Just About Sex (13 page)

“What does he want?” she asked Freddie, trying to sound unconcerned. “And why did you personally come down here to tell me he was on the phone?”

“He didn’t say what he wanted. And I came down to see your reaction. Duh.”

Huffing, she snatched up the receiver. “Well, thank you
so
much. You can go now.”

“And miss this?” Freddie looked at her like she’d suggested he jump on her desk and meow like a cat. “I don’t
think
so!” He hurried to the sofa and made himself comfortable.

“Remind me to fire you later,” she muttered.

Clearing her throat, she pushed the button on the phone, fully expecting to hear the dial tone. Surely Greene had gotten tired of waiting and hung up by now. “Hello?”

“Simone, it’s Alex.”

The intimacy of his deep voice so close to her ear did delicious things to her already conflicted stomach. Excruciatingly conscious of Freddie’s curious gaze on her, she struggled to sound cool and aloof. “What can I do for you?”

“I thought m-maybe I could swing by and pick you up.”

“Oh.”

“Only because you mentioned you might get a Saab.” The words came out in a rush, as if he feared she’d say no before he could finish his explanation.

“Oh,” she said again.

Desperate, Simone tried to think of something to say while stalling for a little extra time. Being with Greene in such close quarters seemed like a bad, though tantalizing, idea.

“I’m surprised you didn’t just show up, like you did before,” she told him.

“I started to. But I’m trying not to be so gruff and over-bearing all the time. Someone recently told me it’s good to take things slowly. Get to know people better. That seemed like a good idea to me.”

Oh, no,
she thought, starting to tremble. So he’d read her answer and meant to take her advice. She’d known he would, of course, but in the safety of her apartment, encouraging him to pursue her had seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea. But now, in the light of day, seeing him again felt dangerous and foolish. Why did the idea scare her to death? Why couldn’t she breathe all the sudden?
What should she do?

“Simone? You there?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, managing to suck enough air into her tight chest to avoid passing out. “I’m just surprised again, Greene—”

“Alex.”

“—because I didn’t think you ever listened to anyone.”

“Listening is very important, Simone.” His voice dropped into a husky, intimate tone that had her pressing her thighs together to relieve the ache high up between them. “I listen very carefully to everything you say to me. I can’t wait to hear what you say next.”

“Well,” she said, trying to sound sarcastic and sounding breathless instead. “I guess miracles do happen.”

“Twelve o’clock?” he said softly, chuckling. “I-is that okay?”

No, it wasn’t okay. He needed to stop calling her, stop speaking to her in a tone that made her want to writhe and beg, stop touching her heart in unexpected ways, and stop awakening feelings she didn’t want to feel, especially about
him.
No.
No.

“Yes,” came out of her mouth. “I’ll call Juan and—”

“Oh, didn’t he tell you?” He made a clucking, disapproving noise. “His Web site says he’s out of town doing some show on ESPN this week. It’ll be just you and me.”

Simone stiffened. The unmistakable satisfaction in his voice told her he knew he’d outmaneuvered her, but of course it was too late now. She couldn’t very well admit she’d only said yes because she’d thought they’d have Juan there to chaperone.

“Goodbye, Greene.”

“Why don’t you give him some play?” came Freddie’s amused voice from the sofa when she’d hung up the phone.

Simone glared at him. At some point during her lengthy relationship with Freddie, the lines between employer and employee had gotten blurred and then erased. Cream puff that she was, she’d never been able to put her foot down the way she should have, and so he ran roughshod over her.

Still, that did not mean she wanted to discuss her sex life with him. “First of all, I am
not
discussing my sex life with you, and second, why would I sleep with the Prince of Darkness when he’s trying to make me look stupid?”

Freddie took off his glasses and held them out to her. “Honey, if you can’t see why you should sleep with Alex Greene, you need these more than I do.”

Simone snorted.

He chuckled, wiped his lenses on the tail of his shirt and put the glasses back on. “Besides. Someone needs to verify the size of his—”

“That’s enough!”

