Can't Get Enough (6 page)

"It's just that most of the time when you see me you have no lips," he
said. She stared at him. "I assure you, these are not detachable," she
said. He looked skeptical. "Except when you see me. Then they
disappear. Like this." He gave an example, thinning his lips into a
prim, ungenerous line.

"I do not do that," she said, even as she felt her mouth assuming the usual tense expression she wore around him.

Damn him.

"You're doing it right now."

She stretched her mouth wide and forced her lips to assume a more relaxed expression.

"Happy?"

"That's better," he said approvingly.

She could feel her lips thinning again at his smug response.

"And there we go again," he observed.

She closed her eyes for a moment. This was insane. She was trapped in
an elevator with the company's number-one playboy having a conversation
about her lip posture while lying flat on her back.

"Feeling faint again?"

She blinked, recognizing that the fear that had been lapping around her knees had receded to toe-height.

"No. I feel…better."

He looked pleased and a little proud.
He's been distracting me,
she suddenly realized. With that thought came an abrupt awareness that
her legs were sprawled out inelegantly and her skirt hiked up on one
side. She reached a hand down to rearrange her skirt even as she moved
to sit up. A heavy male hand landed in the middle of her chest.

"Take it slow," Jack warned, and even though he'd taken his hand away
she could still feel the heat and weight of it as she slowly sat
upright.

She glanced around the elevator car. Nothing much had changed since she hit the deck: same brushed
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metal sides, same industrial carpet base, same small, inadequate light.
She knew he was watching her carefully, and she made an effort to
appear calm, biting down on the sensation that there simply wasn't
enough room, or air, or anything in this tiny little space….

"Okay, this meditation technique I was telling you about," Jack said
suddenly, and she suspected that her rising panic might be more than
obvious.

"I'll be okay," she said, wishing it were true. Wishing the doors would simply slide open and let her out.

"Humor me. Close your eyes."

She shook her head stubbornly, and he snorted his exasperation.

"For Pete's sake—just let go for a second. That's all I'm asking," he
said. "You can stitch yourself back up nice and tight once we're out of
here."

She blinked, more stung by his comment than she'd have thought
possible. For a moment there she had forgotten what he thought of her,
that he was her enemy. Afraid he'd see her reaction, she closed her
eyes obediently.

"Great. Now, starting on your next inhalation, I want you to
concentrate on your left nostril. Pretend your right nostril is
blocked, and concentrate on breathing up your left nostril to the point
between your eyes. And then exhale down your right nostril, again
concentrating on the sensation. Then, in through the right, and out
through the left. Keep repeating it until you feel better." His voice
was slow and calm, and even though most of her mind was busy being
annoyed and hurt and scared, she managed to focus on her breathing. A
few breaths later, and she was really getting into it, feeling the
sensation of air traveling up one nostril and down the other. A few
minutes of this, and a lovely calm was starting to build inside her.
She popped an eye open to find Jack had moved back to his side of the
car, and was sitting down, his back to the wall.

"This is pretty good. Thanks."

"Nothing to do with me—thank the ancient yogis ofIndia."

"I will, next time I see them. But in the meantime, I really appreciate
it." She maintained some serious eye contact when she said it, wanting
him to know that she acknowledged his help, that she wasn't the kind of
person she suspected he thought she was. He simply nodded, once,
letting her know her message had been received and understood.

Silence slipped between them, and for the first time she became aware
of how stuffy it was becoming. She unbuttoned her suit jacket and
shrugged out of it. She regarded it for a moment—it was an expensive
suit, a treat she'd bought herself for her birthday last year. Oh,
well. Sacrifices had to be made if they were going to be stuck in here
for hours on end. She rolled it up and placed it behind her, making a
pad to lean against. And then she sat, alternately studying her hands,
or the tips of her shoes. It was like being stuck at all of the most
disastrous parties of her teenage years rolled into one. She knew she
should say something. In fact, a dozen conversational gambits suggested
themselves to her, but they all felt wrong. For starters, she'd been
arguing flat out with Jack not ten minutes ago. Ten minutes
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before that, he'd been handed half her project on a silver platter. And
then there was Katherine's lunchtime exposé about Jack's…talents. If
that wasn't enough to stifle conversation, Claire didn't know what was.

