Filthy Rich Page 4

  She’d snuck into his private domain. If she kissed him first, no matter how things progressed from there on out, she’d have a very hard time crying foul, especially because he’d have the security footage to back it up.

  Thank God she actually had made the first move. He’d quickly taken over, shocked at how fast he’d surrendered to his need to touch her. To have her. When she’d rubbed against him, he’d barely stopped himself from shoving up her short skirt and bending her over the sofa so he could plunge inside her. His out-of-the-blue comment about her looking to “trade up” had to be the stupidest, most egotistical, idiotically impulsive thing he’d ever said. Granted, she’d stepped back and he’d gained a few seconds of breathing room. But by the fire in her eyes, he knew he’d gone too far.

  Why in God’s name hadn’t he been able to control himself?

  He slammed the steering wheel with an open hand. The car veered and he corrected it with a furious yank in the opposite direction. Too bad he hadn’t been able to do the same for himself when she was there, her luminous eyes never leaving his as she tried to straighten her messed-up clothes, not sure whether she should stay or go.

  She was different from the women he was used to. Like no other, in fact. Despite the fact that she was obviously capable of taking care of herself, she brought out his protective instincts.

  His desire to protect her—if only from himself, he thought with renewed anger—had continued even after she’d left. He’d had every intention of seeing her again. And soon.

  But then he’d heard Max Dubois call out to her. And when he’d gone downstairs to see to his remaining guests and spoken to Max, he realized he’d been wrong.

  He learned her name. And he learned she did work for Dubois & Mellan.

  As such, she was now his employee.

  He’d just bought the company.

  The big announcement was supposed to have been made at the party.

  Only that hadn’t happened.

  He’d missed his chance when he, like Cara, had gone upstairs for a moment’s peace. He’d found her instead.

  Any hope of peace had been shot to hell.

  Even now, hours later, even after learning that she was his new employee and that it would be wholly inappropriate for him to jump into bed with her, Cara Michal stayed on his mind. He couldn’t get her out no matter how fast he drove.

  He flicked the gearshift and allowed the car to leap forward. That had been one hell of a kiss from a once-in-a-lifetime lady. He couldn’t help but imagine doing more with her. In a variety of thrilling ways, starting on the couch she’d been reclining on. He’d spread her out, with one of her legs thrown over the back of the couch, and the other hanging off the edge while he buried his face between her thighs, lapping her up.

  Thinking about the soft, silky goddess he’d been privileged to hold and wanted to hold again, Branden sped up even more. Damn. It was as if she’d slipped through his fingers, never to be recaptured. Even worse, he would see her again, but not the way he wanted to. He drove faster, angry with himself for letting her leave without getting another taste of her.

  He slowed down a little, trying to snap himself out of his irritable mood. Stone bridges, ideal hiding places for an officer in a black-and-white, spanned the long curves of the roads on Long Island’s North Shore. Zoom through and they’d get you on the other side. Especially if driving a Maserati.

  He glanced in the rearview, almost expecting a blast of red whirling light and wailing siren. There wasn’t even another car. At four in the morning, he had the road to himself.

  Plenty of room and plenty of time to keep right on thinking about Cara. But he’d be better off turning this roaring beast of a car around and doing that at home. No sense risking another speeding ticket.

  He slowed even more, then pulled over to the side of the road, and in the dark, clicked on his Bluetooth. A few minutes later, he’d sent out various texts, some business, and one to his youngest sister, Jeannette, reminding her to turn in her application for college on time. He hadn’t finished college himself, but he’d made sure his half sister and stepsiblings had received an excellent education. All but Bethany had done just that. Bethany was currently pursuing her dream of being an actress on Broadway, and Branden was damn proud of her, just as he was proud of all his sisters. Jeannette was in her final year of high school, and he’d be damned if she didn’t go to an excellent university.

