Drop Dead Gorgeous (22 page)

“It's
always.
”

“But,” BeeBee went on as if Madison hadn't replied, “if it's Davis always keeps him out an
hour
longer, it almost becomes a question, like are you sure it's an hour, Madison?”

“Of course, it's an hour.” It was always an hour, it really was. “How long before we're done?”

BeeBee clucked and lifted and eyed. “Oh, forty-three minutes, I'd say.”

“You're trying to scare me.” Not that T. Larry would care. He never cared about anything she did as long as her work was accurate and finished on time. He hadn't even cared that her closet had been bare of skirts longer than twenty inches when she'd promised to go shopping this weekend.

“Phase one complete.” BeeBee smiled, patted the layers of foil, then bent down to lay her cheek against Madison's. “You look like
My Favorite Martian.
”

“BeeBee,” Madison warned. “How long is this really going to take?” Honest Injun, it wasn't that she cared if T. Larry found her in his office having her hair done. It was more that she cared about him seeing her with fifty pounds of foil on her head.

“Well, since I don't have a dryer, it'll take a little longer than normal. Because we don't want to turn it orange, you know.”

“You didn't bring a hair dryer?”

BeeBee shrugged. “I forgot it.”

“My hair takes forever to dry.”

“Yes,” BeeBee agreed despite the melodramatic exaggeration, then snapped off her gloves to inspect her nails. She'd painted them red, white and blue in honor of the fourth of July, though Madison wasn't sure they'd make it even two weeks with all the chemicals BeeBee loved.

“So how am I going to be finished in forty-five minutes?”

“I might have a little something up my sleeve. If…” BeeBee fluffed her dark locks in the mirror.

“If what?”

“If you introduce me to T. Larry.”

Madison thought she detected an avid gleam in BeeBee's unmarried eyes. “Why?” she asked, just to be sure.

“You always talk about him.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. And—” she tapped her cat's-eye glasses “—curiosity killed the cat.”

“He probably won't be back in time.”

BeeBee flicked through the settling foils on Madison's head. “Davis
always
keeps him out an hour longer?”

“I sniff a blackmail here.”

“Come on, let me meet him, and I'll make sure he doesn't find a single foil wrapper in his trash can. He sounds like a paragon.”

T. Larry? A paragon? Interest—could it be prurient?—bathed BeeBee's porcelain skin.

BeeBee was five years older than Madison, bore the proportions of Marilyn Monroe minus a few inches in height, enjoyed a fantastically interesting career and she could do T. Larry's hair for free. Oops. T. Larry didn't have much hair to do. There were other compensations. BeeBee loved finance.

They'd hit it off tremendously. Madison felt a little sick.

Then she looked at her head covered in foil and knew she didn't have a choice. “All right. You can meet him. If you get me out of this foil, shampooed and dry by five minutes to two.”

“Deal.”

The locked office doorknob wiggled.

Madison froze with a round O pursing her lips.

“Who locked my door?”

Oh my God. T. Larry's muffled, irritated voice.

The office reeked of color solution, blobs of dye dotted the tile countertop of his bathroom, Madison's head looked like something out of a fifties monster B-movie—her black mascara had smudged beneath her eyes, and her lips were bare of lipstick or gloss.

The faint tinkle of keys slipped beneath the half-inch gap at the bottom of the door. The knob rattled. BeeBee frantically scooped the tricks of her trade into her immense plastic carryall.

The door opened. Madison swiveled in the leather office chair. T. Larry advanced three giant steps and stopped.

Resplendent in a gray three-piece suit, white shirt and silver-and-blue tie, he stood stock-still and rigid for a full ten seconds. Madison's heart went into atrial fibrillation.

Light reflected off the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses. “What's on your head?”

“Tinfoil.” Miraculously, not a tremor marred Madison's voice.

He used another three seconds to assimilate that. “Why?”

“My hair—” she started.

BeeBee finished. “Madison's been receiving radio signals from outer space through her fillings. The tinfoil keeps them out.”

He ran his tongue over his teeth beneath closed lips, then said, “Oh.”

After another moment, he turned on his heel and left, closing the door behind him.

BeeBee rested her hand on Madison's shoulder as they stared at the closed door. “He's gorgeous,” she murmured on little more than a breath.

“But he has no hair.”

