Mating Theory Read online

  God, what power a woman can wield.

  One hand holds my skirts while the other runs up the outside of my calf. The inside of my thigh. His knuckles brush my sex, and I let my legs fall open. “Please, I need—”

  “I know what you need.” His voice is like the rush of wind between two mountains, something that my body recognizes as eternal, that he was here before me.

  That he’ll be here when I’m gone.

  His fingers touch me with agonizing lightness, exploring, teasing. Letting me remain open for discovery. Is that part of what makes this hotter, knowing anyone might walk in on us? He has unending patience, even though I can see his arousal in the line of his suit pants where he kneels. I can see the arousal in the haze in his blue eyes, in the hard set of his jaw.

  He’s like Atlas, cursed to carry the weight of the world. Strong enough to actually succeed in such an impossible task. Of course that makes me the world—and that’s how it feels, when he leans forward to place a chaste kiss on my thigh.

  Higher, higher. He likes to tease me. There’s something playful about him that’s at odds with the burden he carries. Even the gods know how to make light of themselves.

  And then he kisses my clit, and I lose the ability to think. My shoulders press into the wall. My hips push out toward his mouth. There’s nothing but his mouth and the magical things he can do with it. I cry out, and the sound of it echoes back to me in the empty hallway.

  Even in this he has that terrible patience. That terrible playfulness that lets him nip at my skin, lets him tug and tease me until I’m shameless—pressing myself against his mouth, his nose, his chin, desperate for that friction my body demands.

  His laugh surrounds me, piercing the madness that consumes me. “I should leave you like this,” he says, murmuring almost to himself. “You’d fuck yourself against the bedpost all night long, but it wouldn’t be the same. Wouldn’t be enough.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I say on an aching gasp. “I’m dying here.”

  He looks up at me, and it’s strange that he does have sympathy for me. It’s there in his blue eyes even while his lips shine with my arousal. “Are you?” he asks, his voice not shaking one little bit. Not like mine. “Or I could lay you down on the bed and tie you there, so you couldn’t get off. You’d keep trying all night, this gorgeous body fucking the air, desperate for relief. I could watch you all night.”

  “Nooo,” I say, pushing my hips toward him as if that might convince him.

  I’m beyond logic right now. Beyond anything but pure undiluted begging. I’ve never been more desperate than in this moment; this is what he’s reduced me to. This is what he holds in his hands.

  “Whatever you want.”

  And the bastard, he sits back on his heels. His hands fall to his side, somehow more powerful that way, his head looking up at me. He commands this hallway. This hotel. He commands the whole world from his goddamn knees. “Now you’re ready to make a deal.”

  “Ruthless.” The word spills from my lips before I’ve thought it through. I’ve known so many men who were ruthless, including Christopher, but never one who’s managed to disarm me as much as Sutton Mayfair. That makes him infinitely more dangerous.

  Casually he trails two fingers up my calf and back down. “Yes.”

  “Because you’ve been poor longer than you’ve been rich.” It’s made him hungry, and I can’t really blame him for that. I’ve known what it was like to be poor, painfully poor, in small, infinitesimal drips. In the space between my mother’s husbands.

  “That,” he says, with a faint dip of his head. “And because I don’t underestimate you, Harper.”

  I swallow hard, because I’ve been underestimated all my life. Is that why he told me the story about the little boy who everyone underestimated? Suddenly that strikes me as totally unfair. “You didn’t tell a secret about you. You told me a secret about a wild horse.”

  A faint smile. “The secret is that I wasn’t the boy with a family and a ranch. I was the one who showed up with bruises. I was the one who tamed Cinnamon.”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “I told you, Harper. The story had a happy ending.”

  Touching him is as natural as breathing, as inevitable as the ache in my chest. Bristles on his jaw brush my palm. “I wish that hadn’t happened to you.”

  “Maybe the moral of the story is that I can tame wild animals.” He’s a little mocking, making fun of himself. I’m the one worried that it might be true.

  I snatch my hand away. It would be a lie to say I’m not a wild animal, since I’m considering scratching him in response to the ownership in his blue eyes. “I’m not tame.”

  There it is again, that warm persistence that has made him rich when he was poor. It earned him enough money and know-how to partner with Christopher, a man who, for all his many faults, is admittedly a business genius. Not yet, he seems to say without words.

  And I’m not entirely sure he’s wrong.

  The elevator down the hall dings, and in a startled rush I push down my skirt. I expect to see the disgruntled businessman who’s staying in the room beside me or one of the other occupants I haven’t passed yet.

  Instead Christopher Bardot steps off the elevator, his dark eyes narrowing on mine immediately, emotions flashing across his face before he manages to put a cold mask over them all. But I saw them. For that brief second I saw jealousy and anger, and something that breaks my heart—hurt.

  In front of me Sutton moves much more slowly, getting up as casually as if he had been sitting at dinner, taking the time to straighten his shirt.

  Then, impossibly, he runs a thumb across his bottom lip. And presses it between his lips to savor the taste of it. Of me. It’s the most explicit thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and we’re both fully clothed and covered.

