not a chicken. Or an ostrich. Or anything else ornithological. She could hold her own against the waves of testosterone and sexual confidence he exuded. To prove just that, she stepped in his direction, stopping only when she was close enough for a quick, welcoming hug.
She wrapped one arm across his shoulders and leaned toward him. “It’s great to see you.”
His familiar cologne wafted over her, immediately calling to mind other earthy fragrances, like rain in the air and sex on her sheets. The memory was so strong that she froze for a second. David looped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him for a full-frontal hug, and her muscles went liquid with both recognition and anticipation.
Forget it, she instructed her body. There had been extenuating circumstances behind the one time they’d made love. Rather, the one night they’d made love many times. For starters, there’d been that whole wet clothing issue.
Still, while she had no intentions of repeating past mistakes, no matter how orgasmic, the man felt good.
Patrick had been long and lean—all right, gangly—and had towered over her in a way she’d tried to tell herself made her feel feminine. But David, just tall enough to grin down at her, was the perfect height. Their bodies fit together in all the right throbbing places.
Despite the fabric barriers of clothing, heat sprang from each point of contact as if the two of them were pressed skin to skin. Her breasts brushed against him, and her nipples tightened the same way they would have if they’d encountered the soft friction of the crisp hair that dusted his chest. His hips bumped hers, and a giddy, tingly sensation shot from head to toe as warmth pooled between her thighs.
Serena jerked back, which would have worked better if the contact with David hadn’t dissolved her muscles. Without him for support, her strangely shaky body wobbled. She feared landing on her ass and looking like one.
“You okay?” He steadied her with a hand on her upper arm, his fingers firm through her thin violet sweater.
Goose bumps sprang up all over her flesh. As she recalled, the man had the most talented fingers this side of the Mason Dixon. She wasn’t too shy to tell a lover where or how she wanted to be touched, but with David, there’d been no need. In fact, the few times she had volunteered a suggestion—-faster came to mind—he’d continued his slow, sweet pace anyway, eventually demonstrating that he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Just…light-headed.”
She reclaimed her arm, expecting to see some kind of thermal handprint on her sleeve, burned into place by the heat arcing between them. “With Natalie out of the office, I didn’t eat lunch.” Unless she counted the salad she’d brought from home and the bag of chips from the vending machine. Fine, two bags, but they’d been the comparatively healthy baked-not-fried kind.
David’s grin widened, and, with the clarity of hindsight, she immediately regretted her fib.
“Then I insist you let me take you out for an early dinner,” he said.
“But—”
“I won’t take no for an answer, Serena.”
An occasionally stubborn person herself, she admired assertiveness in others, but the intimate timbre of his voice was downright unfair.
“I can’t just dash off this second,” she protested.
Actually, with the slow business day she’d had, she probably could, but why tell him that? David Grant could stand for a few more people to turn him down from time to time. She loved the man, she really did—in the nonphysical best-buds-for-ages sense—but he got his way much too often.
“I don’t mind waiting,” he said. “I can step out and make a few phone calls where the reception’s better.”
At the prospect of more space between them, her body sagged in relief. “All right. Give me a little bit to wrap things up.”
“Take as long as you need.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Anything important enough to do deserves time and thorough attention, right?”
As the president of her own company—even if it was just her and one other employee—she should agree with the work ethic of his statement. Except there was no work ethic, only veiled seduction. She recalled again the way David had pushed her to mindless limits when she’d already thought she couldn’t burn any hotter. He’d proven her deliciously wrong.
“You really do look woozy,” David observed.
Of course she did. It had been months since she’d had sex, and close to a year since she’d had fantastic sex. Suddenly, it seemed every molecule in her body was vibrating with the effects of the unplanned abstinence. It was like alcohol—if you’d given up drinking for a while, even a sip of something potent went straight to your head.
His forehead wrinkled as genuine concern replaced the humor in his expression. “Are you sure you don’t want to get out of here now and grab something to eat? Or I could run and get you a snack.”
“No, that’s not necessary.” She glanced between the receptionist’s chair and the overstuffed loveseat for guests, gauging which was closer. Deciding on the blue loveseat, she passed by David, telling herself she’d had a full five minutes to grow immune to that spicy seductive cologne. Its power over her should have waned by now.
Maybe the warm flush stealing through her body was actually embarrassment, not attraction. He was hardly the only man she’d ever been with, yet here she was in a near swoon. Real women do not swoon. Not in the last hundred years, anyway. When she glanced up, she was relieved to find him studying the surroundings instead of her.
“Nice place,” he said. “Took me a while to find, but great location. Definitely an improvement.”
Hard to believe her office would be terribly impressive to someone who’d grown up in the ancestral mansion once photographed for Southern Décor, but he was right about the improvement part. Her first site had been a one-room dive with a slight bug problem. Rent here was more, but worth every penny.
David took in the vintage lamp in the corner, the scarlet patterned swag over the miniblinded exterior window, the framed posters, and the artfully “mismatched” furniture—two chairs and a couch, each in a different primary color. “It is original.”
“Thanks…That was a compliment, right?”
“Yeah.” He sat next to her. “You have a way of making everything you come in contact with uniquely yours.”
He wasn’t crowding her, but then, he didn’t need a macho tactic to make her aware of him. Some of her best memories with this man involved a couch, and she had to concentrate to keep from swaying reflexively toward him. As seemingly relaxed as she was alert, he leaned back and casually fanned his fingers against his knee. Was he deliberately drawing her attention to his hand, daring her to remember the way he’d touched her?
She swallowed. “Well, we do parties, so I didn’t want my office to be stuffy. There are already wedding coordinators who do the whole Emily-Post-slash-Martha-Stewart thing, and planners all over the city who do the black-tie corporate banquets. We do those, too, but I try to give everything a touch of unique flair.”
“Touch is good.”
