The Exhibition (An Executive Decision Trilogy) (11 page)

She nodded.

For a second, he held her gaze. ‘I mean it, Stacie. My house. We need to talk.’ Then he moved to the Jeep like he was going to a fire.

By the time she had the Lexus on the move, he was following close behind. With the rain and the mist, that was now descending like a thick blanket, she could barely make out his headlights in the dusk. When they were back on the forest service road and almost to the highway, Harris’ Jeep passed her, and he took over the lead.

His house really wasn’t very far. She had been there before, to attend the cookout Harris had held as an engagement party for Dee and Ellis, but the sight of the split-level log cabin set against the iron-grey mirror of the lake still took her breath away. Even in bad weather, it was beautiful.

She barely managed to shut off the engine before Harris opened her door and half helped, half dragged her out. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine. I’m fine, just wet and muddy. That’s all.’

For a second, he stood staring at her, then huffed out a tight breath. ‘You scared the hell out of me, you know?’ To her surprise, he didn’t seem particularly angry, but there was something else in his voice, something equally edgy. Before she could consider what that might be, he continued. ‘Come on, let’s get out of the weather and find you some dry clothes. How did you know about that place?’ he asked as he unlocked the door and ushered her into a screened-in porch.

‘I’ve known about it for a long time, before it was logged.’ That was all she dared say for fear of the emotions that the place stirred.

‘Listen, I know you said you wanted to watch me work, but that place … Stacie really, that place isn’t even safe. It’s like hell on earth.’

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘It’s not among the places you photographed.’

‘No, it’s not. For a long time the land was posted and even when it wasn’t any more, I just couldn’t bring myself to go there.’

‘And I forced the issue,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

For a long moment, he stood with his lips pressed in a tight, thin line as though whatever was on his mind, he was choosing his words carefully. At last he spoke. ‘I don’t like those kinds of shoots, Stacie. I do them because I think they’re important, I think people need to know what’s happening to the world. But I don’t like them. They’re … hard.’ Before she could respond, he said, ‘Never mind that. You shouldn’t have gone out there alone. Even in good weather you should have at least let someone know where you were. That whole hillside could have come down on you and no one would have ever known.’ The way he emphasized the word
ever
with a hard slam of the screen door made her consider, for the first time, that he had really been worried about her.

‘I did tell someone,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

‘And if I hadn’t come, what would you have done, spent the night in the Lexus? Assuming it hadn’t gotten washed off the mountain.’

‘Something like that.’ Stacie still couldn’t get her mind around the fact Harris Walker had come to her rescue. ‘I’ve got pictures.’ She pulled the BlackBerry from her pocket and would have dropped it if Harris hadn’t caught it mid-flight and laid it on a low chest next to a forest green bench that sat against the wall.

‘You can show me when you’re warm and dry,’ he said. Then he pushed her hands away, unzipped her Columbia, and slid it off her shoulders. The act felt strangely intimate; and Stacie was surprised by the resulting tremors low in her belly. ‘You’re worn out,’ he said. The irritation rose in his voice. ‘What were you thinking?’ He slid her waterproof trousers down over her hips and eased her back onto the bench.

She knew he wouldn’t like her answer even if she were willing to tell him, so she said nothing, only leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes as he moved to unlace her boots. ‘Well, at least you know how to dress for the great outdoors. Guess you’re not as much of a city girl as I thought.’

‘I wasn’t raised in the city. I’ve been on more than my share of camp-outs and hikes in the mountains, and in conditions way harsher than these, so don’t get snooty with me, Mr. Walker.’

After he’d removed her boots and muddy socks, he eased the waterproofs off over her bare feet, exposing her legs from under her walking shorts. Then he turned his attention to her injured knee.

‘It’s just an abrasion,’ she said, trying to pull away from him. ‘It’s nothing, really. I’m all right.’

But he held her calf in a firm grip, pulling a first aid kit from the drawer of a small chest. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. It’s bleeding still, and if it’s a puncture, what with all the tree limbs and debris up there – well, you don’t need it to get infected. Plus, it looks like you’ll be sporting one helluva bruise.’

