He narrowed his eyes at her. “I said I can’t believe all the trouble we’re going to just to sell some stupid underwear.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze still fixed on his face. “That’s what I thought you said.”
And there was still something really weird about her voice, he noted. He’d seen enough of her chick flicks to recognize a little Greta Garbo when he heard it. Next she’d be telling him she vahnted to be alooone.
But it became obvious pretty quickly that she
didn’t
want to be alone, because she smiled at Turner in a way he’d never seen her smile at him before. But it was a smile he did recognize, because he’d seen it from other women in the past. It was the kind of smile to which a woman treated a man when she was in the mood for an enormous amount of gratuitous, unbridled—
Oh, no, he immediately told himself. No, no, no, no, no. No way. No how. Nuh-uh.
Nej. Neen. Ie.
He was just imagining things again.
“Do you know,” she said, propping her elbow on her desk now and settling her chin into her palm, “that you have the most beautiful eyes? I never really noticed before. But they’re incredibly blue.”
Turner again narrowed his eyes at her. “You never noticed that my eyes are blue?” he asked skeptically, wondering what kind of game she was playing here.
“Oh, I noticed they were blue,” she said, wheeling her chair closer to the edge of the desk—and closer to Turner, too. “But they’re just really,
really
blue, aren’t they?”
What the hell was she up to? he wondered. She was acting like she was…flirting with him or something. No, she was going beyond flirting, with that smile and those smoldering looks. She was acting as if she wanted an enormous amount of gratuitous, unbridled—
No. No way.
Ne. Nei. Lo.
He was just misunderstanding whatever the hell it was she was doing.
“My eyes aren’t any bluer than they were this morning,”
he said. At least, he didn’t think they were. Were they? What the hell was she talking about?
She said nothing in response to that, only continued to gaze at him in a way that was extremely… The word
steamy
came to mind. Along with a few others he’d be better off not thinking about. And that smile, he thought, studying her mouth again. If that wasn’t a smile meant to tempt men to commit sexual mayhem, he didn’t know what was.
She scooted her chair to the very edge of her desk, bringing her within inches of where Turner sat, then propped her elbow on her desktop and cradled her chin in her palm again, the way she had before. Not once did she take her eyes off of his face, and she continued to smile that smoldering—and other words he’d better not think about—smile.
“You smell really good today,” she said out of nowhere. “Is that a new fragrance you’re wearing?”
“I don’t wear fragrances,” he told her. “You know that. It isn’t manly. Real men don’t smell like pine trees or ocean breezes.”
She inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. “Well, you smell good, anyway,” she said. “Very,
very
manly. Much better than pine trees and ocean breezes. Maybe it’s the fabric softener you use.”
He narrowed his eyes even more. “I don’t use fabric softener. It
really
isn’t manly to smell springtime fresh.”
“Mmm,” she replied, scooting her chair closer still. “Do you remember…” she began, and he was grateful she was changing the subject. Until she finished, “…the office Christmas party a couple of years ago, when you and I drank too much of the eggnog Dennis poured all that spiced rum into?”
Oh, as if Turner would ever forget
that
. The night the two of them had escaped to their smoking closet to do some
real
smoking was easily one of his top five most replayed memories of his entire life. When he was at death’s door, that was a scene he hoped would go in slow motion while the rest of his life was flashing before his eyes. But why was Becca bringing it up? She’d made clear after it happened that it had been a mistake and that she never wanted to talk about it again.
“Yeah, I remember….” he said tentatively. “What about it?”
The hand that wasn’t cupping her chin inched across the desk toward his legs, still propped up on her desk. Turner watched, fascinated, waiting to see where she would stop it. But she didn’t stop until her fingers were wrapped lightly around his ankle. And when her thumb began to trace an idle circle over the lower part of his shin, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Instead of dropping his leg from the desk, he only watched the laconic motion of her thumb and did his best to ignore the stream of heat that rushed through his belly.
