She sensed him straighten and his hands drifted into her disheveled hair to treat her scalp to the same attentions. She should stop this. Lincoln, in the Fortune Fifty since the inception of the statistics, wasn’t a hip company and if anybody walked in, his hands in her hair might be misinterpreted.
“Hi!” The kid who delivered the mail tossed it on Jon’s desk.
Liv pulled away and stood up, surprised she was a little unsteady on her feet.
The kid left with a nod, not thinking anything of the massage, apparently.
“Wow.” She put a tentative hand to her neck. “That felt really great, but you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s my specialty,” he said, though his hands fell down to dig in his pockets. “Any time. There’s quite a lot of research out there about the benefits of massage in a work environment. Sitting at a computer all day makes you tense, which can lead to lack of productivity.”
“No argument there.” Going without sex and then having a hottie hanging around made you tense too. But she supposed she shouldn’t point that one out.
He looked at her and his eyes skated down. She probably looked like a mess compared to all those lawyers at his previous consulting job, in their suits and makeup. Compared to most women at this point, she bet. But he moved a little closer and her pulse went crazy.
Chapter Two
Jonathon Crestwell—aka Jon Foster—should have expected this complication after seeing Liv on the hidden camera that first time. She was hot, and just his type. The smart, gorgeous type with green eyes and long honey blonde hair to top it off. It made him want to see if she needed another outlet for all that restless energy. After all, he was a full-service consultant. Anything she needed.
The idea he had come up with to infiltrate Lincoln Computers, and specifically Altman’s office suite, had worked smoothly. Jennifer Sealy swallowed his pitch as he had suspected she would—corporate types like her were always eager to be up on the latest group-think, especially if the words “pro bono” were attached as an initial incentive—and with a little creative hacking he’d ensured Liv’s previous secretary would be on her way out the door. He didn’t want an assistant around looking over his shoulder, wondering what he was doing. All that he needed then was to frame his pitch in terms of a bright young executive who he could interact with in the absence of an admin, and the HR director made the obvious connection, gushing that she had just the right prospect for him to start with. Add an attorney at Pitz and Lunder who owed him a favor lying for him and saying he’d consulted there, a fake Facebook page and resume, and Sealy was sold. Now that he knew Sealy was Liv’s friend, not just her HR rep, he thought there might have been a little more to it, like she was trying to fix her up or something. Which was actually fine with him.
A full-service consultant, right?
But he was pretty sure hooking up with Ms. Altman probably would get him booted out, if for no other reason than that she wouldn’t want to see him again. It was like sleeping with a woman in the same class in college. It led to a lot of skipping after the fact by both parties. And he needed to be on the job here.
So he had no idea why he sidled a little closer to Liv, as he would with any woman he was making the moves on. She had a smooth complexion and a cute little chin with a dimple in it.
He tried to get back on track. “It really is important that you interface with me the way you do with your admin so I can get an accurate picture of the scope of your needs. Are you sure there isn’t something I could do for you?”
Whoa. That last part had come out pretty wrong. He’d said it staring straight into her eyes and with the same hoarse tone he used when he asked a woman if he was rubbing her clit right or if she wanted him to thrust harder.
She laughed and broke the eye contact.
“I apologize,” he said quickly. “I know that it’s easy for sense cues between the opposite sexes in the workplace to, ah, misfire.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t flirting with you.”
“Oh.”
“But given male/female dynamics”—he was really winging it here—“sometimes dialogue is easier when it follows stereotypical channels, which are generally flirtatious in character. Though not in this given context.”
“Even though I’m not sure what you just said right now, I am surprised the women lawyers you worked with on your last gig let you get away with that kind of thing.”
He stepped closer still. “As a matter of fact, crossing interpersonal barriers is required to reinvigorate the workplace. I’m in favor of it really.”