“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.
“Zane, hi,” she said, sounding a little out of breath. “You just caught me in the middle of scrubbing the bathtub.”
“I want to see you today.”
“Oh. You mean professionally, or personally?”
“Do you really think I’d call you begging for more of an image consultation?”
“I can always hope.”
“Don’t you take Saturdays off?”
“I work around my clients’ schedules.”
“I can’t stop thinking about last night.”
She sighed into the phone. “Me, either.”
“So come over here.”
Silence. And then she said, “The thing is, I get the feeling you’re trying to distract me from my job with all this hot sex.”
Zane smiled. “Is it working?”
“Sort of. But I can’t meet with you unless we’re meeting professionally for your image consultation.”
“You mean there’s more? I thought we were finished.”
She laughed. “We’ve barely gotten started.”
“I’ll let you keep trying to do your job, if you’ll let me keep trying to distract you from it.”
“That’s not much of a deal.”
“It’s the best you’re going to get,” Zane said.
“You’re impossible.”
He smiled. “Actually, I’m an easy guy if I’m getting what I want.”
“We need to go shopping to put together your new look, and we need to schedule you a trip to the salon.”
“Forget the salon.”
“Zane, you’ve got to do something with your hair.”
“I’ve already got a guy who cuts it for me.”
“With a dull knife? I’m not doing my job unless I take you to a good stylist. It’s part of the deal.”
Zane exhaled. Jack Hiller would be expecting him to clean up some, and Zane knew his hair was part of the problem. “Fine, but if I walk out of there looking like a helmet head—”
“Give me a little credit. I make people look better for a living, not worse. And for the record, I like your hair. I just think it needs a good cut and style.”
“No hair spray.”
“Okay, no hair spray. Do we have a deal?”
“Yeah, I’ve got some free time on Monday if you can get me an appointment anywhere then.”
“That’s kind of short notice, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“That still doesn’t help me out with the problem I’m having right now,” he said, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling.
Nothing but Naomi naked in his arms was going to help him with his immediate problem.
“We need to address the issue of your wardrobe, which seems to consist of nothing but black T-shirts and jeans.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“And that leather jacket you like to wear on camera—doesn’t that get hot in Africa?”
“Yeah, but it looks cool.”
“It has its charm, but it also looks like it’s been rolled over by a few Humvees.”
Zane laughed. “I think it has, actually.”
“It’s gotta go. Meet me at Brooks Brothers at the mall near your place, and we’ll put together a new look for you.”
“Why can’t I just keep my own look and spiff it up a little?” he said, his hopes of getting laid tonight fading fast.
“We’ll try to do that. But you need a wardrobe overhaul.”
“Not at Brooks Brothers. I’ll look like a cookie-cutter reporter fresh out of journalism school.”
“Would you stop protesting every little suggestion I have and give me a chance? It’s a good store for picking up a few basic items. Then we can expand out from there.”
Zane didn’t have an ounce of faith that he’d turn out looking anything like himself if he let Naomi have her way with him, but he didn’t have much choice at the moment. The desire to get Naomi into bed again was enough to risk getting decked out in a stiff oxford and maybe even a shiny striped tie.
“Okay, okay. I’ll meet you at the mall. What time?”
Over the phone, he could hear her flipping through pages. She probably had her Saturday planned out by the hour, complete with number of minutes allotted for weekend relaxation.
“I can be there at four o’clock.”
“Let me check my schedule,” Zane said, smiling to himself as he flipped through his blank calendar that he never could be bothered to write things down on. “Looks like I’m free.”
After they’d said goodbye, he hung up the phone and stared at his computer, trying to figure out where the uneasy feeling in his gut had come from. Was it Naomi? The story? His impending makeover?
It had to be the makeover. He didn’t like being shaped and molded into someone he wasn’t, especially not by his employer. There had to be another way.
But until he found it, he fully intended to enjoy his hot little image consultant for all she was worth.
9
NAOMI GLANCED AT HER WATCH and heaved a sigh of exasperation. She looked around the Brooks Brothers store again, but Zane was nowhere in sight. She’d already set aside a dressing room for him and filled it with the clothes that would make up the base of his ideal career wardrobe, but he was almost an hour late for their meeting.
She dug around in her bag until she found Zane’s contact information, then punched his home number into her cell phone. No answer. She tried his cell phone next, and he answered after two rings.
“Did you forget our appointment?” she asked by way of greeting.
“Hello to you, too.”
“I’ve been waiting for you for the past hour.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “Didn’t you get my message?”
“No.”
“I had some work come up that I couldn’t blow off. I called and got your machine.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten it. I’ve been out all afternoon.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think to call your cell phone.”
Naomi’s temper flared. She would not be toyed with by some playboy journalist with a bad attitude. Even if he was amazing in bed.
