Читать книгу Baby for the Tycoon: The Tycoon's Temporary Baby / The Texas Billionaire's Baby / Navy Officer to Family Man - Emily McKay, Emily Forbes - Страница 16

“Not about to kick you out of your own bed,” she corrected, a blush tinting her cheeks.

As if she wasn’t irresistible already.

He wanted to argue about the sleeping arrangements. Dear God, he did. But he couldn’t logically make an argument for sleeping in the tub. Besides, he’d doubt he’d fit.

“Oh, I get it,” she said with teasing concern. “You’re embarrassed about your body.”

Clearly she was trying to hide her own embarrassment.

“Wendy—”

“You’re probably all pasty white under those dress shirts, huh?” She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Maybe you put on a few extra pounds over the holidays? Is that it? Is that why you’re standing there like a statue, refusing to get undressed?”

He wasn’t about to tell why he really wasn’t getting undressed. If she hadn’t figured out how thin her tank top was and how much that turned him on, then he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

“Hey, I won’t even look,” she teased, making a great show of rolling over to face the wall. “Now I can’t see you. You can even turn out the light if you want.”

Rolling his eyes at her silliness, he reached over and turned off the lamp before starting on his buttons.

“I guess you made peace with my dad,” she said after a minute.

“I guess so,” he admitted, slipping off his shirt and tossing it vaguely in the direction of a nearby chair. He toed off his shoes and socks. “He’s not such a bad guy.”

“No.” Her voice was small in the darkness. “He’s not. Everyone comes around eventually.”

He hesitated before unbuttoning his jeans. He hadn’t slept in anything other than his underwear since college. He didn’t even own a pair of pajama bottoms. First thing in the morning, he was buying a pair. No, twenty pair. Maybe thirty just to be safe.

A moment later he lay down so close to the edge of the bed that his left shoulder hung off the side. His awkward position was still not uncomfortable enough to block out the scent of her on his pillow. It smelled warm and feminine and faintly of peppermint.

He lay there stiffly, eyes resolutely closed, keenly aware that she too was still awake. He searched for something to say. “I never knew you liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Damn, was he smooth or what?

He heard her roll over in the dark and prop herself up on her elbow. “Doesn’t everyone?”

He turned just his head to look at her, but found himself eye to eye with Peyton. Her tiny face was seven inches from his. Her lips pursed as she dreamed about eating. He remembered his niece doing that, from all those long years ago when he used to help feed his sister’s kids. Lacey would be in college now. He felt a powerful punch of longing. The kind he normally kept buried deep inside. To push it back down, he rolled up onto his elbow to look at Wendy.

At least he understood the longing he felt when he looked at her. Pure sexual desire. He got that. He could control it—at least, he thought he could. God knew, he’d controlled it so far. But this unfamiliar longing to reconnect with his family? That was new and terrifying territory.

He doubled his pillow under his head, allowing him to look over Peyton to where Wendy lay. She’d moved the night-light in from the nursery, a glowing hippo that cast the room in pink light and made Wendy’s skin look nearly iridescent. When he looked back up at her eyes, her gaze darted away from his, as if she was all too aware of the desire pulsing through his veins.

He could see she was about to lie back down, so he said, “No, not everyone loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Most people don’t even know they were a witty and subversive comic book before becoming a fairly cheesy movie marketed to kids.”

She gave a playful shrug, smiling, either because the topic amused her or because she was relieved he’d stopped looking at her like something he wanted to lick clean, he couldn’t tell which.

“That’s me, I guess.” She imitated his hushed tone, obviously no more willing to wake Peyton than he was. “A fan of things witty and subversive.”

“Yeah, I get that. What I don’t get is how I never knew it until now.”

“Oh.” She gave another shrug, this one self-effacing.

“For five years, you’ve dressed like the consummate, bland executive assistant.” Whispering in the dark as if this made the conversation far more intimate than the topic was. “Bland clothing in a neutral palate. Demure hair. Now I find out you’ve been hiding a love of violet nail polish and eighties indie punk rock.” He nodded toward her boxers. “Not to mention the Turtles.”

She frowned. “Punk rock?”

“The Replacements T-shirt you had on the other day.”

“You recognized them?” She gave him a pointed once-over. “And yet you don’t seem like a fan of eighties alternative.”

“I’m a fan of Google. And you couldn’t possibly have been old enough to attend the concert where that T-shirt was sold.”

“I’m a fan of eBay. And of defying expectations.”

“Which brings me back to my original question. Why didn’t I know this about you?”

She paused, seeming to consider the question for a long time. Then she sank back and stared at the ceiling. He watched her, lying there with her eyes open as she gazed into the dark, long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer at all.

