Indecent Suggestion (11 page)

“Think nothing of it, Mr. Englund,” Becca said modestly. “We were just doing the job you hired us to do.”
And trying to get a long overdue promotion,
she added to herself less modestly.
Which you can give us anytime now, on
account of, in case I didn’t mention it, we’re both
long
overdue.

Turner nodded in agreement. “If there’s anything Becca and I can do to further the good name of Englund Advertising, sir, we’re always happy to do it.”

Wow, Becca thought. That was good. He was an even better suck-up than she was.

“Well, the Bluestocking account is easily the biggest one our firm has ever landed,” Englund told them, “and I can assure both of you that you’ll be very pleased with the Christmas bonuses you’ll find in your office stockings this year.” He smiled. “In addition to all the free underwear you’ll ever need, I mean.”

He simultaneously clapped both Turner and Becca on the back and, with a smile of pure delight, strode off to greet some of the other partygoers. Becca barely noticed his departure, however, because she was too busy being suddenly overcome again by that strange urge she’d been having lately. That weird, unexplainable, uncontrollable urge to be close to Turner. Really close to Turner. Like naked close. Body-to-body close. Mouth-to-nipple and hand-to-cock close. Hand-to-nipple and mouth-to-cock close. Joined in a way where she wouldn’t be able to tell where her body ended and his began.

She looked at him then, but his gaze had drifted away from hers, and he was scanning the crowded library as he lifted his drink to his mouth. In spite of the soft lighting in the room, his dark hair shone with silvery highlights, and his eyes seemed even bluer than usual. She loved it that he was so much taller than she—easily by eight or nine inches, a statistic she found interesting on more than one level. His shoulders were so broad, and his chest was so solid and
well-formed, just perfect for laying one’s head on after hours and hours of exhaustive sex.

He was just so incredibly handsome. Just so unbelievably sexy. And she just wanted him
so bad
.

What had she been thinking, to tell him she didn’t want the two of them to get sexual? Why had she been so insistent over the years that they keep their relationship platonic? She obviously hadn’t been in her right mind when she’d made such decisions. She’d been missing out on so much for so long. Sexual was
exactly
what she wanted to be with Turner. As often as possible. In as many ways as possible. As soon as possible. She should drop down on her knees and give thanks that he was up for getting sexual, too.

Or maybe she should drop down on her knees and get sexual. He’d be up for that, she was sure….

Man, it was hot in here. She lifted a hand to run her index finger under the scooped neck of her dress, pulling it lightly away from her skin. She gulped down another mouthful of her drink in the hope that it might cool her, but the cold bourbon seared her throat and her belly, spreading heat to every extremity.

All these people, she thought, looking around at the inconvenient crowd. There were too many people in here. It would be better if she and Turner were alone. No wonder she was so hot. She needed to get out of this crowd, someplace where she could breathe. And she needed to take Turner with her.

“Turner?” she said softly, scarcely recognizing her own voice. “I’m feeling a little, ah, warm. I think I’m going to take a walk outside. Would you come with me?”

He gave her a puzzled look and she could tell he was
trying to fabricate some excuse as to why he couldn’t join her outside in the below-forty-degree evening. Of course, he didn’t understand—yet—that they wouldn’t be cold for long.

She hurried on. “Please? I’m just not sure I’ll feel safe out there all by myself.” Nor would she feel satisfied.

Now he started to look suspicious. “We’re in Carmel, Becca,” he reminded her unnecessarily. “The only crimes committed here are crimes of fashion. And even those only happen when it’s discovered that someone bought something off-the-rack at Wal-Mart instead of in couture at Saks.”

On any other occasion, Becca would have been wondering how Turner knew the difference between off-the-rack and couture—or even the difference between Wal-Mart and Saks, he was that backward when it came to fashion. Tonight, though, even her curiosity about that took a back seat to her…

Well.

