Mating Theory Read online

  This suddenly strikes me as a tragedy, and I realize I should have been more specific. A funny secret. The kind that will make us laugh. Instead something terrible is going to happen.

  “Finally found her down by the lake, where the kid who worked as a farmhand in the summer was trying to coax her to keep going. She wasn’t budging.”

  “He was running away,” I whisper, recognizing the ache in my chest.

  There had been an unfortunate number of times I contemplated that action, not because the streets of LA would have been hospitable but out of pure desperation. But I worried about who would take care of my mother if I left. She would have blamed herself.

  Daddy would have blamed her, too.

  “His home life was pretty shit. Everyone knew that. Daddy drank too much. Mom worked to pay rent and to stay out of the way. He showed up with bruises that people pretended not to see. But he rode Cinnamon when no one else could go near her. Rode her bareback without getting thrown off and breaking his neck. If the beast weren’t nervous about crossing the stream at the border of the land, if he hadn’t been worried she’d break her leg, he would have been halfway across the county with her.”

  “What happened?” Bea asked, looking sick with worry.

  Hugo touches her hand, a caress that speaks volumes. “Do not worry. Even Sutton is not so careless that he would tell a tragedy over dinner conversation.”

  Then he gives Sutton a look that promises stark retribution if Sutton had really been so careless.

  Sutton grins. “Where I’m from, we had more tragedy than comedy. But this story does have a happy ending. I brought the boy and the horse back home, and my dad moved him up from shoveling hay to working with the horses. He tamed Cinnamon before he grew up and left.”

  There are tears in Bea’s eyes. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Hugo makes a clucking sound before pulling her into his arms, onto his lap, uncaring that he has an audience. I could paint them this way, the handsome charmer and the old-world beauty, both of them made hard by the world and soft again for each other.

  And then something clicks. “Oh my God.”

  “You see it?” Sutton asks, his voice low. “I thought it would just be me, pretending not to.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hugo says, a notch between his brows. “Ma belle, are you ill?”

  “No, but she does have a condition,” I say, trying to contain my excitement and failing. “Bea, why didn’t you tell me? I hate you! Okay, I’m over it. I love you again. This is so exciting!”

  There are many expressions Hugo can wear comfortably—amusement and sarcasm and seduction. I’ve never seen this one. Astonishment. “What?”

  Bea’s cheeks are more than pink now. They’re a deep peach, so dark they match her freckles. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” she says a little shyly. “We didn’t talk about children.”

  Hugo’s mouth remains open. He looks shocked beyond words.

  “Not a sip of wine all evening,” Sutton says in that drawl. “Even though I brought the Chablis because she loves it.”

  “And she got emotional over the horse story,” I add. “Really, for someone who is famous for being able to read women, you completely missed this one.”

  “We never have perspective about the people closest to us,” Sutton says, watching the embracing couple with satisfaction.

  Hugo murmurs in French, sounding breathless and adrift. “Un enfant?”

  “Are you angry?” Bea whispers.

  She might be worried, but I can already see the stirrings of hope inside him. They may not have talked about children, but Hugo is committed to her fully. And a family is exactly what he needs to feel grounded in this life. He kisses her with a passion so raw and charmless it looks like a different man, one without an ounce of finesse. There’s only love.

  “We should go,” I whisper to Sutton, who has already pushed back his chair. We make our exit with discreet haste, not a second too soon judging from the way dishes crash as the two move their passion to the top of the dining table.

  I’m laughing with breathless anticipation as I collapse against the mirrored walls of the elevator. “She’s going to have a baby! Oh my God, we should make them name it Harper if it’s a girl or Sutton if it’s a boy. We were there when she told him.”

  He does this silent huff of amusement. “Sutton is too rough of a name for any child of theirs. Maybe they can name him Harper, even if it’s a boy. It works for both.”

  “I like that plan,” I say, grinning because I can’t seem to stop. I blame the wine that I was forced to drink since Bea didn’t have any tonight. My heart beats fast and light, effervescent as a Chardonnay.

  The elevator opens to the bottom floor, and I step out—my smile giving way to nerves. There are a hundred people milling around the lobby, but I might as well be alone with Sutton. The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m the only woman in the hotel.

  A couple in a hurry jostle me, and Sutton moves to block me with his body. It’s only a small pain, the bustle from a crowd, but he takes it from me. There’s a gentleman underneath all that laconic Southern charm, but it’s different from Christopher. He doesn’t claim to know better than me. He only wants to shield me from any pain. In some ways it’s a subtle distinction, but in another way they’re worlds apart.

  “Invite me upstairs,” Sutton says, his voice low and private.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The words come out unsteady, my body humming with anticipation as if I’ve already agreed to whatever happens next.

  “A goodnight kiss,” he says. “That was the deal.”

  My lips feel ultrasensitive, even thinking about kissing him. “You didn’t really finish the story. We were interrupted.”

  “That’s why you’re going to invite me to your room. Where it’s private.”

  A catch in my breath. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

  He leans close, pressing me into a corner behind the penthouse’s private elevator. The only people near us are passing by, on their way to a restaurant or a theater. “I’ve been poor longer than I’ve been rich, but you know one thing that stays the same?”

