by Lori Foster
“I don’t want to kiss Janine,” he explained.
“Good.” Get it moving, Maggie. “I mean, then since that’s settled, perhaps…”
“Maggie?” When she pretended a great need to straighten her jacket, Eric reached out and tilted up her chin. “Why did you kiss me, sweetheart?”
She gulped. He wanted explanations? Good grief, she hadn’t expected that. She’d planned on carrying things through should he prove agreeable, or slinking away if he rebuffed her. But not once had she considered an interrogation, for crying out loud.
Men, in her limited experience, were either interested or not, but they never wanted to talk about it!
“I … ah, I was trying to get you into the Christmas spirit.”
Eric released her and frowned thoughtfully. “You’re embarrassed?” She denied that with a shake of her head, so he pointed out, “Your face is red.”
She was horny. Turned on. Aroused. All hot and bothered. “I’m not embarrassed.”
He quirked one brow.
“It was just a simple kiss, after all.” And at twenty-two, she’d had as many kisses as any other woman her age. But none like that. None with Eric. Oh, it was different, all right, just as different as she’d always known it would be. “We’ve both been kissed plenty, right? No big deal.”
His frown turned fierce, and she figured she’d managed to tick him off after all. “All right, then.” She clasped her hands together and gave him a beatific smile. “Since you agreed to help me with the Christmas party, I guess we’re all settled.”
She started away, bent only on retreat before she blew it completely, but Eric’s voice stopped her. “When do we start, Maggie?”
She hesitated. “Uh … how about tomorrow? At my place? That is, if you don’t already have a date for the weekend.…”
“I’ll be there at two o’clock.”
Two? In the afternoon? She’d really been hoping for something toward the evening, when she’d be able to light some candles, put a fire in the fireplace, set the mood for seduction.…
She realized Eric was waiting, staring at her in speculation, and she smiled as if she had not a care in the world. If he got suspicious, if he guessed at everything she wanted to do to him, he might not come at all. “Two is just fine. I’ll see you then.”
Eric managed to wait all of five minutes before curiosity got the better of him and he made his way to Maggie’s office. If he’d read her right—and he was fairly certain he had—she wanted him. Not as much as he wanted her: that was impossible. But while he’d made a resolution not to seduce her, he hadn’t figured on her trying to seduce him!
Despite everything he’d told himself about how disastrous a relationship would be, he knew damn good and well he wouldn’t be able to resist her now that she’d shown some interest. She was lucky he’d let her walk away at all, much less promised to wait until two the next day. If he’d been thinking clearly, he’d have pulled her back into his office, locked the door, and made use of the desk as he’d envisioned earlier.
He told himself it didn’t matter that all they could have was an affair. Maggie had already made it clear what she thought about someone chasing her for the company. If he tried to take things beyond an affair, she’d forever wonder what he’d really wanted. And then, too, there’d be the jokes about him trying to screw his way to the top. The idea was intolerable. Especially since she didn’t want any gossip. Marrying the boss, which was what he really wanted to do, would certainly stir up the speculation.
Damn, he didn’t have many choices.
When Eric opened her office door, he knew right away that she was already gone. All the lights were out and, as usual, her desk was neatly cleared of all the day’s work. Maggie was tidy to a fault.
Then he noticed a paper on the floor.
Evidently she’d been as rattled as he after that killer kiss. Perhaps she’d left in a hurry, anxious to get home to the same cold shower he now anticipated. Although actually, looking out the window toward the frozen winter landscape, he realized that just getting to his car was liable to cool down his lust.
Knowing he was condemned to a lonely night of erotic frustration made Eric want to howl. Unlike Maggie, he wasn’t in a hurry to head home, where the solitude would cause him to dwell on all the sensual things he wanted to do to Maggie Carmichael, and all the explicit things he wanted her to do to him.
But the cleaning crew, who came by every Friday evening, would be arriving soon. He had no choice but to be on his way. He stepped forward to retrieve the piece of paper in case it was anything important, meaning to simply place it on her desk.
