One Night for Love (9 page)

“How is the transition?” William asked. “Any snags?”

“Closed two of the outstanding deals, one with Flixster and the other with Tri-Comm.”

“You closed, or that Baxter woman closed? My sources tell me it was she who had those deals on the line and you just happened to buy at the right time.”

“Isn’t that part of being a good businessperson? Knowing when to buy and when to sell?” Tristan forced a smile to his face. Calm, composure, and confidence were the ways around his dad. Uncertainty was a cause for concern according to William Rhodes.

“Still planning on selling?” His father walked toward the four flat screens on the wall and his gaze followed the ticker along the bottom.

“That’s the plan.”

“Turn and burn then?” William turned away from the TV and his hard, all-seeing gaze locked on Tristan. “Sure it isn’t time for you to actually keep something and build it up instead of ripping it down?”

“I’ve built companies,” Tristan said. The urge to be angry and petulant tore through his chest. What was it about his father that made him become a sixteen-year-old boy?

“One,” William said. “Quite successful, but then you sold it.”

Tristan flinched. “I don’t think sold is the right word.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I believe hostile takeover is more accurate.”

A sly smile lifted the corner of William Rhodes’s mouth. “Brothers often compete for things.”

“Yes, how is Tyler? Still running my company into the ground?”

“He won. You lost. That’s business. You know the rules,” William said. “The winner reaps the spoils.”

Tristan’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t spoken to his younger brother in nearly five years, not since Tyler’d managed to steal the company Tristan had started on a shoestring and a prayer. He’d loved working and he’d loved Q-Sport, a passion project in which Tristan had combined his love for business and surfing into one place, only to see the entire company stolen by his little brother.

“They’re in a huge expansion phase. Looks like they’ll be entering the Asian market before end of year.”

Tristan felt no joy. The company he loved was dead to him, and he didn’t intend to speak to his little brother ever again.

“You might consider using all those great degrees, which cost us so much damn money, to keep Metro. Run it. Make a profit the old-fashioned way—by actually working.”

“Right,” Tristan said. The lecture was beginning now. A lecture he had neither the time to entertain nor the patience to endure.

“I see you’re past listening to me.” William turned toward the door. “Good luck with this one, son. Please let me know if you need my expertise. I’ll be with your brothers, helping them build their businesses.”

The door closed. The urge to slam his fist into something, anything, tore through Tristan. Instead, he paced his office. That old man knew every last button to push. Of course Trenton had kept Q-Sport—it was a fabulous company that Tristan had created and built up. He’d loved the whole place, down to the guy who swept the floors. What a fool he’d been to let his younger brother in the door. Traitorous and competitive, he’d waited until he knew everything Tristan had to teach and then managed to gain control of the company.

What a blow. He’d learned the tough rules from that failure: business was business, trust no one, don’t get attached, and sell fast. No, after the pain of losing Q-Sport, Tristan knew much better than to get attached to any business endeavor ever again.

After Prim’s dinner meeting, the town car brought her to Malibu, past the security gate and the long drive lined with palm trees. Her stomach tightened as she grew closer to Tristan’s home. She was nervous. A knot formed in her belly. What was creating this anxiety? She’d slept with Tristan multiple times. They saw each other every day. Still, she’d not yet been to his home. She hadn’t seen him in his own surroundings. Going to where he lived and spent his time when he wasn’t working seemed so intimate. Being at his house made the idea that this was an actual relationship more real.

Tristan’s home gleamed, all slick steel, giant windows, and honey-colored wood, a modern creation that fit the California coastline. She walked through the unlocked front door and down the long hallway to a room with floor-to-ceiling windows. To a room that looked out at the water. A low fire was lit in the open fireplace. Just beyond the wall of glass was the ocean. Stillness permeated Tristan’s home. The house was beautiful and pristine and untouched, as though no one lived here.

His house represented him. There were no pictures of family or friends on the wall or scattered about the room. No personal items from which one could glean insight into the man lined the bookshelves on the far wall. There was cold beauty: glass, steel, and wood. It was a show of wealth and power.

