Lost in LA Page 19

  “I have some questions.”

  He laughed and kept walking. “Fine, but right now I want to see you naked and remind you what it means when a man and a woman are interested in each other.”

  She landed on the bed and braced herself on her elbows. “Do you always get what you want?”

  He shook his head. “Sometimes I have to earn it.” He looked at her until she shifted, aware of the way she ached for him. “How do you feel when we’re together?”

  How do I feel? Like you’ve got all the power. Like you’re the prince in the castle I dreamed about but discarded when life asked me to grow up. He braced his arms on either side of her and the distance between their worlds shrank to the span of an inch. His erection pressed into her thigh, answering his stated question with a physical response. “I feel good,” she whispered. “I feel like I want more, and that scares me. What if I can’t hold on to what I have?”

  “What if you can?” He cupped her cheek, cradling her face with a heat that matched the intensity of his eyes.

  She nodded.

  He closed the gap between them and kissed her.

  After one taste, she indulged her craving. Have I ever wanted another man like this? Would I still want him without knowing the world classified him as rich? The truth of her attraction and trust fired her response. The days of uncertainty and tear-streaked frustration sent her desire crashing to meet his. She succumbed and reached for his shirt, unwilling to entertain the excuses that could keep them apart. She slid her hands up his back, savoring the play of muscles as his tongue caressed her, diving and plundering in search of the satisfaction that came from letting go. “Lose the shirt,” she whispered when he took a breath.

  Nolan released her and rose to his knees, pulling his shirt over his head until her mind flickered like an old television set. Chest. Lips. Erection. Repeat. She grinned and reached for him. “Rikard’s an ass.”

  He tugged her shirt free. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Like?”

  “Like making you shout my name instead of his.” He reached for her head and lifted her from the bed, pulling her toward his body until she arched her back, straining to reach him as he stood on his knees.

  She felt the tension in his hold and smiled. I’m claiming what I’ve got. She cupped his length, stroking him beneath the fabric of his jeans until he inhaled and shook his head.

  “We’re too old to play that game,” he said.

  Wylie smiled and pressed her mouth against the fabric.

  He made a fist in her hair and exhaled. “You’re a tease.”

  “No,” she said. She smiled and scrambled to her knees, shucking her shirt until she met him skin-to-skin, heaving breasts to muscled chest. “I’m just reminding you that we both have power.”

  He shook his head and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I submit.”

  Wylie raised her eyebrow. “What if I don’t want you to submit?”

  His green eyes widened as she gripped the back of his head and held him close, sucking and biting the tender skin of his neck until anyone with a clear view would know she had marked him. You’ll be wearing collars for a week, rich boy, and they’ll know you liked it.

  He pulled away and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, teasing her with the scrape of teeth. “So you like that?” he murmured as the urgency of their first coupling gave way to detailed exploration. She nodded and he pulled away to meet her eyes, chasing and exploring her responses as he caressed her skin.

  “I do like it,” she whispered. “I like it when you look at me and touch me, when you give me enough room to make choices without tying me down.”

  The words hung between them before he smiled. “Is tying you down an option?”

  She watched his chest rise and fall, his breathing deep and relaxed. What would it feel like to surrender to the very thing that sapped my control? Can I trust him to care for me when I have no other option? She took a deep breath. “Does that turn you on?” He grinned and reached for the bedside table. “Wait! You’ve never done that?”

  His laughter chased away the last of her concerns. He pushed her hands above her head and secured them with a necktie. She tested the silken restraint and smiled at the security of the knot. “You have done this before.”

  “Taking charge of the situation?” he asked.

  She nodded, a gnawing desire beginning to coil in her stomach.

  Nolan slid her pants over her hips. “Yes, I’m very good at that. My prep school had a class on douche-baggery and authority.”

  “No,” she said, laughing.

  He ran his hand along her stomach and spread his fingers wide, holding her still as her laughter died and her hips arched to his touch.

  “Figuring out what you need and giving it to you?” His thumb dipped lower, rubbing small circles against her clit as he watched her respond to the tightening need building in her system. “I was born knowing how to do that.”

  Her hips bucked and he shook his head, pressing a trail of kisses against her skin until he found the tight peak of her nipple and drew it into his mouth, replacing teeth with tongue.

  She arched from the bed and felt the wetness pooling between her legs. He moved lower, skimming her hips until his tongue teased her clit.

  She squirmed, desperate to feel more.

  “You’re already so wet. I think you like this.”

  She opened her eyes and focused on his lazy grin. “I do.”

  Nodding, he held her hips, his tongue pushing her closer and closer to her limit.

  She bucked against the restraints, cursing as they held fast. “Nolan, I need more.”

  He raised his head. “More?”

  “More of you,” she whispered.

  He stood and shed his jeans. She stared at him as he rolled a condom over his length and raised his eyebrows. “More of this?” Her hips bucked and his smile widened. “I think you want it all.”

  He climbed on the bed and told her to lift her hips. She raised them from the bed, but he shook his head. “Higher, like you’re doing a bridge.”

