The Tycoon's Paternity Agenda / High-Society Seduction: The Tycoon's Paternity Agenda / High-Society Seduction. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ attractive, she said, but needed to focus all her energy on school. She had a plan, she’d told him, a future to build, and she wouldn’t stray from that. Which made him respect her even more.

      But he wasn’t used to taking no for an answer, either, so he’d persisted, and finally she agreed to one date. But only as friends. He took her to dinner and the theater. She hadn’t even kissed him goodnight, but as he drove home, he knew that he would eventually marry her. She was everything he wanted in a wife.

      They saw each other several times before she finally let him kiss her, and held out for an excruciating three months before she would sleep with him. He wouldn’t say that first time had been a disappointment, exactly. It had just taken a while to get everything working smoothly. Their sex life had never been what he would call smoking hot anyway. It was more … comfortable. Besides, their relationship had been based more on respect than sex. And he preferred it that way.

      They were seeing each other almost six months before she admitted her humble background—not that it had made a difference to him—and it wasn’t until they became engaged a year later that she finally introduced him to her family.

      After months of hearing complaints about her family, and how backward and primitive ranch life was, he’d half expected to meet the modern equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies, but her parents were both educated, intelligent people. He never really understood why she resented them so. Her family seemed to adore her, yet she always made excuses why they shouldn’t visit, and the longer she stayed away, the more her resentment seemed to grow. He had tried to talk to her about it, tried to reason with her, but she would always change the subject.

      Elvie appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a glass of lemonade. Eyes wary, she stepped into the room and walked toward the sofa. He took a step in her direction to take the glass from her, and she reacted as if he’d raised a hand to strike her. She set the drink down on the coffee table with a loud clunk then scurried back across the room and through the kitchen door.

      “Thank you,” he said to her retreating form. He hoped she was a better housekeeper than a conversationalist. He picked up the icy glass and raised it to his lips, but some of the lemonade had splashed over and it dripped onto the lapel of his suit jacket.

      Damn it. There was nothing he hated more than stains on his clothes. He looked around for something to blot it up, so it didn’t leave a permanent mark. He moved toward the kitchen, to ask Elvie for a cloth or towel, but given her reaction to him, he might scare her half to death if he so much as stepped through the door. He opted for the second floor bathroom instead, which he vaguely recalled to be somewhere along the upstairs hallway.

      He headed up the stairs and when he reached the top step a grayish-brown ball of fur appeared from nowhere and wrapped itself around his ankles, nearly tripping him. He caught the banister to keep from tumbling backward.

      Timid housekeepers and homicidal cats. What could he possibly encounter next?

      He gave the feline a gentle shove with the toe of his Italian-leather shoe, which he noticed was dotted with mud, and shooed it away. It meowed in protest and darted to one of the closed doors, using its weight to shove it open. Wondering if that could be the bathroom he was searching for, he crossed the hall and peered inside. But it wasn’t the bathroom. It was Katy’s room. She stood beside the bed, wearing nothing but a bath towel, her hair damp and hanging down her back.

      Damn.

      She didn’t seem to notice him there so he opened his mouth to say something, to warn her of his presence, but it was too late. Before he could utter a sound, she tugged the towel loose and dropped it to the wood floor.

      And his jaw nearly went with it. He tried to look away, knew he should look away, but the message wasn’t making it to his brain.

      Her breasts were high and plump, the kind made just for cupping, with small, pale pink nipples any man would love to get his lips around. Her hips were the perfect fullness for her height. In fact, she was perfectly proportioned. Becca had been rail thin and petite. Almost nymph-like. Katy was built like a woman.

      Then his eyes slipped lower and he saw that she clearly was a natural blonde.

      It had been a long time since he’d seen a woman naked, so the sudden caveman urge he was feeling to put his hands on her was understandable. But this was Katy. His wife’s baby sister.

      The thing is, she was no baby.

      A droplet of water leaked from her hair and rolled down the generous swell of her breast. He watched, mesmerized as it caught on the crest of her nipple, wondering if it felt even half as erotic as it looked.

      Katy cleared her throat, and Adam realized that at some point during his gawking she had realized he was there. He lifted his eyes to hers and saw that she was watching him watch her.

      Rather than berate him or try to cover herself—or both, since neither would be unexpected at this point—she just stood there wearing a look that asked what the heck he thought he was doing.

      Why the hell wasn’t she covering herself? Was she an exhibitionist or something? Or maybe the more appropriate question was, why was he still looking?

      She planted her hands on her hips, casual as can be, and asked. “Was there something you needed?”

      He had to struggle to keep his eyes on hers, when they naturally wanted to stray back down to her breasts. “I was looking for the bathroom, then there was this cat, and it opened your door.”

      “Right.”

      “This was an accident.” A very unfortunate, wonderful accident.

      “If that’s true, then I think at this point the gentlemanly thing to do would be to turn around. Don’t you?”

      “Of course. Sorry.” He swiftly turned his back to her. What the hell was wrong with him? He never got flustered, but right now he was acting like a sex-starved adolescent. She must have thought he was either a pervert, or a complete moron. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I was … surprised. I apologize.”

      “Try two doors down on the right,” she said from behind him, closer now. So close he was sure that if he turned, he could reach out and touch her. He pictured himself doing just that. He imagined the weight of her breast in his palm, the taste of her lips as he pressed his mouth to hers… .

      He nearly groaned, the sudden ache in his crotch was so intense. What the hell was the matter with him? “Two doors down?”

      “The bathroom. You were looking for it, right?”

      “Right,” he said, barely getting the words out without his voice cracking. He forced his feet forward.

      Since Becca’s death he’d barely thought about sex, but now it would seem that his libido had lurched into overdrive.

      “And, Adam?” she added.

      He paused, but didn’t dare turn back around. “Yes?”

      “For the record, if you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”

      Four

      Oh, good Lord in heaven.

      Katy closed her bedroom СКАЧАТЬ