Falling for the Boss (16 page)

Victoria
sighed and rolled over, forcing her eyes to close and her mind to stop thinking along those lines.  She went over what she would say to Barry on Sunday. 
Unfortunately,
her mind drifted back to thoughts of Thomas and not Barry. 
When she finally fell asleep hours later, i
t was Thomas who infiltrated her dreams and they danced together on a cloud, drifting high over the city, unaware of anyone else as they touched and danced. 

The phone rang around ten o’clock
on Sunday morning
. 
Victoria
had just finished the newspaper and was on her second cup of coffee.  She assumed it was Laci calling to get the scoop on the previous night so she answered it quickly. 

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Thomas’s deep voice came through the phone lines. 

Victoria
knew he only called as a professional courtesy, but she liked his concern regardless.  “Yes, thank you very much for the ride home.”

“Glad to do it,” he said.  “Are you ready for work tomorrow?  It’s not going to be a difficult schedule for a few more months,” he said. 

Victoria
laughed.  “You mean we only work twelve or fourteen hour days instead of eighteen?”

Thomas chuckled.  “Well, you might get away with only fourteen hours if I’m in a good mood and you behave,” he teased.

Victoria
wanted to know what he considered behaving but didn’t have the courage
to ask
.  Instead she said, “Good to know.  By the way, how did you know where I lived?”

There was a pause.  Thomas wanted to say that he knew a lot about her.   For instance, he knew that she liked cream and lots of sugar in her coffee.  He knew that she needed two cups of coffee before she really got going in the morning and that nine o’clock was her ideal hour to wake up even though she was dealing with the early seven am work starts
the team preferred
.  She read sports instead of fashion magazines, and she flipped through the ads with irritation.  She tapped her pencil slowly when she was concentrating and quickly when she was angry and that she wore sexy
lingerie
under her business suits
that
drove him nuts.  But he simply replied, “Employee file,” and left it at that. 

“Ah!” was her only reply. 

“Well, I’ll see you early tomorrow,”
Thomas said, knowing he didn’t have any other reason to talk to her. 

By the end of the
sixth
month, she
needed a break.  Not from the work but from the boredom in the evenings
. 
The team had been to three cities with easy audits where they finished ahead of schedule. 
The
agenda
seemed to be easing up a bit and they were all able to head back to the hotel each night around seven o’clock
instead of the normal nine or ten
. 
This meant that she was on her own each night with nothing to do. 

By the third night of
the early work stops
,
Victoria
needed a break from reading magazines
alone in her room
.  So she put on her bathing suit and decided to go for a swim
in the hotel pool
.  Thomas said they might have a long weekend coming up and she considered staying on in
Tulsa
and meeting up with the team when they arrived in
Denver
the following week. 
The weather was hot but the air was less humid than it would be in
Washington
,
D.C.
in
August
. 

Victoria
thought about the pros of not going back to
Washington
,
D.C.
this time.  She wouldn’t know if Thomas was meeting up with his mysterious Antonia that both Bob and Mike were infatuated with
and
she wouldn’t need to tell the obnoxious Barry that she was home and spend another awkward night with him.  She’d missed Laci but maybe there was some way she could fly her
sister
out here for the weekend and they could go shopping and see the sights. 
Victoria
hadn’t had much time to spend any money in the past four months so her bank account was looking very good lately.  It was time to treat herself to some little luxuries. 

She was swimming along the water and making plans, hoping things would work out and wondering if Laci had any exams this week. 
Because her mind was occupied with other things,
she didn’t hear the splash or notice the other swimmer until it was too late.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as she swam right into another body.

The muscular body sputtered for a moment
then stood up, but
Victoria
was so astonished to find out it was Thomas, she slipped on the pool
’
s bottom and almost slid under the water.

“Hold up,” Thomas said and pulled her up against him and out of the water so she could catch her breath. 

Victoria
pushed the wet hair out of her face and caught her breath.  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you
,
”
she gasped. 

“Thinking about seeing Barry
this weekend
?”
  Thomas had meant it to be a joke, but it came out sounding like an accusation. 

Victoria
shook her head, intensely aware of the feeling of their nearly naked bodies touching, moving gently with the waves in the pool.  “No.”
  It was late
in the evening
, almost
nine o’clock
.  Most of the other hotel guests were probably getting ready for bed so the pool area was completely empty except for the two of them. 

“What were you thinking about then?”

“I’m…umm…I can’t remember.”

