For His Pleasure Page 4

  “We do.” An understanding that involved sex without strings. This was getting far too serious for his comfort.

  “Then let me stay with you while I work things out with my family.”

  “You can’t stay in my apartment.” It was his sanctuary, the one place he could shed his high-society persona and be himself. He wasn’t going to give up that sanctuary to a Perconti, no matter how attractive she may be.

  “Here then. I could stay in the penthouse suite.” She inched closer. “It’s just for a little while. I swear I won’t bother you. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  He gave in to the temptation to brush the stray hair from her face. It felt so smooth and perfect. “You’re a stubborn woman, you know that?”

  She widened her eyes. “Then I can stay?”

  He hesitated, then lowered his hand. Instead of answering the question, he asked one of his own. “Why didn’t you talk to your brother about this before the wedding?”

  “How would you feel about telling Leo that his plans were about to blow up in his face?” She shivered and looked away. “I got cold feet.”

  “I see your point.” While Jason would have relished the idea of throwing a wrench in Leo’s plans, Ari cared about her brother and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. That didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t stay at his hotel. If Leo caught her at Stone Suites—or worse, in a compromising position with him—then he’d be livid. Jason respected the hotelier enough to keep their rivalry to the boardroom. He had no desire to make their battle personal. Heaven knew he had enough skeletons in his closet for the Percontis to rip his reputation to shreds.

  “Don’t you think staying here is a bit extreme, though?” he asked. “Leo’s already angry. Finding out you are staying at Stone Suites would be like rubbing his nose in the situation.” While he loved the idea of spending the next several days in Ari’s arms, he wanted to do it on his own terms, and without the family drama. While he cared about Ari, he wasn’t ready to sacrifice his reputation and his business for her independence from her family.

  “Perhaps there is somewhere else you can stay,” he offered. “With a friend, maybe.”

  “I don’t have many friends. At least none I can stay with.”

  “What about Camille?”

  “I don’t want to get her involved.” She reached up and slid her finger down his cheek. “And stop worrying about me. I just need a little time to sort things out with my family, that’s all.”

  “And have them stop controlling you.”

  “Yes.” She flashed him a brilliant smile. “I knew you’d understand.”

  He understood all right. Ari was using him to get out from under her brother’s thumb. Jason wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of her using him to take charge of her life. He kind of liked her brothers controlling her. They kept her safe. Jason always knew where she was, and what she was doing. If Leo allowed her to do whatever she wanted, she wouldn’t need him to feed her craving for spontaneity and excitement. She’d be able to get those things on her own.

  In short, if Ari got the freedom she craved from her oppressive brother, she wouldn’t need him anymore. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  She ran her fingers down the lapel of his suit jacket. “So we have an understanding. I’ll stay at your hotel while I try to convince my overbearing brother that I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “You don’t think I can make my own decisions?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just—”

  “Surely you have a vacant room in this place.” She flashed him a seductive smile. “We could play catch-up. You know, enjoy each other’s company.” She dropped her gaze to his lips. “It can be just like old times—before my engagement was announced.”

  It took all of his strength to put his hands on her hips and gently push her away. “Ari—”

  “It’s not forever. Just … for now. Think of it as our little secret.” She tightened her hold on his neck and brushed her lips against his. “I know how much you love a secret.”

  A secret … Yes. Jason loved secrets because they often gave him the advantage in the boardroom. This was different, however. This was personal.

  “Come on, Jason. I have nowhere else to go. You don’t want to see me on the streets, do you?”

  “I’m a busy man, Ari.”

  “I know. I won’t get in the way. I swear.” She inched closer. “I’m just asking for a place to stay. Nothing more.”

  Jason pushed aside his rising panic and forced himself to consider her argument. This woman was offering him unlimited sex and a chance to irritate his adversary. He had to admit that her idea had merit, and if he kept his eyes open, an opportunity to exploit this situation might present itself. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

  “Well?”

  Jason grinned and captured her lips with his own.

  “Is that a yes?” Ari asked when he broke for breath.

  “You drive a hard bargain, princess.” Jason slowly backed them both up until she was flush against the laundry room wall. As he pressed his body against her, need roared through his veins. She responded by letting out a moan and tightening her arms around his neck. He slid his fingers down over her soft curves and cupped her ass. Despite having just been with her, Jason wanted to plunge himself deep inside her once more.

  “It’ll just be for a few days, maybe a week,” Ari promised.

  Jason furrowed his brow and pretended to consider her request. “You can stay at my hotel as long as you wish, with one condition.”

  “Just one?” she joked.

  “Ari, this is serious. What you did today is sure to create a backlash in the media, and I don’t want you to be caught up in those reporters’ talons.”

  She flashed him a skeptical look. “Since when have you been interested in my well-being?”

  “Since you placed yourself in my care.” This relationship was going to move forward on his own terms, or not at all. He needed control.

