Savin' Me (4 page)

The muscle in his jaw tightened and flexed,
and her fingers ached with the desire to reach out and caress the
tic away. Moisture pooled in her mouth as she dropped her gaze to
his neck. Would he taste salty if she slid her tongue over his
pulse point?

Her breath became ragged as she struggled
with the overwhelming need to launch herself against the massive
wall of his body, throw her arms around his slender waist, and feel
his arms wrapping her in a tender hug as she rested her head
against his shoulder.

But instead of doing any of those things, she
clenched her fists to her sides, ducked out from under his arms,
and squeezed her eyes closed. No way in hell would she allow the
tears prickling the backs of her eyes to fall. Once she’d regained
her self-control, she turned to face him.

He’d propped his hip against the railing and
crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were filled with unasked
questions.

“Erik, I’m sorry.” She risked taking a step
closer and searched his face for understanding. “I didn’t know. I
assumed… well… that the whole thing meant nothing to you.” She
ignored his flash of anger and continued. “I thought I was doing
you a favor by being gone when you woke.” She glanced away from his
hardened gaze. “I came back. But when you didn’t answer the door, I
knew I’d done the right thing by leaving.”

He jerked upright and grasped the railing in
a tight grip. “What do you mean you came back?”

“After I left, I sat in my car for about
twenty minutes arguing with myself, questioning if I’d done the
right thing. I finally gave up and went back to your room. But when
I knocked, you didn’t answer.” She shrugged as if wasn’t a big
deal. As if her heart hadn’t cracked at the silence that met
her.

He closed his eyes and cursed under his
breath. When he opened them again they were shimmering with
kindness and his entire demeanor had softened. “When you left, the
click of the door woke me. I grabbed my pants to come after you,
but the elevator doors were just shutting behind you. I paced
around the room for a few minutes and finally decided…” He exhaled
and shook his head. “Hell, I let pride get in the way.” He brushed
his knuckles across her cheek. “I don’t chase after women, no
matter how beautiful and sexy they are.” He dropped his hand to his
side. “You must have come back while I was in the shower, and I
didn’t hear you.”

Kat stared at him in shock as an expanding
hollowness filled her chest.

He caught her chin in his fingers and smiled.
“But you’re here now.”

“Nothing can happen now.” Her voice was a
high-pitched wail.

“Why not?”

“Because,” she threw her arms up in
frustration, “I can’t be involved with a client.”

His mouth lifted and the corners of his eyes
crinkled. “There are varying degrees of involvement.”

“Erik, I’m serious. My involvement with a
client cost me my last job. I’ll never make that mistake
again.”

Completely unfazed, he persisted. “Never say
never, Kat. Besides, I’m not asking for a long-term commitment,
just a few dates.” His smooth, rich voice heated her from the
inside out, and the way he stroked his fingers along her cheek as
he spoke was hypnotizing. “We can work on discovering a few more of
those erogenous zones. C’mon, don’t tell me you’re not interested
in finding a few more hot buttons.”

Of course she was interested. What living,
breathing female wouldn’t be? But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Not
when her job was on the line. Again.

Resolve firmly in place, she squared her
shoulders and lifted her chin. “No, Erik. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

And before she shed her resolve, and her
clothes, in favor of more frenzied sex with the hottest man she’d
ever met, she turned away from him and all but ran toward the
safety of the office door.

As she rounded a magnolia, she heard him say,
“We’ll see about that.”

***

“Dammit,” Kat growled as she threw her pencil
on the desk, then ground her palms into her eyeballs. Trying to
proofread technical data sheets before they went to press was
tedious on a good day. The type was small, the words were boring,
and reading something this detailed required a tremendous amount of
focus—something she couldn’t find anywhere.

She had her requisite Diet Coke, plus one;
nibbled her way through a chocolate bar, king size; and gotten up
to stretch, several times. All to no avail.

