Bobby continued his lazy perusal of her assets one last time. "Ms. Spencer, I must say, you certainly paint a persuasive picture."
She smiled. Though such shallow tactics disgusted her, she was too smart not to use them when necessary.
"There's only one problem that I can see." Bobby bared his teeth at her in an approximation of a smile. "I just don't see how any one person--especially a woman, no offense meant, darlin'--is going to be able to control our wild boy. Not without an airtight plan."
Her professional reputation was at stake here, along with paying her new mortgage for the next several months.
A sudden calm washed over her, and she clasped her hands together on her lap.
"Ty will be moving in with me this morning. For the next two weeks I won't let him out of my sight. Not for a workout, a meal, a charitable event. Nothing."
She couldn't worry about Ty's reaction now, she'd deal with him later. Possibly with a sharp stick.
Bobby looked skeptical. "You on board with this, Superstar?" he asked Ty.
Slouched in his chair, Ty reached his arms back behind his head, stretched, then yawned.
"I didn't get much sleep last night," he finally said. "I'm looking forward to a big breakfast, and a soft bed." He raised an eyebrow in Julie's direction. "I figure your bed is as good as mine."
In that moment, Julie was thankful for everything she had ever learned from her parents about faking it. Otherwise, she would have launched herself across the room and strangled Ty.
"I have a lovely guest room all set up for you," she lied, then reached out to shake Bobby's hand. "I'm glad this is all settled. It was a pleasure to meet you."
How the hell was she going to keep her legs shut around Ty 24-7 for two whole weeks?
CHAPTER TEN
Ty left Bobby's office a very happy man. And not just because Julie's skirt served her ass up on a platter. If he'd known that a pack of strippers could get him into Julie's bed--who was she kidding with that guest bedroom crap?--this fast, he would have sent her a stripper-gram years ago.
Still, he wasn't a complete asshole, no matter what she thought. "They were just pictures," he said when they stepped outside.
She didn't even bother turning around to face him, just kept walking through the Outlaws' parking lot. "I really don't care."
Which meant she did, of course. It was too bad he had to act like an oversexed jerk to make sure they were together for the next two weeks, but that was the only way for them to get to know each other better. The only chance they had at a relationship.
He stopped, blinking in the bright sunlight off the Bay. What the hell was he doing, thinking in terms of a relationship? He'd never thought any further than one night. What was it about Julie that had him thinking crazy and acting even crazier?
"Get in," she said, pointing to a Prius sedan.
He strolled around the tiny hybrid car.
"I doubt I'm going to fit," he said suggestively.
Her face set into a grim mask. Shit. Too late, he remembered that she'd said nearly those exact words about him ten years ago, right before he took her virginity.
Okay, time for apologies. And he'd start by leaving his Maserati in the parking lot and squeezing into her itsy-bitsy environmentally correct car.
"Julie, I didn't just mean what you thought I meant," he said as she drove out toward Bay Street.
She glared at him. "I'm going to say this one more time, so try to get it through your thick skull. I don't care what you meant. Or what you thought you meant. Or what you did last night with a stack of over-endowed strippers. Or how you did everything in your power to humiliate me in front of Bobby. I just don't care, Ty."
In the blink of an eye, she pulled herself back together. "I. Don't. Care." To the naked eye she seemed composed and calm.
But he was more attuned to her than that, and he could feel her simmering beneath the surface.
"The only thing I care about," she continued, "is you making a good impression. My only concern is to transform the way the public sees you. Bye-bye, wild child."
Because he owed her one, he chose not to say something that would annoy her again. Yet. "You handled Bobby well."
It wasn't an empty compliment; he really did think she'd played his smarmy boss well. Playing up her looks had been a brillant tactic.
"Jocks," she sniffed. "I swear to God, if you want them to remember something you need to write it on the back of their hand. So here it is again; I am not interested in your opinion."
Too bad. She was getting the compliment whether she wanted it or not.
"Guys like Bobby aren't easy men to negotiate with. But you had him wrapped around your little finger." He looked down at her legs, her sexy shoes. God, she was hot.
"Sure I did. That's why I ended up having to live with you for the next two weeks." Sarcasm dripped from every word.
"You're living the dream," he said, only partly mocking himself.
"Don't kid yourself," she said, laughing. "The women you hang out with want to spend your money and be seen with you and be serviced by you in bed. Living with you is a price they have to pay."
He grinned, even though she probably was right. "If the rewards are big enough ..." he said. By the way she dropped the conversation, he figured he'd won.
They pulled into his driveway. "Pack your bags and be quick about it. On second thought," she said, studying his clothes like he was a bug smashed flat under a microscope, "I don't think you can be trusted with this task. I'll pack your bags."
What the hell? She had to be the only person on earth who had a problem with the way he dressed. Ty knew he looked great in his Cavalli shirt and Diesel jeans.
She walked in his open front door and asked one of his buddies, who'd just come from the hot tub, "Which way to his bedroom?" She jerked a thumb in Ty's direction.
