Love Under Two Honchos (10 page)

69

“Yes, yes!” She begged, and didn’t care that she did. She craved, her hands reaching out, grasping as if they could reach the pinnacle, as if she could grab her orgasm and yank it home.

Alex moved closer, took her hand and wrapped it around his cock.

“Touch me. Stroke me. Let’s come together, this way, this time.”

Penelope stroked his cock, urging him closer. When both men understood what she wanted, they moved her, just a little—just enough.

She opened her mouth, took Alex’s cock inside it, and relished the heat and the saltiness and that essence that was pure Alex. She’d never loved this the way she did now. Just one more mystery summed up in two words. Why them? Why had she become so turned on by them, when no one else had managed to do so? What was it about them that made it oh, so natural to just let go and feel?

Penelope simply let go of her thoughts, allowed herself to become a woman of sensation, a sensuous woman, a woman who gave and took pleasure. The men groaned and moaned, inhaled sharply and whispered dark, sexy words that drew her even higher. So close, she sucked and swirled and raised her hips, clenching inner muscles and then sucking hard.

“Oh, sweetheart, yes.” Alex bent over her slightly and began to rock his hips, his body trembling the way she knew it did when he reached the verge of climax. Josh thrust harder and faster, his hands gripping her ass tighter. Penelope whimpered, needing just that little bit more.

Alex reached down and palmed one breast, pinching her nipple between his thumb and finger, and Josh found her clit and rubbed it fast and lightly, and she went over the edge.

Waves of pleasure washed through her, her own, theirs, in an orgasm so sharp, so sweet, she could only swallow and feel. Thrilling, electric, Penelope wanted to cling to it, to ride it and revel in it and keep it close.

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Cara Covington

Slowly, oh, so slowly, she came down, came back. Alex eased away from her and then bent down and kissed her, a soft and gentle kiss of thanks.

Josh practically collapsed on her, struggling for breath, but he, too, soon pulled out, carefully. They helped her off the desk and then helped her to dress. Penelope realized that her hair had come down partially.

“Can you fix it?” Alex asked. He looked sheepish, likely because he’d been the one to mess it up.

“Yeah.” She used mostly a clip and a few pins and had the knack of fixing her hair down to a science. Then she practically fell onto the sofa. The furniture was deep and comfy. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes and tried to claw back her equilibrium.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Josh sat beside her on her right and picked up her hand. Alex sat on her left and stroked her leg.

“I’m fine. Wonderful. I just wish I could show a little more restraint when I’m around the two of you.”

Josh’s laugh didn’t sound full of humor. “Believe me, you’re not the only one. Recent evidence to the contrary, Alex and I are
not
sex maniacs.” He paused for a moment, and then said, “You’re the first woman we’ve ever taken here.”

Penelope opened her eyes. “I think we need to avoid being alone together in private.”

“From now on?” Alex sounded so appalled that Penelope laughed.

“Well, certainly at least during the business day,” she said, “while we’re here, at the office.”

“Agreed.” Josh exhaled. “We still don’t like the idea you could be in danger because someone has a hard-on for oil companies in general, and ours in particular, at the moment.”

“I’m not crazy about that myself. But I agreed with what you said in the meeting. I do believe if you give in to the fear, if you change how you live, how you operate, then you are letting those who threaten, win.”

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“Damn it.” Alex got to his feet. “At least consider some precautionary measures.”

“I’m not an unreasonable woman. What kind of measures did you have in mind?”

“Avoid going anywhere alone, for one thing. We have good security here on the premises. I’m going to order Mitch to assign someone to the parking garage at the Towers. It would be difficult for anyone to get in there and mess with your car, but not impossible.”

Penelope shivered. She’d never before needed to consider such a horrific prospect. She really couldn’t wrap her head around the possibility that she could be a target, just for doing a job. But because her lovers thought it could be so, and they seemed so worried, she’d be as cooperative as possible in order to ease their fears.

“Do you really think I’m in danger? Seriously, this could cause me a lot of grief. I was planning on visiting sites, and doing that soon.

