Читать книгу Matched To Mr Right - Kat Cantrell - Страница 14
ОглавлениеThe silky feel of Daniella’s thigh haunted Leo for days. And if he managed to block it from his mind, her fiery responses when he kissed her replaced that memory immediately.
It didn’t seem to matter how many spreadsheets he opened on his laptop. Or how many proposals for new ventures he heard. Or whether he slept at the office because he lacked the strength to be in the same house with Daniella. Sleeping as a whole didn’t work so well when his wife invaded his unconscious state to star in erotic dreams.
There was no neat, predefined box for her. For any of this. It was messing him up.
He hadn’t seen Daniella in four days and the scent of strawberries still lingered in his nose.
Fingers snapped before his eyes and Leo blinked. Mrs. Gordon was at his desk, peering at him over her reading glasses. “I called your name four times.”
“Sorry. Long night.”
Mrs. Gordon’s gaze flicked to the other end of Leo’s office, where a sitting area overlooked downtown Dallas. “Because that couch is too short for a big, strapping young man like you.”
He grinned in spite of being caught daydreaming, a mortifying situation if it had been anyone other than his admin. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Depends. How much trouble are you in at home?” Her raised eyebrows wiped the smile off his face. “Enough that an old woman looks pretty good right about now?”
“I’m not in trouble at home. What does that even mean? You think I got kicked out?” He frowned.
It bothered him because deep down, he knew he’d taken the coward’s way out. Being friends with his wife hadn’t worked out so well. She was too sexy, too insightful.
“Au contraire. You’re in trouble. It’s all over your face.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Leo scrubbed his jaw, not that he believed for a second he could erase whatever she thought she saw there, and fingered a spot he’d missed shaving that morning. The executive bathroom off his office left nothing to be desired, but two hours of sleep had affected his razor hand, apparently.
“Forget her birthday, did you?” Mrs. Gordon nodded sagely.
Soon we’ll be buying each other birthday cards, Daniella had said, but he didn’t even know when her birthday was. “Our marriage isn’t like that.”
Mrs. Gordon’s mouth flattened. Her favorite way to remind him she had his number. “Why do I get the feeling you and your wife have differing opinions about that?”
He sighed and the hollow feeling in his stomach grew worse because she was right. “Did you hear from Tommy Garrett’s people yet?”
“Don’t change the subject. I’d have told you if I heard from Garrett and you know it. Just like you know you’ve got a problem at home that you better address sooner rather than later. I’ve been married for thirty years. I know things.” She clucked. “Take my advice. Buy her flowers and sleep in your own bed tonight.”
He had the distinct impression Mrs. Gordon believed his wife would be in the bed, as well. He didn’t correct her.
After all, what sort of weakness did that reveal?
He couldn’t have sex with his own wife because he’d backed himself into an impossible corner. She wanted some kind of intimacy, which he couldn’t give her, and he didn’t want to hurt her. He’d thought friendship might be enough, but friends apparently talked about aspects of themselves that he just couldn’t share. Especially not drawing. It was tied to his obsessive side, which he kept under wraps.
How long would Dannie remain patient before finding someone who would give her what she wanted? Women in his life usually lasted about two months before bailing.
He’d never cared before. Never dreamed he’d experience moments of pure panic at the thought of Daniella going the way of previous companions. They had a convenient marriage, but that meant it would be easy to dissolve when it was no longer convenient for her.
By 9:00 p.m., Leo couldn’t argue with his admin’s logic any longer. His body screamed to collapse in a dead sleep, but he couldn’t physically make himself lie down on that couch.
What was he really accomplishing by avoiding his wife? When he’d told her to walk after nearly stripping her bare right there in his study, she had. No questions, no hysterics, no accusations. She was fine with holding off on advancing their relationship.
Daniella wasn’t the problem. He was.
He was a weak daydreamer who’d rather scratch a pencil over pieces of paper all day and then spend several hours exploring his wife’s naked body that night. And do it again the next day, abandoning all his goals with Reynolds Capital Management in a heartbeat for incredible sex and a few pictures. He’d done exactly that before, and he feared the consequences would be far worse if he did it with Daniella.
