Her Boss by Day...

You woman, I protect you. Lie down and I make you happy. Grunt. Grunt.

He’d known a lot of women—sue him … he was in his thirties and had been consistently single all his life—so he was old enough and wise enough to realise that waifs and strays, romantics and women who seemed helpless and hopeless, normally ended up tearing strips off him.

Women, as he’d learnt, were seldom what they portrayed themselves to be. Scrap that. People mostly weren’t who they said they were.

Amy sprang to her feet. ‘Rob—yay, you’re here!’

Yeah. Yay.

‘You know Bella and Kara, my colleagues—’ their names went in one ear and out of the other ‘—the creature ignoring you for the rock star wannabe at the bar is my flatmate Jessica—oi! Jessica! This is Rob.’

The blonde whipped her head around, flashed him a smile. ‘Hey, Rob.’

Quick eye contact and a super-fast scan to determine whether she found him attractive. She hesitated, suggesting that she did, but then her eyes slid back to the bar. Rob smiled inwardly. Someone, if he played his cards right, was getting lucky tonight.

Amy touched his wrist to get his attention. ‘And this is my old, old friend Willa. Willa, this is Rob Hanson.’

‘You make me sound like a crone with all the olds, Ames,’ Willa complained good-naturedly, before lifting amazing silver-shot-with-green eyes to his. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi back.’

Rob took the open seat next to her and eyed the full beer bottle on the table, icy cold. It was his favourite brand.

He cocked an eyebrow at Amy. ‘That for me?’

‘Sure.’ Amy pushed the bottle and glass across the table. Ignoring the glass and picking up the bottle, he lifted it to his lips and allowed the liquid to slide down his throat. One beer, half an hour and he’d leave …

‘Rob owns a chain of sports equipment and clothing stores in South Africa, Willa. And some gyms. He’s looking for franchisees to open branches of the stores everywhere, and the gyms will be here in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne initially.’

‘Brave …’ Willa murmured. ‘Especially the gym part, since the marketplace is dominated by Just Fit. And Just Fit has gone on an acquisition drive to buy up the rats and mice gyms that aren’t allowing them marketplace domination.’

Rob lowered his bottle and sent her a long look. Then he lifted his eyebrows at Amy, who just laughed.

‘She’s not just a pretty face,’ she said.

Intriguing …

And she wasn’t done. ‘It takes a set of brass balls to take on two competitors, firmly established and synonymous with Australian health and fitness, one of which is about to list on the ASX. I intend to buy some of their shares when they go public in …’ Smarty-Pants squinted at her watch ‘… six weeks’ time.’

Rob just stared at her as she rested her chin in the palm of her hand and gave Amy a puppy-dog look. ‘I want a set of brass balls, Ames. How do I acquire my own?’

Amy threw back her head and laughed. ‘Wills, how many of those Screaming Orgasms have you had?’

Willa slid her eyes to the row of cocktail glasses in front of her and counted them off. ‘Not enough real ones and four fake ones.’

Willa and Amy exchanged a long look before they both bellowed with laughter.

Oh, jeez—drunk girl humour. About orgasms. Shoot him now. But he had to admit it wasn’t fake girl laughter but a real, joyous exchange of humour between two friends who understood each other’s subtext. Their laughter made him smile.

‘So how long have you been friends?’ he asked, picking at the corner of his beer label with a short, blunt fingernail.

He hoped that his question would distract them from further Screaming Orgasm humour—especially since, A. He hadn’t had one recently, and B. He’d just decided to stay for another beer, another half-hour.

‘Eight, nearly nine years—with far too many lost years in between,’ Willa replied.

Seeing the confusion on his face, she placed her hand on his bare forearm and—whoa! What the hell …? Lust and attraction shot up his arm and exploded in his brain. He went stock-still and tried to work through his reaction. He’d never, since the time he’d found out that girls had fun things he liked to play with, had such a rocketing blood from his head reaction to the simple touch of fingers on his skin.

He looked at her again and realised that she wasn’t just pretty—she was damn sexy. High cheekbones, a pouty mouth and those amazing siren eyes. He allowed his own eyes the pleasure of skimming over smooth shoulders, smallish breasts and that too thin but utterly feminine body.

He tipped his head slightly to the side and saw that her sage-green sleeveless dress disappeared under the table. He needed to see more. On the pretext of bending sideways to scratch his foot, he looked under the table. The dress ended mid-thigh and, holy Moses, those legs were long and toned. Since one nude heel had dropped off a slim foot, he saw that her toes were tipped in tropical orange polish.

