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  “Did you grow up around here, Shannon?”

  The question caught her by surprise. “Close.” She hesitated, anticipating his reaction. “Greenwich.” A lot of people assumed she was a snob when she told them she grew up there.

  “Interesting. You don’t seem like the Greenwich type.”

  “I’m not.” She left it at that.

  “How did you get into this line of work?”

  “Oh. Well, a friend suggested it, actually. My friend Jane, who’s a co-owner of Finesse. We were all in dead-end jobs—at least they were—I was just a miserably failing actress, out in L.A. with a hundred thousand of them.” She laughed self-consciously.

  “That takes guts,” Hal said.

  “No. It takes naiveté and delusion.” She chuckled again, but even to her own ears it sounded forced.

  “You can call it what you want to, but I call it courage. To put your dream on the line like that, to move away from everything familiar…”

  I could kiss him. The thought didn’t shock her as much as it should have. I could kiss him for saying that to me right now. It’s like he knows how badly I need to hear it.

  They had turned into the parking lot of Finesse, and Hal idled the truck near her sodden car, the only other one in the small lot.

  “Thank you,” she said to him. Then she leaned over and acted on her thought.

  7

  SHANNON’S URGE TO KISS Hal had appeared impulsively out of nowhere, and as far as kisses went it was supposed to be friendly, quick and not too personal.

  But when her lips touched his cheek he turned in surprise, making full mouth contact with her. An electric current shot through her, lighting her like a Christmas tree, even though he sat frozen for a long moment.

  But then his lips grew hungry and surprisingly, he took over the kiss. His mouth hard on her mouth, he slipped his tongue between her lips and pulled her across the front seat of the SUV, one hand on the small of her back and the other on her bottom.

  The electricity hit her again, shaking her as he pulled her into his lap and against an erection that would have done a bull proud.

  Warning bells went off in her head, and Shannon started to pull away so that she didn’t give Hal the completely wrong idea. But instead of grinding himself against her or even trying to force her head down toward his zipper, he simply took her face into his hands and kissed each of her eyelids, then her mouth again.

  He was so gentle as he coaxed another response out of her, slid his seeking tongue into her mouth again and made love to it.

  He made no move to touch her breasts, no lunges toward other private parts of her anatomy. And the irony of the situation was that, after dodging countless numbers of gropers over the years, Shannon wished that Hal would touch her breasts.

  At the moment, they were tightly zippered into her orange jacket and squashed against his chest. They felt heavy and the peaks throbbed with longing, aching as much as the core of her.

  “Unzip my jacket,” she said huskily. “Touch me.”

  He raised his head and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  Still he hesitated, searching her eyes for something, she didn’t know what. “Why?” he finally asked.

  “Because you’re here,” she said. “And hot.” She ran a hand along his erection. “And hard.” She mentioned nothing about the endless, hopeless circles of questions rolling through her head. Nothing about needing distraction, comfort, a reminder that she, the child who’d been given away, was desired.

  All she wanted right now was some steamy, mindless sex. She wanted the questions sucked from her erogenous zones, kneaded from her flesh, pounded out of her by an insistent physical rhythm building to a frenzied peak.

  Hal’s hand went to her zipper, his breathing labored, his eyes slightly glazed. Still he hesitated. “Why me?” he asked, his voice thick.

  Shannon straddled him and rubbed herself shamelessly against his hard-on. “Hal, honey. Just be a good boy and don’t question your luck. It’s a gift, okay? Now shut up and take it.”

  HE SHUT UP AND TOOK HER. Inside her office, where her partners were nowhere to be seen on a Saturday evening. She unlocked the door, his hands hot on her behind, even through the leather pants. He allowed her to draw the blinds, and then to her delighted shock, he took over. Hal backed her against the unused reception desk, picked her up and set her on it. Then he pulled down the zipper on her jacket with his teeth and ripped open her still-damp white blouse to bare her breasts in the happy-face bra. He undid the front clasp and murmured his appreciation. Then he pushed her back against the surface of the desk and took one in his mouth.