If he could resist the lure of drawing, he could resist the Helen of Troy he’d married. As long as he didn’t kiss her again, he had a good shot at controlling himself. Of course, the real problem was that deep down, he was pretty sure he didn’t want to.
He drove to the house he’d bought with his own money, where he’d created a safe, secure home that no one could take away. The lights always shone brightly and the boiler always heated water. And Leo would die before allowing that to change.
Daniella wasn’t downstairs. Good. Hopefully she was already asleep in her room. If so, he could get all the way to his bedroom without running into her.
As he passed the study, his neck heated as the dream from last night roared into his mind—the one where he finished that kiss from the other night by spinning Daniella facedown onto the desk, pushing up that sexy dress and plunging into her wet heat again and again until she convulsed around him with a cry.
That room was off-limits from now on. He’d buy a new desk and have it moved into his bedroom.
So exhausted he could hardly breathe, he climbed the stairs and stumbled to his bedroom. No lights. Too bright for his weary eyes.
His shin cracked against something heavy and knocked him off balance. He cursed as his hand shot out to break his fall and scraped across...whatever he’d tripped over.
Snick. Light flooded the dark room via the lamp on his bedside table.
“Are you okay?” Daniella asked.
His head snapped up in shock. “What are you doing here? Why are you in my bed?”
His wife, hair swept back in a ponytail and heavy lidded with sleep, regarded him calmly from beneath the covers of his bed. “It’s my bed, too, now. I moved into your room. If you’d come home occasionally, you might have known I rearranged the furniture.”
The throb in his shin rivaled the sudden throb in his temples. “I didn’t... You ca—” He sucked in a fortifying breath. “You had no right to do that.”
She studied him for a moment, her face contemplative and breathtakingly beautiful in its devoid-of-makeup state. “You said I should think of this as my home. Anything I wanted to change, you’d be willing to discuss.”
“Exactly. Discuss.”
The firm cross of her arms said she’d gladly have done so, if he hadn’t been hiding out at the office.
“You’re bleeding.” She threw the covers back, slipped out of bed and crossed the room to take his hand, murmuring over the shallow cut.
As she was wearing a pair of plaid pants cinched low on her slim hips and a skintight tank top that left her midriff bare, a little blood was the least of his problems.
“And you’re cold,” he muttered and tore his gaze from the hard peaks beneath the tank top, which scarcely contained dark, delicious-looking nipples.
Too late. Heat shuddered through his groin, tightening his pants uncomfortably. Couldn’t she find some clothes that she wasn’t in danger of bursting out of? Like a suit of armor, perhaps?
“I’ll be fine.” She tugged on his hand, flipping the long ponytail over her shoulder. “Come into the bathroom. Let me put a bandage on this cut.”
“It’s not that bad. Go back to bed. I’ll sleep somewhere else.” As if he had a prayer of sleep tonight.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Muscles strained to reach for her, to yank on the bow under her navel and let those plaid pants pool around her ankles. One tiny step and he could have her in his arms.
He tried to pull away but she clamped down on his hand, surprisingly strong for someone so sensuously built.
“Leo.” Her breasts rose on a long sigh and under her breath she muttered something about him that sounded suspiciously uncomplimentary. “Please let me help you. It’s my fault you’re hurt.”
It was her fault he had a hard-on the size of Dallas. But it was not her fault that he’d been avoiding her and thus didn’t know the layout of his own bedroom any longer. “Fine.”
He followed her into the bathroom, noting the addition of a multitude of mysterious girly accoutrements, and decided he preferred remaining ignorant of their purposes.
Daniella fussed over him, washing his cut and patting it dry. In bare feet, she was shorter than he was used to. Normally she had no trouble looking him in the eye when she wore her architecturally impossible and undeniably sexy heels. He hadn’t realized how much he liked that.
