Love Handles (31 page)

“Good.” She glowed at him.

He tried to swallow over the tension in his chest. Voice rough, he grumbled, “If you’re so grateful, you can be the one to get the coffee.”

Chapter 20

T
he potstickers were cold but she ate them anyway, poking her plastic fork into the bottom of the waxy white box without looking away from Liam’s sketches on the table. She blinked, trying to keep the black and white lines from going out of focus.

His fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Hey, hands off.” She pulled free. “If you wanted potstickers you should have ordered them for yourself, Mr. Broccoli Tofu.”

“Bev.”

She sighed and dropped the fork. “All right, go ahead. I’m too tired to eat.” She looked up into his eyes and saw amusement and something else she didn’t dare define as affection.

“Time to go home,” he said. “You’re delirious.”

She yawned, slapped a hand over her mouth, yawned again. “We can’t. We’re not done.”
And besides, I am home.
She’d already dragged her suitcase up to her grandfather’s old suite. Thank God she’d never opened up the frat lounge to the rest of the company. Once the company was solvent again she could take a bigger salary, get her own apartment, make up with her mother at her own pace.

“Close enough.” He got to his feet and gathered the papers and binders on the table. “We can finish up Monday. We’re both too tired to do anything else productive today.”

She looked at her watch. “Tonight, you mean. It’s past eight.” A sense of well-being overtook her. All day they had worked together, side by side, putting the groups together and sharing their opinions like equals. Less formal than co-workers—more like . . . friends. Even though he had to explain why they couldn’t manufacture what she wanted because their customer would never spend two hundred dollars on a t-shirt, he was never mean about it, and more than once had to educate her on the unavoidable realities of garment sourcing and manufacturing with a calm, sad smile.

“Damn, that’s all?” He got to his feet and stretched is arms over his head, sighing. “I’m getting old.”

Bev watched his t-shirt lift above the waistband of his jeans, exposing an Olympic stomach and the line of dark blond hair pointing south. “Do you miss swimming?” she asked dreamily, imagining him wet, slicing through the water.

She could see he recognized the admiration in her gaze, but instead of holding the pose for effect, he dropped his arms and tugged the shirt down, frowning, as though he didn’t like her looking at his body. “No.” He turned around and moved the garments from the wall to a rolling rack.

“Does your shoulder still hurt?” she asked, watching him carry the clothes in large armfuls. “I mean, when you do other things?”

He glanced over at her, a faint, suggestive smile in the corner of his mouth. “What kind of things?”

“What if you just swim slowly? Or focus on kicking or something. Is there anything you can do?”

“It’s not like my skin has become water soluble. I just can’t do laps.” He grimaced. “Thank God.”

“Really?” She smiled. “You wouldn’t want to do laps anymore?”

“No sane human being ever born on this earth
wants
to do laps. Granted, I knew lots of guys who did, which I submit as evidence of my theory since they were all crazy-ass bastards, much as I loved ‘em.”

“That’s pretty ironic. Swimming is the one thing I do like. Even laps. Very relaxing.”

He looked at her with interest. “Then you should do it more often. I might even reconsider my vow of lifetime lap-swimming abstinence if I get to see you in a bikini. Working on your strokes.” He raised an eyebrow, eyes sparkling.

“You
never
liked to do laps?”

He met her incredulous gaze, sighed, and shook his head. “No.”

“Then—” she hesitated, seeing his reluctance to talk, but too curious to stop. “Then why did you do it? It must have been years and years of training. The hours you must have spent in the pool—”

“You have no idea.”

“And you didn’t like it.”

“Hated every minute.” He shrugged. “Well, not all of it. I liked warming down in the hot tub. I liked my friends, traveling around the state, then the world.” His mouth quirked. “The partying.”

She knew she shouldn’t laugh but couldn’t help it. “I sure pegged you wrong,” she said, slapping her hands together with delight. “What else are you hiding? Do you spend the weekends on the couch? Have a bag-a-day Cheetos habit?”

His eyebrows came together in the middle, but his lips fought a smile. “Don’t dis Cheetos.”

