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Gwen pursed her lips and considered that for a few seconds. “Maybe you should meet him.”
“Are you in cahoots with Duane? Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Maybe he would be the one to, you know…”
“Gwen, it can’t all be about that. And most likely, it wouldn’t happen. Hot online and hot in real life are two entirely different things. Besides, my luck isn’t exactly good lately.”
“How can you know that until you meet him? You two seem to have such chemistry. I talk to lots of people online, you know I have all my pagan discussion groups, and we have a good time, but it’s not like anything you have been describing.”
Raine sighed. “Well, yeah, I didn’t count on it, it just happened. If we meet, all of that chemistry could go up in smoke.”
“So then, what do you have to lose?”
“Now you sound just like him.”
“Well, you know, I don’t think you should just dismiss it. You don’t have to get serious, but you can, you know, just take him for a test drive, so to speak. All in the name of research.” Gwen’s naughty grin almost had Raine’s own lips twitching.
“Not my style, Gwen, you know that. I’m tired of test drives. I think I am just going to take a break from men for a while.”
“You have been on a break from men for about ten years, by the sound of it. You need a man—a real one—who can flip your lid, so…”
“…to speak, yeah, I got it, Gwen. Stop.”
The warning tone made Gwen sigh and shake her head at Raine. Raine watched her pop up from the chair and felt a twinge of envy. Gwen was intelligent, quirky and an annoyingly eternal optimist.
As the main health and fitness writer for the magazine, Gwen had a body that wouldn’t quit and a lively attitude that drew everyone to her. She and Raine should not have been compatible at all, but they’d become very close over the past few years. Gwen changed her hair color weekly; right now it was platinum-blond with some red and green streaks for the holidays. Thanksgiving had just passed and Christmas was only a month away. Gwen was all sparkly. Raine supposed Gwen made everyone who came into contact with her feel a little sparkly, too.
Today she was slinking around in snug black leggings and a fitted black sweater. She wore at least a dozen silver pentacle earrings and little jingle bells on the toes of her short, stylish boots. It didn’t surprise Raine one bit that Gwen mixed her Wiccan jewelry with her Christmas decorations—Gwen celebrated everything—and at least the jingle let you know when she was coming.
Men tripped over each other when Gwen walked by, not that she noticed. Love ’em and if it’s good, love ’em some more and see what happens was Gwen’s philosophy. She just tripped through life and “trusted the universe”—as she was always advising Raine to do. And she was a good friend. Suddenly Raine felt like queen bitch. Expelling a heavy breath, she tried to make nice.
“Gwen, I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated with Duane and this whole article thing and I want to get it over with and—”
“No problem, sweetie. I have to get back to work, too. Oh crikey—he’s coming this way!”
“Who?”
“Clark!”
Raine puzzled for a moment and then saw Jack Harris appear in the doorway. He would make a lousy Clark Kent was her first thought. His hair was not black, but more of a chest-nutty auburn, and his eyes were not blue, but brown. He had a good build: tall, lanky, muscular and thin. Like a cowboy.
She frowned; he wasn’t dressed for the office. True, the magazine had a fairly relaxed dress code, but Raine valued a professional appearance. Jack did not look very professional in tight jeans and a black cotton, button-up shirt. His hair was a little too long, curling around the collar a bit; he needed a haircut, she thought. No, he did not resemble Superman one single bit. He said something but she missed it, and blinked at him, returning to the moment.
“Hmm?”
“I need to look at your computer. It will only take a few minutes.”
“Why?”
“Routine. We’ve set up a new security system and need to make sure everything is working.”
“Well, okay.” She rolled her eyes at Gwen, who was unabashedly checking out his butt as he walked into the office. As Raine passed by him to get to the other side of the desk, she couldn’t help but notice that he smelled great, like sand and sea.
She looked up, and locked glances with him, then tilted her head a bit, narrowing her eyes and studying him intently. She froze on the spot. Something itched at the back of her mind but she couldn’t reach it. Something familiar. His eyes cooled and took on an unfriendly edge that made him look decidedly un–Clark Kent like. He cleared his throat.