  Christopher’s eyes flash. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I’m not the kind of girl that men fight over, am I? I didn’t think so, but there’s leashed violence simmering in the air.

  “Do you need it spelled out?” Sutton asks in that drawl I’m coming to realize is a sign of danger. The kind of danger that most people don’t expect from a Southern boy.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand, because we’re in front of my hotel room. And what the hell does Christopher think, showing up here at night? Embarrassment threatens to strangle me, but I remind myself firmly that I’m a grown woman. I have every right to do what I want… even though I possibly should have been inside the hotel room.

  It’s a question of a few feet, so I hold my chin up.

  “I came to talk to you,” Christopher says in a low voice.

  There’s a small move, barely discernible, the way that Sutton moves to block me. As if protecting me from Christopher. “You can talk tomorrow. At the office.”

  “This is personal,” Christopher says, his eyes locked on mine.

  He’s waiting for me to send Sutton away, except I’m not sure that’s what I should do.

  If that kiss had been only for revenge, only to crack Christopher’s cool veneer, then it already succeeded. But Sutton made it more than that. He made it about me and him, when I didn’t think it was possible for me to desire another man.

  “There’s nothing personal between us. You made sure of that. There’s only money between us.”

  For all his rough background, Sutton wouldn’t do anything as uncouth as gloat. He doesn’t say a word or even move a muscle. He’s a monolith, but a sense of victory rises around him—unmistakable. I may as well have written his name on my body with permanent marker; that’s the way these men are taking my declaration.

  Is that how I mean it? I don’t belong to Sutton, but God, I was never Christopher’s. Even in my teenage fantasies I should have known better than to hope for that.

  “She’s my sister,” Christopher says.

  A harsh laugh. “That would be more convincing if I didn’t think you were going to beat off to the image of her lea
ning against the wall, looking fucked out and hot as all hell.”

  “Jesus,” Christopher says, baring his teeth to Sutton in a sign of frustration. “How dare you make this a competition? How dare you use her to get to me?”

  The words find their mark inside my heart, sharp and poisoned. I don’t want to be a ball that men throw around for sport. A toy to be put aside when they get bored of me.

  Where there had been victory, now there is only menace. How does Sutton manage to exude feelings without moving a muscle? His energy shimmers around him, thick in the air. And now he’s pissed. “How dare you imply that’s the only reason a man would want her?”

  All the heat that had been burning through my body leaks into the walls and warms the floors. None of it’s left inside my body. I’m cold. “Is this a game to you?”

  I don’t even know who I’m asking. Probably Sutton. I already know what Christopher wants from me, and it’s to save me from myself. Not exactly a flattering sentiment, but a familiar one.

  Sutton turns to me, his jaw hard. “He’s going to tell you I’m a bastard.” He cups my face, running his thumb along my lower lip. The same thumb that he used to touch my arousal on his lip. His head bends low so only I can hear what he says. “And he’s right about that. Because a better man would leave you to him. I want you for myself.” His mouth claims mine in a kiss that my body responds to even while my mind is confused. He explores me with sensual leisure, standing between Christopher and myself. There’s no doubt what my body wants when I look up at him with my lips parted and my eyelids heavy.

  That’s how Sutton leaves me, leaning against the wall, my limbs weak and my mind hazy from wanting him—from wanting what he was going to do before Christopher interrupted us. I could lay you down on the bed and tie you there, so you couldn’t get off. You’d keep trying all night, this gorgeous body fucking the air, desperate for relief. I could watch you all night. It’s strange that he can make even torture a thing that I long for—that fact seems important. Momentous. Something about man and woman and the ways we break, but I can’t think about anything but the throb between my legs. And the hard look in Christopher’s eyes.

  My purse must have fallen to the floor at some point. The cards are scattered across the worn carpet. And there is the hotel key card, the one I couldn’t find before.

  Christopher is the one who bends to pick it up, gathering the rest of the contents in a broad sweep of his strong hands. He doesn’t bother handing the purse back to me, which is just as well since I don’t think I could hold anything. Instead he uses the key card to open the door, and holds it open for me.

  How strange, that it should feel like a betrayal for me to be with another man when Christopher has rejected me for so long. And strange that he should still be bent on being the white knight.

  My mind is too muddled to solve this, so I let him usher me inside. Let him pour me a drink of water from the minibar. Let him sit me down in a chair while he stands in front of me like some kind of strict professor, his eyes intense and a muscle in his jaw ticking.

  I know I should be thinking about the trust fund and hospital bills, but all I can hear is Sutton’s voice saying, You’d fuck yourself against the bedpost all night long, but it wouldn’t be the same.

  Wouldn’t be enough.

  I’m used to the way Christopher distracts me, the way I can’t seem to stop thinking about him even though I shouldn’t. I’m less used to the way I can’t seem to stop thinking about Sutton. What are these men doing to me? Despite all their differences, they fit together as business partners. Both of them are ruthless and so complex they’re going to drive me insane.

  “I know you hate me,” Christopher says, and I don’t bother to correct him. I’m not sure I could find the words. I hate you so much you consume me. And now there’s Sutton, doing the same thing. What will be left of me? “And I deserve that.”

