Nine
This was not how she’d planned on spending her evening—making a late-night mad dash back to Dallas for the safety of Oliver’s condo.
It wasn’t like Red Oak Hill was hers. She’d spent the equivalent of a long weekend there. But she was sadder than she wanted to admit to leave it behind. She been able to breathe there and even though she was a born-and-bred city girl and should be relieved to be back in a big city, she wasn’t.
It was true it was easier to hide in the city. But she hadn’t had to hide for a few days. She’d been able to sit on the porch and take a walk around the pond and be herself. No worries about who was going to get a terrible photo, no thoughts as to what the next headline would be. Just...peace.
If only she hadn’t ruined that.
“Did you enjoy baking the cookies?”
Renee turned her attention back to Oliver. His gaze was focused on traffic. She didn’t recognize where they were, but it wasn’t like she’d spent a lot of time driving around. She’d had a taxi take her from the airport to Oliver’s office. That was all she knew of Dallas. “I did. There was something soothing about mixing up the ingredients and hoping for the best. And when they were awful, I could try again.”
God, she sounded pathetic. But that was the truth. Wasn’t that why she’d come to Dallas and to Oliver? All she could do right now was mix things up and hope for the best.
She braced herself for a cutting comment, an affirmation that she wasn’t capable of anything other than a Pinterest fail, a warning that cookies would make her fat—something. Oliver couldn’t be happy that his house smelled burned. He couldn’t be thrilled about bringing her to yet another home on such short notice. He couldn’t enjoy the way she kept upending his life again and again.
So when he reached over and lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a tender kiss to her palm, her mouth fell open in surprise. “Then bake cookies. I won’t distract you anymore.”
Then he kissed her hand again. Sweet warmth spread from where his lips touched her bare skin and she wanted to revel in it.
Because underneath the worry and anxiety that had become her constant companion in the last few months was something new.
She and Oliver had made love. No, that felt too soft to describe what they’d done. They’d had hot, sweet, block-out-the-rest-of-the-world sex that had been a gift because he’d made her feel amazing and then, when it was over, he’d asked if she needed more. Because he was willing to give her more.
Oh, how she wanted to take him up on that offer. She’d wanted him to come upstairs and climb into the shower with her and pick up right where they’d left off before the fire department had shown up.
Instead, they were back in Dallas and any of those hot, sweet feelings had been put aside in the name of practicality.
“In fact,” Oliver went on, “we should have a new rule—the moment we feel distracted, we have to turn off the oven before anything else happens.”
Anything else? Did he mean wild, crazily satisfying sex, or did he mean an actual, full-fledged fire breaking out? Because it would’ve been tragic enough burning down Red Oak. It would be horrific to set fire to a high-rise building that housed hundreds of other people.
Good heavens, what would the press do to her then?
But that was the moment when Oliver tugged on her hand and suddenly his lips were skimming over the delicate skin of her wrists. “Or maybe you should just turn the oven off the moment I walk in the door. Just to be sure,” he murmured and even though it’d been a long day, heat still flooded her body.
“Oh. Okay. Good plan.” Renee knew she should say something grateful or appreciative. But there was a lump in her throat that made breathing, much less talking, difficult.
With a final nip at her skin, Oliver lowered her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “I can’t promise that things won’t get even crazier and there are certain realities we can’t overlook. But I want you to be comfortable. If there’s something you want to try, somewhere you want to go—tell me. I’ll do my best to make it happen. Because I want you to be happy, Renee.”
She took a long, slow breath. It wouldn’t do to burst into heaving sobs at that, even though it was one of the most beautiful things anyone had ever said to her. She was going to blame the hormones for all of this tearfulness.
On the other hand...what had that meant, if there was something she wanted to try? Were they talking about baking or...
Surely he wasn’t talking about her fantasies. They were already making excellent headway on them. The knight in shining armor riding to her rescue? Yeah, that alone covered a lot of territory.
But before she could come up with any sort of reasonable response, she was saved by Oliver withdrawing his hand and turning into an underground garage. “We’re here.”
As he entered the access code and parked in his assigned spot, Renee felt old doubts creeping in. Oliver was being wonderful—there was no question about that. In fact, before he had come upstairs to tell her she was coming back to Dallas with him tonight and her baking lessons were being postponed because she wasn’t safe at Red Oak Hill anymore—before all of that, she had been having the most wonderful day she could remember.
And it wasn’t just the cookies.
She could not remember the last time she’d had a conversation with anyone that didn’t involve the phrase “You should...” in one way or another.
