The Billionaire's Impulsive Lover (The Sisterhood) (9 page)

She glared back up at him angrily. Pushing his hand away, she stepped back and shook her head. “You don’t know what I feel for Gary.”

“How about explaining it, then.”

She watched him, wondering if he were serious or if he just wanted more ammunition to tease her or tell her that her feelings weren’t genuine. When she saw none of that reflected in his eyes, she relented. “Gary makes me feel like I’m more than just a pair of walking boobs,” she finally said. She was going to leave it at that, assuming he understood what she’d just said, but the confusion on his face contradicted her assumption so she continued. “He sees me as something more than just a toy. He’s a friend who talks to me. He keeps his hands to himself when we go out to dinner. And afterwards,” she said when he was about to say something. “He doesn’t push himself on me and make me constantly say no throughout the evening.”

His grin made her furious. “I don’t know what’s so funny about a man being a gentleman around me. It’s rare, but it’s also very nice!”

He took a step closer, careful not to appear as if there was too much going on between them since they were standing in the courtyard of the company. “Gary is gay,” Mitch said with a satisfied look about him.

Claire didn’t like that at all. “How dare you say that just because he’s kind and considerate.”

Mitch was already shaking his head. “Honey, I have news for you. A man who doesn’t make a pass at a woman, especially when he’s been on several dates with her, is gay.”

“You’re just being obnoxious.”

He rolled his eyes. “Claire, have you taken a look in the mirror lately?”

“Of course. What’s your point?”

He chuckled at her stubborn, but completely honest and immune features that were lovely when taken apart, but together, along with her knockout figure, were amazing. “Put succinctly, you’re every teenage boy’s walking wet dream.”

The grimace on her face told him exactly what she thought of that assessment. “That’s crude and disgusting.”

He laughed softly and shook his head. “That’s reality. You’ve gotten to my head as well so that I can barely think in meetings, I dream about having sex with you almost every night, and I get hard just watching you walk down the hallway.”

With any other man, she would have walked away at the previous comment. But hearing him say those things about her made her tummy flutter and her heart beat race madly.

“You’re being ridiculous. I don’t have that big of an impact on anyone,” she said breathily.

To prove his point, he grabbed her arm and pulled her deeper into the tree coverage. When he felt they were deep enough, he pulled her hand towards him, showing her exactly what impact she had on his being.

Claire was in complete shock. She’d felt men before, usually on her leg or stomach when she was trying to push them off of her. But there were two things about this experience that shocked her. First, she couldn’t believe how large he was. Although she was just feeling him through his slacks, he still felt very, very large to her untutored hand. And secondly, she wasn’t sure if this was more or less important, she didn’t want to take her hand away. She wanted to feel more of him, to explore, touch. Even taste him.

“I can see that you’re in the same situation I am,” he said and Claire suddenly realized that she hadn’t taken her hand away. In fact, his erection had even grown while her hand hesitated.

Pulling back abruptly, she turned away, hoping he wouldn’t see her blush.

“So here’s what we’re going to do.”

Claire shook her head. “We’re not going to do anything. I’m going to go back to work and you’re going to…go for one of your long runs and we’re going to forget about this so I won’t hurt Gary’s feelings by betraying him in such a manner.” She knew she sounded prim and prudish, but Mitch’s earthy acceptance of his sexuality was throwing her off.

“Don’t interrupt.”

Of course, Claire immediately started to do just that, but the look in his eyes, daring her to interrupt him once again, stopped her cold.

“We’re going to find Gary. The two of us. No matter where the trail leads us, we’re going to find this amazing example of gentlemanliness. Once we do, you’re going to ask him if he’s gay. When he confirms it, we’re then going to proceed to my bedroom and I’m going to make love to you until we work this out of our system. Understood?”

She glared up at him, seeming to be a constant state of anger and frustration when she was around him. “I understand that you’re finally going to help me find Gary, but the rest is definitely not going to happen.”

He watched her fired up expression and smiled. “We’ll see.” He stepped back and indicated she should precede him back into the building. “Tell me what you know about this guy. Start from the beginning.”

Claire followed him into the elevator, telling him everything she knew about him, or at least everything she assumed to know about the man she’d dated for two months. As she listed the information, she realized that she didn’t really know a whole lot about him. And the things she knew, weren’t very important. She knew he loved Italian food but wasn’t a huge fan of hamburger joints, preferred red wine over white, he loved to watch the late comedian shows but she had the impression he rarely got to view the shows at the normal time period. She wasn’t sure why, but she suspected that he recorded the shows and watched them at different times but couldn’t remember any specific reason why she thought of that detail. She also knew that he rarely wore anything other than slacks, was quick to laugh and was a wonderful listener.

“Is that it?” he asked as they stepped back through his office doors. He hesitated beside his assistant’s desk to say, “Could you cancel all of my appointments for the next few days? I’ll be out of the office helping Claire with a situation.” Turning back to her, he said, “Tell me why you thought he worked here,” and closed the door behind the two of them.

Sitting at his desk, he tapped out several pieces of information on his computer as Mitch continued to interrogate her about Gary’s favorite color, what he liked to eat, his favorite restaurants or where they had gone out to eat, where he would meet her for dates or if he picked her up, the times he would agree to meet her versus the times he called to make arrangements or just to talk. All of the information seemed very arbitrary until he turned one of the monitors around and showed her a map of the areas she’d mentioned. The map showed a very distinct radius, indicating a possible time table where Gary might work and live in order to reach his workplace, his home and the various places they would meet for outings. She was so impressed with his deductions that she simply stared for a long moment, wishing she’d thought to do this kind of mapping.

