Seven Day Seduction (6 page)

He was so sweet, so…nice. And she, well she
was a faithless cow!

She sighed as she jiggled
her mouse, desperately trying not to give into the temptation to
look over her shoulder and see if Jude was behind her. He was
somewhere. Not his office. Not in the open plan area, but
somewhere
.

Her spreadsheet beeped its anger. She’d
entered the wrong syntax, and it was refusing to undertake the
calculation until she fixed it. Louise stuck her tongue out at the
screen, retyped the equation, and pressed enter. Text scrolled
across the screen, the day’s work very nearly done.

She had maybe twenty hours or so left of
work to do, it was far easier than Jude had led her to believe.
Which meant she’d be clear and free come Friday, Saturday at the
very latest. And then she’d never see him again.

Her heart squeezed. The computer continued
to calculate.

Just three days ago she hadn’t known he
existed. They’d lived in the same city for years without ever
meeting one another. Hell, they might even have passed each other
in the street. How could the idea of never seeing him again make
her feel vaguely panicked?

What was wrong with her? And more
importantly how could she fix it?

***

“We’re going to dinner.”

Louise looked up from her desk, and
immediately shook her head. It was gone eight o clock. Jude had
started to wonder if she planned to spend all night working,
perhaps hoping that he’d go home out of boredom. How wrong she was,
he could happily have continued to watch her, watched her for
hours. The way she frowned at the screen, the way she bit down on
her lip when she was especially absorbed. It intrigued him beyond
measure.

Did he feel like a bit of a voyeur watching
her without her knowledge? In truth yes, but he hadn’t been able to
stop the urge to drink his fill. It was getting to the point that
he wondered if he’d ever be able to stop.

“We are not.”

“We most certainly are,” he said.

“I have plans.”

With her fiancé, Jude thought, and had to
clench his fists as the jealousy—the increasingly familiar
jealousy—flooded him. “Cancel them,” he demanded. “We have business
to discuss. I want to go over the analysis you’ve done so far.”

Another shake of her head as she shut the
top of her laptop, and began to disengage all the cables. “We can
do that here.”

They could, and it would certainly be more
private, but Jude wanted to take her out with him, to have her walk
next to him, sit across from him. The idea pleased him in a
ridiculous way, and though he didn’t really understand it, he was
willing to follow it.

“
Nope. I’m hungry, we’ll do
it while we eat.”

She shoved her laptop in her briefcase,
quickly followed by her little mouse and notepad. “But—”

“Scared?” he asked, cutting her off before
she could get started on whatever ridiculous excuse Jude knew was
likely to come.

It had the desired effect.
Louise bristled, her eyes narrowing, and
finally—
finally
—looked up at him. His pants stretched uncomfortably. Jude
shifted position.

“
Of course I’m not scared,”
she said. “What have I to be scared about?”

“Well, exactly,” Jude agreed. “Let’s go
then.”

She snapped her briefcase shut, grabbed the
satchel she seemed to tote everywhere with her, and stood. One more
glare in his direction, one last look around the office, before she
sighed. “Fine, but I’m taking my own car.”

The drive to the eatery was overly long.
Jude kept a close eye on his mirror to make sure that Louise did
not take a turn off and duck out of their date. Because it was a
date, he decided, the first of many in his campaign to win her.

He pulled up in front of the building,
pleased to have bagged a space, and waited for Louise to settle in
behind him. A few moments later and they were both on the sidewalk,
ready to go inside.

“Did I mention that you look especially
lovely today?” Jude asked.

Louise gripped her satchel to her, her face
flushing. She really was very pretty when she blushed. “No…I…”

“I especially love the skirt,” he added.
“How many of those things do you have to torture me with?”

She looked down at the beige skirt she wore,
it molded to every single fucking curve. “You’re being
inappropriate,” she whispered.

“Always am where you’re concerned,” Jude
agreed. “I can’t seem to help it.”

He reached out to take her arm, intending to
guide her into the eatery, but Louise shrugged him away, and strode
off on her own. In normal circumstances Jude would have simply
caught her up and took the arm anyway, but she was walking fast,
the movements making her skirt stretch around her ass. It didn’t
take much for Jude to imagine exactly what was underneath. He could
barely wait for the moment when he got to see it all in the
flesh.

“It’s busier than I expected,” Jude said
once they were inside.

“Maybe they won’t have a table?” Louise
suggested.

He did not like the hopeful note to her
voice. “Then we’ll just try somewhere else.”

But a table was available, and Jude grinned
as the server steered them towards it. He didn’t recognize anyone
in the busy crowd—despite the fact he was a frequent visitor. He
doubted Louise did either. She kept her gaze lowered, her satchel
still clutched in front of her.

She did look a bit Miss Moneypenny, he
thought, as they walked through the crowd. The skirt, the shirt,
her hair all tamed. Would he feel so intensely for her if she was
more showy? If she dressed and acted as outrageously as the other
girls in the office? Jude pondered the idea as they passed the
small stage where a local band was setting up.

Louise was, well, she was simply Louise.
Jude was sure that he would have reacted to her regardless of how
she looked, or how she acted. Hell, he was reacting despite the
fact she wore a fucking ring on her finger. It was inescapable, and
the moment they halted at their table Jude was seized with a desire
to undo her hair, almost to prove a point to himself.

“I’ll be over with your drink menus in a
moment,” the server said.

Jude nodded as he held out Louise’s seat.
His fingers itched to unclip her bun as she sat down, but he held
off. Maybe the perfect time to see those honey colored waves would
be when she rode him? He could easily imagine her pumping up and
down on his length, her hair tickling his chest as she sheathed him
over and over…

“Thank you.”