  “Wait a minute. I didn’t ask you to care for me. I just wanted a place to stay. I need to make a statement—”

  “And you will, but you don’t want to create a scandal in the process.” She didn’t seem convinced, so he plowed forward. “No shopping trips, no dining out, no going outside this hotel for any reason.” If he was going to spin this to his advantage, he needed her cooperation. The last thing he wanted was her blurting to the media that she and Jason had an understanding. Those vultures would purposefully misconstrue her words and place him in a difficult position.

  “You mean no freedom and no fun,” Ari said.

  “Not necessarily. Just hide out and relax for a few days.”

  “And have sex with you.”

  “Now that you suggest it…” He tried to kiss her, but she pulled away.

  “It sounds like you want me to become your slave,” she said.

  He shifted his eyebrows suggestively and pressed his thickening cock against her lower abdomen. “Would being my love slave for the next few days be such a hardship?”

  “Now that I think about it…” Ari grinned as she lifted her leg and wrapped it around his waist. “No, no, it wouldn’t.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He wedged himself between her thighs and kissed a long, hot trail down her neck and shoulder.

  A loud ringing noise pierced his lust-filled brain, but he ignored it. Nothing was going to prevent him from possessing Ari once more. Nothing.

  “Jason?”

  The ringing echoed through his skull again, and Ari pushed his shoulders. “Your phone.”

  “It will go to voice mail,” he murmured as he pressed his lips against the sensitive place between her neck and shoulder.

  “It might be important.”

  With a growl, he pulled away from Ari and grabbed the phone from his pocket. “This better be good,” he said as he brought his cell to his ear.

  “It
is, Mr. Stone.” Michaela’s voice sounded nervous, as it should. Jason wasn’t in the mood to deal with his assistant’s politeness.

  “I’m busy, Micki.”

  “There’s someone here to see you in the lobby.”

  “Send them away.”

  “I—I really think that you should talk to this person. He seems rather insistent.”

  Leo. Jason glanced at Ari and tried to keep the smile from his face. “Tell him that I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jason pocketed his phone. “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “To meet your brother in the lobby.”

  “He’s here?” She widened her eyes and disentangled herself from Jason’s embrace. “Are you going to rat me out?”

  Jason flashed her a seductive smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He lifted her hands up to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

  “Where should I go?”

  He lowered her hands. “Not the penthouse suite—that’s the first place they’d look. Go to the ninth floor. That’s where we keep the honeymoon suites.”

  “The honeymoon suites?”

  Uh, oh. Jason cleared his throat. “I’m renovating the floor, but there’s one room they haven’t touched yet. It’s at the far end of the hall.” He slipped his all-access card from his jacket pocket. “Wait for me there.”

  “Of course.” Ari threw herself at Jason. “Thank you.”

  Jason wrapped his arms around Ari, enjoying the feel of her curves against his body. He indulged himself for a long moment, then slowly unwrapped her arms from around his neck and forced himself to stand back.

  “Use the service elevator to go up to room 9002.” He handed her his card. “I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

  She lifted her brows. “Are you sure you won’t tell him about me?”

  He made an X on his chest with his finger. “You can trust me.” He kissed her cheek. “I promise. Now go.” He tapped her ass and urged her down the hall to the elevators.

  Her features brightened as she hit the button on the control panel. “This is going to be so much fun.”

  Indeed. Jason kissed Ari once more, then left her to find the honeymoon suite on her own. After straightening his suit jacket, he made his way through the service area and up the stairs to the first floor. With each step, the heated desire he had felt in the laundry room faded away, replaced by the cool calm that sparked his reputation as a merciless bastard. He turned over possibilities on how to handle Leo, and decided that for the moment, he’d play ignorant. It was better to let his rival think that he had nothing to do with his sister or the wedding. For now.

  Jason struggled to keep the smile from his face as he entered the lobby and found Michaela. “Where is he?” he asked when the tall, leggy Asian woman was within earshot.

  Micki adjusted her black-rimmed glasses and started to reply, but was cut off by a low, familiar voice.

  “I’m over here.”

  Jason made a slow turn and stared at an older, much bulkier version of himself. His breathing hitched, and his smile faltered.

  “Deacon.” The name felt like both a blessing and a curse. Deacon was the one person who knew every intimate detail about Jason’s troubled past. As a result, he was the only person who had enough dirt on him to tear down his empire like a house of cards.

  The man ran his hand over his stubbled jaw and flashed him a knowing smile. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, brother?”

  * * *

  Karin Norell nestled herself deeper into the cushions of the leather sofa and watched Leo Perconti pace back and forth.

  “How could she do this to us? I don’t get it, Karin. I just don’t get it.” Leo had taken off his suit jacket and draped it over a nearby chair. Concern etched his brow as he paced the length of the room.

  “I don’t know,” Dante said from his position behind his laptop. He had taken over one of the easy chairs in the living area and put his feet up on the coffee table. Karin still felt uneasy about the marks he was putting into the polished table despite the fact that she was no longer cleaning the hotel room. Some habits were hard to break.

  “I had everything worked out.” Leo stopped pacing and placed his hands on the back of the sofa. “What went wrong?”