  And it would be up to him to make that happen. Their mother was an absolute failure when it came to finances…or deadlines…or taste in men. And Jeannette’s father—all of Branden’s stepfathers, to be truthful—was an asswipe of the highest extreme. No way would the man ever be able to put his amazing and beautiful daughter through college.

  A beep told him a text had come in. He flicked a glance at the screen on his car and read a message from Jeannette. Big bad bully. Don’t you know what “gap year” means?

  Yeah, right. There was no way he’d let her get away with flitting all over Europe, taking a “gap year.”

  Don’t you know what self-sufficiency means? he texted back.

  She responded with an emoji with a tongue sticking out, then added on a selfie of her holding a blue martini in one hand, the other hand flashing him a peace sign.

  He chuckled. Spunky and cute. But this was a school night, and she’d better be drinking a virgin mocktail, not a real martini. He thumbed in, Get back to Mom’s house, now, or you’ll have to scrub my toilets if you want your allowance.

  Jeannette responded with another selfie, this time with her pulling a despondent face and car keys in hand.

  In a half hour, he pulled into his long driveway, clicking the remote to operate the security gate. The staff would have gone home—most of them were locals. He paid them well to not live in. Branden preferred to have his house to himself when not entertaining, though he didn’t spend much time at the place.

  After entering the house, he mounted the stairs and looked into his sanctuary. Immediately, he thought of Cara. What instinct had brought her there and who had left the door unlocked? The memory of Cara on the black leather sofa, her gorgeous curves all too evident under the white cashmere throw, dogged him. That golden hair, flowing like spilled honey as she moved restlessly in her light sleep. Her blue eyes when she’d awoken, disoriented and just a little frightened to see him.

  He’d stood there like a fool, drinking her in. He’d been amused by the wary look in her searching gaze. Intrigued by the way she’d seemed flustered, checking her blouse to make sure it hadn’t come undone when other women would have leaned closer and tried to lure him in. He suspected she could take his face off with a single swipe of her pretty claws if he had dared to try anything. So he’d dared her instead. With just a look. But she’d gotten his message.

  And she’d taken his dare and raised the stakes on him.

  Branden sat down on the couch and stretched out, catching a faint and tantalizing whiff of her perfume on the throw.

  Fuck it. He couldn’t have her. Not if she worked for him. Not given the true reason he’d purchased Dubois & Mellan, one that had nothing to do with business. If he made money on his new acquisition, fine. But he had plenty of that.

  Still, even if he couldn’t have her, he could fantasize about doing her. He let his hand slide down and opened his fly. He gave in to the impulse, encircling his achingly stiff rod with a steel grip. Yeah. The same fingers that had stroked her sweet cheek and investigated all that luscious womanliness, curve by curve, tightened as he got himself off in pulsing jets. Intense, solitary satisfaction. Job done.

  Yet his cock didn’t feel like quitting. It wanted her. He wanted her. Naked. Vulnerable. Begging for pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. Tender and erotic to begin. Kisses that started at her mouth and moved down, down, down. Then he could really open her up. See what made her cry out. How deep she wanted it and where. Rough and raw if she liked it like that. Then sensual and slow. The mix had to be magic. He wanted to make it un
forgettable.

  Because the fantasy of her was going to have to last him.

  Tomorrow morning, it would have to be all business between them.

  But Branden knew keeping things strictly professional with Cara Michal would be impossible.

  Chapter Three

  When Cara woke up, her corporate studio apartment was still dark. She flung off the covers and padded barefoot into the bathroom, dreading what she would see in the mirror after less than five hours of sleep.

  She switched on the light and peered at her reflection. As postparty reflections went, it wasn’t too bad. There was no major puffiness or wild-kingdom streaks, since she’d removed her makeup before tumbling into bed. After dropping her nightgown on the bathroom floor, she cranked up the shower spray and stood under it.

