Authors: Brenda Jackson
U
riel lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. In four days he would be leaving this place to return to Charlotte. When he pulled out of the driveway on Sunday evening, he would look straight ahead, wonder how well his assistant had managed things in his absence, and look forward to getting back into the swing of things at Lassiter Industries.
He would not dwell on what he’d been doing for the past three weeks, the summer fling he thoroughly enjoyed. Why would he? It had been nothing more than an affair, and affairs were insignificant. After one ended, you rested up, gave yourself breathing room and prepared for the next one. Life moved on.
Then why did he suddenly feel like his was standing still?
Why did the thought of leaving here, not seeing Ellie, not spending time with her, not making love to her, leave an emptiness in his stomach, a vacant spot in his chest surrounding his heart?
An unfamiliar feeling stirred in his gut, and he tried shoving it away. Instead, it moved to his shoulder blades and then to the lower part of his back. Agonized, he closed his eyes, and the only image that could form behind his closed eyelids was Ellie. He saw her as she’d looked that night she had stood at her window, stripping for him, giving him her decision to have an affair with him in a style that even now left him breathless.
And then Ellie as she had looked later when he had entered her, felt her tightness squeeze him, and her wetness surround him, flesh-to-flesh, skin-to-skin.
He saw too the Ellie who had spent the past three weeks with him, making him enjoy a woman’s company in a way he’d never done before. Sharing breakfast with her, going fishing with her, going skinny-dipping with her, watching movies till dawn with her, making impromptu love to her, anytime and anyplace—tasting her with a hunger and need that he hadn’t experienced with any woman. And having unprotected sex with her and enjoying shooting his seed into her, while actually imagining the baby they could be making together.
He thought of Ellie, and those times she held him within her body, clenched him with a need that could make him come. How she would stroke him, take him into her mouth and love him that way, and how he would doze off to sleep, wanting her near him, with his hands between her legs to keep her there. Before now he refused
to believe there was a difference in passion. Now he knew there was lovemaking passion and sex passion. The passion that flowed through his body whenever he was inside of Ellie was lovemaking passion.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling again, as his heart began to pound deep in his chest and every bone in his body began to quiver. There could be only one reason for him feeling as he did. One reason he needed to finally face up to.
He then recalled Donovan’s words of just a few days ago: “If you ever meet the woman who is wearing your name somewhere on her heart—you will know.”
He knew. He knew at that very moment that it was Ellie’s name scrawled on his heart.
Damn.
He eased out of bed, thinking he needed a beer, then deciding a shot of whiskey—preferably Jack Daniel’s—would do better. How had he allowed himself to fall in love, after what his mother had done to his father? Was he a glutton for the same type of experience?
He knew that the only thing he was a glutton for was Ellie. She was not like his mother. He would be able to put all his love and trust in her and not be betrayed.
He rubbed his hand over his face. His shower could wait. He needed to see Ellie, and he needed to see her now.
Ellie released a long sigh and wondered why she had called Darcy, when she knew what her best friend would say. “I hear what you’re saying, Darcy, but a part of me feels I should come clean and tell Uriel the truth. And if you think it won’t matter, then fine. I just don’t want him to think these past three weeks meant nothing to me.”
“Okay, El, if you think that’s what you should do, then fine, do it. But if he’s like most men, all that matters with an affair is the outcome, and the outcome was three weeks in his bed. I doubt he would have given that up for anything.”
“Maybe not, Darcy, but the bottom line is that I got a call from my aunt’s literary agent, to tell me that Vandellas Publishing was sold to another company. I’m glad Uriel was around so I could get plenty of lovemaking inspiration to finish the book for her as Flame Elbam. But the bottom line is that, when he finds out he is going to know that he was being used.”
Suddenly, she thought she heard a noise outside, and glanced out the window but didn’t see anything. She then pulled in a deep breath and said, “That’s why I have to tell him the truth. I have to let him know that he wasn’t used. That I love him, and the time I spent with him was special.”
She took a deep breath, and was grateful that, for once, Darcy didn’t say anything.
“Look, Darcy, I have to go. I have a lot to do before Uriel comes over. And then I will tell him the truth. Everything. He deserves that.”
Somehow, Uriel made it back to his house and dropped down in his kitchen chair, while the words he had heard Ellie speak rang so clear in his mind.
