“Want to dance with me?” Yasmine asked
Alex agreed, even though he didn’t really want to. But he loved the idea of watching her dance, and moments later that’s exactly what he was doing. Yasmine’s moves were even hotter than he’d imagined. Mesmerized by the sway of her hips, he forgot about everyone else in the room.
They danced through song after song before a slow one came on, and they moved closer together. Her hands slid up his chest, around his neck.
Their first real physical contact.
Her body pressed against him, moving to the slow beat of the music, coaxing him into an intimate dance with a promise of something more. He wanted her, no getting around it, no ignoring it for a second. His body wouldn’t let him. And she couldn’t help but know it, too.
Then she did something unexpected. She pressed her abdomen more firmly against him. Her gaze sparked with daring.
“I’ve got a thing for you,” she whispered into his ear. “And I think we need to do something about it.”
Dear Reader,
Don’t we all want to be desired more than anything by another person? In Any Way You Want Me, Yasmine Talbot has both the fortune and misfortune of being the object of many men’s desire. It may sound like an enviable position, but Yasmine knows all too well the disadvantages of men becoming too enamored with her appearance and never seeing the person within. When her past—and two men from it—comes back to haunt her, she’ll discover that it’s possible for love to grow from the darkest moments in her life, and that sometimes being wanted isn’t such a bad thing.
I hope you enjoy Yasmine and Alex’s story as much as I loved bringing it to life. Visit my Web site, www.jamiesobrato.com, for monthly contests, new release updates and more.
Sincerely,
Jamie Sobrato
Books by Jamie Sobrato
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
84—PLEASURE FOR PLEASURE
116—WHAT A GIRL WANTS
133—SOME KIND OF SEXY
167—AS HOT AS IT GETS
190—SEXY ALL OVER
HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION
911—SOME LIKE IT SIZZLING
997—TOO WILD
ANY WAY YOU WANT ME
Jamie Sobrato
To my family near and far,
for all your love and support
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Prologue
FOR TEN YEARS he had been watching her.
The watching had started out as a niggling fascination with her beauty and notoriety, a game to see if he could keep up with her life, her whereabouts. But later she’d haunted his dreams to the point that he’d tried to put her out of his head.
He’d tried, but the game was addictive.
Now he wanted more. He wanted her. Not just to satisfy the physical desires—though that need could not be denied—but also for her skills. She could give him the access he needed to the information he wanted—highly valuable information that would be his ticket out of the rat race and in to a place in the Caymens.
She was a worthy opponent, and she would be a worthy partner.
There had been rules for the game he’d played with himself. He could look but he could not touch. He could have her only in his fantasies, where she remained delicious and perfect, unsullied by disappointing reality. And for ten years that had been enough.
But this was his game, and now he would change the rules.
1
THE NEW GUY in the office was a serious distraction.
How was a girl supposed to concentrate when there was a six-foot-tall specimen of male perfection strutting around, on his way to the copy machine, the fax machine, the coffee maker—always on his way somewhere, and always passing by Yasmine Talbot’s desk.
As he walked by just now, his ocean-and-evergreen scent wafting over her, Yasmine’s fingers halted on the keyboard, and when he was well past her desk, she turned to watch. Two days ago, she’d nearly fallen out of her chair watching.
He knew the effect he was having on her, and he probably reveled in his power. From the moment they’d first laid eyes on each other last week when he’d emerged from the new-employee training session and stood across the room from her, blinking under the fluorescent lights, they’d begun a silent office flirtation that had gotten progressively bolder by the day. Now it bordered on the ridiculous that they’d yet to even say hello to each other, even in an office as big as Virtual Active’s. Were they just going to exchange hot-and-heavy glances forever?
Yasmine was both amused and embarrassed by the animal-mating-dance quality their relationship had assumed. She imagined them starring in their own Discovery Channel documentary—Mating Habits of the Common Office Drone. He fluffed his feathers, strutted to and fro, made searing eye contact. Essentially he was staking his claim. But Yasmine didn’t want to be claimed. Nor did she want to star in any mating-ritual documentaries in the midst of her workplace. And yet she couldn’t deny how mesmerized she was by him. It was as if she’d been biologically programmed to want him.
This guy, with his windswept hair and his perfect ass, was the stuff heroes on the covers of romance novels were made of. Put him in a billowing white shirt unbuttoned to reveal his chest, with a beautiful damsel draped on one arm, and he’d look right at home. But put him in the middle of the mundane offices of Virtual Active, Inc. and he was likely to spawn his own interactive sex game, Virtual Alpha Male. And don’t think that, as the only female programmer at the sex software company, she hadn’t seriously considered it.
In fact, she realized, as she glanced at the file full of notes on her latest software project, Sexcapade, a night with a guy like him probably was just what she needed to kick-start her creativity. So far, she’d been uninspired, and the project was going badly.
