Tease

His office door was open when she got there, but she found no one inside. The room was mostly windows and traditional in style, which surprised her. She’d expected to find a dark, artsy lair, with decor that might even be mystical. One of the many rumors about him was that he had Native American blood. Instead, everything was ma-hogany, beautifully carved with reflecting-pool surfaces and damask upholstery. It reminded her of a federal court, except for the two walls of posters showcasing his ads.

Tess took a moment to check them out. He was very good, but she knew that. What struck her was the unexpected way the ads were displayed. On one side of the room, they were bright and upbeat, with vibrant colors and attractive models. On the other side, the ads had a dark edginess that bordered on sinister. But, even more perplexing, on the abutting wall hung just one poster—a misty pastel of a child in a swing, rising toward the setting sun. It almost looked as if she were going to slip off the seat and fly away.

What a strange juxtaposition, Tess thought. It was enough to make you wonder if Gabriel was bipolar. Mitzi had said he had a secret. Tess was curious whether the ads might have something to do with that, but there wasn’t time to explore. She turned and saw a set of double doors that led to what looked like a conference room. The doors were partially open, and she could see movement inside. Maybe he was in there, preparing for his deadline.

Tess peeked through the doors and saw Gabriel bent over a storyboard, probably checking out the sketches for a client’s television spot. “Am I interrupting?” she asked, opening the doors.

He glanced up at her and did a double take. She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes narrowed. Whether it was appreciation or appraisal, she couldn’t tell, but his gaze was riveting.

“You’re perfect,” he said. “Come in.”

“What?”

“You’re wearing boots, a skirt. It’s perfect.” He beckoned her over to him. “Come on in.”

Tess didn’t move from the doorway.

He took a chair from the conference table and rolled it to within a few feet of where she stood. She had no idea what he was doing as he positioned the chair in front of the doors.

“Right here,” he said. “Come over and sit down, please. I have something to show you.”

The please did the trick. She couldn’t resist conviction.

She walked to the chair, aware of him standing there with his hands on the leather back, as if he were about to give her a ride.

“Are you going to tell me why I’m doing this?” she asked, wondering what would happen to her very skinny skirt when she sat. Surely he wasn’t angling for that, a leg shot.

“All will be explained,” he assured her, “but not yet. That would ruin it.”

He stopped her before she could sit down. “Let’s fix that skirt first,” he said. “Here.”

He actually came around the chair and turned her toward him, then spun her skirt until the slit in the back was running up the side of her leg. With any encouragement at all, the opening would now reveal an eyeful of caramel thigh. Thank God for liquid stockings.

“Mmm, yes. Perfect.”

It was almost erotic the way he said that word, perfect. Like a man whispering something dirty in a woman’s ear.

He sat her in the chair and knelt in front of her, apparently to do some more adjusting of her person.

She pulled back as his hand grazed her leg. “What are you doing?”

“Relax,” he said, “trust me, please, this is important.” She wasn’t as taken with his conviction this time, but she was very curious.

“Unbend your knee. Here, like this.” He inched her left leg forward a little and then propped her sleek laced boot on its spiky heel, with the tip pointing in the air.

“Good,” he said, rising to look at her. He nodded, murmuring something about how perfect this was under his breath.

Interesting that she had to focus on what he said. It was entirely possible he was doing that on purpose, making her listen. He had a reputation as a persuasive pitchman, a closer, as they said in sales, but there was nothing overtly aggressive about him. Even now, he came across as supremely laid-back, and yet he radiated energy. It was like droplets sizzling on his skin.

She’d heard all the rumors, that Danny Gabriel was deadly smart and blindingly handsome, almost his own species. She’d heard them. She just hadn’t wanted to believe them. No wonder they needed someone to corral this guy.

He studied her, his features knit in concentration.

“Lean back and support yourself on the arms of the chair,” he said, giving her direction as if they were on a photo shoot. “Good. Now relax and arch your spine. Can you give me a little more bend? Try to relax and arch your spine.”

