Dynasties: The Lassiters

Nine

“Can you see him anywhere?” Becca asked.

When Jack handed over a towel but didn’t reply, she called Chichi’s name nice and loud. Only eerie silence, sprinkled with cicada clicks, came back. She called again, and as the seconds ticked by, a feeling of dread filled her.

“He must be around somewhere,” Jack said, lashing a towel around his hips before helping Becca to her feet as she wrapped her towel under her arms.

“I haven’t seen him since I dived in,” she said, scanning the woods for any sign.

Holding the towel around her chest, she crossed to the water’s edge and called again. A sick feeling built high in her stomach and rose in her throat. When Jack, being supportive, gripped her shoulder, emotion prickled behind her nose.

Keep it together. Don’t panic. Not yet.

Becca had lived alongside people, including babies and young children, who’d been forced to survive without adequate or clean water, with barely enough to eat, and little or no prospect of bettering their lives in a way most folks here took for granted. During her Peace Corps days, she’d kept strong, kept going. Rarely had she shed a tear, not because she hadn’t felt anguish and despair, but because time spent crying was less time being productive. Being a positive role model.

And yet here she was, tears in her eyes, because she’d lost sight of a little dog.

But there was more to it than that. She’d been so self-absorbed in satisfying those urges, she hadn’t given another thought to Hailey’s dog. To her friend’s four-legged baby. How would she explain that?

“Has he been here before?” Jack asked.

“Not to the lake, but he loves splashing around in the surf and diving into Hailey’s pool at home. He likes the water.”

“Yeah. I got that. He’s probably dog-paddling up a storm right now, swimming across from the other side.”

Becca crossed her arms, hugging herself, as she scanned the area again. Everything was so still. She called out his name, and then called it again, more loudly. As loudly as she could.

Jack gently turned her to face him. Holding her gaze with his, he gave a brave smile. “I’ll find him, okay? You have my word.”

His promise was supposed to make her feel better. But what was Jack’s word really worth? He wasn’t renowned for jumping on a steed and galloping to anyone’s rescue. Angelica might disagree, but she was clinging to any port in the storm her father’s death and will had brewed up.

“If we can’t find him—” she said.

“We’ll find him.”

“But if we can’t…how will I ever tell Hailey? She loves that dog like a child.”

Jack skirted around in front of Becca and herded her back toward the trees, away from the lake. “You sit. I’ll search. Deal?”

She didn’t argue, but she had no intention of sitting back and doing nothing.

They quickly changed back into their clothes and Jack set off to circumnavigate the lake. Every now and then he brought cupped hands to his mouth and called out Chichi’s name. As Becca headed off the other way, she sent up a prayer.

When she told Hailey this story, she needed it to have a happy ending.

It didn’t look good.

Jack was halfway around the lake, calling out the pooch’s name, searching the scrub nearest the water’s edge. Not a peep. He’d assumed that Chichi had been paddling by himself in the lake before this.

Now he felt worse than any names reporters or broken businessmen had ever called him. Why hadn’t he even given the little guy, who’d been paddling furiously, a second thought? Obviously because he had other things on his mind.

It was getting dark and he’d scoured most of the perimeter of the lake when he decided to head back. Becca had set off in the opposite direction. Looking back now and then, he’d seen her either wandering into or coming out of the woods, searching among the trees and shrubs. They’d both been calling for over an hour.

When they met back at the pier, Jack wrapped Becca in his arms. After a moment, she hugged him back. He grazed his lips through her hair. “We’d better go while there’s still some light.”

She nodded against his chest and then they walked hand in hand back down the trail. It might as well have been a funeral march. He couldn’t help this situation, but he could at least try to keep Becca’s mind on other things.

“We never had a cabin in the woods growing up,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Don’t suppose you need one when you own a five-star chalet in the snow.”

She wasn’t serious but there wasn’t a hint of a tease in her voice, either. He tried again.

