dragged his gaze away from her delectable lips before he gave in to the impulses testing his restraint. It was long past time to remember a few inescapable facts.
The two of them sat in the middle of a crowded conference room. The meeting was about to begin. He was leaving in three months and couldn't get involved with another woman clearly locked into a relentless drive for promotion. After the changes he’d made in his life this past year, the mere thought of jumping on that merry-go-round again was impossible.
There were a number of reasons not to explore this unreasonable attraction between them. It was the last two that clinched it. Tess isn't yours to kiss. She belongs to someone else.
"I didn't think Anthony would have time to fix it before you drove to work this morning," he said. "I was already in the neighborhood. It's no big deal."
She shifted in her seat, looking oddly pained by the reminder of what, rather who, stood between them. "Anthony is...I mean...he isn't...mechanically inclined. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Dan said, subdued by the thought of Anthony's possible inclinations. The idea of Tess making love to some faceless, mechanically disinclined man made Dan's jaw clench into a hard knot.
Damn.
Chapter Four
The meeting was long and tedious, and Tess was never more fidgety in her life. A strange phone conversation with her parents before she left her office was partially to blame. It wasn’t until after she’d hung up that she realized they’d adroitly avoided her inquiries about their welfare, while their none-too-subtle probes about her job indicated her lack of success in keeping her problems from them.
This brought her to her hard-won marketing campaign on today’s agenda. Once she presented her report, she hoped to kick back while months of effort paid off in increased retail sales, and in her promotion. With the promotion’s bonus package in hand, she could stop worrying about covering the shortfall in her father’s insurance coverage. She’d have the surgeon’s fifteen-thousand dollar deposit before the September deadline.
No, she didn’t dare relax. Not yet.
Her distraction was unacceptable, if readily explained. Every time she moved, her leg bumped against Dan’s, their shoulders rubbed. Her lungs filled with his scent when she took the smallest breath. The conference room, always too small to accommodate these meetings, was becoming smaller, hotter, more airless, by the minute.
She longed to strip off her jacket. She didn’t dare. Although her lace-trimmed camisole doubled as a blouse, the satin wasn’t thick enough to hide the way her nipples tightened when she walked into the room and spotted the man who’d featured in her dreams last night. Incredible dreams overflowing with lingering touches and intensifying passion.
Whatever had possessed her to sit next to Dan? She should have taken a seat as far from him as possible. Across the conference table, across the room...across the planet wasn’t far enough if she couldn’t control her fantasies better than this!
Her gaze slid sideways to Dan’s charcoal gray suit jacket stretched across his broad chest, the red power tie lying beneath his square jaw. Here was the man she’d conjured in her mind yesterday. In command. Powerful. The tailored look fit him as perfectly as jeans and flannel.
Her imagination hadn’t prepared her, however, for the loss of his mustache. Behind that softness, Dan’s sculpted upper lip was concealed. Beneath the hair, the two indentations that framed his mouth and gave his face strength and character were blurred. Revealed, the combination was downright devastating.
Dan affected her as no other man had before. With one look into the depths of his eyes, her heart began to flutter in her breast like a trapped butterfly, her skin flushed with the heat of a sun-scorched beach. She didn’t know whether to fly away or sink into the fire.
Was it any wonder she’d taken steps to protect
The two of them sat in the middle of a crowded conference room. The meeting was about to begin. He was leaving in three months and couldn't get involved with another woman clearly locked into a relentless drive for promotion. After the changes he’d made in his life this past year, the mere thought of jumping on that merry-go-round again was impossible.
There were a number of reasons not to explore this unreasonable attraction between them. It was the last two that clinched it. Tess isn't yours to kiss. She belongs to someone else.
"I didn't think Anthony would have time to fix it before you drove to work this morning," he said. "I was already in the neighborhood. It's no big deal."
She shifted in her seat, looking oddly pained by the reminder of what, rather who, stood between them. "Anthony is...I mean...he isn't...mechanically inclined. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Dan said, subdued by the thought of Anthony's possible inclinations. The idea of Tess making love to some faceless, mechanically disinclined man made Dan's jaw clench into a hard knot.
Damn.
Chapter Four
The meeting was long and tedious, and Tess was never more fidgety in her life. A strange phone conversation with her parents before she left her office was partially to blame. It wasn’t until after she’d hung up that she realized they’d adroitly avoided her inquiries about their welfare, while their none-too-subtle probes about her job indicated her lack of success in keeping her problems from them.
This brought her to her hard-won marketing campaign on today’s agenda. Once she presented her report, she hoped to kick back while months of effort paid off in increased retail sales, and in her promotion. With the promotion’s bonus package in hand, she could stop worrying about covering the shortfall in her father’s insurance coverage. She’d have the surgeon’s fifteen-thousand dollar deposit before the September deadline.
No, she didn’t dare relax. Not yet.
Her distraction was unacceptable, if readily explained. Every time she moved, her leg bumped against Dan’s, their shoulders rubbed. Her lungs filled with his scent when she took the smallest breath. The conference room, always too small to accommodate these meetings, was becoming smaller, hotter, more airless, by the minute.
She longed to strip off her jacket. She didn’t dare. Although her lace-trimmed camisole doubled as a blouse, the satin wasn’t thick enough to hide the way her nipples tightened when she walked into the room and spotted the man who’d featured in her dreams last night. Incredible dreams overflowing with lingering touches and intensifying passion.
Whatever had possessed her to sit next to Dan? She should have taken a seat as far from him as possible. Across the conference table, across the room...across the planet wasn’t far enough if she couldn’t control her fantasies better than this!
Her gaze slid sideways to Dan’s charcoal gray suit jacket stretched across his broad chest, the red power tie lying beneath his square jaw. Here was the man she’d conjured in her mind yesterday. In command. Powerful. The tailored look fit him as perfectly as jeans and flannel.
Her imagination hadn’t prepared her, however, for the loss of his mustache. Behind that softness, Dan’s sculpted upper lip was concealed. Beneath the hair, the two indentations that framed his mouth and gave his face strength and character were blurred. Revealed, the combination was downright devastating.
Dan affected her as no other man had before. With one look into the depths of his eyes, her heart began to flutter in her breast like a trapped butterfly, her skin flushed with the heat of a sun-scorched beach. She didn’t know whether to fly away or sink into the fire.
Was it any wonder she’d taken steps to protect
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