The Possession Read online

  One dark eyebrow rose bemusedly, a never-before-seen grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.

  Kris grunted.

  Jack McKenna was handsome enough, she supposed. For a big bruiser type anyway. He was a tall man—probably stood around six foot four—and at forty-two years of age was still as thick with muscle as any pro-football linebacker. His hair was short and dark and given to the slightest hint of curl, his big body bronzed with tan.

  She knew that he had worked his way up through the ranks of the construction company he now owned, having started at the bottom as a laborer. She could surmise from the heavy musculature of his body that he probably hadn’t given up his former trade altogether when he’d bought out his uncle and taken over McKenna Construction, for he had the strong and powerful look of a man who was accustomed to heavy laboring.

  Not that she’d noticed or anything, she sniffed.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. McKenna?”

  With Dr. Salazar on vacation until tomorrow that left Kris in the apparently pitiful position of being the most tenured, which meant she’d be the one obliged to hear Jack McKenna growl out his latest demands. Again.

  Six months ago when Dr. Salazar had been on a dig in Mexico, Jack McKenna had prowled around the department with his demands. Three months before that when Dr. Salazar had been at a conference in Hawaii, he had come around growling again. If she didn’t know better, she’d start to wonder if the damn man waited for her boss to disappear just so he could growl at her in particular. But that was ludicrous to think, of course.

  That black eyebrow rose again as he regarded her, a habit of his that always left her feeling decidedly irritated. It was as if he was sizing her up—and finding her lacking. But then a man like Jack McKenna, a wealthy man who’d dated just about every brainless bimbo in the Bay area, would look down his nose at a woman so average in appearance as herself. Physically she was his inferior and she knew it.

  His dark gaze methodically roamed over her body, starting at her legs, working slowly up to her breasts and lingering, then climbing higher to her face. She felt a bit flustered when her nipples hardened at the tingling of sensual awareness that passed through her, but ignored the feeling and quickly pushed it aside.

  Besides, she reminded herself as she raised one of her wine-red eyebrows and met his determined stare with a challenging one of her own, Jack McKenna was probably just trying to intimidate her. As always. Once a bully, always a bully.

  It was ironic indeed that the very sort of man Kris wanted to experience submission with in bed was standing before her, yet she knew she’d never hand herself over to a man like this one in a trillion years. Not that the multimillionaire construction worker cum CEO had ever expressed any interest in doing so anyway, she thought grimly.

  But if he had tried to take her to bed, she knew she would have said no. Not only because a messy affair could cause problems for her at the university, but also because Jack McKenna wasn’t the sort of man who would take dominance and submission as a mere sexual game. He was the type of arrogant male who would take it literally, expecting a woman to cater to him always, whether in the bedroom or out of it.

  Definitely not her type.

  Even if he was masculine sexuality personified.

  “Hell yes I want to see you,” he growled. He jabbed a finger in the general direction of her office door. “Let’s go talk, lady.”

  Or masculine idiocy personified, she thought with down-turned lips.

  Kris frowned severely, even as she decided that she might as well get the royal summons over and done with. The faster she listened to his growling session, the faster the big bruiser would be gone. But, she decided, she would not speak privately with him until she set him straight on one score.

  “My name is Doctor Torrence,” she said pointedly, sounding as pompous as Dr. Moore at that moment. “And if that is too long and too complicated of a name for your brain to absorb, then Doctor will suffice.” She inclined her head. “I did not, sir, spend eight years in college earning my Ph.D. to be talked down to as though I am an idiotic twit.”

  He sighed, then pinched the bridge of his nose as he seemingly gathered himself together. No doubt a delaying tactic to keep himself from snapping at her.

  He glanced up, his jaw clenched, his dark eyes blazing into her green ones. “Look lady…”

  She clucked her tongue, fascinated by the vein throbbing at his temple.

  “Doctor Torrence…” he growled.

  She smiled, then nodded. “You wanted to speak with me in private?” she asked sweetly. Too sweetly.

