LITMIR.BIZ

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as he recalled rather too clearly.

      She’d put on shorts. Bicycle shorts, the stretchy kind. He blinked. Swallowed. Her legs were lean, muscled, powerful. Her tawny hair was tied back in a ponytail. Shouldn’t she be wearing a helmet?

      He tracked her movements across the parking lot as she made a diagonal path to the exit while the long line of cars wound patiently around the edge of the lot. She stood on her pedals as she went over a speed bump, lifted her backside into the air.

      He coughed and turned away. Experienced a sudden rush of uncomfortable sensation. Something stirred inside him that surprised and annoyed him. His pulse pounded and he opened his mouth to breathe.

      He moved away from the window and undid another button on his shirt to loosen it. The powerful visual of Sara’s raised hips taunted him.

      A plain little thing? Not so. She merely plied her feminine charms in a more calculated fashion than the girls in miniskirts and high heels.

      But already he could see she was no different from the others.

Two

      “You may call me Elan.”

      The rumble of his voice echoed in a previously undiscovered part of her anatomy. She swallowed hard.

      “All right, Elan.”

      His name, spoken in her voice, sounded strangely intimate. The intimacy was a gift to cherish, a reward for her successful first week on the job. She knew he was pleased with her performance. Twice he’d sent her to meetings in his place, and he’d even allowed her to negotiate a new contract with a pipe supplier.

      She’d hoped the allure of his masculine charms would fade with time and overexposure. That, unfortunately, had not yet happened.

      “Sara, here’s my speech for the conference next week. Please proof it and give me your opinion.”

      He lifted a sheaf of handwritten papers. She noted with chagrin that even his writing was sexy. Bold, thick cursive flowed black from his solid-gold fountain pen.

      “I’d be glad to.” She took the papers and forced herself not to linger on the seductive thickness of his muscled neck as he bent his head to the stack of contracts she’d handed him.

      Elan threw himself into his job with the intensity of a competitive athlete. At the end of the day he looked so tense that she longed to move behind his chair and massage the hard ridges of his shoulders. Longed to hear him sigh with relief as her fingers eased the knots beneath his skin, soothing his tension. Longed to lose her fingertips in the snowy cotton of his shirt, the thick darkness of his hair.

      She fought these urges like the beckoning calls to madness they were. A foolish schoolgirl crush that undermined her competence. No possible good could come from sighing over a man who’d made it clear he despised the attentions of female employees. This was the man who held the key to her future in his hands.

      Broad, capable hands that haunted her imagination.

      “You can read my speech in here if you wish. You won’t be disturbed by your ringing phone.” He indicated a plum-colored leather chair tucked in a corner of his vast office.

      “Great, thanks.” Another honor she probably didn’t deserve. She settled herself in the soft leather and propped the papers up in front of her eyes, the better to block out any distracting view of her boss.

      The more they worked together, the more she was bedeviled by the urge to touch him. Electricity crackled in the air when she came within inches of him, which was often as she worked closely with him throughout the day. But the tiny distance between them was an unbridgeable chasm whose howling depths threatened to engulf her if she were foolish enough to act.

      Perhaps a little touch would be enough, a casual brush of the hand.

      She couldn’t jump off that cliff. This job was too important. And not just for the badly needed money it provided; Elan was giving her a chance to prove herself in the business world, to build a career that would be the foundation for a secure life.

      With a successful career she’d never be stuck depending on a man to support her. She’d never have to suffer the way her mother had, trapped in a loveless marriage because she had too many hungry mouths to feed.

      But something about the ridge of Elan’s cheekbone made her long to bite it gently. Something about his ear called her to trace its delicate curve with a soft fingertip and suck the tender, unpierced lobe. Something about his mouth made her want to part his unsmiling lips with her tongue and plunge into the warm depths.

      “What are you looking at?”

      She jumped in her seat, totally busted as Elan stared at her, one eyebrow slightly lifted. She blinked, eyelids darting over her lust-dilated pupils. He’d seen her gawking at him over the top of his speech, desire written all over her face.

      “I’m sorry, just thinking.”

      “I can see that.” He settled back against the black leather of his chair. His eyes narrowed slightly and the barest shadow of a smile played over his lips.

      He knew she wanted him. Just like all those other women had wanted him. She struggled to hold his black gaze, trying not to flinch as he stared, unblinking, taunting her with her own unspoken desires.

      He raised one hand, extended a single long finger and brought it slowly to his lips. A thoughtful, deliberate, unbearably sensual gesture. A surge of warmth heated Sara’s body, pleasurable and uncomfortable at the same time.

      Her suit felt tight, constricting, holding in a body that longed to break free, to give rein to all the crazy impulses jarring her nerves and sending suggestions to her muscles that made her strain to hold her limbs still.

      A knock on the door startled her, and she leaped to her feet, dropping Elan’s speech unceremoniously in the chair.

      “You’re jumpy,” he murmured.

      “Come in,” she said sharply, trying to regain the air of prim efficiency she used to pride herself on.

      “I’ve got the samples you requested from the Davis field.” Dora entered, her coral mouth pursed in a polite smile. The office gossip, she took far too much pleasure in regaling Sara with tales of her predecessors’ downfall.

      Dora carried a rectangular metal basket filled with vials of a black substance.

      “I’ll take them.” Sara, lifted the heavy basket by its handles. She looked at Elan for instructions.

      “On the desk.”

      She lowered the basket and put it right on top of the scattered papers as he’d indicated. He picked up one of the vials.

      “Thank you, Dora.” Elan dismissed her with a nod. She exited with a slight smirk on her face that made Sara’s insides twist with affront. Could Dora see into her mind? Know she was tempted down the same path to self-destruction that had tripped up so many women before her?

      “Do you know what this is?” He swirled it and the dark liquid clung to the sides of the glass, viscous, slightly metallic.

      “Oil?”

      “Yes. The reason we’re all here.” He watched the liquid settle back down into the bottom of the vial. “Black gold.”

      He removed the lid and lifted the vial to his nostrils. He held it under his nose for a moment, then let out a little grunt of satisfaction. “I never grow tired of this smell.” He rose and moved around the desk toward her. “Have you ever handled crude oil?”

      “Can’t say I have,” said Sara. Awareness of his physical presence made her palms tingle.

      Elan dipped one of his long fingers into the neck of the jar, plunged it into the thin, black liquid and withdrew it. “Here.” He extended his finger under her nose, invited her to sample its bouquet.

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