One typed word, about midway through the text, seemed to leap right out at him. Thrust. He leaned against the edge of her desk and read the sentence: She was hot and wet and his fingers thrust into her easily, eliciting a cry from deep in her throat. Eric nearly dropped the paper.
He locked his knees as his pulse quickened and his body reacted to that one simple sentence. Quickly, his gaze flicked up to the header on the paper and he read: Magdelain Yvonne, Heated Storm, pg. 81. Magdelain Yvonne? That was Maggie! Magdelain Yvonne Carmichael.
Maggie had written this?
Numb, moving by rote, Eric pulled out her desk chair and sank into it, his eyes still glued to the paper in his hand. A small lighted ceramic Christmas tree, situated at the corner of her desk, provided all the illumination he needed. He started at the top of the page and began reading.
It was by far the most sensual, erotic, explicit passage he’d ever read outside of porn. But porn was unemotional and there was nothing unemotional in the deeply provocative love scene his Maggie had written.
When the paper ended—right in the middle of the female protagonist experiencing a gut-wrenching orgasm thanks to the guy’s patience and talented fingers—Eric nearly groaned. His own hand clenched into a fist as he considered touching Maggie in just that way, watching her face while he made her come, feeling her body tighten around his fingers, feeling her wetness, her heat, and hearing her hoarse cry.
Where the hell was the rest of it?
Frantically he looked at her desk, moving papers aside and lifting files, but it was all business-related things. He opened a drawer and peeked inside, feeling like a total bounder but unable to stop himself. The drawer had only more files and notations in it. So he tried the others. Finally, in the drawer at the bottom of her desk, hidden beneath a thick thesaurus, he found the rest of the manuscript.
With no hesitation at all he slipped page 81 into place and settled back in the chair to read from the beginning. He was still there when the cleaning crew arrived. He’d just reached the end—which wasn’t the end at all. Maggie needed several more chapters to finish the story, but already Eric could tell that she was very talented. He’d gotten so absorbed in the story he’d almost forgotten it was written by Maggie, and simply began enjoying it.
When he had remembered it was written by Maggie, he’d been hit with such a wave of lust he broke out in a sweat.
He’d never read a romance. He’d had no idea they were so good, so full of fast-paced plot and great characterization. Just like his mystery novels, only with more emphasis on the emotional side of the relationship. And lots more sex. Great sex. He liked it.
The only problem, to his mind, was the physical descriptions of the characters. The blond female was voluptuous, with large breasts and generously rounded hips and a brazenness that Eric had to admit was sexy as sin. She in no way resembled Maggie.
So why the hell did the male character so closely resemble him?
Maggie had given him the same height, same eyes, same dark hair. Even some of the things the guy said were words right out of Eric’s mouth. And his wardrobe … well, he had the exact same clothes hanging in his closet at home.
The only major difference was that the guy in the story had finally gotten the heroine naked and in the sack for some really hot action. Hell, not only that, but he’d come three times thanks to the her
oine’s enthusiasm, something Eric wasn’t even sure was possible.
Yet Eric was going home each night to an empty bed.
Well beyond the crazed stage, Eric was highly affronted, and jealous, that his fictitious character could take what he’d denied himself.
Was this, perhaps, what Maggie really wanted?
His heart pounded with both excitement and resentment. Ha! He was on to her now. It made his insides clench to realize she wasn’t nearly as inexperienced as he’d always let himself believe. No way could she have devised such graphic sex scenes out of the depth of imagination.
In hindsight, he admitted Maggie was too sexy, too vivacious, to have stayed inexperienced for long. His nobility in attempting to wait had come back and bitten him in the ass. But that was over with now. She wanted him, had made love to him in fiction, and no more would he play the gallant schmuck, giving her plenty of time and space.
If Maggie wanted to write about sexual satisfaction, he’d show her sexual satisfaction! She’d started this tonight with her damned mistletoe and her teasing and her invitations.
