Blush(45)

Though he hadn’t been that way last night. She thought of how his eyes smiled when the stern line of his lips didn’t. How the lamplight limned his skin, and how his dark hair brushed against her cheek as he applied his mouth with great deal of attention to detail when kissing her.

No, the man wasn’t always so angry and unhappy, she reasoned, deciding it was best for her sanity not to think anymore about all the wondrous things his large, callused fingers delicately stroking her breasts did to her.

Mia shook her head and looked around her mismatched, outdated kitchen and smiled. Better to think about the major remodel. The kitchen was dreadful, with those crazy psychedelic butterflies and hideous Formica countertops and fruity curtains, but it was starting to grow on her.

Not the décor—that had to go. But the very fact that it was her kitchen to do with as she pleased, without crabby-faced Chef Simon asking what it was she needed. It was homey and comforting, and she needed nothing other than pride in knowing that she could fix herself a decent meal without relaying what she wanted through five people.

She could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she’d been in the kitchen in her San Francisco home. As beautifully designed as it was, even with every top-of-the-line modern stainless steel appliance, it was unwelcoming and cold.

She wondered what sex would be like on the large expanse of Carrara marble on the kitchen island in her house in San Francisco. That would certainly put a twist in Chef Simon’s apron. And that led to her thinking about the velvety smoothness of Cruz’s penis in her hands, and the salty taste of his skin. And made her wonder, with a surge of heat, what he tasted like there.

After cleaning up—which took all of a minute—she went upstairs with her phone, iPod, computer, and notebook. Time to call Todd for an update, and then “It’s you and me, baby,” she told the pole bolted into the floor and ceiling and gleaming in challenge. The uncovered window nearby would serve very well as a mirror should she want to observe herself sliding around all over the place in an ungainly, uncoordinated heap.

On the other hand, she might be better off using another kind of pole to get rid of her horniness. But business before pleasure. Which reminded her that Cruz had said much the same thing the first time they met.

And just thinking about that made her hot all over.

Throwing herself down on the bed, she turned off the music and punched in her cousin’s number. There’d be time later to decide which pole was going to get the workout.

She didn’t need Cruz Barcelona’s hands and mouth on her. She could bring herself to orgasm easily enough. Had plenty of experience in that department, actually. Problem was, she wanted him, and longing for a particular man was a new experience for her. One that wasn’t on the list.

Todd’s phone rang three times. “You know it’s midnight here, right?” He didn’t sound the least bit sleepy.

Rain pounded the black square of the window and formed pretty diamonds as it ran down. She turned onto her stomach and crossed her feet over her butt. “Aw, poor baby, did I wake you?”

“No, I’m reading what Davis and Kent have to say about the LBO—”

The leveraged buyout was all but a done deal, which would be finalized at the end of the week. “Why are they saying anything? You have my proxy. You sign on the dotted line on Friday and it’s all done but the champagne toasting and wild frivolity.”

“You’ve never been frivolous in your life.”

“Working on it,” Mia assured him.

“D and K insist you sign in person. I’m insisting you bloody well don’t. They agreed to a compromise. They’ll send you the paperwork when the time comes, and you get a notary. Get a post office box as far away from you as makes sense and give them the address. They can mail paperwork as soon as that’s in place.”

“Then can I come home?” As soon as the words were out, she suddenly realized that she didn’t want to return to San Francisco quite yet. Not now, anyway. The house was just starting to come alive. She wanted to restore it to its former beauty, to accomplish something while she was in exile.

“Sorry. No. Enjoy the sun, use lots of Tropics, SPF fifty, and stay put until Basson gives us the okay.”

Miles would find whoever was trying to kill her, and he’d take care of it. The head of security had been protective of her father, and had watched out for her as soon as she was old enough to sit at the boardroom table. But Mia had assumed that the threats were in direct relation to the LBO. Once the deal was done and the papers signed, the motivation to kill her would be over. Wouldn’t it?