Or how much he’d also like this slighter, attentive Daniella who took care of him. Fatigue washed over him, muddling his thoughts, and he forgot for a second why it wasn’t a good idea to share a bed with her.
“All better.” She patted his hand and bent to put the box of bandages under the sink, pulling her pajama pants tight across her rear, four inches from his blistering erection. He closed his eyes.
“About the room sharing,” he began.
She brushed his sensitive flesh and his lids flew up. He’d swayed toward her, inadvertently. She glanced up to meet his gaze in the mirror. The incongruity between her state of undress and his buttoned-up suit shouldn’t have been so erotic. But it was.
“Are you going to read me the riot act?” she asked, her eyes enormous and guileless and soft. “Or consider the possibilities?”
“Which are?” The second it was out of his mouth, he wished he could take it back. Foggy brain and half-dressed wife did not make for good conversation elements.
“You work a hundred hours a week. Our paths will never cross unless we do it here.” She gestured toward the bedroom. “This way, we’ll both get what we want.”
In the bright bathroom light, the semitransparent tank top left nothing to the imagination. Of course, he already knew what her bare breast looked like and the longer she stood there with the dark circles of her nipples straining against the fabric, the more he wanted to see them both, but this time with no interruptions.
“What do you think I want?”
“You want me.” She turned to face him. “All the benefits without the effort, or so you say. I don’t believe you. If you wanted that, my dress wouldn’t have stayed zipped for longer than five seconds after dinner. Sharing a bedroom offers you a chance to figure out why you let me walk away. It won’t infringe on your work hours and it gives me a chance to forge the friendship I want. Before we become physically involved.”
That cleared the fog in a hurry. “What are you saying, that you’ll be like a roommate?”
“You sound disappointed.” Her eyebrows rose in challenge. “Would you like to make me a better offer?”
Oh, dear God. She should be negotiating his contracts, not his lawyer.
“You’re driving me bananas. No. Worse than that.” He squeezed the top of his head but his brain still felt as though she’d twirled it with a spaghetti fork. “What’s worse than bananas?”
“Pomegranates,” she said decisively. “They’re harder to eat and don’t taste as good.”
He bit back a laugh. Yes, exactly. His incredibly perceptive wife drove him pomegranates. “That about covers it.”
“Will you try it my way? Give it a week. Then if you still think sex will complicate our marriage too much, I’ll move back to my bedroom. I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” To demonstrate, she laced her fingers over her sexy rear and he swore. She’d done that exact thing in one of his dreams. “If you’ll promise the same.”
His shin didn’t hurt nearly as badly as his aching groin. “Are you seriously suggesting we share a bed platonically?”
“Seriously. Show me you think our marriage is worth it. Sharing a room is the only way we’ll figure this out, unless you plan to work less. It’s unorthodox, but being married to a workaholic has forced my creative hand, so to speak.”
It was definitely creative, he’d give her that, and hit him where it hurt—right where all the guilt lived. If he wanted her to be happy in this marriage and stick with him, he had to prove it.
Her logic left him no good reason not to say yes. Except for the fact that it was insane.
Her seductive brown eyes sucked him in. “What are you going to do, Leo?”
Somehow, she made it sound as if he held all the cards. As if all he had to do was whisper a few romantic phrases in her ear and she’d be putty in his hands. If only it was that easy.
And then she shoved the knife in a little further. “Try it. What’s the worst that can happen?”
He groaned as several sleepless nights in a row hit him like a freight train. “I’m certain we’re about to find out.”
Fatigue and a strong desire to avoid his wife’s backup plan if he said no—that was his excuse for stripping down to a T-shirt and boxer shorts and getting into bed next to a woman who blinded him with lust by simply breathing. Whom he’d agreed not to touch.
Just to make her happy. Just for a few days. Just to prove he wasn’t weak.
He fell into instant sleep.
* * *
Dannie woke in the morning quite pleased but quite uncomfortable from a night of clinging to the edge of the bed so she didn’t accidentally roll over into Leo’s half. Or into Leo.
