Crossfire 01 Bared to You (5 page)

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Mark touched bases with two clients and had a long meeting with the creative team working on concept ideas for a trade school. It was a fascinating process seeing firsthand how the various departments picked up the baton from each other to carry a campaign from proposition to fruition. I might’ve stayed late just to get a better feel of the layout of the offices, but my phone rang at ten minutes to five.

“Mark Garrity’s office. Eva Tramell speaking.”

“Get your ass home so we can go out for the drink you rain-checked on yesterday.”

Cary’s mock sternness made me smile. “All right, all right. I’m coming.”

Shutting down my computer, I cleared out. When I reached the bank of elevators, I pulled out my cell to text a quick “
on my way
” note to Cary. A ding alerted me to which car was stopping on my floor and I moved over to stand in front of it, briefly returning my attention to hitting the send button. When the doors opened, I took a step forward. I glanced up to watch where I was going and blue eyes met mine. My breath caught.

The sex god was the lone occupant.

H
is tie was silver and his shirt brilliantly white, the stark absence of color emphasizing those amazing blue irises. Standing there with his jacket open and his hands shoved casually into his pants’ pockets, the sight of him was like running smack into a wall I hadn’t known was there.

I jerked to a halt, my gaze riveted to the man who was even more striking than I’d remembered. I had never seen hair that purely black. It was glossy and slightly long, the ends drifting over his collar. That sexy length was the crowning touch of bad boy hotness over the successful businessman, like whipped cream topping on a hot fudge brownie sundae. As my mother would say, only rogues and raiders had hair like that.

My hands clenched against the urge to touch it, to see if it felt like the rich silk it resembled.

The doors began to close. He took an easy step forward and pressed a button on the panel to hold them open. “There’s plenty of room for both of us, Eva.”

The sound of that smoky, implacable voice broke me out of my momentary daze.
How did he know my name?

Then I remembered that he’d picked up my ID card when I’d dropped it in the lobby. For a second, I debated telling him I was waiting for someone so I could take another car down, but my brain lurched back into action.

What the hell was wrong with me? Clearly he worked in the Crossfire. I couldn’t avoid him every time I saw him and why should I? If I wanted to get to the point where I could look at him and take his hotness for granted, I needed to see him often enough that he became like furniture.

Ha! If only.

I stepped into the car. “Thank you.”

He released the button and stepped back again. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent.

I immediately regretted my decision to share the car with him.

Awareness of him prickled across my skin. He was a potent force in such a small enclosure, radiating a palpable energy and sexual magnetism that had me shifting restlessly on my feet. My breathing became as ragged as my heartbeat. I felt that inexplicable pull to him again, as if he exuded a silent demand that I was instinctively attuned to answering.

“Enjoy your first day?” he asked, startling me.

His voice resonated, flowing over me in a seductive rhythm.
How the hell did he know it was my first day?

“Yes, actually,” I answered evenly. “How was yours?”

I felt his gaze slide over my profile, but I kept my attention trained on the brushed aluminum elevator doors. My heart was racing in my chest, my stomach quivering madly. I felt jumbled and off my game.

“Well, it wasn’t my first,” he replied with a hint of amusement. “But it was successful. And getting better as it progresses.”

I nodded and managed a smile, having no idea what that was supposed to mean. The car slowed on the twelfth floor and a friendly group of three got on, talking excitedly among themselves. I stepped back to make room for them, retreating into the opposite corner of the elevator from Dark and Dangerous. Except he sidestepped along with me. We were suddenly closer than we’d been before.

He adjusted his perfectly knotted tie, his arm brushing against mine as he did so. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to ignore my acute awareness of him by concentrating on the conversation taking place in front of us. It was impossible. He was just so
there
. Right there. All perfect and gorgeous and smelling divine. My thoughts ran away from me, fantasizing about how hard his body might be beneath the suit, how it might feel against me, how well-endowed—or not—he might be…

When the car reached the lobby, I almost moaned in relief. I waited impatiently as the elevator emptied and the first chance I got, I took a step forward. His hand settled firmly at the small of my back and he walked out beside me, steering me. The sensation of his touch on such a vulnerable place rippled through me.

