Damage Control (13 page)

She didn't look any happier than he felt about it. The only difference was, he was a lot more emotionally invested in this than she was. He was the one who'd walk away with a broken heart. “I can't keep this up any more. It's killing me. It's for the best that we break it off now, before it gets messier. It's been fun. Incredible, even. But I miss the friendship. If I can only have one or the other, I'm going to choose the friendship every time.”

Her expression fell, but then resignation lit her eyes. “You're right. We were crazy to get involved in the first place, weren't we? I mean, we should have just left it at that one night. Do you think we can get back to the way we were before this all happened?”

No way in friggin' hell.
“Sure. I don't see why not.”

They were both silent for too long, and the tension turned uncomfortable. Brian stood and walked toward the door, struck with the sudden, uncontrollable urge to get the hell out of her apartment. This time, he was wise and decided to heed his mind's warning. “There's more soup in the fridge if you want to heat some up later. I have to go. Things to do today.”

“Do you have to leave?”

“Yeah. You'll probably end up sleeping the day away, so you won't even notice if I'm not here. We'll talk later. Just promise me you'll start taking it easy, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

Yeah, right.
He'd believe it when it actually happened.

 

 

 

It had been a week since Brian had broken up with her. Okay, he hadn't technically
broken up
, since they hadn't been in a committed relationship anyway, but it didn't matter. It still hurt. As for being friends…they'd barely spoken all week. He wouldn't even meet her gaze anymore, and she didn't know how much longer she could take this. He was becoming a distraction she couldn't afford. As it was, she'd ended up staying late at the office for the past two nights to make up for the three sick days she'd had to take, though tonight she would have been ready to go sooner if the printer hadn't run out of ink.

Gerald had been annoyed that she'd missed so much work, but the illness had turned out to be more than she'd thought it was. A quick trip to the doctor's office on Monday morning confirmed strep throat and a sinus infection. Until this morning, she'd barely even gotten out of bed.

Jack Hoffman had called her at one point this week to let her know Gerald had asked him to take her place at a meeting with the Mallory people, and could she email him her notes. She'd done so, but grudgingly. She was trying to ignore the unsettled feeling in her gut, but already she had a feeling getting sick would cost her the partnership.

Pushing the thought out of her mind, since there was nothing she could do to change what had happened, she went to the supply closet to grab another ink cartridge for her printer. For the past couple of days the lock had been sticking. Gerald had scheduled a service call for two days later, but in the meantime, he'd warned the employees to be careful. To keep from getting stuck inside, she propped it open with a stapler and went to the shelves at the back of the large closet to find what she was looking for. She'd just found the box marked
black ink
when she heard the door slam shut.

Damn!
The stapler must not have been strong enough to keep the heavy door open. Hopefully the janitorial staff was still in the office, otherwise she might be stuck here all night. She turned, ready to bang on the door until someone let her out. She collided with a hard male chest, the box of ink dropping to the floor.

Brian. She didn't have to look up at him. She knew him by his scent. Taking a deep breath, she looked up to meet his eyes. The raw desire she saw in the blue depths made her pause for a moment, not remembering what she was about to say.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his hands on her arms to steady her.

She nodded. “I'm fine.”

“You look a little flushed.”

Well, running smack into two hundred pounds of raw masculinity will do that to a girl.
She reached around him and tried the knob, giving the door a solid push. It didn't budge. “That stapler was there for a reason, you know.”

His eyes widened as their situation hit him. “Oh, man. We're stuck in here, aren't we?”

She let out a noisy breath. “It appears we are. I didn't know you were even still here. I thought you went home a couple hours ago.”

Part of her couldn't help but wonder if he'd planned this whole thing. No, not even Brian would stoop so low to trap them in the closet. She hoped.

She had to find a way out of here.

She ran to the door and tugged on the knob, knowing it would be futile. They were stuck, and there was nothing either one of them could do about it unless someone came by, saw her key in the knob, and figured out what had happened.

“You're not going to be able to break down the door. Why don't we just make the best of a bad situation?”

Like she was going to fall right back into his arms after he'd walked out on her? She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “Let me finish. I just meant we could talk.” He cocked his head to one side. “We haven't done that in a while. Would it really be so bad to just chat, like old friends? Like we used to, before I screwed everything up.”

A harsh laugh escaped her. He had to be kidding. “Since
you
screwed it up? Wasn't I the one who begged you to stay?” And begged for a whole lot more than that besides.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Doesn't matter. I knew I wasn't in control. I should have left.”

She shrugged. “There's nothing we can do about it now. It's done. I just know not to drink around you anymore. If I hadn't had that wine, it never would have happened in the first place.”

His gaze darkened and his brows dipped into a frown. “Excuse me?”

“We slept together because we were drunk. You know that as well as I do.”

“Are you saying you aren't attracted to me at all?” His tone warned her of his change in mood. His shoulders tensed and he shook his head. “If you really think there's no spark between us, you're lying to yourself.”

“There isn't.” There couldn't be, because if there was, she'd never be able to let him go.

“Want to make a bet on that?”

He advanced on her, backing her against the closet door. His clean, strong scent wrapped around her, instantly making her knees weak. God, she loved the way he smelled. She might have done something embarrassing like swooning if she wasn't a little preoccupied with the fact that he'd got them locked in the closet.

She banged on the door with her fist, giving a half-hearted cry for help.

“It's just the two of us until morning. I think the janitorial staff already left for the night.” Brian's whisper against her ear made her shudder. He rested one hand on her hip and the other on the doorframe above her head, pressing his body against hers. She reached for the doorknob and shook it, needing desperately to be out of this closet before she lost her mind entirely.

