Chapter Eight
Micah sped through the kitchen. Once in the bathroom, he managed to shut the door instead of smashing it against the frame with shaking hands. Darcy’s touch had unhinged half his bones and left the other half fused at the joints.
Despite a lame attempt at appearing composed after their intense encounter, he’d dropped the tongs while trying to pick up a steak from the plate. He’d left on the wake of a few curses and a promise to be right back with a new utensil.
As far as bad ideas went, bringing that woman here had been one of his worst. It was topped only by his decision to go to Colombia last year. All to assess the assets of yet another business he’d been about to buy, break apart, and turn over for a profit, displacing thousands of workers.
Karma had come down hard on him. He often wondered if his mother was at work from beyond the grave, still trying to steer him back to toward the man she’d hoped to raise. Or expressing her grief at the disgraceful way he’d lived the last ten years of his life before it changed in a heartbeat.
Clutching the sink hard enough it should have turned to dust, he stared at his dilated pupils and flushed face in the mirror. It was something he rarely did since he’d been cut up. “Get a grip.”
Darcy’s fingers on his face had been a hardwired connection right to his command center. She awakened every pleasure receptor he owned and a few he didn’t know existed, since none of his past girlfriends had affected him in such a profound and personal way.
And her lips. Those soft, wet lips had undone him knot by painful knot as they’d grazed his skin, wiping away his doubt and the knowledge of who she was and why she’d come here. In that moment, she could have asked him for anything, and he’d have given it to her without question, even the hideous truth of what he’d done.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be in control of this situation. She wasn’t supposed to tear him down with tender words and a sappy story she’d probably made up as yet another commonality between them.
The shattered look on her face while talking about her grandparents stuck in his mind, even with the anger steamrolling through him. Somewhere along the line, she’d given up on love.
Had it been her tangle with Mother Nature that acted as the catalyst? Changing her as Colombia had changed him?
After grabbing a tie from the drawer, he gathered his hair at the back of his head, remembering how she’d looked at him. Not with disgust, but with wonder and admiration, as if he was whole and beautiful to her.
That settled it. Nobody would do that and mean it, not with his level of damage. Hell, nobody had ever stared at him that way, even when he had good looks and no baggage. No, Darcy wasn’t like the other reporters as Mags had warned. That woman was far more devious, and she’d have to work for every scrap of information she wanted from him.
If he kept her pissed off, maybe she’d keep her fake compassion to herself. She messed up his honed liar-radar, so he needed to err on the side of caution. She was too good at it for his messed-up mind to deal with, a warm touch when he’d only known cold indifference since his parents’ deaths.
On his way back through the kitchen, he wiped his face of all emotion, grabbed a new pair of tongs, and returned to the deck where she leaned against the railing by the grill. Her brows dipped low over those light blue eyes, and the slope of her shoulders relayed uncertainty. Damn, she was beautiful in a fresh, earthy way, like the sunset behind her.
“I just put the steaks on with my fingers,” she said cautiously. “Are you all right? You were in there a while.”
“Never better.” He flashed his teeth and lifted the lid of the barbecue, keeping her at his back where he wouldn’t get caught up in her soft stare again. “How do you like your steak?”
“Run through a warm room is good enough for me. As long as it’s not mooing, I’m a happy girl.”
He flipped the steaks over, ignoring her awkward laughter along with the stab of guilt for sounding like his old self—cold and dispassionate. “Perfect. I’ll grab the salads from the fridge. You can pour us some wine, and then we’ll eat.” Some liquid courage would get him through the night.
“I don’t drink while I’m working.”
“You’re not working at this moment, so there’s no problem.”
Instead of protesting, she nodded and offered a tentative smile that held a lake’s worth of unasked questions behind it.
When he’d finished moving the hot sauce, a quinoa salad, and some utensils to the table, he retrieved the steaks from the grill. Darcy was already sitting at the patio table with two glasses of wine—one filled almost to the brim, and another with a few sips in the bottom—as the sun crawled farther toward the horizon. The blaze of pink, orange, and yellow reflected off the pool and turned her hair into a work of art. Each little flip held sheens of copper and gold, and a lovely pink hue warmed her skin.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, drawing his gaze there. They were plump and sensually shaped, and, he imagined, sweet to taste.
“Uh…you’re dripping steak juice on your sandal.” Offering a crooked smile, she waggled her finger toward his toe he realized was wet.
“Shit.” He set the plate down and shook his sandal off, then sat down. “The scenery is beautiful tonight.”
