Jacquie D’Alessandro: Your Room or Mine?

“Right. ’Til the real thing comes along.”

“Exactly. Good grief, Maddie, you’re twenty-eight years old. It’s time you indulged in a one-nighter. Don’t be so serious all the time.”

“I’m not serious all the time.” Yet even as she said the words, she realized that over the last few months she had been. She’d forgotten how to have fun. She’d moved into her dateless cave where aggravating men didn’t exist, but neither did any potentially good men-and they had to be out there somewhere. Didn’t they? Just because she didn’t currently know any didn’t mean they were merely urban myths.

Although one-night stands had never been her style, she clearly needed a change. Something to jolt her out of her cave. A night of hot sex would certainly do that.

“So-what are you going to do?”

Maddie grabbed a pea pod with her chopsticks. “Pack my sexiest lingerie and find a fireman to put out this damn inferno inside me.”

Emma grinned. “ ’Atta girl. And don’t you dare chicken out. I’ll expect a full report Monday. Let’s meet here for lunch.”

“Fine. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to tell you…” Her words trailed off into a low groan and she scooted low in her seat. “Damn. What’s he doing here?”

“Who?” Emma whispered, leaning close and looking around furtively.

“Jack Walker.”

Emma’s blue eyes widened. “The Demon CFO of Java Heaven? Mr. Misery?”

“And Olympic gold medalist for Pain in the Ass. The very same. What are the chances he’d be here?”

“Actually, since the office is only three blocks away, pretty good.” Emma leaned a bit closer. “Which one is he?”

Maddie’s gaze flicked over Emma’s shoulder. “Tall, dark hair, charcoal gray suit, standing in line at the pizza place.”

Emma gave a surreptitious glance over her shoulder, one that turned into a double take. When she looked back at Maddie her mouth was hanging open. “ That’s the guy you’ve been calling repulsive ?” Emma took another peek, and even though Maddie didn’t want to look at him again, she found herself doing so. Jack was paying for his lunch, smiling at the cashier, then he laughed at something she said. He picked up his tray and found a table on the other side of the food court.

Jack Walker. Java Heaven CFO.

And currently the bane of her existence.

It was clear from her first day on the Java Heaven job a month ago that the new CFO wasn’t happy she was there. Not that she cared-she was accustomed to employees giving her the stink eye. Coming on board at Java Heaven certainly wasn’t the first time she’d been viewed as an interloper, a sentiment she could actually sympathize with. It was simply human nature that most people were initially resistant to change and to outsiders. She took pride in her role of helping companies run more efficiently, and early on in her career had developed a thick skin. She wasn’t at Java Heaven to win any popularity contests. And besides, she certainly didn’t care what Jack Walker thought of her.

“Honey, if you think that man is repulsive, you need new glasses. Stat.”

Emma’s voice yanked Maddie’s attention back to her friend. “I didn’t mean he’s physically repulsive.” Although she wished he was. It simply wasn’t fair that such a pain in the butt was so extremely attractive. “But we both know the type-good-looking guy who clearly knows it.”

Emma nodded. “The better looking they are, the worse they are.” “Exactly.”

“Which means he must be really, really bad. ’Cause looks-wise, he’s really, really good. How old is he?”

“Office scuttlebutt is that he’s thirty-two.”

“Perfect. Not too young, not too old, although on the young side for a CFO. He must be very smart.”

“Yes. And in his case, with great intelligence comes great annoyance.”

Emma laughed. “You sure he’s not taken?”

“He’s not married, or engaged,” Maddie said, “but he’s definitely a player.” She’d observed a number of female employees giving Jack Walker the once-over-more than once. Although she had to grudgingly admit she couldn’t blame them, nor had she seen him catch any of the ogling passes tossed his way. Still, she knew a player when she saw one. “He takes long lunches every Wednesday, often returning to the office with his tie askew. Yeah, like it isn’t obvious what he’d been up to. Yesterday he came back from his Wednesday lunch with red on his collar. As if I don’t know lipstick when I see it. He probably has more notches on his bedpost than an entire college fraternity. No doubt the sidewalk outside his house is littered with broken hearts.”

“Well, based on looks alone, he’d be an easy man to say yes to.” A gleam entered Emma’s eyes and she leaned forward. “Hey-if you can’t find a fireman to warm you up, why not give Mr. Gorgeous a chance?”

A wave of heat that had nothing to do with her spicy shrimp stir-fry suffused Maddie. Get naked with Jack Walker? That sounded…

Absolutely terrible , screamed her common sense.

Absolutely freakin’ fantastic , shouted her suddenly awake libido.

She stared across the table at Emma. “Clearly his good looks have addled your brain. Are you nuts? There are so many things wrong with that suggestion I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Name one.”

“We work together.”

Emma waved her lettuce-laden fork in a dismissive gesture. “But that’s the gray area. You’ll only be working together for another month.”

“Yes. A month that is going to be difficult enough without adding sex into the mix. Jack already sees me as an interloper, a troublemaker, and a spy for the CEO. It does not make for a pleasant work environment.”

Emma shot her a wink. “A few orgasms might change that.”

Maddie’s gaze involuntarily drifted to Jack, who was taking a huge bite of what looked like pepperoni pizza. He didn’t carry an ounce of fat on what was obviously a very fit physique-just one more thing to dislike about him. He could eat fattening, cheesy pizza without it adhering to his ass for eight months. Damn, he even looked good when he chewed.

Just then his gaze connected with hers. And like it did every time he looked at her, for several seconds she seemed to freeze and heat at the same time-like a deer caught in the headlights while surrounded by a ring of fire. For the space of a heartbeat he seemed to still as well. The image of them, together, sharing a few orgasms, seared through her mind, stunning her. He gave her a curt nod then looked down at the book resting open on his table.

“You okay?”

Emma’s voice jerked her back. “Huh?”

“You look flushed. Are you hot?”

On fire. And it was all that annoying man’s fault. If she was having sexual fantasies about a man she didn’t even like, it was definitely time to end her sexual drought.

“It’s warm in here,” Maddie said. “What were we talking about?”

“Jack Gorgeous Walker.”

“Right. But you’re forgetting he’s also Jack Pain in the Ass Walker. Besides, the fact that he’s gorgeous is half the problem. Thanks to Danny I know all too well that handsome on the outside doesn’t always equal handsome on the inside.” She shoved aside all thoughts of her last steady boyfriend and heaved a sigh. “Why is it that where men are concerned, there seems to be an inverse proportion of good looks to integrity: The better looking he is, the greater the chance he’s an asshole?”

“Don’t know,” Emma said, “but it should probably be some scientific law. Like relativity or gravity.”

“I suppose I have to admit-grudgingly-that Jack’s intelligent and doing a good job in a difficult situation, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t use some outside help. Of course, he’s too arrogant to see that. Oh, sure, he’ll sit across from me at a conference table and hear out my suggestions, but it’s clear from his excruciatingly polite expression and the way he seems to look through me rather than at me that he’s merely humoring me.”