AddingHeat (6 page)

The thought pleased him inordinately.

But then where was she? “Giselle?” He wandered through each
of the five rooms, his mind sifting through facts and ideas. Maybe she’d been
worried about him, knowing he’d been under the gun. She had more questions
about Aunt Esme’s tax return. Or maybe she just wanted more of what they’d
given each other the other day. And night.

That thought perked him up considerably, and suddenly eating
breakfast clunked to the bottom of his to-do list. His cock roared to life.

After a few more minutes he accepted the fact that no one
shared his office space. Then he noticed the manila envelope on the counter
near the coffeepot.

So she
did
come on business. He wasn’t sure how he
felt about that. He hadn’t thought he was inadequate in the sexual department,
but now he wondered if a woman with so much self-assurance would think he’d
been experienced enough, sophisticated enough. As much as, perhaps, her
foreman, who had acted as though he had some personal claim on her.

With a scowl he shoved his doubts into a corner of his mind
and reached for the note clipped to the envelope.

Sorry to wake you. Catch up on your sleep. When you have
time, maybe you can look this over. Thanks.

No signature, no “I had a great time”. Well, she was
probably too shy to put anything in writing. He opened the envelope and began
to peruse its contents. Two tax returns, her personal one and the business one.
Ever intrigued by numbers, he sat down to check them out.

* * * * *

Halfway down the Stonehedge Landscapes driveway, Con had to
pull onto the verge to make room for an empty semi rattling up in the opposite
direction, then eased to a stop near a huge hill of mulch that had obviously
just been dumped into the holding area. Bits of bark and dust shimmered in the
air currents above the pile.

He took a moment to appreciate Giselle’s curvaceous body as
she surveyed the delivery, unaware of being observed through his windshield.
Snug jeans, check. Outstanding ass, check. Flyaway curly hair escaping her
ponytail, check. Slanting late-afternoon sunlight giving her skin the rosy glow
of a well-fucked woman…

Down, boy
!

She might be a dozen years older, but damn, she looked good
to him. And felt even better snugged against him. He would make it his business
to convince her to think the same thing.

Shaved, showered and ready for public discourse again, he
killed the engine and stepped out. The potent smell of fresh pine bark
surrounded him, sweet and pungent, almost like a narcotic.

“Wow, that must be a whole year’s supply.”

She turned, eyes leaping with sparks before banking into
something he interpreted as caution. “Close to four hundred cubic yards. If we
have a good year, we’ll need to order more before planting season ends.”

Con let his gaze rove around the holding area, something
he’d ignored last Sunday when he’d been too busy ogling Giselle in her tight
biking shorts. Neat rows of potted shrubs and ground cover, larger shrubs and
trees whose root balls were wrapped in burlap and heeled in, everything looking
healthy and well tended. A three-bay barn converted to accommodate company
trucks. Smaller holding pens for decorative gravel and stones of various colors
and sizes.

“Huh. I’d have thought you’d have as much stone supply as
you do mulch.”

“Why?” She began to walk toward the office.

Matching her stride, he waved the manila envelope he’d
brought with him. “I browsed through your tax returns. Just seemed like stones
and paving should have been your biggest inventory.”

“Actually,” she said, stopping at the door to the office and
giving him a thoughtful gaze. “If a client wants too much paving or stonework,
we subcontract that out. Felix specialized in artistic placement of greenery,
and I just built on that reputation. I love the asymmetry, the irregularity of
nature. I hate to see a row of
Euonymus
or boxwood against the front of
a house. Boring.”

Nothing about Giselle Sheridan was boring
, Con
thought as he swiveled to watch a staff truck bounce down the long driveway.
“Well, looks like your crews are coming home to roost. I’d be happy to offer my
observations about these documents—” He handed over the manila envelope. “But
not when you’re so busy. Maybe we can talk about it over dinner some evening.”
He yanked out his PDA. “Or, since we’re both professionals, maybe we should
make an appointment. Let’s see, I’m free on…”

Giselle’s warm laugh made the calendar function blur.
“Actually, tonight’s good. Just give me an hour to check each crew’s progress,
print out tomorrow’s service schedules and shower off all this grit. I feel
like casual and close by. Seven-thirty? Meet you at the Rib ‘N Draft?”

