Seducing a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Five Page 5

  “I’ll see you down the hall in five minutes.”

  She murmured something at his back as he slipped away. Nothing coherent. At least not to her sex-fogged brain. Julianna clenched her thighs, then stood. A light breeze of cool air whispered against her sex and she shuddered.

  It’s a closet.

  The staff might see.

  It was completely unprofessional.

  So many reasons for not going went flying through her head, but what made her take that first step was the primal tug that felt like it came from inside her very soul. Alex wanted more than she’d ever given. No one in her past had even come close to making her feel so free, so alive.

  She passed Diana’s desk and paused. “I’ll be back shortly, don’t leave.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she mouthed, still listening to one of their vendors jabber into her ear through the phone receiver.

  That was easier than I expected.

  Julianna made her way out of the offices and turned right. The sign that read Housekeeping Supply hung only a few feet away. She glanced up and down the hallway before approaching it. It was ajar. How had he gotten a housekeeping key?

  Never mind, he’d probably just grabbed one off the desk in the office. Diana had been keying them for the new staff.

  She placed a hand on the door handle and pushed. It swung wide and she bit back a squeal as Alex snaked his arm around her waist.

  He pushed the door closed and then pinned her between the door and his hard chest.

  “I don’t do this sort of thing.”

  “You need to work less,” Alex growled, slanting his mouth over hers and crushing her lips. Her body burned with a desire to have him inside her, claiming her.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe she should work less. At least for the rest of this weekend.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m glad you’re taking a few extra hours for yourself today.” Diana pressed the button for the elevator up to Julianna’s real suite. “And honestly, you should just stay up there and enjoy that man tomorrow. There’s nothing pending on the schedule I can’t handle for you.”

  “Perhaps,” Julianna answered. They rode the elevator up to the second floor where her assistant got off. The first thing she’d done after working with Diana for a week was get her a permanent suite at the hotel. Like herself, her right hand was very devoted to the job. Living on the site was just easier.

  She waved as the doors closed and rode to her floor. Flipping through a couple of stray emails on her tablet, she contemplated what Diana had said. Julianna wanted to take Sunday off, hell, she wanted to take a week off and disappear uninterrupted into that rooftop villa with Alex. She enjoyed his company immensely.

  That was a lie. She loved his company. Hungered for more of it.

  Sex in the supply closet this afternoon had been both unexpected and more fulfilling than she could’ve imagined. Julianna closed her tablet notebook and ran the tips of her fingers over her lips. The sensation of his mouth on hers still lingered and her sex throbbed in anticipation of more attention.

  She’d already looked at her calendar for scheduling another weekend getaway with him. Her father had several trips to his island on the books already. It would be easy to have Alex fly back out.

  The doors of the elevator opened to her floor and she had to keep herself from hurrying down the hallway. Would he be excited she cut her day short? She’d told him she wouldn’t be back until six.

  Her clothing choice for today wasn’t what she preferred to make a good impression. The knit dress had no support for her curvy figure and she’d opted out of wearing restrictive undergarments. Her father wasn’t around. It was a Saturday and Alex was supposed to have stayed in. No one besides Diana should’ve seen her so relaxed and unprofessional. She made a point to always dress to impress.

  People always wanted to see a certain thing. Her father. Her professors in college. Customers of the hotel. Lovers. Being relaxed in public was an invitation to be disrespected and underappreciated.

  Alex had certainly shown appreciation, but he’d been surprised by her attire. She’d seen it in his face when he entered her office. Tonight would redeem her in his eyes. She’d be the sexy, voluptuous, vixen he’d gotten the night before. She wouldn’t disappoint.

  Julianna let herself into her suite and walked through the living space to her glass-topped drift-wood inspired coffee table. Kneeling to the floor, she reached between two of the thick twisted legs and pressed a lever dropping out the secret drawer. She tucked her notebook and tablet inside with her cell phone and pushed it closed again.

  Diana was the only person who knew where she kept her things when she was unavailable. In the case of emergency, she wanted to be sure her assistant could get into anything in the hotel she might need, and her tablet was the only one with administrative access to every hotel system, but leaving it out for any of the hotel staff was out of the question.

  She climbed to her feet and wove between her furniture toward her bedroom door. She had the perfect dress in mind for tonight and a killer corset that matched.

  Alex would forget he ever saw her in the wispy knit dress she was currently wearing.

  Alex froze, mid-page-turn, when the hotel room door clicked and cracked open. He glanced at the giant clock on the wall. 4:12. When Julianna’s dark head appeared around the door, he let out a held breath and pulled off his reading glasses.

  She was one never-ending surprise. The fixed-and-argued six o’clock end to her workday appeared to have negotiated back to four.

  Julianna cocked her head when the door closed behind her.

  “Well…hi.”

  Her lips spread into a smile, almost against her will. She straightened her back and he couldn’t help looking her up and down.

  The sexy dress she’d donned spotlighted her curves and dipped again to reveal that luscious cleavage. He indulged a long stare.

  “You’re…reading,” she said.

  Alex closed the book and slid it into the crook of the couch beside him. “You caught me.”

