| “This isn’t going to be easy,” Ellie Sterling said to
the empty hallway as she strode toward her boss’s office, the last bundle
of message traffic in her hand.
Florescent lights in the narrow hall burned her tired eyes. She’d spent
too many sleepless nights worrying about the plans she must take.
Ben Darrock would bust a gasket when he saw the other note nestled among the
items she needed to show him. Correction. The big Scotsman would come unglued
and start demanding that she take action.
When she arrived at his door, she stopped and stared at the name plate. Ben
Darrock, Director, Division Six. It always took nerve to step into this room.
To talk with him. To be near him.
She knocked.
“Come,” a deep, Scottish accent said through the closed door.
Come. She couldn’t hear that innocent word in his voice without
wondering what it would feel like to climax with him deep inside her. Since the
first day she’d walked into the agency as a new employee she’d felt
this insatiable sexual reaction to him, unstoppable and fierce. Fantasies about
having Glasgow born Ben Darrock in her bed frequented her nighttime dreams more
than she wanted to admit. But reality and castles in the sky didn’t mix
at work, and she understood that as well as the next person.
She strove for a year to convince herself she couldn’t break rules and
code of conduct in the workplace. Drooling over the boss didn’t fall under
the category of responsible, sensible or any other ible she could recall.
Now she didn’t care. As the cliché said, life was too damned short.
Get on with it. He isn’t going to wait all day.
As she clasped the doorknob, a flush heated her face. Here goes.
Seconds later she stepped into his large but austere office. He kept it clean,
organized, and modern to the point of dull. The whole place lacked warmth, and
one of the secretaries in Division Six once suggested Ben must be like that in
bed. Cold. Perfunctory. Boring.
Like hell.
While Ellie possessed no tangible evidence, she knew by instinct that Ben owned
a passionate nature that once aroused could consume a woman. Make her want, say
and do things she’d never imagined before. Oh, yeah. A woman could find
fire in his arms.
She had the evidence. Over the last year she’d encountered him in situations
where they stood close together, talking about work. She’d breath in his
crazy-making scent, a tantalizing combination of sandalwood and musk. She would
look up and see the sparkle of amusement or a devouring gaze that said he appreciated
her as a woman.
Less then a week after she’d met him she saw warmth in his gaze, an interesting
mix of gentleness and pure male hunger that made her tingle from her long braided
hair to her barely there bikini panties. Heat stirred inside her remembering the
bone-melting attraction and craving she experienced each time he looked at her
that way.
Then Ellie’s gaze fell on the picture of his long dead wife sitting on
his bookshelf and a little of her enthusiasm faded. Maureen Darrock, gone six
years, stared out from the picture, blonde, icy, and beautiful.
A memory with which Ellie couldn’t compete.
Seconds drew out until the Scotsman looked up from his desk and the papers
in front of him. “Ellie.” An almost tender smile touched his lips.
“What have you got there?”
His one-hundred percent rich Scots accent held the right amount of sexy nuance
to make her feel lustful and excited in less then a heartbeat. Whenever his melodious
voice said her name, heat coasted across her body like a flash fire.
“I brought the latest messages. I could have emailed them, but I needed
to see you.”
He captured her gaze and held it. Dark coffee eyes smoldered with instant,
unmistakable admiration. He nodded. “All right. What’s this about?”
To her surprise he left his desk and came towards her. Today he wore a dark
green sweater that couldn’t hide the impressive width of his shoulders and
neat dark slacks that fit him as if tailored for the tall man.
“The daily message traffic is heavy. There’s some disturbing data
here on the situation in Ireland I thought you’d like to see.”
He stopped in front of her, too close for comfort. When he reached for the
file, his fingers brushed hers. Tingles raced through her hands at the innocent
touch. He flipped through the file and perused the messages without a word.
While he read, she couldn’t stop looking at him. She loved his face.
His chiseled nose and well-drawn mouth belonged on a movie star. The close cut,
attractive trim of his mustache and beard sculpted his face. Some women thought
his longish hair and mustache and beard too much. All she saw was drop-dead, outrageously
sexy. The fact he could get away with the look in the SIA said much. The man proved
himself professionally time and again and no one could deny that.
And his body. Well, his body defined all that a woman could want. At least,
all she could want anyway. Over the year she’d worked with him she saw him
in suits, ties, casual work clothes and even once at a picnic wearing a tight
tee shirt and shorts. The t-shirt had molded his wide shoulders, lovingly hugging
muscled arms and chest to perfection. Her gaze had gotten snagged on the hint
of six-pack stomach under that white shirt. His shorts had not hidden the fact
his ass was world class and his legs—oh, his legs. Long, hard with strength.
All SIA agents had to be in tip top shape, but it was obvious he’d gone
out of his way to hone an athletic frame to die for.
She had to tilt her chin up to look into his eyes. While she topped five six
in stocking feet, his six foot two frame towered over her. His muscular body always
made her feel safe and female in the most primal way.
Yeah, the man is categorically, undeniably fuckable.
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