Trouble

by Ann Christopher

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Looking down, she made a big production out of straightening her papers. “I like it here. It’s quiet.”

  She was lying, his gut told him. Well, maybe not lying, exactly, but she wasn’t telling the whole truth. He might regret it later, especially if she decided to stop spending so much time here, but for now he had to know.

  “Why don’t you study with Sean?”

  “Oh, I do,” she said, “but sometimes we have to get on him about talking too much. And sometimes I like to study by myself.”

  “Hmm.”

  So she was still spending time with Sean, then. Suddenly the idea of kicking something—the nearest wall, maybe—seemed very appealing.

  “So what do you do for fun when you’re not here or at school?” he asked, after a pause. He’d made it a point never to ask her anything too personal, but it was after-hours, the mood was mellow and hobbies were a safe area.

  “I bake.”

  “It doesn’t look like you eat too much of what you make.”

  “I eat it all. But I also exercise.”

  Of course she exercised; the girl’s body was damn near perfect. Slim but wonderfully curvy, with great muscle tone in her arms and legs. He’d kill to see her abs. Well, he’d kill to see a couple other selected areas first, and then he’d kill to see her abs. He’d bet they were toned but still rounded and feminine. One of his recurring fantasies was of burying his face—his tongue—in her belly button while he slid his fingers down to her ...

  “Yeah?” he asked, snapping himself out of it before he broke into a sweat.

  “Yeah. I practice yoga every day.”

  “Yoga?” The image made his heart race even faster. Suddenly, his mind seethed with endless possibilities, each more lurid than the one before: Dara in those hip-hugging pants that could be peeled away like the skin of a grape; Dara bending and stretching, spreading her legs wide into some fantastic position, her breasts thrust together and upward with each movement; Dara breathing hard, a light sheen of sweat glistening on her ...

  “What do you do with yourself when you’re not here?” she asked.

  Wait, what? Did she say something?

  Blinking, he rewound her question.

  “Well, I, uh ...I play in a basketball league. With Sean. I read a lot. And I like to travel. I went to Paris over the summer. It was amazing.”

  “No kidding! So is it true it’s the most romantic city on earth? I’ve never been.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I went by myself.”

  “By yourself!” she cried. “Why didn’t you go with one of your friends or a girlfriend?”

  “Paris isn’t exactly a place you go to with the fellas. And I didn’t have anyone I wanted to take with me”

  She looked baffled, as though he’d told her he’d walked across the Atlantic to get there. “Why aren’t you—never mind. None of my business.”

  “Married yet?” he supplied.

  “Let me guess. You’re not the marrying type?” she teased. “You like to play the field? You’re finding yourself?”

  His guard went up, as it inevitably did whenever he and marriage were mentioned in the same sentence. And yet, with Dara, he was surprised to discover he didn’t want to shut the topic down entirely.

  “I’m not the marrying type right now. I need to work on building the firm.” He hesitated. “So when the right woman comes along, I’ll be able to give her everything she deserves.”

  Whoa, he thought, giving himself a mental smack upside the head. Where had that last bit come from? It wasn’t part of the standard speech.

  “Well, in the meantime I’m sure you have your choice of women.”

  His choice of women.

  His. Choice. Of. Women.

  He stared her in the face, suddenly pissed she’d raised the issue and more pissed that she didn’t get it and he couldn’t tell her. Not if he wanted to be a good brother and a sexual harassment lawsuit-free boss.

  “I’m sure I don’t have my choice of women,” he said flatly.

  She plowed on, undeterred. “And what would you want in a wife if that mythical day ever came?”

  “Someone who’s smart and funny, but sweet.” Warming to the topic, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Someone who’s independent and strong. With attitude.”

  “And beautiful.”

  He shrugged. “Beautiful wouldn’t hurt. But looks aren’t everything.”

  She nodded. Hesitated. Continued with the personal questions, kicking his excitement rate up into the red zone.

  “So are you dating anyone right now?”

  “No.” His heart was a drumbeat that overpowered his thrumming pulse. If he had a billion dollars, he’d happily give it up to get inside that head. “What’s it matter to you?”

  Just like that, she froze—a blushing deer caught in the headlights, poised to flee.

  “I’m just ...nosy,” she said, shrugging and dropping her gaze.

  “Nosy?”

  “I mean ...Of course, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  The words hung in the air and then exploded over Mike’s head, shattering the one emotion he hadn’t meant to ever feel where Dara was concerned—hope. He slumped back in his chair, a sour taste filling his mouth. He was a dumb-ass. The way he wanted this woman ate away at his guts like battery acid, but all she was good for was an endless supply of mixed messages and sleepless nights.

  And he could never have her anyway. His brother would never forgive him.

  Time to go.

  “Mike?”

  He got up, jerking the chair aside. His own office—the place he loved as much as he loved his home—now pressed in on him like an underground tomb. He had to get away from here. He had to stay away from wherever she was.

  Too bad he could never remember that.

  She was toxic for him, this girl. She’d bring him to his knees if he wasn’t careful.

  If she hadn’t already.

