Millionaire Magnates: Taming the Texas Tycoon

She shrugged and looked away.

“Sorry, was that too personal?”

She started to nod and then turned to pin him with her dark-chocolate stare. “I had to. It wasn’t healthy for me and I was tired of being invisible.”

“You weren’t completely,” he said.

“Yes, I was. Or you would have invited me up here a lot sooner,” she said, standing up.

She paced over to the railing and leaned back against it, facing him.

“Does it bother you that I didn’t?”

“Of course. But not for the reasons you think. It bothers me because I have wasted so many years of my life.”

“You’re not old, Kate,” he said.

“I’m old enough. And it took your engagement to another woman to snap me out of the trance I’ve been in.”

“My engagement?”

“I told you, I’ve wanted you for a long time,” Kate said.

“I’m sorry, Katie-girl. My engagement… it was done for political purposes.”

“Really? What about Lexi? Does she know that? Don’t you care for her at all?”

Lance stood up, as well. “She knows that we are engaged for our families’ sakes. And to be honest, tonight I realized that I can’t go through with the fake engagement.”

“Why not?”

Lance wasn’t the kind of man who liked to talk about his feelings but he knew better than to keep quiet this time. “It just didn’t seem right to marry her.”

He walked slowly over to Kate, stopping when barely an inch of space separated them. “Don’t you want to know why?”

Kate stared up at him. How could he have ever missed how beautiful her eyes were?

“Why?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“I can’t marry her when you are the one woman I can’t get out of my mind.”

“You can’t… Are you serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack, baby. And I’m not about to let you go until we’ve figured this out.”

Seven

Kate felt overwhelmed by Lance. She put her hands on his chest and leaned forward to kiss him, licking her lips the second before her mouth touched his. She kept her mouth open, feeling the exhalation of his breath against her. She closed her eyes and rubbed her lips over his.

She let herself make this moment into a memory that she’d remember for the rest of her life. If the last week had taught her anything it was that Lance was important to her. And that forever… well, forever might not be in the cards for them.

But now was. Right now. She curled her fingers around his arms and touched his tongue lightly with hers, stroking it into his open mouth. She tasted the beer he’d drunk earlier and something that was starting to be familiar to her. A taste that was just Lance.

She started to withdraw from his mouth and felt his teeth close lightly around her tongue. He angled his head and she felt his hand on her ribs right below her breasts. His other hand tangled in the hair at the back of her head.

He held her so strongly as his mouth moved over hers, as he took complete control of the embrace and of her body. Shivers spread down her body from her lips past her neck. Her breasts felt fuller as she continued kissing him. She leaned forward and felt the tips of her breasts brush his chest.

She moaned, and then was embarrassed and broke away.

He stopped her. “What is it, honey?”

She shook her head. How had she thought that she could be with this sophisticated man? Had she forgotten that the hair and clothes were just window dressing? Inside she was still Kate Thornton.

But this was Lance Brody and he didn’t take no for an answer. He pulled her back into his arms, his hands falling to the small of her back, holding her against his rock-hard body. His erection nudged the bottom of her stomach.

She glanced up and saw that he was watching her. And she realized she wanted to see more of him. All of him. How often did dreams come true?

If she walked away now, the makeover would be just what she’d called it—window dressing. Nothing more than a facade on her dusty old life. But she had changed.

She put her hands on Lance’s face, drew his head down to hers. “You are the best kisser.”

He smiled at her, just a little half smile that made her pulse race. “I’m just getting started.”

Kate let herself relax and stop worrying about the future, about everything other than this moment. She wanted Lance. He wanted her. Together, they were going to make this moment one of the most memorable.

Lance kissed her again and then lifted her in his arms. She realized she liked the way he carried her around. She loved the feeling that came with being in his arms. Since Kate was big for most of her life, Lance was the first man to carry her as an adult. And it made her feel beautiful, like the sexy girls that men always carried in the movies.