  “No, it’s…I just didn’t expect it.” Her lips curved, a sexy glow in her eyes. “And I love the glasses.”

  He folded them and placed them on the opaque coffee table in front of him. “I just haven’t had a lot of time to read lately…”

  “You really don’t have to apologize.” Julianna walked in to the living room and sat on the opposite corner of the couch. “Reading is sexy.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you so early.”

  She fidgeted, hands in her lap. His lover rounded her shoulders slightly and dipped her head. “We finished the invoices, so I sent Diana home.”

  Alex smiled and moved across the couch to sit next to her. Their knees touched and warmed him from the point of contact. “It’s okay to say that you wanted to see me, Julianna.” He hooked a finger under her chin and pulled her up to meet his eyes. “I wanted to see you, too.”

  Her gaze warmed and she leaned toward him. He caught her mouth in a kiss and hauled her against him, onto his lap.

  She wrapped her arms around him.

  Alex pulled back, sliding his hand along the side of her face. “That’s better.”

  “Can I be perfectly honest with you?” she said, her face glowing.

  Even though he nodded at her, he felt a pang of regret deep inside. Honesty. He hated hiding things from her, now that he felt so connected.

  “I’ve been thinking about you all day.” Her brown eyes nearly twinkled, they had so much shine in them.

  Warmth spread in his chest and flashes of the hospitality closet went through his mind. She had been so uninhibited, so wanton…he was getting hard just thinking about it.

  “Let me be clear.” Alex took her face in his hands and settled her on his lap so she could feel his erection. “You have occupied every one of my thoughts since I first saw you.”

  She rubbed against him. She’d put on panties again, when she’d changed her dress, because he still h
ad the pair she’d handed him earlier in the afternoon, stuffed in his pocket. He wasn’t planning on surrendering those. They still smelled like her.

  The soft press of her lips against his precluded one of her hands snaking between them and unzipping his pants. Alex shifted and ground against the pressure of her touch.

  Not far from where his cock was rubbing against her hand, his phone buzzed. She felt it, because she leaned back, shock in her eyes.

  “What was that?”

  He pulled out the offending device and held it up. “Just my phone. Nothing important.”

  “No, you should answer it.” Julianna climbed off him and Alex reached for her, just missing her hand as she backed away from the furniture. “I need to put in my order for dinner before the kitchen gets swamped.”

  She straightened her dress and patted at her hair, walking toward the bedroom.

  He sighed and looked at the phone screen. Maggie. “This isn’t a good time,” he said quickly into the speaker.

  “She’s on her way up there,” Maggie hissed. “I don’t know why, but Donovan just got here and said she left the office early.”

  “I know that.” He glanced up, making sure Julianna wasn’t in earshot. “I’m not going to answer the next time you call.”

  “Alex. You have to find that tablet and get out of there. This isn’t safe.”

  He jumped to his feet and walked to the giant window. “I will,” he promised, ignoring her judgment of his plans.

  “Donovan said she left the office with it.”

  Alex flipped through the memories of the last few minutes, quickly. She’d been in the door, then on the couch. Had she had anything in her hand? Set something down?

  He hurried over to the side of the couch nearest the door. There was a small table there. And there was one inside the door. Neither had her black notebook on it, but had she placed something there when she walked in?

  Alex couldn’t remember. He’d been too surprised to see her, too embarrassed to be caught unawares…too turned on.

  “Let me just check something. I’ll be right back.” He put down his phone and quick-walked down the hall to where he could hear Julianna talking to room service. He stepped around the corner and came up behind her, catching her eye with a smile.

  “If we’re out of the ’76 burgundy, can you make a note to have Manuel order more when he’s in on Monday morning?” She covered the phone with one hand and Alex bent down to nuzzle her neck. He looked around the desktop, no notebook.

  With a giggle, she whispered, “We apparently sold the last of that burgundy you like. Any other preferences?”

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said into the soft skin of her neck, “Get them to send up some whipped cream. I have plans.”

  A shiver ran through her whole body. “The wine, Alex.” Her laugh was short and she reached up a hand, stroking the side of his face. “What kind of wine do you want?”

  He kissed the soft underside of her hand. “Surprise me.”

  “We have some grilled wahoo on special tonight.” Julianna gasped when he nipped the flesh of her earlobe. “Fresh caught, with Fijian lemon marinade.” Her breath came in panting gusts and she turned her head to catch his lips in hers.

  When she pulled away from the kiss, her eyes were dark and he could see the desire pooling there.

  Dangerous waters.

  Maggie was already pissed enough that he was still in the penthouse…she would blow a gasket if he had sex with Julianna while he basically left his phone on hold in the living room.

  He took one last glance around the room. She hadn’t put any black notebook anywhere in sight. Alex opened his mouth to ask her about it, but he couldn’t think what to say.

  Ask about work? Ask if she had a computer he could use?

  Anything he said would sound clumsy and out of place. He stepped back toward the hallway. “Whatever you want. I mean it. Surprise me.”

  Alex had walked a few steps away when he turned back and called out to her, “But don’t forget the whipped cream.”

