PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
Suzanne Forster

“[a] hard-edged, sexy romp.”

— Publishers Weekly on Blush

“A gripping novel…depicting the darker side of the rich

and powerful that includes intrigue, sex, lies and possibly

murder. The reader will not want to put the book down…”

—New Mystery Reader on The Lonely Girls Club

“Intelligent, psychologically complex and engaging…”

—Publishers Weekly on Come Midnight

“Forster’s name has become synonymous with taut,

suspenseful and wildly sexy novels that are

hot enough to melt asbestos.”

— Romantic Times BOOKclub

“The attraction was palpable, and [the] love scenes were

hot…a romantic suspense novel I can recommend highly.”

—All About Romance on Every Breath She Takes

“Interesting and appealing characters, great pacing and

interaction, an original plot line…strongly recommended.”

—The Mystery Reader on The Lonely Girls Club

Tease
Suzanne Forster

www.spice-books.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Prologue

“Whatever you do, Tess Wakefield, do not come.”

Had she actually said that out loud? Tess tried to open her eyes, but her lids were uncontrollable. They quivered like feather fringe. God, she must be glowing like a beacon. Sensations were lighting her up from the inside, crackling like the filaments of a neon tube.

Had he heard her? What would he do? Take it as a challenge and increase the pressure? Or lighten it and drive her utterly mad? It wouldn’t take much. He could so easily sweep her up and fling her over the edge.

With one finger.

With one more breath on her aching nipple.

One more feather stroke.

Why didn’t he just get it over with? Why did he leave her alone for so long? He came when she least expected him and touched her in intimate places. One finger gliding through her wetness, and then he was gone. The way a child steals icing from a cake.

Two fingers rolling her nipple.

Tight and tender.

Teeth on her rump.

How long had he been doing that? Hours? Days? She didn’t know anymore.

But he didn’t know how strong she was, how ardently she had fought to take back control of her life. She could not be broken, even if it was joy that poured from the cracks.

Someone was laughing, shaking with laughter. Him? No, it was her. Tears soaked her face and salted her tongue.

Was he even there? Or was she imagining a lover worthy of the Marquis de Sade? A demon with the patience for whatever time it took.

Was any of this really happening? The water dripping on her body, splashing between her legs and becoming more intense with each drop. It was a torrent now. She was becoming the water, flowing, dripping, melting like a glacier in spring. How did she stop this flood?

She forced her eyes open and saw them staring back at her. Eyes. Everywhere. Hypnotic and black as cherries. Her own eyes, heavy with sexual desire. Begging. Release me. Don’t let me writhe and thrash like this, helpless. Electrical current grounds me. Lust cracks me like a whip. I am what you have made me, a whore for pleasure. But I will fight you to prove that I’m not. And I will win.

“Put your hands against the wall. Spread your legs.”

Was that his voice? Was he speaking to her? Was that his hand on her naked flank?

Oh, God, no. Another touch. Another feather stroke, and she would be gone. Shattered.

She was ready to climb out of her own body, shed it like a snake, anything to escape him. She grabbed hold of the metal bars, quivering, waiting for pleasure that was unbearable. It took her all the way to heaven and back. All the way to hell. She could not let go. She would shatter into pieces.

One touch and he would break her in half.

Whatever you do, Tess Wakefield, do not—

Chapter One

Twenty-five days earlier…

No point packing the vibrator. Tess Wakefield had zero interest in sex. She’d been doing without it for the better part of a year, and that year had been better, thank you. No more bikini waxing unless she felt like it, no more inspecting her backside for unsightly blemishes or plucking the odd hair from the knuckle of her big toe, which hurt like hell.

No more penises or anything that was attached to them. Men were high maintenance. Well, most of them anyway. They needed all that ego-stroking and fawning, and they didn’t even care if you lied about how wonderful they were. They’d rather you fake orgasms than admit to not having them. Think about it.

And they were wimps, too, when it came to the important things in life. Squeamish about a little honest emotion. Terrified of giving up their freedom. They weren’t looking for partners in life. They wanted groupies. Wannabe pop stars, all of them, in search of an adoring audience. And all that pretending to love football when you were freezing to death and had to pee but didn’t want to risk hepatitis in the event bathroom.

Well, this groupie had turned in her backstage pass.

She tossed the vibrator into one of the boxes that would go into temporary storage and turned back to the array of clothing on her bed that still had to be sorted and packed. Thank goodness her new employer, Pratt-Summers, was handling most of the move to New York for her, which included the generous offer to use one of their corporate apartments until she could find a place of her own. She’d been offered the prestigious creative director position, and she had to look professional. That meant black, and lots of it. On the other hand, this was an advertising agency and they tended to be casual. It was also February, which meant jeans and sweaters, except for client visitation days when everybody wore suits like big boys and girls.

Tess knew a little something about ad agency protocol. She’d been with Renaissance Marketing in L.A. for the past eight years, doing everything from answering the phones to running the creative department to pitching and winning multimillion-dollar campaigns. Now, finally, it felt as if all the hard work and long hours had paid off. She’d given it her all, and maybe too much, considering how everything else in her life was withering from neglect.

She picked up her off-the-shoulder jersey sheath, briefly tempted by the thought of the New York club scene, then relegated it to the storage box. The dress was too red, too tight. It shouted take me off—and a couple other things that ended with off.

Her conversion to celibacy had come immediately after the breakup with Dillon, her let’s-wait-until-the-perfect-moment-to-announce-our-engagement fiancé. That perfect moment was never, of course. Too late Tess had discovered that Dillon was involved with another woman, his mother. She steamed the wrinkles from his boxer shorts and enzymatically cleaned his contact lenses for him, while Tess could barely handle the instructions on a box of laundry detergent. The fact that Dillon had made his mother break off the engagement with Tess confirmed her suspicions about him. He was high maintenance and a commitment-phobe.

