Once Phyla had pulled her legs into the car, Darby studied Phyla’s face with a contemplative look before giving her a friendly smile and pushing the door shut behind her.

  Seventeen

  The weather had slowly cleared while Phyla had been inside speaking with Darby, leaving the air clear and crisp and the streets a wet and slushy mess. By the time Neville pulled close to the alley, the clouds were beginning to drift apart, allowing the light of the nearly full moon to illuminate the alley’s otherwise pitch-black interior. Phyla stood at the entrance, wondering what the hell had possessed her to be out on a frighteningly cold night at two in the morning, getting ready to walk into a place smelling of garbage, and God only knew what else.

  Neville stood next to her, looking suitably huge and intimidating. She lifted her chin to study him, hoping to draw strength from what she found there. The man’s typically relaxed features had grown hard. His brows were pulled low over dark brown eyes that were constantly moving as he gazed up and down the street, only occasionally darting a glance into the alley. Recognizing his vigilance as a sign that what she was about to do was monumentally stupid, Phyla pulled back her shoulders and strode into the lion’s den.

  Despite Darby’s guess that only Ash, Diva, and Barney would be there on a night like this, Phyla was relieved to see only one single tarp nestled into the back of the alley. Four ropes had been tied to the corners and attached to a fire ladder, a downspout, and the bars of two windows to the rear of a shop. The tarp hung about five feet off the ground with all four sides exposed to the night air, something Phyla had expected after hearing about Barney’s issues. Her boots were silent as she cautiously walked across the black pavement, carefully avoiding bricks and other detritus strewn about.

  With Neville by her side, she stopped about ten paces away, staring at a crouching Ash glaring out at them from beneath the tarp and holding a knife at the ready. Realizing she was in one of the pitch-black shadows made by a series of fire escape platforms, Phyla stepped to the middle of the alley so the moonlight illuminated her face. “Ash?” A cloud of vapor left her lips when she spoke.

  All the tension immediately drained from Ash’s body, and she tossed the knife behind her, where it clanged into the wall. She didn’t even try to soften her words. “What the fuck are you doing here?” She stepped from beneath the canvas and flung her arms wide in disbelieving exasperation. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Familiar grit stiffened Phyla’s spine as she turned to Neville. “Leave us.” When he’d retreated to the mouth of the alley, she put her fists on her hips and leaned forward aggressively. “What do you think? It’s below zero, there was a sleet storm, and I knew you were out here somewhere doing whatever it is you do in a filthy alley without heat or—”

  Ash stopped her diatribe by moving close enough to rest her fingers beneath Phyla’s chin. Inch by agonizing inch, she leaned in and brought her mouth a hair’s breadth away from Phyla’s lips. “Shhh. I’m safe. Thank you.”

  A surge of longing rushed through Phyla. Ash’s lips were so close she could feel her breath, and she wondered why they didn’t move close enough to touch hers. With dawning realization, she knew she desperately wanted them to touch hers. Before she finished the thought, Ash stepped away and motioned to the tarp. “Come in. It’s not much, but it’s home.” Her self-deprecating smile nearly did Phyla in, and when Ash ducked beneath the tarp and disappeared, Phyla hesitated only a second before following her in.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness since the tarp blocked all hope of moonlight lighting her way. When she began making out shapes, she stared at Ash, who was sitting on a pile of blankets with an opened sleeping bag pulled over her lap. She lifted one side and motioned for Phyla to join her. “Come on. It’s warmer under the covers.” Seeing Phyla’s incredulous look, she added, “I promise not to ravage you.”

  Phyla tugged on the sleeve of her coat. “Ash. This is a fifteen-thousand-dollar cashmere coat.”

  “Oh.” Ash grabbed a piece of clean cardboard and held it against the wall. “The blankets and sleeping bag are always clean, and I just grabbed the cardboard from the store a few hours ago.”

  “Ash.”

  “Can I have my assistant get you a drink? An old fashioned on the rocks, perhaps?” She fluttered her lashes, pretending her home came fully equipped with a bar and a personal assistant at her beck and call.