His hands were strong and competent. She recalled he was certified in first aid. Using a gauze pad and something from a bottle that stung like hell, Harris cleaned the wound.

She flinched and sucked air between her teeth.

‘Hold still, you big baby,’ he said. His voice was soft, but she was pretty sure there was a smirk hidden in there somewhere.

Before she could tell him to fuck off, he continued, ‘Why were you so anxious to get the Lexus off the mountain? I mean, granted it’s a nice car, but if you were concerned about that you wouldn’t have taken it up there in the first place.’ She felt his hard stare, as though he had temporarily forgotten about her wound. ‘Why were you up there to begin with, Stacie? That’s definitely not an artsy place.’

‘Because I thought it might be a site we could use for a photo shoot if you decide to exhibit with me,’ she lied. ‘You know, so I can see you work.’

‘Jesus, Stacie, first you nearly get us arrested at The Boiling Point and now you want us to risk life and limb in a mud slide. Is this your way of getting even with me for being rude? Because I have to say it’s a good one.’

She twisted enough in her seat that she could reach her BlackBerry and, with a flick of her finger, she pulled up the picture of the dead rodent, and shoved the device into his hand. The response was exactly what she had hoped for. She could tell from the look on his face, from the catch in his breath, from the concentration knitting his brow that he was intrigued. And that’s exactly how she wanted him. What she didn’t want was him giving her the third degree.

‘These are gruesome,’ he said. She saw the line of his jaw tightening just beneath his closely trimmed beard. ‘Seriously, Stacie, this is not a nice place. You shouldn’t have been there.’

‘It’s too late now, isn’t it? I have been. So will you allow me to exhibit your work for the opening of New World Gallery West?’

She hadn’t intended to be so blunt. She had a reputation for being a patient woman, but there was no denying he would think what she had seen today, what she had done, was done with him in mind, and it was best to use it that way.

He looked at her over the top of her BlackBerry, cocked his head slightly to one side as though he had never seen anything like her before, and simply said, ‘Yes. I will. I would have done even without these.’ He nodded down to the BlackBerry.

Just like that, after all her thwarted efforts, she had her main exhibitor, with no protest, no conditions, no argument. Just a yes. For a second, the overwhelming sense of relief bled into the exhaustion and the impact of what she had seen, and she closed her eyes and slumped back against the wall. ‘Thank you,’ she half whispered. ‘Thank you, Mr. Walker.’

Laying the device aside, he continued ministering to her knee. ‘You’re welcome, Ms. Emerson. Look through the images on my website. Tell me which ones you want, and they’re yours to use. After I’ve done an Armageddon Shoot, I don’t like to revisit the photos. Once is way more than enough.’ Then he offered her a quirk of a smile and a quick sideways glance from under hair that was still damp and curled slightly from the rain, hair that could have used a trim, but Stacie decided he looked better for the lack of it. ‘Are police raids and mud slides going to be a regular part of our business association? Because if so, I’d like to plan accordingly.’

‘I’m not making any promises,’ she replied.

His face darkened. He continued to work on her knee, gently bandaging it with what she was certain was way more care than it demanded – not that she minded. His touch was comforting.

‘Stacie, about last night …’

She reached down and touched his hand. ‘Harris, it’s all right. It was one of those things. Nothing went according to plan for any of us. Let’s just forget it and start with a clean slate, OK?’

He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. For a second, he said nothing, then he nodded slowly. ‘You’re right, of course. Start with a clean slate.’

Then he went back to binding her knee like a man on a mission. 

Chapter Fourteen

Harris woke with a hard-on. Hell, he’d gone to sleep with a hard-on – when he’d finally managed to get to sleep. He hadn’t taken care of it because he was a neurotic bastard, he supposed. What the hell? Was he afraid Stacie would hear him jerking off? After all, she was the cause of his uncomfortable state, and he didn’t want her to know that, did he? They were going to let bygones be bygones and start again with a clean slate, he reminded himself. A clean slate didn’t involve having sex with the woman he’d soon be working with. It didn’t! And it irritated the hell out of him that though his brain completely understood all the reasons why sex with Stacie Emerson was a bad idea, his body didn’t care, and especially not when the woman was asleep in the next room.