That had seemed obvious to Tess, but her always brutally frank friend, Meredith, had disagreed. “You’re the CP,” she’d told Tess, who’d protested, “How could I be the commitment-phobe? I’m the one getting dumped.” And then it had hit her. Maybe she was choosing CPs so that she didn’t have to commit.

She knelt to pull the plug on her clock radio and saw the time. “Ten? It can’t be.” She’d been up since 6:00 a.m. How did it get that late?

Pratt-Summers had arranged for a car to take her to the airport, and a moving van to pick up the last of her boxes. The van was due in thirty minutes, and not only did she have to finish packing, she had to get the apartment presentable. She was subletting her one-bedroom place furnished, and the tenant had agreed to a month-by-month arrangement, just in case Tess found herself packing for a flight back.

Not that Tess expected anything to go wrong. She was eminently qualified for the job, according to Erica Summers, the CEO at Pratt-Summers, who’d interviewed her personally just three weeks ago. But how often did a creative directorship of a large Madison Avenue ad agency come along?

“To most thirty-two-year-old ad execs? Never,” she said, aware of the flutter in her voice. God, she was nervous.

This job was huge. New York City was huge.

Maybe she wanted to miss the flight. She couldn’t even seem to make up her mind what clothes to take with her, and there was no time to call her brutally frank friend to discuss it. Meredith, voice of clarity in a jumbled world, steadfast shoulder, mother confessor and occasional scolding conscience. Were there any Merediths in New York?

Tess’s spirits sank with her shoulders. She looked around the place, marveling at the chaos. It could have been declared a disaster area. Fortunately, she saw the problem immediately.

She wasn’t dealing with Bank of America’s automated voice-mail system. She only had three options to worry about. Get rid of the crotchless day-of-the-week panties that Dillon gave her, obviously without his mother’s knowledge. Toss out anything else that brought the word hot to mind. Then pack the rest and go.

One week later…

“The best way to open the mind is to open the body. If one is closed, the other cannot be open. Breathe through the soles of your feet. Listen with your fingertips.”

Tess spoke in low, modulated tones to the five men and women lying on their backs on gym mats, arranged in a circle and forming rudimentary U shapes with their bodies. Their arms and legs were straight up in the air, reaching toward the ceiling, some steadier than others.

“Can you feel the energy flowing and your mind expanding?” Tess asked. “Focus on the base of your spine. Is it tingling?”

“Something’s tingling.” Carlotta Clark giggled.

“Would you tell Carlotta to stop looking at my balls?” Andy Phipps, who lay on a mat opposite her, tugged at his baggy gym trunks in an exaggerated attempt to cover himself.

“If you had balls,” Carlotta scolded in her sexy, hiccupy voice, “you’d be begging me to look at them.”

Andy lifted up on his elbows and appealed to the group with eyes as big and velvety brown as instant pudding. “You’re my witnesses, people. She’s harassing me again. I’m being harassed. That has to be obvious to everyone here.”

Andy suddenly collapsed, his elbow knocked out from under him by Jan Butler, a plump graying copywriter on the next mat. “She may want you, Andikins, but is she woman enough? Can she take you to Jannie Land?”

Andy seemed to be considering the idea. The others began to cheer him on. “Breathe through your balls,” someone suggested.

Tess rested her hand on her hip and watched their antics with amused forbearance. It wasn’t the relaxation break she’d had in mind. She’d had plenty of experience with ad agency brainstorming sessions. They needed to be loose and free-flowing, but this bunch was flowing all over the place. What they needed now was direction. Tess’s specialty.

She stepped into the center of the circle to restore order. “Back to your mats, wild things. Let’s finish the exercise and get on with our brainstorming.”

Jan gave Andy a wink.

Andy’s skinny legs boinged back into the air. “Don’t blame me if someone else loses control,” he warned Tess. “This position drives the ladies crazy.”

“We’ll bear up,” Tess assured him. Andy’s diminutive frame, rag-mop dark hair and dimples did seem to bring out the vixen in the over-fifty set, but Tess was hot for his fertile brain. And it hadn’t taken her long to figure out that he could be counted upon for comic relief, even when he wasn’t trying to be funny. He was in his mid-twenties, fresh out of grad school and a gifted illustrator. He’d been at Pratt-Summers just a month, which was three weeks longer than Tess had been here, but he was shaping up to be a key member of her creative team. He was bright, verbal and a bottomless pit of ideas. Exactly what Tess needed, considering that she’d been assigned the lucrative—and problematic—Faustini account. The leather-goods franchise was in big trouble. The Faustini name had always been associated with meticulous handcrafting and old-world elegance, but that wasn’t selling in a culture that prized everything young and hot. Faustini’s management wanted to expand beyond briefcases and luggage. They were after a chunk of the luxury leather clothing and accessories market, and that couldn’t be done without a total image overhaul.

“Nine thousand and ten thousand,” Tess said, counting out the final seconds of the position. “Okay, last chance to check out Andy’s balls. Now, lower your legs slowly, and don’t forget to breathe.”

They all copped a look, including Brad Hayes and Lee Sanchez, the other two males in the group. Brad was a thirty-year-old communications major from Harvard, and Lee was the team’s prematurely balding marketing whiz. Andy rose to a sitting position, as red as a stop sign, but seemingly pleased by all the attention to his male anatomy.

Tess had held this morning’s brainstorming session in the company gym so she and her team could take Qigong breaks. She’d expected skepticism toward the martial arts technique, especially from some of the agency veterans, but at least everyone had agreed to give it a try.

