Packed With Pleasure

He rubbed his palms together, requested the restaurant’s most expensive bottle of champagne, asked them to ice it and then called his florist to order a small bouquet of flowers. He planned on laying his cards on the table, giving Eden the full court press. He wanted her to know exactly what was on his mind—that he was very attracted to her, but he wasn’t the marrying kind.

Alec didn’t want to waste either of their time with silly mind games, nor did he want her to get hurt. If his initial impression of her had been wrong and she wasn’t all about fun and adventure, then he needed to know that now.

Because ever since their electric meeting yesterday afternoon, Alec had only one goal on his mind.

Seducing Eden Montgomery.

“YOU WERE RIGHT,” Jayne Lockerbee told Sarah Ramsey Armstrong. “They are perfect for each other. Sparks flew the minute they laid eyes on each other.”

Sarah pushed a strand of sleek blond hair behind one multipierced ear and grinned over the top of her cubicle at her co-worker. They were both financial analysts for Dean-Sterns Investments, although Jayne worked only three days a week.

“When you gave Zach and me that erotic gift basket for a wedding present I knew whoever had made it was exactly the kind of woman Alec needed. Earthy, grounded, intelligent and yet incredibly sensual.”

“That’s Eden to a tee—even if she doesn’t yet have the self-confidence to realize her feminine power. But with our help, she will.” Jayne grinned.

“Yes! Enough with the airheaded bimbos already. Alec goes for them because they’re not a threat. My brother needs someone who’ll challenge him both inside the bedroom and out, whether he knows it or not.” Sarah clapped. “Making this match is going to be such fun.”

“Are you sure Alec is ready to settle down?” Jayne frowned. “I care about Eden and I don’t want to see her hurt. She’s vulnerable, especially since the fire. I think the last guy she was seeing really did a number on her ego.”

“Relax. My little brother’s got his faults, but he’s not a heartbreaker.”

“But he publishes a magazine worshiping the merits of bachelorhood over marriage and he has dated a lot of women,” Jayne mused.

Sarah waved a dismissive hand. “A lot of what you see is public relations. Alec doesn’t treat women frivolously and he hasn’t had nearly as many girlfriends as he likes everyone to believe.”

“Really?”

“Now, he wouldn’t admit it if you tortured him, but I’ve seen the wistful way he looks at Randy and Jill and me and Zach. No matter how much he protests to the contrary, he’s not built like Uncle Mac. Sooner or later he’s going to realize what he’s missing by clinging to his silly belief that love and marriage mean the death of fun and freedom. And I think your Eden is just the woman to teach him how to face his fears. He’s going to love the intimacy of monogamy once he gets a taste of it.”

“How do you know?”

Sarah held out her left hand and admired the big diamond sparkling there. “Until I met Zach, I was afraid of commitment, too. We Ramseys are a stubborn bunch, but when we do fall in love, we’re in it for the long haul.”

“I remember.” Jayne laughed. “I kept trying to tell you what a wonderful thing a good marriage was.”

“So I’m a slow learner. Let’s hope Alec realizes sooner than I did that there’s nothing more profound than finding your soul mate. Not to mention hot, hot, hot.”

“The sexual chemistry between those two was unmistakable,” Jayne said. “I thought Eden’s boutique was going to combust.”

“All they needed was a push in the right direction.” Sarah nodded. “They’ll thank us in the end.”

“I’ll call Eden after she comes back from their luncheon and see how things went.”

“I’ll keep you posted on what Alec says.”

The two women grinned at each other and Sarah started humming the matchmaker song from Fiddler on the Roof.

WOULD LIGHTNING STRIKE twice? Or had yesterday simply been a fluke?

Wetting her lips to dampen her nervousness, Eden changed from her Nikes in the ground-floor ladies’ room at Trump Towers and slipped into the pair of four-inch Jimmy Choo ebony sling-backs Jayne had loaned her.

Was Alec Ramsey really the man she wanted as her love mentor?

That was the question she was here to answer.

In the meantime, she had caved in to Ashley and Jayne’s demands that she vamp out, although she couldn’t shake the feeling she was leading Alec on, acting like an experienced, sexually confident woman when that’s the last thing she was.

“Act the part,” Ashley had encouraged when she’d insisted Eden borrow her skintight black leather skirt that was long enough to hide Eden’s burn scars but short enough to generate plenty of head-turning interest. On the subway ride over she’d gotten a half-dozen appreciative wolf whistles.

“Perceiving, behaving, becoming,” Jayne had imparted along with the Jimmy Choos, and a pair of dynamite black fishnet stockings with sparkly rhinestones sewn into the back seam.

But what had finally convinced her to give their plan a try was the editorial in the front pages of the October issue of Single Guy. She was impressed by the way Alec advocated responsible sex and described all woman as goddesses. As the publisher of a magazine aimed at bachelors, he might be commitment shy, but reading the article clued her in that Alec definitely knew how to indulge a lady.

And that was exactly what she needed. A temporary tryst with a tender and considerate man who wouldn’t head for the hills when he discovered her secret.

