The Hang Up (First Impressions) (3 page)

Holly snort-laughed and nearly knocked over her glass of ice water. “God, what are the odds? Seriously—the hot naked guy in your bathroom turns out to be the new CEO for one of our biggest clients.”

“Definitely a crazy coincidence. Also, I totally lied. The look on his face in that meeting was way different from the look he had when he caught me staring at his junk.”

“I can only imagine.”

Miriam’s brain took a detour down Pervert Lane at the memory of all that glorious man-flesh on display in her bathroom. Jason Sanders looked like he’d been digitally enhanced in all the right places.

Some places more than others.

She found herself grinning at the memory, both of the meeting and the encounter in the bathroom. “It was great to see him stand up to those stuffed shirts on day one. I knew before today’s meeting that the guy had huge balls,” she mused. “It was nice to see him prove it in front of everyone.”

“Thank you.”

Both women jumped at the sound of a male voice. Miriam looked up to see Jason standing in the doorway, wearing a snug T-shirt, a pair of running shorts, and a smug smile.

Heat crept into Miriam’s cheeks as Holly gaped at him.

“Tell me you didn’t just hear that,” Miriam said as Jason continued to grin from the doorway.

“No can do.” He unfolded his arms to reveal a chiseled chest that made Miriam want to rake her fingernails down his torso. As though reading her thoughts, he grinned wider and strode into the conference room. “But thanks, by the way.”

“No problem,” Miriam muttered, shaking her head. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

“My fault,” Holly said, finding her voice at last. “I left the door unlocked because Ben’s coming to take me to dinner. Actually, that’s probably him now.” She glanced down at her phone, then got the same goofy, love-struck grin she’d had from the first day she’d met her new husband. She looked at Jason and grimaced. “Sorry about that. I swear we’re usually very professional with our clients.”

“It’s after hours.” Jason eased himself into a chair beside Miriam, and his knee bumped hers under the table, making her shiver. “You don’t have to be professional with me.”

Miriam felt a surge of desire to be anything but professional with him, but she settled for giving him an apologetic nod. “Even so, I’m sorry for my remarks. I don’t ordinarily comment on our clients’ anatomy.”

“I’m going to assume you’re not ordinarily this familiar with your clients’ anatomy,” he pointed out. “It’s understandable under the circumstances. Also a little flattering.”

Still a little red-faced, Holly grabbed her laptop and shoved it in her bag. “I have to run,” she said, squeezing Miriam’s shoulder as she stood up. “Want me to lock up on my way out?”

“Yeah, thanks. Have a good date night!”

“Thank you.” Holly beamed. “I’m going to ask Ben to hit the drugstore for a you-know-what test on the way to dinner.”

“Because nothing says romance like peeing on a stick?”

She laughed. “Exactly. Have a good night!”

Holly disappeared down the hall, which left Miriam alone with the tall, handsome, not-so-homeless guy who’d been naked in her house just a few days ago.

She turned back to Jason, surprised to realize she felt a little nervous around him all of a sudden. “So.” She folded her hands on the table. “You’re the new CEO of Urban Trax.”

“It appears that way.” He reached for the candy dish, picked up an orange gummy, and frowned at it. “Is this a penis?”

“Technically, it’s the whole anatomy—cock and balls, to be precise.”

“For a woman who just told me she’s not ordinarily focused on clients’ anatomy, this seems like an odd choice in snacks for your boardroom.”

“I said I didn’t comment on the clients’ anatomy—not that I wasn’t focused on it.”

He grinned like he’d just gotten her to admit something she hadn’t meant to, and Miriam wondered why she seemed so hell-bent on putting her foot in her mouth around this guy.

“Anyway, the gummy dongs are from a client who specializes in food shaped like genitals,” she explained as she tucked a wayward curl behind one ear. “Pasta, chewing gum, lollipops, even ice cube trays.”

“Huh,” Jason said, shoving one in his mouth and chewing without apparent hesitation. There was something oddly sexy about a man confident enough in his masculinity not to go all homophobic about a bowl full of gummy dicks, and the thought was a turn-on for Miriam.

