Hard Line

by Erin McCarthy

  “True.”

  There seemed to be a world of meaning in that word and she shifted away from him, her cheeks burning. He was leaning over her to read the screen, his suit jacket brushing against her hip.

  “Is Candy your real name?”

  It was the first time Jared had ever expressed any interest in her, and she felt her confidence shake a little. Jared might just be too much for her to handle. But she’d never know unless she tried.

  “Yes. It’s not short for Candace or anything.”

  He made a noncommittal sound.

  She typed Jared Kincaid into the spot for the partner’s name. “What’s your middle name?”

  “Just skip it.”

  Instead, she typed in Hoover, then smiled at him. “Am I close?”

  “No.” He didn’t even pull a half-smile. “Let’s get on to the first question.”

  Candy nodded. She was eager enough herself. To see exactly how far Jared would be willing to go.

  Jared waited for Candy to click on the first question. They needed to make their way through this stupid counseling as fast as humanly possible. Before he grabbed her, threw her on the desk and shot all his control to hell with a taste of her.

  If they rushed through the questions, he could be out of here in an hour and run to the break room and toss ice cubes down his pants. It was his only hope.

  This was all Harold’s fault. Or Candy’s, for having the nerve to walk around with an ass like that. He could blame Jessie, who had gotten him fired from his last job. Which wasn’t fair, because he hadn’t exactly told her no. Or it could be because he’d never been smart enough to get married and indulge himself with regular sex.

  Or maybe he was just a horny idiot.

  With a soft spot for pouty doe-eyed women.

  Candy leaned over the desk again. “Okay, keep your shirt on.”

  Jared ground his teeth together.

  Candy’s lips moved as she read the question silently.

  “Well?” He waited for her to enlighten him as to what embarrassing personal details they had to reveal.

  “This isn’t bad at all, Jared. I think it’s supposed to illustrate to couples how little they really know about each other. And to rediscover their interest in one another.”

  Whatever. Jared sat back down in the chair so Candy’s thigh would stop brushing his arm. “So what does it say?”

  “Question number one just asks where you’re from. You know, where were you born and where did you grow up.”

  Candy was right. It wasn’t as bad as he had suspected. And if Harold wanted to pay him to talk about growing up in Skokie, that was fine with him.

  She glanced back at him with a smile, her long legs still straight, her elbow resting on the desk. “Guess where I was born.”

  He pictured her wandering around a wicker-filled bedroom with louvered windows, wearing a satiny camisole and panties and biting a peach. God, when had he gotten such a vivid imagination? And why did it have to involve Candy in her underwear? “Georgia.”

  She scoffed. “No, dead wrong. Tennessee.”

  Oh, there was a difference? “Sorry, I’m not an expert in Southern dialects.”

  Her little pink tongue slipped out and wet her bottom lip. The full one. The one that demanded he bite it. Jared shifted again, wondering if it was possible to sustain an erection for three hours with no other stimulus than dirty thoughts.

  “You’re a Yankee through and through, aren’t you?”

  She made it sound like that was slightly more desirable than an ant infestation in her kitchen.

  “I’ve lived in Chicago all my life.”

  “Brothers and sisters?” Candy wasn’t looking at the computer screen, but was just lounging there draped across the desk, looking mildly curious with a little curving smile gracing the corner of her mouth.

  He had no reason to answer. He should suggest they get on with the damn quiz. Instead, he found himself saying, “Three older brothers and one little sister. My parents were insane, apparently.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, those blond wispy curls tumbling down her back. “Your mother must have loved kids, that’s all.”

  He fought a smile, but couldn’t stop it. “I’m not sure that she did. She used to tell us that she was guaranteed a spot in heaven. That God would never deny entrance to a woman with five kids as bad as we were.”

  She laughed.

  “Were you bad, Jared?” Her voice was throaty, her laughter evaporating, but amusement still lingering in her eyes.

  For a second, he thought she was flirting with him. And his answer slipped out before he could check it. “Oh, yeah. I was very, very bad.”

  Her eyes went wide. The full smile came back.

  Shit. She was flirting with him. And he was doing it back.

  Before she could say something that he would regret, he quickly spoke in what he prayed was a casual, innocent, no-sexual-intent kind of voice. “What about you? Any brothers or sisters down there in Tennessee?”

  There was a slight pause, before she said, “I have a younger sister.”

  Jared tried to picture another woman looking like Candy and couldn’t quite conceive it. Candy was one of a kind. Delicious.

  “So what’s her name? Taffy?” He realized immediately that sounded a lot ruder than he’d intended.

  But Candy just laughed. “Actually, her name is Margaret and she’s studying the cello at Juilliard.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Margaret?

  Jared got a visual of Candy sitting with a cello between her legs. Somehow the image was hard to conjure, though he did feel a pang of envy for the fictional cello and the prized position between Candy’s legs. But Candy and orchestral instruments just didn’t go together in his mind, no matter what erotic spin he could put on it.

  Yet he could see Candy smiling and intelligently directing a room full of ad clients. Damn. Smart and sexy. It was a lethal combination.

