Can't Get Enough (25 page)

JACK SPENTa sleepless night going over and over those few heady moments
when he'd had Claire in his arms. And his mouth. Those black thigh-high
stockings—he'd almost exploded when he saw them. And the way she'd
given herself over to the moment. The noise she made as he touched
her—that, alone, was enough to make him hard.

Of course, he quickly realized that that way lay torture, and a long,
long cold shower later he was finally able to drop off to sleep.

She took over his dreams, too, however. But his subconscious surprised him—his dream wasn't hot and
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heavy. Instead, he kept seeing the embarrassed color in her cheeks as
she made her hasty exit from the boardroom. In his dream he followed
her, making her stop and listen to him as he explained—

He awoke with the alarm sounding in his ear and the sense that he'd just missed out on learning something profound.

Maybe it was the dream that made him detour via her office on the way
into his own the next morning. He told himself he simply wanted to
offer her the sense of solidarity—after all, it had taken two to tango.
Or whatever dance it was they'd been considering before Morgan so
rudely interrupted them. The S.O.B.

To his surprise, she wasn't there. He didn't examine the surge of
disappointment in his gut too closely—that was what his subconscious
and those dreams were for, after all. Instead, he stood staring at her
empty chair, aware of all the noise and bustle of a normal business day
going on behind him. Maybe he should wait for her….

"Can I help you?"

He spun around to find a small, nervous-looking young guy staring at
him. The stare was a tad belligerent, and he realized he was standing
fully inside Claire's unattended office, hovering over her paper-strewn
desk. Bad office etiquette.

Smiling engagingly, he took a step forward until he could lean against
the door frame, and some of the alertness in the other guy's face
eased.

Territorial little devil.

"Yeah, I'm looking for Claire," he said.

Intense brown eyes flickered up and down his body. "I see." His tone implied that he didn't like what he saw.

Jack gave the little guy back some of his own attitude. "You want to tell me where she's at?"

"I'm not sure I should."

Jack blinked with surprise. "Unless Claire's on a mission for the FBI, I think I'm a pretty low security risk."

To his further surprise, Mr. Intense suddenly moved forward, ushering him back into Claire's office and shutting the door.

Jack frowned. Who was this guy? Surely not Claire's
boyfriend?

"I just think you should know that I know about your reputation.
Everyone does." Jack stared at the earnest young man quivering in front
of him. "Yeah? And what's it to you?"

"Claire's a really nice person. One of the best."

Okay, not a boyfriend. Anyone who'd spent any time with Claire would not describe her as
nice.
Hot,
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maybe. Damn sexy. But not nice—nice was for hand-knit socks Granny made for you at Christmas.

"And?"

"And she doesn't deserve to be chewed up and spat out by a guy like
you." He actually blinked with surprise. For a brief second he
considered grabbing the little guy by the ankles and hanging him upside
down out of a window for a while. Then he remembered the feeling he'd
had in his chest when he'd woken from that dream this morning.

It was kind of nice that Claire had people looking out for her.

"We're working together. End of story, okay, pal?" he found himself
saying. There was a tense moment as the little guy seemed to consider
this. Then he said, "She's competing today." He opened the door, moving
toward the desk stationed outside Claire's office. Suddenly Jack
twigged—Claire had a male assistant. He tried not to smile—
of course
she had a male assistant!

A male assistant who'd gone to the trouble of having his name engraved on a little plate to sit on his desk.

"Listen, um, Tom, you want to help me out here? Where exactly is Claire competing? Some magazine thing somewhere? What?"

Tom threw him a you're-weird look.

"No. Why would she be doing that? She's got the semifinal for her
triathlon. They had to make it a Friday because it's impossible to shut
the beach down on a weekend. If Claire places in this, she gets into
the national final and has a chance to go to Hawaii for the Pros," Tom
said proudly. He just stared. Triathlon? Claire was a triathlete ?

"This is at St. Kilda beach?"

Tom nodded as though he was dealing with an idiot. Which was quite possible, Jack reflected.

