20

WHILE BROOKE WAS AT LUNCH, ETHAN BROODED at his desk, trying unsuccessfully to block out his thoughts of her. Shannon was right. He needed to back off and get his shit under control. Let Brooke jump Sid’s bones in the back of the liquor store since he’d effectively left her in the mood for sex.

Harper would get a kick out of that one. Since sugar helped calm his nerves, Ethan dug into his jar of candy corn and jammed a bunch of them into his mouth at once. That’s when Ken’s shadow fell across his cubicle.

“Ethan, do you know where Brooke is?”

In the back of some liquor store getting her freak on with Sid. “At lunch,” he grumbled through the sugary mass.

Ken sat down on the corner of his desk with a look of perplexed wonder. “I just received an interesting call from Zachary Parks, one of the state’s congressional candidates.”

Ethan’s gaze shot up and he swallowed. “Brooke’s new account?”

Ken took a piece of candy from the jar, popped it into his mouth, and immediately made a face. “Ick. These things will kill you one day.” While Ethan patiently waited, he finally continued. “Anyway, Mr. Parks’s is a new client, but also an old friend of Brooke’s family. He requested that I allow her to handle the designs for his campaign.”

Ethan was taking in this piece of information, wondering if Zachary Parks’ partiality would disqualify him as new business. “You mean supervise the designs for his campaign,” he corrected absently.

“No, I mean create them.” The two men stared at each other for a moment. “Turns out she was an artist here before she worked in management.”

An uncomfortable feeling entered Ethan’s stomach. “You’re kidding.”

“In fact,” Ken continued, “he said she was the most gifted artist he knew and that I was wasting good talent by confining her to the administrative department. By the time we ended the call, I felt thoroughly chastised.”

“Did you tell him she failed to mention anything about it?”

“I was too busy wondering why her father hadn’t mentioned anything about it.”

Ethan guessed it wasn’t a crime to hide artistic talent while working at a graphic-design firm, but it was suspicious. As soon as Ken ducked back into his own office, Ethan checked the time. Brooke should return from lunch in about ten minutes, and it looked like he would spend his own break getting to the bottom of this new discovery.

It was then that Ethan realized just how much he enjoyed solving the growing mystery that was Brooke Monroe. The woman fascinated him like no other…obviously, since he couldn’t seem to leave her alone. But why? She was dangerous and not above stooping to subterfuge in order to win his job right out from under him.

Yet she had fight and spark and bottomless eyes that could suck a guy in, chew him up, and spit him out as a different man. Her pull was greater since she was adorably unaware of this power. There was a vibrant, sensual temptress behind those puritanical walls of hers, and he wanted to set her free as he’d done before.

But—despite his suspicions of a woman who obviously kept secrets—what he really needed to do was apologize. There was no excuse for his behavior on the roof except what he wasn’t willing to admit out loud. Part of him wanted to believe that Brooke was the vindictive, heartless robot he first thought her to be. It was an easy way out of the guilt trip he was now suffering from. The truth was, he’d probably left her humiliated and hating him even more than usual, which she had every right to do.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn’t want to act this way anymore, and he thought he’d made great progress over the last few months, despite what Shannon had said. Maybe it was the humidity or the heat. Was it possible to blame one’s deplorable behavior on barometric pressure? Regardless, he had to man up and make things right.

BROOKE PULLED INTO THE SAME PARKING SPOT she’d left almost an hour ago. Instead of cutting the engine, however, she put her forehead against the steering wheel, directed the AC vent toward her face, and cranked it up high. As the cold air blasted against her burning skin, she took a deep breath. The smug bastard was up there somewhere, reveling in his power over her. And why wouldn’t he? Every goddamned time he touched her, she went all soft and pliant like some shallow, adoring groupie.

But that would stop today. From now on, she’d conduct herself with the utmost professionalism and restraint; she would avoid Ethan Wolf completely. Next week, everything would fall into place since she’d have her office back and she’d be his boss…if she could keep from killing him, that is.

