The Tycoon Read online

  Clayton had said he would move. For me. And the thought of him boxing up that penthouse to move into my ramshackle dog-fur palace was ridiculous.

  Five years ago, he never would have said that. Was it possible he’d changed?

  The more pressing question, to me anyway, was—why was I still at the ranch? My sisters were gone. Bea was back in Austin, and according to her texts, coming back soon. But soon for Bea could mean anything. There was no reason for me to stay here.

  Except for Clayton.

  And the dogs liked it.

  And I had meetings next week with the woman who had been the soul employee of the foundation - a contract book keeper. She’d been without an executive director for years and seemed excited by the prospect of getting back to work.

  Somehow, in the span of just a few days, I was building a life back here. Inside the shell of my old one. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

  The dogs suddenly lurched awake. Barking and wagging their tails like there was some kind of alarm clock only they could hear. Thelma, who’d been sleeping at my feet, wedged under the desk as if she didn’t know her size, practically pushed me over in my chair to get out from under the desk.

  Louise, who’d been sprawled out on the cushioned wicker loveseat like she owned the place, was up and yapping like mad.

  “What in the world?” I followed Thelma to the front hallway. Maybe it was Bea, I hoped, and threw open the door.

  But it wasn’t Bea.

  It was Clayton, dripping wet.

  “What—?”

  Before I could finish the sentence he was kissing me. His hands held my face still, like I might run. And perhaps, for a split second, I might have. I might have considered it, but as soon as his lips touched mine I grabbed onto his wrists for strength. For balance.

  Because the floor had been yanked out from under me. My world turned upside down.

  “Invite me in,” he said against my mouth.

  “Whaaffit,” I said against his, my brain short-circuited by his scent.

  He lifted me off my feet and carried me inside. The dogs danced around us. I felt Thelma’s paws against my back like she was trying to push him out, using me as a battering ram.

  “Enough.” He broke the kiss long enough to yell at the dogs and they stopped their yapping.

  Thelma growled and Clayton snapped his fingers at her.

  And Thelma went quiet.

  I leaned back but Clayton didn’t let me go; he was holding onto my face, lifting my chin so he could kiss my neck. I was boneless, nearly brainless. I knew this wasn’t a good idea but…I couldn’t…quite remember…why…

  Why was this a bad idea?

  Because Clayton kissed me the way a girl dreams a man will kiss her. Like he meant it. Like he needed me. I was the antidote to some great pain.

  His hand cupped my breast and I felt myself disintegrating into dust and glitter. How, I wondered, could he do that so fast? Just turn me inside out.

  I pushed his coat off his shoulders. The wet trench coat made a heavy thump on the floor. The lean muscles of his waist were hot beneath his shirt and I pressed my whole hand against him, like he was a fire I wanted to get close to.

  He was a fire. And I’d been burned once before.

  “Stop,” I said.

  He stopped. But he was still holding me. Touching me. His breath warmed my throat and I had to push myself away, even when I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “What…are you doing here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  I laughed at his joke but his face implied he wasn’t joking.

  My fingertips touched the creases between his eyes. He seemed stressed. And sad. “Seriously. What are you doing here?”

  For a long time, he just…looked at me.

  I turned my face away, lifting my shoulder like I could hide.

  But he wouldn’t let me. And it was almost painful how much I wanted to fix my ponytail and twitch my shirt into place around my body so my tummy was hidden away.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said. “That’s all.”

  That was all?

  “It’s Sunday,” I said.

  “I know.”

  My breath shuddered and our bellies touched.

  “The other night was a mistake,” I said, and his dark eyes bored into mine.

  “You don’t believe that,” he said.

  “I do.”

  “No. You want it to be true. It would be easier for you if it was true. But it wasn’t a mistake. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life and touching you has never been one of them.”

  “I don’t…know what to do when you say things like that.”

  “Believe them. That’s all you have to do.”

  He said it like it was easy. To believe the man that hurt me. To just let it all go and believe what my body wanted me to believe.

  “Let me…” He breathed against my skin. “Just…let me touch you.”

  And then, instead of kissing me, he put his arms around my back and…hugged me.

  That was all. A hug. Our bodies pressed tight together. I could feel his erection against my belly but he wasn’t doing anything about it. His breath, when he exhaled, hitched a little and I realized that he was upset.

  About what I had no idea.

  But he came to my door because he was upset.

  Carefully, I lifted my arms up over his shoulders, his shirt cool against the bare skin of my wrists.

  And we stood there.

  Hugging.

  And it was as if this were a new skill. And I remembered how everything with him felt new. My body felt new. My own thoughts were new.

  “What happened?” I asked, because I was sure that something had happened to bring him dripping wet and…sad to my door.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “No lying.”

  “Nothing happened. Today has been like every Sunday of my life for the last six years.”

  His wet hair flopped over his forehead and I pushed it back, letting the cold, damp strands slide between my fingers. I did it again. And then again and he…just barely tipped his head so I could touch more of his hair.