Lance carried her over the threshold, back into his bedroom. He kissed her so tenderly before slowly undressing her.

She crossed her arms over her breasts, knowing despite the weight loss that she still wasn’t perfect. This body… she glanced down at it. Her breasts had fine white stretch marks. And her stomach wasn’t flat. She wondered sometimes if it would ever be.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not very good-looking naked,” she said.

He shook his head and drew her hands away from her body, holding her arms open so she felt so damned exposed. Too exposed. She couldn’t do this.

Just when she was about to turn away, he pulled her into his arms, hugging her close to his clothed body. “Kate, can’t you feel what you do to me?”

He took her hand and drew it down his body to his erection. It was hard and proud, pressing against his jeans. She stroked him through his clothes.

He traced his finger over her breasts, circling around the white fleshy globe before coming closer to her nipple. It beaded up and she bit her lower lip, waiting in anticipation of his touch.

“Katie?”

“Hmm?”

“You have one hot, sexy body,” he said. His finger rubbed over her nipple, making it impossible for her to remember her own arguments.

A moment later, his head dipped down and he suckled her, drawing her nipple into his mouth. She rubbed her hands over his short hair.

“Lance, take your shirt off,” she said. She surprised herself with her demand. But she wanted to enjoy every second she had with Lance, and she needed to see his chest.

He lifted his head and stood there in front of her. “You take it off for me.”

She reached for his shirt and drew it up and over his head. He tossed it aside and she couldn’t help but reach for his chest. She touched his muscles over his breastbone and then followed the line of hair that tapered down, disappearing into his waistband.

“I like you without your shirt on,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

She felt more vulnerable now than she had just a second before. She hadn’t meant to leave herself so open to him. Yet, at the same time, she knew there was no other way for her to react to him.

He didn’t say anything else, just bent to trace the line of her neck to the base. He licked her there and then dropped the softest kiss on her.

She couldn’t think as he stood back up and lifted her onto the bed. He bent down to capture the tip of her breast in his mouth. He sucked her deep in his mouth, his teeth lightly scraping against her sensitive flesh. His other hand played at her other breast, arousing her, making her arch against him in need.

She fumbled with his trousers. He should be naked. She pulled back. Again the brazen woman she hadn’t realized she was came to the scene. “Take your pants off.”

He stood up and unfastened them, kicking off his pants and underwear in one smooth move. He came back down on top of her. She reached between them and took his erection in her hand, bringing him closer to her, spreading her legs wider so that she was totally open to him. “I need you now.”

He lifted his head; the tips of her breasts were damp from his mouth and very tight. He rubbed his chest over them. Then he donned a condom.

She slid her hands down his back, cupping his butt as he thrust into her loosely. Their eyes met. Staring deep into his eyes made her feel like their souls were meeting. She felt her body start to tighten around him, catching her by surprise. She climaxed before him. He gripped her hips, holding her down and thrusting into her two more times before he came with a loud grunt of her name.

After disposing of the condom, he held her, pulling her into his arms and tucking her up against his side.

She wrapped her arm around him and listened to the solid beating of his heart. She closed her eyes and let out her breath, snuggling closer to this man that she’d wanted and loved for so long. She felt his arms wrap around her and she realized that in this moment, she had everything she’d ever wanted. Her dreams were coming true.

Lance woke up with a hard-on and his hands on Kate’s breasts. She felt so incredibly good. He rubbed his erection against her buttocks and lowered his head to her neck. She shifted in his arms, rubbing against him.

He nibbled on the skin exposed by the morning sunlight. She was beautiful. He knew she didn’t think so but as he looked down her body, wrapped in his arms, he’d never seen a more beautiful woman.

He rubbed his palm over her breast until her eyes opened halfway and she moaned softly. The same noise she’d made last night when he’d made love to her.

