Putting It to the Test

But that was okay. Carly owned the home, and that was all that mattered. She’d qualified for the mortgage with her salary alone and, in the process, bought a slice of land in an old but desirable Marin County neighborhood. It was the security she’d never had growing up, and once she doubled the value with her pink-extinguishing transformation, it would be the bank account she’d never had, as well.

She unrolled the burrito from the foil paper and plopped it on a plate. The rustling in the kitchen was like a dinner bell for her cat, Mr. Doodles, who didn’t waste time jumping up on the counter to see what she’d prepared.

Carly pushed the cat to the floor and spat, “Bad kitty!” but her efforts to train the cat had long become futile. Mr. Doodles—the name given the gray tabby by her little sister Jodi—was a horribly ill-behaved cat who roamed the house as if he owned it and did as he pleased. Carly had no idea how to correct his behavior, none of the advice she’d been given making any lasting progress. So she’d begun to accept the fact that Mr. Doodles wouldn’t change and she’d have to love him despite his faults.

Moving to the fridge to fetch him his own dinner, her phone rang again, and Carly assumed her mother had forgotten to mention something else.

“Hello?” she asked, crinkling the foil in one hand and dropping it in the wastebasket.

“I’m in.”

She paused for a moment, not immediately recognizing the voice.

“Brian?”

“I amaze even myself sometimes.”

Yes! she thought. She hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up even though Brian had assured her he could get to the Singles Inc. database where they’d input their answers. With his frat-boy immaturity, she sometimes suspected Brian overstated his abilities.

“You’ve got Matt’s answers to the survey?”

“I’ve got everyone’s answers to the survey. They’ve used a special code to isolate ours from the main population.”

Her excitement was tempered by a flush of heat to her cheeks. It hadn’t occurred to her that by asking Brian to get Matt’s survey answers he’d end up privy to all of them—including hers.

Oh, to heck with it. If Brian wanted a thrill over her answers, he could have it. Getting on this project was worth whatever he might end up thinking about her and her sexual outlook.

“There’s just one problem.”

“Problem?”

“Do you have Matt’s code name?”

“Code name?”

“Remember the code names Hall gave us to protect our privacy? That’s the only identifying information attached to each person’s survey. I couldn’t decipher individual workstation IDs—which is actually impressive. Singles Inc. has some pretty decent security considering they designed this in-house. I don’t usually see homegrown applications this good.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means unless you know what code name Matt was given, we can only guess which one is his.”

Carly’s mind raced in search of a solution. There had to be a way to figure out which survey was Matt’s.

“How many people have filled out the survey so far?”

“Sixteen, which is two short of the people we have on staff. I’m guessing that’s Holly and Paul.”

The number didn’t surprise her. She’d asked around this afternoon, and though the survey had been optional, everyone had decided to fill it out, curious to be included in the results. Even though a few weren’t terribly interested in the project, everyone wanted to know who they most closely matched at Hall Technologies, if just for the fun of it.

“Now, we could eliminate some through logic,” Brian added. “I know mine, you know yours, and I can obviously separate the men and women based on the code names.” Since Carly was given the code name Gidget, she guessed Brian was right. “But that’s still leaving you with almost ten men. You’ll have to find a way to get his name without raising suspicion.”

She stared at her pink linoleum floor, disappointed but not defeated. Though she had no idea how, sometime between now and Thursday she’d get Matt’s code name. Already several ideas spun through her brain—all of them bad, but ideas nonetheless. She’d simply have to give it more thought, maybe consult with a trusted friend or two, but some way she’d figure it out. This was her career, her financial stability and her future at stake, all three of those things definitely worth it.

Two days to get one silly little code? No problem.

MATT LOOKED UP from his computer screen to see a pair of beautiful aqua-blue eyes staring back at him over the cubicle wall.

The sight gave him a start. Carly Abrams had never paid him a visit, nor had those dark coral lips ever been curved in a smile while pointed in his direction. Which meant he’d either fallen asleep at his desk and was dreaming or something strange was up.