  He wanted me to touch him like this.

  “Who takes care of you?” I asked.

  And just like that, he stiffened. Pushed me away. “I should go. You’re probably busy.”

  I surprised us both by saying, “No!”

  He blinked at me; his face again went still and distant.

  “I-I’m not,” I stammered. “I’m alone in this big house and, I mean, it’s cats and dogs out there. You probably shouldn’t be driving…”

  Slowly his lips curved and the air heated up around us.

  “Probably not,” he said.

  “Just to be safe.”

  “Safety first, I always say.” He leaned back in to kiss the skin at the very bottom of my shirt’s V-neck. His lips lingered and when I took a breath my breasts all but punched him.

  He kissed his way up the neckline.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  “No. Are you?”

  I’d eaten a box of Triscuits for dinner.

  “No.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. “What shall we do, Veronica King, to pass the time?”

  “I’m not having sex with you.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m not having sex with you, either.”

  “How about…” He stepped us back and back again until we were in the sitting room off the main foyer. Jennifer’s white couches filled the space and with one nudge from Clayton I was lying down on one.

  Five years ago, I’d spent evenings on his couch. Napping. Eating Chinese food. Watching TV. Sometimes he sat with me, my feet in his lap. But usually he sat in another chair or worked at the table.

  Once I’d asked him to cuddle.

  It was as if I’d asked him to walk naked through the streets of Dallas.

  “I don’t…cuddle,” he’d said, and I’d thought, Of course not. Grow
n men didn’t do that kind of thing and I never asked again.

  “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” I asked.

  “It might be like trying to cuddle a cactus, but I’m willing to try it if you are,” he said.

  “Are you the cactus? Or am I?”

  “Me,” he said with a chuckle.

  And so I did something that felt…kind of brave. I lifted my arms to him.

  “Come here,” I said.

  He toed off his shoes and then he was in my arms. The weight of him pressed me into the couch. And for a second it was…bliss. Everything I’d thought it would be. A Clayton blanket. Warm and heavy and excellent smelling.

  This Clayton blanket was a little damp, but I didn’t mind.

  But then he got so heavy it was hard to breathe and his knee pressed down on my calf.

  “Ouch,” I said when his elbow pulled my hair.

  “Sorry.”

  “Just…careful.” I tried to shift out, but then so did he.

  “Are you going in or out?”

  “You’re on the inside,” I told him.

  “They make this look easy in movies.”

  “Well, in movies no one is a cactus.”

  He paused, his face somewhere above mine so I couldn’t see him. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how to be different.”

  He pushed himself up to get off me and I couldn’t let him go like this. Vulnerable and hurt.

  “Hold on,” I said, and I shifted to the edge of the couch, and he turned to his side, sliding right into the spot I’d left him, his back to the pillows. But I was staring at his neck, so I moved up so we were eye to eye and he mashed a pillow in half so he could be comfortable.

  “We’re doing it!” I said.

  “What do they call this again?” he asked, pretending to be confused.

  “Cuddling.”

  “Right. It’s not half bad.”

  And it wasn’t. It was exactly what I’d wanted it to be five years ago.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do this five years ago,” he said, his fingers toying with the hem of my yellow shirt. I laughed and put my hand on his, because I was serious about not having sex. But instead of stopping he switched his energy to my fingers, turning my hand over and over in his.

  “Are you lying?”

  “That would be against the rules.”

  “Did you miss me?” I was breathless asking this question. I knew he didn’t love me but for months we’d been practically in each other’s pockets. I’d hated him, but I’d missed him like the devil, too.

  “Very much,” he said quietly.

  “What did you miss?”

  “The phone calls,” he said.

  “Shut up. No way.”

  “I missed them. But not as much as I missed your body.” His kissed my neck again, just under my ear and his hand has dropped mine and was reaching up under my shirt. “Any more questions?”

  “Like, a thousand.”

  “Okay.” He leaned back, looking me in the eye. “How about a deal?”

  “Another one?”

  “Everything’s a deal, honey. Nothing comes for free.”

  Even though he was joking, that idea from the man I was considering spending my life with was chilling. “What’s your deal?”

  “You can ask any question you want, but you lose a piece of clothing when you ask it.”

  “Strip conversation?”

  “Exactly.”

  His grin was pure dare and I felt a new version of me rising up inside this older body. A version of me made confident by this man’s attention.

  “All right,” I said. “When you said you weren’t with any other women since me, were you just talking about sex?”

  “I dated a very nice woman for about six months. Never slept with her.”

  “Never?”

  He shook his head. “She dumped me. Clothing, King, what’s it going to be?”

  I took out my pearl earring and set it down on the floor beside the couch.

  “Dubious,” he said with a curled lip.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” It was outrageous I didn’t know the answer to that. But he never mentioned his family. Ever. It was like he was made, fully formed, in a suit and dropped in the King Industries lobby.

