The Highest Bidder

She shook her hair back from her face and looked into his eyes. “My hair’s been making you crazy?”

“And those shoes you wear,” he said, undoing the buttons of the simple white blouse she wore tucked into the waistband of a slim-fitting gray skirt.

Confused, she said, “My shoes?”

“God, yes,” he said, pausing to take a look down at the plain, black pumps. “What they do to your legs should be illegal.”

“Really?” she asked, ridiculously pleased.

“Really.” He shook his head and gave her a quick grin. “I’m thinking of having them bronzed.”

She laughed, delighted, and felt suddenly more carefree, more alive than she’d felt in years.

“Sure, you can laugh. I’m the one suffering, watching you walk across the office …” He shook his head again in memory, then he finished unbuttoning her shirt and pulled the tail of it free of her skirt. He swept the edges of the material back to expose the lacy bra covering her generous breasts.

He took a quick breath and exhaled just as fast. “You’re amazing.”

Her fingers worked at the buttons on his shirt, too, her skin heating not just from his compliment, but from the intensity of his gaze, as well. She felt it as she would a touch. He looked at her with such … hunger, such need, that she swore she could feel actual flames licking at her insides.

Charlie wanted to see him, too. Wanted to run her fingers over his skin and feel the warmth of his flesh beneath hers. He stood still under her touch and once his shirt was unbuttoned, she laid her palms flat on his broad chest and smoothed her fingers through the thatch of dark hair dusting his skin. He hissed in a breath and she knew he was as susceptible to her touch as she was to his.

“Can’t wait another minute, Charlie. We’ve already waited long enough. I’ve got to have you.”

“Yes, Vance. Oh, yes,” she said. This, she told herself, had been inevitable. From the first moment she had walked into his office as his new assistant. They had always been headed directly to this moment.

She felt beautiful and desired and so ready.

Charlie lifted her hands to the front clasp of her bra—then stopped and looked around. Broad daylight. Outside. Okay, maybe no one could see them but for passing planes and the occasional bird, but … “Maybe inside would be better.”

“What?” He looked around much as she had. “Oh. Yeah.” He choked out a laugh. “I actually forgot where we were. What do you do to me, woman? I’m always on top of things. Never lose focus. But with you—” He huffed out an exasperated breath and reached for her. Bending, he hooked one arm behind her knees and the other around her back and lifted her right off her feet.

“Vance!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. Laughing up into his eyes, she said, “I can walk, you know.”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, “but this way, I get to keep my hands on you.”

“Can’t argue with that,” she said as he headed back inside.

His legs were long and his pace was brisk. He carried her through the penthouse into the master bedroom so quickly, it was only seconds before Charlie dropped onto his bed and lay there, looking up at him.

Nerves jangled inside her, but she quieted them. If this was a mistake, then she was going into it with her eyes wide open. Even if she regretted being with Vance one day, in this moment, she was reveling in it.

Shaking his head slowly, he let his gaze wander over her thoroughly. “I can’t tell you how many nights I imagined you lying here just like this.”

Charlie smiled. She liked knowing that she’d been in his thoughts as much as he had been in hers. “In your dreams I was fully clothed?”

One corner of his mouth tipped up briefly, but it wasn’t humor shining in his eyes, it was hunger. For her.

“Nope,” he said. “All you were wearing were those shoes and a satisfied smile.”

A curl of something wickedly exciting started in the pit of Charlie’s stomach and spread like a wildfire, rushing through her veins, making her skin feel tight and hot. She’d never felt anything like this before and she was suddenly eager to feel so much more.

Keeping her eyes on his, she wiggled out of her skirt and kicked it off. His eyes flashed as she sat up to take off her shirt and toss it to the floor, too. Then she was wearing only her white lace bra, matching panties and the shoes he seemed to have such a fondness for.

“Well, don’t stop now,” he said, voice sounding strangled.

Muted sunlight slanted in through the glass wall behind him, throwing his features into shadow as he stood so still, watching her. But even in the dim light, his eyes blazed with such ferocity, it took her breath away.

