Fearless

by Weber, Tawny

  She didn’t expect any big declarations. Girls like her didn’t inspire that from legends like Luke. But no matter what he’d said before, this hadn’t just been revenge.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what it had been.

  “Now?” After a deep, fortifying breath, Luke rolled off her and stood, shaking his head as if he were trying to knock all the cylinders back into place. “Now we do it all over again. But you can be on top this time.”

  Gia smiled, as she knew he intended. But her lips quickly straightened.

  “This is new?” He tapped his finger to her lip ring.

  “No.” She grimaced, feeling more bare than just naked skin.

  “This is me. Just like this is me,” she said, touching her plain brown hair.

  “And that is me.” She pointed to her cute but not designer shoes, then met his eyes with an apologetic look. “Average ole me. Nothing fancy, nothing glittery like Vanna.”

  He gave her a long stare, his gaze shifting from her hair to her lip ring, then meeting her eyes again. “You know, the last word I’d prescribe to you is average. You’re gorgeous, yeah. But you’re smart. I love how you refuse to take limits, how you see beyond impossible. You’ve got a wicked sense of humor, a sweet laugh and the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen.” His brow furrowed, as if he were considering the question, then shook his head. “Nope. Nothing average about you or the way you make me feel.”

  Gia almost melted into a big ole puddle of emotions right there in his arms. She’d never felt so special. Never felt so happy to be herself.

  As if ready to back up his words with a little more action, Luke’s hand skimmed up her still-trembling thighs. She sighed, then, as much as she hated to do it, rolled away from the probing delight of his fingers. They needed to clear this up first.

  “We shouldn’t. I mean, our jobs are at stake. That was incredible. Great sex, you know. But we should stop now. We can call it an oops. Breaking the rules with an oops is bad but not so bad we can’t get away with it. But if we do it again, we’re past the oops stage and into trouble. Big trouble.”

  She knew she was babbling. She didn’t need Luke’s amused eyes and twitching lips to tell her she’d barely made sense. Gia took a deep breath and tried to clarify.

  “Mr. Landin thinks you wanted to discuss a promotion, yet you said you brought in someone else to lead the team. Even with the door locked, if we’re in here banging against the walls all weekend, someone’s bound to notice. We’ll be fired.”

  “I don’t think so. I took your advice and tried a challenge. I wasn’t blindfolded this time, and it was a hell of a lot harder. The challenge, not other things,” he said with a laugh, gesturing to his still-impressive erection.

  Damn, he had a fine body. Sleek and golden, even in the harsh office lights. She’d hoped she had built him up in her mind, that her memories of him were sexier than the reality. Her eyes traveled over the breadth of his shoulders, over the curved strength of his biceps and down the solid taper of his torso. She let out a sigh as she reached his thighs.

  The man was pure eye candy. The kind that made her center all warm and gooey. And made her heart melt like chocolate in the hot sun. Had she ever felt anything as delicious as the reactions he stirred in her body? She was pretty sure the answer was a big fat no.

  “So us being together isn’t an issue. Now you’ll kick techie butt and I’m going to see if I’m up for the challenge. What do you think?”

  She’d been so busy enjoying the view Gia hadn’t been paying any attention to what he’d been saying. She had to blink a couple of times and rewind the past few minutes before she could respond. But most of it was blank.

  So all she could come up with was “Huh?”

  “I quit Tri-Solutions.” The look he gave her made it clear he’d already said that. Probably a few times.

  Realizing she should be paying much closer attention, and knowing she wasn’t going to be able to if there was a possibility of licking her way down his chest again, Gia rolled off the desk, grabbing his discarded shirt as she went.

  She thrust her arms into it, reveling for a second as the soft cotton and Luke’s scent enveloped her. She buttoned the front enough to protect her modesty, even as she scooped up his jeans and tossed them his way.

  “So you decided to take the Kettlemens position, then?”

  “Nope.” He pulled the jeans on but didn’t bother buttoning them. Which meant that Gia’s eyes kept sliding down that sleek, naked chest to the tempting thatch of hair visible above the denim.

  He was killing her here.

  “I realized a couple of things. One, that while talking up the product and playing solutions manager comes naturally, it’s too easy. Like you said in Vegas, there was no challenge.”

  “I wasn’t dissing your skills.” One hand raised as if she could erase that thought from his mind, Gia shook her head.

  “Well, you did have some insider info that you played on that weekend,” he pointed out. His smile pure wicked delight, he opened one desk drawer and pulled out her robe sash. The one she’d used to blindfold him. Gia’s stomach tumbled and her breath stuck in her throat. She wet her lips, meeting his eyes with a questioning look.

  “I plan to tie you up and put some of my insider knowledge to good use later,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he were telling her the time. “But you were right. I need a challenge. And I’m not going to get it doing something I have no passion for, like tech work.”

  “So…?”