  “A sister. She’s a yoga teacher in Arizona.”

  “Are you close?”

  “That’s a third question. You’re gonna have to shed some clothes.”

  I took out the other earring, grinning at him the whole time.

  “Now, answer.”

  “We’re not close. She left when I was pretty young. Hasn’t been back to Texas since.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “I honestly barely knew her.”

  “So, when your mom died, it was just you and your dad?”

  He nodded.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “You’re cheating, King.”

  Laughing, I reached for my socks, but he got there first and pulled both of them off by the toes, flinging them over his head. “Socks are bullshit,” he said. “Show me some skin.”

  I gathered some courage and pulled off my shirt, revealing my pink bra and so much skin. I felt pale and naked under his gaze, which swept from the top of my head down my whole body.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  “You’re avoiding my question.”

  “What was it?” He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. To the top of my arm. My collarbone. My neck. He scattered his kisses like confetti all over my body until I was covered in him. He rolled forward, onto me, and I shifted until he was between my legs, his arms under my back.

  “I…forget,” I said, and he chuckled into my neck.

  His hips rolled into me and by his diabolical design his erection pressed against the sweet spot in my body. I gasped, pushing back into him.

  “Does that feel good?”

  “You know it does.”

  “Say it.”

  “It feels good.” He pushed forward again and it was like my brain shut down and my body lit up. My body turned into a carnival ride and it was only ever him who could make that happen. “You make me feel so good.”

  He moaned low in his throat, his face buried in my neck, and I remembered his face when he came into the house. The sadness he couldn’t quite hide behind all his masks. And suddenly, lit up the way I was, I wanted him to feel good. To feel the way I did.

  And I wanted to be the one to make it happen.

  He hadn’t had sex in five years.

  “I have another question,” I said.

  “Good. I want you to take off your pants.”

  “Will you let me make you feel good?”

  15

  VERONICA

  He stilled in my arms.

  “You don’t—”

  “Have to,” I finished for him. That was something he always used to say, every time I offered this. Like it was something more than I should be willing to give him. Or more than he should be given. “But I want to.”

  My fingers worked on his belt, feeling the warm press of his skin against my hands. He got up on his knees so he could strip off his shirt.

  “God, yes,” I said. He was so fucking beautiful. Lean and elegant. But strong. I sat up and wrapped my arms around his hips, pressing my face to his stomach. Kissing the soft tender skin there.

  He hissed and cupped my head.

  “Don’t you have some childhood bedroom around here you want to defile?” he asked.

  “Yes, please!” I said and we scurried off the couch. I grabbed his hand and led him upstairs to where I slept as a kid.

  The second I left for college Jennifer had torn down my Johnny Depp posters. She got rid of my white lace canopy bed and replaced it with a king-size bed and a blue wedding-ring patterned quilt.

  When I moved back after that first year, I was too busy to change it. Too busy to care.

  “This was your room?’ he asked, looking around like
he’d gotten lost along the way. “I thought there’d be more…you in it…”

  “Like what?”

  “Remember those sky photographs you really loved?” he asked. “At that art fair you made me go to?”

  I didn’t remember at all, and then suddenly I did. The street festival. He’d wanted to buy the sky pictures for me. For our house, he’d said. And he’d been so adamant. I’d put up a fuss about carrying them or something, and it had been dropped.

  “I can’t believe you remember those.”

  “I remember everything, Ronnie,” he said.

  There was a chance that, when I looked back at how everything went wrong, I would pick this moment as when I took off the brakes and just let myself get hurt again.

  “You want to talk about photography some more?” I shut the door.

  “No,” he said and wrapped me in his arms. His warm skin all over mine. We felt so soft together. “l don’t.”

  We kissed and he let me push him back to the bed. When his legs hit the mattress he sat down and began to lean back, pulling me over his body. I knew what would happen if I let him take charge. He’d wiggle me out of my jeans and before I could say blow job he’d have his mouth on me.

  “Hold on,” I said and stood up, grabbing the pillow from the top of the bed. I tossed it on the floor between his feet.

  “Ronnie,” he breathed, his fingers running through my hair. “You don’t have to—”

  “You always say that. What do you have against blow jobs, Clayton? Did someone hurt you in the past?” Suddenly I gasped, recognizing what this must be. “Oh, my God, it’s me. It’s my blow jobs. I do them wrong. You don’t like—”

  He cupped my face. “I love your blow jobs,” he said. “You do them perfectly.”

  Well, I doubted that was true, but considering he taught me how to give them, and no one else had ever gotten one from me, I was going to have to take his word on it.

  “Well, then, get ready, buddy. Because it’s happening. One Veronica King expert blowjob coming your way.”

  He exhaled slowly, his eyes closing as if even thinking about it he had to get a grip. I loved that. I loved that so much I squeezed my legs together. “You going to let me?”