  Sex, my mind supplies helpfully. Sex is the same. “No.”

  “People underestimate you because you’re different, that’s what stays the same. The way you looked at me and heard my accent and figured you could use me to get to Christopher.”

  “I d-didn’t think—”

  “Now look at you, so close there’s only linen and silk between us, your cheeks all rosy, your eyes wide. You would let me do anything to you with people a few feet away, but I’m not going to touch you.”

  A sense of loss rushes through me, like a hollow opened up beneath an ocean. I may not have thought I was underestimating him, but clearly I had. “Come upstairs.”

  Blue eyes flash with triumph. “Lead the way.”

  Lead the way, because this is under my control. It’s up to me whether Sutton comes upstairs to my room, whether I use the key card to let us both inside, whether he wakes beside me in the morning. How would his body look, sated and tangled in white rumpled sheets? His skin would be leather-rough everywhere, exposed to the elements from a young age.

  Or would he still be velvet and smooth in some places?

  We take a regular elevator up to my floor, both of us silent in front of an older couple returning after an early night. The only place we touch is his palm at the small of my back—such an innocent place, that. There shouldn’t be a fire burning, spreading outward, down to my ass and between my legs. His gentle pressure shouldn’t make me think of other ways he could hold me.

  Even when the older couple steps out, we don’t move from our assigned spots. My feet have become part of the floor, too heavy to move. He’s immobile beside me.

  The dial that tells us which floor we’re on is made of a brass arrow and roman numerals. Nothing so coarse as a digital screen could grace this elevator. A low b
ell signals that we’ve arrived. The doors slide open.

  It’s someone else walking out of the elevator with a warm hand at her back, another body that manages to put one foot in front of the other in high heels.

  A baroque mirror hanging on the wall shows a pretty woman beside a man twice her size, his face set in stern lines. They look well matched in an unexpected way, small against his strength, delicate where he’s broad. People underestimate you because you’re different. He’s right about one thing. We aren’t the same. We’re two different elements: water and stone.

  At the end of the hallway we come to my room. It’s cowardice that turns my face down so I can fumble blindly through my small clutch. There are twenty million cards in here, none of them the hotel room key. I’m running out of breath even though I’m standing still.

  A hand covers mine, and I freeze. How is he so calm at a moment like this? Has he been to a thousand hotel rooms with a thousand other desperate heiresses?

  There are small white marks and raised lines. “Scars?” I whisper.

  He knows what I mean. “Sometimes knives. Or barbed wire. A few wild animals have got their teeth in me over the years.”

  “Is that a euphemism?” I still can’t bring myself to look him in the eye.

  Especially when he laughs, low and rough. “Suppose so. You want to take a piece out of me, Harper St. Claire? I think you just might before you’re done.”

  Then I do meet that blue gaze, because he has it wrong. “It’s the other way around. I don’t do… this. Whatever this is. I’m out of my depth here.”

  It’s like ripping myself open, being so vulnerable with a man. I learned not to trust them early, from the men my mom married, from my father. Sutton could use this knowledge against me.

  Those eyes turn dark with tenderness. And this, I realize, is what makes him different. This is the way that I underestimated him. Where he could have been cold and unfeeling, there’s this humanity to him instead. Humanity, but also pure male desire.

  “We’ll start slow,” he says, and then his hand holds my face.

  “Why me?” I’ve been pursued by men before, but never like this. “Is this some kind of competition thing? Because of my connection to Christopher?”

  He gives a rough laugh. “Jesus Christ. You’re beautiful, smart, funny. Your connection to Christopher is the least interesting thing about you. I don’t give a damn who your stepbrother is.”

  “I have to tell you something—” The words catch in my throat. “I think… what I mean to say is… I’m a little hung up on Christopher. I don’t want to be. I didn’t even think I was, but sitting there with you and Hugo and Bea, I realized it’s true.”

  He’s laughing, the bastard, a silent, shaking kind of laugh. “Do you think that’s a surprise to me?”

  I scrunch my nose. “It’s a surprise to me.”

  “For your information I knew it as soon as you walked into the boardroom. It was clear from the way you talked about him, but it wasn’t going to stop me. Do you know why?”

  “Because you want to have sex with me.”

  A slow shake of his head. “I want to have sex with you so bad it hurts. It’s a distraction, the way my cock gets hard every time I look at you. The way I can’t stop imagining your breasts under those little T-shirts you wear. And that dress at the gala. It took every ounce of strength in me not to rip it apart with my bare hands, the Tanglewood Historical Society be damned.”

  My breath catches. “A distraction.”

  “A distraction, because I’m not only trying to have sex with you. I’m a direct man, honey. And I’m going to be direct about this. I’m courting you.”

  “Courting?” My voice sounds faint. What an old-fashioned word. A lovely word. God, it’s a terrifying word.

  “That’s what a man does when he’s determined and serious and wants a woman for his own. So yeah, you’re hung up on another man. You work on that little distraction while I work on one of my own.”

  That’s the only warning I get before his lips cover mine. There are seconds that I could use to protest. No, I’m not ready, wait. My mouth is stubbornly silent until he finds it.