“I know. I'm thinking
The King and I, Kojak.
”

“Skinner on the
X-Files.
”

“Jesse ‘The Body' Ventura.”

Madison put her hands to her flaming cheeks. “Oh, I love the ex-gov.”

“Mr. T without the Mohawk.”

Madison gasped. “Oh my God, I never thought of him.” Mr. T Larry. Perfect, so absolutely perfect.

“Does he have a hairy tangum?”

“A hairy
what?
”

“Tangum. You know the part of the ear right here in front. Some men get this horrible tuft of hair growing there.”

God, it had sounded like something too, too private. “No. His ears don't stick out, either.”

“Thank God. Do you think he'll fire you?”

“He looked too confused to consider termination. Maybe later.”

BeeBee bent over her head to fumble with various bits of foil. “Uh-oh.”

Adrenaline shot through her blood. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“What's wrong, BeeBee?” She couldn't eradicate a plaintive note from her voice.

“Pumpkin is such a lovely shade next to your natural red.”

She grabbed BeeBee's hand and shook with all her might. “Tell me you're fooling.”

The speckles on the cat's-eyes sparkled. “I'm fooling. But you're not cooked yet. Red's the hardest color to get in, and it's also the hardest color to get out. A few more minutes.”

Madison sighed her relief. “Remind me to never try slipping in a quick highlight at work again.”

Thirty minutes later, she was foil free, golden, not pumpkin, shampooed, cut, hair dried by the dryer BeeBee just happened to “discover” at the bottom of her bag and out from beneath the humid black poncho. T. Larry had not reappeared. Maybe terror had rendered him incapable of movement.

“I don't suppose this is the best time for an introduction.” BeeBee stuffed the last of her kit-n-caboodle into her bag.

“I think we should forget the whole introduction thing period.”

BeeBee eyed her in the mirror. “Why?”

“Why is everyone asking me
why?
”

“You okay?” BeeBee removed her camouflaging glasses.

She wasn't sure. T. Larry catching her with foil in her hair? The thought of him having a cozy tête-à-tête with BeeBee? “Do you think Richard will like my hair?”

BeeBee stood beside her, patting a stray lock in place, her eyes on Madison's in the mirror. “He's going to love it.”

But how much did she really care anymore?

 

D
AVIS
D
ILLARD
always enjoyed a long lunch. Laurence had always let him. Until today. He'd rushed the man, answered his questions at the speed of light and signaled the waiter for the check before Davis had even finished his bread pudding.

And why? Because he'd had some antiquated notion of racing back to the office to protect Madison from any more attacks by Harriet the fire-breathing Harridan.

Instead he'd found her capped in foil, getting her hair highlighted, and God knew what else. On a Wednesday. A workday. Not even Madison had done something like this before. There was only one explanation. She was primping for Dick the Prick.

Nor was she done yet. He'd gone to the men's room. He'd prowled the maze of cubicles to catch any slackers. He hadn't discovered any, not in his well-run firm. He'd made coffee with Madison's special blend. Standing alone in the copy room, Florsheims tapping impatiently on the linoleum, he'd drunk two cups.

Still Madison wasn't done. He wanted to strangle her.

Next to the copy room, his office door opened. A girlish giggle, a murmured shush, footsteps receding on the carpet, then the snick of a door closing again.

Madison wasn't at her desk. His office door was closed. Laurence's ire boiled over. He burst into his office—
his
office, mind you—slammed the door behind him and locked it. He took his suit jacket off, fitted it over the hanger on the coatrack, then mentally rolled up his sleeves.

“Madison, we're going to have this out right now.”

Mascara wand in hand, she leaned over the bathroom counter. “Can I fix my makeup first?”

Her breasts strained against the tight summer-weight sweater. The pleated skirt he'd admired outlined her bottom. Her hair glowed like golden fire in the vanity lamps framing the mirror.

“No. We'll talk
now.
”

She eyed him in the mirror as he came within a foot of her. Her sweet scent took the bite out of the lingering chemical odor. “All right. Then I'll just finish while you're yelling at me.”

Without conscious action, his fists flexed at his sides.

She touched the wand to first one set of luxurious lashes, then the other. “Actually, before you start yelling, I have to apologize. It was an incredibly stupid idea to have BeeBee highlight my hair today. I don't know what came over me.”