  His nostrils flared as he narrowed his dark gaze at her. “Yes,” he hissed.

  A hiss. She’d never heard him hiss before and found herself wondering what precisely it meant. Odd as it was, she was good at detecting Jack McKenna’s moods. Not that it took a Ph.D. in anthropology to do so for he only seemed to have two moods in total: surly and surlier.

  Telling herself it didn’t matter, and that she had better things to do with her time than quarrel with an overgrown Neanderthal—such as prepare for her chartered flight tonight!—she waved a hand easterly and strolled toward her office door.

  Her nemesis was quiet for the entire walk down the hallway, which Kris found distressingly odd for such a huge and generally loud man. She felt a queer premonition pass over her, that sort of bizarre jolt that makes the hair at the nape of one’s neck stir when you somehow become aware of the fact that you are being watched.

  She stiffened. Jack McKenna doesn’t watch like a normal man does.

  Jack McKenna studies. He calculates. He assesses.

  He hunts.

  She swallowed a bit roughly, wondering what it was precisely that he was hunting today. Kris didn’t fool herself for even a moment into thinking the big bruiser had all of a sudden become taken with her as a woman. On every occasion she’d been obliged to deal with him, and admittedly she’d seen to it that those occasions were few and far between, he had shown her nothing but hostility, disdain, and even, for whatever reason, resentment.

  Perhaps he resented the fact that she was a woman with a Ph.D. Perhaps he resented the fact that she had red hair. Perhaps he resented the fact that her automobile of choice was a conservative, no-frills Volvo. Perhaps he resented the fact that—

  Bah! Who knew what his reasons were.

  Where Jack McKenna was concerned, one could never be certain of anything. So basically you were best off not even trying to figure them out to begin with.

  Kris closed the door behind him after he entered her small, modest office. Motioning for him to have a seat, she decided to ignore him when he merely grunted without sitting down. Sighing, she seated herself behind her desk and smiled as politely as she could. She folded her hands on the desk before her and met his gaze. “How can I help you, Mr. McKenna?”

  He frowned as he stared at her in silence, his dark expression brooding. They faced off in stark quiet for what felt like the tensest hour of Kris’ life, their gazes locked in mutual challenge, when in fact it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds that had already ticked by.

  She grew increasingly anxious on the inside, her heart rate picking up dramatically, but on the outside she looked ice-cool. And then finally, thankfully, he opened his mouth to speak. But whatever it might have been that he had been about to say was interrupted when Dr. Salazar made an unexpected appearance into the office.

  Kris blew out a breath as she stood up, relieved. She wouldn’t be obliged to deal with the growling grump after all.

  “Alma,” Jack said politely if a bit gruffly. Almost as though he was disappointed by the fact that their impending conversation had been interrupted. But then that made no sense really.

  Jack respectfully inclined his head when he stood up to greet the department head, inducing Kris’ forehead to wrinkle. This was the first time she had ever seen Jack McKenna and Alma Salazar interact and she had to wonder at it. Kris had always assumed that the bruiser probab
ly treated the older woman as surly as he did the rest of the world. Apparently that assumption had been wrong.

  She frowned when she wondered if Jack saved up all of his bad manners for her alone.

  Jerk.

  “It’s good to see you, Jack,” Dr. Salazar said sincerely, causing Kris to blink. But then Kris couldn’t imagine anybody being happy to see Jack McKenna. It was like the Whos down in Who-ville being happy to see the Grinch before he’d reformed his wicked ways. “I came back from vacation a day early because I’m behind with paperwork. I’m glad I didn’t miss you. But I see that Krissy here was helping you.”

  She winced at Dr. Salazar’s casual usage of the name Krissy. She winced again when she realized the feminine sounding name hadn’t gone unnoticed by the Grinch. That damn eyebrow of his shot up again as he flicked his gaze toward her.

