Tomorrow, the game would begin.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Lane?’
Lane’s heart leapt into her throat and strangled her vocal cords.
‘Lane? You there?’
She clutched the phone to her ear in a death grip, hoping Adam couldn’t hear either her heart pulsing in her throat or the slow, slow breath she eased past it and into her lungs. ‘I’m at work so I can’t talk right now,’ she said when she was sure her voice wouldn’t let her down. ‘Can I call you back?’
‘No. We need to talk now.’
Another please-be-silent slow breath, until Lane remembered she could mute the phone. She muted with a vengeance, and shot an apologetic smile at the analyst with whom she’d been discussing the consumer price index. ‘I have to take this, Rick. Just a minute, okay?’
She hurried away from Rick’s workstation to the closest empty meeting room she could find. She looked at her phone, contemplating disconnecting … but no. That would be unforgivably cowardly. She unmuted the phone before she could give in to temptation. ‘Adam, I thought I’d made it clear that all calls are to be made outside office hours,’ she said crisply. ‘I never take personal calls at work.’
‘You’re hiring me for my expertise, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No buts. The first lesson is this—anywhere, any time. Starting with this phone call. So let’s schedule our first date, hmm?’
Date? It wasn’t a date. She opened her mouth to tell him so, to snap the words out, but stopped herself when she heard him laugh softly, as though he were reading her through the phone line. She took another breath. Calm, calm, calm. If this phone call turned out to be some kind of test, she didn’t want to stumble at the first hurdle.
Yes, she had hired Adam Quinn for his expertise; it was why she was paying him a small fortune. She therefore had to trust that he knew what he was doing—to do otherwise would mean she was wasting her money. The argument over calls at work would keep for another time, and as for the whole ‘date’ thing, what was the point of quibbling over semantics? If he wanted to call it a date, he could call it a date; as long as she knew the truth, what did it matter?
‘All right, then,’ she said in her best impersonally professional voice. ‘This week I’m free tomorrow night or any time Sunday.’
‘Tomorrow night’s fine with me. I’ll pick you up from work.’
‘Not at the office.’
‘Why not? It’s business, isn’t it?’
Lane couldn’t think of an appropriate answer—she wasn’t expecting such an early and flagrant flouting of the rules she’d set.
Not that Adam gave her a chance to respond.
‘Ah, I seeeee,’ he said, with way too much eeeelongation for it to be anything other than a dig. ‘You’re going to hide me away and only roll me out when you’re ready for a quick fu—’
‘No!’ Lane interjected, then hurried on. ‘I just feel a little … I don’t want the people here, the people I work with, to know … I mean …’ Lane squeezed her eyes closed in an agony of embarrassment.
‘Sorry but you’re going to have to deal with it,’ Adam said, before she could address her own incoherence. ‘Because I’m coming to your office at six o’clock tomorrow, and if you’re not ready to leave, I’ll have no qualms about using your desk as a bed. Anywhere, any time. Got it?’
Without waiting for Lane’s response, Adam disconnected, leaving Lane holding the phone to her ear, stunned into silence.
***
Adam looked at his phone and smiled.
Lane wasn’t sounding as controlled as she’d been last night.
Which meant yes! he was on the right track.
He’d figured a methodical, control-freak economist—a predictor of trends—would hate not knowing what was going to happen next. It stood to reason that wondering when or where he was going to pop up and what he was going to do with her when he did would crack that cold casing of hers. And with one short phone call, he’d proved it.
She’d be stewing now, all because he’d called her at the office when the contract clearly stated he should not. Because he’d gone one step further and arranged to visit her at her office when that was forbidden, too. She’d be regrouping. Strategizing. But no matter what she did, he was p-r-e-t-t-y certain she’d be nicely on edge tomorrow night.
So on edge, maybe she’d even end up calling the whole thing off. Sarah would be happy, his mother would be happy, Erica-the-unknown-quantity would no doubt be happy since she hadn’t sanctioned the plan in the first place.