The house was quiet. In fact, everything was quiet. The storm had passed, as had been predicted. For a second, he held his breath and listened, straining to hear any evidence that would suggest his guest might also be awake at this hour. But then he figured even if she were, she’d be trying to keep from waking him.

He had found a pair of Dee’s sweats and a T-shirt that she left for the overnighters the Three Musketeers had from time to time, and once Stacie was out of a hot bath and dressed, he had fed her his mother’s tomato soup. She always brought it over from the valley, made fresh from her home-grown tomatoes and ready for his freezer. All he had to do was nuke it in the microwave. He’d rummaged in the cupboard for some saltine crackers that weren’t past their sell-by date, and the two had eaten at the breakfast bar. Even with all Stacie’s contagious enthusiasm for the upcoming exhibition, he could tell she was exhausted and that her experience of the clear-cut had shaken her deeply. He had no doubt it would have shaken anyone, but he couldn’t imagine how it must feel for someone who had fond memories of the place before it became another Jamison statistic. Among the green folks in the Northwest, of which there were many, the place had become known as Jamison Hill. He had bought the timber rights and, in a move that was only just barely legal, sold them to a company that had been notorious for particularly ruthless clear-cutting. Before anyone knew what was happening, the place had been turned into a wasteland.

It made Harris extremely nervous being around anything that had Terrance Jamison’s stamp on it, and Stacie’s refusal to leave the Lexus on the mountain made him even more so. He made a mental note to get Cal over at
Wilderness Vanguard
to do a little more research on the clear-cut just in case there was something he didn’t know, something he’d missed.

As much as the exhibition intrigued Harris, he had a shitload of questions that had nothing to do with art or photography. Stacie had done her best to hide it from him, but either she wasn’t a very good liar, which he figured was probably the case, or he was pretty intuitive, which was also pretty much the case. There were things she wasn’t telling him. Why the hell had she gone to that awful place on her own? She wasn’t stupid. Why would anyone with memories of what the place had been like before want to see it like it was now? Why had she really been so hell-bent on getting her car off the mountain? And why had she reacted like she did when she first saw him? Clearly she was expecting someone else, and whoever it was, she wasn’t glad to see them. In fact, it was safe to say she had been flat-out terrified. That certainly wasn’t like the Stacie Emerson he knew. If her behavior had anything to do with Jamison, he could completely understand why she was frightened.

Harris tossed between the covers, shoving at the pillow. Thinking about the clear-cut and the danger in which Stacie had put herself definitely took the edge off his arousal. It chilled him to think what could have happened. And that was only what he knew nature could have thrown at her. Add to that whatever Stacie was afraid of, and he shuddered to think. The room felt stuffy and close. Because he seldom spent time inside when he could be out, he kept as many of the windows and doors open as he could when he was home. He’d only closed his bedroom window to keep the deluge from blowing in.

He shoved back the blankets and crawled out of bed, nearly tripping over his discarded jeans. He bit back a curse, then moved to open the window and let some real air in. The sky was clear and the stars now reflected off the obsidian surface of the water. The sliver of the waxing moon looked as though it were floating suspended there. He threw open the window, and, for a second, he stood just breathing in the cool, rain-washed air. He was about to grab the camera he kept handy to take a few night shots, then the hard-on was back with a vengeance.

Below him on the dock, wrapped in a blanket, stood Stacie, looking out over the water. And in spite of his body’s overwhelming desire for her, he felt something other than lust stirring, something that had been easing its way into his brain ever since he’d made such a fool of himself the other night at Ellis’ place. It was respect. This woman was completely at home in New York City. No one could deny Stacie Emerson was polished to a cosmopolitan sheen. And yet the passing of a storm would draw her outside to see the world without city lights, to listen to the quiet, all the layers of quiet that were practically their own symphony outside on Harris’ lake.