  An unforgettable man was very much on her mind, and he hadn’t left it since that kiss. As she lathered the bath puff she recalled the ride back to the city in Branden’s limo, which had revved up the fantasy. If he’d been in the backseat with her, she would have succumbed to his powerful allure before the skyline of Manhattan had appeared. She’d made a few comments to the driver, attempting to strike up a conversation, hoping for some clue as to who Branden Duke really was, but the driver had remained stoic. Silent. He’d pulled up smoothly to the front of her condo building, exited the vehicle, and come around to her side to let her out, then had ignored the tip she’d tried to hand him.

  Well trained.

  Even as she’d been driven down Long Island in silence, the sound of Branden’s low voice echoed in her mind. Her body seemed unable to forget the sensation of his hands gripping her. Stroking her. The taste of his mouth. His scent. She almost felt like she’d slept with him. Her ragingly sensual desire had surfaced again in her dreams, stimulating a wildly improbable fantasy starring Branden Duke. He’d been nameless, a dark lord of lust. As she rinsed the shampoo from her hair she thought about how she’d reacted in her dream—letting him taste her, then demanding to taste him. But he’d always gotten the better of her. God, the thought made her quiver.

  She hadn’t known she could actually dream triple-X scenarios of such intensity. They hadn’t made much sense, but it didn’t matter. She closed her eyes and felt his dream hands moving all over her, liquidly sensual, hotter than the water beating down on her bare skin.

  Her own hand slipped between her thighs, but Cara denied herself the satisfaction. In a way, that would be surrendering to Branden Duke’s allure, and even in the privacy of her own place, she could not let that happen. She needed to wipe him from her mind and get to work.

  Once out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a thick towel and closed her eyes to dry her straight hair, feeling more in control now. Flicking a brush through the length, she combed it into her usual shoulder-length bob, a style that made the most of her natural honey-gold color. Cara dabbed a healthy glow from a small bottle onto her cheeks and outlined her blue eyes with a soft black pencil. Two swipes of tinted lip gloss and she was done. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she realized she needed to hurry.

  Heading back into her bedroom, she didn’t bother to switch on any other lights, preferring to raise the blinds for a peek at the skyline, drenched in the deep blue of predawn, without being seen herself. Windows in nearby tall buildings were starting to light up. Some were residential but most were offices. The Street got up early.

  So did Cara, as a rule. On weekdays anyway, unless she’d stayed up too late working or watching nature documentaries. On weekends, when she was actually able to go out, she gave herself more leeway, especially if she’d had a late night dancing holes in her shoes.

  After choosing a tailored but feminine suit in a dark shade, she dressed quickly in her walk-in closet, a routine that hadn’t changed in the three years she’d been working for Dubois & Mellan.

  The mirrored closet was a touch of luxury she appreciated. The rest of the apartment was nice enough. But it wasn’t her own and never would be. One of these days she was going to buy her own place. It wouldn’t be in Manhattan and it wouldn’t be like this. It would be something simpler. Homier. But not being allowed to hang pictures or have a dog or pick a paint color other than white or beige was the price she paid for corporate living quarters with free Wi-Fi and cable and a location that couldn’t be beat.

  Her apartment was somewhere to sleep and watch TV, that was all. She’d never entertained there. The most she did for herself was occasionally nuke some leftovers for a late-night snack. The fridge was teeny and so was the microwave.

  Dubois & Mellan had financed the construction of the building and owned several floors outright. The biggest apartments were reserved for visiting executives, but one of a handful of coveted studios had been offered to her on a temporary basis as part of the signing package.

  She was lucky to have it. She did pay rent, but at below market rate. Housing costs were a near impossibility in New York otherwise for a newly minted economics grad without a trust fund or rich parents who could cosign an astronomical lease.

  She gave one last look around as she put on her parka and wrapped a warm scarf around her neck. The apartment was nearly as spare as the long hallway she went out into. After flicking her multiple locks closed, she entered the elevator, which was empty when she got on.

  Something about the claustrophobic space made her think of Branden Duke again. If she ever got trapped between floors, she would want it to be with a man who triggered all her erotic layers…a man like Branden Duke.

