Chapter 12
“You don’t have to do this, Poppy. It sounds all fine and good when there’s nothing else to do in the middle of a storm, when you’re stranded here. But I’m not one of your celebrity clients, Yankee girl.” Brandon stood in all his sexy glory in front of her, his back to one of many of the door-sized mirrors in his closet. He wore a suit as finely cut as any Poppy had purchased for her customers. It was day three of being stormbound, day three of advising Brandon on how to carry himself.
It was day three of pure torture for her sorely neglected lust.
“Quiet. I can’t hear myself think.” Which was true. Her thoughts were drowned out by her incessant desire for him. She held up several different ties, settling on a silk cranberry. “Change your shirt. White’s too stark. Try the pale blue.” She turned toward the racks of clothes, mostly very bayou, very casual, to avoid looking at his naked chest. The stillness behind her told her he wasn’t moving.
“You don’t have to get all shy now, Brandon. I’m the one you were trying to hump next to Sonja’s car, remember?”
“I’m trying to keep from getting ill is more like it.” It’d been like this since they’d agreed she’d coach him through his fashion and protocol choices. Banter but never the all-out flirting that would get them into hot water higher than the bayou’s flood.
“Okay, you can turn around.”
She turned and looked him over. “That looks good. You have one ‘conservative’ suit, after all.” She made air quotes in the small space.
“It feels so damn stiff.” He tugged at the tie but she looked south when he said ‘stiff.’ “Stop staring at my crotch, Poppy.”
Heat singed her cheeks and she deliberately shifted her attention back to his jacket. The navy suit, pale blue shirt, and contrasting tie were perfect. Except. “Maybe we should try the lemon tie.”
“No. Red is the most conservative I’ve ever worn, and it’s better to err on the serious side, right?”
“Hmm.” She tugged on his shoulders as he finished tucking his tie in and buttoned his suit coat. “This fits you perfectly.”
“It wasn’t off the rack. I had it made in Hong Kong on a whim.”
“Obviously.” She walked back around to face him. “Now let’s go over your pitch. First for the State Department, then for the ship buyers from San Sofia.”
He tugged at the tie he’d just knotted. “I’ve got it, Poppy. I’m tired of going through it. You must have a ton of work to do for your nationwide brand launch.”
“No, not really.” It wasn’t a lie. She’d neglected to mention that she didn’t have the job anymore. If she said it aloud, it’d be game over for her denial, which was keeping her pretty steady at the moment. “Any idea when the Wi-Fi will be back?”
He slipped off the tie. “No. It’s one thing to have the generator, as it ensures power. But I can’t control access to the satellites. When the weather is this heavy, no one is getting a signal.”
Thank God. If he had a signal he might be able to catch the news that her huge home decor deal was kaput.
“No problem.” She wandered around his huge master bedroom, somehow grateful for the cocoon of the pounding rain. It’d been relentless, like nothing she’d experienced before. “Do you think the French Quarter is under water?”
“No telling, but there’s a good chance it’s not. The rainfall can be isolated in local areas, completely flooding neighborhoods out, while the next down gets no more than a few showers.”
“Like snow bands in the Northeast.”
“I suppose so.” He moved around in the closet, his voice muffled. She used the chance to slip out.
“I’m going to get lunch going.”
In the kitchen she surveyed the dwindling fresh veggies and fruits in the spotless refrigerator. There was enough to whip up a spinach omelet so she set to work. So far Brandon had either set out the supplies for sandwiches or heated up one of the frozen meals he said his housekeeper made on a weekly basis for him. The least she could do was cook for the man who’d given her shelter in a storm.
More than he knew. Being in the spacious home, so far from the tiny cramped studio she lived in, allowed her to almost believe there was hope for her life beyond New York. Almost.
“That smells fantastic.”
She felt his body heat behind her and peeked sideways at him from her place at the stove. His legs were too bare under the long shorts, his chest too big in one of his T-shirts. The hair on his chest peeked over the collar and her fingers tingled.
“Sit over there and I’ll bring it.”
“Uh, aye aye, Captain?” He backed away as if she were a rabid dog. She felt like a crazy person, tiptoeing around this sex god without allowing herself to give in to her baser instincts. His once-over felt like a blow torch held only inches away.