Sexual frustration had become an
all-consuming state, permeating every cell of her persistently
aroused body and crawling into the deepest, darkest recesses of her
mind. She hadn’t had sex with anyone since Erik and, surprisingly,
she hadn’t even missed it. Since seeing him, however, she couldn’t
seem to think about anything but sex. Specifically, sex with
him.

During the day, she struggled to focus on
work. At night, her subconscious took over and held her hostage.
The dreams were erotic. The details, vivid. The sex, intense. And
she always awoke aroused and aching.

But last night’s dream had been different,
and she couldn’t shake free from the memory, or the feelings it
inspired. Rather than a fast and furious get-your-rocks-off fucking
pace, the sex had been slow and leisurely. It had been passionate,
sweet lovemaking with a complete fusion of their bodies and souls.
Never having experienced anything like it in the flesh, the dream
left her emotionally raw.

She rested her head against the back of the
chair and stared at the stark-white ceiling. No woman with enough
breath in her to fog a mirror could resist Erik Monteague or the
intense chemistry between them. If simply seeing him created this
many problems for her, she couldn’t imagine how bad it would be had
she been forced to work with him. The hormonal stress would’ve
killed her.

She took a deep breath, released it on an
“oohhmmm,” and leaned back over the data sheets, determined to get
this job finished. She’d just found her place when Rusty stuck his
head into her office. “Hey, Kat, got a minute?”

After another silent
Ooohhhmmm,
she
said, “Sure, what’s up?”

With one hand in his pocket and a thick
manila folder tucked under his arm, Rusty strolled across her
office. He drew his free hand down his jawline, then massaged the
muscles at the back of his neck. “This new business project I’m
working on is monopolizing my time. I’m confident we’re going to
pick it up, so in fairness to our current clients, I think I need
to turn over several of my accounts. I’ve given Elise two, the
jewelry store and the Chamber projects.” He sat in the chair across
from Kat’s desk, rested an ankle on his knee, and tossed the folder
onto her desk. “But you’ll be a much better fit for this one.”

Kat took a quick look at the name on the
folder and stopped breathing. This had to be a joke. No way in hell
was he actually passing the Monteague Boats account over to
her.

But why would he joke about something like
this? He didn’t know about her and Erik’s history—at least she
hoped he didn’t—and guys didn’t do shit like this to tease.

She forced air into her lungs and smiled.
“Okay. I’ll look over the file, familiarize myself with the
account”—
freak out
—“and give them a call. Is there anything
pressing I should know about? Any upcoming deadlines?”

Rusty’s sheepish look caused the king-sized
candy bar and soda to gurgle in her gut. “Erik Monteague is the
contact person. He’s head of the marketing department as well as
one of the owners. And, he’ll be here in thirty minutes for a
meeting.”

Thirty minutes!
She jerked upright and
forced the air to keep moving through her lungs… in, out, in, out.
“Wow,” she said, forcing a small laugh. “It’s a good thing I’m a
quick study.”

She made a quick mental to-do list—thirty
minutes to go over their entire advertising history, see what ads
they were currently running, get a feel for their past campaigns,
and most importantly, squash out the slut brigade (aka hormones)
and their recently launched sexual offensive.

She was good at her job, and the first three
would be easy. The fourth was questionable. She’d come to realize
over the past several days that the slut brigade was a formidable
foe.

“When Erik gets here, I’ll make the
introductions and get you started.” He stood and headed for the
door, then paused. “I think you and Erik will work well together;
it’ll be a good fit.”

Yeah, that’s the problem. Erik and I are
a
perfect
fit.

After closing the door for privacy, Kat
stared out the window at the park and boardwalk across the street
and the expansive Pamlico River beyond it. She was quickly coming
to appreciate the river and the calming effect it had on her. Since
her backyard oasis had been tainted—she’d never eat there again
without smelling Erik’s scent or remembering the way his heat had
surrounded her—the park would make a great substitute refuge.

