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“Not now,” he said, and moved his hand down her body.
Not now? Emily felt herself grow even hotter from anger. Not now? Who the hell did he think he was?
He pushed his hand into her panties and then slid his fingers into her, and she forgot she cared who he was and moaned at the sheer tormenting ecstasy of his hand.
His doorbell rang.
“Make love to me now,” she said to him. She crawled on top of him, pushing herself down on his hand. “I can’t believe how much I want you.”
“Wait.” He moved his hand away. “I’ll get rid of whoever it is. I’ll be back.”
“No,” she said, trying to hold on to him, but he slid out from under her, kissing her breast as he went and leaving her gasping on the bed. After a few minutes, she pulled herself up and saw herself in the mirror at the foot of the bed. Her French twist had loosened, her eyes were half-closed with lust and her mouth was bruised from his. She was naked to the waist, flushed with need for him.
And he was in the living room, talking to someone.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered. She slipped off the bed, put her bra and blouse back on and tucked her hair back into some kind of order. Then she ejected the tape from the VCR and went into the living room.
He was standing at the door talking to George, whose eyes went wide when he saw her.
“Thanks for letting me use the VCR,” she said, pulling on her coat. “See you tomorrow.” She ducked around them both and walked rapidly toward the elevator. The doors slid open at once, and she got in.
I can’t believe I did that, she thought. I can’t believe I almost did that. With Richard Parker. Who is beautiful, but sort of cold. Only he wasn’t cold tonight. Oh, my God, she thought. I really want him. She leaned back against the wall of the elevator and thought about how wonderful making love with him would have been. Except that he had to answer the damn door. She’d said no, don’t, but he knew best. He didn’t listen. The hell with him.
She caught a cab home and then dreamed of him all night, making love to her to the sound of doorbells.
* * *
“AND WHAT DID WE DO that was so special yesterday?” Jane asked archly.
“I had a bad night,” Emily snapped. “Say what you mean.”
“Three dozen roses in a crystal vase on your desk. Here’s the card. It’s sealed so I couldn’t read it. You will, of course, show it to me because it would be too cruel of you not to.”
The card read, “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. Richard.”
“Fat chance.” Emily dropped the card into the wastebasket. She handed Jane the videotape. “Watch this tonight and see what you think. For product placement.”
Jane promptly fished the card out of the wastebasket and followed her into the office as she read it.
“Richard, huh? What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do.” The roses were lovely. She handed them to Jane. “Send these back to him.”
“Boy, he must have really screwed up,” Jane said, taking the vase.
Jane buzzed her twenty minutes later. “The Hun is on line three. Be gentle with him.”
“Ha.” Emily punched three. “Yes?”
“Emily, I’m sorry about last night.”
“You should be.”
“Let me make it up to you.”
“Not even with rubies. Any man who would leave me for George—”
“I just wanted to get rid of him so we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
“And when the Girl Scouts came selling cookies, you’d talk to them, too. And Jehovah’s Witnesses, and some guy working his way through college by selling encyclopedias.”
She heard a faint buzz, and he swore. “Hold on a second,” he said. “I’ve got another call.” And the line fell silent.
Emily clutched the receiver in a death grip and then carefully returned it to the cradle.
Jane opened the door. “I saw the light go out. What happened?”
“He put me on hold.”
Jane swallowed. “Oh, boy.”
“The lousy son of a bitch put me on hold.”
Jane went out, closing the door behind her.
Emily stared straight ahead, rigid with anger.
Jane buzzed her again. “Richard on two.”
Emily picked up the phone.
“Emily, I...”
“Don’t you ever put me on hold again.”
“Jane said that was a mistake,” he said ruefully. “Let me make it up to you.”
“You can’t make it up to me. Not with dinners, not with roses, not with rubies. You are a controlling, cost-effective, power-mad, anal-retentive, deaf son of a bitch!” She ended on what from a lesser woman would have been a shriek and slammed the phone down. Then she buzzed Jane.
“I am not taking any calls from Richard Parker no matter what he has to say. If he wants to communicate with me, tell him to send a memo.”
“Right,” Jane said.
* * *
“MEETING IN THE conference room at five,” Jane said as Emily got ready to leave that night.
“What?”
“Memo just in from George’s office.” Jane handed it to her.
Emily groaned and crumpled the memo. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“Well, you can as soon as you’ve done the executive bit.”
“I wish I was a secretary.”
“No, you don’t.” Jane put her coat on. “You’re a terrible typist. You’d starve. See you tomorrow.”
Emily kicked off her shoes and sat in the gloom of her office. I’m so tired, she thought. And my panty hose are driving me nuts. I hate panty hose. They’re an invention of the devil. I’m never wearing them again. She took them off as a gesture of independence and threw them away. There was a run in one leg, anyway.
Instantly she felt better, cooler. She leaned back in her chair and spread her legs apart to cool them, reveling in the relief from the scratchy heat of the hose. It reminded her of other ways of feeling good. It reminded her that she was still so frustrated from the night before she wanted to kill.
It reminded her she still wanted Richard.