He had been about to knock on her back door, when two names she’d spoken grabbed him. Darcy and Vandellas Publishing. Darcy was her best friend, the one who’d talked her into that dare ten years ago, and Van
dellas Publishing was the company that he and Donovan now owned. What was Ellie talking about when she said she would finish a book for her aunt for his publishing company? And better yet, how had his lovemaking inspired her to finish the book?
A part of him knew he probably should have just hung around and asked her, demanded a few answers. But the part of him that had just admitted to being in love with her less than an hour ago felt raw and betrayed.
He breathed in deeply as he replayed her words that were still so clear in his mind.
He stood, and slowly walked up the stairs to his bedroom, where he pulled open his briefcase. It didn’t take him long to find the papers he was looking for. The first was a detailed listing of all the outstanding manuscripts. He quickly scanned the page and found the name “Flame Elbam,” and in parenthesis it showed “Mable Weston.”
Uriel blinked. Ms. Mable had been writing one of those romance novels? He pulled in a breath deeply. The woman was in her seventies, for crying out loud, so it had to be one of those sweet and innocent types where the man and woman did nothing more than hold hands, or kiss each other on the cheek.
He nearly swallowed his tongue when, moments later, he saw the category Ms. Mable’s book had been purchased for: erotica. The paper he was holding almost slipped out of his hand, and he couldn’t do anything but gape his mouth before dropping down on the side of his bed in shock. Sweet little old Ms. Mable had been writing erotica romances? He read farther and saw she’d been given an advance of over fifty thousand dollars.
Damn. First his mother and her boy-toy, and now Ms. Mable and her erotica romances…the female population never ceased to amaze him. His thoughts then shifted to Ellie. There was nothing on the paper he was holding in his hand to indicate that Mable Weston, aka Flame Elbam, would not be turning her manuscript in, which revealed Ellie’s devious plan to outwit the publisher and finish the book herself.
Using him for her research.
Anger consumed him at the thought that, once again, ten years later, she and her friend Darcy had played him for a fool. The years hadn’t matured them at all. Instead of getting wiser, they had gotten more conniving and deceitful. It would do Darcy justice to one day meet someone like York, who would see through her with the first blink, and then show her no mercy.
But for him, his bone of contention was with Ellie, the woman he had been foolish enough to fall in love with, the woman who had broken his heart before it had gotten a chance to accept that it could beat for one woman.
Deciding he no longer wanted to be within even fifty feet of Ellie, he went to the closet and threw his luggage out on the bed and moved around the room throwing things into it. There was nothing she could say. Nothing he wanted to hear.
She had made a fool of him for the last time.
Ellie climbed the steps to Uriel’s front door, surprised to find it cracked open. It was not like him to forget to lock the door behind him. She had expected him to come over to her place at least by noon, and
wondered if he was still asleep. She was prepared to tell him everything.
She entered the house, and when she heard him moving around upstairs, she called out to him as she headed toward the stairs, “Uriel, I’m coming up.”
“Don’t bother.”
She looked up at him and saw that he was standing at the top of the stairs staring back. The look on his face sent chills through her body. And he had his luggage in his hand. She swallowed and wondered what was wrong. Had something happened to his father? His mother?
“Uriel, what is it? What happened?”
The laugh that emitted from his throat was just as cold and chilling as the look he was giving her. “You want to know what happened, Ellie? I’ll tell you what happened. Stupid me. Foolish me. Wanting to believe, after ten years, you had grown up and had matured, not just in body but also in mind—only to discover that, once again, you and your friend, Darcy decided to play me. This time, using me in the bedroom, since you’ve outgrown a mere kiss on the pier. You needed to finish your aunt’s book, and I was the perfect man to research those bedroom scenes you needed to write.”
At the surprised look in her eyes, Uriel laughed again and said, “Yes, I was coming over to see you and just happened to overhear your conversation with your friend Darcy. I heard everything you said. Go play games with someone else, and get out of my house. You aren’t welcome here.”
“Uriel, please listen. You didn’t hear everything, and
I wasn’t playing a game with you. I had planned to tell you everything about Aunt Mable’s book and—”
“When? When had you planned to tell me, Ellie? Once the book was published, and my name appeared in the acknowledgments as the man who inspired you to write all those lovemaking scenes? The man who introduced you to all those various positions? The man you used once again, ten years later.”