She wasn’t sure she could even put a name to what she felt at the moment. All she knew was what she had known before. On two befores, as a matter of fact: that day in her cubicle when she and Turner had been working on the Bluestocking account, and the morning of their pitch to the Bluestocking people. That she wanted…no, desired…no, needed…no,
hungered for
…Turner in a way she had never experienced before. And she hungered for him
now
. So she needed to be alone with him.
Now.
Because her hunger was so strong, she wasn’t sure even the presence of scores of people in her employer’s home would prevent her from having him.
Now.

Having? she asked herself then. Hah. That sounded way too tame for what she intended to do to him. She felt downright predatory right now. If she didn’t get Turner outside
this minute, she’d be tearing off both their clothes and consuming him, the crowded room be damned.

“Please?” she heard herself say again, not even sure when she’d decided to speak. “Just for a quick stroll in the back.” Or a long roll in the sack. “It’s just so hot in here.” And then, when he still looked uncooperative, she added the clincher. “You can have a cigarette.”

Not surprisingly, that seemed to do the trick. Although Turner did continue to regard her with suspicion. Probably he was thinking about the last time she’d told him she was so hot, and then had proceeded to remove her shirt and climbed onto his lap. Well, she hadn’t been able to help herself! There had just been something about him that night that made her want to be naked with him. Just like there was something about him this night that made her want to be naked with him.

This time, though, she intended to be naked with him someplace where they
wouldn’t
be interrupted.

“Please, Turner?” she said again, moving her hand to the back of her neck, where perspiration made her flesh damp. It really was much too hot in here. Englund ought to look into his heating situation. “Just for a few minutes.”

He nodded, but with clear reluctance. “Just a few minutes,” he repeated. “It shouldn’t take more than that to turn us both into Popsicles, anyway. Don’t you want your coat first?”

Why?
she wanted to ask. It would just be one more thing she’d have to take off.

“No, we won’t need them,” she told him. Boy, was that an understatement.

“If you’re sure…” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure, Turner. I’m very,
very
sure.” And not just about the coat, either.

Setting down their drinks, they maneuvered their way through the crowd, Becca’s pace increasing with every step she took. Instead of heading for the hallway entrance through which they had originally entered, however, she made her way toward an exit she spotted on the other side of the room, through French doors that opened onto a patio on the side of the house. There were other people out there smoking, she saw, so she figured the doors must be unlocked. Strangely, however, in spite of her offer just now to Turner, she had no desire to go out there and join them for a puff.

And she didn’t want Turner to join them, either. No, she had a different kind of smoking planned for him.

He, of course, didn’t realize that yet, and the moment they passed through the French doors, he simultaneously closed them and withdrew a half-empty pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket pocket. Before he could shake one free, though, Becca circled his wrist with sure fingers and led him to a walkway that wound toward the back of the house.

Where it was dark.

And isolated.

And uninhabited.

“Becca, where are you going?” he asked as she led him in that direction. “The designated smoking section is back there.”

That, she thought, depended on the kind of smoking one wanted to do. “It’s too crowded,” she said. “Too much secondhand smoke. And that stuff’ll kill you.”

“But—”

She halted and spun around to look at him, but didn’t release his wrist. “Turner, if we stand there, we’ll have to talk to those people,” she pointed out. “And I don’t feel like
making small talk with people I don’t know.” No, she’d much rather be with someone she knew very well. Though, admittedly, she didn’t want to talk then, either.

He nodded in understanding, but Becca suspected he didn’t understand at all. However, he continued to follow her as she strode forward again. She didn’t stop until they’d cleared the back corner of the house, where, as she had suspected, the valets had parked a good many of the cars. But not Turner’s Saturn, unfortunately, which was what she had really been hoping to find. Because as hot as she was, she didn’t relish the idea of being naked in nearly freezing temperatures.

“Whoa, will you look at that beauty?” she heard Turner say from behind her, his voice filled with awe, reverence and not a little affection.