She circled around and stepped into his cube, giving him a close-up view of his very favorite shirt—a low-slung wraparound that hugged her curves and accentuated her breasts in a way that should be outlawed in the workplace. The whole thing was held together by a simple bow at the waist, a bow that taunted him with the knowledge that just one tug could expose the delightful presents inside.

He dragged his eyes away and looked up at her smile. “Carly,” he said, the word raspy from a mouth that had just gone dry. He cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you were through with my book. I need to take a look at it.”

“I put it back on your shelf yesterday.”

Her brows arched and those soft lips formed an O, the way they did in the fantasy he hadn’t been able to shake since he’d seen those two blasted survey answers yesterday. Except, in his dream it was the look she had after he drizzled caramel syrup on her breasts and topped his Carly sundae with a dollop of whipped cream.

“Stupid me, I didn’t even look.” She shrugged her shoulders and chuckled nervously. “I get distracted and lose half my brain.”

He knew the feeling. It was the same thing he’d been dealing with since it had sunk in that his available and most desirable coworker had a secret fetish for kinky sex. It had culminated this morning around two o’clock, when he’d been startled out of a dead sleep by a hard-on and the echoing sound of Carly Abrams’s orgasmic screams.

And he’d been walking bull-legged ever since.

It was difficult enough trying to focus on the job this morning; that she’d picked today of all days to make her maiden voyage to his side of the floor had to be some sort of cosmic joke.

She leaned against his desktop and casually crossed her long, slender legs. Her silky flowered skirt reminded him of a cottage garden, and he tried hard to restore the longtime image he’d had of her. The safe image. The one that allowed him to forget the sexy body and concentrate on getting ahead at the firm. Mary Quite Contrary, the sunny, friendly girl-next-door who always referred to Brayton as Mr. Hall, brought in plates of homemade zucchini bread and gave people rides to the mechanics when their cars were in the shop.

“Well, um, since I’m here…” she said. “About yesterday—I was out of line and I wanted to apologize.”

He blinked. “Yesterday?”

“You know, about the survey, you having to compete to get the Singles Inc. job.” She fidgeted with the edge of his desk, trailing a finger along the grain of the fake oak veneer. “You caught me at a bad time. I was cranky and it was rude of me to take it out on you. So I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Matt tried hard to rewind the whole incident. Yes, she’d popped off in a way that had had him questioning her stability, but he knew he’d been the one to start it by teasing her about her survey answers. If anyone should apologize, it should be him.

“I hadn’t exactly started the conversation off on the right foot,” he admitted.

“But that was no excuse for attacking you like that, so…” She let go of the desk and held out a hand. “Truce?”

He stared at those slim fingers, those perfectly polished nails, and found it ironic that she’d come here seeking exactly what he’d hoped to accomplish yesterday. His attempt at broaching a friendship had failed, but if things went his way, she’d be his employee very soon, and he should thank the stars for this second chance.

Taking her soft hand in his, he gave it a welcome shake, trying hard to ignore his body’s reaction to the sizzling warmth of her touch. “Forgive me and I’ll forgive you.”

“It’s a deal.”

She slid her palm off his and smiled brightly. “So did you choose to fill out the survey?”

Straightening in his seat, he cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. I figured, why not?”

“So that makes everyone, then. I’m surprised. Some people don’t like working on the bigger projects, but I guess it was the intrigue of the survey that had them going along.”

“Hall did say something about everyone getting some sort of results.”

“I heard that, too.” She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear and nodded while she spoke. “I don’t know what, though.”

“Me, either,” he replied.

Then an awkward silence fell between them. She glanced around his cube, trying to appear casual but not pulling it off, and the longer she stood there tapping a fingernail on his desktop, the more Matt began to wonder what she was really doing there.

He opened his mouth to inquire, but she cut him off.

“It sounds like Mr. Hall has an interest in movies.”

He pursed his brow. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, those code names we all got for the survey seem to be characters from films. At least that’s what we’re guessing.” Grinning, she added, “Mine was Gidget.”

Matt couldn’t hold back his burst of laughter, though it occurred to him too late it might destroy their newfound truce—and the quirky look in her eyes said it might have.

