Indecent Suggestion (8 page)

Not surprisingly, she followed him willingly, but Turner didn’t want to take any chances, so he dragged her along as quickly as he could in an effort to put them into safer waters. Or, at least, into the corridor outside the main entrance to Englund Advertising, which was close enough. No sooner had the door closed behind them, though, than Becca dug in her heels and snapped to a halt. She yanked with all her might on Turner’s hand, something that gave
him no choice but to stumble backward, right into her. And then, faster than he could say, “What the hell is going on back there?” she had him pinned against the wall, was crowding her entire body into his and was covering his mouth with her own. And for one scant, scintillating second, Turner forgot all about—

Um, what was he supposed to be doing? He’d been so certain a second ago. It was right there at the very edge of his consciousness what he was sure he was supposed to be doing….

But then his consciousness went belly-up, shamelessly threatening to surrender, and Turner, even more shamelessly, let it. Because the sensation of Becca’s tongue stabbing between his teeth and reaching for the back of his throat was simply too delicious to ignore. As was the press of her breasts against his chest, and the twining of her fingers in his hair, and the panting of her—

Oh, no, wait. The panting was coming from Turner. But it was no wonder, since she’d removed one hand from his hair to score it down his back and chest and ribs, then to cover his ass, giving it a good hard squeeze that ground his pelvis into hers, something that made Mr. Happy feel very happy indeed.

And that was when Turner remembered that their employer was anything
but
Mr. Happy right now, and that he or any number of other people might come striding through the door right next to them any minute, see them groping each other so enthusiastically, and conclude that their victory high five gave a whole ’nother meaning to that celebratory end-zone dance thing.

Turner tore his mouth away from hers, gasped for breath and said, “We can’t do this here, Becca.”

Hell, according to what she’d told him two mornings ago, they couldn’t do it anywhere. But even Turner had to agree that the hallway outside the workplace probably wasn’t a great venue for raw, unmitigated sex, regardless of…well, anything.

Becca didn’t seem to share his opinion, however, because she launched herself up on tiptoe and tried to capture his mouth with hers again. But Turner was ready for her this time—well, okay, maybe not, but he wanted to delude himself into thinking he was—and managed to pull his head back, out of her reach, just in time. Unfortunately, that made him bang his head against the wall—hard—something that brought stars to his eyes and a frown to Mr. Happy.

Becca, too, pouted prettily in reply. “We can do this anywhere, Turner,” she told him, her hands still roving freely over every inch of him she could reach. “That’s the beauty of it. Our closet is right up the hall. No one will miss us.”

“Becca, they’ve already missed us,” he pointed out. “And if we don’t get back in there soon, they’re going to come looking for us.”

She smiled seductively. “They won’t be the only ones who are going to come.”

“Becca,” he interrupted as Mr. Happy began to smile again. Mostly because Turner knew that if she started talking to him like that, then Mr. Happy would get really, really happy, and neither Turner nor Becca was likely to go back into that room, and Mr. Happy was likely to go somewhere he shouldn’t go, not when all three of them were standing—some more erect than others—in a public byway.

Which, strangely, when Turner thought more about it, actually gave him a good idea.

“Look,” he said as he tried to detach himself from her.
But the moment he got her arms freed from around his neck, she was hooking her ankle around his calf. Then, when he managed to free his leg from hers, she had her hands tangled in his shirtfront. “Why don’t you go home,” he suggested as he did the disengagement shuffle again and stepped awkwardly to the side to sabotage her renewed efforts. “I think maybe you need to lie down.”

She tittered at that. Honestly tittered. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Becca titter before—he hadn’t even realized she had titter capabilities. “I’m not the only one who needs to lie down,” she said.

Then she wrapped an arm around his waist which Turner immediately grabbed and unwrapped again. Good God, what had gotten into her to be throwing herself at him like this?

“Becca,” he repeated, still fighting off her maneuvers. Good God, what had gotten into him to be fighting her off again? Oh, yeah. The job. His career. His livelihood. Food on the table. Clothes on his back. A roof over his head during the cold winter months ahead.

She grabbed his cock, and all he could think was,
Who needs food and shelter?