  Wylie complied and spread her legs, shifting her weight until she felt like a bound offering for his lascivious tongue. “Angling for easier access?”

  He grabbed her butt, lifting her higher and easing the weight from her back. She looked at him, curiosity and anticipation quickening her heart, and he held her in tension, her arms anchored to the bed as tightly as he held her hips, and eased between them, seeking entrance with his dick to where his tongue had been.

  “Nolan…” He raised his eyebrows and she stopped, giving herself up to the sensation of losing control. He held her fast and eased into her, slowing as she shifted and wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in.

  “You like this?” he asked, easing back and sliding into her once again.

  She nodded and opened her eyes, surprised to find his gaze focused on hers when she had been so absorbed by her pleasure. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fought to maintain control. I don’t want you to maintain control. Arching her hips, she tightened her legs to pull him closer.

  “Wylie,” he moaned, closing his eyes as he thrust again. “Tell me this is okay.”

  She chose a more concise response. “Fuck me, Nolan.”

  His control snapped and he held her fast, thrusting into her depths.

  She felt the slap of skin meeting skin. Her body ached to meet his, tethered and wanting more. Then he shifted his hands, lifting her higher and changing the angle until he found the spot that made her vision dim. “Nolan,” she cried.

  He answered her with a thrust. “Say it louder.”

  “Nolan!” The tension in her core spilled into the freefall of a mindless orgasm.

  He squeezed her ass tight enough to leave bruises, rocked against her heat and submitted to his pleasure. Then he held her close, exhaling and lowering her to the bed while he remained on all fours and hung his head.

  She looked at the tie binding h
er wrists. “Are you going to release me?”

  He laughed and looked up. “Are you going to run?”

  A slow smile replaced the blush of satisfaction heating her lips. “Not yet.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nolan stroked her shoulder, pulling her toward consciousness. “Don’t give me that line about every other day, rain or shine. You taught class yesterday, so today you’re all mine.”

  She blinked as the sunlight cleared her mind of lazy, lust-filled dreams and replaced them with possibilities. What happened to letting a body wake up before temping it? She stretched and felt Nolan trace the line of her sternum. When his hand moved south and dipped beneath the covers, she laughed and turned to look at him, leaving his hand to rest on her thigh. “So now you’ve memorized my schedule?”

  “It’s not a difficult one.”

  The simple truth of his statement pushed her into full consciousness. She sat up and pulled the sheet to her chest. “I need to get my accreditation back on track.”

  “That sounds like a mobile, bed-bound activity if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “What type of accreditation are you talking about?”

  He laughed and flopped on his back. “Your mind is somewhere else.”

  “Where it should be,” she said, reaching for her shirt. He had confessed to his wealth, but it had taken her longer than an evening of pleasure to understand the consequences. She froze in mid-air and shimmied toward him on the wide bed. “Nolan, you’re not going to do anything to help me, are you?”

  “By ‘help’, you mean call in favors and leverage family connections?”

  She pulled the shirt over my head and stared at him. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  He closed his eyes for a minute and sighed. “Let’s define some terms.”

  “What happened to ‘fuck buddies’?”

  He opened one eye. “I thought we’d just ruled that out?”

  She swatted his chest and he sighed.

  “Wylie, I don’t have any interest in being idle rich. Most nonprofits run a deficit and exist for the certainty of tax write-offs and the possibility of doing good. I could spend my days keeping a seat warm with Isla’s board of directors, but I don’t want to oversee the work. I want to do it.”

  She considered shucking her shirt and reclaiming her favorite position. Then she thought about the previous night and smiled. Make that my second favorite position. It never occurred to me that I’d have a thing for altruistic entrepreneurs. She frowned. It also never occurred to me I’d even meet one.

  “Plus, my resources won’t be enough to scale Modesto to compete with the size of a fast food giant. I still have to build value if I want it to succeed.”

  “Or turn a profit.”

  “Profit doesn’t interest me. People do.”

  He rubbed her thigh and her muscles responded to the pressure of his touch.

  “It’s easy for rich people to give away their money and let someone else do the work. Look at The Giving Pledge. Billions of dollars and brilliant minds serving on advisory boards… What if those signatories got in the trenches and did it?”

  “Maybe it’s not their specialty.”

  “Well, it’s certainly not mine. Do you know I had to teach myself to cook before I could even begin to think about Modesto?”

  “Did you go to cooking school?”

  He smiled. “I didn’t want to learn how to make formal food. I wanted to learn how to make things people post on the Internet.” He winced. “I recommend reading the reviews before giving a recipe a chance.”

  She grinned and hugged her knees. “Were they bad?”

  “Terrible.” He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his beard. “At the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got people with no assets but a heart of gold. Their loved one passes away from a drug overdose while living on the street and it stirs them to action. Thousands of meals and thousands of pounds of winter clothes, but what happens when they’re gone?”

  “Someone else takes their place?”

  “If we’re lucky. But I want to create the value chain. Maybe the tip jar goes toward offsetting the meals for people who can’t pay. Maybe it’s a benefactor’s program. I’m not sure what I’m going to do to serve everyone who needs help.”

