“You said you needed to sleep alone for now.” Alex paused, wondering if he was stupid to remind her. It had to be love. “I took the expression to mean a hold on sex, rather than a statement about actual sleeping.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice, stepping back from him before she turned and paced several steps.
“So…what’s going on with that?” Alex sat down on one end of the couch, his body protesting fiercely against the changed agenda.
“I don’t know,” she said, lifting her chin and sending him a smile. “I must have been temporarily insane. The stress is getting to me.”
Although her words were said with a tone of humor, he wondered if she realized how true they were.
“Were you still upset with me about what I said at the party? The thing with Keith and his ‘uppity’ employee?”
“No,” she said, “no. Your friend is a jerk and you should have said something to him about it, but I’m not still upset about that.”
Alex wondered if she could hear the note of remembered annoyance in her denial. “I’ve been thinking about that situation. Can you tell me why you were so furious about the remark I made to Keith? I’m not sure I understand why you were so angry.”
“Are you sure you want to talk about this now?” she asked again, a hand resting on the curve of her hip as she waited for his answer.
“I’m sure,” he said, “that I want to understand anything that’s bothering you. You’re not just a piece of ass to me.”
She stood looking at him uncertainly, the wintery look in her eyes fading. “Okay. Let’s talk.”
Alex waited.
”I guess,” she said finally. “I wasn’t very clear. Your comments just seemed like the crap women hear from the Old Boys’ Club. You know, ‘they’re good at typing up our letters and mixing our drinks before we fuck them and go home to our wives, but we can’t let these
secretaries
get too uppity’.”
“I sounded like that?” He frowned, the image jarring.
With a short sigh, Eden sat down next to him on the couch. “Yes. I don’t know. I guess I’m a little sensitive about that sort of thing. My uncle—the one who’s
Beauty by Georgette
? He’s always had some of that. It just pisses me off.”
“And that’s why you won’t work for him?” Alex had known the subject of her uncle was a tender one. Asking questions about that situation hadn’t seemed politic before. “Tell me, baby. I want to know.”
“George won’t let me work for him,” she said sharply. “He has a problem with anything that looks like nepotism. At least, that’s what he says.”
“That’s not what he means?” Alex watched her face, seeing frustration and a tinge of bitterness.
“No,” she answered shortly. “He means that he won’t let his skanky loser sister’s kid work for him.”
“What? ’Skanky loser?’ He thinks that badly of your mother?” Alex’s own relationship with Lauren was so close, the notion of a brother so disliking his sister seemed jarring to Alex. “What’s the matter with him?”
“He…doesn’t have any respect for my mother,” Eden said with another sigh, her hand brushing over the back of the couch in a frustrated gesture. “But in fairness to George, my mother has always been….”
Turned toward her, Alex watched Eden struggling for words.
“My mother,” she said, starting again, “has zero self-esteem. At least, apart from the current man in her life, and the men she chooses always confirm that she’s worthless…but she keeps choosing them, all the same. She’s consistent, my mother.”
Shaking her head slowly, Eden said, “I’ve never let her personal problems warp me, though. That’s been my determination. I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t be with a man who belittled me the way my father did my mother before they divorced. But I don’t generally carry a chip on my shoulder, either. I try to be very conscious of that.”
“I’ve never seen you as having a chip,” Alex commented, absorbing the information she’d just shared. What a sad childhood to be tied to a parent who continued to put herself into abusive situations. “Your mother had a lot of boyfriends when you were a kid?”
“Boyfriends,” Eden said musingly, “lovers, husbands—not necessarily her own. Whatever. She wasn’t picky.”
Alex felt a surge of gratitude for the loving marriage he’d witnessed before his mother died.
“That must have sucked,” he said, reaching over to capture Eden’s restless hand as it moved on the couch cushion.
“Yes, it sucked.” Her smile was crooked. “But I don’t want to whine. It could have been worse.”
“I guess so,” he paused. “That doesn’t negate the fact that you had a pretty bad time, from the sounds of it.”
She bent her head, picking at the fabric of the couch with her other hand. “Oh…maybe it could have been better.”
With that one understatement, he found a new anxiety. Women who had a parade of men through their lives weren’t always very good at protecting their children. Had Eden been abused by some man her mother had latched on to?
“I was always a grouchy kid,” Eden said with a faint smile. “I got tired of the boyfriends and their various kids. I guess my mother deserved some credit for keeping me with her.”
“Maybe not. Particularly if she liked asshole guys and didn’t keep you safe from them.” Alex’s voice was grim. She was close and warm and he wanted to beat the shit out of anyone who’d hurt her. “Where the hell was your father?”
“In a bottle somewhere. He died in a bar fight when I was still young. And my mother’s rat boyfriends realized quickly that I was too much trouble to mess with. I’d have screamed bloody murder if one of them had touched me.” Her laugh was short and hard. “Look, all this really has nothing to do with anything now. I got angry the other night…hell, I don’t know, because I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. I tried to work for George and he shot me down, back when I was a kid out of college and just recently when I talked to him.”
She shrugged. “It was maddening, then, to hear you talking like that with your friends….”
“I am
not
like your uncle George!” Alex said more emphatically than he’d intended as he reached up to take her other hand, drawing her toward him. “You have to know that!”
“No, you’re not,” she said quickly, her hand flying up to touch his face. “It was just those one or two comments—really, I know you’re not—“
The pale curve of her cheek tempted him, as did the soft rise and fall of her chest.
“You sent me Payday bars,” she said, her smile almost shy. “I’ve always loved them.”
“I know,” he said, leaning forward to brush a kiss along her temple. “I’ve found wrappers strewn here and there.”