Eden peered at herself in the bathroom mirror and was startled to see how unruly she appeared. She ran a hand through her rowdy curls to tame them. The humid weather played havoc with her hair, giving her a just-tumbled-out-of-bed look. Her lipstick color too red, her mascara too thickly applied.

Bad-girl glam.

She felt restless and reckless and edgy. And those alien feelings scared her. She wished she’d had the courage to explore her sexuality more fully before the fire, before she had the scars to contend with, but she’d been too chicken. Frightened of catching a communicable disease or of ending up like her mother or of getting her heart broken.

Or all three.

Which was why she was in the situation she was in now. Sexually frustrated, with her creativity stagnant. Dared she hope that Alec Ramsey held the key to her liberation?

She glanced at her watch. Five minutes to one.

“Show time,” she whispered to her reflection, slipped her sneakers into her satchel, took a deep breath and headed for the fourteenth floor.

Controlled chaos greeted her when she stepped off the elevator and pushed through the double glass doors with Single Guy etched into the panels with a bold, masculine font.

Phones rang incessantly. People hurried to and fro squeezing past each other in the narrow corridor at the same time someone was holding an impromptu sales meeting right there at the central credenza.

The walls were bright and splashy, featuring advertisers’ posters hawking everything from imported liquor to expensive automobiles to the trendiest menswear fashions.

Copies of Single Guy were stacked everywhere. Executive toys rested on computers and desktops. Daring alternative rock music blared from a high-tech sound system and a help-yourself popcorn machine filled the air with the scent of freshly popped, buttered popcorn.

The place was energetic, lively and imaginative. A grown-up guy’s playground. And Alec was right in the big middle of the free-for-all.

Eden stood to one side for a moment, watching him.

He wore a black turtleneck sweater and formfitting trousers that showed off his breathtaking physique. His longish hair was sexily tousled. His profile was dazzling—regal nose, rugged chin, high cheekbones.

Her pulse bounded through her veins at a feverish pace as the William Tell Overture galloped crazily inside her head.

He migrated from person to person, pumping his employees up, urging them to give a hundred and ten percent to the job at hand. He brainstormed concepts on the fly, storytelling, networking and motivating with nothing more than a smile and his irresistible presence.

She quickly realized he managed his team with the mental equivalent of chain-saw juggling. He kept a permanent smile hardwired to his chiseled features. He was everything she was not. Witty, inspirational, charming, impulsive.

Without a doubt this mover and shaker would be a dynamo between the sheets. If she slept with him, would some of that high-energy enthusiasm rub off on her? She hoped so.

Eden noticed a serious-looking young man hovering at Alec’s elbow. He was keeping up with everything that transpired, calmly and methodically jotting down notes in a Palm Pilot.

Ah, she thought, the follow-through guy. Alec was the idea man; the younger dude was the one who made it all come together. Alec was smart enough to surround himself with the right people.

In that brief span of two minutes, Eden’s admiration for him doubled. Oh, to be so spontaneous, so unselfconscious, so alive.

Alec pivoted on his heel, spun in Eden’s direction and stopped cold.

The minute he spotted her, his grin widened and his eyes rounded. He looked as if he’s just won an Atlantic City jackpot. The million-dollar expression in his eyes went a long way in repairing her damaged self-esteem and earning him a hundred brownie points toward becoming the lover she finally let see her scar.

“Wow,” he said, low and husky as he stalked closer, “look at you.”

Leisurely, he combed his gaze from the top of her head, down her low-cut red sweater, to the snug-fitting leather skirt, to her fishnet stockings, to the sexy stilettos and back again. Her clothes issued a provocative message Eden feared she could not back up. A long moment passed and she almost turned and ran.

But the appreciative look in Alec’s eyes held her anchored to the spot.

The entire office had followed his movements and now all of his employees were staring at her, obviously intrigued by the woman who’d captured their dynamic boss’s interest.

Eden felt her cheeks flush. Oh great. She was blushing like a schoolgirl. But no man this influential had ever had quite this reaction to her before. She had longed for this very outcome when she’d donned her sexy outfit, but now that she had his undivided attention, she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

She smiled shyly and raised a hand to her throat. “I overdressed, didn’t I?”

“No. Oh, no. You look absolutely gorgeous. Are you ready to get down to business?” His gray eyes smoldered with a sexuality that took her breath away and his full, masculine lips held her mesmerized.

“Pardon?” Eden blinked. She’d been fantasizing about kissing him and his question caught her off guard.

“Lunch, the gift consultation.”

“Oh, yes.” She patted her satchel. “I’ve got everything right here.”

“Yes, you do.” He grinned rakishly, allowed his eyes to take another trip over her body and Eden knew he wasn’t talking about what was in her portfolio.

In that moment, she made her decision. In spite of the nervousness knotting her stomach, in spite of her fears that he was anticipating a femme fatale and there was no way she could measure up to his expectations, in spite of the gamble she was taking by risking his ultimate rejection, Eden knew what she wanted.

Correction, what she desperately needed in order to recover her creative self-confidence.

A red-hot fling with the sumptuous Alec Ramsey.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.