The bedside clock had warned him it was eight in the morning. After the night he’d had, he was a little surprised he’d regained consciousness before noon.
To his intense dismay, he’d spooned Missy at some point during the wee hours after they’d surrendered to exhaustion. Arm wrapped around her ridiculously tiny waist, face buried in her neck, he’d aligned them head to toe.
He’d never spooned a woman in his life.
Hell, aside from his ex-wife, he hadn’t spent the night with more than a handful of women, and none since his divorce. He’d didn’t like being touched while he slept.
Yet there he’d been, cuddled up against Missy as if he was afraid she’d steal away in the night. With a heavy, thick erection that poked at her backside. He’d kissed the side of her neck, his fingers gliding along her petal-soft skin. She’d stirred. Murmured. Stretched.
He’d jerked his hands away. The night was over. His debt paid. Awakening her with slow, sweet loving would imply that he intended to keep the affair going.
He’d been shocked by how hard it was to leave the bed. What was the matter with him? Sure, the sex had been incredible. Her enthusiastic, uninhibited responses to his lovemaking had blown his mind and unraveled his control. She’d denied him nothing. And he’d given her a night she’d never forget.
A night he’d never forget.
Sebastian shoved his head beneath the cold water to banish his steamy thoughts. Not being the sort of man who did things then lived to regret them later, he didn’t like the sensation churning in his gut. He shouldn’t have let himself agree to Missy’s wager. If he hadn’t been so damned certain he would win, he might have considered what would happen if he didn’t.
What the hell had happened to his sanity? She was his assistant for heaven’s sake.
Not anymore.
Losing the bet last night meant he would need to split his attention between the all-important leadership summit and convincing Missy to stay.
Everyone had a price. He just needed to figure out hers.
He slammed his fist against the tile. The sting restored his calm. He switched from cold to hot and soaped down.
The bed was empty when he left the bathroom to dress. His gaze slid over the rumpled covers. Images of last night’s lovemaking flashed through his head. His body’s predictable reaction infuriated him.
Convincing Missy they could go back to being boss and employee would be impossible if he let lust rule every time he thought about her.
Sebastian yanked a pair of boxers from the drawer and hauled them over his erection. Sliding into a shirt, he fastened the buttons and glared at his reflection, willing his body to behave as if he, and not it, was in control. At least Missy had made herself scarce. One glimpse of her sexy curves beneath the sheet and he’d have tossed his towel into the corner and his better judgment to the wind.
He found his watch on the nightstand and fastened it around his wrist before donning his suit coat. Sebastian closed his eyes briefly. Had he really been in such a hurry with Missy that he hadn’t taken the time to do more than shove his pants to his knees? Obviously he needed to devote more time to his sex life.
Since divorcing Chandra, he’d grown way too suspicious of the women he dated. He treated every one as if they intended to get pregnant in an attempt to compel him to marry them. He and Kaitlyn had been seeing each other for several months and hadn’t yet become intimate. So what had prompted him to throw caution to the wind with Missy?
Sebastian left the disturbing question unanswered and strode into the living room to retrieve his cell phone. The sight of Missy, wearing nothing more than a happy smile and the shirt she’d stripped off him last night, stopped him cold.
His shirt bared her long slender legs and tormented his imagination. With her moss-green eyes obscured by her glasses once again and her hair pulled into a ponytail, she looked like a cross between a pinup and the girl next door. What had happened to the conservative, somewhat frumpy assistant he knew and relied on?
“I ordered breakfast,” she said, retrieving their clothes and shoes from the floor. “It should be here any second.”
To keep from ogling her, he stared at the mixture of garments draped over her arm. “Have you seen my BlackBerry?”
“It was in your pocket.” As she held it out to him, her neckline gaped.
She’d left the top two buttons undone, offering him a tantalizing glimpse of the voluptuous curve of her breast. His fingers twitched, muscles yearning to swallow that perfect roundness in his palm.
One night. That’s all she’d demanded and all he’d intended to let her have. He needed to get them back on professional footing.
“Thanks.” He watched her carry his suit into the bedroom, unable to tear his gaze away. When she disappeared from view, he shook his head to rearrange his thoughts.
He keyed up his emails to see what sort of trouble the morning had brought with it. Dueling emails from Nathan and Max told him it was business as usual with Case Consolidated Holdings.
A troublemaker from the moment he could crawl, middle-brother Max raced cars on the weekend and partied too much during the week. But as reckless as he could be in his personal life, he was conservative in business.
That made for some interesting battles with youngest brother, Nathan, who had made his money taking risks in the stock market and venture capital. The charm Nathan used to get what he wanted was in short supply whenever Max was around.
Max was in Germany trying to save one of their key suppliers from declaring bankruptcy while Nathan looked for a replacement supplier closer to home in Ohio. Max didn’t believe Nathan’s claim that the new company could produce their one-of-a-kind part at a seventeen percent reduction in cost and still maintain the quality.
“I have reports to go over from Nathan about this new supplier he found. I could use your help right after breakfast.”
“I was planning on doing a little sightseeing this morning.” Her voice emerged from the bedroom, tinged with impatience. “I’ve never been to Las Vegas before.”
“There’s not much to see. Just a bunch of casinos.”
“That may be the case.” She reappeared as a knock sounded on the suite’s front door. “But I intend to win money in every single one.”
The words on his handheld screen stopped making sense as she strolled past him. His gaze locked on her bare legs.
With an effort, he refocused on his emails. She would not distract him all week. Playtime was over.
A familiar voice greeted Missy at the door. Sebastian’s head shot up. Framed in the doorway was not a room service waiter, but a tall man in his late sixties dressed casually in a golf shirt and khakis.
For about a millisecond Sebastian’s father looked startled to be greeted by a half-naked woman, then a broad grin bloomed. The man standing just behind him, however, dressed like Sebastian in an expensive gray suit, appeared positively shocked.
The very air in the room stilled as if everyone had stopped breathing.
Missy was the first to move. “Hello, Brandon. Good to see you.” She held out her hand to the former CEO and looked startled when Brandon not only took her hand, but also leaned forward to kiss her cheek. While Sebastian watched, she wrapped herself in professionalism as if she wore a business suit instead of a man’s shirt. She then extended her hand to the second man. “I’m Missy Ward, Sebastian’s assistant.”