She was totally unprepared for the overwhelming emotion that hit her. She felt like
then,
before Sebastian, she’d only existed, and
now
she’d finally started to live. No matter how exciting her Man To Do ad venture, that suggestion of having idly cruised through so many years didn’t sit well. Especially coming on the heels of the plaguing doubts she’d been dodging here recently—doubts that had finally caught up with her.
If she were to be blunt, the entire situation sucked. The idea that she had only been drifting through life made a total mockery of the years spent learning the ropes with Rory, of the time she’d trekked across Europe on foot with the boy who’d been her first love, of the university credits she’d earned toward a degree she’d never declared.
Had she really spent her life in limbo? Waiting? For a man? The thought sent a wave of panic crashing like cymbals over her ears. This was just stress rearing its ugly head the way it did when she least needed the crushing reminder of all the things she had on her plate.
Oh, no. No way. This was getting ridiculous. A man was not the answer to her problems or her prayers. Certainly not Sebastian Gallo. That wasn’t why he was here. She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to Cali. “I need to run to the little girls’
room. Get Sebastian a beer and tell him I’ll be right back, will you?”
“Sure, but don’t you…”
Erin didn’t hear the rest of what Cali had to say because the slamming of the office door drowned out her voice.
Count to thirty, Erin. Count to thirty.
Yes, she’d always known there was the possibility of involving her emotions, no matter how often she told herself not to let it happen. She was totally female, after all, and subject to all those niggling female anomalies like thinking on the heels of sex came love.
Grr
and
grr
again. She banged her head back against the door on which she was leaning, then pushed off and finished the count to thirty while she crossed the small room. She dropped into her desk chair and, in desperate need of a distraction, pulled up her e-mail program, hoping Samantha had gotten around to answering this morning’s pitiful cry for help.
And she had, bless her always timely heart. Willing her heart to calm its thundering pace, her blood pressure back to normal, her head to stop the pounding that was now echoing in her ears, Erin sat back to read.
From: Samantha Tyler
Sent:
Saturday
To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton
Subject: Screw Me Once? Shame On Me?
Oh, Erin. Be careful. You don’t really know all that much about Sebastian except that he’s…ahem…talented. Make sure you’re not mixing up “I love sex” with “I love you.” A chick cliché!
Offhand I’d say forget being friends. If you guys have that much chemistry, there’s no way you can back off from it and have that stick for more than…generous estimate? Twenty, thirty minutes.
I mean, think about it. Doesn’t just looking into his eyes make you horny? I remember when I was falling in love with my ex, even his dandruff made me horny. (Okay, that was over the top, but you know what I mean). And you think you can be his buddy?
(Samantha shakes her head vigorously and makes that tsk-tsk noise that is *so*
annoying.)
Friendship plus sex equals love. If you think there’s potential for a future together, then stick it out. If not, run like hell. That kind of heartbreak no one needs, and the longer you wait, the deeper you get in, the worse it hurts.
The middle ground? Keep your mouth shut unless it’s giving pleasure, your ears closed to any of his human side, and leave your heart at home? Nice idea, but no. Never works. If you’re falling in love, that’s not going to stop the slide, no matter how much you tell yourself it will.
I hate to sound negative. And remember, my divorce is probably making me a bitter, cynical hag before my time. I would love, love, *love* you to have a happy ending with this guy, but what are the odds?
Remember, you picked him out because he’s so wrong for you! I wish Tess and I could meet the guy! Samantha
P.S. So what the hell *is* all this stuff you’re finding out about his past that you’re hinting at and driving us crazy by not telling? What was he, a mafia hit man? Drug lord? CIA? Salad prep at the Chew and Chat?
The Chew and Chat?
Oh, good grief. Erin chuckled, then sighed, then shook her head. That Samantha was a piece of work—not to mention the perfect diversion. She’d also made more than a few points that gave Erin pause.
Friendship plus sex equals love.
The sentiment made so much sense, as did the rest of what Samantha had said.