  “No, I’m not kidding.” Candy pulled a strand of hair out of her mouth, one leg still straight, the other bending at the knee, sending her hip out provocatively to the side.

  It also dragged her skirt up another solid inch on that side, showing way more than Jared needed to see. Not that he was complaining. It just sent scissors through another thread of his control.

  “Margaret and I have different fathers. My mom says my daddy was her true love, a brief burst of passion that left her heartbroken and alone before I was even born.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Candy shrugged. “He left her for another woman when he found out she was pregnant. So two years later she married Margaret’s dad because she thought he would stick around and take care of her.”

  Jared dragged his eyes off Candy’s thighs. Leering at her suddenly made him feel no better than the lecher who had run out on her mom. He placed his eyes squarely on her face and vowed not to let his gaze stray. “Did he stick around?”

  “Yeah. They’re still married and very happy. They really love each other and he never made me feel any different from Margaret even though I wasn’t his blood daughter.”

  She smiled then, and Jared was amazed at the lack of bitterness in her voice. “He adopted me and gave me the last name Appleton. I was three by then, so too late to change my first name from Candy. So I’ve been Candy Appleton ever since.”

  Then she stood up. Her legs went way, way up as she stretched, reaching her arms over her head while she went up onto the tips of her toes in her high-heeled shoes. Her blouse tugged and pulled, straining to escape the waist of her skirt and molding to her breasts. Her suit jacket splayed, held together by one overworked button, and Jared watched in morbid fascination.

  He was waiting for the whole thing to blow. The button to fly off, the blouse to slide up, her creamy navel skin to be exposed to him all while she tottered on heels at his mercy.

  Then he would take the spot previously reserved for the cello and ease her skirt up.


  Jared calculated how much money was left in his checking account and gave himself up for lost.

  Candy hoped like heck she knew what she was doing. Jared looked like he could chew up nails and tie them into bows with his tongue. Heaven help her, she couldn’t tell if he was turned on, furious, or both.

  And what had possessed her to run on at the mouth about her mother and stepfather? Not that she had an ounce of experience in having casual affairs, but she had to assume you didn’t start them out by talking about your family.

  Give her another five minutes and she’d be whipping out photos of last Christmas and her cat wearing a Santa hat.

  She finished stretching, her legs stiff from bending over the desk, and chewed her lip as she thought over her next move. This shouldn’t be so doggone hard. She’d been flirting since the cradle, as her mother frequently liked to remind her. But now when she needed it, all she could think to do was smile, which was lame and appeared to have no impact on Jared whatsoever.

  It must be nerves. After all, there was a lot more at stake here than getting good restaurant service. Before she left this office today, she wanted a date with Jared. A date that would end up with them naked and Jared turning that intense concentration squarely on her.

  Time to take a deep breath and turn up the heat.

  “What’s the next question?” Jared said, shrugging out of his suit jacket.

  Oh, Lord, he had broad shoulders. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him without his jacket on, and it was a sight worth lingering over. She lingered so long he raised an eyebrow.

  “The question?”

  The quiz. Right. With elephantine effort she turned around and tried to focus on the computer screen, her cheeks burning.

  Jared was turning up the heat, and he didn’t even know it.

  After quickly typing in their responses to birth place, she went on. “Question three. Describe the moment you met.”

  That was easy. Jared had strolled into the office one Monday morning back in January and she had known lickety split that he would be the one to pull her out of the sexual deep freeze she’d been in since her divorce. He had been wearing a black suit with a burgundy shirt and tie, and he had looked at her, scanned her, and moved on. Dismissed. Dissed.

  He had never once deviated in his behavior since.

  Jared said nothing. Candy kept her eyes on the screen.

  “I guess I’ll just type in that we met at work.”

  “Fine.”

  Her fingers trembled as she typed and she blew her hair out of her eyes, ignoring the disappointment she felt. Dang, what did she expect? Jared to say his eyes had met hers over the length of the meeting room table and it had been fate?

  There was no doubt in her mind he could not even pinpoint the first time he had seen her.

  Jared was desperate. They hadn’t even gotten to the hard questions yet and he was in danger of barking and drooling.

  The first time he had seen Candy was branded into his mind. He had walked into Stratford Marketing and had gone into the meeting room for an eight a.m. appointment with Harold.

  Candy had been there, wearing a cherry-red turtleneck sweater that matched her lips. Her blond hair had been pulled back into a twist of some kind and she had on a knee-length white wool skirt and boots. He had felt like he was staring at a life-sized peppermint, all white and shiny and sweet.

  The sight had stunned him, giving him a spontaneous and mortifying erection, and had left his brain and body sizzling like a pound of bacon.

  He’d gotten the hell out of that meeting room and thus had started the past eight weeks of dodging her like a bullet. She wouldn’t kill him, but she’d send him back to the unemployment lines.

  “Next question.” He crossed his leg, widely, to accommodate for the throb in his pants, and picked a nice spot on Harold’s desk to study. There was a picture of a couple of preteen kids. Gangly. Little Harolds with hair.

  “We’re cooking now,” she said with a perky little smile. “We’re already up to question four.”

