The Driven Snowe (7 page)

She frowned. “I…I have a lot of classes. I'm sort of booked.”

He paused. That didn't sound promising. “Until when?”

“Next Friday.”

He groaned to himself. Seven days until he could hold her again?

“All right.” He kissed her, lingering until her breathing sped up. “I'll see you on Friday night.”

As he got up to walk her to her car, he swore to himself that he was going to make it the beginning of something incredible…a night she wouldn't forget.

T
HE FOLLOWING FRIDAY
,
Josh could still picture Angela, almost feel her in his arms when he closed his eyes. But he had neither seen nor felt her since their episode in the deserted part of Club X. In the meantime, he'd had plenty to focus on with Solar Bars, but the night ahead was making him as antsy as a grade school kid on Christmas Eve.

“You know, you're the only one who really
works
at working lunches, Josh.”

“If I don't, who will?” Josh said, grinning at his friend. They were sitting in Joe's Burgers, papers strewn around the Formica tabletop, binders propped open on the napkin container. Their sleeves were rolled up. Joe was standing behind the counter, shaking his head, his grizzly face amused. Josh and Adam had been having working lunches at Joe's Burgers since they moved the company to Manzanita five years ago. “Besides, I've got a big date tonight.”

Adam looked stunned. “You're going out on a date? Tonight?”

“So what?” Josh looked up from the report he was
rifling through. “It's Friday, isn't it? Lots of people go out on dates on Friday.”

“Not a Friday before the auditor gets here, you don't.”

Josh sighed. The auditor. Not that Solar Bars had done anything wrong, but the way they'd posted earnings, and the growing size of the company—they were due, he'd figured. They'd been lucky to get away without an audit for this long.

Ordinarily, he'd be sweating it out with the accounting team, checking over every figure they came up with. “I trust Bill,” Josh said slowly, referring to his corporate controller. “He and the accounting staff can handle it.” He felt his shoulders tense, and forced them to relax.

Adam stared at him.

Josh finally put the report down in disgust. “All right,
what?
”

Adam shook his head. “Nothing. It's just that—well, this isn't a critique, you understand. It's just that you like to get involved in every little aspect of
everything.
” He broke into a grin. “Remember that time, when you would have fallen headfirst into the granola mixer if I hadn't stopped you?”

“Are you kidding? You never let me forget it.”

“But you still do stuff like that—work with the line crew every now and then, check in on accounting, pester my R and D people, hunker down in the trenches with the marketing team. You like to be hands-on, all the time. It's what's made Solar Bars the company it is,” Adam said seriously.

“Thanks,” Josh said. “But what does that have to do with my social life?”

“That's just it. You've never put anything from Solar
Bars on hold for a
date.
This is unprecedented.” Adam sounded more than curious—he seemed downright intrigued. “So. Anybody I know?”

“Not exactly,” Josh hedged.

Adam stared at him, a broad grin creeping across his face. “You did it. You found the virgin.”

Josh groaned. “I don't think you should refer to her that way,” he said.

Adam's grin grew even wider. “That's true, you took care of that.”

“Watch it.” Josh's voice was steel-edged. “Yes, I'm going out with Angela tonight.
Angela,
” he said, with emphasis. “Wow.
Angela
must be a damned fast learner,” Adam said, laughing despite Josh's warning glance. “Girl must be a gymnast or an acrobat or something to get you to take a step back from work. What do you have planned for tonight? As if I need to ask.”

“I've got plans,” Josh said. “We're going into Sacramento, catching a show, dinner, the whole nine yards.”

And by the time the night was finished, he was going to know everything there was to know about one Angela Snowe—and she was going to know that her next six months, perhaps longer, were going to be booked solid by Josh Montgomery.

“You're doing it again.”

Josh dragged himself back from his thoughts. “Doing what?”

“That corporate-takeover smile,” Adam said, his jovial tone curbed. “This is a lot more serious than I thought.”

Josh made a negligent gesture. “She's different. I appreciate the different.”

