She sighed. “Your father agreed to the terms. He was willing to pay the interest.”
“Well, I’m running things differently than he did. I can’t agree to this. I’m not going to pay you double what I should.”
She shrugged. “The contracts were signed. They aren’t renegotiable. No one in their right mind would redistribute that money at a lower interest rate. I have to abide by the original agreement.”
“You could tear them up.” I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but it didn’t rein in my restraint much better than a full view of her legs. I’d always loved her legs. Long legs I had stood between. Kissed. Massaged. Felt the firmness of in my palms.
“But I won’t,” she answered. How did I shake her? How did I knock logic into her?
I felt the electric charge at the end of my thumb before it even grazed her shoulder. She stared at the end of my hand. Was she daring me to touch her? Begging me? My thumb inched closer. I fought every instinct in my body to keep my hands off her.
The instant my hand clasped around her the heat surged between us. I’d lied to myself when I’d fucked other women. I said I could forget Kennedy. For years I had let the lie take over. Five years it built in Paris. London. Munich. The lie was layered with women. I never looked in a woman’s eyes and felt devotion. Any of them could have been Venus, sprung from the sea—it didn’t matter. No one else was Kennedy. There were no emotions with the other women. Nothing and no one came close to what this woman did to me. What she used to do to me.
The letter fell to the pool deck. “Knight.” Her voice was soft and sexy. A call to my primal side.
I cupped the side of her cheek. “Don’t say another fucking word,” I growled as I took her mouth against mine. It was a kiss that had been raging beneath the surface since the night I left New Orleans.
My lips burned for hers in a way I didn’t know was possible. I wanted to bruise her. Bite her. Leave a mark from this kiss she would never forget. She drew a ragged breath and tried to push off me, but I wrapped my arms around her, grazing her skin. Digging my fingers into her flesh.
Our tongues tangled as if we were each trying to sear the other one more cruelly. My heart pounded beneath my ribs. I’d opened the gate to a dangerous game. I couldn’t undo it. I’d wanted this woman when we met. Nothing had changed what her body did to me. My hand slid along the dip of her lower back until I gripped her ass firmly. She hissed, but the kiss raged on.
How long could we stand next to the pool this way? Groping. Desperate to crawl under each other’s skin.
“You hate me,” she whispered. I lowered my mouth to her neck. I kissed her throat, following the V the swimsuit made.
“No.” I hooked a finger beneath the strap, it
was fastened with a figure-eight clasp. “I can’t.”
“Only five minutes ago…”
I took a full handful of her ass in my palm. “Stop talking.” I kissed her roughly. She threw her arms around my neck.
I was drowning. Getting drunk on her lips. When it abruptly halted at the sound of Kennedy’s phone. She wrangled herself free and dove on the chaise to grab it.
“I need to take the call. I’ve been expecting this all day.”
“Go ahead,” I groaned.
She held the phone to her ear. “Renee? Oh God, what is it? What happened? Did they vote?”
I rubbed the side of my jaw, watching her walk to the end of the pool where the diving board was perched. I lost the rest of the conversation. I sat on the end of the chair.
Minutes later she padded over in her bare feet. “I’m sorry, but I have a long night ahead of me.”
“Everything all right?” I stood, towering over her.
“No. It’s not. But I’ll handle it.” She smiled. “I always do.”
“You won’t tell me what it is?” I asked.
“No.”
I studied her, wondering where this unfazed version of her had come from. Paul told me she had been trained. But the woman in front of me had instincts. She had confidence and command. I was starting to understand why they called her a queen. It wasn’t an exaggeration or an honorary title. She had the kind of fire in her eyes that would put men’s head on spikes.
I retrieved the letter we had trampled and shoved it in my pocket. “I’ll call my accountant tomorrow,” she explained. “I am sorry about the mix up.”
“I’ll make the payments. I don’t agree with the contracts, but money’s not an issue. Not with me running the organization now.”