But when they arrived back at the gallery, tuxedoes were temporarily off their radar.
“I don’t believe it.” Ari scrolled the mouse down quickly, scanning an online article that a half dozen so-called friends were only too happy to email or post to their Facebook pages. “That rat bastard.” They’d arrived back at the gallery to the phone ringing like mad and her email in-box beeping every few seconds.
She went back to the beginning of the web page and read it slowly, each word of the conniving article adding fuel to her rage-filled fire. “I’m going to kill him.” As if her day weren’t cruddy enough, this latest development heaped the pile of manure to the tipping point.
Without further thought, she stalked barefoot out of her office, out the front door of her gallery, and onto the sidewalk, nearly slamming into an older couple strolling with their hands clasped.
“Ari?” Lance followed at a sprint out the door after her. “What the hell?”
She ignored him and paced up the street toward the direction the bastard usually came from, and then stopped in frustration. Despite Sorenson’s frequent visits to her gallery, she’d never been to his home. She knew he lived nearby, but which of the colorful row homes was his, she couldn’t say.
Lance caught up to her and yanked her shoulder to hold her in place. “Ari, where are you going?”
She whirled on him filled with fury. “I’m going to find Peter Sorenson, and then I’m going to…” She slowed her speech as she realized her volume and words were creating a scene on the sidewalk.
One person even pulled out a cell phone camera. “Isn’t that Stanley Rose’s daughter?” came whispers from the gathering crowd.
Lance’s anchoring touch calmed her, and she allowed him to guide her back into the privacy of her gallery. “Care to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
She walked back to her office and beckoned him to follow. “There,” she said. She pointed down at her computer monitor. “Read that.”
Lance sank into her desk chair and read the article with a furrowed brow. Her breaths came in deep spurts as if she’d run a mile. She watched as he read through the article, once, twice.
“Well?” she said.
He spun the chair to face her and shrugged. “You’re right, he is an ass, but what are you going to do?”
She banged a fist onto her desk. “Kill him.”
Lance made a doubting Thomas face at her and she flattened her hand. “Well, all right, not kill him, but I do want to give him a piece of my mind.”
He stood up and came to lean back on the desk in front of her. “You’d only be giving him more ammunition, more fodder with which to run to illegitimate bloggers posing as journalists. I say ignore it.”
She stepped around him to collapse into her desk chair and faced the questionable article on the monitor. “Then what do you suggest I do? I can’t let an insult of this magnitude go without a fight.”
The article, entitled “The World through Rose-Colored Lenses,” was a tell-all interview with Peter Sorenson, a supposedly intimate friend of Ms. Arianna Rose, daughter of Stanley Rose. She couldn’t even look at her computer monitor without getting angry again. Sorenson had, simply put, told lies about her and skewed details about her life to sound lewd or irresponsible. It had even included something about Lance.
She read aloud, “On my most recent visit with Arianna, or Anna, as friends call her, she talked of closing her gallery for a few weeks while she took her latest, big-on-muscle, low-on-IQ, lover to an island for some R and R. She refused to disclose which island, even hinting that she may catch a glimpse of a certain missing family member.” She stopped reading and turned to face Lance, who looked sober.
“Damn, and I thought I’d impressed him with my sharp wit.” He shook his head. “Low on IQ points, huh?”
“He insinuates I know where my father is.” She reached out to pinch his muscled thigh. “Why are you not taking this seriously? Close my gallery for a few weeks. As if. I can only be grateful for small things, like the article not mentioning the FBI seizing the property. That would be the crowning touch to my humiliation.”
Lance stepped over to the desk chair and hoisted her up under her arms long enough to slide under her and perch her on his lap. “I’m taking this seriously, sweetie, but he’s a liar, Ari. True friends and real journalists and media outlets will see through this for what it is, a desperate man seeking attention by preying on the misfortune of others.”
She snuggled in closer, allowing herself to be comforted, and prayed he was correct. “So I should do nothing?”
Lance nodded against her scalp. “Ignore him. If you want, I could go prove Sorenson correct and use my strong muscles to beat him to a pulp, but that would require too many IQ points to seek out his address, and we both know I haven’t got enough to spare.”
His sarcasm let her see the ridiculousness in the situation and she released a cathartic laugh. “That’s how I like my men: great bodies, little minds.”
