Her Favorite Rival

by Sarah Mayberry

  If she hadn’t already just come spectacularly, the sight of him racked with pleasure, every muscle hard, would have made her lose it on the spot.

  Unbelievable.

  “Unbelievable,” he said, the single word escaping on a breathless pant.

  He withdrew almost immediately, turning away to do something with the condom. He dragged his shorts back up his hips before he turned back to face her. They eyed each other across the distance of a few feet, him with his shorts half-zipped, her with her skirt rucked up around her hips, her thighs still spread wide. They were both breathing hard, and she couldn’t look away from his steady, knowing gaze.

  She’d never had sex this good. She had a horrible feeling that she never would again, either. For some reason, Zach did it for her. Pushed all her buttons in the right order, and then some. His body, the smell of him, the taste of him, the feel of him—it was as though someone had sneaked into her subconscious and pilfered the dirtiest, darkest, deepest corners of her fantasies and designed a man whose sole purpose in life was to get her off.

  Yeah. He was that hot.

  And she was never going to have him again.

  She let the painful reality sit in her gut for a few seconds before she pushed her hair off her forehead. Her brow was damp—no surprises there. She had a rough idea of exactly how abandoned and thoroughly pleasured she must look right about now.

  Well, he looked pretty shagged, too. In the best possible way. They’d more than held their own. But it had always been like that between them, hadn’t it?

  “At the risk of this becoming a habit, do you think you could pass me my panties?” she asked.

  Somehow they’d wound up on the opposite counter, sitting next to his egg timer. He passed them over without a word, watching as she slid off the counter. For the second time in an hour she dressed in front of him, smoothing her skirt back down again.

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  “Thanks for dessert,” he said.

  “I think I should be thanking you for that. That little trick you pulled at the end there... Nice.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “I did. In case you couldn’t tell.”

  “I had an inkling.”

  She wanted to stay and banter with him all night, because the moment she was outside on the pavement, this was history. Nothing but a hot, quickly fading memory for her to take out and dust off whenever she wanted to really torture herself.

  “Okay. I should go.” She said it more for herself, because she needed to hear it, than for him.

  “All right.”

  A little thud of disappointment tightened her belly. Stupidly, there had been a very foolish part of her that had been hoping he might suggest she stay the night.

  Not that she would have taken him up on the offer. But it would have been nice for her ego to know that he’d wanted her to.

  The guy spent the past three hours making sure you had a very good time. What more do you want from him?

  Nothing. She’d come looking for release, for a safe outlet for all the pressure building inside her, and she’d found it. In spades. She’d had her walk on the wild side, she’d transgressed just a little, just enough to make it possible for her to breathe again.

  Her work here was done.

  “I don’t suppose you know where my car keys are?” Like her underwear, she seemed to have misplaced them in her rush to get him naked.

  “No idea.” He grinned, and she knew he was remembering the way she’d arrived, barefoot and more than a little edgy.

  Together they returned to the front hall, where they found her keys on the runner. Funny, she didn’t even remember having them in her hand when he’d opened the door. He stooped and passed them to her.

  “Thanks.”

  She stood back while he opened the door, then moved past him onto the porch. “I had a good time.”

  “Good. Huh. I clearly need to fine-tune my technique.”

  She arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Oddly, I find it hard to believe that you’re even remotely insecure about your technique.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Yep. But just in case—” she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the angle of his jaw “—I had a great time. A spectacular time.”

  His hand slipped around her waist, pulling her close as he turned his head to capture her mouth. They kissed deeply, wetly, longingly. She could feel him growing hard again, could feel her own desire starting to reignite.

  She forced herself to break the kiss. To take a step backward and slip free of his arm.

  “Good night, Zach.”

  “You can say that again,” he said softly.

  There was a look in his eyes, a sort of wistfulness mixed with hot lust. As though he was wishing like crazy that this story had a different ending.

  “I’ll see you on Monday.”

  His gaze sharpened at the reminder of all they had at stake, his smile fading a notch. He nodded, once, and she knew they were both on the same page. Great sex was one thing, but they both had too much invested in their careers right now to risk blowing it over something so ephemeral and essentially meaningless. Great sex didn’t pay the bills, after all. Great sex didn’t provide superannuation or sick pay or career advancement.

  She turned away and started down the garden path. She beeped her car open and slid behind the wheel. Zach remained silhouetted in his lit doorway, waiting for her to leave. She started her car, then pulled out into the street. Only when she’d turned the corner and was safely on her way home did she let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Holy bloody hell.

  An incredulous, slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up her throat. She’d had wild, crazy, hot, consuming monkey sex with Zach Black. The Man With the Golden Ass. Three times!

  Three times. Who does it three times in one night?

  Her euphoria lasted all the way home, following her into the shower as she washed the last traces of him from her body. There were a few more lasting reminders that he’d had his wicked way with her, however. A small suck mark on her inner thigh, along with a slight irritation from his beard on her belly. There was also a sort of general tenderness downstairs—more an awareness, really, that her body had been well and truly loved.

