7 Minutes in Heaven (Are You Game?) (11 page)

They pulled up at a red light and Cassie turned in her seat. “Okay, you cook dinner, but I have to warn you I’m not much of a cook so if you expect me to feed you tomorrow when you’re giving the orders you’ll have to settle for take-out.”

Luc laughed. “You can’t cook? Didn’t you make forty-eight cupcakes?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s baking. I can bake better than most.” She shrugged. “Just can’t cook much of anything else.”

“Can you make apple pie?” Luc had a weakness for fresh hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

“Sure.” The car behind them honked. “Oops.”

Cassie returned her gaze to the road and got the van moving again. She drove another couple of blocks before he asked, “So will you make me one?”

“What?”

“A pie. Will you make me one?”

“Oh, of course. I should have all the ingredients at work.”

“What do you need? I might have them. If not we can go shopping. In fact, let’s do that. We’ll go in the morning.” He rubbed his hands together and licked his lips. “I can already taste it.”

“We can hit the supermarket near my house tonight. I’d planned to grab some things after work today anyway.” She turned the van onto the street where Are You Game? was. “Sound good?”

“Yeah, I can pick up some fresh steaks instead of defrosting them.” Luc mentally rolled through what he had in his fridge and decided it would be best to pick up everything fresh. He shopped regularly and rarely had to throw food out, but he’d prefer to be safe than sorry, and he planned to woo Cassie with his culinary skills tonight. The screech of metal blasted his eardrums as the garage door rolled up. That thing really needed oiling.

“Shit.” Cassie braked hard. “I think it’s stuck.”

Sure enough, the door had only retracted three quarters of the way up. Luc undid his seatbelt and open his door. “Let me see if you’ve got clearance.” He stood on the doorsill and discovered they had plenty of room to drive in without ripping the roof off. Hopping down, he slipped back into his seat and shut the door. “Plenty of room.”

She eased the van forward and pressed the button to lower the roller door behind them. The grinding metal put his teeth on edge and Cassie stuck her fingers in her ears and leaning over, looked through the side mirror.

“Please go down. Please go down. Please go down,” she chanted. When the door met the floor with a resounding crack, Cassie dropped back against her seat and sighed. “Thank you.”

“Worried?”

“Yeah, I hate to admit it, but Dan’s right. We need a new roller door.” She turned off the van and pocketed the keys. “Let’s get everything unloaded and I’ll grab that paperwork.”

Luc followed her out of the van to the rear doors where they got to work. They didn’t speak, and he had to admit the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. He didn’t feel the need to fill it with mundane chatter, and he was immensely thankful that Cassie didn’t either. He’d just picked up the final box when she spoke.

“I’ll run up and grab that paperwork. We’ll be out of here in five minutes.”

She took off up the metal stairs, two at a time, and Luc stood immobile and watched her cute butt as she disappeared from view. His cock stirred. Not that the damn thing had been quiet all day. He’d kept it under control, but there was no denying he’d been semi-hard since last night, and Cassie was the reason for his embarrassing predicament. That was something he’d never had to deal with before, an unmanageable libido. There wasn’t any doubt that she was hot. But she wasn’t the best-looking woman he’d hooked up with, so what was it about her that made his chest ache? What did Cassandra Moreland have that made her irresistible?

Chapter Nine

Cassie leaned against her closed office door and sucked in a deep breath. It was becoming more and more obvious that she was in way over her head when it came to Lucas. Her body wasn’t the only thing wanting his attention. She’d offered to make him dinner because she hadn’t wanted the day to end. The more time she spent with him the more she liked what she saw. He was no longer just a hot body she could get her rocks off with. And that was the problem. She didn’t need this kind of complication in her life.

Complicated didn’t begin to describe what Lucas was. They’d known each other less than twenty-four hours and he was already the biggest distraction she’d ever faced. She couldn’t stop looking at him. And when she wasn’t looking she was thinking. Like now. She’d come up here to collect the paperwork she needed to fill out before Monday’s staff meeting and she was leaning against the door thinking about Lucas. With a sigh, Cassie forced herself to move.