  She moaned and moved restlessly at the hot, wet suction around her nipple, his tongue flicking against it and his hand massaging the other one. Her own hands moved to his shoulders and down his arms, surprisingly muscular for a computer geek.

  He caught her wrists and held them prisoner while he suckled her other breast and then leisurely unsnapped and unzipped her leather pants.

  “My boots,” she protested.

  “The boots are the only things that stay on, gorgeous.” And Hal stripped off everything else she was wearing except for her tiny happy-face thong. The jacket flew to one corner, the blouse to another. Her bra landed midfloor, while Hal seemed to savor sliding her pants down her legs and then, slowly, over the black, spike-heeled boots.

  He tossed the pants onto the floor, kneeling in front of her and looking up the length of her calves and thighs with something close to awe.

  Maybe it was literally having a man at her feet, looking as if he wanted to devour every inch of her, but as she sat before him in nothing but her boots and a thong, Shannon’s nipples hardened and she grew wet under his gaze.

  “Now, put your feet on my shoulders and spread your legs for me. Just go easy with those spike heels.”

  Shannon put one foot on his shoulder and watched as he enjoyed the view. “You take your clothes off, now.”

  He turned his face toward her thigh and nipped it gently, then licked upward as she grew impossibly wetter. “’Kay,” he agreed. He shrugged out of his jacket and peeled his shirt off.

  Hal without a shirt was a very pleasant surprise. Though he obviously hadn’t seen the sun in months, and his posture was normally terrible, he had the build of a swimmer and no flab on him.

  But Hal without his pants…who knew? Who could possibly have predicted the dot-com nerd was hung like that? He was thick and muscular and completely at attention, his focus unwavering on her.

  Shannon’s insides melted at the sight. She put her other foot on Hal’s shoulder, obeying orders. He grinned wickedly at her and tugged her forward on the slick surface of the desk. She could feel his breath at the very center of her, through the flimsy fabric of her thong. But he didn’t touch.

  Touching was reserved for her breasts, and as he rose to take her nipples again into his mouth, her feet rose with him, slipped off his shoulders and eventually down around his waist.

  Once he’d reduced her to a whimpering puddle of need just through her nipples, Hal sank onto his knees again and focused on the prize right in front of him. He spread her thighs as wide as he could and dipped his head to the core of her, slipping his tongue under the fabric of her thong.

  She convulsed at the contact, gasping, and he gripped her buttocks to steady her and hold her in place. Then he went to work in earnest, slicking his tongue over her and around her lips, between them, over them. He sucked the most sensitive part of her into his mouth and played it expertly.

  Hot rushes of sensation pooled there and licked at every erogenous point on her body. She could feel tension building and spiraling in her belly while he toyed with her clitoris and menaced any vestiges of self-control she had left.

  “Please,” she begged. “I want you inside, Hal, before I lose it…”

  The words were hardly out her mouth when he’d ripped off her thong and somehow sheat
hed himself in a condom. She didn’t know how or where it had come from, but frankly she didn’t care.

  All she cared about was the way it felt when he entered her, filled her, stretched her. She was so wet that he slid in immediately with no awkwardness and began to pump deep within her.

  He was a hot, hard, slick piston driving inside and awakening some answering rhythm in her body. She slid her hands up and down his back; allowed them to fall to his buttocks, which were rigid with tension and muscle mass.

  She rode him, and he rode her, for minutes more. Then the tension finally culminated and broke into a hot explosion of brilliant color and gratitude.

  Shannon collapsed against the desk, loving her new fashion statement: nothing but boots and a naked man.

  HAL’S LIBIDO was intensely grateful for Shannon’s unexpected gift, especially as he still lay on top of her and inside her.

  Hal’s ego, however, was another matter entirely. Why? he’d asked.

  Because you’re here….

  Why me? he’d said to her.

