Her fingers stumbled over the keys. She accidentally hit the button marked Shift, and the calendar on the monitor screen took a crazy lurch to the left.
“Oops,” she mumbled.
“It’s okay.” Ryder bent and leaned in closer.
Now their bodies touched, and Ryder caught her subtle scent, an ethereal perfume he couldn’t name but associated only with her. It seemed to make every nerve ending in his skin come alive. He turned his head slightly, his eyes tracing her profile; so close that he could see the muscles in her throat move as she gulped.
“Ryder, your schedule won’t be—”
“Not to worry,” he said huskily, pressing a key that righted the contents on the screen.
Joanna trembled. They were finally touching, and she wanted to be even closer to him. Their eyes met, and she knew that what she saw in his was reflected in her own. Desire. Excitement. And affection.
“I can’t think.” Her voice was faint, but laced with wry humor. “Not a good thing when I’m supposed to be working, Ryder.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll coach you,” he murmured, his lips against her hair.
He made his instructions simple, taking each step so slowly and precisely that even little Felicity and Phoebe could’ve followed them. And while he spoke, his hand moved to her neck to sweep her hair from her nape.
His fingers kneaded the tense muscles there, his strokes gentle but firm. And intensely arousing. He extended the massage to her clavicle and her shoulders. Joanna squirmed in the chair, as wild, sweet, almost unbearably exciting sensations ricocheted through her.
“This is supposed to relax you,” Ryder’s low voice sounded in her ear, his breath warm against the curve of her throat. “Is it working?”
Joanna felt light-headed. She closed her eyes, concentrating hard on suppressing a moan of pure pleasure.
“It’s definitely working,” she breathed, “but I don’t know if relax is exactly the right word to describe what you’re doing to me.”
Her words had an intense effect upon Ryder, as if she’d caressed him with her delicate, long-fingered hands now resting idly on the keyboard. Raw need surged through him.
He swiveled the chair toward him, reaching down to catch Joanna’s arms and lift her to her feet.
“This is what you’re doing to me,” he growled, pulling her against him. Letting her feel the hard strength of his erection.
He slanted his mouth over hers, drinking in her small gasp, his tongue sliding over hers to rub and stroke in erotic simulation. She clung to him, holding nothing back, trapping his right thigh between hers, her hips pressed hard against him.
He slid one big hand under her skirt and cupped her intimately, shifting the hot damp silk to create friction, his fingers parting her as she shivered with uncontrolled pleasure. She groaned into his mouth and slipped her own hand between their bodies to trace the virile shape of him.
She felt him throb against her palm. He was hard, achingly hard, as ready for her as she was for him. Their kisses grew deeper and hungrier, his tongue mimicking the motions of his fingers as he caressed her.
Joanna was dizzy with passion. She wanted, she needed, she loved—
She loved him! Defying common sense and her own best advice to herself, she had fallen in love with her boss, Ryder Fortune.
Emotions that she had been suppressing broke through and overwhelmed her. She’d never felt this way before, never experienced this wanting to give to a man, to share herself with him. Now she understood why she wanted to be near him, why she’d stayed at this office with him, though he’d certainly been a bear to her at times.
But other times…she’d come to understand and admire Ryder, she enjoyed his prickly sense of humor. There were plenty of times when they were quite in sync, though even his decidedly difficult nature appealed to her.
Dealing with Ryder was challenging, and she was a person who responded well to challenge. An easy man would not interest her.
The insight was so stunning that it smashed the sensual cocoon enveloping her. Joanna was abruptly dragged back into the unwelcome realities of time and space. She and Ryder were about to make love right here in the office, right here on his big desk, whose sleek modern design made it resemble a high-tech spaceship more than a traditional piece of office furniture.
That is, she was about to make love with Ryder, the first man she’d ever considered making love to. He was about to have sex with her. There was a huge difference between those two perceptions. Woe to the fool who didn’t know it.
