as charged.” Hoping to get a laugh out of her roomie, she licked her lips exaggeratedly, then segued into a little bump and grind hip action that reminded her how tight the red leather pants were. She’d intended to come home and head straight to her bedroom to slip into something literally more comfortable, but then Gail had been up watching a movie and, from the instant Courtney stepped through the door, had started in with the grilling.
Without a hint of amusement, Gail scraped her fingers through her hair, pulling back the naturally white-blond, mid-back-length locks. “I don’t get you anymore.”
“You don’t get ‘it’ at all.” Courtney regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. Just because she was living her desires didn’t mean she felt everyone had to do the same.
Hurt passed through Gail’s eyes. Then her hands returned to her hips and her expression became one of aversion. “Is that all you think about these days? Sex?”
“Of course not!” Assuming an impish smile, Courtney gave a last attempt at humor. “I think about all the places I’ve yet to pick a man up.”
Gail’s eyes narrowed. “You’re unbelievable. Not even close to the girl I used to know.”
Accepting she wasn’t going to get to her bedroom and comfy clothes anytime soon, Courtney dropped down on the blue and beige striped sofa. “I was kidding,” she assured soberly while removing the killer stilettos and tossing them aside. “I still take plenty of things seriously. You are right about one thing, though. I’m not the girl you used to know. She was average. Boring. Afraid to take a chance for fear of failure.” A country bumpkin who’d nearly let the best years of her sex life flash before her eyes.
“Now you’re a woman who leaps into bed with every guy she meets without a thought to looking beyond if his equipment appeals to her.”
“I don’t do every guy I meet. There have been a few this month and, yeah, a handful last month. But so what? I’m happy. And I leave them happy.”
“So you think. What happens when you hook up with a guy who wants more than a single night and is ready to do anything to see that he gets it?”
“I hook up with guys who want the same thing I want.” If they changed their mind after the fact, the way Mr. Hot Buns had tonight, that was hardly her fault. Even so, Courtney was a good enough judge of character to spot a lunatic. And smart enough to know that when she did dare to walk the line, as in the case of the promised videotape, to send her package “signature required” lest it end up in the wrong hands. “That doesn’t include stalkers or rapists, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m implying,” Gail started sharply. Then all the bluster came out of her on a whooshing breath and a muttered, “Oh, hell.”
Wearing a contrite smile, she dropped down next to Courtney on the sofa. “I don’t really think you’re a slut. You know me better than that. I just worry—there’s always so much crap on the news about some woman being beaten, or shot to death by an ex-lover.”
“Thanks for your concern,” Courtney said sincerely, “but I’ll be okay. We took that self-defense class in college, and I have pepper spray in my purse, if there ever comes a point when I need it. I’m not going to live in fear of such an unlikely event. This is my time for fun, for pleasure, to be more than average. No psycho man is going to ruin it for me.”
Seriously, there was nothing to worry about. Courtney was behaving just like Candy, and Candy had been behaving this way for darned near a decade without incident. She would be fine. Better yet, she would be well sexed and purring like a kitten whenever the urge to get laid struck.
After spending the last two-and-a-half months in the scorching desert heat of Iraq, overseeing the first phases of construction of a multimillion-dollar wastewater treatment system, Blaine Daly was damned glad to be back to Michigan’s generally mild late-June weather. Back to his role of construction manager for Pinnacle Engineering’s Eastern Region. Back to an air-conditioned office building with nearly all the amenities of home, at least on those days he wasn’t required to supervise in the field.
Back to Candy.
Blaine’s smile was automatic as he said good morning to Sherry, the fifty-something, bottle-redhead admin working the front desk, and then breezed on past the short fogged-glass partition that separated the lobby from the two-story building’s general resources and production area. He and Candy had no sexual history and too little chemistry to consider a future fling. Still, he respected her no-holds-barred approach to sex. And he enjoyed the hell out of the way she filled her scanty clothes and livened up an office otherwise occupied by mostly stoic workers.
He’d also always enjoyed her hair, dirty-blond waves that caressed her shoulders and flowed partway down her back.
The woman rifling through the double-wide filing cabinet across the room wore Candy’s risqué style of clothing. A barely mid-thigh-length black skirt hugged the lush curve of her ass. Sheer thigh-high stockings, with black pinstripe, picked up where the skirt left off, and led to dark green three-inch heels that matched her off-the-shoulder, short-sleeve top.
It was her hair that was different.
This woman was a brunette. The ends of her straight, chin-length locks tipped with a lighter shade of brown, bordering on dark blond.
Had Candy gotten a cut and dye job, or who was the woman?
Blaine joined Jake Markham, one of the construction field guys he supervised, at the interoffice mail bins a few feet away. Jake’s hand held open the manila mail folder with his name on it, but his attention appeared fixed on the same spot—make that babe—as Blaine’s.
“New employee?” Blaine asked casually.
Jake looked over at Blaine with far too much appreciation filling his eyes for a guy still in his first year of marriage. But then, hot women had a way of screwing with a guy’s best intentions, and looking wasn’t really a crime. “The new Courtney.”
“Baxter?” Holy shit.
Testosterone pumping through his system like mad and his thoughts far from work, Blaine zipped his gaze back to the woman.
To Courtney Baxter. Mindblowing, yet not a total shocker.
He’d always believed she had an inner dirty girl. Her job as a technical writer responsible for the firm’s local proposal efforts meant they worked together from time to time. Each time they got close, he swore her blue-green eyes revealed naughty thoughts. He’d nearly asked her about them a time or two, and if they didn’t happen to involve the two of them without a stitch of clothing. But he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her, just in case he was mistaken. And nothing ever came out of her own mouth that wasn’t 100-percent professional.
Until now? Or was changing the way she dressed as far as things went?
Without looking Jake’s way, he mused, “Wonder what brought the transformation on?”
“Knowing how women are, she probably realized she’s creeping up on thirty and figured she’d better start using it before she loses it.”
Doubtful. Courtney’s twenty-seventh birthday was still a month away—he recalled seeing her last one mentioned in the company newsletter and the date stuck in his mind for whatever reason. As for losing it, the raw sensuality floating off her body and sucking him in from thirty feet away made it seem unlikely there was a chance of that happening anytime in the next six or seven decades.
“I wouldn’t go there,” Jake said, apparently keyed into Blaine’s thoughts.
Or, shit, Blaine admonished himself, maybe it was the way he was eying Courtney up like a fresh-off-the-grill porterhouse. Losing the wolfish look, he glanced at Jake. “Why’s that?”
“Rumor has it she’s on a pleasure quest, but that she already has a man lined up for when she decides she’s had enough of the hunt.”
Was