But Adam, perversely, decided he would not be happy, and that therefore there would be no calling things off.
Not yet.
Not until he’d managed to get Lane Davis hot and bothered.
Making her lose her cool was the least he could do to pay her back for rocking his equilibrium so badly. He’d never considered himself a vain guy, but he sure as hell wasn’t used to women being totally unimpressed when they looked at him. So what was it that Lane wasn’t seeing in him that other women saw? That’s what he wanted to know. And was she not seeing it because he didn’t have it as far as she was concerned, or because she didn’t yet know he had it?
He supposed she might have expected someone who looked more like his sister, in which case—whoa!—he must have been a shock to her system! Sarah was a tiny, pretty, sparkly fairy, whereas Adam was … well, not exactly elegant. He was big, and dark, and brawny. Square-jawed, bold-nosed, hard-mouthed. Maybe a little long on frown and short on hair. A bit … intimidating. Maybe. But not hideous. Women liked looking at him. Women wanted him.
But not Lane. At least, not intrinsically. ‘You look like you’d be good at it.’ That’s what she’d said. But he hadn’t seen any evidence she thought she might actually enjoy what he was about to teach her. She’d sat across from him and talked about sex in the most unemotional, businesslike fashion, all blood tests and schedules and bank accounts, without giving him even one appreciative look. Not one!
Adam realized his temper was fraying again and pulled himself up. Did it really matter if she wanted to enjoy herself or not? Did it matter that she was only interested in the goals she wanted to reach and therefore had restrictions in place for how and where they connected? A contract, that’s what the two of them had. Lane knew his sister but she didn’t know him. She was right to be leery of parading him around her office—especially after what DeWayne the Douchebag had done to her.
But he was nothing like DeWayne the Douchebag, he told himself, rallying. He wasn’t going to shame her. It wasn’t an insult being seen with him. If he was going to make her look anything, his intention would be to make her look hot, not cold. And he wasn’t a trained seal who could be expected to perform when and where she wanted, begging for a treat when he came up to scratch.
Nope. No way. If anyone was going to be begging it was going to be Lane. And until she was begging, until she felt him like burning fever in her blood, he’d be damned if he was going to be giving over the goods all at once, either.
This was going to be a slow, sloow, slooow journey to the finish line.
And he was going to win.
***
The next morning, Lane dressed and undressed three times before deciding on the same square-cut navy suit she’d worn on Monday night on the basis that at least Adam hadn’t run screaming in the opposite direction at the sight of it. She then applied a full face of make-up only to scrub it all off when she realized her colleagues would know something was up if she turned up for work looking like that. In any case, she’d hate for Adam to think she’d taken any special care for their first … time.
Yes, ‘time’ was the correct word, not the ‘date’ he’d called it. It wasn’t a date, it was a time, a session, a meeting.
A lesson.
First lesson.
Whew. What that thought did to her insides!
Pull yourself toget
her, Lane. She looked in the mirror—her new favourite pastime—and nodded, satisfied. No way would Adam guess she’d agonized over what to wear.
And then the implication of that hit home and her shoulders drooped. ‘And that’s a good thing, is it, to look like you didn’t spare a minute’s thought for how you look?’ she asked her reflection.
Eye roll. ‘Aaaaand you’re talking to yourself. Isn’t that the first sign of madness?’
***
If talking to herself was the first sign of madness, Lane figured that wandering around the office like she’d just woken from a coma and didn’t know where she was had to be the second.
So poor was her concentration, it was almost a relief to pack up her laptop and files and head out to the reception area to wait for Adam.
Or it would have been, if she’d known what to do when she got there five minutes ahead of their appointment.
She knew it was an unusual occurrence that she was leaving the office early, but she hadn’t expected it to be remarkable enough to warrant the receptionist’s constant semi-alarmed glances at her. Or perhaps it was her style of loitering that was making a spectacle of her—the way she sat, then stood, then sat, then stood. The receptionist kept on looking at her like she was a zoo exhibit, which made Lane send a silent prayer of thanks skywards that the area was more or less deserted. Some of her colleagues had left for the day, but most were out of sight, hunched over desks, and therefore not watching her.