Jude took his own seat and poured them both
a glass of water. Louise looked at him, then away, and then back
again. She reached out to take the glass but almost knocked it
over. Jude steadied it, and nudged it across.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s fine,
spill as much water as you want.”

“The owners might have something to say
about that.”

“I’ll deal with them.”

“I imagine you deal with people often,” she
said softly.

“I like things how I like them,” Jude said
without apology. “So, yes, it is necessary, but it doesn’t mean I’m
not fair. I never take advantage of anyone or deliberately hurt
them.”

“Unless they’re standing in your way. I bet
things would be different then. Because you always try and get your
own way, don’t you, in the end?”

It was a question in a question, but Jude
saw little point in answering it. They both knew what he would say.
Instead he chose a completely different topic, something designed
to make her relax, to let her guard down just a little.

“Tell me about the work you’ve done.”

***

By the time their dessert arrived Louise had
completely run out of things to say about the job. She’d stretched
the conversation as far as possible, all in an effort to avoid
talking about whatever it was Jude had really brought her out
for.

She could see it in his eyes—those very ones
she tried so hard to avoid—and in his lazy grin, telling her quite
clearly that he knew exactly what she was up to, and would humor
her for a little while longer. But it couldn’t last, and when the
server placed their food down on the table, gave Jude a wistful
kind of look, before disappearing, he finally switched the
conversation.

The switch was not what she had
expected.

“So tell me about him.”

“Who?” she asked, though Louise knew exactly
who Jude meant, and was merely stalling for time.

“The boyfriend,” Jude grated.

“Fiancée you mean.”

He shrugged. “He’ll be an ex soon
enough.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like
that.”

He smiled and picked up his spoon. “Because
you like the way they sound?”

“Because they’re preposterous,” Louise
replied, not liking how shaky her voice sounded.

“Because you’re scared.”

“Jude, stop!”

He tilted his head and gave her a look she
couldn’t quite decipher. “Talk and I will.”

“Fine, William is….”Louise paused, unsure
how to go on.

“He’s what?” Jude prompted.

“Very nice,” she hissed. “Sweet, Caring.
Understanding.”

“Boring.”

“Jude…”

“How did you meet?”

“At work. We met at work,” Louise said, her
mind skipping back to that time. She’d known William for well over
a year, ever since she joined PSO. He’d trained her, shown her the
ropes in the new job, and a few months later they’d started dating.
Louise hadn’t actually seen him that way at first, maybe because
he’d been so studious and thoughtful with her training. She’d
almost begun to think of him as a teacher, or an older brother, not
as a boyfriend at any rate.

When he approached her and asked her out to
dinner she hadn’t known what to say. But she remembered all the
times he’d been patient with her, helping her work through
equations, and taking her suggestions for improvements on board.
There was also, Louise had to admit, the fact that up until then
offers had been pretty thin on the ground for her.

She’d always been a bookish person, nerdy
even. College friends and colleagues hadn’t seemed to see her in
that light. She’d thought at the least spending time with William
might help assuage her loneliness. Money was tight, she only got to
see her parents every few months, and her younger sister was a six
hour drive away.

Then before Louise knew what was happening
one date became two, then three, and then they were several months
into a relationship. When William proposed it had seemed so easy to
say yes, made perfect sense.

She’d never questioned that decision.

Until now.

Until Jude.

But then there was a lot of
things in her relationship she hadn’t questioned Louise realized,
and that thought startled her, made her heart give a weird sort of
stutter. She shook her head slightly, almost as if she was trying
to deny them, but for the first time in all the months she’d spent
with William, those hidden thoughts would
not
be denied.

Like why they were marrying so soon, it had
only been a year after all. Why William hadn’t wanted to give
living together a try before they made the big leap. Why he wanted
to wait for them to make love….

She lowered her head, not wanting Jude to
see the turmoil that she knew must be obvious in her eyes. She’d
never really thought it through before now, preferring instead to
look forward to the day they were married, but Jude…Louise inhaled
sharply…he wanted to bed her so much that he was chasing her even
though she was as good as promised to someone else.

Why wasn’t William chasing her like
that?

Because he already has you,
her mind supplied, and yet even as she thought that Louise couldn’t
help but wonder why William was happy to wait. He was a man after
all. He must desire or else why would he have proposed? And more to
the point why had she agreed? Why had she been so
happy
to
agree?

Because he doesn’t make you feel like Jude
does. Because you didn’t realize anyone could make you feel this
way. You wouldn’t have been happy to wait then, would you?

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Louise whispered, her head
spinning as the truth of the situation hit. It was all Jude’s
fault! If she hadn’t met him she wouldn’t be feeling this way.
Wouldn’t be questioning the situation, which until now, had seemed
perfectly fine.

Maybe not desperately exciting.

Maybe not something to make her head
spin.

But nice, comfortable,
hardwearing. It had seemed like enough.
It
doesn’t anymore.

“Him?” Jude growled. “I bet he loves your
pencil skirts as much as I do. Fuck, no wonder.” He scowled. “If
you were belonged to me, Louise, the only office you’d be working
is mine, exactly where I could see you.”

“I’m not yours,” she said weakly.

“Not yet. Eat your sorbet, it’s starting to
melt.”

“Are you trying to fatten me up?” she asked.
“Every time I open my mouth you’re trying to get me to eat
something.”

He sighed. “Oh, Louise, please do not say
things like that.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Right now there is only one thing I can
think about you eating. I’ve thought about it many, many times
these past three days.”

“I—”

“And I tell you to eat because your
marvelous brain needs the calories, not to mention that perfect
body of yours.”

Louise flushed, her belly contracting at his
words, and though she knew it sounded like fishing, she couldn’t
help the words that left her lips. “My body is hardly perfect.”

“It is exactly perfect,” he stated. “There
is nothing about it I would change.”