On the Move (15 page)

“Good morning,” said a cheerful voice from the corner of the room. “I’m glad you’re up. We have a lot of work to do before our meeting at ten.”

He swiveled toward the voice. In the corner of the room, looking spry and chipper despite the ghoulish glow cast by her computer monitor, sat the woman he’d spent hours and hours making love to.

“I’ve found some great articles on how to teach people to read,” she said. “I just love the Internet.”

He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never woken up from a night of pleasure with the woman he’d pleased off in some corner acting as if nothing had happened.

“Did you make coffee?” he asked, sniffing the air.

She nodded. “Yup. There’s a pot in the bathroom. Help yourself. There are towels in there, too, in case you want to shower.”

What the hell was this? Wham, bam, thank you ma’am?

“Vicky.”

She looked up from her computer monitor, the frown clearing from her forehead as she looked away from whatever she’d been studying. “What?”

“Don’t you want to come back to bed?”

The irony was, he’d heard those same words a few dozen times, only they’d been spoken to him by other women.

“Actually, no,” she said, her eyes refocusing on her screen. “I really think it’s important that we get to work. We didn’t exactly have a productive evening last night and we need to review the phrases you have to memorize for the meeting today.”

Productive evening? What the hell?

He slipped out of bed. She looked away. He padded over to her, folded her monitor closed. “Come back to bed,” he ordered, hands on hip.

“No,” she said.

“Vicky, I’m not going to beg.”

“And I told you once we slept together that it would be over.
Finito.
Through. You may as well get dressed. I want to be able to tell Mr. Knight that we made some progress with your reading, too, today.”

He sat there, speechless. Damn it. What was with her? She hadn’t really meant it when she’d told him all she wanted was a one-night stand. Right? He’d heard women say that before, although he’d never had one demand sex quite the way Vicky had. But whenever a woman claimed to want him for a night, it was usually just an act, a way of making herself sound different. The next morning they always got pouty when he hopped out of bed and acted as if nothing big had happened. But last night something big had happened.

“Fine,” he said, because he could wait. If she wanted to play the all-it-was-was-sex game, then she’d met her match. “But first let me go shower.”

“Great,” she said with a flick of her head. “I’ll pull out your workbooks.”

Yeah. Workbooks. They’d do some work, all right. He’d work on seducing her…when the time was right. But for now he could wait. Give her a taste of her own medicine because if there was one thing he knew, it was that Vicky wasn’t as immune to him as she seemed. No woman could do the things she’d done last night and feel nothing come morning.

No woman.

Thinking of her hotel made her think of tangled sheets and hot, incredible sex.

“Don’t you think?” Brandon said, interrupting her thoughts.

Vicky pushed her glasses back up her nose and stared around the table. Five sets of eyes stared back at her, and they each gazed at her as if they expected her to say something.

“What was that?” she asked. Brandon sat next to her, but him she ignored because if she met his gaze, more memories would pop into her head.

“He was saying,” Mrs. Parsons said, “that he thinks you should receive some training, too.”

Concentrate, Vicky!
“Oh. I, ah…I should,
what?
”

She heard someone chuckle. It was Brandon, the rumbling from his chest a low baritone that made her teeth grind together.

“Wow,” Brandon said, and she knew he leaned closer to her because she could see his reflection in the glass surface of the table. “Someone had a late night.”

Yeah,
she thought to herself.
Because of you.

“Actually,” she said. “It was a late meeting.” She picked up a pencil that sat by the documents in front of her.

“So did I,” Brandon whispered. “And it was a very…
very good
meeting.”

Had anyone else heard the words? She glanced around the table. The other women in the room were staring at the two of them as if wondering just exactly what kind of meeting they’d had. After a second or two, Mrs. Parsons looked ready to breathe fire. The two men kept their eyes on the papers in front of them as if embarrassed to look up.

Vicky almost groaned.

Damn Brandon. Why’d he have to do this? He might as well climb the light fixtures above the table, beat his chest and crow like Tarzan.

Me bed woman last night. It good.

“Yes, well,” Mrs. Parsons said, picking up some papers and tapping them on the table. She looked ready to fling them at them both if they didn’t start to behave. “I think Mr. Burke might have a point. If you’ll be representing him at the track, then you should receive training, too.”

“I’m not planning to go to any more races.”

“Be that as it may,” Mrs. Parsons said, “you might be called to speak on his behalf. In that event, it would be good for you to receive the same schooling as Brandon.”

Brandon leaned in close. She could smell his cedarlike scent. “You’re going to the track with me this weekend.”

“No, I’m not.”

He reached under the table and squeezed her leg.

She dropped the pencil that she’d been holding. “Brandon,” she whispered fiercely, noticing there were nail marks in the wood where she’d stabbed her fingers into it.

Brandon let go and said, “I totally agree. Especially since I expect Vicky to come to
all
my races.”

She could feel her skin prickle where he’d touched her. “No,” she all but growled. “I don’t need to go to the track. That’s what you have Mrs. Parsons for. Besides, I’m the type of person who likes to
type
up statements, not actually talk to the media in person.”

“Now, now, now,” he said, glancing around the table with a smile. “Vicky’s just being modest. She actually loves being in the spotlight. Why, you should have seen her last—”

She kicked him under the table.

“—week,” he finished after a long silence that seemed to raise the eyebrows of everyone in the room, including the men who were now staring avidly at the two of them. “She jumped right in front of the cameras at Daytona and told everyone we’d issue a statement later. It was great.”

Mrs. Parsons stared at them with what could only be called a disapproving frown.

She knew.