“I know where it is. Sure you don’t want me to pick you up?”

But she was already turning to greet her crew and Con saw
another truck pulling in. He wouldn’t argue the point. He’d wait for her at the
Rib ‘N Draft while catching up on his emails. The cozy pub and rib joint was
only a mile or so from her home. Nothing like eating with your fingers and
sucking off the juices to aid in a seduction.

* * * * *

“You let that guy see your tax returns?”

“Oh, hi, Larry. I didn’t know you were inside already. I
thought you might be checking out the black smoke coming out of the stake
body.” Giselle had just entered the office to find her foreman at the second
computer, off to the side at a smaller desk. She stiffened, bracing for a
confrontation.

Instead, he merely said, “It’s fixed. Oil change, new
filter. Just making the notations now. I ran off a batch of checks for you to
sign. I saw the deposit slip from yesterday’s bank run, so I figured we could
pay some of those bills nearing the end of the net-thirty cycle.”

“Thanks. That was on my to-do list this weekend. You’re a
mind reader.”

Larry shrugged as though it was no big deal, although she
knew it was. She relied on him for so much. Too much?

“I’ve been reading your mind for years, ’Zelle. Comes from
working together so closely for so long. And knowing you so well.”

He signed off the computer and darkened the screen. “One
thing I will say to you, though. That Trowbridge guy? You better take anything
he says with a grain of salt.”

Standing to his full height, he loomed over her as she sat
down at her own desk and logged on. “The name rang a bell, so I dug into my
memory bank until I came up with it. They had some big lawsuits thrown at them
for malfeasance a couple of years ago. Wasn’t just any piddling
misappropriation of funds, either. It was some big-deal corporate scandal.”

Larry leaned down across the desk, planting his scowling face
a little too close to hers. “You better be careful of him. And that’s not just
a suggestion. It’s a warning.”

Giselle took a startled breath at his vehemence. She
remembered no such scandal, but perhaps it had been around the time Felix had
died, a long stretch when she paid no attention to newspapers or TV.

“And just so you know,” he said before walking out the
office door to deal with the crews, “I like Broadway musicals.”

She stared after him. Broadway musicals? Who’d have thought
rough, gruff Larry Pulaski liked to sing and dance?

Which begged the question, shouldn’t she give him a chance
to show her his softer side?

She’d think about that tomorrow. She had other things on her
mind tonight.

Chapter Five

Gawd, did this place bring back memories of the early days,
when she and Felix had more brass than cash. When they thought they could
conquer the world. Now he was gone and, while her clients loved her work, she
knew she hadn’t reached his level of experience and savvy.

On the bright side, Con Trowbridge was sitting next to her,
sucking his fingers with his eyes closed as if he were in heaven. Giselle
watched his thick tongue lap up barbecue juices from the base of his palm to
the tip of his middle finger.

And remembered the feel of that educated tongue on her clit.

A delicate shudder went through her. She wanted more of it,
more of his tongue stroking her, his arms holding her captive, his cock
pounding into her. Oh yeah, her inner cougar had perked up when they’d met and
she was ready to growl and bite and pounce.

But cougar or no, she still worried that he was too young
for her.
So
, she firmly chastised herself,
get it while you can.
And
when that younger hunk has gone back to his younger crowd, there’ll be enough
time to decide about Larry.

They sat at right angles at a table in the rear of a large
dining room, their knees touching as they sipped their draft beers, halfway
through a large plate of barbecued beef short ribs. She’d worn flats with a
flaring, lettuce-hemmed skirt and a cream T-shirt emblazoned with oak leaves.
She’d resisted the temptation to go commando. He might want to rip off her
panties.

The exact instant the thought took hold of her, Con’s gaze
snagged hers, as though she’d said it aloud. He leaned over to her and licked
the corner of her mouth.

“Sloppy eater. Mmm, and here’s another spot your napkin
missed.” He swiped his tongue across the bow of her upper lip.

