Taking Care of Business

by Lauren Dane

  He brought her hand to his mouth again and drew one of her fingers in between his lips slowly, licking and sucking as he kept his gaze locked with hers. Her pupils expanded and her breath puffed out. If he had to be her Pied Piper, he would. In fact, he loved the idea.

  'I won't encroach on your professional space. You're here to do a job for Allied and I respect that. But we are going to fuck again. And again. You know that.'

  'You're awfully sure of yourself.'

  He certainly was when he heard the breathy note in her voice. He hadn't worked his way up from public housing blocks in Boston to give up when he wanted something. And he wanted Kate.

  'Can you have dinner tonight?'

  'Most likely I'll hang out with Leah after the conference. It's been even longer since I've seen her than the last time I saw you. But afterwards? We could get a nightcap or something. Or do the girls need you at home?'

  'They're off with Eve for the rest of the week so I'm all yours. Call me when you're free and we'll get together then.'

  'Oh, OK.' She checked her watch. 'We need to get back soon.' She gathered the files, then stood and put them into her case. 'I'll have Leah get these to the conference-services person to get copies made then, shall I?'

  'Good idea. Can you fit this into your presentation tomorrow?'

  He straightened his tie and put his jacket back on as he watched her smooth her hair and reapply lipstick.

  'I can, yes. I made up some PowerPoint stuff to fit into the presentation while I was at the office yesterday.'

  By the time they approached the elevators, all anyone would have seen were two colleagues discussing business.

  9

  'Damn it.' Brandon laced his hands behind his head and pushed back in his chair to stare at the ceiling.

  Heather had left him a mess.

  It wasn't a mess he couldn't take care of, but it wasn't exactly the way he wanted to deal with his first week in charge. Brandon always kept detailed notes and files, records of emails and phone conversations. Heather had liked to scribble on scraps of paper and sticky notes and, though she claimed to have forwarded and copied him on all her correspondence, Brandon couldn't find a damn thing.

  So far, the only plus to this job was the bigger office and the nicer desk. He sighed, tilted his chair back on to all four legs and stared at the computer screen. Nothing helpful there. The Allied Packaging conference had already started but, though he'd been able to set up the rooms for the morning sessions, he couldn't find any of the details about how they were supposed to be set up for after lunch.

  No use whining about it. He'd have to bite the bullet and get down there, deal with the person in charge.

  She was waiting for him in the Susquehanna conference room, and she didn't look happy.

  'Leah?'

  At the sound of her name she turned, her brow furrowed, and Brandon knew immediately he should have used a more formal address. Which, well, crap, he would have if he'd known it, but, since Heather hadn't left him any notes, he didn't.

  Damn.

  The air in the room had been set to a moderate temperature but her look dropped it by about twenty degrees. 'Why is this room not set up according to my instructions?'

  Because my boss is an idiot, Brandon thought. 'I'm sorry. Tell me what you need and I'll do it right away.'

  'It was my understanding all of this would be taken care of,' Leah said.

  'I'm sorry,' he repeated and pulled his pen from his shirt pocket. 'Just give me a list and I'll get right on it.'

  She blinked at that. Her chin came up the tiniest bit. 'A list?'

  He'd just clicked the pen and put the tip to the pad of paper, but at her tone he skidded a sudden line of ink. Brandon looked at her, and all at once all he could remember was how good she'd smelled, how the fringe of her skirt had brushed his cheek and how she'd sounded when she told him to get out. She sort of sounded like that now.

  She sort of sounded scared, and his stomach twisted. What had he done to make her sound that way? His notepad curled in his hand when he clutched it tighter.

  'A list.' The words snagged in his throat and he cleared it. 'Of what you want me to do?'

  Today she wore a severe black skirt that came to just above her knee and a tailored white shirt. She'd left the top three buttons undone. His gaze went to her feet. Black heels, pointed toes.

  His throat got drier.

  When she closed the distance between them, he didn't back up. Even in her heels she had to tilt her head to look up at him. Looking down into her face it was impossible for him not to think of how she'd looked from another angle. From at her feet.

  Despite the differences in their heights, she didn't seem to have any trouble staring him down. Brandon drew in a breath and held it as she took another step closer. When he let it out, slowly, deliberately, trying hard not to make sound, the fabric of his shirt brushed hers. Leah stared at him in silence, without blinking.

  This was not the right time for him to get hard, but his dick had a mind of its own. It didn't help that he could smell her perfume and feel the heat of her body even through his clothes, or that she cocked one leg to bring it up alongside his. Or that her skirt rode up when she did it and he swore he glimpsed a flash of bare thigh. Or that she was the sexiest woman he'd ever met.

  'Each of these tables is to be set with four pitchers of water and eight glasses. Each place gets a legal pad and pen.' Her voice was pitched so low he'd have had to strain to hear it if she hadn't still been so close. There was no room between them for him to lift his pad and take notes, and when he shifted slightly she gave her head a tiny shake. 'You don't need to write this down. You will remember it.'