"That's right, near the pier."

"Thanks."

Jack headed for the elevators, completely preoccupied. How had this not
come up in all their time in the elevator or all the time they'd spent
working together over the past two weeks? It explained why Claire
looked nothing short of sensational in her underwear, of course, but it
didn't explain why they hadn't discussed what was apparently a major
part of her life.

He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket as he headed toward the car park.

"Linda? Hey, it's me. What have I got on today?"

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"No appointments until three, and that's just my yearly review."

"Cool. I'm out of the office for the day, then. By the way, did you know Claire Marsden is a triathlete ?

Am I the only person in the office who didn't know this?"

Linda's sharp intake of breath gave away her annoyance, and he braced himself for a lecture.

"We'll do your review on Monday, I promise," he offered, trying to head her off at the pass.

"Forget the review, Jack. Just be kind to Claire, okay? She's a really
sweet girl, you remember that." He stared at his handset for a moment.
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Did he have a biohazard warning
label painted on his back or something?

"What's this all about?" he asked, annoyed.

"Look, I know you, Jack. Claire's a really nice person." Again with the nice. He felt his frown deepen.

"That's the second time someone's said that to me today. Am I not a
nice person, is that it? And what exactly do you imagine I'm going to
do to Claire, anyway, Linda?"

"Don't go getting all snippy on me. It's not that you're a bad person,
Jack. It's just you're a… Well, you treat women like they're disposable
napkins. One use and they're gone. I've seen you work your way through
the office, and that's totally your business, but I get the feeling
Claire isn't the kind of woman you do that with."

"Do what with?" he found himself asking, his back well and truly up.

"Take what you want and to hell with the consequences. Now, I'm only
telling you this because you have to realize that when you go to work
on a woman, you're pretty much irresistible. You know this, Jack, so
get that sulky look off your face."

He shook his head over his assistant's uncanny abilities: he had been looking and feeling like a spoiled schoolboy.

"I just want you to think about tomorrow with Claire, that's all. Don't
forget how she's going to feel when you're not there whispering sweet
nothings in her ear anymore," Linda concluded.

"What about how I'm going to feel? Does anyone ever consider that?" He threw the words back at her.

"Well, if you'd ever let anyone close enough to find out, I'm sure they would," Linda said primly before ending the call.

He stared at his handset before slipping it back into his pocket.
Great, now he was copping lectures from his
assistant-cum-second-mother. It seemed the whole office viewed him as
some sort of female-targeted Terminator, his only mission being to seek
out women and destroy their emotional lives.

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And it wasn't as though he had any designs on Claire, anyway. If you didn't count the near miss in the boardroom last night.

He simply was going to pop down to the shore, see if he could catch
some of her race. If he bumped into her, he'd wish her luck. End of
story, end of drama.

He could just imagine Linda's face if he'd told her his plans: big-time
disapproval. He shook his head. Hell, he was going to watch a stupid
race for a few minutes, that was all. Claire was as safe as houses, and
his secretary and the rest of the world could just keep their pants on.

THE SHORE WASpacked with bodies, and he had to shoulder his way through
the crowd to gain a spot with a decent vantage point. He'd come just in
time to catch the bulk of the male triathletes wading out of the water
and racing toward their individual stations to towel off and shove on
their running shoes. He was contemplating what a crazy, rigorous,
exhausting sport this was when an added roar from the crowd alerted him
to the fact that the first of the female competitors had finished the
swim leg and were landing on the beach. Two women he didn't recognize
surged out of the water and leaped over the last shallow waves and onto
the sand. Then he saw Claire, her face intent as she followed in their
wake. His spontaneous whoop of encouragement took even himself by
surprise, as did the flash of pride he felt. She looked amazing, her
tanned body taut and strong as she raced up the beach toward her
station. Even at this distance he could see the water dripping down her
body, and he watched intently as she carefully dried her feet before
tying her track shoes on. She looked up once, scanning the crowd. He
waved, wanting to let her know he was there, then felt a twinge of
disappointment when she didn't spot him. Then she was off, her body
falling into what was obviously a familiar rhythm as she hit the
running leg of the race. He craned his neck and body to watch her for
as long as he could. The rest of the crowd pushed around him. He
realized he was grinning like an idiot, and he sobered for a moment.
Maybe Linda was right, maybe he should just go back to work. But
somehow he found himself working his way through the crowd, trying to
locate someone official-looking who could tell him where the race would
end.