“Go home, Becca,” he said again, more adamantly this time, dislodging her greedy fingers. “I really think it would be better if you took the afternoon off.”

She smiled. “I’d rather take your clothes off.”

Oh, he really should have seen that one coming. Turner squeezed his eyes shut tight. Damn. Did anything
not
have a sexual connotation when you were in a position like this? Dammit.
Position.
That was another one.

“Becca…” He tried again, using his cautionary tone of voice. He reflected for a minute. Nope. No double entend
res in that. Now, had he said he was using his missionary tone of voice…?

“I don’t want to go home alone,” she cooed. “I want you to come with me.”

“I have to go back into the meeting and try to explain why you and I left it, and then suck up and kiss ass until I’ve made it all better.”

“I’d rather have you suck on me and kiss my ass.”

Oh, he should have seen that one coming, too.

“Becca…” he murmured yet again. Finally, with a sigh of surrender, he told her, “Look. If you’ll go home, I promise, after we’re finished here, I’ll come over, and then you and I can talk.”

She smiled, a hot, aroused, predatory sort of smile. “Turner, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not really interested in talking right now.”

Maybe not, he thought. But they were going to do that, too. Either before or after—or, hell, even during—because he wanted to get to the bottom of this. Dammit.
Bottom.
There was another one. Somehow, he and Becca were going to come—dammit—to terms with this thing, whatever it was.

“Then I promise,” he said, “that you and I can do whatever you want when I get to your place.”
Provided I get to do a little of what I want, too,
he added to himself. And strangely, that meant talking. “Just go home now, and I’ll see you later. Okay?”

She pouted again, clearly not happy about the state of affairs—dammit—but nodded reluctantly, anyway. “My coat’s in my cubicle,” she said.

“I’ll get it for you,” he told her, thinking it would probably be best if she just lay—dammit—low for now.

He hurried back into the office, and as he passed the glass-enclosed boardroom full of people gazing expectantly back at him, he held up one index finger in the internationally recognized sign language for “Hold that thought” and continued on to Becca’s cubicle. There, he collected her coat, did the “Hold that thought” thing again when he passed the boardroom a second time—punctuating it with a flourish of Becca’s coat in the internationally recognized sign language for “I’m taking a woman her coat”—and sped out into the hallway again.

He half expected to find her disrobing, but thankfully, she was leaning against the wall where he’d left her, looking agitated, irritated, exasperated, aggravated, frustrated and a bunch of other-ateds that hadn’t even been invented yet. Very, very gingerly, Turner approached her, holding her coat at arm’s length.

“Here,” he said simply.

She took the coat from him and shrugged into it. “Remember. You promised to spend the afternoon with me at my place. You promised, Turner.”

“I promise I’ll come—” dammit “—over as soon as we’re finished here,” he assured her.

He thought she would turn away then and make her way toward the elevators at the end of the hall, but she hesitated, her eyes meeting his, her pupils growing dark.

“What?” he asked warily.

“I just need for you to touch me once,” she told him. “That will get me through until you get to my place.”

“Becca, there are people waiting for me,” he reminded her.

“And I’ve been waiting for you a lot longer. Please,” she begged. “Just once. Just touch me one time.”

Knowing it was the only way he’d make—dammit—her
leave, Turner lifted a hand toward her face. But she lifted her own hand before he made contact, circling his wrist with sure fingers.

“Not there,” she whispered, much more softly than she had earlier in the boardroom.

And as he watched, she drew both their hands downward, past her shoulder, past her breasts, past her waist. With her free hand, she hiked up her short skirt, until he saw that titillating flash of flesh between stocking and garter again. Pink this time. She took a step to the side, opening her legs, and moved their hands between her thighs. Turner swallowed hard, but did nothing to halt or slow the movement.

“There,” she said with a sigh, her eyes fluttering closed as she pushed his fingers against her wet panties. Her mouth stayed open, even after she’d spoken the word, and her tongue came out to trace the line of her full lips. “Oh, Turner,” she gasped as she moved his fingers harder against her. “Oh, that feels so good.”

