Taming the Tycoon

chapter Six



The ensuite door opened and Addie quickly shut her eyes, pulling the sheet over her head as her heartbeat rocketed into the stratosphere.

“I’m perfectly decent, Addie.”

Unfortunately, while the thick luscious sheet with the gorgeous antique lacy edge blocked out his image, it did nothing for the derisive tone in his voice. She pulled the sheet down and glared at him.

Or at least that was her intention until she discovered that their definitions of decent were completely at odds.

He was absolutely, one hundred percent, wickedly indecent.

His plain black T-shirt was snug against him and she could practically see every muscle in the sculpted perfection of his chest. A pair of boxer briefs clung to his muscular thighs—thighs that, thanks to a pair of scissors belonging to a paramedic, she’d already caught a glimpse of but somehow looked even more potent upright and moving toward her despite the limp.

They also clung to other aspects of his anatomy outlining every detail.

And there was a lot of detail.

Good God. She had been sleeping with boys!

She suddenly understood the delightful Victorian habit of swooning that seemed appropriate in this room.

He might as well have strutted out naked.

Addie could feel her cheeks warm and her glare turned to a scowl as he lifted the sheet and sat on the side of the bed. She felt the mattress dip and shifted closer to her edge.

He eased his injured leg in first, then slid the rest of his body in beside her. His just out of the shower aroma—soap and toothpaste—wafted toward her as he ruffled the covers and her belly clenched.

Please, God, let him snore like a train. Give the man one imperfection!

“I have some reports to go over. Will the light bother you?”

Addie looked at him surprised—did the man never sleep? But that was a mistake. Up close she could see that his hair was damp and curled slightly at the back. His teeth were white. His mouth truly was as wicked as she remembered.

“You do know what they say about all work and no play, right?”

The instant it was out and a very distinct gleam formed in his eyes, she regretted it. She hadn’t meant it like that. She just meant that he was missing out on his life.

He raised an eyebrow. “You wanna play?”

Addie swallowed as his low suggestion fanned the hum in her blood to a roar. She doubted very much this man played fair.

“No,” she said so primly even she winced. God, she sounded like Sister Mary Agnes at the strict Catholic girl’s school she’d gone to.

Sister Mary Agnes would not have approved of this scenario.

“But for what it’s worth, I think you’re heading for a heart attack—didn’t your father die of one in his forties? Genetics play a pretty scary role in heart disease.”

She noticed a nerve ticking at his jaw as he grabbed the paperwork from off his bedside table and regretted mentioning his father.

She sighed. “Maybe it wouldn’t kill you to take a night off.”

“You don’t build an empire by taking nights off,” he said tersely.

She rolled up on her elbow and looked across the breech between them. He seemed a long way away, hardly conducive to conversation.

Or intimacy.

Which was a good, good thing.

“What’s your rush, Nate?” she asked.

Nathaniel looked at her. “I’m a driven kind of a guy. Something wrong with that?” He bristled. “You want to drift along in life smelling the roses, that’s fine. I have goals.”

Addie didn’t doubt him for a second—she’d need a saw to cut through the conviction in his voice. “Those roses smell pretty damn good.”

She felt his glare all the way down to her toes. “Please tell me you’re not going to start in on me about the bloody garden.”

“Why not?” She smiled innocently. “When I have such a captive audience?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in my underwear.”

In case she hadn’t noticed? She was practically drooling all over his grandmother’s antique sheets. But she shrugged anyway, reaching for nonchalant. Like she debated the merits of English heritage in bed with men she hardly knew every night of the week.

“So am I. I think that’s called a level playing field.” For once.

She felt his gaze drop to her cleavage where the sheet had ruched and drooped a little. The urge to pull it up to her neck like some virginal maiden itched through her fingers, but she refused to let him intimidate her. She had a hard road ahead and he had to know upfront that she wasn’t going to fold at his paltry attempts to push her away.

