Holy shit.

I considered myself a fairly worldly person, but never had I encountered a situation like this. A naked woman. In my office. Or close to naked. She had on thin black panties and a matching bra, though it wasn’t covering her breasts right now. Gorgeous, creamy white breasts that spilled out over the cups of the flimsy fabric beneath them.

Had Ryan or one of the other guys sent me a stripper as a joke? She didn’t look like a stripper, though. Not with the blush on her ashen face. A stripper wouldn’t be embarrassed.

Oh god, she was embarrassed. And I was standing there staring at her. I’d said ‘hello’ to her like a fucking moron. Her limbs must have thawed about the same time mine did, because I saw her hands rising to cover her chest just as I turned around.

Shutting the door, I stood facing it, mentally cussing myself out. I shouldn’t have stared at her like that. True, she had a body no man could look away from, but she obviously hadn’t expected anyone to interrupt her while she was—wait, what exactly was she doing? And why was she doing it in my office?

Probably one of us should speak at some point.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know anyone was in my office.” Stupid statement. How could I have? Besides me, only my executive assistant Vera had access. How had this gorgeous woman gotten in? “How did you—?” I stopped and tried again. “Why are you…? I mean, what are you…”

“I’m sorry,” came a trembling voice behind me. I almost turned around, it was an automatic thing to do when someone spoke to you, but I remembered just in time. “The door wasn’t locked, and I needed a place to—“

“It wasn’t locked?” It was always locked.

“Well, I think maybe it was locked, but it hadn’t been pulled shut all the way.”

Ah. But maybe I should have been focusing less on the door and more on the nearly naked woman.

“I was trying to find a place to pump,” she said. And then, almost as if she could see my frown of confusion, she elaborated. “Pump my breast milk.”

Now I felt like a complete idiot. Why else would a woman be half naked in the workplace? I had zero experience with women with babies. Plus, she’d seemed too young to be a mother, though her overly large breasts should have been my first clue. Instead, I’d been fixated on them for entirely different reasons.

Close on the heels of embarrassment came disappointment. She had a child. Likely she had a husband, too. She was taken. I hadn’t dated much since Not-Sarah, but this woman would have been tempting even if I hadn’t seen so much of her luscious body. The way her honey-blonde hair had cascaded over her bare shoulders. Her smooth, unblemished skin. Her delicate hands as they had risen to cup her very full breasts. Breasts that she still needed to… empty or drain, or whatever it was called. I wasn’t sure of the terminology.

“There’s a lactation room over in the C Building,” I said, my brain finally kicking in.

“I know,” she said, her voice much closer. “But it takes so long to walk over there, and I couldn’t get away before, and I needed to so badly…” she trailed off, her voice even closer now. “You can turn around.”

I did so, and she was just as beautiful with clothes on. Well, mostly on. Her red dress was wrapped around her body, and she held it loosely closed in front of her. Her free hand clutched a purse and a tote bag with plastic tubes hanging out of it. I could see her black lace bra poking out of the top of the bag.

She’d seen where my gaze landed and her face turned even redder. “Umm… it wouldn’t go back on. If you’ll excuse me, I really need to go pump.” Her shoulders hunched forward, and for the first time, I noticed the grimace on her face. Unless I was mistaken, there were tears gathering on her bottom lashes. She was in pain.

“Of course. If the lactation room is too far, you can use—“

“I know I can use the bathroom,” she said, with unexpected force. “Everyone keeps telling me that… Mr. Brown, the other women in the department, but it’s a bathroom. There are toilets in there. Would you want food prepared next to toilets?”

Now a tear spilled down her cheek.

“I was going to say, you can use my private suite to do your… to use that thing.” God, my knowledge of child-rearing vocabulary was next to nothing.

Thankfully she understood what I meant, especially when I led her to the side door between bookshelves. I opened the door and flipped the light switch. Tentatively, she stepped inside, her eyes moving over the tiny kitchenette, the counter with two stools, the table, and the king-sized bed. Her eyes returned to mine after seeing the bed.

“Sometimes I work late and need a place to sleep,” I shrugged, trying to look as if it had never even crossed my mind to use that bed for anything other than G-rated purposes. Though I wouldn’t blame her if she thought I was some kind of sex fiend. The way I’d stared at her breasts before was probably not the best way to vouch for my character.

“Thank you,” she said, moving further inside.

“Take all the time you need.” I shut the door firmly behind her and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows behind my desk.

Shit. Could I possibly have handled that any worse? Probably, but I wasn’t entirely sure how. Stupid to stare at her like that. She was a young mother, not a conquest. Not something to ogle. Being a mother was a sacred thing. Okay, my own mother would probably be shocked out of her mind to hear me say that, but this was about that beautiful young woman in there.

It dawned on me that I’d seen that young woman’s body but didn’t even know her name. That was the first thing to take care of. She said she was in Brown-the-Clown’s department, so that narrowed things down. With a frown, I sat down at my computer to get the scoop. Edwin Brown had been a holdover from my dad’s days at the company helm. He wasn’t someone I would have hired, but he’d been here for thirty years. Still, I was sorry that a bright young woman like whatever her name was had ended up with him for a boss.

Thirty seconds of typing, and I’d found her. Penelope Jenkins. A new hire—this was her first week in fact. Scanning through her employment file, I found the relevant information. Twenty-five. Lived in an apartment on the south side of town. Had a degree in business plus some coursework toward an MBA. That asshole Edwin probably had her entering numbers on a spreadsheet. From the sound of it, he wasn’t aware of the rights of nursing mothers, either.

Well, neither was I, but at least I was trying to help. Though I knew nothing about these kinds of things, the internet did. A quick search told me that it should take Penny about fifteen minutes. Then I closed my browser, making the flood of information about pumping disappear. I preferred to think of breasts being for recreation, not nutrition.

I explored her personnel file some more, but there wasn’t much other information to glean. She hadn’t listed any husband on her insurance application, though that didn’t mean much. Her emergency contacts were both women, Jana and Hazel Walsh. So maybe she was unattached. Well, as unattached as a woman with a baby could be.

Why did that concern me? I was bad news for a normal woman, let alone a single mother. Ms. Jenkins’ life must be tough enough without a strange man coming onto her—especially after being caught in such a vulnerable position. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about her. I tried to focus on my work, but I was very aware that she was so close by—just on the other side of the door. Was she sitting at the table? Or maybe that cute ass rested on the edge of the bed? That thought made my cock stir, but I needed to hold it together. At any moment now, she could reappear, and I probably shouldn’t be sporting an erection when she did.

Unless she ducked out the back door. There was a door that led directly to the hallway. Maybe she’d gone out that way? No reason why she wouldn’t, but the thought brought me to my feet. I should knock. See if she’s okay. See if she needs anything.

See if she’s still there.

May as well admit that was the real reason I was heading for the door. Bonus points to me if she thought I was a kind, concerned colleague. Given the way I’d stared at her body before, I needed all the points I could get.