He scoffed. “You’d grind a lesser man to pieces and have him begging for mercy in minutes.” He pulled her tighter to his chest and murmured into her hair. “So we’re staying in tonight, yeah? No need for me to run home for my tuxedo.”
She sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”
Pale red mottled his neck. “I assumed after the article you wouldn’t want to go to the party.”
“Huh? Didn’t you tell me five seconds ago to ignore it?”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean you should go out with a target painted on us.”
“Us? Don’t you mean me?” She studied his expression. Why did he look panic stricken? Could he be embarrassed by the article?
“Uh, yes, but I’m kind of mentioned in the article also.”
She patted his firm chest under the worn t-shirt. “Trust me. It’s me they’re after. You’ll be ignored.”
“One can only hope,” he muttered under his breath.
She hopped off his lap. “Go home and grab your tux. I’ve got a million things to do, if I’m going to be gorgeous by”—she checked her watch—“eight o’clock.” She rushed out of her office and up the stairs to her loft, ignoring Lance’s comment about her being gorgeous already. No time for mushy sentiment. She needed her game face on, and that meant an impenetrable social mask ready to beg, plead, and cajole her parents’ peers for their money.
“Tell me again why we’re here?” Lance tugged at the stiff collar of his white dress shirt. The valet sped Ari’s car away from the curb behind him and he grasped her bare arm at the elbow. Averting his head from the flashing bulbs of the local media, he steered Arianna through the wide entrance doors of the elegant hotel.
“We’re here to beg, borrow, or steal money from my father’s former friends.”
“What?” The acid in his gut churned threateningly.
“You heard me. His former friends, the ones who were only too happy to hand pieces of their financial portfolios to him, chuckle about the high yield, then condemn him publicly when it all fell apart,” she said.
“What were they supposed to do? Go down with him? You father stole from them, Ari.”
She stopped and tugged him over to a more private spot. “Yes, he stole from them, but it doesn’t mean his investors are lily white either.”
Lance stared down at her aghast. How had the FBI missed this? “What are you saying? His investors were thieves too?”
She hmmphed in annoyance. “No, of course not, but they were willing to look the other way during the good years. Years when Rose Investments paid ten percent interest when every other firm hovered at four.”
“So?”
“Oh, come on, Lance. If someone came to you and said you’d earn six percent more than everyone else, you wouldn’t question it?”
He nodded pensively. “Yeah, I’d wonder how.”
“Exactly,” Arianna said. “My dad’s investors must have known something wasn’t kosher, but they didn’t care. They only looked at the bottom line.” She straightened, thrusting her chest out and chin up. “And now, I’m going to play on their guilt and ask for loans. Only from the ones who didn’t lose their shirts to my dad, of course.”
She turned to head into the party in progress, but Lance pulled Ari tight against his chest and inhaled the grapefruit scent of her hair. “Are you sure about this? Won’t they be angry seeing you in there? Could you go to the bank for a loan instead?”
She released a huff of sardonic laughter. “Like any bank is going to loan money to a member of the Rose family. Keep dreaming. I think this is the best idea.” She walked ahead and Lance took a tentative step after her. He should’ve faked an illness or pretended to have a prior engagement.
“Fuck it,” he said to himself and strode after her, bracing himself for the derision.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. No one was outright nasty to their faces, but he couldn’t pretend he didn’t hear the quiet whispers or see the narrowed eyes as they passed small clusters of well-dressed people sipping cocktails. Arianna gave him strength. She’d been facing this kind of scrutiny for the better part of a year. If she could tolerate it that long, he could do it for one night.
“Mr. Zicker.” She broke into one of the tight circles and greeted a robust man approximately in his sixties. Lance hovered on the outside until Ari yanked him forward to introduce him. He released a breath and smiled to the group as soon as he recognized no one. The social small talk flowed easily from his lips despite his years away from this scene.
They stayed and chatted for a few minutes until Ari gracefully exited, looking for the next target. It quickly became the pattern: break into a group, chat them up, then on to the next huddle.
“Lance?” He increased his speed when he heard his name being called from across the room. “Lance Brown?” the voice called again.
“Would you like another drink?” he asked Ari, ignoring his name.
She frowned. “Is someone calling your name?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Lance. It is you.” An overly tanned, manicured hand latched onto his forearm like a raptor on its prey.
