The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) (14 page)

To be fair, he may have felt less homicidal today if his “rocket” had been well tended to.

“No to dinner with the city council,” he answered Bobbie, who was standing in front of his desk jotting things onto a pad of paper. “I’m not in the business of being a social puppet.”

“Yes, sir.” She finished writing, overlooking his bad mood. But he knew she could tell.
He
could tell. The idea had been to go right back to work after the wedding and carry on as usual, but ever since he’d unzipped his bride’s dress in their shared bedroom, he hadn’t stopped wondering what it’d be like to get her out of her clothes and into his arms. Even when he wasn’t thinking about it, he thought about it. Which was inconvenient. Ill-advised.

Unexpected.

That last description irked him the most. He thought he’d known what to expect from Merina when he’d offered this arrangement. Now life was throwing him a curve ball and he did not like it. Not even a little. Worse, he’d be going “home” tonight, which meant his current method of dealing—avoidance—was about to come to an abrupt end. Workdays didn’t last all day. Not anymore.

Given the mansion’s sheer size, he should have enough breathing space to ignore the potent attraction and get his brain back in the game. But there was no way around sharing a bedroom. The house staff may not be there at night, but come morning, they’d see the sheets disturbed in two separate bedrooms and suspicions would be raised. For the most part, he trusted his staff, but when it came to getting fifteen minutes of fame, he only trusted Magda implicitly. He had one shot at making the public believe in him and Merina. They’d have to keep their guard up in front of everyone.

Bobbie left, but the doors didn’t swing shut before Tag strolled in.

“Would it kill you to wear a fucking suit?” Reese barked.

Tag waited for the doors to shut completely behind him, then crossed his arms over his chest and raised one eyebrow. “Bro. You have got to find a way to work off this sexual energy or everyone is going to know the truth in a day or two.”

Reese let out a breath that was loud enough to rattle the windows behind him. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.”

Dammit.

“You are crouched like Wolverine ready to pounce.”

Reese took in his posture, hunching over his desk, fingernails white from the amount of pressure he was applying. He was strung tight. He stood, rolled his shoulders, and cracked his neck.

“Guess you should’ve taken a mistress alongside your bride,” Tag observed, coming to the guest chair and plunking into it. A half-smile suggested he was kidding, but Reese didn’t find it funny. The only woman he could picture beneath him, legs spread, back arched, face flushed as he drove into her, the air filled with her moans of pleasure, was Merina. What horrible irony that he’d married the one woman he couldn’t fuck.

“I know why you’re stressed,” Tag pointed out, because he was being oh-so-helpful today.

“It’s work.”

“No, it’s not.”

Reese didn’t sit; he was too wired. He affected a bored expression. “Fine. What is it? Enlighten me.”

“You have to go back to the house and live there,” his brother answered matter-of-factly.

“And?” But Reese knew where this was going.

“And your suite here at the hotel will be neglected for the first time in years. You’re returning to the scene of the crime, man, and don’t think that’s not going to affect you. Having Gwyneth take off was one thing, but having her take off with Hayes was the fuck-you to end all fuck-yous.”

Hayes. The second-to-last person Reese wanted to think about was his ex-best friend. The first being Gwyneth.

“Ancient history,” Reese said. The mention of their names sent a wave of regret through him, but most of that sting was because he’d been taken advantage of—had
allowed
himself to be taken advantage of—and hadn’t stopped it. “Right now my focus is on surviving the next six months.” Or less. Maybe the board could be wooed before then and they could divorce before his dick shriveled and dropped off. He repressed a shudder.

“Is she not cooperating?”

If by “not cooperating” Tag meant she was “not having sex with him,” he was spot-on. Like Reese, Tag dated often, only when Tag dumped his date it wasn’t with a curt conversation and delivered flowers. Tag did it with a wink, a smile, and a playful bump on the jaw, and the line that worked best for him:
Let’s save ourselves the trouble.
The blow-off matched his easygoing attitude, so girls most often left with a matching smile.

“Meaning?” Reese asked.