No, she didn’t. She was going to forget him and go home.
She looked at the clock. Five-fifteen. Damn.
She slipped her bare feet into her heels and went down the hall to the conference room.
“George?” It was dark in the room, and as the door swung behind her she bumped into him, tall and broad and muscular.
Not George.
Richard.
CHAPTER FOUR
“OH, NO.” EMILY turned to leave, but his arms went around her from behind, pulling her gently back against him as he buried kisses in the side of her neck.
“No doorbells this time,” he whispered. “I swear.”
She felt dizzy with the sudden heat he stirred in her.
No, she thought, fighting it. No way.
She kicked back at him with her heel, and he said, “Ouch!” but he didn’t let go.
Emily meant to say no. She knew she could pull away easily, that he wouldn’t stop her. But his mouth was so teasingly gentle on her skin, and he was so hard against her, and finally she just wanted him so much. She gave up and turned and found his mouth in the dark and licked his lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth as she thrust her hips against his. She heard him gasp and felt his body shudder under her assault, and then he picked her up and sat her on the edge of the conference table, moving his body between her legs. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him tight against her as his fingers fumbled at the buttons of her blouse. She tried to undo his shirt, but he was leaning down to her breasts, running his tongue across her.
Then she heard voices in the hall. The cleaners.
“Not again,” Emily said.
And Richard said, “No. Nothing stops us this time.” He pulled away from her and slid his hand under her skirt to pull off her bikini panties.
“You put me on hold again, and it will be the last time you ever touch me,” Emily said with blood in her voice.
“If I have to, I’ll make love to you while the cleaners watch,” Richard said, and she lifted her hips to help him slide her panties off.
“I wish I could see you,” he said. “You’re so beautiful, but it’s too damn dark in here.” His hand slid between her legs, and he stroked her there, tormenting her, kissing her shoulders and neck, until she laced her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers.
When he stopped, she said, “No, don’t stop,” and tried to pull him back to her, but he kissed her and pulled her to the edge of the table. She realized that he was fumbling with a condom and she laughed until he slid hard into her with a suddenness that made her cry out. His hands, clamped on her hips, pulled her to him again and again, and he leaned into her each time, to stroke as deeply as he could, building the heat and pressure in her until she cried out and twisted in his arms, and he drove harder and faster to spur her to explode again and again until she collapsed in his arms and lay there shuddering, her legs still wrapped around his waist.
Someone knocked on the door. “Anybody in there?”
“I promise,” he whispered to her, and picked her up off the table by wrapping an arm around her. He backed up until he felt a door behind him. She unwound herself from him to stand beside him, and he opened the door and pulled her inside, closing the door after them. He heard it click shut just as the cleaner turned on the light in the conference room.
“Where are we?” she whispered dazedly into his shoulder. A little light filtered around the edge of the door.
“We’re in a closet,” he whispered. “I hope to hell it isn’t a broom closet.”
“They don’t use brooms,” she said, and an electric sweeper began to whine outside the door.
There was no room to sit down, so he held her against him and she moved so that her breasts pressed into his chest. “I wasn’t finished, you know,” he whispered in her ear, and picked her up, easing himself back inside her, pinning her to the closet wall with his body. She wrapped her legs around him again, and he throbbed against her. He was being gentle and slow, and she bit him on the shoulder. “Harder,” she said, and he slammed himself against her, pulsing into her until she cried out weakly. He muffled her cries with his own, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in the same rhythm that his hips thrusted against hers. Emily came again as she never had before, the muscles inside her clenching and expanding over and over while his tongue stroked her mouth. Then she heard him moan and felt him slump against her, holding her to the wall while he shuddered.
“Richard,” she said, and he kissed her.
“We’ve got to do this in a bed,” he whispered, touching her hair. “It’s so much easier.”
They held each other, kissing and touching wordlessly, until the cleaners left.
“Come home with me,” he said.
“I can’t.” Emily put her head on his chest. “I don’t have anything to wear tomorrow.”
And I’ve got to think about this, she told herself. Because this is more than I expected. This is more than I ever dreamed of.
But when they reached the street and he hailed a cab, he got in beside her and gave the driver his address.
In the back seat of the cab, he couldn’t seem to stop touching her, not to arouse her but almost as if he had to prove she was there beside him. He looked at her as if she was a miracle, touching her cheek, her hair, holding her hand. The smile in his eyes was more than just heat and lust. She felt loved and desired and claimed.
The claimed part bothered her.
“Richard...” she began.
“I want to make love to you all night.” He kissed her sweetly. She felt dizzy every time his mouth touched her.
“No, listen,” she said, and he laughed and kissed her again.
He was a great kisser.
He was a terrible listener.
When Richard got out at his apartment, he turned to help her out, but Emily pulled the door shut in his face and told the driver to go on. I want him again, she thought, but on my terms this time. Because if I don’t establish some kind of equality in our relationship pretty soon, I’m going to spend the rest of my life being ignored, humored, dictated to and put on hold.
Even to be with Richard, that’s too big a sacrifice.
