She nodded in satisfaction. "Good. She loves you too, you know, but she thinks you were in it for the sex."
"I never said that!"
"You never said otherwise," Miss Wisdom pointed out to him.
Mack ran his fingers through his hair. Could it be true? Did Kindra love him? Hope rose like a hot-air balloon.
But what if she didn't?
"Do you think I should tell her how I feel now?"
"No, I think you should both spend the rest of your lives miserable for being so stupid." She rolled her eyes. "Yes, you should tell her!"
Mack barely even noticed Ashley's sarcasm. If Ashley was wrong about Kindra's feelings, he certainly couldn't feel any lousier than he did right now.
And if she was right…
Oh, man. Bliss.
Mack had an idea. He bent and squeezed Ashley by the shoulders. "Thanks, Ashley. I owe you one."
Then he turned and headed to his office, telling himself that Kindra was worth all the embarrassment he would suffer if this didn't work.
Kindra was still in shock an hour later. What exactly had Mack been doing?
Had she wounded his male ego by telling him one night was enough?
Rubbing her temples, she spat hair out of her mouth. Wearing the hair down was supposed to be symbolic, but it was just getting on her nerves. She was constantly pawing it to get it out of her way.
The words on her screen were blurring in front of her. She'd been hiding in her office since she had walked away from Mack, and she couldn't concentrate on anything.
She'd been staring at the same proposal for a solid thirty minutes and the words were dancing tiny tangos with each other.
Frustrated, she clicked to check her e-mail. Anything to distract her. It was possible there would be another pleading message from Russ begging her not to sever their relationship.
Those had been his exact words after she had e-mailed him the night before telling him she wasn't interested any longer. The word relationship made her snort out loud.
Talking about sex in a chat room was not a relationship.
Neither was one night together.
She groaned. This wasn't distracting her from thinking about Mack.
She was a federal disaster area. Hurricane Kindra.
Then her eye landed on her new messages. There was one from Mack Stone.
"Oh, no."
If he talked dirty to her, she was not going to be able to resist.
One eye closed, the other covered by her hand, she clicked to open the e-mail. Then she spread her fingers and held her breath.
The message was short.
Marry me.
Kindra dropped her hands and gripped her desk. "Ohmigod, ohmigod."
Was this some sort of cruel joke from Mack or Russ or some office prankster? Her vision went blurry.
Her stomach lurched like she'd had bad calamari.
The door to her office opened.
Frantic, she bent her head and scrolled down so her screen was blank. Praying it was Ashley, she said, "Yes?" in a bright fake voice.
"Woof."
What the heck was that? Her head snapped up. She turned, blinking hard.
Now she'd seen everything. Truly. Mack was standing in her doorway with a fluffy white poodle sticking out of his computer backpack.
"What are you doing?" she blurted out.
"Hoping like hell I'm not making an ass out of myself."
No comment.
Kindra thumbed back toward her screen, her heart pounding way too fast to be normal. If she passed out, she hoped Mack would think to call 911. "Did you just send me a message?"
"If it said 'Marry me,' then yes, I did."
That's it. She was gone. Tears raced down her face and she struggled not to blubber. "Why?"
"Kindra." He took a step forward. "Because I love you."
"No, you don't." Now why had she just said that? Hadn't she learned anything? If the man of her dreams proposed and said he loved her, she needed to latch on and ask questions later.
"Yes, I do." The fluffy little dog put its paws on his shoul-der and panted. "Come on, I have a freaking dog on my back. With pink bows in its hair. Doesn't that tell you anything?"
It told her volumes. That Mack did love her. The pink bows confirmed it. She laughed. "I love you too."
"Whew." He grinned. "You had me worried there. Does that mean you'll marry me? We can live in your house and raise Bitsy together?"
"Yes." But the dog's name had to go.
Kindra stood up and went to Mack. Right into his arms. Where she belonged.
The kiss he gave her was long and passionate, moist lips and groping hands. His hot tongue lapped against hers.
"Oh, baby," he groaned.
Oh, baby was right. Kindra snuggled up against his hard chest and tugged on his cranberry tie. She absolutely loved the way he looked in a tie.
Mack gestured to her computer. "You have to tell cyber-Romeo to take a hike. Then we'll change your e-mail address. Maybe to IbelongtoMack@hotmail.com."
She laughed. "I already did. Yesterday. Told him to take a hike, that is, not changed my address."
His eyes burned. "You know, we should take the dog home before she has an accident down my back."
"Oh, good idea." Kindra was due a long leisurely lunch, since she'd never had one in four years on the job.
Feeling fabulous and daring, she let her hand slide down past his waist. She squeezed him and grinned in satisfaction when he went hard.
He said in a tight voice, "Want to have a nooner?"
Yes, please.
"Sure. Let me grab my purse." Kindra rubbed the little dog's head over Mack's shoulder and said, "She really is cute."
Bitsy barked.
Mack shifted the pack on his back. "You know, I never did get to watch that little video we made. Maybe we could do that first. Did you save it?"
"It's on my hard drive." But Kindra had a better idea.
Her hand back on his pants stroking him, she whispered in his ear, "Let's make another one instead."
Mack watched Kindra walk toward the door, her sweet little ass swaying as she shot him a "come and get it" look over her shoulder.
Damn, he was one lucky guy.
He followed her, his tongue probably hanging as low as Bitsy's. "Baby, let's go burn up your hard drive."
Press Any Key
Chapter One
"I don't feel the love in this room."
Jared Kincaid stared at Harold, who was standing in the middle of his office, hands on his leather pants-clad hips.
What Jared felt was not love, but a skull-grinding, breath-robbing headache. Trust him to get hired at a marketing firm where the boss was having an existential midlife crisis.
It had started with Harold's leaving his wife six weeks ago. Now it had graduated to his boss's wearing a gay hairdresser's wardrobe to work every day, preaching to the staff about oneness with self, and eating massive quantities of hummus.
Since Jared's instinct was to tell Harold to take his love and shove it up his leather pants, he remained silent. With a little luck, in a month or two Harold would rediscover his true passion lay in Beamers and Armani suits and they could get back to normal.
A sultry low laugh filled the room. Jared gritted his teeth.
That laugh was a perfect example of why he was doomed to middle management and a lifetime of dodging trouble. Trouble followed Jared. Everywhere he went.
Trouble usually had long legs and breasts. This trouble had all of that plus blowzy blond hair, a Southern accent, and lush cherry lips that pouted and taunted.
And her name. Who the hell named their kid Candy Appleton? Had her mother envisioned her newborn baby as a future porn star?
Maybe it had been cute when Candy was a little girl, before she'd grown breasts, but now, on that body… it was just perverted.
Candy, who looked relaxed and sexy as hell in her red suit, kicked the heel of her crossed foot up and down, annoying Jared even further. When she did that, he had a view straight up her thigh nearly to the promised land.
She'd be the type to wear garters, he was sure. Black ones, green ones. Red ones, cream ones.