Now she understood. She understood everything, why Patrick was a top and Liam was a dominant, why she was a submissive-at least on paper.
At lunch time, she grabbed her brown-bag lunch and sat in her little office in the back. Two more days. Just two more days. She flipped through a magazine, not seeing the half-starved models and actresses pretending they were happy in fancy dresses or half-naked on beaches. None of it made sense anyway. Since Liam had left her in the parking lot, her world had turned from color back to black and white.
Katie opened her lunch, looking at her turkey sandwich on whole wheat and thought she’d never seen anything more boring in her life. Then she remembered the crab, the tiramisu. She took a bite and it tasted like cardboard. No, this wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all. Flipping the page, she sighed, and then saw a tear-out card in the middle, the name on it catching her attention.
She got up, tossing her lunch into the trash, grabbing her purse and coat.
She wasn’t hungry after all. At least not for food.
“Chris, I’m going home.” Katie spoke to her co-worker at the desk as she shrugged on her coat. “I’m not feeling right.”
That was true enough.
“Sick?” He looked up at her, frowning. Dependable Katie didn’t take days off. She’d even come to work once with the flu.
Lovesick, she thought, but just nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Feel better!” he called.
It was crazy but there was only one thing that was going to cure whatever was ailing her. It only took her half an hour to go home and change. When she pulled her car into the health club parking lot and cut the engine, she was muttering to herself about crazy stalker women, but she grabbed her bag and purse and went in anyway.
A librarian’s salary was enough for her to live on with only a few luxuries like Netflix and DVR for her cable. It certainly wasn’t enough for a gym membership. But the little tear-out card offered her a one-day free pass, and she was going to take advantage of that. More than most, she hoped, looking around the busy lobby. The place was packed with people dressed just as she was, in yoga pants and tank-tees and trainers, carrying water bottles and hand towels.
“Can I help you?” A blonde at the counter smiled and waved her over and Katie gave her the free membership pass, which turned into a sales pitch the likes of she hadn’t heard since a Kirby salesman had shown up at her door wanting to sell her a fifteen-hundred dollar vacuum. She didn’t buy that and she wasn’t going to buy this either-but she didn’t tell Jenna that.
Jenna was very bright and bubbly and knowledgeable about things like Kettle Bells and core training and aqua-aerobics. She took her on a tour of the facility and Katie smiled and nodded as they went through the women’s locker room. It was already quite familiar to her-although she didn’t tell Jenna so as she put her purse and bag in the locker, pinning the key to the waistband of her yoga pants.
Finally, Katie couldn’t stand it anymore. “So, is Mr. Quinn around?”
“He’s upstairs.” Jenna pointed upward and Katie saw a row of mirrored glass all around the gym. “That’s where the offices are. Do you… do you know him?”
“Oh, sort of.” Katie shrugged, trying to keep the heat from her cheeks, but she couldn’t help wondering if he could see her right now, staring up at him. “So what were you saying about yoga classes?”
Finding her place in her sales pitch, Jenna went on, showing Katie their large, open classroom. It was right under the mirrored glass windows and Katie imagined Liam would have quite a view from up there. Smirking, Katie suddenly had an idea.
Turning to Jenna, she said, “I think I want to stay and do yoga. Is that okay?”
“Sure!” Jenna smiled that dazzling smile. “Just come talk to me when it’s over, okay?”
Katie took a mat and spread it out, starting to stretch. Others were doing the same. According to Jenna, the class didn’t start for another five or ten minutes. Katie made sure her oh-so-casual stretches were done in a very slow, sexy sort of way, bending over quite a lot-especially with her back to the mirror. The truth was, she didn’t know if he was watching-but it was fun to imagine that he was-and she didn’t really expect to see him today. She just felt strangely comforted by the idea that she was in the same place, at the same time.
Yep, you’re a stalker, this confirms it.
The class started, the instructor a very flexible redhead who made the poses look easy, while Katie, who hadn’t done yoga in ten years, struggled to maintain her balance. So much for looking sexy, she thought, but she didn’t have much time to think about Liam or the titillating fact that he might be watching from somewhere. She had to concentrate on not falling down.
She was right in the middle of a Downward Dog pose-although she couldn’t see any resemblance between her butt-in-the-air posture to any dog she’d ever known-when Jenna appeared at her side, breaking her concentration and making Katie fall straight down to the mat in a sweaty heap.
“Um, you’re Katie Nelson, right?” Jenna inquired. She looked a little scared and it made Katie alarmed.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Quinn wants to see you.”
Katie blinked at her. “He does?”
She smiled all the way up the back stairs, down a long hallway until it came to a dead-end. Jenna knocked, smiling at Katie, but it wasn’t that dazzling salesgirl smile anymore, it was the polite, uncomfortable sort.
“Come in.” Liam was at his desk in a tall leather chair, a phone to his ear, feet up, his view exactly as Katie had pictured it, of the yoga class below.
“Sir, this is-”
“Thank you, Jenna.” He dismissed her, not unkindly, and Jenna shut the door behind her, leaving Katie and Liam alone.
“I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone, shaking his head and looking up at her. “Brat.”
“Who me?” She hid a smirk and only half-succeeded. “I just found one of those free membership trials in a magazine…”
“Let’s not play games, Katie.” Liam stood and she felt her knees weaken. His physical presence did that to her. “I told you I was busy this week.”
“I know,” she agreed, toying with the key pinned to her waistband. “I didn’t intend to bother you.”
He snorted, incredulous. “You spreading your legs and bending over on the yoga mats down there in my gym is bothering me.”
“Is it?” She knew she sounded a little too hopeful.
“You know it is.” He took a step toward her and she felt her heart stop for a moment as he reached past and pushed a button on the door, locking it. “Now undress.”
She gaped at him, eyes wide.
“I won’t say it again, Katie.” He strode back to his desk, already pulling at his tie. “I’m not going to play games with you. I’m going to give you exactly what you came here for.”
Promises, promises.
She started with her tank, pulling it over her head, and she heard his intake of breath when it left her nude from the waist up-she wasn’t wearing a bra. Tossing it on the leather sofa, she turned her back to him, inching her yoga pants down, taking her panties along with them. Her trainers and socks were still downstairs next to her mat-she’d come upstairs barefoot.
“Now come here.” His voice was low, soft, a little hoarse, and she turned to find his suit coat off, along with his trousers and shoes, his white dress-shirt unbuttoned down the front. He was wearing a pair of navy blue boxers, and they were tented quite nicely. It made her mouth water.
Completely nude, she went to where he was leaning back against the edge of his desk. Any man in his boxers, wearing just a shirt and a pair of black socks, should have looked ridiculous, but he didn’t. He looked sexy as hell, even with the bulge in his boxers. Maybe especially because of it.
His gaze dipped downward, and then back up, his eyes meeting hers. “I have an important meeting in about twenty minutes. Before that, you’re going to do everything I tell you to do. Do you understand?