Joanna knew she was not a fool.
She pulled her hands away from him at the same moment she twisted her head, denying him her mouth. And before he had time to figure out what was happening, she pushed him away from her. Hard.
Ryder was left pulsing and gasping as she backed away from him, retreating to her own desk, putting it and the length of the office between them.
“Joanna.” His voice was a whisky-soft rasp. His body was tense, his face flushed with desire.
“We can’t do this, Ryder.” She braced her hands on her desktop, using it to support herself because her knees were so rubbery she worried they might buckle at any moment. She couldn’t stop shaking.
“I need you, Joanna.” It was a plea.
A hard-to-resist plea. She gazed at him, needing him, wanting him. Loving him. Emotional tears welled in her eyes, and she determinedly blinked them away.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Ryder took a few tentative steps toward her, approaching her as if she were a wild animal bent on bolting.
Well, she felt wild. And panicky. And impulsive…No, she wasn’t impulsive. “I remembered to stop and think before acting,” Joanna said, consoling herself.
Ryder looked less than pleased, though. He heaved a sigh.
“You’re right, I know you are.” He took a few steps closer. “It’s good that one of us stopped to think. This really isn’t the place for—” He glanced around the office. “It’s not the right place, but it’s the right time, Joanna. Let’s go to my apartment. Right now.”
Joanna’s jaw dropped. “Stop working in the middle of the day?” Today he kept saying things that truly amazed her.
“Yeah.” Ryder took advantage of her bemusement to close the distance between them. Before she had fully registered what he had in mind, he was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “We’re going to quit work for the day and leave the office right now, Joanna.”
Joanna let her head rest against his chest. It felt so good to be in his arms. She’d pulled away once; she didn’t know if she could marshal the willpower to do it again. Or if she even wanted to.
“We’re spending the rest of the day in my apartment, Joanna.” His fingers splayed over her stomach, sending flames of sensual fire through her. “Consider it an executive order.”
“An order from the boss?” She leaned back into him, letting the warmth of his hard frame suffuse her. “Remember that workshop the company sponsored on sexual harassment a few weeks ago?” Her voice was provocative, teasing, her slow, subtle movements against him even more so. “Your executive command could be construed as sexual harassment, Ryder.”
“You think so?” He slid his hands under her jacket. “What about this?” He cupped her breasts, his hands gliding over the smooth silk of her camisole.
“Well, if I didn’t want to—if I thought keeping my job depended on—” Her voice caught in her throat. It was becoming difficult to breathe, let alone think or speak, because his thumbs had begun to slowly brush over her nipples, which were already tight with arousal.
“True. If you didn’t want me to touch you, and if you thought keeping your job depended on it, this would definitely be sexual harassment,” Ryder concluded.
He stroked her again and again, kissing her neck, nibbling on the sensitive skin there, his lips moving in time with his caressing hands. Her hips picked up the age-old erotic rhythm, and she thrust softly against him.
“But it isn’t, is
it, Joanna?”
She had no idea what he was asking her about, nor did she care. Operating on pure feminine instinct, impulse and desire, Joanna turned in his arms and kissed him deeply, intimately, with all the passion and need of a woman in love.
“I want you so much, Joanna,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me have you.”
She inhaled sharply. “You mean, let you have sex with me?”
“You have this habit of clarifying everything!” Ryder chuckled softly, resting his forehead against hers. “You know it would be a lot more than just having sex, Joanna.”
She was losing it fast. “It would?”
“It would for me,” he admitted gruffly. “What about you?”
Joanna snuggled closer, unable to resist him. She’d stopped; she’d thought; she knew what she was doing. “I want you, too, Ryder, but it…it will complicate things between us.”
“Things have been complicated between us since the day we met, Joanna. As for your ‘life is complex enough’ theory—well, this will simplify things considerably.”
He kissed her, long and hard and deep.
The phone began to ring and kept on ringing, finally drawing them from the sweet world of passion to the mundane basics of life at the office.
