SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
Gemma Picton’s simmering attraction to boss Jack Grant explodes in an affair that’s decidedly not professional! Can the two learn to work and play?
Read on for a sneak preview of OFF-LIMITS by Clare Connelly, published by Harlequin Dare February 2018.
She might as well be naked. The dress is skin-tight, bright red, and low-cut. Tiny straps slip over her shoulders. The dress is short, too. Not indecently short but, Jesus, her legs are long and smooth and wearing that dress I find it impossible to look away.
She’s hotter than any woman here, and that’s saying something, given that this launch event has brought together most of London’s elite. There’s models, actresses, singers, athletes, and the women who’ve married for money and make it their life’s work to live up to their husband’s expectations.
And then there’s Gemma.
Her blonde hair pulled into a ballerina bun, her face serious, her body like pale silk that I want to wrap around me.
She says something funny, going by the way the guy leans forward and laughs. Is he her date? A frown pulls at my lips. I stare harder. Did she bring a date? Isn’t she technically here as my plus-one?
Seeing her with another guy does something dangerous to my equilibrium. A possessive impulse threads through me, knotting at my chest.
I pull a couple of champagne flutes from a passing waiter and cut through the room. I’m aware of people trying to get my attention but I have no time for them. Gemma is in my sights.
“Jack.” Her lips purse as I approach; her eyes flick to me in that way she has. How is it possible for one person to imbue a simple gesture with a measure of cold disdain, even as there’s the hint of a smile somewhere in that symmetrical face of hers? I hand her a glass of champagne and she takes it, her fingers briefly wrapping over mine. Immediately my mind puts them elsewhere on my body. “You remember Wolf DuChamp? He manages accounts in New York.”
I remember his stupid name, but not the man himself. Nothing memorable about blond, pretty-boy looks and that air of Ivy League he seems to wear like a coat. “Sure.” I extend my hand, knowing I have to meet the convention even when my body is singularly focussed on Gemma.
“Good to see you again, sir.”
Gemma’s lips quiver. I hate being called “sir” and she knows it. Out of nowhere I have an image of her saying it to me, bent at the knees, her eyes looking up my body to meet mine as her lips clamp down on my length. Okay, maybe in some circumstances I could make an exception. What the hell am I thinking? These fantasies are one thing, but screwing Gemma cannot happen.
Cannot happen. Might as well get that tattoo added to my collection.
“I was just explaining the software overhaul we’re looking at to Gem.” Is he trying to piss me off? First of all, removing the very nice image I was enjoying by talking about software? And then by referring to Gemma as though they’re best buddies who paint their nails together?
“I’ll summarise it for you later,” she says, sensing my impatience, though I would suspect not the reason why.
“It’d make a huge difference to our operations,” Wolf pushes.
“Gem” angles her body a bit, turning away from me, giving me a chance to escape. “I’ll look into the feasibility. The problem is going to be short-term. We’ll need to make sure the systems are protected during a transfer of data. You handle some of our most sensitive work—a data breech would be unacceptable.”
“I’ve thought of that, too,” Wolf carries on, and I am dismissed, it would appear. Across the room, a platinum blonde with a sensational rack and legs that go forever is trying to catch my eye.
I want Gemma, but I can’t have her.
And I’m not one to wallow in self-pity. There’s plenty of fish in the sea.
I have two rules when it comes to the women I fuck.
No commitment. No red-heads.
Commitment was for Lucy. And Lucy was a red-head.
I freeze. The visage of Lucy is in front of me, a scowl of disapproval on her face. I’d messed around a fair bit before we met, but nothing like this. I have taken it to a whole new level and I don’t care. Except for that scowl. Even in death, I don’t want to upset Lucy. What did you expect, Luce? You left me a pretty big void to fill.
Don’t blame me, I hear her snap back. Your life. Your choice.
Yeah, right. My eyes wander, of their own accord, to Gemma. She’s got her head bent now, and Wolf’s hands are typing something into his cell phone. She nods and smiles, then presses a hand to his forearm. My stomach rolls on a surge of emotion I don’t much care for.
I stalk towards the blonde as though she is the only woman in the room.
“I’m Jack Grant.”
Her lips are painted a bright red. She purrs, “I know who you are.”
“Then you have the advantage.”
Her lips part. “From what I hear, telling you my name wouldn’t serve much purpose. You wouldn’t remember it tomorrow, right?”
I laugh, appreciating her honesty. “No.” I lean forward so that my ears are only a whisper from her ear. My breath flutters her hair and I see a fine trail of goose bumps run across her skin. “But you’ll remember me for the rest of your life.”
