Some Kind of Incredible

“I’ll be right in.”

Nick straightened and then deliberately brushed his fingertip over the back of her knuckles. Her breath caught as electric tingles pulsed through her body. She’d spent so many hours at her desk wondering if she’d just imagined his attraction to her, but now she knew it wasn’t a fantasy.

For a tense moment they stared at each other. Lila’s breasts felt full and her lips were suddenly dry. She licked them. Nick tracked the movement and started to lean closer to her.

Down the hall an office door closed loudly. Nick stood and walked into his office without another word.

“Oh, my God!” Lila said. She had to transfer out of this office before she completely lost all of her common sense. She fingered the brooch Rose had given her before she left for work. It was beautiful, and Lila had found herself taking it off to look at it several times today. In fact, it seemed to glow a little more brightly whenever she touched it. Rose had said it had always brought her luck. Lila had the feeling she needed more help than this brooch could bring her.

She signed out of the local area network, or the LAN, and removed her laptop from its docking station. Nick’s office overlooked Lake Michigan. Tonight, the view was dark and menacing. Being a Florida girl she didn’t care for all the cold weather, but the changing leaves had been beautiful. After a year and a half here, she still hadn’t acclimated herself to the Indiana weather.

Lila set her laptop on the corner of Nick’s desk. He was hunched over his own computer, probably checking e-mail, she thought. Tension radiated from him, and she wanted to touch him, to massage those broad shoulders until he leaned back in his big executive chair and smiled at her.

Of course, he never really smiled at her. Sometimes when they’d completed a really tough project, he’d give her one of his half-smiles, and she’d feel a deep longing inside to make him really happy. But she never did. Sleeping with the boss was the one thing she’d never do. Except this morning things between them had changed. Her dreams were slowly becoming reality. The actions she’d always longed to take were now presenting themselves to her.

“Ready, Lila?”

She swallowed and blocked her train of thought. “Almost.”

She powered on her computer. “Should we close the blinds?”

“Why, afraid someone might see us alone together in here?” There was a biting edge to his words.

“Not afraid exactly.” She’d never been afraid of any man since most of them turned and ran when life got tough. She knew she was strong and could take all they had to give. But she always tried to keep a part of herself secret. And Nick was harder to hide from than anyone else.

“Trust me, Lila. Everyone knows your reputation. Anyone who might see us will know we are only working.”

Stung, she busied herself at the computer, pulling up the company memo template and readying herself to do her job. His words shouldn’t have hurt, she thought. After all, their relationship was that of boss and secretary. But the words did hurt.

“I’m ready, Nick.”

“Lila…”

She glanced up, hoping he’d attribute the tears in her eyes to the late hour.

“Never mind.”

They’d been carefully treading around one another since that night two short weeks ago when Jayne had interrupted a moment that had almost gone too far. She’d wanted so badly to taste his lips on hers. To feel that rock-hard body that he worked at keeping in shape pressed against her own. To experience for once in her lonely little life the touch of real passion.

“The memo should go to all staff in the Marketing Division.”

“Just our team or domestic, too?”

“Domestic, too. I’m handling this announcement.”

“Promotion?” she asked hopefully.

“I wish it were.”

“Subject?”

“Grey Enterprises,” he said, pacing across the room and stopping in front of the Zen rock garden that he adjusted every day or so.

Uh-oh, she thought. Nick’s deep-blue eyes reflected the frustration and anger in his tone.

“Dammit,” he said under his breath.

“Nick?”

“Have you heard the rumors of a takeover, Lila?”

“Yes, but I’m sure they are unfounded.”

“They aren’t.”

Shock rumbled through her, and for a minute she saw herself back in that duplex she’d grown up in. The government-subsidized housing that had been her world until she’d gone to trade school and accepted this job. She saw herself back in that world she’d struggled so hard to get out of. She saw her dreams slowly dying and vowed that she’d do whatever it took to prevent that from happening.