“So part of you can understand why I find—say, cardio machines—unbearable.”

“Sure,” he said. “So do I.”

Surprise, surprise. “You do?”

“Yup. Never use them unless I’m desperate.”

“Never?” She narrowed her eyes. “Define ‘desperate.’”

“Raining, travel, injury—”

“Add ‘hell or high water’ and you’ve got me, too.”

“We’re practically the same person.”

She smiled, feeling warm.

He grabbed the rolling rack and rearranged the samples. “Especially when you consider we agreed on almost every design question that came up today.”

Neither spoke for a minute. The sound of San Francisco traffic filtered through the walls. “For the record I wish I didn’t find exercise so boring. It probably would be good for me.”

“You might as well say you find life boring. ‘Exercise’ is a massive overgeneralization.”

“All right. All exercise I’ve ever tried is too boring to endure.”

His smile fell. “If I could swim six hours straight outside in November with a head cold, then get up and do it again every day for ten more years, you can move your body for twenty minutes every once in a while.” Then he tilted his head and let his gaze rake down over her torso, making her pulse skip.

Undecided about how to respond to the raw sexual interest in his eyes, she pushed to her feet and gathered a stack of binders to hold over her chest. “How could you have done all of that if you hated it?”

“I was a kid. I wasn’t given a choice.”

“But at some point you were old enough to rebel.”

He wasn’t looking at her anymore, and said nothing.

“What was driving you?”

Liam shoved the rack, heavy with samples, out the door. “Can you get the rest? I don’t want the others seeing it until after we know how it goes over in Minneapolis.”

Touched a nerve, did I?
She grabbed more to add on to her stack of binders and sketches and hurried after him. “There must have been something about it that kept you going.” She lengthened her stride to catch up. “You could have traveled and partied without working so hard all those years.”

He kicked the door to his office wide open and rolled the rack inside. “Trying to psychoanalyze me, Bev?”

“No, I—” Pausing in the doorway, she rearranged the heavy stack of paper in her arms and waited for him to turn around and look at her. “Maybe a little. Was it something to do with your dad?”

The room fell silent. After a moment, he said flatly, “Did my mother tell you that?”

Surprised by the turn in his mood, she shook her head and continued walking into the room to set the things down on his desk. “Lucky guess. At dinner she mentioned he could be difficult.”

“Yeah. Well.” He moved over to the door. “Wait here while I go get the rest of the stuff so nobody sees it Monday and starts asking questions.”

He was gone. She sank down into a chair, aching to know more but aware it had been a very long day. When he came back in with the rolls of fabric in his arms, she got to her feet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. Go home and get some sleep.”

He set down the fabric behind the door and came over to where she stood at the desk, gaze sliding over her body from head to toe. Looking deep into her eyes, he brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, the corner of his mouth in a faint smile. “It’s not that late.”

Her throat tightened. For a moment she enjoyed the feel of his large, warm hand against her skin. “You’re trying to distract me.”

He moved closer, so that the hot length of him was flush against her body. “No shit.”

“Why is it so hard to talk about your father?”

He dipped his head and breathed a kiss along her temple. “Why is it so hard for you to stop talking?”

She smiled. Melted against him. “How old were you when—”

His hand came up under her sweater and rested in the small of her back, holding her firmly and still against him. “If you kiss me I’ll tell you all about it.”

Trying to overcome the building desire low in her body, Bev tilted her head up and gave him a quick peck on the chin. “There. How old?”

Chuckling, he shook his head and shoved his knee between her legs while his hand kept her body hard against his. “Younger than I am now.”

“Stop—” Her words faltered when his other hand went down over her ass and pulled her up along his hard thigh and the ridge of his erection through his jeans. “I’m guessing you were—early twenties—and Ed hired you—Oh!”

His hand unbuttoned her jeans, slid down the zipper, and then the denim was down at her knees. She felt cold air on her thighs and his fingers between her legs stroking, searching, and penetrating. His mouth came down hard on hers and then his tongue was there, demanding and hot in her mouth, skillfully teasing her lips apart while he bent her back over the desk.