“I’m sorry,” he quickly shot out. “It’s just so…perfect.”

She shrugged good-naturedly, making Matt feel like a cad.

“I can’t argue with that. I suppose some people might see me as…”

“Bubbly?” he offered.

A faint blush colored her cheeks, and he wished like hell he could learn to keep his mouth closed. For some reason, whenever she was near, he ended up either tongue-tied or blurting the wrong thing. It was the main reason he’d gone into Frank’s office and asked to handle that first project on his own. He’d wanted to make a good impression at the new firm and he’d quickly discovered that wasn’t going to happen in proximity to Carly, where his cock forever vied for attention and his brain wouldn’t shift into gear.

Apparently, two years later, nothing had changed.

“Anyway,” she said, “we’ve been comparing code names around the office. Do you know what Neil got?”

Matt shook his head.

“Patton!” She laughed more heartily than the situation warranted. “Is that a riot?”

“Yes, that’s a good one.”

“And who else?” she pondered, holding her chin and staring wistfully off into space. “Oh, Bev got Scarlett, and Brian got Hal. We’re guessing Hal’s the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Matt nodded and smiled, trying to will himself to stay relaxed, keep his mouth shut and not inadvertently embarrass her again. If she agreed to work for him, he’d have to get past this magnetic field between them that continually garbled his thoughts and had him chewing shoe leather. But it wasn’t easy when those breasts jiggled as she laughed or that flowery scent swarmed his nose, or those Caribbean eyes sparkled with such sweetness he wanted to scoop her up and take a bite or—oh, hell. Maybe they were better off hating each other.

Her smile slowly faded and she returned to the awkward fidgeting that had left him suspect before. Okay, so apology for yesterday accepted and a truce agreed. What was with the sudden small talk and this apparent desire to gab after two years of total avoidance?

“So what Hollywood feature did Mr. Hall put you in?”

He shook off his thoughts. “Pardon?”

“Your code name. Who did he give you?” Then she quickly held up a hand. “Not that you have to answer that. I realize they’re confidential. We were just having fun with it, you know, seeing what Mr. Hall had assigned to each of us.” Giggling, she added, “Heck, for all I know, his wife might have made them up. Or maybe he picked them off a list from Singles Inc.” She blushed again and began to back toward the entrance to his cubicle. “Mr. Hall might not have picked them out at all. I don’t think anyone asked. Or it could have been random or—”

“Rocky.”

She stopped her rambling and stared. “Huh?”

“Rocky. He gave me Rocky.”

Her mouth hung ajar for a moment before a twinkle lit in her eyes. It was a gleam too bright for simple amusement and it struck him as odd. Something was definitely hanging under the surface here, but what? She’d wanted his code name? It wouldn’t get her anything without the password. So why the sudden interest in bringing him in on the office chatter?

“I like it,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Rocky. I’d be flattered if I were you.”

Matt hadn’t given it any thought, though now that he did, he wasn’t sure he agreed. “Rocky wasn’t the brightest of bulbs.”

She raised a sarcastic brow. “Neither was Gidget. But at least Rocky was a hero. He represented strength and determination.”

Well, he might have that.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped back and clasped her hands into fists. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I just wanted to apologize for yesterday and…”

“No problem.”

She nodded. “Good. Well, I’ll see you around.”

Then she turned and walked—make that scurried—away. He watched her backside as she rushed quickly down the aisle before disappearing into the sea of cubicles, then he shook his head and settled back in his seat.

In his two years at Hall Technologies that was officially the strangest conversation he’d ever had, but at least it did one thing—it had momentarily taken his mind off the idea of her naked in his bed.

Now his thoughts were consumed with what exactly Carly Abrams was up to.

4

“THANKS FOR LETTING me use your computer.” Carly tossed the comment over her shoulder to Bev, who was stretched out on the recliner in her den. “I really didn’t want to do this at Mom’s place with Jodi tagging at my heels.”