He gave her a sardonic smile. “You’re practically naked in my bed, posing as my girlfriend. I can see enough in that shirt to know you’re not wearing a bra. And now my mind is busily wondering about your underwear—I’m thinking you’re a thong type of girl?”

Addie swallowed as her belly went into free-fall. She was not going to fold at his paltry attempts to push her away.

“Trust me,” he muttered. “This is so not a level playing field.”

She sucked in a breath and dragged her resolve from the big puddle it was melting in—right along with her sense, caution, and pride. “I know you, Nate. I’ve done my research. I know you’re a pretty straight arrow. I know you’re not a chip off the old block. And even if I didn’t, I’m a pretty good judge of character. I don’t think destroying something of beauty and value to so many sits that well with someone whose company regularly supports Kew Gardens and the London Zoo.”

She noticed him tense again, but what the hell. She wasn’t here to stroke his ego—she was here to prick his conscience. Maybe even help him live a little.

Nathaniel’s gaze didn’t waver from hers and Addie felt his intensity reach inside her and squeeze hard. “Don’t think you know me, Addie, because you don’t. I am a businessman first and foremost.”

His low voice was just above a rumble and it gave her goose bumps. Everywhere. She knew it was meant to intimidate her and part of her recognized he would be a formidable enemy.

But another part of her, the part that was very aware of their state of undress, was hopelessly aroused.

Bloody hell. What was wrong with her? She was turning into one of those women who liked their men dark and dangerous. That wasn’t her. She liked men who were easy going, who could laugh and relax and not take themselves so bloody seriously.

She swallowed as his gaze refused to release hers, but she was determined not to back down. No matter how turned on she was, or how crazy that made her.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Nate.”

He broke first. He snorted and rubbed his jawline that was significantly darker now than when she’d first seen him in his doorway earlier that day. A delicious rasping noise whispered along taut nerve endings and she tried really hard not to think how that slight midnight shadow would feel scraping against her belly.

“Do you think we could give it a rest for the weekend?” he asked. “Resume hostilities when we get back to London? I really need to get this done, especially when I’m taking the entire day off tomorrow.”

Addie blinked. She’d believe that when she saw it. Even helping out on the farm this afternoon, he’d answered a dozen phone calls, gingerly wandering around to different spots to get the best signal while barely keeping his temper in check.

Hell, the man had been lying injured in a gutter and yelling about some deal or other.

“Really?” she said derisively. “You’re going to take a whole day off?”

He shrugged. “They’ll need a hand setting up for the party. There’ll be lights and ladders and all kinds of hazards. And their even crazier friend Kathy is going to help, which means she’ll bring some of her organic wine. And then it’ll be But darling it’s five o’clock somewhere, which means they’ll be tipsy and trying to hang decorations. Someone’s got to keep an eye on them.”

Addie could hear his concern and her derision melted. It was patently obvious he’d rather be having root canal than taking time away from his ridiculous work schedule, but the way he worried about his mother and grandmother was endearing, even if it did make him gruff and cranky.

“That’s probably the best present you could give your grandmother,” she murmured.

She watched as his hands faltered a little on the edges of the papers as he ruffled them into order. “What? Better than a farm store voucher?”

She met his gaze, refusing to let him trivialize it. “Yes.”

For a moment she swore she could see uncertainty there, but it was gone in a flash and he looked away.

“Right,” he said pointedly. “I can only take the day off tomorrow if I get this done tonight.”

Addie nodded, his profile set in a determined line. “Good night,” she said, rolling away from him.

If she was going to have any hope of falling asleep, he couldn’t be in her line of vision every time she opened her eyes.

Not that she really thought she would sleep. She was in bed with a man she hadn’t even known this time last week, and while she’d indulged in the odd one-night stand with laid-back foreign men on her travels through Europe, Nate was an entirely different prospect.

Strangely enough, though, her eyelids started to droop quite quickly. She didn’t know if it was the country air or the soothing domesticity of the shuffle of papers. If she shut her eyes all the way, she could even imagine they were an old married couple. She smiled at the thought and drifted into sleep, thinking hot thoughts about marital benefits with an endearingly cranky tycoon.