“Uriel, I—”
“Please leave. And you can have Cavanaugh Lake all to yourself, because I am going back to Charlotte.”
He came down the stairs and stood in front of her. The anger on his face was reflected in his eyes as well, when he said, “Now, please leave so I can lock up the place.”
Ellie met his gaze and knew that no matter what she said to him, he would not listen. So she turned and headed for the door. But not before looking back one final time, hoping, just hoping, she would once again see his eyes and a smile curve his lips. She saw neither. Instead, she saw the hard, cold expression of a very angry man. A man who had all but told her he did not, would not, allow her back into his life again.
She turned and walked away, opening the door and then walking out of it. She kept walking, refusing to stop until she was safely inside her own home. And then she made it to the sofa, slumped down and covered her face in her hands. It was only moments later, when she heard the sound of his car pulling away, that she let the tears fall, unheeded, down her face.
Kicking off her sandals, she decided to lie down,
doubting her legs would be able to carry her anywhere right now. And she closed her eyes and cried some more.
Ellie opened her eyes and looked around, and when she glanced out the window she saw that dusk was covering the earth. She pulled herself up, not believing she had actually slept for over five hours.
But she had slept, and while doing so she had dreamed. It had been a pleasant dream, one of her and her aunt. They had laughed and they had talked, and then her aunt had held her while she cried. It had seemed so real, but she knew it had been merely a dream.
Still, she had come away with something very important. Her aunt wanted her to finish the book, and in doing so, she would be stronger when she confronted Uriel again. If he thought he had seen the last of her, he was sadly mistaken. She would give him time to cool his anger, and then she was going to Charlotte to see him. No matter what it took, she would make him realize her aunt’s book was a blessing to them and not a curse.
It might have been the reason she’d agreed to an affair with him, but it hadn’t been the reason she had fallen in love with him.
“H
ave a nice weekend, Mr. Lassiter.”
Uriel paused and glanced over his shoulder at his administrative assistant. “Thank you, Karen, and I hope you do the same.”
“Are you headed out to your lake place for the Labor Day weekend?” Karen asked, and smiled as he grabbed his briefcase off his desk.
“No. I plan to have a quiet weekend at home.”
He quickly left the office, not wanting to engage in any further conversation with Karen, or anyone else for that matter. He’d already seen his father before he’d left for the day. His father had made plans to fly to New York and visit with York and his parents.
Due to the holiday traffic on the road, it took Uriel longer than usual to get home. Normally, he would drop
by the Racetrack Café and have a couple of beers with Donovan, Xavier and Bronson. But Bronson was racing this weekend at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, and the guys had gone to Atlanta to give him their support. Uriel thought about going, but had changed his mind. He much preferred being by himself this weekend. Now he knew how his father must have felt. It had been two weeks, and the pain hadn’t eased any.
Donovan had accused him of being stubborn and had tried encouraging him to call Ellie, and listen to her—to let her explain her side of things. Donovan had shared with him the mistake he’d made in jumping to conclusions with Natalie. But Uriel’s heart had hardened more at the thought of even talking to Ellie.
He let himself inside his home, and again noticed how lonely it seemed. He went into his bedroom, tossed his suit jacket on the bed and decided to slip into a pair of jeans and T-shirt before ordering take-out. Then he intended to spend the rest of the evening, probably the entire weekend, with ESPN.
He was stretched out on the sofa, watching the NFL preseason highlights, when he heard the sound of his doorbell. Thinking it was the pizza delivery man, he grabbed the twenty-dollar bill off the table and walked to the door in his bare feet and opened it.
Instead of the pizza man, Ellie stood there. He had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, and then, with the anger he hadn’t manage to cap, said in a cold tone, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ellie dragged in a deep breath as she gazed into Uriel’s eyes. Two weeks hadn’t softened them any. They
were just as cold as that day he had left Cavanaugh Lake. But she couldn’t let that stop her from doing what she needed to do. What she had to do. It would be the same thing Tamara had had to force Grant to do: to listen to her reasons for doing what she’d done, and make him believe, no matter what or how long it took, that every time he had touched her, had made love to her, she had loved him.