  Realizing this was Ash’s home for all intents and purposes, Phyla closed her eyes and growled quietly to herself. Here was yet another thing no one in their right mind, including Phyla McGuire, would have believed a mere four weeks earlier. She turned and sat on the surprisingly comfy layers of blankets, allowing Ash to pull the sleeping bag over both of their laps before gently tugging it up to Phyla’s chin.

  Winding her arm around her shoulders, Ash pulled her in close. “See? Nice and toasty.” She rested her cheek on Phyla’s soft, reddish-brown hair.

  Surprisingly, it was warm and possibly cozier than any room in her lonely, echoing mansion. Phyla suddenly remembered Diva and Barney, and she squinted into the darkness, wondering how she could have missed them. “Where’s Diva?”

  As soon as the name left her mouth, a nose poked out from under a blanket on Ash’s other side.

  “That’s—” Here came another first for the indomitable Phyla McGuire. “Adorable.” She waited a beat, “And Barney?”

  Ash stiffened as she raised her head and asked, “How do you know about Barney?”

  “After Neville and I drove around the city for about an hour, I remembered your friend and that club and thought I might find you there. She mentioned him.”

  Ash relaxed and nestled her cheek against Phyla’s hair again. “See that lump?” She motioned to another open sleeping bag draped over what was presumably Barney.

  Phyla lowered her voice. “Aren’t you worried about waking him?”

  “No, he’s stone-cold deaf.”

  A muffled voice spoke from beneath the sleeping bag. “I heard that.”

  Ash mock grumbled, “You resemble that, you mean.”

  A wrinkled, round, friendly face poked out of the covers, and a pair of cheerful blue eyes beamed out at them. When the old man smiled, there were four or five gaps where teeth used to reside. The few wisps of hair on the top of his head stood on end, probably from the static electricity he’d picked up while buried beneath the covers. His raspy, gruff voice was a counterpoint to what seemed to be an ordinarily cheerful disposition. “Don’t just sit there, Ash. Introduce an old man to your pretty girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend, you old coot. She’s teaching me how not to get fleeced by all the assholes in the business world.”

  Phyla spoke up. “Excuse me? I happen to belong in that world.”

  Barney chortled, and Ash made the introductions. “Barney Stettheimer, may I introduce Phyla McGuire?”

  Those white, bushy brows that had stood high and cheerful a moment before suddenly descended. “The lady who won’t let nobody kip in the alleys on either side of the M?”

  The warm glow Phyla had been feeling suddenly morphed into an uncomfortable tightening in her gut.

  “It’s okay, Barney, I get it now. She deals with millionaire assholes she needs to impress when they come to her place to do business. You know how disgustingly filthy most people keep their camps. Garbage everywhere. They leave their tarps up and piss in the corners behind the dumpsters. Give the lady a break.”

  The brows rose again, apparently conceding the point and unexpectedly easing the guilty tension that had crept into Phyla’s shoulders.

  Barney grinned at her, “Pardon me for not getting up and shaking your hand, or, from what I’ve heard, people generally kiss your feet and genuflect when they meet you, don’t they? Well, it’s too damn cold for that.” He laughed in what could only be described as a high-pitched chortle that sounded to Phyla like one of the goats she’d played with on her family’s childhood farm. The old man lay back down and pulled the covers over his head again. His voice was muffled when he added, “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it, then.”

  Ash squeezed Phyla’s arm, then swept the covers aside and pushed to her feet. She held out her hand, “Come on. We both need our beauty sleep. I’ll walk you out to your car.”

  As they walked down the moonlit alley, Phyla lifted one side of her mouth in what Ash considered her adorable, almost grin, “If someone had told me a few weeks ago that walking down a moonlit alley might be considered…maybe…slightly…romantic, I’d have thrown them out of my office for wasting my time with ridiculous notions.”

  Ash tilted her head and admired the dimple on the cheek of the woman walking by her side. “Romantic, huh?”

