Wicked Game (7 page)

She looked so happy at the prospect of getting away from him. Every last word of her argument was valid. She had a point. But damned if he wanted to think about that last point. The very idea of Pepper bringing male friends over somehow left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Sounds like a plan. Remind me tomorrow and we’ll get the ball rolling. Now what do you have in mind for dinner? I’d like a great big steak and maybe some fried shrimp.”

“I don’t know. I was sort of thinking Italian.”

Cassandra Pendleton always, always had to have the last word, Jaime realized with a sigh. Which was why they stayed far apart. He hated not having the last word.

“I think I know of a place where we can both get what we want.”

“Either way, I’m good.”

“Pepper, you’re killing me. Killing me.”

“Just shut up and drive. And for the millionth time, stop calling me Pepper.”

Chapter Eight

“I think your moving-out idea is for the best all around.” He’d stood in the foyer watching her walk up the stairs after dinner and a movie out. He waited until she reached the landing to add, “Just as soon as you’ve hired a new cook and a housekeeper, I’ll help you find a place, and I’ll even spring for the furniture.”

That was three nights ago, and Cass hadn’t spoken to him since. Asshat. He knew what he was saying. He knew the trouble she’d had finding someone to come here and cook large meals for one person with such a strange schedule. Plus, he hadn’t made it easy, with too many restrictions on the hiring process. No males, or recent graduates of any culinary school, or former fast-food workers, and for fuck’s sake—his words not hers—no Goddamned vegetarians.

After a couple of weeks of trying to keep Jaime Dalton fed, she now understood some of his requirements. He ate a
lot
. Six eggs for breakfast, half a pound of bacon, and a triple stack of pancakes just to get him out the door. He drank two gallons of milk a day and water, more water than she could even measure. Lunches were about the same, large quantities of meat, and he could shovel pasta as if it were candy. The more he worked, the more he ate. It was understandable. He called it carbo-loading. At night though, he usually ate little more than a salad with a side of chicken, and for snacks, he drank protein shakes. Any normal person either would faint dead away or lecture him on the sins of gluttony or eating healthier. But she understood, at least for the most part, that he needed to put back what he used, and as he explained it to her, he wasn’t about to show up to camp out of shape and flabby. Therefore, he ate and he worked out, constantly.

Alicia had apparently put up with it because she was looking for something bigger. Getting a sane person not wanting to be the first Mrs. Ironman was damned near impossible. He knew that.

Of course, he knew that. That’s why he’d grinned that shit-eater grin of his at her when he’d put the condition on her leaving. She had to do the impossible; until then she stayed, and she took pity on him and cooked for him.

Asshole. Dickwad.

“Jerk!”

That was Thursday night; she hadn’t spoken to him once since. She waited on Friday and Saturday for him to leave—without scrambling one single egg, thank you very much—before she went downstairs to start her daily routine. Check in with Sam, log into the team email account to see if any changes had occurred. Synchronize the two together and see what wouldn’t work. Call Sam back see if he could get a reschedule on the Gatorade commercial. Call the airline for a first-class ticket to New York. Text Jaime, wait for him to approve everything. Call Sam back and email him Jaime’s itinerary including the trip to New York.

Then and only then did she go to the kitchen where she leisurely prepared herself breakfast: an egg, two slices of bacon—okay, three, because she really liked bacon—a slice of toast, and a bowl of strawberries, and milk. Jaime had convinced her that she needed the calcium now, while she was still in her twenties.

When he came in from his early-morning run along the beach, she smiled from beside the pool while he scrambled his own damned eggs. This, she thought, as she paddled her feet in the warm salt water, she could get used to. Maybe Jaime was right; she shouldn’t leave. Why should she, when she had everything she needed without lifting a finger to get it.

On Sunday, she lay in bed until the ungodly hour of ten o’clock. Jaime would have come back from his run by now, done his laps in the pool, and taken off for the team photo shoot that was scheduled for that afternoon. He wouldn’t be back for lunch, so she had the whole day to herself.

She stretched, rolled out of bed, and decided that today was a good day to stay in her jammies. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she descended the stairs, her mouth minty fresh, her hair neatly pulled back in a sleek ponytail, only to stop dead in her tracks the second she entered the kitchen.