When she turned around, she saw that he was looking
not
at her ass, as she had assumed, but at something beyond her ass, in front of both of them. She also saw that he had somehow single-handedly freed a cigarette from the pack before returning the latter to his jacket pocket, and that he had been about to tuck it between his lips when whatever it was that had caught his attention had, you know, caught his attention.

Following his gaze, Becca looked at the cars all crowded together on the lawn behind the Englund home, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. “What?” she asked impatiently. She really didn’t have time for this.

“Over there,” Turner said, jerking his chin upward, toward the group of cars. Still not looking at her ass. Damn him.

Expelling a restless breath of air, and not bothering to turn around again, since she knew all she’d see would be a bunch of cars, she repeated brusquely, “What?”

Finally, finally, Turner looked at her, smiling when he did so in a way that made her think that maybe he was on the same wavelength as she, after all. Because the expression on his face then was borderline orgasmic, no two ways about it.

How very promising.

“Come here,” he said softly, his voice filled once again with awe, reverence and not a little affection. “I want to show you something.”

Well. That was more like it. She had something she wanted to show him, too, right after he showed her his.

This time Turner took the lead as they walked, and he wove his fingers with hers in a way she liked very much. But instead of glancing back at her, even occasionally, he kept his gaze trained forward. And he kept walking forward, too, and she kept following, farther from the house and deeper into the shadows until they were threading their way through the lines of cars. Finally, he drew them both to a halt, at the very farthest corner of the makeshift parking lot, next to a car unlike any she had ever seen.

“A 1957 Rolls Royce Silver Spirit,” Turner said before she could even ask what it was. “Oh, man. This baby is unbelievable.”

A car?
Becca wanted to say. He’d been speaking with awe, reverence and not a little affection about a
car?
Instead of her ass, he’d been looking at a
car?
His borderline orgasm had been over a
car?

Okay, so it was a
nice
car, she had to admit when she gave it a second look. It was big and elegant and excessive, gleaming silver in the scant moonlight overhead. The interior, she saw as she gazed through the driver’s-side win
dow, was as beautifully constructed as the exterior, with leather upholstery, finely crafted accessories and burled walnut on the dashboard.

And also a nice, big back seat.

Without thinking, she reached for the handle of the back door and jerked it upward, and was only marginally surprised when it sprang open and the interior light went on—but an alarm didn’t go off.

“Becca!” Turner cried when he saw her do it. He slammed the door shut again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Someone might see the light and think we’re trying to jack this thing.”

She ignored him, pulling on the handle again, opening the door wider this time. It wasn’t the car she was looking to jack. “I’m getting in,” she said as she did just that, as if the car belonged to her. “Come on. Let’s see what it’s like to ride in a Rolls.” Especially the kind of riding she had in mind.

“Are you crazy?” he said. “Get out of there!”

“No,” she told him, smiling. “You get in here.”

“That car belongs to Englund’s father!” he told her, clearly struggling to keep his voice down.

“Well, he’ll never know,” she pointed out. “Not unless you keep standing out there yelling at me.”

“I’m not yelling!” he yelled.

When he realized how loudly he’d spoken, he quickly looked left, then right, then behind him to see if anyone had heard. But they were very much alone out here, and considering how loud the music and conversation had been inside, she figured they could detonate a ten-ton bomb before anyone would notice where they were.

“Come on, Turner,” she said again, patting the seat beside her. “You know you want to.”

“Becca…” he began, his voice edged with warning.

“What’s the matter?” she prodded. “Are you chicken?”

“Becca…”

“Don’t you want to see how the other half lives? Or at least drives?”

“Becca…”

She pointed at the overhead light. “That can be seen from the house, you know,” she told him. “Unless you want someone to catch us out here, you better close the door.”

“Then get out,” he instructed her.

“You get in.”

He was clearly torn. Part of him, she could see, just wanted to get the hell out of here and hope no one had seen them yet. But another part—a bigger part—obviously wanted to get into the car, too, to see what it was like to ride the way the big boys rode. He glanced over his shoulder again. He looked at Becca. Over his shoulder. Back at Becca. He smiled.