Jack looked at Ty, then looked at Julie, and quickly figured out who the boss was. "Last door down the hall to the left.
"Thanks." Julie headed through his house as if she owned it.
"Dude, you have all the luck," his friend said.
"Don't I know it," Ty said, grinning. And he was going to get even luckier.
"You should really charge a fee," she said when he caught up to her in the hallway, then stopped at the threshold of his bedroom so suddenly, he nearly plowed into her.
The decorating was a little over the top, but what did he care? The master suite was for shut-eye and sex. Besides, the women he brought back seemed to expect every stop to be pulled out: 8oo-thread-count sheets, a roaring fireplace, views, a deck, a bathtub big enough for half his team, a shower with ten jets.
The best part of all was that he'd bought the house with cash.
Which meant no one could take it away from him.
Julie was holding on to the door frame so tightly, her knuckles had gone white. Somehow he had a feeling she wasn't bowled over by the opulence. She'd grown up in a fancy house.
She must be freaking out over the bed, probably having dirty thoughts about what she wanted to do to him between the sheets.
If he wanted to move into her good graces, and thus her bed, he needed to stop messing with her. But he'd been acting like a smart-ass for way too long to stop himself now.
Putting his hand on the small of her back, he gently pushed her into the room. He walked over to the bed, which his housekeeper hadn't made yet. Tucking a pillow back up against the antique wroughtiron headboard, he looked up at her.
"I could use a little help here."
She blinked, her eyes faintly wild. "With what?"
"The bed."
She took a step back and he gave her a knowing look.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have a dirty mind?"
In an instant she became the prim Little Miss Perfect he remembered from high school. "Of course not," she snapped.
"All I'm asking you to do is help me make the bed."
He watched her war with herself and realize that s
he couldn't refuse his request. It would only make her seem like she really did have a dirty mind.
She walked over to the other side of the bed and shoved his sheets into place with ill grace. She threw the duvet cover onto her half of the bed, then spun around and made a beeline for his walk-in closet.
"No, no, no, and most definitely no," she said as she shoved hangers around, taking her anger out on his clothes. "Do you even own anything appropriate?"
"If you mean boring, then no."
She waved dismissively at all of his clothes. "You can't wear any of this. Not if we ever expect you to be taken seriously."
He was surprised that she was turning her nose up at his designer clothes; she knew quality when she saw it. So what was her problem?
"Don't worry about what Bobby said," he teased. "You'll still look better than me, no matter what I'm wearing."
She looked up toward the ceiling as if praying for guidance. "It's my job to make sure that you don't look like you should have a pop starlet hanging off your arm who's been buying your clothes off a runway."
Not the most flattering picture, but it drove the point home.
"Have you been to a funeral recently?" she asked.
One corner of his mouth curved up. "Is that a hint?"
She furrowed her brow before realization dawned in her blue eyes. "Maybe," she said, "but only if you give me any trouble."
He liked it when she teased him back. He crooked a finger at her to follow him.
"This way."
He took her into a small closet in a room across the hall, one where they both barely fit. He liked the vibe in here, the two of them so very close. She smelled flowery, yet sultry. He wanted to pull her close, breathe in her hair, push it to the side, taste her neck, find out all over again where her most sensitive spots were. He wanted to push back one of those boring suits she was going to go nuts over and take her hard and fast against the wall. He could already picture her legs wrapped around his waist, her head thrown back, how damn good it would feel when he slid into her.
"Thank God," she said as she pulled out a basic navy pinstriped suit. "I was worried you didn't have any clothes that didn't scream pimp."
That snapped him out of his extremely pleasant fantasy. Though maybe she did have a point. He'd never been all that comfortable in the designer clothes that his stylist picked out for him. He hadn't even wanted a stylist in the first place, but his agent had insisted.
Clearly, having Julie around wasn't all bad. Especially if she could do some dirty work for him.
"My stylist isn't going to be too happy with you."
She handed him several conservative suits. "She's fired."
He held back a grin. Who else did he need to get rid of? The guy who cut his hair was kind of annoying too.
"Bring these out, then grab anything else you need," she said. "I'll be waiting in your living room."
He hadn't realized until now how sick he was of everyone doing his bidding without question. It also kind of got his motor running to be bossed around by her. Still, keeping her on her toes was an important part of the dance she probably didn't even realize they were doing.
"I've got some bathing suits that you might fit into if you want to hang out by the pool."
The disgusted look on her face was so cute, he nearly grabbed her and kissed it off.
"First of all, I wouldn't wear one of the thong bikinis from one of your 'girlfriends' "--she put the word in quotes--"if everything else I owned went up in flames."
He nodded. "That's cool. I get it. Girls with dirty minds like you always want to skinny-dip."
She ignored his dig. "You have fifteen minutes to get your stuff together, then we're out of here."
"Just one problem with that," he said.
She sighed a big, chest-heaving sigh that did magnificent things to her breasts. "Why am I not surprised that there's a problem? What is it this time?"
