Taking the Score (16 page)

Cherchez la fucking femme.
This shouldn’t have surprised her. Beneath that controlled exterior, a man of inordinate passion reigned. The bitch he had the incompatibility issues with had left him broken.

“I’m not here to use him or take his money. He’s just”—
saving my life one steamy moment at a time
—“a fling.”

“A fling who’s made herself at home.” She waved a hand around the penthouse. “Why are you even here?”

“He wants me here.” Emma shot a blast of titanium into her spine. “While he works me out of his system. There’s no future for us, so don’t worry about Brody’s heart or his wallet. Both are very, very safe.”

She would make sure of it when she removed her toxic presence. She would do what she must to protect Brody from Ray.

Olivia inhaled a deep breath and waited an extra-charged beat, perhaps trying to decide if she should take what Emma said at face value. Then she burst into tears.

Oh. Shit.

Faster than greased lightning, Emma moved in and sat beside Olivia. “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?”

Muttering obscenities under her breath, Olivia fumbled for her purse and ransacked it, then finally upended its contents all over the white sofa. An open lipstick swiped a pink gash across the fabric. More tear-blurred fumbling ensued until she found her target: a tissue. She swiped at her tears.

“My fiancé doesn’t look at me like Brody looks at you. Within twenty seconds of walking into that kitchen I could tell my brother is crazy about you.”

Emma’s heart hitched, but she shut that dumbass piece of machinery down. “He just likes boobies, like all men. It’ll pass. It always does.”

Olivia snorted. “I’d like to have something passionate enough to be at risk of eventually fading. I’m not even sure he—” She blew hard into her tissue.

“Not even sure he what?”

“Well, he’s always so busy. That’s Peter, my fiancé, the congressman. He has to travel a lot to DC and he’s always tired. Hell, I’m tired. This wedding is driving me off a cliff. My parents are divorced and it’s hell on earth when they’re both trying to have it their way.”

Emma squeezed her arm. “It’s your big day, so it should be whatever you want. But maybe there shouldn’t be a big day if you’re having second thoughts. Maybe you should sit down with your fiancé and tell him how you’re feeling.”

Horror crossed her brow. “The Kanes do not tell anyone how they’re feeling, honey. If it’s not about football, big tits, or who’s boppin’ who, the conversation is just not worth having.” That little show of bravado seemed to cheer her up. Straightening, she sniffed, a sound that pronounced the emotional nonsense as behind her. “You know, you’re kind of sweet.”

“For a stripper,” Emma finished her thought.

“For a stripper,” Olivia repeated, just as deadpan as her brother. She winked, and Emma laughed, enjoying this sisterly moment. She really missed Daisy. Regret ached in her chest. Under better circumstances, she suspected she might have gotten along really well with Olivia.

Olivia blinked at the mess on the sofa. “Brody is
not
going to like that. He’s kind of anal about that kind of thing.” She made no move to clear it up, just continued to assess her handiwork, then turned to Emma, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “So, Char, whatcha doin’ Saturday afternoon?”

Chapter Sixteen

Brody stepped into the lounge area on the terrace, belly warm from a couple of scotches, a smile already building at the thought of seeing Emma. She stood at the balcony wall, her face tipped up to the night sky, her hand wrapped around Kevin’s leash. She’d expressed concern that the demon might take a leap over the side, so Brody had bought a leash and a jeweled harness to put her at ease. No doubt Kevin hated that girlie restraint, a notion that pleased Brody immensely.

He was playing mind games with a cat.

“The view of my ass is a lot better close up,” she called out without even looking at him.

“Oh, I dunno. Lookin’ mighty fine from here, Ms. Strickland.”

She turned, a move that took her mighty fine ass out of his vision field, but gave him a whole other vista of gorgeous to feast his eyes on. A light breeze whipped her hair, the city nightscape casting beams of twinkling light in it. She would look amazing on a yacht, in a convertible, on top of his body, milking him dry.

As he walked toward her, she said, “Your sister stopped by.”

“Did she bring a houseplant?”

“No, just a warning about my gold-digging ass.”

“Hell and damn—”

She touched a finger to his lips. “She’s protective of you, and she has every right to be suspicious. Here I am, making myself at home with my cat. She doesn’t know me from Adam.
You
don’t know me from Adam.”

Yet he did. He knew that crease she got between her brows when she was annoyed or worried. That subtle lift at the corner of her luscious mouth when she had a smart-ass comment ready to deliver. He knew the sounds she made when he was inside her and the way her breath quickened when she was in his arms.

He wanted to kill Liv. She knew how much Kerry had hurt him. One minute he was on top of the world—a beautiful fiancée, a kid on the way, his life mapped out—and the next, he was wading in a shit pool created by his dumb naïveté. What he did not appreciate was his sister playing his personal bodyguard, matchmaker, and all-around pain in his ass.

“About my sister, she’s sort of, well, crazy. Overprotective, no filter, and spoiled rotten. She expects everyone to kowtow to her every whim and she also assumes she’s right about everything. The whole stripper thing sort of threw her. She doesn’t meet a lot of people outside her circle.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You mean, like me. Because even though she thinks I’m a stripper, a personal assistant leeching off her boss wouldn’t be much better.”

