Intractable Souls : Book 1 of the Bound for Ireland Series (21 page)

With that, he turns to Olivia and holds out
his hand. “We’re done here.”

Damn that’s hot! She has a brief fantasy of
wrestling him to the ground and having her way with him right
there. Or maybe inside the car? Jim can watch if he wants, she
really doesn’t care, all she can think about is getting him in
between her legs and finally put an end to the relentless throbbing
there. She blushes at the thought as she takes his hand and follows
him out of the office.

A rather stunned salesman finally speaks.
“Mr. O’Connell, I think you’ve made a mistake. I couldn’t possibly
sell you this car with all these options for this price.

Olivia begins to feel anxious. “Ethan?
Should we go back and re-negotiate.”

He squeezes her hand in a reassuring manner.
“Don’t say a word. Just keep walking.”

Ethan drives her home, puts the car in park
and turns to her. “Thank you for coming with me today. It was…
quite an experience.” The corner of his mouth begins to curl into a
smile.

“Are you referring to the car shopping
itself or my test drive?” For her everything they did today was
quite an experience.

“Ah, well the test drive was an adventure on
its own.”

“Yes… well I like my music loud… my cars
fast and my men in...” She halts herself and looks over at him.

He raises his eyebrows in amusement as he
finishes her sentence. “IN CONTROL?”

She puts her hands to her face embarrassed.
“I can’t believe I almost said that out loud.” She’s horrified. She
has become so comfortable with his companionship today the words
just popped out of her mouth.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Olivia. That wasn’t a
secret.” He gives her a cocky grin.

Horror strikes at her. “I should go inside
now.” Undoing her seat belt, she picks up her purse and tries to
get out of there quickly in order to avoid an awkward conversation
that she doesn’t want to have.

Ethan can’t stand the thought of too much
time passing before he sees her again. Needing to find a way to
spend more time with her, he reaches over and puts his hands on her
knee. The electricity travels through them like a closed circuit,
making her nerves tingle every time he touches her. “Don’t run
away, I want to ask you something.” She stops, looks down at his
hand on her thigh and then looks up into those dangerously green,
bedroom eyes and waits.

“I need to start looking for a permanent
place to live. I’m going to book some appointments to go look at
apartments. Would you go with me?

She’s surprised by his invitation. “You want
me to go with you? To look at apartments?”

“Yes, why do you sound so surprised? You
were a great help shopping for a car. Why not an apartment?”

“Is this apartment for you to live in?”

“Yes of course. That’s an odd question?” He
looks at her perplexed.

“Not really odd. You could be looking for an
apartment for a girlfriend that’s coming over from Ireland to be
with you.

“There is no girlfriend.” He’s exhausted at
the number of times he needs to reaffirm that. ”So, will you go
with me?“

“I suppose.” She says apprehensively, as it
questioning her strength and ability to continue to resist him.

When she walks up the pathway to the back
door, she glances back at him several times. He waits until she’s
inside safely, feeling very pleased at the knowledge that she’s
drawn to him when he takes control. Olivia will soon discover that
Ethan is more competent in his seduction skills than he is at
negotiation, and he ALWAYS gets his way in negotiation.

Olivia puts her phone down on the table and
plops herself down on the couch with a very large glass of wine.
Drinking half way through the glass in just a few minutes, she’s
already feeling a little buzz. Turning on the radio, she heads back
into the kitchen to grab the bottle and stands at the counter,
flipping through mail as she becomes aware of the lyrics of the
song playing. Is it just the wine or does every song that’s played
in the past 10 minutes have explicit lyrics about sex? She changes
the station several times and can’t find one that doesn’t. The wine
helps encourage the hormones that she’s been wrestling and she’s
painfully aware that she must take care of this need soon. But Noah
seems like a no go. Taking another large swallow of her wine, she
wonders about Ethan. Butterflies!

She powers up her laptop. Hmmm Facebook. Her
hand moves the computer mouse so it hovers over the link and
hesitates briefly. Why is she doing this? Being with Ethan would be
a mistake right?