I’d wanted to take Andrew with me, because he did work for a school term for the Department of the Interior, and he knows how to take soil and water samples.”

She wondered what the brothers were thinking when they looked at each other in just that way.

“About this Andrew ‘Wild-man’ Wildes,” Josh said.

Penelope laughed. She’d only known the young man for a few hours, but the idea that anyone would call Andrew “Wild-man” just seemed totally silly.

When she noticed that both of her lovers stared at her in a way she bet they thought intimidating, she swallowed the rest of her laughter and said, “Yes? What about my admin?”

“What do you know about him, exactly? The two of you looked awfully cozy just before the meeting started. You can’t just get all up close and personal with someone you’ve just met, you know.” Josh’s earnest expression told her he was quite serious. For his part, Alex nodded his agreement.

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Cara Covington

Good lord, were they jealous? She’d certainly meant to give these two a bit of a snub earlier as payback for their early-morning attitudes, but she hadn’t intended to make them jealous.

“I actually know quite a bit about him, but the most important thing I know is that Stella recommended him for the position as my admin.”

She could have gone on to say they were ones to talk about not getting up close and personal on short acquaintance, but figured that would just boomerang back on herself.

Josh and Alex both sighed. The Stella factor seemed to calm them both, considerably.

“Why don’t I order up some lunch for us from the restaurant downstairs?” Alex said.

Penelope shook her head. “Let’s go downstairs to the restaurant, instead. That way we won’t be tempted to indulge in a second helping of booty.”

“Good plan,” Josh said.

“Speaking of plans, do you have any for tonight?” Alex asked.

“No, I’ve no plans.” Penelope sat straighter, preparing to get up and get moving.

“You do now,” Josh said.

“We’ll be over at six. We’ll bring wine,” Alex said.

She could hardly equivocate about their high-handedness when she wanted them to come over. She wanted more of them. This attraction seemed too hot, too fast, to not burn out soon. Until it did, Penelope intended to grab all the heat she could.

She had a feeling that what she shared with Josh and Alex really was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

“Bring food, too.” Penelope headed for the door. “We’re going to need to keep up our strength.”

Love Under Two Honchos

73

Chapter 9

“You’ve certainly hit the ground running,” Caleb Benedict said from the doorway.

Penelope looked up from her desk and grinned, returning the older man’s smile. The senior Benedict had just popped his head into her open office.

“Couldn’t see any reason not to,” she said.

Caleb came into her office and sat in one of the chairs facing her desk. Then, because this was Kate’s son, she said, “I need to speak to your mother. I wasn’t expecting to be put up in a penthouse apartment, free of charge, nor given a Jaguar to drive. That’s way too generous. The salary the Town Trust is paying me is a really good one as it is.”

Caleb waved his hand. “It’s not as if we went out and purchased those things for you, Penelope. The penthouse is there, anyway, and one of the ones family uses from time to time. It sits empty more often than not. The same with the car. Mother just wanted to be sure you were well looked after. She counted your Gran as one of her best friends. I know she misses her.”

Penelope felt a wave of sadness, as she always did when she thought about the passing, earlier that year, of the woman who, for the most part, had raised her.

“I miss her, too. And I think Gran loved her just as much in return.

They would stay up chatting until all hours of the morning whenever Grandma Kate came to visit.”

Since he
was
here, she said, “Mr. Benedict, I was wondering about something.”

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Cara Covington

“Just call me Caleb,” he said congenially.

Penelope nodded. “Caleb, then. I only had a quick look at that map hanging in the boardroom this morning. Could I get another look at it?”

“Of course you can. Come with me. We used to have it hanging in the museum, but then Mother thought it belonged here, so we moved it.”

He led her to the conference room they’d used just that morning.

The map hung behind the head of the table, the seat Caleb had occupied earlier.

From the glance she’d had of it earlier, she’d thought the map was old. In the bottom corner, the date it had been drawn appeared in fancy script and read
1893
.

