Aching for Always (6 page)

He inched his hips closer, and when he took a nipple in his teeth, she arched automatically. If she weren't careful, that big order would be coming in exactly as he planned.

The weather beacon was throwing a multihued shower now, like the Northern Lights, or that scene in
The Natural.
It was the strangest damn thing. Of course, this wasn't exactly the most normal of nights, she thought as Rogan made a final lap. She considered his easy blond waves.
How many women have found themselves in this position with you, Golden Boy?

“I want more,” he said.

“I'm getting that impression. There's only one problem.” She unwrapped her leg and locked it carefully across its mate. “We've finished the deal. Which isn't to say we might not play again sometime.” Though she sincerely hoped not. Not this game, at least. She reached for her bra.

“Hold on. Let's think this through.”

Think?
She almost laughed. “Deal's done, Rogan.”

“Please. Listen. You're spread out on my desk like this and still out of reach?” He lowered his voice. “I'm going to die if I don't have you. Right here. Right now.”

“Is that the man who's acquiring my company talking?” She lowered herself to an elbow and regarded him closely. “Or my fiancé?”

His eyes shifted left and right. He knew he had stumbled into a trap, even if he couldn't quite see it.

“I-I put that ring on your finger.”

“Indeed you did.” She held it up to the light, letting all three glorious, white-hot carats sparkle. “Do you suppose they make nipple rings to match?”

He whimpered. “I just think that buys me an all-access pass.”

“It does. But not until our wedding, my love. It's only another week. Think about it. Brandy, some nice wide bed in some exotic location you haven't yet revealed. No water.”

“Exotic, yes,” he said, still transfixed “Water, no.”

“Definitely no water. Maybe a mountain in Switzerland or the Taj Mahal or Sydney—”

“I'm pretty sure there's water with that last one.”

“—or Sydney inland. Nowhere near the ocean, be
cause you'd rather have me treading the sheets than scared out of my wits.”

“I take it snorkeling in Saint Bart's is out?”

“And it's not like you've been suffering,” she went on. “You've gotten everywhere you wanted to go backstage—you've drunk the champagne, eaten the M&M's and hung out with the roadies. But if you want to get in the dressing room and party with the rock star, you're gonna have to wait.”

“But I thought it was just a lark. You know, ‘It's been such a whirlwind courtship, wouldn't it be fun if we waited to consummate it till our wedding night? It's only six weeks from now'—that sort of thing?”

“And?”

“I'm just so ready.” He laced his fingers as if in supplication. “And so hard.”

“This is business, Reynolds. Forget the personal side. Stick to the deal.”

“Deal. Right.” With obvious effort, he lowered himself into the chair.

She picked herself up and reclasped the bra. She hoped she still had a blazer in her office closet, because her nipples were going to be stiff for a week. Next problem to solve: ensuring the California order came in. That and shoes for the ceremony. She'd head to Sales next.

“I'm off.” She hopped onto the floor, jarring the tender flesh.

He stood when she did. “Oh. One thing.”

“What?” Cripes, she could probably press the elevator button with one of these things.

He took a step and accidentally kicked something across the room. It was Peter's light saber.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Yours?”

“Peter's, I think. I'll get it back to him.” She smiled. She didn't need a light saber. Only a demi-bra and low morals.

He retrieved the weapon and leaned it against the wall.

“What I was saying was, I'm assuming the odds are pretty high you'll be able to pay back the loan, right?”

“Well . . . sure. I mean, what are you asking?” She wished she could put off thinking about next month's problems until next month, especially after what she'd just done to resolve this month's.

“What are the odds—I mean, realistically—that you will, A, have the money to pay this back, and B, not need more?”

She grabbed the cash flow statement. “High.” The business world ran on lies. Ask anyone on Wall Street.

Rogan slouched against the desk, hands in his pockets, and gave her a gentle smile. “That's good. Because next month, the deal won't be quite the same.”