Her dignity in place, Brooke cut the engine, grabbed her purse, and stepped out into the sweltering heat. Halfway to the front door, her cold cheeks had already turned warm. The gardenia bushes nearby gave off their sultry perfume. She inhaled and let the exotic fragrance soothe the raging beast inside. Yes, it was working. Like magic, her calm was returning, just in time to show her face on the eighth floor.

She walked into the downstairs lobby, welcoming the cool air. As she waited for the elevator, the rest of her collective pride slipped into place.

Ding.

The doors slid open. Chin up, she walked inside and turned toward the panel of buttons…and there he was again: Ethan Wolf, lounging against the corner in his fancy gray business suit in typical ambush mode.

Just like that, a whole hour of meditative therapy flew out the window. “Hell no,” she growled as a red haze overtook her.

He straightened and held up a hand as the doors slid to a close. “I wanted to catch you before you made it up—”

“No!” She swung her purse at him. He took it in the arm, so she did it again, this time with some shoulder behind it. He deflected the blow, which just pissed her off more. How dare he defend himself! “Put your damned arm down!” she yelled. Then, seizing the opportunity she’d always wanted, Brooke opened up on him with everything she had.

“Brooke, would you stop and let me—”

“You asshole!” she raged at him like a crazy woman. “Asshole, asshole, asshole!”

Finally, he caught her purse in midair and forced her against the wall. “I know!” he yelled back. Then, quieter as they panted against each other: “I know. I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes against the sincerity in his voice and groaned. “I don’t want to hear it; I just want you to stay away from me.” But even now, as he pressed against her, the powerful lust he’d built within her earlier surged with renewed force. “Get away from me, Ethan!”

He did, stepping back with his hands up. “I don’t know what came over me earlier,” he said, calmer now. “I just…I don’t know, I guess I got a little jealous.”

That one must have hurt. She figured it was more of a pride issue rather than jealousy. Somewhat placated, she straightened her hair. “You still suck.”

“So take a few more swings if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Screw you.”

Someone must have pushed a button because the elevator finally began to move. Ethan stayed on his side, though he still watched her. “Did you have lunch with Sid?”

Brooke wanted to say yes, that she’d molested the man in the backseat of her car or something. “No,” she admitted instead.

The relief in his eyes was there and gone before she could fully grasp it. As it sank in, disbelief put a scowl on her face. Since the elevator had no alarm, she reached out and pushed the stop button. The carriage lurched to a standstill. “What the hell was that?” she said in the silence.

Ethan’s gaze slid from the control panel to her face. “What?”

Leaving her purse on the floor, she approached him with a belligerent swagger. “You don’t get to be relieved.”

“I didn’t say any—”

“Because I fully intend to invite him over later for a romantic dinner, lots of wine, and a long night of rigorous, feel-it-in-my-bones, fuck-you-Ethan lovemaking.”

His visage hardened. “Do you even hear yourself?”

Toe-to-toe, she got in his face. “Lots and lots of hot chemistry-filled lovemaking.”

He pushed her off with a dare in his eyes, but before he could speak, Brooke grabbed him with both hands and pulled him into a hot, wild kiss that came out of nowhere. As he floundered beneath the onslaught, a feeling of empowerment took over. She slammed him back against the wall, making her role as aggressor very clear. When she broke the kiss, it was with his bottom lip between her teeth. Ethan freed his flesh from her bite, dabbed at the blood she’d just drawn, and took on a feral look of his own.

While Brooke nurtured a voracious longing to tear him apart, they reached for each other again. This time they attacked with equal demand, equal hunger, foregoing the need to explore this time for an all-out assault that had only one purpose…to join. When a desperate moan escaped her throat, Ethan backed her into the corner, their breath mingling as she tore at the zipper of his trousers.

Her panties slid to the floor. He lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around him. He plunged. She gasped. With the ferocity of a wild animal, he fucked her against the cold metal while she clung to him for dear life.