“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Brad Hayes asked. “I tend not to do things I can’t pronounce.”

Carlotta snickered. “Do you even need to ask, Brad? Tess comes from la-la land.”

Tess took the jab in stride. In the week she’d been here, she’d picked up on some animosity from Carlotta, who’d been at Pratt-Summers longer than anyone else on the team. Tess could think of two reasons. Carlotta didn’t believe that Tess had the creative chops to handle the job, which was understandable. Tess had yet to prove herself. Or Carlotta felt the job should have been offered to her, which was a bigger problem, but Tess was optimistic that she could handle it with plenty of diplomacy, and maybe some plum assignments.

“It’s pronounced chee gung,” Tess said, answering Brad. “Qi means life force, and gong means accomplish through steady practice. It works wonders for me. Keeps the blood flowing and the ideas coming.”

Tess dragged her mat into the circle on the other side of Andy Phipps, not wanting to come between him and Jan Butler. It was time to get back to work. She’d been brought in as their boss, so it wasn’t surprising they were a little wary of her, but she hoped to quickly melt any resistance. The team was on a tight deadline with the Faustini campaign. The starting gun had gone off even before Tess arrived, but she did not intend to lose this race.

At least she’d had some experience with bonding and leading. She was more concerned about the other task Erica Summers had given her. Pratt-Summers had built a reputation for brilliant innovation. They’d won nearly every industry award for their avant-garde designs, but they were also becoming known for their arrogance and lack of communication with clients—and it was costing them business. Tess had been brought in to do what spin doctors were supposed to do—create a new image for the agency’s clients, but she’d also been tasked with creating a new image for Pratt-Summers itself.

Now, there was a challenge.

And worse, Erica had asked her to keep quiet about it. She didn’t want to ruffle feathers. Creative types were sensitive about being handled, she’d cautioned, as though Tess weren’t a creative type herself. It was Tess’s ability to successfully straddle the two disciplines—account management and creative—that made her the perfect covert agent for change within the creative division.

“Let’s talk about the Faustini account and don’t be shy.” Tess coaxed the team with her hands, like a traffic cop beckoning cars to advance. Too bad she didn’t have a whistle. “Any new ideas since our last session on Faustini? Somebody toss something out. Anybody. I don’t care how wild it is. How do we make Faustini’s new leather boots a must-have item?”

Andy had arranged himself cross-legged on his mat, continuing to tempt the ladies. “We don’t,” he said. “We start with the briefcases, their signature product. First, make the cases sexy, then introduce the boots.”

“Good luck making a briefcase sexy.” Carlotta shook back her claret-red waves and played with the zipper pull of her Lycra warm-up suit, as if to say now this is sexy.

Tess would have guessed Carlotta to be in her late thirties, but thanks to the wonders of cosmetic surgery, she was, and probably always would be, ageless. It was tempting to think she’d been hired to boost male morale, and maybe their testosterone. But, to date, Carlotta had racked up more awards for her ads than any other Pratt-Summers creative. She was kick-butt in more ways than one.

Andy sprang up and went to get a sleek black leather case he’d left under the basketball backboard. Tess recognized it as a Faustini. She watched with interest as Andy dropped to his knees on his mat, took a pair of sheer red panties from the case and glanced up, a wicked gleam in his eye.

“A man can’t spend every weekend working,” he said, letting a beat pass. “Faustini. Work hard, play hard.”

He’d given Tess an idea. She reached over and touched the lid of the case seductively, swirling her fingertips over the silky leather. “It’s so soft,” she cooed in a kittenish Marilyn Monroe voice, “and you’re so successful.”

Andy arched an eyebrow: “You’re into leather, too?”

“Not leather,” she scolded. “Faustini.”

Tess and Andy grinned, high-fiveing each other. “Not a bad thirty-second shot,” she said.

“Or!” Carlotta squealed. “Picture me as a dominatrix, a bullwhip in my hand. “You’re not carrying a Faustini?” She cracks the whip. “Take that!”

The enthusiasm was contagious. Soon, they were talking over each other, but the suggestions got more and more outrageous. Tess hated to be a killjoy, but she’d already met with Alberto Faustini, the company’s rather stodgy founder, and he didn’t want anything far-out. He’d told Tess to come up with something provocative, but nothing X-rated, and that was despite strong opposition from his new partner, his twenty-two-year-old wild-child daughter, Gina, who favored vampires, sexual bondage and other gothic images. Fortunately, Gina Faustini didn’t sign the checks.

“Guys,” Tess said, “we want to seduce customers not shock them.”

“Why not shock them? Before you can seduce them you have to get their attention.”

Tess wasn’t sure who’d spoken until she noticed her team members looking over her shoulder. She whipped around, saw the source of the disembodied voice, and was glad not to be hooked up to a lie detector. Her sweaty palms would have shorted the machine out.

How long had he been standing there?

She’d never met Danny Gabriel, but even if she hadn’t seen his likeness plastered all over the agency walls in photographs with business giants and celebrity clients, she would have recognized his personal trademarks—the bare feet, the worn blue jeans and the flowing hair he’d gathered into a loose ebony braid.

Here before her was the agency’s image problem in the flesh. Not his clothes, even Gabriel donned a suit on client days. His attitude. He was Tess’s codirector—and the infamous advertising savant she’d been brought in to teach some manners. The Faustini account had been his before it was given to Tess, and rumor had it that he’d been replaced because he sided with Faustini’s daughter.