Jamison Dalton sat at the table dressed in little more than a towel, his face as gray and ominous as the storm that wailed beyond the row of French windows.

Her skin prickled when his golden gaze slowly caressed her body from the tips of her bare toes to her naked face, and every inch in between. Somehow she felt violated by the gleam in his eyes alone.

“So she is alive after all. I was beginning to wonder.” He sipped a glass of orange juice and leaned back in the chair, his well-formed, smooth-as-a-baby’s-butt pectoral muscles flexing as he did. Aware that she was staring, and that he wanted her to stare, she sucked in her breath, squared her shoulders, and walked past him to the refrigerator, where she helped herself to a glass of the same juice.

“I’m taking a day off. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be up in Davie getting your picture taken?”

“Cancelled due to weather. Which you would know, if you’d done your job.”

“So I can’t have one day all to myself? In the—what has it been now?—five weeks I’ve been here, I’ve not had one whole day to do what I want to do. It’s called a day off; maybe you’ve heard of them?”

“And you thought you’d parade around here in sexy lingerie?”

“This is sexy? It’s a cotton nightgown and … and … and you’re sitting over there naked under that towel, aren’t you?” She felt her face turn red, completely red all the way to her hair. Of course, he was naked, she could see his trunks on the patio, and his hair was still dripping from his swim and the dash to get out of the storm. “You hate dripping water in from the pool, and you haven’t been upstairs to shower yet.”

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and that I pay you to take care of me and my needs, and my needs have not been met in three days now.” He twitched his lips into that smile that she hated, sort of a half-smile in which he looked smug and condescending all at once. It was his debate smile when he thought he’d won.

“Wait a minute. You didn’t actually hire me to do anything for you but liaison between you and your overfilled schedule. I volunteered out of the goodness of my heart to take care of your other needs. Wait, that sounds dirty. Oh wait, wait, I’m not taking care of any needs at all. Not even basic needs, and if you’re thinking of anything else, I’m definitely not taking care of any of those needs, period.”

“And out of the goodness of your heart, I’d like you to make breakfast. You at least make decent eggs.” Did he really just order her to do something with a smile on his face?

“Uh, let me think about it for a moment.” She plucked a packet of yogurt from the dairy drawer, and grabbing a spoon, she leaned on the counter to eat her breakfast. “That would be a no. I’ll toss you a thingy of yogurt if you’d like; there’s cereal in the pantry if you don’t. Or, I don’t know … cook your own damn eggs.”

“That’s my food you’re eating. And you sleep in the room I provide and the clothes you wear … okay, I don’t think I paid for that ugly thing.”

“Okay, fine.” She dropped the yogurt in the trash. “You want to play that game? Fine, then I’ll go to the store and buy my own food with the money you were supposed to put in my account for the work I did last month. Oh yeah, that check doesn’t seem to be in the system yet. And I’ll drive the car that you contractually are obligated to provide me until my services are terminated, in case you decide I can’t even have that little luxury. And I will move out just as soon as that aforementioned paycheck for the last five weeks actually turns up.”

His eyes narrowed, he pressed his lips into a thin line that sent shivers down her spine. Golden light sparked from behind lashes that were only a slightly darker shade. He looked like the devil incarnate, and her blood began to boil. Whether with fear or excitement she didn’t know.

“Do you know what your problem is, Miss Pendleton?”

“So it’s back to Miss Pendleton, then. What happened to Pepper? And Lord forbid you actually call me by my real name,” she taunted him, watching in fascination as he leaned forward on one elbow and placed his chin in his hand. Did he know that he looked like a rippling, glowing, golden god when he moved like that?

Of course, he knew. Otherwise, he wouldn’t move like that.

“You need a good spanking. That mouth of yours is out of control.” His lips stretched into that sinful grin that reminded her of an animal on the prowl. He was toying with her, she knew that, biding his time before he went for the kill. Jamison Dalton was a master tormentor. She’d fallen into his trap too many times to count. One wrong move and she was toast, she knew that from experience.