  Her laugh carried through the hallway and into the living room, and he picked up the phone and before he could report on the tablet, Maggie was yelling in his ear.

  “What the hell, Alex!?”

  He pulled the phone away and hurried toward the kitchen, away from Julianna and the bedroom. With his cell muzzled, he could faintly hear her talking about wine selections, and hoped she hadn’t heard that echo back to her.

  “Quiet, Mag,” he whispered into the phone. “She’s here.”

  “I don’t give a shit if she’s standing right next to you.” She took a loud breath. “You cannot keep doing this. You are putting the mission in jeopardy.”

  “Don’t say that.” Alex swallowed and pressed his free hand into the granite countertop. “I still have the mission. I just don’t think that our mission is all that different from her mission.”

  “Oh, please. You’re thinking with your dick.”

  “Hey, now.”

  “Alex, listen to me. We don’t know when Adrian is coming back to the mainland, and we have to get into the surveillance while we can.”

  “Well, the tablet isn’t here.”

  “What do you mean, it isn’t there?” Something shuffled in the room and Maggie said, “Wait, get me Andrea.” Then, louder, “Donovan said she brought it with her.”

  “Donovan was wrong. She didn’t have it in her hands when she came in, and it’s not in this room. I’ve checked more than once.”

  Maggie swore and he heard Donovan’s voice in the background. “She had it in her hand when I saw her walk away from the office.”

  Alex turned around, leaning against the countertop and keeping his eyes on the hallway. He tried to keep one ear open for the sound of Julianna’s heels on the marble. She had been wearing stilettos again, surely, he’d hear them.

  “It’s got to be in her room somewhere.” Maggie was tapping something, probably her own tablet. “Okay, new plan. You keep her there, we’re going to send Andrea to her room. I’ll text you when we know anything.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Fine.”

  “And Alex?”

  Julianna’s heels clicked in the hallway and his heart raced. He whispered into the phone, “I know. Don’t make it complicated.”

  He hit the red button and shoved the phone into his pocket. She came around the corner, her features bright.

  “They found another bottle of the burgundy in the wine cellar, although I don’t think it’ll pair well with the wahoo, so I had them send along a sauv-blanc.” She stopped next to the couch and looked behind her. “What?”

  Alex shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just… You’re gorgeous, do you know that?”

  A flutter of her eyelashes, and a slight upturn of her eyes. “Stop.”

  “No, I mean it.” He crossed the room and took her hands. “You were beautiful this afternoon, and you’re beautiful now.”

  Her head turned away, down, taking her eyes away from his.

  He pulled her into him and kissed her neck, letting her rest her cheek on his shoulder. “I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered into her flesh, and she shuddered.

  Her hands went to his back and she rubbed a rhythm across his t-shirt.

  Alex felt suddenly under-dressed. Her, in her black heels and gorgeous blue dress, and him in his lounge-wear.

  “I know the feeling,” she whispered back.

  “I want to see more of you.” He slipped his hand up her back and thought briefly about unzipping her dress, but instead, he anchored his grip in her hair and pulled her into a deep kiss. His lips moved over hers, like he was breathing her in, taking her in, living off her.

  He could live off her forever.

  “I can’t promise anything,” she said between kisses, “but I want to see more of you, too.”

  Alex led her to the chaise lounge and stretched out, pulling her down on top of him. “We’re both adults, Julianna. We can do whatever we want
.”

  “It’s not that easy for me.”

  “Well, it should be.” He gathered her in his arms and kissed her again. He would continue kissing her until she agreed.

  Chapter Eight

  Alex hadn’t been able to concentrate on the fish or the wine or the pleasant facts about Choaca Julianna seemed to throw at him all night. He’d been watching her.

  She as much as admitted she wanted him in her life, and then had shut up tighter than a plucked clam. He couldn’t figure it out.

  Julianna lit up when she talked about her staff and the expansion of the business, but every mention of her father brought a shadow over her face.

  He had to consciously stop himself from asking about Adrian. Maggie would have hated him for not being aggressive and trying to find out more about their relationship, but a part of him wanted to ignore the looming presence of Adrian Rossi on the horizon.

  Alex downed the last of his sauvignon blanc and pressed his lips together. She was still talking about the tourist season on the Pacific Coast and the comparisons between Choaca and other more common tourist destinations.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, setting her wine glass on the table. “Don’t you like the crème brulee?”

  “It’s great.” He pressed his fingers on the base of his glass. “You made perfect choices with the food. And the wine.”

  Her cheeks colored, just a shade, and Julianna looked down at her plate. “I know I talk about my work a lot. And I know you think I work too much—”

  “There is nothing wrong with you. Let me just say that.” He leaned forward and tried to meet her eyes, although she was avoiding him. “You’re perfect.”

  A small shake of her head. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Since you were totally honest earlier, let me be totally honest.” Alex stood and strode around the table, purposefully, and knelt beside her. “I didn’t come to Mexico to meet someone, and I certainly didn’t intend to…fall…as quickly or as completely as I have fallen for you.”