What was he doing here now? He’d been in Tokyo all week, drumming up international business, which was his new focus, according to Erica. Tess was supposed to have been formally introduced to him tonight at a dinner with Erica and the board members. She was nervous enough about that. If Carlotta was the agency’s diva, then Danny Gabriel was its rock star.

Tess sat there, thunderstruck, aware that she wasn’t racking up leadership points with her silence. Her team knew him, but they seemed to be speechless, too. Either they were intimidated or expecting a confrontation. There was a good chance that Gabriel saw her as an interloper.

She was an interloper. And this could be a test, but of what? Her worthiness to walk the same ground he did?

She rose to her feet, accomplishing it with surprising grace. “My, my,” she said, her tone both friendly and challenging. “I’ve heard so much about you. Danny Gabriel, right? I’m Tess Wakefield.”

She waited for a reaction before offering her hand. He looked almost approachable, except for those eyes. Sharp. Serrated. Like a cutting tool. They reminded her a little of someone else’s eyes, and it was just enough of a resemblance to make her thoughts heat with unwanted memories.

He nodded, his expression warming slightly. “Faustini management doesn’t know what the hell they want,” he said. “The client rarely does, so it’s our job to tell them.”

“Really? Our job?”

They shook hands, and she covered his with both of hers, pressing down firmly. His focus sharpened. Possibly he was just realizing that she might be a worthier adversary than he’d thought.

“But shock value has a way of backfiring, don’t you think?” she asked.

“For people like me, yes. Not for you, though. You can get away with anything.”

“Excuse me?”

He just smiled. “You have a free pass—in advertising and in life. Use it.”

“What free pass?”

“Your sincerity. The good-girl thing. It sells, especially when it’s used to sell something bad. People might not line up to buy bibles from you, but they would buy sex. They would buy leather, even if it came with whips and chains.”

“Really.”

He nodded. “You make the bad stuff okay. If a sweet thing like you is a little bit kinky, then maybe kinky is okay. You give people permission to do what they secretly want to do.”

“Sweet? You’re quite sure of that?” Tess had never been called that before, and it didn’t strike her as a compliment, no matter how he couched it. Her naturally curly blond hair was cut in a bob, on which she spent a fortune for frizz control, and she still had a bit of California tan and a few freckles left. But she was no angel. Her past might shock even him. As for her work, of course, she was passionate and sincere. If you didn’t believe in the client’s product, you had no business trying to sell it. That was her motto. Obviously, it wasn’t his.

“Shock them, Tess,” he continued. “It’s the only way you’re going to get their attention.”

Neurons were firing in her brain, sending out orders to tighten muscles and tendons, her jaw being the target area. She fought the desire to remind him that he was giving advice to his replacement… then arched an eyebrow and said it anyway. Indirectly.

“Shocking the client will accomplish nothing, except to lose us the account, and I don’t need your help with that.” Thwap.

“I meant shock the public, not the client,” he replied, nonplussed.

“That’s not necessary, either. People don’t appreciate being made fools of. You might get their attention once, but you’ll never get it again.”

He rubbed his jaw, seeming amused. “You have much too high an opinion of your fellow man.”

Present company excepted, she wanted to say, but held her fire. She usually kept a pretty good grip on her emotions—Meredith liked to call it a headlock—but anger wouldn’t get her anywhere with him anyway. She needed to stay grounded because this guy was a raging river. He held nothing back, and she didn’t have that luxury. She had to preserve her energy to save the account that he’d put in jeopardy.

“Are you done with the gym?” he asked. “It’s reserved on Friday mornings for murder ball. You and your team are welcome to join us. Carlotta has a mean serve.”

“Murderball?”

He grinned. “Dodgeball where you come from.”

So that’s why he was here. Dodgeball. Not because he couldn’t wait until the evening to meet her. Figured.

“They may want to play,” she said, referring to her team, “but I have some calls to make. Give us a minute to finish up our brainstorming session, and we’ll be out of your way.”

“Take your time.” Suddenly warm and friendly, he worked open the top button of his white dress shirt. “I need to hit the locker room and change first, anyway.”

She mumbled something about seeing him at dinner that night, and then turned back to her team, not surprised to find them riveted. The gym virtually hummed with tension. A corpse would have been sitting up.

“Let’s meet tomorrow morning in the Sandbox,” she told the team, referring to one of the agency’s many themed conference rooms. “I know it’s the weekend, but we have a deadline bearing down on us like a tsunami.”

Andy rose first, picking up his mat. “So, what kind of a campaign is this going to be? Shock and awe?” He grinned, apparently at the possibilities. “I’m sure I could come up with something that would put Faustini management on life support.”

Hmm. Andy may have just handed her the perfect opening. She had no idea whether Gabriel was still behind her, but she hoped so. This was her chance to make an impression on all of them, but most of all, she wanted him to hear it.

“Keep in mind,” she said formally, “that it will be difficult for Faustini to pay their advertising bill if they’re on life support. They are the client, and without them this agency wouldn’t exist. They’ve hired us to do a job. Let’s do it. Let’s give them the campaign heard around the world. But don’t forget that the client has to like it first or no one else will ever see it.”

Tess couldn’t tell whether they were with her or not, but she wasn’t finished. “It’s not us versus Faustini,” she said. “It’s us and them. We’re a team, and they’re part of it.”

Her team gave her a smattering of applause, and she curtsied. Tess waited for Gabriel to say something, and the silence became awkward. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he’d already left. So much for the crusading speech.

As she knelt to pick up her mat, she had the feeling the murderball game had already started, and there were only two players. This was a one-on-one with Danny Gabriel, and she was the rookie, fighting for a piece of the star player’s turf. And maybe for her career.