But her attraction to the new guy was slightly bizarre. She didn’t do beefed-up, all-American-surfer-boy types. She was completely immune to the charms of calendar hunks with too-perfect hair. Yet here she was, her girl parts getting all tingly every time this guy who was prettier than she was strolled by. It had to be the lack of available attractive men in her life.
Her type of guy was darker, more brooding, prone to motorcycles and leather. True, she had a bad-boy fixation—particularly if they were the unattainable, strictly fantasy type. But the way she figured, bad boys and bad girls went hand in hand. Yasmine might have turned pretending to be good into an art form, but in her heart lurked a rebel.
The new guy disappeared into the break room, and Yasmine tried to turn her attention back to her work. But her mind kept wandering.
One other problem with him—he looked as though he belonged in L.A. more than San Francisco. He had a tan, for crying out loud.
Where would anyone, especially a programmer who spent his days attached to a computer, even get a tan in this city in the middle of December? The answer was he wouldn’t, not unless he was going to a tanning bed—did those even exist anymore?—which this guy must have been doing. A fact that should have repulsed Yasmine.
Instead, she found herself wondering if he had tan lines. One of her more disturbingly detailed fantasies even had her freeing him of his khakis, inch by inch, to discover not a single line. It was ridiculous. He was probably the kind of guy who had a Playboy
bunny tattoo right next to his schlong.
The break room door opened, and the object of her whacked fantasies came out carrying a bottle of Evian water. She watched him walk to the printer, his snug pants advertising the well-sculpted muscles beneath them, and shook her head. It was official—Yasmine was losing her freaking mind.
She glared at her computer screen and promised herself she would do no more ogling today. She would focus on her work. Focus, focus, focus.
If only he looked like any other code-slinging brainiac who spent too much time indoors and could use a trip to the nearest fashion consultant, there would be no problem. But he didn’t. And he worked in her office, no less. Yasmine didn’t do the office help. So she took her tingly feelings as a sign that she’d spent a few months too many sans boyfriend.
She just needed to get laid, and she’d stop drooling over her strutting, preening office mate.
“Excuse me,” she heard an unfamiliar male voice say.
Yasmine looked up to see the object of her constant ogling looming beside her desk. He smiled faintly, his gaze locked on her. She opened her mouth to say hi, but nothing came out.
“Is this yours?”
She stared at the document she’d printed an hour ago and nodded. “I, um, I…forgot to go pick it up.”
He placed it on top of her in-box pile and smiled. He had perfect white teeth. “We should stop this, don’t you think?”
“Stop what?”
“Staring at each other but never talking.”
Staring? Had she been staring?
“We’re talking now,” she said stupidly.
“I’m Kyle Kramer,” he said.
She liked his voice…and his eyes, which were a smoky shade of hazel. They were mesmerizing—almost unreal looking.
“Hi, Kyle Kramer,” she croaked.
And now that he’d formally introduced himself, would it be forward to take him home and have her way with him?
Definitely she should at least tell him her name first. She pointed to the nameplate on her cubicle wall. “That’s me. Yasmine.”
If her conversational skills got any more brilliant, she’d have to shoot herself.
He smiled and nodded. He had sort of a Rhett Butler attitude going on, as if he knew he was gorgeous enough to make most women feel that they could never fill Scarlet’s shoes.
“Right,” he said. “Yaz-meen. I’ve been pronouncing it wrong in my head.”
So he’d been thinking about her? Had he maybe even been as distracted by overwrought office lust as she had? Very intriguing.
There was an awkward pause.
He studied the Christmas decorations all around her cubical, and it struck her as odd for the first time that she’d bothered to decorate her work space but not her home. Funky little ornaments she’d found at a shop in Noe Valley—a beaded green frog, a purple feather angel, a little carved wooden genie emerging from a bottle, a sparkly pink bird, among other things—hung from twinkling red lights around the top edge of the cubicle walls.
“Nice frog,” he said, his tone almost languorous, as if he had no intention of leaving anytime soon.
“Is there, um, something I can help you with?”
She sounded like an uptight bitch, but she was unnerved by his unexpected presence, his seeming awareness of his effect on her.
“Would you maybe like to go for drinks after work?”
Drinks, dancing, hot, sweaty sex. She was game. But Yasmine knew better than to follow such wild impulses. In fact, she never followed them. She knew the right thing to do, the safe thing, would be to end this silly mating ritual right here, right now.
“I’m sorry—I have plans with a friend after work.” Which was true.
He rested his forearms on top of her cubical wall and shrugged. “Okay, how about another night?”
“I’ve been working late most nights,” she said, making herself sound like the workaholic she was.
He gave her a look that said he wasn’t buying her excuses. “Going to the holiday party on Friday?”
Urgh, the annual office party. Only four days away. Virtual Active threw it at the same inconvenient time every year—the day before Christmas Eve—to kick off the holidays.
“I don’t usually date office mates,” she blurted. Idiot, idiot, idiot.
