Here Comes Trouble (7 page)

“I’m not?” he asked.

“No, you’re not,” she said firmly. She had to set the ground rules for this to work.

“I think we have a problem then. Because I’ve been here all of two minutes…” His tongue dragged along the seam of his mouth, moistening his thick lips. His gaze settled on her breasts, and her nipples tightened even more. “And I keep wanting to touch you. I keep wanting to get up under that dress.”

The pencil snapped in two with a loud pop. His gaze dropped to the pieces in her hand, and a faint smile appeared on his lips.

“Get out,” Lorena said, tossing the halves on her desk before they dropped from her trembling fingers. “From now on, we should limit our communication to phone and e-mail.”

He looked unconcerned by her declaration. Probably because he had no intention of doing what she said.

She feared she’d made a mistake when she agreed to write the proposal. She should have seen past the extra money to the emotional strain being so close to Matthew could cause.

Though she desperately wanted to, she couldn’t forget what it was like to be taken by him.  Whether it was being handcuffed to his king-size bed or dragged to the carpet and having to suffer the bruises on her back from their frantic coupling, Matthew knew how to give her pleasure. At times she felt selfish because it seemed he always made love to her, and she seldom had the opportunity to make love to him. But he didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, it clearly stroked his ego to make her scream and beg and climax so hard she was exhausted afterward.

“I’ll touch base with you next week,” he said on his way out, the same knowing smirk on his face. “Have a good time tonight.”

Moments later, when she felt capable of walking, Lorena edged over to the window. He paused at his vehicle and looked back at the building, seeming to look right at her through the tinted lenses of his sunglasses. Her breath wedged in her throat.

Could he see her?

She didn’t think so. She held her breath until he got into the SUV. When he drove away, she breathed slowly and closed her eyes.

Lorena sighed and pressed her fingers to her throbbing temple. Finishing this proposal was a priority because she needed to get him out of her life.

This might be the fastest one she’d ever written.

Chapter Five

Matthew’s stomach growled, a signal he’d been so wrapped up in work he’d forgotten to eat. Yawning, he rubbed his hand across his bare chest. He rolled his shoulders, which were tense from having been hunched over his laptop on the coffee table in the living room.

His job in network security paid well—six figures, in fact—but at times it required a high level of dedication, and on this Saturday night, he was hard at work. As one of the team leaders in his department, he’d been instructed to rewrite the security policies and procedures for a new client whose firewall had been breached. After several hours, he needed a break.

He closed the laptop and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. His bare feet touched the cold tile, and his toes curled in protest. He opened the refrigerator, hoping to find something to eat. The shelves, almost empty, contained a box with a few slices of pizza, which looked dry and unappetizing.

“Beggars can’t be choosy,” he mumbled, placing the slices on a plate and warming them in the microwave.

A few minutes later, he shoved
Bullitt
, his favorite Steve McQueen movie, into the DVD player, popped a soda, and settled down on the sofa. He’d just eaten the last slice of pizza when the doorbell rang insistently, as if someone were leaning on it. Hitting pause on the DVD player, he noted the time. It wasn’t very late, but night had already fallen. On the other side of his wall of windows, the lights of the Atlanta cityscape lit up the darkness.

He picked up his plate and empty can of soda and deposited them on the breakfast bar before going to look through the peephole. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Lorena stood on the other side of the door. Twice in one day. He couldn’t be so lucky.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded when he opened the door. “We need to talk.”

Without waiting for a response, she barged in. Matthew closed the door, locking in the familiar scent of her perfume that had drifted in with her.

We need to talk
.

Whenever those words left a woman’s lips, it didn’t bode well for the man she said them to, and tonight appeared to be no different if the expression on Lorena’s face was any indication. She stood with one hand on her hip and an angry scowl on her face. Still, he was happy to see her. Her caramel-colored skin glowed and encouraged him to touch, but he knew better, because her beautiful eyes spat venom at him.

She had no idea how sexy she looked angry, and he didn’t plan to tell her.

“What did I do now?” he asked. He didn’t know what had her so upset, but he hoped he could fix it before she scratched his eyes out.

“You know why I’m here, Matthew.” She’d called him by his full name—always a bad sign.

“Actually, I don’t.”

“Okay, play dumb. I spoke to Lewis on the phone tonight on my way back from my Women in Business dinner. He told me you said you want me back and you threatened to punch him out.”

Stunned speechless, Matthew didn’t say anything at first. Then he laughed in disgust. “He told you that? Are you kidding me? What kind of man does something like that? He’s twisted the conversation. What else did he say?”
That slimy, no-good
…

“So there’s more?”

“No, I just want to know what else Linus had to say.”

“His name is Lewis! L-e-w-i-s. You know good and well what his name is.”