“Sorry. Maybe it’s cabin fever.” She hoped he’d believe her and not see that besides giving her shelter, he’d given her time to heal enough to allow her to believe that she’d make love again, feel the raw, unadulterated waves of passion with someone. Not just someone. Brandon.
His heat was behind her again, and his breath hit her nape in the exact spot needed to make her wet. The delicious shivers she’d been ignoring started in her lower back, radiating up around her breasts and back down to her center. “Who’s looking at who now, Gus?”
“We have an agreement. I meant that you can feel safe here. And frankly, I’m not in a place to make this any more than what it could be. I don’t have anything to offer you.”
She clicked off the flame, slid the omelet to a gray hand-thrown ceramic plate. They both knew what he meant by ‘this.’ “Like I’m in a place to forge more than a make-out scene up against my best friend’s car.” Another quick glance out of the corner of her eye revealed that Brandon wasn’t latching on to her attempt at humor. She set the spatula down and turned to face him.
Her hips brushed his abdomen and she took the half-inch step she had left, her ass hitting the stove knobs.
“Careful.” His hands were at her waist, pulling her away from the knobs. Away from danger.
But he was the most dangerous item in his slick contemporary kitchen.
The expanse of granite that topped the island counter behind him reflected the overhead recessed lights and she saw herself splayed out on the surface, eager and ready for him. Her hands shook and she clutched them, digging her fingers into her palms. She couldn’t touch him or her willpower would snap. “I can’t. We shouldn’t.” Who was she trying to convince? He had to see her desire.
“No, we shouldn’t. Not at all.” His mouth moved excruciatingly slow, each enunciation its own come-on. She reflexively licked her lips and was rewarded by the tiniest flare of his nostrils. She got to him, too.
“Although, we’ve managed to keep up a business relationship for the past few days. You’ve been true to your word.” And he had; he hadn’t as much as squeezed her hand or arm, or brushed against her. As if maybe, just maybe, he was fighting it too.
“We have. I have.” He placed his hands on the counter behind him and the skin at her waist tightened at the sudden break from his touch. Brandon’s eyes watched her, soaked in her expression. He cocked his head. “I’m having a hard time not giving in to what we’ve got, Yankee girl.” He breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring. “We do this, we agree it’s with no expectations.”
She nodded. “A buddy fuck.”
His cheeks had a faint tinge of pink and she couldn’t identify the feeling that twirled in her core at his obvious reaction. Delight?
“What about after, when I take you to the airport?” The muscles on his jawbone twitched.
“What about when I call an Uber and get myself to the airport?”
“You’re my kind of woman, Yankee girl.” His gaze felt like he had X-ray vision, the way he took her in, from her face to her toes. She wished she’d worn her best lingerie, the hundred-dollar bra and matching thong that she’d left in her drawer in Manhattan. When she’d given up on love.
Scratch that. Love had nothing to do with this.
“Meet you halfway.” He let go of the counter, putting his body mere inches from hers. Brandon held out his hands, palms up.
“Deal.” She slid her hands over his, taking her time, allowing their palms to meet. The friction of skin on skin had her clenching her thighs. They stood and stared at each other, their hands engaged in an erotic touchfest, and she was gratified to see that his chest was moving up and down quickly. As if he might be panting, too.
“No regrets?” As turned on as he obviously was—she couldn’t miss the ginormous erection straining his board shorts—he was still leaving her an out. And she knew that he’d let her turn around and walk back to the guest room without a word. And they’d go on working together to help him land the only contract that had the ability to save his shattered business.
“None.”
His hands stilled and he maneuvered to hold one, tugging her to follow him. “Come with me.” Not to his boat, or as a rescue from rising waters. She relished the intimate grip of their hands as she followed him down the hall to his master suite.
* * * *
He’d made his king-sized bed with clean sheets that morning, thank God. And he’d not even tried to fool himself that he’d changed the bed on his own, without waiting for his housekeeper’s weekly visit, for anything other than hope. Hope that somehow he and Poppy would get to this point, no matter how illogical and disastrous his brain told him it was. Brandon was tired of logic. It was what had changed his mind about not diving into a physical relationship with her. Poppy made him feel things in the last days he’d thought long buried, and some emotions were even new, though unnamed.