This was part of their deal, that they stay together. Her fingertips pressed to the glass window that separated her from the outdoors. There was no escape from this intimacy.

“You’re here.”

A tremor rushed down Prim’s spine, and she turned toward Tristan. Sweat dripped down his bare torso, over the thick muscles of his chest and abdomen. His shorts clung to his body. He was gorgeous. A spectacular vision. His muscles glistened.

“You’ve been working out?”

“Running,” he said. His eyes glowed in the firelight. “Exercise clears my head.” He looked away from her and toward the view. “I lost track of time.”

Tristan was highly scheduled and compulsive about time. What thoughts had he needed to vanquish from his head that would cause him to actually lose track of time?

He moved toward her. The firelight caused the sweat clinging to his body to shine. The ever-present heat that coursed between them heightened her senses, and the scent of him filled her. He smelled of the ocean and the wind and the clean masculinity of a good sweat. Her eyes roamed his chest and she tilted her chin toward him. She wanted him now, this very instant.

“I need a shower,” he said. “Why don’t you join me?”

*

He’d gone running and tried to pound away his memory of that afternoon. To obliterate his father’s words with footfall after footfall.

He turned to Prim. She stood beside him as steam rolled from the giant glass shower. He would get lost in her body. Her presence, his desire for her, the lush bits of skin that waited for his touch would banish from his mind the thoughts that brutal exercise hadn’t been able dispel. He reached toward her and plucked a button of her silk shirt. The fabric soft to his touch, he unbuttoned each button until he could slip the shirt from her shoulders. His hands unsnapped her bra, and he dropped the lacy undergarment to the floor. His eyes devoured her flesh. Her full breasts were now free and in front of him. He would lick her nipples, which were even now hardening under his gaze. The flats of his hands caressed down the curve of her body, over her ribs and to her waist. He unhooked her skirt, a soft flowing thing, unzipped the zipper, and it floated softly to the ground.

“Still no panties.” His eyes flicked up from the curls of her sex and met Prim’s gaze.

“You seem to like me this way.”

A hint of a smile and the jut of her jaw caused a powerful desire to bend her over the sink and fuck her right now to flow through him. Instead, he reached down and pulled his shorts from his body.

His cock was hard and throbbed with want. Not since he’d been an adolescent had his cock been so hard so often. He’d bedded the most beautiful women in the world and still he had no control where Prim was concerned. He wrapped his hand into her wild mass of curly hair and gently pulled her head back. Her mouth opened and her eyes darkened with lust. He pressed against her body and a moan escaped her mouth.

“You’re the most fuckable woman I’ve ever known.” His lips clamped onto hers and their tongues intertwined.

She pressed her body to him and her nails raked at the muscles of her back. He pulled away and his lips were on her tight bud of a nipple. Like hot sugar. He rolled his tongue around the precious bit. He sucked a hard long pull and gave her the tiniest nip, then released her nipple from his mouth. Her head was thrown back and her hips arched forward, pressing against his cock with a slow but hard rhythm.

“Shower,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed and he smiled. He had no intention of giving her gratification immediately. To do so was defeat. One of the purest pleasures of desire was the wanting. Hot beads of water beat into his back as he led Prim into the shower. Water danced down her curvy body, leaving tiny rivulets that his tongue wished to follow. His fingers traced the water’s marks. He pulled the pad of his pointer finger across her jaw, down her chest to the tip of her breast, her nipple pert and tight where water dropped from the high-breasted edge. Prim’s tiny gulp of air, caused by his touch, sent thrills of pleasure through his body. With his touch, he’d caused this smart, contained woman to gasp. He leveled his gaze upon her and then he bent forward and his tongue stroked the tip of her breast where the water dripped. She grabbed his hair. His hands skirted down her belly and found her sex slick and wet. He parted her with his fingertips and a moan came from her mouth. His lips continued to suckle her as his fingertip now pulsed her clit, her hips rolling forward and back against his touch.

“Yes, please, oh yes, please.”