Thomas let her body slide down his so her feet were touching the floor of the pool.  “Well, I’m glad.”  His voice was incredibly deep and incredibly sexy. 
He watched her eyes, noting the same reaction as the night of the party when he’d held her close.  And sure enough, he suspected that she was feeling exactly the same sexual frustrations he was feeling. 

“Why?” she asked breathlessly, her hands were
resting accidentally
on his muscular for
e
arms, and she told herself to pull away, but her body wouldn’t follow her mind
’
s directions. 
Victoria
’s hands simply liked the feel of Thomas’s arms. 

Thomas shrugged his shoulders.  He couldn’t tell her he was glad that she wasn’t thinking about Barry.  Hell, he kept putting his room next to hers so he’d be near her.  And that’s all he would allow himself.  He was her boss.  And the last thing he wanted to do to her was put her in an awkward position.  But each time he got close to her, smelled her soft perfume, touched her
porcelain
skin, he wanted more.  And it was getting dangerous. 

Even now, he knew he should step back and put some space between them. 
But he didn’t.  In fact, he pulled her s
l
ightly closer.  “Why were you exercising so hard?” he asked.

Her body was perfect, he thought to himself.  He wanted to touch every inch of her and find out if she was really as soft as she looked.  Right now, his hands were around her waist and he was amazed at how tiny it was.  His hands could almost span the width.  And her bathing suit was driving him crazy.   The
black material clung to her figure, showing him that she was perfectly proportioned.  He noticed her nipples tighten and that made him go a little nuts, knowing that she wanted exactly what he wanted. 

“I..um…I wasn’t really, just aimlessly swimming,” she was finally able to get out. 

“You’re a good swimmer.”

Victoria
took a step back and forced herself to concentrate.  “Thanks.  I guess I should get out of your way and let you swim.”

“Want to race?”

Victoria
had put enough space between them so she was able to think a little more clearly.   She laughed at his suggestion.  “I don’t think I’d stand a chance.”

“You
don’t even know if I’m any good,” he smiled charmingly.  “
I might just flop around in the water.  We could put some money o
n it, make it more interesting,” he challenged, pushing the water back and forth
between them
with his hands. 

Victoria
surveyed his firmly muscled stomach and obvious biceps.  “Somehow, I don’t think that would be a very safe bet.”

Thomas swished the water around him as he walked towards her.  “So you don’t like to gamble, you don’t like to race.  Tell me something else about you.”

Victoria
moved backwards with each step he
took
towards her, enjoying the building tension but knowing she should end it immediately. 
It
was wonderful to have such an attractive man flirt with her. 

“Well, I like gardening.”

“What about gardening do you like?”

“I like putting something in the ground, taking care of it and watching it flower.”

“Ok.  What else?”

Victoria
looked up at the glass ceiling of the indoor poo
l and considered what other tid-
bits she could disclose.  “I don’t really like beer,” she
whispered conspiratorially
.

“I know that,” he said, a smile forming on his face. 
“Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“How do you know
I don’t like beer
?”

Thomas chuckled softly. 
“I could see it in your expression
a few months ago
at Roxanne’s
before you took a sip
.
  I was impressed that you persevered though.
”

Victoria
laughed.  “I thought I hid it well.”

“Nope.”  He shook his head.  “So you don’t play poker well and you don’t like beer.”

“Who said I don’t play poker well?” she asked, and her shoulders bumped up against the wall of the pool. 

“Most of your thoughts are right on your face,” he said and stopped a foot away from her. 

“I’m not that transparent,” she argued, her breath catching in her throat as he took a step closer.

“Yes you are,” he said. “Right now, you’re wondering what I’m going to do.  You want me to kiss you but you know it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“I don’t want…”

“Don’t lie,” he interrupted her.  “I can see it in your eyes.  You can deny it all you want but the truth is there
in your beautiful green eyes
.”
  He took another step closer.  “You’re lips can lie all they want, but your eyes tell me truths even you can’t hide.”
  His voice was husky, seductive. 

Victoria
’s eyes widened and she tried to look away from the intensity of his expression. 
Unfortunately,
she was drawn to him and couldn’t do anything about it. 
And now he knew it. 

“
I k
now it isn’t a good idea either,” he continued. 
“
But it’s bound to happen sooner or later.  I think we’ve both been wondering what it would be like.  Why don’t we get it out of our systems so we can concentrate on work?”

“That probably isn’t a good idea.”