Then again, this guy could wear lederhosen and recite excerpts from her iPod user manual and she’d be turned on.

She cleared her throat again. “So how did your first day go?” she asked.

“You tell me how it went. You witnessed a good chunk of it today.”

“The meeting was…
interesting
,” she offered for lack of a better word.

“Come on,” he said, resting his hands palms-down on the table. “I’m serious, I want your opinion.”

“You’re asking how I think you performed in the meeting?” Hell, no good could come of this.

“Yep.” He folded his hands on the table. Massive hands, she noticed.

Pay attention, Miriam.

“I’m the new guy,” he said. “And you’ve been working with the execs for months now. I want to know how you think I did.”

She studied him, trying to assess how serious he was. “You want me to pat you on the ass and give you a cookie, or you want me to give it to you straight?”

Jason grinned. “I’d kinda like all of the above, actually.”

“We’ll have to do a rain check on the cookie,” she said, deliberately not mentioning the ass pat, even though her hand tingled with the thought of touching him. “So you really want feedback?”

“Lay it on me. I have thick skin.”

Her libido did an internal shudder at his word choice, but she managed to hold it together. “Well, you already heard me tell Holly you’ve got balls. That’s a compliment, by the way.”

“I took it as one.”

“Good. But the one thing you don’t have is professional polish.”

“True,” he agreed, stretching those long legs out in front of him under the conference table and bumping Miriam’s knee again. “That’s kinda why they hired me.”

“Not exactly,” she said. “They hired you because you’re an authentic, rugged, outdoorsy mountain man who happens to have solid business experience and a good head on his shoulders.”

And between his legs
, her libido telegraphed, but she kept her gaze on his.

“You’re obviously smart,” she continued, “and you’re obviously a good businessman, but you have to show them you can do more than swing your dick around. You have to show them you can play in their league.”

He laughed and shook his head, eyeing her with renewed interest. “Are you always this blunt?”

“Yup. It’s why Holly leads most of the meetings and I sit there doodling dick pics on my iPad screen.”

“So that’s what a Chicago Art Institute–educated, ADDY Award–winning graphic designer spends her time drawing.” He grinned wider when Miriam blinked in surprise. “I looked you up after the meeting. Figured you got an intimate look at my junk, the least I could do was find out more about you.”

“Please tell me there are no nudie photos of me on the internet,” she said, only half kidding.

“None that I could find, and that wasn’t for lack of trying.”

“It’s nice to see you have ambition.”

“So back to the meeting,” he said. “You think my professional polish is lacking?”

“That can’t be surprising to you, can it?”

“Nope,” he agreed. “I suppose I’m with you on the tendency toward foot-in-mouth disease.”

“At least I have the good sense to keep my mouth shut in board meetings instead of peppering all my dialogue with profanity.”

“Keeping my mouth shut isn’t usually an option as CEO,” he pointed out. “I don’t suppose you’d care to give me some pointers on being a more polished professional?”

“What, you mean like etiquette lessons?”

“Sure, something like that.”

Miriam snorted. “We’ve known each other forty-eight hours, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for not realizing I’m the last person in the world who should be giving anyone etiquette lessons.”

“I beg to differ,” he said, his gaze sweeping her body in a way that made her shiver. “You’re the most put-together woman I’ve ever met.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“And you totally owned it in the board meeting.”

“Owning a team of suit-clad, tie-yanking executives is only slightly more challenging than owning a housecat.”

“I’ve met your cat. Considering he sexually assaulted me, that qualifies as a challenging pet.”

“He’s well-trained.”

“That reminds me—Fuzzy?” He rolled his eyes. “You’re one of the industry’s foremost creative geniuses and you have a cat named
Fuzzy
?”

“It’s spelled P-h-u-z-e-e-i.”

“Phuzeei?”

“Yep.”

He looked at her a moment, then smiled. “That explains so much.”