Finally she said softly, “Working at FMJ…” Her shoulders gave a twitch, as if she was shrugging off her pensive mood. “I guess it’s been the ultimate rebellion for me. When you’re from an old oil family, what’s worse than working for a company that’s made their money in green energy.”

“We do a lot of other things too,” he pointed out.

“Well, sure.” She rolled back to face him. “But even then, it’s all about innovation and change. My family is all about tradition. Maybe when I was working for FMJ, I never felt like I needed to rebel.”

He felt his heart stutter as he heard her slip. When I was working for FMJ, she’d said. Not now that I am working for FMJ, but when I was. But she didn’t seem to notice, so he let it pass without comment.

“Working at FMJ,” she continued, her voice almost dreamy, “I felt like I had direction. Purpose. I didn’t need to define myself by dying my hair blue or getting my navel pierced or getting a tattoo.”

The image of her naked belly flashed through his mind. The thought of a tiny diamond belly-button ring took his mind into dangerous territory.

“A tattoo?” He was immediately sorry he asked. Please let it be somewhere completely innocuous, like her… nope.

He couldn’t think of a single body part on Wendy that didn’t seem sexy.

She gave a little chuckle. “One of my more painful rebellions.” Then—please God, strike him dead now—she lifted the hem of her white tank top to reveal her hip and the delicate flower that bloomed there.

He clenched his fist to keep from reaching out to touch it. For a second, every synapse in his brain stopped firing. Thought was impossible. Then they all fired at once. A thousand comments went through his brain. Finally, he cleared his throat and forced out the most innocent of them. “That doesn’t look like it was done in a parlor.”

As lovely as it was, the lines were not crisp. The colors weren’t bright.

Wendy chuckled. “Mine was done by a boyfriend.” She held up her hands as if to ward off his criticism. “Don’t worry, his tools were all scrupulously sterilized and I’ve been tested since then for all the nasty things you can get if they hadn’t been.” She gave the tattoo a little pat and then tugged her hem back down. “I was eighteen, had just finished my freshman year at Dartmouth and I wanted to study abroad. My parents refused and made me come home and intern at Morgan Oil. So I dated a former gang member who’d served time in county.”

Jonathon had to swallow back the shot of fear that jumped through his veins. She’d obviously survived. She was here now, healthy and safe, but the thought of her dating that guy made his blood boil.

He unclenched his jaw long enough to say, “And you wonder why your parents worry about you.”

She gave a nervous chuckle. “Joe was actually a really nice guy. Besides, after spending the weekend with my family—”

“Let me guess, now he works for Morgan Oil? Interns for your uncle in Washington?”

“No. Even better. He went on to write a book about how to leave the gang life behind. He teaches gang intervention throughout Houston and travels all over the U.S. working with police departments.”

“You sound almost proud,” he commented.

She cocked her head and seemed to think about it. “I guess I am proud of Joe. He turned his life around.” Then she gave a little laugh. “Maybe my family should start a self-help program.”

“Tell me something. What’s with all the cautionary tales?” “What do you mean?”

“This is the second boyfriend you’ve told me about whose life was changed by meeting your parents.”

“I’m just warning you.” Her tone was suddenly serious. “This is what they do. They’ll find your weakness—or your strength or whatever—and they use it to drive you away from me.”

“No,” he said. “That’s what they’ve done in the past. That’s not what they’re going to do to me.”

“Don’t be so sure of that.” She looked at him, her expression resigned. “Can you honestly tell me you haven’t considered how helpful my uncle could be in securing that government contract?”

“That contract has nothing to do with this.”

“Not yet. But they’re doing it already.”

“I don’t—”

“You were up late drinking scotch with my dad and uncle, weren’t you?”

“How—”

“I can smell it on your breath. And you don’t drink scotch.”

“How do you know that I don’t drink scotch?”

“You never drink hard liquor.” Her tone had grown distant. “Never. You keep very expensive brands on hand at the office—and I assume here—for associates who do drink. You read Wine Spectator magazine, and can always order a fabulous bottle of wine. You don’t mind reds and will drink white, if that’s what your companion is having, but you don’t

really like either. You prefer ice-cold beer. Even then, you never have more than two a night.”

He leaned back slightly, unnerved that she knew so much about his taste. “What else do you know about me?”

“I know that anyone who has such strict rules for themselves about alcohol, probably has a parent who drinks. I’d guess your father—”

“It was my mother.”

“—but that would just be a guess.”

“You have any other theories?”

Between them Peyton stirred. He reached out a hand to place on Peyton’s belly to calm her. Wendy reached out at the same time and their fingers brushed. Wendy hesitated, then linked her fingers through his.

“I didn’t say it to make a point. I’m just…” She brushed her thumb back and forth over his. “There’s something about my family that makes people want to impress them. It’s made you want to impress them, or you wouldn’t have bent your no-hard-liquor rule.”