  “It’s late.” He knew he’d gone way off the rails, but he couldn’t force himself to look at her again before he left the conference room. It hurt far too much. “Go home.”

  “Dara,” Mike said the next morning, when they ran into each other in the hallway outside their offices. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  His face was smooth and bland, Dara saw, so he was apparently back to Mike the Charming today instead of Mike the Sullen and Moody, and she hated him for it. Was it actually normal in the parallel universe he lived in for people to get angry for no reason and leave mid-conversation, then act like everything was just fine the next time they saw each other? She wanted to keep the peace. Really she did. But she’d relived the abrupt and baffling end to their conversation a million times during her sleepless hours last night and therefore couldn’t stop herself from glowering at him.

  “Mike,” she said, never breaking stride on her way into her office.

  Jackass.

  Half an hour later, on her way into the tiny storage room for some pens, she opened the heavy door and ran directly into him. Startled and disconcerted by the sudden full-body contact with all six-plus feet and two hundred-plus pounds of the hottest male she’d ever seen, she let out an undignified squawk as he put his hands on her hips and swung her around, out of his way.

  The door slammed shut behind them.

  “Whoa!” He turned her loose. “Watch where you’re going!”

  “Sorry.” She took a hasty step back and clanged something with her shoe. An aluminum bucket half-filled with sloshing water sat on the floor. Overhead was a dinner plate-sized patch of discolored ceiling. “What’s this?”

  “Leaky roof,” he said, shrugging. “All this rain isn’t helping.”

  “Oh.”

  He watched her.

  Dropping her gaze and feeling as though she’d been trapped in an airless cave with a polar bear, she edged around him, grabbed a box of pens off the shelf and turned to leave.

  His voice, chilly now, stopp
ed her.

  “If you have a problem with me, Dara, why don’t you just say so?”

  Oh, no, he didn’t. Hypocritical, much?

  “‘Just say so?”’ she echoed, outraged. “Is that what you do when you have a problem with someone?”

  A bemused frown marred his forehead as he nodded. “That’s what I try to do, yes.”

  Hang on. Did he think she was the issue?

  “That’s funny, because you obviously have a problem with me, but you’ve never given me the courtesy of discussing it.”

  A wave of understanding crossed Mike’s face before he blinked his features back into inscrutability. But there was something. His eyes were too wary and alert all of the sudden, his posture too rigid. He knew exactly what she meant, even if he had no intention of admitting it.

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  Dara cocked her head, making sure she’d heard correctly before she lost it on him.

  “Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “You treated me like I had the plague when I first started here and I’m always tiptoeing around you and your stupid black moods! And last night, for no reason whatsoever, you walked out in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation!”

  His face was like a tsunami on the horizon, but she didn’t care.

  “What have I ever done for you to hate me so much? Will you please tell me? Is this all just because we flirted a little the night we met? Because I’ve done the best I can to leave that in the past and work hard here!”

  He shook his head and made a derisive sound, his lips twisting into a smile as cruel as it was humorless.

  That was when she really lost it.

  “And I am so sick of you always looking at me like you think I’m the dumbest person on the planet! What is it you think I’m too stupid to get, Mike?”

  “I’m not dealing with this,” he roared. “There’s no way this will ever work!”

  “Why not?” she asked, stung that he was back to that again. “I’ve been a professional! I’ve tried to work with you! I’ve tried to be your friend—”

  “Friend?” He spat the word out the way he would a piece of spoiled sushi. “You think I want to be your friend?”

  Wounded, Dara backed up a step. Well, now she knew. The illusion of friendship she’d had over the past few weeks had been just that. An illusion. He disliked her now as much as he ever had. God, how it hurt.

  “You know what?” Unshed tears made her voice raspy. She cleared her throat. “Screw you.”

  “Why, you little . . .”

  Mike’s hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm, burning her flesh through her shirt and jerking her around and up against him.

  7

  Dara gasped.

  Her anger imploded inside her sudden hot yearning. His body, hard and wanting, pressed all along hers. The sensation was almost like hugging one of the marble pillars in front of her parents’ house, except that his body was unspeakably warm and vibrant and had wonderful hollows and ridges that fit so well to her own.

  He held her gaze, his eyes glittering darkly, but with desire now, not anger.

  Unthinking, she lifted her face and parted her lips for him, latching onto his muscled arms to keep him close. She’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted to taste his mouth and feel his hands all over her body. His scent—fresh, clean, too faint to be cologne, too delicious to be soap—flooded her senses.

  Finally he lowered his head to kiss her, and it was an unspeakable relief.

  Yes. Thank God. Yes.

  But then his entire body tensed.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and took a shuddering breath, frustration contorting his features.

  “I can’t,” he said. “You work for me.”

  What? As if she cared about that minor detail when she was this aroused. The tips of her breasts throbbed with such exquisite sensitivity she wanted to rub herself against his hard chest for relief, and there was a growing ache high up between her thighs.

  Her head spun as she remembered all the times she’d caught him staring at her. All the times his mood turned black around her and she’d wondered why he disliked her so much.

  Now she understood he’d never disliked her.