When Carly bought her house and moved out of her mother’s apartment, she didn’t have the heart to take her computer with her. Jodi had grown attached to the games and her mom used it for schoolwork, and Carly knew if she took it, they’d go without, her mom barely affording the Internet service, much less the cost of a new machine. So Carly had insisted they keep it, reminding them she had a better machine at work and that she could come by and use hers whenever she needed to do something too personal for the office.

And changing her survey answers to coincide with Matt’s definitely qualified as too personal for the office. It also qualified as too personal for her mother’s apartment given that Carly knew the woman wouldn’t approve of her little scheme.

Though Carly adored her mom, Carol Abrams was too idealistic for her own good. She thought hard work was all a woman needed to get ahead, that honesty was always the best policy and that good things came to those who waited.

Right. This from the woman who also thought that a cheating, irresponsible husband who waltzed in and out of his family’s life would eventually come around once he’d sufficiently matured.

Carly’s respect for her mother’s ideals stopped about two clicks short of that one, and she’d also learned that sometimes to keep things fair a girl had to occasionally bend the rules.

“No, I don’t think you want to explain some of those questions to Jodi,” Bev said. “But I’m dying to see them myself. Did he fill out the whole survey?”

Carly unfolded the sheet of numbered answers Brian had given her and scanned the list. “He filled out everything.”

“Then hurry and get to the good stuff. I can’t wait to see what our hunky coworker has to say about sex.”

Carly frowned and turned to Bev. “Don’t forget you’re married.”

Folding her hands at her chest, Bev shrugged. “So. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious. You’ve got to admit the guy’s a hottie. Haven’t you ever wondered what he might be like between the sheets?”

Carly’s ears heated, and before she gave her secret away, she quickly turned back to the PC—a second too late.

“You have!” Bev gushed.

“I have not,” Carly denied in a tone so unbelievable even she hadn’t bought it.

“Yeah, right.” Bev pushed out of the recliner and stepped over to the plate of cookies Carly had brought as thanks for the use of the machine. Picking one up, Bev eyed both sides of the chocolate-studded cookie.

“There’s no nuts,” Carly said.

“I was supposed to start a diet today, you know.”

“It’s Wednesday. No one starts a diet on a Wednesday.”

“Mondays weren’t working for me. I thought I’d give midweek a shot.”

“Then put the cookie down and I’ll take them home.” Eyeing her friend sincerely, she added, “Really. I’m sorry. I thought your plan was to start with exercise this week, then diet next week.”

Bev took a bite of the cookie, grabbed two more, then moved back to the recliner. “It is now. Besides, I need sugar to go with this new revelation about you and Matt.”

“There’s no revelation.”

“You don’t turn red as a cherry over a guy you’re not interested in. I obviously hit a nerve.” She flicked her brows. “I’m only wondering how deep it goes.”

“Skin-deep,” Carly affirmed. “I think he’s attractive, that’s it. And what woman wouldn’t? The man’s beautiful, but he’s also a jerk, which makes him fun to look at and nothing more.”

“He’s not that bad, just a little driven. He might not mingle at the office much, but Adam says he’s a great guy once you get to know him.”

“Well,” Carly said, picking up a cookie of her own, “I can get to know him pretty well right now.”

She clicked into the Singles Inc. Web site and logged on to her profile. The sheet Brian had given her contained only letters and numbers for the answers, but Carly was able to translate them with ease by comparing her own survey results to the questions on the screen. It was a simple matrix of one through five, one being Strongly Disagree and five being Strongly Agree. True and false answers were coded using one for true and zero for false, and multiple-choice answers were recorded A through D. The Hall Technologies employees had been instructed to leave the narrative section blank, as well as the demographic data on marital history, race, income and other personal information not appropriate for this exercise. It was all straightforward. All she had to do was determine how closely she should match Matt’s answers without going overboard.

“Start with the section on sex. How kinky is lover boy?”

Carly did as Bev suggested, curious herself. Would he be wild and naughty or was he a traditional kind of lover? Was he wine and roses or sun and fun? It hadn’t occurred to her that she might not want the answer until she looked at the first question and the moisture drained from her mouth.

I tend to be conservative when it comes to sex.