  “Yes,” he said dryly, his voice a low growl. “Krissy and I were just getting ready to discuss the problems down at your team’s excavation site.”

  Kris frowned, her hands folding under her breasts.

  Dr. Salazar’s eyebrows drew together quizzically. “Problems, Jack? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Problems. The problem being it isn’t excavated yet. Look,” he said in the calmest tone of voice Kris had ever heard him use, “I don’t mind delaying my men by a day or two so your team can finish digging up those old bones we happened across, but time is money, Alma, and your team is taking up a hell of a lot of my time.”

  Dr. Salazar nodded. “I understand, Jack. Krissy and I will get right on it ourselves.” She patted him on the shoulder, an affectionate and platonic gesture. “No need to worry. We’ll finish excavating it tonight.”

  Tonight?

  Kris’ eyes widened. Of all nights, please not tonight! she mentally wailed.

  Jack McKenna turned his head and stared at Kris as though he was working her out in his mind—as though he had figured out he was thwarting her from doing something she had really wanted to do tonight. And damned if he didn’t look pleased by that realization.

  Jerk!

  “Good,” he murmured, his gaze never leaving Kris.

  She stiffened, her chin notching up, as it was apt to do whenever she felt defensive. “I’ll be more than happy to excavate the site with you, Dr. Salazar,” she said in a professionally clipped tone as she tore her gaze away from Jack’s. “But if you want me to be a part of the excavation I’m afraid it will have to wait until I return from my vacation in a week.” She nodded definitively, letting it be known that in this one particular instance she would not waver. She had a solid reputation for being a team player, so she wasn’t worried Alma would think poorly of her.

  Dr. Salazar inclined her head, affirming her assumption.

  Jack frowned, his dark eyes broodingly raking over Kris. “Why?” he barked. “You going somewhere with a guy or something?”

  “Or something,” she said sweetly, letting him wonder. She decided to ignore the fact that his interest in the subject did weird things to her belly. Like put butterflies inside of it.

  Nerves. It had to be nerves that had made her stomach flutter. The only thing Jack McKenna did to her belly was give it indigestion.

  Kris picked up her purse, nodding at Jack and Alma as she strolled toward the door. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I have a lot of work to do in the lab today before I leave for vacation.”

  She blew out a breath. And a lot of mental preparation to perform in anticipation of tonight’s flight to the exclusive, private island.

  Chapter Two

  Kris closed her eyes, took a deep, steadying breath in a futile effort to calm her frayed nerves, and then resumed staring out of the six-seater airplane’s small peephole of a window.

  She wondered what John Calder would think when he saw her, for she hadn’t had time to change out of her drab business clothing in between leaving the university and catching the chartered flight to the island. But then again, John had warned her that she wouldn’t need clothes at Hotel Atlantis because she’d be totally naked for the entire five days…

  She nibbled on her lower lip, her green eyes wide.

  What the hell had she been thinking, signing up to become a submissive sex slave for five days?

  She sighed, absently rubbing her temples as the lush and surprisingly tropical looking Atlantis Island slowly came into view. It’s just that she really wanted to try this, she reminded herself. Just once.

  Besides, Kris considered herself to be a very good judge of character. John Calder might be a smart businessman who had figured out a way to make enviable money for himself and the women who worked on the island, but she had a good feeling about him as a person and believed wholeheartedly that the assurances he’d given to her were nothing short of the truth.

  He and his sister Sheri would take good care of her. They never allowed men on the island who hadn’t gone through and passed intense personal screenings and background checks.

  Indeed, Sheri has assured her that most of the patrons of the island were regular clients that she and John had known for at least five years or more. And all of them were the types of high profile men who would rather be on their best behavior for the women who worked in Hotel Atlantis than do something stupid and chance that a potentially damaging situation might be aired in public as dirty laundry for all the world to see.

  In other words, Kris had nothing to worry about. The male patrons were horny and rascally, but nobody would dare harm her.

  She blew out a breath.