Several moms pushed strollers along the
boardwalk and watched their children play in the park. A toddler
snagged Kat’s attention as he threw pellets of food in the air,
then jumped up and down, clapping his hands as seagulls swooped in
to catch the offering. Even at this distance, his delight was
contagious and Kat felt herself begin to smile.

Dark, unruly hair whipped around his head as
he ran back to his mother for more food and Kat found herself
thinking,
That’s what Erik would’ve looked like at that
age.

Dammit. Her shoulders slumped as she thunked
her forehead against the cool glass of the window. She had to stop
picturing Erik in every scenario. She’d done it to a small degree
before seeing him at the party last Thursday night, but it was
quickly growing into a habit and a constant source of irritation,
like wet sand in a bathing suit.

She turned from the window and glared at the
offensive folder on her desk, thinking back to the night she’d met
Erik, when she’d been drowning in a pathetic sea of failure. Would
he question her ability to handle his account?

No, he seemed like a fair and reasonable
person, and she didn’t believe that would be a concern of his
unless she gave him reason, which meant she needed to put her
personal feelings aside and go into that meeting prepared and
focused. She was a professional, dammit, and it was time to pull
herself together and act like one.

Chapter Three

As Erik pulled his boat into a slip at
Riverside’s public marina, he couldn’t wipe the stupid-ass grin off
his face. The sky was Carolina blue with a few puffy clouds. A
light breeze pushed small ripples across the water, and the
temperature and humidity were low. It was a perfect spring day.

He tied off the boat, then gave his best
four-legged friend, Little Bit, the command to stay, before making
his way down the dock to the park. Of all the places he could’ve
been born, Erik was tremendously grateful he’d been plopped down in
this little coastal haven.

Although renovations had recently been
completed to improve the boardwalk and waterfront park, the town
remained much as it had been for the past two hundred years. As he
made his way across the park toward SMG, he considered the
love-hate relationship the town had with the great Pamlico River.
The river served as a lifeline to many of Riverside’s residents,
and prior to becoming industrialized, it had been necessary for the
town’s survival.

But a hurricane could turn the river into an
angry and violent monster that destroyed everything in its path.
The relationship between the town and the river was like a
relationship between two people. When things were working, it was a
beautiful thing. When they weren’t, it could mean total
devastation.

Something he’d be well served to remember as
he damn near skipped across the street to SMG and Kat. Keeping
things in perspective was going to be crucial.

Since his night with Kat, he’d gone out a few
times, but he always found himself unfairly comparing each woman to
her, and the dates ultimately imploded. Meeting with Kat would give
him the perfect opportunity to charm her into agreeing to pick up
where they’d left off, so they could enjoy a few wild romps, and he
could get her out of his system once and for all. Afterwards, they
could continue on as friends, and he could get back to his
regularly scheduled programming.

The self-preservationist—the part of his mind
he normally always listened to—waved his arms and sent out warning
flares at Erik’s poor planning and faulty thinking.

It seemed to believe any involvement with Kat
would end up about as serious as a man could get, but Erik held
firm to the notion he was simply in it for sex. What was the worst
thing that could happen, an orgasm overdose?

For the first time in ten years, Erik chose
to ignore the self-preservationist and slammed the door shut on
that part of his mind.

As he pushed through the front door of SMG,
Luanna, the young, perky receptionist, smiled broadly. “Good
morning, Erik. Here to see Rusty?”

The stupid grin he’d been wearing since
receiving Rusty’s phone call widened. “I don’t know about Rusty,
but I’m definitely meeting with Kat.”

While Luanna rang Kat and double-checked with
Rusty about his participation, Erik relaxed in one of the lobby
chairs. He was staring at the floor, lost in thought, when a pair
of three-inch heels crossed his field of vision.

Lord have mercy.

He took a deep breath and oh so slowly raked
his gaze up the pair of long legs he knew fit so nicely around his
waist. Rusty’s pounding footsteps on the balcony above and his
quick appearance on the stairs halted Erik’s visual meandering at
the hemline of her short black skirt.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” Rusty called out
as he descended the steps.