She types in his name and clicks on his
profile picture and waits. In seconds she’s on his page and not
surprised to find security locked down tight. He would never give
just anyone access to view private information meant for friends.
She sighs in disappointment. Her hand subconsciously moves the
mouse over the button “add as friend”. She takes another huge mouth
full of wine as her finger clicks, sending the request. She closes
her eyes and freezes for a moment. Already regretting what she’s
done, she tips the bottle and refills her glass.

Within seconds, she receives his
acknowledgement and an update that reads ‘Olivia James is now
friends with Ethan O’Connell.’ Ethan is running on the treadmill in
the basement, smiling at his victory. Tucking his phone back in his
pocket, he ramps up the speed.

Now having access to his profile page, she
begins to creep through his information and pictures. She’s shocked
at his friends and followers 797 in total… almost all women she
notices as she scrolls down the page. His relationship status says
“single” but his profile page is full of virtual flowers and flirts
sent by his many female admirers. Olivia rolls her eyes at how
cheesy they are. She closes the page, deciding that maybe she
really doesn’t want to know any more about all the women in his
life.

With the wine weighing heavily on her
eyelids, she wanders up stairs to get ready for bed. She stands
staring at the bed in her room for several minutes before finally
sitting on the side of it. Laying back she tries to get
comfortable, staring at the ceiling for what seems like forever and
thinking about Ethan. Feeling empty, after spending an incredible
day with him she picks up her phone and sends him a message.

From Olivia: Goodnight Ethan

Ethan has finished his workout and is
sitting in the dark on the patio, watching the stars and thinking
about her, when his phone beeps. He’s filled with nervous
excitement when he sees her name. Wow! He has never felt like this
before.

From Ethan: Goodnight princess. Sweet
dreams

From Olivia: I keep meaning to ask you why
you started calling me princess.

From Ethan: It was something you talked
about when you were sick.

From Olivia: How embarrassing

From Ethan: Does it bother you?

From Olivia: No, I was just curious.
Good night

From Ethan: Bonne nuit ma
belle. Tu es dans mes pensee. Je reve de tes yeux jour et nuit.

Holy shit! He speaks French? Of course he
does, she thinks, mocking herself for being surprised. She knows
that Aurora Technologies has an office in France because Scott has
had to go there. Being the SVP of international sales would surely
require Ethan to know the language.

French is an official language of Canada but
she only studied it until high school. She loved it and wanted to
continue but dropped the university course in favor of another
subject. A decision she has always regretted. The thought of him
whispering sweet nothings into her ear in French makes her insides
burn with desire, something she might admit to him some day. But
not today…

From Olivia : My French is a little rusty.
Did you just say that my nuts are beautiful and that you are
attracted to squirrels? and then something about egg yolks, that
I'm certain I don’t want to know about.

Ethan shakes his head and laughs. He’s in so
much trouble with this woman. She makes him think of nothing else
but her, and now he finds himself thinking about sharing the rest
of his life with her. Dangerous thoughts! Thoughts that he never
expected to have. EVER! Wanting to hear her voice one last time
before he goes to sleep, he hits dial on his phone. She answers
instantly, laughing into the phone.

“Not even close.” He says, trying to
suppress his laughter. “But then I’m pretty sure you’re just
messing with me again.”

“Me? Messing with you?” She feigns
innocence.

The night air is cool and damp, making his
voice raspy. “ I said… good night beautiful. You’re in my thoughts.
I dream of your eyes, night and day.”

She takes a deep breath. Reading it in
French was pretty sexy but hearing him say it in English in a low
sensual tone with his Irish accent is so much more. She’s not even
sure if there is a word that exists to accurately describe the
feeling that makes her experience the simultaneous belly flip,
heart flutter, wet panties.

It seems like forever before she can find
her voice. “Good night, Ethan.” She finally says, still trying to
hide the way he affects her.