How she wished her friend had kept her insider knowledge to herself.
The last thing she needed was to develop some stupid awareness of Jack
as a man. She was stuck in an elevator with him, for Pete's sake. She
didn't want to know that he was great in bed, and had a fantastic body.
It was bad enough that she'd been mentally undressing him while they
waited for Morgan earlier. She flicked a look across at him, but her
glance skittered away again when she saw that his shirt was sticking to
his sweat-dampened skin, giving her a very nice idea of just how well
muscled and proportioned his chest was. She could even see his dark,
flat male nipples through the damp fabric….

This man is your nemesis,she told herself fiercely.
He represents everything you loathe in men.
Determined to get over her stupid preoccupation, she deliberately
reminded herself that in addition to having a broad, sexy chest, long,
strong fingers and knowing, all-seeing eyes, Jack had stolen her
parking spot this morning.

A surge of
annoyance raced through her. That was better. Suddenly he was just a
man again—an annoying man who regularly operated as a thorn in her
professional side. She tapped one shoe toe against the other, then
followed with a little heel click as she relived that frustrating
moment of finding his car in her space. There was no way he didn't know
that was her usual spot. He'd have to be either blind or stupid not to
know, and she knew he was neither. So—

"Why did you park in my spot this morning?"

She nearly bit her tongue off as she spoke her thought out loud. Now it
was out there, however, and there was nothing for it but to pretend
she'd meant to challenge him all along.

"I wasn't aware that we'd been assigned parking spaces. Was there a
memo sent around? I must have missed it," he said, and she felt her
buttocks clench with annoyance. A memo. Very funny. Any sexual thoughts
she'd had about Mr. Annoying receded at a rapid pace.

"You know exactly what I mean. You usually park over near the pillar in
the middle. And I always park near the stairwell. It's a system, a
habit. And it works. So why did you take my spot this morning? And
don't tell me you didn't know it was mine, because you gave yourself
away when you wagged your keys at me this morning."

"You're not serious? You're really all bunged up over a stupid parking
spot?" She sat up straighter at the disbelieving scorn in his voice.

"It's not the spot, it's the principle. Tell me you didn't do it just
to annoy me and I'll drop it. But first you have to look me in the eye
and say that pissing me off was not on your agenda when you filched my
spot this morning."

He rolled his eyes. "Do you know how juvenile you sound? Let me guess—only child, not used to sharing, right?"

She felt a small, familiar stab of regret, and she pushed it down, back into the place where it belonged.
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"Look me in the eye and I'll never mention it again," she dared him.
Jack shook his head as though she'd just suggested he pull his
underpants over his head and run around making chicken noises.

She simply raised an eyebrow and waited. Finally he got sick of rolling his eyes and telling her she was unbelievable.

"All right. When I parked my car in that spot this morning, pissing you
off did not in any way inform my decision," he said, but at the last
minute he broke eye contact and his gaze wandered somewhere over her
shoulder.

"Huh! You liar! You big fat liar! You
did
do it to piss me off!" she gasped.

"Okay, you want the truth? You're right—I did do it on purpose. You've
parked in that spot every single day for the past year. I thought it
was time you had a change." She nearly swallowed her tongue.

He thought it was time she had a change?

"You thought it was time I had a change?
You
—a man who hasn't yet grasped the basics of ironing—thought it was time for
me
to have a change?" She realized her mouth was hanging open and she shut it with an audible click.

"Yeah. I did."

