Stone Cold Heart (10 page)

"A shot at making this," he pressed light sucking kisses along her jawline. "Work." And then he took her mouth. There was no other way to describe the possessive, dominating power of his kiss. He attacked as if his ship was going down and he refused to surrender.

Jess broke away from the kiss and rested her forehead against Colin's. She gazed into his intense, gray eyes. "We've got some logistics to work out."

Jack cleared his throat.

A hot blush spread over her face. She'd completely forgotten that her brother was still in the room.

"Why are you still here?" Colin growled.

Jack's voice was the tiniest bit amused as he replied, "Because it's my office."

Colin kissed her again and nudged her toward the door. "Let's discuss this somewhere more private."

Jess reveled in the hard circle of his arms and the sensual press of his body against hers. "Sounds good to me."

Jack cleared his throat again. "If you two stop making out in front of me, I might have a solution."

"Is it wrong of me to want to shoot your brother right now?"

Jess snorted. "I am pretty skilled with a pistol, I can show you how."

"Brilliant." Colin smiled against her mouth and pressed her up against the office wall. "If we ignore him maybe he'll go away."

"I thought I'd offer you a job, you ungrateful Brit," Jack said without an ounce of anger. "Just so we're clear, I had planned to do this before I saw the picture of you two."

"What do you think?" Jess held her breath. Working together was tricky. Of course, they'd managed it in Port-du-Bois under fairly extreme circumstances.

"I'm up for it."

Jess snickered. "You're up for more than that."

"Oh God, my eyes," Jack murmured. Right before he shut the door, he begged, "Just please don't have sex on my desk."

They ignored him.

***

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Excerpt from Carved in Stone

Ava Sanchez scurried toward her desk and cursed her tendency to blush. Luckily, with her swarthy skin tone and her current healthy tan—she'd spent a decent amount of time at the beach this summer—her blush likely wasn't
too
noticeable. However, she couldn't completely hide her deep embarrassment. When Jack had issued his 'no sex on the desk' command, she'd had no chance to temper her reaction. It was as if he'd reached right into her favorite fantasy and blurted it out to Connor.

She sighed. Connor, who never even noticed her.

Oh, he acknowledged her. He smiled. Said hello. But he never really
looked
at her. And maybe on the outside she appeared as a confident, well-dressed, well-groomed woman, but on the inside she was still that painfully shy wallflower, the migrant worker who didn't quite belong, who squeaked when spoken to and couldn't ever act normal in a social situation.

She'd worked hard to overcome her natural reticence. To learn to be polished and to strive for classy and sophisticated. To eradicate the dust and dirt from the fields and her native Sinaloan accent. She'd come a long way in the last eight years, but she still had difficulty speaking to men she found attractive. And she definitely found Connor Stone attractive.

"Sorry, Ava," Jack called from his office. She knew he was. He was gruff and a little rough around the edges but he meant well. He'd given her a job right out of college and helped her acclimate to a new world with affection and patience. He treated all his employees like family, which meant he frequently didn't think before he spoke.

Jack, she could handle. She grinned. "Expect my lawsuit in the mail," she quipped back, completely at ease with her totally hot boss. And he was. Totally hot. At thirty-four, he was also a little on the old side for her. But Ava wasn't attracted to Jack. He didn't make her girl parts tingle the way his brother did. Jack was like the older brother she'd never had and always wanted.

Jack gave a shout of laughter.

Why had Jack said that? Could he know that she frequently daydreamed about the youngest Stone brother? All the other women in the office were
loco
over Riley. And no doubt Riley was extremely handsome, smooth, and very charming. He always made her feel feminine and special. But he did that to everyone. Ava preferred the quiet confidence and the understated smarts of Connor Stone.

He was physically intimidating, as big as Jack and definitely as muscular. Since she wasn't a simpering skinny swizzle stick, but a solid woman with more curves than she'd like and the build of a peasant, Ava appreciated Connor's bulk. She imagined that he would make her feel delicate and dainty if he wrapped his solid, massive biceps around her and cupped her ass in his large palms.

"Hey." Connor stood in front of her desk.

Ava jerked and blinked up at him. She could feel an even deeper flush thunder through her body like a wave of heat. Great, while she'd been daydreaming, he'd been watching her imagine him naked and wrapped around her. "Er. Hello."

"Ignore him. He's an idiot."

"Okay. Thanks."

And if only he'd shut up then, because that was the perfect place to stop. Instead, he kept going. "Of course we aren't going to...."

Of course. Because no way could a guy that good looking, that smart, that
everything,
ever want to have sex with her. Ava's temper began to simmer. "Of course not." Her snide tone left no room for interpretation.

Connor looked very uncomfortable as he figured out that he'd just insulted her. "Uhhh, I don't think that came out the way I meant it."

And like that she boiled over. "How did you mean it?" she said sweetly, softly. She blinked at him with her most innocent, wide-eyed, non-threatening expression for the first time truly looking him in the eyes. He had gorgeous eyes, a sunburst of caramel, chocolate and a hint of pale green in a kaleidescope of color. Tawny, gold, predatory.

He was a very smart man. And he'd figured out that no matter what he said, he was trapped and going to offend her. Like the very smart man he was, Connor backed away. "I meant no disrespect."

If that was the way he wanted to leave it. "Fine."

That stereotypical Latina temper was a stereotype for a reason but she usually left her hothead reactions at the door. She needed this job and most importantly, she wanted this job to atone for the past. It was a bonus that she loved working here. She loved that she was using her degree but also doing some good. GHR was the perfect vehicle for her need to do penance. For her luck in surviving when Maria...Maria hadn't.

"Ava...."

He wasn't going to go away until she forgave him for the insult and let him off the hook. Too bad she didn't want to forgive him.

