He stared at her, and she could feel his gaze in the depths of her being. Just one look from him and her insides turned to mush. It had been like that from the beginning. The raven-haired, blue-eyed jerk was of the tall, dark and mouthwatering variety. He roused in her a combination of lust and dislike she had yet to reconcile, even after six months of working with him.
Correction, she mentally adjusted, as he looked at her like some kind of bug he’d like to squash. She’d worked near him for five months. Only recently had she been assigned to work with him. And her boss, Jonas Chase, knew she planned a just revenge for his complicity in partnering her with the conceited project manager.
Jonas had thought it would be funny, the Amazon versus Casanova. She still wasn’t laughing.
“Ms. Sheridan,” Storm bit out her name like an epithet. “You’re telling me I have to get rid of half my staff in order to keep Craiger-Mim profitable?”
“Yes. But by ‘cut’ I mean reassign them to other campaigns.” She could see he planned to remain firm against her proposal, and only her desire to resolve the situation enabled her to say her next words with a straight face.
“It’s no secret you’re the ‘eighth wonder’ when it comes to marketing and financial strategies,” she grudgingly conceded. “But my forte is logistics. Trust me when I say that Mr. Conklin won’t agree to your present numbers for Craiger-Mim. Much as I like the company and respect their services, Conklin won’t keep them as a client unless we can show a generous profit.
“The work we’ve been doing for them demands recompense, and though I’m sorry about their own losses, we can’t afford to be nice simply because you slept with their head of advertising.”
There. She’d said what everyone on the floor had been talking about for days.
His answer, delivered with icy composure, unnerved her. “Listening to rumours, Ms. Sheridan?” He stood up from behind his desk and rounded to face her. Despite her own formidable height, he stood at least five inches taller, putting him at an intimidating six foot four.
“I would have thought a woman who has an extraordinarily friendly relationship with her boss, who wears the most provocative clothing,” he paused dramatically as he ran his gaze over her body with a searing intensity, “and who consistently manages to rank at the head of the logistics department in Tomanna Consulting, would be loathe to put two and two together in the off-chance she might get five.”
She stared at him, openmouthed. Had he just inferred she’d made her way to the top of the logistics branch using her body?
He smiled, a shark’s grin that blurred her vision with fury.
She closed the distance between them, seething. “You want to accuse me of something, do it in plain English.” She stood so close she had to tilt her head back to see him, and when she did she felt his breath fan her face.
His eyes seemed to darken as he stared down at her, their dark, ocean-blue colour flooding with navy. “You might want to watch your step,” he threatened in a curiously deep voice. She saw him swallow, was close enough to see his chest swell with an indignant breath.
And then it happened like it always did. Her loins flooded with longing, her nipples tightened and her entire body ached—for him. Damn, damn, damn. Arguments with Marcus Storm always managed to arouse her.
But for the first time, she saw an answering response spark his eyes.
“Well, well,” he murmured and stepped so close his chest brushed her breasts. “It appears I was wrong to ignore the rumours about you.”
“Look, Storm. I—”
“Davis mentioned you’ve a redhead’s temper and the passion to match. And since he supposedly screwed your brains out last weekend, I assume he’d know.”
Speechless, she stared at him, unable to think of anything but punching the arrogance off his full lips. And just wait until she got a hold of that lying, scheming Davis…
“Now, now,” he tsked, grabbing and holding her clenched fists by her sides. “Violence isn’t the answer. Let’s try this instead.”
He covered her mouth with his own, an aggressive mating of the lips and tongue that belied his cool exterior. His lips turned hard, and the iron ridge that prodded her stomach only made him that much more tempting.
What he’d said, what she’d said, faded from her mind as all-consuming lust flooded her. Apparently he felt it as well, for he growled low in his throat and crushed her against him, the corded strength hidden under his designer suit evident in the ease with which he held her fast.
His lips slanted over hers, his tongue plunging and dipping, making her lightheaded and wet with need. His steely erection burned against her abdomen, rubbing with no pretence but to seek relief. She throbbed, wanting to feel that ridge stroking, sliding deep within her folds.
Then he did the unthinkable. He stopped.
Stepping back from her, he returned to his desk and sat with aplomb, as if their coming together hadn’t happened. Aware she still shook with desire but unable to stop it, she stared in disbelief at his rigid control.
“Apparently Davis was right.”
She blinked, feeling perilously close to tears. That she had to blink to keep the tears from falling brought her to her senses. She’d be damned if this jerk would make her cry in an office she had more right to than he ever would. She’d worked twice as hard and come twice as far in her career as any man at this company.
Screw Davis, and screw Marcus Storm. Mentally composing herself, she decided to take off the kid gloves. Two could play at his game, and she planned on winning.
“Rumours, Marcus?” she said, leaning down towards him. She licked her lips and his eyes narrowed. “Well, if you want the truth, Davis isn’t the only one getting nailed. I’m off to lunch with Judy Hardenmeier, Conklin’s right hand. Those cutbacks I proposed,” she paused and dipped lower, satisfied when his gaze followed the rise and fall of her breasts exposed by her gaping shirt.
She waited until his eyes returned to hers before she lowered the boom. “They’re as good as done. So prepare for a lot of overtime, stud. You’ll soon be juggling three jobs for the price of one.”
Marcus called himself five kinds of fool as he watched Tessa Sheridan’s perfect ass saunter out his door. Not being able to control his libido was not an excuse to bring the woman near to tears. Oh yes, she’d recovered more than admirably, but he’d seen the bright sheen in her eyes after his cutting remark about Davis, who was, by all accounts, a chauvinistic asshole. But hell, he’d been a hair’s breadth from fucking her on his desk.
He sat still and focused on his breathing, on an image of his mother, on anything to relax the burning ache in his groin. Tessa somehow always managed to stir him, though until now, he’d been able to conceal his response.
Since Jonas Chase had thrust her into Marcus’ operation, things were quickly coming to a head.
Never before had Marcus acted so disrespectfully, so rudely to a woman. That he did so now, to a woman who had done nothing more than voice what his own secretary and half the floor thought true, was unforgivable. Shame flooded him until he wanted to sink through the floor.
He shouldn’t have pushed her, but he hadn’t expected her, of all people, to believe the stupid rumours. Tessa Sheridan had never acted anything but professionally and had a sterling reputation as the firm’s logistical expert.
She never failed to solve any problem she encountered. And she was the only woman he’d ever met who avoided him like the plague, at least until last month. Before then, he’d vaguely sensed her presence, too inundated with work and the situation at home to take notice of the bossy redhead at the centre of every Tomanna Consulting man’s fantasy.