Damn it all. Once the woman found out from her boss that Brandon and Vicky had been together in her hotel room last night, she’d put two and two together. No doubt everyone at KEM would find out then. In a matter of days they’d all know she’d slept with Brandon Burke.

“Well,” Mrs. Parsons huffed. “I’m glad to hear your agent is such a team player.”

Vicky almost groaned. Oh, yeah, that’d been a dig. The emphasis on the words
team player
combined with the scowl on the woman’s face couldn’t be mistaken.

“And,” Mrs. Parsons continued, “since I feel Mr. Burke has a point, we’ll add you to the schedule, too.”

Terrific. Just what she wanted. To be given faux interviews in front of a television camera so her performance could be replayed and everyone in the room could tell her how badly she’d messed up. She
hated
being put on display like that.

“Well, if there’s nothing further, let’s go over our key messages,” Mrs. Parsons said, nodding to one of the men in the room. He got up, went to the giant whiteboard and began to write. Vicky tried to pay attention, she truly did, but it was hard with Brandon’s hand sliding onto her thigh from time to time, and Mrs. Parsons shooting them looks that clearly indicated she knew what was going on. Vicky felt like a teen in high school.

“Would you stop it?” she said the moment they were alone. They were standing by a row of windows, sunlight casting checkerboard patterns on the buff-colored floor beneath them—both of them waiting for a crew of technicians to finish adjusting the cameras and sound. Mrs. Parsons and company were gathered in a corner, reviewing their notes.

“Maybe I don’t want to stop,” he said.

“You should,” she snapped back. “Because if those people over there haven’t guessed by now that you and I have been intimate, I’ll eat my glasses.”

“Oh, now, don’t do that,” he said softly. “You look so adorable in them.”

“I’m serious, Brandon. You’ve got to stop.”

“No,” he said, his words bringing her back to reality. “Last night was the first of many nights you and I will spend together.”

Damn him, his words had her warming up all over again.

“I’m not going to let you walk away. What happened between us wasn’t meaningless.
You
know it and I know it.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” she said, slipping her glasses back up her nose.

“Yes, you do,” he said softly. “I can see it in your eyes. Tell me, was one night enough? Did you—how did you put it?—get me out of your system?”

No. Not by a long shot. If anything, her craving for him had grown worse. He was like a spot of poison oak. You knew you shouldn’t scratch it because once you did, it’d only itch worse. And that’s exactly what had happened. She wanted him again. Wanted him to do the things to her that he had last night. Wanted him to make her moan and sigh and cry out in pleasure.

No, she screamed inside. No, no, no. It wasn’t going to happen again. This time she would be the one to do the dumping.

“Look,” she said, turning to him. “I don’t know what kind of woman you think I am, but I am definitely not the type to engage in affairs with men like you. No. Way.”

“Men like me?” he said. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Big star athlete. I used to see them prance around campus back in college. Always with a girl on their arm. I don’t like men like that. I like men that can give me tit for tat. That can hold up their end of the conversation.”

“And you think because I can’t read I’m not your intellectual equal.”

“No,” she said, grabbing him by the forearm. “I do not think that. Don’t you ever think I think that,” she said, releasing him only when the spark of anger she’d seen in his eyes faded away. “I’m saying you and I have nothing in common. You race cars for a living. I might have a career in law if being an agent doesn’t work out.” After last night, that was a distinct possibility.

“You must know something about racing if you wanted to be an agent. You must know something about sports. You must like it, too. Why else would you want to do this for a living?”

Why, indeed? She couldn’t tell him about her parents. How living with her mom and dad—or rather,
step
mom—had been like living with strangers. They were so different, so into wealth and power and prestige. She’d never felt that way. She’d refused to work in the family law firm. She wanted to do something different with her degree. Sure it’d been an act of rebellion, but so what? Sure her stepmother called her just about every other day to ask if she’d changed her mind, but that was to be expected. They hated sports—and she’d gone and decided she wanted to spend her life dealing with athletes.

“Because I love sports,” she admitted. “I’m a jock inside, even though I’ve never been talented at anything even remotely athletic. The closest I’ve come to racing was trying to outpace the woman on the treadmill next to me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the roar of a crowd. I get excited when someone I’m rooting for does well, race-car driver, tennis player or basketball star—it doesn’t matter. I love it. And I want to be on the inside. Or at least I think I do. I don’t know yet. The jury’s still out.”

“So you want to live vicariously through your clients?”

“Maybe something like that,” she said. “I’m not going to let you blow it for me, either. So back, off, Burke. If you don’t, I’ll quit.”

“You won’t do that,” he said softly.

“Oh, yes, I will.”

“No, you won’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s like you said. You love sports. You’re a competitor at heart. You don’t want to lose, and walking away from me would be a loss. That’s why you haven’t quit before now.”

“I haven’t quit because I need to make ends meet.”

He shook his head again. “Nah. I don’t buy it. You’re not being honest, Vicky VanCleef. We
do
have something in common. We both like to win, and when it comes to you and I, I’ll tell you right now, you’re going to lose.”

She let out an exasperated breath. “I give up.”

“And I’ll tell you something else, too. You’re going to be at my race this next weekend.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You will because you want me to do well. That whole vicarious winning thing.”

She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Of course, you’ll also have to go because I’m going to tell Scott I want you there. He won’t refuse me.”

“Blackmail again?” she asked with a lifted brow.

“Whatever it takes.”

“It won’t work.”

“That’s what you think,” he said softly, leaning toward her. “You’ve become a challenge to me, and like I said earlier, I hate, absolutely
hate
to lose.”