“What were the other kids in your family like?”

“I was the youngest, then Emily, Abigail and Faith.”

“Still keep in touch?”

“Emily’s in the U.K. now. She married a doctor.”

“Good for her.”

“Abigail is an elementary school teacher and Faith is travelling the world. She’s in Burma at the moment, I think.”

“Did you share any time with them here at the lake house?”

“Not recently. I’ve had Hailey up a couple of times.”

She lowered her head and he tried to pick up their pace, to distract her from thinking about the dog and because night was falling fast. They needed to get back to the cabin.

“Anyone else?” he asked.

“A couple of friends from the office.”

“Any male friends?”

She gave him a look. “You really want to know?”

He shrugged. Your call.

She didn’t exactly grin. “Although it’s rather personal…no. I’ve never brought any male friends to the cabin.”

“You don’t want to get personal?”

“I don’t have anything to hide. What you see is what you get.”

“What I see is a beautiful, feisty, determined woman who always puts others before herself.”

Instead of a smile, the compliment brought on a frown. “Don’t overdo it.”

He blew out a breath. Guess it was going to be a long, cold night. So he might as well say what he felt.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have trouble accepting compliments?”

“I don’t need compliments.”

“Because you’re tough.”

“Because I already feel fine with who I am.”

“Whereas I need lots of work.”

She only looked the other way. Her hand felt limp in his. He had the sense she might be more comfortable severing the link. On one level, that annoyed him. Not an hour ago, she’d come apart in his arms as if it was her last feel-good moment before the world ended. He’d thought they’d been pretty tight then.

On the other hand, he understood…she felt gutted. He felt like crap, too.

By the time they made it back to the cabin, Becca wished she’d never heard the name Jack Reed. But not for the reasons he might have thought. She didn’t blame Jack one bit for Chichi’s disappearance. That dog had been her responsibility and she’d screwed up.

During the search, she’d not only thought ahead to Hailey’s tears when she discovered the news, but also sifted through every grain of logic that said it was a good idea to kidnap Jack for a few days. She’d believed that coming here—experiencing this with her—would touch and bring out his more humble, benevolent side.

But Jack had been in the game a long time. Did she have any hope of swaying his plans to take over Lassiter Media and do what instinct told him to do: make a huge profit off selling the company piecemeal? No one could convince Angelica of Jack’s deeper motives, just as no one could have told Becca she should have kept from sticking her nose in.

But not everything could be fixed, including, it would seem, her physical attraction toward Jack. Today she’d let her emotions rule her head in a spectacular way. On one level she didn’t regret the time they’d spent in the lake together. She had never imagined that such intensity of sensation could truly exist. The height of her climax had turned her inside out.

On another far more practical level, while she had not set out to use the possibility of sex as a motivator, the fact remained that Jack had agreed to this challenge not because he thought for a moment she might be able to change his mind in a week about taking over Lassiter Media, but because a woman had confronted and intrigued him. Getting closer to her had been a challenge in itself. She’d pretty much handed herself to him on a platter. She was no different, in that regard, from any other woman he’d successfully seduced.

So why did she feel as if what had happened between them in the lake had been special? Why did she feel as if it truly mattered to him? Maybe because it had mattered to her. She felt a connection with Jack that made her want to leave their other, more complicated worlds behind.

When they got to the cabin, the door was ajar. In her stupid hurry to catch up with Jack, she’d bolted without shutting the damn thing. Now she walked in first.

“Want me to light a fire?” he asked, following her inside.

“It’s not cold enough.”

“Might get cold later.”

He was trying to be supportive. He truly felt bad about how this afternoon had ended. He’d done his best to try to find poor Chichi.

Turning to him, she found a smile. “Thanks for trying to find him. I appreciate it.”

In the shadows, she couldn’t make out his face other than by the moonlight slanting in through the doorway.

