by Inara Scott
Lower.
Her heart began to race, the rush of sensation almost dizzying in intensity. She felt them poised at the edge of a precipice, a chasm in front of her promising nothing but a long tumble into the unknown.
Then it happened. His lips found a spot just below the curve of her jaw. A single kiss, light as a feather along her heated skin. So light she wasn’t sure if it had really happened, or if she’d just imagined it.
Then he straightened.
“All clear,” he whispered.
And then before she could react, or find her voice to speak, he turned and headed for the door.
…
The next day, Tess spent six hours at the apartment complex trimming bushes, mowing grass, and leaf blowing until her arm was shaking. She tried to use her time to think about organic chemistry instead of her boss’s truly remarkable butt. When that didn’t work, she pictured all the Google images she’d seen of him and his revolving door of dates. That was a slightly more effective strategy, but somehow her mind kept returning to the day she’d been in his bedroom, getting her hat, and he’d emerged from the shower with that glorious male chest on full display.
Then she thought about the fat check she’d just received for her first week of work and reminded herself that smart employees who wanted to keep their jobs didn’t sleep with the boss.
That worked. Mostly.
By Tuesday morning, she’d pretty much convinced herself the magical moment had never happened and she and Mason just had some kind of weird chemistry that they were never, ever going to act on. She knew he liked it when she teased him. She got the feeling not very many people did. And he probably just went into autopilot when he was with a woman and couldn’t help but try to seduce her.
But something had changed between them. Some extra warmth when they came too close in the hallway. Some light in his eyes that she tried to ignore but left a delicious shiver deep in her belly. Something she tried, but could not completely ignore.
When she arrived at his place, Mason was scrolling through something on his phone as he met her at the door with her coffee. She got the same little surge of pleasure she always did when she first saw him in the morning, and tried not to blush when he looked up from his phone and did a visible double take at her appearance.
“Shut up,” she warned. “It’s supposed to be warm today, and I have a full roster of clients to walk.”
“So you do have legs underneath all that denim,” he murmured. “And attractive ones, too. Well played, Tess.”
She grabbed the coffee and stuck out her tongue, trying not to be ridiculously pleased at his reaction to her outfit. “They’re just shorts, Casanova. And legs. Pretty sure you’ve seen them before.”
“I prefer Heartbreaker,” he reminded her. “And those aren’t just shorts. Those are a work of art.”
She ignored him and continued into the apartment. Wick greeted her with a massive yawn and a shake of his giant head. “We’ll go out first thing,” she promised him. He followed her into the dining area, where she plugged in her laptop and set it on the table. She left her bag by a chair and headed back to the kitchen.
“You can stay until nine tonight, right?” Mason asked. “I’ve got a dinner to attend.”
“Yep.” She concentrated on unloading her leftovers into the refrigerator, trying not to think about how his pants hugged his butt as he turned to the windows. “Stop buying me expensive yogurt,” she called, when she saw that he’d purchased another pint of the organic Greek yogurt she would never have spent the money to buy for herself.
“Mrs. Walsh said you liked that one better than the generic.”
“Beatrice is a traitor,” she called back. An almost empty cup of coffee sat on the counter. “Do you want me to pour you a fresh cup?”
He turned and nodded just as the phone in his hand started to ring. “Mason here,” he said, turning away again.
She refilled his coffee. Feeling only slightly uncomfortable at their strange picture of domesticity, she added little half-and-half and walked over to hand it to him.
“They want to do what?” Mason snapped into the phone. She froze in surprise. He was usually so calm and easygoing, it was surprising to hear the open anger in his voice. Carefully, she backed up into the kitchen and set his cup on the counter.
“They won’t do lunch?” he said a moment later. “You’re sure?”
Tess picked up her own coffee and took a sip. It was rich and dark, but not bitter. Never bitter. Even Mason’s coffee was perfect, damn it.
“Fine, tell them we will meet them there at one.” He jabbed at the screen and shoved the phone into his pocket, then stalked into the kitchen, muttering obscenities under his breath.
“Um, bad news?”
“You and Wick need to meet me at St. Mary’s dog park at noon.”
She knit her brows in surprise. “What? You want to go for a walk in the middle of the day? At St. Mary’s? That’s like an hour from here.”
“My firm has been considering a significant investment in these college kids who invented a new fuel cell. Thanks to Wick”—he glared at the dog—“I had to cancel lunch with them last week. We’ve been trying to reschedule ever since, and when my assistant got them on the phone this morning, they told her they have dogs, too, and now they want to get them all together for a play date.”
“Isn’t that a little weird?” she asked uneasily, imagining Wick at a dog park. He was getting better, but he still wasn’t entirely predictable with other dogs. “Why do they want to meet at a dog park?”
“They’re twenty-two-year-old engineers with genius IQs and not at lot of social skills. They probably speak dog better than they do human.”
“Hey, what are you trying to say about dog people?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not talking about you, of course. Your social skills are highly advanced.”
She snorted. “That sounded very sincere. I feel much better now.”