  He absolutely would. From outside the room he heard the sound of voices. Leah blinked, but she didn't move away or take her gaze from his. There was no way this could look good if someone saw them, he thought as he stared into her deep-blue eyes, but she didn't seem to care.

  'At three p.m. we'll be breaking for refreshments. I've ordered bagels and fruit with cream cheese. Three dozen. Exactly. Coffee, tea and bottled water.'

  He nodded and breathed in her scent. This was his job. He was good at it. But this . . . this was something that had nothing to do with work. She would probably slap his face if he tried to kiss her now. Or slap him with a sexual harassment charge. But, holy crap, did he want to kiss her. He wished he'd done it last night, in her room, when they were on the couch and it would have taken only a second to lean over and take her in his arms.

  'Brandon.'

  He jumped a little inside his skin when she murmured his name. His hard-on throbbed, almost painful, trapped inside his briefi The knot of arousal in his gut tightened and heat flooded him from his chest to the edge of his hair. He felt it and blushed harder at knowing she could tell.

  And . . . crap . . . she moved just the smallest bit closer . . . Could she feel how hard he was? She had to know it. His dick had grown to the size of the Empire State Building, a tower in his pants. There was no way she couldn't feel it between them.

  'Yes?' he managed to say without sounding like too much of a jerk.

  'Can you do all this for me?'

  'Yes.'

  She tilted her head just slightly. She didn't look scared now, though her smile still wasn't anything like it had been last night when she was with her friend.

  'Exactly like I said?'

  He hadn't studied for this test, whatever it was. 'Of course.'

  'Good.'

  She moved away from him and he let out a breath. His heart pounded so hard he heard it thunder in his ears. He could've cut diamonds with his hard-on.

  Her smile got broader when he put the legal pad in front of his crotch. More heat burned the tips of his ears. He wore everything on his damn face, an ex-girlfriend had told him, and now he wished he didn't. Leah was looking right through him, she knew exactly what she'd done. He just didn't know why.

  'I expect this all to be done precisely the way I want it,' she
said.

  This might be a test he hadn't studied for, but Brandon had always been a very, very good student.

  'And if it's not?'

  Leah smiled a little. 'Then I will meet you in your office to discuss how you can improve your performance.'

  Once again he recalled the chill of ice cubes in his hands and the way she'd looked staring down at him. There was an awful lot a man on his knees could do for a woman. 'And if it is? Will we still need to meet?'

  'Oh, yes, Brandon,' she said over her shoulder as she moved towards the door, 'we'll still meet. But we'll do it in my room.' was not in 'right decision' territory at all.

  And what a smug sexy bastard Charles Dixon was. Good Lord. He'd been right of course, they would have sex again. But it would have been possible to avoid it if he'd applied himself. God knew she was unable to when he was around. And she hadn't told him about her transfer yet. He may just change his mind when she did.

  A very unprofessional snort threatened to escape so she turned her attention back to the discussion and the president's whining about feeling attacked. Nothing worse than a man who always made excuses. She had to ride them on this issue with Dix. The president had to deal with the situation or the outcome could be disastrous.

  Now who was making excuses? She had to do the very same thing. Tell Dix about her new job and deal with the outcome.

  Leah looked flushed and a bit mussed up at the edges. The meeting with the conference-services people must have annoyed her. Good thing the Allied offices were local so they could just go through them should the people here at the hotel be unable to take care of things.

  When they finally broke for the day, Dix gave her a professional nod and left, speaking to his personal assistant, Carlina Southam, who'd shown up. Kate needed to grab Leah to get an update on Band Boy and fill her in on her little interlude with Dix that afternoon too.

  Whatever she did, she shouldn't think about Dix's ex-wife Eve and the fact that the personal assistant was blonde and petite too. Was it on purpose? Did he notice? Ew.

  She caught up to her friend near the elevators. 'Leah, you and I have a date with some dinner, drinks and gossip.'

  'We really do. I've got to change and then we'll get out of here. I have lots to tell you.'

  Oh, that sounded promising.

  'Come by my room when you're ready to go.'

  Once they got to a table and drinks were in front of them, Kate spilled the whole Dix story from that afternoon and Leah just looked at her shaking her head.

  'I don't know why you're so tense. No one can tell and I know you better than anyone. People can have relationships. You'll be two hours away so it's not like you'll be in the same office.'

  'It all remains to be seen if he's into me anyway. And truthfully, Leah, I don't know how I feel either. He's got two teenaged daughters and an ex-wife. An ex-wife who is one of those helpless women who calls him to fix crap at her house like they're still married.' She took several bracing gulps of her drink. 'I can handle being second to his children, that's only right and I expect his priorities to be straight. But I won't be second to a woman he divorced but who won't cut the apron strings. It's one thing to share a dude for an afternoon, but I'm not going to share full time.'