Because everyone had an opinion. Of course her lawyers were going to say that—she was going into debt for their legal advice. But her parents? Her brother? Her husband? Her friends? It was for the best. Wasn’t that what they all said? No one had said it louder than her mother. Her suggestions were thinly veiled orders she expected to be followed.
When was the last time anyone had asked her what she wanted? Promised to make it happen? When was the last time anyone had gone this far out of the way for her?
When was the last time someone had done something as simple as make her laugh? Because she couldn’t remember laughing as hard as she had at the sight of Oliver, butt naked, jumping out of the water while a pair of perturbed swans made menacing noises. For as long as she lived, she would never forget the sound of Oliver’s laughter when he’d landed on his butt in the pond. And there’d been that moment when she’d thought he was furious that she’d nearly ruined everything—and instead he’d been teasing her.
Cookie monster, indeed.
She’d stood up for herself. She’d laughed so hard she’d got a stitch in her side. She’d come out on top—literally, she’d come on top of him. When was the last time she’d enjoyed sex so much?
Today had been magical. She hadn’t climaxed like that in so long that she had almost forgotten what it was like. And then, instead of telling her she was getting fat, Lucille had told her that she had a glow about her. That she would get better at cookies if she kept practicing.
She hoped that, one day, she’d get back out to Red Oak Hill. Back out to that place out of time where she could be free, even if it were just another short visit.
Carrying her bag, Oliver led her toward a private elevator that required a key code to open. “The security here is good. The lobby is open, but all of the elevators are coded and guards are on duty twenty-four hours a day. No one should be able to slip in.”
She nodded as the doors closed behind them. This was important information—necessary, she was sure. But she didn’t want to hear about safety and privacy because that was a constant reminder that she was the pregnant Preston Pyramid Princess and her family had hurt people and, even if she wasn’t responsible, she was still at fault.
Her stomach lurched as the elevator began to climb. It’d been easy this evening to forget that simple truth that Oliver was risking not just his home but his reputation and his entire business by protecting her. It wasn’t ruined cookies that drove Oliver out of his ranch house tonight. It was her.
Now he was bringing her here? This was a terrible idea. Why couldn’t he see that she was a risk to him?
But he couldn’t. “I’ll request that you not leave the building without me. I know you can handle yourself, but I don’t want to worry.” He cupped her face in his palm. “I’m...” He took a deep breath. “I’m not used to worrying. I don’t like it.”
She leaned into his touch. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for making him worry, sorry for setting off smoke alarms, sorry for upending his life. She was sorry for things that hadn’t even happened yet but were still highly likely to occur.
“Don’t apologize.” His voice was deep as he lifted her face. “Not to me,” he said against her lips.
She shouldn’t lean into the kiss. She shouldn’t want him and she certainly shouldn’t take what he was offering. If she had half a brain, she would catch a ride to a nice hotel and spend the next week or so ordering room service and watching television. If she watched enough Food Network, she’d probably learn a lot about cookies.
But she didn’t want to. It was selfish and greedy, but she wanted to kiss a man who wanted her—only her. So she did. She wanted to wrap her arms around his waist and pull him against her so that her breasts were pressed against his hard chest, so she did that, too. And when the elevator dinged to a stop and the doors opened, she didn’t want to end the kiss.
But she had to when Oliver pulled away from her, his eyes dark with desire. “We should get inside,” he said, but he didn’t let her go. He slid his free arm around her waist and guided her down a short hallway with only three doors. “My condo is half the floor. Of the other two condos, one is an oil baron who only sleeps here when he’s in town on a business meeting and the other family, I believe, is summering in Paris. So the only people who come off the elevator should be me or Lucille.”
She suppressed a sigh. “All right.” Like Oliver had said—there were certain realities that neither one of them could ignore. Oh, how she wanted to ignore them.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to pretend that they were coming home after an evening out, just the two of them? That this was an everyday occurrence, kissing on the elevator and struggling to keep their hands to themselves until they were behind closed doors? Oh, how she wished that this were her real life instead of a brief, wonderful interlude.
He’d said that all she had to do was ask and he would do his best to give it to her. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d been talking about the rest of their lives.
Because she couldn’t ask that of him. Sooner or later, her family’s scandal would catch up with her. Even if nothing came up about their misadventure with the fire department today, eventually word would get out. That was just the nature of scandals. She’d be called back to New York to testify, kicking off a fresh round of gossip and hatred, especially because she was more noticeably pregnant every single day. When that happened, it wouldn’t be just her caught in the cross fire. It would be Oliver.
She shouldn’t have barged into his life. If she were smart, she’d bail now.
