by Julia Kent
“With his mouth?” Shannon asks skeptically. “Because so far, all he’s done is kiss you and not ask you out.”
“Three times! He kissed me in his office the day I tried to fix the mess between you and Declan. He kissed me in the on-call room at the hospital when you swallowed the engagement ring. And then last night, after my anal date, he—”
Tap tap tap.
I look up to find Declan’s assistant, Grace, standing in the open doorway.
“Your what?” she asks. If my grandmother were alive she’d be Grace’s age. Grandma would probably have the same look of untempered disgust and extraordinary curiosity on her face as well.
“Anal gland date,” Shannon adds. “She forgot a word.”
“That really does not clarify,” Grace replies. If she frowns any harder she’ll be a Shar-Pei.
Why does everything remind me of dogs?
“I went out with a guy last night who likes to express—oh, never mind.” I give up. My phone buzzes. I check it.
Reminder: DoggieDate #2 noon
“Oh, shoot!” I snap, standing. “I completely forgot that I have another date today. A lunch date. We’re meeting at the Esplanade.”
“What’s up, Grace?” Shannon asks, trying to change topics.
Grace gives me a look as I check my calendar to see what else I’m forgetting. “Declan wanted me to invite Amanda to your lunch date today at The Fort, but I see she has anal lunch date...er, I mean, another lunch date.” Grace rushes off like she’s retching.
It’s hard to rattle that woman.
I’m that big a mess, aren’t I?
“Look,” I say with a long sigh. “This isn’t me. This really isn’t me. Look at me!”
“You look like Amanda. Brown hair, big eyes, overpainted red lips, and ex-cheerleader body.”
“I know, right? I—wait. Overpainted? I’m not overpainted!”
Shannon’s mouth tightens like she’s been caught making an error. “Er, no. Of course not.”
Tap tap tap.
We look toward the door. Declan walks in, his cologne following him by microseconds, a blend of cloves and cotton. He reaches for Shannon and gives her a gentle kiss right under her ear.
What is it like to be known so well by a man? I’ve had short-term boyfriends. Friends with benefits. A one night stand here or there. I’m no prude, but I’m not the town barfly. Nothing wrong with being somewhere in between, but what Shannon and Declan share feels so out of my league. I can’t imagine living in concert with someone where the invisible boundary that makes me me and him him dissolves at will.
At the power of something greater than simple consent.
Green eyes the color of money look at me. Declan’s wearing a suit that costs more than my first year of college. He’s holding Shannon against him, arm wrapped across her back, hand cupping one hip like it’s a mug handle.
“Amanda,” he says pleasantly. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“How can it be a surprise when Grace just asked if I’m having lunch with you and Shannon after my meetings?”
Confusion fills his face. “Grace asked that?”
Shannon laughs and turns to me. “Grace runs his entire life. Declan’s just a passenger.”
“See?” I taunt. “Just like the sugar cane farm for Andrew’s sweetener.”
Declan’s bemusement deepens. “His what?”
Before I can answer, Andrew’s executive assistant appears. “Ms. Warrick? Mr. McCormick will see you now.”
Chapter Eight
The last time I was in Andrew’s office he was wearing bike shorts. Tight ones. Nice, snug Lycra shorts so fine I really should have shoved a dollar bill in his waistband as a tip for the show. Not that he needed the money.
As his admin guides me to his office, I try to center myself. In an hour I’m meeting Mr. Teacup Chihuahua, a guy matched to me mostly based on my description of Spritzy in the DoggieDate database. We’re going to the esplanade so I can meet Muffin, his little teacup sweetie. In our brief email exchanges, my date insisted he needs to make sure Muffin likes me before taking the next step and having her meet Spritzy, lest his dog become too attached to him.
Him.
Not to me.
My mind is racing to think about anything but the image of Andrew McCormick, who is turned away from me, his broad, muscled back on display. His charcoal suit jacket is draped casually over the leather club chair across from his desk. He’s looking out the glass wall and over the city. A few floors below I see the Pac-Man-based topiary for the game design company in the building next door.
As I peer closer, I realize they have added a dog run.
And is that a pool...filled with dogs?
Huh. Note to self: run a database query on DoggieDate to see how many employees from that company are on DoggieDate, and suggest marketing to them as part of overall strategy for strengthening new accounts.
See? I’m good. As good as Shannon.
Anterdec should hire me.
Andrew spins around in his Herman Miller chair and holds one finger up to me. His face is intense, eyes dark in concentration, and he’s coiled with the kind of frustration that comes from negotiations that are stalled. The telephone conversation he’s having is one that probably requires more privacy, but I instinctively do as told and wait in place.
As I lift his suit jacket from the chair, his cologne fills the air.
It takes every bit of self control I possess not to huff it like a little kid with fruit-scented markers and no adult supervision.
My fingertips can’t help it. They’ve seceded from my rational mind, stroking the fine cloth that has just been resting against those cultured pecs minutes before. The cloth is warm, still, as if he shed the jacket seconds before I walked in. It’s almost like being in his arms last night.
