Nick let himself unwind for a moment, and he bent down and smothered her warm, full lips in a surging kiss and forgot Jarvis and the job and everything. Her little hands dug into his back and her body moved in subtle arousing ways.
Nick stroked her black hair and closed his eyes and remembered the first sweet, stolen kiss many months ago, in her father's study in their luxurious Sutton Place apartment.
Then he pulled abruptly away from the sucking lips and shoved her body back. "Christ, Julie," he said and stared into her provocative, dark eyes and his breath rushed out.
"Just a sample of what you're missing tonight," she said. Then her sexy voice changed. "Call me, darling? At least twice?"
"At least twice," he said.
She pecked at his lips. "Then I'll run along," she said. "I've got just oodles of shopping to do. And I know you have to get back to work."
"I love you," he said.
"And I love you," she said very softly, and kissed his cheek, then turned and walked from the office.
Nick took a deep, contented breath and looked around the office, and then he headed back for his office. As usual he nodded and spoke to people he met in the corridor, but his thoughts were far from the deep-carpeted, office-lined hallway.
The touch of Julie's body still lingered and he thought wildly of taking her there on the floor of her father's office. She was obviously warm and primed for love-making, and this was not that common a thing for her.
Nick stopped at the water cooler and had a leisurely cup of the cool, pure mountain water, and remembered how stiff and nervous Julie had been recently when they made love. Whenever she relaxed, she was terrific, but she had never been able to adjust to the idea of making love before marriage, though she was 23 and not a virgin when she met him.
Nick threw the paper cup into the basket and turned toward his office. Again, he thought of the touch of her eager body and told himself that when they were married and she let herself go, she would be one hell of a woman in bed.
Nick turned the corner and saw that the area outside his office was filled with lovely young girls. He nodded at everyone in general and stepped to Miss Lewis' desk.
"No calls," she said, her teeth dazzling in the broad smile. "Looks like you're in for quite an afternoon. Maybe I should tryout for the part. It might be interesting."
"You're too valuable as a secretary," Nick said. "And besides, though I know it isn't proper to say this to a woman, baby, you're too old. The girl I want must be only seventeen or eighteen."
Miss Lewis turned her beautiful, beaming face into a mock pout. "Then I'll return to the typewriter," she said.
"Give me five minutes," Nick said. "Then send the first girl in."
Nick nodded to the group again, and went into his office and sat down. He knew he should look forward to an afternoon of interviewing lovely, young girls, and a couple of years ago he knew he would have jumped at the chance.
But now he thought of Julie and of marriage and the Dennison account, and then he let himself think of sitting behind the desk in that enormous office. The thought was pleasing and he smiled with contentment as he leaned forward and waited for the first girl.
CHAPTER THREE
Three hours later, Nick's thoughts were drowned with beauty. Young, fresh beauty smiled at him and wiggled little, lovely buttocks in tight skirts and bounced huge breasts against tissue-thin sweaters.
No fewer than half a dozen girls had openly propositioned him, if he would give them the part, and one girl had even tried to sit on his lap. But somehow they did not really get to him, and he sat now, and talked without really concentrating, to a seventeen-year-old model who was batting her eyelashes and babbling away and twisting in the chair so that her ample body strained against her knit dress.
Nick was polite and went through the whole routine of having her walk around the room and then read the copy. But he had already narrowed the choice down to a couple of girls, and knew that either one of them would be perfect. Still, out of courtesy and the outside chance he would hit on something better, he was seeing all the girls.
Jarvis was introducing a new line of sportswear, and they wanted a definite girl, one with a good body, and definite sex appeal, yet one with a pretty but not overtly sexy face, the kind of girl who could be a cheer-leader in any school in the country and would excite people, yet would not have that come-right-to-bed look.
This girl had enormous breasts and she looked cheap and her lipstick was too gaudy and suddenly Nick got tired of listening to her jabber the reasons why she was sure she could handle the job.
He interrupted her and fed her the we'll-call-if-we-need-you routine and ushered her from the office. There were no more girls outside and he went back to his desk and heaved a sigh of relief and turned to stare at the skyline in the setting sun.
It still seemed hard for him to believe that he was engaged to a millionaire's daughter. Nick had come from a poor family, and had had to work very hard to get where he was now. And Julie had always had someone wait on her hand and foot. There were dozens of men who would have given their right arm to marry her, and for reasons even Nick didn't quite understand, she'd chosen him.
Nick certainly didn't have to chase her, either.
In fact he sensed her infatuation with him the moment they met. He played his cards right, never letting her know how much he wanted her, until it was she who made the first move, taking him in her arms in her father's apartment and pressing her lips hungrily against his. But that night, a kiss was as far as they went.
A few weeks later, after a number of lunches, dinners, and cocktails together, Nick managed to invite Julie to a party at the apartment of another executive at the agency. He knew that every single man at the party would be chasing Julie, but by this time, he was sure she was his. That night, he planned to steer her back to his apartment, and make it official.
Nick had taken Julie to a cozy restaurant for dinner before heading for the party. After two drinks, Julie was ogling him across the table, squeezing his hand in hers as they chatted. The slightest physical contact – holding hands or Nick's arm about her waist – seemed electrifyingly intimate to the both of them. Nick was sure that once they were alone, he was going to take her to bed. And once he'd taken her to bed, he knew she would be his alone.
At the party, Julie had been frequently separated from Nick. Everyone seemed to be vying for her personal attention – especially the men. Julie often discovered herself in the center of a group of leering men. But Nick was always close at hand, ready to whisk her away at the right moment.
Nick knew that Julie's status with the company was, only part of the reason for the attention. After all, she was very beautiful, very sexy, and totally unattached. True, she was a bit spoiled, and always insisted on her way, but Nick felt he could control her. He suspected that what she really wanted was to be treated roughly, to be pawed by a young man who wasn't afraid of her father. Men like that were hard to find in Julie's life. Even Nick had to admit to himself that he trembled in her father's presence. But he wasn't going to let her know that.
The party was only half over when Nick pulled Julie in a corner. She had drunk a lot, and it showed. Nick decided the time had come to make his move, and he was sure she was ready.
"What do you say we leave this jungle?" he whispered in her ear.
The music and voices were loud.
"I'd love to," she sighed dramatically.
They escaped without a word to anyone and fled out into the street. The cool air was like heaven after the foul, heavy, smoke-filled apartment. They walked silently, arm in arm for a few blocks, then Nick hailed a passing cab.