  As the island loomed in closer, her heart rate picked up dramatically. This was as exciting as it was terrifying, she mentally conceded.

  Taking a brief glance around the tiny cabin at the other four female passengers on the chartered plane, she idly wondered to herself if they were as nervous as she was. She doubted it. All four of them had the calm, collected look of professionals. And all four of them were perfect in appearance with their gorgeously painted faces, firm bodies, and golden blonde good looks.

  She sighed. They were so beautiful—too beautiful. She’d probably have to pay one of the paying customers to get herself a little action, she thought with a frown.

  Ah well. It was either this or five days with the cats.

  Kris straightened in her seat and decided to focus on the upcoming night that lay ahead of her rather than on things destined to make her a nervous wreck. Tonight was no more than an orientation of sorts, she reminded herself. So it really wasn’t necessary to get all flustered. The male patrons wouldn’t begin arriving until some time tomorrow afternoon.

  Then and only then would she work herself into a knot of raw, frayed, and otherwise exposed nerves.

  * * * * *

  Leaning against his expensive oak desk, a glass of bourbon in hand, John Calder grinned at Kris’ nervousness. “If you can’t get naked in front of me without blushing, my dear, then how are you going to deal with it tomorrow when a group of rich, horny men are all vying for your attention, anxious to fuck you?” He held the short glass up, preparing to sip from it as he studied her. “I don’t mean to be crude, but I don’t want misunderstandings either. You do realize that’s what you’re here for, don’t you?”

  Kris sighed as she let her hair down, the tight bun spilling a cascade of dark red ringlets down to her lower back. Her hair, like Samson, had always been her strength, her best feature. She suspected even her new employer agreed when the sight of her curls cascading down made him stiffen in a noticeable region. She averted her gaze, quickly glancing away.

  “My dear Kris,” he murmured from across the room. “You could make even a man like me forget how jaded he’s become.”

  Her head shot up. Her forehead wrinkled. “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” he said with a sigh that sounded almost tragic, and left her feeling decidedly confused. He set down the glass of bourbon and walked slowly toward her. “I don’t want you doing this if it’s not something you want to do. If it’s money you nee
d, there are plenty of ways—”

  “It’s not the money,” she quickly blurted out. She took a deep breath. Dear lord, she didn’t want him to send her away. Not when she’d made it this far! “Listen, Mr. Calder…”

  “John,” he corrected with a smile.

  She nodded. “How apropos.” She grinned when he chuckled at that, her nervousness fading with every moment she spent in his presence. “It’s not the money,” she admitted again, her expression growing serious. “It’s just something I need to do. For me.” She sighed as she glanced away, kicking off her no-nonsense pumps at the same time. “I own five cats,” she said morosely. “And I’m a member of Mensa.”

  John hid a smile. “I see.” He was quiet as he watched her slowly disrobe, saying nothing until she stood before him wearing only her bra and panties.

  Kris took a deep breath as she glanced up at him, her shoulders straight and stiff.

  He chuckled. “Try not to look as though you’re facing your executioner and you might enjoy these five days a bit more.”

  She grinned at him, and then laughed. “You’re very good at talking a woman out of her clothing, you know.” She shook her head. “If you were anyone else I probably would have bolted in fright the moment the plane landed.”

  “We all have our talents,” he teased.

  Kris cocked her head as she studied his face. He was a very handsome man, she had to admit. Tall, muscular, golden brown hair, and darkly tanned. And his playful personality was nothing at all like that damn Jack McKenna’s grizzly one.

  Now why are you thinking about Jack McKenna, idiot? she chastised herself. He’s safely ensconced in San Francisco and you’re on Atlantis Island, standing in the owner’s office in Hotel Atlantis, about to make your deepest fantasies a reality tomorrow.

  She chalked up her inner musings to nerves again. Perhaps it was easier to her state of mind to think about dealing with the big bruiser because he was a known, if irritating, entity. But this situation, and this man, was definitely novel.