Merry and Bright (3 page)

And then she’d blink. Her eyes would cool, as if she’d just remembered that they were virtual strangers. She’d pretend to be occupied by something in her hands and rush into her lab, not to be seen again until at least six—

Ah, there it was. She glanced up, saw him only a few yards away with the electrical wiring in his hands. She came to an abrupt halt, prompting two of his guys behind her to nearly plow into her.

Her mouth opened and apologies tumbled out from everyone, and then his guys made their way around her and she gripped her things, once again turning her head in his direction, this time with a hint of pink in her cheeks.

He lifted his hand and waggled his fingers.

Her mouth curved in a self-deprecatory smile. “Whoops.” Her voice was soft and musical, and if he’d let it, it would have gone straight to his head. And other places.

In high school, she’d been the quietest little thing. He remembered sitting near her, watching her absorb school in a way he’d never quite managed. He’d actually wished he could be more like her. She’d helped him out, and he’d been grateful, but she’d been too shy to get to know, not to mention far too young. And then he’d moved and had never seen her again.

He was seeing her now—warm eyes, sweet smile, and a body made for sin. Not too young now, was she . . . ?

Scott West came out of the elevator, dressed like a man who didn’t have to worry about any ten-percent potential profit loss. “Hey, Maggie,” he said. “Jacob.”

Scott had been a tough-ass at the negotiating table, but was looking much softer now that he was taking in Maggie’s sweet morning appearance. “So what’s today’s fact?” he asked her, flashing a set of perfect teeth.

“Odontophobia,” she said, staring at his extremely white teeth. “The fear of teeth. Point one percent of the population suffers from it.”

Scott laughed and shook his head. “Good one. So . . . about that vial Tim gave you—”

“Oh! I tried it last night. The secret ingredient . . . it’s sweet almond oil, right? For that extra vitamin E? It’s a little too thick now but I’ll—”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. I’ll have Tim rework it.” He held out his hand, presumably for said vial, but she shook her head.

“It’s at my condo, sorry.”

“Gotcha. Well . . .” He opened his office door with a smile not quite the same wattage as before. “See you at the staff meeting.”

Maggie turned back to Jacob, but stopped short when her cell phone rang. With a look of apology, she opened her bag and pulled it out to answer it. Immediately a frown crossed her brow, and she forgot about him, he could tell. She was on the move again, talking, gesturing with her full hands, not watching where she was going as she headed beneath his scaffolding to enter her lab, just barely ducking as two men from his crew moved a heavy piece of equipment in front of her.

The woman was a walking/talking accident just waiting to happen. The cutest, sexiest, walking/talking accident he’d ever seen.

Maggie spent the entire morning hunched over her laptop, going over lab results, ignoring a flood of pesky texts from a nosy-body Janie.

Alice showed up at noon with lunch. “Men suck,” she said, handing a wrapped sandwich to Maggie. “And I think the bottle for your cream should be blue.”

Alice was twenty-two, an intern on loan from UCLA to do Data Tech’s filing, but she’d latched onto Maggie because she wanted to be a scientist, too. Dressed like a Goth superhero, all in black and lace, with some interesting deep purple lipstick, she sighed glumly as she sat and opened her sandwich. “I think my boyfriend is cheating on me with his lab partner.”

“Oh, Alice. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Alice usually wore an expression of general angry-at-the-world emo-ism. But today there was something new, hurt. “Me, too. But definitely blue glass. For your cream. My grandmother loves blue glass.”

Talking with Alice made her dizzy. “I’m aiming for a younger crowd here.”

“Hey, my grandmother is a tough chick. She rides with the Hells Angels, and is armed to the teeth at all times. And isn’t it a wrinkle cream?”

Maggie looked into Alice’s face, which was gorgeous, smooth, and covered in pale, pale foundation. “Yes, I’ve made several wrinkle creams. But I’m also working on a drug delivery system. And trust me, you’re only a few years away from your first wrinkle.”

“I am not. I don’t allow my skin to touch the sun. Haven’t you heard? Goth is the new tan.” She took a big bite of her PB&J. “The drug delivery system thing is cool. I should start reading the reports I’m filing for you guys.”

Scott poked his head in the lab, his gaze passing over Alice to meet Maggie’s. “Lunch?”