Tess drew herself up and felt the chair move. “The wheels are going to roll out from under me.”

“Here, I’ll steady you.” He moved behind her and gripped the chair. “Try it again,” he said. “Lean into the arch and tilt your head back. God, yes, that’s great.”

Tess’s spine bowed with tension, locking her in place. At that moment, all she could see were the edges of him, a blur. But when his head came into her line of sight, and he looked down at her, she suddenly felt vulnerable. She started to sit up.

“No, wait,” he said. “This is important. Look at me. Look at me, Tess.”

She held on to the chair, steadying herself. As she gazed up at him, she could feel her jacket fall open and her skirt creep up. She was balancing herself with the heel of one boot. Her other foot had lifted off the floor.

What must she look like? What the hell was he doing?

“How much longer?” she asked, annoyed. “I can’t hold this.”

“Just a few more seconds.” He pulled the chair back toward him. “We’re almost there, and you look hotter than hell. Don’t think about anything but that—how hot you look. Amazing.”

His voice dropped low and sexy. He was still murmuring as he bent down and fitted his mouth to hers in a weightless kiss. Tess’s grip tightened. Her whole body quivered as she struggled to get up, but there was no way possible. All of the laws of gravity and physics were against her, and with his mouth locked to hers, she couldn’t move.

“Perfect,” he whispered against her lips.

Tess’s body reacted to the extreme vulnerability of her position. Her flesh felt as if it had caught fire. Her nipples zinged to life, hardening instantly, and the cotton crotch of her panties should have been steaming they were so damp. What was happening? She could feel herself lubricating down there, blushing with shock and excitement.

He broke the kiss, freeing her, and Tess sat up too quickly. Dizziness washed over her. She’d been upside down so long the blood had left her head.

“What kind of stunt was that?” she asked, fighting to get her bearings.

“No stunt,” he said.

“You kissed me.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? What do you mean yeah? This is an office. We’re coworkers. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“True, but let me show you why I did it.”

Before she could catch her breath, he was standing in front of her. Tess stole a glance at his crotch—and hated herself for it. Did she really care whether or not he’d been as turned on as she had? There was no hope for her.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to her legs. “It’s perfect.”

The man was a broken record. “What’s perfect?”

“What you did when I kissed you.” He knelt next to her. “Look at how you’re sitting—the way you raised your right leg and hooked your toe under the left.”

Tess saw that the tip of one boot was tucked under her other calf. “So what?” she said. “I was trying not to fall over.”

She settled both feet on the floor, still too dizzy to stand.

Gabriel rose and went to the double doors, drawing them together but not closing them. He left an opening about six inches wide, and then he came back to her.

“When I saw you in those boots it gave me an idea for an ad,” he said.

“An ad? Why didn’t you just say that?” So much for being turned on.

“It wouldn’t have worked. I had to catch you off guard to see what your legs would do. Can you imagine what a shot that would be for your Faustini ad? Think print campaign, maybe even billboards.”

He gestured toward her chair and the door, setting the scene. “You’re sitting there, like that, but the camera’s outside the doors, which are open just enough to show your legs levitating.”

She sat forward. “What are you talking about?”

“Imagine someone standing outside these doors, looking in. What would they see through that opening? Your legs, right? Your boots, Faustini boots. It’s the perfect tease.”

“Actually, they wouldn’t. These aren’t the Faustinis. I changed for dinner.”

His brow furrowed. “For the sake of argument, they are, okay? And that innocent bystander out there can’t see anything but your boots. She can’t see me, or what’s going on in here, but she knows damn well by the way your boots are behaving that you’re not taking dictation. What does that say to her?”

“Wear Faustini and people will sexually assault you?”

“Wear Faustini and life will surprise you.”

“There are some surprises I could do without.” Tess got up and whipped her skirt around the right way. She was done playing along. “All of this was about Faustini? My account?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to thank me.”

She emitted a sound of disgust, and he actually cracked a grin. “What are you, eight years old?” she asked.

