Читать книгу Indecent Suggestion - Elizabeth Bevarly - Страница 8

“WE HAVE TO STOP THIS, Turner.”

Becca Mercer whispered the warning inside the dark storage closet where she and her co-worker had escaped from the drudgery of their jobs to enjoy their dirty little secret in private. But even as they basked in the afterglow of their illicit act, she knew what she was saying was pointless. It wouldn’t be long before their sordid desires roared to life again. Those desires—nay, those needs—seemed to have lives of their own. For now, though, she lay back and relaxed, closing her eyes to better enjoy the pure satisfaction that curled through her.

She wouldn’t trade anything for these stolen moments with Turner. And she was so lucky to have someone like him, someone whose appetite for such forbidden behavior were as relentless as her own. With his blue, blue eyes and unruly black hair, he was wanted by many women. Leisurely, sensuously, she ran a hand through her own shoulder-length, tawny tresses, loving how the scent of their recent act still lingered there.

They often met in the tiny, cramped closet at the end of the hall, whenever the pull of their shared passion was too much to resist. Out of nowhere, the two of them would glance up from their cubicles opposite each other in the offices of Englund Advertising, and their gazes would meet, and they’d know they had to get in a quickie now. Sometimes, especially if they were working under the strains of a deadline, they’d have to escape to this closet three, four, even five times a day. That was how desperate they became.

“We have to stop sneaking around this way,” she added softly, knowing it was true, even if she dreaded putting a halt to their workday trysts. “What if someone catches us? What if someone finds out what we’ve been doing?”

“What if someone does?” Turner whispered in reply. “I’m tired of hiding it, anyway. We’re consenting adults, Becca. We’re responding to a natural impulse, that’s all.”

“It’s not natural,” she countered. “Not when it’s as strong as this. And we’re not responding to it, we’re…we’re succumbing to it. What happens to us is way too powerful to be a simple response.”

He murmured a satisfied sound and nudged her knowingly. “Yeah, and that’s just the way I like it, baby.”

“But we have to stop,” she insisted again. “It could cost us our jobs. And it could hurt us both in our personal lives. It’s getting dangerous.”

“It may be getting dangerous,” he agreed, “but you can’t stop any more than I can. We’ve tried, Becca. You know we have. But we always end up doing it again. It’s consumed us ever since that first time when we were teenagers. There’s no way we can stop. We’re both insatiable.”

True enough, she thought. Because she knew Turner McCloud as well as she knew herself. They’d become friends in first grade, when their shared last initial had landed them close together in classroom seating arrangements. And they’d discovered an immediate connection when both brought peanut butter and banana samwidges in their identical Star Wars lunch boxes. Year after year, thanks to the popularity and convenience of alphabetization, they’d ended up together, and over the years, their friendship grew.

Frustrated as teenagers by the restraints and conventions of small-town Indiana life, they’d experienced the usual adolescent flirtations with wild behavior. But one behavior in particular captured and enraptured them, and they’d enjoyed it as often as they could. Knowing they shouldn’t, they’d nevertheless been unable to resist. But they’d told no one about it, fearful others would try to make them stop. After high school, they’d attended Indiana University together and, away from parental supervision, discovered their compulsion only grew. As adults, they’d found work in Indianapolis just so they could stay together, and in an urban environment more tolerant of such things, they’d found innumerable ways and places to indulge their desires.

Unfortunately, their workplace wasn’t one of them.

However, that didn’t keep them from indulging here.

“Remember the first time?” Turner asked now, his voice slicing through the darkness the way it had that first night they’d been so overcome as teenagers. His voice became more rushed, more agitated as he added, “It was so forbidden, and we knew we shouldn’t. Everybody warned us about the dangers, told us we were too young, and we wouldn’t be able to handle it. But we more than handled it, didn’t we, Becca?” he murmured enthusiastically. “And it was so good that first time, we had to do it again right away. Hell, you were even more anxious to do it than I was. Remember?”