He slid his other hand around the back of her, his finger rubbing against the soft, delicate tissue of her ass. Her hips hitched forward, trying to get close to both his hands as the pressure of his touch increased in the front and the back of her. He slid one finger into her ass and for a moment her body stiffened and she paused, gasping at the sensation that he felt quite certain she’d never before experienced. He pulled his mouth from her breast and crushed his lips to hers. His fingers still pulsed her clit, and now he slid two fingers deep within her pussy. Her breathing was shattered, hot, and shallow.

“Please, oh my God, I want you. Please.”

His cock was hard and her hands grasped the base of him. Her lips were on his, a kiss filled with wild need. His teeth nipped her bottom lip and another low moan came from Prim. Her hands stroked his cock and heat began to flood his belly as a low rumble started in his spine and tiny droplets of come came from his cock. She bent forward, and beneath the hot water that still rained down upon them, she licked the top of his cock. Fire throbbed through him. He spun her around, her hands now splayed against the marble wall and his cock needing entry to her, wanting her, needing the warmth of her surrounding him and the heat of her wanting him and the loud moans that he knew he could turn into shrieks. His arm wrapped around her waist and his lips pressed to the back of her neck. The head of his cock pulsed upward into her, a hard yet slow thrust into her hot, wet, pussy.

“Yes,” Prim gasped out. “Oh my God, yes.”

His hand drifted down the front of her and he pressed his fingertips to her clit. With each thrust, his fingers pressed her clit. Her sex tightened around him as her back arched to him. He was lost to her—there would be no demand, no pause. He closed his eyes and the heat of this moment, the clenched sex of Prim, drove the words, the thoughts, the afternoon from his mind, and he felt only the hot pleasure of release. Her breath jagged, her moans loud, he fought for her orgasm before he released his own.

*

Prim lay in Tristan’s bed, her hair finally dry from their shower after hours of lovemaking. Tristan’s touch had been so full of need—a near-desperate need that surprised her. Her fingertips brushed hair from his forehead as he slept. He was a beautiful man. Gorgeous with light brown skin, fair hair with hints of gold, and the most luxuriant eyes, and yet he was a bit unknowable. Vulnerability spread across his face with the calm of sleep. It was an openness that was unfamiliar to her when he was awake.

The desperation in his lovemaking, the very raw nature in which he’d taken her, so full of need and without the barrier of control he’d utilized in the past, caused questions to fill Prim’s mind.

His eyes fluttered open. “You’re awake.”

Her gaze locked to his. She had questions he was required to answer, and yet she fought the urge to ask them, to know what she wanted to know about Tristan Rhodes because her heart was opening to him. To know Tristan, Prim was fearful to admit, might be to love him. His arms reached out to her and encircled her body. He pulled her closer and pressed his lips to her forehead.

“It’s either very early or very late depending on your personal definition.”

A smile cracked his face. “I love the way your mind works. Always options.”

She tilted her head up toward him. His skin was hot beneath her fingertips. The mask he wore during the day had not yet closed over the openness of his features.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice a mere whisper.

“Why do you ask?”

“You seemed … different this night. I thought perhaps something was bothering you?”

His tight grip around her lessened and he leaned away from her. His eyes looked up at the ceiling. “My father came to see me yesterday,” he said. His voice still thick with sleep.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Tristan sighed. “Not always, but most the time. A reminder of his expectations and how successful my brothers are in comparison to me.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Prim fought a smile.

Tristan turned to her and his eyes were serious. “I have four brothers, and our entire lives my father has pitted each of us against each other.”

“Isn’t sibling rivalry just part of being in a family? I mean, I don’t have a brother or a sister, but isn’t that just part of life when you do?”

“He used to make us box each other and then reward the first person who drew blood.”

“What? You can’t be serious.” Prim squinted at Tristan. What kind of parent did that to his children?

“Oh, I’m serious. Fun times in the Rhodes household. Where the competitive spirit is king.”

Tristan’s face was now reaching unreadable. The hard, cool facade he used to distance himself closed over his features. She could reach him; she knew how to reach him. Her hands moved down his back and she pressed forward against his body. There was pain hidden in his hard heart. Her lips pressed to his and his kiss burst with a deep heat and unknowable want, and she, again, surrendered to Tristan and his need.