All She Wants for New Year's -- A Contemporary Erotic Holiday Romance (All She Wants #2) (2 page)

There was no answer for a second; suddenly, Brandon burst out laughing. “…You have no idea who I am, do you?” he asked.

Jessica’s false smile relaxed into a real one, as she couldn’t help but laugh herself. “…You got me,” she said finally. “I’m sorry, I just – there’s so many people coming in, it’s hard to keep track of you all. When did you start here?”

He chuckled some more. His laugh had a nice ring to it. “I’m pretty new,” he said. “Just started in September. But don’t worry, I completely understand. This place is huge, it must be hard for you guys.”

“You’ve got that right. But am I really that transparent?” asked Jessica. She was surprised he’d picked up so easily on her insincere banter. No one had ever said anything to her about it before.

“My ex was in business school,” he said, by way of explanation. “I can spot it a mile away. We used to call it ‘fake smile mode.’ You know what I mean?”

She laughed again, astonished. “That’s what I call it too.”

“It’s a good name for it,” he agreed. “Anyway, no problem – how can I help you this morning?”

Rather than throwing her off-guard, Brandon’s unexpected joking had put Jessica more at ease. She still couldn’t picture his face, but she now felt comfortable speaking to him casually. “It’s my computer,” she said. “I think it’s totally fried. It keeps giving me this error message, and the screen’s gone all black now.”

“Uh-oh,” Brandon replied. “The black screen of death, huh? Is it showing an error message at all?”

“It sure is,” she said, reading the code on the screen. “Um, it’s error number 3756c? Does that mean anything to you?”

He gave a low whistle. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “Sounds like your memory’s corrupted. I’m probably going to have to come over and check it out… is now a good time for you?”

Jessica glanced at the clock. “Well, it’s not like I’m able to do anything with my computer on the fritz, anyway.” she said. “Sure, come on over. And thanks, Brandon, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” he said. “Be there in a sec.”

When Brandon arrived at her cubicle, Jessica immediately remembered him. Just like he said, she’d trained him in September. It was hard to forget a face like that – or more precisely, a
body
like that. She didn’t know what he was doing in I.T., but he had a body like Channing Tatum. She’d been expecting some kind of computer nerd.

She couldn’t stop herself from giving him a quick once-over as he walked in, from his fitted dark green sweater to the shine on his brown leather shoes. It was all she could do to keep a straight face when he looked at her with those big hazel eyes of his, as he said with a smile, “Jessica?”

“Hey, Brandon,” she managed coolly, grinning back at him. “Thanks for coming over on such short notice.”

“No problem,” he said. His presence filled the cubicle, and she was sure that his strong baritone voice could be heard down the hallway. She realized she was still sitting in her chair, looking up at him. She quickly leapt to her feet, as if suddenly remembering her manners.

She extended her hand politely. “It’s nice to meet you again,” she said. “Sorry about earlier. I do remember you now.”

Brandon took her hand and shook it, an amused half-smile on his face. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I figured you wouldn’t remember me. I certainly remembered
you
, though.”

As he finished speaking, he let go of her hand and looked pointedly into her eyes – or at least she imagined he did. Confused thoughts raced through her head.
Is he flirting with me? ...Don’t just stand there, say something!

“Y-you did?” she stammered.

“Yeah, of course!” he replied cheerfully. “I mean, you were the one who went over my salary information packet with me!”

Her face fell. “Oh, right,” she said flatly. “Of course…”

She turned quickly away from him, with the pretense of looking at her computer. In truth, she felt embarrassed, and she didn’t want to look at him in case she was blushing. Of course he hadn’t meant anything by his comment; of course he wasn’t flirting with her. She didn’t know why she always fell for the most unattainable guys, or why she got so flustered around attractive men. Maybe her parents were right. Maybe she should have given Freddie more of a chance. Maybe—

“Earth to Jessica!” Brandon said, interrupting her train of thought. She looked up at him, startled. He laughed. “You still with us?”

Splendid,
she thought to herself.
Now he thinks I’m crazy.

“Uh, yeah!” she said, a little too loudly. “Yeah, sure am. Sorry, I was just thinking about this damn computer. It’s really messing up my train of thought this morning!”

He grinned at her again. “Well, don’t you worry about that,” he said. “I know I may not look like much of a tech guy, but I’m a pretty big geek when it comes to computers. We’ll have you up and running in no time.” He motioned to her desk chair. “Mind if I sit down and have a look?”

“Oh, yes, of course!” she said, surprised and relieved that he apparently hadn’t noticed any awkwardness on her part. She smiled in spite of herself. “I could actually use another coffee,” she said, grabbing her empty mug. “Want me to make you one?”

“That’d be fantastic,” he said. He made
excellent
eye contact, she noticed. “Cream, no sugar?”

“You got it,” said Jessica. “Coming right up.” She stepped out into the hallway, thankful to get some fresh air.

Focus, Jess
, she scolded herself.
Just because a guy is cute, doesn’t mean you have to get all blabbering-psycho on him.
She couldn’t help but laugh at the situation.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad
, she mused.