Try as he might—and he did try—Nathaniel just couldn’t concentrate on the papers. He wished he could blame the dull ache in his thigh, but he suspected it had more to do with Addie’s hair spread on the pillow behind her, and her delectable shape beneath the sheet—both of which taunted his peripheral vision.

He wished it was the dead of winter and she was covered in a puffy, duck-down duvet that hid rather than emphasized.

But, oh no, they had to be in the midst of a mini heat wave.

Just the right weather for sheets and shoe-string straps and God alone knew what she was wearing down further, but he couldn’t see any fabric lines and he suspected she was probably just wearing her underwear.

Which led again to speculation about her choice of underwear. Frilly, lacy, silky? Thong, g-string, boy-leg?

Those soft, satiny, loose-legged French knickers?

The possibilities were endlessly distracting.

Although, knowing Addie, they were probably made from rose petals.

Possibly wrapped in crystals like barbed freaking wire.

He dropped the papers in disgust—he’d been staring at the same report for an hour and even if someone put a gun to his head, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them what it said.

He could, however, without even glancing at Addie, describe the exact way her neck sloped into her shoulder, how deeply she breathed, and the differing shades of blond in her hair.

He could also, if pressed, have given his opinion on the current thinking related to her underwear.

Boy-leg. Cotton. Patterned.

He placed the reports on the bedside table as his boxers started to grow a little tight in the crotch. His gaze fell on the book she had bought him and he seized it as if it were the elusive billion dollars he’d been chasing for almost fifteen years.

Even the simplicity of a children’s book was preferable to the complication of a very grown-up woman.

He rolled on his side, away from her, as she had done to him and turned to the first page. He seriously didn’t expect it would help, but in no time at all, the adventures of a boy wizard swept him away, and somewhere between the world of the Muggles and the magic of Hogwarts he actually fell asleep.

…

Addie wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke, but she was aware of three things. She was teetering on the edge of the bed. She’d kicked the sheet off at some stage and was feeling a bit cool. And there seemed to be an awful lot of light for…she squinted at the clock. Two thirty in the morning.

Half asleep, she rolled over to discover Nathaniel on the other side of the bed, on his back sound asleep, not a snore to be heard. The bedside lamp was blazing and the book she’d given him was open on his chest.

Her brain was too fuzzy to get pleasure out of the knowledge. Or out of the pure beauty of his slumbering male physique. On auto-pilot, she crawled across the bed, reached over the top of him, and switched the light off.

She broke out in goose bumps as the heat he was generating fanned over her skin. He felt like a hot water bottle and in her semi-drowse, the primitive urge to be warm, to snuggle up to him, was a powerful force. But something nagged at her and she resisted the temptation.

Just.

She settled instead for pulling the sheet up over them and moving in just close enough to benefit from some radiant heat. And, like an experienced tanner soaking up sunbed rays, she drifted back to sleep.

The next time she stirred she was blissfully warm, cocooned in heat, surrounded by solid warmth. Warmth down her spine, at her neck, against her belly, along the backs of her thighs.

She sighed, murmured, wiggled.

Snuggled into the heat a bit more.

For five seconds.

Then was wide, wide awake.

Nate.

And his five a.m. wakeup call.

Her first instinct—to leap up from the bed as if it had caught fire—hit a snag when she realized she was imprisoned by an arm slack but solid in the throes of slumber. The last thing she wanted to do was wake him and have him find her—find them—in this compromising position.

Good Lord, in this old-fashioned room, it would probably necessitate an instant marriage proposal to save her reputation.

She eased slightly away but Nate shifted in his sleep, pulling her closer.

She lay still for a moment, her heart pounding, her breath sounding like a tornado in the pre-dawn silence, trying not to think about his erection snuggled against her bottom.

Although “snuggled” was far too passive a word for the rigid length of him.

Potent. Rampant. They were good words.

Ready was another.

