Play Thing

by Nicola Marsh

  ‘Just so you know, windows become reflective at night with the lights on in here,’ he said, so close she could smell his distinctive aftershave, some expensive heady blend of citrus and spice. ‘In case you ever needed to make rude signs at me in the future.’

  Horrified, Charlotte felt heat scorch her cheeks. He’d seen her.

  ‘Listen, we rub each other the wrong way—’

  ‘Do we?’ He spun around to face her, still so close she could touch him if she were so inclined. ‘I think the way we spark off each other has more to do with battling residual sexual tension.’

  Damn, why did he say the S word? She could handle thinking about their encounter in her head, barely. Having him articulate it made it all too real. She needed to forget their sizzling connection, not remember.

  ‘We agreed to forget about that,’ she said, resorting to the same proper tone she’d used to put that rugby dude back in his place.

  ‘We did and we will.’ He glared at her, as if this buzz between them were all her fault. ‘We’re both professionals and I’m sure we can act like it.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, with a terse nod, but why didn’t she believe him?

  He sounded strained, as if articulating their need to keep things between them strictly business-focused was an effort.

  ‘Maybe we should have dinner together? Clear the air, establish a better working rapport?’

  ‘Dinner?’ She made it sound like he’d invited her to eat rat poison with a side of nails.

  The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘You do eat, don’t you?’

  Yeah, but not with him. If keeping her mind on work in the office with him around was hard enough, trying to pretend she didn’t want him over dinner would be impossible.

  Sharing a meal implied camaraderie and intimacy, two things she couldn’t associate with him. She had willpower; she wasn’t a saint.

  ‘I might have other plans.’

  A blatant lie but it should let her off the hook.

  To her surprise, anger darkened his eyes as he dragged a hand through his hair, appearing perplexed for the first time today. ‘Don’t tell me it’s that rugby Neanderthal.’

  Oh, my. Was that why he’d acted so crazy about her smiling at that client? Was he jealous?

  No freaking way.

  So she pushed him a little. ‘Could be.’

  His brows knitted together in a formidable frown. ‘It’s unprofessional to date clients.’

  ‘And it’s unprofessional to shag the boss but hey, we’ve already been there, done that, haven’t we?’

  She flashed a sickly sweet smile, silently berating herself for taunting him. A stupid, naive move when his gaze dropped to her mouth as if he envisaged the perfect way to shut her up.

  Uh-oh.

  ‘Alex, whatever you’re thinking, you know this can’t happen for a number of reasons. We just agreed to keep things professional because we’re grown-ups. So get that look out of your eyes—’

  ‘Damn it, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to muddy our working relationship. But there’s something about you...’ He reached out, as if to touch her, before thinking better of it. ‘I need to focus one hundred per cent on getting this company back on track and you’re messing with that.’

  He shook his head, his expression tortured. ‘I can’t get you out of my head and that lack of concentration is going to affect how I operate.’

  His honesty impressed her and a small part of her couldn’t help but be thrilled that a guy like him found a girl like her remotely memorable enough to distract.

  ‘We can’t,’ she said, sounding less than convincing and they both knew it.

  ‘You feel it too, don’t you?’ He took a step forward, invading her personal space, making her lean towards him inadvertently. ‘Tell me you don’t.’

  Charlotte hated lies, but in that moment it was her only option. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Instead, his gaze dropped to her lips again. Intense. Focused.

  A second before he kissed her.

  She should protest. She didn’t. He had access to her mouth and he used it to wield his seductive power, the kind of power she’d never experienced before with any other man.

  His tongue teased and taunted. Hot, long sweeps that demanded she match him. And she did, with more eagerness than she could have imagined.

  His arms clamped around her waist and hauled her to him so she could feel every hard plane. And one very hard appendage.

  She had to stop this before she lost her mind as well as her job. Her hands slid between them, her palms flat to his chest. She should shove him away. She didn’t, enjoying the feel of his hard chest beneath her hands too much. Her fingers flexed slightly and he groaned into her mouth, his arms tightening in a vice-like grip.

  He backed her towards the door, where he flicked the lock and hit a button that brought the blinds down over the windows.

  Only when she nipped his bottom lip did he break the kiss, raising his head to stare at her in a daze.

  She knew the feeling.

  ‘I’ve wanted to do that all damn day,’ he muttered, his gaze dropping to her mouth again before returning to her eyes. ‘The way you kiss? Just as hot as yesterday.’

  ‘Alex—’

  ‘Fuck, even the way you say my name makes me crazy.’ He rested his forehead against hers, as if trying to transfer his thoughts. If they were anything like hers, three letters could sum them up: XXX.

  ‘Do you want me as badly as I want you?’ He lifted his head and eyeballed her, daring her to disagree. ‘I’ll be honest and say my work has suffered today because I can’t stop thinking about you.’

  ‘Maybe you’re just a crap boss?’ she deadpanned, biting her bottom lip to stop from laughing out loud at his outraged expression.

  ‘You’ll pay for that,’ he said, grinding his hips against hers in a way that left little doubt as to the punishment he had in mind. If that were the case, she’d be bad every day. ‘So what are we going to do?’