Chapter Two

Tess hovered in the narrow stall, trying not to drop her purse, or anything else, into the sleek, low-slung toilet. She’d just finished her business when a man had entered the bathroom and taken the stall right next to hers. Now she was stuck. Or rather her outfit was stuck. Her cotton gauze jumpsuit had been perfect for the Qigong session that morning, but it should have come with assembly instructions for all the hooks, snaps and tabs. Now she was having a slight wardrobe malfunction. She’d ended up with a hook and nothing to attach it to but a snap. And she couldn’t very well leave the stall half-dressed with a dude next door.

The agency’s bathrooms were coed on the theory that new experiences were stimulating and enriching—and Pratt-Summers was known for providing their creative staff with plenty of stimulation. The coffee lounge offered more choices than Starbucks. It also had an oxygen bar, a tea bar and a gourmet snack bar, featuring exotic dark chocolate from around the world that was said to be as potent as prescription mood elevators. Anything to keep the ideas coming.

Tess had worked straight through lunch on the Faustini account, and this was her first break of the afternoon. All she wanted to do was pee and get back to her desk. But it looked like she was going to have to take herself apart like a model airplane and start over.

The adjacent door opened and banged shut.

Tess hesitated, listening. She could hear him washing his hands and chatting with Mitzi, the mysterious washroom attendant, who seemed to be on a first-name basis with everyone at the agency. Apparently she was as much a fixture as the bathroom’s fancy gold faucets. Tess had heard through office scuttlebutt that Mitzi had been with the agency through every management shake-up, of which Tess was just the latest. She not only guarded the bathroom and the adjoining lounge, she ran an aromatherapy concession, did reflexology and was rumored to be a licensed acupuncturist.

Tess gave up on the jumpsuit. Let it flap. She might flash a few people, but her white cotton sports bra wouldn’t give anyone much of a thrill.

She rolled her neck, aware of clicking noises. A massage would be wonderful, except that Mitzi made her nervous. The washroom attendant looked to be in her mid-forties, attractive in a strange way. She had severely cropped hair, an olive complexion and dark, expressive eyes. She was also short-waisted and pear-shaped, with the lowest center of gravity Tess had ever seen, which probably made her a powerhouse masseuse. And to her credit, she kept a beautiful bathroom. There were orchids everywhere, plush rolled towels, pearlescent hand lotions and the place smelled luscious. Today, it was essence of an English rose garden. But on Tess’s first day at the agency, she’d smelled something she couldn’t identify, and Mitzi had explained that she’d been using oil of hemp for a massage.

Hemp? Could Mitzi add drug dealer to her list of specialties?

Tess had given her a wide berth after that, but she seemed to be the only one who was concerned. As far as Tess could tell, Mitzi was widely revered for her advice on everything from health to dating and relationships. She got more respect than the CEO. Right now, she and the unidentified man were discussing his blood pressure and she was recommending that he burn candles during his power nap.

“Lavender, geranium or neroli,” Mitzi suggested. “Lavender is good for dandruff, too. Makes a wonderful tonic for the hair, and if you put the buds in a dream pillow, it will help you sleep. But be careful, you might see ghosts. And, by the way, I have plenty of that ylang-ylang soap you like. You know, the libido-booster bar with just a touch of nutmeg.”

The man’s embarrassed chuckle made Tess wonder if Mitzi had winked at him. Libido booster? Dream pillows and ghosts? No wonder he had hypertension.

Tess had decided to wait until the transaction was over. She couldn’t be sure the man wasn’t Danny Gabriel, and she didn’t want another awkward encounter with him now. Their dinner tonight would be plenty soon enough.

The moment she heard the man leave, Tess let herself out of the stall and went to the long bank of sinks to wash her hands. Mitzi, keeper of the towels, was seated on her stool at the end of the long counter, her many products displayed on wall racks behind her. She watched Tess intently, ready to hand her a towel when she was done.

Tess thanked her and grabbed some paper towels instead. “In a rush,” she said, taking a moment to scrutinize herself in the mirror.

Good girl? Her? What had Gabriel been thinking?

She pulled on a tight curl, trying to get it to relax and dangle in a provocative way. How did she get stuck with yellow bedsprings for hair? She’d always wanted to be one of those fey beauties whose hair went flying every time she gave it a little shake. The kind who gave men whiplash when she strolled by. She sighed. Not in this lifetime.

Still, she hadn’t had that much difficulty attracting men, especially back in college. She’d gone through a wild-child phase when hormones and adrenaline had uncorked inside her like a magnum of champagne. Reserved as she’d been, she’d gotten bold enough to flirt, and that was all the encouragement certain boys had needed. Suddenly, she was wildly popular. Not for any of the right reasons, of course, but the boys’ reactions had taught her that being sexy was about much more than one’s appearance.

Too bad she’d been riddled with guilt the whole time. Being “bad” had only been fleetingly good. Mostly, the experience had left her confused about her sexuality and her urgent need for male attention. And years later, when she’d finally figured it out, the answers hadn’t been pretty.

The bathroom door swung open behind her, and a small pack of women burst into the spacious room, laughing and talking, probably on a break.

Tess thought she recognized them from the Research Division but couldn’t be sure. She’d been introduced around by a Human Resources person, but she’d met too many people that week. It was all a blur.

“Last night was a Rolling Thunderclap,” one of the women said as the three of them entered separate stalls. “It was loud and fast, and there were reports of smoke coming from my ears.”

“Reports? How many people were there?” the second woman asked from her stall.

“Just me and my boyfriend, but he gave me updates on the half second.”

“Sounds more like a Shake, Rattle and Roll to me,” the second woman said. “Were there coital quivers? I’m a Mountain Fountain girl, myself.”

