Sam looked at Tanya and grinned, expecting to find her co-worker grinning back. Instead, Tanya looked past Sam and Jennie, her face a pale, pasty color—somewhat like the flour-and-water glue Samantha’s mother used to make for her dioramas. In fact, she looked a bit like she might be sick.
Sam turned her head slowly, flinching the second she caught sight of her boss, the sex-on-a-stick man, in the flesh. Jack Sutton stood in the doorway of the office next to hers, another man next to him, both wearing expressions that clearly told her they’d heard every word she’d said.
Jennie only laughed, but given who her husband was, she could do that.
Sam heard Tanya squeak and mumble something about paperwork piling up. Sam knew if she turned, she’d see Tanya slinking back to her cubicle, where she’d no doubt crawl under her desk and hide.
But she didn’t turn to check on Tanya. She was rooted to the spot, trying to figure out how to get her foot to either come back up her throat or go down smoothly. Her size nine, chunky-heeled, purple boot that she thought had looked so cute this morning was going nowhere. It was firmly lodged in her throat as a weird, choked sound eked out past it.
Before she could come up with words to try to cover her mortification, Jack grinned and gracefully let her off the hook.
“Jennie, Sam, have you met Logan Stone?”
Sigh. Had she met Logan Stone? No. She hadn’t met him. She’d seen him, though. And drooled over him from across the room at her friend’s wedding three months ago. And she’d dreamed about him.
She’d lusted after his dark eyes and the five o’clock shadow that graced a chiseled jaw and outlined a mouth she wanted to bite. Hair so dark it was almost black. Thick hair she wanted to pull as he, um … so, yes, she’d dreamed about him. Hot, sweaty dreams that she’d prayed never to wake up from. In her dreams, they’d done a lot more than meet, going well past “hello, how are you” to “let me stick my tongue down your throat while we get started on our first-born child.”
Somewhere in the back of Sam’s mind, she knew running her gaze up and down the man’s body was rude, but who could stop themselves?
He stood there all dark and scruffy in dark slacks and a charcoal sweater that hugged his biceps and chest. He looked photoshoot ready, and Sam had a hard time not being grateful that he wasn’t covering himself up with a suit jacket.
She guessed going from BDUs and a flak jacket, or whatever it was SEALs wore, to a business suit was too much. She liked his choice of compromise just fine. She wondered briefly if spinning her finger in the air to indicate he should turn so she could see his backside would be too much.
Yeah. Probably. But maybe?
“Hi, Logan. It’s so good to see you again,” Jennie said smoothly, next to Samantha, putting her hand out to shake the man’s. Samantha continued to stare.
Close your mouth.
Well, at least the voice in her head wasn’t dumbstruck. That was always a positive.
On the negative side of the scale was the fact that Logan Stone had just heard her tirade against her boss’s taste in men.
“And, this is Samantha Page,” Jack said, gesturing to Sam as she forced her mouth to close. “She was going to be showing you guys the ropes and getting you settled in, but I think she’s got some complaints to lodge with HR over your qualifications,” Jack quipped and Sam found her mouth falling open once again.
He was joking about this? She’d called him sex-on-a-stick and he was joking?
Samantha closed her mouth and cleared her throat. “I’m good, Jack. No complaints here. I’ll just, um, I’ll get, um ….”
Oh, my hell. Stop babbling and say something—anything—moderately intelligible. Or burst into flames. Developing the ability to go up in flames right now would be handy.
“Hi,” the man of her dreams intoned, his deep voice washing over every atom of her body, stroking her in a way she’d felt only in her dreams. “It’s nice to meet you, Samantha.” He said the words, but kept his hands shoved in his pockets.
And, with that, in front of Jennie, her boss, and the man whose kids she hoped to have one day, Samantha Page opened her mouth and said, “Gah.”
Logan knocked on the jamb of the open door to Sam’s office. He’d spent the rest of the morning in meetings with his new team and Jack. They prioritized the research projects Jack wanted everyone working on and the acquisitions Logan would be looking into in the coming months.
“Hey, Sam.” Logan watched as Sam’s head shot up, her attention ripped from her computer, which apparently held something enthralling. So enthralling, she hadn’t noticed he’d been watching her for the past few minutes. The woman intrigued the crap out of him. Unfortunately.
She had a habit of rubbing the tip of her nose with her index finger as she focused, then tapping it whenever she smiled as though she’d had a breakthrough or some big “aha!” moment.
Logan blinked his eyes purposely, a trick he’d used during his years in special ops when he needed to clear his mind and refocus. Like the click of an old slide show projector, Logan moved to the next frame in his mind.
He focused solely on Samantha as a co-worker, not as an erotically tantalizing woman with a kick-ass body he’d love to get his hands on. It was an exercise he’d be doing a lot of, if they were going to work together.
He had no business getting involved with anyone with the state his head was in. He needed to focus on planting one foot in front of the other, right now. On just making sure he made it through the day without losing the shit that seemed to be swimming around in his head for brains nowadays. There wasn’t time for anything other than that, and sure as hell not with a woman like Sam.
“Jack told me to come see you at two. He said you’ve done some of the preliminary work for us on a few of the companies he wants to look into,” Logan said, a little intrigued with the way she openly ogled him from head to toe.
She didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it. It was almost comical how blatantly she allowed her eyes to skim him from head to toe. If it wasn’t so comical, he might squirm under the scrutiny, but nothing about her gaze made him uneasy.
“Sam?” he prompted when she still hadn’t answered him.
“Hmmm? Oh! Lunch.”
“What?” He didn’t know what she meant. He hadn’t mentioned lunch and it was already two o’clock.
Her eyes cut to the small clock that sat on the corner of her desk and he heard her murmur quietly about it being lunchtime already. He wondered how often she forgot to eat when she was into something. And how often she talked to herself, even when there was someone else in the room.
“Uh,” she said almost distractedly as she leaned over and used her mouse to save something on the screen before locking the computer. “I need to go eat lunch. Come with me and we’ll talk while we eat?” She picked up her purse and faced him.
“Uh.” Real suave, idiot. How to explain that he brought lunch so he wouldn’t have to leave the building? “I, uh already ate.”
“No biggie,” she said, seemingly unfazed. “You can have dessert.” She walked to the office door as though she expected him to follow her, and follow he did. Like a freaking puppy. What the hell was wrong with him?