“I’ve been thinking about that night a lot lately,” she said as she stopped drawing those lazy circles, and moved her hand up over the cuff of his pants. “Remembering what happened in our smoking closet that night. It was pretty memorable, after all.”
What the hell…?
Turner thought as she dragged her hand higher, up over his knee. She pushed her chair forward again so that she could curl her fingers over his thigh. Heat shot through him again at the contact, and his cock stirred between his legs.
“Becca…” he began. But for the life of him, he couldn’t make himself say another word.
“What?” she asked.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She smiled that smile again, and his blood went zinging through his veins. “Nothing,” she said with mock innocence.
“Then could you take your hand off my leg?”
She curved her lips into an almost convincing pout, but dropped her hand as he’d requested. “If I have to take my hand off your leg, then you have to take your legs off my desk,” she told him petulantly.
Oh, so that was what it was all about. Well, hell, if she’d wanted him to move his legs, why hadn’t she just said so? Immediately, and with much relief purling through him—kind of—he shifted his feet to the floor. His body was fast reaching a state she didn’t need to see up close, anyway.
And no, it wasn’t the state of Rhode Island.
“There,” he said. “Satisfied?”
Her smile went nearly incandescent. “Well, actually, if you must know…”
But she never finished whatever she’d intended to say. Not verbally, at any rate. Instead she rose from her chair and, without even having to take a step, swung one leg over both of Turner’s and dropped down into his lap, facing him, her fingers curled now over both of his shoulders. But as startling as her action was, it wasn’t what caught Turner’s attention the most. That would have been how the action made her brief skirt ride high on her thighs, offering him a glimpse of naked flesh where her black silk stockings ended and black satin garters began.
Holy cow,
he thought. He’d had no idea Becca wore stuff like
that
under her clothes…
It took a moment for the realization of what she had done to set in, a moment Turner used to try and think of
something to say. But try as he might, he couldn’t pull his gaze away from that tempting bit of black satin, and the only words that came into his head ran along the lines of
I want to sink my teeth into your sweet honeypot, baby,
which, call him crazy, probably wouldn’t have helped matters much.
Not in the way they needed to be helped at the moment, anyway. Because as often as he had fantasized about Becca straddling his lap exactly as she was now—except, um, without her shirt on—for some reason, Turner was hesitant to accept this at face value. Mostly because he wasn’t looking at her face. Oh, no, wait, that wasn’t it. Mostly because he was certain she was up to something and couldn’t be serious about…whatever the hell she seemed to be doing.
Maybe she was just trying to inspire him to come up with a new slogan? he wondered lamely. Though she’d never been quite this, ah, persuasive before when it came to giving him a nudge…. And if that were the case, then her plan was going to backfire. Because everything whizzing through his muddled brain at the moment included the same ol’, same ol’words like
putting out
and
fling
and
boffing
and
cock
and—
“Uh, Becca?”
“Hmm?” she purred. Really. Purred. Turner could honestly say he had never heard a woman purr until that moment. And hearing Becca do it now…
Oh, man…
He told himself to say something—anything—that would make light of the situation. Because he did need to make light of the situation. If he didn’t, the boner that was growing in his pants was going to come to light instead. Or maybe it would just plain come.
But anything he might have said dried up in his throat when Becca removed her hands from his shoulders and lifted them to her blouse. She immediately began to unbutton it, hesitating not a second as she pushed each pearly little button through its hole.
“Becca?” he said again when he realized she had no intention of stopping until the garment was completely undone. “What are you doing?”
“It’s hot in here,” she said, jerking her shirttail from the waistband of her skirt. “The thermostat must be set up too high. Don’t you feel hot?”
Hell, yes, he felt hot. But it wasn’t because of the room’s thermostat. That was for damn sure.
“Becca?” he said once more. “What are you doing?”
“I need to cool off,” she told him.
Oh, and like he didn’t?
She shrugged completely out of her shirt and tossed it to the side without even looking to see where it landed. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked belatedly. “I mean, we know each other well enough that we can take off our shirts in front of each other, right? It’s no big deal.”