  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Eighteen

  Phyla had Neville drive her back to the office. She’d still had some paperwork to catch up on and could always sleep in her apartment, which took up the entirety of the seventy-third floor of her building.

  Since Neville was always on call, she’d also had the architect include in his design a one-bedroom apartment off the underground garage that Neville, or whoever Phyla’s driver/head of security might be at any given time, called home when they were away from her estates. When Phyla was at home, Neville stayed in a small cottage on the rear grounds, out of sight of the mansion itself.

  Her eyes had begun to ache, and when she looked up from a report she’d been studying, she realized there was light pouring through her window. She hit the space bar on her computer to awaken it. Seven thirty? She stretched when she realized that not only had she not gone down to her apartment, but she’d been so engrossed in all of the details of her own business that she’d had to set aside to oversee Redux that she’d worked through the night.

  Rubbing the muscles in her neck and shoulders that had grown stiff from sitting at her desk for much too long, she decided a hot shower would do her a world of good. Moving into her ensuite bathroom, she idly wondered if Ash had fared better than she in the sleep department. She pulled off yesterday’s clothes and dropped them in the hamper. Rest would probably come easier now that she knew that while Ash’s living arrangement was primitive, it wasn’t as horrendous as Phyla’s imagination had led her to believe.

  As she stepped into the shower, which activated varying heights of multiple showerheads on each of three walls, plus three additional angled ones in the ceiling, the perfect blend of water cascaded over her. The controls automatically adjusted to the just-shy-of-scalding temperature she enjoyed. The steam rising around her carried the aroma of lemon, jasmine, and white musk, and she pulled in a deep, relaxing breath as she rubbed liquid soap over her body.

  “May I join you?”

  Startled out of her reverie, Phyla jerked her head around and stared wide-eyed at a fully clothed Ash, who kept her gaze locked onto Phyla’s eyes. For whatever reason, if her eyes had hungrily wandered down to her naked body, Phyla would have ordered her out immediately. It was the way Ash concentrated on her eyes, as though it was important to get Phyla’s permission before doing anything overtly sensual, that allowed her to give an almost imperceptible nod.

  With only her feet bare, Ash stepped beneath several of the many showerheads that were spraying a delicious mixture of cold, warm, and scalding hot water over them both. She stopped and allowed the water to run down her head, her face, and her clothed body, letting it rinse away the trials of her night.

  The entire time, she stared into Phyla’s eyes with a hunger so erotically charged Phyla’s nipples rose and hardened even under the steaming water. After what seemed like hours, Ash took a final step forward, backing her against the wall. She braced a hand on the wall above their heads and leaned in to whisper, “May I kiss you?”

  The only possible response was a breathy “Yes.”

  Ash covered Phyla’s lips, slipping her mouth over the lower one and sucking off the water still cascading down around them. She was rewarded by a faint moan, and when she softly swept her tongue left, then right, Phyla’s lips parted, and Ash’s tongue continued to explore and dance while her teeth teased with the occasional, gentle nip.

  They enjoyed kissing for quite a while until Ash pulled away from Phyla’s lips and, with her breath tickling the inside of Phyla’s ear, whispered, “May I touch you?”

  Before Phyla could respond, Ash hungrily devoured her mouth again and moaned as though her lips had been absent far too long. When Phyla whimpered softly, Ash leaned back, the teasing look in her eyes both mischievous and hungry. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure what that means.”

  For an answer, Phyla pulled Ash in and kissed her with such a desperate need that it was Ash’s turn to groan and lean in with pleasure until their bodies pressed hard against each other.

  Ash circled her hands around Phyla’s lower back and ran her fingers up and down, enjoying the soft, delicate skin she’d discovered there. Once again, she pulled back and, with a quiet yet definite aura of command, ordered, “Take off my shirt.”

  Even as a rush of longing filled her, questions raced through Phyla’s mind. How was Ash grinding Phyla’s power beneath her heel so incredibly erotic? Could she feel Phyla’s growing need to let go? “Oh God,” Phyla whispered. With shaking hands, she obeyed the command.