Her laugh is husky. She’s everything I would usually find sexy, but in that moment she’s just passably acceptable. If I’m honest, I’m bored. It’s a phoning-it-in flirt. A “what the heck?” situation. “We’ll see.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“I can share yours,” she murmurs, her eyes dropping to my champagne flute. I didn’t even realise I was still holding it. I extend it to her on autopilot, watching as her lips shape over the glass and she tilts it back. The liquid is honey gold. She passes the glass to me and I take a sip.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says, a throaty laugh in the rushed words.
I nod, reaching down and putting a hand in the small of her back. Gemma and Lucy are both in my head now—a fascinating occurrence. A new occurrence. Are they ganging up on me? Would they even like each other?
Lucy was so soft and sweet. She looked at me like I was her saviour and I suppose I had been. I’d ripped her out of her life, away from the boyfriend who’d used her as a punching bag, and I’d made all her dreams come true. But fate was a bastard of a thing, and it had only had bad in store for Lucy. For a while, she’d managed to jump tracks and sit on a different train and then, bam. It had taken her. You can’t outrun destiny, can you?
Gemma is nothing like her. Her personality isn’t so much hard-edges as a single hard-face. She is smarter—smarter than me by a mile—and focussed in a way that is completely familiar to me. She is sexy. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. She acts so damned cold around me, as though she’s never so much as heard of an orgasm much less experienced one. It makes me want her more. To show her for the liar she is. To make her orgasm again and again and again until “cold” is a very distant memory.
“Jack.” She catches me as I’m about to leave the room. Her eyes briefly meet the blonde’s. There is nothing beyond a polite acknowledgement of existence. That iciness is there. I want to push Gemma backwards against the wall and kiss the hell out of her. Right here. “You’re scheduled to speak in twenty minutes.”
Whoops. Even for me that’s a bit of a slip. I don’t usually let anything get in the way of business—not even my sex life.
“We’ll be back by then,” Blondie surprises us both. Her meaning is unmistakable.
Shit. I can’t remember the last time I had a quickie in the car. Is she seriously suggesting it?
Gemma shifts her attention to her phone. She runs that iPhone as though she designed the thing. Her fingers fly over the screen like it’s a part of her. Her complacency pisses me off. “Okay. The talk can be brief. Just the outline of what the foundation is hoping to achieve, thank the commercial partners, yada yada yada.”
“Yada yada yada?” I grin, slowly, my eyes linking with hers and daring her to forget the coldness and complacency.
She looks at Blondie and her smile is perfunctory. “Have fun.”
* * *
Of course, Jack nails the speech. Not so much as a hair on his head looks out of place. The tuxedo is immaculate. The white shirt crisp. The bow-tie in place as though glued. He speaks eloquently about the foundation, and also speaks with humour, so the crowd laughs.
I don’t.
I am wondering about the blonde.
No. I’m thinking about Jack, but they’re thoughts that I need to run a mile from. This can’t control me. I’ve worked my arse off in this job, twisting myself in mental knots to stay on top of my workload without breaking a sweat, and I am not going to let the fact my boss is impossibly hot get in the way.
Instead, I let my attention drift to Wolf.
He’s talking to someone else now, no doubt about the bloody software. His face is serious, and that makes me smile. Because Wolf is pretty much always serious.
Warning, warning, warning, flashes inside my mind. Because I don’t do serious, and if I let the flirtation with Wolf keep going, I think he’s going to see roses and candy and wedding bells.
God, help me, I can’t think of anything worse.
I am suffocating at the very idea of being a bride in white, and having Wolf waiting for me at the end of the aisle. He would definitely want children, too. Three of them, and he’d expect me to be the obliging baby-maker and carer. He’d look at me with those puppy dog eyes, sadness and disappointment on his features, if I so much as dared suggest we get a nanny.
Or maybe I could be like Marissa Mayer and have a nursery built into my office? And the nanny could be based there, so I could still be one of those hands-on Pinterest type mummies. Wolf would never even need to know I’d hired someone to help.
But Jack would. He’d hate that. A baby crying when I’m trying to talk to him about tariffs on our Chinese imports? No, he’d probably seduce our nanny and then I’d have to either fire her or kill her.
Okay, now who’s getting ahead of themselves?
But Wolf catches me watching and his heart is so on his sleeve he might as well be a cartoon character with one of those thought bubbles popping out of his head. I have to let this opportunity pass me by. He’s not right, and when he realises that I’m not going to leave Jack and move to Manhattan, working with him will become a nightmare.