But then he opened the door to his condo and ushered her inside. When the lights came on, she gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
The apartment she had lived in with Chet had been worth close to six million, but in reality it had been a smallish two-bedroom apartment. Chet had hated it, hated that they hadn’t been able to get the place he’d really wanted, which had gone for ten million and had four bedrooms and a formal dining room. Renee had always considered their snug condo to be perfect and she’d known that, sooner or later, they would move out. But that had never been good enough for Chet. He hadn’t looked at it as a starter home. He’d looked at the smallish condo with only four windows and no balcony and seen nothing but failure because it wasn’t the very best.
Renee had always feared that he’d had the same feeling when he’d looked at her.
But Oliver’s place? There were floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around a wall behind a dining table set for six and continued around the corner to another full wall of windows with plush leather sofas and chairs that was interrupted only by an elaborate fireplace and mantel. She glanced around, but she saw no signs that this place was occupied by more than one person.
The place looked...lived-in. Like his study out at Red Oak Hill. Everything in here was of the highest quality. She knew an expensive Persian rug when she saw one and there were three scattered around with various seats grouped around them. All that wealth was understated.
This was his home, on the top floor of a thirty-story building with a view that encompassed half of Texas.
Nothing could touch her here. No other windows looked down into his apartment because this was the tallest building for blocks. She was above the fray here—literally. “You can see for forever,” she said in a sigh, drifting to a window and staring out at the twinkling lights of the city. It wasn’t as perfect as Fred and Wilma swimming in the pond but it was amazing.
Oliver came up behind her. Her breath caught in her chest when she saw the look in his eyes. Even the hazy reflection in the window couldn’t blur away the desire in his eyes. And she was still in her leggings and a T-shirt. After everything that had happened today—and especially with her looking like she did—how could he still look at her like that?
“The view is always spectacular,” he said as his gaze dipped to her chest. Her nipples hardened to tight points and she heard him suck in a deep breath. Then he stepped into her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “But it’s even better now.”
* * *
Oliver watched Renee’s reflection in the glass as he rubbed her shoulders. He should be giving her a tour of the rest of the condo. He should be showing her to the guest room and giving her plenty of space. It was late and they’d had a crazy afternoon and she was pregnant and...and...
And none of it mattered when he touched her. Despite the air-conditioning and her clothes, he could feel her body’s warmth under his touch. When she leaned back into him?
Yeah, this was what being lost felt like.
He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Tell me what you want, babe. I want to give it to you.”
Her reflection smiled a saucy smile at him and reached up to lace her fingers into his hair. He went hard for her, harder than he’d ever been in his life. Which was saying something, considering it’d only been a few hours since he’d buried himself in her body.
“I don’t want to talk about safety and security,” she said, giving his hair a tug to pull him down to her.
“Done.” He didn’t want to deal with those realities anymore, either. He had her here now and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go.
“I want to make cookies tomorrow.”
He slipped his hands underneath her T-shirt. Bless these loose shirts and doubly bless her for going without a bra. Did she know how much it tortured him to watch her walk around, her beautiful breasts swinging freely? “I’ll show you where the fire extinguisher is before I leave for work,” he said, cupping her in his hands and stroking the undersides of her breasts.
She inhaled sharply, but he didn’t want to rush this. Earlier, he hadn’t been able to hold back, to hell with the consequences. But now? They had the rest of the night. If he was dragging at his meeting with Ritter tomorrow, that was a price he was willing to pay. As long as he had Renee in his arms tonight.
So he took his time fondling her breasts and teasing her nipples. He focused on listening to her breaths and watching her reactions in the glass.
When her body bucked in response to his gentle tug on her nipples, he felt it down to his toes. When she moaned as he rolled those nipples between his thumb and forefinger, he moaned with her. He couldn’t help it. Her pleasure was his.
She was his.
“Look at you,” Oliver breathed as he stared at Renee’s reflection in the window. Her mouth was open as she panted, her eyes heavy-lidded. It had almost killed him to watch the light in her eyes die a little when, instead of taking her right back to bed, he’d told her they were leaving.
He wanted to see the Renee who managed to get the upper hand on him, who laughed at his corny jokes, who wasn’t afraid of anything—she was the Renee he wanted back. He’d do anything to make her smile again.
The moment the thought crossed his brain, he was stunned by the truth of it.
He would do anything for her.
“You feel so wonderful,” he told her as he let the full weight of her breasts fill his palms. “But I need to see these. I need to see all of you.”
She inhaled sharply as he skimmed his hands down her ribs and over her hips to the hem of her T-shirt. But when he started to lift, she stopped his hands. “I don’t... What if someone sees?”