“Nobody is at the reception desk. I should be there,” Joanna said quietly, though she didn’t move from his embrace. “We can’t leave the office now, Ryder. It’s too early, and we both have work to do.”
Ryder groaned. “You’re starting to sound like me.”
“Your workaholic ways are contagious.” Joanna reluctantly slipped out of his arms. “I’ll go back to the reception desk, and you call your great-aunt Kate, Ryder.”
“Joanna, will you have dinner with me tonight?” he asked as she headed toward the door. “I don’t mean a working dinner here in the office. We’ll go out. And then—”
“Yes.” She nodded her agreement. “To dinner and to ‘and then.”’
She was halfway out the door when she turned back to him, a beatific smile on her face. “But before I do anything else, I have to make your travel arrangements to D.C., Ryder.” She was thrilled she hadn’t totally forgotten that crucial task, despite some very compelling distractions.
“Book yourself a round-trip flight, too, Joanna. I want you to come with me.”
“To meet with a patent examiner?” Joanna was nonplussed. “I don’t think I’ll do you much good there, Ryder.”
“You don’t even have to go to the meeting. You can visit a museum or something. I want you with me, Joanna. Trust me, having you along will do me a lot of good.”
Ryder was smiling as he called Kate moments later to talk about what was going on with Fortune’s Design. Ryder had a detailed report to give her.
Several hours later he and Joanna were seated at a booth at La Cantina, a Mexican restaurant she had selected. Joanna had ordered her current favorite meal, spicy chicken burritos, and Ryder decided her food quirks were charming. He could hardly believe he’d been so curmudgeonly as to complain about the monotony of her choice. If Joanna wanted to eat spicy chicken burritos every day for the rest of their lives, it was fine by him.
He was so glad to be with her, so madly anticipating after dinner. Ryder felt as if he were on fire, burning with a passionate heat that only Joanna could quench. And she would. Tonight.
Seven
“The decor is very Ryder,” Joanna remarked, taking her first look at Ryder’s apartment. The combination living-dining room effectively utilized every square inch of space, and the furniture was high-tech modern.
“I’m subletting the place. It came already furnished. If you don’t like it, I’ll move and let you do the decorating.” Ryder scooped her up in his arms. “You can make the decor very-Joanna, if you want.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Promises, promises.”
He noticed the edge of anxiety in her voice. “Joanna, I’m not trying to snow you with some fast talk, I—”
“As if you could!” Joanna threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape. “Kiss me, Ryder.”
She was trying to divert him, Ryder realized. And succeeding. Her lips nibbled at his, the tip of her tongue teased him. Ryder wanted to tell her that he meant what he said, that he’d never made a similar offer to another woman before.
He was slightly awed by this latest epiphany of his. He had yet to make love with Joanna, but he was already envisioning living with her. That definitely portended something big.
What was it about her that affected him so? he mused dazedly. He was sexually attracted to her, of course, but his feelings ran so much deeper. He admired her sweetness and sensitivity. She was invariably charming and fair and kind to others, and since he often wasn’t, he appreciated those qualities in her all the more.
He liked her loyalty and her sense of humor. She was fun to be with, she made him laugh; not even his bad moods put her off. And she tried so hard. Even when Joanna made mistakes, she didn’t give up. He respected her for that.
Ryder knew he should tell her all these things, he wanted to. But he didn’t get the words out, because Joanna had pulled his head closer, deepening their kiss, and he was lost in a daze of instant passion. Striding across the room to the narrow hallway, he carried her into the apartment’s only bedroom and sat her down on the edge of the king-size bed, which nearly filled the small room.
Joanna reached out to take his hand in hers, and Ryder sat down next to her. She inched even closer to him, her blue eyes wide and warm. With desire. And permission.
Ryder cupped her cheek with his palm, and she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand, letting the warmth envelope her. A soft whimper escaped from her throat when his lips brushed hers in a sweet, tentative kiss.