Something in his tone made the hairs on her neck jump to attention. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning that if you come to me next month and for any reason can't pay back that sixty-three grand, the terms are going to become somewhat less attractive.”

“How somewhat?”

He leaned toward her ear and described, in detail, the changes. Two items involved his Maserati. One, a speakerphone. And a fourth, Joss thought, wide-eyed, an act so technically challenging as to be impossible without guy wires and a spotter. So much for the etiquette lessons.

“But,” he said cordially, “I would be willing to forgive the loan.”

She exhaled relieved. “Of course you would. You're my fiancé.”

He gave her an uncompromising look.

“But—”

“Business, Joss. Forget the personal side.”

“C'mon. I mean, if I were in a little jam . . .”

The side of his mouth rose on the last word.

“Rogan.”

He tapped a finger on the speakerphone absently. “As I said, I'm willing to forgive it. Completely. No loan. Nothing that hits the balance sheet at all. A gift. My own personal contribution to Brand O'Malley. And I'll make it a hundred—a hundred and a quarter—to cover anything else you may have forgotten. I mean, I was planning to give you a wedding present anyhow, and I know you well enough to know you'd rather have cash flow than a bracelet to match that ring.”

A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. She let herself imagine for an instant what it would feel like to have the burden of meeting payroll for a few months lifted from her shoulders. She could almost feel the muscles in her back unkinking.

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“It depends how you define ‘good.'” He tossed a look in the direction of his couch.

Oh.

This is where the rubber hits the road
, she thought. A real rubber. She tried to look at the situation objectively. A hundred and twenty-five thousand to clear
the company's debt in exchange for something she was going to enjoy anyway. She also considered the trouble, sexual and otherwise, she'd be in a month from now if she couldn't pay back Brand Industries. She gazed at the speakerphone and thought about the front seat of his Maserati. Her father used to say, “A good manager makes decisions quickly. If they're right, so much the better.”

“Terms?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Twenty minutes. Whatever I want.”

A hundred and a quarter for twenty minutes. That was a lot of money, even if the prize was her. “You really think I'm going to be worth it?”

“A steal at twice the price.”

She smiled. Gotta love that.

“And no speakerphone?”

“No speakerphone.”

She shifted her weight. Her plan to wait to have traditional intercourse with him, that supposed jewel in the crown of all sexual joinings, had been a lark, just as he'd said. A special approach for the man she meant to be her husband. They were engaged. Hell, she'd even moved into his place. They'd done everything else imaginable and had no end of fun doing it. Nonetheless, there was a part of her that wished they could wait. It was only another week. But the realities of salaries, dialysis, diabetes and cash flow, not to mention her own driving curiosity about Rogan's prowess in that last unconquered area of delight, tipped the scales.

She took a deep breath. “I accept.”

He reached for his belt buckle.

Despite the logic of the decision, sweat broke out on her palms. “You sure you wanna to do this?”

“Yes.” He led her toward the couch.

“Only a week more.”

“No.”

“You've waited this long. What's a week more?”

“About seventeen cold showers.” He gave her a long, deep kiss.

With a brush of a finger, the blouse fell off her shoulders and he unclasped the bra. He brought his mouth low and suckled. Her breath caught. He had an amazing tongue. When he lifted his head to admire his work, the air stiffened her flesh. He winced with desire.

“Twenty minutes? Good Lord, I hope I can last two,” he said, and his words lit a lightbulb in her head. She could preserve their wedding night
and
satisfy his desire. What did Mick Jagger say? “You can't always get what you want?” Poor Rogan; at least he'd get what he needed.

She unbuckled his belt and reached for his fly. His pants dropped to the floor, followed by his shorts and his fiancée.

“Let me check that order,” she said.

He groaned. “No.”

“There might be a problem, of course, but if I give you a hand with it . . .”

“No, please. No hand—Oh, God!” His eyes fluttered shut.

“Are you sure Pat's going to obey your ‘no interruptions' request?”

“Please don't mention Pat now.”