Impressing Dick the Prick came over her. Through his eyes, a tinge of red haloed her face. The small rational part of his mind left realized he'd never been this angry with her before. He'd never been this angry,
ever.

She put down her mascara, fumbled with a tube of some female gunk, then looked at him. “By the way, what did you think of BeeBee?”

His lip twitched into a snarl, one he manfully regained control of. “Nothing. I didn't think a damn thing.” She was
not
setting him up with anyone.

Unscrewing the cap, she pulled out the long stick of gloss and held it close to her mouth. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

Eyes on the wand so close to her lips, his own barely moved. “She's looks like the Bride of Frankenstein.”

“That's just bleach. It'll grow out.” She turned her eyes back to her reflection and waved the wand across her lower lip.

“What's that?”

“Lip gloss,” she answered before sliding it over her upper lip.

All he could see was the wet stuff glistening on her full mouth. “Why not lipstick?”

She shrugged, rolled her lips together, then puckered. “I don't know.”

He knew. Dick the Prick. No lipstick to smear when she kissed him.

His hand reached out. He found himself grabbing the gloss tube from her fingers and tossing it on the counter where it rolled and clattered to the floor between them.

“Stop that goddamn primping.”

“T. Larry.” Her green eyes widened, and her mouth puckered, almost in invitation.

“I am not interested in your friend BeeBee.”

“But—”

“And you are not seeing Dick tonight.”

“His name is Richard.”

“And you sure as hell are not kissing him.”

Then he grabbed her arm, dragged her to his leather sofa, pulled her down on top of him and cut off any further protests with his mouth.

T. L
ARRY'S ARMS
surrounded Madison, crushing the air from her lungs. Trapped by him on his couch, she opened her mouth to breathe, and he took control of that, too.

She forgot all about falling in love with Richard. T. Larry needed her. It was there in the way his tongue swooped in, the hot taste of him, the flex of his hands against her sweater as he gentled his hold.

He didn't kiss like a T. Larry. He kissed like a T. Rex—hungry, dangerous, territorial. Madison responded to the need, the anger and the passion she'd never dreamed T. Larry capable of.

Her hands smoothed from his arms to his shoulders to his neck. The rigidity of his muscles eased, but not the hardness. The faint scent of the mothballs his suit had been packed in tickled her nose. Leather squeaked beneath their bodies as she lay across his lap.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, Madison blossomed. Angling her head to receive him better, she moaned softly. He backed off to taste her lips with his tongue, moving one hand to the side of her breast while the other held her pressed to him. His thumb caressed subtly.

She wanted more, stroking his tongue with hers in imitation of the way she wanted him to stroke her breasts.

His lips slipped from hers, his gray eyes smoky. Yanking his glasses off, he tossed them onto the table. Madison prayed he wouldn't say a word. If he did, she might ask him to stop. She might start to think, and the bells would never ring if she was thinking.

His gray eyes were flecked with green and gold, his lashes longer than she'd ever noticed. He met her gaze with a question, brushing the hair back from her face with a soft caress. Madison covered his hand with hers and placed his palm over her breast. If he never touched her again, she still wanted his touch now.

With trembling fingers, he undid the first button of her sweater. Eyes still on her, roving from her hair to her cheeks to her lips, he popped three more. Then his gaze dropped to the swell of her breasts above the lace of her black bra. His swallow was audible, sending a thousand sparks shooting over her skin.

His fingers trailed the lace, barely slipping beneath. Her breath caught in her chest. Fire blazed through her. Her nipples hardened, catching his attention. He rubbed the flat of his hand over first one, then the other. Her head fell back across his arm. She closed her eyes and swallowed to wet her throat.

God, this was T. Larry. T. Larry dipping into the lace, pushing it aside, palming her, breath puffing in time with hers. Oh God, T. Larry, plumping her breast, then bending to take her in his mouth, sucking her nipple until a spot between her legs ached. He nipped. Her hand flew to the back of his head, holding him tight against her. He shifted, letting her slip farther over his arm so that he could tongue her other nipple. Her legs twisted restlessly. She kicked off one shoe, then the other. They landed with a soft thud against the carpet.

The scent of his aftershave edged with the rich aroma of fresh coffee beans swirled around her. He planted kisses along her collarbone, tracing it with his tongue. One hand drifted down her side, caressed her hip, cupped her bottom, then pulled at the hem of her skirt. He found her thigh, his hand slid up, then down, and finally to the top of her stockings.