“No one can see in these windows. That’s one of the reasons I’ve bought this condo.”
She didn’t let him strip off her shirt. If anything, her grip on his hands tightened. “But...”
Oliver dragged his attention away from the reflection of her chest in the window and looked at her face. The sensual glaze of desire was gone, leaving her face drawn and tight. Then, somewhere far in the distance, a light blinked. It was probably a helicopter or something that was at least a few miles away, but Renee gasped as if someone had flown a drone into the window and started snapping pictures.
Right.
He kissed the side of her neck and then bent over, sweeping her legs out from under her. “Oliver!” she squeaked in alarm.
“I’m being a terrible host,” he said, holding her tight against his chest. “I haven’t even given you the tour yet.”
“Oh?” She relaxed into him, her arms going around his neck. “I saw the living room.”
“But not the kitchen,” he said, walking right past the doorway on his left.
“It’s lovely,” she murmured and then her lips were against his neck. “I look forward to spending time there.”
“Office,” he ground out through gritted teeth as he carried her past the dark doorway on his right.
“It suits you perfectly,” she agreed without looking. Then she began to suck.
His knees almost gave. “Guest room.” Another fifteen steps—he could make it.
“Is that where I’m staying?” Her teeth skimmed over his skin with the barest hint of pressure.
Take what you need, he wanted to tell her. Hell, he wanted to shout it. “No,” he groaned, all but staggering into his master suite. Dimly, he was aware this was supposed to be a slow, steady seduction where all the focus was on her. “For as long as you want, you’re staying here with me.”
“I...”
“Tell me,” he all but begged. His body was on fire for hers but he didn’t want to presume a single damned thing. “Tell me what you want.”
She leaned back and gave him that smile, the exact same grin she’d launched at him seconds before she’d shoved him into the pond. It made him want to yell with victory.
“I want you.” Then she bit him—not hard, but it sent a jolt of need through him unlike anything he’d ever experienced before.
He couldn’t even make it to the bed along the far wall. He all but dropped her in front of the door to his walk-in closet.
The door covered with a full-length mirror.
He paused only long enough to reach over and flip on the light. The drapes were pulled and no one would be able to see anything he did to her.
And he was going to do it all.
When the lights flickered on, she gasped. But he was already pulling her T-shirt over her head. “God, Renee,” he whispered, starting where he’d left off at her breasts. This time, he tugged on her nipples a little harder and was rewarded with a shudder. “You truly take my breath away.”
“I do?”
It just about broke his heart to hear the doubt in her voice. She truly didn’t see it.
This was a problem—but he had the solution. He’d make her believe she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen or he’d die trying. And given how much he was aching for her, she might be the death of him.
With the last of his control, he spun her around. For the second time today, he hooked his fingers into her pants and pulled, baring her. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” Because the sight of her bottom begging for his touch really was going to kill him.
So he touched. He slid his hands down her full hips and then to her backside, where he dug his fingers into her generous flesh. She shuddered at his touch. Good. “I’m...I’m getting an idea.”
“Not good enough. You need to know how badly I want you.”
But when he looked in the mirror, he could see her struggling. “Oliver...”
“Babe.” It was rude to interrupt her but he could see that she was going to do something terrible, like ask if they could turn the lights off and hide under the covers and he couldn’t let her think that there was a single thing about her he didn’t want. “Watch,” he commanded, falling to his knees so he could skim his teeth over the soft skin of her bottom. “Watch what you do to me. Watch what I do to you.” Then he bit her. Not hard enough to bruise. He’d never hurt her. But he needed her to stop thinking and start feeling.
It worked. She sucked in a ragged gasp as he kissed the sting away and slid his hand between her legs.
Slow. He needed to take this slow. Because...reasons. Good ones, he was pretty sure.
But those reasons were lost to him as Renee shifted her legs apart for him. She put her hands on the mirror, her gaze moving from Oliver to where he was touching her and back again. He could see her surrendering to her needs—her eyes growing darker, her chest heaving as her breath came faster and faster.
He dug deep for words that were more than just mine. “Do you see how pretty you are?” he asked quietly, kissing his way up her back. “Do you see how luscious you are?” He cupped her bottom and squeezed. “God, I love your body.”
“Even though...”
If she was trying to convince him that he couldn’t want her because someone had told her she was fat, he was going to lose it.