“Jessica says I need moderation.”
“You need a break,” he corrected. “I know the situation at the company is hard on you, but we’re almost there. We’ve got Thanksgiving coming up and then the board meeting.”
“Yes,” she said, her face subdued.
“This hasn’t been easy for you,” he said again. “But it’s not like you’ve had a lot of other options. Michele hasn’t given you any choice. It’s screw her or let her screw you.”
Alex didn’t know why he felt the need to say all this again. Michele
had
created this situation. If she’d kept her word to Eden, he wouldn’t have stood a chance to take the company over. Not that it mattered now. The plan was underway. He just wanted her to feel okay about what they were doing.
Looking up at him, she smiled, the expression having the look of being firmly pinned in place. “In a few weeks all this will be over.”
His mood lifting with her smile, Alex said, “Yes. Then we can go forward.”
“In many ways,” she said reflectively, her head tilted back against the couch, “you’re not the man I first thought you were, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
With a pensive expression, she said, “You’ve made an enormous amount of money in a ruthless industry. When people hear that kind of thing, they think it means a man is…heartless. Most men in your position
are
heartless. Sometimes you seem heartless.”
“Do you think I don’t care about other people?” he said, careful not to let an untoward urgency leak into the question, not to feel hurt that she’d see him that way.
“That’s what I mean,” she said, placing her palm on his chest over his thudding heart. “You’re different. I know you have a heart.”
The sultry note entered her voice again. “I can feel it, here.”
“You called me tonight…?” Alex’s words faltered as she drew closer, her hands sliding up over his chest. The beautiful curve of her mouth hovered near his lips. “We can just hold each other, watch an old movie. Hell, play Parcheesi….”
Eden leaned forward and kissed him, her lips soft and wanton.
As she ended the kiss, straightening, he swallowed and tried again. “Are you sure you want to make love?”
She’d written that damned note for a reason and the last thing he wanted tonight was her regret. He needed her with him.
“Yes,” Eden said with soft conviction. “Love me. Please.”
That one word—
please
—broke the last vestige of his admittedly puny resistance. She wanted him as much as he needed her.
Gathering her close, Alex lowered his mouth on to hers. She tasted better than his memory and he remembered her as incredible. Her hunger matching his own, she kissed him back, her head falling back on his arm under his plundering lips, her fingers working his tie free.
One long, hot kiss followed another, the blood pounding through his veins. Lifting her in his arms, Alex strode into his bedroom. He needed her naked, rolling on his bed…needed to be in her, surrounded by the only woman in his world.
When they lay together, a few moments later, in his big bed, he cherished her with his mouth and hands. She was perfect, her breasts full to his eager touch, her body lithe and responsive.
Never had she kissed him more passionately. Her cries of arousal, soft and urgent in his ears when his mouth dropped to lavish her breasts, drove him forward. Poised on his knees as she spread her legs and panted her welcome, he knew he’d never felt like this with a woman before.
With her, he was strong and powerful; desired and needed. He was Sampson and if she wanted to play Delilah, he’d give her the scissors.
Minutes later, as Alex sank into her hot, sweet channel, he lost conscious thought.
He loved her, he thought, driving hard and steady into her body. They’d merged on some level beyond the physical and he only knew he had to have her, again and again. Always.
Later, they lie entwined in the bed, both awake, but neither speaking. Their emotional lovemaking left him languid and yet, strangely alert. He drew her closer, stroking the delicious texture of her skin.
He’d been right to their needing to talk tonight. They’d never been more connected. This future felt solid in his chest, a sureness that gave him optimism and strength. He could hardly wait to share Christmas with her. She’d be fun to buy for. Alex wondered if his jeweler could come up with a “Payday bar” themed piece.
“With your Mom’s multiple ‘friends’,” Alex said, breaking the silence, “holidays must be complicated.”
“Holidays are always complicated.” Her breath stirred the hair on his chest. “I don’t really celebrate or anything.”
“Jehovah’s Witness or agnostic?” he asked, stroking her hair.
“Neither,” she replied. “It’s just that with a family like mine, when everyone—whoever that is this month—gets together, ugly moments are likely to occur.”
“You never even celebrate Christmas?” he asked, saddened by the thought of a completely celebration-barren life.
Her laugh was rusty and low. “My mother lives on the west coast. I make myself go check how she’s doing every six months or so, but it’s just simpler not to do that at holiday times. Mom’s always had a problem with expectations versus reality and it’s hard with the ‘steps’ and ‘almost-steps’. Too many messy relationships.”
“And this problem with expectations is the one way you’re like your mom?” guessed Alex.
“Maybe,” Eden admitted after a pause. “Why get your hopes up and get disappointed over and over?”
“Hope isn’t a bad thing,” Alex scolded. “Didn’t you ever like Thanksgiving or Christmas?”
“The food at Thanksgiving can be good,” she conceded—
“Not on a par with Paydays, but close,” he inserted.
“—That’s right. But my Christmas dreams ended the year I turned eight.”
She fell silent until he prodded. “Tell me. What happened when you were eight?”
“I was a silly kid.” Alex felt her shrug. “I only wanted one thing—a play make-up doll which was crazy considering I was eight at the time. It’s not like I shouldn’t have learned about ‘wanting’ a certain gift.”
“But you wanted a make-up…doll when you were eight,” he prompted.
“Yes,” she said, a faint laugh in her voice.
Her amusement didn’t convince Alex, though. There was nothing funny about a childhood memory that turned a kid off Christmas. “What kind of doll?”
“Oh, it was a Golden Dream Barbie Make Up doll,” she told him finally. “It had a Barbie head on a little stand and a kit you put make-up on. You could do her hair and everything.”