  And she’d only be lying to herself if she persisted in thinking she’d ever disliked him.

  “Mike—”

  “My brother would kill me. I can’t.”

  He let her go and brushed past her on his way out of the closet, leaving her to drown inside her bitter disappointment.

  Mike paced the length of his office, trying to compose himself when what he really wanted to do was to smash everything in his path.

  Why had he grabbed Dara like that?

  As if it hadn’t been torture enough to work alongside her for weeks without touching her. At least then he’d been blissfully ignorant of how perfect she felt in his arms and how delightfully her body shivered to life under his fingers.

  Well, he knew all that now, didn’t he? Knew how her eyes closed with passion as she waited for his kiss, knew how eager her supple body could be.

  Now he’d be forever haunted by this one memory.

  Dara.

  He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to experience every part of her, and she wanted him, too—her flushed face, harsh breath, and glittering eyes gave her away no matter what she said about being his friend.

  There was a grim satisfaction in that.

  It would have to be enough.

  He would make it be enough.

  After a few minutes, he recovered enough to realize he needed to apologize. On top of everything else, he’d been courting a sexual harassment suit again, and he’d be defending his own damn self in front of a judge soon if he wasn’t careful.

  “Dara, I . . .” he began as he strode into her office, not bothering to knock or to notice Sean already there until he was nearly to her desk.

  Shit!

  Mike recoiled as if he’d turned the corner and seen a grizzly bear, and felt muscles flexing uncontrollably in his temple and jaw. For one second a red haze of bloodlust fogged his brain. What was going on here? Why was Sean always showing up here if they weren’t involved? Because he and Dara were friends? If so, they were the friendliest friends he’d ever seen.

  “Sean,” he said hoarsely, fixing his eyes on Sean so he wouldn’t have to look at Dara. “What brings you here?”

  “Yes,” Dara said to Sean, “you didn’t say. And you’re supposed to call first.”

  Sean, who was perched on the edge of her desk, turned his loving gaze back to her. “You didn’t answer my texts.”

  “Yeah? Because I’ve been working. What’s up?”

  Sean twitched irritably. “Rough day at the office. My boss is a dick.”

  “What happened?” Dara asked, frowning.

  “We had a meeting to discuss my poor attitude,” Sean said, punctuating his words with air quotes. “Just because I’ve been late a few times and he hasn’t been impressed with my memos.”

  Uh-oh, Mike thought, his mind zooming back to all the similar meetings he’d had with Sean when he worked as Mike’s paralegal. Poor attitude. That about covered it. Against his better judgment and knowing it would probably end badly, he tried to offer Sean a couple words of advice to help get his internship back on track.

  “Your boss is a reasonable guy, Sean. He graduated with me.” Trying to look understanding and sympathetic, Mike shrugged and slid his hands into his pockets. “You might want to think about his comments over the weekend and then talk to him again on Monday. Maybe see what you can do to meet his expectations—”

  Since Sean was now scowling at him as though he wanted to grab the brass letter opener off Dara’s desk and stab him through the neck with it, Mike trailed off.

  “You ever think about taking my side, my brother?” Sean asked quietly.

  Mike seethed, thinking about how he’d refrained from kissing Dara earlier. How he was currently locking down his growing feelings for her at t
he great expense of his personal happiness, all for this spoiled and entitled asshole.

  “I’m on your side more than you know,” Mike told him through clenched teeth. “My brother.”

  Crooked and humorless smile from Sean. “My mistake.”

  “Mike’s just trying to help you, Sean,” Dara snapped.

  Sean held up his hands in surprise. “Et tu, Dara?”

  “I’m just saying,” she said flatly. “As far as I can tell, Mike doesn’t have a horse in this race other than wanting you to do well. Maybe you don’t need to bite his head off. Maybe you should be grateful you have a brother who cares about you.”

  Mike stared at her, undone by this unexpected and passionate defense. Honest to God, she stole a little bit more of him every single freaking time he was in the room with her. At the rate he was going, by the end of the week there’d be nothing left of him that didn’t belong to her.

  “It’s complicated,” Sean told her. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “That’s good,” she said, snorting. “Because I don’t understand.”

  She and Sean faced off, frowning at each other.

  Mike watched, fascinated.

  “Was there anything else?” Dara asked, her voice clipped.

  Sean was looking shell-shocked. “Yeah. I thought we could get some dinner.”

  Mike studied Dara closely, gauging her reaction to this proposal.

  “We’re supposed to meet Monica at the library tonight, Sean, remember?” she asked, her expression closed and her eyes hard. “We’re going to order pizza in the dining area. We need to work on our study outlines.”

  Sean flapped a hand. “Friday nights are for fun. We can work tomorrow.”

  Dara shook her head. “We need to work tonight and tomorrow.”

  Mike had had enough. The crushing weight of his envy pressed down on his chest until he could barely breathe. Maybe he couldn’t spend time with Dara, but he sure didn’t have to stand by and watch her make plans of any kind with his brother.

  “You two don’t need me for this,” he said on his way out the door.

  “Wait, man,” called Sean. “About your Black Lawyers Association awards banquet.”