One Man (Naked Trilogy 1)
“I told you, sweetheart, I don’t know, but we’re damn sure going to find out.”
“How?”
“My father always said surround yourself by people who know more than you, and you’ll learn what they know and become smarter. In short, we figure this out by hiring an expert investigator and an army if needed.” We enter the lobby, and I wave off the bellman as I add, “But first we eat, before I chew someone’s arm off.”
“No kidding,” she agrees. “You take the right and I’ll take the left.”
We share a look that is as easy and right, as is that exchange. I want to kiss her. I want to fuck her. I want to just eat pizza with her, the latter of which is the real damn unknown. I’m not a relationship guy. No matter what I’ve said or thought up to this point, I need to remember that I’m damn sure not a relationship guy with Emma Knight. I’m suffocating in this woman and with danger in the air, I need to rein this in now.
That resolve last seconds, as we step onto the elevator and the air around us crackles with sexual tension and when I look at her, when our gazes collide, I want her up against the wall, her pants down and me buried inside her. That’s right. Fuck. I want to fuck her. That’s what this is. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I still want to eat a damn pizza with her. I still want to know her story, get lost in it. I decide right then that out of all the unknowns right now, if any of them gets the best of me, it might just be her.
Once we’re back in my room, Emma and I quickly get settled, our bags setup on luggage racks just in time for the pizza to arrive, the ease of which we interact so smooth, it’s comfortable. Comfortable gets a man in my position fucked in all the wrong ways. And yet, when that steaming hot pizza arrives smelling so damn good, and we settle on the floor in front of the coffee table, my resolve starts to crumble. I open the box, and together we stare at the bubbly cheese, and in a snap, Emma brings me right back to her.
“Thank God,” Emma gushes. “I’m starving and I don’t even care if you see me eat an entire pizza. I just want it in my body.”
And there she goes. I laugh, tension easing deep in my gut, tension that I didn’t think would ever ease. Tension that started months before my brother’s death, when he wasn’t acting himself. But it does ease now and I find myself in the moment, focused on Emma, who doesn’t even hesitate.
She digs into the pizza, picking up a slice and taking a bite, her eagerness honest. She’s honest. I don’t feel many people are honest, but she is, this woman is, and a wave of protectiveness rises inside me. Why the hell am I trying to make her the enemy? It seems that’s what she’s endured all of her damn life.
“Where do you live?” she asks, settling her slice on her plate and plucking up a pepperoni. “Aside from Maine, of course.”
I grab a slice for myself. “I live in the castle.” I take a bite of the pizza.
“Have you always lived there?”
“Yes.” My lips thin with a topic that leads to no place good. “It’s divided into living quarters and business offices. Hunter and I lived in the castle. My youngest brother, Brody, has an independent streak. He lives in New York City. He runs North Whiskey and Cigar Shops from there.”
“I knew he ran those shops,” she says. “I’m not sure how, but you know your family has been connected to our hotels for all my life. I suppose I heard it down the road somewhere. How many are there?”
“A hundred now. He’s turned it into quite the empire.”
“Sounds like it. How well did you know my father, Jax? Just curious. I’m not going anywhere with this.”
“Not well. Hunter was always the heir apparent. My father was his contact until my brother took over. I ran the financial side of the operation, strategic planning, new product development.”
She considers that for a moment that stretches into a few minutes as we eat in comfortable silence, and I suspect her mind is where my mind is at. Our parents knew each other, but we never met, not until now but I take that one step further. Now both our fathers are dead. There’s an ominous quality to that thought.
“Why Brody’s independent streak?” she asks as she finishes off half her slice in an easy change of topic that I suspect isn’t easy at all. Her mind may well be going just as dark as mine, and she wants an escape. “And why New York City? Couldn’t he run his little empire from the castle? Or from Maine at least? And how big is the castle?” she laughs. “Sorry. That was me throwing you questions left and right.”