“Becca…I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything. Just sit with me awhile. Who knows? He might still come back.” Chichi might not have drowned or been bitten by a snake or—

Becca caught a tear as it ran down her cheek. She apologized. “I’m not usually such a baby.”

“You’re not being a baby. You have feelings. Everyone has feelings.”

“Even you.”

“Yeah.” She imagined she saw his smile. “Even me.”

She reached up on tiptoe, rested a palm on his shirt and dotted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll get the lantern.”

“You sit down,” he said. “I don’t need you tripping over something and breaking your leg.”

“But I know this place—”

“And I’m telling you…asking you…please. Let me.”

She surrendered and felt her way around to sit on the couch in front of the unlit fireplace. A moment later, a bright light from the main bedroom illuminated a wedge of the wooden floor in front of her. Telling herself that they would find Chichi tomorrow, and all would be well, she waited for Jack to return. Instead he called out.

“Becca, can you come here?”

She pushed to her feet and followed the light. Jack stood next to the set of drawers. He held the lantern high so most of the room was lit. Looking at the partly made bed, he grinned as he said, “Look who the cat dragged in.”

Near the headboard, Becca saw two glowing eyes pop up. She blinked. And then she covered her mouth to smother the yelp—of delight, not fright.

Jack chuckled. “Seems Chichi decided to beat us home.”

She rushed over, folded the cool little dog in her lap and smothered him in kisses. Wagging his tail, he lapped it all up.

“I know what this means,” Jack said, moving closer.

Becca was still cuddling Chichi close. “What’s that?”

“There won’t be just the two of us sharing that bed tonight.”

As low as she had felt a moment ago, now she felt as if she could fly. She didn’t want to think about any regrets she might have in the morning. As Chichi jumped off the bed and leapt onto the camper cot, she only wanted to celebrate.

Ten

Becca reached up and pulled him down. As her mouth latched onto his, they fell back onto the bed.

Sometime later, when she let him come up for air, Jack arched a brow.

“Does this mean we have to get naked?”

They were lying facing each other. Now she sat up, grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up. Then she dropped warm, hungry kisses all over his chest while her fingers kneaded his sides.

Her mouth slid lower and lower. The tip of her tongue was circling his navel when she unzipped his fly. Jack pushed up on his elbows. If she was about to do what he thought she would do, he was all for it. He helped her pull off his pants and boxer briefs. Then she snatched the dress off over her head. The bra landed on the coat stand in the corner. He wasn’t sure where the panties went.

He was sitting at the foot of the bed while she stood before him. Ready to go, he fell back and then shot up again.

“Condoms,” he said, ready to spring over to his bag for supplies.

But Becca was slotting herself between his parted thighs. Her breasts were at eye level. What was a man to do?

He dropped slow, moist kisses around one nipple while plucking and lightly pinching the other. Her fingers drove through his hair, over the back of his scalp then across to each shoulder as she arched into him and made noises in her throat that only excited him more.

His other hand fanned down the curve of her ribs, waist, hip. When his fingers slid between her legs and found her wet, he remembered why he’d sat up in the first place.

While he sucked and plucked and gently rubbed, he spoke around that nipple. “Rubbers…”

She pulled his head away, snatched a penetrating kiss that blew his mind and then lowered onto her knees on the floor. A second before her lips met the tip of his erection, he heard her murmur, “Not yet.”

As her head lowered more, a series of bone-melting sensations rippled over his skin. At first she simply held him in her mouth. Then her tongue got into the act, swirling around the ridge, rolling one way then the other, tickling the tip. When she began to hum, the vibration at the base of her throat drifted along her tongue and teeth.

He clutched the sheet and clenched his jaw.

He wasn’t normally this excited this soon. It had to be all the buildup—in the lake, coming home—and because she knew just what to do and how to do it, as if they had been together like this before. Of course, before this week, she would have jumped off a cliff rather than…well, do what she was doing now.

He shifted enough to scoop her around the waist and lift her up and onto the bed. As she lay there looking at him with hungry eyes, he cautioned her with a finger.

