Curvaceous (11 page)

She pulled her coat closer around her neck and hurried into the building. Fifteen minutes later, she encountered Jefferson in the coffee room. As it nearly always did, her heart hammered in her chest and her mouth went dry at the sight of him.

"'Morning, Sharde." His brief smile didn't quite reach his smoky gray eyes and he walked out of the room without giving her a chance to do more than mutter "morning" in return.

And he certainly hadn't noticed the expensive new dress she wore.
That went well,
she thought as she headed back to her office.
He'll be falling at your feet in no time.

"'Morning, Sharde."

She paused at her open office door. A tall, voluptuous woman with beautiful dark eyes, deep, gorgeous mocha skin, and a beauty to rival former Miss America Vanessa Williams came to meet her. Although far from super model thin, Darbi Raymond made every ounce work for her, carrying herself with an air that seemed to suggest full-figured women had more fun.

If Jefferson was going to date a black woman who had neither Vanessa Williams beauty or her size, surely it would be someone as breathtakingly beautiful as Darbi rather than someone "cute" and a little on the chubby side like herself.

Sharde stifled a sigh. Being in love was the pits. She'd always had what her mother called "meat on her bones," but had never worried about it until she realized Jefferson went in for pole-thin, super gorgeous women like his ex, and maybe Darbi. Yet, as far as she knew, Jefferson had never given Darbi a second glance nor had he shown any interest in spending any of his free time with her.

On the other hand, he and Sharde spent so much of their free time together they had keys to each other's places. And he depended on her, as well as trusted her judgment. Surely getting him to see her as a desirable woman couldn't be that hard now that she'd given herself a deadline.

"Hey. Anyone in there?"

Realizing she'd allowed her thoughts to wander, she smiled. "Good morning, Darbi." Noting the cup in the other woman's hand, she gestured toward her office. "Join me?"

Darbi nodded and followed her into her office.

Although she and Darbi had grown up in the same neighborhood and gone to the same schools, it was only after she'd hired Darbi to be her assistant three years earlier that they became close friends. Darbi admired how Sharde had worked her way through college and into the number two position at Calder Technologies, a multi-million dollar electronics company, in nine years. While admiring Darbi's work ethic, Sharde was in awe of how any woman as beautiful as Darbi could shake off a painful, unwanted divorce and embrace what she called her second virginity with such single-mindedness.

The only thing Sharde wanted to embrace was Jefferson. Of course, she wanted to do more than embrace him. A smile curved her lips. She wanted to do a lot more than hug him. Lord, that man's sheer masculinity filled her heart and head with lustful thoughts of incredible magnitude.

"And just what are you thinking that makes you smile like the cat that caught the last tasty rodent?"

Sharde grinned. "Girl, if you only knew!"

Darbi's smile invited her confidence. "So tell me."

But she wasn't ready to admit even to Darbi that she had a thing for Jefferson. She shook her head. "I was just thinking how much I need some intimacy."

Darbi sighed. "Believe me, I know the feeling only too well."

She sat back in her chair, studying Darbi. "How long has it been for you?"

Darbi sipped her coffee. "Nearly three years."

"Don't you miss sex?"

"Sometimes." She shrugged. "Okay, a lot, but I'm thirty-two now and I no longer want sex for sex's sake. I want commitment and marriage with the sex. Sex without those no longer holds any appeal for me."

Sharde sighed. She wanted commitment and marriage as well, but she had a feeling that if given the chance, she would take sex for its own sake with Jefferson. "I might get there one day, but I'm not there yet."

"Well, it took a broken marriage and two other headaches to get me where I am now. Hopefully you can get what you want without getting stung as I have."

The desire to admit her feelings for Jefferson was difficult to overcome. She sighed again and they drank their coffee in silence, each lost in her own thoughts.

Later that morning, Sharde sat in her office, frowning at her computer monitor while she discarded plan after plan for capturing Jefferson's heart. Failing that, she'd settle for being the object of his lust.

Her thoughts turned to their coffee room encounter. Fat chance she had of that happening. Probably, if she walked into his office stark naked, he'd give her a puzzled look and ask if she'd done something different with her hair!