With him watching her like a starving man eyeing a feast, Charlie slowly unhooked her bra, then slid it off her shoulders, baring her breasts to him. As the cool air in the room kissed her heated skin, she felt ripples of gooseflesh course over her body. But it wasn’t just the air. It was Vance’s gaze that gave her chills. She was both embarrassed by her nudity—hello, she had had a baby and wasn’t quite as toned as she used to be—and excited, an interesting combination that had her heart throttling into high gear and turning every breath into a hard-won battle.

She lay exposed to his gaze but for the panties she still wore. But when she hooked her fingers under the elastic band, he stopped her.

“No, don’t,” he said, his voice still that low thrum of need and hunger that filled her with so many different sensations she couldn’t even sort them all out. “Let me.”

While she watched breathlessly, he tore off his clothes. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Even in the backlight of the sun, he was amazing. His chest was broad and muscled, his legs were long and lean and his—She swallowed hard and lifted her gaze to his.

“No more waiting, Charlie,” he murmured and she nodded, lifting her arms up to him.

Like him, she was done waiting. She wanted to feel. Wanted to be held and touched. By Vance.

He joined her on the bed and his heated skin was a counterpoint to the cool silk of the duvet sliding against her. Cupping her breasts in his palms, his thumbs and forefingers tweaked her rigid, so-sensitive nipples, until a moan ripped from her throat.

Then his hands shifted, moving over her body with an expert’s touch. As if he were playing her, he coaxed a symphony of sighs and groans from her. He explored every curve, every valley; he slid one hand down the length of her, across her abdomen, down to the narrow elastic band riding low on her hips.

Charlie sucked in a gulp of air. “Vance …”

Dipping his hand beneath that tiny swatch of lace covering the juncture of her thighs, he cupped her heat in his palm, making her twist and writhe beneath him as she ached for more.

“Please,” she whispered and didn’t care that she sounded desperate. She was desperate. For his touch. For the orgasm she felt couched inside, ready to crash down on her body and splinter her into shards of trembling release. “Vance, please …”

He turned his head and looked down into her eyes. Smiling now, he whispered, “Not yet, Charlie. I’m gonna make you want me as badly as I want you.”

“I do,” she swore, rocking her hips into his hand as he held her. The heat of his palm pressed to her core was agonizing, thrilling. And not nearly enough.

“Not yet,” he whispered, “but soon.”

Then he dipped his head to take one pebbled nipple into his mouth. His lips and tongue tortured her with exquisite care. He lavished attention on first one nipple, then the other, until he had her twisting wildly beneath him while holding his head to her, making her half afraid he would stop.

He suckled her, drawing deep at her breasts, and Charlie whimpered with the sexual need that grew and grew until it was all-encompassing. Vance’s mouth on her breasts. Vance’s hand at her core. Vance’s breath dusting her skin.

A sensual haze dropped over her vision, blurring him, the room, even the slant of sunlight that now looked like a simple wash of gold across everything. She didn’t need to see, she told herself. All she needed was him. All she cared about now was the next touch. The next stroke. The next pull at her breasts.

“Time to lose these,” Vance murmured as he lifted his head to claim a quick, hard kiss. Then he flicked his wrist and the elastic band on her panties snapped.

“Good,” Charlie said, swallowing past the knot in her throat. She parted her thighs for him and he caressed her heat, drawing a sigh from her as she whispered, “That’s good.”

“About to get better,” he promised.

Sliding first one finger then two into her depths, he stroked her, inside and out, until she was trembling, quivering, from head to toe. She clutched at him—arms, shoulders, back. She dragged her nails down his skin, loving the feel of him beneath her hands. His thumb moved over the most sensitive spot at her center and Charlie jolted at the lightninglike sensations that shot through her.

Wild now, hungry beyond the telling of it, she rocked her hips like crazy, trying to take him deeper, higher, and she groaned because it still wasn’t enough. She needed to feel his thick, hard body pushing within. Charlie felt her climax building and coiling inside her and she yearned for it, ached for it.

