Catch a Mate. Gena Showalter
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X-ray vision that saw past clothes, past all hint of decency.
Sometimes she reminded herself of a window-shopper, gazing inside the store with her nose pressed to the glass, never actually buying the pretty, overpriced merchandise because she knew that she’d later experience buyer’s remorse.
Why fork over hard-earned cash when the item in question undoubtedly would be stolen, tainted, stained or ripped to shreds?
Once (or twice) she’d allowed the “salesman” and his sweet, sweet sales pitch to convince her to purchase, but each of those occasions had ended at the return booth. Yep, the few boyfriends she’d permitted herself over the years had all failed CAM’s test, which was especially pathetic since they knew what she did for a living. Finally, she’d cut up her credit cards (so to speak).
She sighed. What depressing thoughts. She needed to think about something else. Like her boss. Which, incidentally, led her straight back to Cute Ass. He and Anne had closed the office door and no sound had emerged since. Not even pressing her ear against the shuttered glass wall had proven useful. And yes, she freely admitted to spying. To her, there was nothing wrong with listening to private conversations, opening someone’s desk drawer, sneaking a peek through their wallet, glove compartment, whatever.
Sneakiness was the best way to learn about people. To learn the truth about them, anyway.
Sipping her coffee, Jillian leaned back in her chair and cast her boss’s door another glance. She had an assignment tonight and she always met with Anne to outline a strategy beforehand—as if it took more than a push-up bra and an I’m-so-innocent-but-I’m-not-wearing-any-panties smile to stir a man’s interest. Still. She was due at the scheduled rendezvous point in four hours and she had yet to look at photos of her target.
As her feet tapped impatiently, her black spiked heels clicked into the floor tile of her very blue, very plain cubicle. Besides her posters, she had no personal items here, no pictures of family. She liked to keep business, business and—what did she care about her cube? She wanted to know what No-Nonsense Anne and Cute Ass were talking about. She wanted to know what they were doing.
“Did you see the guy Anne escorted into her office?”
At the sound of the husky feminine voice, Jillian pivoted in her seat. Georgia Carrington stood at the opening of Jillian’s cube, the fragrance of vanilla and sugar wafting from her. Rich, silky red hair framed exquisitely delicate features.
Georgia had gentle cheekbones, a dainty nose, almond-shaped green eyes and flawless skin. Her body was a smorgasbord of naughty curves, and right now those curves were encased in a strapless, barely-there red sheath dress. Men became slaves to their hormones whenever Georgia approached, so it was no wonder she was CAM’s most popular choice of bait.
That hadn’t always been the case, though. Jillian had known Georgia since grade school, when Georgia had been a gangly, freckled kid. Everyone else had teased her unmercifully, but Jillian had recognized a kindred spirit when she saw one—two girls against the rest of the world.
But it hadn’t been an official friendship until Thomas Fisher called Georgia a speckled carrot-head. Jillian had socked him in the nose, Georgia had bandaged her hand, and they had been best friends ever since.
“I saw him,” Jillian said now. She set her coffee aside, lifted a pen and tapped it against the armrest of her chair. “Who is he and why’s he here?” A client, perhaps? But they only dealt with women. Unless…did he suspect his wife was a lesbian? That was a possibility, though what woman would prefer a female to that prime, grade-A quality meat, she didn’t know.
“Maybe Anne decided to give up her stance on the merits of self-gratification and take a lover.” Georgia sashayed around the desk and plopped onto the edge, crinkling papers and files. The hem of the red dress rode up her thighs and revealed several inches of tanned, firm flesh.
Jillian shrugged. “Maybe he’s her sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s uncle and he’s here to borrow money.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I want a piece of her sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s uncle. I almost slid out of my chair when he walked past me.”
Jillian, too, had experienced a very feminine reaction: breathlessness, beaded nipples, quickened pulse. It had been a long time since she’d been intimate with a man and, well, the scent of sin—that’s the only way to describe it—had followed this one, lingering in the air long after he’d stepped into the boss’s office and shut the door.
“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Jillian said, trying not to frown at the image of Georgia and Cute Ass. Together. Naked.
A dark, haunted glint entered her friend’s eyes but was quickly extinguished. “I did.” Georgia sighed. “I do.”
“Problems?”
With a dismissive—forced?—laugh, Georgia waved her hand through the air. “Of course not. Things are the same as they’ve been for the last several weeks. Wyatt tells me I’m beautiful and asks me to marry him every single day. And every single day I tell him I’m still thinking about it.”
“If you have to think about it, he’s not the man for you.” Jillian didn’t think he was the man for Georgia, anyway. He treated her like a queen, sure, lavishing endless compliments on her physical beauty. But where were his compliments on her witty mind and kind heart?
“I’ve heard your argument against him a thousand times, counselor, so no need to rehash the case. I just want to be sure we’re forever, that’s all.” She sounded miserable.
“We could put him to the CAM test again.” Every woman who worked here ended up putting her man to the test. Only two had passed. Wyatt and some guy Selene had dated—and later dumped when she found him in bed with another man.
“He’d just pass again. Since he knows what we do for a living, he’s always suspicious of pretty women who approach him.” Georgia crossed her legs and her skirt rode all the higher. “No more talk of Wyatt. I want to discuss, in minute detail, Anne’s possible new lover. He has to be a superhero. Pleasure Man or something like that, able to cause orgasm with a single glance. No ordinary man could have charmed his way into a private meeting with Frigid Anne.”
Jillian eagerly returned to the topic of Cute Ass. “Did he look at you when he passed you?” she asked pensively, replaying his hallway stride through her mind, step by sexy step. “Did he give you any sign of interest?”
Georgia’s forehead furrowed and her red brows drew together. She blinked in dawning confusion. “No. He didn’t.”
“He ignored me, too,” Selene said as she strode past Jillian’s cube, head bent over a file. “Danielle, too.”
“He didn’t look at me, either,” Jillian assured Georgia. Hadn’t cast a single glance in her direction, actually, and she had been making plenty of noise as she’d struggled to pick up her jaw and draw in even a molecule of air. It wasn’t that she thought she was entitled to male appreciation or anything like that. But to completely ignore the women of this office as if they were nothing more than asexual beings…maybe he was gay.
“What a waste if he’s gay,” Georgia said, confirming her thoughts.
It was telling, really, that neither one of them thought there was a chance in hell he was so devoted to a wife or girlfriend that he failed to notice other women. It wasn’t even a possibility in their minds.
“But I didn’t get the gay vibe,” Georgia added. “Did you?”
“No.” So if he wasn’t gay, what was he? Jillian didn’t like mysteries (they sucked), hated working puzzles (they blew), and wanted to spit on surprises (they both sucked and blew). Maybe that was one of the reasons she enjoyed working at CAM. Every night, the outcome was the same. The target cheated. End of story.
Okay, so that was a little sad.
“Do you think he’s blind?”
“Come