Filthy Rich Revenge: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book - Lynn Raye Harris Page 0,21
the pool steps without a stitch of clothing. He lounged in the chair so casually, like there weren’t oceans of pain between them. She had a sudden urge to be completely truthful with him, to try and bridge the gap somehow. “I want a chance to redeem Layton International. If you would let me repurchase the stock, I’d be grateful. I’m not trying to hurt your business. I only want my company back.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “How grateful?”
She couldn’t tell by his tone how he meant the question. Was he baiting her? Making fun of her? Heat prickled her nerve endings. “Um, well, I think we could work out some profit sharing. Perhaps even a partnership or two?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he got to his feet, tugged at the waist of his T-shirt with one hand. A moment later, it fell to the tile deck. Rebecca’s pulse skipped. “What are you doing?”
“Considering your proposal.” He unsnapped his jeans, shrugged them down his lean hips in a graceful movement that had her blood pounding in her ears. When he stood at the edge of the pool in nothing but his briefs, Rebecca had to remind herself to breathe. Her mouth went dry at the sight of all that hard muscle and tan skin.
Dear heaven, she’d often remembered, at the most inopportune moments, what his body felt like pressed to hers, how his cock moved inside her. The sensual drag of his erection as he slid out and in, faster and faster, making her moan.
She’d called her ex-boyfriend Alejandro once during sex. No wonder she’d been alone for the past year and a half. What man wanted to be compared to a ghost from the past?
“Wh-what proposal? What are you talking about?” And why did her head feel as if it were stuffed with cotton?
“How grateful would you be, querida?”
She cast her mind back over the conversation, tried to piece together what, exactly, he meant. And then her brain shut down and her jaw slipped open as the last of Alejandro’s clothing fell away.
Alejandro swam toward her, idly wondering if she would shoot up the steps and into the house. If she did, then perhaps she wasn’t as calculating as he thought. Perhaps she hadn’t really known he was beneath the arbor, watching her.
He half hoped she would run. It’d be nice to think she wasn’t trying to use him this once, especially when his memories were so raw. After she’d left him in his office, he went for a walk on the grounds. Then he sat under the arbor and hoped his mind would quiet. It hadn’t.
When she’d appeared, stealing through the night like a wraith, he’d watched her curiously. And then she’d dropped her clothes like the calculating female she was.
Like it or not, her strip tease had made him harder than the stone beneath his feet. Which was no doubt her intention. She’d played at asking him to leave, but he hadn’t bought her act. The truth emerged when she said she’d be grateful if he would sell her Layton International.
It was all a game to her. A chessboard where she would do whatever she had to do to regain her precious company.
She didn’t move as he stopped in front of her. He was both disappointed and pleased. He hadn’t intended to touch her ever again, but that was before he’d watched her strip down and caress herself.
Madre de Dios, he wanted to bury himself inside her right this moment. Would she be as hot and tight as he remembered? As perfectly fitted to him?
He gritted his teeth. He would not give in to his body’s demands. He would, however, prove to them both that she was nothing more than a mercenary bitch who would do anything to get what she wanted.
“What are you doing?” she asked, still clasping her knees, her eyes wide. He didn’t miss how her gaze dropped and then shot back to his face. Little Miss Innocent.
The water caressed his hipbones, the evidence of her effect on him hidden beneath the surface of the pool. If she stood, she would see he was more than ready for her.
“I am giving you a chance to show your gratitude.”
“You haven’t given me anything to be grateful for,” she shot back, her façade cracking.
“What would you like, Rebecca? La Belle Amelie?”
Her head dipped as she turned her gaze from him. Calculating, no doubt. “I won’t sleep with you for a hotel.”