“More, more,” she whispered, voice broken on a gasp.

“Want it, Charlie. Want it more than your next breath,” he said softly, lifting his head to watch her face.

Her gaze caught with his, she managed to choke out, “I do. Want it. Want you. Always have.” She shook her head from side to side on the cool silk and licked her lips as he pushed her closer, higher, faster. “Always wanted you. Now have to have you. No more waiting, Vance.” Her gaze pinned his. “Now.”

“Now.” He lifted his hand from her core and she nearly wept with the loss of him.

But in seconds, he shifted on the bed, tore off what was left of her panties and tossed the ruined scrap of lace over his shoulder. He ran his palms up and down the length of her legs and smiled when he glanced at the high heels she still wore.

Charlie managed a short laugh in spite of what she was feeling. “Your fantasy?”

“Not until you’re wearing that satisfied smile.”

She wiggled her hips and parted her thighs even farther. “I’m ready when you are,” she said.

“Almost.” He reached for the bedside table, yanked open the drawer and grabbed a condom.

“I didn’t think. I—” Charlie was grateful. She’d been so caught up in the sensual delights, she hadn’t given a single thought to protection.

“Only one of us had to,” he told her as he tore open the foil square, then sheathed himself.

He knelt between her thighs, scooped his hands under her behind and lifted her slightly off the mattress. She looked up into his eyes and saw a need that matched her own. She had never known anything like this before. Hadn’t realized that sex could be so … much. Always before, it had been … nice. Pleasant. But there was nothing “pleasant” about sex with Vance. This was raw, powerful, all-consuming need. If she didn’t feel him inside her soon, Charlie knew she would lose what was left of her mind.

And as that last coherent thought twisted through her brain, Vance pushed himself inside her in one hard stroke.

He was big and thick and oh, so good. Charlie gasped, then groaned his name as she lifted her hips into him, taking him even deeper until he filled her so completely, so totally, she couldn’t imagine ever being without him inside her again. It was as if she had been waiting her whole life for this moment. For this man. She felt it. Knew it deep in her soul.

He moved in her and her body tightened around his, her inner muscles clenching and releasing as he led her into a dance as old as time. Her back arched, her hips rocked furiously as she rode the crashing wave of pleasure he induced.

He set the rhythm and she matched it. He touched her, she stroked her hands up and down his chest, his abdomen. He lifted her legs and set them on his shoulders, allowing him to go deeper, higher within her.

Charlie gasped at each invasion and nearly wept at each retreat. Passion exploded between them and as her climax peaked, sending her shrieking into a world filled with light and color, she heard him shout her name just before she felt him follow.

And as their bodies reached completion, they clung to each other like shipwreck survivors huddled on the shore.

Moments later, Vance whispered, “It’s those shoes, Charlie. Never get rid of those shoes.”

And she laughed, delighted.

Ten

In the kitchen twenty minutes later, Vance rustled up some cold Chardonnay, crackers and some cheese. As he took down two wineglasses, he paused for a moment and thought about the woman waiting for him in his bedroom.

Slapping both hands to the granite counter, he let himself remember the incredible feeling of being deep inside Charlie’s body and how he’d had the momentary thought that he’d like to stay that way forever. Almost instantly, he’d instinctively pulled back from that word.

He didn’t do forever. What he did was weeks. Maybe months, tops. Forever was for people too dumb to know that lust wasn’t love. Desire wasn’t lasting and passion cooled off just as fast as it burned.

Reluctantly, he scraped both hands across his face, then pushed them through his hair. He glanced across the room at the view through his windows and told himself to get a grip. What he had with Charlie was damn good, but that’s all it was.

All this self-exploration only went to prove that he’d waited too long between women. It had been more than three months since he’d stopped seeing Sharon—Karen—something.

Scowling now, he realized he not only couldn’t remember her name, he couldn’t remember anything else about her, either. While Charlie, on the other hand, was indelibly etched into his mind. If he never saw her again, he’d still recall everything about her. Never see her again. Okay, he didn’t like that thought, either. But that was only natural, he assured himself. At the beginning of an affair, which this most certainly was going to be, everything was brighter, hotter, better than anything that had come before.