Her eyes widened only for a second before she regained her composure, peeling her attention from him and pointing it toward the lake. “It is spectacular here, I won’t argue with you there.” Twisting in her seat, words spilled out of her that might have come across as casual conversation if she hadn’t been leaning over the table, as if it would somehow get the answer to her faster. “So, Cynthia is quite the character. Is she just your business partner?”
A jolt of satisfaction hit him right in the chest. “I thought I detected a hint of jealousy earlier.”
“Pfft. Get over yourself. I’m just making conversation.”
“Of course you are. And in a show of good faith, I’ll give you this one for free. Yes, she’s my business partner, and she was also my best friend in high school. We enjoyed starting wars among the cliques and bragging about our conquests to each other. And to answer what you most want to know, I’ve never had sex with her, because she’s more like a sister than a lover.”
Could that have been a small sigh of relief he heard? Her expression had gone pleasantly neutral, attentive as always, but there was something behind it she couldn’t hide.
He grinned wider. “Our families used to come up here together at their cottage not far from here, often for most of the summer and a few weekends in the fall. When my parents passed, her family took me in and treated me like their own. Cynthia was, and will always be, one of my closest friends.”
Darcy looked away before he finished deciphering whether she was annoyed or relieved. “It was really good of them to do that. Having even a little continuity with your life must have made the shock a tiny bit easier to take.”
It had been worse, continuing to go all of the places his family used to spend time together. Having to stand there with their ghosts all around, all while desperate to put on a strong front for his foster family, had been torture. It had driven him out of himself so often, there came a time he never went back, only floated, detached from his own emotions.
“You must have had some wild parties here,” she said, breaking him out of his freefall, “and I don’t mean wild by most people’s standards, because this is you we’re talking about. This place is perfectly hidden by trees and large enough for a giant orgy, though I suspect you’re more into the spectacle of public places.”
“Other than Cynthia and her man of the month, you’re the only person I’ve ever brought here.” He winced internally, wishing he’d kept that to himself, and winked to cover it. “I’m hoping to christen the place soon. Especially that spot over there by the hot tub, where it’s wide enough to lay a fur rug and indulge beneath the stars.”
Her fork fell out of her fingers and clanked against the glass tabletop, which she quickly reclaimed. “Uh, yeah, have fun with that. So, how does this whole payment scheme of yours work, and when is it going to start?” She forked the smaller of the two steaks onto her plate. “Are you going to demand a deep, dark secret if I ask you to pass the Frank’s RedHot sauce?”
“Changing the subject won’t take the heat out of the air between us, lucerito.” Grinning at her sudden intense interest in the food, he filled his own plate. “It begins when you ask me anything that has an emotional value to me. I’m not particularly moved by hot sauce, so it’s yours whenever you want it. As am I,” he slipped in quietly at the end.
Flirting seemed to be his go-to diversion tactic, but it was going to wreck her. What else could he do? He passed the bottle across to her and watched as her steak disappeared beneath a thick coating of red goop. “Don’t you like steak?”
“Love it.” Focused on her plate, she dug in with her knife and fork, lifting a piece to her mouth and moaning as she chewed. “I haven’t had it like this in the better part of forever. So, so, so good.”
They ate in silence, as it seemed she’d slipped into a private ecstasy with the contents of her plate. Unlike most people who just chewed and swallowed, she treated the meal like an erotic fantasy for the mouth. Gaze fixed on the food, she savored every bite with sounds of enjoyment before swallowing it down.
What else would she do with such wild abandon? His cock pressed against his zipper at the image of her above him, her head thrown back and his name rushing from her lips.
Hungry, she hadn’t been kidding about that. That made two of them, only he wanted something far more potent than steak. He was shocked she hadn’t lifted her plate when it was empty and licked it clean with that delicate, pink tongue of hers. This spitfire had a healthy appetite. He liked that.
“How do you stay so fit?” he asked when his curiosity overflowed his burning lips. Not from the hot sauce, but from wanting to kiss her.
She stared at him over the top of her napkin. “How do you know I’m fit at all? I just stuffed my face with steak, and I’m sitting here drooling about the dessert course. For all you know, I might get winded going up a flight of stairs.”
“You look like you take good care of yourself.”
Her knee bounced under the table. “I run, mostly on a treadmill, but I don’t have much of a problem with my weight. Good metabolism, I guess.”
“Maybe it’s because you never sit still.” He shoved his empty plate aside.
She shrugged, then bit her lip as she did every time she was about to ask him something uncomfortable. “The picture of your family makes me wonder how you went from that loved little boy to the man you grew to be. You know, the guy who showed up on TV every night after he’d had a few too many.”