Miriam was saved from asking what he meant when he banged his hand on the table in front of him, a move that simultaneously startled her and left her wondering how he felt about spanking in the bedroom.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You give me a few pointers on polish and professionalism, and I’ll give you free outdoor adventure tours.”

“Outdoor adventure?” She wasn’t surprised to hear that the words emerging from her mouth had the same intonation she’d use if she said “Pap smear” or “Ebola.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, flipping open her laptop. “But actually, I can show you some of my favorite fashion websites if you want to get some ideas for professional attire and—”

“Wait, why don’t you want an outdoor adventure?”

Miriam stared at him and wondered whether to offer the real story or the one that seemed most obvious.

“I’m a city girl through and through, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said, settling for the surface story.

“Right, but you’re a city girl who’s managing the account for the nation’s second-largest outdoor gear retailer,” he pointed out. “Don’t you think you should be at least a little familiar with our products?”

“I am familiar with your products,” she said. “I did intensive market research using the reports from—”

“No, no, no,” Jason interrupted. “Reports aren’t the same as actually experiencing it. When was the last time you played outside?”

Miriam tamped down the panic that threatened to bubble its way up from her gut. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t possibly know she’d spent the last year avoiding all things outdoorsy.

Especially men with an adrenaline habit.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to answer his question. “I went outside on Saturday,” she said. “I walked out to get the mail.”

Jason shook his head and looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Come on, I’ll start you off easy. Maybe some spelunking or something.”

“I don’t know what spelunking is, but unless it’s a drink, a sex act, or a fashion designer, I’m not interested.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Wait, so you
would
be interested if spelunking was a sex act?”

“I was being glib,” she said, tossing her hair and making note of the eagerness in his expression. “Whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s outside my comfort zone.”

“Exactly why you should do it.” He grinned again. “Spelunking is cave exploration. I have all the gear, and there’s a really amazing cave I know of just a couple hours away. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“I think you and I have very different definitions of
fun
.”

“I doubt that,” he said. His voice was low and molten, or maybe that’s just how Miriam heard it. Either way, it sent a shiver down her spine.

She shook her head, trying to keep her cool. “I really don’t think cave exploration is necessary. Or any other adventure, really. I can serve Urban Trax just fine from the comfort of my desk chair.”

“I disagree,” he said. “I think it’s very necessary. And as your client and the CEO of the second-largest outdoor retailer in the country, I require it.”

Miriam rolled her eyes, annoyed to realize how turned on she was by the whole alpha-male mountain-man thing. “You remember that thing I said about not needing to swing your dick around?”

“That’s the second time in ten minutes you’ve mentioned my dick,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d accuse you of being obsessed with it.”

“Fine,” Miriam said, pretty sure this was the least professional conversation she’d ever had with a client. She knew she needed to call a halt to it, but his teasing had left her tingling from the nape of her neck all the way down to her toes. “I’ll go spelunking with you. But I won’t agree to like it.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Now can we talk business for just a minute?”

“Fire away.”

As Miriam launched into a discussion of marketing plans and ad campaigns, the back of her brain was still hung up on the simmering attraction she felt for this burly, ridiculously sexy lumberjack lookalike beside her.

The whole thing was stupid. Considering what happened with her dad, she kept her distance from guys who fed on adrenaline like it was oxygen. She’d sworn six ways to Sunday she’d never get involved with a guy like Jason Sanders.

So what the hell was she doing?

And why did she kinda wish spelunking was a sex act?

Chapter Three

Jason rapped on his sister’s front door and reflected on the fact that it was also sort of
his
door. He’d purchased the duplex when he moved them all to the city two weeks ago, and though he lived three feet away in the adjacent home, he liked to think there was enough separation between the two dwellings to give them each a bit of privacy.

That was especially handy when his five-year-old nephew, Henry, practiced his drumming skills with a collection of his mother’s pots and pans. Though the sound didn’t carry through the walls when Jason was safely in his space, he could hear it now as Ellie threw the door open to reveal a gleefully percussive little boy and one frazzled-looking mom.