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks. And you’re not leeching.” He didn’t enjoy the insinuation that he thought like his sister or that Emma still thought she was using him. “You’re the one who went with the stripper persona. You could have said your name was anything but Emma, that you were anyone but my employee. But you chose that. Why?”

Discomfort brushed her features. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Liar.”

“It was…” She tugged on Kevin’s leash, and after drawing him closer, picked him up. Her tell. When she was uncomfortable, she used the cat as a shield. “You ever hear that saying—I think it’s Mark Twain—if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything?”

“You’re not a stripper, Emma. How is that remotely close to your truth?”

“Let’s just say that but for the grace of God, that could have been my life. I’ve worked my ass off to make sure it wasn’t my life, but sometimes it feels like I’m just one paycheck away from a soup kitchen. Or a permanent stripper job. Even now, after all that’s happened in the last few months—working at the club, stripper for a night—I feel I haven’t hit rock bottom yet.”

But she was hovering a few feet off the ground, was the unspoken implication.

“You haven’t. You won’t.” He wouldn’t let her.

Her smile was regal. This woman had such pride, and his heart tightened just thinking of how brave she was. Emma was the kind of woman who would charge hell with a bucket of ice water.

“I know I won’t. But I also know I—well, I have to make some changes. Take control.”

“What kind of changes?” There was that niggle again telling him he had barely scratched the surface of Emma Strickland.

“I found a studio apartment, and I’m going to see it tomorrow.”

Something in her voice sounded off, but he set it aside because this news should have pleased him. Emma and her demon cat would be out of his hair and he could get back to normal.

“Let me guess, some hovel in a bad neighborhood.”

Her pretty brows angled together. “Everything looks like a hovel when you’re living on the sixtieth floor, Brody.”

“Emma, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. It will be okay.” The way she said that, it sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “Olivia said your ex-fiancée hurt you.”

So they were done talking about Emma. Okay, it was quid pro quo and she had peeled back a layer of herself; maybe he owed her a secret or two. Familiar needful things reared up. The need to connect with someone he suspected had undergone her own brand of suffering.

“My ex-fiancée said that I didn’t have it in me to give her what she needed. I was too busy taking what I needed. From her body. From her soul.”

“She sounds like a drama queen.” Beneath the dark veil of her lashes, she studied him, until recognition dawned on her face. “She couldn’t handle you in bed. Didn’t like when you got all bossy.” She pressed a hand to his chest, so small yet he felt trapped by her strength. It was a pleasant sensation.

“Something like that. She said I was selfish. Greedy.”

“It’s a two-way street,” Emma murmured, her words soft, but fierce at once. “Sometimes you have to take what you need and hope the other person can handle the invasion.”

“Invasion?”

“That’s what love is, isn’t it? Families, friends, lovers. It’s an invasion of each other’s space, minds, hearts. Someone’s always jockeying for control. For it to truly work, there has to be equality. Each side has to be strong enough to handle it.”

Invasion. An oddly perfect way to describe it. “Yet again, I ask, who
are
you, Emma Strickland?”

She laughed. “I’m just saying that this invasion can’t end in one person conquering and the other person feeling like they were bashed over the head with the love stick. That’s okay for a while, but eventually both parties have to reach a point of balance.”

She stroked her knuckles along his chin, her touch soothing and inciting at once. This notion of balance meant a great deal to her. Was this why she refused to accept his help, because doing so shifted the balance between them to a point she couldn’t reconcile?

For a few moments, they held each other’s gazes, no shyness or awkwardness. Just looking at each other because the indulgence of it felt right.

“Olivia said your ex moved on to another billionaire,” she prompted. “That it crushed you.”

Destroyed him. “She cheated on me.” He drew a deep breath. “With my father.”

Silence reigned, except for the distant sounds of the city below them and the beat of his heart.

“Wow, what a skank.” Her eyes widened in horrified recognition. “They’re not…they’re not still together, are they?”

He nodded.

“Married?”

Another nod.

“Your former fiancée is now your stepmother?” There was no disguising her disgust.

“Yeah, she swapped me out for the older, richer model. Desperate to have Kane as a last name, but with the wife-of-a-senator tag a
s well. We hadn’t gone public yet with our engagement, so my father’s PR machine was able to keep it out of the press.”

Taut moments passed as she mulled that over. After about twenty seconds, she said, “Brody, I’m sorry. It sounds like this complete bee-yatch was all wrong for you, but that doesn’t make it hurt less.”

A dull ache warred with awareness of the ridiculous soap-opera dramatics of it all. He’d never been close to his father, yet the betrayal still stung like a fingernail scraped over an open wound. And what he’d told Emma wasn’t even the worst of it. He couldn’t share the rest. It was still too raw.