They came hard together, suppressing their sounds of pleasure as best they could. Thank God. Brooke’s eyes slowly opened. In the blurred reflection overhead, she saw him holding her there, half naked with her legs wrapped around him. They were trapped in a box with their pants down, still connected to each other while catching their breath. Maintenance would be by any time to check out the malfunctioning elevator…but no one seemed in a hurry to move. Ethan put his forehead against hers and kept her off the floor. “What the hell are you doing to me?” he rasped.

“I think we have a problem,” she panted, finally willing to accept her end of it.

“You mean like an addiction?”

She nodded against him. “What else would you call it?”

Ethan’s expression looked grim. “Something I’ve never felt before.”

Brooke absorbed the impact of his words, knowing that they’d just knocked down an important boundary. As the air changed between them, her eyes welled up with tears. When one fell down her cheek, he wiped it away with his thumb and spoke with tenderness. “You scare the hell out of me, Brooke.”

Her tears scared the hell out of her. Could she possibly be in love with the one man who stood in the way of her dreams? She swiped at her eyes. “Why?”

“Last night…it wasn’t a setup. Everything that happened surprised me as much as it did you. I’ve never let anyone in like that, not since the accident. That’s the main reason.”

Feeling his words touch the depths of her soul, she closed her eyes. “And the secondary reason?”

“Because you have secrets, dangerous ones.”

“I have nothing to hide,” she vowed, knowing it was a partial lie.

“Then why didn’t you tell Ken that you’d been a designer here?” It was posed without accusation, yet Brooke felt broadsided just the same. Ethan gave her a little shake. “Talk to me or we’ll never get past it.”

With a resigned sigh and her gaze trained upward, she replied, “It’s irrelevant and no one’s business.”

“It’s my business, Brooke. I need to know if you even want the position we’re competing for.”

A myriad of emotions coursed through her all at once. Though she questioned the wisdom of opening up to him, she needed him to understand. “I want this takeover to have never happened,” she said in a low, strangled voice. “I want things the way they used to be. I want my freedom and my future back.” She swallowed hard, desperately searching for a way to make him see. “That’s something you, of all people, should understand.”

His answer came after a thick silence. “I do.”

Her eyes welled up even more. “Monroe Graphics was a part of me, just like racing was a part of you. This was my racing, Ethan. So the answer is no. I don’t want your job. I want Ken’s job, or the next best thing to it.”

His expression dark and unreadable, Ethan asked, “How far will you go to get it?”

“Not far enough to leak information, if that’s what you’re asking.”

There was definitely an internal battle brewing behind those enigmatic eyes of his. Brooke waited for the battle to continue, for the doubt and anger to resume. So when he leaned in and swept her up in a long, slow kiss, Brooke kissed him back with a mixture of hope and relief.

“You don’t know how much I want to believe that,” he murmured against her mouth. “But let’s take this one challenge at a time.”

“Meaning what?”

He leaned back again with a focused look. “First we finish the competition without any more games,” he said firmly.

She smiled a little. “I’d like that.”

“And then we face this thing between us.”

The fact he acknowledged they had a “thing” sent funny tingles down her spine. Brooke nodded. “Okay.”

“If all is good there, we’ll have to face Ken and his strict rule against interoffice relationships.”

And therein was the real challenge. If she were to lose, she knew in her heart that she could get past it, especially if he soothed her damaged pride with the promise of regular, mind-blowing sex. But Ken would never stand for it and probably force one of them to quit regardless.

And it wouldn’t be Ethan.

If he were to lose, however, Brooke was pretty sure it would take a lot of trips to the darkroom to “lick his wounds” per se. Would he quit in order to build on this thing between them? It wouldn’t be hard for him to find another job, maybe even a better one. He probably wasn’t even tied down by a non-compete clause as she was.

But their office without him in it would be like the Tin Man without a heart. Brooke decided she didn’t like that option either. She banged her head back against the corner in complete dismay. “Shit.”