Hot, hot.

‘… and then Amy left the Whitsundays—’

Rob blinked as he lifted his head and came back to the conversation. He was both amused and irritated with himself. He never went on mental walkabouts—and especially not over women.

‘You’re going to have to back up, Wills. Rob didn’t hear a damn thing,’ Amy drawled, lifting her beer bottle to her lips and raising a knowing eyebrow in his direction.

Rob felt an urge to pull out his tongue at her, which he manfully suppressed. He quickly rewound and took a stab in the dark. ‘So, have you kept in contact with your other mates from those days?’

‘Well, I talk to Luke my brother all the time. He was the resort manager.’

Amy sat up straighter and leaned forward. Hmm, Rob thought, interesting reaction to the mention of his name. Something churning there.

‘We barely talk nowadays, but I have all their e-mail addresses, and I’m friends with them on social media,’ Willa answered, her lips around a purple straw.

Rob, forcing the mental picture of what he’d really like to see those lips wrapped around from his mind, thought that there was no way he could go so long without connecting with his own tight circle of friends.

‘You all should get together some time—catch up.’

Amy clapped her hands together with delight. ‘That’s such a fantastic idea. We should do that, Wills. We can invite them for a barbie … it’ll be a Whitsundays reunion,’ Amy gushed.

‘Let’s do it! When?’ Willa asked, eyes sparkling.

‘The sooner the better … Tomorrow is Sunday! A perfect day for a barbie by the pool … beers, bikinis … We can have a seafood Barbie,’ Amy babbled. ‘Invite them, Willa! Now! I betcha they will all come.’

Willa reached for her bag, her enthusiasm elevated by those Screaming Orgasms. She pulled out the latest smartphone and Rob raised his eyes as her fingers flew over the touchscreen. ‘Okay, I’ve tagged Scott and Brodie and Chantal. Luke is in Singapore, the jerk. Who else?’

‘The bartenders—Matt and Phil. Invite them! They were fun … Tell them to bring booze for cocktails.’ Amy leaned forward. ‘And Jane and Gwen who were part of the entertainment crew.’ Amy looked at Rob. ‘We were quite sure that they provided extra “entertainment” to the guests, but they were such a riot.’

‘And the lifeguards—I hope they’re still hot! Tagged them … Come on, Ames, there were at least twenty of us who ran wild … I’ve tagged the girls who helped me entertain the rug rats.’

‘The rug rats?’ Rob asked.

‘I looked after the kids at the resort … I kept them entertained so that their parents could have a break. And afternoon sex,’ Willa explained without looking up from her smartphone. ‘Come on, Amy—think!’

Amy rattled off a few more names and Willa bobbed her head in excitement. ‘Okay, anyone else?’

‘Nah. I think that’s it.’

Amy leaned back in her chair and looked over to her flatmate. She let out a loud whistle that felt like an ice pick in Rob’s brain, but it had the desired effect and Jessica turned around.

‘Hey, Jess, want to go to a barbie with me and Willa?’

‘Sure,’ Jessica replied, turning to Willa. ‘When?’

‘Tomorrow. What time?’ Willa asked Amy.

‘Eleven. Bring your own bottle,’ Amy replied, and Rob watched, amused, as their impromptu party started to take shape.

Whether their guests would appreciate—or accept—an invitation at half-ten at night for a party the next day was another story, but it was fun watching their cocktail-induced excitement. That being said, he knew that they were so going to regret their impulsiveness in the morning, when their heads woke them up, screaming that they had had brain surgery without anaesthetic.

‘Okay, eleven … bring my own bottle … where?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yeah, where? Maybe I should add that.’ Willa squinted at her phone.

‘That would be helpful,’ Rob murmured, but no one heard him.

Amy pretended to think, her eyes dancing. ‘Oh, I don’t know … who do we know who has an empty Sydney waterfront property with a pool?’

Willa shrugged. ‘Who?’

Then the penny dropped with a clang and Willa bounced up and down in her chair like a first-grader.

‘Oooh, I do! Me! Me, me, me, me … me!’

‘Attagirl.’ Amy lifted her bottle in her direction.

Even Rob, stranger that he was to the city, knew that waterfront property in Sydney meant big bucks. Who was this waif? An heiress? A celebrity?