We reached the turnstiles and his hand fell away, leaving me feeling oddly bereft. I glanced at him, trying to read him, but although he was looking at me, his face gave nothing away.

“Eva!”

The sight of Cary lounging casually against a marble column in the lobby shifted everything. He was wearing jeans that showcased his mile-long legs and an oversized sweater in soft green that emphasized his eyes. He easily drew the attention of everyone in the lobby. I slowed as I approached him and the sex god passed us, moving through the revolving door and sliding fluidly into the back of the chauffeured black Bentley SUV I’d seen at the curb the evening before.

Cary whistled as the car pulled away. “Well, well. From the way you were looking at him, that was the guy you told me about, right?”

“Oh, yeah. That was definitely him.”

“You work together?” Linking arms with me, Cary tugged me out to the street through the stationary door.

“No.” I stopped on the sidewalk to change into my walking flats, leaning into him as pedestrians flowed around us. “I don’t know who he is, but he asked me if I’d had a good first day, so I better figure it out.”

“Well…” He grinned and supported my elbow as I hopped awkwardly from one foot to the other. “No idea how anyone could get any work done around him. My brain sort of fried for a minute.”

“I’m sure that’s a universal effect.” I straightened. “Let’s go. I need a drink.”

The next morning arrived with a slight throbbing at the back of my skull that mocked me for having one too many glasses of wine. Still, as I rode the elevator up to the twentieth floor, I didn’t regret the hangover as much as I should have. My choices were either too much alcohol or a whirl with my vibrator, and I was damned if I’d have a battery-provided orgasm starring Dark and Dangerous. Not that he’d know or even care that he made me so horny I couldn’t see straight, but
I’d
know and I didn’t want to give the fantasy of him the satisfaction.

I dropped my stuff in the bottom drawer of my desk and when I saw that Mark wasn’t in yet, I grabbed a cup of coffee and returned to my cubicle to catch up on my new favorite ad-biz blogs.

“Eva!”

I jumped when he appeared beside me, his grin a flash of white against his smooth dark skin. “Good morning, Mark.”

“Is it ever. You’re my lucky charm, I think. Come into my office. Bring your tablet. Can you work late tonight?”

I followed him over, catching on to his excitement. “Sure.”

“I’d hoped you’d say that.” He sank into his chair.

I took the one I’d sat in the day before and quickly opened a notepad program.

“So,” he began, “we’ve received an RFP for Kingsman Vodka and they mentioned me by name. First time that’s ever happened.”

“Congratulations!”

“I appreciate that, but let’s save them for when we’ve actually landed the account. We’ll still have to bid, if we get past the request for proposal stage, and they want to meet with me tomorrow evening.”

“Wow. Is that timeline usual?”

“No. Usually they’d wait until we had the RFP finished before meeting with us, but Cross Industries recently acquired Kingsman and C.I. has dozens of subsidiaries. That’s good business if we can get it. They know it and they’re making us jump through hoops, the first of which is meeting with me.”

“Usually there would be a team, right?”

“Yes, we’d present as a group. But they’re familiar with the drill—they know they’ll get the pitch from a senior executive, then end up working with a junior like me—so they picked me out and now they want to vet me. But to be fair, the RFP provides a lot more information than it asks for in return. It’s as good as a brief, so I really can’t accuse them of being unreasonably demanding, just meticulous. Par for the course when dealing with Cross Industries.”

He ran a hand over his tight curls, betraying the pressure he felt. “What do you think of Kingsman vodka?”

“Uh…well…Honestly, I’ve never heard of it.”

Mark fell back in his chair and laughed. “Thank God. I thought I was the only one. Well, the plus side is there’s no bad press to get over. No news can be good news.”