A strong press of foreboding swept through him as he turned and saw his mother’s good friend Nancy Melton. He slapped on his social grin. “Nancy. Nice to see you. What are you doing this far into the Beltway?”
“What am I doing?” Her laugh could also pass for a cackle. “I’m on the board of the Literacy Campaign. What are you doing here? I thought you gave all this up when you left MarketFresh.”
Moment of truth time. “I’m here with my date.” He looked down to introduce Arianna, but in the eighth of a second since Nancy’s arrival, she’d ducked out and now stood several yards away with her back to him chatting to an older tuxedoed man. “She must be getting drinks. How are you doing?” He tried to convey a sense of delight to have run into an old family friend, but mostly it was relief he didn’t have to explain his connection with Stanley Rose’s daughter. Yeah, I am an asshole.
“I’m great, although tired. I’ve only been back in the country a few days. I’m very jet-lagged.” She feigned a yawn as though the burden of traveling the world by private jet were simply too wearying to fathom. Nancy suddenly grabbed his arm again and narrowed her eyes. “Is that Stanley Rose’s daughter? What in the world is that thief doing here? I can’t believe she has the nerve to show her face after what her family did.”
Lance yanked his arm back. “What makes you call her a thief?” He fought to keep his tone mild, but for the first time in a lifetime, he wanted to hit a woman—an AARP candidate. “And she didn’t hurt you. Her father did.”
“Easy for you to say. Your family never invested with Rose. We lost almost three percent of our assets.”
“So…what? You had to switch from Beluga to Osetra? I’m sorry for your loss.”
Red flags stained Nancy’s otherwise white cheeks. “I can’t believe you’re defending her. Your mother said you’d changed, but I hadn’t believed it.”
“Yep, I’ve changed.”
Nancy’s eyes suddenly widened and the reason for her shock became evident as a smooth, silky arm wrapped around his waist.
“Hi, Ari.” He smiled down at his date.
“I don’t believe it, Lance. What would your mother say?” Nancy said in a shocked whisper. “Or…your father?”
He looked Nancy in the eye. “I don’t give a damn.” He bent and kissed Ari’s soft red curls. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”
She smiled up at him, though concern danced in her eyes at Nancy’s words. “Sure. My work here is done.”
They strolled arm in arm out of the ballroom to the front of the hotel to get her car from the valet.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I didn’t think how hard it would be for you if your parents’ friends saw you with me,” Ari said.
Lance froze as her words struck home. “Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to tonight,” he confessed. “I wanted to help you, but I know I’m going to spend the next few days getting berating phone calls from my parents. I’ve stopped letting them dictate my life, but it’s still not fun dealing with them.”
She squeezed his arm. “I apologize. I was being selfish.”
He gave her a soft smile and shook his head, reassuring her that she was in no way being selfish. He wanted to be here with her. He handed the valet ticket to the young man standing next to the wooden board dotted with dozens of key rings. “I can make a call to my folks when we get home.”
“Why? What call?”
“To my parents to see if they will loan you money. Isn’t that what you want? Money from a rich source?”
Ari stared at up at him with an expression he didn’t know how to read. “Well, sure, but not from you. You mean more to me than that. Valerie told me weeks ago your family owns MarketFresh. If all I’d wanted from you was money, I would’ve already asked. I’ll find another solution if nothing from tonight pans out.”
Her car pulled up to the curb with a squeal and she slid into the passenger seat. In a daze, he walked around the car and found his spot as the reliable driver. Though at this moment, he was anything but secure. Ari continued to rock his world with the unexpected. She didn’t want his family money, and he’d offered it to her with no strings. How…odd.
His admiration for her grew at her confident approach to her admittedly massive problems. This was not the same girl from weeks ago who could barely sweep the glass off the floor. His brain filled with things he wanted to say, like how he respected her and … loved her, hovering on the tip of his tongue. Loved her?
He swallowed over a suddenly dry mouth. Was it true? Had he fallen in love with Arianna Rose, daughter of America’s Most Wanted?