His little Maggie was in for a hell of a surprise.
Despite Eric’s heated plans, it bothered him immensely to put the book back in her drawer, where anyone might be able to find it. He’d have to talk to her about that—after he showed her that no fictitious character had anything on him when it came to reality.
He buried the manuscript under books and papers, just as she’d had it, then piled in a few more things, trying to be extra cautious. He was aware of a fine tension in his muscles, a touch of aroused excitement.
Eric glanced at his watch, saw that it was seven o’clock, and by the time he could reach Maggie’s, it’d likely be eight. But that wasn’t so late, and now he had a damn good reason to call on her tonight. He felt for the mistletoe he’d put in his pocket, and grinned when his fingers closed around it.
Maggie was a writer. A very talented, very erotic writer. And she wanted him; he had no more doubts about that. If he couldn’t have Maggie for a wife, at least he could have this, and if all went as planned, she’d be his, not in matrimony, but in a basic, physical way that was even more binding.
For the first time in six months, things seemed to be getting back on track.
THREE
Maggie hurried out of the shower when she heard the doorbell peal. The pizza she’d ordered must have arrived early, so she trotted out of the room even as she pulled on her oldest, thickest robe. Her wet hair was wrapped in a towel, turban-style, and her bare feet left damp indentations in the plush carpet.
On the way to the door she made certain her cloth belt was securely tied and grabbed money for a tip. She ordered so many pizzas that the owner of the small restaurant let her run a tab, which she paid at the end of each month.
She wrenched the door open just as the doorbell chimed again. “Sorry, you got here quicker than … I … thought.…”
Eric stood there, snowflakes clinging to his midnight hair, his cheeks ruddy from the cold, his gaze blazing with some emotion that she couldn’t begin to decipher. At the sight of her, his eyes narrowed and did a slow study of her from head to toe. She felt it like a tactile stroke, flesh on flesh. Ignoring her mute surprise, he stepped in, which forced her to step back. Holding her gaze, he pushed the door shut.
Maggie shivered. A cold blast of winter air had preceded Eric, but that wasn’t what caused the gooseflesh to rise on her damp skin. No, Eric brought with him the scent of the brisk outdoors, his delicious cologne, and his own unique smell, guaranteed to make her melt. She never failed to react to it with a delicate shudder and a hungry tingling inside.
He looked so good, and here she stood looking her worst! Her makeup was gone, her hair in a towel, and her robe was so ratty it would had been generous to describe it as broken-in.
“You expecting someone?”
There was a growled undertone to his words that Maggie didn’t understand. She pressed her hands to her warm cheeks even as she began to explain. “I thought you were the pizza guy.”
The frown disappeared. With a small predatory smile, Eric looked her over once again, and there was so much heat, so much satisfaction in his gaze, she suddenly felt too warm for the thick robe. “Do you always greet deliverymen dressed like this?”
“No.” She pulled the lapels of her robe together at her throat, a five-dollar bill clenched in her fist. “I thought he was early. Usually I have plenty of time to shower and change. I could have just let him leave the pizza outside the door, but I wanted to tip him. It is almost Christmas, and the weather isn’t the best.…”
Eric reached out and slowly plucked the money from her hand. In the process his knuckles grazed lightly over the top of her breast, across her chest and throat. “Sweetheart, if you answer the door that way, you won’t need any further tip, believe me.”
Mouth hanging open, she blinked at him, dazed by what she assumed—hoped—was a compliment. Eric gazed briefly at her mouth before abruptly turning away. Maggie watched as he laid the money on the entry table and then looked around her home with frank interest. She cleared her throat. “I … I didn’t expect you tonight.”
“I know.” He said the words gently, and with some great, hidden meaning. “I changed my mind about waiting until tomorrow. Am I interrupting any plans?”
None that she would mind having interrupted. She’d hoped to work on her book for a few hours, which was why she’d ordered the fast food. Whenever she typed, she ate. The two just seemed to go hand in hand, which, because she was always pressed for time since taking over for her father, was a blessing. Heaven knew she rarely had time for a sit-down meal. “I was just going to get some … work done.”