“What the hell should I say to the staff? Don’t worry, we’re not going to let you lose your job?”

“I don’t know. Is that true?”

“Hell, I wish I knew.”

Lila’s hands started to shake and she realized that this wasn’t just change happening around her. This was the sky falling in. This was—

“Don’t worry, Lila. Clerical staff is hardly ever let go. VPs on the other hand…”

“No one’s going to fire you, Nick.”

“Lila, sometimes you are naive.”

She wanted to argue, but knew that to a suave sophisticated man like Nick Camden, she must seem a little small-townish. “But the board loves you.”

“We might have a new board member.”

“Grey Enterprises?”

“Yes. Marcus Grey, their CEO, has bought eight percent of the common shares on the market. He is now the fourth-largest stock holder.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Whatever we can to survive. I’ve worked too damn hard to give this up without a fight.”

He still stood with his back to her, searching, it seemed, for answers in his Zen garden. She stood, set her laptop on the chair and crossed to him. All her protective instincts told her to cradle this man in her arms. To comfort him and draw strength from the comfort he could offer her.

She knew it was dangerous, though. Nick held her dreams captive, what would happen if she gave him the keys to her reality?

“What can I do to help you?”

He pivoted on his heel and faced her. His deep-blue gaze brushed over her, and when he spoke his voice was huskier than usual. He moved a few paces closer. She could feel his body heat and started to back away. But something in his eyes challenged her to stay where she was.

“For me personally?” he asked.

For work, she wanted to say, but knew that wasn’t true. Her words caught in her throat and she could only nod.

“Let me hold you.”

She wasn’t sure he’d really spoken. It was just like the dream she’d had the night before, in which he’d asked her to come into his office and then made passionate love to her.

“What?”

“I know all about sexual harassment and this has nothing to do with your job.”

“Just hold me?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

She waited.

“I’m going to kiss you, too.”

She didn’t hesitate to close the gap between them. She knew he was reaching out, as everyone in the office had been today. Just searching for some comfort in this time that had become troubled. But deep in her heart, as he lowered his head, Lila hoped it meant something more. Just a little bit more to him.

Nick knew that he was manipulating the situation, taking advantage of Lila because she was weak and vulnerable right now. But he’d wanted her for a long time. He didn’t look too closely at himself because he didn’t want to admit he had any of those feelings. The last time he’d felt this shaken was when Amelia had been diagnosed with cancer.

He brushed her lips lightly with his. She tasted like a bittersweet fruit and he wanted more. She sighed as his tongue slid past the barrier of her lips and teeth, learning the inside of her mouth.

Her hands clutched at the back of his neck and all semblance of control vanished. His groin hardened almost painfully. He clutched Lila’s hips in his hands and held her closer to his lower body, feeling her move slightly. He thrust against her, sharpening the sensations in him.

He knew that Lila wasn’t like the women he’d dated in the past, other executives from outside firms who were hardened by life and more cynical. No, Lila was different. She baked bread for the office when morale was low. She offered life, he realized, and though he knew he couldn’t have it forever, he wanted a small slice of it for himself. He needed to believe for a few moments that he wasn’t alone in the world.

Nick wanted to be a tender dream lover, but his body was on overdrive and he held on to his control by a string. His hands shook with the need to touch all of her. The low lighting in his office cast the room in a comforting glow. He loosened the buttons on her blouse, and met her clear gaze with his own.

No matter how badly he wanted this, he wasn’t going to push Lila to move too quickly. He didn’t analyze why.

“Okay?” he asked, dipping one finger beneath her collar.

She nodded.

He released another button. Her skin was smooth and creamy, like the finest satin sheets. He leaned down to drop kisses on the flesh he’d exposed.

She shivered, her fingers tunneling in his hair and holding him close to her. He quickly opened the remaining buttons and stood back. Taking her wrists in his hands he held her arms away from her body. The bodice of her shirt fell open. A scrap of red satin and lace covered her breasts.