Her eyes closed, and the black pool of desire swept her down, circling deeper with his touch, and she forgot what she was saying to enjoy the shimmering fire along her skin. Someone cried out.

“Hush,” he said softly. “Don’t want security to get curious.”

She tensed. “Security?”

“Kidding,” he said, kissing her neck. He trailed his fingers down her ribs and stroked the curve of her hip, his voice falling so low she could barely hear him. “You are so damn sexy. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Liam—” She tried to sit up, but he held her.

“All day, all night, all the time. I’m losing my mind.” He nuzzled his head against hers.

“The door is open.”

“There’s nobody here, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

She pushed him away. “No.”

His heavy-lidded gaze aimed downward, on her mouth, and lower, to her bare thighs. “Damn,” he whispered, clenching his jaw and running his hand over his eyes. “I am such an idiot.”

She wiggled away from him and pulled her pants up, her heart pounding. “I can’t believe we almost did that here. With the door open.” She hurried over and closed it, though the hallway was dark and silent.

Liam buttoned his jeans. “I’ve got no finesse around you. Ripping your pants off, kissing you, then mentioning security.” Jaw clenched, he looked away from her to the rack of samples next to the desk, his chest visibly rising with each breath. He pulled his cell out of his pocket, glancing at her. “I’ll call my sister and tell her to find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

He assumed—well, of course he did.

All he has to do to take over Fite is to take over you . . . 

“No,” she said. “Liam, I can’t. I know it’s reasonable for you to think I would, but no. I was tired and you have a way of getting to me and I really, no, I really can’t.”

An eyebrow went up. “Reasonable? You think I’m being reasonable?”

“To assume I’d finish what we just started. I should never have let you kiss me again. I’m sorry—”

He shoved his desk chair out of his way with his knee and walked over to her. “Let me kiss you?”

“Great. Now you’re angry.”

“Bev, just what do you think is going on here between us? Do you think I want this to happen?”

She stood up taller. Met his glare. “Obviously.” But she felt herself sinking into a large gray area. She had no idea what he wanted, or why.

“You’re my boss. Which would be bad enough, but you’re a boss I had vowed to get rid of. Every minute I spend with you that might keep you here at Fite is a mistake. It takes me farther from what I want.” He stared at her, calm and terrifying, transformed before her eyes back into the ice cube.

“What else do you want, Liam? You’ve still got your job, more power than ever, and the biggest paycheck around.” She was determined not to add,
and my weak, stupid heart
. “What else is there?”

“What I deserve,” he said. “I deserve more than this.”

A clammy fear settled over her. She didn’t know if he was talking about his job or their relationship.

They didn’t have a relationship. That was the point.

He looked away from her. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You want to know my deepest, darkest secrets, then get upset when you hear them.” He shoved his hand through his hair again. “Yes, I wanted more than working for you. There is nothing insulting in that. I’ve been here over ten years—you’ve been here ten minutes. I don’t care how smart or talented you are, I shouldn’t have to work for you.”

“You’re just angry I didn’t let you have sex with me.”

“Oh, I’m the one. I’m the one who wants it, not you, of course not you. Not a nice girl like you.”

She poked a finger into his chest, annoyed she was shaking. “While I appreciate your disappointment in your career and, apparently, your minor frustration at not getting laid at the office whenever you want, it is exactly why we are not ever going to touch each other again.”

He glanced down at her finger. His voice fell. “I wouldn’t classify my frustration as minor.”

She pulled her hand back. “Sex with me can’t be your consolation prize for having to work here. My body is not part of your benefits package.”

He stared at her, eyes narrowing to slits. “
Your
body?”

“That’s what I am to you, right? You were stuck with me and decided to make the best of the situation,” she said. “Isn’t that what you said? You’re an efficient guy?”

“You keep leaving your decisions out of this scenario. You were an active participant in each stage of the game. So tell me, Bev, what did you get out of fucking the hired help? I doubt it was my charming conversation.” He exhaled loudly and stalked over to the rolling rack, then shoved the samples back and forth, making the hangers squeal on the metal bar. “I see how you look at me. Your body’s not in the benefits package—mine is.”