  She knew what she wanted to do. Tear his clothes off. Push him into the nearest chair. Straddle him. Ride him until she could hardly walk.

  But despite the sexy satin beneath her sedate clothes, Charlotte was still the same shy, sensible woman she’d always been. A woman who never broke rules. A woman destined for a quiet, utilitarian life, the opposite of her parents.

  She’d chosen to wear the frivolous underwear today to see if the confidence garnered from yesterday would continue. It looked like it had, but not in the way she’d expected.

  She’d wanted to impress her boss. Little did she know she’d already done that by spreading her legs for him yesterday.

  She inwardly cringed. No matter what she wore beneath her clothes, no matter how much she got off on the power trip of feeling sexy yesterday, she couldn’t change who she was. Not for this guy, not for any man.

  So she said, ‘I’m going back to my office, packing up my things and leaving.’

  But she didn’t move. She willed her legs to do something; they didn’t respond. Her palms still splayed against his chest and his pelvis nestled against hers like they fitted. It felt good. Better than good. Having his body plastered to hers, her lips still tingling from his kiss, felt freaking fantastic.

  For a girl who didn’t feel this way very often—try never—it was difficult getting her head to work in sync with her heart.

  She craved romance. Yearned for the buzz of electricity, the spark, that special something that ensured every day seemed brighter.

  Once she’d got over the shock of her sexy stranger being her boss this morning, she had to admit she’d felt more alive. Secretly checking him out at morning tea. A pep in her step at lunch. Her stomach falling away when she’d seen his name pop up in her inbox.

  Ludicrous. Ridiculous. Preposterous. The kind of dangerous re
actions that could derail a woman’s prudent plans.

  Having him admit he felt this buzz between them too should make her happy. It didn’t. Because as she stood in the circle of his arms, her heart still pounding, she’d never felt so confused.

  She never threw caution to the wind. Never took a risk. Her parents did enough of that for all of them.

  She weighed options, made calculated decisions. But all she could think now, with him staring at her with open speculation, was that she had to take a gamble eventually and maybe she should bet on him.

  ‘Do you really want to leave?’ His hand drifted up to her face, cupped her cheek. ‘Because if that’s what you really want, I’ll let you go and we’ll never speak of this again. But after what just happened, despite all our protestations to keep things strictly professional, I think we might need to reassess.’

  He was right, damn him. He might have bamboozled her but they had to get this sorted.

  ‘I think we have good intentions to focus on work and we said all the right things, but that kiss...’ Her hand drifted towards her mouth, her fingertips tracing where his lips had branded her. ‘It’s going to be tough. But I can’t risk any fallout if we do something crazy like indulging in a...fling.’

  Damn, even saying the word made her blush. She would never be the type of woman to indulge in a no-strings, brief affair, but having to work alongside Alex for the next month or so would sorely challenge her previous belief systems.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I need this job. A reliable, stable income is all important to me at this stage of my life and I can’t let anything derail my plans.’

  Crap, could she sound any more pompous? But she had to make him understand that while her body craved his, her mind couldn’t be swayed.

  ‘Does that mean you’d be up for a fling if we separated business from pleasure?’

  She should have known he’d focus on that one word.

  Fling.

  For her, it conjured visions of a confident woman making demands on a hot guy. Having him at her beck and call. Indulging secret fantasies. Being naughty and wanton.

  And couldn’t be further from her if she tried.

  ‘I don’t think I’m fling material,’ she said, her voice embarrassingly wavering.

  ‘You’re an incredible, sensual woman who’s making me go a little crazy.’ He made loopy circles at his temple. ‘We can call it a thing rather than a fling if that helps?’

  She laughed, wishing he weren’t so damn appealing.

  He grinned back at her. ‘If you’re worried about us working together while we indulge this thing between us, don’t be. I’m discreet. I can separate business from pleasure. And I plan on there being a lot of the latter if you come on this wild ride with me for the time I’m here.’

  Four weeks. Twenty-eight days of hedonistic pleasure, the kind of which she only ever read and dreamed about. That was what Alex was promising her.

  She’d never been so tempted.

  But she couldn’t shake her rational side. Indulging in a fling thing wasn’t her style. Then again, no guy had been her style lately. Man drought would be an understatement.

  ‘So this is a casual thing?’ How she could sound so cool she had no idea, considering how loudly her blood pounded in her ears.

  His eyes lit up, considering she’d acknowledged she might be interested. ‘I’d never lead you on. I’m here for a month then I’ll move to the next job. It’s what I do. I hate being in one city, one town, for a long time. So yeah, it’s casual.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘A monogamous casual fling thing, because I don’t sleep around.’

  His honesty blew her away. No man had spoken to her like this before. The guys she’d dated in university had been quiet, recalcitrant types as backward as her. They’d date a few times, end up in bed, with barely a spark. A bit of fun, a light-hearted distraction from the onerous study load.

  None of those guys had lasted a month because she’d been a realist. Why waste time on someone that didn’t do it for her?

  Here was a guy, offering her a whirlwind, exciting four weeks and she was dithering.