It enraged his senses the way nothing else ever had. It wasn’t right that a bra meant for sin should be on her sweet body, but at the same time it was perfect. There was no other undergarment that could do this body justice.

He deftly opened the front closure of her bra. A quick intake of breath was her response. Deliberately, he bent and took the edge of the right cup between his teeth and slowly pulled the fabric away from her skin.

The stubble on his jaw scraped against her skin and she lifted her chest slightly. Her hands weren’t as subtle, directing him to her nipple.

“Please,” she said.

“Hell, yes.”

He nibbled on her hardened flesh before suckling her deep in his mouth. She held him tight to her body and blood engorged his sex, making him so hard and full he thought he’d explode before he moved on.

The slow pace he was trying to set evaporated. He took Lila’s mouth as he planned to take her. Hard, swift but with infinite care, and he lifted her, carrying her to the cherrywood desk. He set her on its surface and slid his hands under her skirt.

He cursed when he found her warm, wet and wanting. Damn. He needed to fill her. To feel that humid heat on him. To revel in the fact that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

His tongue thrust deeper into her mouth. Needing to deeply embed her essence on every one of his senses, he pulled her panty hose down over hips and legs. He wrenched his mouth from hers.

Urging her to lean back on the desk, support her own weight on her elbows, he spread her before him like a sensual feast. Her blouse fell away from her body exposing her flushed breasts with their hardened tips. Her skirt bunched at her waist revealing panties that matched her bra. His pulse jumped higher, and he couldn’t breath until he’d tasted her intimately.

He sank back in his big leather chair and surrounded her hips with his hands. She glanced down at him, passion still in her eyes, but something else there, too.

“May I taste you?” he asked.

She nodded again.

He bent forward, resting his cheek against the lace and satin that covered her mound. Then he slowly turned his face until he was surrounded by her scent. He couldn’t wait any longer; standing, he ripped her panties from her body and carefully opened his fly.

Lila freed his long erection from his pants and brought him closer to her. The head of his manhood brushed against her and she moaned deep in her throat. She thrust against him, but Nick used his grip on her hips to slow the movement.

He slid carefully into her, slowly savoring each pulse around his hard length. She was small and tight, fitting him like a velvet glove. She tried to rush his possession, but he wouldn’t let her. He was the master here. In her body he’d found the place where he should always be.

He seated himself to the hilt and paused for a moment.

“Keep going, Nick.”

“Oh, I will,” he said, but didn’t move. Instead he bent to take her nipple into his mouth, sucking strongly until he felt her hips moving between his hands, felt the tiny tightening of her muscles against his manhood. Then he pulled out of her and started to thrust. Lila met him thrust for thrust, clutching his buttocks and pulling him to her.

The tension built inside him. He couldn’t hold on another second, but he had to. He waited until he felt Lila’s body clench around his, felt the extra warmth that hadn’t been there before, and then let himself go. Let his release take him to the stars and carry this sweet woman there with him.

He wanted to collapse against her but knew he couldn’t, so he lifted himself away and sank back into his office chair. Eventually his pulse slowed and sanity returned. He zipped his pants and felt the stickiness of their joining. Damn, he hadn’t used a condom.

Lila’s descent to reality seemed to take a little longer, however. Nick knew the moment it happened because she grasped the edges of her blouse together and refused to look at him.

Some mistakes were the kind that took you years to realize, Lila thought as she fought to rebutton her silk blouse. And others stared you in the face from the moment the actions were taken. What had felt so right minutes earlier now felt horribly wrong.

Her heart ached and her stomach churned like a hurricane in the Atlantic. She tried to act calm but having had only one other lover in her life hadn’t given her a lot of sophistication to call on in this type of situation. She slid off the desk and decided she could go home without panties or hose on because she sure as heck wasn’t rooting around under his desk to find them.

With a calmness that she knew had to be some sort of protective shell, she smoothed her skirt, tucked her hair behind her ear and walked away from the man who’d just tilted her neat little world. First with the announcement that the safe predictable life she’d built at Colette was in danger, and then with the soul-searing intensity with which he’d made love to her.