They locked stares, engaged in a steamy visual battle. After a moment or two, Tess began to feel a little ridiculous. Maybe he wasn’t the only one being childish. But as she glared at him, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before, a small crescent scar on his upper lip, near the bow. Her stomach dipped, and something even deeper fluttered in the most pleasurable way. Damn. The scar turned his mouth into a sensual wonderland. It was wicked. You couldn’t see a mouth like that and not think about sex.

What would that feel like?

Not a question Tess wanted to contemplate. Thank God, she was highly skilled in the art of denial. Give her a couple more seconds, and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Perhaps, though, she could create a little problem for him. She smoothed her outfit into place, remembering why she’d come here. Someone needed to catch this man off guard and show him how it felt.

“Are you checking me out?” he asked. “Because I could swear you were checking me out.”

“Murderball must be dangerous,” she said, walking over to him. She touched his scar with her fingertips. If she was nervous it didn’t show, and that was all she cared about at the moment.

“You’re dangerous,” he said.

“You aren’t kidding.” Tess angled in for a kiss, but he stopped her. He gripped her arms and held her off, staring at her as if she’d gone crazy. She could almost hear those droplets of energy sizzling on his skin. She may even have caught their scent, a fiery male essence that made her throat ache. Something about all this thrilled her. Maybe it was taking a chance, calling his bluff, if that’s what he was doing, bluffing.

“Okay,” he said softly, “let’s get dangerous.” He yanked her close and kissed her.

The flutter in Tess’s gut turned bright and sharp. In her mind, she could see that damn sexy scar, but she couldn’t feel it on her lips. The only rough sensation was his hands, molesting her arms. His mouth was soft and hot. It was luscious. The sound vibrating inside her was a growl. A tiny voracious growl.

A startling hunger overtook her. She wanted her hands free, not to break away, but to clutch him. It didn’t seem possible that she was suddenly greedy for more. For something wild and deep. As deep as the sea. A kiss that would drag her under and drown her.

Her nipples brushed against his chest, and again, hardened uncontrollably. A sensation she hadn’t felt in months flared in the pit of her belly. God help her, that was hot.

In her mind, she saw the two of them spinning in the chair, whirling like tops, her facing him with her legs spread over the chair arms and him beneath her, anchoring her with his brick wall of an erection, thrusting madly, fucking like bunnies—

What? Was she crazy?

Was it the tea? Mitzi’s psychotropic tea?

Her fantasies hadn’t been that energetic in her college years, had they?

The questions brought her back to reality. Somehow Gabriel had turned her around, all while kissing her ardently. Clearly he was going to take this further. Next, he would be scooping her up in his arms and laying her out on the conference table.

She gave his shin a sharp little kick.

He swore and released her.

She stepped back, panting. “You kiss good,” she said.

“Jesus, so do you. I’m coming to that dinner tonight. In fact, I’m taking you home from that dinner tonight.”

She drew herself up. “No, no you’re not. Tonight is about my work, and my work is not about kissing, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He nodded, but she had a feeling he would have agreed with anything she said at that moment. He seemed far more interested in her mouth than her point. There was a time, not so terribly long ago, when Tess would have succumbed in a New York second to the charms of a man like Danny Gabriel. Make that a nanosecond. She’d been a total pushover, a wuss in every way. Of course, that had to stay her secret. She was stronger now. She’d had a lot of practice not having sex. The denial thing.

And more important, she hadn’t made her point yet.

“Canceling out on the dinner,” she told him, “was petty and insulting, Mr. Gabriel. I guess I may have you on the run, hmm? Otherwise, why would a man of your stature have to lie your way out of my dinner?”

He started to speak, but she overrode him. “I may not be a genius, but I’m damn good at what I do, and I deserve respect.”

He began to shake his head, but she wasn’t listening to any lame apologies. “I think we’re finished here, at least I am.” She tweaked the lapel of her jacket, shot him a burning stare, and turned to find a distinguished-looking man in an immaculately tailored suit standing in the doorway. Obviously he’d heard every word.

