Читать книгу Takeover In The Boardroom - Фиона Бранд, Люси Монро, Люси Монро - Страница 16
ОглавлениеONE WORD BUT IT was all Maddie needed.
She sat up and reached back to unzip her dress. It was tricky at the best of times, the top of the zipper hitting her in the center of her back.
With her hands trembling from need, it was impossible. So frustrated she could almost cry, she struggled to unzip it.
All the while, she couldn’t pull her eyes from Vik. He’d ripped his Armani sweater off and tossed it on the floor, the black T-shirt he wore under it joining the pile of cashmere a second later.
His belt made a whoosh as he pulled it out of his trousers and the buckle clunked against the wall when he tossed it. His tailored slacks were next, dropping to reveal a straining bulge behind dark designer briefs.
“Your body is beautiful,” she breathed in awe.
Every muscle of his six-foot-four-inch frame was honed. Dark hair covered his chest, narrowing to a trail that disappeared into the waistband of his briefs.
She didn’t know if it was the dark, clingy fabric or reality, or even her oversensitized emotions, but Vik looked huge.
Maddie’s thighs clenched even as her fingers itched to touch. And she hadn’t seen the actual package yet.
Vik looked back, his own expression filled with desire. “You’re still dressed,” he accused.
“I know,” she said with pure frustration.
He winked again, the expression just as mind-bogglingly sexy this time as the first. “Need some help there?”
“Yes.”
He stalked toward the bed like a big sleek cat, climbing on with the same grace. He reached around her and let his fingers trail down the shallow V of her dress to the top of the zipper. “Is this your problem?”
“I can’t reach it.”
“How did you get dressed then?”
“I wasn’t hampered then.”
“By what?”
“What do you think?” she asked, wanting to sound annoyed and only succeeding in revealing the need inside her.
“Me?”
“Desire,” she clarified.
“Desire for me.”
“Yes,” she admitted, no real reason to pretend otherwise, but annoyed all the same at having to say it out loud.
“Good.” He lowered the zipper inch by inch. “I like this dress.”
“I’m never wearing it again.”
“Please do.”
“Why?”
“I have always enjoyed unwrapping my gifts. Just ask my grandparents.”
“I’m not a Christmas package.”
“No, you are something far more valuable.” He kissed the corner of her mouth and then brushed her lips with his lightly. “You are the woman who will share my life.”
“You’re awfully good at romance for a corporate shark.”
He wasn’t kidding about enjoying the process of unwrapping. Time moved by in increments measured by her rising passion as he took off first her dress, removing it to reveal her body one slow inch at a time. His desire-filled gaze burned her with sensual appreciation.
The silk foundations she wore under the dress came next, but he took even more time with those than the blue taffeta, kissing bits of her flesh as it was revealed, sensitizing her body in ways she’d no idea he could do.
When he was done, she was a naked, quivering mass of sexual need.
And he still had his briefs on.
She tugged at the waistband, her voice husky with passion when she managed to force the words past the tightness in her throat. “Take them off.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?” she demanded, patience in another universe.
“You are a virgin.”
“So?” He was going to change that, wasn’t he?
“So, you need preparation and I’m on a hair trigger where you are concerned.”
“You have to take your underwear off to make love to me,” she spelled out slowly, like she wasn’t sure he got it.
He bared his teeth in a smile that had no humor. “And before that happens I will make sure you are ready to receive me.”
“But—”
“You will have to trust me on this.” His eyes demanded her acquiescence.
She didn’t know if she could give it. “I want you!”
“And you will have me.”
Vik’s hand slipped between her legs right then, fingers delving in the moist heat no other man had ever touched, and she cried out. He touched her in ways she’d only ever dreamed of being touched, caressed her to her first shattering climax before she even realized what that desperate feeling inside her was leading to.
She’d touched herself, but it had never felt like this. She was still trembling with spent pleasure when a single long masculine finger slipped inside her. Something shifted in her heart at the intimate intrusion.
He was not inside her, not the way she’d always imagined, but they were connected on a level that corresponded to a place inside her soul.
He pressed upward and she winced with pain.
“Hurt?” he asked, his own tone strained.
