ice the three-layer cake of this particular bash, he was going to come face to face with that frigid prig Lacey Clark. Of all the people in the world with whom he didn’t want to spend an evening, including Barry Manilow and the guy who’d thought up those stupid Chihuahua commercials, she was number one on his list. After all, it was partially her fault half the world’s population—the female half—was out for his blood. She was the one who had given him the reputation of being a male chauvinist without even having to mention his name.
Earlier at the party, he’d seen one pinched-looking, severely dressed woman who might qualify as the schoolmarm he suspected Lacey Clark to be. She was tall and skinny, wearing a mannish black suit, with graying hair pulled into a severe bun. He’d asked Raul, a casual friend and co-worker, to confirm she was his nemesis.
Raul had grinned and slapped Nathan on the back. “How on earth do you do it? I mean, how can you come into a room, look at someone and immediately know who she is?”
“You mean I’m right?” Nate had asked, somewhat deflated to think this woman was indeed the one he was going to share the spotlight with later in the evening.
Raul had shrugged and lifted his hands in defeat. “What can I say? You really are a master of deductive reasoning. I think I’ll go on over and say hello to Lacey now. Don’t worry, I won’t let on to her that you picked her out so easily.”
Then the junior editor from Men’s World had sauntered away, leaving Nate to speculate about the sour-faced crone who’d made his life a living hell for months. He hadn’t been able to remain in the same room with her for ten more minutes before he’d made good his escape. He’d meet her soon enough, when the two of them were lucky enough to be congratulated for helping to invigorate the magazines they worked for.
“Here’s to you, Lacey Clark,” he muttered as he sat in the lounge chair by the pool. “Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight, meet some poor SOB with bad eyesight, get laid and get the hell off my back.” If anyone sorely needed to get laid, it was Lacey Clark.
As he lifted the bottle of beer to his mouth, Nate noticed the door at the far end of the gym opening in the semidarkness. Hoping he wasn’t about to be discovered, he slid lower in his lounge chair, willing the intruder to leave.
No such luck. The person—he could see from here it was a she—slipped into the gym and pushed the door shut behind her. She leaned against it, her body almost sagging. He imagined her sighing in relief, probably glad to have escaped the party. That was at least one thing they had in common. Then she stepped away from the door, into the light cast by an overhead fixture near the rowing machine.
“Man, oh man,” he whispered.
She was blond perfection. A teenage boy’s breathing, moving erotic dream. From the sleek golden hair falling in a wave past her shoulders to the pale throat, the soft shoulders revealed by the tight black dress and on down the centerfold curves, she was one-hundred-percent pure female temptation.
Nate suddenly found it difficult to pull another chlorine-tinged breath into his lungs. Any words he might have uttered got trapped on his tongue as he watched her toss her small handbag to the floor and bend over to tug her high-heeled shoes off her feet. Well, she couldn’t exactly bend in her tight dress, she could only lean. When she did, the shimmery fabric pulled taut across her hips and the curve of her rear. Nate shifted in his chair. As she lifted one leg and placed her foot on a weight bench to unfasten the shoe, her dress slid higher, displaying an endless length of black-stocking-clad thigh.
“I think I musta fallen into the pool and drowned, and now I’m in heaven,” he managed to whisper.
When she walked to the trampoline, then pulled herself up onto it, he knew damn well that’s exactly what had happened.
LACEY COULD HAVE walked down and sat in one of the lounge chairs by the dark waters of the pool, she supposed. But for some reason, the big round trampoline beckoned her. She’d figured no one would be in the gymnasium. If any curious or amorous guests were wandering around J.T.’s mansion, they’d more likely take refuge in one of the richly appointed bedrooms. She had this big, quiet space to herself. All she wanted was to take a moment, to strategize, to figure out how she was going to go back into the office Monday and face her co-workers knowing they’d all feel betrayed after J.T. made his big announcement tonight.
Of course, they were the absolute least of her worries. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. We’ll figure out how to handle this.”
She wondered what J.T. would think if he could see her now, but couldn’t muster up the energy to care. Bracing her palms on the padded mat covering the springs, she pulled herself up and twisted her body around to sit on the metal edge of the trampoline. Careful not to snag her dress, which had set her back a week’s salary, she slid backward onto the bouncy surface.
She giggled softly, liking the sense of freedom. Lowering herself, she stretched out until she lay completely on her back. She stared at the ceiling, again grinning at the fit J.T. would likely have if he walked into the room and caught her, in her fancy cocktail dress, lying on the trampoline.
If his latest wife, Deirdre, were with him, she’d probably faint. It already galled the woman no end that Lacey was one of the guests of honor tonight. In Deirdre’s social circle, one simply didn’t flaunt one’s mistakes in public.
On that point, she and Lacey were in complete agreement. But she still would have paid money to see the woman’s face if she happened to wander by.
The thought made her snicker, and she sat up. Carefully tugging her tight dress higher, she rose to her feet and tested the trampoline with one little bounce. She’d done gymnastics as a kid, and she itched to see if she could still do some of the tricks she’d perfected.
“Not in this dress,” she mused. Still, she tugged it higher, knowing no one could see the black ribbon covering the elastic of her thigh-high stockings. No one was around to note the lace of her panties or be shocked that they were the thong type, which left no lines in tight clothes.
Now she was really getting into Deirdre-dropping-over-in-a-dead-faint territory. Thigh highs and a thong? On sensible Lacey, she who preached true love before marriage and emotional commitments before physical ones?
Okay, she had a thing for sexy lingerie. “Sue me,” she muttered. So naughty underwear gave her a dangerous thrill. Big deal. She was the only one who ever saw what she wore under her suits and dresses. At the rate she was going in the romance department, that didn’t seem likely to change anytime soon!
Lacey suddenly remembered the blond man at the bar and wondered who he was. He’d affected her, distracted her on what was proving to be a pretty lousy night. It had been a long time since Lacey had looked at a man and felt…hot. Needy. And very curious. The wickedly provocative picture that flashed into her mind really would have given those who knew her a shock.
Rebelliously, she tugged her dress higher. Not that she lifted it all the way over her hips or anything. But as her feet moved and she bounced up and down, the dress slid up inch by inch until she could feel the cool air of the gym wisping against the lower curve of her buttocks.
It felt naughty, wicked, free and outrageous. And Lacey Clark loved every uninhibited bounce.
Her dress was certainly too tight to try any flips or maneuvers. So she jumped higher, and higher, spinning and twirling in the air, not caring when her hair tumbled riotously around her face and the sweat she’d worried about during the party dripped down her chin. Who cared? It felt good to be bad.