So where into her equation did Erin’s feelings for Sebastian fall? Serious like. Definite infatuation. A truly consuming lust. All things that fit with a relationship’s adrenaline beginnings. But this was not a relationship. Or even the beginning of one. She didn’t even know if anything she’d learned about Sebastian was real.
She’d gone into this affair looking for relief—from work stress and her worries about disappointing Rory, not to mention her horny hormones. All she’d accomplished was a temporary appeasing of the latter. Because every time she saw him she wanted him more than the time before.
She rubbed at the thundering, pounding, blood pressure headache. It was so simple really. All she needed was a light at the end of the tunnel, the tiniest ray of sunshine filtering down through the murky water of her mind. That wasn’t asking too much, was it? To know she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life feeling so decidedly out of sorts?
A sharp rap sounded on her door and, before she could decide whether or not to answer, Sebastian walked into the room. She swallowed hard, wishing for an analgesic. Better yet, a margarita, hold the salt. Hold the lime. Hell, hold everything but the tequila.
His gaze on hers, he shut the door behind him. And even from where she sat on the other side of the desk, Erin felt the reverberation.
9
“ARE YOU AVOIDING ME?”
Not in the way he was implying. She hadn’t run because she didn’t want to see him again. Quite the contrary. But, yes. For the moment she thought it best to work out her emotional conflict alone. “What? Can’t a girl take a bathroom break without coming under suspicion?”
One darkly arched brow went up but his mouth remained…not grim, but certainly unsmiling. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door. “Is that what you’re doing?”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug, inclined her head toward the private office bathroom. Nonchalance came at a huge price to her stomach that burned as if she’d picked up a six-pack of ulcers. “I haven’t made it yet. I stopped to check on an e-mail I was expecting.”
“And now you’re thinking about how to respond?”
How did he manage to remain so coolly detached when she was on a razor’s edge of coming undone? “Actually, I’m thinking about what I read, trying to decide if it helped my current dilemma.”
“You have a dilemma?”
“A bit of one,” she admitted, striving for the objectivity she’d never find as long as he stood in the room, her night creature who should’ve been uncomfortable in the confining space of her office but managed to look totally at ease while she simmered and stewed.
And then it hit her, that this was all wrong. He should’ve been the one pacing while she sat back calmly and watched. This was her turf, her place to work while he walked the streets, doing the thinking that apparently kept him up all hours for whatever reason he hadn’t bothered to share. He was the source of her agitation, his seeming unflappability in the face of an involvement making her insane.
She wanted to see if she could rile him up, scare him away, make him pay for part of what she was feeling. Elbows propped on the arms of her chair, she laced her hands over her midsection and lifted her chin. “You’re my dilemma.”
“You
don’t
say.”
“I do say. It’s quite inconvenient actually, you see, because every time I’m near you I want to take off my clothes. No wait.” She held up a hand when he started to speak.
“That’s not exactly right. Every time I see you, I want
you
to take off my clothes.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
She had to give him credit. He’d actually managed to keep a straight face. “You tell me.”
“C’mon, Erin. I’m a guy.” His gaze grew piercing, intense, finally revealing that he was not unaffected. “What do you think I’m going to say?”
I want you to say what you’re feeling, not what you’re thinking, and not some
obvious male cliché.
“I guess I just want you to be honest.”
“You want me to be honest.” Lips pressed tight, he nodded while he thought it over, then lifted a brow and asked, “You want me to tell you that when I see your eyes light up I get hard?”
She blinked, tried to remember how to breathe. Why, oh, why did he have to say things like that? It was all she could do to keep her gaze from dropping from his face to his groin. “If that’s your honesty. Then, yeah. Feel free.”
“It is honest. And it is real. And, yeah.” He huffed out a breath of self-directed ire, looked away, looked back. “It’s been that way for more than a few months.”
A few months?