Her eyes still closed, she let the memories of that first time wash over her. They’d been juniors in high school, and had wanted to escape the goody-two-shoes punch and cookies and pop music at the homecoming dance. After driving around for an hour, they’d parked on the banks of the Ohio River and climbed into the back seat of Turner’s red Camaro. A full moon had glistened on the water, a cool breeze had rushed through the open windows and they’d both been edgy and eager. One thing had led to another, and then, suddenly… Well, suddenly, they’d been caught in the throes of the most pleasurable sensations either had ever experienced.

“You bet I remember,” she whispered. “It was good, wasn’t it? Most people say that first time isn’t enjoyable. A lot of people have trouble with it. But you and me…”

She didn’t have to finish. She knew Turner would remember as well as she did. Everything had worked like a well-oiled machine that night. They’d been naturals.

“I remember when you took it out that first time and how I ran my fingers over it,” she continued reverently. “I was afraid to touch it at first, but when I took it in my hand, it felt so good to just hold it and look at it. I’d never seen one up close like that before. It was so long and smooth. So…forbidden. And then, when you told me to put it in my mouth, it was so exciting. So arousing. I wanted it in my mouth. I couldn’t wait to close my lips over it. And I loved it when I started sucking it. I kept sucking it harder and harder, and it tasted so good, felt so good, and I just filled my mouth with—”

“I remember,” he said thickly, cutting her off. “It was incredible that night.” He inhaled deeply, releasing the breath in a long, lusty sigh. “Again, Becca,” he said roughly. “Just one more time, before we go back to work. That’ll get me through the rest of the day. I need it.”

“Okay,” she immediately conceded…yielded…succumbed…whatever. “I need it, too, Turner. I need it so bad.”

“C’mon, baby,” he crooned, “light my fire.”

Becca’s heartbeat quickened as she reached toward him, a thrill of exhilaration racing through her. But just as she closed her fingers over his long, smooth rod and drew it into her mouth, just as she was indeed about to light his fire, the door to the closet was thrown open wide, and the harsh light of day—or, rather, the nasty glare of fluorescent lighting, which never did anybody’s complexion any good—poured into their cloistered little grotto.

“What the devil is going on in here?” a booming voice exclaimed.

And not just any booming voice, either. Robert Englund’s booming voice. And not just any Robert Englund, either. The Robert Englund who’d lent his name to the company Becca and Turner worked for. And she knew that if there were three words to describe her boss, they would be puritanical, puritanical and puritanical. No way would he approve of what he’d caught them doing.

She squinted in the bright light, able to make out only her employer’s rounded silhouette. The booming voice, though—not to mention that puritanical business—went a long way toward letting her know just how angry he was.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” he thundered. “Are you two doing it again? You’re going to burn down the building the way you go at it. How many times do I have to tell you? There’s no smoking on the premises! Now put out that cigarette.”

With that, he stalked off, leaving Becca and Turner crouched in the closet with a still unlit cigarette and a completely unquenched desire. It was just like the song said. They couldn’t get no satisfaction.

“OKAY, TURNER, NOW are you convinced we have to quit? Or would you rather we lose our jobs?”

Becca picked at a piece of nonexistent lint on her snug, black wool skirt, tugged down the sleeves of her claret lamb’s wool sweater and watched her friend and co-worker pace restlessly the length of the Englund Advertising boardroom. Although neither of them much cared for the dress code of their workplace, finding it a bit too conservative for their tastes, Turner was decidedly less businesslike in his business attire than she was.

His charcoal Dockers weren’t quite in keeping with the suits their employer demanded, especially since she’d seen his houndstooth jacket slung carelessly over the chair in his cubicle. And instead of the white dress shirts Englund dictated, Turner wore a creamy button-down oxford. He had, however, conceded to the necktie requirement. Of course, the necktie in question had a scantily clad hula dancer painted on it.

Then again, Becca’s suit jacket hung on a peg in her own cubicle, and her sweater wasn’t a dress shirt, either, so maybe she still had a bit of the rebel in her, too. Sorta. Kinda. In a way.

Outside the windows enclosed the boardroom on two sides; a light snow was sprinkling the Indianapolis skyline, even though November was barely half over and it was too early for any accumulation. Twenty minutes had passed since Englund had caught them smoking in the closet, long enough for him to summon them to this very boardroom, where he’d given them a good dressing-down.