  Just be a good boy and don’t question your luck.

  He couldn’t shake the ugly feeling that he’d been used to scratch the goddess’s itch. If he hadn’t been around, she might have chosen a gas station attendant, or a bank teller. Anyone with the right equipment for the job: a fairly hefty hard-on.

  He shriveled with the realization and rolled off Shannon to find his pants.

  She yawned and stretched before sitting up. “You’ve got a really cute butt, Hal.”

  “Uh,” he said, starting to feel like a piece of meat. Does that mean she wants to sprinkle my ass with salt and pepper and throw it on the grill?

  “And an impressive knowledge of the female anatomy.” She grinned.

  “Well, thank you. Glad I could be…of service.” He glanced at her and saw that the grin had faded. Her eyes narrowed, too, at his tone.

  “What’s the matter, Hal? You don’t respect me now?” She twisted her long, curly hair into a knot on top of her head.

  “I respect you just fine.” He wrestled into his shirt and tried not to get turned on by her all over again, while she stood naked except for those dominatrix boots. “I’m just, uh, cowed by your beauty, that’s all.” His tone was drier than dust.

  That comment seemed to upset her. “Let’s leave my looks out of this, shall we?” Then she snorted. “Except we can’t. That’s why you did me, isn’t it. Because of what I look like.”

  “No, Shannon.” He said it quietly. “If you remember, I asked you if this was what you wanted, if you were sure. You did me. And I have to wonder why. Because I was here, you said. That’s very flattering.”

  Hal shrugged into his jacket and jammed his feet into his shoes. “Tell you what. Next time you’ve got an itch that needs scratching, I’ll drop you off at the local Wal-Mart and you can pick up the greeter.”

  She opened and closed her mouth.

  He fully expected her to throw something at him. Maybe beat the crap out of him. Knock him down and put one of those spike heels through his eye socket.

  The last thing he expected was for the goddess’s lip to tremble, her nose to turn bright pink or her face to crumple. The very last thing he had anticipated was for Shannon Shane, Queen of L.A. Cool, to burst into tears.

  But she did. She wept as she tried to put her thong back on, realized it was ripped to hell, and shoved it into the pocket of her black leather pants. She dotted those with tears as she slid them up her long legs and over her delectable bottom. She cried on her blouse, which she had to tie together since he’d eviscerated all the buttons. And she snarled through tear-filled eyes as he tried to hold her jacket out for her. “Go away!”

  “Shannon—”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. I take that last comment back.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. I said it in anger, basically. It came straight from my ego. I—” He cracked his neck. “Shit. I figure, a beautiful girl decides to have her way with me, she must be using me because I’m not much to look at.”

  “I wasn’t using you,” she sobbed. “I was using…the sex. To feel better.”

  “Oh,” said Hal. Then he laughed mirthlessly. “That’s even better. I could have been a damned dildo.”

  “What? No! Oh, God…” Shannon couldn’t speak for a few moments. When she recovered, she gripped his arm. “That’s not what I meant. Hal, first of all I don’t sleep with people very often. Second, I only sleep with people I’m very attracted to. And third, I’m feeling very emotionally screwed up right now and…and…I was looking for whatever comfort I could find.”

  He found a box of tissue on the windowsill and handed it to her. Christ. So I’ve gone from dildo to teddy bear. Which is worse?

  Shannon blew her nose and Hal stared at her, wondering why he found her even more appealing with the swollen red nose and puffy pink eyes. He took a couple of steps closer to her and zipped up her jacket, since she was utterly indecent in the buttonless blouse. Then he tipped up her chin. “Why are you feeling screwed up?”

  She sniffled and shrugged.

  “’Cause it seems to me that you should be feeling scrumptiously screwed, but not screwed up.”

  He received a glimmer of a smile for this attempt at lightness. He pressed on. “I think I’ve figured out that you don’t mean to be breathtakingly rude. So you didn’t mean to call me a dildo or a pacifier, right?