  “Perhaps things aren’t as bad as they seem.” Karin thought back to her conversation with Arianna before the wedding and realized that she might have unintentionally set in motion something that was going to ruin them all. It was difficult not to let the guilt show on her face.

  Leo shook his head. “This is more than just going out for air. Someone kidnapped her. That has to be it. There’s no other explanation for why she wouldn’t show up to her own wedding.”

  “Perhaps she just didn’t want to marry the bastard.” Dante glanced up from his computer screen.

  Leo straightened. “Impossible. She told me herself that she was fine with it. She understood the importance of this marriage. Perconti Enterprises needs Landon Blake in order to remain solvent. This marriage was to secure our future.” He waved his hand in the air around him. “All of this was dependent on that union. Without Landon Blake we have nothing.”

  “There has to be some other way,” Karin said from her position on the couch.

  Leo turned to face her. “Don’t you think if there was something else I could do, something besides arranging a marriage for my sister, that I would’ve done it?”

  “No one here is suggesting that you didn’t look into all of your options,” Dante said as he returned his gaze to the computer screen.

  “You just keep tracing that phone.” Leo pointed at his brother. “I need to know where she is, now.”

  “What are you going to do once you find her?” Karin asked.

  “I don’t know.” Leo pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something in Italian.

  “Relax, before you have another anxiety attack.” Karin patted the sofa seat next to her.

  He dropped into the seat beside her. “I had every detail planned.”

  And that was where he went wrong, although Karin couldn’t tell him that. For years Leo had been taking care of Ari and the rest of his siblings. While he had let the oldest two, Marco and Dante, grow up, Ari and her younger siblings—the twins Gio and Gianna—were a different matter. Leo had to stop dictating their lives, not only for their sakes, but for his own. His controlling nature wasn’t helping his anxiety, and Karin worried about his health.

  She took his hand. “Perhaps she changed her mind. It’s possible that she didn’t want to get married.”

  Leo squeezed her fingers and met her gaze. “Then why did she tell me that the marriage was okay? I’m not a heartless bastard, cara. If she didn’t want this, I could have found some other way to secure Landon’s money.” He pressed his lips together for a moment in thought. “By running out on the wedding, she has made both Landon and me look like a couple of old fools. Her actions have compromised Landon’s trust in us.” He sighed. “The damage to our reputation is extensive—never mind our new financial problems. I don’t know if I’ll be able to repair all of this.”

  “We’ll repair it.” Karin squeezed his fingers. “You aren’t alone anymore, remember.”

  He shook his head. “Ari had said that she was okay with the marriage. The girl never gave me any reason to think otherwise.”

  “You’re not the easiest man to talk to,” Dante said from his position across the room.

  Leo scowled. “Of course I am.” He turned to Karin. “Aren’t I?”

  Karin averted her gaze. “Sometimes you can be a little … overbearing.”

  Dante snorted. “A little? If big brother doesn’t get his way, nobody’s happy.”

  “You shut up,” Leo snapped at his brother before returning his attention to Karin. “She’s not strong like you are, Karin. I have to find her before the media eats her alive.”

  “What are you going to do when you find her?” Karin asked. />
  “I’m going to see if she’s okay, then I’m going to throttle her for not coming to me first.” He stood and moved behind Dante’s right shoulder. “Anything yet?”

  “Not yet. I think I’m close, though.” Dante muttered something under his breath. “Christoff’s software is eating up the memory on this laptop. Things are taking longer than they should. Just give me a few more minutes.” Christoff was Dante’s old high school buddy who worked as a private investigator. Soon after Dante had broken up with Sabrina, he had contacted Christoff about some tracking software. Dante had wanted to track Sabrina through her cell phone and make sure that his crazy female fans didn’t create any more trouble for her. From what Karin understood, Christoff didn’t part with the new technology easily, and Dante had spent quite a large amount of the Perconti funds to gain the software. At the time, Leo had been furious, but now, in light of recent developments, he had changed his opinion of his brother’s purchase.

  Karin started to ask if there was something she could do to help, but the elevator doors opened and Marco hurried in before she could get out the words. “What did I miss? Did you find her?”

  “Not yet,” Dante said as he tapped some keys on his keyboard. “But I know that she’s still within the city. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll have an address.”

  “How did things go downstairs?” Leo asked Marco as he began to close the distance between them.

  “As well as could be expected, I suppose.” Marco let out a long breath and went to get a drink from the bar. “I talked to Gio before he took Mamma up to her room. He hadn’t had a chance to speak with Ari before the wedding, and knows nothing about her disappearance.”

  “And Gianna?”

  “The same. She has a business meeting in the morning on the West Coast and needs to return tonight. She said to keep her informed.”

  “Figures,” Leo muttered. “That would have been too easy.”

  “She has to come back,” Marco said as he moved behind Dante and peered over his shoulder. “After the strike, we really can’t take much more bad media.”

  Leo started to pace, then stopped. “Her assistant,” he said, pointing at Marco. “The one who keeps track of all of her charity functions. What was her name?”