“Ah.” He gave her a wicked, suggestive grin. “Maybe I can help?”
She got warm with just the thought. Eric help her with her writing? She didn’t think so. For now, she was still a closet writer, not telling any of her non-writing friends. As the president of the company, she couldn’t imagine how her business associates might react to the fact she wrote very racy romance novels. She wasn’t ashamed of what she did, but she simply didn’t need the added hassle of speculation. At various conventions, she’d heard all the jeers and jokes about how a romance writer researched. For her, research on the love scenes was simply daydreaming about Eric. There were parts of him in every hero she created; there had to be, for her to consider the men heroes.
Until she resolved the issue of her new position in the company, she wouldn’t breathe a word about her need to create characters and romances.
“It’s nothing that can’t wait.” Belatedly, she realized they were still standing just inside the door. She blushed again. “Come on in.”
His hand lifted to trail along a looping pine garland, fastened in place around her doorframe with bright red and silver bows. He seemed intrigued by her Christmas decorations, examining the dancing Santa on the table where he’d placed her five-dollar tip, before gazing across the room to her collections of candles displayed on the fireplace mantel and the corner of the counter that separated her kitchen from her living space.
Every tabletop held some sort of Christmas paraphernalia, old and new. Eric was right that she loved the holidays and rejoiced in celebrating them.
Her small, freshly cut tree, heavily laden with ornaments and tinsel and lights, blinked brightly at the opposite side of the room. It fit perfectly in the small nook just in front of her desk and work space.
Eric nodded in satisfaction. “This is more like you.”
She raised a brow, questioning.
“The holiday spirit,” he explained, but his voice trailed off as his gaze lit on her laptop computer and the piles of paper littering her scarred antique oak desk.
Good grief, she’d all but forgotten about her newest chapters sitting out! From this distance, there was no way Eric could tell what it was, but that didn’t reassure her overly. Trying to look nonchalant, Maggie crossed the room and closed her lapto
p quickly, then stacked the papers and shoved them in a drawer.
Eric watched her so closely, she flinched. “Bringing work home?” he asked.
As he spoke, he pulled off his shearling jacket and hung it on her coat tree beside her wool cape. And just that, the sight of the two garments hanging side by side, made her wistful. It would be so nice if he hung his coat there every night.
“Uh, nothing important.” She preferred working on the computer at her office during her lunch breaks, since the monitor was much bigger and easier to see than the laptop. But she also worked at home whenever she could. Finishing up a book on deadline while working a fifty-hour-a-week job was grueling. Once she finished this book, she planned to buy a new computer for her home. But the idea of getting things set up and functioning at this particular moment, with the rush of the holidays, the pressure of a deadline, and her escalating sexual frustration, was more than she could bear. The past six months had been adjustment enough. She didn’t need the aggravation of breaking in a new computer.
Eric started toward her with a slow, deliberate stride.
She cleared her throat, gave one last glance at her desk to make sure nothing obvious was still out, then said, “Why don’t I get us something to drink?”
She hoped to escape to the kitchen, thinking to divert Eric from his path. Though everything was now put away, she’d feel better if he kept plenty of distance between himself and the desk.
Before she could take two steps, Eric stopped her with a large hand on her elbow. Her living room was small and cozy, but how he’d moved across it so quickly, she couldn’t imagine.
“Your place is nice. I haven’t seen it before.”
Until her father’s death, she’d lived in their family home with him. Eric had been to that house many times. But since then, he’d been avoiding her for the most part, despite her efforts to get closer to him.
“After Daddy died,” she whispered, “I couldn’t quite take living in the house. It seemed too big, too cold, and I missed him too much. So I moved here.” Her home was now a moderately sized condominium that suited her perfectly. She had her own small yard, complete with patio and privacy fence, a fireplace, and a balcony off her bedroom.