Uncovered (15 page)

She laughed and waved her hand, rejecting
what I was going to say. “If Ollie sets his sights on something new and shiny,
nothing stops him from getting his rocks off.”

Finley sounded so much like Margaret, I
felt my blood boil. “Once again, I hate to disappoint you, but that’s never
happened.”

She nodded like she understood. “Well, I
figured as much after I saw your picture at the top of the
Lavish
website on Saturday morning. If there’s one thing Oliver doesn’t do, it’s a
taken woman.”

I froze. “What are you talking about?” I
demanded breathlessly.

Her hazel eyes widened in surprise.
“There was a picture of you out clubbing. Some Oliver-happy photographer
snapped it after she recognized you as the woman he was with at the party last
week.” Lifting her Vuitton bag a little higher, she sauntered to the door,
offering me a flash of straight white teeth as I let go of the handle to let
her pass. “Like I told you before, I’m sorry about the little joke. It was
hasty of me considering the circumstances. Nice to see you again, Lizzie.”

With all my limbs trembling violently, I
waited until the Jaguar coupe was out of sight before I slipped on gloves and
returned Margaret’s documents to the upstairs office. Then, the moment I was
behind the wheel of my car, I Googled
Lavish
.

I had to scroll through several pictures
that were taken of the L.A. social scene over the weekend, but finally I found
what Finley was referring to, and my heart seized from within my chest. There I
was, with my platinum hair flying around my face and the blond guy’s hand
gripping my hip as we danced to “I Want You.” With our bodies pressed close,
the photo looked so much more intimate than it had been, and the caption below
was especially damning.

Oliver’s Newest Flavor Moves On with Heir
to Food Empire.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I hissed.
I didn’t even bother Googling my partner’s name. It wasn’t important to me because
we hadn’t exchanged anything—no phone numbers, no information, and certainly no
bodily fluids. Instead, I pulled up my text history.

Oliver hadn’t texted me since yesterday
morning, but I’d attributed that to his busy work schedule. Now, I wasn’t so
sure. I had a feeling Finley would have messaged him right away, and the
thought turned my stomach.

Even though I knew it was stupid—even
though I knew I should let him think whatever so I could stop worrying over
him—I couldn’t. My breathing harsh, I composed an innocent text.

How many episodes of Vikings are you up
to now? Hope you managed to get some rest yesterday.

I felt like I waited eons for him to
respond—even though I knew he likely wouldn’t—before I gave up and started my
car, squeaking into work with only four minutes to spare.

*

I
could count on one hand the number of times I’d stressed over a man getting in touch
with me. The first had been the varsity lacrosse player I’d fallen all over
myself for as soon as Mom and I had moved to Vegas. Although we’d eventually
dated, we’d only lasted a very chaste eight months—a sad relationship record
for me.

The most recent was now, with Oliver. He
still hadn’t texted me back by the time I turned the key to open my apartment.
I’d stayed late at work tonight after Margaret tasked me with transcribing
several hours of board meetings, and since it was close to eleven in New York,
I was certain he wasn’t going to reply tonight.

But maybe it was for the best.

What did I expect from the man? As soon
as I accomplished what I came to California to do, it wasn’t like I could be
with him.

And yet, my chest ached.

“I’m home.” Locking the door, I rested my
forehead on the wood. Damn, I was a mess. “Are you home? We really need to
talk.” If I couldn’t get an answer from Oliver, I could at least confront my
best friend about what was going on with her.

“In the kitchen, Lizzie,” she shouted.

“Who—” I started, but then my head
snapped up. She absolutely refused to call me Lizzie when we were alone in the
apartment, reserving the name for when we were out in public where someone
might hear us, so for her to do so now told me two things: she wasn’t alone and
she was with someone whom she absolutely had to hide my identity from.

Tiptoeing through the foyer and the
dining room, I turned into the kitchen to find Pen sitting on the counter with
a beer in her hand. Across from her, leaning against the wall by the fridge,
stood Oliver.

“You didn’t tell me you had a date,” she
said, the corners of her mouth quivering as she tried to fight a smile.

Stunned, I tossed my purse in the dining
room chair closest to me and walked inside the narrow space, looking back and
forth between them. “I didn’t realize it either.” Focusing solely on the
disheveled and distant man with more than a day’s worth of facial hair, I
struggled to maintain my composure. “Oliver.”

“Lizzie,” he replied, but I couldn’t deny
the chill in his voice.

“I’ve—” Pen scratched her fingers into
her dark hair and made a face. “—I’m going to go grab some dinner.” She hopped
off the counter, her smile so wide I thought her face might crack. “I’ll see
you later, Liz.”