“If this is your way of getting out of our agreement, you can forget about it. I want you here in fifteen minutes.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. I can’t blow off my other appointment just to play dress-up with you.”
“You’re wasting my time. Is this other appointment of yours important enough to lose your job over? Because I can call Jack Hiller right now and let him know you’re refusing to cooperate.”
Silence.
“If you’re not here in fifteen minutes, I’m calling him.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Do you really want to test me on this?”
He muttered a curse, then breathed into the phone. In the background, Naomi heard a horn honk.
“I need a few minutes to make a phone call,” he finally said, sounding none too pleased. “And I’m on the other side of town. I’ll need twenty minutes to get there.”
“Fine. I’ll give you thirty,” she said, then hung up the phone.
Okay, so maybe she’d turned into psycho bitch. Maybe she’d overreacted a tiny bit, but she would not have her time wasted.
Naomi dropped her phone into her purse and expelled a pent-up breath, blinking away an unexpected dampness in her eyes. Here she was, the cheerleader who’d just been dumped by the star quarterback. And she’d just had to beg him to come back. At least that’s how she felt.
No, that was ridiculous.
She was freaking out because her professional reputation was on the line, and she didn’t want her biggest client ever skipping out before she’d even gotten a chance to improve him.
The fact that they’d slept together no doubt complicated matters, though—and complicated her emotions as well. She might not have reacted so strongly to any other client blowing her off, and th
is was yet another example of why she shouldn’t be sleeping with Zane.
But the thought of their night together, of the myriad ways he’d pleasured her, of the tingly sense of satisfaction she felt…
It was complicated.
She didn’t want to give up the best sex she’d ever had as soon as she started having it. But she also didn’t want to blow her chance to make over Zane and set her career on the fast track to success.
Too damn complicated.
Naomi arranged with the salesclerk for Zane’s dressing room to remain reserved until she returned with him, and then she set out across the mall to the coffee shop she’d eyed on the way in. If ever her nerves needed the soothing effects of caffeine, it was now.
Ten minutes later, with cafe latte to go in hand, she stood in front of Victoria’s Secret, eyeing a little black lace ensemble that she couldn’t help but imagine wearing for her next encounter with Zane.
And there she was—already assuming there’d be a next encounter. Not even letting her own good sense talk her out of it. Assuming, even, that after the way she’d just behaved on the phone, Zane would ever want to sleep with her again.
Instead of reality dissuading her, she simply shrugged it off. She was the same woman who’d tossed her ex’s clothes out the window, after all. She could handle Zane.
And there had been his mention of trying to distract her from her job. She’d let herself be distracted a little, if it was the right kind of distraction—and with Zane, no doubt it would be.
So she marched into the store without feeling the least bit embarrassed, picked out her size and carried the bra and thong panties to the register. After she’d bought it, she tucked the bag into her purse, intending to return to Brooks Brothers to wait for Zane, but instead she found herself on her way to the public restroom to change.
If Zane wanted to give her a distraction, she might as well dress for it. She went into the ladies’ room and changed out of her nice-but-boring underwear and into the new bra and panties that put her in exactly the right mindset for seduction. Zane could believe he was distracting her from her job all he wanted, but she knew the truth. She was simply getting what she wanted—and she’d do her job, regardless of what he thought.
A few minutes later, she was dressed again, and she went out into the mall. She found a bench outside the store, and she sat on it, sipping her coffee until Zane showed up.
He eyed her darkly as he stopped in front of her. “Is that how you treat all your clients?”
“Only the uncooperative ones,” she said as she stood.
Naomi tossed her coffee cup into a nearby garbage can, then followed Zane into the store. If she had to read his posture, she’d say it was screaming, “Pissed off.”
The salesclerk, a guy in his twenties who looked like the poster boy for Brooks Brothers, approached them. “May I show you to your dressing room now?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Zane cast a wary glance at her but said nothing as he followed them to the dressing area and into a small room equipped with mirrors, a clothes rack and a cushioned bench.
“Just let me know if you require any other items or sizes. I’ll be right outside,” the salesclerk said, then closed the door.
Naomi sat on the bench, suddenly aware that she was alone with Zane, and that he was about to get naked. She normally would have waited outside for clients to try on clothes, but since she’d already seen him in the buff once…
“While I was waiting for you, I went ahead and picked out some clothes I thought would suit you well on camera.”
He eyed the assortment of conservative garments hanging from the rack but reserved comment.
Face-to-face, alone with him, the memory of their night together so fresh in her mind, Naomi realized the last thing she wanted to do was fight with Zane.
“Can we call a truce?” she said in her best sugar-sweet southern drawl.
“Why the sudden change of heart? Don’t you want to threaten me and badger me a little more?”
“I’m sorry I took such a nasty tone. I don’t think we can work productively together if there are hostile feelings.”
He cast a skeptical look at her. “You’ve got that right.”
