothes to hide the evidence.

As she put her shoulders into it, her whole torso swayed with her ministrations. Her thighs spread further, lowering her perilously close to his knee, her underwear occasionally brushing against him.

Honey and vanilla wormed seductive fingers into his common sense. He had no idea what the active ingredient was, but he would say nine parts crazy pagan hocus-pocus, one part sin. His thigh tingled and was burning up where she touched him—actually, just about everywhere was burning up.

His powers of reasoning were a pile of cinders in his rearview mirror.

When she brushed against his kneecap again, he bent it slightly. He couldn’t help himself as he pushed it against her. Her choppy breath was loud as her startled gaze flew to his. Her fingers paused, her gray eyes momentarily clouding with confusion, as if she’d just come out of a trance.

But her taut nipples and the dampness against his knee didn’t lie, so he pressed again.

Addie froze, even though the pressure against her center made her want to move.

To meet it, to push back, to grind down.

His blue eyes held hers and it was all she could do to breathe in and out.

“You give a hell of a massage, Addie.”

His voice rumbled around her, breaking the spell. She tore her gaze from his, afraid he’d see how much she wanted him to grind a little harder.

But then she was staring right at his erection. It was thick and long and stretched his clinging boxers and she had to dig her fingertips into his thigh to stop from reaching for it.

She had a feeling it would be as beautiful as the rest of him and she really wanted to see it.

She glanced at him and heat slammed in to her as his knowing, unapologetic gaze claimed hers. “Like I said,” he murmured. “You give a hell of a massage.”

But his voice was unsteady and there seemed to be a slight glaze to his eyes and it was a turn-on to know that she’d done that to him.

She glanced at his erection again.

And that.

“How does it feel?” she asked, her own voice vying for the top position in the husky stakes.

“It feels—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Amazing.
Everywhere
feels amazing. You…” Addie’s eyes widened as he pressed his kneecap hard against her “…feel amazing.”

She shut her eyes as a wave of longing rolled through her. “I do, don’t I?” she murmured as she rotated her hips, her fingers automatically working his thigh again.

Nathaniel’s eyes closed, too. “Uh-huh.”

She rotated again then rocked back and forth a little with the motion of her kneading. His kneecap was just the right amount of hard against all her softness and she mewed as it slid against all her sensitive spots.

Honey and vanilla wafted up from his leg and she wanted to rub it all over him and lick off every last sticky morsel.

“Addie?”

She opened her eyes to his husky question, gratified to see the clench of his jaw, the strain in his neck muscles, his hands gripping the sheet beside him.

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

She rocked into him, meshing her gaze with his and smiled. “Just drunk enough to be very, very easy.”

Nathaniel gave a half laugh. “Having sex with a fake girlfriend would be very…” She watched his eyes shut as she ground down hard. “Very bad,” he muttered, opening his eyes again.

Addie nodded as the image of them entwined and naked on this sinful bed exploded inside her head. “But this isn’t sex,” she said, stroking her hand higher on his thigh as she angled her pelvis where the pressure was best. She hit the right spot and it sucked the breath right from her lungs.

“Oh, I think it is,” he muttered.

Addie stopped abruptly. “Really?” She eyed him thoughtfully as she throbbed against his knee. “Well in that case…”

She slid up his thigh, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him upright. “Let’s go all the way.”

Addie wasn’t sure whose mouth met whose first, but it felt like a star burst around her as their lips met, opened, devoured. There was nothing gentle or subtle about this first kiss—it was full roar.

Her head filled with the rough suck of his breath and the smell of honey, vanilla, and man. She was dizzy with lust as she clung to his broad shoulders just to stay upright. The force of their kiss angled her head right back, paving the way for his tongue, and when it tangled with hers, she moaned into his mouth.

Then his hands were in her hair, cupping her jaw, caressing her back, grasping her hips, pulling her in close and snug.

She felt the nudge of his erection in the same place his knee had been driving her crazy and she panted as she rubbed herself against the real deal, just like she’d done this morning.

Nathaniel broke away, resting his forehead against hers, his breath loud in the slither of light and air between them. “This is crazy,” he groaned.

“Certifiable,” Addie agreed as the delicious length of him slid against her—back and forth, back and forth—building a torturous friction.

He was out to destroy something that was more precious to her than any millions he had in his bank account, and yet she needed him more than her next breath.

She shouldn’t be doing this. But it felt so damn good and she just couldn’t stop.

His lips plundered her mouth, slid down her neck, laved the hollow at her throat. His hands molded her sides and cupped her breasts. Addie threw back her head as his thumbs brushed over her nipples.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes.”

His tongue was hot and wet against her neck as he trekked back to her mouth. His fingers moved to the buttons of her dress as he muttered, “Too many clothes,” against the pulse fluttering madly where throat met jaw.

She couldn’t agree more. She needed to feel his skin. All of him. Touch him everywhere. Know the broad planes of his back and shoulders, the sculptured muscles of his chest, the flat of his belly.

It became a roaring in her blood. A pounding imperative.

She grasped a handful of his T-shirt at the small of his back and yanked it up, pulling it over his head. His groan when her hands glided over the warm planes of his back, the pads of her fingers dipping into the furrow of his spine, was deep and satisfying.

She kissed him hard as his fingers ministered to her buttons and smiled when he muttered, “How many buttons does this thing have?” against her mouth.

“Just pull it up,” she gasped, claiming his mouth again.

And then it was up and over her head and she was straddling his lap in just her underwear and he was looking at her breasts and her hammering heart almost stopped at the look of frank possession.