Thinking about Greene’s privates did quivery things to her insides. She glanced pointedly at the clock. “Don’t we have clients coming right about now?”

“Oh, I forgot. They called to say they’re caught in traffic.”

Restless now, she got up and went to the window, fluffing her hair with her fingers. Freddie’s bemused gaze followed her. “And anyway, if I did sleep with him—not that I want to, or anything!—I’m sure he’d post it on his blog the next day.”

“Yeah, but it’d be worth it.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to
that,
especially since she suspected Freddie could well be right.

After a moment of silence, Freddie said, with no trace of amusement, “For an expert on sex, you sure don’t have much of it.”

The hair on the back of her neck prickled unpleasantly but she kept her voice cool. “How would you know?”

“Well, I answer the phones, so I know men don’t usually call here for you. Men don’t pick you up. Men don’t send you flowers. Whenever we talk about our weekends,
I’m
the one who does all the talking.” He laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were as queer as I am. But at least you’re not still dating that one guy. What was his name?” He snapped his fingers several times. “The weatherman. John? Jim? No. James Richardson. Punk.”

Simone shuddered at the memory of
that
flaming metro-sexual. Call her crazy, but she couldn’t get too excited about dating a man who went for manicures more often than she did.

“I did
not
date him,” she reminded Freddie. “I went to one charity golf outing and he was there, and then I went to dinner with him
one
time. If that reporter hadn’t seen us talking at the golf thing, you’d have never heard anything about it.”

Freddie waved a hand, signaling his lack of interest in the topic. “What-ever. I’d rather see you alone than with a jerk like
that.
”

“You’re right. Someone should really tell him that taking a woman to dinner at Jeff Ruby’s doesn’t entitle him to grope her under the table.”

The buzzer to the front door rang, announcing the arrival of her clients. Freddie left to let them in, and Simone pulled their file out of her tall cabinet. But her mind immediately shifted to the one place she didn’t want it to go: Alex Greene.

Maybe agreeing to spend time alone with him today wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, but really—how terrible could it be? The worst that could happen was they’d sample some bad food together, have an argument and blow up at each other again. Been there, done that.

Her sense of impending doom lifted a little. Why was she so worried? What could happen?

Simone’s little watchdog answered Alex when he rang the buzzer. The black six-panel door swung open, the man took one look at Alex, jammed a fist on his hip, and glared. Alex had the feeling he wanted to slam the door in his face, but didn’t dare.

“You’re early. She’s still in her session,” the man snapped, stepping aside to let Alex in.

Alex wanted to brush him away like a gnat, but didn’t. Instead, he followed the man into the deserted but pretty waiting area—overstuffed chairs and sofas in tans, cream and pale green—and chose the seat nearest the huge tropical aquarium.

Studying the vivid corals, clownfish and fluttering seaweed, he chose his words carefully. “You don’t like me, do you, er…”

“Freddie.”

“Right. Freddie.”

Freddie sat behind the granite receptionist’s counter and put on his phone headset. “The jury’s still out on that, but it’s not looking good.”

Laughing, Alex settled deeper into the plush chair. “Thanks for being honest. You seem like a good friend to Simone.”

Freddie kept his gaze lowered as he picked up a lethal looking brass letter opener and went to work on a stack of bills. “And what do
you
want to be to her?”

“That’s personal.”

Freddie’s skeptical gaze flickered up to meet his. “What’s the point of your little Web site?”

“That’s between Simone and me.”

For the billionth time, Alex felt a stab of guilt about the stupid blog. When would she apologize so he could pull it? If he were a gentleman—which he’d never claimed to be—he’d just pull the thing anyway, apology or not, and be done with it. But then what? She’d never respect him, that’s what. She’d think
she
was in charge, that he was whipped.

He couldn’t let that happen. No way.

Freddie planted his elbows on the counter, held his brass dagger in one hand and tested the business end with his thumb. His expression could best be described as threatening. “I don’t want to see her hurt—”

“Neither do I.”