He had said, among other things, that he intended to keep a close eye on both of them, and if he ever caught them smoking at work again, he would fire them. Period. And Becca would just as soon not have to look for another job. She liked this one in spite of its conservative dress code and shortsighted no-smoking policy. And its unwillingness to explore brave new advertising frontiers. And its archaic mission statement. And its choke hold on creativity. And its lousy health care plan. And its abrasive receptionist. And its appallingly bad coffee.

All right, all right, so maybe she wasn’t all that crazy about her job. But she didn’t relish looking for a new one, especially with the holidays looming on the horizon.

“Turner?” she echoed when he offered no response. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, I heard.” He reached the far side of the room and spun around to pace back again. “I just don’t like it,” he added irritably. “Becca, it’s not fair that he can make a rule like that.”

“Maybe not to you, but it’s his business,” she pointed out. “He can make all the rules he wants. And he’ll fire us if we don’t quit smoking.”

“We don’t have to quit completely,” Turner countered, halting in midpace. “We just have to quit doing it at work.”

“Oh, yeah, and that’s going to be so easy,” she said. “When was the last time we made it through an entire workday without lighting up two or three times at least?”

“Then we’ll just go outside to smoke,” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest in the internationally recognized body language for “I’m right, so there.”

Becca dipped her head toward the window behind him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Turner, but we’re eighteen stories up. Englund takes up the entire floor, and the businesses beneath us are almost all smoke-free, too. We’d have to go down to the street to smoke, and half the time it takes us ten minutes just to get there, because the elevators run so slow. Unless you think we can slip out unnoticed for a half hour here and there, going outside to smoke isn’t doable.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but she quickly cut him off.

“And it’s snowing today,” she added. “If memories of third-grade science serve—which they may not, because most of what I remember from third-grade science is you grossing me out with bug statistics—that means the season of winter is upon us. And I don’t want to stand outside in the bitter cold just to have a cigarette. I’ll end up spending even more on Chap Stick than I already do on cigarettes.”

Turner expelled an impatient breath of air but said nothing.

“And we’ve got that big account we’re trying to win,” she further reminded him.

“That big account we’re going to win,” he corrected her.

She nodded. They would win it, she knew. Because the pitch they were working on was nothing short of brilliant. She and Turner had been at Englund for five years now, long enough to have won some small seniority as account reps, but they still weren’t in line for any major promotions. At this rate, they’d be stuck in Cubicleville until retirement. Winning this account for Englund would speed them much more quickly up the corporate ladder. They’d be headed straight to Officetown.

“And once we win the account, we’ll be stressed to the max,” she pointed out. “Whenever we have to work that hard, we smoke like a pit barbecue for a Kennedy family reunion.”

This time, in reply, Turner only studied her in silence and thrust out his lower lip like a pouty child.

Becca had to hide the smile she felt threatening. Not that she would ever tell him, of course, but there were times when Turner was just so damn cute. Sexy, even, if you went for the tall, dark and saucy type, which Becca most certainly did not. She’d always been drawn to the shy, tame and bookish type, and Turner was none of those things. Of course, the sex with such men had always been rather shy and tame, too—and bookish, she couldn’t help thinking, since her last boyfriend had insisted that if they were going to consult the Kama Sutra as Becca wanted, then it must only be from a literary standpoint, because he abhorred people who only looked at books for the pictures. So maybe she ought to alter her outlook on the opposite sex….

At any rate, she didn’t think of Turner McCloud in any way other than as a friend.

Okay, okay, so maybe they did do a little sexual experimenting as teenagers once or twice. But that was to be expected, since they’d grown up in a small Midwestern town and were overcome by hormones at the time, and besides, nothing ever came of it, since Turner never got past second base. And he’d barely made it there.

And okay, okay, so maybe once, a couple of years ago, they did imbibe a little too much at the office Christmas party and ended up almost horizontal. But that wasn’t so unusual because everyone that night had been feeling festive, and lots of people ended up almost horizontal, and besides, nothing ever came of it. Turner never got past third base. And he’d barely made it there.