“You have business cards,” he pointed out. “And a vest. I’m pretty sure that gives you a leg up on these kids.”
“Even more reassuring. At any rate, I hate to say it, but it’s not a good idea. Wick’s not well socialized around other dogs. I know he seems fine, but he could take out a Chihuahua by tripping over it. I hadn’t planned to take him out to a dog park for another week or so. Not until I know I can trust him.”
“We’ll keep him on the leash,” Mason said. “Alli told me he goes to a park near her all the time and runs around with other dogs. Or used to, before he got hurt.”
“It might be fine or it might not. He still lunges at other dogs when we’re on the leash. Do you really want to take the risk of him hurting another dog?”
“I’ll hold on to him.” Mason ran his fingers through his thick hair, mussing the tawny strands in a way that made Tess long to straighten them. “We really don’t have any other options. Not if we want this technology. And believe me, we really want it. Or at least, my partners do.”
Tess cocked her head. “But you don’t?”
He sighed. “I’m not sure. These guys are way too young to be sitting on a gold mine. I know I’m not the only one whispering to them about making millions of dollars, and that can do weird things to a kid’s head. It will actually be good to see them in a different sort of setting than a regular meeting. I can tell a lot about how people will be in business by getting to know them personally.”
Tess bit her lip, thinking hard. “They don’t know what kind of dog he is, do they?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you tell them he’s a mastiff?”
“No,” he said. “I just said my sister’s dog. I didn’t specify the breed.”
She thought through the options. “What if we brought some other dog, one we trust, and pretended it’s your sister’s?”
He squinted at her. “I guess it might work. What dog would we bring?”
“I could run home and get Astro.”
Mason winced. “Your little white thing? Really?”
“Yes, really. You have a better idea?”
“It’s just…” He trailed off with a grimace. “She’s so…small, Tess. And so fluffy.” He glanced back again at Wick. “You sure the old man can’t do it? He seems to be doing well with his training.”
She laughed, unable to help herself. “They know it’s not your dog. I think you’ll survive the indignity.”
He sighed. “The things I do for my job…”
“You poor man,” she teased. “I can see how even being associated with a little white dog could damage your reputation. You wouldn’t want pictures of you and Astro getting out. People might draw the wrong conclusions. Or worse, your new lady friend might see them.”
“What new lady friend?”
She tried to play it offhand, like she hadn’t been dying to ask him ever since his date. “You know, the one you went out with on Tuesday.”
He turned his golden eyes on her. He’d shaken off his earlier annoyance, and a smile now played at the corner of his mouth. “You could have just asked, you know.”
“Asked what?” She turned away, grabbing the cream from the counter and adding another splash to her coffee, even though it was already perfect.
“Whether I’m seeing her again.”
She focused on her cup. “Why would I want to know that?” When she looked up, he was studying her with a knowing gaze.
“The answer is no. The whole date was a disaster, actually.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He grinned. “I’m not. The bad news is, I did have to listen to her talk for at least an hour about her treatment of patients with gout and why some people have naturally high levels of uric acid. But the good news is, I was able to get through the evening without her figuring out why I never called her by her name.”
“Why you never…wait, why in the world didn’t you call her by her name?”
“It’s a long story. But you’ve got nothing to be jealous of. Don’t worry.”
The heated look that followed caught her by surprise, and Tess felt her bones melt into honey. “I’m not…I didn’t…”
“Whatever you say.”
…
“I think one of us should go with you.” Nate looked irritated. Then again, Nate always looked irritated, so Mason didn’t put much stock in that. “That dog of yours is a menace. It would be very bad for business if your giant beast attacked our new partners.”
“I’ve got a dog,” Mason’s friend and attorney Luke Alexander offered with a cocky grin. “I could go.”
They sat around the conference table in the Livend offices, a quick ten-minute walk from Mason’s apartment. This morning, Nate, Mason, and Connor were meeting with their legal team, a group of three lawyers who’d been by their side from the beginning of the firm.
Luke Alexander had been the one to bring them together. He was about their age and had been only a few years out of law school when they’d met, hungry enough to offer to work for Livend for half his normal billable rate. Nate, never one to turn down a deal—especially when it came with a degree from Stanford law school—accepted. In less than six months, Luke had started his own firm and brought in two partners, with Livend as their primary client.
Mason had always liked Luke. The lawyer had taken the four of them rock climbing, mountain biking, and kayaking, and they always had a good time, though Luke’s need for adrenaline drove him to take risks none of the rest of them fully understood.
“Calla has a dog,” Rafe said. “I’m sure I could borrow it.”
Mason rolled his eyes. “You broke up with Calla two weeks ago.”
Rafe gave a shrug that managed to combine regret and relief at the same time. “Oh right. I forgot.” Dark and lean, with black hair that brushed the edge of his collar, Rafe was all romance and limpid eyes until he was negotiating across the table from an unsuspecting adversary. Then, and only then, he’d reveal the steel underneath his easy exterior.
“How could you forget Calla?” Luke asked incredulously. The men around the table nodded, sighing with pleasure at the memory of the woman. Rafe had dated Calla, a stacked redhead, for almost six months. With her non-stop curves and blatant sensuality, she was the sort of woman no one forgot quickly.