"To hell with this!"

She looked up. Her half-open office door swung wide and Jefferson stalked inside. Her heart thumped in her chest. Talk about eye candy. He was tall, well-built, and drop-dead gorgeous, with short, silky dark hair and intense gray eyes.

She immediately saw he was annoyed. But even that didn't distract from his breathtaking looks. Lord, she'd never seen such a sexy man. Just looking at him fully clothed and completely unaware of her as a woman made her wet and hungry for him.

"What's up, Jefferson?" As she spoke, she ate him up with her eyes. She drank in the power inherent in his big, muscular body. He stalked the length of her office with all the grace of a sleek, predatory cat on the prowl. Finally he leaned across her desk and looked into her eyes. "I'm feeling wound up and horny as hell. I'm going to the cabin for a few days."

He had a deep, warm baritone that sent a shiver of longing through her every time he spoke. And it was time she heard that sweet baritone whispering something sexually exciting and suggestive in her ear.

"Great idea." She smiled. "I wish I could join you. I could use a few days of peace and quiet. I'm feeling a little wound up myself."

He considered her in silence, one brow arched. Just as she thought he was about to say he wanted to be alone, he shrugged. "So come with me."

Just for a moment, Sharde thought she had died and gone to heaven. After nine years of watching him eat his heart out, first for his faithless ex-wife and then for his equally faithless ex-fiancée, she was finally about to get a chance to make sure he saw the forest for the trees. Her.

"Ben out of town again?" she asked of his best friend.

He nodded. "But even if he wasn't, I'm not in the mood for his company. I'd rather you came."

"There's only one bedroom," she pointed out.

He grinned. "We can share it."

Her heart thudded. Her spirits soared. She swallowed painfully, going wet at the thought of spending a long weekend at the remote cabin he owned in New York State with a wound up and horny Jefferson. Lord, but she'd give anything to love all his frustrations away.

"Share it?"

His eyes held no trace of lust. Horny he might be, but she was not on his sexual radar. Hell. He was never going to be horny for her unless she did something to make him notice her as a woman.

Almost as if he'd read her mind and wanted to make it clear why he wanted her company, he straightened and thrust is hands in his pockets. "Okay, I guess that wouldn't be very practical. I'll bring my sleeping bag and use that in the living room. You can have the bedroom."

He'd sleep in his sleeping bag alone when hell froze over.

He looked at her. "We can go bar hopping together and you can stop me from picking up some beautiful blonde bimbo in a bar and falling for her."

Both his ex-wife and his ex-fiancée were blondes. Why couldn't he expand his horizons and see the tall, shapely, albeit none-too-thin, black woman waiting to rock his world? She feared she had little chance of ever getting him hot and horny. Unless she got him drunk first. And that was out of the question. He would have to accept her just as she was while sober. Or she was wasting her time. "Isn't that what men want when they're horny?"

He shrugged. "I've had it with women and committed relationships. I just want sex with no commitments offered or expected."

He wasn't making any sense and she understood why. After three years of marriage, he had walked in on his wife, Linda, with another man. Sharde had watched him shy away from women for two years after his divorce.

Sharde had been with him through his divorce and the tough two years following it, but when he was ready to date again, he had looked elsewhere for love. She'd been dating someone at the time, but she knew that hadn't made any difference. He was just too used to thinking of her as a friend to envision her as a lover.

Nine and a half months earlier, he had asked her to accompany him to a charity function where he met Vanessa Del Warren. Sharde had watched in dismay as the beautiful blonde had taken one look at him, smiled, cast out her line, and easily reeled him in.

He had sent Sharde home in a cab. Although she and he had plans to work on the office budget that weekend, she had not seen or heard from him again. He arrived at work late Monday morning. Later that day, Vanessa Del Warren had waltzed into the office to show off the expensive engagement ring Jefferson had bought her that morning.

Although Jefferson had been eager to get married, he had confessed to Sharde that Vanessa was in no hurry to tie the knot. When Calder Technologies failed to win a multi-million dollar government contract, Vanessa had left him to pursue Clayton Frazier, the owner of Fra-Tech, the company with the winning bid. Admittedly Clayton Frazier was drop-dead, panty-wetting gorgeous, but then so was Jefferson.