Maggie had been waiting so long to have him ask her out again it almost seemed surreal. She was crazy not to jump up and say “yes!” but the fact was, Scott was a Mr. Right and she’d given up Mr. Rights. Thanks to Janie, she was going to go for her Mr. Wrong.

Soon as she figured out exactly how to do that. She held up her half-eaten sandwich. “Sorry, I’m almost done.”

He nodded, nonchalantly looking around her lab, as if not sure what to do with himself. “Well, okay then. See you later.”

When he was gone, Alice looked at Maggie. “He wants into your pants.”

“Because he offered me lunch?”

“Yeah, I think you should go for it. He’s rich and he’s hot. And
rich
. Which always trumps hot. My boyfriend’s rich. Or his family is.” Some of her perpetual anger made room for that hurt again. “Unfortunately he’s also a dick.”

Maggie squeezed her hand in sympathy. “Neither hot nor rich are important criteria for me.”

Alice seemed baffled by this. “What’s more important than rich?”

Maggie sighed. “Scott’s my type.”

“The bastard.”

“No, I mean . . . I’m trying a new thing. I’m going for the
opposite
of my type. I’m going for Mr. Wrong.”

Alice put down her sandwich. “Okay, this is interesting. Go on.”

“It’s my sister’s idea. She made me promise that my Christmas present to her would be me ignoring all the Mr. Rights and going for Mr. Wrong.”

“So have you found him yet?”

Maggie hesitated, and Alice pounced with glee. “You have, haven’t you?” She grinned. “Who is he, that geek in accounting—what’s his name, the one who actually carries pencils and pens and a calculator in his shirt pocket?”

“Alan, and he’s a great guy, but no. He’s not a Mr. Wrong, he’s . . .” Her own type. The overeducated thinker, nice but distracted, and to be honest, a little aloof. She wanted passion, she wanted aggression, she wanted . . .
wild sex.

Oh, God, it was true. She wanted wild sex from her Mr. Wrong. “I’m not really ready to share.”

Alice sighed and packed up the trash from lunch. “Fine. It’s none of my business and it’s going to end badly anyway, these things always do.”

“Alice—”

“I have to go. It’s time to get filing. Hey, maybe I’ll learn something.”

Maggie got back to work. At the end of the day, she closed up and left her lab. The place was completely void of Data Tech employees, which was typical of Christmas week. Everyone wanted to rush home to their families.

Their significant others.

She sighed again and kept walking, trying not to notice the boughs of holly, the lights . . . the noise of the construction workers. Two of them were mumbling about the long night ahead and their looming deadline, and she wondered if their boss was still in the building. Maybe like
her
boss, Jacob had deserted his workers. Maybe he was home drinking eggnog with his friends, enjoying the holiday; maybe he was on a date, which for some reason tightened a knot in her gut and made her head hurt. She rubbed her forehead and—

And tripped over an open toolbox, hitting the floor on all fours. Her briefcase went flying, and the pen she’d forgotten she had behind her ear skittered across the floor. “Dammit.”

“So much for watching where you’re going.”

Accompanying this most annoying statement, two big, warm hands gripped her waist and hoisted her up. When she tilted her head back, her gaze collided with a set of dark brown eyes. Terrific.
Now
he showed up. She bent to look at her burning knees, which were both skinned good and already starting to bleed.
“Dammit.”

“You said that.” Jacob crouched down, seeming big and bad and just a little irritated. He had drywall dust and sawdust all over him, and was hot and sweaty, and clearly not exactly thrilled at the interruption. He picked up all her things, easily tucking them beneath one arm. “Shit, you’re bleeding,” he said, looking at the trickle running down her calf. “Tommy, bring me a clean rag!”

“It’s okay.” She sucked in a painful breath. Liar, liar...

But she smiled into his solemn eyes as her heart kicked hard. “The human heart can create enough pressure to squirt blood thirty feet, so this is nothing, relatively speaking.” Even if her knees were on fire . . . “I’m fine,” she said, and stood up.

He straightened, too, and she suddenly became aware of exactly how close they were. Inches apart, which was waaaay closer than they’d ever been. Someone, presumably Tommy, tossed him a rag, which he caught over her head and handed to her.