By the time she came back with their two mugs of coffee, Brandon was standing in her cubicle with a pleased expression on his face. She glanced at her desktop, and realized with shock that it was back to normal. Her wallpaper had returned, and the error message had gone away. She did a double take, looking from his face to her desktop and back again.

He folded his arms across his chest smugly, waiting for her to speak; he was trying to be nonchalant, but she could see that he was trying hard to suppress a satisfied grin. His emotions were so transparent that she had to laugh.

“Well, mister computer whiz, you seem pretty pleased with yourself,” she teased him. “Guess you don’t need this coffee anymore.”

“Aw, it was nothing,” he said, a bit bashfully. “I just did a hard system reset, and it seemed to take care of things. Then I just cleared the memory cache to be sure.”

Jessica nodded, mock-seriously. “Excellent. I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds great.”

He laughed. “It’s like the first thing they teach us, to be honest. The computers here are prone to it for some reason. But hey, if you see that error again, you just give me a call.”

“I’ll do that,” she replied. She held out his coffee in front of her. “So I guess you’ll be taking this to go, then?”

Brandon glanced at his watch and frowned. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said, looking back at her with what she thought seemed like genuine disappointment. “I’ve got a bunch of service tickets lined up this morning. But thank you, I really appreciate it,” he said, taking the mug from her graciously.

As he finished speaking, he looked directly into her eyes.  “And if there’s anything else I can help you with…” he trailed off, letting the rest of the sentence hang unspoken. She suddenly felt like the air was sucked of out the room, somehow, as if time had stopped all around them. She realized with a start that she was holding her breath.

“I’ll definitely give you a call,” she exhaled in a rush of words, to fill the space more than anything else.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then thought the better of it. A moment passed. They were still staring at each other. Finally, the corners of his mouth turned upward, ever so slightly.

“…I’d like that,” he said.

“Sounds good, then!” she chirped. She had that same trademark H.R. smile plastered on her face, not wanting to show how flustered she was. Her stomach was doing flips, and it was all she could do to maintain eye contact with him.

He grinned at her. “There’s that fake-smile mode again. You’ve got to watch out for that.” He took a long sip of his coffee, looking over the top of his mug at her. Before he left, he paused at the entrance to her cubicle, turning to look at her.

“I’ll see you, Jessica,” he said. “And hey, thanks again for the coffee. I owe you one.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked down the hallway. It was a good thing, too, because Jessica didn’t trust her voice at this point.

She slumped into her chair, still pumped with adrenaline from the previous moment.
Okay,
she decided,
he was definitely
flirting with me.
And she was definitely interested. But how should she proceed from here? Should she wait to run into him again, or take matters into her own hands?

She laughed to herself, shaking her head softly. It was only her first day back, and there was already
so
much on her to-do list.

Fortunately
for Jessica, the decision of what to do about Brandon ended up being made for her. The next day, around 4:30pm, she was just finishing up her work for the afternoon when her office phone began to ring.

She looked at the caller ID, and sucked in her breath. “I.T. Helpdesk,” read the display. She glanced around furtively, suddenly self-conscious for no good reason.
You’ve got this, Jess,
she told herself.

Summoning all the nonchalance she could muster, she picked up the phone. “Hello?”

It was Brandon, as she’d guessed. “I.T. Helpdesk,” he said. When she heard his voice on the other end of the line, she felt a chill run down her arms.

Suppressing that feeling, she decided to tease him a little.

“Yes, this is Jessica Bradley,” she replied, in her utmost professional tone. “With whom am I speaking, please?”

Brandon knew she recognized his voice, but he decided to play along. “Good afternoon, Ms. Bradley. This is Brandon Tanner from the I.T. department, I believe I serviced you yesterday?”

She blushed at his off-color pun, but she just had to smile at his cheekiness. Shaking her head, she composed herself and kept up the game.

“Hmm, Brandon… I’m sorry, that name doesn’t ring a bell,” she said. “Could you describe the nature of the service rendered, please? …It must not have been very memorable,” she added devilishly.

“Uh, yes, ah…” he stammered. Her last remark seemed to have thrown him off a little bit, and she silently congratulated herself as she heard him getting flustered on the other end of the phone. “All right, all right, you win,” he said. She could hear him smiling bashfully. “I give up. But seriously, I was just following up with you to make sure your computer is doing okay now.”

She grinned. “Oh, I see. Is this a new I.T. department policy? To follow up by phone with all your service calls?”

“Well, not exactly,” he replied. He hesitated a moment, but when he spoke next, all the confidence had returned to his voice. “Actually, I was wondering if you were planning to go to the office New Year’s party this weekend.”

Those damn chills started up again, shooting up her arm from the phone receiver straight to her brain. They were making it hard for her to think straight – or maybe that was the sex appeal of Brandon’s deep, baritone voice. Again, she couldn’t tell for certain if he was flirting with her or just making conversation.
Of course he’s flirting with you,
her brain screamed at her.
Why else would he call?