She opened the filing cabinet and grabbed what she needed to finalise today’s party. The folder from last night was still sitting on her desk, so she picked that up and headed back downstairs. A quick glance at the calendar for next week reminded her she had to be in the office early Monday to get everything together for Maggie and the Bernard job. Luckily, she’d prepared all the documents earlier in the week so that job was ready to go first thing. Maggie was her top corporate consultant so she wouldn’t need anything more than the agenda for the five days of team-building exercises.

Satisfied she had everything under control, Cassie closed her office door behind her and made her way downstairs. She found Lucas waiting by the van and her stomach and pussy clenched at the sight he made leaning back against the metal side, ankles and arms crossed. He looked so different in his cargo pants and T-shirt. Easygoing and relaxed. Approachable. Mouth-wateringly sexy. The slacks and shirt he’d worn last night had given him an aura of cool detachment. An edgy, don’t-touch, don’t-come-close vibe that kept people at a distance. This Lucas looked welcoming, and she couldn’t help but be reeled in when he sent her a toe-curling smile.

“Ready?” he pushed off the van.

“Sure.” Cassie wasn’t all that confident she was ready to face the next part of their weekend challenge, but she wasn’t backing out now. “My car’s out front. I’ll just grab my bag and clipboard from the van.”

She flung open the driver’s door, grabbed the board from the dash and retrieved her backpack from behind the seat. One thing was certain in her mind. By the time Monday rolled around everything would be different. It already was. From the second she’d gone up against Lucas something inside her had switched on. Something she couldn’t get a handle on. She couldn’t understand or comprehend how one person could change her in such an elemental way. Cassie glanced through her lowered lashes at Lucas. There was no getting past how good looking he was or what her body’s reaction was to him, but it had to be more than his looks that affected her so deeply.

For the life of her, she couldn’t work it out, and that more than the intense physical reaction she had to him caused her alarm. If it were only lust she could deal with their attraction and move on. But this whole need-to-know-him thing she had going on in her head just wouldn’t quit, and Cassie knew she was treading on shaky ground, knew at any second she’d find herself sinking deep. And yet she couldn’t seem to stop from taking step after step towards him. The only other time in her life she’d felt this out of sorts was when she’d made the decision to start Are You Game?. And while that had turned out to be a roaring success, she’d still been on the brink of breaking on more than one occasion.

They reached her car and she hit the fob to disarm the locks. It was pointless to dwell on what might or might not happen. If she wasn’t going to back out of their deal and end their time together now then she needed to let the cards fall where they may. She was a firm believer in fate. Individual choices could change things to a certain degree, but if something was meant to happen it would—with or without her input. Regardless of the outcome or the traitorous path she walked, she’d made the decision to accept his challenge and she’d see it through to the end.

Cassie tossed her bag in the backseat as she got behind the wheel. They’d have to make a quick stop at her house so she could pick up some clothes and then they’d stop at the supermarket before going to his place. Lucas buckled his belt as she started the car, but before she could put the car in gear he grabbed her hand and wrapped it in both of his.

“Cass?”

She swung her gaze around to meet his, and in those mesmerising brown depths, she saw concern as well as the banked need that had been shimmering there all day. She licked her suddenly dry lips—swallowed. “What?”

“We don’t have to do this.” He squeezed her hand. “Nothing will happen unless you want it to.”

He was right. Nothing would happen without her consent, but she couldn’t stop this thing unfolding. No matter how much her mind protested, she found herself drawn closer to the inevitable—the two of them in bed. It wasn’t the physical aspect of their attraction that had her worried, and she had the sinking feeling that neither of them had control over the emotional side of this pull between them. She’d just convinced herself she’d follow through on their deal and now Lucas was giving her an out. She had no intention of taking it. “I know.”