With her free hand, she pulled aside the scrap of silk and rubbed his fingers into her damp flesh, something that made Turner want to forget the job and everything else and just take her right here in the hallway, after all. But Becca withdrew his hand and shoved her skirt back down over her thighs, and the sensation ebbed. It exploded again, though, when she lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed each of the fingers that had touched her, one by leisurely one, sucking hard on his middle finger before finally releasing him. It was all Turner could do not to drop his trousers right there and turn her around and take her, up against the wall outside Englund Advertising, the rest of the world be damned.

As he visualized himself doing just that—and, ironically, trying to quell the erection pushing against his fly at the same time—Becca rose up on tiptoe again and pressed her mouth to his once, briefly, hotly, surely, long enough for him to taste a hint of her damp response on her own lips. Then she moved her mouth to his ear, murmured one word—“Hurry”—and turned toward the elevators at the end of the hall.

Turner watched her go, every nerve in his body screaming for him to follow her. But he forced himself to stay put, and thought about whatever he could to cool his aroused status. Glaciers crashing into the north Atlantic. A big bowl of slush. Hail the size of golf balls down his trousers. Salmon swimming up an icy stream. Ethel Merman in a thong bikini.

Oh, yeah. That did it.

Then he inhaled a few deep, fortifying breaths and returned to the scene of the crime.

When he arrived back in the boardroom, it was clear that the meeting was breaking up. Whatever Englund had done to mend the situation, it had worked, because Donetta Prizzi and her yes-boys were looking very happy and at ease, and there was much shaking of hands and patting on the backs going around for everyone. Even Turner’s reappearance didn’t put a damper on the mood.

His boss, however, was understandably curious about Becca’s absence. “What happened to Mercer?” he asked when Turner rejoined the group.

“I, uh, I sent her home,” he said. “She was burning up with fever, so I told her to go home and go to bed.” And he congratulated himself for telling the truth. Becca had indeed been burning up with fever. And it was precisely the kind
of fever that traditionally sent people to bed. Just, you know, not alone. And not to get any rest. “She wasn’t feeling all that great this morning when she came in to work,” he added, knowing he was skirting the truth now, but not much caring. “I think that’s why she seemed a little, um, off.”

“Off?” Donetta Prizzi echoed dubiously. Then she grinned, one of those knowing, woman grins that make men want to run screaming in the opposite direction with their hands cupped over their manhood. “When I was her age, we had a different word for it,” she added smoothly. “I still don’t think you can say it in polite company, though.”

“No, no,” Turner countered, shooting a nervous glance at his employer, who, thankfully, seemed not to be listening, because he was talking to one of Donetta’s colleagues. “I’m sure it was just the flu. It’s been going around, you know. That time of year and all that.”

“Mmm,” Donetta said noncommittally, still grinning. “Must be a new strain I haven’t heard about.”

“No doubt,” Turner agreed. Kind of.

After one last, very brief, question-and-answer session, Donetta collared her boys and the trio took off. Before leaving, though, she all but confirmed Bluestocking’s hiring of Englund Advertising, something that made Robert Englund very happy indeed. Maybe even happier than Mr. Happy had been earlier.

Nah, Turner thought. Nobody could be that happy. Except for Mr. Happy. Later. At Becca’s place.

But what did he really want to have happen later at Becca’s place? he asked himself not so much later, after he’d left the meeting and was heading down to the parking garage for his car. In spite of what he had promised her
a little while ago in the hallway, he was still tempted to call her and tell her he wasn’t coming—dammit—over to her place. That maybe what the two of them really needed was to spend a little time apart, since they’d obviously been spending way too much time together lately, under way too much pressure.

Because that really could be the only explanation for why Becca had been acting the way she had lately, he told himself, suddenly on, then suddenly off, then suddenly on again. Not that Turner wanted to look a gift horse in the mouth—though that probably wasn’t an analogy Becca would appreciate, all things considered—but
she’d
always been the one insisting they were too good of friends to mess everything up by letting their relationship become sexual. Had it been up to Turner, they would have been doing the horizontal boogaloo together back in high school. And again in college. And again in the workplace. And then at his place. And at her place. And at some total stranger’s place. Several public places. Water Tower Place, for instance. Or Place de la Concorde. Or Park Place, where he would pass Go over and over and over again. And in a million other places, too.