The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1) (25 page)

He nipped at the side of her neck, driving her even wilder. She rubbed her bottom against the erection she could feel through the wool of his trousers. Another groan tore from his throat, and he released her abruptly to unzip his fly and pull a foil envelope from his pocket. She turned to take the condom from him and stroke it down over his cock, making him hiss and throw his head back.

He took her wrists and towed her to the hanging rack, spinning her back to it before he pulled her hands up over her head and wrapped her fingers around the bar. She held on tightly as he gripped her buttocks to lift her and open her thighs. She felt the head of his cock brush against her in a perfect combination of hard and soft. He brought her down as he flexed his hips upward, burying himself deep inside her. The delicious sensation of being filled all at once wrenched a cry of pleasure from her throat.

“Shh!” he warned, but he was smiling like a wolf, wild and predatory.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles behind him, using the bar to leverage herself hard against him. The friction sent a thrill spiraling through her, so she arched backward. He pulled away and thrust back into her, his fingers digging into the soft skin of her behind as he moved and angled her. Then his hair was brushing her shoulder as he bent to take one nipple into his mouth and graze it with his teeth. Pure sensation shot from her breast to the coil of tension deep in her belly. Her muscles rippled into a clench around Nathan’s cock. He sucked at her breast and her muscles tightened again.

“That’s it,” he muttered against her skin before he lifted his head to capture her gaze. He shifted his grip and began to stroke in and out of her in a hard, driving rhythm. She watched the build of lust in his eyes as he pushed them both closer and closer to their release. She felt the moment of suspense as she balanced on the edge, and then her entire body seemed to burst into a supernova of orgasm, making her fling her head back and hang onto the rod for dear life as her internal muscles clamped around Nathan’s sensual invasion.

She felt him seat himself even deeper to reach his own climax, nearly bruising her with the convulsive strength of his hands. For a long moment, they stayed bowed against each other, riding their climaxes together. And then he was cradling her in his arms as the aftershocks continued to shudder through her.

“You can let go,” he murmured, taking all her weight. She unwrapped her suddenly cramped fingers from the bar and draped her arms limply over Nathan’s shoulders. Gazing past his head into the repeating reflections of the angled mirrors, she got a delicious shock from the sight of his hands on her bare bottom. She shifted, her breasts brushing against the fabric of his jacket, which made her internal muscles shiver again.

He carried her to the upholstered chair in the corner of the fitting room and sat, moving her so she was curled on his lap.

“I never thought I’d ever do that.” Chloe snuggled into his chest, loving the feel of his body heat through the cotton and wool of his clothes.

“Make love in a dressing room?” His voice was a low rumble against her cheek.

“Make love in Dior pumps.”

He chuckled and ran his hand down the bare curve of her back to give her rump a quick squeeze. “If you want to greet Faye naked, it’s fine by me, but I know how modest you are, so you should probably get dressed.”

Chloe sighed. It was a shame to move when she felt so utterly sated and relaxed. “She knew what we were planning to do.”

“I’m sure it’s not the first time a man has been driven to strip the clothes off the beautiful woman he’s buying them for.”

Right.
He was buying her these clothes for the wedding, and after that she would go back to being an employee. Her afterglow died like a burned-out lightbulb. Putting her palms flat on his chest, she pushed away from him and squirmed off his lap. “You should deactivate your camera jammer.”

He caught her by the waist and dropped a kiss on the tip of each of her breasts, making her tremble as his lips sent delicious shivers spinning into her belly. He looked up at her. “You need to put your clothes on or I won’t be able to stop touching you.”

She couldn’t resist tracing one of his strong, dark eyebrows with her fingertip, feeling the contrast of hair over skin over bone. The mesmerizing textures and stark angles of his upturned face caught at her heart. She had to swallow hard to banish the lump of regret lodged in her throat. “I don’t want you to stop,” she whispered.

Desire flared in his gray eyes and his grip on her tightened.

The clatter of a door opening shattered the cocoon of sexual enthrallment, and Chloe started. Nathan gave a growl of frustration and released his hold on her. “Ten seconds later and I would have been inside you when she walked in.”

Chloe felt the heat of his words lick up the inside of her thighs as she snatched her panties and bra off the floor where Nathan had dropped them. “You’d better get out of here.”