“My mom did drink,” he said slowly. “'Functioning alcoholic’ is the term people use now. You have any other old wounds you want to poke?”

The second the words left his mouth, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Christ, he sounded like a jerk.

He opened his eyes, shoving up on his elbow to look at her. He fully expected to see a stung expression on her face. Instead, she just gave his hand a squeeze and sent him a sad smile.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted.

“Don’t apologize. I got a little carried away with the armchair psychology.” She was silent for a minute and he could hear the gears in her brain turning. “But since you mentioned it.”

“Okay, hit me with it. What horribly invasive question are you going to ask next? You want to know my deepest fear? Clowns. How much I’m actually worth? About—”

“Actually I wanted to know about Kristi.”

He fell silent.

“She was your—”

“I know who you mean.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, all but praying she’d let it drop. She shifted in the bed beside him. Fidgeting, but saying nothing. She wasn’t going to let it drop, and if he didn’t respond soon, she’d think Kristi was a bigger deal than she had been.

“She was just someone I knew in high school. Who told you about her?”

He wanted to know who to kill. He hoped it wasn’t Matt or Ford, because murdering one of his business partners would probably be the end of FMJ.

“Claire,” Wendy answered.

Well, crap. He couldn’t very well kill a woman. Especially when she’d just married his best friend.

“Don’t be mad at her,” Wendy continued. “I practically begged for information.”

“Why on earth would you beg for information about my old high school girlfriend?”

“I dunno.” She rolled over, but with his eyes squeezed shut, he couldn’t tell if she was rolling toward him or away from him. “As dead set as you are against love… well, no one feels that way unless they’ve been hurt.”

“What did Claire tell you about Kristi?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Just that you were crazy about her. And she left.”

She’d paused long enough for him to know she’d been fabricating her answer. Condensing it down to the barest details.

But in his mind, he could all too easily imagine the longer version. The real version. The one where he made a complete ass of himself over Kristi. Where he handed her his whole heart… and did nothing but scare her away. “And?” he prodded.

“I figured… she must have been the one.” “And that’s what you surmised from Claire’s story? That Kristi was the one to break my heart?” “Am I wrong?”

What exactly was he supposed to say to that? Kristi had broken his heart. But he’d only been eighteen. “That was a lifetime ago.”

“What happened with her? What really happened?”

He forced his eyes open and tried to sound casual. “You’re the armchair psychologist. What do you think happened?”

She tilted her head to the side, considering. “I think that you, Jonathon Bagdon, are a pretty intense guy.”

He looked up at her. In the dark of the room, her skin was luminous. Her eyes were so dark they looked almost purple. She was so beautiful, it made his heart ache. As well as plenty of other parts of him.

Damn, but he wanted her. Not just her body. But all of her.

Thinking of her comment, all he could was mutter, “You have no idea.”

“The way I see it, I’m a grown woman. Someone who’s used to dealing with strong personalities. And there are times when even I’m a little overwhelmed by you. So this girl—Kristi?—she probably didn’t have a chance. I’m guessing you falling in love with her must have scared the hell out of her.”

“Yeah. That’s about it.” He let his eyes drift closed again. “This thing between us,” he began, but then corrected himself, “this physical thing between us, it’s pretty intense.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed softly. He opened his eyes to see her still sitting up, looking down at him. The look in her eyes made heat churn through his body, but it was her words that made his heart pound. “I’m not scared of you, Jonathon.”

“Maybe you should be.”

She tilted her head, studying him in the pink glow of the hippo. Indeed, she looked more aroused than frightened.

“Maybe.”

“Scratch that. You should definitely be afraid. If you knew half the things I want to do to you…”

She arched a brow, her expression a little curious, a little challenging. “You think you’re the only one with pent-up desire and an active imagination?”

Was she purposefully trying to destroy any chance he had of getting some sleep? Ever again?

“I think,” he answered her, “there’s a damn good chance you underestimate how sexy you look in a tank top.” It was hard to tell in the pink light, but he could have sworn she blushed. He couldn’t stop himself from going on. “And I also think you underestimate just how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you.”

Her chest rose as she sucked in a deep breath, highlighting all the wonderful things that tank top of hers did.

“You think you’re the only person this is hard for?” she asked.

“I think I’m the only one who’s a big enough jerk to wait until there was an innocent baby here in the bed between us, just to guarantee I’d keep my hands off you.”

She gnawed on her lip for a second then, looking secretly pleased with herself. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the image of her and that sexy bow mouth of hers.

He felt the bed shift as she lay back down. Then, so softly he thought he might have imagined it, she said, “Don’t be so sure about that.”