Heat flared to life at the juncture of her thighs. How long had it been since she’d been in bed with a man. Five, six months?

She shifted her hips slightly, angling herself against him as the slow burn picked up pace. His girth pressed against the crutch of her underwear and it felt heavenly, the delicious friction licking flames higher to where his hand rested on her belly and furling along muscles and nerves.

She rocked—just a little. Just to relieve the ache.

She felt a faint movement of his hand on her belly and she stopped, her breath husky in the breaking light, her pulse tripping like a faulty switch. She bit into her lip, her senses straining to detect any signs of his waking.

She barely breathed for a full minute but her brain was busy castigating. What was she doing? Had she temporarily lost control of her senses? Rubbing herself against a sleeping man just wasn’t on. It was morally questionable.

Probably illegal.

Definitely icky.

But why oh why did bad things always feel so damn good?

Just once more, she promised herself as she pushed back into him again.

“Addie, I am not made of stone.”

The rumble in her ear, the firm press of his hand on her belly, the slight rock of his hips both shocked and tantalized.

He sure as hell felt hard as stone right this minute.

“Stop now,” he warned, low and husky, “or forever hold your peace.”

Addie froze, mortified. “I’m…”

What? I’m what? Depraved? Disturbed? Disgusting? How long had he been awake? How badly had she humiliated herself?

“Go to asleep, Addie.”

His lips brushed her neck, the rough buzz of his whiskers beading her nipples. She shut her eyes tight then moved to ease away from him. “No, I think I need to explain—”

His arm tightened around her halting her words. “Stop thinking,” he murmured. “It won’t be so bad in the cold light of day and at least I know your underwear is satiny now.”

In the cold light of day it would be ten times more embarrassing. She already wanted to sneak away before it got any lighter and never see him again. But damn it, if he could be nonchalant about a woman rubbing herself against his giant erection like it was a stripper’s pole, then so could she.

“Life’s too short for boring underwear,” she said defensively.

She swore she felt his lips smile against her neck. “I agree.”

…

Nathaniel looked up from the breakfast table when Addie joined them at eight-thirty. He grinned at her and she blushed. She had her hair back in some braid thing and was wearing faded denim jeans this morning that hung loose and low on her hips and a plain navy T-shirt that didn’t quite meet the jeans.

He’d had his hand on that strip of skin he could see. Held it there while she’d wiggled and squirmed against him. Just thinking about it got him hard again.

It hadn’t been what he’d expected—hell, developing a fascination with Addie was one complication he didn’t need—but there were worse ways to wake up.

“Here she is. Morning, my pretty,” Eunice boomed her welcome. “Nate said you were wide awake at five for a while, so we just let you sleep.”

Addie faltered as she sat down, glancing at him, and he winked at her as he said, “I do hope that itch I couldn’t quite scratch has settled. Darling.”

She shot him a wan smile before turning to his grandmother. “Happy birthday, Eunice,” she said, her smile genuine this time.

“Thank you, my dear.” Eunice beamed. “Born on the autumnal equinox eighty years ago.” She sucked in a mammoth breath and let it go. “Fills my pagan heart with joy.”

Nathaniel rolled his eyes but then his mother was up fixing a vegetarian omelet for Addie and the three women chattered nonstop about the plans for the day.

“I’m just not sure we’ll have enough fairy lights,” Delphine fretted.

“How many have you got?” Nathaniel asked.

“Heavens, I don’t know. Thirty-two strings of twelve point eight meters each—”

“Four hundred and nine point six meters,” Addie interrupted. “There’s usually five lights per meter, which will give you two thousand and forty-eight lights. Oodles, I’d say.”

Silence descended upon the table as three sets of eyes blinked at her.

“Oh yeah,” Nathaniel murmured, forgetting for a moment that he was going to spend all day stringing almost half a kilometer of lights. “She does that.”

“Wow,” Eunice murmured.

“Impressive,” Delphine agreed.

Addie shrugged. “Sorry, I forget how much it freaks people out.”