“Stay right there. Don’t move.”

With a cheeky grin, she crossed her heart.

He found his bag, ripped the condom box open and, crossing back, rolled the rubber on. Becca’s arms were tucked under the pillow behind her head. Her hair had dried. In the lantern light, the mussed waves glistened around her face. Then she drew up one knee, angled her hips in a provocative pose, and he crawled up the mattress until he was kissing her again. He couldn’t bring her close enough as they rolled together on the sheets.

His breathing was heavy by the time he urged her over onto her back and positioned himself between her thighs. As he entered her slowly, he watched her eyes widen, her back arch and lips part. Then she smiled. He wanted to say how beautiful she was, not just her face or her body, but the way she made him feel—truly alive for the first time in years.

When her legs wrapped around his thighs and her pelvis slanted up, he closed his eyes and gave himself over to sensation.

He’d wanted this, their first time together, to last all night. She fit him so well—everywhere. The physical friction building between them was the sweetest he’d ever known. And as heat began to blaze and then to rage, Jack found himself picturing them here together like this for more than two nights.

For longer than either one could ever allow.

Becca’s entire body was left buzzing—floating. All the rumors were true. Jack Reed was not only smoking hot in bed, in her opinion, he was legendary.

They were lying on their backs side by side, both gazing blindly at the ceiling. Basking in the afterglow, they were still panting and smiling. Becca’s skin was cooling. The payoff had been so unbelievably good, she only wanted to do it again.

“I wonder if that dog planned this,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“If Chichi hadn’t wandered off,” he explained, “we wouldn’t be here doing this.”

“If we hadn’t lost him in the first place,” she pointed out, “we would have done this beside the lake.”

“And right now mosquitoes would be feasting on our backsides.” He kissed her nose. “Our little friend did us a favor.”

“After half scaring me death.”

“He didn’t know.”

She laughed. “Jack Reed, crusader for misunderstood mutts.”

“Make that misunderstood ugly mutts.”

“Not kind, and yet I can see it on a T-shirt. On the letterhead of a charity. Maybe you should get one of your own.”

“A dog?”

“And a charity.”

He shifted up on an elbow and cupped his jaw in his palm. “Maybe I should.”

His smile was so close, and with his heavy hand resting on the dip of her waist… Becca felt so lucky. And somehow also sad. If she didn’t know Jack’s background, if he wasn’t so forthright in embracing his less-flattering side, she might be fooled into believing they were made for each other.

In reality, of course, two people couldn’t be less suited to each other. This physical chemistry might be explosive, but what a person believed in was a thousand times more important than how skilled and connected they were in the bedroom. She stood for sacrifice and the betterment of society. Jack stood for self-gain, for power at the expense of anything and anyone who stood in his way.

“Does the lake have fish?” he asked, toying with a wave of her hair.

“My dad used to fish here all the time.”

“Any poles around?”

“In the shed.” She drew a wiggling line down the middle of his steamy chest. “You like fishing?”

“My father took me fly-fishing a couple of times.”

“Fond memories?”

“Sure. We didn’t get to spend that much time together.”

“Why’s that?”

“He ran his own company. That means putting in the extra hours when employees get to go home to their families.”

“If it was his company, he could have made a choice to go home rather than stay.”

“Not that simple. Before I came along, my father was bankrupt. They lost their house and more than a few fair-weather friends. At the same time my mother landed in the hospital with pneumonia. She almost died. On one of those fishing trips, Dad told me that when he thought she might not pull through, he’d made a vow. If only she lived, if they could spend a long and happy life together, he would take care of her the way she deserved.”

“He blamed himself for her illness?”

“He felt responsible for his family. She recovered and their luck seemed to change. He started up another company, finance lending this time, and it took off. But he always had one eye on the past, the other on the future. He never allowed himself to drop the ball. His priority was making sure we were cared for.”