“What an arrogant ass he is. As a matter of fact I think someone once called him that. Why wouldn't he want your help?”
“Because the last time I saw him I said things to him that shouldn't have been said.”
“He said something too. Something ugly. No one would blame you for despising the jerk.”
“He didn't mean it. I know he didn't.” She drew in a breath that rippled like a sob. “I should have been standing by him this week, supporting him, helping him.”
Josh crushed her against him and, bending from his great height, laid his head on her shoulder. His nose burrowed in the silky hollow of her throat. “You tried, my love, you tried. I wouldn't listen and you were right. I was so damned sure of my own power.” His arms squeezed as though to impress her into his body.“I need you, Megan.”
His head came up, and his amber eyes studied each feature of her face intently. “I've never said that to another human being in my life,” he admitted. “I've never confessed to needing anyone or anything, but I need you.”
Her hands clasped the sides of his head, and she threaded her fingers through his dark hair. “I need you too. I need you to cure me of stubbornness and pride.”
“Pride.” He shook his head in self-deprecation. “I could give you lessons in having too much pride. I've had a chip on my shoulder since I was about ten years old, and the harder someone tried to knock it off, the larger it grew. What I wanted I went after. Come hell or high water, I got it. I just couldn't give you up. I had to have you.”
He took one of her hands from his hair and kissed the palm. “But winning you isn't worth your despising me in the process. You won't have to give up one thing in your life for me. I swear it. Not your career, not your ambition, nothing. Just be a part of my life. Please.”
“I wanted to despise you from the first moment I met you, because you saw right through me. More than that, you were always ready to point out my shortcomings.”
“For pure meanness, just to get a reaction out of you. Anger was better than nothing.”
“It was always a sweet anger.”
His eyebrow had regained some of its confidence and curved upward. “Sounds a lot like love to me.”
She leaned toward him provocatively. “Why don't you kiss me and find out?”
He needed no second invitation. His mouth opened over hers, and his tongue delved inside with rapacious need. It scoured her mouth, taking away all the bitterness that had risen between them, and leaving behind only the sweet taste of their love.
“Where's the bedroom?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
She pointed in the general direction, and he urged her to lead him. “How did you get in?” she asked, unfastening the buttons of his shirt as she walked backward in front of him.
“Through the door. Later I'm going to give you a lecture on leaving it unlocked.” He raked her with a lewd look. “Any sex fiend could come walking in here.”
On the brink of a laugh, she stopped abruptly. “Josh, what about Air South and Powell?”
“I'm mad as hell at the whole bunch. If it weren't for them, I'd have been here Sunday night. By the way, remind me to give you another lecture about sneaking out of resorts, renting a car, and driving alone across the whole state of Georgia.”
He was pushing her inexorably toward the bedroom. “But what about Air South?” she asked.
His sigh was one of weary surrender when her heels dug into the deep carpet. “I've been in boardrooms all—”
“Bedrooms?”
“Boardrooms”
“Just checking. Proceed.”
He gave her a withering look. “Just for that crack, I'm not going to tell you anything else now except to say that, by Monday or Tuesday at the latest, the newspaper reporters who had me dead and buried will be forced to write retractions.”
“I have every confidence in you,” Megan said, coming up on her tiptoes and looping her arms around his neck.
With their mouths fused and their bodies melded together, his hands curved under her bottom and lifted her off the floor as he carried her the rest of the way into the guest bedroom. He knew she would have felt uncomfortable with him in the room she had shared with James, and her heart overflowed with love. How could she have ever thought him insensitive?
He set her down slowly, and she slid against him, meeting the hard urgency of his desire on her descent. Lifting heavy eyelids, she looked up at him bewitchingly. She peeled the vest off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. She slipped the tie over his head and began taking off his shirt. He eased off his shoes with the toe of one foot on the heel of the other and kicked them aside.
When his shirt had joined the heap of clothes on the floor, she ran her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest. Her sensitive fingertips fluttered over his nipples, which sprang to life, growing erect beneath her touch. With deliberate leisure, she leaned forward to kiss him. Her tongue batted against him lightly. “Do you like that?” she whispered.