Terms of Surrender (2 page)

"And gain your wrath again? No way."

Nick laughed, signed off, and hung up, glad to be back on even ground with Angie. He hadn't believed for a minute he had scared her or Evelyn away last Labor Day when he had stopped talking to them for a month. This degree of incommunicado was unheard of in the Vega clan.

4

Terms of Surrender

He'd had to make a point and hadn't known how else to do it, short of outright war. He didn’t know why Angie had taken it upon herself to invite Slany Breeze to their parents’ house.

It had him more up in arms than usual when his sisters tried to fix him up.

Could it have been that Ms. Breeze's arrival had put Nick on instant guard and ruined the rest of the day for him?

Slany had actually flipped his existence upside down long before the cookout. Several months before, she boldly strode into the offices of
DMT, Inc.
in a jade pantsuit that sensually hugged her curves. He automatically wondered what was beneath the expensive silk material and imagined his fingers skimming the surface of her creamy caramel skin.

He hadn't gotten a lick of sleep that first night after he'd gotten home from work that day, inundated with visions of her at the quarterly meeting that morning. The memory of Slany crossing and uncrossing her legs with pent-up energy to spare made him wonder what it would be like at the other end of that energy when she unleashed it. Hell, even the red nail polish on her immaculate, surprisingly delicate toenails made his cock granite hard.

Dammit, he hated wanting that maddening woman! Especially when he knew she most certainly didn't want him. That is, if the rumors were true.

She was a perennial thorn in his side and had been from the moment she'd started working at the agency a year ago. Her nose was so high in the air, she could probably sniff the scent of an angel's armpits.

His phone rang at the same instant he heard the commotion outside his office. Someone was giving his secretary, Yvette, a hard way to go about seeing him and wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer.

Nick deliberately turned his back on the door as he answered his phone and admired the panorama of clear blue sky outside his large fifteenth floor corner office windows. Dave Connor from marketing was on the line, touching base about one of Nick's accounts.

The door burst in behind Nick, and he didn't even turn to see who it was. He instinctively knew. Her earthy, piquant scent rode the wind to his nose, a dick-hardening, mouth-watering combination of toasted vanilla musk and woman that made his nostrils flare. He leisurely turned.

Slany just barely slammed the door behind herself and in Yvette's face.

He stared at her and calmly spoke into the mouthpiece of his headset. "Yeah, Dave, something just came up. I'll have to catch up with you later." He glanced at her caramel face, noticed the flush of color matching the unruly auburn waves framing her strong angular features as she stalked across the floor and stood before his desk, fists on gently rounded hips.

She reminded him of Jennifer Garner from
Alias,
one of his favorite TV shows and a singular naughty pleasure. He rarely missed an episode, if only to get drunk on Jennifer’s prominent cheek and jaw bones and the many faces of Sydney Bristow. Jen's body wasn't too shabby, either.

Nick arched a brow, waited, not fooled for a minute by Slany's sudden calm made all the more credible by her elfin looks—pert nose, exotic almond eyes, and slightly pointed ears—all incapable of masking the explosive energy that lurked within the woman.

5

Gracie C. McKeever

He shook himself from his mini wet dream. Shit, if she smiled and showed those deep Jennifer-like dimples, he was done for, but since she was angry with him, there was no chance of that. "Take a load off for a minute, and we can talk about what you think I did."

"Don't try to placate me with that unctuous ad-man tone."

He liked her set of brass balls and had to stop himself from smiling in her face.

As a creative director at
DMT,
he was technically her superior, but that had never stopped her addressing him as an equal.

He might have said something to her about her defiance by now, if it weren't for the agency's informal, first-name-basis approach and his own warped desire to see how far Slany would go in her quest to be an untouchable hard-ass.

She took a step forward now, looked ready to climb over the desk to strangle him. Nick could almost imagine her leaping across the desktop Amazon warrior style, breasts undulating with her endeavors. His cock throbbed at the image of her landing in his lap, wriggling full-throttle.