  Way to break the drought, Mathews.

  Afterward, she toweled herself dry and slipped into bed. She pictured Zach doing the same thing across town, lying in his sex-rumpled sheets, and smiled.

  It had been stupid to go over there. Crazy, even, given the way Whitman was hacking and burning his way through the head-office staff at present. Now was not the time to slip up, in any way.

  But she couldn’t regret it. Wouldn’t. Refused to, in fact. It had been for her, and she’d needed it, and it had been good.

  So, no regrets.

  Closing her eyes, she rolled onto her side and prepared to dream of Zach.

  Definitely no regrets.

  * * *

  ZACH DID ALL the things he’d normally do come Monday morning. Woke, pulled on his running gear, hit the road for a five-kilometer run. Returned home, ate breakfast, showered, dressed, drove into work.

  A normal day, like any other working day. Except...

  He was aware of a certain urgency within himself to set foot inside the office. His gut was jumpy, and he had to wipe his palms down the side of his pants when he got out of his car.

  Stupid, but he was nervous about seeing Audrey. And excited. And, of course, freaking turned on.

  Nothing’s going to happen, dude. Calm the hell down.

  He took a couple of deep breaths as he ascended the stairs to the main level, willing his body to relax. They’d had their time-out, and now it was business as usual. Which meant the dirty little voice in the back of his mind that was urging him to get her alone and naked again was going to be steadfastly ignored, no ifs, buts or maybes.

  Zach made his way to the merchandising department, then stopped in his tracks when he saw that Audrey’s l
ight was already on.

  Immediately all other thought left his mind. Of their own accord, his feet changed direction. Twenty seconds later, he stopped in her office doorway, telling himself that it was far better that they get this first meeting over and done with when no one else was around than do it later when there would be dozens of witnesses.

  It was a good excuse to allow himself to do what he wanted—look at her and talk to her and breathe in the subtle vanilla-floral scent of her perfume.

  She glanced up immediately. There was a flicker of something in her eyes when she saw him, then her expression became smoothly blank. Her professional mask, the one he’d become so used to over the past six months. He knew what lay behind it now, though. Passion and laughter and sass.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “How was the rest of your weekend?”

  Her gaze slid sideways, as though to confirm that no one else was around to hear that they’d spent part of the weekend together.

  “There’s only us,” he reassured her.

  Her shoulders relaxed. “I didn’t do much. How about you?”

  “Just took it easy. I’m not as young as I used to be. I needed to recharge a little.”

  A smiled tugged at her mouth. “Really? I didn’t notice any stamina issues.”

  “Correct answer, Ms. Mathews. You say all the right things.”

  She was grinning now, sitting back in her chair, waggling her pen from side to side playfully. She was wearing an oyster-gray silk shirt, the fabric draping her breasts enticingly. “Funny you should say that, since you’re the one who has a way with words.”

  Lured by the mischievous glint in her eyes, he entered her office fully, resting an elbow on the filing cabinet near the door.

  “Yeah? What way is that?”

  She was a little flushed and he could tell she was enjoying their wordplay as much as he was.

  “You know.”

  He was about to respond when a voice piped up behind him. “Sorry. I got caught in a traffic jam because some idiot ran out of gas and blocked a whole lane. Who does that in this day and age?”

  His smile dropped as he glanced over his shoulder to see Lucy standing in the doorway.

  “I know you wanted to get a head start on the pricing report.” Lucy’s gaze was on Audrey. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

  “Of course not. Zach and I were talking about some stuff that came up at the conference.” Audrey shuffled some papers around on her desk. Very busy.

  “Oh. Right.” Lucy’s glance bounced between him and Audrey. “I hope I’m not interrupting?”

  “You’re good,” he said easily. At least, he hoped it sounded easy. Privately, he was kicking his own ass. If Lucy hadn’t announced herself immediately, there was no telling what she might have overheard.

  Audrey’s tense expression said she was thinking the same thing. So much for business as usual.

  “I’ll leave you to it.” He gave Audrey a brief nod.

  She returned the acknowledgment grimly.

  When he was back at his desk, he tapped out a quick email to her.

  Sorry. Won’t happen again.

  She responded immediately:

  No, it won’t.

  He rested his fingers on the keyboard, driven to write something else. Anything to maintain the connection. Then he dropped his hands into his lap.

  He needed to let it go. They were colleagues, and they might be becoming work friends, and for a few short hours they’d been lovers.

  God, had they been lovers.

  But it had been a one-night-only thing, and it was done, and he should never have let himself stop by her office like that.

  Stupid. Really freakin’ stupid.

  He’d thought it would be easy, slipping back into their old relationship at work, especially given the risks attached to their little fling becoming public.

  He’d been wrong. Big-time.

  He knew what she looked like naked now. He knew that she made soft, desperate noises when she came, that she arched her back off the bed and dug her nails into his skin. He knew that she liked it when he was a little rough with her, and he knew that he could drive her crazy if he put his mind to it.