What was she so afraid of? Why did she have to play it too far on the safe side all the time?
He wasn’t anyone she worked closely with…. And the upcoming holidays did have her feeling lonely…. And she had been feeling the urge to do something a tiny bit wild—maybe even something that could remind her what hot guys and hot passion were all about. And Kyle did make her squirm like no guy had in God knows how long.
“We’d just be going to the party together. It’s hardly even a date.”
Yasmine recalled last year’s party, when Larry Mono-Brow Harris had gotten drunk and spent the entire night coming on to her. She shuddered. Maybe having a date wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
“Well, I guess it’s okay. Since you’re new, I wouldn’t want you to feel like an outcast for all the merriment.” Yasmine smiled, and a weight she hadn’t even noticed was lifted from her shoulders.
“We’ll just call you my ambassador for the evening. I’ll pick you up at six o’clock Friday night, then?”
And if he turned out to be a nutcase, she’d have to move to a new apartment. “As your ambassador, I should give you a ride to the party.”
“Fair enough.”
He stepped into her cubical, invading her professional space and making her dizzy with his too-large presence. As if he understood his effect on her, he glanced at her and smiled, then took a pen from her desk and began writing something on her memo pad. This close, the sheer weight of him became his most obvious and overwhelming attribute.
Yasmine had always found some irresistible lure in the size and weight of men. Their solidity. Their strength. It was the quality she was trying to convey in the male character for the Sexcapade project, but so far her on-screen guy still looked kind of flat and boring.
It was a quality that was never more apparent than when a guy was naked against her, moving inside her, all that force and heft and power barely restrained—and hard to duplicate on a computer screen.
And if she kept up this line of thinking, she’d definitely end up doing something she would later regret. Like invite Kyle to be her own personal muse for the night.
When he finished writing, he handed her the paper with directions to his house on it as Yasmine discreetly tried to wipe away the film of perspiration that had formed on her upper lip.
“I might need to be a little later than six,” she said, doing a mental calculation of how long it would take her to navigate rush-hour traffic, go home and transform herself from office-boring to going-out fabulous, then drive to his house. “Maybe more like seven.”
He shrugged. “Sounds good.”
A sense of déjà vu struck Yasmine. Something about him seemed to resonate with her. Maybe in another time, another place, they’d passed on the street. Or maybe in another lifetime….
Perhaps that was the explanation for her insane attraction to him. In a past life, they’d been a couple of enamored yaks in the mountains of Nepal, doing what yaks did best. She winced at the image.
“I’ll see you later, then,” she said, smiling. As if she’d be able to do much else.
This was the moment when he should have vacated her cubical, but instead he lingered a little too long. Her senses went on alert, and the tingly feeling in her nether regions returned with a vengeance. Then he smiled, nodded and he was gone.
She was pathetic. Her life had gotten so dull, even obvious guys like Kyle Kramer could get her hot.
She had to do something about this attraction so she could get back to work. Maybe he’d turn out to be an airhead, or a toad, or a guy who ate with his mouth open. And if not, if he was as perfect as he looked…
She knew the deal. In that case, what she
needed was a little excitement, and a whole lot of sexual satisfaction. Then maybe she could shake all this misguided lust.
Or something like that.
She turned back to her computer, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see someone approaching. She glanced over and spotted Drew Everton stopping in her cubicle entrance, which was suddenly the place to see and be seen, apparently.
Drew, clad in a Santa hat, had been at Virtual Active for at least as long as Yasmine had, but unlike her, he’d taken some initiative. He’d moved from programmer to team leader to project manager, and while everyone liked to point out that Yasmine had the talent to do the same, she just didn’t feel the drive. He was a hard worker and a nice guy.
“What’s up?”
“Did I overhear you making a date with that Kyle guy for the holiday party?”
“What? Do you have my desk bugged or something?” Yasmine was conscious now that any number of her co-workers had probably witnessed her conversation with Kyle.
“No, I was in the next aisle. I couldn’t help but hear.”
“You and who else?”
“It’s not a crime to date a co-worker, you know.”
“I just don’t want everyone looking at me and whispering,” Yasmine said. She’d endured that as a teenager and vowed she’d never be the subject of any controversy big or small, again. It wasn’t the easiest vow to live with.
“Yeah, well, I can understand that. I’ll keep my lips sealed about the subject, if that helps.”
“Thanks, but I guess there’s no point. People will see me with Kyle at the party, regardless. But really, I’m only going so he won’t be the lone new guy.”
Drew flashed a doubtful look at her. “Speaking of dates, I’ve got one of my own for the party, and I was hoping maybe you could chat her up a little, give me your opinion on her.”
“Of course I will. Where’d you meet her?” Yasmine said, then tried hard to suppress a yawn. She’d been awakened last night by a heavy-breathing phone call that she’d quickly hung up on, but the bastard had called back again and again until she’d finally had to disconnect the phone.
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