CLAIRE KEPTher head down and her mind on nothing but breathing and the
fact that the bike leg was just minutes off. She'd managed to maintain
her position in the field, and she was confident she could hold her own
on the bike. She couldn't stop herself from glancing at the faces
alongside the route as she ran, always searching for her father. It was
ridiculous to expect to spot him, and just as ridiculous to feel
disappointed that she couldn't find him. She'd hoped to see him before
the race, had kept an eye out even as she set up her station and
limbered up for the swim, but he hadn't come to find her. The feel of
concrete beneath her feet gave way to grass as she ran between the
barriers and funneled down toward her station. She pulled her bike away
from its stand, then stuffed her feet into her locking pedals. She
glanced just once along the rows of faces lined up behind the fences
before she took off. Impossible to know if Harry was there or not….

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The secret to the bike leg for her was to always take the hills hard. A
lot of other competitors conserved their energy on the hills, but she
knew she had the stamina to grab a lead there and hold it. She might
not be tall like some of the other women competitors, but she had
strength and determination on her side, and if she could grab herself
an advantage on the hills, she'd go for it. For a moment, she allowed
herself to imagine winning. She wanted it so badly, but she found it
disturbing that when she pictured herself racing across the finish
line, it was her father she imagined coming forward to congratulate
her, not some faceless official.

JACK STOODon his tiptoes to try and get a better view, apologizing yet
again for jostling the backpack of the young blonde standing on his
left. She gave him a smile, then looked away flirtatiously, and he
recognized that she was giving him all the right signals. He also
recognized that he couldn't be less interested. She was attractive—all
right, very attractive—in her brightly colored bikini top and
short-shorts, but for the life of him he couldn't scrape up anything
bar a sort of general approval of her appearance. She was hot, but he
was not. Not for her, anyway. Now if it were Claire standing next to
him…

This disturbing thought was swept to one side as he spotted the lead
cyclist coming around the corner. He'd already memorized Claire's
number—twenty-three—and he saw with disappointment that it wasn't her.
But the second cyclist wasn't far behind, and he saw Claire's
lime-green cycle helmet with a thrill of excitement.

Hell, she could win this thing! He found himself yelling out her name
as she bent low over the handlebars of her bike, his own legs
unconsciously tensing, his own breath coming faster as he willed her
forward.

"Come on, come on! You can do it, baby!" he hollered, punching the air
with his fist. They were in the home stretch now, and Claire was
nipping at the other woman's heels, each powerful stroke of her thighs
pulling her closer and closer to the lead.

God, he wanted her to win. He felt all her anxiety and desire and drive, and he wanted her to have this moment.

"Come on!" he yelled, vaguely aware that the blonde was covering her
ears now. Only half a bike length between them now. Both women were out
of their saddles, leaning hard over their handlebars as they sprinted
toward the finish line. He could see the look of anguished effort on
Claire's face, and he held his breath.

Could she do it?

With a surge of power, Claire shot into the lead, racing over the
finish line a full bike length ahead of the other competitor. He
whooped with joy, standing on several people's toes behind him, smiling
and apologizing even as he began elbowing his way to the finishing
line. It took him about ten minutes to get there, but he was still
smiling like a crazy man, reliving the moment again and again. She'd
won! What an effort! She was amazing, really amazing. He could see
Claire stretching out her calves as one of the officials spoke to her.
She looked oddly flat as she nodded, obviously responding to the man's
questions, her eyes constantly scanning the crowd.
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