"Sure. None taken," Ava said dissmissively, clearly lying. She purposely stared down at her monitor and started typing away. Too bad she had no idea what document was open or what she was typing. If he looked at the screen, he would only see gibberish.

Connor stood in front of her desk, arms hanging limply at his sides, half-turned toward Jack's office, half-facing her, as if undecided about what to do next.

She continued to pretend that she was ultra-busy, praying he would go away so that she could run to the bathroom and compose herself. She could hear Jack on the phone in his office, arranging the company jet to be at the Monterey regional airport. Soon.

Jack didn't sound happy. And she wondered why he was doing his own scheduling rather than having her take care of it. There was plenty of work that he took care of himself already. But he always had her schedule their pilot, Shane, and make the travel arrangements.

Connor hadn't left the area by her desk and his presence was beginning to make her sweat. She wondered if Connor was going to use Jack's office while Jack was gone, and if so, how was she going to get any work done with him less than fifty feet away and always just...there? She'd be a distracted mess the entire time.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noted his feet had started moving.

Only he wasn't leaving. He was stalking toward her, literally like a leopard toward its prey. Finally, all she could see was his thick, muscular thighs and the intriguing bulge in his crotch, covered by tan cargo pants, before he slammed his hands down on her desk, his blunt fingers and wide palms flattened on top of the report she was supposed to be typing.

His biceps rippled as he leaned close, his broad solid torso loomed over her and Ava fought the urge to lean away from the clear menace in Connor's pose. "Let's get one thing perfectly straight,"he said softly, his face was set in fierce lines, and his multi-colored eyes glowed with fiery intensity.

Ava hypnotically lifted her gaze to his face, overwhelmed by his sheer physical presence. Arousal tingled through her at his proximity and his obvious strength. "Just because I won't, doesn't mean I don't
want
."

Connor shoved up and off her desk, then strode purposefully away. Ava was struck speechless by his words as she watched the play of his glutes beneath his snug cargo pants. Her heart still beat erratically in her chest and either she'd had a major sugar crash from her hard boiled egg breakfast or all the blood in her head had rushed south to a very under-used body part.

One question kept circling in her suddenly light-headed brain: Did he just say he wanted
her
?

Excerpt from Heart of Stone

Riley Stone didn't have a
type.

He loved all women equally. Short, Tall, Skinny, Round. Outgoing. Shy. Young. Old. Sweet. Sexy. Surly.

And they loved him right back.

When he was younger, he'd come to the very happy conclusion, that he could charm his way out of, or sometimes into, any touchy situation.

He'd developed the skill as a young kid.When he'd realized that he was never going to be a good reader, or a good student, he'd made the decision that he'd have to rely on his other attributes. He could charm his grades up from any teacher in whose class he might need a little help. Which came in handy when he knew he wasn't going to pass a test.

He made it a point to always have something nice to say. As an adult, charming people was second nature. He didn't even have to think about doing it.

When he grew up, he finally understood that his talent was in making people feel better about themselves and better in general. How he approached a situation might vary from person to person, but if using a little charm eased the way, he was gonna use it.

He was shallow enough to use his God given talent to charm women into bed, at least he had been. These days he was more focused on making a go of GHR and Stone Consulting with his brothers and sister than in scoring with a hot woman.

But he still couldn't help himself when it came to charming people, especially women.

"How's it going, sweetheart?" He stopped to chat with Ava Sanchez, his brother Jack's assistant, making her blush and stammer. She was a complete hottie and didn't even seem to realize it. But Riley's Rules Number Ten: Never do more than lightly flirt with co-workers.

He'd managed to maintain an amicable relationship with every woman he'd ever had a thing with. It was a particular point of pride with him. But odds were, at some time, things wouldn't end well. And he'd never jeopardize a working relationship, or Global Humanitarian Relief and Stone Consulting, which meant sweet Ava was off limits.

He smiled gently at her. "He ready for me?"

"Yes. You can go on in," she replied with a tilt of her head. "He's got company."

"Client?"

She nodded, lowered her lashes and smiled.

"Okay." Riley paused to adjust the cuffs of his egyptian cotton dress shirt and smooth his hand down his bright, geometric Jhane Barnes tie. He made it a point to be well-dressed in the office in case there were meetings with clients. It was rare but it did happen. From his vantage point in the doorway, he could see the woman in Jack's office. He didn't recognize her from the back. She seemed delicate, the curve of her head covered with a riot of short blond curls but her body language screamed supreme annoyance.

Riley curved his lips into a casual smile and sauntered into Jack's office. His big gruff brother seemed to be conversing carefully with the woman across from him.

Jack looked up and the hard set of his shoulders relaxed. "Ry, you're here." A desperate smile lit his face as he stood and grabbed Riley's hand like a lifeline. "I'd like you to meet, Diana Lundberg from
Tools for Schools
."

The woman stood abruptly and shoved out her hand in a very masculine move to greet him.

She was tall, more sleek lines and hard angles than soft curves but when her hard, capable fingers curled around his much larger palm, Riley took a serious punch to the gut. Lust hit, hard and unexpected, as he grasped her far more delicate fingers and gazed into her wary, pale blue eyes.

"Pleasure," he finally murmured dazedly.

She tugged her hand from his and turned to Jack. "
He's
going to take TFS into the jungle?" Her curved brow was derisive and her tone bordered on insolent.

Jack leapt to Riley's defense. "He's extremely well-trained and has knowledge of the area."

"I'm a lot more adaptable than I look." Riley smiled seductively, unable to stop the flow of innuendo. He wanted her. Bad. He carefully put his hands in his pockets to stop the instinctive need to reach out and grab her hand again. He hated to do it as it ruined the line of his fine wool gabardine trousers but desperate times and desperate measures needed to be taken. It wouldn't do to accost the client.