“Will you accept my apology?”
“Sure. I guess I owe you one, too, for blowing off our appointment.” He smiled then—a slow devil’s smile.
Naomi crossed her legs and tried to ignore the sweet buzzing that was starting up between them. She nodded at the rack of clothes. “If those styles don’t work for you, we can always try something else. I’d just like to start out with these basic pieces as we go over the principles for building a career wardrobe.”
He crossed the dressing room and stopped a few inches from her, then took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “I didn’t realize getting dressed could be so damn complicated.”
She smiled, his nearness an entirely distracting reality. “Not complicated, just not something that most people know instinctively.”
“Oh yeah?” His smile turned predatory. “Want to talk about what I do know instinctively?”
Oh yes, she certainly did. But first, work. “We’d better stay focused on the task at hand,” she said, her voice unexpectedly tight. “For now,” her inner bad girl added, visions of hot sex already dancing in her head.
His nearness was muddying her thoughts, so she stepped aside, then went to the rack of clothes and pulled out a pair of flat-front khakis and a white oxford.
“I had to make some assumptions about your size, so hopefully these will fit. Let’s start out by trying them on.”
Zane kept his gaze locked on her instead of the clothes as he removed his shirt, shoes and pants, then stood before her naked except for a pair of snug white briefs.
She dared to look him over and saw that he was growing erect. Oh Lord, the things she ached to do right now…
In a matter of seconds, he was fully erect. “Damn,” he said, glancing down at his own crotch. “Trying on clothes might be a little painful at the moment.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Is this some kind of distraction technique?”
“Honey, I don’t exactly control when things happen down there.”
“Well, then, you’ll just have to do your best to try the clothes on,” she said, but she didn’t even sound convincing to her own ears.
What she wanted to say was that she’d be perfectly happy to relieve him of his not-so-little problem.
He came to her, took the clothes from her hands, and tossed them to the floor. “You sure about that?”
Hell no.
“Um…” She didn’t get a chance to make up any lame response because he silenced her with a kiss.
As his tongue coaxed her mouth open and began demanding her attention, he pulled her body against his, and she felt the full extent of his problem. Oh yes, she’d definitely need to help him with that. He pushed his hands beneath her top and found her breasts, aching, with nipples erect. He massaged and teased them, then pushed her bra down and palmed her bare flesh until she was gasping for more.
He broke the kiss and regarded her with eyes darkened by desire. “You didn’t expect last night to be a one-time performance, did you?”
Without waiting for a response, he tilted her head back and found her neck with his mouth, where he began sucking, teasing, biting gently.
“Umm…” she said, more of a moan than a response. “I…hoped not.”
Naomi clung to him, her greedy hands exploring the smooth, hard flesh of his back, her mind dancing over fantasy images of their bodies locked together in sex.
Here in the dressing room, in the mall parking lot—wherever, whenever, she was so very ready for it.
She licked his shoulder, nipped at his flesh, holding on for dear life as he made his way from her neck to her ear.
He pushed her skirt up to her waist and pushed her panties aside. His fingers spread her lips apart as he teased her, aroused her…. Then he
dipped inside her, and she cried out.
“Shh,” he whispered, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “That salesguy might think we’re calling for another size.”
“Mmm,” she moaned softly.
His fingers plunged deeper inside her. “I want to bury my cock inside you,” he whispered, his words a raw shock to her system.
She went from burning to on fire in an instant. Naomi unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor, then stripped off her top and panties as he helped her out of her bra.
So much for her fancy underwear. He’d barely gotten a glimpse of them. But they’d served their purpose, having given her the confidence to go after what she wanted. Zane had set her on the course of becoming a woman with a great sex life, and she wouldn’t turn back now.
He tried to turn her around, but she stopped him. “Not so fast. I think you need professional help,” she said as she slipped her hand inside his briefs.
He sighed. “I didn’t realize that was on your list of services.”
“Not for my regular clients, but for a hard case like you, I can make an exception,” she said with a naughty little smile.
She tugged his briefs down, and he stepped out of them as she sat on the bench. Then she pulled him between her legs and took his erection into her hand again. She’d tasted him last night, felt the power of having him in her mouth, but it hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. He’d been impatient for more, and so had she.
This time, she intended to savor him.
Naomi took him into her mouth and ran her tongue along his length, thrilling at the gasp he expelled. He buried his hands in her hair as she teased the head of his cock with her tongue. And the more she teased, the more tension she could feel coiling inside him.
She ran her fingernails up his inner thigh and across his balls, then cupped them as she continued to suck. She started building up a momentum, and then someone knocked on the door.
“Is everything okay in there?” It was the salesclerk.
Naomi froze and looked up at Zane. His eyes shot open.
“We’re doing just fine, thanks!” he called out.
“Okay, just let me know if you need anything.”
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