Tycoon For Auction

“Why are you bringing your computer?” he asked.

“I have some work I need to do. I hate to waste the time since you’re driving.”

“You can’t take one day off?” he asked.

“Sure I can. I just don’t want to.”

“Don’t you ever have any fun?” he asked, opening her door for her.

“I like working.”

She knew it was an old-fashioned gesture, and yet she liked it. He probably did it without thinking, but it made her feel good. She dropped her bags on the floor and smoothed the skirt of her sundress under her as she slid into the car. She felt the heat of his gaze on her legs as the hem slid up on her thighs.

Was he interested in her as a woman? Since he’d kept his distance after their dance she figured his attraction to her had been posturing since she’d been the one in the position of power.

He slammed the door and walked around in front of the car. He wore khaki shorts and a golf shirt and looked like an advertisement for easy living. She pulled her sunglasses back into place, then smoothed her hair along her head, searching for any strand that might have escaped the ponytail she’d pulled it into this morning. Neat and tidy, she thought.

“I like my job, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take time to enjoy life.”

“I’m not an unhappy person, Rand. And you’re working today.”

“I know.”

“So why shouldn’t I?”

“Never mind.”

She pulled her laptop from its case and powered it up. Rand fastened his seat belt and neatly backed out of her driveway. The traffic was heavy, but he wove through it effortlessly. She pulled up the company memo template and pretended to be composing the memo in her head, but all she could concentrate on was Rand.

His muscles flexed each time he shifted the car. She could practically smell the testosterone as he drove. And she wondered if she’d really survive if he decided to take her words as a challenge.

Because without even trying to, he was engaging her senses and distracting her from her work. She knew then that she’d never claim the other two dates she’d purchased from his company because there was no way she was going to be this close to him again after today.

Rand knew it shouldn’t matter that she was working as they drove down to West Palm Beach. Ivanna Marckey, the last client he’d provided a corporate escort for, had spent all the time to and from engagements on the phone or reading e-mail on her PDA. But for some reason it bothered him when Corrine did the same.

That wasn’t true. Not only did her actions disturb him—she did. From the tips of her hot-pink toes to her sleek blond ponytail. She seemed aloof and he wanted to bring her down to his level. He wanted to see her hot and mussed. He lowered the windows so the air circulated around them, tugging the long blond strands from her neat coiffure.

She glanced over at him. He knew he should have asked before he lowered the windows. He’d been raised with more manners than most, and this was one of the reasons why he’d left Chicago many years ago. He sometimes reacted without thinking. Something that Pearsons simply didn’t do. Especially ones who seemed to live a charmed life.

“Do you mind?” he asked at last.

She shrugged. “I guess not. I wish I’d brought a scarf.”

She turned back to her computer and started typing again. Obviously not too concerned with the wind. Or too ruffled by it.

“We’ll stop before we get to the yacht club so you can fix your hair,” he said, trying to make up for his behavior.

“Okay,” she said. Her pleasantness made him feel like a bully on the playground.

He wanted to push harder to see what it would take to get a reaction out of her. A few more miles passed, and when they got on I-95 heading south he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. It just left his mind free to wander and he’d never been that comfortable with himself. Usually he blared the radio on a heavy-metal station, but today there was an interesting distraction right next to him.

Her sundress was demure on the outside, but it was encasing a body that was his version of heaven. Long, slim limbs and generous curves above and below the waist. In his mind’s eye he could still see her white thigh from when she’d gotten into the car.

He imagined his hand sliding up that leg. He knew it would be as smooth as silk. He’d touched her arms and shoulders the night they’d danced together and his fingers still remembered her texture. The roughness of his callused hands on her soft skin. He wanted to touch her again. Now.

Sexual tension pumped through his body, making him heavy. Dammit, he needed a diversion. Too bad she was engrossed in her job.

Which he knew shouldn’t bother him, but it did. Everything male in him wanted to rise to the indirect challenge she issued by ignoring him. And that was the one thing he’d never been able to resist. So he fiddled with the radio dial until he found a classic-rock station.

Instead of something hard and raunchy, the sensuous sounds of Dave Matthews and his band singing one of their ballads. The soft, emotional lyrics didn’t help his situation as he felt the beast in him rising to the surface.

He tightened his hands on the wheel. She hadn’t even glanced at him when the music blared out of the speakers. Unable to help himself, he reached over and removed the elastic holding her hair back. She didn’t move to stop him, only glanced toward him.

“Problem?”

“You’re going to have to take it out later, anyway,” he said. Which had to be the lamest excuse in history. But there was no way he was going to tell her more.

She held her hand out palm up, and though he wanted to toss the damn elastic out the window he gave it to her. “Thanks,” she said quietly.

“For what?”

“I put vanity before comfort.”

“I don’t imagine you being vain.”

“Well, not like ego. I just like to look…well kept.”

“I’ll keep you well,” he said before he could stop himself. Damn, normally he wasn’t such a hound, but he could think of nothing but her in his arms. Her in his bed. Her…just her, and that disturbed him.

“Rand?”

“Don’t, okay?” Rand asked.

He concentrated on the road. Hardly noticed that the long, sunshine-colored strands of her hair brushed his arm every thirty seconds or so. Hardly noticed that her scent engulfed him. He wanted to bring her closer so he could breathe her in. Hardly noticed that for once a different kind of tension was pursuing him.

He felt like a big, mean bastard. He turned the radio down and concentrated on his driving, annoyed at her for ignoring him and mad at himself for reacting as if he were in junior high school.

He clicked off the radio and floored the accelerator.

“You okay?” Corrine asked.

He’d had enough of being a beast and wasn’t about to say another thing to her until they arrived at the yacht. And then he’d find a way to make sure he didn’t take her actions so personally. But she appealed to him on too many levels. “Yeah.”

She closed her laptop and put it away. “I’ve always loved the smell of the beach.”

“Me, too. One of the first times I beat my older twin brother was at beach volleyball. We played all afternoon and we kept switching off winning, and then finally I won two in a row,” he said.

“You know, I grew up in Florida but never got to go to the beach until I was in college. That trip was my shot at freedom, and I stood on the shore looking out at the endless horizon and vowed to make the most of every opportunity given to me.”