Almost.
The pale imitation is worse than nothing. I would rather never, ever see him again than sit here, trying not to lick the wool weave, using every ounce of restraint I possess to maintain a professional exterior that shows my true nature.
I am a fixer.
I can fix this.
I can fix me.
Andrew ends the call and gives me his full attention. It’s like drinking from a trickle at a water fountain and suddenly having a fire hose aimed at your face.
A sensual, sultry, hot-as-Hades fire hose.
“I assume you’ve kept your mouth shut?” he starts.
Nothing like cutting to the chase. I see what this meeting is about. We’re here to talk business. The business of keeping his secret about becoming the new CEO of Anterdec Industries. Nothing more. I can play this game.
“Except when you’re kissing me.”
Or I can play my own game. My rules. My board. My pieces.
My tongue.
The way he tilts his head just so as his mouth tightens, then spreads into a smile is like watching a rainbow form in the sky.
“I appreciate that.” His voice goes low and suggestive. Flirty, even. I’m not imagining this.
“Open-mouthed kisses? I noticed.” I match his tone.
He blinks repeatedly, the smile impossible to suppress. Dimples. Dear God, he has the McCormick dimples. Of course he does. His family’s DNA has more dimples in it than Tom Brady’s.
“I was talking about silence,” he says, standing quite suddenly. The movement may be abrupt, but his animal grace is studied. He knows how his body affects mine. Andrew McCormick is a master at knowing how to read other people.
He has a problem, though.
So am I.
Andrew has tells. One eyebrow quirks up right now as he gives away the fact that he’s less self-assured than he was when I entered the room. The open discussion about kissing is intriguing him, but it’s not distracting him. This meeting has a purpose.
And he’s determined to stay focused.
“Silence. You mean the kind of silence that comes after being kissed by you? Or the kind of silence you ass
ume you can kiss your way into?” I ask.
The eyebrow goes down. His face goes slack. Those smoldering eyes narrow.
Now I have his full attention.
“I kissed you because you were about to spill a family secret at a less-than-opportune time.”
I look pointedly at the door to the closet in his office. “Really? Which time? After your spin session right there?” I motion toward the door. “Or after Shannon swallowed your mother’s engagement ring?”
“You know perfectly well which time.” His voice is full of an amused smoothness. Instead of resuming his seat behind the desk, he walks around and sits on the edge, manspreading in front of me, a foot and a half the only space between us.
There goes that cologne again.
“I do?” My words come out breathy, like Marilyn Monroe running after the ice cream truck. “It’s getting hard to keep track of all the kisses. I’m nearly ready to draw up a spreadsheet.”
“Would you like my assistant to create a database instead?”
“Do you plan to enter me that many times?”
He inhales sharply, then leans forward with the intention of a man who needs to confirm a fact. His hands are folded, forearms resting on his thighs. My mind races to process what I just said.
What I should have said is Do you plan to enter me into the database that many times? but I didn’t.
What I actually said is not what I meant to say, but that doesn’t matter now, does it?
Too late.
The skin around his eyes moves with amusement and a hint of something so dangerous I can’t breathe.
“That depends,” he says quietly.
“On what?” The less I say, the better.
“On whether you’ll slap me every time I,” he clears his throat suggestively, “enter you.” He smiles, the innuendo giving me permission to smile back. “In the database, I mean.”
“Well, now, that depends,” I reply, matching his voice, trying so hard to keep this light and fun. That’s all it is, right? We’re just sparring partners taking verbal jabs at each other, with kisses as the topic. I tell myself this because if our conversation means something less, then it won’t hurt when he ignores me again, and if it means more, then—
Then I can’t even bear to think that way.
I’m inhaling his scent, which changes as we continue, the heat in the air between us altering the space. Like alchemists, we’re taking words with specific meanings, fixed characteristics that do not change, and turning them into something wholly forged anew.
His heat is melting me, and I’m not certain what I’ll be like when I reform and take on the new element I’m in the process of becoming.
“Depends on what?” he asks. The game is on, and while the rules aren’t defined, the outcome most assuredly is. We both know exactly how to score points. The only question that remains is how can we both win?
“On whether you enjoy being slapped. Some men do.” I lift one shoulder and bite my upper lip, the look meant to tease, to taunt. I inhale slowly and let him watch me. I’m not a woman you hide from the world in closets, or one you smother with kisses to keep her quiet.
Not anymore.
Bridging the distance between us, he extends a hand to me. I take it and he pulls me up, into the space between those toned thighs. Even though my hips don’t touch his legs, I can feel the hardness of those thick muscles, the coiled power in them calling out to be touched.
Without invitation, I reach down, palms on his knees, and watch my own hands ride up to his belt line. Slowly, with a maddening pace that makes seconds feel like lifetimes, I look up.
I never see his eyes, but oh, how I feel his mouth. Unlike all the other kisses we’ve shared, this one is planned. Seductive. Intentional. Andrew is in no rush, and we’re not taken off guard or hiding from anyone—especially ourselves.
