by Lori Wilde
She’d get a grip. Eventually. After all, a girl needed a few minutes, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and some privacy when she was hit in the face with something like this.
She wanted her private ice-cream minutes, dammit.
“Participation?” he mused.
It wasn’t the smooth, innocuous words that sent a warning up her spine. It was the wickedly dangerous look in his eyes. Time to fast-forward to the ice-cream portion of her day. Shoulders stiff, she straightened from her desk and stepped forward to gesture to the door.
She hesitated, then defrosted for just a second. “Look, obviously this was a shock for both of us.” The tight anger at the edges of his eyes loosened a bit. “We have to work together and we’re both professionals. We want this project to succeed. So we’ll make the best of it. The past is just that, gone, and I’m sure we both want to forget all about it, right?”
She was proud of herself. Her words were reasonable. Her tone just shy of teacher to student. Very sensible and calm.
Before she could wrench away her arm patting herself on the back, though, his expression shifted. Oh, sure, the anger was gone. But he got this predatory look, as if he was calculating the amount of time it’d take to get her out of her lab coat.
“Alex—”
She didn’t have a clue what she was going to say. It didn’t matter, though. He moved so fast, grabbing her arms and spinning her so she was trapped between the door and the looming length of his hard, muscular body.
“Forget it?” he muttered. His hands slid down her arms to bracket her wrists, right there at her hips, so he was leaning over her. She wasn’t a short woman and wasn’t used to men…looming. That’s why the nerves were knotting together in her stomach, she told herself.
“Alex—”
“Forget how you look naked in the moonlight?” he asked, his words low and warm. Warm enough to heat up those knots in her stomach and make her feel all melty inside. “Forget the taste of you on my tongue? The sound of your cries as passion takes you crashing over the edge?”
Her throat as dry as sand, Dru swallowed and shook her head. “It was lovely but—”
“Lovely?” Alex goggled for a second, then he threw his head back and laughed. Despite her irritation, Dru’s lips twitched at the sound. He had such a great laugh—infectious, light and free.
Like him, she realized.
And not like her. She was none of those things, which he’d see for himself now. Why that hurt so much, she couldn’t say.
“Fine, lovely, nice, peachy keen,” she amended, rolling her eyes. “But it’s over.”
“Because you say so?”
“That would be reason enough,” she retorted, wishing he’d back up a little. It was hard to think straight when the heat of his body was wrapping around her like a teasingly sexy hug. “Other reasons would be that vacation flings end when the vacation ends. Or that this kind of thing is wildly inappropriate given our situation. Or maybe that you lied to me.”
“Bullshit,” he growled. Apparently her argument was too much for his fragile thread of control, because she saw it snap as she looked into his dark eyes. Saw him make a decision.
Dru barely managed to shake her head in protest before his fingers tunneled into her hair. His mouth sprang the trap. Protests evaporated at the familiar taste of him, his tongue sweeping along hers, demanding she respond.
Her brain shut off. Her last thought was that this why Alex was so dangerous to her. He could make her stop thinking with just the touch of his lips. And without her brains, what was she?
In trouble. That’s what.
His fingers smoothed her hair while his other hand swept down her body, moving her lab coat aside, and then trailing back up her waist to cup her breast.
Dru couldn’t stop the moan of pleasure as he squeezed a familiar, exciting rhythm. She wished desperately that she was wearing something more feminine. There was nothing sexy, or accessible, about her button-down cotton shirt or boring bra.
But he made her feel sexy anyway. His fingers skimmed along the top of her bra through her shirt, then slid, somehow, beneath the edge of her bra, using the friction of the shirt’s fabric to tease the aching, needy tip of her breast.
She pressed closer, her hips swirling in a slow, welcoming dance against the hard evidence of his desire. With a purr of approval, she ran her hands over his narrow hips to cup his butt and pull him tighter, closer.
The kiss exploded. Tongues dueled now. His fingers speared through her hair, wrapping around the back of her head to tilt her mouth to the exact position he desired. His other hand made quick work of the buttons at her chest, shoving that fabric and her practical bra aside so he could rub his fingers over her hardening nipple.
Dru wrapped one leg around his thigh for better pressure, rubbing her throbbing core against him and wishing they could get rid of all the layers of material between them.
She needed to feel him. Needed his hands, his mouth on her body, quenching this building fire. The only thought in her head was more. More heat, more intensity, more Alex. The man was pure sexual magic.
Dru heard a pounding from far off. As if her heart was beating so loudly, she could actually hear it echoing off the walls.
She easily ignored it and rode the wave of passion.
It wasn’t until she felt the thuds against the back of her head that she realized someone was knocking on her office door.
The door she was currently getting hot, wet and wicked against.
“Stop,” she gasped in a husky whisper, pulling away from Alex’s questing mouth. She turned her head to the side to avoid him when he tried to recapture her lips.
Holy shit, what was she doing? As if the pounding had flipped a switch, her brain reengaged. Dru unwrapped her leg from Alex’s thigh and released his ass to push against his chest, trying to get free.
“Stop,” she repeated, trying to stifle the panic. God, was she insane? “We’re done with this kind of thing.”