He surged to his feet. “Renee. Look.” He gripped her by the chin—again, gently—and turned her face so she had no choice but to look in the mirror. “I don’t care what anyone else says. I only see you. I see your beautiful eyes and your delicate collarbone,” he said, letting his hand drift down to that bit of skin. “And your breasts. God, your breasts.” He cupped them again. Since he couldn’t kiss them from this angle, he settled for kissing her neck—which he did without breaking eye contact in the mirror. “You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t tease,” she said but at the very least, it came out as a breathy sigh. “I’m sorry I pushed you in the pond.”
“I’m not.” That moment when she’d fought for herself had been glorious.
That was what she needed to do right now—fight for herself. “This is the only way I’d tease you, darling.” He slid one hand over the swell of her stomach again and down between her legs. “God, do you see how pretty you are? See how your eyes darken with want?”
“Yes,” she moaned, her head dropping back on his shoulder. But she didn’t look away as he tormented her nipples, her sex.
He thrust his hips against her backside, his erection chafing behind his pants. “Do you feel what you do to me?” This was where they’d been earlier at the window before she’d allowed doubt to crowd out desire. She sagged against him, bearing down on his hand, but he wrapped his free arm around her waist and held her up. “Look at you,” he said, breathing hard as he stared at where he was touching her. “Look at us.”
“Oliver,” she said, her voice straining.
He pulled back only long enough to shove his pants aside. “Feel what you do to me?” he moaned against her skin.
Then she reached back and circled him with her hands. When she gripped him tightly, he had to brace himself against the mirror to keep from falling to his knees again. “Who else gets you like this?”
“You. Only you.”
Her hand slipped lower to cup him. “No wife? No mistress or...” She squeezed and he made a noise that might be considered undignified, but he didn’t give a single damn. “Or a girlfriend?”
He shook his head, trying to think. But what she was doing to him—there was no thinking. “Nine months—no, eight. Eight months since my last lady friend.” Her grip shifted again and he was helpless to do anything but thrust into her hands.
“What am I, Oliver?” Her voice was so soft that he had to look at her. “What am I to you?”
Not a wife, obviously. But the moment that thought crossed his mind, he had to close his eyes against it.
He’d never wanted to get married. Never wanted to bring someone into his messy family life. He had enough responsibilities—how could he add a wife or children to managing his father and running Lawrence Energies and, who could forget, the damned rodeo? How much more did he have to give, when there was so little of himself left over?
But Renee was already a part of his family. She had been for years.
“Am I your mistress?” she went on and he heard an edge to her voice, one that made him want to weep with joy.
She was fighting back.
“No,” he ground out when she gave him an extra-firm squeeze. Not that he wanted to think about her cheating, lying ex right now, but he realized on a fundamental level that she had to make sure. “Not a mistress. Not a... Oh, God,” he groaned as she stroked him. “Not a girlfriend, either.” That wasn’t a strong enough word for what she meant to him.
“Then what am I?” Her voice was quiet but there was no mistaking it—she had him in the palm of her hand. Literally.
When she reached back with her other hand, Oliver’s restraint cracked. He grabbed her by the wrists. “I can’t wait,” he growled as he pushed her hands against the mirror. “Don’t move.”
He grabbed the condom from his pants and frantically ripped it open. He nudged her legs apart and then slid into her warmth with one long thrust. They both moaned.
Mine. It was all he could think as he grabbed Renee by the hips and buried himself in her over and over again. It wasn’t slow or sweet or tender. The way he took her was raw and hard and heaven help him, he loved it.
She loved it. Her hands on the mirror, she bent forward at the waist and thrust her backside up and out, just enough that she could see his face unobstructed in the mirror. And holding her gaze while he furiously pumped into her body was the singularly most erotic thing he’d experienced in his life.
She moaned and then shouted, “Oh, God—Oliver!”
“Renee,” he growled, digging his fingers into her skin, fighting the urge to mark her as his.
She pushed back into his thrusts and cried out, her muscles clenching him so tightly that he couldn’t hold anything back. Not with her. She would always push him past the point of reason, past the cold grip of logic.
He needed to do something. Something romantic, like whisper sweet words of promise in her ear. Something practical, like take care of the condom. Something, for God’s sake.
“You destroy me, Renee” was what he came up with. “You simply destroy me.”
Because Renee Preston-Willoughby had walked into his office and thrown everything ordered and planned about his life right out the window. His organized days of meetings? Gone. His long-term plans to grow Lawrence Energies—including the damned rodeo? Cast aside. His careful management of his family? Forgotten. His promise to his mother that he’d keep the family together? A distant memory.
All that was left was this fierce need to be with Renee and protect her—and her unborn child.
The destruction was complete.
Because she was his, by God. And he was not letting her go.