Back to the Drawing Board (11 page)

I forced myself to swallow the bite of sandwich, though my mouth had gone completely dry. If it was black tie that meant Julia was going to be dressed to the nines. And I was expected to be there with her at a social event. She was funny if she thought a recent college graduate had clothes to wear to a black tie event. The best I had were suits for work. Looked like a shopping trip would be in my future.

I took a drink of my bottled water, waiting a moment for my food to get all the way down, so I didn’t choke myself. “Sounds good.” I forced my voice to be even. “Where’s the best place to shop around here?”

She finished chewing, and I found myself enthralled with the way she did that, too. “You need clothes for the event? Oh, do I have a place for you. It’s
the
place for shopping around here. I can take you if you want.” I must’ve looked surprised by her offer, because she waved her hand in front of her face. “I mean, I don’t have to, of course. But since you’re new to Denver, I thought I would offer . . .”

“No, that would be great,” I interrupted. “Thank you. The only place I know so far is my apartment, the market at the corner, the sports bar, and here.” Do I want her to take me shopping? A vision of her in a dressing room with me flooded my thoughts.
Carter
, I warned myself. These thoughts were out of control. I needed to find someone to take my mind off of her. Maybe I should go back to that sports bar and see if any of those ‘interested’ girls were there.

A comfortable silence came over us as we continued eating our lunches. I wished I knew what she was thinking, although I sure as hell didn’t want her to know what was going through my head. I finished my sandwich and wrapped up the trash, looking over to see if Julia wanted me to throw hers away, too. She had just taken a bite of her sandwich, and some mayonnaise was on the corner of her mouth. I loved that she wasn’t eating salad. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I liked when women weren’t afraid to eat real food in front of guys. She obviously had an amazing body and didn’t need to worry about eating some damn bread.

She must’ve felt me looking at her because she turned her gaze to mine. She smiled, still chewing. I could’ve just told her that she had mayonnaise on her face and handed her a napkin, but instead I watched as my hand reached out. My thumb swiped it off of her mouth while the rest of my fingers rested lightly on her chin. She gasped, her eyes wide. I froze, my eyes trained on hers as I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to touch her. My thumb was frozen on her bottom lip. Julia dropped what was left of her sandwich on the paper in front of her and reached her hand up. Just as her fingers connected with mine, a loud beep made us both jump apart.

“Ms. Gibbons?” It was the voice of Brandi in reception.

Julia stood, wiped her mouth and turned away from me. She walked to the desk and pressed a button. “Yes, Brandi.”

“Mr. Adams is here. Is Mr. McIntyre with you?”

Julia looked over her shoulder at me. “Yes. Give me just a minute, Brandi, and then go ahead and walk him back.”

“You got it,” she answered. Julia walked over to the table and grabbed our trash before I could even move. “You ready? It’s showtime.”

I stood, making sure the table was crumb-free and the projector was ready. “Yes. Let’s do this.”

She smiled. “I can’t wait to see you in action.” She walked away and I wondered just what
action
she wanted to see.

A knock sounded on Julia’s office door, and we exchanged one more look before the door swung open. Brandi stood in front of a portly gentleman who must have been Mr. Adams. According to Julia, he was one of the wealthiest men in Colorado and has been searching for the right company to design the new headquarters of his car dealership. It didn’t sound like a huge project, but when you saw how many brands he sold, the garage he wanted to build to service them, and the corporate offices, it was amazing. He wanted all of the buildings to be high tech and fully green. His son had even invented some solar type energy things for them he wanted to try out. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

“Mr. Adams,” Julia stepped forward, holding out her hand. He shook it, his gaze lingering on hers before snapping over to me. I didn’t blame him for watching her though she was young enough to be his daughter. “This is my associate, Carter McIntyre. It’s his first day, so don’t be too hard on him.”

Mr. Adams laughed, reaching over and grasping my hand. “Please call me Christopher. This one keeping you on your toes already? She’s something.”

That’s for damn sure
, I thought. “Great to meet you, Christopher. While it is my first day, I have been reading up on your company and your vision for a week now. It’s amazing, to be honest. I’ve seen a lot of buildings and a lot of green technology. But nothing compares to this.”

He nodded, unbuttoning his jacket and settling into a seat at the end of the table. “Thank you, Carter. I’m glad to see John has found a great new employee. You’re the luckiest one here, to work with Julia. Don’t tell her old man I said so, but she’s got him licked. She’s even better than her mom, and that’s saying something. This one is an architectural genius. I bet since he has her working with you, he must think the same of you.”

I looked over at Julia, who was bringing up the information on the projector screen that came down out of the wall. A small smile played on her lips at his compliment. “Thank you,” I said. “Julia is a great teacher. I’m looking forward to learning from her.”
Learning
architecture. That’s all.