“What?” barked the frazzled-looking mom, who also happened to be Jason’s baby sister.

He felt a rush of fondness for Ellie, mingled with the absolute certainty he was put here on this earth to care for these two remaining members of his family.

But he was a big brother, of course, so he opted to show his fondness by tousling her hair.

“Good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Jason said as she ducked out from under his hand and smacked it away. “I take it he found the drumsticks?”

“No, he’s using my wooden spoons again.”

“I thought you hid those.”

“I did. Apparently his desire to be Alex Van Halen outweighs his fear of climbing up on the counter to reach the top of the fridge.”

“Climbing’s in his genes,” Jason said with a twinge of pride. “Maybe I’ll buy him a harness and a set of crampons for his sixth birthday.”

“And maybe I’ll be attending my big brother’s funeral after I murder you in your sleep.”

Jason laughed and glanced at Henry. “How’d he sleep?”

“Really well. Hopefully that means the new meds agree with him.” Ellie turned to look back at her son, who had reached a musical crescendo and was using a pair of stainless steel lids as cymbals. “Maybe that’s the problem,” Ellie said. “He’s well-rested and feeling good and ready to take on the world.”

“They said that might be the case at this stage in remission.” Jason peered around Ellie and called out to his nephew. “Hey, big guy! You gonna be good for your mom today?”

Henry nodded and dropped his cymbals, then scurried toward the door. He wrapped his small body around his uncle’s leg with the fierceness of a small anaconda, then released it before Jason had a chance to stoop down to proper hugging level.

Henry looked up at him, beaming, as he shoved his glasses up on his tiny freckle-spotted nose. “Uncle Jason, I have a penis and you have a penis but mommy and Mrs. O’Reilly have fa-chynas.”

“Right,” Jason agreed, unfazed by his nephew’s typical entrée to conversation. He looked back at his sister. “Mrs. O’Reilly?”

Ellie shrugged. “A woman we met at the park yesterday. One who seemed taken aback by receiving an anatomy lesson delivered by a five-year-old.”

They both looked at Henry, who seemed unconcerned by the whole thing. He’d scampered back to his makeshift drum set and was rearranging Ellie’s Dutch oven beside an overturned saucepan. Henry giggled and picked up the wooden spoons again, looking so happy and healthy that Jason’s heart squeezed in his chest.

This is the most important thing in the world. Taking care of these two, making sure Henry gets healthy and Ellie stays happy and they have everything they need. Nothing else matters more.

“So why are you here?”

He turned back to Ellie, remembering why he’d come in the first place. “Do you still have that helmet I loaned you when Henry was in his Iron Man phase?”

“I think so. Why, you planning to build yourself a powered suit and spend your days fighting terrorism and corporate crime?”

“Maybe, if the executive team pursues this stupid plan with the layoffs.” He grimaced, then shook his head. “Forget I said that. It’s a confidential personnel issue, not something I should be talking about with my sister.”

“My lips are sealed,” she said. “Not that I was planning to go post it on the Facebook page for my mommy-and-me play group.”

“I know, but I have to be careful now. Being the CEO of a major international company is a little different from running a regional outdoor adventure firm.”

“I can only imagine.” Ellie studied him a moment, her pale blue gaze so intense, he was tempted to look away. “Jason, I still feel bad about you giving up the job you loved just to support us through—”

“Don’t,” he said, clapping a hand over his sister’s mouth the way he used to when they were kids and she ran around the yard telling everyone he had cooties. She responded by biting him, which was also par for the course.

“I hope you’ve had your rabies shot,” he muttered as he drew his hand back. “Come on, El. Don’t say that stuff. The new job was a good career move. The fact that it happens to help you guys through this stage of Henry’s treatment is just a bonus.”

“I know, but I still wish I could contribute more.”

“You
are
contributing. Remember how much you were paying for babysitters and day care before?”