“A little.”
“It will sting.”
“Why?”
“I am going to break your hymen with my finger. It will make the actual penetration of my sex easier on you.” The words were clinical, but his tone and the concern in his expression was not.
He’d thought this through and that touched her in the same place in her soul his intimate intrusion had.
He pressed a little harder.
A sharp shard of pain stabbed her. “It more than stings!”
“I am sorry.” He grimaced. “It will be worth it.”
She wasn’t so sure about that, but trusted him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
That trust was sorely tested a moment later when the pain increased to the point that she felt like he was invading her with a hot poker, not his finger. She gasped and tried to pull away, surprised when she succeeded in dislodging his hand.
He leaned back on his haunches, the telltale traces of blood on his finger a testament to his success.
Grateful that the pain was already morphing to a low-level throbbing rather than stabbing, she asked, “Now?”
“Not yet. There is more to do.”
The more included him stripping naked finally. In the bathroom, where he ran a very hot bath.
He looked even bigger jutting out from his body than he had with his erection tucked behind black silk knit.
He smiled at her with gentle humor. “Your eyes are as wide as saucers.”
“You’re as big as a baseball bat.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “Not even close.”
“Right.”
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you.”
Unsure where it came from, annoyance drove her stomping across the tiled floor and gave her the boldness to grope him in her fist. “My fingers are not touching.”
The sound he made was not a word.
Viscous drops formed on the tip of the flesh in her hand. She touched it with her fingertip and brought it to her mouth, licking it cautiously.
Surprisingly it was almost sweet, with only a hint of the salty bitterness she’d heard about. “I like it.”
He groaned and then jerked his body backward so his hard flesh slipped from her hand. “Bath. Now.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you just trust me?”
“I trust you more than any other man on this planet.” He might be the only man on the planet she did trust. He had to know that.
“It will make it better for you,” he explained.
“How do you know?” she demanded. “Have you had sex with many virgins?”
She found that possibility seriously disturbing.
“None,” he practically snarled as he lifted her up and set her in the bathtub with surprisingly gentle movements, considering his apparent irritation. “I read up on it.”
“Because you’re a planner.”
“Yes.” He still sounded like a man ready to take someone’s head off.
“Why are you mad?” she asked plaintively.
“I’m not angry!”
“You’re snarling at me.”
“I’m turned on.” The low growl rumbled through her.
“So am I. The bath was your idea!”
“For your benefit.”
Oh, man. “I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for you, is it?”
“Waiting?” He stepped into the bath behind her, pulling her into his lap, his hands settling on her possessively. “No, my sexy little redhead, it is not easy, but you are worth it.”
Another white-knight moment. “If you aren’t careful, you’re going to have me believing in fairy tales.”
His only answer was one languid touch to her thigh. That caress was followed by another and another and another, all over her body and each touch accompanied by the ever-present presence of his hardness pressed against the small of her back.
Her nipples were aching and sensitive, her clitoris vibrating with pleasure, and her entire body melted over his by the time his hands stilled their insidious movements.
There were no words left in her brain when he drained the tub and lifted her back to the tile floor. They dried off in silence, bodies aware and straining toward each other.
She and Vik stripped the bedding back without acknowledging that was what they were going to do, and then together they fell to the mattress covered by the single sheet.
The lovemaking was everything she had ever dreamed it would be, his sex filling her so deeply she felt like they’d really bonded into one entity in that moment.
There was still some pain, but nothing stabbing and dark, and the pleasure pushed any lingering discomfort to the bottom register of Maddie’s awareness.
This time when she climaxed, she screamed until her throat protested the strain. Vik grew impossibly hard inside her, his body going rigid just before he shouted his own release in the form of a single word.
“Mine.”
She didn’t even think about birth control until the next morning.
* * *
Viktor came to awareness in the dark, two things at the forefront of his mind. The woman he’d craved for years was now in his arms and they hadn’t used birth control the first time they made love.
The former gave him satisfaction and the latter a twinge of regret. In a perfect world, they would have a couple years of marriage to enjoy their time together as a couple, to solidify their relationship.