Wasn’t it?

A silent voice inside him argued that Charlie was different from any woman he’d been with. What he’d just shared with her had shaken him right down to his bones and he didn’t even want to try to figure out what that might mean.

Instead, he grabbed the tray of snacks and the glasses in one hand and the bottle of wine with the other and headed back to the bedroom. Just outside the doorway, he muttered, “Keep it simple, stupid.”

Charlie was sitting up in the bed, waiting for him, and everything in Vance stilled for a long second or two. The woman was stunning and just looking at her made him want her all over again. Scowling, he told himself it meant nothing. But a voice in the back of his mind whispered something else entirely.

“Are you arguing with yourself?”

He blinked, looked at her and asked, “What?”

“You had this look on your face, like you were having a silent battle.”

“Well, I’m not,” he lied, disconcerted to discover he was so easy for her to read. Hell, his opponents in business had long told him that he had the best poker face in the world. That nothing he didn’t want to reveal showed up on his expression. But Charlie took one look at him and knew what he was thinking.

Yeah. Disconcerting.

He walked naked across the room, set the tray of crackers and cheese on the bedside table, then poured each of them a glass of wine. Just like in his fantasies, her long, blond hair was spread across the dark blue duvet like spun gold and he couldn’t resist touching it. It was smooth and soft and smelled, he thought, of peaches. The woman was edible, head to toe.

She took a sip of her wine and said, “That’s good, thank you.”

He gulped at his own wine, hoping to ease the knot of need that was now lodged in his throat. Everything about her called to him. The way she licked a drop of wine from her lips. The way she shook her hair back over her shoulder. The way she reached one hand out to cup his cheek, sending lines of heat shooting through his body.

“I’m suddenly not very thirsty,” he admitted. “You?”

“Not very,” she agreed, handing him her glass so he could set both of them down on the table beside the bed.

Her fingers caressed his cheek and he caught her hand in his. “Think you can read my thoughts?” he asked quietly. “What am I thinking now?”

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” she murmured, “I’m thinking it, too.”

“Good to know,” he said and dropped his head to claim a kiss. The first taste of her exploded in his mouth and rocketed through him. Just like the first time he had kissed her, in the shade of a willow tree, he felt that pitch and roll in his stomach and a weird sort of ache in his chest. But he didn’t want to consider what any of it might mean.

For now, all he wanted, needed, was Charlie. The feel of her, the hot silk of her body surrounding him when he entered her. Everything else in the damn world could just wait its turn.

He loved the feel of her soft hands sliding over his skin, the heat of her touch, kindling the fire inside him into something wild and uncontrollable. He caressed her, she responded, she ran her fingernails along his back and he shivered.

This woman got to him on levels he hadn’t even known he possessed. She invaded his body, his soul, his mind and, he suspected, his heart. And that was something that no one had ever managed to do.

He shook his head, deliberately dismissing his own thoughts. He wanted nothing interfering with this moment. He was hard and tight and ready for her again and couldn’t wait to get back inside her. Where he belonged, a voice inside whispered. Where he most wanted to be. He grabbed another condom and sheathed himself quickly.

Shifting, he sat up, and dragged her with him. She came willingly and when his back was braced against the headboard, he lifted her up to straddle him.

She whipped her long hair back from her face, but it slid forward again, lying in blond ribbons across her full, truly amazing breasts. Her nipples peeked through the golden strands like hidden treasures waiting to be discovered.

With her hands on his shoulders, she went up on her knees, and slowly took him inside, inch by glorious inch. His hands at her hips, he guided her down as his eyes locked with hers. He saw the flash of wonder, of want burning in those pale blue depths, and lost himself there. In the heat they built together. In the need that had them both by the throat.

Why was that need even more desperate now? Shouldn’t it have been assuaged by their first joining? Shouldn’t he be feeling satisfied instead of hungrier for her than ever?