“Right.” She glanced over her shoulder at Henry, her expression softening a little. “It
is
nice watching over him all the time. Knowing one of us is always there in case something happens.”

“Exactly. This way we don’t have to trust some uneducated babysitter or—”

“Hey, it wasn’t Karen’s fault about the PICC line. That could have happened with one of us watching him, too.”

“I know,” Jason said, not totally believing it. “But this just feels safer. Not having to worry that someone else won’t take care of him the way we would.”

Ellie frowned but nodded. “In any case, we owe you big-time.”

“So pay me back by finding that damn helmet. Come on, I’ve gotta go.”

Ellie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Hot date involving a helmet?”

“Kinda,” he said, which earned another probing look from his sister. “Not a date, exactly. Just going caving with the owner at our PR firm.”

Ellie grinned like he’d just handed her a spa gift certificate. Come to think of it, he should probably do that. Being a single mom was a thankless job, and since the men in Ellie’s life hadn’t always been kind to her, Jason damn well ought to be.

“Oooh!” Ellie said. “Is this the same woman who saw your baloney pony?”

Henry looked up from his drums and giggled. “Baloney pony! Baloney pony! Baloney pony!” The boy dropped the wooden spoons and began galloping around the house like a horse while Ellie and Jason looked on fondly.

“Baloney pony!” Henry shouted again. “I’m a baloney pony! Yee-haw!”

“Nice one,” Jason said. “Like he wasn’t already fixated on the whole penis/vagina thing.”

“Well until you said that, he probably had no idea what a baloney pony was.”

Henry giggled again and pointed at him. “Uncle Jason has a baloney pony.”

“That I do, kiddo.”

Ellie leaned closer, lowering her voice. “So you didn’t answer my question—you’re spelunking with the PR girl?”

“Miriam,” Jason said, liking the way her name sounded rolling off his tongue. “Yes. It’s just business.”

“You mean so you can give her pointers on caving or so she can give you pointers on being a refined and polished CEO?”

“Once again, yes.”

Ellie snorted. “If you come back here wearing a three-piece suit and lifting your pinkie when you drink tea, I’m calling the cops.”

“Actually, that’s the cool thing,” he said as he remembered his conversation with Miriam in the conference room the other day. “She doesn’t seem to want to change me much at all. She thinks the whole scruffy mountain man thing is good for the Urban Trax brand.”

“No kidding?” Ellie slugged him in the shoulder. “I hope she at least gets you to do something about your hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing, if you want to look like Sasquatch just rolled out of a tent after sleeping in a beanie all night.”

“Maybe that’s exactly the look I’m going for.”

“In that case, you nailed it.” She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the house. “Come on. I think the helmet’s in the toy box.”

Ellie led him through the living room and into a corner of the small space she’d designated as Henry’s playroom, for all the good it did. The whole house was essentially Henry’s playroom, as was the world at large.

“I know it’s in here somewhere,” Ellie called from the depths of the red-and-yellow hand-painted toy box Jason had made for Henry when the boy was barely two. Back before cancer and chemo and all the heartache that came with it.

“It’s gotta be in here,” Ellie said, tossing out a plastic dinosaur, a mini basketball, and a broken lightsaber. “Here it is!”

She stood and held up the helmet triumphantly, her hair rumpled and wild and her face sweet and lovely and familiar as the back of his own hand. Jason was tempted to tousle her hair again, but he settled for taking the helmet.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Ellie nodded at the helmet. “Was this what you always meant when you used to remind me to bring protection on dates?”

He laughed. “I was thinking more along the lines of a Glock or a Magnum, but a condom would have sufficed.”

“I’m glad it didn’t,” Ellie said, shooting a loving glance at her son, who was back to tapping cheerfully on the pots and pans. “Even if his dad turned out to be a d-i-c-k-h-e-a-d, I got the better end of the deal.”

“That you did,” Jason agreed. He glanced down at his watch. “Look, I’ve gotta run. Call me if you hear from the doc with any new info?”

“It’s Saturday. I doubt we’ll hear anything until at least Monday.”