In the real world, Madison had been forced into marriage by the actions of that bastard who had called himself her friend, and Viktor’s grandparents were getting on in years. If his children were to have the time to enjoy them as Viktor had, they would have to come along sooner than later.
Viktor had taken advantage of Timwater’s idiocy. He could deal with the consequences of other realities, too.
For him, family was everything.
It was the reason he’d been driven to succeed. The one thing that drove him most intensely was the desire to not only make his grandparents proud, but to also provide for his own family as his own father had not done.
Viktor had determined early in his life never to walk a single step in his own father’s shoes.
When he’d first met Jeremy Archer, Viktor had believed he’d found the mentor he sought. And he had, but he had also come to the realization that as wrapped up in AIH as Jeremy was, his vision was still too limited.
Both in a business sense and when it came to family.
Jeremy had never understood that all of AIH’s success meant nothing in the face of his spectacular failure with his daughter.
Madison was Viktor’s match in every way. They were not just sexually compatible, they were combustible. Just as he’d known they would be.
But equally important, they were friends with compatible, if very different, goals for the future.
Viktor felt an unfamiliar sense of having dodged a bullet with Maxwell Black’s presence in the conference room that morning. Jeremy bringing in Maxwell—of all men—had precipitated actions on Viktor’s part he hadn’t intended to take until later.
But he couldn’t complain about the outcome.
He in no way regretted making love to Madison and had every intention of showing her that no other man would be her match as Viktor was.
He wasn’t just the perfect successor for AIH, he was perfect for Madison.
With that thought, he brushed his hand down her flank, leaning over to kiss the side of her neck and bring her to wakefulness for another example of how very well they meshed in bed.
* * *
For the first time in her life, Maddie had woken in another person’s arms.
She lay, warm and secure as half of Vik’s body covered hers, his breath still even and slow in sleep.
And she thought of babies and the possibility of family. Had he done it on purpose? Or had he been as lost to the final satiation of years’ worth of unfulfilled desire that the idea of birth control hadn’t even entered the picture?
Before she’d been made love to by a man who never seemed to get enough, she would have written the latter off as a complete improbability.
But Vik had woken her several times in the night and pushed the boundaries of pleasure and her body on each occasion, his hunger for her something she would never again be able to doubt. There’d been no question when they were sleeping that they would do so skin-to-skin.
The one time she’d tried donning her sleep pants and tank top, he’d gotten this look in his eyes. Really intense, feral and determined. Her pajamas had been in a puddle on the floor moments later and her body humming the music of the Viktor Beck pleasure symphony.
Even now, his oversized sex...
No, she didn’t believe him that he was no bigger than most men. She’d heard on one of those talk shows hosted by a group of interesting and mostly famous women that the average length was just about five inches erect. Well, she knew from five inches and his was nearly twice that. Average? She did not think so.
Right now, that not-at-all-average hardness was pressing against her hip, telling her that when he woke he’d be ready for more physical intimacy. Despite the twinges of soreness making her aware of muscles she hadn’t known she had, nipples that ached from all the stimulation they’d enjoyed and a tender feeling in the flesh between her legs, she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to respond.
Except...they hadn’t used any form of birth control in the long night of passion. Not once.
“I can hear you thinking.” Vik’s early morning voice rumbled above her head.
“You said we would make any decision about children together.”
Tension seeped into his big body, but he did not move away. “Yes?”
“We did not use birth control last night.”
Oddly, he relaxed. “No, we did not.”
“Vik,” she said in warning.
He sat up, somehow getting pillows propped against the headboard behind him and her sideways in his lap with a minimum of movement. It was a position he apparently enjoyed.
He tilted her chin up, bringing their gazes into alignment. “We made that decision together.”
“I didn’t make a decision at all. I didn’t even think of it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Neither did I.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge the truth of his statement. She might be blind, but Maddie couldn’t see the smallest flicker of deceit in the espresso orbs.
“It never once occurred to you that a condom might be a good idea?” she asked.
It was his turn for his eyes to narrow, but they glittered with anger not concentration. “You believe I would lie to you?”
“No, but you’re ruthless enough to take advantage of an expedient situation.”