“Not at all,” Eunice said, patting her hand. “Just remind me not to play cards with you.”

And then Addie laughed and his mother and grandmother joined in and the moment passed. Pretty soon he and Addie became separated as they pitched in to help with a party whose attendance list included everyone in the nearest three villages.

Sometime around midafternoon, he spied her sitting with his grandmother and Kathy on the terrace, weaving flowers into garlands and patiently playing a mental arithmetic game with them like a performing seal. She was refusing a glass of wine for the third time when he stopped at the top of the ladder to admire her for a minute. Every time she leaned forward, her T-shirt rode up and her jeans pulled nicely against her butt and he forgot all about her intimidating math genius as he was transported right back to five a.m.

He smiled to himself as he realized they had one more five a.m. to go before their fake relationship weekend was over.

But those thoughts—along with a significant portion of his circulating blood volume—were going straight to his groin and when he was working with a drill up a ladder, he really needed to keep as much blood flowing to his brain as possible, so he tried to put them aside.

The next time he saw her was several hours later and she was greeting guests at the door. She was dressed in a flowing white lacy dress with a v-neckline that revealed the swell of her breasts, shoe string straps, and little buttons running right down the center from her cleavage to her hem. Her hair was out now, but falling in long, crinkly waves. A flower garland with ribbon tails flowing down her back crowned her head. Her crystal-encrusted necklace sitting at the base of her throat matched perfectly.

She looked like a wood sprite, like something from A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Or a pagan goddess.

Very appropriate on the autumnal equinox.

“Here,” she said as he approached, handing him a garland. “One for you, too.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “Ah, no. I don’t do flower garlands.”

She pushed it toward him. “You do tonight. Your grandmother was very specific about that. Shall I find her?”

He shot her a sarcastic smile. “Pulling the Grandy card, I see?”

Addie shrugged and everything shifted nicely in her dress. “I know your soft spots.”

He watched as her smile faded and he didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that it wasn’t his soft spots she was thinking about. “Fine. I’ll wear it. But only for Grandy. Shall I get you a glass of wine?”

Addie shook her head as she smiled at the next couple through the door, handing them their garlands. “I don’t drink. I’ll grab some water when I’m done here.”

He blinked. He’d seen her refuse several today but he figured that had something to do with the early hour rather than being a teetotaler. “You don’t drink?”

Her laugh fluttered around him, reminding him again of some woodland fairy. “I gave it up a couple of years ago. Along with meat.”

“Because of the leukemia?”

Even saying it made him feel ill. She was so vibrantly alive in front of him—it was hard to believe she’d come out the other side of a terminal illness. He remembered her saying she hadn’t quite had her five-year clearance and he felt a momentary spike of worry.

She nodded. “Just want to keep healthy.”

“Good.”

His grandmother’s voice called him from across the room and she smiled at him. “She wants to show you off. She’s very proud of you.”

Nathaniel nodded and excused himself, uncomfortable with that look on her face. He was used to it from his grandmother and mother, but not from her. Women looked at him with lust in their eyes and sex on their list. Addie didn’t. She looked at him like he had promise and she was the one who was going to bring it out in him.

He preferred lust and sex.

Their paths crossed on and off over the course of the night, but it wasn’t until people were starting to leave that he had a chance to share more than a few words with her. Addie had been popular and his grandmother seemed to be enjoying showing her off just as much she had him.

He found her standing on the terrace, the fairy lights playing in her hair and shining in the crystals of her necklace, talking to possibly the most boring man alive—Bill Hodges, who owned the farm next door. Fortunately, he was able to quickly dispense of the older man by telling him his very scary wife was looking for him.

Addie’s eyes looked glazed as she thanked him. “I didn’t think he was ever going to stop talking about his new effluent drainage system.”

Her lips had some glossy stuff on them that glittered in the subtle lights and almost made him forget the ache in his thigh from standing all night. “You sure you don’t drink? One conversation with Bill is liable to drive most teetotalers to liquor.”