“I didn’t say I forgot her,” Rafe pointed out. “I just forgot that we broke up.”
Unlike Mason, Rafe was an avowed romantic, falling head-over-heels for one woman after another, pledging his eternal love and devotion to each before falling back out of love a few months later.
“I still don’t understand how you could let her go,” Luke said with a shake of his head. “She was a yoga instructor. She could do splits.”
Connor nodded thoughtfully. “She was into mindfulness. Definitely lived in the moment. I appreciate that in a woman.”
“I’m sorry, did I wander into a frat house?” Zoe Riva, the lone woman on their team, asked with disgust. “And here I thought this was a business meeting.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “You know us better than that, Zoe. There’s a combined maturity of about eighteen years, combined, around this table.”
“If you’d like to talk about your sexcapades, we are prepared to listen,” Luke offered her helpfully.
All eyes turned to Zoe.
Just a little over five feet tall, Zoe made up in fire, brains, and curves what she lacked in height. Men usually underestimated her the first time they met, but rarely the second time. The second time, they were usually losing to her in court.
“Luke, darling,” she drawled, “we’ve been over this before. You can’t handle that kind of knowledge.” She wagged her finger around the table at the other men. “And neither could any of the rest of you, so could we possibly get back to work?”
“I, for one, suggest we resume harassing Mason,” Nate said.
Zoe’s penetrating gaze turned to Mason. “Fine. Now, the fuel cell boys want to meet your dog, right? What’s the big deal?”
Mason continued pacing at the front of the room. He glanced at the PowerPoint slide illuminated on the screen, a spreadsheet with a market analysis and expected return on the investment in the fuel cell company. He knew the data inside and out—he’d put the damn chart together after all—but something still bothered him. Something that wasn’t represented in the numbers.
“I know we’ve worked with a lot of characters,” he said. “But these kids… I just don’t trust them. We’re talking about giving them two million dollars and spending who knows how much to have our overpaid lawyers figure out their patent issues.”
“I, for one, think we’re worth every penny,” Luke chimed in.
Mason scowled at him. “I just don’t like the suggestion that a deal of this size is based on whether or not they like my dog. The whole thing doesn’t feel right.”
“You like the tech, right?” Nate asked Connor.
Connor shrugged. “We don’t know what it would look like to scale, of course. We’ve never seen commercialization of this technology. But what I’ve seen is impressive. Could have huge market potential for corporate fleets. And the engineering is sound. I think we should go for it.”
“You’ll lawyer the hell out of the deal?” Nate asked the trio on the other side of the table.
Mason clenched his jaw. What was going on here?
Zoe raised herself to her full, albeit limited, height. “This is what we do, Nate. We can’t make any promises on the return on your investment, but you won’t get out-lawyered. I can guarantee that.” She smiled, an almost feral gleam in her eye. “And there will be hell to pay if they try.”
Nate turned back to Mason. “Unless you’ve got something concrete, I think we should proceed. The numbers are too good to pass up.”
Tension hung over the room. The lawyers said nothing—this wasn’t their call—but Mason knew they had to be surprised. To his recollection, he and Nate had never disagreed publicly on a deal of this size. Privately? All the t
ime. But they usually worked out their differences without the lawyers present.
Everyone looked at Mason, waiting for his response. He let a few beats pass, wishing he had something specific he could describe, some flaw in the numbers or the deal to get Nate off his case. But he had nothing, other than a bad feeling in his gut.
In the past, that would’ve been enough.
But things felt different now, and he didn’t know why.
Nate was giving him a steely-eyed, don’t-be-stupid look, and Connor was glancing from the computer screen back to Mason’s face with a look of incredulity.
Their reactions cemented the irritation and doubt crawling under Mason’s skin. Fuck it. If they didn’t trust his instincts, how could he? “If you’re both in favor, I won’t object.”
“Good.” Nate gave a sharp nod, as if he’d never doubted the outcome.
Mason gritted his teeth.
“So what’s the plan for the dog park?” Connor asked. He turned to Luke. “You still want to go?”
Mason scowled. “I can handle this on my own.”
Nate shook his head. “I’m sure you can handle these kids, but are you sure you can handle the dog?”
They doubted whether he could handle a damn dog now?
“He’s coming along really well, actually.” Mason was amazed to hear himself defending the creature he’d once hoped his dog sitter would kidnap. “But we’re going to use Tess’s dog anyway. Just to be on the safe side.”
The mere mention of her name was enough to warm his blood and momentarily distract him from his annoyance with everyone in the room. He wasn’t even sure what was happening between them—was he just trying to get her into bed, or were they becoming friends? Why had he kissed her if it was the latter, and why hadn’t he kissed her again if it were the former?
“Tess?” Zoe lifted an eyebrow. “Who’s Tess? Where is she on the four-date rule?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mason said. “You, too?”
“I’m just curious,” Zoe said. “You brought her up.”
“She’s my dog sitter. And I do not have a four-date rule.”
