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“The memo should go to all staff in the Marketing Division.”
“Just our team or domestic, too?”
“Domestic, too. I’m handling this announcement.”
“Promotion?” she asked hopefully.
“I wish it were.”
“Subject?”
“Grey Enterprises,” he said, pacing across the room and stopping in front of the Zen rock garden that he adjusted every day or so.
Uh-oh, she thought. Nick’s deep-blue eyes reflected the frustration and anger in his tone.
“Dammit,” he said under his breath.
“Nick?”
“Have you heard the rumors of a takeover, Lila?”
“Yes, but I’m sure they are unfounded.”
“They aren’t.”
Shock rumbled through her, and for a minute she saw herself back in that duplex she’d grown up in. The government-subsidized housing that had been her world until she’d gone to trade school and accepted this job. She saw herself back in that world she’d struggled so hard to get out of. She saw her dreams slowly dying and vowed that she’d do whatever it took to prevent that from happening.
“What the hell should I say to the staff? Don’t worry, we’re not going to let you lose your job?”
“I don’t know. Is that true?”
“Hell, I wish I knew.”
Lila’s hands started to shake and she realized that this wasn’t just change happening around her. This was the sky falling in. This was—
“Don’t worry, Lila. Clerical staff is hardly ever let go. VPs on the other hand…”
“No one’s going to fire you, Nick.”
“Lila, sometimes you are naive.”
She wanted to argue, but knew that to a suave sophisticated man like Nick Camden, she must seem a little small-townish. “But the board loves you.”
“We might have a new board member.”
“Grey Enterprises?”
“Yes. Marcus Grey, their CEO, has bought eight percent of the common shares on the market. He is now the fourth-largest stock holder.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Whatever we can to survive. I’ve worked too damn hard to give this up without a fight.”
He still stood with his back to her, searching, it seemed, for answers in his Zen garden. She stood, set her laptop on the chair and crossed to him. All her protective instincts told her to cradle this man in her arms. To comfort him and draw strength from the comfort he could offer her.
She knew it was dangerous, though. Nick held her dreams captive, what would happen if she gave him the keys to her reality?
“What can I do to help you?”
He pivoted on his heel and faced her. His deep-blue gaze brushed over her, and when he spoke his voice was huskier than usual. He moved a few paces closer. She could feel his body heat and started to back away. But something in his eyes challenged her to stay where she was.
“For me personally?” he asked.
For work, she wanted to say, but knew that wasn’t true. Her words caught in her throat and she could only nod.
“Let me hold you.”
She wasn’t sure he’d really spoken. It was just like the dream she’d had the night before, in which he’d asked her to come into his office and then made passionate love to her.
“What?”
“I know all about sexual harassment and this has nothing to do with your job.”
“Just hold me?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
She waited.
“I’m going to kiss you, too.”
She didn’t hesitate to close the gap between them. She knew he was reaching out, as everyone in the office had been today. Just searching for some comfort in this time that had become troubled. But deep in her heart, as he lowered his head, Lila hoped it meant something more. Just a little bit more to him.
Nick knew that he was manipulating the situation, taking advantage of Lila because she was weak and vulnerable right now. But he’d wanted her for a long time. He didn’t look too closely at himself because he didn’t want to admit he had any of those feelings. The last time he’d felt this shaken was when Amelia had been diagnosed with cancer.
He brushed her lips lightly with his. She tasted like a bittersweet fruit and he wanted more. She sighed as his tongue slid past the barrier of her lips and teeth, learning the inside of her mouth.
Her hands clutched at the back of his neck and all semblance of control vanished. His groin hardened almost painfully. He clutched Lila’s hips in his hands and held her closer to his lower body, feeling her move slightly. He thrust against her, sharpening the sensations in him.
He knew that Lila wasn’t like the women he’d dated in the past, other executives from outside firms who were hardened by life and more cynical. No, Lila was different. She baked bread for the office when morale was low. She offered life, he realized, and though he knew he couldn’t have it forever, he wanted a small slice of it for himself. He needed to believe for a few moments that he wasn’t alone in the world.
Nick wanted to be a tender dream lover, but his body was on overdrive and he held on to his control by a string. His hands shook with the need to touch all of her. The low lighting in his office cast the room in a comforting glow. He loosened the buttons on her blouse, and met her clear gaze with his own.
No matter how badly he wanted this, he wasn’t going to push Lila to move too quickly. He didn’t analyze why.
“Okay?” he asked, dipping one finger beneath her collar.
She nodded.
He released another button. Her skin was smooth and creamy, like the finest satin sheets. He leaned down to drop kisses on the flesh he’d exposed.
She shivered, her fingers tunneling in his hair and holding him close to her. He quickly opened the remaining buttons and stood back. Taking her wrists in his hands he held her arms away from her body. The bodice of her shirt fell open. A scrap of red satin and lace covered her breasts.
It enraged his senses the way nothing else ever had. It wasn’t right that a bra meant for sin should be on her sweet body, but at the same time it was perfect. There was no other undergarment that could do this body justice.
He deftly opened the front closure of her bra. A quick intake of breath was her response. Deliberately, he bent and took the edge of the right cup between his teeth and slowly pulled the fabric away from her skin.
The stubble on his jaw scraped against her skin and she lifted her chest slightly. Her hands weren’t as subtle, directing him to her nipple.
“Please,” she said.
“Hell, yes.”
He nibbled on her hardened flesh before suckling her deep in his mouth. She held him tight to her body and blood engorged his sex, making him so hard and full he thought he’d explode before he moved on.
The slow pace he was trying to set evaporated. He took Lila’s mouth as he planned to take her. Hard, swift but with infinite care, and he lifted her, carrying her to the cherrywood desk. He set her on its surface and slid his hands under her skirt.