He crossed his legs and lifted an eyebrow. “Not that easy right now.”

He looked so out of place, perched on the tiny curvy chair in the pastel dressing room. She gave a little snort of laughter as she hooked her bra and wrapped herself in the robe Saks provided for its customers. Nathan took out the small black box and aimed it at the camera before palming it and returning it to his pocket.

Faye bustled into the lounge area, making far more noise than necessary. Chloe was rehanging the dress as the personal shopper tapped on the dressing-room door.

“Come in,” Nathan said, making Chloe scowl at him. As Faye walked in, laden with wisps of lace in various shades, he gave Chloe a bland look before saying, “Unfortunately, we have to cut our shopping spree short. We’ll take all of those.” He gestured toward Faye’s armload. “And whatever of these Chloe liked.” He waved toward the clothing rack. “And have them delivered.”

Chloe started to protest. “Just the—”

Nathan silenced her with a look that said he had no time for arguments because he had something else on his mind. It was a look that set her on fire.

“Yes, sir,” Faye said, unloading the lingerie onto a shelf. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

“I like that woman,” Nathan said when the outer door closed behind Faye. He stood and came up behind Chloe as she shrugged out of the robe.

“You can’t buy all that,” Chloe said, nodding to the lingerie. “It was just an excuse to make her leave.”

Nathan kissed the side of her neck. “You’re going to need a change of panties when I’m done.”

She caught his gaze in the mirror, and he gave her a slow smile. As soon as she was dressed, he took her elbow and steered her swiftly through the store and into the waiting Rolls.

He was right. Her panties came apart at the seams thirty seconds after the car door closed.

Nathan lounged on the seat of the Rolls as it hummed along the highway back toward Manhattan. He remembered the soft, warm feel of Chloe curled in his lap in the dressing room, wearing nothing but sparkling high heels. Leaning back, he stared at the car’s roof and let the memories of the afternoon spool through his mind. He felt a smile twitching at the corners of his lips.

The truth was he’d never intended to make love to her in the dressing room. Even with his video-camera trickery, it was a risky thing to do. But her half-shocked, half-daring responses to his teasing had kept him pushing until he couldn’t stop himself.

If he got blackmailed for every penny he had, it would have been worth it.

He moved on to what they’d done together in the car in the rush-hour traffic when his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. His pulse bounded as he anticipated seeing Chloe’s name on the screen. Gavin Miller’s name appeared instead, and he almost ignored the call in favor of returning to his daydream. However, the man would just pester him until they talked.

“Miller, I was cursing you earlier.”

Gavin laughed, a dark sound. “Already losing the wager?”

“Your strategy is backfiring.”

“Did I mention a strategy?”

“You suggested using all the resources at my disposal.” Nathan remembered Chloe’s look of consternation when she picked up the tag on the first dress. He’d been afraid she would refuse to even try it on.

“You shouldn’t listen to anything I say about women. I’d been drowning my sorrows long before I called you that night.”

“I thought your problem was writer’s block.”

“Cause and effect, my boyo, chicken and egg. Which came first? The betrayal or the block?”

“You’ve been drowning your sorrows again,” Nathan said, hearing the slight slurring in Gavin’s speech.

“It’s after five o’clock, so that’s socially acceptable.” Gavin spoke with careful precision. “Who is this unusual female?”

Suddenly, Nathan didn’t want to expose his relationship with Chloe to Gavin’s harsh cynicism. “Why did you call me?”

“Ah, off-limits, I see. That’s promising.” Gavin sounded amused rather than annoyed. “I was just checking in on your progress, but I have my answer.”

“Do you bother Archer too?”

“Archer is hard to bother. Or at least to gauge whether I’ve bothered him. That’s why they call him the Iceman, I imagine. He seems focused entirely on football right now.”

“What about you?”

“All I do is sit in my chair and stare at a blank computer screen. It’s not conducive to romance. Nor am I in the mood for it.”

Nathan thought of the foul mood he’d been in when the flu was raging through his body. Yet he’d still wanted Chloe. “The right woman will change your mood in a millisecond.”

“Spoken like a man with experience. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the computer geek beat out the jock and the novelist? I tip my hat to you, Trainor.”