Mitch interrupted her thought, asking, “Brothers? Sisters? Where was he born?”

Claire sat on the edge of a black leather chair that was facing his desk and bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

“Are his parents alive?”

She sighed. “I don’t know that either.”

“What did you talk about?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Stuff,” was all she could come up with. “I can’t remember the details too much but he was just nice and fun to talk to.”

“In other words, you did all the talking,” he said with an overbearing masculine acceptance that women were chatterboxes.

“No! Just the opposite in fact. And I resent that misogynistic attitude of yours.”

He turned from his computer and leered. “I don’t hate women. In fact, I love women. Which is exactly why I’m helping you find this idiot so you can forget him and I can get you on your back where I want you. All to myself.”

“That’s not…”

“Don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep. That you don’t even want to keep, Claire,” he admonished, then turned back to his computer.

“Where did you meet him?” he asked. And for the next hour, he asked her questions and she concentrated carefully to answer them as fully as she could, understanding better where his questions were leading. But it was embarrassing that she knew so little about the man she claimed to want to find and had a real connection with.

By mid-afternoon, he stood up and came back around the desk to pick up some papers he’d printed out. “Okay, let’s go,” he said and took her hand to pull her out of the chair. He lifted her so quickly, that she flew out of the seat, falling against his hard body where he immediately wrapped his free arm around her back, his mouth descending for a quick, hard kiss. Before she could respond, or even protest, he released her and was guiding her out of his office, one hand on the small of her back, the other grabbing his jacket, tossing it over her shoulders.

“Allison, I’m going out. Any issues with the cancellations?” he asked.

“Some objections, but I handled it all.”

“You’re a wonder,” he said and winked as he left her office area, pulling Claire along behind him.

Claire had to hurry to keep up with his longer legs but she didn’t mind. The rush helped her mind to focus on something other than the heat coming from his hand touching her back. “You didn’t have to cancel your meetings. Why don’t you just give me whatever information you’ve found and I’ll follow up on the leads tonight once I’m off work.”

“Because I don’t trust you.” He pressed the elevator button and turned to watch her reaction. He loved watching her back get all stiff and her eyes shoot fire at him. He thought she was especially sexy when she was angry and it made him hot to know he could get that kind of a reaction out of her. One of many reactions he liked.

“That’s a horrible thing to say!”

He laughed softly. “Claire, you’ve broken into my house, convinced my dog that you’re friendly and hacked into my company’s computer system. Would you trust yourself after all that?”

Claire thought about it from his viewpoint and conceded. “Okay, you have a valid point. But I haven’t done anything since I’ve been working here.”

“Except break into my house the other night. Which I didn’t mind, as you well know.”

“You didn’t mind because you knew I was coming!” she grumbled. “And you still haven’t explained how you knew. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?”

“Yes.”

She fumed for all of five seconds, trying desperately hard to hold her tongue. But she was just too furious to stop herself. “And besides me breaking in, I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve been the model employee, getting good results on the project you assigned me to.”

He chuckled. “I know.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?” she demanded. “Have you been spying on me?”

The elevator doors opened up and he nudged her out through the lobby and parking lot, stopping at a grey, sexy, low slung Jaguar convertible. “I know you haven’t done anything illegal or unethical since arriving here, besides breaking into my house, because you’ve been too busy on that project. It was a difficult concept to take on and from what I’ve heard, you’ve contributed some great work to the effort. And yes, I’ve been keeping tabs on you. What good security expert wouldn’t, with your background? One of the major benefits of you working for me is your brilliance at computer programming but it has the added benefit of keeping the devil’s hands busy.”

“You think you’re so smart but…”

He rolled his eyes at her continued arguing, then looked down at her furious face, obviously striving for patience. “Claire, if you don’t get into the car right now, I’m going to kiss you right in this parking lot. The entire building probably noticed us leaving and are right now staring out of every window of every floor. And anyone on the back will hear about anything that happens between us in the next ten seconds. So if you don’t want it known around the building that your seeing me, I’d suggest that you duck your head into the car and shut up.”

Claire’s eyes snapped to the building, then back to his before she mutinously ducked into the vehicle. She slapped the seat belt into place while he walked around the hood of the car but crossed her arms over her chest before he got in next to her.

“I don’t know where you think we’re going. I gave you a lot of information but none of it makes any sense. You’re not going to find him on the piddly information I gave you earlier in your office.”

He started the engine while saying, “We’ll see.”

They drove for about thirty minutes, Claire sniping at him that he had no idea where he was going, Mitch just ignoring her and continued in the same direction. When he finally pulled into a parking lot, she looked up to see they were in front of an Italian restaurant.

“Come on,” he said and picked up the papers while he exited the car himself.

Claire unbuckled her seat belt and was about to open the door but Mitch was already around the car and opening it for her.

She glanced up at him, wondering how such a large man could move so quickly. She could have sworn he was just getting out of the vehicle when she unlatched her seat belt.

“Why are we here?” she asked, her curiosity over his investigative skills overriding her anger at his earlier comments, which were not completely forgotten.