“Con,” she whispered. Misgivings or no about the future, she
wanted this man. Now. “Doggy bag. Home.”

His eyes flared as he sat back and raised his arm for the
waiter. In minutes they’d been given two wet-napkin packets and a flip-top
takeout box stuffed with leftovers. They quickly cleaned the grease from their
hands. Con flicked two twenties on the table and grasped Giselle’s elbow to
steer her through the maze of diners and out into the parking lot where she’d
found a space to park her truck just two slots away from his.

She unlocked her door and bent forward to toss the doggy bag
onto the passenger side. Before she could climb into the driver’s seat, he spun
her around and kissed her as though the world were ending tomorrow.

Her knees buckled under the onslaught of his hunger and her
misgivings evaporated like smoke in a breeze. He slammed her against the side
of the extended cab, held her there with his body. It was every bit as hot and
hard as she remembered, and she gloried in his ravaging kisses, his hands
sliding under her T-shirt to feel skin on skin, the hot poker inside his
trousers rubbing against her belly.

Vaguely she wondered if he’d parked here in the dark last
row with forethought, or if it was just happenstance. When he grabbed handfuls
of her skirt and yanked upward, it no longer mattered. Juices were flowing down
her legs and she needed his questing hands, his hungry mouth right—

Yes!
He’d gone to his knees and she felt his mouth on
her wet bikini panties. Instinctively she spread her legs to allow greater
access. He took instant advantage, tonguing and sucking on her pussy lips
through the sodden material. She clutched fistfuls of his hair, jerking with
his every stroke. Voices sounded behind her but Giselle was beyond modesty. She
needed to come. Now!

As if he’d been making love to her forever, Con read her
body language and, pressing her clit with his thumb, pulled her sodden panties
aside to thrust two then three fingers inside her pussy, curling them to zero
in on the spot that pushed her over the edge. She bit her tongue in an effort
not to cry out her orgasm, allowing only a few desperate whimpers to escape.

A car door slammed, an engine revved, a horn tooted. A
semblance of awareness returned to Giselle and she wondered if someone had
recognized her face, or just saw agitated shadows and heard her feline yowls
and was giving her an aural high-five.

Weak-kneed and temporarily sated, she could muster no shame
for her wanton behavior. She’d have loved to reciprocate, but wasn’t sure her
knees were functioning enough to bend down.

“Holy abacus, Giselle, you make me so horny I can’t keep my
hands off you.” Con slowly rose to his feet, kissing his way up through layers
of clothing, lingering at her tingling breasts. “I must have been a good boy
this year, because Santa’s given me my top-of-the-list present a few months
early.”

Her laugh was throaty, languid, not at all like the Giselle
she’d been the past few years. She’d become a sexual being again and she
gloried in it, as if she were a queen and it was her due. She would enjoy it as
long as it lasted.

Con nibbled his way from her breasts to her shoulder, her throat,
taking tiny nips until he reached her ear. “I swear, I could take you right
here, right now. Whaddaya say? Would you like me to fuck you against the truck
in the parking lot of Rib ‘N Draft? I’d happily serve the jail time if we were
caught.”

Jail time. Crap, she had a dozen employees depending on her.
What had she been thinking?

You haven’t been thinking
, she chastised herself.

But oh boy, wouldn’t the Tempt the Cougar ladies be proud of
her?

“Home,” she managed to squeak.

* * * * *

Con couldn’t believe this sexy babe was hot for a nerd like
him. All his life he’d fantasized about an amply endowed woman, starting with
Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch when he’d first noticed that women had breasts.
Not a Marilyn Monroe-type, though, not a blonde sexpot. He wanted a dark-eyed,
dark-haired, earthy temptress, and by golly, in Giselle Sheridan he had a
tigress he wanted to tame.

Or not. She made him harder, hotter than he’d ever been with
a woman. Was it her lush body? Her sexual hunger? Or simply Giselle herself
that had his insides tied up in knots? Whatever, he was going to make damn sure
she didn’t see him as too young and inexperienced for her.

Following her down her long driveway, he stopped at her
front porch. She kept going and he realized she was headed for the detached
garage a few dozen feet from the house.