“That would be premature.” He was miles from offering Chloe a ring.

“I’m not so sure. You sound like a different man. There’s a note of hope in your voice.”

“Do you put crap like that in your books?”

Gavin gave that same humorless bark. “Right now I’d be happy to put anything at all in a book.” He paused. “When are we going to meet this extraordinary woman who doesn’t want your riches?”

“When hell freezes over,” Nathan said.

“Or right after you put a ring on her finger.” Gavin’s chuckle echoed in Nathan’s ear as he ended the call.

Grandmillie tapped her fork against her plate to interrupt Chloe’s highly censored version of her shopping trip. “Sounds like you had a grand time at Saks. So what’s bothering you?”

“What? Nothing.” Chloe picked up her water glass and took a sip. She had been putting off the inevitable. “In fact, I have good news. I’ve been offered a really great job at Trainor Electronics. You won’t believe the salary.”

Silence met her announcement. Chloe glanced up to see a frown drawing down her grandmother’s white eyebrows. She saw no condemnation in Grandmillie’s face, only concern.

“I know,” Chloe said in response to the unspoken comment. “But the job’s in the marketing department, so I wouldn’t be working directly for Nathan. He swears he just mentioned that I was looking for a full-time position, and Phil Riviere requested my resumé.” She sat up straight. “I’m well qualified. I’ll do a great job.”

“Of course you will. They’ll be lucky to have you,” Grandmillie snapped. The worry came back into her eyes. “Your Nathan is putting you in a difficult situation.”

“He says he’s just trying to help me.”

“He should have helped by finding you a job somewhere else.”

Chloe knew that, but she also knew how she craved his physical presence. He seemed to feel the same way about her.

“What happens when someone at the company finds out about the two of you? Because they will.” Grandmillie unknowingly imitated Judith by drumming her fingernails on the table. “No one will criticize
him
, but your abilities will be questioned.”

Something shifted inside Chloe’s chest, something that smothered that last tiny flicker of hope she’d been nursing without even realizing it. The hope that somehow it would be all right to take the job and keep Nathan too. For all her posturing to herself, she’d been secretly keeping that option open. Grandmillie’s words stripped bare her self-deception as boiling-hot tears welled up at the thought of losing him.

Her grandmother leaned in to cover Chloe’s hand where it lay fisted on the table. “I understand he’s become important to you.”

Chloe looked away as the tears spilled down her cheeks. “I make him laugh,” she said, her voice quavering.

“You’ve become important to him too, or he wouldn’t have gotten the job for you.” Grandmillie’s touch was gentle. “But he’s not thinking of your best interests by keeping you at Trainor Electronics and risking your reputation. He’s only thinking of his own wants.”

Chloe blinked hard. Her voice came out raspy and low. “The relationship wasn’t going to last anyway. I’ll just end it sooner rather than later.”

Grandmillie nodded her approval. “You’ve known him such a short time, it will be easier to do it now.”

Chloe felt like her heart was being squeezed in a vise. There would be nothing easy about it. “I have an obligation to go to his father’s wedding, but on Sunday I’ll tell him we can’t continue to see each other.”

Grandmillie gave a sympathetic sigh. “It was like that with your grandfather. We couldn’t be apart from each other, so we got married, because that was what you did in those days.”

“And you ended up divorced.”

“Do you think Nathan would marry you?”

Startled, Chloe looked at her grandmother. “It’s only been a week.”

“If it had been three months, do you think he’d propose rather than lose you?”

Chloe thought hard. She considered the high-powered, self-assured Teresa and her abrupt and permanent exit. Then there was the way Cavill had jumped to incorrect conclusions about her relationship with Nathan right off the bat. It looked like Nathan had a revolving door with women.

On top of that, she compared Nathan’s huge home and multiple cars and aircraft to her tiny house and ten-year-old Toyota. She remembered the guest-room closet stocked with designer clothing and the casual way he’d told Faye they’d buy everything in the Saks dressing room.

“Would he sweep me away in a white Rolls to live in the penthouse of his castle?” She shook her head. “Only in a fairy tale.”

Grandmillie gave her hand an affectionate squeeze before she let go. “You’re a smart, sensible girl.”

Chloe picked up her fork and speared a bite of chicken. She put it in her mouth, but it tasted like tears.