I look away.
Right at Jack.
He’s standing in front of me.
The band has started to play and I’ve been so lost in imagining the hell of my “future” with Wolf DuChamp that I haven’t realised.
“Did you like the speech?”
“Looking for compliments?” I sip my champagne, pleased at how quickly I’m able to recover. “What’s the matter? Wasn’t she suitably impressed?”
His eyes clash with mine. He’s angry. Ooooh. Why? Have I hit the nail on the head somehow? “You wonder if I can please a woman in fifteen minutes?” He shifts his body, infinitesimally, but enough to spark something low in my abdomen. Anger. Resentment. Heat. Warmth. Need.
Fuck.
“Believe it or not, I haven’t given any thought to your bedroom prowess,” I lie, shifting my attention back to the room of people. London’s elite swirl around us, and I am wanting to swirl away with them.
“Liar,” he says, so softly I think I’ve misheard. Because we can’t go there! He knows that, I know that. Every bone in my body wants him, but my brain is still in charge. I don’t want to screw up my career, but it’s more than that. I love Jack. Not in that way. I mean, I love him—I love working with him. Even when he’s at his assholiest best, he’s become one of the biggest constants in my life. How stupid would it be to rock the boat? I imagine, briefly, that we indulged in an affair—and it ended, because Jack doesn’t do permanent—and I imagine not seeing him again.
It makes me ill.
I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t want to risk it.
“The speech was good.” I bring the conversation back onto far safer ground, trying to fold my desperate realisations away neatly into a brain-box I won’t open again.
“Tell me something, Gemma,” he says, the tone of his voice still dangerous to me. He hasn’t got my silent memo, obviously, because his words prick the blood in my veins until it gushes and gurgles through me—he’s flirting with me.
I use my most businesslike tone. “Oh, I don’t know if you want me to do that. You might not like what I say…”
His eyes lance mine. It’s like being sliced through. “What’s the deal with you and that guy from New York?”
Who’s he talking about? Oh. Right. “You mean Wolf?”
His lips curl derisively—that’s one of my favourite of his expressions. I don’t know if he realises how devilishly sexy he looks. “Who calls their kid after an animal? Especially when he’s the least wolf-like person you can imagine?”
“I don’t suppose they knew that when he was born,” I say, but a smile is pushing at my lips. He’s right. Wolf is handsome, but in a very neat and tidy kind of way.
“Is he a wolf in the bedroom?” The question catches me completely off guard. It’s wholly new territory for us. Invasive in a way I don’t know if I like, and I’m worried that I might.
Still, challenging Jack is what I do. That’s who we are. I tilt my head to one side, assessing him for a moment before volleying back, “How was the blonde?”
“She was dull,” he says with a shrug and no hesitation, apparently having no qualms discussing his sex life with me.
“Where is she?”
“At her house. Waiting.”
“For you?”
He shrugs. “I said I might stop by. It seemed like the only way to get rid of her.”
Wait. He hadn’t slept with her? No, not slept. Fucked. That thought is oddly elating, though I can’t help but feel sympathy for the woman he flirted with and then sent packing. “You really are a bastard,” I mutter. “Are you going to go to her?”
His eyes are probing mine now and I feel like every single one of my fantasies, my dirtiest, hottest dreams, are playing out between us like a kinky pensieve for his pleasure (Yes, I’m a Harry Potter diehard. Hermione was one of my first role-models.) “Maybe.”
My stomach turns. I am used to this feeling with Jack. In the first six months we worked together, I wasn’t so adept at dealing with his vivid love life. I blushed whenever I found evidence of his nocturnal activities, I couldn’t always meet his eye. But now? Well, now, I’ve had two years to practice acceptance. I smile blandly. “Well—” I shrug as though my heart’s not racing and my nipples aren’t throbbing. “Have a good night.”
“Wait.” His words are commanding, but so too is the hand he clamps around my wrist.
I jerk my face towards his, breath exploding out of me. We don’t touch. Not more than an accidental brush of fingers from time to time. That’s impossible to avoid when you’re together as often as we are.
Definitely not this.
His thumb pads across my inner-wrist, and when I don’t say anything, he pulls me, hard and fast, so that my body rams into his. We are surrounded and yet we are alone. There is a void that engulfs us. Like a sensual electric fence.
This is all new, and all wrong. And so right.
His body is tight. Hard. Hot. Just as it is in all my fantasies. It takes every single ounce of my will-power to close my mouth and let my breath return to normal. To look at him as though he’s lost his mind, not made me lose mine. “Yes, sir?”