Adam started to say something, then stopped abruptly. “Well. Here's something
I
can appreciate,” he said finally, nodding at something behind Josh.

Josh turned, then narrowed his eyes. “Shelly? Is that you?”

She had honey blond haircut in a stylish shag, and her very full breasts were straining at the buttons of her cherry-red blouse. She wore a short denim skirt and a pair of heels. He could see how Adam would be attracted by her. He could see how any man in the joint would be.

“Josh?” she said. “Josh, is that you?”

He stood up, reaching arms out for a friendly hug. He noticed that her full chest pressed against his a little longer than he was expecting, then brushed the thought aside. “I haven't seen you since high school,” he said, smiling fondly. “You haven't changed a bit.”

She smiled, the same luscious smile that had his whole defensive line drooling, back when he'd played football at Manzanita High. “It's been a long time,” she said, her green eyes looking at him with open admiration. For the first time, he felt uncomfortable with it, thinking of big brown doe eyes—the kind that looked at him with a mixture of innocence and longing.

I'm just saying hello.
But the little pang didn't go away, and he frowned.

“So how have you been?” he said quickly.

At this, her pretty face frowned slightly, showing a spasm of bitterness that she wasn't quick enough to hide. “I've been…well, things haven't been so good.” Her right
hand moved reflexively to her left hand, rubbing her ring finger. “I've recently been divorced, actually.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Josh said, and meant it. Shelly had always been a pistol in high school, a flirt and a terror of sorts, leaving broken hearts in her wake.

“I've just moved in with my parents, until I get back on my feet again. It's just temporary,” she assured him, as if waiting for him to judge her. “I've gotten a job at the Travel Center, as a travel agent, so it's just a matter of time before I get a place of my own.”

“Planning on staying in Manzanita, then?”

She nodded, her eyes surveying him under long lashes. “That depends on whether I find anything worth staying for, I guess.”

“Well then. I guess I'll be seeing you around.”

She lightened up a little. “That would be wonderful. It's been such a long time, and I don't know anybody in town anymore, it seems.” She looked sad, and he felt sorry for her. “Manzanita's not the little back-fence community I remembered.”

“It's better,” he said, patting her shoulder. She moved in for another bosom-heaving hug, and he kept it brief. “Maybe we'll do lunch sometime,” he said, easily.

Her responding smile was intent. “I'll hold you to that.”

She turned, moving her hips in a walk as seductive as an aphrodisiac. Josh noticed that every male in the place was riveted.

Josh sat back down in his booth.

Adam looked at him, bewildered. “So, do you know
every
fine woman in a five-mile radius, or what?”

“I'll get you a list. I'm sure I've got their phone numbers somewhere.”

“Lunch, nothing. Why don't you take her out to dinner?” Adam was all but drooling. “That is one
fine
woman.”

“I've already got a fine woman,” Josh said, laughing, then stopped abruptly, realizing what he'd just said.

Adam heard it, too, and his eyes narrowed. “Do you, now?”

Josh pointed to the binder propped open in front of Adam. “Just tell me about those new soy bars you wanted to come up with. The carob-soy protein bars.”

But even as Adam went on about the new product line, Josh went back to his statement.
I've already got a fine woman.

He'd have to think about that.

 

I
T WAS VERY CLOSE
to dark, and Angela negotiated the winding curves that led to Josh's isolated house in the hills, her heart beating fast.

She was going to have sex. Fantastic, mind-altering sex.

She frowned.

Fantastic, mind-altering,
uncommitted
sex, she corrected.

Maybe she was a fool to try to repeat the incredible experience of two weeks ago. This time, she wasn't stressing about dying a virgin. Now she was stressing about living with the consequences. She'd been having second thoughts since she'd agreed to his crazy proposition. And third, and fourth thoughts…

Maybe she was losing her mind. Or maybe she was going too crazy with this whole “experience gaining” craze she'd stepped into.

Or maybe every time the guy gets within three feet of
you, your eyes cross and your arms and legs suddenly get the intense desire to wrap around him, ninny.