He shifted on the bed, so that he was lying next to her, his morning hard-on pressing against her hip. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman sleep over and it felt right to Lance that Kate was there.

“Morning.” He took her mouth with his, letting his hands wander over her body. That she was here in his bedroom was just as it should be.

“Good morning,” she said, putting her hand in front of her mouth.

He pulled her hand away from her face and kissed her. “You taste good this morning, honey.” He swept his hand down her body. “Look good, too.”

She flushed and buried her red face against his chest. He put his arms around her and held her. He didn’t understand it but Kate was more beautiful this morning than she had been last night. Her dark hair was thick and curled in disarray around her shoulders. The makeup she’d had on yesterday had worn off and her eyes were clear.

“You slept with your contacts in. Do you need to take them out?”

She shook her head. “I got the kind you can wear for a month. I had a really hard time getting them in initially.”

“Then why wear them?”

“Glasses were part of the old me.”

“So was I, but not anymore.”

Kate laughed. “Glasses have always been a mask for me to hide behind and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

He traced his hand over her shoulder and down her back. She shivered with awareness and her nipples beaded. She was so wonderfully responsive. He pushed her back down on the bed and then bent to lick each nipple. He blew gently on the tips. She raked her nails down his back.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Making love to you this morning,” he answered, kissing his way to her stomach and tasting her flesh there.

“Why?”

“Because I can,” he said.

He kissed her soundly, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth until she was writhing on the bed and moaning his name.

He continued to kiss and nibble his way down her body, taking time to draw her nipples out by suckling them. When she arched off the bed and clutched his head to her breasts, he decided to move lower, to nibble at her stomach and trace the faint scars left from her weight loss. He hadn’t realized how proud he was of Kate until now. She’d really taken charge of her life.

He moved lower until he knelt between her thighs and looked down at her. “May I kiss you there?”

She swallowed, her hands shifting on the bed next to her hips.

“No one has ever done that,” she said.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll stop,” he said.

Her legs moved and he took that as a yes.

He leaned down, blowing lightly on her before tonguing her soft flesh. She lifted her hips toward his mouth.

He wrapped his hands around her hips and drew her up to him, holding her to his mouth as he tasted her. He pushed her legs farther apart until he could reach her dewy core. He pushed his finger into her body and drew out some of her moisture; he lifted his head and looked up her body.

Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back, her shoulders arched, throwing her breasts forward with their berry-hard tips, begging for more attention. Her entire body was erotically beautiful in the morning sunlight.

He lowered his head again, hungry for more of her. He feasted on her body, carefully tasting the moist flesh between her legs. He used his teeth, tongue and fingers to bring her to the brink of climax but held her there, wanting to draw out the moment of completion until she was begging him for it.

Her hands grasped his head as she thrust her hips up toward his face. But he pulled back so that she didn’t get the contact she craved.

“Lance, please.”

He scraped his teeth over her clitoris and she screamed as her orgasm rocked through her body. He kept his mouth on her until her body stopped shuddering and then slid up her, holding her tightly in his arms.

He rolled over, keeping her with him until she straddled him. “Sit up, honey.”

She did as he asked, bracing herself on his shoulders. He shifted his hips until the tip of his cock found the portal of her body. The warmth of her against him made him realize he wasn’t wearing a condom. He reached for the one he’d left on the nightstand last night.

He quickly opened it. “Sit up.”

“Let me do it,” she said.

He handed the condom to her and with a little help from him, he was sheathed. He shifted his hips again and slipped the tip of his erection into her.

“Take as much of me as you want,” he said.

“I want it all,” Kate said. “But I’m not sure…”

He put his hands on her hips and guided her down on him. But the feel of her around him quickly eroded his self-control and he found himself holding her hips tightly while he thrust up inside of her, trying to get deeper. He pulled her legs forward, forcing them farther apart until she settled even closer to him.

