that he was as attracted to her as she sometimes appeared to be to him, because he believed his player reputation could be a turnoff. Now it seemed that was exactly what she was after. A guy who knew when he was wanted and had no problem moving on when that want had run its course.
His body kicking to full awareness with the knowledge, Blaine looked back at Courtney. Only, she wound up being a whole lot closer than planned. If she were taller, he would have ended up with his nose stuck between her breasts. As it was, and with her heels on, she was almost mouth level to him and he came damned close to brushing her lips with his.
For the instant it took her to gasp and step back, he felt the warmth of her breath mingling with his own. Saw the flicker of unmistakable lust in her eyes. Caught the hitch in her breathing as her response to his nearness moved from surprise to desire.
He grinned as the truth flooded him.
He hadn’t been mistaken with his wonder if her naughty thoughts were about the two of them naked. She wanted him. And the rousing of his cock spoke volumes about his want for her.
An appreciative smile curved her glistening, red-painted lips as Courtney slid past him to nod at his field guy. “Morning, Jake. Love the shirt.” Slim black bracelets jangled along her suntanned arm as she fingered the open collar of Jake’s polo shirt, letting the wine-colored material slip slowly from her fingertips.
Jake said something in return, but Blaine could give two shits less what it was.
Courtney was back to looking at him. Her thickly lash-fringed eyes filled with those same daring thoughts he’d been sure of seeing a hundred times before. The difference was that her expression was unguarded now. Her body inclined toward him. Her breasts inches from filling his hands. With the off-the-shoulder style of her top, it wouldn’t take much effort to work the material the rest of the way down her arms and then off.
“Have a good trip?” she asked in a voice just this side of seductive.
There were a lot of ways he wanted to answer that question. Vocally. Physically. Up against the duplex printer. Preferably when the top was lifted and her bare butt cheeks pressed against the warm glass.
Since this was the office and, while he never made a secret of his reputation for getting around, he had a lot of coworkers under his employ and respecting his professionalism while on the clock, he stuck with the first. A vocal, nonsexual response. “Yeah. We got a lot accomplished. I’d love to tell you about it, but it would take a while and I’m due for a conference call in five minutes.”
“That’s too bad.”
It for damned sure was. The department-head meeting was the reason he’d returned to work on a Friday, instead of taking the weekend to recoup. The meeting, and the fact that he felt like he’d been neglecting his local responsibilities for far too long already. The work being completed abroad was under a Pinnacle contract. Still, no one had filled the bulk of his shoes while he was away. “Drop by my place tonight.”
Avid interest lit Courtney’s eyes. Her smile turned wickedly playful…and then vanished. “I wish I could, but I have a date.”
“Bring him.” A little competition didn’t scare him, particularly since he wasn’t looking for anything serious for the time being and, clearly, neither was she. “I’m having a ‘Back from Iraq’ get-together.”
“You are?” Jake piped in, reminding Blaine he was still standing there.
There hadn’t actually been a party planned, but it appeared there was now. With Jake working in the office this morning and out in the field this afternoon, he was as good of a source for getting the news out to their coworkers as any.
Blaine nodded. “I’ll shoot you an e-mail with the details.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Jake finished fishing the mail from his interoffice folder. After giving Courtney a too-friendly smile, he started for the stairwell that led to the construction and transportation departments on the building’s second floor.
“When you said to drop by your house, I thought you meant—” Courtney stopped short, waving the words away with the clink of her bracelets. “Never mind.” Her smile returned, slightly diminished but still playful enough to have Blaine eager for a taste of her lips, quickly followed by the rest of her hot body. “Maybe we’ll stop by. You still live in the brownstone outside of Kentwood?”
“I do.” And those thoughts of yours were dead on.
He wouldn’t risk speaking the words where anyone could hear, but there was no reason Blaine couldn’t convey what he’d intended behind the closed door of his office. “If you’d rather catch up before tonight, I should have some time after lunch. Stop by my office.”
“Tempting.” Perfectly arched eyebrows rose as her gaze dipped from his face to cruise intimately down his body and back up again. “Seriously, it is,” she said in a thready voice when their eyes again met. “But I’ll have to pass. I have a proposal going out this afternoon and you know how they have a way of dragging out till the last minute.”
“I do.” He also knew if his cock jerked that hard in response to her bodily assessment while he was clothed, it was going to do an entire hula when she eyed him up naked. “See you tonight.”
Courtney started away from him without responding. Just when she would have rounded the corner to the hallway leading back to her cubicle, she looked back, over her sexily bared shoulder, and flashed a grin that could only be termed dirty as sin. “If you’re lucky, you will.”
2
“Sounds like someone used the stall with the vibrating toilet seat,” Candy observed when Courtney returned to her cubicle.
Breathing heavy with her excitement over what had gone down with Blaine, Courtney sank onto her office chair and laughed out loud.
Though she’d been sitting across the hall from Candy since coming to work for Pinnacle two years ago, Courtney had known little more than the woman’s name, that her lively personality made her a superior public relations specialist, and that she had more men at her beck and call than Courtney had met in her entire life.
Witnessing the intense gleam of satisfaction those men left in Candy’s eyes on a daily basis had been one of the many reasons Courtney finally said to hell with her upbringing-induced reservations. That gleam was the precise reason she sought out Candy’s help in getting in touch with her inner vixen. They still didn’t hang out much beyond working hours, but now she knew Candy had a delightfully warped sense of humor and a fierce loyalty to those lucky enough to call her friend.
Courtney kicked a heel against the gray Berber carpet, sending her chair spinning around until she faced Candy’s cubicle. Her smile came as quickly and naughtily now as it had when Blaine intuited she should drop by his house tonight for sex. There’d been a second there where she thought she’d read his invitation wrong, that he wasn’t as attracted to her new look as she’d been attracted to him from the day they met. The impatient way he eyed her up when he suggested she stop by his office instead of waiting until tonight trumped any misgivings.
He wanted her.
If it weren’t for needing to wrap up that proposal and her planned date with another man, she would spend the hour after lunch and then several hours after work tonight showing him exactly how much she wanted him.
There would be another chance. Soon, if the hungry ache he stirred in her pussy had a say. “I’m still getting used to the whole feminine power thing.”
A knowing smile curved Candy’s lips and edged into her brown eyes. “Who is he?”
“Blaine,” she said loudly enough to be heard but not overheard.
“Hate to break it to you, doll, but you could have had him long ago, even without working the feminine power angle.”
Candy’s assured tone pricked a hole in Courtney’s bliss bubble. She knew about