Mouth buried against her neck, warm breath heating the flesh of her throat, he murmured, “What are you wearing?”

“Stockings and a garter belt.”

He stilled. “Did you wear them for him?”

There was only T. Larry at this moment, T. Larry's hands, T. Larry's mouth and T. Larry's hardness beneath her hip. “Who?”

He struggled with a breath, then answered, “Richard.”

“I wore them for me.” To make herself feel sexy. Because Richard's gaze didn't do that for her.

But oh my God, T. Larry's did. Sinfully sexy. Terrifying. Impossible. Delicious. “Don't stop.”

His fingers moved, tested the clip holding the stockings, then found her bare, burning skin. He stroked, easing his thumb closer to the juncture, slid back, teased. Then he found the elastic of her thong panties, followed the length of it to the top of her hip and groaned for the first time. He leaned his forehead against hers and gulped air.

Madison tightened her arm at his neck. She couldn't ask for what she wanted, not from T. Larry. Because there was tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Body on fire, knees weak, breath puffing, the sensations could be fear as much as anything else. If only there were bells ringing somewhere.

In the space of a heartbeat, T. Larry made the decision for her. Cupping her with his hand, then slipping a finger beneath the edge of her panties, he stroked the curls.

Oh. Oh. Her thighs parted. His fingers slid into her cleft, across her clitoris. She moaned. He stroked back the other way, carrying her own wetness over her. Her fingers dug into his shoulder, his neck. Then he went deep inside with two fingers, his thumb nestled against her, rubbing. Oh, please. She wanted to beg with her mouth as her hips began to move in time with his caresses.

Eyes squeezed tight, stars shot through the darkness behind her lids. All that existed in the world was the glide of his fingers against her, back and forth, around, driving her crazy, burning her up. He whispered against her throat, her ear: temptation, encouragement, need, appeal.

He wanted it. She couldn't stop it. Oh my goodness dear God, T. Larry was making her—

The stars exploded into fireworks. She shook and clung, started to cry out only to find his lips on hers, his taste filling her mouth, his hand tireless, ceaseless, taking her to the last tremor, the last lightning bolt, the last frontier.

She came down to earth to discover herself snuggled against his chest, skirt smoothed, sweater buttoned, hair tamed, and his warm male scent in her nose as heady as the touch of his hands and the taste of his tongue.

Were exploding stars just as good as ringing bells? Yes, my stars, they were. Even better.

“What about you?” She didn't open her eyes to look at him.

“What about me?”

“I…” She cleared her throat, tried again. “I…you know.”

“You came.”

“Umm…yes. And you…well…”

“I didn't come.”

“Uh…right.”

 

A
CTUALLY, HOLDING
M
ADISON
while she bucked against him, feeling her detonate in his arms with just a touch, Laurence had almost embarrassed himself. “This wasn't about me.”

“What was it about?” Her soft murmur caressed his chest.

He massaged her back, fingers flexing lightly. “I don't know.” He couldn't remember. He'd been angry, jealous, then out of control, trying to prove something to her.

After that, there'd only been the feel of her skin, the taste of her breasts and the headiness of her desire. His desire.

“T. Larry, we're in your office.”

On his leather sofa, arms tangled, and her shoes on the floor. “The door's locked.”

She sat up suddenly, levered herself with one hand on his chest, the other on the arm of the couch. “When did you lock it?”

“When I came in.”

“You mean, you intended to…do what you did?”

His gaze skipped from her naked lips, red and plump from his kisses, to her troubled eyes and her magnificent fire-lit hair. Then he looked at the corner of his office where the molding met. “I intended to tell you…”

What? That she had to stop seeing Richard? That she had to start seeing
him,
really seeing him, T. Laurence Hobbs, not as an accountant, not as her boss, not as someone she went on “outings” with, but as a man. Just a man. One who wanted her.

She'd shell-shocked him instead. He didn't even know how to distinguish between the morass of emotions coagulating his blood, infesting his organs and dizzying his mind.

She tugged on the knot of his tie. When he looked down, he couldn't believe the material of his vest appeared untouched and his shirtsleeves unwrinkled.

He couldn't say as much for his control, or even his heart.

