Best Erotic Romance 2014 (17 page)

“Not disturbing you, am I, Bonnie?” he said, as he shrugged out of a sharply cut black coat flecked white with snow.

“I was just switching off,” said Bonnie, pointing toward where the remote fell. “Would you mind?”

Her cheeks burned. She hated Jason Haynes and hated the idea of him coming to her apartment. But the boss had left her with no choice. Jason needed information to complete some of her tasks and there was no way she was venturing back onto those icy sidewalks with both arms in plaster.

Jason bent down and retrieved the remote, silencing the gruesome noises coming from the television.

“Good to see you're finding useful ways to fill the days,” he said.

Bonnie scowled but she knew better than to dig herself into a hole by trying to justify her viewing choice.

“Okay, Jason, let's get on with it,” she said.

He nodded and she watched him as he moved one of her dining chairs closer to the couch and retrieved his case. His jet-black hair, always so perfect in the office, was a little wind-ruffled and speckled with rapidly melting snow, and his clean-shaved cheeks were rosy with cold. But other than that, and a slight water mark on one of his shoes, he was his usual pristine self. His charcoal suit was too expensive to show a crease and his shirt-tie combination was, as ever, in relentless good taste. How did he afford to dress so well given they were both doing the same job? Bonnie felt positively dowdy, slumped on the couch in her sweats.

He pulled a pile of folders out of his case and settled on the chair.

Bonnie sat forward on the couch and tried to feign interest. God, this was awkward.

“You want coffee?” she said. “Sorry, I should have suggested it before you sat.”

“I've gotta make my own, right?” he said with a wry smile.

“'fraid so,” Bonnie said apologetically.

“I bet you could do with one?”

“Only if you're…”

“Show me where everything is, and I'll make you the best cup you've had all day.”

“Easy,” laughed Bonnie, “Seeing as you're only in competition with my mom.”

The ice was broken, so to speak, but once they were seated again, albeit with great coffee, Jason was all business. He opened the first file on his lap and pulled out a tender document Bonnie recognized. All those hours of slaving before Thanksgiving, distilled into four sheets of paper.

“The Bertram tender?” she said. “How's it going?”

“Look, Bonnie, I had to put off submitting it.”

“What the fuck? It was supposed to go out the day I fell. It was all ready.”

“I was going to send it off but then I gave it a quick read-through, just for typos.”

“And?”

“And you'd made some pretty basic mistakes in your calculations.”

Bonnie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“Jason, I went through those figures half a dozen times. There were no mistakes. And Walter approved them.”

Walter Brown was their mutual boss.

“There were mistakes, Bonnie.”

Jason's tone brooked no argument, but that was exactly what he was going to get.

“Who do you think you are, coming in here and acting like the boss when, in fact, we're both at the same level and I've been working for the company longer?”

She'd been doing these tenders for years; he'd probably missed a stage out of the calculation and then assumed it was her error. But Jason didn't rise to the bait.

“I went over it with Walter and he agreed with me,” he said calmly. “I submitted the new version this morning.”

“Jesus, Jason, you can't do that. Bertram Brothers is my client.”

“Bonnie, we work for the same company, for fuck's sake. They're all
our
clients. You messed up and I got it sorted. Don't be angry with me for saving your ass.”

“Saving my ass! Yeah, and I wonder how Walter views it.”

“If you don't like what's going on in the office without you, might I suggest you hurry on back?”

Bonnie was furious, furious enough to take a swing at him with one of her casts. But luckily for Jason, he was saved by the bell. Bonnie's cell phone sounded the klaxon that indicated her mother was on the line and, still glaring at Jason, she picked up.

“Mom, I can't talk now, I'm in a meeting.”

“With the man who wants your job, right?”

This topic of conversation had to be right off-limits, with Jason sitting opposite her, surveying her apartment while he waited for her to finish.

“Mom!”

“Bonnie, it's important. It's the car. I can't get it to start and your father thinks the carburetor's gone, whatever that is. But basically I'm not going to be able to get over to do your dinner.”

“Shit! Sorry, Mom. When do you think you'll be able to get here next?”

“I'll let you know. You better call a friend.”

Bonnie dropped the cell phone on the couch with a sigh. Jason had obviously been all ears.

“Problem?”

“Evidently,” snapped Bonnie. Jason was not the person in whom she wanted to confide her domestic problems. And damn him for sitting there looking so cool, calm and collected—not to
mention bloody handsome—as she got more and more flustered.

“Bonnie, I was only going to check if you needed any help with things,” said Jason, “but obviously you don't.”

“That's right, Jason, I don't. Now, if we're done?”

“We're not.” Jason pulled another file from his pile. “Walter wanted me to talk to you about a new tender, for a new client. He thought your input would be useful.”

“Really?”

“Bonnie, grow up. I'm not out to take your job or steal your next promotion. Let's go through this tender and make it the best we can and then, seeing as your mom can't come, I'll make your dinner before I go.”

And as if to make peace with her, he smiled at her. The full-megawatt Jason Haynes smile; the one that made her stomach flip even as she glared back at him. She bit back the sarcastic reply on the tip of her tongue.

“Thanks, Jason. Her car won't start, and I'm pretty useless on my own with these.” She held up her two casts in an apologetic gesture.