“Meaning is she bitching at you all the time? You two have this volatile energy.” He wiggled his fingers in front of him. “Combustible. If you’re not screwing it away, you have to be arguing.” He shook his head curtly. “Not good for the public.”

Hmm. Great point.

“We’ll manage.”

“I didn’t come in here to razz you, believe it or not,” Tag said. “I wanted to suggest you come with me to play racquetball. Burn off some of your rage before you climb this building and start swiping at low-flying planes.”

“Racquetball.” The idea of pounding a little blue ball into the wall sounded like a great way to forget about his own pair. At least for a few hours. “You’re on.”

“Was that a
yes
?” Tag put a hand over his heart and pretended to have a heart attack.

“Don’t make me change my mind,” Reese said, instantly feeling his mood lift.

It’d been a while since Reese had walked away from his desk on a weeknight.

He was overdue.

By eleven o’clock, Merina was uncharacteristically beat. Typically, she’d just now be getting going. A day running the Van Heusen pulled her attention in nineteen thousand different directions, so it was during the late hours she was able to catch up.

Car window rolled down, she opened the gate via fingerprint, a detail set up this morning before she’d left for work, and parked in the massive garage next to Reese’s fleet of billionaire-mobiles. She sneered. Those cars were like the women he used to date. Ridiculous, silly excuses for attention, only to be discarded or replaced the moment he tired of them.

Wow. Along with being beat, she was grouchy too. Purse on her shoulder, she stepped from her non-flashy sedan and moved to the side entrance to the mansion, which she was pretty sure opened to a cloakroom…or the kitchen? She couldn’t remember. She’d had a hurried run-through of a tour twice now and determined that the house was a maze.

Before she could open the door, it popped open before her, revealing a portly, smiling woman wearing a black uniform, a white shirt, and a tired smile.

“Magda,” Merina greeted, fingers mentally crossed that she’d gotten the woman’s name right.

“Mrs. Crane.” Magda’s accent was pure Chicago. “Late night for you. Were you able to work the gate and the garage door okay?”

“Yes, thank you. Everything hums like a well-oiled machine around here.”

“Thank you for saying so.” She pointed over her shoulder to the kitchen. “Your dinner is in the oven. Tamales, or if you don’t care for those, a small tray of spinach lasagna.”

Yum.

“I’ll probably have both,” Merina said. She could get used to coming home to dinner. Typically, she ate room service in her office, and as good as the food was at the Van Heusen, there was only so much spring-mix salad and seared ahi a girl could eat.

“Good night, Mrs. Crane.”

“Good night.”

Magda left via the open garage door and Merina punched the button to close it. She ended up opening the wrong garage doors
twice
before figuring out what buttons to push to close them again.

“Pull it together,
Mrs. Crane
,” she chided herself as she walked inside. She set the alarm code on the door and strolled through the kitchen, the smells as tantalizing as promised. And, as she’d promised Magda, she sat down to a healthy portion of both lasagna and tamales before rinsing her dish and fork and depositing them into the empty dishwasher.

“For my next trick, I’ll find my room.” She’d been trying to be funny, but it wasn’t so funny when she got turned around in the staircase that led from the kitchen to the opposite side of the house, and then in attempting to reroute to the other hallway, ended up in an upstairs office instead.

Tall, rich mahogany shelves lined the walls, books clogging them. An arched window faced the lake, taking up half the wall. A desk dominated the space, and the man facing the window dominated the desk. She couldn’t see Reese’s face, just the back of his head, chair turned, hand propping up his head. She had no idea if he’d heard her approach until he spoke.

“Evening.”

“I’m lost. I was on my way to the bedroom and made a wrong turn in Albuquerque.”

“How do you think I ended up in here?” He turned, dropping his elbow and facing her. He was in his signature dark suit, this one with a subtle pinstripe design visible thanks to the moonlight, and his tie knot had been loosened, his top button opened. His scruff was short, his hair perfectly styled, and that crooked tie was about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen him wear. It bespoke of his loss of control, and she was quickly learning “uncontrolled” was the way she preferred him.

“So you gave up?” She walked to the desk and Reese’s eyes dropped to her feet before skimming up her pencil skirt and lingering at her silk shirt. That’s when she remembered his comment about her tattoo. Was that why his eyes so often strayed to her chest?