“Thanks.” She hadn’t skinned her knees in years and she didn’t remember it hurting this bad. She dabbed at her knees and hissed out a breath. “You don’t by any chance have a Band-Aid? Or two?”

“Sure do.” He led her down the hall, past the elevators. The building was in a U-shape, curved around a courtyard six stories below. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him walk, his broad shoulders stretching the seams of his shirt, his Levi’s lovingly cupping a most drool-worthy butt.

Odd to be so attracted to a Mr. Wrong, but her body was humming again in spite of her knees. He hadn’t gotten himself a haircut, and the dark strands of his hair looked soft and silky. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and maybe not yesterday morning either, and that growth didn’t look soft and silky at all. It would be rough against her skin, which for some reason, gave her a little shiver. “I was wondering . . .”
If I could ask you to do me
.

Still walking, he glanced over at her. His jaw was square, his mouth generous, but it was his eyes that held her. They were fathomless, and in those swirling depths was a mix of emotions with a barely restrained impatience leading the pack. He was busy, needing to get back to work, and at the knowledge, her nerve packed up and went on vacation. “Never mind.”

Two years without sex,
her good parts whined....

They turned a corner, tight with stacks of boxes. “Watch where you’re going,” Jacob reminded her.

Right. Watch where she was going instead of watching him and daydreaming. Time to stop daydreaming! “Yes, well, in my defense, I rarely do watch where I’m going.”

“And we’ve got a mess all around you, I know. But your boss promised he’d give you all this week off so we’d have the empty building to ourselves. Then he didn’t.”

“Tim’s a good guy, but he’s tight with his money, so tight he squeaks when he walks.” She smiled when he laughed. He had a good laugh. “He’s never given us a week off.”

“We’re attempting to not miss our deadline. Some of us have flights to catch out of here tomorrow, if we finish.”

“You’ll finish.”

He looked a little surprised, and a little amused. “How do you know?”

She was doing her best not to limp. No limping in front of the cute guy from high school—but she wanted to. “In high school, you finished everything you started, even when it was hard. Basketball, chemistry . . .”
The 36-D blonde in that empty classroom . . .
God, she’d been so jealous of that girl. “You just seem like a guy who still finishes what he starts.”

His eyes heated, and oh, Lord, so did her body, but had she really just said he looked like a guy who finished what he started? Why didn’t she just strip down right here and ask him to finish her? “Where are you flying out to?” she asked instead, desperate for a subject change. “New Orleans?”

“You remember.”

She remembered everything about him, but gave a slight shrug. Playing it cool.

“My mom lost her house in Katrina,” he said. “She’s in a new place now and we’re all meeting there for Christmas.”

“Sounds lovely.” She was happy for him, but wistful for herself. Yes, she had Janie, but she missed having her mom, too.

Jacob stopped at an empty lab on the far side of the building, which he and his crew used as an office and for tool storage. Knees on fire, Maggie sat on a chair while he dug into a large toolbox and came up with a first-aid kit.

“Here’s some antiseptic spray,” he said. “It’ll take out the sting. Pull up your skirt.”

No can do. Not when she’d just remembered she hadn’t shaved her legs. “I’ll do it.” She held out her hand for the spray, which she shoved beneath her skirt, gave a cursory spritz and gritted her teeth. “All better.”

“Maggie, I can see the blood dripping down your calves. This is my fault, so let me see.”

“I’m good.”

With a sigh, he reached for the hem of her skirt himself.

3

J
acob’s fingers brushed Maggie’s skirt, and suddenly he wasn’t thinking about her knees but other things altogether, until Maggie put her hands over his, flashing a quick and definitely fake smile. “I just remembered. I have my own Band-Aids.”

He pushed a smile of his own, one that usually got him a lot more than a peek at an injured knee. “Maggie, it’s just your knees.”

“It’s not my knees I’m worried about.”

She was blushing. Was she for real? He had a million other things to do, and yet he was crouched before her watching her most mesmerizing face. She was the ultimate science geek fantasy, if one was into that sort of thing. And apparently, given his pheromone level whenever she got within sight, he was. Her hair was still piled on top of her head, her lips fully glossed, and that smoking body covered up with her coat. Her killer eyes were magnified behind her lab glasses, which she’d clearly forgotten to take off. She’d put the pen behind her ear again.