Gabriel spoke from behind her. “Tess Wakefield, meet Oliver Handel, the vice president of international marketing for the Kashogi Corporation.”

Shit. It looked as if Gabriel had told the truth. She was staring at his deadline. Possibly, her inner-life coach might have some advice for her at this inopportune moment?

Don’t ever let them see you sweat, Tess.

The self-talk that most people called an inner voice had always come to Tess in the form of old television commercials. It was probably what had led her into advertising. And in this case, it was exactly what she needed to hear.

She made no attempt to make herself presentable. That would have drawn more attention to the fact that she wasn’t. She walked straight over and took the man’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Mr. Handel, how do you do, sir? Such an honor, really. It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”

Handel returned her grip. He smiled, chuckling aloud. “You have my utmost respect, Tess, if I may call you that. I’m sure Daniel deserved every word of that lecture.”

Tess smiled knowingly. “He’s just brilliant, isn’t he?” she said, deciding to take the high road. She’d already expressed herself to her complete satisfaction, and maybe it was karma that Gabriel’s client had shown up. “And now, I’ll leave you two to your meeting.”

Tess turned to Gabriel. “We’ll miss you at dinner,” she said with a wicked little lilt in her voice.

“I’m sure.” His response was as dry as dust.

On the way back to her office, she retraced her path through the deep-sea aquarium. Pleased with herself, she grinned. Maybe now she’d be able to get some work done. She had an ad campaign to come up with, but it damn sure wasn’t going to feature levitating boots.

Chapter Four

He was down on one knee, rearranging her legs and inadvertently brushing against her bare skin. He’d removed her boots, leaving her legs and feet exposed. Why had he done that? He didn’t seem to understand that his fingers tickled like feather fringe, and his skin was the richest shade of tequila gold she’d ever seen. He touched her ankle, innocently positioning it, and streamers of light shot up her thighs, straight to her sex.

No, straight to her pussy, she thought, giving in to a wicked urge to use the bad-girl word. The words and images assaulting her overheated brain were bordering on lewd, but they might be the only way to get this man’s attention.

He cupped her calf with his palm, and her pulse raced out of control. His hands were warm, strong, smooth against her flesh. He was going to wreck her. Now he was playing with the back of her knee, lingering in that secret, unbearably sensitive spot. If he went higher, she’d faint. If he didn’t, she’d explode.

Fainting was less dangerous.

“Danny,” she whispered. She drew up his head, gazed at the crescent scar on his lip—and didn’t know whether to kiss him or slap him silly. How could he not know what he was doing?

Desperate, she inched up her skirt, letting him see that she wore no panties. “See that?” she whispered. “It’s a pussy, in case you were wondering. Help yourself, for heaven’s sake. Stop making me crazy and make me co —”

Tess slapped the desk with her palm. This had to stop. Her eyes snapped open, and she breathed out an exasperated sigh. She’d been drifting off into crazy X-rated fantasies all morning. And they all revolved around her spread-eagle legs—and him. He didn’t get all the credit, though. This was at least partly biological. Could doctors induce periods the way they induced labor? Her never-ending PMS was killing her.

And, she’d figured it out. Now she knew who he reminded her of with his cut-you-like-a-knife eyes. Tess prided herself on having left her past behind, but there was one man who’d touched a chord that wouldn’t stop resonating in some darkened corner of her mind. If every woman had her indelible bad-boy experience, then Professor Jonathan Wiley, her theater arts instructor in college, was Tess’s, except that he wasn’t a boy. He’d been her phantom of the opera, in a manner of speaking, but without all the soaring romance—and his image had come to her during her fantasies about Gabriel.

Not good, she thought. Nothing about this was good.

She drew herself up and surveyed the chaos on her desk. It was Saturday, but she and her entire team were working this weekend in order to be ready for the pitch to the Faustini brass next week. Even Erica Summers had agreed to make herself available, probably to set an example for the troops.