“—and I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

That
brought Alex up short, both because he couldn’t very well deny he wanted her, and also because Freddie seemed to think he had the power to hurt her. And of course only someone who meant something to Simone would ever have the power to hurt her.

Did
he
mean something—anything—to Simone? He sure hoped so.

Just then Alex heard a door open and voices and footsteps approaching from down the hall. His heart thwacked in his chest. Sitting still became impossible. He jumped to his feet as some chattering young couple walked in, blocking his view of Simone. Would it be wrong to shove them out of the way so he could see her? But they obligingly stepped out of his line of vision and went to Freddie’s counter, sparing Alex from having to commit any violence. Then he saw Simone, and his thoughts scattered like fall leaves in the breeze.

She’d been laughing, but when she saw him she took a sharp breath and froze. Their gazes fused. A deep pink stained the apples of her cheeks and her lids lowered, shielding her bright eyes from his view.

“I’ll be right with you,” she told Alex, following the couple to the counter with a faint but delicious waft of her powdery floral scent.

Alex grunted unintelligibly and gawked. So much for working on his social skills. At least she had her back to him and couldn’t see how he stared.

She looked good enough to eat. One of her hands clutched a file to her chest, but he could see enough of her dress to know it was pink and made out of some silky, fluttery material that floated around her knees. Shapely bare legs ended in strappy black sandals. Red-tipped toes—he loved red!—peeked out at him. He stared greedily, his lungs hitching on every second or third breath. He was ridiculously glad to see her. The days they’d been apart felt like half his life.

He waited while that stupid couple took their own sweet time about paying the bill and scheduling another appointment. They left after what seemed like two millennia.

Simone turned to him, a slight, shy smile on her lips. “I’ll just get my purse.”

“Fine,” he croaked as she walked off down the hall. Feeling sheepish, he swiped a hand at the tip of his burning ear, which had to be bright red. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.

Well, he wasn’t Lester Holt, but at least he’d recovered his powers of speech and hadn’t stuttered. Could climbing Mt. Everest be far behind? Grinning broadly, he shook his head at his own foolishness.

A movement startled him. Freddie, whom he’d forgotten all about, watched him, wide-eyed and openmouthed.

Alex’s smile slid off his face.

“Well,” Freddie said after a long, embarrassing silence, “maybe
you’re
the one I need to worry about getting hurt.”

Alex silently agreed.

They left a few minutes later. “You can drive,” Alex told Simone once they’d escaped from Freddie’s watchful gaze and started down the cobbled path to the street. It was another brilliant spring day, the kind that made him want to play hooky from work and ride his bike—with Simone—for hours. He gave her the keys.

“Really?” A gorgeous, incredulous smile, every bit as dazzling as the ones he’d seen her give Romero, dawned across her face. “You’ve never even seen me drive!”

His breath caught. Again. Unable to gape and walk at the same time without fear of falling on his face, he stopped.

Simone took a couple more steps before realizing he wasn’t right beside her. She shot him a sidelong look over her shoulder.
“What?”

Alex swallowed, hard. “I…missed you. I feel like I won the lotto because I get to see you today.” It dawned on him that he was blurting again, but stopping now would feel unnatural, like trying to stop his eyes from blinking. “I can’t stop staring at you. I just thought you should know.”

She drew a sharp breath. “I…thought you were working on censoring yourself a little.”

“This is my first day. I’m not very good at it yet.”

One corner of her mouth curled up. The most amazing look of glowing warmth passed over her gray eyes and did alarming but delicious things to his poor heart. But then she seemed to catch herself and her lids lowered, hiding whatever she’d felt from him. His chest tightened with disappointment. Would she always be so guarded?

“Am I providing you with material for your blog, Greene?” she asked. “Is that what’s going on here?”

The vulnerability in her soft voice undid him. The blog? Who was thinking about the blog? The time he spent with Simone was much too precious to ever spoil by sharing with the world.

“Simone,” he vowed softly, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I promise you that’s not it.”

Her bright, intense gaze fused with his, studying him. Questioning him. He waited, not blinking for the longest ten seconds of his life.
Everything
hung in the balance.