And before she left, she would make Uriel face up to the fact that he loved her, too. She truly believed it, and it had taken finishing her aunt’s manuscript to realize it. She was not dealing with make-believe, but hard, cold reality. And no man would have handled her the way he had unless he had loved her. She believed that. Once they got their love out in the open, they would be able to handle the rest. The man standing in front of her was her destiny. Now she had to convince him of that.
“I asked what you are doing here, Ellie.”
“We need to talk.” Before he realized what she was about to do, she slipped past him and walked into his house. She didn’t turn around until she was in the middle of his living room, and when she did, the shocked look on his face almost endeared him to her.
“You weren’t invited inside my house,” he said, slamming the door shut.
“Then put me out,” she challenged, knowing he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t come close to her. He wouldn’t touch her. He was so much like Grant Hatteras that her heart ached. That’s why the last two chapters had come easily to her, and she had been able to finish them in ten days.
And since she had decided to come clean, before she sent the manuscript to Lauren Poole yesterday, she had called the woman, confessed to what she’d done. Lauren had been more than understanding, and had agreed to read the entire manuscript as soon as she got it. If Lauren felt everything flowed smoothly, and Ellie had been able to capture her aunt’s writing voice, then she would notify Vandellas Publishers, and request that they go ahead and print the book as the first and final work of Flame Elbam.
“You have three minutes.”
She glanced over at Uriel. “I’m taking five,” she said, sitting down on the sofa and crossing her legs. “Ten, if I need them.”
She’d seen him glance at her legs when she crossed them. She had him figured out, which was why she had worn this particular skirt with the split in the side. And she wondered if he had picked up on the fact that she didn’t have a bra on underneath her blouse. He would find out soon enough.
He stared at her. She stared at him. There were some things a man couldn’t hide, no matter how quick he might be to do so, and when he came and quickly sat down in the chair across from her she knew. He might be mad at her, but his body still wanted her.
“I’m waiting.”
She pulled in a deep breath and then said, “I don’t want you waiting, Uriel, I want you listening. Will you listen to what I have to say?”
“Maybe.”
Okay, if he wanted to be difficult, then she would
show him what being difficult was about in a minute, if he kept it up. “I will start at the beginning. I found my aunt’s unfinished manuscript….”
Uriel stared at her. Was he listening? Most of the time. The rest of it was spent watching her lips move, watching that tongue work inside her mouth, watching how she nervously twitched her crossed legs, watching her hand gestures. Just plain watching her. And remembering.
Remembering the lips he kissed. The tongue that had mingled with his, the pair of legs he had been between and the hands that had stroked him. He felt his crotch harden. Felt the way his pulse rate increased. Felt the heat that was beginning to run up his spine.
“Uriel?”
He blinked. “What?”
“I asked you a question.”
He frowned. Had she? He shifted in the chair. “Could you repeat the question?”
“Sure. I asked whose idea it was for us to have that summer fling?”
His frown deepened, wondering what point she was trying to make. “It was my idea.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated.
“Yes, why?” she almost snapped.
A moment of silence was all it took before he said, “Because I wanted you.”
A faint smile took shape on her lips, and then she asked, “For what reason?”
For what reason? A lump formed in his throat. Why was she asking all these questions?
“For what reason, Uriel?” she repeated.
He hesitated before replying, then thought, what the hell. He would tell her just what she wanted to know. “Sex,” he said, and just in case she didn’t hear it, he said it again, louder this time,
“Sex.”
She was out of her seat in a flash, and he had to draw back when she got in his face. “You’re mad at me for wanting you for sex, but you just admitted to wanting me for the same thing. Please explain that!”
Annoyance rushed through him. “There’s nothing to explain. It was what it was, and you knew it from the beginning. But
you
had ulterior motives in what you did.”
She stared at him, her brows arched and chin tilted. She backed up and returned to stand by the sofa. “I needed to be inspired to finish my aunt’s novel. I finished it and I told her agent the truth, and she will tell the publishing company the truth. If the work is acceptable, they will publish it as Flame Elbam.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then said, “Finishing that manuscript meant a lot to me, Uriel, and I appreciate your giving me what I needed to do it. No man had ever really and truly made love to me before, and I knew you could and would do it right. What was wrong with that?”
He got on his feet, quickly covered the distance separating them, to stand in front of her. He tightened his hands into fists at his sides, or else he’d be tempted to strangle her. He suddenly felt out of control.
