The Perfect Catch

by Shania Tyler

  I’m doomed. Just keep your distance.

  Even as I followed her down the corridor, I found myself watching the way her butt bounced as she walked. The thought of wrapping my fingers around her buttocks was intoxicating, and I struggled to drag my eyes away. She was just too curvy in all the right places and her body was simply begging to be touched.

  Keep your hands to yourself, I ordered myself as I slipped into the office behind her. I watched as she wandered over to the filing cabinet on the other side of the room and pulled open the top drawer. When she picked out the accident book and placed it on the desk in front of her, I made no move toward it.

  “Why are you standing all the way over there?” She frowned at me. “I don’t bite.”

  She placed her hands on her hips, and I felt the need to replace them with my own.

  Keep your hands to yourself, I repeated to myself over and over. Keep your hands to yourself.

  “Let’s just get this over with so that I can get back to work,” I sighed as I stepped up to the desk and took a pen from the holder.

  “I’m guessing from your attitude that you’ve seen the picture, too?” Ruby asked, causing my pen to pause where I’d begun to fill out the report. I looked up at her from where I’d been perched over the desk to see that she was frowning at me.

  “It was kind of hard not to when the guys were rubbing it all in my face all morning.” I shrugged. She didn’t need to know that it was, in fact, her man who had brought the picture to my attention, reminding me of yet another reason why I should stay away from her.

  “What are we going to do about it?” she asked me, crossing her arms over her chest again as though she was attempting to protect herself from my gaze, yet it only aided in making her breasts even perkier, and I found myself having a difficult time not looking directly at them. I tried to focus on her face, but her beauty hurt, knowing that she was somebody else’s girl.

  “There isn’t much we can do about it,” I told her as I straightened up and shrugged my shoulders again. “I’m sure it’ll die down soon, and we can forget all about it. There’s no need to get your panties in a twist over it. As long as we stay away from each other, nobody can accuse us of anything untoward.”

  “Major, we work together,” she protested. “How are we supposed to stay away from each other?”

  “I’ll stick to my business and you stick to yours,” I told her and turned my attention back to the report. I couldn’t handle the hurt expression that jumped onto her face at my words. It seemed that she hated the thought of staying away from me as much as I hated the thought of staying away from her.

  She has a man. I had to keep reminding myself of that and the fact that she was my boss. Maybe then I would be able to resist the temptation of her, the temptation of touching her skin and kissing her lips and feeling her body against my own.

  I wrote the report out quickly and signed the bottom before taking myself back over to the door. I needed to put as much distance between us as possible.

  “If that’s all you needed me for, I’ll head back out to the rest of the team and see if we can salvage this practice,” I told her as I held on to the doorframe in an attempt to stop myself from going to her. For a moment, Ruby looked like she was going to protest, as though she was trying to think of a reason to keep me there a little longer. I began to feel as though she would think of something so that I wouldn’t have to leave. I would do just about anything to continue gazing at her beautiful face for just a little bit longer, but it seemed that she couldn’t think of anything.

  “I guess I will see you around then,” she sighed. “Remember, my door is always open if you need anything.”

  “Please don’t tell me that or I won’t be able to stay away,” I sighed under my breath.

  I was almost sure she had heard me yet she said nothing as I turned and left the office.

  The farther away I walked, the more I could feel my attraction to her pulling me back. I struggled to keep one foot moving in front of her other. A large part of me wanted to turn around and head right back to her, take her in my arms, and kiss her as she had kissed me the night before. Yet I kept moving. She has a man.

  * * *

  22

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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  Ruby

  All too soon, I stood outside Lukas’ restaurant and everything inside of me was begging me to climb right back into the cab and head home, but I knew that I needed to do this. I needed to meet Scotty just to tell him that he couldn’t blackmail me, that he couldn’t get what he wanted from me, and that I was never again going to be his. I was done with that life, and he needed to know that.

  Taking a deep breath, I pushed my way into the building, and Scotty quickly pushed himself up from the two-seater table he’d been perched at. He smiled warmly at me as I approached but I could see the slyness in his expression that told me he thought he had won. He thought that because I was there he had won me back and I was just going to fall back beneath his thumb. There was no way on earth that was going to happen.

  “It’s good to see you again, Ruby.” He smiled as he reached out to embrace me. My entire body stiffened at his touch and bile rose in the back of my throat. Never had I been so physically repulsed by another human being but Scotty had reached a new level. He disgusted me.

  “Can we just get this over with?” I suggested as he took his arms away from me.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, looking as though he didn’t understand my cold tone.

  “Is something wrong?” I gaped at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. How could he even ask me such a question? “Are you kidding me?”