She’d probably tortured him enough.
But her will wasn’t as strong as she thought, not when her husband lay mere feet away, within touching distance, breathing deeply in sleep. The alarm on his phone had beeped, like, an hour ago, but hadn’t produced so much as a twitch out of Leo. Who was she to wake him when he obviously needed to sleep? A good wife ensured her husband was well rested.
The view factored pretty high in the decision, too.
Goodness. He was so gorgeous, dark lashes frozen above his cheekbones, hair tousled against the pillow.
How in the world had she convinced him to sleep in the same bed with her and agree to hold off on intimacy? She’d thought for sure they’d have a knock-down-drag-out and then he’d toss her out—bound and determined to ignore his own needs, needs he likely didn’t even recognize. But instead of cutting himself off from her again, he’d waded right into the middle of things like she’d asked, bless him.
Because his actions spoke louder than words, and his wife was an ace at interpreting what lay beneath.
If this bedroom sharing worked out the way she hoped, they’d actually talk. Laugh over a sitcom. Wake up together. Then maybe he’d figure out he was lying to himself about what he really wanted from this marriage and realize just how deeply involved he already was.
They’d have intimacy—physically and mentally. She couldn’t wait.
She eased from the bed and took a long shower, where she fantasized about all the delicious things Leo would do when he finally seduced her. It was coming. She could feel it.
And no matter how much she wanted it, anticipated it, she sensed she could never fully prepare for how earthshaking their ultimate union would truly be.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Leo was sitting up, rubbing the back of his neck, and her mouth went dry. Even in a T-shirt, he radiated masculinity.
“Good morning,” she called cheerfully.
“What happened to my alarm?” He did not look pleased.
“I turned it off after listening to it chirp for ten minutes.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried,” she lied and fluttered her lashes. “Next time would you like me to be a little more inventive?”
“No.” He scowled, clearly interpreting her question to mean she’d do it in the dirtiest, sexiest way she could envision.
“I meant with a glass of water in your face. What did you think I meant?”
He rolled his eyes. “So this is what roommates do?”
“Yes. Until you want to be something else.”
With that, she flounced out the door to check off the last few items on the list for Tommy Garrett’s party. It was tomorrow night and it was going to be spectacular if she had to sacrifice her Louboutins to the gods of party planning to ensure it.
Leo came downstairs a short while later, actually said goodbye and went to work.
When he strolled into the bedroom that evening, the hooded, watchful gaze he shot her said he’d bided his time all day, primed for the showdown about to play out.
“Busy?” he asked nonchalantly.
Dannie carefully placed the e-reader in her hand on the bedside table and crossed her arms over her tank top. What was it about that look on his face that made her feel as if she’d put on Elise’s red-hot wedding night set? “Not at all. By the way, I picked up your dry cl—”
“Good.” He threw his messenger bag onto the Victorian settee in the corner and raked piercing blue eyes over her, all the way to her toes tucked beneath a layer of Egyptian cotton. They heated, despite the flimsy barrier, and the flush spread upward at an alarming rate to spark at her core.
What had she been talking about?
He shed his gray pin-striped suit jacket and then his tie. “You caught me at a disadvantage last night. I had a few other things on my mind, so I missed a couple of really important points about this new sleeping arrangement.”
Her relocation project had just blown up in her face. He was good and worked up over it.
“Oh? Which ones?” The last syllable squeaked out more like a dolphin mating call than English as he dropped his pants, then slowly unbuttoned his crisp white shirt. What had she done to earn her very own male stripper? Because she’d gladly do it fourteen more times in a row.
“For starters, what happens if I don’t keep my hands to myself?”
The shirt hit the floor and her jaw almost followed. Her husband had quite the physique hidden under his workaholic shell.
So maybe he wasn’t mad. But what was he?
Clad in only a pair of briefs, Leo yanked the covers back and slid into his side of the bed. She peeled her gaze from his well-defined chest and refixed it on his face, which was drawn up in a slight smirk, as if he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts. Her cheeks flamed.