Two selfish bimbo bitches had hurt and jaded him, making it harder for a woman who really loved him to win his heart.

She sighed, pushing the memories away. "Not all women are faithless, Jefferson."

His gaze narrowed. "Maybe not, but the ones who aren't leave me cold."

She felt as if he'd tossed a bucket of ice water on her. It was hopeless. He would never see her as a woman capable of fulfilling his sexual fantasies and desires. "I think I'll pass on coming to the cabin after all."

He frowned. "Why?"

Because I'm tired of breaking my heart over you, you big, blind ox!
She glanced at her computer. "If we're going to have a hope of landing that next government contract, we're going to need to have more staff in place and I'm still sifting through résumés for new analysts and–"

"Darbi is perfectly capable of sifting through them and flagging the most promising ones for your attention. We hired her to help secure new contracts and lighten your burden. Let her do her job."

In the three years that Darbi had worked for the company, she had become invaluable to Sharde, not only assisting in the everyday running of the company, but doing most of the travel, freeing both Sharde and Jefferson to concentrate on overseeing design and development of new technologies.

She nodded. "I guess you're right. Hiring her was one of our best personnel moves in years. She doesn't mind all the traveling, she's a hard worker, and she gets the job done right the first time."

"So let her do it."

She sat back in her seat. "And she's stunningly beautiful. Don't you think so?"

He shrugged. "Yes. So how about you allow the stunningly beautiful Darbi to do what she was hired to do? Take the pressure off you, which will leave you free to come with me. Suddenly the thought of being there alone doesn't appeal."

So he had noticed how beautiful Darbi was! Just how much else had he noticed? "Would you like to ask her to accompany you?"

He arched a brow. "What? Why the hell would I want her to come with me?"

"You just said she's beautiful."

"So? She's not my type."

"Maybe if you got to know her, you'd find she is."

He leaned across her desk and stared into her eyes. "Let me make myself crystal clear, Sharde, I have absolutely no personal interest in Darbi. Is that clear enough for you?"

"Why not? Is it because she's bl–"

"It's because she doesn't interest me–period!" His eyes narrowed. "Her skin color is not a factor. Contrary to what you might think you know about men, not every man is a sucker for a beautiful woman."

"So if she were a white blonde–"

"What is it with you and this harping on race?"

"I'm not harping on it. I'm just curious."

"Really? Well, although I admit to having a special fondness for blondes, I have dated women who were neither blonde nor white. If a woman interests me, the color of her skin or hair is not a major issue for me. So don't go there, Sharde."

Feeling an invisible weight lift off her shoulders, she sat back in her seat, a small smile curving her lips. So her half-formed fear that he was not attracted to black women need no longer concern her. She frowned. But then he had said it was not a major issue. Did that mean it was an issue for him–even if only a minor one?

"Sharde?"

She flashed a quick smile at him. "So when do you want to head out for the cabin?"

"Did you really think color is an issue with me, Sharde?"

She saw the concern in his eyes and shook her head. "Not in a bad way, Jeff." She shrugged. "But it would be normal for you to prefer white women."

"Would it? Have you always dated black men?"

"Mostly, yes. Although in high school, I had this monumental crush on Ricardo Montalban." She gave a gusty sigh. "The fantasies I created around him  would probably have made him blush."

He smiled. "Since we're sharing secrets, I used to lie awake at night suffering big time lust for Eartha Kitt. I can't tell you how many cold showers I took on her behalf. I always wanted to play Batman to her Catwoman."

She leaned forward, put her face close to his and purred.

He smiled, then sighed. "You know, no matter how bad things are you have a way of making them seen better for me. I don't know what I would have done without you at my side these last few years."

The words, spoken in a low, sincere voice held little comfort. She was long past the point where she wanted to be his rock. Being the woman he turned to when he wanted to get physical was more important to her these days. She suppressed a sigh and pasted a tight smile onto her face. "You'd have been fine. Ben would have seen to that."