“It’s not over until the flame’s extinguished,” he said, his words quiet, his tone threatening her sanity as he finally stepped back to release her.
Dru’s chin lifted and she narrowed her eyes. Anger at feeling cornered calming her nerves.
Before she could snap at him, though, the door pushed open to bounce against her butt.
Frustrated and flustered, she hurried over to her desk while trying to tidy her hair. All she could think was how the hell she was supposed to explain what they were doing. And why she was all flushed and unprofessional looking.
Then she saw who was in the doorway and relaxed. Not much, but enough that the air could reach her lungs again.
“Oh.” Nikki’s gaze zipped from Dru to Alex, one brow arched in speculation. “Sorry if I interrupted. I thought your door was sticking again, Dru.”
“It’s unstuck now,” Dru said as hot color poured over her cheeks. Since Nikki had most likely seen their images against the glass door, her friend probably had a solid idea what’d done the sticking. Quickly slipping her buttons closed, Dru moved around Alex without meeting his or Nikki’s eyes.
“Well,” Nikki drew out, giving Alex a friendly look. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you’re finding your way around the labs. I can see Dru’s tending to your…comfort?”
“Hardly,” Dru muttered under her breath. “Alex was just leaving.”
They both stared at her as if she was crazy. Nikki’s look clearly said Yeah, right, while Alex’s was more along the lines of a whole lot of frustrated swearwords. Dru didn’t care. She needed to think, she needed her ice cream and she needed her space.
Bottom line, she needed him gone.
Alex started to say something, but then he got a better look at the stubborn expression on her face. He wasn’t the rock-star brainiac for nothing, apparently, because after a second, he shrugged and nodded.
“We can finish this tomorrow,” he promised.
The hell they could. They’d finished it last week and
she wouldn’t forget that again. But she let it go, instead moving to push the door open wider so he could leave.
“We have an 8:00 a.m. meeting with Dr. Shelby regarding funding and support. I’ll see you there.”
“At least I know where to find you,” he said, the clipped words letting her know he was going to hold a grudge over her Los Cabos departure choices.
A part of her silently mocked that if she’d known how pointless sneaking off would be, she’d have stayed for one more day of mind-bending sex.
But that was also the part of her that’d wanted to wrap him up and bring him home to keep forever and ever. So she ignored it.
“Oh, and by the way, you can reach me at the Hilton,” he informed her with a long look as he stepped into the doorway. “Just in case you want to continue this…discussion.”
“I won’t.”
With a smile that called her a liar, he strode out the door, pulling it shut behind him.
Dru’s shoulders sagged in relief.
“Care to tell me what I just walked in on?” Nikki invited with a big smile. The dancing humor in her dark eyes made it clear she already knew, and was both amused and fascinated at the idea of Dru acting so out of character.
“That was an oops,” Dru muttered.
“Oops?” Nikki’s snort of laughter earned her an angry glare. “Is that the scientific term?”
“Psychiatric term is more like it.”
“Crazy?”
“That’s a good way to put it.” Not knowing what else to do with all the pent-up sexual frustration and nervous energy, Dru started pacing.
“Well…” Nikki drew the word out. “I guess I don’t have to ask if my suspicions were right. Obviously Dr. Maddow sidelines as a sexy fling.”
“Only by virtue of subterfuge.” Dru stormed from one end of her office to the other, turning to stomp the return five steps in quick succession.
“He lied his way into your bed?”
Her angry steps halted, Dru shoved a hand through her loosened hair and tried to figure out how to answer. She wanted to say he had. She wanted to believe he had. It’d feel so much better to believe that.
But, like Alex, she wasn’t a liar.
Dru dropped into her chair and gave an angry jerk of her shoulder.
“We didn’t make it to the bed the first time,” she muttered.
“Details, please.”
Dru had to force down her laugh. Leave it to Nikki to find the fun.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, c’mon. You’ve always shared all the deets of your lousy sexual experiences. Don’t think I’ve suffered through only to be stonewalled on the good stuff.”
“He was better than the gasper,” Dru offered.
Nikki rolled her eyes.
“Okay, better than the gasper and the wheezer and the groaner put together.”
“Oh, please.”
Dru propped her elbows on her desk and dropped her head into her hands, her fingers pressing against her temples in an effort to relieve the pounding stress.
“He was incredible,” she admitted. “Every woman’s dream fling. Attentive, sexy, charming. He was all the good stuff and now he’s all the bad.”
“Good stuff, bad stuff? He’s not a food group or a weird fashion trend.”
“No, he’s worse.”
Dru looked up to meet Nikki’s eyes, finally letting all the fear and devastation she felt show on her face.
“He’s the man I had the best sex of my life with. He’s the one with whom I let my guard down, let see the real me. And he’s the biggest mistake I could have ever made.”
Compassion and confusion warred in Nikki’s eyes. She leaned back, considering, then finally shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s here. When he was in Los Cabos, he was perfect. I could be what he wanted. Sexy and free and uninhibited. But here, I have to be, well, me.”
“That’s not a bad thing, Dru.”
But it was. She wasn’t fun and easygoing and adventurous here. In San Francisco, she was uptight, worried and ambitious. Hardly qualities to turn a guy on.