When he still didn't speak, she rolled from his lap, reached down to slip on her shoes and stood.

There, he could identify an emotion. Bereft at the loss of her warmth.

Without his glasses, her features blurred, and he couldn't read her eyes at all. But Laurence didn't put on his glasses.

She glanced out the window, her head tilted to the side. “I don't suppose it matters that someone might have seen us.”

Hopefully no one else was wearing their glasses, either. The thought had never even crossed his mind. More aptly, his mind hadn't been capable of thought. Now, he simply didn't care.

“We just broke your rule number five. No sex in the office.”

Actually, it had been rule number one before she'd changed the order of things. “That wasn't sex, Madison.”

She waved a hand in the air, whether with agitation or carelessness, he couldn't tell. “Right. I forgot. It's not sex if there's no genital to genital contact.”

He winced. That was
not
what he'd meant.

She inched closer, tipping her head to look down at him. “I'm not mad at you, T. Larry.”

The words had been mad, but the tone something indefinable. “You should be. My carelessness is unforgivable.”

She closed the remaining distance between them, until he could see her face clearly.

“Well, I'm not mad or sorry.” Her eyes glowed that special brilliant emerald. “No one's ever made me feel what you made me feel.”

His right ventricle burst.

“It was kind of scary. A good scary.” She bit her lip. “And I liked it. A lot. I liked especially that you didn't make me do anything for it. Like it was a gift just for me.”

His left ventricle went the way of the first, and he was surprised to find he still had a pulse beating at his temple. “Make you do what?”

Her smile grew on the lopsided half. “You know…the same thing…” She spread her fingers. “Or something else.”

He knew exactly. Her hands. Her mouth. Even the whole nine yards. He was still hard. She'd just made him harder.

“I'd better unlock the door before anyone realizes it's locked.” Then she leaned down, one knee on the sofa beside his leg, and kissed him with lips and tongue. “Thank you, T. Larry.”

Jesus H. Christ.

Heart thudding, he watched her sashay to the bathroom, gather her makeup and stuff it all in a miniscule case. When she left, she closed the door behind her. He stayed on the couch, not reaching for his glasses, not moving a muscle, just feeling, enjoying the weight in his groin and the lightness in his head.

 

M
ADISON MADE
the decision somewhere between the dazed look on T. Larry's face and the door. She wasn't a virgin, but she wasn't loose, either. After what she'd let T. Larry do, she couldn't, in all conscience, go off with Richard as if nothing had happened.

She could have called him, but she wasn't a Dear Richard kind of girl. She let a man down face-to-face. He deserved that, at least. She'd meet him tonight as she'd said, but she'd tell him before the surprise he'd promised her.

She wasn't dazed like T. Larry. In fact, she saw more clearly than she ever had.

Jeremiah Carp commented on the smile she wore. “You look like a contented pussycat.”

She surely did.

Anthony and Mike for once not in tow, Bill offered to buy her a triple white chocolate mocha from the espresso bar in the building's lobby. “You need something to slow you down.”

Rhonda asked if she'd overdosed on happy pills.

Overdosed? Oh no, she hadn't gotten anywhere near enough of T. Larry. Waiting for the clock to hit five, she typed three memos, two lengthy letters, answered fifteen e-mails and watched T. Larry open his door twice. He looked at her, glasses now firmly set on his nose, shook his head, then went back inside.

Madison smiled. T. Larry, her Frog Prince. She'd kissed him, and before her eyes, he'd changed into a prince. A perfect candidate for The One. He turned her insides squishy. He made her tingle. And she couldn't forget the exploding stars.

T. Larry was the best choice. He'd rebound nicely when it was all over—
however
it ended. He'd return to his Financial Plan and his Family Plan, create a Madison-is-gone Plan, and he'd be fine. What a load off her mind. She'd worried about the mental fortitude of her prince once she…passed on.

Three…two…one. Five o'clock. T. Larry didn't pop his head out to mentally punch her time clock the way he usually did. Still stunned, she assumed. Or he'd looked out his window and realized they'd been on display like Fourth of July fireworks.

Actually,
she'd
been the one displayed. It had been worth every second. Not that she intended to keep exposing herself. There were T. Larry's rules, after all. T. Rex. Mr. T. She smiled, gathered her purse, forewent the makeup check and stepped into the lobby five minutes later.