Almost before he knew what he was doing, he’d slipped into his jeans and moved quickly on silent feet down the stairs and through the darkened house to where the French doors led to the decked balcony and then down to the dock. But just before he reached her, she dropped the blanket, and he was afforded an exquisite, if all too brief view of Stacie’s long legs, rounded buttocks and the slender curve of her back, rendered porcelain-pale in the diminished light. Then she stepped off the dock into the lapping water.

Once again, he reacted without thinking, quickly stepping out of the jeans and leaping off the end of the dock with a splash, which resulted in a squeal of surprise and a mad swirling of the water from Stacie.

‘It’s me,’ he managed before swallowing a good-sized mouthful of the lake as he lunged to touch her arm reassuringly. But her panicked flailing dragged them both beneath the surface. For a second, he felt his own panic rising as he desperately tread water, one of his shins brushing the mooring of the dock. Then they both surfaced, coughing and sputtering. ‘Stacie! Stacie, it’s me,’ he said. She clung to him, shivering. ‘Are you all right?’ He slipped his arms around her hips for support.

He could feel more than see her nodded response. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t mean to drown you. I woke and the storm was finished and the stars were just so beautiful over the lake. I couldn’t resist. Sorry I disturbed you.’

His embarrassed laugh forced his belly and other parts of him into her delicious, totally naked, personal space. ‘You didn’t disturb me. I think if anything it’s the other way around. I interrupted your communing with nature, which is almost an unforgiveable sin in my world.’

He felt her breasts pressed hard-nippled against his chest in her own little laugh. ‘It isn’t necessarily a given that I wouldn’t welcome your interruption, that I wouldn’t want to share the pleasure with someone who appreciates it as much as I do.’ In her efforts to tread water, she kicked him in the thigh, but before she could apologize, he kissed her and felt her breath catch as he trapped her leg, sliding it around his waist.

‘Harris,’ she breathed his name. ‘We can’t –’ But he stopped her words with another kiss and lifted the other leg so that both her thighs gripped him around his waist, his hands supporting her bottom, his legs treading to keep them both afloat.

‘Sh! Stacie,’ he whispered against her throat. ‘Sh.’

‘We talked about a clean slate. We said we’d –’

‘Maybe I don’t want a clean slate.’ He kissed her harder. To his delight, she responded in kind, curling her fingers in his wet hair and eating at his mouth. ‘Maybe I like our slate just the way it is. What do you think of that?’

And then he heaved her up onto the floating dock, causing her to gasp and mumble a protest that ended in a little whimper as he pulled her close to the edge, shoving her legs open until his mouth could find the warm, wet depth of her, open and inviting. His tongue made an ice-cream-lick of a path up the soft, moist valley of her that yielded and tensed and yielded again to his mouth. The flavor of her was honeyed and dark and better than anything he’d ever tasted. He held her, squirming and writhing, him licking and sucking all the way up to the apex of her where he settled a heavy, hungry kiss that ended in a nip to her clit. She bucked against him and trembled all over as she tugged at his hair.

His senses were filled with Stacie, the taste of her, the scent of her, the overwhelming presence of her. It was the play of a cool breeze goosefleshing his back that made him aware her shivering wasn’t entirely due to his sexual prowess. With some reluctance, he pulled himself away from his explorations and heaved himself onto the dock. She did her part to drag him up next to her, then, with both of them shivering in the cool air, she hauled her blanket over them like a tent, with him still scrambling to get another taste of her. But she wriggled and squirmed and twisted, elbowing him in the tender part of the inside of his arm before she settled and shifted so that he could feel her warm breath against his pubic hair just before she cupped his balls and took his erection deep into her mouth.

‘Oh God, Stacie,’ he managed to gasp before he pillowed his head on her wet thigh and opened her legs to find his way back to her. At his first deep dive into her softness, he felt her moan against his cock, a moan he couldn’t keep from imitating against the open, enticing swell of her. The muscles low in her abdomen tensed and jerked and he could feel his belly doing the same. He could feel his thighs tensing. He could feel his buttocks clenching and relaxing as he rocked and shifted his hips with an in and out motion.