  Deep down she knew why.

  She had her dream house in sight, which meant she had to go after the rest of her dream. The right guy. The kids. The dog. The herb garden. The veggie patch. The comfortable, steady life she’d always wanted.

  And having a short-term fling, no matter how incredible the guy, and the sex, wasn’t conducive to achieving it.

  But she’d whined and moaned to her friends about this very thing, a lack of excitement in her life. Now she had six-three of hot male offering it to her on a platter and she couldn’t say yes?

  The pressure of his palm against her cheek increased slightly as his thumb brushed her bottom lip in an erotic sweep. ‘No pressure, Charlie, this is entirely your decision, whatever you want to do.’

  Damn, she must be in a bad way if him calling her Charlie sounded like an endearment rather than a taunt.

  ‘I want...’ you, she wanted to say. But the admission stuck in her throat.

  So she quashed her rampant nerves, told her common sense to shut the hell up, broached the short distance between them, to show him what she wanted by slamming her mouth against his.

  As her nerve endings fired to life again and he groaned into her mouth, she knew there was no turning back now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALEX HAD NEVER put himself out there like that with a woman before. Laying it all on the line before they started up.

  Usually, he’d woo them a little, enjoy the sex, get to know them, see if a casual thing was worth pursuing. With Charlotte, he’d had the scintillating sex and bypassed the rest. And despite his initial misgivings that getting involved beyond work could pose a problem, he knew in his gut that this thing between them was worth pursuing.

  He’d been impressed when she’d taken on a new client after hours and had decided to wait to speak to her. He hadn’t expected to witness her morph into some kind of starstruck groupie around that rugby player. He’d seen guys like that before, had handled accounts for some of them. Big, beefy meatheads used to wielding their fame to get any woman they wanted then dumping them to move on to the next.

  Alex had thought Charlie would cut the boof-head down to size. Instead, he’d watched her escort him into her office, then smile and chat as if they were old buddies, feeling the uncharacteristic stab of jealousy all the while.

  It didn’t make sense. He never got so involved with any woman that he cared who they spoke to or how they did it, yet with Charlotte he’d found himself willing those damn elevator doors to close on the rugby player’s ass so he could talk to her.

  Her work ethic impressed him. The sex yesterday had blown his mind. But what did he really know about her beyond that?

  He’d invited her into his office to talk. To show her that he was more than a guy who took advantage of a woman by fucking her. To get to know more about her in the hope of figuring out why she had such a hold on him when he barely knew her.

  She wasn’t his type. He preferred tall, leggy blondes. Charlie was a petite, slim brunette. Maybe that was the attraction? Opposites in every way? But he wasn’t that shallow and knew it was more than that.

  For the first time in a long time he found himself intrigued by a woman to the point that he couldn’t get her out of his head.

  So when she’d flipped him the bird, her defiance adding to her aura of mystery, he hadn’t been able to resist her.

  Worse, he’d found himself blurting out how much he wanted her and how long he wanted her for. Real smooth. Not.

  He’d expected her to protest when he couldn’t resist kissing her. He hadn’t expected her whole-hearted response, let alone her agreeing to his terms.

  What was it about this reserved woman that pushed his buttons in a major way?
/>   She kissed him with unabashed enthusiasm, as if she couldn’t get enough.

  The feeling was entirely mutual.

  Her hands slid down his chest, tentative at first. Skimming the waistband of his trousers. Sliding around his hips. Coming to rest on his ass, squeezing lightly.

  He chuckled and eased away from her lips. ‘Are you feeling me up?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. ‘Seeing as you so kindly explained how this thing between us will work, let me clue you in on how I see it working.’

  God, he loved this feisty side of her, hidden beneath the pulled-back hair and the sedate clothes.

  ‘Go ahead, fill me in.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right about keeping this a secret because if word got out I’d lose my credibility. And I want you to promise me that whatever happens in your revamp of this place, you’ll only judge me on my work performance.’

  He raised his hand in the way he’d seen countless witnesses do on courtroom TV dramas. ‘Promise.’

  ‘And before you go getting the wrong idea about me, yesterday was an aberration.’

  Confused, he lowered his hand to rest it on her hip again. ‘What do you mean?’

  A deep crimson blush stained her cheeks. ‘I don’t wear raunchy lingerie. I don’t have spontaneous sex. I don’t do anything particularly adventurous, so if you think I’m some wanton sex goddess because of my crazy behaviour yesterday then you’re wrong, and I don’t want you getting the wrong idea because that lingerie was false advertising—’

  ‘Whoa. Slow down. Take a breath.’

  Could she be any more adorable? He knew she wasn’t the kind of woman to have a quickie with a stranger because of how delightfully flustered she’d been since. Even now, with her heightened colour and her bumbling rambles, she gave off an awkward vibe, as if she couldn’t quite believe she couldn’t resist him.

  ‘I like you.’ He hoped she accepted his intimate smile at face value, that he wasn’t giving her some generic spiel to get into her panties again. ‘I want to have fun with you while I’m in Sydney. No expectations.’

  She took a long time to respond. ‘But what if I disappoint you?’