He’d strongly disagreed, taking about a half dozen of her fantasies and throwing them into a big puddle of reality.

She double-checked the numbers, making sure she’d read them right, hoping she’d mixed them up. She didn’t want Matt Jacobs to be the exact kind of lover she’d been looking for. If this worked out and she landed the project, she’d have to work with this man, speak coherently around him, possibly put in late hours…just the two of them…alone….

“Well?” Bev urged. “What does it say?”

Carly gulped. “That tall, dark and hunky has a wild side.” And when she read his response to the next question, the temperature in the room crept up. “He’s apparently open to all things kinky, too.”

Bev let out an evil chuckle while Carly squirmed in her seat, the cookie in her mouth drying into pasty crumbs. She tried to tell herself this didn’t mean a thing, that maybe Matt had simply followed her lead when she’d mentioned toying with Mr. Hall, but the fire in her cheeks and the tingling between her thighs kept calling her bluff. No matter how she turned this over in her mind, the survey stated clearly the last thing she needed to know right now—that Matt Jacobs could very well be the kind of sex toy she’d been looking for.

The cookie in her mouth turned to mortar, and, no longer hungry for food, she placed the remainder back on the plate.

“Does that surprise you?” Bev asked. “What man isn’t into kinky sex?”

Pretty much every man she’d dated. At least it seemed that way. None of them had even mastered the straightforward kind of sex; what they’d do with a vibrator and a jar of chocolate body paint was anybody’s guess. Needless to say, she’d never suggested it.

As if to torture herself, she eyed the next question. I don’t mind giving control to a trusted partner. Being dominated can be just as fun as holding the reins.

He’d strongly agreed, lending even more weight to her little daydream involving feathers, a leather bustier and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs.

Her pulse kicked up a notch. Images sped through her mind, most notably one of Matt tied up spread-eagle on her bed while she worked his stiff cock with her tongue, then finished him off with a reverse cowboy—

She choked on a chocolate chip and Bev laughed.

“This isn’t funny,” Carly attempted, her brain going numb from lack of oxygen. A trickle of sweat beaded between her breasts. Why was it so hot in here?

“I think it’s hysterical. You should see yourself—you’re red as a beet. And don’t rip a hole in my chair. We just bought that a few months ago.”

Carly looked down to see her hands clasped tightly to the corners of the vinyl seat cushion. No wonder her fingers ached. Releasing them, she rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans and attempted to brush it all off. These were just answers to a few silly questions.

In fact, this could simply be Matt’s ego talking, a typical man with all bark and no bite, wishful thinking by a guy no better in the sack than half the other men in Marin County. Just because he claimed to have a fetish for kinky sex didn’t mean he knew how to do it.

But you know he does.

She tried to shut out the little voice, the one that reminded her she’d always had that feeling about Matt, that he knew his way around a woman’s body. He hadn’t starred in a few fantasies for nothing. It had always been there, under the surface, the way he carried himself, the way he spoke with easy confidence, that casual calm one only walked around with when he knew he could deliver whatever he was dishing out.

Matt Jacobs would be good in bed, the best she’d ever had. If she’d been clinging to any doubt, these survey answers obliterated that chance. And thanks to it, she’d never be able to look the man in the eye again without choking on her own saliva.

“What about that question on the ideal romantic evening?” Bev asked.

Carly didn’t want to look, now feeling as though she should leave this section alone and concentrate on the rest of the survey. Something told her he’d probably answered enough of the sex questions identically to hers anyway. Plus, she doubted Singles Inc. would even utilize this portion of the survey in their results. Most of the employees had probably skipped the section entirely.

But that didn’t stop her eyes from darting down to the question Bev was referring to, the multiple choice which asked how the person would spend their ideal romantic evening.

He’d picked answer C: take-out dinner, candles and a bubble bath for two.

The exact same answer as hers.

Oh, man, she was a goner.

She tried to answer Bev’s question but couldn’t quite move her lips, and luckily she didn’t have to. Like a knight in shining armor, Bev’s husband, Kurt, stepped into the doorway, shifting the mood in the room and giving Carly a badly needed change of focus.