Untamed. “What was wrong with it was that you should have told me!”
Refusing to retreat, she dragged in a deep breath and then let it out before asking, “And if I had, Uriel? Would you have done anything differently? Would you have?”
He frowned. “That is not the point.”
She threw up her hands in frustration. “And what is the point? You got what you wanted and so did I. In fact, I got more than I ever dreamed of getting, Uriel, because for three weeks I made love to the man I have loved since I knew what love was about, or thought I knew what it was about. Even that day ten years ago, I had this huge crush on you. And I always dreamed you would be the first boy I kissed. I got to share so many firsts with you, as well as seconds, and I don’t regret any of it.”
She paused, held his gaze and said, “Yes, I wanted you to inspire me. Yes, you did. And yes, maybe I should have told you about it. But you wanted to have an affair with me. You asked and I consented, whatever the reason. You got from me what you wanted. Now I plan to get from you what I want, then I will leave you in peace.”
Uriel’s mind was too wrapped up in her admission of her love for him to pay attention to what else she was saying. He saw her kick off her shoes, but didn’t realize what she was about to do until her hand went to the zipper of her skirt.
“What do you think you’re doing, Ellie?”
“What does it look like?”
And with that smart-ass response, her skirt dropped to the floor, leaving her clad in a pair of black lace
bikini panties. He frowned at her. “Lady, you’ve got a lot of nerve.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Glad you think so.” She reached out and grabbed his jeans by the waist. Before he could resist, she had pushed him back, and they both went tumbling onto the sofa, with her landing on top of him.
He glared up at her. “Is there anything in particular that you’re trying to prove?” he asked, not believing how she was carrying on.
“Yes,” she said, holding his gaze. “Let me know when it’s starting to work.”
And then she lowered her head and kissed him, seducing his mouth with the sweetest pair of lips he had ever known, and then tangling with his tongue. He didn’t resist—didn’t even try—when their mouths began mating with a hunger that would not be denied.
When she finally pulled her mouth back, she whispered against his lips, “I love you, Uriel. It’s always been about love for me. Even when I knew you were going to leave me at the end of the month, I still wanted to be with you because I loved you. You could only inspire me because I loved you.”
He stared up at her and then he knew. Her name was still written on his heart. It hadn’t gotten erased. It could never get erased. He pushed a wayward strand of hair back from her face, and he studied her features and knew that one day he would have a daughter who would look just like her.
“And I love you, too, Ellie,” he said huskily, admitting what he should have figured out long before he
actually had. “I realized it before leaving the lake, and I had been headed over to tell you that day when I heard you talking on the phone to Darcy.”
She nodded. “Had you hung around and listened to all of the conversation, you would have heard me tell Darcy of my decision to tell you everything because I loved you.”
Cupping her behind the neck, he brought her mouth down to meet his, and their tongues mingled in a kiss that was beginning to burn him inside out. He could feel the thudding of her heart against his, and then he realized something, her nipples pressing hard against his chest.
He pulled back. “You’re not wearing a bra,” he said in disbelief.
Ellie couldn’t help but laugh. “No, I’m not. I started not to wear any panties either, but with the split in my skirt, I thought that might be too much. Either way, I’d planned on making you incapable of speech for a while.”
Uriel smiled. “What have I created?”
Her features took a serious turn when she said, “A woman who will love you forever.”
He reached out and brushed his knuckles against the softness of her cheeks and said, “And I am a man who will love you forever, as well.” He kissed her. “There’s something I think you ought to know. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think your Aunt Mable had a hand in all of this.”
She lifted a brow. “In all of what?”
“That publishing company. Vandellas Publishing. Donovan and I own it. I didn’t know it was the one that was publishing your aunt’s work until I heard you talking with Darcy. Just so you know, I plan to remain
impartial. It will be the editor’s decision as to whether you did your aunt’s manuscript justice. If you did, then it will be published.”
Her eyes lit up and she smiled. “And if I did a good job and they want another book from Flame Elbam, would you let me write it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“And will you inspire me again?” she asked, leaning in closer and using the tip of her tongue to trace around his lips.
“Baby,” he said in a quivering breath, “all you have to do is ask.”
“I’m asking.”
He stood up and pulled her into his arms. As he quickly moved toward the bedroom, he glanced down at her and smiled. “That’s one request that you don’t have to make twice.”