Oliver’s blue eyes continued to paralyze
me, even as he said goodbye to my best friend. “It was good to meet you,
Grace,” he said, using her middle name, and I grabbed her arm as she moved past
me.

“We need to talk,” I said, and she nodded
quickly.

“Oh yeah, but tomorrow. Definitely
tomorrow.” Then, before I could say anything else, she grabbed her computer bag
from the dining room and practically ran out the front door.

Leaving me alone with Oliver.

Oliver who, in classic straight leg
jeans, a gray tee, and Red Wing boots, looked the sexiest—the most
irresistible—I’d ever seen him.

Oliver, whose tattoo—the one that had
peeked out from beneath his rolled-up cuffs—was finally visible. It was a quote
I recognized from Frank Herbert’s
Dune
novels: Fear Is The Mind-Killer.

Oliver who was pushing away from the wall
and walking toward me.

Licking my lips, I peered down at the
tile floor. “I thought you’d be gone until Friday.”

He stopped a couple inches in front of
me, the spicy scent of his cologne an invitation that made me angle my body
closer to his.  “I wrapped everything up quickly.”

“I guess you’re—”

His thumb covered my mouth, his touch a
complicated medley of frustration and desire that took my breath away. “Are you
fucking someone else, Lizzie?”

“No.”

His other hand cupped my face, his
fingers threading in the soft strands along my hairline. He tilted my attention
to his blue eyes. “Do you want to fuck someone else?”

“No,” I answered, and this time my voice
was firm.

He dropped his hands to my ass, and I
barely had time to react before I was in his arms, gasping as he pinned my back
to the fridge. He urged my legs apart to wrap around his waist, and I could
hear my plaid Rag & Bone pencil skirt tearing at the split, but I didn’t
care.

I didn’t care that it was wrong of me to
want Oliver.

Or that his mother—my stepmother—had
forbidden me from being around him.

I. Didn’t. Give. One. Single. Fuck.

His mouth skimmed mine, his tongue
branding a hot path along the outline of my lips. Tightening my arms around his
broad shoulders, I moved my hips against him, watching as his blue eyes
darkened. “If I asked you if you still wanted me?” Crashing his lips to mine,
he kissed me until my head spun. Until the electricity thundered through my
body and tightened everything—my chest, my nipples, my sex.  At my silence, he tested
the weight of my breast, rolling the sensitive bud between his thumb and
forefinger until a hoarse noise pushed from the back of my throat. “Do you want
me, Lizzie?”

“If you asked me, then I’d say yes!” I half-shouted.
“Yes, I want you. Are you happy?”

“Good,” he growled. “That was all I
needed to hear.”

Setting
me on my feet, Oliver’s palms flared over my flat stomach. I shivered—a
combination of his touch and the cold metal of the refrigerator against my
calves—and he skimmed his teeth over his bottom lip. Stopping at the waist of
my skirt, he tugged my white pintuck top free.

“I don’t do jealous.” With each word, he
undid a button, exposing another inch or two of my skin. “But when I opened
that link and saw that picture of you, I wanted to take the first goddamn
flight out of New York.”

“Why didn’t you just call and ask me?”

He freed the last button and stroked his
thumb over the hollow of my throat, his breath catching when he traced between
the valley of my breasts. Fingering the pretty white bow between the cups of my
Agent Provocateur bra, he shook his head. “Because I needed to see your face
when I asked you. I wanted to make sure.”

“That I wanted you?”

“That you weren’t lying to me.”

Suddenly ashamed, my chest caved in
beneath his touch. Fuck. Why—
why
—did he have to say it like that? Here I
was, the walking, talking epitome of a lie, letting him believe I was someone
else. That I was nothing but a chance encounter. Choking on the guilt that
bubbled in my throat, I laughed.

“I’m sorry about that picture.”

“Don’t.” He lowered his mouth to mine,
and I closed my eyes as his warm breath fanned over my tender skin. “Don’t even
mention it. Not tonight. Tonight, I’m going to fuck you in every way
imaginable. We won’t need words.” Cupping my chin, he pinched my lips, his
stare meaningful as I released a muted moan. “That’s what I want to hear.”

Shoving all thoughts of lies and deceit
from my head, I reached for his zipper, but he let go of my mouth and grabbed
my wrist. My brows arched together over my brown eyes. “Changed your mind?”

He pinned my arms over my head, causing
me to knock a few magnets off the refrigerator. His expression was pained, and
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, unable to breathe except for
with the shallowest of breaths. From the way he was looking at me, I felt like
at any moment he’d leave me a mess like last week. “I didn’t fly all this way
just to leave alone with a hard cock.” Sighing, he looked at me through hooded
lids. “As much as I’d like to bend you over where we stand, I promised you
dinner.”