Not willing to dig into that particular corner of her psyche, though, Dru just shrugged. “Bottom line, he’s the worst thing that could happen here. For me, for the project, for my career.”
“I don’t get it. Why? You’ve had sex with brainy guys before. Hell, you’ve specialized in geek sex for years.”
“Never someone I had to work with. I’ve never broken Trifecta’s policy and dated anyone associated with the lab,” Dru pointed out. “And the geeks were never like this. Those relationships were just that, relationships. It wasn’t as if I jumped into bed with them within hours of saying hello. They were…”
“Safe,” Nikki summed up.
Dru jerked her shoulder. “Safe or not, they didn’t endanger my peace of mind.”
Nikki gave her a long, searching look. The kind that Alex gave, that strip-you-bare-and-see-all-your-secrets look.
“Is that peace more important than your happiness?” she asked.
Hell, yeah. But Dru knew her friend well enough to realize that that kind of response would earn her a cozy little pep talk. So instead, she went with a well-practiced shrug and a side step.
“Right now, my career has priority. And that’s going to last longer than this…relationship,” she said, figuring that sounded better than sexually induced brain drain.
“You’re overthinking this. It’s not like he’s here long enough to be an issue. A few months, max. See it as a gift, like an extended warranty on a really impressive vibrator.”
“A vibrator that’s almost five years younger than I am, ten times more successful and—if this gets out—perfectly capable of derailing my reputation.”
She wanted this project to launch her career, to prove she had what it took to be a leader. She didn’t want the success, or failure, of it to be tied in to her sleeping with Alex. Dru knew all it would take was one whisper, one hint of sexy times between the two of them to start that rumor.
Nikki just rolled her eyes, though, in that way that women who had no worries about their own sexuality and attractiveness did.
“Is it that you’re afraid you’ll have sex with him again? Or that you’ll have sex and discover it really wasn’t the best sex of your life?”
Dru recalled the fully dressed, near orgasm against the door. No, that was definitely not a viable hypothesis.
“It’s one thing to fake being the sexy-fling type for a week,” Dru explained, risking the pep talk for total honesty.
“And I didn’t even make it the whole seven days,” she admitted, throwing her hands up in frustration. “But it’s another thing to watch the guy who laid you down on the banks of sexual nirvana and made you scream in delight realize that you’re a fake. I’m not the fun, sexy woman he fooled around with, Nik. As soon as he gets to know me, the real me, he’s going to lose interest.”
“He looked pretty interested to me,” Nikki pointed out, shaking her head at Dru’s logic. “I mean, it wasn’t like the sight of you in a lab coat was doing anything to douse his libido.”
“Phantom sexual urges,” Dru dismissed.
Nikki gave her a baffled look.
“You know, when someone loses a limb, they sometimes have phantom pains, like a part of their brain imagines the limb is still there. Itching. But it’s not real. That’s what he was doing. Trying to scratch an itch that wasn’t really there.”
“Girlfriend, the hard-on that guy was sporting when he hobbled out of here looked one hundred percent real from where I was standing.”
It’d felt one hundred percent real pressing against the wet, aching heat between Dru’s legs, too.
Argh. She tugged at her hair, trying to make her head work right. He wasn’t even here and he was affecting her brain. Because even though she knew there were a million reasons he was horrible for her, she couldn’t remember one that mattered.
Thinking time, i
ce cream and some space. She was sure with those three things, she’d be back in control. She had to be. Because now there was more on the line than just her heart.
Now, her career was at risk. And to Dru, that was much more important.
9
A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP, a relaxing breakfast overlooking San Francisco Bay and the mental challenge of an exciting new project were all Alex needed to kick his day off to an excellent start.
Unfortunately, he’d slept like crap, he’d been too irritated to enjoy his breakfast or the view. And the only project he was interested in was cornering Drucilla and settling this mess so they could get back to the incredible sex they were meant to have together.
Unlikely, given that she was still in ice queen mode. Alex leaned back in the chair and stared at the woman across from him, trying to reconcile her with the deliciously sexy beach babe he’d fallen for a couple weeks ago.
He and Drucilla were meeting with Trifecta’s director this morning to discuss funding. From the comfortable byplay he’d seen, both when he’d arrived and in the ensuing discussion, Drucilla and Glenn had the same conservative view of where this project was going. A mathematical study on the interplay of cosmic strings, hydrogen gas and gravitational influences. If it could be proven, it’d have a huge impact on all their careers. Trifecta’s and Drucilla’s, to be sure.
And for Alex, it’d hopefully be the key that would finally net him his grandfather’s seal of approval. The old man set the bar for approval pretty damn high, too. A bar Alex had been trying to reach all his life. A bar he was grateful for, since it pushed him to excel, to take chances. And most of all, to keep moving on, rather than staying in one place and getting stale.
But that approval wasn’t going to be offered if Trifecta played this project as a pussyfooting soft sell. The government grants and funding Drucilla had lined up weren’t going to cut it. They needed real money.
Instead of saying something, though, Alex bided his time, collecting information and impressions in order to do what he always did. Get his own way.