Joanna wanted more.
Clutching his shoulders, she climbed onto his lap, her knees straddling his hips. He grasped her waist, steadying her as she swiftly unknotted his tie. Next, her fingers unfastened the first three buttons of his shirt and she touched her lips to the hard column of his neck.
She placed a lingering kiss there. “I want you, Ryder,” she whispered against his skin.
Her urgency incited his, and he clamped one hand behind her head, tilting it to meet his mouth. There was nothing sweet or tentative in this kiss. It was hungry and demanding, and she responded in kind.
Ryder reclined back on the mattress, taking her with him, holding her on top of him, groaning as she clung to him. One kiss blended into another until both were breathing heavily, their bodies fiery with need.
He rolled Joanna onto her back and reached for the buttons of her strawberry jacket. “Ryder.” She caught his hands, bringing his fingers to her mouth, kissing each one. “Could you turn out the lights?” she whispered.
He opened his eyes, realizing that the overhead track lighting was shining down brightly on them. “I must’ve flipped the switch on when we came into the room. I guess I did it automatically.”
“Would you flip it off?” Joanna asked again, and he quickly rose to do her bidding.
The pause gave him a moment to think. “Do you have a thing against track lighting?” he asked curiously, because he knew many people did. “Or, do you have a thing about doing it in the dark?”
“Yes,” Joanna replied, letting him sort it out.
The room was dark now, though a faint glow of light from the living room filtered through the halfclosed door. She decided it was too dim to reveal much at all.
It wasn’t only track lighting she rejected. She’d seen herself nude in brightly lit bathrooms and knew that the sight of her body was not one to be shared. Her injuries from the accident and many subsequent surgeries had resulted in a resemblance to something out of a Frankenstein horror movie. She had long, colorful tracks sewn with countless stitches, one scar meeting another, forming scar junctions.
Joanna shuddered. No, she was nothing for a lover to see.
She knew Ryder’s body would be perfect and beautiful, and while sh
e would’ve liked a clear view, she accepted having to settle for a kind of Braille interpretation of him. She would “see” him with her hands and her lips. And attempt to keep Ryder from doing the same thing with her.
That meant taking things very fast. A surge of adrenaline pumped through her and she pulled Ryder down to her, kissing him passionately. Then he took the lead, hastily tugging off his clothes and hers, dispensing with long, slow, sultry caresses. There would be plenty of time for that later, after they’d satisfied their initial, heated urgency.
Items of clothing were tossed away, landing in places all over the room. She moved her hand lower and grasped him, fast bringing him to the point where pleasure merged into pain.
“Joanna, please.” The desperation in his voice was thrilling and compelling. “I…I can’t wait any longer.”
“I can’t either, Ryder.” She pressed her lips to his. “Now, please.”
“I have to get something…” He managed to reach the drawer in the bedside stand and fumbled with an unopened box of condoms. “Not that I’ve needed these since I’ve lived here.” He gave a self-deprecatory chuckle.
“But you’re prepared.” She ran her hand along his thigh.
“No Boy Scout motto jokes, please. The truth is, I’ve been living like a monk, Joanna. But not thinking like one. I bought this after that night at Surf City and—”
“—had unmonkish thoughts about me ever since?” she teased softly. “That’s sweet, Ryder. You hid it well, though. I would’ve never guessed.”
“I didn’t intend for you to guess I was lusting after you, Joanna.”
“So that’s why you chewed me out at the office daily?”
“I didn’t chew you—”
“You did. And when you weren’t, you were freezing me out.”
“You played a pretty convincing Ice Queen yourself, Joanna.” He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. “I’m so glad that’s all behind us, baby. Finally, we’re together.”
Joanna held the sheet in place with her other hand, covering herself as she watched him sheath himself. The shadowy sight of him caused her to gape. He was so big, so strong, so gorgeous. So big.