 “Funny.” I arched my back, the soft
cotton of his tee shirt tickling my bare stomach and chest. “I swear I remember
you saying you were having me for dinner.”

Nipping my lower lip, he loosened his
grip on my wrists and growled his agreement. “There’s nothing that’ll keep my tongue
from being inside you tonight.” Letting his words ripple though me until my
pussy clenched with desire, I crossed my arms over my chest, pushing each side
of my blouse together. I started to speak, but he shook his head. “Go get
dressed.”

I watched him carefully, feeling an ache
consume my body as he backed away from me and rested against the counter across
from the refrigerator. “Where are we going?”

When he rubbed his hand through his light
brown hair, all I could picture was seeing those tousled locks between my legs.
I squeezed my thighs together. “If you get dressed, then you’d see.”

“What should I wear?” Or not wear.

He spread his muscular arms, gesturing to
his own attire of jeans and a tee shirt. “Anything.”

Realizing I could probe for details until
I was blue in the face, I started out the kitchen, struggling to breathe when I
felt the front of his body brush against mine after I grabbed my purse from the
dining room. “Give me half an hour, I’m just going to shower and—”

“You’re just going to get wet when we get
there, so there’s no point,” he drawled, and I froze in the entrance to the
hallway that led to my bedroom. He squeezed my ass, and I looked up to meet
apologetic blue eyes. “It really was a nice skirt,” he lamented, dragging the material
up until he was touching the part he had ripped. “I’ll replace it.”

Sagging forward against the wall, I
studied his movements carefully while he walked away from me. “It was only a
skirt,” I whispered, but he shook his head and eased onto my couch.

His focus never wavered from my face.
“There’s no such thing as
only
when it comes to you, Lizzie.”

My legs trembling, those words teased me
as I hurried to my bedroom. I tossed my purse on my bed and raked my hands
through my hair. Catching my reflection in the mirror, I studied my flushed,
heart-shaped face and the brown, amber-flecked eyes that glistened with
unsuppressed lust. Realizing that when I left with Oliver, that desire would
finally be sated, I wrapped my arms around myself.

My phone vibrated inside my Prada bag,
and I dragged my focus away from the mirror. Walking into my closet, I looked
at the new text from Pen.

Should I come home? Or should I, you
know, go somewhere else?

Rifling through my clothes, I replied as
quickly as I could with my left hand.

You’re safe. He’s taking me to dinner, so
I won’t be here when you get back. Pen … I meant what I said about talking.

While I awaited her response, I set my
phone on a shelf and plucked a black, lace-trimmed shift dress from the rack.
Holding it up to my body, I decided it was perfect—not formal, not too casual,
and I wouldn’t freeze to death in the chilly November night. As I took the
dress, the lace-up Alice + Olivia booties Pen had given me for my birthday, and
my phone back into my bedroom, I received a new message.

You’re right. We do need to talk. But you
NEED tonight.

Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I threw
the phone to the center of my bed. For a split second, my attention settled on
the locked nightstand a few feet away. It was full of every ounce of
information I’d gathered since I received that phone call more than five months
ago, and I felt a pang of guilt as I looked at my bedroom door. Right outside
of it was a man who was attracted to a façade.

A man I couldn’t resist wanting.

Tonight, I would have him. I would savor
this single night he’d been promising me for weeks, and then—
then
I’d
think about the contents of that bottom drawer.

Pressing my lips together, I kept my eyes
straight ahead as I rushed into my bathroom to brush my teeth.

*

“I
don’t know why, but I expected it to be … bigger,” I told Oliver half an hour
later. Swallowing back my anticipation, I looked up at him from beneath my
lashes. “I guess that’s bitchy of me to say, huh?”

A sexy grin spreading across his face, he
took my hands in his and pulled me out the Viper. “What were you expecting?”

Teasingly, I worked my lip between my
teeth and stared up at the single-story Spanish hacienda-style home. When he’d
sped the Viper onto the highway toward Malibu, I figured he was taking me to a
seaside restaurant, but then to my surprise, he’d driven into a gated community
close to Surfrider Beach. “A place like your mother’s, maybe?”

He winced. Spreading his fingers along
the curve of my hip, he urged me toward the house, but then he paused in front
of the mesquite wood door, stopping me between the two stone pillars. “No talking
about Margaret.”

“I—” I began, but he held up a large
hand.

“If you talk about her, you’ll leave with
a red ass.”

“Mar-ga-ret.”