“And I fall somewhere between Napping Kitten and Arctic Silence,” the third said. “Therapy was suggested.”

Mountain Fountain was a Qigong position, but Tess was pretty sure they weren’t discussing martial arts. She moved aside as the women emerged all at once, not unlike synchronized swimmers. They washed their hands, thanked Mitzi for the towels and disappeared into the adjoining lounge.

Tess glanced at Mitzi, who shrugged. “This month’s Cosmo has a Name Your Orgasm quiz,” she explained. “Apparently, orgasms can reveal hidden aspects of your personality. If you’re limited to one kind, it means you’re not expressing yourself fully as a human being.”

“Ah.” Tess nodded. ’Nuff said. She gave her hair another tweak and frowned. A giant sigh escaped her. Limited to one kind? She should be so lucky. What was an orgasm? She couldn’t remember. Most of hers had been pretty forgettable anyway, if she was being honest. No Rolling Thunderclaps. Even all the heavy breathing in college had been only briefly exciting—and definitely not worth the self-recrimination afterward.

Mitzi was watching Tess with a knitted brow and enough concern to send Tess running. She reached for the Faustini bag the designer had given her, along with a pair of their gorgeous new stiletto boots. Each of the team members had received some Faustini launch products as gifts, and to better help them sell the line. Pride of ownership was a prime motivating factor, and old man Faustini, as everyone called the sixty-two-year-old founder of the company, was smart enough to know that.

“Gotta go,” Tess said. “Work to do.” She gave Mitzi a reassuring nod, but it didn’t seem to register. Mitzi’s health-o-meter was engaged.

“Female trouble?” Mitzi said. “Let me guess. PMS, right?”

Tess was too startled not to respond. She was premenstrual beyond belief, bloated and incredibly hormonal. Worse, she’d never been hornier. She glanced down at her body. “Does it show?”

Tess’s period was nearly two weeks late. Probably stress. She definitely wasn’t pregnant, unless this was an immaculate conception. She hadn’t had sex in months, which seemed to be affecting her cycle.

Good for creativity. That’s what she’d been telling herself. Theoretically, pent-up sexual energy could be channeled into other things, like work. In reality, though, she was getting more frustrated, not less, despite the distractions of a new job and a new life. At this rate, her sexual energy would soon be the equivalent of a black hole, sucking up every productive thought she had. Too bad she hadn’t been assigned to come up with an ad campaign for porno flicks.

Mitzi was off the stool and down on her knees, searching through the cabinet beneath the sink. “Maybe some clary sage and juniper-berry tea? It balances hormones, and it’s a powerful diuretic. You’ll pee like a racehorse.”

Tess reached for her purse. “Does it come in bags?” she asked, ready to buy on the spot. What did it cost? Fifty bucks a bag? Sold. Anything that equaled less bloating was gold.

“Aha!” Mitzi beamed as she pulled out a small box of tea bags.

The transaction went quickly, and the price was fair, but it all felt vaguely illegal to Tess. Maybe because Mitzi had literally gone under the counter to get the tea.

“Did I hear a man in here earlier?” Tess made small talk as she waited for Mitzi to process her charge card. “I met lots of people this week, and his voice sounded familiar.”

“Did you meet Danny Gabriel?”

Tess tried not to act startled this time. “Yes. Was it him?”

“No, but that’s who you were thinking it was, am I right?”

“I thought it might be him. Are you supposed to be psychic or something?”

Mitzi wrinkled her nose at the idea. “If the first five senses work, why do you need a sixth? Good eyes and ears is all it takes around here.”

Laughter drifted from the other room, where the women were hanging out. Tess wondered if they were still comparing personal bests or had moved on to something else.

She signed the credit card slip Mitzi pushed toward her and tore off her copy. “Thanks for suggesting this,” she said, picking up the box of tea. “I’m sure it will help.”

Mitzi had her PDA out and was busy making an entry. It was probably how she kept track of sales or inventory. “You’re welcome,” she said, not looking up, “but I think you might need more than tea, dear.”

Tess was already heading for the door. “Thanks, but I have plenty of soap and candles. This will be fine.”

“Tess Wakefield.”

The urgency in Mitzi’s voice made Tess hesitate. She turned to see Mitzi coming after her with a halting gait. Tess wondered if she was much older than she looked, or if she’d been injured somehow.

“Is something wrong?” Tess asked.

Mitzi handed her the credit card. “You forgot this.”

“Oh, thank you.” Tess took hold of the card, but Mitzi didn’t let go of it. Instead, she frowned, her dark eyes boring into Tess’s, as if she was searching for something.

“You don’t know anything about this place, do you?” she said.

“New York?”

“Pratt-Summers.”

“I know it’s one of the best ad agencies in the country.”

A sniff of derision. “And you came here with the highest hopes, thinking this was your big chance. But it could just as easily be your downfall. Not everyone is your friend.”

Tess tugged the credit card free. “What are you talking about?”

Mitzi shrugged, as if to say she’d done all she could. She reached up to pat Tess’s face, and it was all Tess could do not to shrink away.

“Why is it that we always want what we can’t have?” Mitzi asked, lowering her voice. “Use your senses, all five of them.”

Tess wanted to make light of the woman’s intensity, but she couldn’t quite break the spell Mitzi had woven. “I will,” she said.

“He has a secret.”

Tess blinked. “He? Who?”

“Danny Gabriel. You only think you know him.”

“I don’t know him at all.”

“Good, you understand.” Mitzi nodded. “Don’t take the people you work with for granted, especially if they have power over your career. I just don’t want you to be blindsided.” She started back to her stool. “It could happen.”

Tess was becoming exasperated. “Are you going to tell me what you’re talking about?”