And okay, okay, so maybe she did sort of have dreams about Turner from time to time. And okay, okay, so maybe they were, um, naked dreams. And okay, okay, so maybe he made it all the way home—and then some—in those dreams. Like the one she’d had a couple of nights ago, for instance, where Turner was bathing in a moonlit desert hot spring, with steam rising up all around his—naked—body, and water was sluicing over his brawny—naked—shoulders and arms, winding through the dark hair on his muscular—naked—chest and sparkling like diamonds in the black hair slicked back from his face. And then suddenly, she’d been in the hot spring with him, and she’d been naked, as well, tracing with her fingertips the little rivulets of water as they wound down his—naked—arms, licking away a drop that clung precariously to his lip, then reaching slowly, slowly, oh…so slowly beneath the water to drag a finger along his strong—naked—thigh before closing her hand over his—very naked, very large—

Uh, where was she? Becca suddenly wondered. She seemed to have gotten off track….

Oh, yeah. Now she remembered. She’d been thinking of Turner as just a friend and nothing more. Which was how she always thought of him. Always. Really. She did. Honest. It was true. Hey, why would she think of him any other way?

But not all women thought of him as a friend, she knew. For instance, that brazen redhead Englund had hired just last month. Lucy somebody. Yeah, that was an appropriate name, all right. Except that it should have been spelled Loosey. Talk about hot to trot. And obvious? Please. She was all over Turner like white on rice. The tart. Honestly. What some women would do to attract a man’s attention. Not that Becca cared, of course. Or even noticed, for that matter.

Um, where was she? She seemed to have gotten off track again….

Oh, yeah. Now she remembered. She’d been thinking about her good buddy Turner. Yep, that was all he was to her. Her good buddy. And at the moment, he was her agitated good buddy.

“I’m tellin’ya, Becca,” he said as he began pacing again, “we need to go into business for ourselves. Just you and me. A partnership. This place isn’t suited to us at all.”

“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But we were lucky to both get hired here. The pay and benefits are good. Well, except for the lousy health care plan. And this isn’t exactly a good time to be looking for work somewhere else. The economy sucks. The holidays are coming. It’s an even worse time to try and start up a business of our own. I mean, where would we get the capital?”

“Small business loan,” he said readily.

Becca shook her head. “It’s not a good time to start a business,” she reiterated. “But it is a good time to quit smoking.”

“Becca…”

They’d had this discussion before, a million times, in fact, about how they needed to quit smoking if for no other reason than that it was unhealthy. True, they were only twenty-seven and feeling immortal, but they’d both be better off if they quit. And now, with their jobs at stake, they finally had the motivation. If they took the vow to quit smoking together, maybe they’d be successful this time. They could do like in those twelve-step programs and call each other whenever they were at risk of falling off the wagon. Lighting up the wagon. Whatever.

“Turner, this is a sign that’s it’s finally time for us to quit,” she said. “The habit is unhealthy, it’s expensive, it’s socially unacceptable these days, and now it’s about to cost us our jobs. We have nothing to lose by quitting, and everything to gain. And if we both make a pact to do it together, we can succeed this time. I know we can.”

“We’ve tried before without success,” Turner reminded her. “We’ve tried going cold turkey, we’ve tried the patch, we’ve tried the gum. Hell, we’ve even tried smacking each other upside the head every time we saw each other light up. But none of it has worked, Becca.”

“We haven’t tried hypnosis,” she said tentatively.

He gaped at her and for a moment said nothing. Wow. She’d never seen him speechless before. But maybe this meant he was at least considering it.

Then, “Oh, no,” he said. He shook his head forcefully, settling his hands on his hips. “No, no, no, no, no. No way. No how. Nuh-uh. Nein. Nyet. Non.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t at least considering it.

“I am not going to let someone hypnotize me,” he added unnecessarily. “That’s a load of crap.”

“It could work,” Becca said, a bit less tentatively this time. “It’s worked for other people. My aunt Louise stopped biting her nails after she was hypnotized.”

Of course, what Becca didn’t add was that Aunt Louise went in to be hypnotized for her phobia of eggplant, and these days she still broke into a sweat whenever she saw ratatouille. Even as a side dish. Hypnosis had been beneficial for her aunt in one way. Just, you know, not the right way.