  Ash whispered, “Perfect.” She leaned in to nip Phyla’s throat and slid her lips along the pulsing she found there. When she tasted the skin with her tongue, Phyla arched into her. Her body was reawakening, coming to life one electrifying touch at a time. The word that rolled from her lips was drawn out and filled with the longing of a starving soul presented with a feast meant only for them. “Oh.”

  Ash moved up and quietly ordered, “Now, my bra.”

  It was easier to obey the second command, coming so close on the heels of the first. She unhooked the clasps, and Ash lowered her arms, letting the bra fall to her feet. When she pulled Phyla’s earlobe into her mouth and sucked before whispering in her ear, “Undo my jeans and lower them down to my ankles,” Phyla took her time, enjoying this game, enjoying the wetness between her legs that had nothing to do with the water cascading over them both.

  Once she had the belt and pants unbuckled, she slowly pulled down the zipper and then, inch by inch, lowered the jeans to the shower floor. When she began to rise, Ash put a gentle hand on the top of her head. “Did I tell you to get up?” She stepped out of the jeans and moved them aside with her foot.

  Phyla’s eyes lingered on the curls between Ash’s legs before looking up with such repressed hunger she almost didn’t recognize the thoughts as her own. Ash knelt so they were knee to knee and whispered, “Not yet.” Ash leaned in, and Phyla tasted those soft, beautiful lips again, wishing they could stay like this forever.

  Ash eventually stood and pulled Phyla to her feet. She stared at Phyla’s erect nipples with such longing that Phyla put her hand behind Ash’s neck to pull her mouth down to them. She arched her breasts forward with a longing she hadn’t felt in, well, in forever.

  Ash gently removed Phyla’s hand. “Uh uh uh. I didn’t say you could do that. Not today.”

  Ash wiped the shocked look off of Phyla’s face with a kiss. “Patience. I promise, if you wait, it will be better than anything you’ve ever experienced before.” Ash stepped out of the shower and pulled a towel around her. With one last hungry look back, she went to her locker to dress.

  By the time Phyla finished showering and getting dressed, Ash was already sitting at the table eating bacon and eggs. An empty place setting was waiting for her, along with about ten newspapers Phyla habitually devoured with her morning breakfast. She kept her face a blank mask as she pulled out her chair and sat.

  Her private waiter came out of the shadows and stood by her side.

  Without glancing up at the man, Phyla growled, “Toast, buttered with blueberry jam. Coffee.”

  When he left the office to retrieve the order, Ash picked up her own toast and held it near her mouth. “You need more than that to keep up your energy.”

  “I’ve done just fine until now without your interfering.” Phyla hadn’t intended for anger to creep into her words, but creep in it had.

  “Ooh, touchy.”

  “And it’s polite to either speak and leave your food on the table or eat and keep your opinions to yourself.”

  Ash cocked her head and considered Phyla with an amused look. “What’s eating you this morning? Certainly not me.”

  After what had just happened in the shower, the comment felt like a slap in the face. Phyla slammed down the paper and stalked to the office door. She barked an order to Daphne, “We’re not to be disturbed until further notice.”

  “Yes, Ms.—”

  The slammed door cut off Daphne’s voice, and Phyla angrily strode back to where Ash was calmly chewing a bite of toast.

  Phyla aggressively towered over her with one hand resting on the table and the other planted firmly on her hip. “How dare you make fun of me? I suppose you enjoy playing with your victims? Make them think—” Feeling a blush rising in her cheeks, she deliberately cut off her words before she embarrassed herself further. Phyla felt like a fool, a desperate, needy fool whom Ash had played so easily with her teasing game. “So what now? You’ll go brag to your friends how you—”

  She stopped and glared as Ash inhaled and then choked on her toast. Her anger only grew when Ash finally caught her breath and looked up with amusement in her eyes. When she made a concerted effort to tamp down that amusement, Phyla’s anger went through the roof. Blood roared in her ears, and she bared her teeth as she prepared to cut Ash down to size.

  Before things got out of hand, Ash stood and looked her in the eye. “Phyla.”

  “Don’t you Phyla me. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but—”