She gripped the steering wheel a little harder. Okay, there was that, too. But she'd never been at the mercy of her body before, and that's just what she felt like…like her hard-won independence was being bowled over just because she'd finally introduced her hormones to real, down-and-dirty, fantastic sex.

She felt her pulse spike as her mind came up with the images and memories it had stored around said fantastic incident. Suddenly, the temperature went up several degrees in her car, and she rolled down her window to let some of the cool evening air in. It was as if her body was saying,
Yeah, we enjoyed it, we'd do it again in a heartbeat. Wanna make something of it?

The only problem was, it
wasn't
just her body. That's what scared her half to death.

What if I somehow fell in love?

Her own mother had been much younger than twenty-nine when she became pregnant with Angela. Angela had seen pictures of her mother, happily cuddling a chubby, cheerful infant, looking much like a girl herself. Later, hugging a skinny, straggly-haired girl who gradually grew like a weed, while her mother seemed to age much more rapidly.

Her father had never been in any of those pictures.

Her mother had planned on being an architect when she met her father at a party. It had been love, at least on her mother's part…head-over-heels, crazy and out of control. They'd gotten married a handful of months later, and she had gotten pregnant. She'd worked as a secretary to help make ends meet while her father finished school. By the time Angela was one, her father had
decided that he did not want to deal with a young wife and child. Last Angela had heard, he was now married, with a seven-year-old son. Apparently later in life he'd recanted his decision.

“I don't begrudge your father anything,” her mother often said. “He gave me you.” But Angela could still remember her mother watching television shows about old buildings, or looking through books on architecture, as she propped up her feet after a long day. Her mother worked brutally hard to keep herself and her child financially afloat. Her dreams of architectural school remained just that. Dreams.

Angela closed her eyes. This wasn't love. This was sex. She knew the difference.

She had spent most of her adult life working too hard and dreaming too often, following in her mother's footsteps. She had been too busy or too scared to get involved with a man. Now, she had a chance to make up for lost time.

What she wanted, to put it quite bluntly, was sex. Pure and simple. She wanted to ravage, and be ravaged. She wanted to feel him, naked, his skin brushing against hers as he entered her…

She focused back on the road. God, she was turned on. She didn't feel like driving into a tree just because her body was running a little overheated, though. She chuckled at herself.

She had carefully dressed in a blue silk sheathe. Basically it was just a casing for the black lingerie she had meticulously strapped on. The garters in particular had been a challenge. After cursing at them for a good fifteen minutes, she'd finally got the whole getup put together, and she had to admit that the effect was well
worth it. She'd pouted at herself in the mirror as she put on lipstick in her underwear, a little sex-kitten practice, then laughed at her reflection.
I want this so much!

Maybe he'd sweep her up at the doorstep and carry her to the bedroom, she thought. Or maybe there would be a lingering kiss, and a seductive trail of clothes through the house as they made use of every piece of furniture that came within their path to the final destination. She didn't know. She figured that was what made it all so much more exciting. To other people this might be old hat, but to her, it was an intriguing new world. She felt like somebody with a new car or computer or something, someone that had to push every single button to find out what it did.

She was going to push plenty of buttons tonight.

She parked her car in his driveway. Immediately her heart started beating faster. She tugged her black coat around her, and stepped out carefully. She was wearing heels again, more sensible ones than she'd worn when she first met him, but still sexy. She grinned. She wasn't planning on wearing them that long, anyway.

She got to the door and rang the doorbell, her skin tingling, heart racing.

Josh opened the door, and her heart stopped for a second. He was wearing a black tailored suit with a snowy white shirt and a burgundy tie. His hair was slightly damp and slicked back, with his bangs hanging rakishly in front of his blue eyes. He looked like a fallen angel. He looked like a model out of
GQ.

He looked good enough to eat.

“Angela,” he said. She felt his gaze rake over her body like a caress. “You look…damn.”

She smiled at him. “I take it that's good.”

He kissed her, and she immediately parted her lips, pressing against him hungrily. She felt his fingers dig slightly into her hips, pulling her to him. She swayed against him.
Let the ravishing commence.