As if they’d been organized to do so, Eunice and Kathy chose that moment to interrupt them with a bottle of Kathy’s elderberry wine and four glasses. “Now come on, you two,” his grandmother boomed. “Drink up. Don’t want to insult my dearest friend in the world, do you?”

“Thanks, Grandy,” Nathaniel said, smiling apologetically, “but Addie doesn’t drink and seriously, Kathy, real men do not drink elderberry wine.”

Kathy looked at him with an unwavering gaze. “You have flowers in your hair.”

Addie burst out laughing. “She has you there.”

“Here, dear, get this into you,” Eunice urged Addie, pouring her a glass. “It’s one hundred percent organic, isn’t it, Kath?”

Kathy nodded vigorously. “Always wins best in show, too.”

Addie looked at him and he could see she was wavering. “Okay, as long as you do, too,” she said to Nathaniel.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

A glass of organic wine once in three years wouldn’t bring the leukemia back, surely? But he didn’t blame her for being hesitant.

Addie nodded. “Just the one, though. I get flirty after two.”

Nathaniel grinned at his grandmother. “Better top it up a bit.” Addie laughed as she took a sip and actually gave him a playful shove.

Maybe it was working already?

“Here,” Addie said to Eunice, passing her the little gift bag he hadn’t noticed she’d been toting. “Nate and I got you something special.”

Eunice actually blushed and beamed at him. “You did?”

Nathaniel cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the deception. “Well—”

But then Addie interrupted. “I guided him a bit,” she said, smiling, and his grandmother looked so thrilled, he let it be.

They watched Eunice pull out the box and snap open the lid. Her delighted gasp grabbed at his gut. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered in her crackly voice as she fingered the earth mother. “Just perfect.” Then she ordered Kathy to put it on her.

Nathaniel smiled and leaned in to kiss his grandmother’s cheek. “Just like you, Grandy.”

Eunice gathered Addie up in her arms for a big hug and Nathaniel felt an odd shift in the vicinity of his heart. “Thank you, my duck,” Eunice said pulling away. “Now, I must show Delphine.”

And then she and Kathy disappeared and it was just the two of them. He looked down at her and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “The gift was a great idea.”

Addie gave a faux gasp. “What, better than a farm voucher?”

“Yes.” He grinned at her. “You were right.”

“Goodness,” she said, grinning back. “I feel like I should get that in writing.”

He chuckled. Bringing her hadn’t been the disaster he’d been expecting. In fact, he was enjoying himself. Hell, he couldn’t even recall thinking about work much at all today. And that was pretty much all down to this woman.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself tonight,” he said.

She nodded. “Eunice and Delphine have interesting friends.”

“Apart from Bill and his effluent.”

Addie’s laugh was high and he noticed she’d already drunk a hefty amount of her wine. She took another gulp as he watched. She seemed suddenly nervous.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Addie nodded. “Yes. No.” She stared into the bottom of her glass. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something. But I think I need some more Dutch courage—can you top me up?”

“Thought you got flirty after two?” he asked as he reached for the bottle he’d left on the ledge and filled her glass.

“I won’t drink it all,” she said, and then took a decent slug.

Nathaniel waited for a few moments as Addie fidgeted with the wine glass and consumed half more.

“I want to thank you for not…taking advantage of the situation this morning. I seriously do not know what came over me.”

Nathaniel took a decent slug of wine himself as his body took a walk down memory lane. “I don’t take advantage of women who are half asleep, Addie. I’m assuming you were half asleep?”

Addie nodded vigorously. “Yes…of course.”

He hid his smile behind his own glass as Addie took another swig of her wine. She’d been awake as he had. “Okay then. No harm, no foul.”

She seemed to sag a little at his words. “Thank you,” she said, and the relief in her smile was palpable. “Now, do you think we could never talk of it again?”

Nathaniel laughed. “Sure. Although I should give you fair warning. I can’t promise to be so gentlemanly again should you get horny at five a.m. tomorrow morning.”

Nathaniel watched the bob of her throat as she threw back the last of her second glass.