Silk Scarves and Seduction (2 page)

Slowly, he blinked, masking the raging lust in his eyes as best he could. “Well, not everybody can be a Madonna, I guess,” he finally said. Going by her comments, it sounded like she didn’t want them. Finally, something about her that didn’t strike him as utterly perfect. Because Marc did want kids, desperately.

She smiled coquettishly and with a bat of her lashes, asked, “Now, why would I want to be a pop singer?”

Marc rolled his eyes and turned to Tessa. Brusquely, he said, “There’s a couple coming in at lunch. Dr. Flynn recommended us—they aren’t happy with Dr. Thayer, so they are going to come by and talk…what?”

The look on Tessa’s face cut through the fog in his head and he started racking his brain. He had forgotten something, it seemed. What was it?

“Marc, you forgot,” Tessa said, confirming that feeling in his gut as she sighed and pressed her fingers to her eyes. When her hands dropped away, she pinned him with that level stare of hers and he had to fight the urge to fidget.

“Ahhh…what did I forget?”

“Administrative Assistant’s Day,” Blush chimed in, glancing over her shoulder at the large write-on calendar hanging on the wall. “I’d bet Tessa has a nice lunch scheduled for the ladies in the office. That sounds like the kind of thing she’d do. And the kind of thing you’d forget.”

“Fuck.”

“My…what language he uses in the workplace,” Blush whispered in a conspiratorial tone, waggling her brows at Tessa.

Tessa snickered. “Only with me around. He is utterly, well, not utterly, but he is almost a professional around the employees. And if he hadn’t known me all my life, he probably wouldn’t do it.”

Marc didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “Damn it, I can’t cancel. It won’t look good,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair. The short golden-streaked locks fell back into tumbled disarray.

“No,” Tessa agreed. “You can’t cancel. But…I’m also not allowing you to cancel the lunch we planned more than two weeks ago. So you’re going to give me your credit card and I’ll take the girls out. And you’ll also take them out again next week.” She settled back with a beatific smile on her face and waited.

“Fine.” He dug a card out of his wallet and started to hand it over. Then he froze. “Wait. Where exactly are you going?”

“Well, we were going to go to Comptons,” she said, demurely.

Compton’s…that wasn’t so bad.

“But I think Vietnas in downtown Louisville will be better,” she finished once he placed the card in her hand. “After all, we can’t have them thinking you don’t appreciate them. Since you aren’t coming and all.”

Hell. She had gone and picked one of the pricier restaurants in town. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” he said sourly. Vientas, for crying out loud. And the place was his favorite, paying for the meal wouldn’t be so bad, but he wouldn’t even be able to enjoy it.

Tessa smiled. “I know.”

He walked away after meeting Blush’s eyes once more. She was staring at him, her gaze blank, level, that soft little smile dancing around her pretty bow-shaped mouth.

One of these days, damn it, he was going to taste that mouth.

At least once.

Chapter Two

Blush ran the silk scarf through her hand, tossing her camera a restless look.

Tell him.

Yeah, right.

But damn it, she was tempted.

The look on his face would almost be worth it…and actually…she had an idea, a way of telling him without really telling him—maybe she could drive him a little insane. Just for a while. Have some fun.

Her own secret admirer had given her the idea.

The scent of her body lotion rose hauntingly as she pressed one fisted hand to her lips, debating. That scent had been off the market for more than ten years. But she had her own personal stash of it. Specially blended for her by some European salon. She even knew where the salon was located, though they refused to tell her who had custom-ordered the blend.

It was an exact replica of Moonlit Walk, a fragrance she had loved since she was in high school, and then the franchise mall store pulled it off the shelf. She had been surprised with a delivery of it on Valentine’s Day…more on her birthday…then for no reason in August, then in December for Christmas. Every few months, so that she never ran out. For more than a decade, it had come, along with the card signed,
Does this seduce you the way you’ve always seduced me?

No name…nothing else.

Just those words, and always those words.

She had wondered at first when he was going to come out of hiding. But then, she had finally decided it wasn’t ever going to happen. And that was fine. It was cool, having somebody who cared that much—in theory.

But she was so desperately in love with Marc, she’d just disappoint whoever it was that had been so thoughtful over the years.

But his gift gave her an idea.

Finally, she whispered, “You’re not going to get it accomplished by daydreaming,” so she started to strip.

She angled the camera so that it was taking very detailed close-ups. Tying the scarf around her neck, she draped the ends so that they framed just one breast, and then she took the pictures, the remote hidden in the palm of her hand. Her breast, the right one, the curve of her hip, this time with the scarf crisscrossed around her hips, her hands holding the opposite ends, her softly rounded belly, one calf. Nothing more. Nothing that would give away her identity. Just her body, draped in that silky black scarf, shot through with threads of purple.

She piled all her hair up on her head, and shot pictures of her body from the neck down, hiding the telltale corkscrews, the scarf draped across her shoulders, almost demure.