  He couldn’t un-know any of the above. It was burned into his memory, along with the feel of her and the smell of her and the taste of her.

  Which meant work was probably going to be a living hell for the next little while.

  The thing was, even knowing that, he wouldn’t take back Saturday night for anything.

  Shaking his head at his own perversity, he dragged the top file from his in-tray. He had an hour to kill before he made his weekly call to Vera, and he planned on using it productively.

  * * *

  LUCY WAS TALKING, but Audrey struggled to take in the words. All she could think about was that moment—that horrible, gut-clenching moment—when Lucy had appeared behind Zach, interrupting the world’s most suggestive conversation.

  She was almost certain Lucy hadn’t heard enough to jump to the right conclusion—her assistant wasn’t a good enough actor to cover a realization of that magnitude—but the sheer closeness of the call made Audrey more than a little sweaty.

  She’d given herself a little lecture about keeping things on track before she came into work today, too. A little pep talk about how, if she behaved the way she always did, no one would ever clue in that she had spent several hours in Zach’s arms on the weekend. Then he’d appeared in her office doorway looking smoking hot in a dark pinstriped suit and deep blue shirt that was almost an exact match for his eyes, and every nerve ending in her body had gone on high alert, like a well-trained dog responding to a high-frequency whistle.

  Every good-girl, sensible vow she’d made had gone out the window when he’d smiled and looked at her with that knowing, dirty glint in his eye.

  He was irresistible. Utterly charming and sexy and magnetic, and whatever puny power she’d had to ignore him had been well and truly incinerated by their marathon session on Saturday night.

  So much for treating him the same as usual—she’d be lucky if her underwear didn’t catch fire every time he was in the vicinity.

  “...so, if you like, I can double-check that, but I think it should be okay.” Lucy waited expectantly, pen hovering above her notepad.

  Audrey shook her head, thoroughly ashamed of herself. Lucy had gone to all of the trouble of coming into work early—overtime she would not be paid for—to help her out in a vain attempt to clear some of the backlog they were all struggling to deal with since Whitman had made his cuts. And all Audrey could do was zone out in a sex-induced zombie state.

  Pathetic. And more than a little worrying.

  “Luce. Sorry. Hold that thought—I’m going to powder my nose.” Audrey sprang to her feet before her assistant could respond, circling her desk and heading for the door. Once she was in the privacy of the ladies’ room, she locked herself in a cubicle and sat on the closed lid.

  You need to get with the program. Now. You cannot afford to drop the ball at the moment.

  She took some deep breaths.

  She was better than this. Smarter and stronger. Good sex was not going to rob her of her focus and determination. It simply wasn’t.

  Feeling much calmer, she washed her hands and returned to her office.

  “Right. Where were we?”

  Resolve got her through the morning and into the afternoon. Then she looked at her calendar and realized she had a department meeting scheduled at three. The first since the layoffs. In other words, mandatory.

  Well, damn. The last thing she wanted to do was spend two-plus hours sitting in the meeting room with Zach and a bunch of other people. Not today, of all days. End of the week, sure, she’d be good to go by then. But today she needed some time to get her game face on.

  Unfortunately, there was no getting out of the meeting, so at three she buckled on her big-girl panties, grabbed the relevant files and
reports, and made her way to the conference room. As luck would have it, Zach was already ensconced at one end, and she chose to sit on the same side of the table at the opposite end so she wouldn’t have to look at him for the whole afternoon.

  As a strategy it was reasonably effective, except that every time Zach spoke, a little shiver of lust ran down her spine as she remembered him whispering dirty somethings in her ear as he moved inside her.

  “You want my cardigan?” Megan asked quietly an hour into the meeting.

  “No, thanks, I’m good,” Audrey said.

  “You’re sure? You keep shivering.”

  “I’m good,” Audrey repeated, willing away the heat that was flooding her cheeks.

  Clearly, she seriously sucked at flying under the radar. Something it might have been good to know before she’d made the decision to turn up on Zach’s doorstep for a booty call.

  She concentrated fiercely on appearing normal for the rest of the meeting, even if her mind was racing in ten different directions at once.

  “Okay, we’re done,” Gary finally announced. “Don’t forget the Makers golf tournament is next Wednesday. We’re at Cape Schanck this year, so there will be transport provided if you need it. Jenny’s got the list of teams for anyone who is interested.”

  Audrey barely managed to not roll her eyes as people began to file out of the room. She hated the golf tournament. As far as she was concerned, it was a big old waste of time and money, and it felt like a particularly egregious waste of both when so many of their colleagues had been given their marching orders and they were all still scrambling to pick up the extra load. The powers that be, however, thought that walking around a big swath of grass chasing an itty-bitty white ball was a great way to maintain relationships with their supply base, which meant she had no choice but to put on a pair of stupid shoes and pants and go mix it up on the golf course.

  Blurg.

  “I hate golf day,” Megan said as they left the room.