Damn, what was wrong with him? She was totally not his type. He liked petite, ultra-feminine women, and Slany was as far away from that as he was from docile. Not that she was masculine or unattractive—far from it. At one-fifty and a statuesque five-nine—actually, a few inches more in low-heeled pumps that had her standing almost eye-to-eye with his six-three—

she was more viraginous in stature than he was used to. He'd done the measurements in his head a thousand times since he'd met her, all the way down to guessing how much her round full breasts would weigh in his hands.

Nick furtively shifted as he watched her, hated that she had him so turned on so early in the day. Hated that she had so much power over him, made him think about breaking protocol, throwing her across his desk and sinking into her hot depths, sexual harassment suits be damned.

He sat down behind his large cherry desk, folded his hands on top of the shiny top with steely composure, and held her glare for a long silent moment before firmly saying, "Slany, have a seat, and we'll discuss it."

"What's to discuss after the fact? Evidently, my approval or input wasn't needed to make the decision in the first place."

"What decision?" He had a feeling he knew. Cameron Thorpe, the "T" in
DMT, Inc.,
Dunlop, Meyer and Thorpe
, mentioned something in one of their private meetings about partnering him and Slany up on another project.

Since Thorpe had already seemed to have his mind made up, Nick had countered with the suggestion that Slany work with him on the Everwell account, as the client had shown keen interest in her ideas and designs.

Rather than bring up that meeting or his part in getting her on the account, Nick waited for Slany to confirm his suspicions. Liked watching those ample, glistening copper-touched lips move. He had to stop himself from staring, or she'd get the wrong idea and think he liked her.

Slany finally took a seat. "Thorpe wants us to work together on the Everwell Bank account, head up the brand-building team, and launch an inward marketing program."

6

Terms of Surrender

He curtly nodded. "I'm assuming your angry reaction is due more to the prospect of working with me and not just an aversion to the project itself?"

"I have good chemistry with Knowles, and I don't want to tamper with it." She didn't even have the decency to avert her eyes with the retort.

Nick knew he should feel insulted by her honesty and maybe even jealous that she preferred working with that popinjay Ashton Knowles instead of him. He just couldn't find it in him, especially since Thorpe had done him a favor by basically throwing his nemesis in his lap.

Right now, he couldn't get past the idea that, of necessity, he'd be in daily proximity to Slany Breeze, and he'd get to see her swallow her substantial pride every day for at least the next six months, if not longer, while working with him. Inward marketing was a long-term process, especially when done right, and would include not only a discovery element, but analysis, brand development, and an internal marketing push involving the employees of Everwell in the discovery and development process.

He scowled, didn't want to give her the idea that he was anymore happy about the situation than she was, and leaned forward. "What makes you think
we
wouldn't have good chemistry? What makes you think we don't?"

"That's not the point." She pierced him with those gleaming emerald eyes that made his dick harder than the gems her eyes mimicked.

He noticed she hadn't bothered to deny they had good chemistry. Emboldened, he asked,

"What is the point, Breeze? This is your job and mine. So we work together on an account. We did once before, and it might even happen again. We can't always get what we want."

"Evidently, some of us can."

"Are you insinuating I asked for this assignment? That
I
want to work with
you
any more than you want to work with me?"

She lifted her chin, holding his stare. "I'm not insinuating anything, except the old boy's network is alive and well."

"Don't be so quick to bite the hand that feeds you."

She actually blushed, but didn't lower her chin an iota.

Jesus, he'd love to be the one to knock that giant-sized chip off her shoulder and tame her.

Balls tightened at the idea that he would be the one, and that she would like every minute of it.

Slany leaped to her feet and stalked to the door. "I don't even know why I bothered to appeal to your sense of decency and fair play."

"You must have mistaken me for the other lap dogs and fops you've got on a short leash around here."

She whirled, eyes blazing as she pointed at him. "
You
have no idea what you're talking about, and I suggest you leave the personal attacks at the front door."