  “So you’re going to let me pay the hospital?”

  He gives me a severe look. “I’m being completely honest when I say that Sutton isn’t good for you. Women love him and he loves them back… for about a week. Maybe two.”

  “Then this shouldn’t be a problem for very long,” I say, even though my insides squeeze at the thought of being pushed aside. It almost seems worth it, to experience the wild power of Sutton, even knowing that heartbreak is on the horizon.

  “You should stay away from him. Go back to New York.”

  “Does ordering people around work well for you? Because I really want to do the opposite of whatever you say.” I would have done the opposite anyway, but now I want to make a point.

  He runs a hand over his face. “I’m trying to look out for you. Sutton uses people.”

  “You went into business with him.”

  Christopher holds the bedpost, a carved wooden bulb that makes me think of dirty things. Maybe I’ll always look at bedposts differently now. “That’s exactly why I went into business with him. Because I’m going to succeed no matter what. No matter what some society thinks about my plans.”

  I shake my head, remembering when I saw him in his cabin on the yacht, head bent over his textbook late at night. He’s always been driven. And clueless. “You really do need me.”

  “I don’t need anyone.”

  The words ring in the silence that follows, an explanation of what came before and foretelling of what happens next. It’s the heart of this man, his determination not to need anyone. Even the people who love him. That’s what I felt for him, once. It took me years to admit it to myself, the reason why I could never get serious with a boy after him.

  “Well,” I say softly. “Regardless of whether you need me, here I am. I’m going to do the job Sutton’s given me, and then you’re going to pay for that butterfly garden.”

  A notch between dark eyebrows. “Tell me why.”

  “That was the deal,” I say, deliberately avoiding the question. It’s easier to deal with Christopher when he’s purely hypothetical. Harder when I place the issue in front of him. He becomes flesh and blood. Vulnerable. Fallible. I don’t want him to be wrong, because I’d hate him. I don’t want him to be right, because I’d have to stop hating him. And that would mean facing what he means to me, which should be nothing at all.

  He growls. “You know what I mean. Why do you need to pay for a damn butterfly garden when she’s in remission?”

  “You must have been keeping tabs on her to know so much.”

  “Apparently they left something out.”

  His bluntness makes me laugh, though nothing is funny right now. “There’s a pretty high chance that it will come back, and then we’d have to do it all again. The radiation… God, it nearly killed her on its own. She won’t do it again. She already said so.”

  He stares for a moment. “She’ll change her mind.”

  My stomach clenches, because that’s what I want. “Contrary to what you think, people don’t work like machines that do whatever you program them to do.”

  “She’ll change her mind if it’s the only way.”

  “You don’t know her,” I say sharply. “And you sure as hell don’t care about her, so don’t pretend to me. But there is another way. There’s an experimental treatment. A study that’s already full, but they’re going to make an exception.”

  He makes a rough sound. “Oh, that’s rich. Trading the chance to live for a new goddamn butterfly garden. Very noble of them.”

  “That’s the way the world works. The only reason they even made me the offer is because they knew I could afford it. Or at least they thought I could.”

  Christopher turns away, looking out at the dark window. It’s too reflective, showing his silhouette and my shoulders at the forefront of the city. “I didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t change anything, though. Does it?” He’s still not going to let the trust fund pay for the butterfly garden. It has nothing to do with money.

  Everything to do with control.

  He swings back to face
me, at least doing me the courtesy of looking into my eyes when he shakes his head. “No. I can see why that made you grateful to Sutton, the offer he made, but he’s doing this for our project. Or to get under your dress.”

  It doesn’t even occur to Christopher that he’s basically calling me a prostitute, suggesting that the only reason I let Sutton touch me is out of gratitude for a job. There’s no anger in me, because even though Daddy made me messed up about men and money, he also helped me understand them.

  “What I do with Sutton is my own business,” I say, before adding, “You made sure of that when you pushed me away after the will reading.”

  His throat works. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

  That makes me smile, bittersweet. There’s an old thread in my chest, worn and threadbare, one I could have sworn was broken years ago. Trust for the man named Christopher Bardot, that thread. It tugs in this moment, somehow still there. “Oh sure, you should have. Your goal was to make sure no part of that stupid crush survived, and it worked.”

  “I do… care about you,” he says in the most awkward declaration ever.

  And then I have to stand up, because I’m not the woman who’s going to take orders from this man. He would have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. It makes me angry to hear these things I would have swooned over four years ago. Where was he, then? It’s too late now. I’m older and wiser. And a hell of a lot more guarded. “As a sister?”

  He shakes his head, eyes glittering. “Never.”

  “As a friend?”

  There’s an unsteady laugh. “You were more of a friend than I deserved.”

  There’s too much of the old Christopher in those words. Too much of the boy who looked up at the Medusa painting with awe for me to breathe easy. It makes me want to push him away.

  “If you wanted to have sex with me,” I say, running a finger down his white collar. “You only had to ask. When I was on the yacht. Or in front of that Medusa painting. I would have done it, Christopher. Don’t you know that? I would have done anything you asked.”