Actually, it wasn’t a deal Turner was worried about getting big. “Uh…” he began eloquently.
Words deserted him after that, though, because he was way too busy appreciating the view. The bra he’d glimpsed beneath Becca’s blouse was indeed fashioned of filmy lace, nearly the same color as her soft skin, but that was about all it was fashioned of. Meaning it was translucent, and he could easily distinguish the dark circles of her nipples and aureolas beneath it. Her breasts surged against the taut fabric, spilling from the top in a way that made him want to fill his hands with them, then lean forward and run
the tip of his tongue along the smooth flesh where it joined with lace. It was only through some incredible miracle of restraint that he kept himself from doing just that.
“In fact,” he heard Becca say from a million miles away, “if you want to take off your shirt, too, I wouldn’t mind. You must be feeling as hot as I am.”
Oh, that was the understatement of the millennium. Although he had no idea why he answered the way he did, he told her, “No, uh, that’s—that’s okay. I’m, um, I’m comfortable.” He was also lying through his teeth, since the bulge in his pants was making him just the opposite. But she didn’t need to know that.
She scooted forward on his lap and wiggled her ass against that part of him. Oh. Okay. So evidently she already knew it.
“You don’t feel like you’re comfortable,” she said as pushed herself forward more, an action that sent her skirt riding even higher on her thighs. “And I’m not comfortable, either,” she added as she looped her arms around his neck. “But I know how we can fix that for both of us.”
And then, before he could object, she slanted her mouth over his, treating him to the sort of kiss he’d only fantasized about before, wet and deep and long. She thrust her tongue into his mouth and rocked her entire body against his. And instinctively, enthusiastically, Turner wrapped his arms around her waist and returned fire.
Heat. That was all he registered after that. Heat in his mouth, in his belly, in his hands, in his pants. Becca was hot all over, and so was he, and if he didn’t do something to cool them off fast, they were going to spontaneously combust. And as often as he’d thought about combusting with Becca right in this very cubicle, he really didn’t think
the office was the best place for that. Englund did have a no-smoking policy, after all.
And Turner would remind her of that, too. He would. In just a minute. Maybe two. Okay, five, but no more than that. But she chose that moment to push herself up on tiptoe and surge forward again, lowering herself onto his now rock-hard dick. And she punctuated the action with an erotic little whimper of surrender that made Turner come completely undone.
Unable to help himself, he jerked his mouth from hers and dragged a long line of openmouthed kisses down the column of her neck, tasting the little hollow at the base of her throat. Then he dipped his head lower, rubbing his lips over the soft mound of one breast, before flattening his tongue against her nipple, over the scant covering of lace. Again and again he licked her swollen flesh through the fabric, drawing indolent circles with the tip of his tongue before closing his mouth over her more completely. But he couldn’t suck her fully into his mouth the way he wanted to, so, reaching behind her, he unhooked her bra, helped her shrug out of it, and cast it aside.
Her breasts were glorious as they spilled free, full and round and ripe. Never in his life had he seen a more perfectly formed woman than Becca. He pressed his face to her again, palming one breast firmly under his hand as he guided the other to his mouth and began licking it again, this time flesh to flesh. She tasted…so sweet. Her skin was hot, silky and luscious, and he knew there would never come a time when he didn’t want to fill his hands and mouth with her. All of her.
She tangled her fingers in his hair and drew his head closer, scooting her hips forward, toward his waist. The
friction created by the movement made his cock lurch higher, and she gasped as his hard rod rubbed against her.
He moved his mouth to her other breast. Her fingers circled his wrist, and when she shifted her hips backward again, she tugged his hand between her legs. Turner felt her heat before his fingers even made contact with her wet panties, but Becca kept her hand cupped over his, shoving his fingers against her. As he caressed her through the silk, he felt the fabric grow wetter and hotter still, and he knew she was hotter and wetter beneath it, ready for him.