‘Hey, if I’m finally going to host a party of my own then I’m going to invite who I want to invite,’ Willa stated emphatically. ‘Like Kate!’

‘Who’s Kate?’ Amy asked.

Yeah, who is Kate, gorgeous?

‘My lawyer.’

Why would a woman in her mid to late twenties have her own lawyer? Interesting … Then again, the whole package was fascinating … Brains and beauty and those brilliant legs that were made to wrap around a man’s hips …

Okay, slow down there, Hanson.

Willa’s phone beeped and her face fell. ‘Poop. Kate can’t come. Oh, well.’ She looked around for a waiter. ‘I need another drink.’

Some liver pills, a litre of water and a few painkillers wouldn’t hurt either, Rob told her silently.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE WASN’T DRUNK, Willa told herself. Happy, relaxed … slightly buzzed, maybe, but not drunk. And she was having fun, she realised on a happy sigh. Fun … She rolled the word around her tongue. Well … hello, there, stranger.

She was twenty-six years old—jeez, nearly twenty-seven—and she’d played the part of young, gorgeous, thick trophy wife all her adult life because Wayne and what he’d wanted had been important … her, not so much.

She was a great example of why you shouldn’t be in charge of your own destiny when you were too young and too dumb to be making decisions more complicated than how to operate a teaspoon.

Willa pushed her heavy hair back from her face. She’d stopped loving Wayne years and years ago, and now she just wished she could finally be free of him—legally, mentally, comprehensively. And when she was she could fully enjoy men like … Rob.

Willa sneaked a look at that face and swallowed her lusty sigh. He was scruffy in all the right places, she thought. Sable-coloured curls that she longed to touch to see if they felt as soft as they looked, a four-day-old beard, a shirt that skimmed long muscles and tanned skin, giving hints of well-defined pecs, and an impressive six-pack.

Those grey piercing eyes seemed to be shockingly observant and yet basically unreadable.

Rough, rugged, and completely at ease in his skin. She couldn’t help but to compare him to the only other man she’d ever slept with—she was biggest of big girl’s blouses!—and it was like comparing instant coffee to Mountain Blue. Simply an exercise in stupidity.

Wayne was smart Italian suits and hair gel to cover the bald patch on the crown of his head. Cologne, cufflinks and designer labels. Rob was … not. He didn’t need to accessorise—he was excellent just as he was.

Sexy. Masculine. Nuclear-hot.

‘Honey, you keep looking at me like that and I’m going to have to do something about it.’

Willa blinked as his drawling voice pulled her back into the moment and she noticed Amy leaving the table with a tall blond guy. They were heading towards the dance floor in the centre of the club. When had that happened? Maybe while she’d been spending the last five minutes drooling over Nuclear-Hot across the table.

She turned back to Rob and blinked like an owl. ‘Hi …’ she whispered.

‘Hi back. You okay?’

‘Mmm. I’m having fun. I haven’t had fun for a long, long time.’ Willa tapped her fingers on the table in time to the music. ‘Do you dance?’

Rob’s mobile mouth kicked up. ‘If I have to.’

Willa looked from the dance floor to him and nibbled on the bottom of her lip. The last time she’d danced—really danced, with feeling and heart and soul—had been in the Whitsundays at that dive bar where all the staff employed at the hotels in the area had congregated to hook up, break up, kiss and make up.

She wanted to feel young again—eighteen again—when the nights had been long and had held a myriad of possibilities.

She wanted to dance with Rob …

Maybe it was the cocktails making her feel brave. If it was she’d have another three or four Screaming Os, thank you very much. Then you’d be face-down on the floor, commented doormat Willa.

Willa took a breath and blurted out her question. ‘Will you dance … with me?’

Rob immediately rose to his feet and held out his hand.

Willa took a moment to find her shoe before standing up and placing her hand in his much bigger one. She followed in his wake as he pushed through the packed crowds to the edge of the dance floor. Instead of finding a spot on the edge, Rob pulled her into the centre of the floor, flashed her a grin and started to move.

Willa stared at him in shock as he immediately picked up the beat and moved his hips in a sinuous rhythm that dried up all the moisture in her mouth. Dear Lord, those hips … If he took the same skill to the bedroom he would be declared a lethal sexual weapon in several countries.

‘I thought you said you don’t dance!’ Willa shouted.

Rob flashed her a smile as his shoulders lifted and rolled. ‘I said that I dance if I have to.’