“You aren’t man enough to try that,
Mr. Dalton
.” Wrong move. Oh Jesus Christ, she knew to the very millisecond when Jaime Dalton decided to accept her challenge. All she could hope for now was to make it up the stairs and into her room before he could … “Oh, fuck.”

* * * *

Jaime smiled. Her vain attempt at evading him was amusing. She had the deer-in-the-headlights look as he lunged from the chair at her taunt. Then she ran, at least she tried to run for the hall, but he zigged that way first, cutting her off. She stood staring at him, her chest heaving, her eyes wild but calculating. She looked from left to right just before she started for the other side of the island. Again, he anticipated her move, cutting off her escape.

“Nice try, babe, but remember, I play what amounts to a very violent game of tag for a living. I’m bigger than you, faster than you, and I have the home-field advantage.”

“But I’m smarter than you,” she shot back as she eased toward the patio doors, then feinted back to the island once she drew him away.

“Not so much.” Blood pumped in his brain, the thrill of the chase blinding him to everything but catching Cass Pendleton and making her pay for all of the little slights and insults he’d endured over the past few weeks. And after everything he’d done for her too.

“Why are you doing this?”

That was a loaded question he had no intention of answering.

“Fine, then. I’ll take my chances in the rain.”

He caught her just as she reached the grill area and grabbed her around her waist. She screamed a blood-curdling scream that made his blood race even faster.

She kicked, clawed, and called him names he wouldn’t have guessed she knew the meaning of. But he didn’t let her go. Instead he found the jump rope he’d left out the day before, and with one hand he held her arms behind her back, with the other he cinched her elbows together and wound the rope a couple of times, finally tying it in a bow.

Cass stopped struggling immediately. She stood stone still, staring at him with mayhem in her eyes. “Not funny, Jaime. Let me go. Let me go now and I won’t kill you.”

“Pretty talk. You should be on your knees, begging me to let you go instead of making threats you aren’t in a position to carry out.” He noticed that her breath grew ragged, but murder still shone brightly in her eyes. “I’ll let you go when you learn to speak to me with a civil tongue. Yes, Mr. Dalton or Lord Ironman—either is acceptable. Yes, Mr. Dalton. Do you think you can manage that, Miss Pendleton?”

“Go fuck yourself.” She stood tall, her shoulders forced back, her breasts jutting against the pulled tight material of her gown that was little more than a long, sleeveless T-shirt, her nipples hard as pebbles.

Something stirred inside him, a beast he thought he’d long ago shackled, when it came to Cassandra Pendleton and her mouth. Her perfectly formed full red lips—oh so perfect for kissing, but very adept at spewing vile, hateful words. Words that had made him want to do dishonorable things to her for as long as he could remember.

“Maybe later. Right now, Miss Pendleton, I believe I owe you a spanking.” He slowly walked around her, touching her shoulder, her upper arms, stroking her cheek as he circled her, dragging out the torment. “Not quite so mouthy now, are you? How do you want it? Leaning across the table or my lap?”

She didn’t answer; she just stood still and watched him, with something akin to hatred in her eyes. He didn’t like the sick feeling in his stomach those looks caused. However, instead of untying her and running for his life, he decided it was a good idea to cover her eyes with the forgotten dishtowel that lay on the table beside the grill. “I’m sorry, Miss Pendleton, but you brought this on yourself. And if it’s any consolation, this is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”

She started to reply, but he cinched the cloth around her eyes, and the words she had been about to say became a breathy gasp. “Now, Miss Pendleton, I’m going to give you one chance to apologize for all of the mean things you say to me.”

The rise and fall of her chest was mesmerizing, her pointed nipples seemed to beckon him to touch. Jaime cleared his throat.

“Let me go.” Her voice was soft, breathy, disconcerting.

“Apologize or get spanked.” Why didn’t he just let her go?

“No. I won’t.” She drew in her breath when he twined his fingers in her hair; the long thick ponytail felt like silk. He pulled her head back and leaned in. He could feel her breath on his cheek. It was minty and sweet, he could see the wild fluttering of her pulse at the base of her neck, and before he could stop himself, he picked her up and carried her back into the house.