Tegan dropped into her chair and spun around, angling herself away from the lift doors in the unlikely event someone alighted. Apparently a very unlikely event, according to her sister. ‘Invitation only’ was the way she’d described this floor, and with the boss half a world away there was zero chance she’d be interrupted by anyone. Which was just the way Tegan wanted it.
She let one high-heeled court shoe drop on the carpet and lifted one knee high, curling her toes into the sheer fabric gathered between her fingers.
The stocking slipped over her toes and up her calf like a shimmering second layer of skin. She hitched up Morgan’s fitted pencil-skirt and drew the stocking higher up her leg to where the lace band ended at her thigh.
Not bad, she thought, alternately flexing and pointing her toes at the ceiling in time with the music playing in her ears, liking the way the barely there stocking gave her skin a warm, golden glow, before dropping that leg down to start on the other. Maybe today wasn’t going to be such a dead loss after all.
He shouldn’t be watching. He hadn’t intended to watch. He’d thought he heard the ping of the lift door and some vague utterances, and he’d opened his door ready to utter a few terse words himself to his recalcitrant PA. One glance at that impossibly long length of leg being sheathed in something silky, and the heat intended for his words had made a sudden change of direction and headed south.
He watched, transfixed, as her second leg followed the first, angling upwards as she extended her knee and drew the almost invisible fabric slowly up her leg. All the long, long way up.
A heated breath hissed through his teeth. Who would have suspected Morgan Fielding had pins like those hidden under her ‘hands off’ business attire? Although she was not quite as ‘hands off’ as usual, he observed with a glance at the rest of her. Today the buttons at her neck were undone, exposing a rare vee of surprisingly sun-kissed skin, and the nondescript-colour hair that was usually bound into a tight knot looked more casual and sunstreaked, coiling tendrils already escaping from the clips to fall around her face and neck—no doubt due to the action of her head bopping from side to side to whatever was pumping out of the device she had plugged into her ears.
A movement had his eyes right back on her hands. Her fingers were toying with the lace tops, straightening each one slightly. Lucky lace, he reflected, to be wrapped around such perfect thighs.
Then he watched her run the flat of her palms along the length of each leg, smoothing the stockings from the ankle up. Not that there was any need. There wasn’t so much as a wrinkle or crease to be seen from where he was standing.
They looked perfect. Legs you could slide your hand up, a smooth and silken journey northwards. Why was today so special that she’d dress her legs up in lace-topped luxury like that? Why was she suddenly flashing skin he’d never had so much of a glimpse of? It sure wasn’t for his benefit.
Unless she was expecting someone in his absence.
Something ground his thoughts to a halt. Just the thought of someone else gliding their way north along that glistening two-lane highway crunched like a bad gear-change inside him.
He drew in one long breath, but instead of the cooling effect he needed right now the oxygen-laden air merely fuelled the fire pooling in his groin, further compounding the morning’s aggravation.
Damn it!
Another time, another woman, he might appreciate the rush of blood—but she was Morgan Fielding, his PA, for God’s sake! And he’d never looked at Morgan Fielding that way. He didn’t look at PAs period, no matter how good their attributes. Tina had cured him of that long ago.
He cleared his throat, because he knew that if he didn’t his voice would come out too rough, too telling. Besides, he told himself as he pushed himself away from the door, she’d never hear him otherwise over those damned devices jammed into her ears.
‘When you’re quite finished…’
It took a second for her to register before he had her full attention. But that second gave birth to chaos in motion. In a moment she’d jumped out of her seat and wheeled around to face him, simultaneously pulling her skirt down to her knees while yanking the earphones free.
So he’d startled her. Good. Although he bet it was nothing compared to the shock of those endless legs he’d just been subjected to.
Then, just when he expected to meet her gaze and see her reaction get reined back to the Little Ms Efficiency she usually was—no doubt with a prim little apology for her late arrival—her look of outrage disappeared and instead her hazel eyes opened wide with shock, the colour draining clear from her face.