Shit, he had. Head-over-freaking-heels. It had not been that long ago, which was one big reason he should chalk it up to lust, but it was more than lust. All the reasons this relationship were doomed surfaced then drowned as the weak excuses they were. He’d take a lot ribbing for it, and his boss would be less than thrilled, but there was no reason he couldn’t go public about his relationship with Arianna. He could handle comments like the ones Nancy Melton slung tonight. The one truth remained that if they loved each other enough, no feeble reason should keep them apart.
He slid the car into drive and sobered as he remembered he was spying on her at the request of his boss and had to report anything of interest back to him. Women tended to hate that kind of stuff. He realized he had to tell her the FBI had asked him to report anything suspicious and was struggling to find the right words when Ari started speaking before he could confess the truth.
“I’ll figure out the funding for the opening, but now I need to find a place to stay,” she said.
“You could stay with me, at my apartment.” The words came out of his mouth before his brain caught up.
Ari looked up from her cell phone, which she’d pulled out to thumb through her contacts looking for a place to stay. “Seriously?”
“If you want to.” His blood pumped harder in anticipation of her response, and he wasn’t sure which answer he wanted from her, an acceptance or decline. “I mean, um, Valerie and Jason’s apartment is too small, you can’t stay there.”
“No…”
“And a hotel is out since you’ll need all your available money for movers and the gallery show.”
“True.”
He felt like an awkward teenager hinting at what he wanted, which was to keep Ari close. He didn’t try to delude himself into thinking it was for his job and for her protection; he knew the truth. He wanted her close for himself. “It would be safer, too. Since you can’t afford to pay Tony anymore. I’d have a harder time looking out for your attacker if we weren’t together.”
A small smile hovered at the corner of her lips. “Lance, do you want me to move in with you?”
“Move in? No, but you’re welcome to stay until you get back on your feet. I mean, I’ll be back at work soon.” Well, hell yes, he wanted to live with her, but if he started talking monogrammed towels and shit, she’d run.
The smile left her face. “I think I’ll call some other friends. Ones who would actually want me there.”
“I want you there. Don’t call other people.” He heard the bark in his voice and regretted it, but his whole body went into protest at the thought of her living with someone else, of another person seeing her rub lotion into her legs or watching her interminable morning dressing routine. That was his privilege alone.
“Okay.” She closed the contact app on her phone. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll stay with you. Let’s go start packing when we get home.”
“That was too easy,” he said, wondering what made her capitulate.
“It seemed the smartest decision. The art show is my first priority. Shelter for me is the least of my problems.”
He relaxed his body and tried not to crow with delight that she’d be sleeping in his bed soon. He’d find another time to tell her he was supposedly spying on her for the feds. Why screw up a good night? There’d be plenty of time later.
Lance had been dead wrong about the Sorenson article. They’d arrived at her apartment from the charity benefit to dozens of messages from curious journalists and more calls came in while they packed. Finally, after a magazine called with an offer for her to pose nude, Ari muted her phone and focused on packing and sorting her belongings from the last four years of her life.
They’d stayed up until the wee hours folding and packing clothes and other more personal possessions. By three a.m., she was too dirty and wiped out to do anything more than shower alone and drop into bed wearing nothing more than a damp towel and Lance’s arms wrapped around her. Five hours later, the sun poured through the arched window and she lay in bed determined to enjoy her last morning in her beloved loft before the movers arrived to put her furnishings in storage.
Lance had been an amazing help, using his muscle to move bags downstairs and making a late-night run to a Dumpster for boxes. For the first time in a long while, she hadn’t called Valerie to help. She knew Jason would be overprotective and refuse to let his wife lift anything heavier than a Kleenex, but it was still strange to move through a major life hurdle without Val’s presence. Maybe it meant that at long last, at the age of twenty-eight, she was finally growing up.
A rustle of sheets next to her caught her attention. Lance still slept deeply, looking altogether too delectable with his morning beard and his lashes shadowing his cheeks. She tugged the sheet a little lower to appreciate his shirtless chest. Though she’d never seen him in action, he’d told her he was trained in a variety of martial arts disciplines, and his muscles showed it.
Her finger trailed lightly along his collarbone and down to one nipple, which she circled, hoping not to wake him up. It was rare to have a creature as strong and dominant as Lance at her complete mercy. She planted soft kisses and little love bites along his torso.
“Mmm.” Lance shifted and grumbled, but his eyes remained closed.