“I like that you made your bed.”
“How do you know that I made it?”
“I don’t mean that you washed your sheets—I saw you doing that yesterday, by the way. I mean that you take the time in the morning to make sure it’s neat. Shipshape.”
“I figure I have so much other shit all over the house that I need one organized thing to my name.”
“Gadgets and nautical history books aren’t ‘shit.’”
* * * *
He cupped her face with his hands, the softness of her cheeks smooth under his calloused fingers. “You ready for this, Poppy?” His erection strained against his shorts and he fought the urge to turn her around and take her bent over his bed, right now. The waiting had been too tortuous to waste the attraction between them on a quick fuck, though.
“Positive.” She turned her head and grabbed his finger between her teeth. Holding it captive while staring at him with her drowsy brown eyes, she licked and sucked on it.
The mood of slow anticipation shattered. Brandon buried his fingers into her hair, holding the back of her head as he pulled her mouth to his. Poppy’s fingers ran along his shoulders, his neck, before she grabbed his nape and dug her fingers into his skin. She was drowning in their chemistry, too. The kiss in the rain had been revelatory but this was sex at its sinful best. It was so bad it was sacred, the way her skin flamed wherever he touched it. As if they shared an invisible connection and the heat of his fingers reached her before his hands settled on her. On her lower back, her front, her breasts. When he held her breast and squeezed, his thumb running over her peaked nipple, Poppy pushed her pelvis against his middle and wrapped her leg around his.
“Oh. My. God.” She leaned her head back, exposing her throat to him. His tongue traced up its length and he savored the salty sweet taste of her. Not spun of sugar, his Poppy, but made of something stronger. Deeper. He couldn’t wait to lick her everywhere.
“My turn.” Her fingers made short work of the tie at his waist and he helped her shove the shorts off, over his erection. When she grasped the hot length of him his scalp tingled.
“Poppy, you’ll be the death of me.”
“You feel very much alive.” Sinking to her knees, she took him in her mouth and with what remaining sanity he had left he looked down to watch her. She smiled against him and he groaned, his fingers running through her hair.
Brandon pulled away and pulled her up against him by grasping her upper arms. “Not so fast, Yankee girl.” He spoke low and rough against her ear, needing to be inside her. She moaned and ground against him. Another few seconds of her hot mouth on him and the party would have ended way too soon.
Brandon craved her.
“You’re way overdressed for this meeting.”
“I am.” She lifted her arms over her head. Her breathless reply was the supreme turn-on. He instinctively knew that Poppy was totally in the moment, totally with him.
He’d already undone her bra clasp and it lifted away with her tank top. He moved his hand over her soft, feminine belly, his fingers making a slow, deliberate trek toward her wet heat. He tugged at the waistband of her panties but instead of helping her out of them he went for broke and stuck one, two fingers between her swollen lips and into her hot center, just as he’d done on the gazebo.
“What, you have a signature move?” Her last word came out on a moan. His cock strained, needing release. Not until he was sure Poppy had hers. Because when he got her on the bed, rational thought would be an imaginary concept.
“No. It’s my Poppy move. I can’t resist your hot, wet pussy.” His voice rasped against her throat as she undulated on his hand, riding it with abandon. He loved her total lack of self-consciousness.
“Brandon!” At once a scream and a moan as mini-spasms clutched at his fingers. She grabbed his shoulders to keep her balance as he moved his fingers rhythmically. He brushed her clit with his thumb and Poppy exploded. He held her as she rode the waves of bliss, his arm wrapped firmly around her waist. As her climax ebbed, she opened her eyes.
“Oh my.” She slowly shook her head. “That was—”
“Just the start, Yankee girl.” He moved both hands up and down her back, his teeth nipping at the skin on her shoulders, her throat.
“Brandon?” Her hands started to move, spending time on his pecs, his abs, and making a quick trip to his erection. God, he wasn’t going to last long enough for her.
“Yeah?”
