All Work and No Play(3)

“Sorry, no. I’m not a boy scout. I’m just a nerdy geek.”

Anna couldn’t help snorting. “I hate to tell you this, but nerdy geeks don’t look like you.”

Interest glimmered in his eyes. “They don’t?”

“Nope. You look more like a fashion model for Burberry than a geek.”

That lethal smile flashed at her again. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he murmured in a way that told her he wasn’t disappointed at all.

Warmth rose in her as she realised what she’d said. “You have to excuse me.” She waved a hand, trying to appear offhand. “I’m not myself at the moment.”

Giles leaned back against the door and trailed his gaze over her. “You shouldn’t be yourself more often, then.”

She really had to get a grip on this conversation. “You’re not flirting with me, are you, Giles?”

Folding his arms, he didn’t seem at all ruffled by her directness. “What do you want me to say to that?”

“I want you to say no, of course.”

“Do you?”

That awareness between them flared higher this time, and her heart began to thud loudly. It was no use lying. She couldn’t hide her attraction to him, and Giles knew that, damn him.

Huffing in frustration, she turned sideways, unwilling to have those clever blue eyes trained on her, winkling out her secrets.

“This is a disaster,” she muttered to herself.

“Is it?” He moved closer, and the closet felt way too small and intimate.

She flashed a grimace at him. “I don’t get involved with people at work,” she retorted, desperate to maintain some kind of barrier between them.

“Neither do I,” he replied, “but then, I’ve never been tempted at work. Until now.”

Anna sucked in a breath. Oh boy. So he was tempted. By her. That made her dizzy, but why? She was used to male admiration. It didn’t get her all hot and bothered. But this time was different.

She kept her gaze fixed on the reams of paper on the shelf before her. “You should un-tempt yourself then, because I don’t need to tell you how bad it would be for my career if I...if we...” She shrugged impatiently. “Oh, you know what I mean!”

He didn’t speak for a while, and she felt his heavy gaze resting on her. “At least I know it’s not one-sided.”

She couldn’t resist snickering at that. “So glad your male ego is still intact.”

His smile was wry. “But it has taken a battering. You didn’t like me much.”

“True.” She could be honest with him now. “I still don’t like you much.”

“Because of my Pommie accent? That’s a bit prejudiced, don’t you think? After all, I don’t mark you down because of your mangled Aussie vowels.”

“Mangled?” she spluttered before she cottoned on that he was teasing her. “Okay, I admit I was—am—prejudiced against your whole toffy appearance because it reminded me of my dad.”

“Your father’s English?”

She nodded. “Came out here, married my mum, had two kids with her, then dumped us when I was eight and went back to the Old Dart, never to be heard from again.”

“That’s rough.”

“My mum struggled to raise me and my brother, but my dad never gave us a cent, even though he’d inherited a fortune from his parents.”

“And that’s why you won’t even let me buy you a coffee?”

“Something like that.”

“And you object to the way I dress?”

She hesitated, wondering how honest she should be. “I like the way you dress,” she admitted. “But the hand-tailored suits and the silver cufflinks and everything else...it’s so alien to me. My mum used to buy us second-hand clothes from Vinnies. To this day I can’t splurge on clothes. I once spent six hundred dollars on a handbag. Even though I could easily afford it, I was nauseous all night, and the next morning I returned the damned thing.”

She stopped abruptly. Why was she babbling on like this to Giles?

“It’s true I’ve had a privileged upbringing.” He looked almost apologetic. “When I was growing up, it was all ponies and prep schools and holidays in Antigua. And I suppose the hand-tailored suits and silver cufflinks go with the territory. But they’re just clothes, Anna. Underneath them, I’m as human as you are.”

She swallowed at the thought of Giles without his clothes. The softness of his shirt didn’t disguise the broadness of his chest, the cut of his pants didn’t hide the strength of his legs. In fact, his elegant clothing only emphasised his athletic build, and he knew it too, the devil.