His eyes flare. I mean it to put him back on his guard, to remind him of the boundaries of our relationship, but I might as well have struck a match over gasoline. He doesn’t let me go.
“Dance with me.”
The air around us is charged with expectation and I just know he’s asking for more than a dance. Does he expect me to say no? I don’t like living up to expectations and I’m not going to give him a reason to think I’m afraid of what’s going on between us. “Fine.” My smile is tight. It stretches over my face like sunburn.
He expels a breath, long and slow, and places a hand in the small of my back. No, just on the very top of my arse. His fingers are splayed wide and they press into me firmly, so that I’m propelled towards him. His other hand links with my fingers, wrapping through them.
I focus on the band, my eyes taking in the details of their appearance while I concentrate on looking completely calm. I’m not, though. I’m weak when I want to be strong, and I need something I shouldn’t.
“This dress is sensational,” he says, immediately shattering my attempts to find calm.
“Is that your informed fashion opinion?” Too tart. I soften the snap with a smile. It’s a mistake. His eyes are mocking, his own smile sardonic.
I look away again immediately.
“It’s my informed opinion as a red-blooded male.”
“What do you like about it?” Warning lights are flashing in my mind, clamouring for attention. They are bright and angry. What am I doing?
“Let me see,” he murmurs. “The colour. The way it’s literally glued to your skin.” He drops his head closer and heat spirals inside me; my blood is a vapour of steam in my veins.
This isn’t right. It’s not us. He sleeps with other women, and sure, he flirts the heck out of me, but that’s harmless.
This doesn’t feel so harmless.
The music slows and I slow with it, putting some space between us with what I tell myself is relief.
“Get me up to speed on the New York situation.”
“I intend to.” I am snappy because I’m uncertain. I’m completely wrong-footed by his nearness, his touch, and my own desire for him is swamping me. I need a minute to regroup but his fingers are giving me no time. They’re throbbing across my spine, my arse, and I am heating up by the second.
“Tonight. Now.”
I angle my head towards Wolf unconsciously. He’s still locked in conversation. I have no intention of going home with him, and yet I resent the implication of Jack’s that I don’t have a life of my own.
“It’s not urgent.” The words are stiff. “It’ll keep ‘til tomorrow.” And I pull completely free of Jack’s grip—it’s the equivalent of grabbing a lifeline from the side of a sinking boat. It’s slippery and I’m pretty sure I’m not strong enough to hold on to it for long enough to save myself. Drowning is inevitable.
“I’m telling you I want to hear about it tonight.” It’s a challenge. A gauntlet. He gives me a lot of latitude in my job because he knows how much I do. And I do it well. But, at the end of the day, he’s my boss and I don’t know if anything is served by refusing him this request.
“Fine,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. But I’m not going to let him think he’s won. “I just need…twenty minutes.” I disconnect myself from him, and try not to register how my body screams in frustration.
I saunter off towards Wolf before I can see if Jack’s reacting in the same way.
Wolf is deep in conversation when I approach. “May I have a moment?” I look with a hint of apology towards the men he’s with.
“Sure.” He grins at me. A nice grin. He really is good to look at. Not ground-breaking, earth-shattering, but nice.
He puts a hand on my elbow but I am leading him, walking quickly out of the ballroom, seeking privacy for no reason other than to give Jack a taste of his own damned medicine. That, and to send a loud and clear message. He doesn’t control every part of me.
“All good for later?”
“Wolf…” I smile. “No, it’s not. I have to work tonight, actually. I’m going to brief Jack on the software situation.”
“Tonight?” He arches a brow, rich with disbelief.
“He micro-manages everything,” I explain. It’s true. “And he’s impatient as hell. I just wanted to make sure I have all the information.”
He nods, almost hiding his disappointment. “Let’s recap.”
And that’s how I spend the nineteen minutes I have left. Well, eighteen. I allow myself just one minute to pull a bit of my hair loose from its bun, and to pinch my cheeks, making them appear flushed by pleasure.
Jack is waiting for me in the limousine, twenty-five minutes after I left him. I imitate breathlessness as I step inside, and enjoy the way his eyes sweep over me with undisguised speculation.
“Ready?”
It’s not what I expected. I nod, but as I do, I feel like maybe I’m agreeing to something I don’t realise. Like there’s a hidden meaning I don’t yet know. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Don’t miss OFF-LIMITS by Clare Connelly, available February 2018 wherever Harlequin® Dare books and ebooks are sold.
Copyright ©2018 by Clare Connelly