Page 103 of One Wild Wish

“I do. Know what else?” She arched her back, and that rip in her shirt shifted, revealing a tease of purple lace. Damn. Purple.

I shook my head in answer, didn’t trust my voice to speak. But man, those eyes of hers were stunning, sucking me in again. I’d bet they burned into blue flame when she was coming. The possibility had me wanting to pin her against the wall, feel her surrounding me, grinding on me. Sweat gathered at the base of my spine.

“Well,” she said, mischief lighting her face, “according to my online dictionary, there’s also a peening hammer. It’s used in metal work. There’s a cross-peen hammer. A diagonal-peen. Point-peen. Chisel-peen. Like lots of peens that hammer things. Ever used one?” She batted her long lashes at me, dangling her teasing bait to see if I’d bite.

I sure as hell wanted to bite. To nibble and lick and kiss. Heat flooded my groin, my thighs flexing automatically. Time to dust off my flirting skills.

Unfortunately, as I opened my mouth, Sherise called, “You coming, Ainsley?”

The rest happened slowly, then all at once, like loose rocks setting off an avalanche. Maybe Ainsley was as flustered as me. Maybe her limbs felt as heavy as mine. Either way, she moved to face Sherise, but wound up tripping on her shoelace. I went to catch her—a habit with us—but somehow forgot I held her hardhat.

A hat with a sharp piece of protruding plastic.

The point connected with her “worn” T-shirt. She didn’t make a sound as it snagged on the rip by her cleavage. She didn’t wince as the fabric tore to her navel, exposing her lush breasts. A pained sound pushed from the back of my throat as I imagined how they’d feel in my rough hands, against my tongue. Her blue eyes popped wide, and her arms windmilled. A couple guys carrying brown bags glanced our way.

I dropped the hardhat and pressed her to my chest as quickly as possible, shielding her. “Sorry. I forgot I was holding that damn thing.”

“It could be classified as a concealed weapon.”

Her voice sounded strained, but she sank into me. The swells of her breasts against my chest made everything else rigid. My arms. My legs. My cock .

I kept my hips back and tried to swallow. Tried not to think about how sexy she looked in that purple bra. Not with the angry, red line blooming on her skin. I barely refrained from testing if she really tasted like chocolate.

Sherise arrived swiftly and pulled Ainsley aside. She threw a plaid shirt over her friend’s shoulders, telling her she’d get something for the scrape. The women walked away, and I watched. Waited. Needed my galloping pulse to slow down. When Ainsley glanced over her shoulder with a seductive smile, it damn near killed me.

5

Seven-letter word for warping that causes boards to curl up at their edges.

Or when a man cops a feel of your construction hunk, proving you’ve lusted up the wrong tree again .

C U P P I N G

Ainsley

I breezed into the offices of Bega, Woodhouse, and Stein and placed a triple, venti, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato on their receptionist’s desk. “Love the haircut.”

“Love you .” Hank blew me a kiss. “And that dress is fierce.”

I blew his kiss back at him. My asymmetrical bandage dress was a great find. Conservative enough to fit into the law firm’s dress code, it also hugged my curves in all the right places.

I sashayed down the long corridor and dropped a box of Aazam’s peanut butter cups next to Cindy’s phone. “You can thank me later.”

My client’s secretary snatched up the gift and hugged it to her chest. “You are a goddess.”

No. What I was, was smart. Several of my clients worked here, including the philanderer, Thomas Arlington the third . Staying abreast of the comings and goings in these corridors was paramount to my business. If you wanted gossip siphoned your way, you didn’t butter up the boss. You made nice with the veins of the business—the people who directed the flow of information. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with Thomas today. Today I got to see my favorite client.

“For you, anything,” I told Cindy. “Can I head in?”

“You better. He’s about to break into the Glenfiddich.” But her attention dropped to my chest, and she cringed. “That looks painful.”

I touched the scrape running down my breastbone. “It didn’t tickle, but it was totally worth it.” The Flashing Incident meant I could relive the feel of Owen’s hard body against mine, how his intoxicating cologne of sweaty man and woodchips surrounded me, like pine and apples and masculinity rolled into a package as tantalizing as Aazam’s chocolate.

Cindy raised a dark eyebrow. “Sounds intriguing.”

“You have no idea. I’ll fill you in another day.” I pushed into Felipe Bega’s office, three neckties in my hand.

He looked up from his stack of files. His dark hair was haphazard, like he’d been tugging at it. “You are a goddess.”