Willa stepped closer to him so that she could speak directly in his ear. ‘You’re pretty good.’

‘Just one of my talents.’

Rob placed his hands on her hips and before she knew it her thigh was between his and they were rocking together. Willa swallowed the lump in her throat as Rob’s hand lifted to encircle her neck, using his thumb to push her jaw up so that their eyes met. Willa wasn’t that out of practice that she couldn’t recognise the attraction in his eyes, the accelerated pulse under the wrists she loosely held.

‘Man … you are seriously gorgeous. And to think that I nearly blew this off,’ Rob muttered, mostly to himself, as his other hand slid around her back and yanked her towards him so that their bodies were pressed flush against each other.

His chest was wider and bigger and harder than hers, Willa thought as she dropped her nose to the V of skin his shirt revealed and inhaled his man smell, his heat. Lust boiled and roiled and her happy place throbbed, echoing the beat of the music. His surprisingly soft chest hair tickled her nose and she felt rather than heard the rumble of a moan in his chest, his throat. One hand splayed across her back, between her shoulder blades, and the other dropped lower onto her ass, holding her firmly in place against him. And that, she could feel, made him very happy indeed.

Somehow he kept them swaying to the beat, pretending to dance.

‘So, twenty questions time?’

Rob’s deep voice in her ear did nothing to assuage the heat between her legs—in fact it sped up her sluggish blood.

Questions? Was he mad? Between him and the cocktails she’d didn’t have an operational brain cell left.

‘Yes … no … I don’t know,’ Willa murmured back.

‘Wrong, wrong and wrong,’ Rob responded with an appreciative grin. ‘Let’s try that again. Why do you have a lawyer?’

She didn’t feel like explaining about Wayne and her imminent divorce. She wasn’t going to see Rob again after tonight, but she still thought it would be tacky to explain about her ex while she was pressed up very close and very personal against him. Besides, she didn’t want memories of Wayne to taint this experience of her first fun night out in for ever. Her ex and her old life were in the past.

Rob was here—now.

Carpe diem, Willa.

‘Pass.’

‘Okay … next one. What do you do that you’re such an expert on the health and fitness market? Stockbroker? Financial analyst?’

She wished—she really, really wished.

‘I read. A lot.’ Even she, novice that she was at this flirting and seduction stuff, knew that he didn’t need to know that reading finance and business magazines was one of her favourite ways to pass some time. Willa squinted at him and pulled a face. ‘These are very boring questions …’

Rob laughed. ‘Okay, then—you hit me with one.’

Willa sucked in her cheeks. There were a million things she wanted to know about him, but the least important flew out of her mouth.

‘Boxers or briefs?’

Bad girl, Willa.

Rob’s laugh brushed over her skin.

‘Why don’t you drop your hands and find out?’ Rob suggested, and her face immediately pinked up. Taking one of her hands from his neck, he guided it around his hips and slapped it on his butt. ‘Feel free to explore.’

Oh, that was a mighty fine ass, she thought as she took him up on his offer. Hard, muscular … male.

‘What do you sleep in?’ he asked, his breath teasing her ear.

A pair of sleep shorts and a ratty T-shirt. That wasn’t sexy, Willa thought. She tossed back her hair and widened her eyes as she prepared to lie. ‘I sleep naked. All … the … time.’

His eyes dilated and Willa remembered how much fun it was to flirt, to tease, how thrilling it was to get a hard-eyed and hard man—in every way that counted—all flustered. Sometimes being a girl was such a kick.

‘Bet you look damn good naked.’

‘I do. As, I suspect …’ Willa gave his butt a squeeze ‘… do you.’

In her head wild Willa tried to high-five doormat Willa, but she was banging her head against an imaginary wall.

Rob let out a muffled groan and rested his forehead on hers. ‘How hot is it, exactly, in here?’

‘It’s cookin’,’ Willa agreed, surprised at their effortless banter, her ability to flirt so easily.

Maybe it was the Screaming Os, the obvious appreciation and attraction in Rob’s eyes, his hot hands sliding over her arms, back, hips, that made her feel bolder and brighter—the best version of herself. Confident, slightly crazy, prepared to take a risk.

One night, she told herself. Didn’t she deserve one night of uncomplicated pleasure with a hot man who looked as if he wanted to gobble her up in one big bite? Hell, yes! shouted wild Willa, thoroughly over-excited. Didn’t she deserve a night of stupendous sex after more than eight months of sexual drought? Her house was empty, her bed was empty … she was all but free.