Cassie tugged her hand free and shifted the car into drive. She released the brake and then eased out of her parking spot and turned towards home. The dread of a few moments ago was suddenly gone. In its place was a bubble of excitement—anticipation—eagerness to move their relationship to the next step.

Whoa.

Relationship? What the hell? Cassie glanced at him out the corner of her eye. Since when were they in a relationship? Hands curled tightly around the wheel, she squashed her thoughts and concentrated on getting them to her house safely. She needed to take this for what it was. A weekend of mutual pleasure. Nothing more, nothing less. No strings, no expectations.

Except all the lecturing in the world didn’t stop her heart from skipping when he reached over and patted her thigh. Yep. Cassie was in trouble. Deep, dark, slippery sides trouble, and she had no intention of trying to find her way out. She just hoped come Monday morning her heart was still in one piece.

Luc cut the feta into cubes while sneaking peeks at Cassie. She sat exactly as he’d pictured her. At his breakfast counter, papers spread out around her, head bent, writing up today and yesterday’s reports. He’d gotten a glimpse of the detail she went into and was amazed at her thoroughness. Not that he should have expected anything less, but when she’d offered to show him her company’s policies earlier he hadn’t really thought about them—or her business—in anything more than general terms.

He’d sold her short and he had to give credit where it was due. The businesswoman blew his mind. She’d built Are You Game? from the ground up. And from what he could gather, she’d pretty much done it single-handedly. Oh, she’d surrounded herself with capable people to help, but she was the driving force—the focal point—they all took their cue from.

Dan had rung her twice since they’d left the supermarket. First time was to check on today’s party and make sure Luc hadn’t done anything nefarious with his boss, and the second to let her know one of their employees had called to say he’d be out of action for six weeks due to a broken arm. They’d spent thirty minutes sorting out what needed to be done to cover the gap and it became clear to Luc that Dan was more than an employee. It had taken all his self-control to hold back the question burning his tongue.

Are they lovers?

He didn’t think she’d hook up with him if she was sleeping with Dan, but that didn’t mean she and Dan hadn’t slept together in the past. Luc didn’t like the way that thought made him feel. She wasn’t his regardless of what they’d done since that first kiss in McDermott’s pantry. And she had every right to a sexual history, same as he did. Except it didn’t matter how many times he repeated those words, they didn’t stop the acid churning in his gut.

“Done.” Cassie pulled all her papers together and stacked them neatly on the counter. “Need any help?”

“No. Everything’s ready. I just have to fire up the barbeque and cook the T-bones.” He pointed to the bottle of red on the counter. “You could pour us each a glass of that to sip while I cook if you want.”

“Sure.” She slipped off the stool and came around to his side of the counter. Her hip brushed his and he sucked in a breath as fire shot through his blood.

He cleared his throat. “Glasses are in the cupboard next to the fridge.”

She took down two wine glasses and poured them each a half glass. “Probably best to not overdo on an empty stomach.”

Luc dropped the cheese into the salad and covered the bowl. “I’ll just put this in the fridge and grab the steaks. Mind carrying my glass out to the deck?”

With the salad in the fridge and the plate of steaks in his hand, he made his way outside. Dusk had settled over the yard and the heat of the day had eased, leaving the evening warm but not uncomfortably hot. He’d built the deck himself last summer and he was pleased to finally have a guest—who wasn’t family—to enjoy it with. Smiling, he pointed at the outdoor table. “Have a seat. I’ll get the barbeque lit and have this meat cooked in no time. How do you like yours? Rare? Medium? Well done?”

“Medium rare, thanks.” She pulled out a chair and sank into it with a sigh. “You have a beautiful set up.”

“It’s a work in progress.” He indicated the hedge a few metres from the deck. “Behind there is a pool that’s in desperate need of refurbishment. Luckily, the bushes hide that disaster area because I won’t get to that until next summer at this rate.”