“The original Town Trust—that would be Caleb, Joshua, and Sarah Benedict, along with Adam Kendall, Warren Jessop, and Amanda Jessop-Kendall—commissioned the creation of this map.

Apparently, shortly after Sarah inherited the estate of Tyrone Maddox, they discovered he’d acquired a lot of land, not just in Texas, but in Arkansas and Missouri, too, speculating on a commodity that at the time wasn’t in very high demand—oil.”

“Grandma Kate began to tell me stories about your family from the first time I met her, when I first came to live with my Gran when I was ten.”

Caleb raised one eyebrow. “Mother doesn’t usually share family tales with people she doesn’t know that well. And I can’t say I’ve ever heard of her telling the stories to children before.”

“I think she wanted to make me feel better, less afraid.” Penelope didn’t often confide the details of her life. It seemed Josh and Alex weren’t the only Benedicts to affect her as no others had. This Benedict had an unusual effect on her, too. He made her feel completely at ease and very loquacious. He felt very—well,
fatherly
.

“I’d just traveled across the ocean on my own to live with a grandmother I’d never met. I was ten, as I said, and feeling very
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75

afraid and frightened. And angry, you see, because my mother had decided she didn’t want me anymore. Kate was there when I arrived—rather unexpectedly, at that. Gran took me in, of course. And Kate told me stories about Sarah Benedict, a young woman who, a century before, had been sold into marriage by her father, to a man who turned out to be a villain. I guess she wanted me to know that life could take a bad turn, yet still turn out for the best in the end.”

“That’s Mother,” Caleb said. He pointed to the map. “Since you do know so much of our family history, I can tell you that while the original Town Trust was trying to decide what to do with some of that land, the use of petroleum oil became more prevalent. So the decision was made to hang on to it, just in case, and to drill that first well.” He grinned at her. “A decision we all thank them for.”

Penelope understood. While the Benedicts had made their mark as landowners and ranchers when it all began back in the late 1800s, the present day Benedicts could attribute oil as the source of most of their wealth.

“So this is the original family-owned land.”

“Yes, all the tracts shaded in yellow belonged to either Benedicts or Jessop-Kendalls.”

Penelope looked at the map that depicted Central Texas, stretching up into Oklahoma—although it hadn’t been a state when the map had been drawn. It had just become the Oklahoma territory, after having been known as Indian Territory for a number of years.

Words caught her attention, and she moved closer, squinting to get a better look. “It says here, Tahlequah gold deposit, number one.”

She put her finger under the words. And then she found another notation. “And deposit number two.”

“It does,” Caleb confirmed.

“There was no gold mined in this area. The geology doesn’t favor gold deposits.”

Caleb gave her a very slight smile. “It doesn’t say gold
mine
. It says gold
deposit
.”

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Cara Covington

She looked from him to the map. “You mean to tell me someone stored gold there?” She double-checked the date on the map. “Why?

Owning gold wasn’t illegal in this country until nineteen thirty-three.”

Caleb said, “Mother didn’t tell you the story about Amanda Dupree and what really brought her from Richmond, Virginia to Texas in the first place?”

Penelope searched her memory. “She came to visit her cousin Sarah and ended up falling in love with Adam and Warren, one a Texas Ranger, the other a lawyer, and staying here. Didn’t she?”

“Well, certainly. But there was more to the story than that.”

Penelope folded her arms across her chest and said, “You’re not going to leave it at that, are you?”

“I’ll tell you what. Let’s go grab a cup of coffee downstairs, and I’ll tell you a story about a woman ahead of her time, a famous gunslinger, and some lost Confederate gold.”

Penelope grinned. “I could use some coffee right about now.”

* * * *

Josh looked up when Alex opened the door to his office. He nodded then got up from behind his desk. This private meeting was taking place later than originally scheduled, in part due to their lunch hour being otherwise so wonderfully occupied.

Thinking about that lunch hour now and the approaching dinner hour that promised to be just as exciting, Josh wanted to rush through this meeting in record time.

He needed to settle himself down. The Legacy Project was an important undertaking, and he needed to give it all due consideration.