"I will when you do."

She huffed, said nothing as she turned her back to him, grabbed the knob, flung open his door, and slammed out of his office the same way she'd slammed in minutes ago.

7

Gracie C. McKeever

Inhaling a leftover waft of her hot vanilla scent, Nick decided the rumors were false.

Slany was the victim of some cruel vendetta, probably started by one of the creatives often seen salivating at her feet, a jealous
DMT
female staffer, or some other agency employee she'd likewise rejected or gotten the better of in her year-long tenure.

He'd seen the telltale signs of her desire, nipples pebbled and insistently pressing against the sheer cream material of her blouse.

If Slany Breeze was a lesbian, then the cock in his pants wasn't hard enough to cut glass.

* * * *

It wasn't right that one human being should be endowed with such charisma. Raw sexuality emanated off Nick like mist off a pond.

Slany half suspected if he told her the moon was made of cheese, she'd get a ladder and some crackers within a second of him finishing the wild statement, ready to have a snack.

The thought excited and alarmed her.

She was in trouble, had known it the minute Thorpe introduced her to Nick a few minutes before the agency's quarterly staff meeting when she'd started a year ago.

He'd glanced at her, shook her hand, and managed to get inside and touch her soul without blinking an eye. Slany had been left breathless and practically gushing at the striking figure he cut in an olive Armani suit that lovingly embraced his lean hard-muscled curves the way she wanted to. His broad shoulders, lean waist, and long legs sizzled the juices in her vagina and made them overflow into the crotch of her panties.

Slany pulled her legs up into the seat of her executive chair now, adopting a full lotus position as she closed her eyes and regulated her breathing. She'd had a need to practice her yoga in the office on numerous occasions since she'd started work at
DMT
—usually directly after a confrontation with Nick, when she had to get centered and put her errant traitorous hormones in check—but never had the need been as intense then as it was now.

He was like slow-acting poison: the longer she was around him and exposed to his powers, the more susceptible she was to his deadly properties, until finally she'd be a puddle of melted female hormones at his feet.

Just the memory of his chiseled features, expensively-groomed, medium-cropped dark-chocolate waves, honey eyes, tiny gold hoop in his left earlobe, and spicy sandalwood musk sent her stomach spiraling straight to her center, pussy poised to flood her panties any minute.

She just needed one more provocation to send her over the edge.

Someone knocked on the door, and instead of waiting for her permission to enter, Nick opened the door and closed it behind him. He marched across the opulent burgundy carpet of her office, stopped in front of her desk, and gave her provocation. The floodgates opened into her panties and made her squirm in her seat, as if to escape the inescapable evidence of her longing.

She slowly raised her eyes to stare at his face, heart doing that Olympic style gymnast's leap it did whenever Nick was near. She closed her mouth, tried to hide her salivating, feeling 8

Terms of Surrender

simultaneously small and secure, couldn't remember the last time a man had made her feel so ladylike and petite. So safe.

Maybe it was the way he towered over her desk, all six-foot-three of him, or the width of his shoulders, or the deep cleft in his chin—she'd always been a sucker for Kirk and Michael Douglas—that had her quickly unfolding her legs and sitting up straight in her chair, trying to regain her equilibrium. "Did you just bust into my office out of some warped sense of revenge?"

"I busted in to get our project underway. I thought the sooner we got started throwing around ideas, the better."

Damn, did he have to have such a gung-ho attitude?

Thorpe had pulled the rug out from under her just less than an hour ago. She needed a little more time to adjust to the idea of working with Nick every day. The last project she'd worked on with him had been when she'd first arrived. It didn’t last as long as this one was expected to, just a brief couple of weeks to help her acclimate while the agency's capable whiz kid broke her in on an account already well underway.

Slany had been trying to avoid him ever since, unwilling to tempt fate and endanger her piece of mind with constant contact. She realized that not since college had she been exposed to a man that made her tremble, and for totally different reasons than did her college sweetheart, Ron Wells.