His earlier words came flooding back, something about her stitching
herself back up nice and tight. Added to his original assessment of her
as prissy, it made a pretty unattractive picture. Suddenly she got
it—he thought she was some repressed, neurotic career woman. The type
of person who had to have routine, made sure she ate all the five major
food groups and was never late paying her bills. The idea so outraged
her that she couldn't stop the challenge popping out her mouth.

"You think I'm uptight, don't you?"

Her temper increased another few degrees when he simply raised an eyebrow at her.

"Answer me!" she demanded, and even to her own ears she sounded shrill
and shrewish. He waited until the echo from her screech had died before
spreading his hands as though presenting a fait accompli.

"I rest my case."

She stared at him, very aware of the pulse beating madly at the base of
her neck. She hated that she was behaving this way, hated that he could
crank her up so easily. Most of all she hated that just five minutes
ago she'd been imagining his bare chest, while he was sitting there
thinking she was uptight and repressed. Across the elevator car, Jack
yawned ostentatiously, making a show of checking his watch, all of it
meant to imply he was waiting for her next "snappy" comeback. Her
temper boiled over and without thinking, she slid off one of her
imported Italian leather pumps and slung it across the room at him.
Unfortunately, hand-eye coordination had never been her strong suit and
it simply bounced harmlessly off
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the wall next to his head.

It did shock him though, which gave her great satisfaction.

"There's another one where that came from, so keep your stupid male chauvinist generalizations to yourself," she warned him.

She started as her shoe landed in her lap with just enough force behind
it to make her realize he was much better at ball sports than her.

"That's how much of a male chauvinist I am. I respect you as an equal
so much I know you can take what you dish out," he said, and the
complaint about him nearly hurting her died on her lips. Sneaky
bastard.

If her first throw had connected, she could have hurt him, and they
both knew it. By giving her back some of what she'd dished out, he was
forcing her to acknowledge her own double standards—that it was okay
for a woman to hit a man, but not vice versa.

A taut silence stretched between them. She bit her lip to contain the
hundred and one explanations, justifications and motivations for the
way she lived her life, to prove to him he'd got it wrong, got her
wrong. She wanted to tell him that her bedroom at home looked as if a
bomb hit it, that she laughed at dirty jokes and that sometimes she
even drank her beer straight from the bottle. She wasn't uptight or
prissy, she was just very professional at work. And very committed to
her training schedule. Thinking all this through helped take the edge
off his words. He was just using some pathetic playboy measuring stick
to assess her, and because she didn't match his idea of what a woman
should be, he labeled her repressed and uptight. Just because she
didn't wear tight miniskirts to work and fall all over herself to
giggle at his jokes and wear her cleavage like the latest fashion
accessory. Just because she was an achiever, and hardworking, and
focused.

The truth was, he was probably scared of her. Threatened. It was
typical, really—putting her down so he could build himself up. Almost,
she felt better. Almost.

Unbidden, a memory popped up: the dinner she'd had with her old college
friends last month. There had been lots of excited chatter as they
caught up on the four years since they'd all last hooked up. Sue had
been full of her kids' antics, her husband's achievements and her own
dream of selling her handmade quilts on the Internet.Georgiahad been
excited about her upcoming wedding to the fabulous Greg, as well as
being quietly proud of achieving partner in the law firm where she
worked. And Claire had shared her achievements with the magazine, and
talked about her chances of winning the upcoming statewide triathlon
semifinal. She'd gone home that night feeling contented and replete
after a good catch-up with her old friends. Now she remembered a look
she'd caught Georgia and Sue exchanging. Was it possible they'd felt
sorry for "poor Claire" and her empty life? When she'd apologetically
left the table to take a quick cell phone call from someone at
Hillcrest Hardware, had they talked in hushed tones about her being
uptight and dronelike ? About how alone she was—
still single
—and how she was filling her empty hours with meaningless exercise?

SuddenlyGeorgia's suggestion that Claire should meet her friend Tony—a
really amazing, laid-back
guy
—took on a whole new light.