  “So I’m starting my own business. I’ll do product management but on a freelance basis. I’ll pull in my contacts, match clients with projects. Tri-Solutions already agreed to contract me for the retail project we were working. We’re talking about a few others, too.”

  Delighted, Gia almost clapped. It was the perfect answer. He’d do what he was good at, charming clients and explaining the products, bringing in sales and generating buzz. But he’d have to expand his skill set, to be his own boss. Starting any business, even one you were awesome at, was a huge challenge.

  Gia’s lips twitched. Well, he’d already proven he could do huge in Vegas. This new challenge would be a piece of cake.

  “I’m so excited for you,” she told him, giggling a little. “Although I can’t imagine Landin is thrilled. He escorted me in here to talk about a fake promotion and instead he’s losing his top guy at the company.”

  “That wasn’t bullshit. You’re getting promoted to my old position.”

  “Product management and publicity? I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “I’m not a people person.”

  “No. Project leader. You’re taking over the retail project, and I’ve recommended you for another few they’d lined up for me that I won’t be able to handle now that I’m leaving.”

  Excitement, so different from the sexual thrill yet just as heady, coursed through Gia’s body. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, as if needing to be sure she was real. That this was real.

  “You think I can take your place? You think I’m strong enough to handle a project like that?”

  He paused in the act of pulling a bottle of wine from his mini fridge to give her a baffled look.

  “You’re fabulous. Why wouldn’t you rock it?”

  He really believed that.

  He wasn’t saying it because he was trying to get in her panties or just because he was a nice guy. He totally, completely believed that.

  Gia opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  She couldn’t think, couldn’t pull together a single sentence.

  She could only feel.

  He thought she was a killer tech. A natural leader. Hot and sexy. So desirable he’d chosen her for his doing-it-on-the-desk fantasy. A fantasy he said he’d entertained for years but never wanted a woman enough to make a reality.

  That sure as hell wasn’t average.

  It was freaking awesome.

  She thought of that night she’d played getting’ itwith her friends. How al
l she’d thought about was getting the fantasy.

  “I thought this was just, you know, sex. Something that comes really easy to you. Something I’d get to enjoy, something I’d remember for the rest of my life,” she confessed.

  He grimaced but didn’t disagree. Instead, Luke handed her one of the glasses of wine, then tilted his head for her to continue.

  “But we were more than sex. There was a connection. The way we talked, the way we shared. I felt closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anyone else.”

  Words of love trembled on her lips, but Gia couldn’t say them. Not yet. She would, though. Soon. Just as soon as she knew they were so solidly enmeshed in reality that neither of them could claim fantasy fogged their emotions.

  “I felt the same. I feel the same,” he corrected. “I’ve never gone to this much trouble, cared this much, for another woman before.”

  She’d hoped. She’d wanted to believe. And as much as she hoped for sweeping declarations of love, Gia knew it was too soon. If she heard them now, she’d have trouble believing them She’d figure it was all fantasy.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do everything possible to cement their new reality so they could share those words soon.

  “I want more,” she told him.

  “How much more?”

  She wet her lips, then straightened her spine and met his gaze with a determined look.

  “I want it all. I want to see what we can make of this.” She gestured between them with her glass, the pale gold liquid sloshing. “I want a relationship. A com—”

  She broke off on the word commitment.

  Not because she was afraid of making that demand of Luke. But because she was afraid of being worthy of it. Then, realizing she was done with that crap, she lifted her chin and said again, “I want a commitment.”

  Luke’s smile was wide.

  Sexy and sweet, his full lips curved as he gave a contemplative nod. Then, his gaze intense, he clinked his glass against hers.

  “You’re on.”

  “I am?”

  Love, intense and powerful, poured through her. She didn’t know if it was real yet. She wasn’t sure if it would last. But she knew he was feeling the same thing and that he wanted to see where it went. And that was everything.

  “But I have a couple of conditions,” he told her, his words slow and contemplative.

  Giddy, Gia took a sip of her wine before offering him an arch look. “And those would be?”

  “Fantasies. Lots of fantasies.”

  She set her glass aside so she could slide her hands behind his neck, pulling his head down for a delighted kiss.

  “Babe, I’m going to make your reality so hot, so sexy, so wild, that you won’t have room for fantasies.”

  Then, to seal the promise, she set out to do just that.

  USA TODAY bestselling author Tawny Weber has been writing sassy, sexy romances since her first Harlequin Blaze book was published in 2007. A fan of Johnny Depp, cupcakes and color coordination, she spends a lot of her time shopping for cute shoes, scrapbooking and hanging out on Facebook.

  Come by and visit her website, at www.tawnyweber.com, for hunky contests, delicious recipes and lots of fun.

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  ISBN: 9781743643693

  TITLE: FEARLESS

  First Australian Publication 2013

  Copyright © 2013 Tawny Weber

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. N.S.W., Australia 2067.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office in other countries.

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