Part of her thought the whole thing entirely romantic, but the forbidding look on Nick’s face told her he wasn’t going to get down on one knee and confess his undying devotion to her.

This heartache’s on me, she thought, knowing that her fantasies about Nick had precipitated their love-making. She wanted to play it cool, but she was afraid if she tried to talk her voice would come out in a high-pitched squeak.

“Lila,” Nick said. His voice was low and calm, washing over her like a warm breeze on a summer’s day. She wanted to go to him and wallow in what he had to offer, but she knew it was a mirage.

“Yes,” she said, picking up her laptop and preparing to leave, still refusing to look at him.

“We have to talk about what just happened.”

Not if she lived to be a hundred would she ever want to discuss this with anyone. And certainly not with Nick. She made a noncommittal sound. Let him take that for whatever he wanted, she wasn’t up for a post mortem right now.

She heard his footsteps and refused to glance at him. His body heat reached her in waves, and now that she knew how strong he was and how right it had felt to be in his arms, he was even harder to resist.

“Honey.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice cracking, as she’d feared it would. The way he’d pulled out of her body and sat in his chair waiting for her to recover told her more than words ever could. He did not think of her in an affectionate way, and she’d tolerate no lies from him.

“Lila, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen but it did and nothing can change the fact that neither of us was prepared for it.”

She became aware of the stickiness between her thighs. She knew immediately that he wasn’t only concerned about health issues but about pregnancy. How careless could she be? she asked herself. Hadn’t she learned anything growing up with her unmarried mother?

“I’m not on the pill,” she said. She was one of the small percentage of women who were allergic to it. It had never bothered her because she wasn’t swept away by desire. In fact, she had found the entire male-female lust-at-first-sight phenomenon to be highly overrated…until tonight.

“Well, hell,” he said, then turned away from her to utter something profane and succinct.

His words cut straight to her heart.

“Yes, hell. This isn’t the end of the world, you know.” Chances were she wasn’t pregnant.

Now he was the one avoiding eye contact. “It is for me.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I made a vow never to marry again.” His words affected her in a way she didn’t want them to, and dashed her secret hopes once and for all. She’d been dreaming of Nick Camden for so long that she’d put him on a pedestal, and here he was revealing his very real clay feet.

“I don’t recall asking you to marry me, Nick Camden.”

His laser-sharp gaze pinned her to her spot. He didn’t say anything in response to her sarcasm.

“If you’re pregnant we can discuss the choices to be made.”

“What are you insinuating, Nick?”

“That we will have to make some decisions once we know the full details of the situation.”

“This sounds like the verbiage for a damned memo. This isn’t about the job, you know. This is about life.”

“My job is my life, Lila.”

Truer words were never spoken.

“How soon until you’ll know if you’re knocked up?”

“Jeez, now that I’ve seen your charm I know why you’re so popular with the ladies.”

“Dammit, Lila—”

“Yes, dammit, Nick.”

She walked out of his office and grabbed her purse from the bottom desk drawer.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

She sighed. She knew how dogged he could be when he set his mind to something. “A few days maybe. I’m not real regular.”

She shut off her desk lamp and felt the heavy weight of his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll drive you home.”

“No, thank you.”

“It wasn’t an offer.”

“Was it an order?”

“Tell me you’re not planning to walk home in the dark.”

“I’m not planning to walk home in the dark,” she said, feeling an edge that she normally tempered with lots of baking and a call to her mother.

“Smart-ass.”

“Look, this is Youngsville, not Chicago. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not going without me and that’s final.”

“Okay,” she said.

He grabbed his coat from the rack and reached around the corner to hit the light switch. Lila’s discarded undergarments were under his desk. He stopped and pocketed them without a word. Then he closed and locked his inner office door. He took her elbow and escorted her down the darkened hallway.