“Excuse me.”
She raised a dismissive eyebrow and slid past, following Gwen out the door.
“God, isn’t he hot?” Gwen gave a dramatic little demonstration of being weak in the knees as she walked down the hallway.
Raine blinked. “Jack? I guess. Though there was something about him… I think I have seen him somewhere, but I’m not sure.”
“Well, it’s a small town. You may have seen him around before and just not thought about it.”
“Yeah, maybe. There was something about his eyes. I just can’t figure out why he seemed vaguely familiar.”
“Oh well, you’ll remember. Anyway, okay, back to Rider— I think you should meet him, just for kicks.”
Raine rubbed her temples. “Gwen, I think I am getting too old to do things just for kicks.”
“You’re thirty-two, not eighty. Not that being eighty should stop you, you know, if you were. Just imagine, if he is even half of how you described him online in the flesh—so to speak.”
Raine could imagine. Imagination wasn’t the problem; reality was the problem. It never lived up. But still, what if it did? How could she ever know if it was worth the risk? She heaved a sigh and looked back down the hall toward Duane’s office. Even if she didn’t want to meet Rider, she felt outvoted by people who wanted her to do it. But what did she want?
“I need to get back to work. I guess I have some major revisions to do on this article.”
“Okay, well, but think more about meeting him, anyway—it could be the chance of a lifetime.”
JACK SWORE PROFUSELY at the computer as he tapped keys and compared what he was seeing on Raine Covington’s computer to what he was checking on his laptop. Something just wouldn’t take and he couldn’t figure out why. He changed the setting on the firewall—the device that kept the network safe—for this particular computer, and it would click off again the minute it rebooted. That just shouldn’t be happening.
He was going to have to take a deeper look to find out what the bug was. It would take some time and digging. Usually this was the part of his job as Network Security Administrator that he liked best—prying open the mysteries of the wires, swimming down into the information flows, right into the nervous system of the machine, and figuring it out. He could get lost in there for hours, forget to eat, and not care.
But now he felt the pressure of time. The last thing he wanted was to spend more time in Raine Covington’s office, so he would have to come in during the evening or on the weekend. It galled him how she had looked at him as if he were a bug on a microscope slide, and then dismissed him like one, too. It even bothered him that it galled him—everything about her was annoying.
He’d remembered her right away when he had seen her name on the employee list. She, apparently, did not recognize him. That was really not a surprise, but it was what rankled most, in spite of himself. Some things you carried with you, whether you liked it or not.
She’d barely noticed he was alive when they were in high school together, though he shouldn’t take that too personally—that was how she was with everyone. He’d thought she was the most beautiful girl in school, but her personality was far from attractive.
Living in a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood in the Connecticut countryside outside Essex, she rarely socialized with anyone at the school, and in fact, looked miserable most of the time. She obviously detested coming to school with the common folk. It hadn’t been a slum, for God’s sake—Eaton Marsh was a well-respected private school.
He had first noticed her in their sophomore year. He had watched her, considered talking to her, practiced what he would say—had a mad crush on her. She was beautiful then; she was drop-dead gorgeous now. But she had the same imperious attitude—that had not changed.
His parents weren’t anywhere near as wealthy as hers. They worked hard maintaining a small bed-and-breakfast in Essex, and it was a life they enjoyed. He had been raised in a home that was open to visitors nine months out of every year, and he’d loved it. His parents were warm, friendly people who’d encouraged him to interact with the visitors at the inn, who were often treated more like family than guests. Through those experiences, he had developed confidence and social skills that many young people lacked. None of it was enough to deal with the likes of Raine Covington, though.
But it was a small world, and now here they were again, and still, when she looked at him, she just saw through him as if he wasn’t even there. At least he didn’t have a crush on her anymore. Though he did feel a little rush of heat when she brushed past him—she was incredibly soft, and smelled like heaven. Flowers and citrus. He closed his eyes and shook his head. She may be a snob, but she was a gorgeous one.