  I gasp my surprise, but he swallows that down.

  It feels good to be wanted, uninhibited, without a million reasons why we can’t be together. Without that unbreakable control that makes Christopher Bardot a man without weakness.

  Of course I can’t deny that he’s part of this equation. He’s Sutton’s business partner. He’ll find out what we did, eventually. Will he feel regret? Jealousy? I hope so. Maybe that’s small of me, but there’s a much bigger part of me that wants him to finally, finally notice me.

  Whatever I give Sutton he takes, even the trembling almost-kiss that seems to be all I can manage. If he really has been with a thousand other heiresses, they must know how to kiss better than this. I’m all rapid heartbeat and heavy breaths and sharp little whimpers.

  He doesn’t seem to mind, shifting so his body is closer to mine, a steady presence that manages to soothe me. My back hits the wall of the hotel, and in the cool surface I can make out the gentle embossing of fleurs-de-lis. I’m the princess and the pea, my heated skin sensing even the slightest bump beneath layers of cloth. Who knew she was just turned on?

  His hands are on my waist, and I have to move my body, have to gasp against his mouth, hoping he’ll understand. There’s an ache at my breast, and the only thing that will fix it is his touch. He takes the permission with a groan of surrender, cupping me through the filmy fabric of my dress.

  On his tongue I taste the wine and the chocolate we had for dessert. I taste the man underneath, something elemental and addictive.

  My mind is cloudy with the sensation of him, his touch and his taste. His rough breathing, the proof that I’m affecting this powerful man as much as he’s affecting me. I tug at his clothes, yanking at his shirt as if I can tear it away from his flesh.

  “Slow,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “Steady with you.”

  Like I’m a horse. The thought makes me laugh, though it’s a little wild. He swallows the laugh, too, drinking me down like he’s been dying of thirst. This stops being about Christopher Bardot and my revenge against his control. It starts being about the very male, very aroused body pressing against me, and all the elemental ways he wakes me up inside.

  His thumb sweeps over the curve of my breast, searching, soothing, until my nipple becomes hard. And still he moves his thumb, back and forth, driving me insane. I make little whimpers because I can’t do anything else; we could have done this downstairs. He’s right. It’s terrible, but he’s right. I would have let him do anything, everything, if only it will calm this ache.

  “Please,” I say, panting, pulling at the buttons on his shirt. “Come inside.”

  He sinks his teeth into the flesh of my bottom lip, like a punishment, and I yelp because it only hurts when he pulls away. His eyes are a deep ocean blue, at the very bottom of the earth. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I say, but it’s really a hiss in the quiet hum of the hallway.

  “Because we don’t have to—”

  “Oh my God, if you say that you know better than me, I’m going… I’m going to… I don’t even know what I’ll do, but it’s definitely not have sex with you.”

  My head falls to the side, because I’m fed up with men who tell me what to do, fed up with myself, because I keep falling for them, and that’s when I see his hand in a fist against the wall. All that frustration pressed against the pretty wallpaper, because he doesn’t want to rush me.

  It warms me enough that it’s a surprise when his mouth nips my throat, making me jump. He nips me again, a little lower this time. And then moves the edge of his teeth along my collarbone. There’s something primal about him. Something dangerous and possessive, but he doesn’t use his power to control me. He kisses me lower, between my breasts—and then even lower, on my stomach through the dress. That’s when I realize he’s on his knees.


  Somewhere between the kissing and now, this man sank to his knees. He’s on the threadbare carpet, looking up at me. It’s like having a wild animal bow to you in the jungle. I’m panting, afraid to move.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper, even though I want to say, Don’t stop, don’t stop.

  “The goodnight kiss.”

  “We already did that.” My lips feel swollen from what he did to me. It was more than a kiss, more than a claiming. He changed the molecules that form me, made me crave him. An ordinary peck will never be enough after this. Not when I know what’s possible.

  He shakes his head, slow and determined. “Not yet.”

  Without breaking eye contact he reaches down to the hem of my dress, pulling and pulling the fabric, revealing inches of my bare leg. It’s indecent, what’s happening in this hallway. At the very least we should be inside the room for this, but I can’t bring myself to stop him.

  The dress is held up in bunches, the delicate silk spilling from between blunt fingers. I know the exact moment when he sees what I’m wearing underneath—the sharp intake of breath. There weren’t any panties in my carry-on bag to wear with this dress.

  I only packed boring, utilitarian things to wear when confronting Christopher Bardot about my mother’s hospital bill. There was no way I could have guessed that I would end up backed up against a wall by this man, my dress ruched up to my waist, exposing my bare pussy to the world—or at least anyone on this floor who decides to open their door.

  They would be shocked to see me, not only my bare sex. They would be shocked to see the way my upper body leans against the wall, needing its support, one shoulder strap of my dress fallen loose, my eyes heavy-lidded with acquiescence to whatever happens next. There’s a sense that I’ve done more than submit to him; that I’ve ordered him to his knees. Not with words but by need. Everything about his broad shoulders and his hard features speak of power, and it’s an unspeakable thrill to realize that he bows to me.