“You’re killing me,” he muttered when she was fully seated on him and his body was locked within hers.

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she admitted and ground her hips against him, dragging a groan from each of them.

“I wanted to take this time slow,” Vance told her after a long minute when he fought for control. “But I don’t think so.”

“Who needs slow?” she asked, then let out a “Whoop!” when he moved fast and tossed her onto her back, keeping his body joined with hers.

“There’s lots of time for slow,” he told her, voice low and scratchy. “Later.”

“Right. Later.” She lifted her legs, hooked them around his hips and pulled him in deeper, higher. “Right now, I just need. Need …”

“Me, too.” He buried his face in the curve of her neck, shut down his racing mind and gave himself up to instinct. The raw, pure hunger roaring through him demanding to be sated.

His hips moved like pistons. He took her fast, hard and completely. He heard her sighs and they fed his desire. He felt her body shiver as her climax jolted through her. She screamed his name as her body trembled and, moments later, he shouted victoriously as his body exploded into the heat of her, leaving him locked in her arms—and he didn’t let her go.

“Weird afternoon,” Charlie whispered to herself an hour later as she sat at her desk, going over Vance’s mail.

She’d been in his bed. Held his body in hers. And now they were back at Waverly’s as if nothing had happened.

But it had, she reminded herself with an inner smile. She just didn’t know what that meant for either of them.

One corner of her mind asked if it really had to mean something. Wasn’t it enough for now to simply enjoy what she had while she had it? And though that was good advice, she would never be able to follow it. Charlie never had been the girl to accept “for now.”

She’d always been more the home-and-hearth type rather than the use-’em-and-lose-’em kind of girl. So where did that leave her, exactly?

Living with her boss. Sleeping with him.

And worrying about what happened next.

For whatever reason, Vance was being kind and very protective of her and her son, and Charlie was grateful. But she knew that soon enough, he was bound to move on to one of the empty-headed beauties he usually dated. And that was just depressing.

Her desk phone buzzed and she picked up. “Yes?”

Vance’s voice came across loud and clear, “Come in here, Charlie. I’ve got an idea.”

She walked into his office and paused for a second to enjoy the view. He sat behind his desk like a king. Power emanated from him and when he smiled, everything inside her drew up into tight knots.

Oh, God. It had happened. She’d gone and done it.

She was in love with Vance Waverly.

And doomed to misery because he would never return that feeling. How could he? He knew the whole sordid truth about her now. Where she was from, what kind of family she had had. They were night and day, light and dark, power and powerlessness.

Heart aching, she forced a smile onto her face and prayed he couldn’t see what it was costing her. If all she had left was her pride, then she was going to cling to it.

“What kind of idea?” she asked, taking one of the chairs in front of his desk.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “I want you to email that bastard who’s been hounding you and tell him you want to meet.”

“What?” Fear closed her throat as she stared at him. “Why?”

“Because I want to find out who he is. That way we’ll know who’s behind all this.” He stood up, came around the desk and took the chair next to hers.

Charlie stared into his eyes and saw the gleam of anticipation there. “I don’t know.”

“I do. You can do this, Charlie.” He reached over and picked up her hands from her lap. Holding them in his, he met her gaze and reminded her, “We already figured out this isn’t a coincidence. Your first threatening note arriving the same day as the article on Ann and Dalton showing up in the paper? No way. Whoever’s behind the threats to you has to be involved in whatever’s being planned for Waverly’s.”

“But, Vance …”

“I’ll be there. Well,” he hedged, “not with you, but close by. I swear I’ll never you out of my sight. You’ll be safe, Charlie, but I think this is our best chance of stopping this guy.”

She didn’t like any of it. The thought of meeting someone who had been threatening her was terrifying, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Charlie understood why Vance wanted to do this, but her son was at risk. “What if he sees you? What if he makes good on his threats and tries to take Jake from me?” Shaking her head, she tried to pull her hands free of his, but he held on even tighter.

“That won’t happen.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“No,” he agreed.

Charlie bit her lip. “Why can’t we just call the police?”