Out of Hours...Office Affairs: Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek. Кейт Хьюит
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it to make her realize he was much better at ball sports than her.
“That’s how much of a male chauvinist I am. I respect you as an equal so much I know you can take what you dish out,” he said, and the complaint about him nearly hurting her died on her lips.
Sneaky bastard.
If her first throw had connected, she could have hurt him, and they both knew it. By giving her back some of what she’d dished out, he was forcing her to acknowledge her own double standards—that it was okay for a woman to hit a man, but not vice versa.
A taut silence stretched between them. She bit her lip to contain the hundred and one explanations, justifications and motivations for the way she lived her life, to prove to him he’d got it wrong, got her wrong. She wanted to tell him that her bedroom at home looked as if a bomb hit it, that she laughed at dirty jokes and that sometimes she even drank her beer straight from the bottle. She wasn’t uptight or prissy, she was just very professional at work. And very committed to her training schedule.
Thinking all this through helped take the edge off his words. He was just using some pathetic playboy measuring stick to assess her, and because she didn’t match his idea of what a woman should be, he labeled her repressed and uptight. Just because she didn’t wear tight miniskirts to work and fall all over herself to giggle at his jokes and wear her cleavage like the latest fashion accessory. Just because she was an achiever, and hardworking, and focused.
The truth was, he was probably scared of her. Threatened. It was typical, really—putting her down so he could build himself up. Almost, she felt better. Almost.
Unbidden, a memory popped up: the dinner she’d had with her old college friends last month. There had been lots of excited chatter as they caught up on the four years since they’d all last hooked up. Sue had been full of her kids’ antics, her husband’s achievements and her own dream of selling her handmade quilts on the Internet. Georgia had been excited about her upcoming wedding to the fabulous Greg, as well as being quietly proud of achieving partner in the law firm where she worked. And Claire had shared her achievements with the magazine, and talked about her chances of winning the upcoming statewide triathlon semifinal. She’d gone home that night feeling contented and replete after a good catch-up with her old friends. Now she remembered a look she’d caught Georgia and Sue exchanging. Was it possible they’d felt sorry for “poor Claire” and her empty life? When she’d apologetically left the table to take a quick cell phone call from someone at Hillcrest Hardware, had they talked in hushed tones about her being uptight and dronelike? About how alone she was—still single—and how she was filling her empty hours with meaningless exercise?
Suddenly Georgia’s suggestion that Claire should meet her friend Tony—a really amazing, laid-back guy—took on a whole new light.
Hell, maybe everyone thought she was uptight. Miserable, she hunched down against the wall.
She racked her brain, trying to think of the last time she’d done something spontaneous and impulsive. There’d been that time when she’d snuck in the back way at the movies with her boyfriend…but that was when she’d been sixteen, and didn’t really count anyway as she’d practically wet her pants with terror she was so worried about getting caught.
What about that time she and some triathlete friends had gone skinny-dipping after a late night beach party? Except that she had been one of only a few who’d chosen to swim in their underwear instead of going the full skinny….
Okay, all right. What about that crazy hat she’d worn to her best friend Jo’s party last year? She’d found it in an old magic shop, a top hat with a bunny jumping out of it. She’d won best prize at Jo’s party with that hat.
She suppressed a groan and rested her head in her hands. A hat. She was trying to pin her personality on a stupid novelty hat.
She glared across at the man who’d started all this, focusing all her self-doubt and insecurity on him and his big mouth and insensitive comments. What did he know, anyway? Who was he, sitting there with those stupid sandals and his perfect hair and his designer stubble? Just because all of life’s doors had swung open for him as he approached, he wrote her off at a glance. So she wasn’t one of the beautiful people, and she wasn’t gifted with the sort of charm that had eased his way through life.
She’d always thought those things didn’t matter—no, she knew they didn’t matter. It was who you really were, inside and outside, that counted.
But then she blinked, and she felt a tear run down her cheek. God, she hated Jack Brook.
JACK STRETCHED his neck to one side and resisted the urge to check his watch, knowing it would only read five minutes past the last time he’d checked. Time dragged as only time could when you were bored out of your mind and stuck in a small, enclosed space with someone who was obviously thirsting for your blood.
He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that Claire Mars-den was mentally sticking pins in his voodoo doll doppelganger right now. He’d intercepted one glance from her that was practically dripping with animosity and got the message straight off. Well, she could stew in it, for all he cared. It wasn’t his problem.
Except, he couldn’t seem to stop glancing across at her every now and then. Just now she looked sad, infinitely sad, as she contemplated the toes of her shoes. He felt a twinge of guilt about what he’d said. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so up-front. People had to have their illusions about themselves, after all. And maybe, in her universe, she was a barrel of laughs, the life and soul of the party. Maybe, in her world, with her friends, she was considered a crazy caper merchant in her conservative suits and sensible, safe car. What was it to him, anyway?
A trickle of sweat ran down his back and he became conscious of the increasing stuffiness of the elevator. Without thinking, he slipped open the buttons on his shirt and flapped the two sides to create a breeze. Across the car, Claire glanced at him and then averted her eyes as though he’d just dropped his pants and announced his intention to have group sex with her favorite aunt.
Uptight, that was what he was talking about.
Almost as though she could hear his thoughts, Claire suddenly stood and toed off her shoes. She looked taller from his position on the floor, and he had a mighty fine view as she reached for the hem of her skirt. Instinctively, she must have sensed this and she began turning toward the wall. She hesitated for a moment, an obvious battle going on inside her.
What was she up to? He wasn’t sure, but it beat the hell out of not looking at his watch for entertainment.
She glanced across at him, their eyes locking as she wrangled with her better instincts, and then he saw a muscle move in her jaw as she steeled herself. With great deliberation, she hoisted her skirt up in full view of him, reached for the waistband of her panty hose, and tugged them down. He scored a flash of black underwear—lace? He couldn’t be sure—before her skirt dropped down discreetly like the curtain at a peep show. Of their own accord, his eyes followed her hands as she rolled each leg of her panty hose down, down, down to the ground where she stepped out of them daintily. Aware he’d just been staring like a horny adolescent, he snapped his gaze away and contemplated the unmoving floor indicator instead.
He simultaneously became conscious of the fact that his heart rate had just increased and he was sweating a little more. And he almost did a visual double take on himself when he realized that another part of his anatomy hadn’t been exactly unmoved by her actions, either.
Wow, he must be really bored. This was Claire Marsden, after all, almost the antithesis of everything he considered attractive in a woman: she was brunette, he preferred blondes; she was serious, he preferred giggles; she was short, he preferred statuesque….
His list of his favorite attributes trickled to a halt as he glanced across at her and caught a flash of extremely toned, tanned thighs as she settled down on the floor.
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