“Is there a problem?”
He snapped his head up, eyes wide-open at her voice. She stood directly in front of the desk, watching him closely.
“A small one. I’ll look into it later.”
“From the way you were sitting there shaking your head, it looked like a lost cause.”
He stared at her then, and he felt something pull deep down inside his stomach. Emotions crowded in, confusing him. How could he still want her after all these years? Because he wasn’t blind, that’s why. God, she was hot.
Idiot. He didn’t want her—he didn’t even know her. It was Nilla, his phantom online lover who had his head, and his hormones, all worked up. Raine just happened to be there, a warm body for him to focus all his frustration on. Nothing more.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“So it is serious? I have a lot of work on that computer—I can’t afford for it to die on me. It’s been acting up lately, so if you could see that whatever is wrong is fixed, that would help.”
“It won’t die on you,” he said. “Just a minor security problem that has nothing to do with everyday functioning. We’ll figure it out another time, but I will have to get back into your computer.”
Her lips pursed, and he realized how much those delicate, arching eyebrows contributed to her expressions. At the moment telling him she was inconvenienced and displeased.
“I have an article due soon, I can’t afford to have these problems keep coming up, and I will be working long hours in here—”
He cut her off, his voice cold. “Don’t worry, I won’t interrupt your very important work, Ms. Covington.”
She couldn’t miss the sarcasm, and she felt heat stain her cheeks. He was angry, and she had no idea why he should be. Maybe he was just having a bad day, or was generally rude. Maybe that’s why they kept him in the basement, she thought with a little sneer. She wasn’t sure she cared, but right now she wanted him out of her office.
“Fine. Thank you. That’s all then.” She dismissed him curtly with those few words and went to move around her desk, when she ran into him again, directly on the spot she had bumped into him the first time. She made a mental note to move her desk over so she could widen that space.
Now he narrowed his eyes, pinning her with a glare. “If you want to be formal, Mr. Harris is acceptable, and if you want to be friendly—although I can’t imagine it—then it’s Jack. Jack Harris. But don’t talk to me like I’m one of the servants of the manor, Ms. Covington.”
He was taken aback to see those cool green eyes flare, and for a moment he was curious to see what would follow. Had he finally gotten a rise out of the cool Raine Covington? Then he saw the puzzlement, and the searching—it was amazing how you could see the mind functioning behind someone’s eyes. She whispered his name, more to herself than him.
“Jack Harris.” She shook herself, and blinked. “I’m sorry.” She diverted her eyes, looking down. “I just thought maybe we had met before.”
“No, I can safely say we’ve never met.”
He had just watched her from afar; they never had actually spoken. Right now, this minute, he found himself closer to her than he ever had been, practically pressed up against her slim, soft form twice within an hour. He shifted a little, trying to slide by, and it just happened that his shoulder brushed one of the soft mounds under her sweater. He saw her eyes widen, and felt a little jab of heat himself. Looking down, he saw a nipple bud tightly beneath the soft material, and felt a masculine surge of satisfaction. Oh, yeah, she definitely noticed he was there.
“Um…” She was flustered, he noted, and trying to move past. Getting a grip, he ignored his moment of insanity and walked around to the front of the desk.
What had gotten into him? Sheesh, she would have him up on charges of sexual harassment, and she wouldn’t be far off the mark. He also felt…guilty? Shaking his head again, he knew he had made the right decision about meeting Nilla or breaking it off. Now he was actually feeling guilty about having a response to another woman behind the back of his virtual lover? This was ridiculous. He had to get his life back. He had to have sex. With a real woman. Clearing his throat, he modulated his voice to be cool and professional.
“What kinds of other problems have you been having?”
“I came in on Monday, and for some reason, all my article files had been erased. I had backups of most of them, but it put me behind because—”
“Where did you have them stored?”
Bristling at his interruption, her eyes went glacial.
“I always keep my active folder on the desktop, so I can have quick access to it.”
