Intimate Seduction

He enjoyed arriving at work early, usually coming straight from the gym where he gave his body an intense workout for an hour before showering and dressing to arrive at the office by six.

His secretary usually got in around eight, which meant he had a couple hours to handle whatever was at the top of his “must take care of” list without any interruptions. There was a time Sebastian and Morgan would also arrive around six in the morning. But since they got married, they seemed reluctant to leave their wives any sooner than they had to. Since Chance had been a single dad with a school-age child to handle, he’d preferred flexing his hours to suit his needs, which had been understandable. Nowadays he still flexed his schedule due to Alden. Either he took him to the nursery each day or picked him up. Donovan could tell his brother enjoyed stepping back into the role of father to a young child.

Donovan sat down at his desk with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand and rolled his eyes at the mere thought of any woman keeping him in bed beyond what he deemed was necessary. Men had a tendency to get too carried away with the opposite sex. Hell, they got carried away with sex period…or in his case, as he would admit grudgingly, the thought of getting sex.

That made him think of Natalie Ford. Hell, he had thought endlessly about her last night, if the truth be told. And alone in his office with just his thoughts, he might as well tell it. He had dreamed about her and her legs. He had even gone farther than that by thinking about the juncture of those legs and how he’d love to lose himself in that section of her body. A part of him wished she had not changed the linen on his bed. Instead of welcoming the clean, fresh scent when he’d gotten between the sheets, he had longed for her scent, a reminder that she had been in his bed.

But even without her scent as a memory, he had remembered. He had remembered to the point where he’d gone to sleep with a hard-on as a result of thinking about her, recalling what he’d seen when he had lifted that bedspread off her while she slept. She had looked so damn good in her shorts and top that he couldn’t help wonder just how she would look naked.

He was so enmeshed in those thoughts that he jumped, almost spilled coffee on his shirt, when there was a knock on his door. He frowned and glanced at the ceramic clock on his desk, a birthday gift from Lena, Morgan’s wife. It was a joke in the family that he enjoyed watching time slip by. It was early—a few minutes past six. Who else would be in the office this early other than security?

“Come in,” he yelled out.

He was surprised when Sebastian stuck his head in the door, before opening it wide to walk in with a cup of coffee in his hand. Donovan sat up straight in his chair and quickly slipped the piece of paper he’d been doodling on inside his desk. Absently, he’d been jotting down all the ways he’d like to do Natalie. He was a master when it came to lovemaking positions and wanted to try each and every one he could think of on her.

“Why are you here so early?” he asked as his brother shut the door and eased down in the chair across from his desk.

“Jocelyn has a doctor’s appointment later today, so I thought I’d come in early and get a few things done before I have to leave.”

Donovan nodded. It was hard to believe how things had changed for Bas since getting married. There used to be a time when the Steele Corporation was more than a company to Bas; it had been his lifeline. Bas had been the last Steele brother to come work for SC. Of the four of them, it had been Bas who’d given their parents the most grief while growing up, especially during his teen years. Bas and the old man used to butt heads all the time, mainly because trouble had a way of finding Bas at every turn.

Now Bas was a happily married man with a baby on the way.

“Everything’s okay with Jocelyn and the baby?” Donovan asked.

Bas smiled. “Yes, everything is fine. Since she’s due next month, the doctors are now seeing her each week.”

“And you still don’t want to know if you’re having a boy or girl?” Donovan asked, then took a sip of his coffee.

“Nope. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Donovan nodded. That was the same attitude his other brother Morgan and his wife, Lena, had taken. Lena was due to deliver a month or so after Jocelyn.

“All we know is that it’s one big baby. No triplets for us,” Bas added jokingly. Donovan understood the punch line. Their cousin Cheyenne had given birth to triplets nearly nine months ago. The first multiple birth ever recorded in the Steele family.

His conversation with Bas easily shifted into details about the race that past weekend. Everyone was happy about Bron’s win and the positive exposure it had given SC. It was good advertising dollars at work.

“Do you know what our meeting this morning with Chance is about?” Donovan asked, knowing if anyone knew it would be Bas. As company troubleshooter, he kept well informed of anything and everything that happened at SC.