“We’re still standing.”
“Not for long.”
He’d replayed the mental tape of her in the French Quarter garden over and over. Now he had a new memory. He could drown in her whiskey eyes, eyes that were glazed from her orgasm, her lips parted as she panted. He fought with his control as he lowered her to the bed and followed her, lying on top of her.
“God, you’re so hot, so tight.” He kissed her long and deep and just about came out of his skin when her hot hand clasped around his cock started stroking. He wanted to lie on his back and just let her do it, take him to where she’d been. It’d be just as quick.
“Not yet, sweetheart.” He lifted up and moved down, licking her from her throat to her sternum to each breast, taking extra time with her nipples. “You are so damned sexy, Poppy.” She arched her back, giving him full access to her breasts, and her stomach as he continued his journey. Her body tensed as he approached her sweet spot and he chuckled.
“Get ready to fly, Yankee girl.” He had no more patience and he shaped his mouth around her, licking her clit and soaking up the wetness that was pure Poppy. She was beauty and sex and sin in one package and he’d thought of nothing but this since he’d seen her standing on Henry’s deck.
He wanted to savor her all night, but it wasn’t going to be this time around. They were both too worked up, had waited too long. When her insides started clenching and her fingers dug into his scalp as she yelled out, he smiled against her. He lifted his head and watched her float back to earth, the flush over her breasts and neck, her cheeks red. “That feel good?” He got on his knees and reached into the nightstand for a condom. “Just wait.”
“Fuck me, Brandon.”
Without hesitation he complied, thrusting into her in one deep shove, their simultaneous groans echoing around the room. He waited a few seconds to allow her to get used to him. “You okay?” Forehead to forehead, bodies locked together.
“Mmm. Please, Brandon.” She bucked her hips and he didn’t need any further urging. He thrust, pounded, rolled his hips against hers, sinking into her hot center as if he’d die if he couldn’t be there. Poppy met him push for push, gyrating at the perfect instants to drive him wild.
He hung on until she tightened around his cock and when he let go her gasps followed him into a stratosphere of sexual sensation he’d never experienced before.
After several minutes and dozens of shared gasps for air, he rolled to the side and held her. They came down from the sexual high together, arm in arm. It was quiet in his bedroom, the afternoon light casting a kind of yellow glow he hadn’t noticed before. Shit, he’d never noticed a lot of anything before Poppy.
Had he ever lost it like this with another woman? No. And he’d only known her for mere days.
He was so screwed.
* * * *
As the storm passed, two more days did. He and Poppy worked well together and he enjoyed her company.
“I think that if I’m going to help you win a contract to save your business I should at least have an idea of what you do on a daily basis. What do you have to offer your client that no one else can?” Poppy sat cross-legged on the rug in his bedroom—he noted that she never, ever sat on his king-sized bed. As if by avoiding that she was handling the sexual tension between them all neat and tidy. He loved how her legs were long enough to cross like that, showing her sensual thighs off along with what he thought might be the result of hours of fancy yoga classes in New York.
“Brandon? Did you hear me?”
“Yes, sorry. You want to see the shop? It’s nothing to write home about.” Secretly he puffed with pride at the idea of taking her there, as he did whenever he gave a tour of Boats by Gus.
“Spare the modesty. You’re a salesman, remember?”
“Jeb always handled this part of the business.”
“It seems odd to me that an accountant was also your sales rep. I mean, aren’t numbers people usually introverts?”
He grunted. “Not Jeb. He’s the smartest person I’ve ever known, but he’s a people person, too. How else would a kid orphaned at age nine, from the wrong side of New Orleans, weasel himself into my family?”
“Explain.”
He blew out a breath, wanting to sit next to her, hell, lie next to her, no, put his head on her lap and tell his story. Ridiculous.
“Jeb’s been my brother since we were nine. He and I, and Henry, hung out and played after school regularly. He had a scholarship to the private Catholic school we went to—his mom was a single mom and he never knew his father. When his mother was murdered, he didn’t come to school for weeks, kind of disappeared. Except to come talk to me. Eventually I went to my parents and asked them to let Jeb stay with us.” He shook his head. “The one thing they did right in their lives was let Jeb stay with us as much as he wanted. An aunt raised him, and he lived with her, but he spent a lot of time at our place. I want to be able to say it was to look good in front of the Parish Council, or shine up my father’s political résumé, but it was none of that. It was solely to help a poor kid out.” He paused. “Come to think of it, having Jeb around kept me out of their hair, too.”
