Tanya Michaels - Sheer Decadence

Olivia opened her mouth to tell Steve that she’d met the photographer, but Justin cut her off.

“Nice to officially make your acquaintance.” He took her hand and she almost jumped, surprised by the contact and by how immediately his skin warmed hers.

He pulled his fingers away, but the heat of his touch remained. Her pulse quickened, and Olivia sat down, harboring high hopes for the calming effects of the chamomile tea Meg pushed toward her.

Steve began the meeting with his customary call for new ideas, which he preempted with his own. To his credit, Steve often had wonderful ideas, but was it really necessary to pause at studied intervals so his underlings could fawn over his brilliance? Olivia had learned that the best way to get along with her boss was to tune him out the majority of the time. Listening with half an ear for anything that might apply to her, she let her attention wander.

Unfortunately, it wandered to Justin Hawthorne two chairs down, to his smile and the brush of his hand against hers. She tried to recall what he’d smelled like, but she’d been so overwhelmed by his touch that she hadn’t had time to notice. Expensive cologne? A simple aftershave? Soap?

His grin was killer, and she tried to imagine his laugh. Deep, probably. A sexy rumble of amusement.

She sighed. Didn’t she ever learn? When a man looked like sin in jeans, it was best to stay far away from him, not dwell on his mouth, or the color of his eyes, which were the green of very deep water off Florida’s Emerald Coast….

Okay, she was fine now. She just needed to concentrate on something patently unsexy to combat Justin’s appeal and the boredom of this meeting. Aha! Her clogged sink, filled with brown gunk that morning because something had come up through the pipes and the super hadn’t come in to fix it before she left for work. Problem solved.

“…with Justin and Olivia.”

At the sound of her name, Olivia’s gaze shot to her boss.

“The two of you can discuss concepts and location on the drive up.”

She and Justin would be riding together, staying at the same hotel. In two very separate rooms, she reminded herself, annoyed by her juvenile twinge of excitement. Plus, the models and crew would be there. Nothing cozy about the setting at all.

“Liv, I liked your preliminary layout descriptions. Just make sure you and Justin are on the same page and that we get what we need.”

She had great ideas she couldn’t wait to use for promoting their new line of swimwear. Of course, none of those ideas came to mind just now. She was sidetracked by images of her and her photographer, alone on a romantic beach. What was that old movie where the couple kissed as waves crashed over them?

Telling herself sand was more gritty than sexy, Olivia dutifully fixated on her broken sink. A new picture flashed behind her eyes: Justin standing in her kitchen, clothed only in a pair of jeans and a toolbelt.

Then Steve mentioned that the South Carolina trip had been moved to Thursday, and she completely—well, partially, anyway—forgot about a shirtless Justin in her apartment.

“Moved to Thursday?” She couldn’t finish the two-day shoot in time to catch her Friday flight. “No one mentioned that to me.”

“It was just decided,” Steve explained impatiently. “Justin can’t go Wednesday.”

“B-but I leave for my vacation Friday.” It wasn’t as though flights to the small island left Hartsfield every day; who knew when she could arrange the next one? With the fashion show coming up, she’d been lucky to squeeze in time off now.

Steve shrugged. “So you’ll take your vacation some other time. I know it can be rescheduled because you’ve already done it for us once. And we appreciate what a team player you are, Liv.”

The veiled threat didn’t escape her. Team players got promoted. People who balked at rescheduling got passed over and were forever doomed to small offices with no windows.

When the interminable meeting finally ended, Olivia and her co-workers slunk from the room to return to their offices and rediscover their wills to live. She had just made it inside her own office when Justin surprised her, asking from her doorway, “Are they always like that?”

“Long and boring? Yep. Steve is—” Mentally, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Complaining with Meg at lunch away from the office was one thing. Saying something derogatory about management here, in front of someone she didn’t even know, was stupid. Normally, she didn’t make workplace faux pas, but she’d been distracted all day.

The reason for her distraction stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. When he bypassed the two upholstered chairs available in favor of leaning casually on the corner of her desk, she discovered that he smelled like a maddening mixture of denim, spicy cologne and male.

“I wanted to apologize for the trip postponement,” he said. “Steve assured me that bending the schedule would be no problem. I never would have asked if it weren’t important, but my—”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” If her appendix burst Wednesday, Steve would have insisted she be a team player, crawl out of her hospital bed, and get her butt to South Carolina.

“Maybe I could make it up to you sometime,” he suggested with a flirtatious smile. “Buy you lunch, or something.”

“No!” Go out alone with Justin? Bad idea. And she didn’t even want to think about the “or something.” “That’s not necessary.”

He blinked, and she realized her immediate refusal had probably made her sound like the office poster child for PMS.

She backtracked quickly, not taking the time to organize her thoughts. “I meant to say, no, thank you. Nice offer, but, I, um, have these restrictions. Salad only.” Which he most definitely wasn’t.

“I hear a lot of places serve that now.” His lazy grin held just the right amount of amusement—teasing, but not mocking.

“Right. Of course. Bad example. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve sort of given up…” She stopped, thank God, just shy of explaining about walking chocolate. Which he most definitely was. “It’s a diet thing.”

Justin pushed himself away from the desk, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those women.”

“Excuse me?” Unless he meant one of those women who couldn’t string together a coherent sentence—which she blamed on how good he smelled—he was about to be in trouble.

“Someone with hang-ups about her body, who always wishes she were skinnier.”

The angry heat that blazed through her had nothing to do with his hitting close to home, it was based on principle. “You’ve known me for a matter of hours, Mr. Hawthorne, and you think that gives you the right to diagnose any so-called hang-ups?”

He grimaced. “In my defense, I was headed toward a compliment.”

“Yeah?” She crossed her arms. “Well, you took a wrong turn somewhere.”

His gaze slid down her body. “What I should have said is that you…don’t need to…”

He trailed off, his male admiration too frank to need words. Olivia tried to be offended by the perusal—who the hell was he to so boldly assess her and pronounce judgment? Her body, on the other hand, must’ve missed the memo on political correctness. Her skin prickled with awareness, growing warmer. His expression shifted as he raised his eyes back to hers. The appreciation had been replaced by something deeper, more urgent, and Olivia swallowed.

Even if she’d been able to muster any indignation, it would have been a tad hypocritical coming from someone so recently having toolbelt fantasies.

“Justin, I—”

“That’s an improvement,” he interrupted approvingly. “Much better than ‘Mr. Hawthorne.’ I’d like us to be on a friendly basis.”