With the man who starred in her recent illicit but oh-so-satisfying satisfying fantasies so close she could feel his heartbeat, she was already more than halfway there. Okay, so maybe there was a spark between them, but hadn't he told her he didn't want to act on it anymore? This was wrong for so many reasons. She was going to give him a piece of her mind. Pressing her hands against his chest, she started to push him away.

All it took was one touch to bring everything she'd been ignoring rushing back. She sucked in a shuddering breath at the thought of that sexy body over her, inside her, coaxing her to—

“If you keep touching me like that I'm not going to be able to control myself. I might take you right against that door you're trying to disappear into.”

Horrified, she looked down at her hands to discover she was massaging his chest. So much for telling him to back off. She dropped her hands and stuffed them behind her back, squeezing them tightly between her body and the cold metal door. “Sorry.”

He barked a laugh. “I'm not. I love it when you put your hands on me. You know what I'd like to do now?”

She looked up at him hopefully. “Inventory the office supplies?”

He shook his head. Raw need and passion had darkened his eyes to a deep shade of midnight. He wanted her again, and he wanted her to know it, and the whole situation scared her to death. She swallowed hard and struggled to breathe. The man was too big, too sexy, and suddenly way too close for her to even form a rational thought.

He smiled again, but this time there was nothing gentle about it. This was the smile of a predator, a man who knew exactly what he wanted and didn't stop until he got it.

“I want to kiss you.”

She shook her head.
No! Not again!
It would change everything. But it was too late. His lips crushed hers in a kiss that was rough and gentle, soothing and claiming, and so damned arousing that she trembled all the way to her toes.

She wasn't even going to think about the growing dampness in her panties.

He pinned her to the door while he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue. Her lips parted eagerly without her permission and he delved his tongue into the recesses of her mouth. She moaned when he cupped her face in his hands, drawing her even closer. Every part of her body was alive and needy. She wanted to melt into him and become part of him. His arousal pressed against her belly and she had to fight to keep her hands behind her back. It would be so easy to lose herself in him.

Brian caught her lower lip in his teeth, nipping gently as he pulled away. His gaze was even darker than before, boring into her with the intensity of a freight train at full speed. Her knees buckled and she would have fallen if his body hadn't been pressed so tightly against her.

“Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. You're the one who wanted to stop sleeping together.” She fought for composure as she spoke, trying to hang on to that one rational cell in her sex-starved body that told her she really, really needed this job. If they got caught at the office, they'd both be tossed out on their asses.

She lost the battle when her other cells, knowing another night of hot, steamy, knock-your-socks-off sex when they saw it, beat her last hope into submission.

Brian's feather-light touch across the back of her neck didn't help any. He leaned over and ran his tongue up her throat. “Yeah, I did want to stop. As you can see, I have a little issue with resolve—or my complete and total lack of it. I hope you're not too tired, sweetheart.” His breath was hot against her neck. “Because nobody will be back to let us out until nine in the morning. It's going to be a long, hard night.”

Chapter Nine

She smelled so good, and it had been so long. Too damned long. Only a week in reality, but it had felt like forever. Even now, his cock ached with a vengeance.

Brian leaned in, burying his face against Andrea's neck. He took a deep breath, letting her soft floral scent envelope him. He could live just like this for the rest of his life.

Or so he thought, until she squirmed against him and set his body on fire. Any more and she was going to kill him. As much as he was enjoying teasing her right now, he needed to pull back. He'd only wanted to prove a point, and he'd managed that the second he'd touched her. He had to stick to his guns, to walk away from her. He didn't want to be anything more than her friend.

Yeah, right. Keep on lying to yourself, asshole.
What he really wanted to do was push her skirt up and fuck her against the wall. She liked it that way. Hell, so did he. He groaned against her throat. “Do you have any idea what you're doing to me?”

She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, and in that moment he was lost. Forget resolve. Forget staying away from her. He might not be able to have her forever, but he'd have to take what he could get. His whole body felt liquid. Well, with the exception of the huge erection that was straining against his fly. There was no way he was going to survive if she kept trying to push him away. He had to have her.

He ran his hands up her thighs, lifting the hem of her skirt as he went. He almost died when he came to the lacy tops of her stockings. They were so incongruous with the no-nonsense Andrea he'd known for years that his mouth went dry. It was like she'd tapped into his personal fantasies. He pulled back to stare at her.

“Thigh-highs?” His voice was embarrassingly close to a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What possessed you to wear those?”

She shrugged and gave him a sheepish grin. “I had a revelation a few weeks ago. I really don't like nylons. Too constraining. So I decided to stop wearing them and switch to something a little more comfortable. You don't like them?”

Like them?
A woman who dressed like that was probably one of his biggest fantasies. He'd be thinking about her undergarments for weeks. “I love them.
Love
them.”

She darted her tongue out to wet her lips, probably more of a nervous reflex than a blatantly seductive gesture, but either way it had a devastating effect on his already scorched body.

This was getting pretty heavy. The best bet would be to walk away right now, before he got in over his head yet again, for the second time in recent history. He was setting himself up for some major stress, but he knew it was going to be worth every second.

What a mess he was in. She deserved better than a supply closet. She deserved better than
him
, and he was still looking for more of a commitment than she was. But he couldn't stop touching her once he'd started.

Andrea moaned in earnest, arching her back so her breasts pressed against his chest. Even through his shirt and her drab beige suit jacket he could feel the hard points of her nipples. His mouth watered at the thought of taking one into his mouth and suckling her until she screamed. Andrea was a screamer and he loved every second of it. He pushed her skirt up over her hips and wedged a thigh between her legs.