She was even gladder of the lack of an audience when Adam emerged from the elevator at 6:05 p.m., because for sure he would have drawn every assessing eye. He was wearing blue jeans and a navy Henley T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Despite the swaggeringly casual attire, he looked perfectly in tune with his surroundings. It was as though he’d been walking onto her floor at 6:05 p.m. every evening for three full lifetimes. He looked more at home there than Lane herself did, even though he dressed nothing like a banker—certainly nothing like the impeccably tailored David Bennett.
As he turned in her direction, Lane noticed that the top two buttons of his T-shirt were open, which made Lane wonder if two undone buttons was the rule when you wanted to look ridiculously sexy. One look at him and her fingers itched to get at her own buttons, which were primly done up to the hilt.
But there was no time, because he was charging straight for her, glancing neither right nor left.
Lane knew it was going to be an awkward moment—how could it not be?—and cast around in her head for a suitably safe topic of conversation to break the ice and establish a nothing-to-see-here-folks vibe. Something that would prove to the receptionist that this was nothing more than a regular business meeting, regardless of Adam’s two undone buttons. He was a builder so … house prices maybe? Because she’d seen some research today that indicated a renewed boom, with house prices set to rise by—
Oof.
She was suddenly in Adam’s arms, looking up, and she couldn’t remember what she’d been thinking. Something to do with percentages … or was it—?
Ahh.
His mouth was on hers, his rock-hard chest plastered against her.
And her brain went dead.
His mouth was firm and soft at the same time. It was like he was … ohh … massaging her mouth with his. Insistent, nudging, nuzzling. She realized her breath was stuck somewhere in her chest, and she opened her mouth to drag in more air. Then his tongue—his tongue, God, God—was inside her mouth, pushing, licking at her own.
She felt his hands slide down her back, cup her bottom, pull her closer, adjust her pelvis to his. She heard a soft moan—where it had come from? He deepened the pressure on her mouth, his tongue sliding rhythmically, luxuriously, licking into her like she was full of warmed honey and he was searching out every last smear of it. Another moan. Oh, God, it had come from her. She was moaning. And she couldn’t seem to help it.
Lane’s hands crept up, clutching at Adam’s T-shirt as she held on to him, leaned into him. Dear Lord, what was happening to her? If not for her hands anchoring her to him, she’d keel over. The kiss was so … delicious. Smooth and rough at the same time. How could that be? Her legs felt unsteady. And there was a shivery sensation flowing down through her chest to tingle in her breasts, in her stomach, lower.
She should be concentrating. Trying to work out what it was about Adam’s technique that was making her feel like this. But his tongue was everywhere inside her mouth and she couldn’t think, could only feel, only drown …
At last he raised his head, slowly, so slowly, his breath a warm mist against her still-open lips. Don’t stop. The words were there, in her head, wanting to get out, but before Lane could form them with her mouth, Adam stepped back.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said softly, and smiled, and Lane’s mouth snapped shut because the smile was very definitely one of triumph.
She took an extra step back, recovering quickly now she was free of the intoxicating kiss and had put some extra space between them. She looked around, saw the receptionist staring at the two of them. This was not good. There would be gossip. Uptight Lane Davis kissing a hot guy in the reception area! How did boring old Lane get such a gorgeous guy? Lane Davis, the ice queen, getting into it with a man who anyone could tell was out of her league—way out!
Lane’s insides clenched. She didn’t want to be gossiped about, sniggered over, at work. Never again would she put herself in such a position. And she particularly didn’t want this little episode to find its way to David Bennett. God forbid David should think she was already taken. If David lost interest in her, it would ruin everything, negate the whole reason for the contract. Without David there would be no Adam Quinn as far as she was concerned.