Valery developed them in black and white and they turned out amazing. With an artful trick, she was able to color in the scarf only. Now that took some magic, plus an extra day or two. Ah, the wonders of digital photography.

The first batch had more than fifty photos.

Only ten were accepted.

With her critical eye she boxed the ten she actually liked, and pitched the rest. Then she waited.

She debated.

Valery argued with herself, thinking she was a moron.

Then she told herself he’d never know. She damn well knew her own body and there was nothing on those pictures that would give her body away. And, she had to admit, they were damn good.

Finally, a week later…she did it. She boxed up the portraits and addressed them, sliding the scarf inside at the last moment. And then she waited. Again. She just needed to get up the nerve to actually send them.

But before she could start debating with herself, she stopped the cycle.

“Damn it, you are pathetic,” Blush muttered to herself.

Finally, she drove to UPS and made herself do it, scheduling for it to be delivered on Marc’s birthday. To his office, of course, and she knew when the cute UPS guy usually made his rounds there. So maybe she could even be on hand for the delivery. If she had the nerve.

There was little that was worse than working in an office full of females on your birthday. Of course, there was also little that was better. They were so damn funny. So damn cute.

Marc couldn’t make up his mind whether to be outraged with half their comments or just outright amused. He accepted the package from Tessa and escaped to his office with relief.

They had all shown up to work wearing black.

There were dinosaurs all over the front of the medical arts building’s lawn—thirty-five damned dinosaurs. He couldn’t stop scowling over that one.

Thirty-five did not make him a damned dinosaur.

He still had to go to lunch with those insane ladies.

Had to listen to more of their teasing jokes, more of their subtle pokes at his persistent single status, more bad jokes at his age…but then again, they always bought very good presents.

Heaven help him. A low, husky laugh drifted to him and he had to fight the urge to whimper as he slit the box open. Damn it. Of course, Valery Taylor was going to show up to torment him on his birthday. The day just wouldn’t be complete without Blush around to give him grief.

The knock at the door distracted him for just a second.

But only a second.

He wasn’t even able to respond.

What in the hell…

His mouth was dry.

His cock was throbbing.

And his eyes were locked on the most erotic pictures he had ever seen in his life. Black and white pictures of a woman, but only parts of her, one breast, the puckered nipple framed by the ends of a scarf. The color of the scarf had been added back in, in every single picture. The dip of her waist, and the roundness of her hip. The taut, curvy muscle of her calf.

Something silky brushed his hand and he stared as the scarf from the picture fluttered out of the box to puddle in his lap.

“So what’s it like to be almost old, Doc?”

He lifted his eyes and stared into Blush’s merry brown eyes.

“What?”

“You’re thirty-five now…few more years, you’ll be forty. We used to think that was ancient,” she teased him lightly, propping her shoulder against the door. “How does it feel?”

He clutched the scarf in his hand, crushing it. A scent, soft, seductive…familiar …drifted up to tease him and his eyes widened, his nostrils flaring as he dragged more of it into his lungs, all the while staring at Blush.

Her scent was on that scarf.

He had to force a slight smile, and he knew that his voice sounded like rusty nails as he responded, “Can’t say just yet, Blush.” Then he couldn’t resist as he added, “Why don’t you come and give me a spin?”

Her eyes widened. The tip of a pink tongue darted out to wet her lips—if he didn’t know better, he’d say she was speechless.

Her eyes fell to the pile on his desk and she asked softly, “Birthday present?”

He grinned wickedly, “I’d say. Wanna take a look?”

She blushed. Her trademark.

And he knew.

“I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll have to take a rain check.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Did he know?

No. There was just no way he could have figured it out. There were no identifying marks on those pictures. The scarf was just something pretty she had picked up in the airport in New York City and he had been in the office the day she had bought it. She hadn’t ever worn it or used it for anything before those pictures.

There was just no way.

Plain and simple.

She had been reading too much into that naughty grin of his. That was all. But as she sauntered back up the hall to Tessa’s office, she could feel his eyes blazing into her back, like he was measuring every step she took.

Or maybe he did know she had sent the pictures and he was wondering how she looked naked.

Of course, if he did know she sent them, he already knew how she looked naked.

Well, parts of her.

Just…the way he had looked at her as he lifted his gaze, staring at her with hazy, cloudy eyes, then they’d cleared and widened just a bit, his nostrils flaring as though he was tracking something in the air.

A dull flush of red color appeared on his lean cheeks and his grin had flashed oh so wickedly on his sexy face as he said,
Why don’t you come and give me a spin?

Hell, yeah.

Did he know?

No!

She forced a deep breath into her lungs as she continued on down the hall to the bathroom, a separate hall for employees or family. It was kept separate from the public area of the office and no patients would be around to see her as she debated her sanity.

Hopefully, the girls up front were too damn busy squaring the morning away to see her muttering to herself as she stomped into the bathroom.