  Her stomach clenched and her mouth went dry. God, the night before, after he’d woken her up, all she’d wanted to do in his upstairs hideaway was rip off that fine suit and expose the magnificent man beneath.

  Cara let her head loll back against the paneled wall. Just how he had unleashed so much sexually charged emotion in so little time wasn’t something she understood.

  Damn and double damn. She must be lonelier than she thought. Iris had to be right—she needed to go out. Date. Hell, she needed to get laid. But easy sex just wasn’t her. That’s why she danced; to experience her erotic side without adding the complicated factor of men. The discreet club not far away from her apartment, where 90 percent of the men were gay and 10 percent undecided, was where she could dance with anyone, have a fabulous time, and not get asked for her phone number. All that and great nachos.

  The elevator reached the first floor. The soft stop that bumped her brought her back to reality.

  She murmured a good morning to the doorman, who opened the lobby door for her, and went out into the chilly early morning air, shivering a little but feeling refreshed by the nip.

  She pulled her sunglasses from her bag and shielded her eyes from the sun’s first rays that barely penetrated the narrow streets of New York’s Financial District, a closed-in space lined with old stone buildings jostled by towering glass skyscrapers. Young professionals, heads down, eyes on their smartphones and earbuds plugged in to get a jump on the overseas markets, crowded the sidewalks. One bumped her, hard, and didn’t bother to apologize. Not that she expected him to—she’d long ago learned that the small-town values she’d been brought up with didn’t translate to New York streets.

  A gleaming SUV passed her, a little too close, and before she could edge back away from the street, a black town car whipped past, an older, well-dressed and coiffed woman in the back, a smartphone glued to her ear.

  “Maybe get off the phone and tell your chauffeur to avoid using pedestrians as bowling pins,” Cara muttered under her breath as she came to a stop at a light, waiting with the edgy crowd of pedestrians for it to change.

  Glancing around at the cars surrounding her, she noted the small, glowing squares of light in half-seen hands behind every tinted window. London had been up and running for six hours. Tokyo, twice that long. Every second counted in the twenty-four-hour business of making megamoney.

  Just in case, Cara took her phone out and checked a news feed. She didn’t want to get caught in the elevator l
ooking clueless in case the global markets had burped somewhere and caused a sudden sell-off. A quick scroll showed nothing of interest. Then she glanced at her messages. Greg hadn’t called, which meant she didn’t owe him much of an explanation, if any.

  The crowd surged around her, almost knocking the phone out of her hands. The light had changed. There was no hesitation on Wall Street. She quickly stepped forward, joining in the current of business suits, and shoved her phone back into her coat pocket.

  A few minutes later she ducked out of the flow of businessmen and -women and stopped at a quilted-steel pushcart.

  “Morning, sunshine. The usual?” the man behind the glass panel asked. In the three years she’d been coming to his pushcart, the older man with the cracked glasses had never asked her name, but he knew she liked a small coffee with two sugars and a dash of cream. And that she sometimes indulged in a donut.

  “Thank you,” she responded. Back home she would have known this man’s name, if he was married, how many kids he had, and their grades. But here, in the heart of money, that kind of intimacy was avoided.

  He snapped on a lid, sliding the cup through the window with a wink and a cheerful good-bye, taking her dollar before the next customer stepped up.

  Holding the hot cup with care, she went through the bronze doors of Dubois & Mellan. The offices were located in an old-fashioned temple of finance with soaring columns on either side of the entrance and two half-hidden statues, female nudes with downcast eyes, supposedly representing Virtue and Prudence.

  Like either would get you anywhere on the Street.

  There were a few of her coworkers in the spacious lobby. Some always beat her in, no matter how early she got up. Even in the lobby of D&M, it was the same deal as the crowds of pedestrians moving through the vehicles on the narrow streets of the Financial District. Eyes glued to phones. Ears plugged with buds. She nodded and smiled to the few who caught her eye, but they didn’t get off their phones to say hi as her heels clicked over the terrazzo floor.