LITMIR.BIZ

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she would be, he had no idea. Joy was pretty, and he’d admit she wasn’t hard to look at, but she hardly seemed interested—in fact, she seemed the direct opposite of interested. Yet, she had screamed his name in her sleep. He was sure of it. He’d tried to replay it a thousand times, wondering if he misheard or imagined it, but the next night had told the truth—she’d done it again, and he’d gotten the evidence.

      He eyed the bag, thoughts simmering in his brain. His major goal was to win—to prove to her that he was right, and that he wasn’t just harassing her. Her attitude toward him all but made him sound like a liar or a perve, and he didn’t like either one. Still, there were other possibilities. What if she dropped the argument, and apologized? What if she admitted the truth? What if she really was attracted to him—that would explain the nighttime fantasies, right? Question was, was he interested back? Maybe. It had been a long time since he’d had sex, or had even been in the mood. When Joy Clarke was in dream mode, her sexy talk got him going, and he might be willing to explore that, if the circumstances were right.

      A zing of interest worked through him, unexpected, but welcome. This kind of thing was exactly what vacations were for.

      He finished the note and smiled. All set. He didn’t have any plans for today, so he’d hang out here, work on the house and see what happened. Peering out the window, he saw her car in the front drive—she hadn’t left for work yet. Good.

      Quickly darting out the door and across the short yard, he left the package on her step, inside the screen door so she wouldn’t miss it.

      He thought he heard her singing some top-forty song through the open screen, her voice becoming slightly louder, definitely off-key. Cute.

      She was walking toward the front door. After running back to his own porch, he ducked behind a tall plant, watching her come outside, notice the package. She picked it up and looked around, pausing for a moment; he swore she was looking right at him, but she couldn’t possibly see him through the thick foliage.

      She opened the envelope, read the note with a roll of her eyes and shoved the disk into her bag. Score!

      Smugly satisfied that she would be stopping by later to apologize and imagining how graciously he’d accept, Rafe thought he might invite her out to get a bite to eat. From there, the possibilities were endless.

      IT HAD BEEN A COMPLETELY crappy morning.

      Joy slid her fingers through her hair as she worked on news spots for the recall follow-ups and knew her mind wasn’t on it. She kept making stupid spelling errors as she composed an e-mail form response to all the angry customers writing the company. She looked at what she’d written in a fit of pique:

      Dear Valued Carr Toys Customer:

      We at Carr Toys value your business and continued patronage. As complaints go, the wheels falling off a toy is not an earth-shattering problem, so please get over it and stop bothering me. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks, and I’m really getting tired of your constant complaints about such a trivial issue. Have a nice day, and we hope you’ll continue to shop Carr Toys.

      Yeah, that would probably need to be heavily revised.

      “Problem?”

      Ken, the PR director, peeked in her office door, and pasting on a smile, she shook her head.

      “No, no problem. I’ve been working on the latest e-mail response to the Toddler Tank complaints.”

      “Didn’t I tell you? Barb’s handling that since she was in that meeting you missed.”

      The slight note of censure was there, and Joy hated herself for being unnerved by it.

      “I’m sorry, Ken. It won’t happen again.”

      He stepped inside her door, looking down at the folders in his hand, then back at her.

      “Joy, you’ve been acting strangely lately. You should take a break. You’ve got a lot of vacation time piled up.”

      “Ken, I’ll get back on my game. I have no desire for time off. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” She laughed lightly, hoping he was buying it. “I live for my work.”

      Her boss eyed her speculatively, as if he were about to say something, and then nodded.

      “Okay, if you say so. I’d rather have you take some time off than not be able to give one hundred percent.”

      As if she didn’t usually give one hundred and twenty? Wasn’t she due an eighty-percent day now and then? She nearly had to bite her tongue to stop from reminding him that she’d missed one meeting—one, in the entire time she’d worked there. Exhausted, she’d overslept and hadn’t made it in until noon. Yes, that was bad, but it wasn’t as if she made a habit of it.

      “Gotcha. No problem.” She forced a smile.

      When he was gone, she sagged in her chair. It was lunchtime, but she had too much to do, and she wanted to catch up and get back in the swing. It had to be the loss of sleep; she’d never been so dragged out.

      Maybe saying she lived for work was an overstatement, but she certainly wasn’t as on top of things as she should be, and she wanted that promotion—more money, a bigger office, more job security, and her father would be very proud of her. Maybe once that was accomplished, she could take a vacation. After she’d established herself in the new position, of course.

      Her stomach growled. She should see if there were any bagels left in the snack room down the hall. Grabbing her purse, she walked to the outer offices. Reaching inside it to find some change, her hands touched something unfamiliar. Then she remembered shoving the disk in there earlier.

      Sitting down at a computer kiosk, she heard muted voices behind her and turned. The representatives of some new potential distributors were congregating outside Ken’s office, getting ready to leave for lunch.

      She glanced at the masculine scrawl on the plain white paper, frowning. It was obviously from her neighbor—what was he up to? The note simply read: Play this when you get a chance. Thanks, Rafe. PS: I’m flattered.

      It was mysterious and annoying, and she flipped the shiny disk out of its package and slid it into the computer in front of her. What could her neighbor be up to now? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Still, curiosity got the better of her. He said he was flattered—flattered about what?

      Squinting, it appeared to be a video, though not a very clear one. There was no image, only a dark smudge that looked like some kind of night shot, and the picture wasn’t good at all, but the sound was exceedingly clear.

       “Oh, God, yes … there … harder …”

      The sultry voice filled the room, and Joy sat back in total shock—it sounded like her.

       “You’re so hard…. Rafe, I need you inside me….”

      Realizing it was her, she sprang furiously into action, hitting the keyboard frantically and trying to shut the damned thing off, but somehow, due to the magic of computer technology and recalcitrant fingers, she ended up turning the volume up even louder instead. The room was ringing with moans and sighs. The sound triggered a memory, and she knew exactly what was coming next.

      “Oh, no! Stop! I said stop!” She yelled at the console, hitting the button on the little disk slot repeatedly, trying to extricate the disk before it was too late.

      Finally the slot popped open, and she removed the disk with shaking fingers, thankfully cutting short some of the more graphic descriptions of how much she loved Rafe’s … equipment.

      My God, she thought, totally mortified. She’d never even thought half of the words she’d heard coming out of her mouth, let alone said them.

      Disk in hand, she didn’t look up for a few minutes, afraid of what she might find. When she did, her first reaction was gratitude that most of the people had left for

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