If there’d been an actual purpose in telegraphing her relationship with Adam to her colleagues, it would be a different story, but it wasn’t as though ‘anywhere, any time’ was a real lesson. Adam had only kissed her here and now to make a point. He wanted to be the one in charge; he’d chosen her workplace deliberately, because she’d said not here. She’d read up on the alpha male in preparation for tonight; understanding them wasn’t exactly rocket science.
But if this was an indication of the way he anticipated their arrangement would proceed, she knew she had trouble on her hands. She was the one in charge; she had to be. So best get the derailed train back on the tracks immediately.
‘Sweetheart,’ she repeated the word, as though tasting it. Shook her head. ‘No. Not necessary, I think. No endearments.’ She straightened her jacket, frosted her eyes and raised her eyebrows at the receptionist, who quickly averted her rapt gaze. Turning back to Adam, she said, ‘Shall we go?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Adam said, and who knew a guy could drawl out a Southern style ma’am without any hint of softness? ‘I’m parked in the station across the street.’
‘How nice for you,’ Lane said. ‘My car, which I have every intention of driving home, is in the car park of this very building.’
She started walking towards the bank of elevators, but stopped when she sensed she was walking alone. She turned back to find Adam standing where she’d left him, rooted to the spot, his countenance dark.
It felt a little like pistols at dawn. Her at one end of the reception area; him at the other; both waiting for the goggle-eyed receptionist to drop a hanky to signal the start of a fight to the death. And suddenly, Lane wanted to giggle. She didn’t, though. She couldn’t, if she wanted the upper hand. The upper hand … and him. She wanted him. Because the kiss had been good. Very good. And that was part of the alpha male she’d read up on, too—the part she needed. The I-know-exactly-what-I’m-doing, take-no-prisoners part.
She needed to learn how to kiss like that, how to melt a guy using only her lips and tongue. So no giggling; no getting on her high horse, either. It was concession time, and she was happy to negotiate if it would get her the skills she needed, even though the contract had been signed and strictly speaking
she didn’t have to.
Smoothing a hand over her tied-back hair, Lane walked swiftly back to him. ‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ she said, low and soft so the receptionist wouldn’t hear. ‘I know it can’t be easy for someone like to you to take …’ Hmm. She needed a word that wouldn’t set off his alpha temper. ‘To take …’
‘Orders?’ he supplied, not low and soft.
‘Yes. I mean no. Not … exactly.’ She grabbed his arm and steered him out of hearing range of the receptionist. ‘Everything’s covered in the contract, you know, to make sure neither of us does something the other hasn’t bargained on. The clause about the lessons being taught in my home is there for privacy reasons. Mine and yours. Now, there’s wiggle room in there—for example, I’m happy to come to your place sometimes, if it’s more convenient—but the office is completely out of bounds for me. You can understand that, can’t you? I’m sure you don’t want me popping up at building sites, or at family functions, or—well, you know what I mean.’
There, that was logical, reasonable. He’d have to see she was making sense.
‘I understand you want to call the shots,’ he said. ‘But I don’t work like that. So how much of that “wiggle room” am I going to get?’
‘That will depend how valuable you turn out to be.’
‘Oh, I’m worth the money, I promise you.’
She looked into his eyes and knew it was true. Suddenly the hand that was still on his arm started to tingle and burn; she hadn’t even realized she was still touching him. She sucked in a reactionary gasp, released her hold and took a step back. ‘The thing is, I generally don’t enjoy surprises.’
‘Sex is full of surprises, Lane.’
‘But the contract—’
‘Don’t make me tell you what to do with your contract before we’re even through our first date, Lane.’
It’s not a date, it’s a lesson, and I’m paying you to do what I say. The words trembled on Lane’s tongue, and she had to draw in a deep breath to stop herself saying them. She needed something placatory to stave off a public escalation of hostilities, but she couldn’t think of a replacement response. She didn’t have placatory skills. There was a terse moment as their eyes clashed. And then she gave up. ‘I’m going home,’ she said, simply said tightly. ‘We can discuss it in private if you’d care to join me there.’
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