Night Pleasures. Jule McBride

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      “Futuristic,” she agreed, then pointed. “Voilà. Welcome to your work station.”

      A shiny steel desk topped by a computer, faced an identical computer on an identical shiny steel desk. He motioned a thumb toward the other computer. “And that?”

      “Is my work space.”

      “So…” Seating himself in the regulation chair provided, he set his briefcase beside the desk and shot her a playful glance, realizing that somewhere during the introductions, he’d decided to seduce the truth out of her. The woman couldn’t be a spy. No way. “This could get dangerous,” he began. “Am I really supposed to face you all day, with nothing between us but a thin partition of glass?”

      “Plexiglas,” she corrected mildly, circling it. “And don’t get any ideas. Big Brother is always watching.”

      “Ah…” His throat went dry as he surveyed her. “You have a sense of humor.”

      “Don’t tell anyone.” Her lip-glossed mouth suddenly came to life, twitching with amusement, making him realize how unusually full it was, how kissable. “As you know,” she continued, “everything here at IBI is top secret.”

      He raised a dark eyebrow. “You included?”

      She shrugged, the lift of her inward-curving shoulders correcting her posture, making him notice the enticing tilt of her breasts once again. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to feel left out.”

      For a second, he almost forgot she was a suspect he’d been sent to investigate. “I’d ask you on a date,” he said, surprised by and enjoying their banter, “but I’m afraid we’re being taped.”

      “And photographed.” Selena nodded easily at a ceiling-mounted camera. “Say cheese.”

      “Cheese,” he repeated, wishing she wasn’t quite so obviously aware of IBI’s security system. Playing the part of a temporary worker, he added, “The last division where I was sent had cameras everywhere. Do you mind being watched all day?”

      Her alluring eyes suddenly seemed too sharp, too intelligent. She surveyed him a long moment, then finally shrugged. “Depends who’s doing the watching.”

      Everything about her bespoke the tension of contradictions, he decided. She wasn’t noticeably pretty, but she was sexy as hell. Her eyes had remained unconsciously seductive, even as her obviously intelligent mind assessed him. He said, “What if I’m doing the watching?”

      She smirked, those tantalizing lips twisting again, almost petulantly. “Then cameras would make me feel safer.”

      “You don’t like men to provide your feelings of safety?”

      “Men are hardly safe,” she retorted. In the wake of a revealing blush that followed, she quickly added, “What? Do women always ask you to play the role of Great Protector?”

      “Do you distrust men in general,” he pressed trying not to sound too curious, “or did some specific male hurt you?”

      Now she didn’t look the least perturbed. “I asked first.”

      “Do woman ask me to protect them?” he repeated. “Never. I think they find me too dangerous.”

      “Or commitment shy.”

      Hearing the truth from her tasty-looking lips was more annoying than it should have been. This was supposed to be his game. His turf. His rules. He was here to watch her, and decipher her diary, which he felt more sure than ever wasn’t in secret code. He fought the urge to tell her their sparring was getting a little too personal. Mostly because he had a suspicion that everything about him and Selena Silverwood was about to get personal. “I commit to plenty of things,” he said, running a palm over his jet hair, loosening the waves as he brushed them back. “I’ve made a fledgling commitment to a dog named M, for instance.”

      The truth was, he’d never stayed with a woman longer than six months. That was his rule of thumb. Leave them before they leave you. Suddenly feeling edgy, Edison considered telling Eleanor she’d have to send down one of the other guys. Tom. Steve. Gary Hughes. Anybody. Selena Silverwood was going to be a royal pain in the butt. In her pictures, she’d looked unattractive. In person, she was more physically alluring than she knew. But her presumptive air was now threatening to bring out the worst in him. “You know so much about me,” he continued, chiding. “What? Did somebody send over my dossier?”

      When she grinned, now seemingly enjoying this, the way her face lit up made his heart stutter. “Does the idea make you nervous?” she teased. “What are you hiding? Six ex-wives? Arrests for unspeakable acts?”

      “You’ve got a vivid imagination.”

      She released a soft, musical chuckle. “So I’m told.”

      His eyes fixed on hers. “I like imagination in a woman.”

      She surveyed him curiously. “Really?”

      He nodded. “Yeah. I like a sharp tongue, too. Do you always flirt with temporaries?”

      “Flirting?” Her voice turned mild. “Is that what I’m doing?”

      “Definitely. And it’s starting to sound like an invitation.”

      “Then I’d better quit. IBI might fire us.”

      His eyes lingered on her mouth a second too long, and in that second, he knew he’d happily take his pink slip if it meant heading for a bedroom with her. “If you need anything, let me know,” she suddenly said. “And you really should read the employee manual. It’s in the top, right-hand drawer of the desk. Our rules differ from other departments’.”

      “A man can’t break rules unless he knows them,” he conceded.

      “I wouldn’t know,” she assured him. “I never break rules.”

      Raw lust made him want to believe it. He’d never fall for a traitor, which was what she’d be if her diary really was written in code. While she busied herself with work, he leaned down, drew the black-bound diary from his briefcase and surreptitiously inserted it between the open pages of the employee manual. Even if she noticed the book, she wouldn’t recognize it as her own diary. Lifting both books to desk level, he tipped the cover of the manual in her direction. “The employee manual. Thanks for recommending it. It looks interesting.”

      She merely rolled eyes that glinted with amusement and began working again. Relaxing, Edison glanced down and realized the diary had a title: Night Pleasures. Not exactly what he’d expected. Frowning, he drew a sharp breath as his eye caught a sentence fragment in midparagraph: “…she panted softly, breathlessly, as she ran through the near dark.” His body tensed. What was going on here? His heartbeat quickened as he scanned the rest of the page.

      …her body ached, swelling with awareness and burning with fire as her eyes flitted over the floor-to-ceiling mirrored walls. Long-handled torches lined the smoky, scented passageway, and sensuous tongues of flame licked the mirrors. That same fire stroked inside her, but she knew the burning heat was nothing compared to what she’d experience when she felt the warm, sometimes gentle, hands of the man she sought, СКАЧАТЬ