Her Tender Tyrant Page 0,5
had finally rationalized both her own behavior as well as his.
That was when she heard the soft sounds in the next room. Sitting up in bed with a gasp, she realized that the man was right next door! Good grief! How was she supposed to sleep with him sleeping in the room next to this one?
No, she’d have to find another bedroom. But this wasn’t her house! She couldn’t just roam around, opening doors and sleeping in someone’s bed. That was rude.
Juliette flopped down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Surely the man could have chosen a room in this enormous house that was…oh yeah, he grew up here. That was probably the room he’d slept in for his entire youth. Definitely couldn’t kick him out of there, she realized. Juliette sighed and pounded her pillow, trying to ignore the sounds coming through the walls.
But it was impossible to ignore the man. He just wasn’t ignorable. He was just too big.
A few minutes later, she heard a sound against the wall. Sitting up, she glared at the wall, wondering if he was playing tennis against the wall. The thumps were rhythmical and annoying. Thud. Thud. Thud.
She could ignore him, she told herself. Juliette was good at ignoring things she didn’t like. In fact, in her house growing up, she’d become an expert at it. Her parents had fought all the time until they finally decided to get a divorce. After that, it was peaceful, her parents actually becoming friends.
So if she could ignore their fights, she could ignore that man!
Marcus threw the tennis ball against the wall, his mind working through the details of his latest acquisition. He’d need to….
Thud.
Just get the….
Thud.
He could simply….
Thud.
He growled as his normal process for working things through in his mind failed. And it was all because of that bouncy, adorable, sexy woman in the room next door. He could even picture her in Adriana’s bedroom. He imagined her little feet poking out from a flannel nightgown – probably one that buttoned up all the way to her neck and didn’t stop until it almost covered her toes. Hell, even that would look sexy on her. He could just picture those cute toes poking out from the bottom of her flannel nightgown, her hair all mussed as he inched that flannel up higher. And higher. He wondered if she wore cotton underwear or something risqué. Probably white cotton.
Damn, his body was getting hot and bothered just picturing that sexy little bottom in white cotton granny panties! What was happening to him? He liked his women confident and draped in undergarments that were meant to entice. He wasn’t turned on by granny panties!
Okay, so he had to admit that just about anything on little Juliette’s ripe, luscious body would look extraordinarily hot. She was just so perfectly…curvy!
Thud.
He had a controversial, multi-billion dollar acquisition in the works. He didn’t have time to fantasize about the little darling in the next room.
He wondered if she was all curled up around Adriana’s pillows. Mitch, Adriana’s husband, complained about all the pillows that his wife demanded be kept on the bed. Was Juliette’s dark, fiery hair splayed out against the white pillows?
Thud.
He needed to get focused. He was here to take care of his mother’s horses while finalizing the negotiations on the acquisition. And those discussions weren’t going well. The firm wanted too much money for not enough in return. If he hadn’t needed the patents the firm held, he would have moved on to another company – ignoring their petty demands and letting the firm die a natural death as the competition squeezed them out of existence.
Thud.
He could work around them, he thought. Just like he pictured ripping off Juliette’s cotton underwear, he could…
Thud.
“Get them on the trail,” he thought, sitting up on his bed and working through a brainstorm of details quickly. Yes, this would work. Just rip everything off. He pushed the image of Juliette’s round bottom out of his mind and walked down the stairs, determined to make some phone calls. He could rip some of the concessions out from the agreement, move the terms over to his other company, force the hand of the CEO and then transfer the patents in his parent company over to one of his subsidiaries. That would eliminate the arguments the firm had to selling. They wouldn’t have a choice at that point. He could box them into a corner and then…
Yes, Marcus stepped quietly down the