  “Ruby, what’s wrong?” Scotty asked, and he gestured toward the other seat as he took back to his own. I held my breath as I slipped into the other seat across from him.

  “What is wrong?” I repeated. “What’s wrong is the fact that you think it’s okay to send me gifts and blackmail me into taking you back.”

  Scotty’s eyes widened with shock, and he shook his head quickly. “Ruby, I know I am awful with words but that was not my intention.” He reached across the table to take hold of my hand. I quickly pulled my arm away from the table and clutched hold of my handbag with both hands. I couldn’t stand the thought of him touching me again.

  “Blackmail is blackmail no matter how it is intended,” I assured him.

  “I wasn’t blackmailing you.” He shook his head again. “Ruby, I am trying to give you a way of getting out of the mess you find yourself in. Take me back and all the rumors about Major will stop. I can put an end to them if everybody sees us happy together again.”

  That suggestion was even more disgusting than having to sit here with him and I struggled not to gag openly in front of him. I couldn’t think of anything worse than taking back the scumbag across the table from me.

  “You think that I need to take you back to do that?” I couldn’t help but laugh in his face. “Do you think I am some hopeless woman who can’t take care of herself? You think a few rumors are going to be the end of me?”

  “I am trying to make life easier for you,” Scotty assured me. “I miss you, Ruby. I want us to go back to the way we were before.”

  For a moment, I allowed myself to think of the happy times with Scotty, the times when I had genuinely smiled to be with him, when his hugs and kisses had filled me with butterflies. Then I quickly pushed the thoughts away. All those memories were tainted the moment he took his whore into our bed.

  “We can never go back to the way we were before,” I assured him. “That is never going to happen in a million years, and I do not need you to save me. I can save myself.”

  “These rumors will kill your career,” he warned me, and I knew that what he said was very possible. My career was precariously balanced on the Houston Buckskins winning the Super Bowl and if they didn’t, t
hen my job would be well and truly on the line. I was sure to be axed if they didn’t win and the rumors of me and Major continued. The only reason the powers that be would overlook an in-house relationship was if the team was winning and the fact that our star quarterback was now down and out would not work in our favor. I was determined to keep my mouth firmly shut on that one. Scotty did not need to get hold of that snippet of information to feed to whoever was sharing his bed tonight because it certainly wouldn’t be me.

  “I think I will take my chances,” I told him. “If you threaten me again, I will make sure you wish you were never born.”

  “Ruby, the last thing I want to do is threaten you,” Scotty assured me. “I just want to help you, and I want you back. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back.”

  “You will die trying then,” I assured him and pushed myself to my feet. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending another moment in his presence. I was still nauseous at being so close to him.

  “Ruby, please, give me a chance to prove myself to you,” he called after me as I began to head on my designer heels toward the door.

  I didn’t turn around as I replied, “You had your chance to prove yourself to me and you mucked it up. I don’t give second chances that easily and I don’t think I’ll ever give you one.”

  I pushed the door open and slipped back out into the chilled evening air. I glanced from side to side for a few moments, wondering which direction to take. I could either turn left and begin to walk home or I could turn right and head for Tessa’s place. There was also the third option of crossing the street, heading around the corner and making my way to Major’s hotel. I shivered at the thought of it and the way it made my stomach flip with both delight and dread. Then I shook my head and forced the thought away. I couldn’t do that. Scotty’s threat was real and I knew my career would be over the minute my bosses got a whiff that something was going on. I was already surprised that I hadn’t heard anything from any of them. Perhaps they were trying to gather more evidence before they came in to fire me. The thought of that made me realize just how much I needed some company and a drink.

  I turned in the direction of Tessa’s place. By the time I reached her apartment building my feet were aching, and I was sure that I would have blisters when I took them off. I walked awkwardly up the front steps and pushed the buzzer for her apartment.

  “Are you looking for Tessa?” an oddly familiar male voice hit my ears and I turned to see Tessa’s next door neighbor stood behind me. He was attractive in a pretty boy kind of way and there had been more than once when I had considered having some kind of fling with him. Tessa had been the first person to put the idea in my head but I had tried to force it away at a time when I had been focused on my career and men were utterly repulsive to me. I had been able to thank Scotty for that.

  “Yes, do you know if she’s up there?” I asked when there was no answer on the other end of the line. If she was up there she would have surely seen on her buzzer camera that it was me and buzzed me in.

  “I think I saw her going out about an hour ago,” he shrugged and I sighed deeply at the thought of having to head home alone, “You could come up with me and wait for her if you like?”

  “I…I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I shook my head, “I should probably just head home.”

  “You sure? I have a bottle of white wine that’s just dying for me to share with a pretty girl,” his charm was not lost on me. He was no Major but he was pretty cute and the thought of turning down a drink from a cute guy was stupid considering I was trying to stay away from the one man I couldn’t have. Maybe getting under another man might help me to get him off my mind.