“Okay, then call me if you need anything. Or he needs anything. Or you run into any trouble with—”

“Go, Mr. Overprotective,” his sister said, shoving him toward the door. “We’ve got it covered.”

“I know you do,” he said, but he let her propel him back toward the entryway. “But I still worry about you.”

“And we appreciate that. We appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but you can relax every now and then, too, you know. Especially since he’s in remission now.”

Jason started to argue. To tell her there was no way he could ever let himself relax. Not when his family needed him, or when they’d come so close to losing Henry last year—

“Have fun today, okay?” Ellie said.

“Roger that,” Jason said, swallowing the lump in his throat as he stopped at the front door. “I’m just a phone call away if you need me.”

“Got it.” Ellie stretched up to give him a kiss on the cheek, which Jason made a big show of wiping off.

“Cooties.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a fond smile. “You’re a jerk.”

“You’re a brat.”

“You’re a smelly boy.” She shoved him again. “Enjoy the spelunking. Behave yourself with your PR lady.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

“I’m sure you will.” She gave him a suggestive eyebrow wiggle, which just made him laugh.

Laugh and think lecherous thoughts about Miriam.

He was still grinning as he made his way down the walkway.

…

Miriam stood shivering at the mouth of the cave, her fingers clenched around the helmet Jason had just handed her. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn a helmet for anything, which didn’t make her a wind-in-the-hair, helmet-free daredevil. On the contrary, she never did anything that necessitated cranial protection.

“I still can’t believe you wore high heels to go caving,” Jason muttered, shaking his head as he adjusted his own helmet.

“They’re not high heels, they’re wedges.” Miriam turned her foot to the side to admire her tan leather calf-high boots. “It’s only a two-inch wedge, and they’re made by Keen—that company that has all the hiking stuff?”

“I know what Keen is. We sell their products through Urban Trax, and those boots are
not
for hiking. Walking on flat ground, maybe, but we’re going to be trekking over lava rock and crawling on our bellies through tunnels.”

Miriam glanced toward the cave and frowned. “If I’ll be crawling, my footwear seems irrelevant. You should have warned me to wear full body armor.”

“Here,” he said, prying the helmet from her hands as he thrust a pair of sturdy-looking boots at her. “I thought this might be an issue, so I brought a whole stash of women’s hiking boots.”

“You keep that beside your stash of women’s underpants?”

“Very funny. I used to run an outdoor adventure company. I probably have more boots and jackets in my closet than you do, though mine are a helluva lot more practical.”

“Depends on the occasion, doesn’t it?” She took the hiking boots from him and sat down on a boulder to swap out her footwear. “I’d much rather go into a board meeting wearing Manolos than these.”

“Lucky for you, we’re not going into a board meeting.”

“You’re going to have to explain at some point how that’s lucky.”

She yanked off her existing boot, throwing off her center of gravity. Before she could topple off the boulder, Jason slipped into the space beside her, bracing her shoulder with his hip.

“Steady there,” he said. “I’d rather not have you breaking an ankle before we even get inside.”

“If breaking an ankle will get me out of going in that cave, I might have to give it a shot.”

Jason laughed and Miriam went back to tying her boot. Sarcasm aside, she really was a little freaked out about the cave. She didn’t like to admit it, but she’d always had just a touch of claustrophobia, and the idea of being in a cave with all those spiders and bats and—

“There are no spiders,” Jason said, reading her thoughts. “It’s too dark in there, and there’s no reliable food source.”

“What about bats?”

He shook his head. “Not this time of year, and not in this cave. Bats are amazing, though. They eat mosquitoes and pests, and the ones in this area are actually very cute and fuzzy.”

“In that case, I’ll run right out and get one as a pet.” Miriam gave a small shudder at the idea of fuzzy bats as she cinched the laces on the boots and stood up. “Let me put my other boots in the car and I’ll be right back.”

“I’m keeping the keys in case you’re plotting an escape,” he called, and she turned around to see him checking out her ass.