are that,” he said softly. Just when she was starting to suspect he’d traveled all this way to drive her out of her sex-starved mind, he asked, “So, how’s business going?”
It took her a moment to adjust to the change of subject. Oh, wait, they’d been talking about work. Outwardly, at least.
“Not bad. A little slower than I’d like right now,” she admitted. “But business comes in waves. I arranged a bachelor party last week to fill some downtime.”
“Bachelor party?” An eyebrow arched up. “With a stripper and everything?”
“She much prefers ‘exotic dancer,’ and I hired her through the same agency I contact for bartenders and black-jack dealers.”
“Hm. An evening of sex, Scotch and sin, as presented by Serena Donavan.”
“As presented by Inventive Events,” she corrected, wishing the gleam in his gaze weren’t quite so speculative. “Quit looking at me like you’re picturing I was the stripper.”
He leaned toward her, his smile naughty. “Do I have to stop picturing it, or just stop looking like I am?”
His husky tone seduced her into sharing the fantasy. It was too easy to envision giving a sultry performance for him alone—slipping buttons out of their holes, shimmying out of a blouse as she rolled her shoulders and hips to the accompaniment of pulsing background music.
She narrowed her eyes. “You are a bad influence. Can’t you see I’m trying to be a respectable businesswoman here?”
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d been trying for years to demonstrate that she didn’t have to fit into her estranged father’s eight-to-five, corporate-America notions of respectability to be happy and successful. The results had been decidedly mixed—prompted in part by his new girlfriend, James Donavan had decided last summer to try to be part of her life again, but his brand of support included offers of finding her a job at one of his banks if “that party thing ever falls flat.”
Then again, how reputable could she be? She had strippers on speed dial.
David shook his head, his tone laced with amusement. “Give it up, Serena. You’re not cut out to be respectable.”
She flinched inwardly. David had teased her plenty of times in the past and was only echoing what she herself had just been thinking. Yet somehow the joking indictment sounded a hell of a lot different coming out loud from a Savannah Grant.
HOLDING HIS cell phone for prop purposes, David sat in the lobby where “reception might be better,” on a decorative bench uncomfortable enough to have been used during the Inquisition. Make a guy sit on one of these long enough, he’d confess to just about anything. Like being unbelievably arrogant?
AGI had sent him here this weekend to check out apartments, but David’s personal goal had been to find out whether the burning attraction between him and Serena was as he remembered, or if his imagination and time had exaggerated it. He’d also wanted to discover if the Happy Wanderer presented any real competition. David’s earlier call as he drove though an exasperating series of one-way Atlanta streets had eased his mind on both matters. Her announcement of the breakup and the breathy, telling pauses in conversation had led him to half hope she’d fall into his arms when he walked through the office door.
Arrogance.
Instead of fawning over him, or even pushing him away so he could tell himself she was running from a powerful desire, she’d blinked off her initial shock, then approached for a depressingly casual hug. If it hadn’t been for the way she’d watched his hands while they talked on the couch, her doe eyes becoming heavy-lidded and dazed as if his fidgeting fingers were actually moving over her skin, he might honestly have worried that they were doomed to platonic friendship.
But the longer he’d sat with her, the more obvious her arousal had become. There’d been no mistaking her dilated pupils, the way she nervously licked her lips or the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath her soft knit top. Maybe he’d only overlooked her desire at first because he’d been too consumed by his own.
Even though he’d been the one surprising her, when she’d glanced up at him with those wide brown eyes, the jolt of sensual energy that had shot through him had been like a force of nature—something meteorologists had warned was coming but that still had to be experienced to be believed.
For instance, who would have believed an ensemble as theoretically conservative as khakis and sweater could be so sexy?
Serena looked like a bad girl impersonating a businesswoman. The slacks, while the right innocuous color for casual Fridays across the country, fit very snugly across her hips and were slung low at the waist. Only the embroidered hem of her plum-colored top kept him from seeing whether or not she was wearing the bellybutton ring that glinted teasingly in his memory. The neckline of the long-sleeved shirt dipped down in a rectangle that actually laced up over her breasts. Because of her understated curves, the cleavage revealed stopped just shy of being completely inappropriate for the office, but it was plenty to make his mouth go dry.
Although David knew it was an optical fashion illusion, he couldn’t help thinking that if he pulled the ends of the string bow apart, her sweater would fall away and leave her bared for tasting. He could recall with aching clarity the feel of her velvety breasts and the peach-hued nipples that had been so sensitive to his touch. On the one occasion he’d undressed Serena, peeling off a sodden T-shirt that seemed to leave less to the imagination than actual nudity, she hadn’t been wearing a bra. Was she today?
Wanting to find out had made him restless enough to drum his fingers and tap his thumb as he sat with her.
What he really wanted to find out was if she still objected to the physical connection between them. And if so, why. When he factored in everything that Serena meant to him, her newly single status and the timing of this transfer, it seemed fate was handing him this opportunity on a silver platter.
But Serena was on edge and clearly not about to fall into his lap—delightful as that prospect was. He needed to romance her, convince her, figure out her reservations and overcome them one by one. His desire to handle this with finesse was why he hadn’t simply sprung his relocation announcement on her already. But he had supreme confidence that he could win her over. That was why he was on the business-development side of things at AGI—his specialty was new partnerships, finding or creating opportunities and overcoming any obstacles with various means of persuasion.
Persuading Serena would be far more enjoyable than, say, persuading the CEO of Digi-Dial, leaders in cell-phone technology.
Her office door swung open with a gentle creak, and Serena appeared, holding a massive beige purse that looked more like a weapon against muggers than something they might steal. In Boston, she would have needed a jacket, but it was warm here.
“Sorry I took so long,” she said. Her tone was breezy and her smile even, but she ran her hand through her honey-blond, not-quite-chin-length curls in a self-conscious gesture.
“Not a problem.”
She turned to lock up the suite. “If you’d like, I can suggest a place for dinner.”
“Lord, no.”
Serena was big on what she called “cultural color,” and while four out of five places she picked were surprisingly excellent (with the fifth being horrific),