She pressed herself against him and let her hand find
the right rhythm. It was like hypnotizing a chicken, only without drawing a line. The trick would be keeping any thinking he'd be doing down in the hormone-laden brain stem and out of that logical, reasoning cerebral cortex. He needed to stay hypnotized, happy and dumb.

Somewhere on his desk, a speaker squawked to life. “Mr. Reynolds?”

Crap with a capital
K
!

“Y-yes, Pat?”

Brain stem, here I come!
She brought her mouth to where her hand had been.

“I'm sorry to disturb you,” Pat said, “but Marketing called. Do you remember the Mitchell acquisition?”

“Um . . . um . . . vaguely.” He had his palms over his eyes, pressing hard, like he was fighting a brain freeze.

“Midsize asset? Closely held?”

“Closely held.” His hands moved haltingly from his head to Joss's hair as he fought to clear the fog.

“Marketing wants to know if you want to use a push-pull on this one.”

“Oh, God, yes.”

“Yes?”

“No. I mean yes. I mean I don't know yet.”

“Oh, and Vince thinks we should have received a one-time benefit to GAAP income of seventy-eight million after the acquisition because the previous accrual exceeded our current estimate of liability. Is that right and should I let Finance know?”

At this point, Rogan had about as much chance of being able to answer that as he did of landing a space shuttle. His response was a dry gurgle.

“Mr. Reynolds?”

“Can you”—he sucked in a lungful of air—“handle it?”

“No problem,” Joss said, and added a brisk trombone motion.

Rogan grabbed the wall for support. “No, don't handle it!”

“Don't handle it, sir?” Pat said. “Or handle it? I'm confused.”

“Uh . . . uh . . .”

“I've got the report right here. I could show you—”

“
No!
Just . . . take . . . to . . . Finance . . . report . . . GAAP . . . handle.” The effort was clearly overwhelming. He looked like he might begin to cry.

“You want me to handle it with Finance?” Pat said, clearly befuddled.

“Yes, please!”

“Do you mind if I just head home from there?”

“No. No.
Go.
”

Joss, who had no real musical ability, found herself moving easily from trombone to harmonica.

Pat said, “You're all taken care of?”

He let out a long, strangled cry that ended in an affirmative squeak.

Pat clicked off.

“No, no, no,” he croaked, but he was clawing at the air like a lobster in a tank. “Not like this.”

“Li' wha'?” Joss gazed up innocently.

He scrunched his face and curled his arms, as if he were summoning the spirit of the Hulk or perhaps pulling himself inside out face-first. With a grunt worthy of a lumberjack, he pushed her shoulders back and freed himself.

“Tchhhhhhhhhhhhk-k-k-k.”
He gasped.

Oh, God, the cerebral cortex has risen from the dead! She was in big trouble.

He swung in a circle, dazed, making him look a little bit like a Geiger counter having a run-in with high-grade uranium.

She considered making a dash for it and hiding out until Tuesday, but it would only delay the inevitable; and, in any case, she didn't see her bra or blouse anymore, which would make for an awkward interlude on the elevator.

He swept her off the floor and into his arms. “Desk,” he demanded hoarsely.

Your own fault, sister
, she thought, clinging tightly as he hobbled wildly across the room. Supercharge him like that, and who knows what's going to strike his fancy. She was lucky she wasn't going to be smooshed against his window, performing an unorthodox game of office charades for the accountants across the across.

Rogan dropped her in front of the monitor. She shifted her hips to get them off what had to be either a torturer's mace or Brand Industries' famed Innovation Star award. This was going to be a pretty innovative initiative.

Somewhere, maybe next to the cash flow statement, wherever that was, her phone vibrated with an incoming text. Rogan didn't seem to be inclined to let her get it. He lifted her legs and repositioned her closer to him, knocking a stack of annual reports and the clock to the floor with a crash.

“Condom,” she commanded.

“Not likely.” Reaching around her skirt, he found her zipper and undid it. The skirt went the way of the re
ports. Only a thin pair of panties stood between her and the red zone.