  Just what he did not need. She was acting cute. It had been better when she’d been talking about her family. That had at least made her seem real, a live human being with feelings and obviously someone he could not just tangle with in Harold’s office and walk away with no regrets or recriminations. But when she did this… this bent over-smiling thing, he forgot everything, including his own name.

  “What’s the matter?” She sat down in the chair next to him, and pulled the laptop closer to the edge of the desk. “You’re scowling and I haven’t even read the question yet.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It doesn’t feel like we’re accomplishing anything. I think we need to skip a few questions or something.”

  With a little laugh, her fingers fell onto the back of his hand. Her fingers, for God’s sake. On his skin. Touching him.

  “What’s your hurry?”

  Now hold on. He turned in his chair, hoping the movement would knock her hand off his. It didn’t.

  He didn’t like that tone in her voice. That let’s-see-where-this-goes laugh.

  “I thought we were in a hurry. You said you were before.”

  “Did I?” Her fingers squeezed his hand, her thumb sliding down around his, rubbing back and forth. “If I did then I’ve changed my mind. Sometimes slow is better than fast, don’t you think?”

  It was a struggle not to twitch. Or grab her and kiss the Southern smile out of her.

  “Slow isn’t better with Internet speeds. Or when you’re driving on the highway. Or waiting for a paycheck.”

  Her head tilted. There was a gleam in her eye he just didn’t trust.

  “But slow is better when you’re savoring a good meal. Or taking a stroll by the lake. Or in bed.”

  Ah, hell. He’d been really, really afraid she would say something like that. Jared went perfectly still, concerned that any sort of movement, of any muscle in his body, might be misinterpreted as an invitation.

  He said slowly, carefully, neither smiling nor frowning, “But we aren’t doing any of those things.”

  Candy pulled her hand back. He was not reassured by the action since it was accompanied by her leaning way forward and undoing that loyal button on her jacket.

  Those wonderful full lips parted with a little moist sound and she said, “We’re not doing any of them… yet.”

  Jared swallowed. Hard. Instinct told him to ignore the comment, to change the subject, to spill a cup of coffee on Harold’s computer and get out while he still could.

  That’s not what he did, of course. He had to know. Just had to. “Are you interested in doing any of those things?”

  Candy had him. She had done it. She had gotten a reaction from Jared, and it was a very positive one, if the flare to his nostrils was any indication.

  “I’m interested in one or two. How about you?”

  He nodded. “A walk by the lake sounds nice.”

  She sat straight up. Was he serious? “It’s March and forty degrees outside. One strong wind and we would be coated in icy lake water.”

  “It was your idea. And I wasn’t aware we were talking about doing any of those things together.”

  His posture didn’t change and his expression was the same neutral gaze, unblinking and in control. It took all she had not to just get up and crawl out of Harold’s office in humiliation. But if she was any judge of men, which given her ex-husband was questionable at best, there was lust brewing in Jared’s eyes.

  Way in the back, but there nonetheless. Plus the nostril flare.

  It was enough to keep her in her seat. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to do any of those things alone. Would you?”

  Candy smiled at him and shrugged out of her jacket, struggling with the sleeves. She ended up wiggling back and forth tugging on the jacket, trying to keep her blouse sleeve in place, until Jared took hold of both sleeves and stripped her of the jacket before she could even take a breath.

  “Thanks.”


  “You’re welcome. And I don’t like to… eat alone either.”

  Have mercy. Having spent the last two years wondering why she couldn’t get the least bit aroused, Candy now had her answer. She had been waiting for Jared. And all he needed to do was breathe and she found herself with damp panties. “And in bed?”

  “I like to sleep alone. But if we’re talking about sex, then I think it’s obvious I prefer company over solo. What about you?”

  She nodded. “I’m in complete agreement.”

  For the first time since they’d stepped in to Harold’s office, Jared smile at her. A dirty, dominating smile that made her heart race. “You look like the agreeable type.”

  She wanted to cry out that she would be very agreeable for him, but she bit her lip instead and forced her eyes to the computer.

  “Question four.” Her voice shattered on a mouse-like squeak and she cleared her throat. “Where do you most like your partner to touch you?”

  She dropped her feet to the floor and looked closer at the screen. Was that really what it said or had her personal thoughts done a wishful Freudian voice-over?

  Jared said, “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  One on the couples guide to harmony, apparently. Candy had read the question right.

  “Harold can’t possibly expect us to answer that. And we’ve never even touched each other, so it’s completely invalid.”

  “Unless we just answered where we’d like, ah, someone to touch us. Or each other, hypothetically.” Candy shocked herself right out of the chair. She bounced up and paced around the backside of her chair, hiding behind Jared.

  Of all the tacky, inappropriate, over-the-top things to say. He was going to give her a quarter to go buy a clue. He wasn’t interested and throwing herself at him was just embarrassing them both.

  She knew it. It was coming. Where was a whale’s mouth to dive into when you needed one? And why did he rattle her so much? While he didn’t seem to like her, it did seem like he thought she was attractive. So she needed to stay the course. Take advantage of the opportunity.

  Candy fiddled with the top button on her shirt, debating her next move.