  “You need to start in the trenches.”

  He nodded. “So I was being sincere when I said I admire your tenacity and willingness to work for what you want. It might be narcissistic, but those are the same traits I try to cultivate in myself.”

  “Even if my goals are different from yours.”

  He reached for her. “Some of them align.”

  She shook her head and sat on her heels. “Let’s make a deal.”

  “A deal?” He sat and his honed stomach muscles shifted beneath the edge of the sheet.

  Confronted with the slipping fabric, she momentarily forgot to what she had wanted to say. Nolan’s hair stuck out at odd angles and the shadow of a beard crept down his neck. She spied the red marks she had left and smiled. “Yes, a deal. The Abramowitzes own a commercial kitchen at the bottom of the hill, but they won’t sell it to you.”

  “Correct.”

  “You think they’ll rent it to you if they believe they’re supporting young love.”

  He shook his head. “Not rent it, sell it.”

  Geeze. She inhaled, but she knew her assumption had served his needs from the moment she’d made it. Why rent when you can own? Fine, we’re playing a game with different stakes. She waved off the distinction. “I’ll go to dinner with the cute old couple. I’ll play the fawning girlfriend of a stable community member”—he raised his eyebrows and she clarified her statement—“without overdoing it, but I want you to take your food truck to Whittier Boulevard.”

  He rubbed his beard. “Why there?”

  “I spent yesterday afternoon by the pool after my yoga class. My friend, Penny Lane, came with me, but Jack started acting like an ass.”

  Nolan dropped his hands and narrowed his gaze. “What did he do?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Rikard ran him off before anything could happen, but afterward, I took her back to the homeless encampment she shares with about twenty or thirty other people. She means well, but she needs the kind of help you’re trying to provide.” She swallowed. “She lives in a tent, Nolan—a tent surrounded by garbage and rats. I don’t want that life for her or anyone else.”

  He rubbed his eyebrows. “You’re not above using me to get help for someone who needs it, but you won’t accept help for yourself. Did I get that right? You don’t want to doubt your place in the world, but remaking Penny Lane’s life? You’re all over that?”

  “This isn’t about me and it’s not just about getting her help, Nolan. It’s about opening your eyes to what you can accomplish with your resources. What if you aim higher than good food? Look at the lowest rung on the social ladder. If you want to make a difference, you need to spend time in the trenches instead of selling food outside a business park.”

  “I can’t plant an outpost next to every homeless encampment in the city. There must be thousands of them, and even my resources will run out.”

  “Then go where the people congregate. Go to an intersection off Santa Monica Boulevard, where international charitable organizations partner with local food trucks to make a difference. I’m sure the regular volunteers would appreciate a night off.”

  “I’m not running a charity. I’m lowering the barrier to good food. A day of redeeming glass bottles should be enough to buy a decent meal.”

  “You’re also not thinking about the people who’ve run out of choices. Do the people who need your food the most like the taste of it? Can you figure out a way to make the economics work to serve the entire community?”

  “Wylie, there has to be a bottom line.”

  She thought about the restless nights she’d spent in her SUV and the anxiety triggered by aimless days. “Trust me. Once you get close to that bottom line, you realize
how much farther you have left to fall. I’m not asking you to siphon out your bank account, Nolan. I’m asking you to push your limits and take a risk.”

  He closed his eyes. “You want me to give the food away.”

  “Just this once. The most discerning critics in the world are the ones with the fewest dollars to spend.”

  He nodded and opened one eye. “This act of charity will buy me dinner?”

  “And a new perspective. Esther can run a franchise with her eyes closed, but can you find a way to employ the men and women who are fighting their circumstances?”

  “Anyone who wants to work should be able to do so.”

  “Good.” She thought about calling the accreditation institute and planning the rest of her day.

  “I’m holding you to a dinner without rules.” He reached for her and pressed a soft kiss against her forehead. “And also without obligations.”

  “What did I do to deserve that?” she asked.

  He smiled and pulled her shirt from her shoulder. “You spent the afternoon by the pool with someone named Penny Lane.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  He brushed his hand along the edge of her breast. “Speaking of friends and benefits.”

  “What happened to no obligations?”

  “Just tell me to stop.”

  She leaned into his touch. The warmth of his hand built against her skin and she blinked, struggling to focus on his words.

  He cupped the full weight of her breast and sighed, dropping his hand. “We all need friends to look out for us, but most of the people I know only see those people who mirror themselves.”

  “And?”

  “You see everybody, Wylie. You see the people on the streets who might disappear into a crowd. That kind of empathy is rare and precious. After dinner tonight, I’m going to do my best to look after you, whether you need it or not.”

  She raised an eyebrow, smiling at the thought of someone considering her rare and precious. She spent so much time looking toward the future that Nolan’s statement felt like a luxury. Still, she doubted the feeling would last. “Is that so?”

  He nodded and reached for her. “I can see your thoughts as easily as I see your beautiful blonde hair. Don’t run away from me yet. Don’t plot your escape. We’ll fight those battles another day, but right now the only thing I can think about is savoring the first course.”