He cursed when he found her warm, wet and wanting. Damn. He needed to fill her. To feel that humid heat on him. To revel in the fact that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
His tongue thrust deeper into her mouth. Needing to deeply embed her essence on every one of his senses, he pulled her panty hose down over hips and legs. He wrenched his mouth from hers.
Urging her to lean back on the desk, support her own weight on her elbows, he spread her before him like a sensual feast. Her blouse fell away from her body exposing her flushed breasts with their hardened tips. Her skirt bunched at her waist revealing panties that matched her bra. His pulse jumped higher, and he couldn’t breath until he’d tasted her intimately.
He sank back in his big leather chair and surrounded her hips with his hands. She glanced down at him, passion still in her eyes, but something else there, too.
“May I taste you?” he asked.
She nodded again.
He bent forward, resting his cheek against the lace and satin that covered her mound. Then he slowly turned his face until he was surrounded by her scent. He couldn’t wait any longer; standing, he ripped her panties from her body and carefully opened his fly.
Lila freed his long erection from his pants and brought him closer to her. The head of his manhood brushed against her and she moaned deep in her throat. She thrust against him, but Nick used his grip on her hips to slow the movement.
He slid carefully into her, slowly savoring each pulse around his hard length. She was small and tight, fitting him like a velvet glove. She tried to rush his possession, but he wouldn’t let her. He was the master here. In her body he’d found the place where he should always be.
He seated himself to the hilt and paused for a moment.
“Keep going, Nick.”
“Oh, I will,” he said, but didn’t move. Instead he bent to take her nipple into his mouth, sucking strongly until he felt her hips moving between his hands, felt the tiny tightening of her muscles against his manhood. Then he pulled out of her and started to thrust. Lila met him thrust for thrust, clutching his buttocks and pulling him to her.
The tension built inside him. He couldn’t hold on another second, but he had to. He waited until he felt Lila’s body clench around his, felt the extra warmth that hadn’t been there before, and then let himself go. Let his release take him to the stars and carry this sweet woman there with him.
He wanted to collapse against her but knew he couldn’t, so he lifted himself away and sank back into his office chair. Eventually his pulse slowed and sanity returned. He zipped his pants and felt the stickiness of their joining. Damn, he hadn’t used a condom.
Lila’s descent to reality seemed to take a little longer, however. Nick knew the moment it happened because she grasped the edges of her blouse together and refused to look at him.
Some mistakes were the kind that took you years to realize, Lila thought as she fought to rebutton her silk blouse. And others stared you in the face from the moment the actions were taken. What had felt so right minutes earlier now felt horribly wrong.
Her heart ached and her stomach churned like a hurricane in the Atlantic. She tried to act calm but having had only one other lover in her life hadn’t given her a lot of sophistication to call on in this type of situation. She slid off the desk and decided she could go home without panties or hose on because she sure as heck wasn’t rooting around under his desk to find them.
With a calmness that she knew had to be some sort of protective shell, she smoothed her skirt, tucked her hair behind her ear and walked away from the man who’d just tilted her neat little world. First with the announcement that the safe predictable life she’d built at Colette was in danger, and then with the soul-searing intensity with which he’d made love to her.
Part of her thought the whole thing entirely romantic, but the forbidding look on Nick’s face told her he wasn’t going to get down on one knee and confess his undying devotion to her.
This heartache’s on me, she thought, knowing that her fantasies about Nick had precipitated their love-making. She wanted to play it cool, but she was afraid if she tried to talk her voice would come out in a high-pitched squeak.
“Lila,” Nick said. His voice was low and calm, washing over her like a warm breeze on a summer’s day. She wanted to go to him and wallow in what he had to offer, but she knew it was a mirage.
“Yes,” she said, picking up her laptop and preparing to leave, still refusing to look at him.
“We have to talk about what just happened.”
Not if she lived to be a hundred would she ever want to discuss this with anyone. And certainly not with Nick. She made a noncommittal sound. Let him take that for whatever he wanted, she wasn’t up for a post mortem right now.
She heard his footsteps and refused to glance at him. His body heat reached her in waves, and now that she knew how strong he was and how right it had felt to be in his arms, he was even harder to resist.
“Honey.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice cracking, as she’d feared it would. The way he’d pulled out of her body and sat in his chair waiting for her to recover told her more than words ever could. He did not think of her in an affectionate way, and she’d tolerate no lies from him.
“Lila, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen but it did and nothing can change the fact that neither of us was prepared for it.”
She became aware of the stickiness between her thighs. She knew immediately that he wasn’t only concerned about health issues but about pregnancy. How careless could she be? she asked herself. Hadn’t she learned anything growing up with her unmarried mother?
“I’m not on the pill,” she said. She was one of the small percentage of women who were allergic to it. It had never bothered her because she wasn’t swept away by desire. In fact, she had found the entire male-female lust-at-first-sight phenomenon to be highly overrated…until tonight.
“Well, hell,” he said, then turned away from her to utter something profane and succinct.
His words cut straight to her heart.
“Yes, hell. This isn’t the end of the world, you know.” Chances were she wasn’t pregnant.
Now he was the one avoiding eye contact. “It is for me.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I made a vow never to marry again.” His words affected her in a way she didn’t want them to, and dashed her secret hopes once and for all. She’d been dreaming of Nick Camden for so long that she’d put him on a pedestal, and here he was revealing his very real clay feet.
“I don’t recall asking you to marry me, Nick Camden.”
His laser-sharp gaze pinned her to her spot. He didn’t say anything in response to her sarcasm.
“If you’re pregnant we can discuss the choices to be made.”
“What are you insinuating, Nick?”
“That we will have to make some decisions once we know the full details of the situation.”