He agreed, no sign of embarrassment at the truth. “Yes, but to what end would I ignore birth control?”
“You get five percent of the company when I give birth to our first child.” Did she really have to remind him of that fact?
“Did you plan to wait to start a family?”
“No.” She couldn’t even claim not to have thought of it.
Dreams were something even a woman who didn’t believe in fairy tales could indulge in. And Maddie’s dreams included building the kind of family she’d always wanted to have.
“I did not think you did.” Therefore, he had no need to take advantage of circumstance.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I believe you.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “As you should.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It might be old-fashioned, but I would still like to wait until we are married to conceive our first child.” Though if she was pregnant, she would accept that as the gift she believed it to be.
“Agreed.”
“So, from now on, birth control,” she insisted.
“Agreed.”
“You’re being awfully compliant.”
“The truth? I would prefer to wait a couple of years before having children.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t considered he wasn’t keen on starting a family right away.
“But my grandparents are in their seventies,” Vik continued. “If my children are to have the benefit of Deda and Babulya’s presence in their lives, we cannot indulge me.”
“I see.” Wow.
Once again, she was reminded that while she and Vik might be motivated by different hopes for the future, they both had them. And lucky for her, they dovetailed, as surprising as that might be.
“I hesitate to point this out,” Vik said. “Because I do want to gift my grandparents with the next generation of our family.”
“What?” Maddie couldn’t believe how comfortable she was having this discussion naked and sitting in his lap on the bed.
“Won’t it be difficult to start your school if we have a baby right away?” he asked.
She gave him a self-deprecating grimace. “I say all the time that money doesn’t matter to me, but the truth is, I’m counting on it to be able to ‘have it all,’ as they say.”
“You plan to have a nanny?” He sounded almost shocked.
And she loved him all the more for it. “Probably, but not to raise our children. However, if we are ever going to be able to leave the house, we have to have someone besides your grandparents we can trust to care for our children.”
“Yes.”
“So, we’ll have a nanny, someone who fits into our family, preferably matronly in both appearance and age.” So, sue her if Maddie didn’t want a beautiful young woman living under Vik’s nose in their house.
“What do you mean about the money then?”
“I have every intention of hiring qualified staff who share mine and Romi’s vision to run the school.”
Vik’s dark brow furrowed. “But you will both still give a great deal of time to the school. You will have to.”
“Yes, but we’ll make it work. Romi and I already discussed what would happen in the event one or both of us had a family.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“My father would be.” He’d always assumed she had no business sense if she didn’t want to be part of his business.
“Jeremy only sees part of the picture when he looks at you,” Vik agreed pragmatically.
“That’s all he’s interested in.” Jeremy Archer had never wanted to give the time necessary to get to know who Maddie was, not before Helene’s death and definitely not after.
“He can break out of his tunnel vision.”
“So you say. I’ve witnessed no evidence.”
Vik shook his head, clearly done with the topic. “You’ll need an efficient and knowledgeable personal assistant.”
“Exactly.” A nanny for convenience, not necessity, but a PA? That Maddie would need to make sure things got done.
Vik’s phone rang before they could continue their discussion. It was Conrad, excited about the opportunity for a live interview with the newly engaged couple on an evening celebrity-news show.
And so it began.
* * *
The next weeks passed in a whirl of activity. Interviews as a couple, interviews by herself. The media furor around Maddie and Vik’s engagement was even bigger than the initial craziness Perrygate had spawned.
Vik slept at her apartment every night while decorators and contractors worked overtime getting Parean Hall habitable for them. Maddie interviewed domestic staff while overseeing the changes to the main rooms and the master suite. She did her best to make sure both her and Vik’s design aesthetic was incorporated in their new home.
And could hear his voice saying “I told you so” when she realized she knew enough about his preferences to do that.
Maddie went back to her secret volunteering in her brown wig and contacts, dressed in clothes from the local superstore. Every minute spent with the children cemented her determination to do more.
She also scheduled a visit with the therapist she’d seen in the immediate months after her skydiving accident, when Maddie had realized the time had come to break away from her past. Dr. MacKenzie was vocal in her praise for how far Maddie had come in dealing with both her mom’s death and her father’s emotional neglect.