“So you really feel you’ve lost a brother, because Jeb is your friend. That explains why Henry didn’t seem so affected by it.” Her astute observation threw him. Was there anything she didn’t miss?
“Henry and Jeb weren’t as close—you’re right, he was my friend. When we went to college together it cemented our relationship. Then Katrina hit, and my folks made the move north. Dad kept the office down here, where Henry and Sonja work, but the firm headquarters is in Baton Rouge.”
“When did you and Jeb start thinking you’d go into business together?”
“It was a natural fit, and while I hate to sound all New York and hipster, it happened organically. Jeb always had his eyes set on law school, but then realized he loved numbers more and went for his CPA. He’s the one who I have to thank for pushing me to start my own business. I’d planned to work at one of the local shipbuilders for a while, learning my craft and the business end of it.”
“What changed?”
“I interned at three different shipbuilders through college. Katrina wiped out so much. With all the incentives offered by the federal, state, and local governments, it was the best time to start a new business.” He laughed. “I was scared shitless.”
Poppy didn’t laugh with him, but her smile and the understanding gleam in her eyes let him know she got it. She got him.
* * * *
Poppy watched Brandon open up and spill his guts to her. She reveled in how invested he was in his business. As much as she’d thought she loved styling clients, had she ever felt so connected to it? Shame washed over her at the realization that she’d done it more for fame and fortune. She’d have to look at it later, more closely.
“What about the other shipbuilders in the area? The ones you interned for—didn’t they want you to work for them after you graduated?”
“I didn’t have to. It wasn’t a commitment, as I didn’t take any scholarship monies from them. And I didn’t have any interest in the hardcore commercial shipbuilding industry. I wanted to be more local, more custom.” He looked away, out through the huge wall windows and at the expanse of water that stretched as far as she could see. “I never thought I’d be trying to win a commercial contract like this.”
“We have to be straight on one thing, Brandon.”
His eyes, back on her, were shadowed. Guarded. “Yeah?”
“Are you only doing this for the money? Because that’s a good enough reason, don’t get me wrong. But if your heart isn’t in this project, it’s going to show when you go up in front of the San Sofia reps.”
He didn’t move save for the tiny blood vessel near his left eye. It clearly pulsed in time to his rumination.
“If you asked me this a month ago, I’d have said that of course I was only doing it for the money. But two of my employees have lost their kids to heroin overdoses. I’d say it’s become a little more personal for us.”
“How many employees do you have, total?”
“Just under a thousand.”
“Hell, Brandon, you made it sound like—”
“Like it was just me and Jeb?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s because that’s how it’s been, in terms of the decisions we’ve made. We started with five other employees, but as we’ve grown, the production output has increased, obviously. And I’ve got pressure from my employees to do bigger projects, like the other shipbuilders in the area. They see a government contract as insurance that they’ll have a job, even in a bad economy. Being at the behest of the mega-rich for sailboats isn’t enough to keep the company afloat through the rough times. And when the economy goes south, our flat-bottom boat sales fall off.”
She stood up, needing space from the intensity of his energy. Pure angst poured off him. No wonder he’d been so crazed, so grumpy. He was supporting one thousand people, that many families. “Take me to the boatyard, Gus.”
He stood up and stretched. “Aye aye, ma’am.”
She turned back when at the door. “Can we get there or is the flooding still an issue?”
He laughed. “Yankee girl, this is boat country and boats are my life. We can always get wherever we need to.” He looked out at the water again. “I think we’ll be able to drive no problem, but the water’s the best way to see Boats by Gus for the first time. We’ll take my flat-bottom.”
“I’ll get my boots.” Or rather, Sonja’s waders. Unlike the first few times she’d boarded Brandon’s boat, she couldn’t ignore the burst of long lost emotion in her center. Joy.