"Bobby's impromptu meeting cut into my workout, and working out is part of my job description."
"How long will that take?"
"A hundred laps usually takes forty-five minutes. I could sprint some of them if you're in a rush to get somewhere."
"No," she said, "We've got all the time in the world."
Wrong. Two weeks wasn't nearly enough time to convince her to give in to what she really wanted.
Him.
In her bed.
Julie couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so off-kilter.
So emotional.
So horny.
He wasn't nearly as dumb as she wished he was. She needed to stop freaking out over every little thing, thereby giving him endless ammo to hold over her.
In the past twenty-four hours she'd been angrier, happier, and more satisfied than she'd been in the past ten years combined.
All because of Ty -- damn him.
When she'd seen his massive iron bed, she'd been hit by breathtaking images of them rolling around naked on it. It made a demon inside her leap to life, one who wanted to be tied up by Ty, who got hot at the thought of lying naked on his bed, her arms up over her head bound by a silk tie. She'd practically heard herself begging him to take her, harder, faster.
Enough!
From this moment forward, she was going to keep her hormones in check. Even if he made her scream in ecstasy, he'd leave her heart stone cold in the morning.
Julie sat on a chaise lounge and put her feet up on the soft cushions. She pulled a pen and a leather-bound notepad out of her bag, deciding to use Ty's workout time to make some notes on her plans for his transformation rather than worrying and drooling over him.
But just as she put pen to paper, Ty emerged from the house. She'd thought his washboard stomach at eighteen was impressive, but the hard, rippling, muscles mere feet from her now were beyond anything she could have imagined.
She lost her breath somewhere between the deep indents of his abdominal muscles and the line of dark hair running from his navel into his low-slung swim shorts. She tried to look away, but she couldn't help but appreciate the beautiful cut of his triceps, the play of the muscles on his back, and the deep valley between his shoulders.
The tip of her pen dug into her palm but she didn't feel it, too busy trying to deal with the lust coursing through her.
She burned to touch him. She yearned to taste him, to run her tongue over the hills and valleys of his incredibly hard abs.
She pulled her gaze up to his eyes, expecting to see victory there. He had to know the kind of power he held over her.
But instead of triumph, something dark and heady simmered in his dark brown eyes. Something that told her he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
A soft voice inside her whispered, Take what you want. Use him the way he used you.
She scrambled off the chair, nearly turning her ankle on the flagstone patio. She couldn't give in to what her body wanted. She had to remember how bad he was for her.
Julie," he said, his voice a caress.
She picked up her bag and held it in front of her like a shield. "Go swim. Please."
Ty was an eighty-five-degree pool kind of guy, but today he needed a cold mountain lake to cool off.
Julie wasn't ready--that was the problem. It was one thing to seduce her in his underground refuge yesterday; he'd wanted to prove to her that she wasn't immune to him, no matter what she professed. But maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a game anymore.
What if he really wanted her to stick around? Then what?
He finished his laps and shook off like a dog before reaching for his towel. He'd had a hard-on that wouldn't quit since he'd first walked into her office. Frankly, it was getting old.
Without saying a word to her, he headed into the shower. He couldn't believe he was about to take care of himself when there was a beautiful woman in his house. He hadn't had to do that since he was a teenager.
Hot water blasted over him as he leaned against the tiles, then reached for his cock and pictured her nak
ed in the shower with him, water running over her perfect tits, licking the drops off her nipples. He'd follow the streaming water running over her belly, between her legs with his hand. He'd slip one finger in her, and she'd be tight and wet and he'd drop to his knees and pull her pussy into his mouth, force his tongue into her, hard and fast until she was screaming. Then just as she started to come, he'd pull her down on top of him and she'd take his cock all the way inside, while their bodies slipped wet and hot against each other. Ty roared in the glass and tile confines of his shower as come spilled into his hand.
Next time, it wouldn't be a fantasy. He wouldn't be doing this by himself.
He'd be inside Julie.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Julie wanted to feel safe again, and the one place she'd always felt totally at ease was at work. Then again, she'd never had a six-foot-two bundle of muscle and sensuality prowling around her office. Even her employees had been reduced to quivering masses of hormones when she'd introduced Ty--and these were smart, savvy women.
She checked email and tried to ignore Ty snooping around her bookshelf, her artwork, her desk. "You built this business all by yourself?" She looked up from her keyboard. "Of course I did."
"No need to get all defensive. It was just a question."
She bit back a protest. He was right; she was acting defensive. It was just that everyone always assumed her parents had helped her out. But she never took their friends as clients. Her business success depended entirely on how she and her employees performed. Not because she was Daddy's little girl, or because Mommy took her shopping for clients at society teas.
"I love what I do," she finally said.
He nodded. "Me too. It's a good thing to like your job. Beats the hell out of hating it."
An actual conversation that wasn't loaded with double entendres. She wasn't sure she was comfortable with that, actually. At least when they were sniping at each other, everything made sense.
Better keep on your guard, she told herself yet again.