Just this once, she wanted to believe in fairy tales.

Nathan sat down at the desk in his home office and opened his e-mail program. Scanning down the endless list, he scowled at the mind-numbing subject lines of reports and memos and scheduling. The contrast with the explosive pleasure of his earlier hours was too dismal. He flicked a finger across the screen to slam the program shut. The thought of Chloe sent him to a triple-password-protected folder marked “Prometheus.”

A couple of hours later, he leaped out of his chair so fast it spun in circles as he paced away from his desk and back again. He had an idea about how to fix Prometheus, and he wanted to discuss it with someone. He glanced at his watch and growled in frustration. He couldn’t drag Andrew Koenig, the project’s manager, away from his wife and children at this hour. Then he remembered Ginnie Tsai, the assistant manager of the project. She reminded him of himself at that age, committed to the point of obsession. She would
want
to hear his idea, no matter what the time.

He went back to the computer, bracing his arm on the desk as he scrolled through the company’s phone directory until he found her number and sent it to his autodialer. “Ginnie, it’s Nathan Trainor. I might have a solution to our problem with the battery. I know it’s late, but can you meet me at the R and D lab?”

There was a short pause before her voice came back with a tinge of pride. “I’m already there.”

Nathan wasn’t sure how to label the emotion that blew through him at her words, but it might have been joy. He’d found his tribe again.

It was after midnight when he left the lab and walked out of the doors of Trainor Electronics and into the foggy Manhattan air. Neon signs swirled colors through the night, and scattered knots of people still strolled the sidewalks. He’d told Oskar to go home so he could walk off the adrenaline sizzling through his veins.

He’d arrived at the lab to find Ginnie and half a dozen other team members awaiting him. When he explained his idea, they had practically vibrated with excitement. They’d torn the battery down to its microcomponents before starting to reassemble them in a white heat of creative exhilaration.

He’d been impressed with how they’d embraced his suggestion and expanded it, stretched it in new directions and layered their own improvements on it. There had been that rare electricity of pure thought sparking between all of them. He felt almost drunk on it.

He needed to share it with Chloe. His hand went into his pocket to wrap around his cell phone. Chloe would be sound asleep in her bed, hopefully dreaming her erotic dreams of him.

He released the phone as he imagined her in
his
bed. He could wake her up with a kiss and a long stroke down the sexy curves of her body. Her
naked
body, since this was his fantasy. She’d blink up at him with a sleepy, come-hither smile. He’d have to decide whether he wanted to tell her about the breakthrough before or after he made love to her. Maybe he’d tell her about it
while
he made love to her. He would whisper something very technical and watch her agile mind try to focus on it while he did his best to distract her by plunging himself inside her delicious heat.

As his cock hardened, Nathan winced at his self-inflicted frustration.

He kept walking, but the hunger for Chloe didn’t lessen. He hit the autodial button for her number. It took four rings, but she picked up just as her voice mail began. “Nathan?” Her voice was husky with sleep. “Are you all right?”

“Beyond all right. I just left the lab. I think we’ve got Prometheus on the right track.”

He heard the rustle of sheets as she shifted in some way. “I’m thrilled for you and your team.” Her tone was warm and he could picture her smile. “I’d ask how you did it, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t understand a word.”

He chuckled, remembering his fantasy. “I won’t bore you with the technical details, but I want to thank you.”

“For what?”

“You sent me there. I’d forgotten where I started, what I was really good at. You reminded me that my job as CEO could take me out of the executive office.” He let his voice drop low. “Working with the development team tonight was almost as good as sex with you.”

She gave a half-pleased, half-embarrassed choke of laughter. “An intellectual orgy.”

He injected even more innuendo in his voice. “One thing that would make this night perfect would be to get home and find you in my bed. Naked.” The thought of his vast empty bed was depressing.

“By all means, send Kurt in the helicopter.”

He heard the dryness in her voice, but he couldn’t stop himself from showing his need. “What if I brought the Rolls and parked in front of your house?”

She laughed. She thought he was joking.

“If you agreed, I’d be there in thirty minutes,” he said.

“No, I have to work tomorrow.” But he’d heard the tiny pause while she’d seriously considered it. That would have to be enough.