Mitzi shook her head. She tsked. “My problem is I talk too much. Ask anyone. Pay no attention to me. You’re busy. Go back to work. You’re a good girl, solid. You’ll do fine.”

Tess had been blown off before, but Mitzi was a maestro. Tess didn’t much appreciate the good-girl remark, either. It was the second time today she’d been called that, and it was making her feel like a virgin being groomed as a sacrifice to the advertising gods.

The gallows humor was meant to loosen the knots in Tess’s stomach, but it didn’t work. Was that why she’d been brought here? To be someone’s scapegoat? To draw fire? Every office had internal politics, and she already knew something about this company’s problems, but Mitzi seemed to be suggesting there was more going on. And Mitzi might actually be in a position to know. Her bathroom was the equivalent of a locker room/spa where people came to hang out and gossip.

Tess debated the wisdom of trying to pry more information out of the washroom attendant. Maybe it was a sign that the three women reappeared from the lounge, saying they wanted to look over Mitzi’s wares. Tess noticed how chatty and personal they were with her. One of them asked her about her acting job. Apparently she had a bit part in an off-off-Broadway play. Another kidded her about her sexy new haircut.

Tess made it a point to say hello to the women before she left, and to thank Mitzi again for the tea. A woman with enemies couldn’t be too careful.

Relief washed over her once she was out the door and heading back to her office. Maybe from now on she’d go to the downstairs bathroom. Better for the hypertension, which she probably had by now.

It was mid-afternoon on a Friday, and the twenty-eighth floor seemed quiet as she traveled hallways that curved and meandered to evoke the tributaries of a river. You could get seasick trying to get around quickly. The walls were covered with murals painted by some of the agency’s artists. One was a whimsical underwater motif with sea creatures who’d been given the faces of various staff members. Tess hadn’t figured out what the deeper meaning might be, but she hadn’t failed to notice that Gabriel was a dolphin. Better than a shark, she supposed.

Tess passed the art and production studio on the way to her corner office, but avoided looking inside. She didn’t want to be tempted. She loved seeing the ideas become reality, and this studio was spectacular, large and magnificently equipped. But she couldn’t dawdle any longer. It felt as if the entire day had slipped away from her, and tonight’s dinner was going to be another time-suck. Worse, she would be spending it with a bunch of people who made her nervous—and apparently had secrets that could blindside her. Great.

“Where is it?” Tess hesitated in her office doorway, talking to herself as she peered at her desk. Her heart jumped painfully. “Where’s my PDA?”

Her personal digital assistant was also her cell phone, but there’d been no place to attach it to her jumpsuit when she went to the Qigong session, so she’d left it on her desk. She’d set it on the lead-crystal box that had been her going-away gift from Renaissance. She specifically remembered doing that.

Tess didn’t have an assistant. She did her own scheduling via the PDA’s digital calendar and memo pad. It contained all her appointments, her address book, even her various passwords. All her vital information was stored on that contraption! She would rather have lost an arm.

She began to search her office, starting with the drawers of her desk, which was a rather strange-looking antique made of rattan and glass that creaked under any kind of weight. Actually, the entire office was strange, although Tess loved the wraparound windows that surrounded her from behind. She wasn’t as crazy about the enormous German Messerschmitt airplane nose coming out of the wall facing her desk. The last occupant had clearly been a World War II nut. There was a glass case of army divisional patches, of which the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagle was her favorite. That was one pissed-off bird. If she could ever remember, she would have to ask why all the paraphernalia had been left behind.

She’d been told she could redecorate on the company’s budget, but there hadn’t been time to think about that. Meanwhile, she wanted to duck every time she looked up and saw the plane. She felt like she was about to be strafed.

“Where the hell?” She lifted a stack of account files and searched through the rattan baskets sitting on the credenza behind her desk. Nothing. The PDA had vanished. Maybe she hadn’t left it on the crystal box?

She noticed her quilted coat hanging on the coatrack and reminded herself to check the pockets. At the same time, she saw the blinking message light on her office phone. She’d missed that completely when she came in.

She picked up the receiver and punched in her voice-mail password. At least she had that one memorized. The disembodied electronic voice told her she had several new messages, and she raced through them until she got to one from Erica Summers. The CEO’s musical voice filled her ear.

“Tess, I just found out that Danny Gabriel can’t make our little dinner tonight. He left a message saying that he’d run into you this morning and was very favorably impressed, so didn’t feel a pressing need to attend tonight. Apparently he’s up against a deadline.” Erica sniffed. “We’ll just have to muddle through without him, won’t we? Looking forward to it, Tess.”

Tess hung up the phone and swore softly. Gabriel had just blown her off, and he’d used the company CEO to do it. The guy had balls. He would be conspicuous by his absence at dinner tonight, an obvious sign to the board that he didn’t consider his new codirector important enough to bother with.

Tess had feared the dinner might not go well, but this was ridiculous. She took a deep breath, willing herself to let it go and get back to work. She still had to find her PDA. There was no time to waste on professional ego trips, and she felt certain that’s what this was. But a half hour later she’d given up on the search—and she was still steaming over Danny’s slight. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but her outrage, which wasn’t like her at all.

The desk gave out a noisy groan as she rose.

So, Danny Gabriel was impressed, was he? She was about to make an even deeper impression on him. It was almost four o’clock by her watch. He shouldn’t have left the building yet, if he truly had so much work to do. She had no idea where his office was, but she would search until she found it.