Their chilled shivering and the convulsive arousal they were both experiencing made their lovemaking deliciously awkward and lacking in finesse, but way too intriguing for them to possibly consider stopping. The night sounds were overshadowed by their heavy breathing, by their moans and whimpers. Harris, who was accustomed to being quiet in the great outdoors so that he could hear and not be heard was lost in the exquisite sounds of the woman in his arms, and the way his own sounds harmonized with hers. The feel of her was as exquisite as he remembered, but this time it was skin on skin, all skin on skin, textured with gooseflesh that made him crazy to have her still closer, to be inside her.

With an effort that felt like it ripped some part of him in two, he pulled away enough to speak. ‘Stacie, I don’t have a condom. We need to go inside.’

‘Shut up, Harris,’ she said against his cock. ‘This time we’re not going anywhere.’ She rose to straddle his body without lessening the pressure of her lips, without losing her rhythm, then settled above him, lowering her hips until the splay of her rested just above his face, just in the perfect position for him to guide her down onto his tongue, onto his mouth, onto his hungry lips.

She gasped against him and moaned. ‘Finish me this way, Harris, then we’ll go back to the house.’ She tightened her lips around his cock and found her rhythm. Her mouth was like a velvet sheath, with her tongue doing things he was pretty sure weren’t even anatomically possible.

‘Stacie,’ he groaned, ‘I can’t hold out that long.’

‘Then don’t.’ With that, she gave his balls a firm kneading with her hand, raked her teeth along the full length of him, and took him still deeper and tighter until he could stand it no longer. He tried to pull away when he felt the inevitable happening, but she gripped him harder and took him, all of him, as he exploded into her mouth. The juddering and jerking of his own body drove his face deeper and tighter into the cleft of her, causing her to lose her own control, and she came trembling and shaking against him.

After the tremors of pleasure eased and they could breathe again, they became fully aware of the chill . As she eased herself off him, her teeth chattering, he rose and pulled her to her feet, wrapping the damp blanket around them both. She bent and grabbed up his jeans, nearly losing her balance but for his grip around her waist, and they both dissolved in a wave of giggles as they stumbled off the dock, back up the stairs and into the house. From there, it was a beeline to the warmth of his bed.

As they snuggled deep beneath the comforter, he pulled her so close that she was practically on top of him, and finally found his ability to speak again. ‘I can make us some cocoa if you’d like.’ Immediately he thought how stupid that sounded at a moment like this. ‘You’re freezing.’

She raised her face to his and settled a soft, open-lipped kiss against his mouth. ‘I love cocoa, Harris, but there are better ways for you to warm me up.’ She took his hand and guided it down between her legs, back to the soft, slick warmth of her center. ‘Or do you need a little time?’

He grunted half a laugh and reciprocated, guiding her hand down to where his cock was stiffening with enthusiasm once more. ‘I’ll manage,’ he said.

For a long time, they kissed. In some ways, the exploration with tongue and lips, accompanied by the gropes and darts of hands under the covers, had the wonderfully naughty feel of teenagers exploring for the first time. That was unbelievably arousing in itself. But they weren’t teenagers, and though Harris hadn’t had a lot of sex, he wasn’t totally lacking in experience, and clearly Stacie knew her way around male anatomy. For a very brief, very uncomfortable moment, he wondered if it had been the Thorne brothers she had learned it with. But when she eased a finger down to stroke his anus, he instantly forgot all about Ellis and Garrett. Everyone had a past, and that didn’t interest him right now. What interested him was the woman in his arms, the woman he’d wanted nothing to do with, the woman who was way more of a mystery than he could have ever imagined.

It didn’t take long for him to be fully erect again. It wasn’t just her alternating caresses of his cock and his anus. It was the fact that her full, round breasts were pressed up tight against him, nipples digging at his bare chest, and that his own fingers were scissoring deep into the slippery, soft cleft of her that gripped at him like a hungry mouth.