“Good night, Olivia.” He grins from ear to
ear. She’s not hiding a thing. He’s getting under her skin. He can
tell.

Thrilled to be back to work finally, Olivia
spends her morning chatting with concerned co-workers who stop by
to see how she’s feeling. Since she insisted on working from home,
her backlog is at a minimum giving her time to settle back in
slowly.

Rachel shoots into her office with a couple
of files and hands them to her. “Hey slacker! Welcome back.”

“Thanks! What are these?” Flipping open the
files, she starts reading through the papers.

“It’s a conundrum.” Rachel laughs.

“Thanks, that tells me absolutely nothing.”
She scowls at her and then raises her eyebrows waiting for her to
elaborate.

“Trent was working on this one and he’s come
to an impasse. The Client has some specific needs regarding their
accounting procedures and he couldn’t find a business solution with
the software they purchased.”

“AND?”

“AND… the big boss is confident that you can
resolve the problem.”

Olivia sighs. “Ok, leave it with me and I’ll
look at it.”

“You’ll need to call the client and find out
exactly what their needs are. The only feedback we got from them
was that Trent was a moron.”

Olivia shakes her head. “Oh great, I love
projects that start out with smoothing over someone else’s
mess.”

“Thank you!” Rachel is already half way out
the door as she says it.

Olivia has a brilliant mind for problem
solving and a stubborn determination that settles for nothing less
than success. Unfortunately, that makes her the go to girl for all
the difficult cases. Rachel has begged her many times to start up
her own consulting business but Olivia likes working with the
clients and helping them find solutions for their business. It’s
what she does best and what she finds most fulfilling about her
career. Unlike Ethan, she’s not interested in sitting in an office
at the south end of the building overseeing operations and
negotiating contracts.

The city of Toronto skyline is reflected in
the glass exterior of the high-rise office building that is home to
the Canadian branch of Aurora Technologies. Ethan waits impatiently
in the reception area for the elevator to make its way to the
penthouse floor. When the heavy metal doors finally open, John
McCabe strolls out dragging his luggage. Ethan stares at him and
looks at his watch. “It’s about bloody time.”

John pulls his luggage off to the side and
out of the way. “If you missed me that much then you should have
picked me up yourself.”

Both men break into a smile and throw their
arms around each other, patting the other on the back in a
masculine embrace. Ethan pulls away. “It’s good to see you. I have
a lot of things that I need your help with. I’ve set up an office
for you across from mine.”

Turning, Ethan bumps into Hannah and reaches
out to grab for her as she topples. “Hannah, I’m so sorry.” As she
regains her balance, she throws her weight forward and lands
against him. There is an awkward moment as she clings to his chest
longer than is necessary. “Are you ok?” Ethan pries her away as he
waits for her answer.

Standing back on her own two feet, she
smoothes her dress and adjusts her breasts. John’s eyes open wide
as he glances over at Ethan, noting that he’s doing his best to
look anywhere but at her chest. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. I just wanted to see if
there was anything I could do for your friend.” She glances over at
John and gives him a seductive smile.

“Thank you, but we’re fine.” Ethan crosses
his arms and waits for John to break his stare. As they make their
way to his office, John glances back at her for another look.
Standing in the middle of the hallway, she raises her hand,
wiggling her fingers at him in a flirty wave.

When they’re far enough down the hallway,
John looks at Ethan and smiles. “How do you concentrate on work
with that around all day?”

“Easy. She’s not my type.” He shrugs his
indifference.

There is nothing in his tone that suggests
that he’s joking but John laughs. “Who are you kidding? She’s
EXACTLY your type.”

Swinging open his office door, he lets John
enter first. “Not anymore.”

Sitting down on the couch, John leans back,
resting his arms along the top. He watches as Ethan pulls out his
chair and sits behind his desk, adjusting his laptop to the side so
they can see each other. “And I suppose Olivia James is your type?”
Ethan smiles when he hears her name, making John sigh in
disappointment. “Jesus, I know that look.”