Tangled Up Read online

  “If they win it. Well, it will definitely be good publicity and should lead to some other good opportunities, so long as they behave themselves.” Elise yawned. “But I guess that’s why you’ll be there, in case they don’t.”

  “Damage control,” Caite murmured. “That’s my job. Fixing things when they’ve gone bad.”

  The question was, she thought as she and Elise disconnected their call, would she be able to fix what had gone wrong with her and Jamison?

  * * *

  In a room filled with the light of hundreds of candles, Caite Fox looked luminous. It was the only way to describe her. And Jamison hated it, because he couldn’t stop trying to find her with his gaze, no matter where she went in the room.

  Three weeks. Three heinously long, tense weeks, since the nightmare of being found in a compromising position had sent him over the edge. He’d seen her every workday after that, of course, but they’d done little more than send each other memos or have Bobby relay messages. The atmosphere in the office had been…tense. At least for him. Caite hadn’t seemed to be bothered much by it at all.

  He’d been unable to stop thinking about her. Being underneath her. Pleasing her. For the first time since puberty, when he’d started fantasizing about sex, Jamison’s dreams hadn’t focused on what he was going to do to a woman but rather what he could do for her. And nothing seemed to ease the ache.

  “Hey, man.” Tommy clapped a hand on Jamison’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming out.”

  The kid had cleaned up pretty good, Jamison noted. Suit, no tie, but his long hair had been tied at the nape of his neck with a cord. A faint pattern of bruising on his cheek made him a little less pretty. Jamison still wanted to match it on the other side with his fists.

  Instead, he forced a grin. If the little prick intended on making something out of what he’d seen, he’d have Jamison to answer to, client or not. “Part of my job.”

  Tommy laughed but as if they were buddies, not as if he were making fun. “I hope we can count on a donation from you anyway. At least bid on something from the silent auction.”

  Jamison turned to look him in the eyes. “This foundation, it means a lot to you.”

  “I lost my kid sister to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. There isn’t much known about prion disease. If I can help out, even a little…” Tommy shrugged. The two men stood in awkward silence for a minute before Tommy spoke again. “She’s a prize, you know. Caite. She’s the kind of woman I would do anything for. Am I right?”

  Jamison clenched his fists, though halfheartedly. The kid was right, after all. “I bet you would.”

  “Damned right I would. And be glad of the chance to make her my queen…but you know something about that, don’t you?” Tommy took a step back as though expecting Jamison to lunge at him. Not as if he were scared by the thought. More as if he was being cautious.

  “Look. I don’t give a flying fuck what you think,” Jamison began, but cut himself off when Tommy held up a hand.

  “I get it, man. I get it more than you could possibly imagine. And I envy you. The way she looked at you…I won’t lie. I’d give up anything to be able to give it up to her.”

  Jamison was silent.

  Tommy lifted his chin toward the crowd in front of them. “You think any other woman out there can give you what she can? Be the woman you need, deep down in your soul? Because if your answer’s anything other than no, I’m going to take her from you. If she’ll have me.”

  For a second or so, it felt as though the floor physically tilted, but it was only his equilibrium. Jamison’s lip curled. “You could try, I guess.”

  “Wouldn’t have to try too hard, would I?” Tommy gave Jamison a wicked grin. “Seeing as how you’re just standing there, letting her go.”

  In the next moment, Tommy was tugged away by a fawning woman who’d earlier given Jamison his raffle ticket. Jamison watched them go, feeling a lot more respect for the reality star than he had before. With a quick check of the social media stream, reassured that Caite’s handiwork of timed updates was doing its job, he headed for the small room off the main banquet hall where the silent auction had been set up. There was the usual—handcrafted baskets filled with soaps or wine or chocolate. Gift certificates to local spas or for holiday home rentals. But there, off to the end, was something he wanted the moment he saw it.

  “Pretty, huh,” Caite said quietly.

  “Gorgeous.”

  She meant the necklace, a single strand of creamy antique pearls displayed on a velvet mat. He meant her. But he kept his eyes on the necklace and the sign-up sheet. The bidding had already gone over $200, still an insanely cheap price for real pearls.

  “They’re vintage,” she said. “Came from an estate. They’re not farmed pearls, either—you can see how they’re not exactly matched.”

  He let his gaze drift to her. “You know a lot about pearls.”

  “Not really. Just what I like.” She looked at him, finally, her gaze warm but not intimate.

  It pinched at him, the way she let it slide away from him as though he’d never feasted on her pussy and tasted her coming on his tongue. “I always figured you more for a diamond sort of woman. Pearls seem soft.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “I didn’t figure you spent any time at all thinking about what sort of woman I was. At all. Or what I like.”

  With that, she stalked off, and Jamison watched her go before shaking himself into action. He followed her from the ballroom to snag her elbow, bared by her sleeveless gown. Her skin, warm beneath his fingertips, was smooth as silk. He turned her. He was gripping too hard, he saw when she winced a little and tried to pull away from him. He let her go.

  “Caite. I want to talk to you.”

  He didn’t miss the way she looked all around them before meeting his eyes again. “About?”

  “Just come with me.” Before she could protest, he’d taken her by the elbow again to hustle her down a short hallway used by the waitstaff. By the time they got to a small alcove by the elevators, she’d tugged herself free of him.

  She turned to face him. “What’s going on? Is it something with the clients? Because Nellie and Paxton have actually been on their best behavior at this thing, and Tommy is…”

  “No,” Jamison said. “It’s not about them. Your handling of things has been…exemplary.”

  “Ah.” She leaned against the wall with her hands flat on it next to her. “So. What, then?”

  He kissed her.

  Long and hard and fierce, one hand sliding beneath the fall of her sleek blond hair to cup the back of her neck. For a second or so, he thought he’d severely misjudged, but when she whimpered into his open mouth and put her arms around him, he bent back to the kiss with added fervor. They ate of each other, mouths and hands and moans all together. When he broke, gasping, to breathe, Caite wound her arms around him and pulled him back in.

  “We could do this forever,” he said after another few minutes of her mouth making him crazy. “But we should do it somewhere else.”

  Caite blinked, the haze in her eyes fading. She smiled a little. “Is that what you want?”

  “I want you,” he said in a low, growling voice he barely recognized. Everything about her made him crazy…. No, he thought as she stepped out of his arms to straighten her dress and smooth her hair. To wipe at the corners of her mouth where his kiss had smeared her lipstick. Being without her had made him lose his mind. Being with her again had made him sane.

  She looked over his shoulder at the passing waiter heading back toward the ballroom. “I have work to do, Jamison.”

  “After.”

  Caite paused, letting her tongue slide over her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

  He took two steps back from her. His fists balled; she saw it but didn’t look scared. Her gaze flickered. Again, the swipe of her tongue across her lips. The hitch of her breath made him think that while she was playing at being reluctant, she might actually want him, too.

  “After t