He slid deeper still into her. She arched her back, reaching up to entwine her arms around his shoulders. He thrust harder and felt every nerve in his body tensing. Reaching between their bodies, he touched her between her legs until he felt her body start to tighten around him.

He came in a rush, continuing to thrust into her until his body was drained. He then collapsed on top of her, lying his head between her breasts.

A week later, Lance still hadn’t had the chance to talk to Lexi, who had gone back to DC. But he had managed to keep Kate on as his assistant. And he’d taken her to dinner every night—and made love to her most of those nights, as well.

The investigation into the fire was going painfully slowly. Mitch was back in DC and Lance hadn’t spoken to him since the Fourth. They were ready to get back to work at the main refinery. They needed to be producing barrels of oil each day, not sitting idle.

He picked up the phone and dialed Darius’s number.

“This is Darius.”

“Darius, my man, what news do you have from the refinery?”

“Not much. The arson investigator is still tracking the accelerant to try to find the source.”

“Do you trust the man?” Lance asked. “Is he competent?”

“Yes, I think he is. I’m going to call his office later. I’ll follow up with you when I have news.”

“Thanks, Darius. I appreciate you taking this case.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

“Indeed.”

“Speaking of friends… what’s this I hear about your engagement?”

Lance looked at the open door leading to Kate’s desk. He could hear her hands moving over the keyboard of her computer.

“It’s complicated.”

“With women, that’s the only way a situation can be.”

Lance laughed. “More so than usual. I can’t say any more until I talk to the lady involved.”

“Gotcha. I can appreciate that.”

“Thanks, Darius.”

He hung up the phone as Kate entered his office. “Marcus needs five minutes to talk to you later.”

“Anything else?” Lance asked. Marcus was hanging around the office too much lately and Lance knew it was because of Kate.

“This came for you via courier. Said it was urgent,” she said, handing him a letter-sized envelope.

He stopped her with a hand on her wrist. He suspected the envelope held the bracelet he’d ordered for her last night. He wanted Kate to have something, and until he could talk to Lexi, a ring was out of the question.

Was he really thinking of marrying Kate Thornton?

“Close the door for me.”

“No. People will talk if we close the door. It’s never closed when I’m in here.”

“Katie-girl… what are you thinking?”

She blushed and gave him a hard stare. “Nothing.”

She turned on her heel to leave. He stopped her, reaching over her head to close the door, trapping her.

“Turn around.”

She did, slowly.

“Was that so hard?”

She shook her head. “You are way too bossy for your own good.”

“You like it,” he said, thinking of last night when he’d ordered her to come while they were making love, and she had.

She blushed.

“What did you want from me?”

Everything, he thought. He wanted every secret in her dark brown stare to be revealed to him.

“I think this package is actually for you. Have a seat in my chair.”

“Lance…”

He gestured to his chair and then followed her back across his office. She wore a short skirt and a sleeveless sweater today. Her hair had been left loose and hung down her back in silky waves.

Each day, instead of growing used to her look he found something new about her that attracted him.

He wondered if that would stop or go away with familiarity. But somehow he doubted that it would. There was something about Kate that just kept deepening for him each day.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Just thinking about how pretty you are.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“That’s not the way to take a compliment.”

She swallowed. “But I look in the mirror every day, Lance.”

He walked over to her, leaning one hip on the side of the desk. He turned her toward him and looked down into her face.

“You are beautiful, Kate. I’m not sure why I never noticed it before but you get prettier each and every day.”

“Thank you, Lance. When I’m with you I feel… like the woman I always dreamed of being.”

“I’m glad,” he said. He reached for the envelope and checked the return address. It was the bracelet he’d ordered. He opened the envelope and a small black jewelry bag fell out.

“I’m not much of a gift wrapper, but I wanted you to have this,” Lance said.

Kate reached for it and he opened the bag. He took her hand in his and turned it palm up.

He shook the jewelry bag until the bracelet dropped out into her hand. The jewel-encrusted charms glittered. She bit her lower lip and closed her fist over the bracelet.