However the therapist evinced some concern about the marriage that Vik said he intended to be real and yet was connected to a very lucrative contract for him. Dr. MacKenzie asked Maddie to consider carefully her reasons for agreeing to the engagement.
So Maddie did and, even more importantly, she talked to Vik about it.
“Yes, the contract your father offered is beneficial to me, but getting married right now is important for you, too.”
“You think I said yes to the whole marriage thing because of the school, don’t you?” Had she?
She’d told herself on that crazy, surrealistic day that was exactly why she needed to consider the idea seriously.
But Vik just shrugged. “Even if the scandal had blown up like it could have, you would not have given up on the school. Romi would have been the public face to run it and you would have been the silent partner as I now will be.”
She loved his confidence in her. The pleasure of it masked the full import of his words for a moment, but then it settled in.
“You will?” When had Vik offered to partner with her and Romi in founding the school?
“We made promises to see one another’s dreams fulfilled. Marriage to you will give me AIH. I’ve told you that I will ensure it provides for your dreams as well.”
Maybe she should have expected something like this, but she hadn’t. “You really are my white knight.”
“I thought you did not believe in fairy tales.” His voice and expression were teasing, but something told her he liked her claim.
“Maybe I just believe in you.” He had always been the exception, the one man she trusted—even when she hadn’t thought she had a reason to.
Refusing to admit it didn’t make it any less true.
“You do,” he said with a mix of implacability and smugness that should have annoyed her.
It didn’t. She liked it. “So certain.”
“Of you? Yes.”
Ultimately, it all came down to that simple truth. She trusted Vik to keep the promises he’d made at the Marin Headlands overlook.
The fact that she was falling in love with Viktor Beck all over again? Well, that was something she didn’t bring up even to Romi.
How could she help it? The man spent more time masquerading as a white knight than a business tycoon.
The wedding was going forward. And soon.
For the ceremony itself, they planned a very small gathering, but the reception would be huge and attended by the cream of society, the scions of the business world and even a few celebrities.
When Maddie’s follow-up therapy appointment conflicted with a meeting with the caterers for their wedding reception, she told Vik she didn’t want to reschedule her time with Dr. MacKenzie.
“You are seeing a therapist?” Vik asked. “Why didn’t I know this?” The latter clearly the only thing that bothered him about her revelation.
“Because I didn’t tell you?”
He made a scoffing sound.
“No one knows except Romi.”
“When did you start seeing him?”
“Her. And right after the skydiving incident.” Maddie had realized she was taking the same self-destructive path as her mother and she wasn’t going to do that. “I saw her weekly for a couple of months and then a few more times after that.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You are?” She had worried a little he would think she was weak for needing to see someone.
“You realized you couldn’t help children if you didn’t deal with your own childhood issues.”
That had been exactly it. “How do you know me so well?” she asked, falling a little more in love with him right then.
“You know the answer to that.”
“You make it a point to get to know everything about the people and businesses you plan to partner with, or take over.”
“Our partnership will supersede all others. Of course, I will know everything about you.”
She liked hearing that, even if it wasn’t exactly true. “But you didn’t know I was seeing Dr. MacKenzie.”
“No.” He sounded chagrined.
Maddie laughed. “Even you are not infallible, Vik.”
“Miss Grayson knew.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“What am I?”
“The man I’m going to marry. The man I’m falling in love with all over again.” There, she’d said it.
What he did with that knowledge was up to him. But one thing she knew, it was time he met Maddie Grace.
Silence stretched between them.
“Vik?”
“I am...honored.”
“Good.” That was better than thinking she was a fool for believing in the emotion.
“You...I...” For the first time in memory, Vik didn’t sound in complete control of his words or his thoughts.
“I don’t expect you to say it back.”
“Good.” The relief in his tone was not complimentary, but she wasn’t surprised by it, either.
“You’ll never lie to me,” she said, as if just making that revelation.
But maybe she understood the depth of his commitment to honesty between them fully for the first time.
“No, I will not.”
That included not claiming to love her when he didn’t, but it also meant that his promises? Were written in concrete as far as Viktor Beck was concerned.