“Are we ready to get started?” Julia asked, effectively changing the subject away from her. I noticed her cheeks were flushed, and I wondered if she didn’t believe any of that about herself. I made a note to ask her about that later, because even the little I knew about her schooling and experience, she was amazing. To be so young and have learned so much outside of school about what works and what doesn’t, it was like she was a prodigy. Her parents probably started teaching her architecture right along with her ABC’s.

Julia leaned over to grab the clicker to be able to press through the presentation, effectively putting her round backside right in my line of vision. Her cream pants pulled tight against her body at her motion, and I fought back a groan. This woman had no idea what she was doing to me. I watched as she stood and walked to the front of the room. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear that had come loose and tapped her finger on her lips. I had figured out already she did that when she was thinking.

“Carter?” Both she and Adams were looking at me like I had missed something. Shit. She’d been talking to me, and I’d been staring blankly at her. Wonderful.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”

“Can you turn off the light so we can see this better?” I stood and did as she asked. As I went to sit back in my seat and watch her work her magic, I noticed Adams looking at me out of the corner of my eye. He caught my gaze and winked before settling in to listen to Julia. What was that all about?

I pushed the weight bar up, grunting at the effort it took me to put it where it was supposed to go. I needed a spotter, I knew that much for a fact. I was going to end up crushing myself under the weight of this stupid bar just because I was trying to work off the sexual tension I was feeling.

The meeting with Adams had gone well. He was more than pleased with all of Julia’s recommendations and plans. I’d mostly listened, throwing in a comment every once in a while on something I knew about. Watching Julia do what she did best was something else. The way her eyes lit up when she explained all the hard work she did—- why the building was designed the way it was and how it would be energy efficient—- made it hard for me to look away from her. She was an enigma, totally in her element.

I had been relieved when it was time to go home for the day. I was exhausted from fighting my damn urge to pull her to me and take her the way I wanted to. That. Could. Not. Happen. So here I was, trying to exhaust every last muscle I had to make me get her out of my brain.

It wasn’t working.

Shoving the bar up one last time, I sat up and wiped my face with a towel. I tapped my foot to the music pounding through the hidden speakers. Whoever chose this music was my type of person. Skillet was one of my favorites.

It was nice that the company had a gym on the top floor, free for all of their employees to use. It was fully staffed with trainers and every type of machine you could imagine. I stood up and headed for the treadmill, figuring I could run a few miles and then head out to find something to eat for dinner.

“Hey,” a voice came from behind me. I’d seen the guy earlier but hadn’t been introduced to him. “You’re the new intern, right?”

“Yeah.” I held out my hand. “Carter McIntyre.”

“Ethan Bridges,” he said, shaking my hand.

“How long have you worked here?”

“Just over a year. I’m from California. I met Mr. Gibbons on a project I was managing, and the rest is history. Where are you from?”

“Florida. I just graduated from college recently. I wanted this internship more than anything.”
Until I saw Julia
. The thought snuck into my head before I could even stop it, and my mouth almost opened in surprise.
No. That is
not
true.

“I’m heading out of here, but I wanted to introduce myself. I know it’s hard moving to a new place. Every Friday, some of the guys from the office go out to shoot pool and have a few drinks, unwind from the week. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like to. No pressure, of course.”

“That would be great.” I needed to find something to do, for multiple reasons.

“Awesome. I’ll grab your number tomorrow at work. It was nice to meet you, Carter. Welcome to GSJ.” We nodded at each other and he walked away, leaving me to go pound out my frustrations on the treadmill.

“This is my
favorite
place to go shopping. My parents live just a few minutes from here. I called ahead, so we’re going to start at my dad’s favorite place to get suits and tuxes.” Julia turned her sporty blue BMW into a huge mall called Cherry Creek. I hadn’t stopped watching her out of the corner of my eye since she’d picked me up in this hot little car. The way it purred when she hit the gas, the way her leg moved when she shifted, every single thing about it exuded sex. And thinking of it that way made me think about having
her
in this car, as small as it was. I had to stop thinking this way or she was going to notice I had a
problem
.

She was wearing shorts.
Shorts.
Kill me now. Her legs were tan and smooth, her muscles flexing as she drove. She had on an equally hot shirt, tight in just the right places. Julia had declared it shopping night, since the benefit was just days away. She’d insisted on picking me up, taking me to what looked like a high-end shopping center, and then a late dinner. If there was anything I’d learned about this girl so far, it was that she was used to getting her own way, and no one told her no. Not the people at work, not her clients, no one.

I’d barely made it through the last week. We’d been working ten hours or more a day on the Adams project getting all of his specs ready. I tried to keep my distance from her, but that was hard when we spent every second of the day together. The only thing that had helped was Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons being part of many of our conversations. I could see parts of both of them in Julia.