You betcha, sister!

Doormat Willa groaned and slapped her hand over her eyes.

Before she could lose her courage and change her mind, Willa tipped her head back and nailed him with her silver-green eyes. ‘Got condoms?’

‘Yes. Why?’ Rob replied carefully as his hands tightened on her hips. ‘You offering to let me use a couple?’

‘Yeah … you interested?’

Rob sucked in a breath. ‘Yeah—to the max. I’ve been thinking about it …’

‘Since when?’

‘I’ve been having X-rated fantasies about your fabulous legs encircling my hips since I first clocked them.’ He stepped back and looked at her legs. When he lifted his eyes again they’d turned sombre and serious. ‘You sure about this, Willa? Why do I have the feeling that this isn’t the way you normally operate?’

It isn’t—we don’t know what we’re doing here! Doormat Willa wrung her hands, whimpering.

Well, she wasn’t in charge tonight. Wild Willa was going to have some fun. ‘I’m very sure.’

Relief flashed across Rob’s face. ‘Where would you feel more comfortable? My place or yours?’

Oh, her place—absolutely. And if she was silently raising her middle finger to her ex by sleeping with someone else in a bed that he’d paid for, then nobody had to know but her.

Oh, dear God, she was sleeping with someone else … someone other than her forty-something husband who didn’t exactly encourage creativity in bed. Mr Missionary Position, she’d privately called him. Wham, bam … skip the thank-you, ma’am.

Rob’s thumb brushing her cheekbone pulled her back to reality. ‘Hey, where did you go?’

Willa grabbed his wrist. It was only fair to give him a heads-up so that he didn’t feel cheated when he realised that she was more below par than porn star. ‘Look, you should know that I don’t do this … often.’ Try never. ‘And I’m not …’

‘Not what?’

‘Experienced.’

Rob looked at her for a long time without saying anything. Before he spoke, he brushed her lips with a kiss and Willa quivered. ‘Feel that?’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘Feel the electricity between us?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘I’m old enough and experienced enough to know that doesn’t happen often, and when it does you don’t need anything else but to give yourself over to it. But, since you were honest enough to tell me that you aren’t a pro at this, let me remind you of the rules.’

There are rules? God! Seriously? Her lower lip pushed out. Wild Willa didn’t like rules.

‘Okay,’ Willa agreed, although she’d really much prefer Rob just to kiss her again.

‘This is a one-night thing, so no thinking about hearts and flowers.’

Willa felt the power of his honest statement.

‘I’m attracted to you, and the little I’ve seen of you, I like. I don’t sleep with women I don’t like, but tonight is it … there will be nothing more than a couple of laughs and some good sex.’

‘Good sex is the minimum I require,’ Willa said, making herself sound innocent.

Rob’s lips twitched. ‘Why do I suspect that when you widen those eyes and sound naïve you are at your most sarcastic?’

Because he wasn’t a fool, Willa realised, but she didn’t confirm or deny his statement.

‘And if you change your mind at any point—any point at all!—you say so and I back off. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be happy about it, but I’ll back off. You don’t like anything I do, you say so and I don’t do it again.’

Willa blinked. ‘My God, you are direct.’

‘No point in being anything else,’ Rob retorted. ‘I’m uncomfortably honest, or so I’ve frequently been told. It’s the only way I know how to be. Can you handle that?’

After the last eight years, honesty was a brilliant change of pace. ‘Since you’re only going to be around for the rest of the night, I think I can cope.’

Rob grinned at her jibe. ‘There’s that gentle sarcasm again … I love it. So, let’s go—so that I can get you naked sooner rather than later.’

Willa felt his hand wrap around hers—solid, masculine and sure—and she allowed him to tug her off the dance floor and towards the exit of the club.

We’re gonna get laid, Wild Willa shouted, thoroughly thrilled. Whooo-hooo!

Willa didn’t bother to switch on any lights as she entered the double-volume hallway of her Vaucluse waterfront property—she just kicked the door closed behind Rob and immediately reached for him.

They’d found a taxi as they’d left the club and a heated silence had filled the interior of the vehicle. Yet she hadn’t needed words to know that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. His warm hand had started off on her bare knee and slowly worked its way up her thigh, so that when the taxi had pulled up in front of the massive mansion her dress had been skimming her crotch line and his fingers had been not too far from her happy place.