Matthew eased by her on his way to the breakfast bar. As he did so, he took a breath to get another whiff of her perfume. His body came awake. He’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted her—just the scent of her got him aroused. It was extremely dangerous for her to be here alone with him this time of night, looking all angry and sexy.

He picked up the empty soda can and plate. “What do you see in this fool? He’s a pompous jerk.”

“It takes one to know one.”

“If you came over here to insult me, you can leave now.”

He placed the plate in the sink and the can in the recycling container. “It can’t be the money, because you don’t care about money. Why do you think he told you I threatened him? Was lover boy scared? Did he send you to handle the situation?”

He could tell by the firming of her lips she didn’t appreciate the derisive way he spoke about Lewis, which only made him want to do it more.

“He wasn’t scared. He told me because we don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“How sweet.”

****

Matthew’s sarcastic tone and devil-may-care attitude made Lorena angrier with each passing minute. She’d never thought of herself as a violent person, but she really wanted to pound her fists against his wide, naked chest. She wanted to smooth her hands over his large pecs…
No, no
. The wrong images flooded her brain.

“Did you threaten him?”

“If telling him I’d punch him in the face if he ever threatened me again or spoke to me the way he did is a threat, then yes, I threatened him.” He looked completely unrepentant, but she expected as much.

“Did you tell him you intend to pursue me?”

“Yes.” His answer left her breathless and with a curious excitement niggling in her chest.

“Well then I’m definitely glad I came, so we can put this to rest. There’s no need for you to pursue me. You’re wasting your time, because I am not, nor will I ever be, interested in you again.”

“Now why don’t I believe you?”

“Maybe because you’re arrogant?”

His eyes glimmered with mischief. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Be honest with me, Lorena. You’re using Linus to run from what’s between us, trying to pretend you hate me.”

“I’m not pretending. The only reason I’m having anything to do with you is because of the grant.” She gritted her teeth. “And his name is
Lewis
.”

“Sorry, slip of the tongue. You know how crazy my tongue can get.”

Her heart jumped, and she gave her lips a nervous lick, moistening them after they’d oddly dried up.

Matthew’s eyes took a visual tour from her head to her feet, as if he hadn’t already seen her today in the same outfit. At her feet, his gaze lingered for a moment, and a shiver ran up her inner thigh. She had on a pair of colorful peep-toe pumps, and Matthew had a thing for toes. He liked to suck them.

She filled her lungs with oxygen and tried to remember why she was here. She was here to talk about Lewis. That’s it. She would do well to forget about Matthew’s foot fetish and his toe-sucking ways.

“What is it that you really want, Matt? Because you have to know there’s no chance for us. Not anymore. This competition you want to start with Lewis is silly.”

“You should be flattered.”

“I’m not. I’m annoyed.”

Matthew held her gaze, and she forced herself not to look away. “Are you sleeping with him?”

“That’s none of your business,” she said.

“They say you never forget your first.”

Her body pulsed in remembrance, and unwelcome memories assailed her, not only of their lovemaking, but of the fun times, too, before and after they became lovers: Fight night at his high-rise apartment with friends. Sitting at the table in front of the wall of windows in his living room, playing spades, with her and Cassidy beating the pants off of him and their other opponents. Lounging on the sofa watching ESPN together before dragging their tired bodies up the spiral staircase to bed exhausted, only to wake up in the middle of the night to make love once they’d recharged.

“You may not forget, but you don’t have to dwell on it,” she said. “Wait a minute. You thought I’d be pining away for you, didn’t you? You thought I’d still want you and no one else, sitting up on a shelf somewhere, untouched.”

“Too much to ask for, am I right?”

“I’m not a virgin anymore. You saw to that.”

“I did what any red-blooded man would do if he woke up in the morning with a willing woman in his arms.”

“You’re right, and I don’t blame you. I made it easy for you. Thank you for opening up a brand new world to me I never knew existed.”

He became very still. “So you’ve done it? The two of you are lovers?”

“You have no right to question me.”

“Answer the question.”

“I will not! It’s none of your business. Just like it’s none of my business what you do with the clerk at the community center.”

If he weren’t so dark, his face would have paled. His nostrils flared and his breathing became heavy as something—anger?—pounded through him. “What did he tell you?”

“Enough. Enough to know you haven’t changed a bit. You can’t help yourself. You see a woman and you have to have her.”

His jaw set in an angry line. “He’s a liar. He’s the one who flirted with the office clerk. She gave him her number.”

Lorena shook her head sadly. “You’re pitiful. This is a new low, to try to make Lewis into the bad guy by making up such a story. I don’t know what’s more pathetic—the story, or that you thought I’d believe you.”