“Thank you. It’s so beautiful. But why are you giving me this?.”

“I wanted you to have a piece of jewelry that you didn’t buy for yourself, something that would remind you of me each time you put it on.”

The look on her face told him everything he needed to know.

Eight

Kate spent the rest of the day admiring her bracelet and romanticizing her relationship with Lance. It had developed into something altogether different than she’d expected, something more than she’d ever expected from any relationship.

She found herself cautioning her heart not to believe that Lance was the man of her dreams. She felt like there was still something that had to be worked out between them. She hadn’t asked about his engagement to Lexi and if he’d broken it off. But Lance had said he would do it and she trusted him.

And the bracelet. She stopped working at her computer and touched it. It was a beautiful piece of jewelry. The only other man to ever give her any jewelry had been her dad, who had gifted her with one-karat diamond stud earrings when she’d graduated from high school.

This was different. Although her head was telling her to be cautious, her heart was going full throttle, and she couldn’t seem to stop it. Everything was out of control—and she liked it.

“Kate, can I see you in my office?”

She picked up her notepad and stepped into Lance’s office. It was after hours and much of the staff had gone home.

“Yes, Lance?” she asked. She stopped when she noticed that there was a picnic basket on his desk and a bottle of wine opened and chilling in a wine bucket.

“Join me for dinner?” he asked.

“I guess the boss won’t notice if I’m away from desk for a few minutes.”

“I already cleared this with the boss.”

She closed the door behind her. She didn’t want any of their co-workers to see this. Her re-lationship with Lance was too personal to let the world know about it.

“Then I’d love to join you,” she said. “How did you plan all this without me?”

Lance poured her a glass of white wine and handed it to her. “I am capable of doing things on my own.”

“I know that. It’s just…”

“What?”

“It must have taken some effort for you to surprise me like this… and I didn’t think you would do that.”

“Why not? I like surprising you,” he said.

She wasn’t used to this, to this being in a re-lationship, and she hardly knew what to expect. She’d gone from invisible to this… and it was overwhelming.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I want this to be a special night for you.”

Lance was everything she wanted in a man, she thought. She couldn’t deny that, no matter how cautious she was trying to be.

Spontaneously, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him. She’d been wanting to all day long.

He caught her close and kissed her back. “Working together is a kind of torture.”

“How?” she asked. One hand was roaming up and down her back, the other at the hem of her skirt.

“Seeing you all day, wanting to lift this little skirt of yours and bend you over my desk…” He trailed off as he dropped kisses all along her neck and throat.

“What else do you want to do?” she asked, turned on by the image he’d put in her mind.

“Lots of things, Katie-girl. But I really want to know what you want to do. What is your fantasy?”

“In the office?” she asked.

“We can start there,” he said.

“Take your shirt off,” she said. Since they’d started sleeping together, she fantasized many times about coming into his office and seeing him sitting there with his shirt off.

“Take my shirt off?”

She nodded.

He reached between them, the backs of his fingers brushing her breasts as he unbuttoned his shirt. She shook from the brief contact and bit her lip to keep from asking for more.

“Now you take yours off,” he said.

“Um… I thought I was in charge.”

“You are, but I need some incentive to keep on going.”

“And if I take my blouse off…”

“I’ll be like putty in your hands.”

She reached between the two of them and took the hem of her sleeveless sweater in her hands and drew it up over her body. She was wearing a very sexy bra that she’d bought at Becca’s store. The cups were all lace and it fastened in the front.

“Very nice,” Lance said, running his finger down the center of her body, over her sternum and between her ribs, lingering on her belly button and then stopping at the waistband of her skirt.

He took the front clasp of her bra between his fingers and snapped it open. She stood there on the precipice of something that she couldn’t explain. He rubbed his finger over the spot where the clasp had been. The cups were still covering her breasts but she felt… wanton and wicked.