Jason was as good as his word. They worked on the tender for an hour and Bonnie had to grudgingly admit to herself he knew what he was talking about. The result was better than anything she could have produced on her own. When they finished, Jason stashed all the files back into his attaché case.

“Now I'm starving,” he said. “Is there enough for two?”

This couldn't have surprised Bonnie more. In the three months they had been working together they hadn't so much as shared a cup of coffee let alone a meal together.

“I don't know what Mom was going to cook but there's always pasta and tomatoes and bacon, if you can do something with those?”

Jason headed for the kitchen and Bonnie struggled up from
the couch to follow him. If she couldn't cook, the least she could do was tell him where everything was. She perched herself on a stool at the breakfast bar, letting the weight of her casts rest on the counter.

“Wine?” said Jason.

“There's a bottle of white in the fridge,” said Bonnie. “Glasses are over in that top cupboard, and you'll find a corkscrew in the drawer.”

Minutes later Jason had the bottle open and Bonnie was listening to the familiar
glug-glug-glug
of wine being poured. He held out a glass to her.

“I can't hold it,” she said.

“Got any straws?”

When she shook her head, Jason came round to her side of the breakfast bar and slowly raised the glass up to her lips. She took a sip and, when he tilted it again, a large gulp.

“Thanks. That's the first mouthful of wine I've had since the accident and, boy, does it taste good.”

Jason laughed and gave her another sip. Then he turned his attention to chopping onions and tomatoes to make a sauce for the pasta.

“What else have you been missing since you've had those things on your arms?” he said as they sat opposite each other at the dining table thirty minutes later, large dishes of pasta steaming in front of them.

He'd been most attentive throughout the cooking process, and Bonnie was on to a second glass of wine.

“Taking a bath,” she said. “I have to go in the shower with plastic bags on my arms and mom has to help me wash my hair. It's humiliating, like being a little kid again.”

“You don't like people looking after you, do you, Bonnie? You'd rather do it all on your own.”

He saw she was struggling to get the spaghetti onto her fork.

“Here, let me,” he said, shuffling his chair around to her side of the table.

“Nobody likes to be babied,” she said.

He gave her another mouthful of wine and then fed her some pasta. Bonnie wondered if she was getting a little drunk but it was such a pleasant change from the finger food her mom had been preparing that she didn't care.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Jason. “It's nice to let someone else take the strain, from time to time.”

He swept a stray lock of hair back from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. It was a totally natural gesture, with no self-consciousness at all. It made Bonnie wonder if he'd had experience in looking after invalids.

“So I suppose you can't get dressed or undressed on your own, either?”

Bonnie felt her face flame red. It seemed like such a silly thing to get coy about, given the circumstances, but suddenly all she could think about was Jason's tanned and sculpted hands removing her clothing. All of it.

“I don't need any help from you, if that's what you were offering.”

She heard his sharp intake of breath at the idea of it. It was time Jason Haynes got going. But he obviously didn't think so; he topped her glass up with wine and held it to her mouth.

“No, Jason, I've had enough.”

He immediately put the glass down.

“Sorry if my behavior's been a little crass,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?”

With a rush of heat between her legs, Bonnie suddenly knew
exactly what she'd like Jason to do for her. She could hardly believe what she was thinking, but then these bloody casts meant she'd had to go two weeks already without an orgasm. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you could ask your mom to do for you.

“Bonnie?” Jason's voice cut into her thoughts like a knife into butter. “What is it?”

Bonnie shook her head but her face flushed with embarrassment. Again.

“I'm fine, Jason. Thanks for everything you've done.”

Jason got up and carried their empty plates back to the kitchen.

“When d'you think you'll be back in the office?”

Bonnie shrugged. “As soon as these are off.”

“We're missing you.” Jason took a step toward her. “Correction. I'm missing you.”

Without thinking, Bonnie stepped in to meet him. He put his hands on her shoulders and his dark, sultry eyes locked on to hers. It seemed a little surreal for him to say he was missing her at work and to now be standing in what certainly qualified as each other's personal space.

“Bonnie…” His voice sounded an octave lower than usual.

Thinking about it afterward, Bonnie never knew what possessed her to do as she did next. Perhaps it was the sexual frustration brought about by two weeks in plaster casts or perhaps it was the proximity of a good-looking man in a small space after half a bottle of wine. She tilted her face upward, raised herself on her toes and stretched forward until her lips just brushed against his. Her casts were too unwieldy for her to put her arms around his neck; they hung limp at her side.

For a split second, she thought that was it. He didn't respond and she wondered if she'd misheard what he'd said about missing
her. Her heart was racing and she took a deep breath, but the intoxicating smell of him made things worse rather than better. She knew she should step back and apologize but she was too unsure of her legs to move.

Then, as if waking from a trance, Jason did respond. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her body tight against his, and his mouth took possession of hers. There was nothing tentative about this kiss. His lips encircled hers and before she realized what was happening his tongue had pushed its way into her mouth. Desire surged up through her belly and she pushed her tongue against his in return. As her legs turned to water, she pressed her hips against his; she could feel the growing bulge in his pants pressing against her stomach.

Bonnie would have been fooling herself if she'd pretended she hadn't imagined kissing Jason in a variety of office situations. But she'd never for one minute thought her fantasies would come to pass. Let alone in her own apartment.