So…the initial sense of mutual attraction hadn’t been her imagination? And this affair wasn’t as out of the blue, as crazy as she’d thought? But it was an affair, wasn’t it? No matter who had been the one to make the first move, what they were doing here now was all about the chemistry of bodies—not that existing between souls.
It wasn’t even friendship. She had no idea what he did for a living, where he ate his favorite food, what the hell his favorite food might be. He liked champagne and books and showers and got hard when he looked into her eyes.
“A few months ago, huh? That’s when I moved into the lofts.” She waited for him to answer the question she hadn’t really asked. To admit that she was his distraction. That he shared even a fraction of her fixation and fascination that they’d come together the way they had.
All he did was push away from the door and walk toward her. “I know exactly when you moved in. And I’d really gotten used to living alone.”
He circled her desk and Erin’s heart pitter-pattered as he moved to block the only path from her chair to the door. She swiveled to face him—and face her fears—head-on. She wanted the truth. What did she have to do with the reality that he
did
live alone?
He leaned his backside against the edge of the credenza that turned her L-shaped desk into a horseshoe. Wrapping his hands over the edge of the dark wood on either side of his hips, he stretched out his legs. His gaze held hers with no effort at all. She was right; he was a magician. And she was totally under his spell.
He wore black denim and biker boots, and crossed his ankles at the ends of his very long legs. His V-neck sweater was rich chocolate brown and tonight the growth of beard on his face was later than a five o’clock shadow and added to an aura just this side of menacing.
She refused to allow the intimidation. “You still live alone.”
He shook his head. “No. You live there. Not physically, but you’re there. And I have hell going to sleep. Forget what you’ve done to my ability to concentrate on work. Or now what you’ve done to my showers.”
“Showers you take alone.” It hit her then, what he was saying. His fantasies had been on a par with hers…yet they’d been different. They’d been more.
Slowly, she pushed out of her chair, braced her body against her desk, facing him in a mirror to his pose, the toes of her shoes touching the soles of his boots. He left his feet where they were, giving her the encouragement to continue. “You do more than shower alone, don’t you?”
He didn’t shrug off her comment, which meant she’d hit a bull’s-eye of sorts, a target she wasn’t sure he was aware of giving her with his admission that he couldn’t shake her off as easily as he might have wanted to do.
She waited patiently, as patiently as she could manage with curiosity eating her up, and was finally rewarded when he blew out a breath of surrender, telling her almost as much with that sigh as he did with the words that followed.
“Well, I don’t have family. I work at home. My business contacts are longdistance for the most part. No close friends, or at least none living here. So, yeah. I eat alone. Sleep alone.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Walk the streets alone.”
“And you have sex alone.”
She waited for the denial, the resentful response to the implied insult she’d cast upon his masculinity. The “how dare she suggest” he made do with his own right hand because he couldn’t get a woman into bed. Funny how quickly she forgot who she was dealing with.
None of his reactions to the things she’d said or done had ever been remotely similar to the responses of other men she’d known. Why did she think this time would be any different? Whoever Sebastian Gallo was, he was secure in himself, in the way he lived his life, in the choices he made defining his existence.
The air in the room grew heavy and still, thick with the tension left uncut between them. Neither one of them moved; both remained standing, staring, cross-purposes like an invisible web of motion sensors keeping them apart. The whir of the computer’s fan hummed in the background, and Erin swore she could hear the tic of the vein in his temple.
The face-off continued, the strain more about untold revelations, about Sebastian giving up a part of himself he wasn’t ready to share, than it was about anything sexual. Yet, the picture of Sebastian in his shower, alone and in the throes of self-satisfaction stirred Erin beyond belief.
“Having sex alone has been known to happen.”
“As can be said of most men. But you’re not most men.” A fact of which she’d be eternally grateful, no matter how much further they took this affair.
For now, however, she was more interested in taking this conversation to a place where she could find her answers. “You said you don’t have any family. Have you ever been married?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“Relationships?” She arched a brow and added, “Old girlfriends who keep you company when you get the urge?”