  “I figure this takes great perception and tolerance on my part. Or stupidity. Anyway, I’m still talking to you. So why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  Can anything be wrong in the life of a woman who looks like you do? Or honestly, have you just broken a nail?

  8

  SHANNON WAS TEMPTED. How nice it would be to pour out all of her insecurities and confusion onto this unexpectedly broad, masculine shoulder. Where had the geek gone hiding? She looked into Hal’s deep blue eyes and saw kindness and compassion there, in spite of the fact that he was annoyed with her.

  But no way was she going to talk to this guy. She hadn’t even known him twenty-four hours! She looked at her watch to see that it was 7:00 p.m. She’d known him for only six hours.

  Basically, she’d shaken the man’s hand, chopped off his hair and stuck plastic into his eyes. Then she’d jumped his bones. Smooth, Shan. Real smooth.

  She hadn’t even had a meal with him….

  “Talk to me,” Hal prompted. “You’re obviously upset and there has to be a reason.”

  Shannon ran her fingers over her hair and flashed him a bright smile. “Thanks, Hal. But we don’t know each other that well, so—”

  “We now know each other intimately,” he said.

  “But not well.”

  “Fine. I won’t push you. But I’m here if you need to talk.”

  She had to get things back on a professional footing, if that was even possible now. She kept her toothpaste-commercial smile pasted on. “Thank you.”

  A long, awkward pause ensued.

  “Well,” she said with all the perkiness she could muster, “back to business! I’d like you to consider a couple more cosmetic procedures, just to ensure you look your best in photos and on television, okay?”

  Hal just stared at her.

  “I’d like to take some stray hairs out of your brow line and also have you do a minor bleaching process on your teeth. They’re straight, they’re even and you’ve got a great smile, but I’m guessing you drink a lot of coffee?”

  Hal put his hands on his hips. “How do you go from your emotional issues to my teeth within thirty seconds like that?”

  “Hon, I’m a blonde, remember? So as far as you’re concerned, I really don’t have emotional issues—just boobs.” She made no effort to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “And disregarding what just happened here, I’m paid to do my job. Shallow as it may be, your eyebrows and your teeth are of critical importance to that job.”

  “Critical,” Hal finally agreed, he
avy on the irony.

  “Now, on the bright side, you have no unattractive back hair, so we won’t be forced to wax that.”

  “Gosh. That is excellent news.”

  “But you look like you haven’t seen the sun in two decades, so I’m going to get a package for you at a tanning salon.”

  He glowered at her. “Is that absolutely necessary?”

  “Yes. You’re a successful president and CEO. You must look as if you play golf and take expensive, glamorous vacations.”

  “Why? I don’t. No time for them.”

  “Regardless, you’ve got to look as if you do.”

  “Fine,” Hal sighed. “So next week you’re going to bleach my teeth, pluck me and then roast me like a chicken on a spit. I can’t wait.”

  “I also need to get you started at a gym and see your closet,” Shannon said decisively. “And we’ll need to go shopping.”

  “Shopping?” Hal blanched. “Shop is a four-letter word. You sure we can’t just talk about those emotional issues? Because I think you might be taking out your frustrations on an innocent man, here….”

  She ignored him, writing everything down on a notepad. “We’re not going to wait until next week on the teeth or the tanning, Hal. You’re going to pick up a package of whitening strips at the local pharmacy, and you’re going to start at Betsy’s ’Burban Beach tomorrow. Just a tip—take everything off. You don’t want tan lines.”

  “Everything?” Hal swallowed.

  She nodded and kept writing.

  “But what if my, uh, rocket gets scorched?”

  She looked up at him. He was serious. “Hal. You can cover that with your hands.”

  “You want me to grip myself in a lighted coffin for twenty minutes?” He was outraged.

  “If that bothers you, then wear a sock.”

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered.

  “Can I come and look at your closet tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Nope, not really.” She flashed him a cheerfully malicious smile.