“I thought if I sat awhile, it’d come to me.” She liked his dry sense of humor, but beneath it was another emotion. One she couldn’t place. He wrenched his eyes to hers when she came closer.

“You really want to see it, don’t you?” she asked, her voice husky.

He rested his palms on his suit pants, fingers splayed, chin up as he kept his gaze fused with hers. He did. She could feel that need vibrating from him.

“You might be disappointed.” She fingered a delicate button on her shirt and watched his fingertips dig into his legs. “It’s not much.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Purposefully, slowly, he leaned back in his leather chair and watched as she undid first one button, then the second. One more open button over the center of her bra gave her enough clearance to show him.

“You’re going to kind of get flashed,” she said, the quiet ticking of the clock and Reese’s face in shadow making her heart hammer. She pulled the shirt open, moonbeams highlighting the bit of ink she’d added to her body five years ago.

Reese reached up, fingers brushing from the tip of the arrow, down the shaft, and over the flames that made up the fletching. He moved quickly, standing and lashing an arm low around her waist and pulling her against him.

She braced herself on the desk with one hand, her other flattening against his chest. They lingered there and listened as the clock in the room ticked three times. She swiped her fingertip along his neck, the touch of her bare skin to his setting him off.

Like a rocket.

He kissed her. A punishing and exciting kiss, a kiss she’d wanted more of since they locked lips on the deck of the
Luna
. But this time, there was no one watching.

Merina’s shirt was open, her mouth on his, and Reese forgot about the speech he’d been intending to give her the moment she set foot in his house. He’d been in this room mulling it over for a very long time. He’d decided on a clear set of rules for their marriage. Rules involving him and her and separations so that they wouldn’t muddy the waters with sex. It made sense until she’d come in here, smooth skin cool in the moonlight, amber eyes shining. Then she’d unbuttoned her shirt, and his speech was buried under the only two words he’d thought before he sprang out of his chair.

“Fuck it,” he said against her mouth after a devouring kiss.

“Fuck what?” she breathed.

“Fuck
you
. Preferably on this desk. Preferably two minutes ago.” He felt the curve of her smile all the way down to his rigid cock.

She panted as he moved his mouth to her jaw, then to the side of her neck. He pushed her hair aside to give himself room as she squirmed beneath his insistence. He enjoyed the dance. She couldn’t help herself when it came to him and he couldn’t do anything about wanting her whenever she was near.

“Futile,” he said, tugging at her shirt to bare one shoulder.

“What is?” Her voice was a wisp in the dark room, a breathy siren’s call steering him right into the rocks.

“Resistance.” He worked the buttons on her shirt, pulled it from her arms, then tossed it aside. He pressed his lips to her tattoo. A flaming arrow he wanted to know the meaning behind, but now was not the time. Any questions he had could be asked later. Now they were lost under the pounding of blood passing by his eardrums. He had to have her. No more delays.

“I can’t wait to take this off,” she said, pulling on the knot of his tie. He raised his head and saw the heat in her eyes mirroring his and couldn’t help smiling.

“The tie?”

“I like you in it, but I like you out of it more.” She slipped the silk knot loose. “And the shirt.” She flattened her hands on his chest and pushed. He sat obediently, which was new. If she were any other woman, he’d have had her completely nude and spread across his desk before his tie was off. He preferred control. With Merina, he’d become insatiably curious. He was willing to give in to her for the moment, if only to satisfy his lingering curiosity.

She reached behind her to unhook her black lace bra, pushing her breasts out. He admired the swells, the mystery tattoo. Delicate but aggressive, the flames licking across her chest. Then she unzipped her slim skirt and shimmied out of it—taking her time until the material fell to her feet. She left her tall black heels on, which saved him stopping her from taking them off. She was just how he wanted her.

“Ready?” He reached for her hips and her eyes widened, her chest lifting with each hectic breath.

“For?”

His answer was to spin her to face the desk, place her hands on the surface, and stroke one palm down her spine. Then he bent and took a gentle bite of one ass cheek.