  “Well, how could I turn down a free drink?” I shrugged with a smile and the guy seemed to brighten further with my answer.

  “The name’s Ash,” he told me as he held out his hand to take hold of my own.

  “Ruby,” I replied as I took his hand. I couldn’t help but notice that there was no spark of electricity between us like there had been when I had shaken Major’s hand and I was almost disappointed not to feel such a sensation between us. Why couldn’t I feel something like that with somebody that wasn’t off limits?

  “Shall we?” he gestured towards the door and I nodded. Taking out his keys from his pocket Ash opened the front door and held it open to allow me to enter. I was relieved to see that unlike my own apartment building the elevator in Tessa’s building was working, and it took us only a few moments to step inside the cart.

  “So, what’s it like being Tessa’s neighbor?” I asked in an attempt to keep a conversation going so that the silence didn’t become awkward.

  “She can certainly be very….loud at times,” he smiled to me and from the way he said the words I knew that he was talking about when she had male company.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I giggled remembering when Tessa and I had been roommates in college and I’d spent several nights a week with my pillow pressed against my ears while she banged whichever guy she’d brought home in the next room.

  “She’s like a banshee, isn’t she?” Ash joked, and I couldn’t help but laugh and nod.

  “Finally, somebody who agrees with me,” I laughed, “The men always seem to love it. I guess it does their ego some good to think they are doing a good job.”

  I shrugged and then suddenly began to blush as I realized exactly what I was talking about with a practical stranger. How could I be talking about my best friend’s sex life with somebody I barely knew?

  “I guess I would feel pretty big headed if I could make a woman scream like that,” Ash shrugged and for a moment I allowed myself to imagine what he would be like in bed. Something told me that he wasn’t a bad lover but there was something missing. Perhaps it was the fact that he didn’t quite seem the dominant type.

  He’s not Major, a voice whispered in the back of my head and I struggled not to shiver at the thought. My entire body tensed as I remembered what it had been like to be in this situation with Major, the guy who’s room I really wanted to be going to now.

  Just then the elevator doors opened, and I found myself face to face with the door to Ash’s apartment. He stepped out of the elevator and when I hesitated he placed his hand on the doors so that they wouldn’t close on me, “You alright?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I assured him with a nod even though I really didn’t feel alright. My entire body was quivering with the need to turn and run right back to Major’s hotel room. Yet I stepped out of the elevator in the hopes that the doors closing behind me might cut off the feeling. The further I got away from my escape route the better. All I had to do was hold on until Tessa got home and then she would be able to keep me from going back to him. Sure, I’d have to explain everything to her but if that was the price I had to pay to stop myself from doing something stupid then so be it.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” Ash told me as he unlocked the door to his apartment and gestured me inside.

  * * *

  23

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

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  Major

  I sat in my hotel room with my cell phone practically burning a hole in the palm of my hand. I was alone and feeling down. In desperate need of some company, I wracked my brain for who might be the best person to call. Of course, Tommy was the obvious answer. He was always up for a laugh and a joke but after hearing that Jean was on his case, I was sure he didn’t need to be seeing me for a little while. There was always one of the women whose numbers I’d picked up and never used over the last few months but that opened a whole new can of worms. There was even Shauna, who was sure to give me a good time if she thought it was getting her somewhere, but I wasn’t that desperate. Yet my mind kept returning to the same conclusion. I should call Ruby.

  What on earth would I call her for? I thought to myself, but I knew well why I
wanted to call her. I was attracted to her, not just physically but mentally. There was something simulating about her, something about being around her that didn’t feel like it felt with any other woman I’d ever met. Ruby Bowman was different. I wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that she was off limits that made her different or the fact that she was just so damn attractive, but the truth was I didn’t really need to know. All I knew was that I wanted her.

  Time for some advice, I told myself as I finally dialed a number. It wasn’t Ruby’s number like I so desperately wanted it to be. Instead it was Tommy’s number. He might not have been able to come out because he was so under the thumb at the moment, but I was sure he could spare a five-minute chat over the phone.

  “Hey, Major, what’s happening?” Tommy’s voice was cheery as ever and I guessed that he must be well on his way back into Jean’s good graces. I could imagine him sweeping in through the front door carrying a large box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses. She would have forgiven him in an instant because that was the kind of love they shared. I smiled to myself as I imagined having something similar, but the truth was I would never get that because the only person I seemed to be attracted to, I could never have.

  “Hey, Tommy, I need some advice, man.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged on the roots a little as I braced myself for what I was about to ask my best friend. “But I need you to promise that this stays between us. You can’t even mention it to your little lovebird.”