Apparently, the games had begun. “The bastard tycoon and man whore, you mean.” He said it all matter-of-factly, but the burn of shame curled over his stomach.
“Oh, Micah, I—”
“This one’s going to cost you. Are you willing to pay up?”
She eyed him for seconds before saying, “That depends on what it is.”
Although there were details he wanted to know, he was most interested in making her squirm tonight. “How many times have you been in love?”
She crushed her napkin in her fist. “What does my love life have to do with anything?”
“Ah-ah, no answering a question with a question. Give me a meaningful answer, and I’ll do the same.”
She pointed her glare out at the lake instead of him. “Only once, and that was enough to ensure I’d never do something so stupid again.”
“Who was he?” He sat forward, his curiosity roaring.
“Nope, one question each per round. I’ve answered yours, and now it’s your turn.” Brow raised in challenge, she sat back and gestured to him.
“How did I go from the adored child to a bastard?” His throat ached, but he pushed on. A promise was a promise, and this shame was a mere ghost compared to the others he bore. “Those years were a blur. Without anyone to make me consider where my decisions were leading, I didn’t notice that road didn’t lead anywhere good. If I could go back and make different choices, I would, but lately I’ve come to the conclusion that some of us need to walk all the wrong roads before we can find the right ones.”
She squinted at him, her lips parted. “That’s kind of poetic, and very wise.”
“You sound surprised an asshole can be wise.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
He nodded his half-hearted apology. “You wanted to know about the bastard,” he began, waving her off when she glowered. “When my parents died, my grief overwhelmed me. Cynthia’s parents took me in, and her father was quite the savvy businessman. He suggested I take my inheritance and invest in real estate. My first deal was such a rush. I made fifty thousand dollars on my first turnover. It was power, and because I’d distanced myself from everyone and hadn’t let myself feel anything, it hit me like a drug.
“The only problem with drugs, though, is addiction always follows. No amount is enough. I became desensitized to right and wrong. It became a new normal. Sending people to the unemployment line didn’t mean anything to me.”
“What happened in Colombia…it made you feel again,” she said. “Didn’t it?”
It was his turn to squirm, only he managed to squash any outward signs of his discomfort. “Are we brokering a new deal? One question each per transaction was your rule, wasn’t it?”
She sighed and sipped her wine. “Forget it. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, anyway.”
While plotting the rest of the evening, Micah traced the rim of his wine glass with a fingertip. She’d filled it for him, probably hoping to get him drunk and shake free a few of his secrets, and her gaze had zeroed in on the movement of his hands. Just as he wanted her, off balance, thinking about his next move instead of making one of her own.
“Tell me about your grandfather,” he said. “How was he scarred, and why did he have bad days? Was he in the military?”
Slowly, she raised her chin, then her dark lashes lifted higher to reveal what he could have sworn was a bedroom stare. It appeared she hadn’t heard what he said. God, he wanted to play out whatever fantasy filled that mysterious mind of hers right here on the table.
“What?” she asked, squashing his debate about pushing her boundaries.
It was so easy to tease her, words tumbled out of him without much thought. “While you were daydreaming, I asked you to tell me about your grandfather.”
A shove back gave her enough room to rise out of her chair and go to the edge of the deck. “What happened to the chocolate mousse you promised me?”
“This interview’s going to take longer than a week if you keep changing the subject.”
She stared toward the section of lake visible between the trees, gripping the railing. “In that case, I’ll tell you what scarred him if you tell me what scarred you.”
Frowning, Micah picked up his wine and joined her. He leaned his elbows on the railing, his head turned toward hers that remained defiantly pointed at the water. “That’s not a fair trade. Your grandfather’s issue isn’t yours, so it can’t have the same value. No, I’d need more from you.”
“Like what?”
“I want to know how you like to be kissed.” He braced himself for the backlash, hoping she’d forget about his scars.
Her mouth fell open as she whirled to face him. “How I…what the hell does that have to do with anything? I thought we were being serious.”
“That’s my price.” He licked his lips and raised his glass to his mouth while she watched. His voice of reason whispered about what a prick he was being. Goddammit, now was not the time for a crisis of conscience.
Her throat worked on what appeared to be a difficult swallow.
“Pay up, and I’ll tell you how my face was ruined,” he said.
Half of him hoped she’d opt out so he wouldn’t have to remember that first of many traumas, even if he intended to give the bullet points and not the whole truth. Another deeper, primal part of him wanted to know the taste of her, to feel the curve of her back under his hand.
And hopefully he would, before the end of the week.