“Maybe you deleted your files by mistake. Folders and files don’t usually delete themselves.”
“No, they don’t. But neither did I. Something happened, and they were gone.”
He sighed. It was never anyone’s fault when something happened to their computer. “Anything else?”
“Yes, last week I could barely get anything done. My computer kept freezing up, and was very slow. I had to keep shutting it down and restarting. Then it just snapped out of it and was fine.”
“Sounds like minor stuff. Probably won’t happen again. I’ll send a tech up to look at it later.”
With that, he gathered up his laptop and walked out of the office, leaving her feeling abruptly dismissed. Raine sat down in her chair and let out a breath it seemed she had been holding the entire time he had been in the office. What a strange conversation. Why did he dislike her so much? And why had her body leaped in response to such a casual, accidental touch? It was horribly embarrassing, especially with him.
She tried to forget it. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed. He was in no small hurry to get out of her office, so she wouldn’t have to worry about it again. Shaking off the uncomfortable feeling, she checked her in box, and saw the e-mail pop up on her screen. From Rider. No subject line. Opening it, she saw only one word.
Please.
The decision to meet Rider was becoming a vague possibility in her mind. She kept trying to push down the sense of anticipation, of hope that this time—this man—could be different, but it kept emerging, especially after talking to Gwen. How could she use this as research when she was so obviously losing her objectivity? What if he was just the way he was online? Could she do this? Should she? Her stomach fluttered thinking of it.
What if meeting him turned out to be a total bomb? What if he was crazy, or even worse, married? But in her gut she knew neither one would be true. He would be great. And she would be…well, she wasn’t exactly chopped liver, but she also wasn’t the adventure girl that she had come across as online. In fact, far from it.
But she had always thought, with the right man, someone whom she could open up with, someone who would care, maybe things could be different. Maybe she could be different. At the worst, the spark would fizzle when they actually met, and that would not be a tragedy.
All in all, she led a pretty normal, sane and sometimes boring life. Could she live up to the sexual fantasies they had shared online? Her sex life had ranged from mildly interesting to nonexistent.
But maybe it wouldn’t even come to that. All she had to do was meet him. That was all.
Her readers had been sending her tons of similar questions and stories about their Internet romances and how to handle them. And now here she was, like so many of her readers, wondering what to do. Take the chance? What was life without a little risk, right? How could she ever really know unless she took the leap? She would just control the risk, make sure things didn’t go any direction she didn’t want them to go. Maybe. Maybe she could risk it. One more time.
JACK SHOOK OFF his aggravation, catching a coffee at the cafeteria and heading back downstairs to the Batcave, as they affectionately referred to the subterranean floor of the office building.
He tried to ignore the anxiety of wondering what Nilla was doing at this very second, what she was wearing, if she was thinking of him, if she was considering making them a reality.
The incident with Raine only had his body more fired up, and he hoped something would happen soon, or he was either going to have to dig into his address book, which he was loath to do. They were women he had dated, and whom he liked. He wouldn’t feel right using one of them to work off the hots he had gotten from someone else. It was more likely he was facing several weeks of cold showers until he got over this.
Never again would he get involved in an online love affair. It was just too hard on the body. He slid a furtive glance at his e-mail. He couldn’t believe it, but his heart actually flipped when he saw an e-mail from her. Sent only moments ago.
He stared at it for a few moments, then opened it. One word.
Okay.
Hot damn! He thought his face would split from grinning, and all of his aggravation was lost in a consuming sense of anticipation. He was caught unawares by the person standing behind him.
“Uh, sir? Sir?”
Jack spun around in his chair, realizing he probably looked as if he had won the lottery, and not really caring. One of his guys, Neal Scott, was standing in the doorway behind him. Taking a breath, he got his excitement under control and put his professional face on, though he couldn’t quell the buzz of anticipation that was running through his blood.
“What’s up, Neal? Sorry, I just, um, just got some good news.”
“Oh, that’s good, sir.”
