Amber slid on a pair of mirrored sunglasses and got into her car. “Sounds like you’re in for quite a day, Dax. I’d say be good, but I already know you will be.”
SOMEHOW DAX managed to escape Ginger and Cici’s clutches relatively unscathed. It was mid-day by the time he did it, though. Ignoring his stacked messages and overworked secretary, he drove straight to Amber’s office.
He couldn’t explain his urgency or why, for the first time in the ten years he’d been participating in the bachelor auction fund-raiser, he resented the time he’d spent. All day he’d yearned to be somewhere else.
He’d wanted to be with Taylor. And okay, maybe with Amber, too, but that made no sense. Still, he couldn’t get to her office fast enough, couldn’t wait to try to soothe her ruffled feathers. And her feathers had most definitely been ruffled, whether she admitted it or not.
Suddenly that thought made him grin, and he loped up the stairs to the building where she worked.
Amber’s secretary explained she was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Dax gave her his most charming smile, but she didn’t budge. Around him, the office buzzed with new listings, new sales and the general excitement of a place on the move.
Dax waited until the secretary picked up a phone before he simply strode past her desk toward Amber’s closed door.
“Hey,” the woman called out, “you can’t just-”
Dax let himself into Amber’s office and carefully shut the door on her secretary’s protests.
Amber was behind her desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose, a pencil in her mouth, a phone to her ear. Her eyes were even, her hands steady, her every hair in place. She’d shed the power jacket, but the white blouse she wore was wrinkle-free, prim and proper.
Somewhere beneath that icy control lay the passion he remembered so well. He’d caught a tiny glimpse of it that morning, behind her cool facade. She’d been mad as hell at him, and mad as hell at herself for feeling that emotion in the first place.
Dax grinned again.
At the sight of him, her carefully painted mouth tightened, but that was the only outward sign he received. She didn’t rush, and when she was done with her phone call, she slowly set down her pencil, removed her glasses and looked at him. “Back so soon?” Her voice was smooth and very polite. “I would have thought Barbie and Sunshine would keep you tied up for hours.”
“Ginger and Cici,” he corrected. “And though they were very…persuasive, I managed to escape.”
“Hmmm.” She bent to her work, but her knuckles went white on the pencil she gripped. “I bet.”
“And how was your day?” he inquired conversationally, sitting uninvited on a chair in front of her desk.
“Busy.” She glanced at him pointedly. “Still is.”
Ah, the cold shoulder. “You probably didn’t miss me one little bit, did you?”
“Not one little bit,” she agreed.
He couldn’t help it, he laughed.
Her eyes chilled several degrees. “If you don’t mind…”
“Amber.” He controlled himself, but the smile remained. “Admit it, you’re jealous as hell.”
Aghast, she stared at him. “You’ve been drinking.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Then you’re delusional.” She leaned forward. “Just so you know, I never get jealous. Certainly not over a nitwit who enjoys dating brainless-”
“Careful,” he said, laughing again. “You might prove my point.”
She was still for a long beat. Then regally she rose and pointed an elegant finger at the door. “I think you should leave.”
“So you can recapture that famous control?” He rose, too, and came around her desk. “I don’t think so. Watching your temper rise is fascinating, Amber. In fact, everything about you is fascinating.”
She shook her head, her composure slipping enough to show her genuine confusion. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Lots. But I’ll start with this.” He hauled her into his arms and kissed her. It was a stupid move, uncalculated as it was genuine, but he didn’t stop.
She went still as stone, but didn’t push him away. Taking that for permission, he dove into her sweet mouth, mating his tongue to hers, giving, urging, pouring everything he had into that kiss until he felt her hands open on his shoulders, then grab fistfuls of his shirt.
“Yeah, now that’s what I’ve wanted all damn day,” he whispered. “That and this…” He kissed her again, his hands gripping her hips, pulling her closer, then closer still.
With a little murmur of acquiescence that made him even hotter, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back until he couldn’t remember his name, much less his point.
When the kiss ended, he murmured in her ear.
“The women meant nothing to me,” he said. “It was an obligation, one I made months ago.” Lifting his head, he looked into her eyes. “They paid big bucks. Money that will be well spent.” He kissed her again. The helpless sounds of arousal she made were the most erotic he’d ever heard. “Be jealous, Amber. Wish you could take their place if you want. Kiss me stupid again if it helps. But please, don’t be mad at me anymore.”
She touched her wet mouth, looking shell-shocked, as if she couldn’t believe how she’d lost herself. “I’m not angry,” she whispered and sank into her chair. “I need to work now.”
She needed to think, he realized, and he would let her because that was how she worked, and he didn’t intend to rush her.
Hell, he didn’t want to rush himself.
Leaning in close, he gave her one last kiss, pleased to feel her cling to him for just a second.
He was half out of her office when she called him. Turning, he looked at her over his shoulder.
“I wasn’t jealous,” she told him. “Much.” Her mouth curved as she offered him a smile, and Dax felt the weight of the world lift off his shoulders.
8
THAT NIGHT, arms full of her briefcase, a diaper bag, dinner and Taylor, Amber let herself into her condo. Her feet were killing her and so was the whirlwind her life had become.
Going back to work had been good for her self-esteem because she was still good at it. She needed the money, too, having depleted her savings over the past year in Mexico. But balancing her wild hours with her newfound motherhood was much tougher than she could have imagined.
Naturally, before she could set a thing down, the phone rang. Dropping her purse and dinner to the counter, she freed up a hand to grab it.
“Let’s start all over.”
The low, sexy voice liquefied her bones. “Excuse me?”
“I want to start over,” Dax said.
Amber settled the phone between her jaw and shoulder, and kicked off her heels. “From where?”
“From the beginning, but I’d settle for the night I brought you dinner. Was it good by the way?”
Amber placed Taylor in her swing. Her jacket hit a chair and relieved of all her weight, she sagged against the counter. “I suppose I should apologize for that. But yes, it was good.” She paused. “So was yours.”
Dax laughed softly and the sound vibrated through her body, pooling in certain erogenous spots she rarely thought about.
“I like a woman with a healthy appetite.”
She thought about the smile she could hear in his voice and wondered if all the women he rescued fell for him. Probably, she admitted.
But she was above such things.
“How was lunch with my father?” she asked, purposely hardening herself. “I never got to ask you.”
“Your father is a single-minded, opinionated, walking, talking ego.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Okay…You care what he thinks of you.”
How was it that he went directly to the heart of the matter every time? And how was it that she let him?