Ari glanced down the bed to Lance’s hips hidden under the sheet, which now tented up toward the ceiling. “Thank you, morning wood gods,” she said with a delighted grin. She slid the sheet lower and moved her kisses south toward Lance’s erection, now visible and straining toward his belly. Simply touching his gorgeous body had her own arousal building.
The moment her mouth made contact with the tip of his shaft, his hand came down on her head.
“Good morning,” he said in a scratchy voice. “What did I do to deserve this?”
She scooted up to kiss his mouth, morning breath and all. “Good morning. This isn’t a gift, it’s purely selfish. I’m going to get you wet and harder and then I’m going to ride you.”
He smiled. “So I’m your stud?”
“Yep. My own living, breathing dildo.”
He folded his hands behind his head and thrust his hips subtly. A little spike of pleasure zinged through her at the picture he made naked and ready for her ravishment. “I can live with that. Have at it,” he said.
She grinned back at him, feeling a thrill of delight at their silly repartee, and headed back down to wrap her mouth around Lance.
“One request.” Lance’s voice made her lift her head back to see his face. “Get on your knees and turn that sexy ass this way. It’s not fair if I’m the only wet one in this scenario.” He didn’t wait for her compliance and planted his large hands on her hips, physically lifting her into position. If his body hadn’t been enough to arouse her, his sheer strength had her wet and aching.
She was in a perfect position for his fingers to tease and linger over a spot that had her gasping and leaning back into him. His fingers played inside and around her, teaching her things about need and desire. Things she’d never dreamed of learning. He was the master, she a willing disciple.
“You like this?” He did something magical with his fingers that had her moaning and taking even more of his length in her mouth. “How about this?” One digit slid back from her dripping core, back to…oh my. She started to tighten around him, and he tugged her around to face him and straddle his thighs. Remembering his concern over their previous lack of condom use, she leaned over to grab one from the nightstand.
Once he was safely sheathed, he grinned at her, his arms now crossed behind his head. “Ready to ride?”
He looked like a tantalizing buffet for her pleasure. She pressed her hands onto his chest for leverage and reveled in the flex and strength of the warm muscles under her palms. Leaning forward, she raised her rear in the air and sank slowly back down, letting him fill her inch by inch.
God, the friction was amazing. Ari’s inner muscles adjusted to Lance’s girth. Once he was fully inside, she closed her eyes and shut herself off to all sensation save the feel of their physical connection.
For several minutes she raised and lowered her hips with abandon, focused solely on pinpointing pleasure, but it all changed when Lance’s arms tugged her head down for a kiss. Sensations flooded in, overwhelming her with his taste, his musky soapy scent, and the sound of his low grunts as she rode him faster and faster.
“Harder, Ari. I can take it, and you want it,” he growled in her ear. “You’re my wild girl. You’ll do anything to please me, anything for your own pleasure, won’t you?”
“Aah,” she panted from the back of her throat. God, his words? Total turn-on. It was almost too much to handle. Her brain was on sensory overload. With furiously increasing speed, they thrust against each other, riding the wave ever closer to breaking.
“Don’t come yet, Ari,” he warned.
“I’m close.” Her words were a plea. He had her close to begging. What did he mean, “Don’t come?” As if she could help herself with him clutching her hips and pounding up into her. She’d lost the power struggle despite her position on top, and it was all she could do to hang on for the ride. His powerful thighs braced in place and he used them to thrust up ever harder.
“You’ll come when I tell you to,” he said.
Her eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head wildly. “Can’t. I’m too close.”
“Beg,” he ordered.
The words fell out of her mouth as if he’d planted them there centuries ago. “Please, too good, can’t stop,” she babbled. She was no longer sitting up over Lance. Her breasts rubbed against his torso and she sobbed into his collarbone.
“Okay, baby. Come for me.” With a grateful sob, she fell apart around him with shudder after shudder of delight. Lance kept thrusting upward, still riding his way toward orgasm.
She tried to keep up, but the sensation bordered on overwhelming and she could feel another orgasm hovering if she was brave enough to let herself go for it.
“Arianna, look at me.” Lance’s voice left no room for disobedience.
She cracked her eyelids open, but with dilated pupils and blood pounding in her ears it was hard to make out his words. I love you?
“You love me?”
He didn’t answer, but took her lips in a sweet, slow kiss that told her the answer without words.