  Leah watched her silently, waiting for her to finish.

  'And yes, OK? How can I compete with that anyway? With a history? With kids together and memories of summer vacation and a honeymoon and stuff. I'm not . . . shit, this is all way premature anyway. I haven't told him yet and it's not like he's said he wants a relationship more than what we have. Enough about me.' She waved an impatient hand. 'Tell me about Band Boy and last night after I left.'

  Leah didn't say anything for a long, long minute. 'There were some issues this afternoon, but then he did everything I told him to do. Perfectly. Exactly.'

  Well, there was something else clearly. Kate settled in to get the rest of the story. 'So? I'm missing a problem. Wait a minute. Are you telling me Band Boy from the bar last night is the conference-services person?'

  Leah dropped her face into her hands briefly, then looked up, nodding. 'I told him if he did everything I said that . . .'

  No way was Kate going to derail whatever was coming next so she just waited, silent, for Leah to finish.

  Leah let out a small, embarrassed groan, but when she looked up her eyes were shining. 'I told him he had to meet me tonight. In my room. In —' she looked at her watch '—an hour.'

  'Mrs Robinson! You're going to show Band Boy what he's been missing with all those back-seat gropes after the sock hop.' Kate laughed but sobered when she caught Leah's struggle between horror and amusement. 'OK, I'll lay off but I must hear every detail. That's my price.'

  'There won't be any details,' Leah said. 'I don't think.'

  Kate snickered, but didn't push it, and they moved on to gossip about how horrible the comb-over of one of Leah's coworker's was. Because that's what friends did. Let each other off the hook when they didn't want to talk.

  11

  He did everything just as she'd said to. Pitchers, glasses. Bagels. For some reason, the bagels had seemed particularly important. And, cripes, it wasn't like he'd had any doubt about his ability to make everything just right —it was his job, after all, and he was good at it. But standing there with his cock threatening to bust out of his pants and her murmuring 'You don't need to write that down, do you?' had made him all the more nervous that he'd forget.

  He hadn't seen her after that, other than a quick glimpse through the doorway. She hadn't seen him. At least he didn't think she had. If she had, she hadn't acknowledged him and, cripes, he was obsessing.

  He grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge in his office and drank it back in a few gulps, then wiped his mouth. Every muscle in his body wanted to leap out of his skin, like his nerves were on fire and all he could think about was the soft scent of her.

  Would he really go to her room again? Should he? What if she'd been playing with him? Girls did that, he'd discovered. Then again, he'd already decided she wasn't a girl.

  He wasn't stupid. Telling him to come to her room had been a blatant but surprising invitation. The way she'd looked when he was picking up the ice, he'd been sure he'd crossed some line, done something wrong. Pushed some button. That had been it, he thought, tidying his desk to give his hand a mindless task to complete. He'd pushed a button.

  But what kind?

  'You think too much,' his last girlfriend had said. She'd been the same one to tell him he wore everything he felt on his face. Maybe that had made it easier for her to cheat on him and lie to him about it for six months.

  Screw it. He wasn't going to think about it any more. He'd done what she told him. He'd earned his 'reward'. He was going to her room.

  There was no reason for anyone to think anything about him going up in the elevator, but nevertheless his palms were sweating when he pushed the UP button. Inside, the mirrored walls showed his rumpled hair, which he smoothed quickly, and his work clothes. He couldn't do anything about them. Dark pants, white shirt, plain black tie with a tiny pattern of dots. He'd left his suit jacket downstairs in his office. Shoot, he should've left his tie, too . . . The elevator door opened on Leah's floor.

  He was absolutely going to get laid.

  His hand raised to knock on the door, but he didn't do it. Instead, Brandon let his knuckles just rest on the door. His head bent. He looked at his feet and neatly polished shoes. The carpet beneath them had been new just a year ago, but the geometric pattern already looked scuffed along the baseboards. He laid his palm flat on the door, pressing.

  He was absolutely just going to walk away.

  He'd been led by his dick before and he knew he would be again. That was a fact about being a guy. Sometimes the little head took over from the big one. He knew it, the way he knew girls liked him because he had good hair and a nice body, and because he had straight teeth. Big hands. Whatever. He'd been put together all right, thanks to the best of
both his mom and dad, and he wasn't going to complain about it. He just wished, sometimes, that the girls who hit on him because he was 'hot' gave him credit for being something else too.

  He couldn't stop thinking about the way Leah's voice had sounded when she gave him her list. She hadn't sounded at all the way she had when she'd told him to get out. She'd looked him in the eye, too, without looking away.

  His dick throbbed a little, getting stiffer. He pressed harder on the door, his head still bent. His hair fell forwards, over his eyes, but he didn't brush it away.