Pulling on the doorknob, his blue eyes
flashed a warning. “I don’t forget anything, Lizzie,” he promised. He opened
the door and gestured me inside, and I shivered when I stepped on the
terra-cotta tile in the hallway and the cool blast from the air conditioner
kissed my skin. “We’re going out back,” he said, leading me through the house,
his hand resuming its place on my body.

His decorator had outfitted the place in
rich, bold colors—deep oranges, browns, and reds, and rustic, handcrafted
furniture that gave it a manly, comfortable vibe. The entire backside of the
home featured floor-to-ceiling windows, and I pressed my palm to one and stared
out at the grotto-shaped pool. “If I lived here, I’d never leave.”

“I bought it for the privacy.” He walked
outside, moving through the pool and Jacuzzi area, and I followed close behind.
“It’s almost three acres, so I don’t have to deal with the bullshit.”

“It must be tough.” As I walked up a few
steps that led to what I guessed was a dining area, I spotted a small
basketball court to my left, and a little smile curled my lips. “I mean, to
have your picture in the lifestyle-and-entertainment section on a weekly
basis.”

“I knew it would happen when I made the
transition from drunken partier to businessman, but eventually they’ll find
someone new to take pictures of. At least they don’t go out their way to follow
me.” Stepping aside, he motioned to the outdoor dining area that overlooked the
pool and basketball court. Between a stone island and a blazing fireplace sat a
four-person table. It was already set, with champagne in a stainless bucket in
the center and two silver domes covering the dinner plates on either side. “My
housekeeper set this up not even five minutes before we got here, so it’s still
hot.”

“Should I give you my panties now, or
wait until after dinner?” I teased, but I was incredulous at how much effort
he’d put into all this.

He held out the chair closest to the
fireplace for me, and I sat down. “If you touch your panties,” he said,
grabbing a couple beers from the fridge beneath the island, “you’ll be eating
while my cock is inside of you.” Then, like he hadn’t just taken away my
ability to properly form thoughts, he opened both beers and removed the lid
from his plate, revealing a simple meal of mussel linguine.

Following suit, I shook the silverware
out of my napkin and bit the inside of my cheek. “Do you threaten all your
dates like this?”

“Never. Even I have reservations about
exposing my dick in restaurants.” At my raised eyebrow, he explained, “I don’t
bring women here.”

My hand froze around my fork midway to my
mouth. “And why am
I
here?”

“Because I can’t get you out of my head.”
Taking a bite of pasta, he leaned back in his chair and watched my expression
closely from across the table. When I swallowed hard, he rubbed his thumb over
the part of his nose that had been broken in the past and then pointed to my
plate. “You should eat.”

I closed my mouth around a forkful of
pasta, shutting my eyes as the flavor assaulted my taste buds. I’d been so busy
at work today, I hadn’t eaten lunch, and this was divine. The moment I finished
chewing though, I heard myself ask, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why can’t you get me out of your head?
Why bring
me
here? Why do you want me?”

Continuing to eat, he tilted his head
like he was strongly considering my question. Was he going to answer me? I
scooped another bite of pasta into my mouth, and then a few more, my boot
tapping impatiently against the stone patio.

“The first time I laid eyes on you,
Lizzie, I wanted you. Do I need a reason, other than when we touched, I felt
more in those five seconds than I ever felt in my entire goddamn life?”

I remembered the electricity between us,
the way his fingers had tightened as our skin parted, and my own hand tingled.
When he saw that I was holding it close to my chest, he nodded. “
That’s
why I want you. Now, eat your food, beautiful.”

*

I’d
barely lowered my silverware to my empty plate when Oliver scooted his seat
from the table. “Thank you for dinner,” I said. “It was amazing.” Following his
movements with my eyes, I watched as he stood and grabbed the untouched bottle
of champagne and the thin glass flutes by our plates.

“Like I told you a few weeks ago, I’m a
man of my word.” His deep voice held an edge of promise, and a shiver of heat
rushed through my veins. “Time for dessert, beautiful.”  He motioned his head
for me to follow him, then started toward the pool.

Moving slowly so as not to trip on the
stone steps and make a complete ass of myself, I trailed a few steps behind
him, not pausing until we stood face-to-face beneath the waterside pergola.

Which doubled as a bedroom.

Somehow, when he brought me through here
less than an hour ago, I hadn’t noticed the teak hanging bed centered between
the pillars. How the hell I had missed it was beyond my comprehension, but it
looked remarkably comfortable—a plush mattress covered in honey-colored Egyptian
cotton sheets and a variety of bolster and throw pillows that complimented the
overall vibe of his hacienda-style house.  “And you say you don’t bring other
women here?” I thought I whispered under my breath.

Obviously he heard me, because a moment later,
one of his hands rested against my ass and the other on my chin as he forced me
to look up at him. “I fuck in hotels.”