Becca repeated, “It could work for us. We won’t know unless we try.”

Turner covered the short distance between them in three long strides and dropped into the chair beside hers. He sat the same way now that he had in high school, all sprawling limbs and masculine confidence. These days, though, he took up considerably more room than he had back then. Funny how he’d gone through that second puberty while they were in college at IU. He’d always been so skinny as a kid. Now he was solid rock.

Becca shook off the observation, almost literally. “We could at least try it,” she said more softly.

He met her gaze levelly for a moment, and Becca thought again what nice blue eyes he had. Maybe she couldn’t blame Loosey for being such a tart around him. The tart.

“Right,” he said tersely. “We let ourselves be hypnotized, and the next thing you know, we’re on a stage in Vegas with some guy in a red, crushed-velvet blazer, named the Amazing Mesmiro, and he’s making us bark like a dog and flap our arms like a chicken. Is that what you really want?” Turner dipped his head lower, smiled a seductive little smile and gazed at her through hooded eyes. He dropped his voice an octave or two as he added, “Because ya know, Becca, I can make you bark like a dog if I use the right words and touch you a certain way….”

His voice held just a hint of sexual innuendo, enough to bring that wet, naked-dream business rushing to the fore, and she made herself ignore the tremor of heat that splashed through her midsection. It always made her uncomfortable when Turner acted as though he wanted sex, even when she knew he was only joking. Those few occasions when the two of them had kissed and stroked and groped had ended awkwardly, and it had taken days, sometimes weeks, for the two of them to feel comfortable together again. Turner, especially, had seemed to have trouble getting back to normal. But because of their reactions to each other after getting even remotely sexual, they knew they weren’t suited to it. They were much better as friends than lovers. And Becca didn’t want to risk losing that friendship.

So she ignored the last part of what he’d said to focus on the first part, something that had her biting back both the sarcastic retort and the smack upside the head she felt threatening. There. That was better. That was more in keeping with the way she wanted to feel about Turner.

“Not that kind of hypnosis,” she patiently corrected him. “Hypnotherapy hypnosis.”

He eyed her blankly. “And the difference would be…?”

“Hypnotherapists are better dressed, for one thing,” she quipped. “They have white jackets and name tags and stuff.”

He rolled his eyes.

“And licenses,” she quickly added. “They’re licensed to do this kind of thing. They go through a lot of training and education, whereas the Amazing Mesmiro probably got his training from the Johnson Smith catalog. Not to mention his license.”

Turner’s expression remained impassive. “Hypnotherapists are licensed and trained to make people bark like dogs and flap their wings like chickens? Wow. And here I wasted my time with an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in marketing.”

“They’re licensed to help people,” Becca told him through gritted teeth. Oh, yeah. That smack upside the head was really close now.

“It won’t work,” he said.

She studied him through slitted eyes, nibbling the edge of her lower lip in thought. Turner’s gaze seemed to zero in on the movement, and his pupils widened to nearly eclipse the blue irises. She figured he recognized it meant she was lost in thought—he’d be correct about that—and that he was probably dreading what she was going to say next.

And he was correct there, too, she thought. Because what she said next was, “I’ll make a bet with you.”

It was the perfect way to respond. Turner was just arrogant enough in his masculinity to never, ever, back down from a challenge. But he was also just arrogant enough in his masculinity to hardly ever win a bet he made with her.

“What kind of bet?” he asked.

Bingo, she thought with satisfaction. Aloud, however, she kept her smugness under control and told him, “Tomorrow’s Saturday. If you can make it through the entire day tomorrow—from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to sleep—without once having to light up, then I won’t say another word about quitting, and we can take our habit outside whenever we feel the need at work. But if you break down and light even one cigarette tomorrow,” she quickly continued, “then you have to go with me to a hypnotherapist ASAP.”

He grinned, clearly thinking he would have no trouble sticking to such a challenge. “Piece. Of. Cake,” he said.

Becca grinned back. Yeah, it would be a piece of cake, all right, she thought. And she made a mental note to go ahead and check the Yellow Pages, under H for Hypnotherapist, as soon as she got home. No sense waiting until the last minute.