“Only human?” she managed to get out. “And here I was thinking you were some kind of tech guru.”

He closed the gap between them, and she found herself trapped with a shelf digging into her back and Giles’s body tantalisingly close to hers, so close she could smell his subtle, heady cologne.

“I’m very human, Anna.” His husky voice twined around her name, owning it, as he picked up her hand and pressed it against his chest. “Here, see for yourself.”

The heat of his flesh warmed her palm and sent a rush of desire crashing through her defences. His bass heartbeat vibrated in her bloodstream, transmitting his excitement. Her skin flushed, and sweat dampened between her breasts as she stood and stared at him, transfixed by his boldness, his nearness, and the sensual sweetness of touching him.

“Giles—” The breathy want in her voice shocked her. She licked her lips, suddenly unsure of herself. Why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t she move or speak?

His other hand reached up, his fingers brushing her cheek. His touch was feather light, and devastating. She wanted his lips on hers. Needed them. Right now. Her hunger must have showed in her face because his expression altered, his eyes suddenly burning with need.

Her fingers curled into his shirt as she pulled him closer. The shelf behind her rattled as his body pressed into hers. The air was humid with their shortened breathing. He lowered his head, his mouth coming towards hers, causing her toes to curl in delicious anticipation—

The door rattled, and someone on the other side swore. With a gasp, Anna thrust Giles away from her as if he were a vampire. The door handle jiggled up and down several more times. Sweating, Anna pounded on the door.

“Hello!” she hollered. “We’re stuck in here. Can anyone help us?”

“Just a minute,” came a muffled voice.

Anna’s legs were shaking. Behind her, she could hear Giles’ uneven breathing. It sounded like he was fighting for control, just like her. She didn’t dare look at him.

The door swung open, and light flooded the closet.

“Hey, how long have you been in here?” Tracey, the summer student, blinked at them in concern. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks for rescuing us.” Anna stalked out of the stationery closet, still not acknowledging Giles.

She heard him thank Tracey and warn her about the door lock.

Anna ignored her desk and kept on walking towards the exit, intent on reaching the women’s restroom. Her body was damp, her legs were shaking, and her heart was pounding in her chest. What the hell had she just done? She couldn’t trust herself to be alone with Giles, but unfortunately there was going to be a lot of that before the week was done.





Chapter Two


Straining with frustration, Giles watched Anna stalk away from him. Her navy, knee-length skirt and plain blue shirt did little to hide her curvy figure. He’d noticed her from his first day at FrogLeap. Hard not to when she was the only female at managerial level. Even harder when she was a knockout and smart and hardworking and seemed to dislike him on sight. Yes, he could admit that his ego hadn’t enjoyed it when she resisted his charms, charms that worked so easily on other women.

However, it wasn’t wounded pride that made him want to pursue her, but rather the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking how great she was and wanting to change her opinion of her, something that had never happened to him before. Anna Reynolds intrigued and attracted him powerfully, and the fact she’d admitted sharing his feelings left him unusually breathless and excited.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he contemplated how close he’d come to kissing her in the stationery closet before they’d been interrupted. Even now his blood was still stirred by the memory. Anna might dress conservatively, but nothing could disguise her lush lips and full cheeks, or those thick eyelashes fringing intelligent eyes the colour of cognac. There was an exotic ripeness to her that she tended to suppress here in the workplace. But one glimpse of it back in that stationery closet, and he was hooked. He had to taste that wildness again, even though he knew the pitfalls involved.

He walked back to his desk and sat down, waiting for his horniness to subside. It took some time before he could concentrate on his work. Recalling Anna’s predicament, he quickly scanned through Neil’s programs which he’d taken over, looking for any errors. Apart from a couple of minor bugs, he didn’t find anything sinister or systematic. So Neil, whom everyone had castigated for jumping the fence to a rival company, had done a fairly good job. Whereas Oscar, the dopey-looking guy, had apparently hidden a malevolent streak. His indignation on behalf of Anna grew, and when she finally returned, he jumped to his feet.