direction she quickly walked away.
Leila turned as though walking toward the exit. She glanced over her shoulder and once the old men were no longer looking in her way, she quickly reversed her steps and walked briskly toward the closing elevator.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do now,” she murmured and stepped inside the elevator. “I’m going to pay Mr. Brandan Walters a little visit.”
3
After Brandan entered his inner office, he casually tossed his Stetson in a nearby chair.
He sat down in the oversize leather chair behind his desk, picked up the phone, and buzzed his assistant.
“Judith, what do I have scheduled for this afternoon?” he asked.
“Why don’t I bring in your calendar when I bring your coffee, Mr. Walters?” she asked, and Brandan agreed.
Today was Friday, the last Friday of the month, and he wanted to break away early if possible so he could make it to Austin before the rush hour traffic hit.
He had a full weekend ahead and the past few weeks he hadn’t had the chance to get away, kick back with a beautiful woman, and leave business behind.
This weekend he had plans with a beautiful hot blonde he’d met the previous week, and he wanted to spend the entire weekend letting her prove she could do all the things her body promised it could deliver.
Damn, it had been too long since he’d been with a woman. By choice. He’d been restless lately, and although he’d had plenty of opportunities, he’d declined the many offers thrown his way, much to his partners’ amusement.
Damian told him he needed to stop “ho-ing” around, settle down, and find the right woman. And after he’d stopped laughing at that thought, Mateo accused him of being in a sexual slump, and claimed the cure wasn’t abstinence—as their happily married partner, Damian claimed—but the exact opposite. His advise was to go out and saturate himself with women, all the while laughing at Damian’s assertions of true love and commitment to one woman.
Whatever the answer, he needed…something, he thought. Something that would ease away the tension that had been steadily growing the longer he went without a woman.
If he thought about it, the last time he’d been with a woman had been shortly before he’d started communications with Leila James, the owner of one of the properties he and his partners were trying to buy.
Just the thought of the woman, and her sharp little emails—emails that had started off professional, telling him she had no plans to sell her property, but had grown progressively sharp—provoked him.
A reluctant laugh burst from his mouth when he thought of their last exchange. She’d emailed him with her usual in-your-face attitude, and he’d shot back an answer, telling her they’d simply build around her and her little shop. He even referred to Dr. Seuss’s tale of the two stubborn creatures who refused to see logic, oblivious to the fact that the world went on, with or without their assent.
Well…she then called back, and left a blistering message on his voicemail, basically calling him a money hungry, no sex-life having dirt bag whose only aspiration in life was to trump on small business owners’ dreams.
She’d told him that if he had had a life, he’d have better things to do with his time than harass her. He’d definitely have better things to do than to read Dr. Seuss. Instead of screwing around with her, he’d be out getting screwed by a woman.
“Damn,” he muttered, and shook his head. “Hell, maybe there’s some truth to that,” he murmured out loud.
It had gotten to where he looked forward to their exchanges, and if a few days went by and he’d not heard from her, he’d shoot her an email.
Always polite, to the point…with just a bit of bite. She seemed to like it that way, he thought with a laugh. More than once he’d contemplated calling her and inviting her out to have a drink where they could talk about the issue, but had refrained from doing so.
He had an image of what she looked like, how she would be, firmly in his mind. He wasn’t ready to chance that the reality, and his fantasy of her might be nothing alike. The conversations, emails though they were, had been the most engaging conversations he’d had with a woman in too long a time.
Thinking back, her voice, low, smoky, deep, and sexy as hell, had turned him on more than any of his recent dates had. He had to admit to a certain anticipation if and when they ever met.
As he waited for Judith to appear, his thoughts left Leila James and went to the woman in the lobby. He smiled, the edges of his lips pulling up in a purely masculine way.
She’d immediately caught his attention the minute he’d entered the lobby and laid eyes on her long leggy body.
Even from the back he could see her agitation as she spoke with the Charlies.
Brandan chuckled. Hell, anybody not familiar with the Charlies would get agitated with the pair and their antics.
He’d checked her out, starting at the tips of the sexy stiletto-heeled boots on her feet that added at least three inches to her already impressive height. His gaze had then traveled up the length of her long shapely legs—legs that had instantly wrought images of being wrapped around his waist—to her softly rounded hips, past the sexy indentation of her waist, and onward to small, perfectly rounded breasts pressed tightly together, highlighting the soft swell of her dark honey-colored cleavage.
She had the most striking face he’d ever seen. Bold features, full sensual lips, light brown eyes with a ring of gold around her irises, tilted up slightly at the corners, giving her a mischievous look.
High sculpted cheekbones, and a small nose with the slightest hint of a dimple at the end, completed the picture of bold, unabashed beauty.
She’d had her long hair in what looked like upswept dread-locs, yet several had defiantly escaped the sophisticated updo, and for a moment, Brandan had wanted to wrap his fist around the errant locs and pull her to him.
“Mmmm,” Brandan smiled.
The memory alone was enough to make a man forget his responsibilities and hunt out the sexy, statuesque beauty.
Damn.
It didn’t help matters when he’d caught her large, sleepy eyes roaming over him, head to toe. Just as he had been checking out every fine inch out of her.
They hadn’t exchanged a word.
Hadn’t needed to.
They’d been caught in some strange cocoon of their own until one of the Charlies had interrupted. He could still feel the aftereffects.
Hot. Charged. Electric.
Judith, his assistant, walked in his opened door with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, and balancing his calendar in the other, effectively dousing the directions his thoughts were taking him regarding the woman downstairs, and their strange, sexually-charged encounter.
“I have your calendar and coffee, Mr. Walters.”
She
