The Morning After the Night Before

‘I found June eleventh extremely illuminating on that front. But nowhere near as illuminating as Wednesday. Wednesday was a real eye-opener.’

Her only hope of salvation here was in channelling a bit of Tori’s hearty sexual confidence. She tossed her hair back and met his eyes directly.

‘You never let on.’

‘Of course not. It wasn’t appropriate.’

Hysteria bubbled dangerously close. ‘And this is?’

‘You’re not exactly moving away from me.’

She glanced at the junk all around them. ‘That’s more a statement about my hoarding than your hotness.’

Crap. Not what she’d meant to say. At all.

His left eyebrow lifted. ‘I’m hot?’

‘You’re insufferable.’ That smug grin sure was.

‘You think I’m attractive.’

‘I think you’re dangerously close to a lawsuit.’

His laugh echoed her earlier bark. ‘For what?’

‘Employee sexual harassment.’

He waggled her ID tag. ‘You quit, remember?’

‘Then, sexual harassment just generally.’

He shuffled closer. ‘You still haven’t asked me to leave. That’s all it will take.’

No. Why was that …?

‘Maybe I’m hoping chivalry isn’t dead.’ Maybe, deep down inside, she wanted to give him one more chance to be a decent man.

‘Grand chivalric gestures were the only outlet for all the unrequited sexual frustration in the twelfth century.’ He shot her his best Cheshire grin. ‘Like our fighting.’

‘Well, then, perhaps your grand gesture could involve sweeping heroically out the door and nicking off.’

His smile this time was half laugh. And it was annoyingly appealing. ‘Or we could find a more traditional outlet for all the tension.’

‘No.’ It would be laughable if the very thought hadn’t divested her of the oxygen she’d need to do it.

‘Are you already in a relationship?’ he challenged. ‘I’m not.’

Izzy grasped desperately at the edges of the conversation. Harry’s eyes said he was dead serious, but how could he be? This sort of thing never happened to her. Despite her best efforts.

She sucked in some much-needed air. ‘Except with your career.’

His eyes dimmed oh-so-briefly. ‘My career and I have an understanding.’

‘When it gets you laid?’

‘Is that what you think this is about?’ He looked genuinely wounded. ‘Sex?’

Doubt crept in at the corners. ‘Unless you’re proposing a rollicking game of chess?’

‘Something tells me you’d be quite good at chess,’ he murmured. ‘I’m talking about exploration. A bit of good old-fashioned groping. Tangling tongues and heavy breathing. When was the last time you had that?’

Ah … no. Not a question she was going to answer. ‘You’re assuming rather a lot, don’t you think?’

‘You still haven’t asked me to leave.’

The simple truth of that stripped Izzy bare. He was flirting and she was, too, in her own clunky way. They were standing in a darkened, tiny bedroom close enough to get right into that groping without even needing to reach. They no longer had any kind of professional relationship to protect or reputation to preserve. She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t some kind of weirdo or monster. And there was a strange kind of hormonal haze going on thanks to the intriguing fingertip preview of the hard body under his McQueen business shirt.

He was offering her a few hours of healthy distraction and making it clear that it didn’t have to end in sex and, most importantly, he was exactly the right kind of guy for a one-night-only appearance.

And she wasn’t throwing him out.

‘A good time but not a long time? Is that it?’ she murmured.

‘A great time, Izzy,’ he clarified, ‘but no … not a long time.’

Yes, yes, yes, her three champagnes ganged up to whisper violently in her ear. But everyone knew champagne was a tart. ‘Because you have your career?’

‘Because I’m not looking for a relationship.’

‘But you’re open to a fun night.’

‘That’s up to you, Iz.’

Iz …

That one diminutive sealed her fate, seducing her with its simple masculinity and emboldening her with its intimacy. That one diminutive made it easier to imagine—to stick her fingers in her ears and go la la la for a few hours—that they knew each other even vaguely well enough for what he was proposing. For what she suddenly realised she was contemplating.

And was desperately, obscenely hungry for. And maybe always had been.

What was there to know? He was gorgeous, he was Australian, he smelled like a god. What if he kissed like one, too? And what if she never found out, first hand? And she wouldn’t because, without turning up in his building at eight every morning, this was the last she was ever going to see of infuriating Harry Mitchell.

Intriguingly sexy Harry Mitchell.

Maybe he was right about their office bickering, maybe it was just the only work-appropriate way for the chemistry to get out.

Because she could sure feel it now, surging like a tidal current between them, urging her closer, urging her to say yes. Urging her to give in to the speculative curiosity she suddenly realised she’d always had about him.

‘Can I touch your suit?’ she asked, eyes not quite meeting his. Not believing she’d asked.