Bas shrugged. “Chance will tell you everything you need to know soon enough.”

Donovan rolled his eyes, wondering why he’d even bothered to ask. When it came to sharing SC’s business with anyone, Bas always developed a case of locked lips.

“Well, I’d better get to my own office. I have a lot to do,” Bas said standing.

Donovan inwardly smiled. It would be just like Bas to put distance between them for fear of him trying to pump him for more information.

“Okay, then. I’ll see you at the meeting,” he said when Bas turned to leave. Donovan lifted a brow wondering what suddenly had Bas so nervous.

Natalie sipped her coffee trying to decide when would be the best time to call Donovan Steele. She and her aunt had worked on the schedules, and after shifting a couple of customers from Friday to Thursday—with their consent, of course—they had come up with a workable solution to accommodate Mr. Steele’s request.

She was working on the inside today, from the office set up in her aunt’s home, doing payroll and ordering supplies, and had been, for the time being, successful in talking her aunt into taking it easy and getting some rest.

Checking the clock on the wall once again, she figured Mr. Steele should be in his office by now and decided to give his business number a try. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone, glanced at the business card her aunt had attached to his file, and punched in the numbers. It didn’t take long for his secretary to answer.

“The Steele Corporation. Donovan Steele’s office. May I help you?”

“Yes, may I speak with Mr. Steele?”

“Who may I say is calling, please?”

“Natalie Ford.”

“Please hold on, Ms. Ford.”

Natalie pushed away from the desk to glance out the window, trying to get her mind off the fact that in a few moments she would be hearing the sound of Donovan Steele’s voice again. Maybe she was suffering from a case of concentrating too much on work and not enough on the opposite sex. Why else would the sight of a good-looking man with a sexy voice have her mind flipping around like a fish out of water?

It wouldn’t take much to close her eyes, recall and visualize yesterday’s encounter with Donovan Steele. After leaving his place, driving over to her next client’s home had been difficult. She’d been overheated. Blatantly hot. If she could have gone somewhere and stripped down to her panties and bra she would have been tempted to do so.

And the sad thing about it was that her body’s high temperature had had nothing to do with Charlotte’s weather. It had been a hot day in July, true enough, but not a scorcher. She could now attribute her fever yesterday to Mr. Steele.

Mr. Steele.

He had tried several times to get her to call him Donovan, and she had refused to do so—would continue to do so. To call him by his first name sounded too personal, and she didn’t want to have that kind of relationship with him. She refused to have any sort of a relationship with him.

Her thoughts snapped back to the present when she heard the phone click in her ear and then…“Hello, this is Donovan.”

Immediately, her heart began pounding, and even though she didn’t want it to, her body began heating up, similar to the way it had yesterday. The man had such a sexy voice.

“Hello.”

At the sound of that voice again, she suddenly realized that she had not responded to his first greeting and quickly said, “Yes, Mr. Steele, this is Natalie Ford from Special Touch Housekeeping Agency.”

“Yes, Natalie, what can I do for you?”

His words flowed across her body like a stroke of some explosive fluid to a simmering brushfire. She’d never concentrated on the sound of a masculine voice before, especially not to this degree. And the sound of one had definitely never even come close to giving her a sexual thrill. For her to come this unglued meant she had gone without male company too long. What had it been now? Five years?

“Natalie?”

She sighed and pushed a lock of hair back from her face while trying to ignore the way he said her name. His sensuous tone stroked something within her that so far no man ever had stroked fully before.

Passion.

While growing up she’d known about her mother’s wild and reckless ways, and had gone through life determined not to make the same mistakes Lorene Ford had made when it came to men. As a teen, instead of letting the pursuit of boys occupy most of her time, Natalie had found solace in her books.

And when she’d gone off to college, being younger than the other students had been challenging. That’s when she had met Karl Gaines. Like her, he had been totally absorbed in his books…or so she had thought. She had found out the hard way that he’d been just as cunning, controlling and manipulating as he’d been brilliant.

And he had been cruel. He had eroded her confidence as a woman and her ability as a mate to keep the man she loved satisfied sexually. He hadn’t minced words when he’d talked about her lovemaking abilities, or lack of them.