Lila felt the emotions inside her swirling like a black mist and rising so quickly she couldn’t control them. She knew she had to keep her mouth shut but somehow the words wouldn’t stop.

“So I guess I shouldn’t ask if it was good for you?”

Three

Nick had been at some low places in his life but never had he felt like this. The night was pitch dark and he was thankful that Lila was silent as they drove. He didn’t think he could take much more conversation from her at this point. In his mind’s eye he was surrounded by an image of Lila’s wide brown eyes brimming with a sheen of tears.

Though his mind screamed for him to back away his body relived the incredible rightness that their joining had brought. And he knew that he should regret that he hadn’t used a condom when they’d made love, but deep inside he was glad he hadn’t. His groin still throbbed at the remembered feel of her around him.

Lila had been the fulfillment of his dreams, of what a woman could be. But she was his assistant, dammit. How could he have let this happen?

But he knew once hadn’t been enough. In fact, as he came to a stop in front of her building, he knew that he wanted to come up tonight and mate with her again. To cement what was between them so that she didn’t have to react with her sharp tongue.

“Well, thanks for the ride,” she said and then a bitter laugh escaped her. “I meant the car ride.”

“Lila, stop it. I’m sorry for the way that our first time happened, but I won’t let you think it meant nothing to me.”

“I’m sure you say that to all the girls, Nick.”

“I don’t have a stock of lines I pull out for the appropriate moment.”

“I’m relieved.”

She looked at him, but her expression was indiscernible in the feeble light of the street lamp. He knew his reaction earlier had made his comments seem, well, like a lie, but truer words had never been spoken. Lila meant more to him than the faceless ladies in his past and she deserved better than a burnt-out executive whose only emotion was cold, hard lust.

Except it hadn’t felt cold or hard when he’d been with Lila. Buried in her sweet warm body he’d felt like he’d found the home he’d been forcing Colette, Inc. to be for years.

“Are you feeling better?”

She shook her head, the silky length of her blond hair was illuminated by the light of the moon. He wished he’d taken his time with her. He wished they’d had all night to learn each other’s bodies instead of a hurried explosion in his office. He wished that he could go back to the moment he’d pulled away from her and lie against her breast and comfort them both.

“I can’t do this right now. I’m achy and not myself,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I’m feeling mean, Nick. And I want to hurt you so deeply that you’ll still feel it weeks from now.”

“If it would make you feel better.”

She looked out the window, and when she spoke again her voice was so soft he had to lean in to hear it. “My mother gave birth to me when she was only sixteen. I’ve never met my father.”

Simple sentences. Simple words that summed up a life that was anything but simple. He hadn’t realized how complex the situation was, but now he did.

“We’re not in that situation.”

“No?”

He wanted to do the right thing, to say he’d marry her if she found out she was pregnant with his child, but he knew he couldn’t. The low points in his life were manageable because he’d found a way to guarantee they never happened a second time. He’d made the vow never to marry again because Amelia’s death had cut through the layers of who he was and left him a quivering mound of insecurity. If there was one thing he wouldn’t tolerate it was weakness.

“Well, you’re not sixteen.”

She reached for the door handle and Nick hit the locks.

“Let me out of the car.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t be silly. You run a multimillion-dollar division for a large corporation, this should be a cinch for you.”

“I want you to tell me that you’ll stop beating yourself up about this. I seduced you.”

“I had no idea you were this bossy in your personal relationships,” she said, whipping her head around to face him. She leaned in close and he could taste her breath as it brushed across his face.

The leather seats and her scent teased his mind, tempted him to pull across the gearshift as he had this morning and kiss her until she was too exhausted to talk.

“You didn’t seduce me.”

He had. He knew he had. He’d been feeling out of control and had called on the one thing he could count on. Lila. She’d soothed him and comforted him and taken him out of his skin to a place he’d never really been before.

And he’d repaid her by possibly impregnating her. God, his technique could use some work. Except with Lila all those practiced moves didn’t work.

“I’m not about to debate this with you. Thanks for bringing me home.”