“Emma, I know all about gold diggers. They tell you how crazy they are about you, inflate your ridiculous ego, and promise you that their world would be an abyss without you. You’ve done none of those things, except maybe make me feel like a god when I rip multiple orgasms from you.” He blew out a breath. “I’m not worried about you wanting me for my money. I know you don’t. You’ve had several opportunities to get my help and you chose not to. Either I’m right or you’re working an incredible long game.”

She wanted to let him in—he could see the struggle manifest in her tight expression—but she’d clearly lived an independent life. Relying on herself for everything. Sheer awe at all she must have overcome bloomed in his chest.

“You shouldn’t be so trusting,” she whispered.

“Have I reason to distrust you?”

She chewed on her lip. “I’d never hurt you, Brody. You’ve been nothing but kindness itself.”

“But…” Awareness stole up on him. “Sex has complicated what should have been a favor.”

“Sex always complicates things. Anyone who says different is a liar.” She stepped into him, the cat between them like a fluffy, mean-spirited chaperone. “But complicated with you happens to be what I need right now. I need this. Whatever this is.”

And when she didn’t need it anymore? When she didn’t need him, what then?

She read his mind. “In a couple of days, if this studio works out, we go back to Ms. Strickland and Mr. Kane, and hope that we can still stand to be around each other at the office.”

“What if we can’t stand
not
to be around each other? What if we can’t keep our hands off each other?” He could barely think around her. Returning to before was not going to suddenly clear his mind.

“Doesn’t sound so productive.”

“Oh, I dunno. We produced something great during our time in the home office these last couple of days.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Her frown caught at his heart. She was already distancing herself, bringing the armor back up. Ms. Strickland was ready to make a comeback.

He didn’t want his assistant anymore. He wanted Emma, the real Emma. But for now, he’d play her game and work his way through the puzzle she presented.

…

The heavy-duty walls around Emma’s heart were taking a pounding. What the hell was she doing hinting about her wild past and inviting this man to probe further? Worse, she wanted him to pick at the scabs of her pain and rip them off.

The video Ray had sent popped into her brain for a toxic visit. Given Brody’s history with his ex, he would assume she’d been in on some plan to scam him. Trap him in her greedy crosshairs. Coupled with Olivia’s visit, it added up to
bye-bye, Emma
. She had to escape sooner than later. The only question was how far.

Daisy’s words echoed like spectral taunts in her skull:
we could run.

Emma’s life was buffering. It might well come to a control-alt-delete reboot, because damned if she could think of an alternative. Disappear, suffer bodily injury, or screw Brody over. And because none of those alternatives involved anything more permanent with this man, she’d take what she could and memorize the way he made her feel.

For long moments, they stared at each other in the city-lit dark, its shimmer a ghostly sheen as though their time together was already slipping into the past. Emma could almost imagine that she was somewhere else, someone else. A woman worthy of a good guy like Brody Kane.

He must have recognized some yearning inside her, because he pulled her close to his body. But before he could let loose with something nice, she spoke first.

“Take what you need, Brody.

“If I were to do that, there’d be nothing left of you.”

She sensed every muscle in his hard, strong body straining to retain his control. She felt the seething beast in him, the one she needed inside her now.

I’m not her, that bitch who couldn’t handle you,
she wanted to say. Assure him that she could take everything he had to give because her surrender was power of a kind. “You can fuck me sixty-nine ways from Sunday and I’d still be begging for more.”

His eyes widened, reflected in the light spilling from the penthouse onto the balcony. “Then we have a problem.”

“We do?”

He removed Kevin from her arms, opened the sliding door, and deposited the cat inside. “He’s far too young to see what’s coming next.”

Laughter erupted from her at how cute Brody was with Kevin, but quickly faded at the roughness of his next words.

“On your knees.”

She swallowed. Hard. Without hesitation, she jackknifed to the ground, her knees scraping the hard surface. She didn’t mind—or maybe she did, because she sure appreciated it when he dropped a lounger cushion before her.

“Take my cock out, Emma.”

She rearranged the cushion under her knees and moved her fingers to his belt. A shake started up in her entire body, which was so odd. Nothing should faze her, but Brody’s dominance and his trust that she accepted him for who he was unnerved her. Perhaps he’d see it as an act, the virginal innocent who didn’t know how to handle a man’s equipment.

Or perhaps, he’d see it for what it really was. A wish that she
was
that innocent.

He didn’t assist, just watched, his nostrils flared with desire. Freed from the restraint of his briefs, his hard shaft pulsed in her hands. A two-hander. She was rather in love with this cock of his and how good it made her feel. She took a moment to enjoy the weight of it, the power and pleasure and life it represented.

Her panties dampened, her mouth watered, and a bead of precome at the tip made it three-for-three.

“Oh God,” she moaned. Her eyes flickered upward to see his chest heaving, his mouth slack with desire. He grasped her hair and tugged hard.

“You want it?”

“Yes.”

“Then take it. This belongs to you, baby.”

She ran her tongue along the sensitive vein on the underside, a teasing lick, and then, she took. Swirled her tongue around the swollen head and sucked what was hers. His cock, his essence, all of him. Inch by magnificent inch, she stole down his length, wishing she could take more without gagging. Arousal pulsated through her in an inexorable build.