His hands circle my waist and mine slide up the hard contours of his back, the soft cotton of his business shirt so smooth it’s like silk. My fingertips touch the base of his neck as he bites one of my lips, sucking with just enough intensity to make me wish I were the kind of woman who kept a spare pair of panties in her purse for occasions like this.
Funny how they never covered this topic in Girl Scouts.
He pulls back, then tightens his arms around me, holding on as if he were touching me for the first time, as if we’re discovering each other with a serendipitous joy that should be savored and that requires constant contact. The room disappears, the past two years fade, and all my worries and insecurities about this man who kisses me in closets and who is so mysterious and aloof dissolve like the boundary between our bodies as we just let go.
“Four,” he whispers against my ear as he pulls back, the soft rasp of his cheek against mine just ticklish enough to make me shiver.
“Four what?” I gasp as he nuzzles my neck, those warm arms staying wrapped around me. The longer he holds me, the more I can believe this is real.
“Four kisses. For our database.”
“Right. Four,” I say weakly. My knees tingle and the feeling travels up. This is real, all right.
“Let’s make it five.”
“Five is a good number.”
A telephone rings in the distance. I twist in his arms and look behind us. To my surprise, his office door is open. He is kissing me in public. That’s twice now.
And his arms are still around me.
“Six is even better.”
And with that, he adds so many entries to the database that I lose count.
Chapter Nine
The sound of a man clearing his throat is the next conscious event that pierces my psyche.
“Excuse me? Eleven-thirty meeting?” It’s Declan. I step out of Andrew’s arms and close my eyes in embarrassment, like a child who thinks if they can’t see the world the world can’t see them.
Andrew looks over my shoulder. I feel the movement rather than see it as his palm slides down from the base of my breast to my hip. “Give us a minute. We’re wrapping up our meeting.”
“You’d better wrap it,” Declan mutters. “Shannon and I are having the first grandchild. You don’t get to win that one, too—”
“Hey!” Andrew barks, moving swiftly across the room and shutting the door in Declan’s smirking face. I watch his body, my mouth buzzing with his taste, the lingering sense of his kisses making me giddy with the sheer nonsense of being in a different layer of life for a few minutes.
How can a kiss (or nine) do that?
Andrew stands at the door, his back to me. He squares his shoulders and begins nodding to himself. I imagine, if he faced me, he would be silently preparing himself for the moment he turns around and tells me this is nothing. We are making a mistake. A kiss (or nine) are enough, and let’s just part our separate ways and stay friends.
He turns around, looks at me, and says, “Lunch?”
Not what I expected to hear.
“Excuse me?”
“We’ll have lunch. I’ll cancel my meeting with Declan and we can continue this database discussion over lunch.”
I really, really hope database discussion is code for kissing.
My stomach flip flops. Lunch. Lunch. I look at the clock.
11:32.
“I...can’t.”
He looks utterly shocked. “You can’t? Why not?”
“Because I have a date.”
“A what?”
“A date.”
A fake date. I can’t say that part, though. First rule of mystery shopping: never, ever reveal your true identity. I can’t admit the DoggieDate dates I’m going on are fake. I can’t tell him the truth. Some part of me wants to break every professional rule right now, and my body is screaming at me to make an exception.
But I can’t.
I just...can’t.
He scowls. “A date. You’re dating? You have a boyfriend?”
“No boyfriend.”
He blinks, alternating between widening his eyes and a fu
rrowed brow. “But you’re dating.”
“Yes.”
“Men?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re dating men?”
“Who else would I date?”
“Shannon.”
“Excuse me?”
“You dated Shannon. For a while there. At least, you pretended to.” He looks very confused. “I never really got the whole story from Declan. Something about you and Shannon being married, and then you weren’t, and then you stormed into my office and kissed me and demanded that me, Dad and Terry all act in your hotel scheme—”
“Hold on there. I kissed you?”
“Of all the things I just said, that’s the detail you’re going to focus on? What about my question about men?”
“I did not kiss you! You kissed me!” As for whether I like men, if he can’t tell the answer to that one by now, then we need more kissing.
Er, database discussion.
“You barged into my office and started ranting about what an asshole Declan was, right after my spin session. Then you pulled me into my closet and started kissing me,” he recounts.
“You have a memory made of Swiss cheese. There are more holes in that story than in a J. Lo Oscars gown.”
“You didn’t barge in here?”
“I did,” I concede.
“And you didn’t pull me into my closet?”
“I did. To hide from Shannon, who magically appeared at the exact worst moment.”
“And you didn’t kiss me?”
“No, I did NOT. You kissed me. I remember it perfectly.”
“So do I.”
“Glad to hear it. Funny how nearly two years went by without a word from you. Good to know you weren’t suffering from a rare case of kissing amnesia.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me a weird smile. “That’s what this is about?”
“What what’s about?”
“Your attitude.”
“I don’t have an attitude. You’re the one with the attitude. Two minutes ago you were kissing me, then you found out I have a date, and now you’re a Neanderthal.”
“I’m a Neanderthal? What’s that supposed to mean?”