“I’ll scold you?” She swallowed as he casually lounged on his pillow, head propped on his hand as if settling in for a nice, long chat instead of using those hands to do something far more...intimate. “I mean, it wouldn’t be very sporting of you.”
“Noted.” He stretched a little and the covers slipped down his torso. “What happens if you don’t keep your hands to yourself?”
He was toying with her, seeing if he could get her to break her own vow of chastity. In his thoroughly male mind, he’d be in the clear if she made the move. His eyelids dropped to a very sexy half-mast and sizzled her to the core.
“And Daniella? Be sure you spell really well so it’s all very clear for those of us who didn’t barge into someone else’s bed and start slinging rules around.”
Actually, the relocation project might be working better than she’d assumed. At least they were talking. Now to get him to understand this wasn’t a contest. Their relationship was at a crossroads and he had to choose which fork he wanted to take.
“There are no rules,” she corrected. “I don’t have a list of punishments drawn up if you decide you’re not on board with being roommates, whether you want to go back to separate bedrooms or strip me naked right now. You’re calling the shots. You’re the one who shut it down after dinner the other night. Walk away, you said, and I did, but that’s not what either of us wanted.”
“Yeah?” Lazily, he traced the outline of her shoulder against the propped-up pillow at her back, carefully not touching her skin but skating so close the heat from his finger raised every hair on her body. “What would you rather I have told you to do?”
“No games, Leo.” She met his gaze squarely. “I’m giving us an opportunity to develop a friendship. But I also readily admit I want you. I want your mouth on me. Here.” Just as lazily, she traced a line over her breast and circled the nipple, arching a little. “I want it so badly, I can hardly stand it.”
She watched him, and went liquid as his expression darkened sinfully.
“No games?” he asked and cleared the rasp from his throat. “Then what is this?”
“A spelling lesson.” And she obviously had to really lay it out for him. She dropped her hand. “You want me, then come and get me. Be as emotionally naked as you are physically. Strip yourself as bare as your body and let’s see how fantastic it can be between us.”
Stiffening, he closed off, his expression shuttering and his body angling away. “That’s all? You don’t ask for much.”
“Then forget I mentioned it. We don’t have to hold out for a connection that may not ever happen. If either of us becomes uninterested in the hands-to-yourself proposition I laid out, it’s off.” She flung herself back against the pillow, arms splayed wide. “Take me now. I won’t complain. We’ll have sex, it’ll be great and then we’ll go to sleep.”
He didn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” she taunted, glancing at him sideways. “It’s just sex. Surely you’ve had just sex before. No brain required. I have no doubt a man with your obvious, um...talent can make me come in no time at all. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I’m hot for you, Leo. Don’t make me wait a second longer.”
“That’s not funny. Stop being ridiculous.” Translation: he didn’t like being thoroughly trounced at his own game.
She widened her eyes. “Did you think I was joking? I’m not. We’re married. We’re consenting adults. Both of us have demonstrated a healthy interest in getting the other naked. We’ll eventually go all the way. It’s your choice what sort of experience that will be.”
This had never been about withholding sex. She’d be naked in a heartbeat as soon as he made a move. All the power was in his hands and when that move came, it would be monumental. And he’d be so very, very aware of exactly what it meant.
He shoved both hands through his hair. “Why is it my choice?”
Poor, poor man. If he was too clueless to know she didn’t have a choice, far be it from her to fill him in. This was something he had to figure out on his own. Besides, he was the one with the crisis of conscience that prevented him from making love to her until something he probably couldn’t even articulate happened.
But she knew exactly what he needed—to let himself go. She’d exploit this situation gladly in order to get the marriage she desperately wanted and help him find the affection and affinity he so clearly yearned for.
She smiled. “Because. I’m—” Already emotionally invested. “—generous that way.”
She was going to drag Leo off the sidelines kicking and screaming if that’s what it took to have the love match she sensed in her soul Elise had actually orchestrated.