Tess’s desk was strewn with eight-by-ten glossies that had been sent to her by casting directors. She’d spread them out hoping that photos of fit young male and female models would inspire a killer idea for the Faustini promotion, but no such luck. Some of the women were promising, but the guys reminded her of southern California’s yuppie bikers, who dressed up in black leather and swore off shaving for the weekend. A couple of them were cute, but definitely not the millennium outlaw with the soul of a poet she had in mind.

Tess sorted through the glossies one more time, creating a stack of hopefuls. Too bad she couldn’t blame her fantasy trips on pictures of buff bikers. Unfortunately, Danny Gabriel’s sneak attack had triggered the daydreams, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate worth a damn since.

The welcome dinner with the board last night had gone as predicted. Gabriel was conspicuous by his absence and probably on everyone’s mind the whole time. Certainly he was on hers, the snake. Sure, he’d been acting as if he wanted to help her with the campaign, but she had to wonder if that wasn’t about hiding his real intentions. He was a saboteur at heart. And she didn’t need one of those. She was doing well enough on her own.

What had happened to that headlock she was supposed to have on her emotions? More than likely, she was suffering from simple estrogen overload. In theory, the human body was like a hydroelectric dam, which overflowed if left untended, and she was definitely untended. All she needed to do was open the sluice gates a little, and the quickest way to do that was with some good old-fashioned masturbation—or what her mother had called “naughty fingers” when Tess was growing up.

The Queen of Euphemisms, her mother. “In the family way” meant pregnant and the birth was a “happy event.” The bathroom was “the smallest room in the house,” and a woman’s period was “a visiting friend.” Tess’s favorite—“tired and overemotional”—was how her mother described her father when he got carried away with the communion wine.

God bless them, her parents could never have been accused of neglect. Tess was a desperately wanted only child, and her mother had anxiously attempted to control every aspect of her daughter’s existence. All in an effort to protect her, of course—from life’s pain, from its ridicule and shame. Sad that her mother had resorted to ridicule and shame, herself.

Tess had been shy and overweight, and her parents had tried to embarrass her out of both. Her mother had weighed Tess before every meal, bought her clothes that were too small and put her on her first medically supervised diet at five. Five? Mom, what were you thinking? The debating team and the glee club had been Dad’s idea. Under all the pressure, Tess had developed a stutter.

Fortunately, she’d outgrown it and the weight, which had turned out to be a combination of baby fat and adolescent rebellion. But when she’d slimmed down in college—and started getting attention from boys—she’d gone a little crazy. Enter the wild-child phase. She’d been looking for love in all the wrong places, needing to prove to herself again and again that she was desirable to men when what she’d really wanted was the love and acceptance she didn’t get as a kid.

Most of the boys she was with couldn’t handle the sex part, much less provide any sensitivity toward her emotional needs, which even she wasn’t aware of at the time. Tess could barely remember the encounters, probably because she didn’t want to think about all that furtive groping in hallway alcoves and the sweaty fumbling in parked cars. But there was one guy she did remember.

What a wicked kinky dude Jonathan Wiley was. Not a boy, a man—and maybe a demon escaped from her id, if anything Freud had said was true. Wiley had quietly insisted that she had talent and could have a big acting career, if she wanted. Yeah, sure. She’d barely heard that part, given the blazingly erotic stuff he’d whispered in her ear during their after-hours coaching sessions.

Tess remembered his suggestions in far too much detail: If I had you where I want you right now—naked with your bottom in the air—I wouldn’t know whether to swat you or lick you like an ice cream cone.

He’d talked about restraining her with the ropes that hung from the stage rigging, freeing her from her clothing—and her inhibitions—and arousing her until she fainted dead away. He’d been particularly obsessed with her ass, and all the amazing things he could do to it, including love bites and erotic discipline. Spanking, to be exact. He’d whispered about disciplining her in ways that had made her hair stand on end, but only to bring her the most intense pleasure, of course.

Honestly, he’d frightened the hell out of her, and she’d run for her life. She was only eighteen. But much of what he’d said and done had stayed with her, and as she’d matured into her twenties, the fear had faded, and she’d become secretly fascinated with some of his suggestions, especially the darker ones.