Chapter Three

Tess clicked down the hall in her high-heel boots, pencil skirt and black velvet Edwardian jacket. It was five-fifteen, and she had forty-five minutes before the limo was scheduled to pick her up for the reception. She’d decided to change into her dinner outfit and let Gabriel get a look at what he’d be missing—and call him on his blatant attempt to undermine her on her big night. You never got a second chance to make a first impression, and this was her chance with the company brass, which he very well knew. She even managed to get the kinks out of her hair with a special spray that relaxed and defrizzed. It had loosened her curls, and now they were bouncing all over her head. Extra-large silver hoop earrings and a kiss-my-ass attitude rounded out the look.

She’d also had two cups of Mitzi’s tea. No one could say Tess Wakefield didn’t live dangerously.

Check it out, Gabe, baby. This is the lady you kicked to the curb. Maybe you should watch your shins. She’s wearing boots.

Tess had never felt so tricked-out and sexy. It was almost fun. She figured it was the PMS or the tea, but either way, she had a few choice words for her codirector. She’d called the agency’s receptionist for directions to his office, which had turned out to be quite simple. He was on the opposite end of the building from her, in his own corner office.

The twenty-eighth floor was now a ghost town. Tess didn’t see another soul as she crossed the building. Everyone had gone for the weekend, but if Gabriel really had a deadline, he might still be around.

His office door was open when she got there, but she found no one inside. The room was mostly windows and traditional in style, which surprised her. She’d expected to find a dark, artsy lair, with decor that might even be mystical. One of the many rumors about him was that he had Native American blood. Instead, everything was ma-hogany, beautifully carved with reflecting-pool surfaces and damask upholstery. It reminded her of a federal court, except for the two walls of posters showcasing his ads.

Tess took a moment to check them out. He was very good, but she knew that. What struck her was the unexpected way the ads were displayed. On one side of the room, they were bright and upbeat, with vibrant colors and attractive models. On the other side, the ads had a dark edginess that bordered on sinister. But, even more perplexing, on the abutting wall hung just one poster—a misty pastel of a child in a swing, rising toward the setting sun. It almost looked as if she were going to slip off the seat and fly away.

What a strange juxtaposition, Tess thought. It was enough to make you wonder if Gabriel was bipolar. Mitzi had said he had a secret. Tess was curious whether the ads might have something to do with that, but there wasn’t time to explore. She turned and saw a set of double doors that led to what looked like a conference room. The doors were partially open, and she could see movement inside. Maybe he was in there, preparing for his deadline.

Tess peeked through the doors and saw Gabriel bent over a storyboard, probably checking out the sketches for a client’s television spot. “Am I interrupting?” she asked, opening the doors.

He glanced up at her and did a double take. She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes narrowed. Whether it was appreciation or appraisal, she couldn’t tell, but his gaze was riveting.

“You’re perfect,” he said. “Come in.”

“What?”

“You’re wearing boots, a skirt. It’s perfect.” He beckoned her over to him. “Come on in.”

Tess didn’t move from the doorway.

He took a chair from the conference table and rolled it to within a few feet of where she stood. She had no idea what he was doing as he positioned the chair in front of the doors.

“Right here,” he said. “Come over and sit down, please. I have something to show you.”

The please did the trick. She couldn’t resist conviction.

She walked to the chair, aware of him standing there with his hands on the leather back, as if he were about to give her a ride.

“Are you going to tell me why I’m doing this?” she asked, wondering what would happen to her very skinny skirt when she sat. Surely he wasn’t angling for that, a leg shot.

“All will be explained,” he assured her, “but not yet. That would ruin it.”

He stopped her before she could sit down. “Let’s fix that skirt first,” he said. “Here.”

He actually came around the chair and turned her toward him, then spun her skirt until the slit in the back was running up the side of her leg. With any encouragement at all, the opening would now reveal an eyeful of caramel thigh. Thank God for liquid stockings.

“Mmm, yes. Perfect.”

It was almost erotic the way he said that word, perfect. Like a man whispering something dirty in a woman’s ear.

He sat her in the chair and knelt in front of her, apparently to do some more adjusting of her person.

She pulled back as his hand grazed her leg. “What are you doing?”

“Relax,” he said, “trust me, please, this is important.” She wasn’t as taken with his conviction this time, but she was very curious.

“Unbend your knee. Here, like this.” He inched her left leg forward a little and then propped her sleek laced boot on its spiky heel, with the tip pointing in the air.

“Good,” he said, rising to look at her. He nodded, murmuring something about how perfect this was under his breath.

Interesting that she had to focus on what he said. It was entirely possible he was doing that on purpose, making her listen. He had a reputation as a persuasive pitchman, a closer, as they said in sales, but there was nothing overtly aggressive about him. Even now, he came across as supremely laid-back, and yet he radiated energy. It was like droplets sizzling on his skin.

She’d heard all the rumors, that Danny Gabriel was deadly smart and blindingly handsome, almost his own species. She’d heard them. She just hadn’t wanted to believe them. No wonder they needed someone to corral this guy.

He studied her, his features knit in concentration.

“Lean back and support yourself on the arms of the chair,” he said, giving her direction as if they were on a photo shoot. “Good. Now relax and arch your spine. Can you give me a little more bend? Try to relax and arch your spine.”

Tess drew herself up and felt the chair move. “The wheels are going to roll out from under me.”

“Here, I’ll steady you.” He moved behind her and gripped the chair. “Try it again,” he said. “Lean into the arch and tilt your head back. God, yes, that’s great.”

Tess’s spine bowed with tension, locking her in place. At that moment, all she could see were the edges of him, a blur. But when his head came into her line of sight, and he looked down at her, she suddenly felt vulnerable. She started to sit up.

“No, wait,” he said. “This is important. Look at me. Look at me, Tess.”

She held on to the chair, steadying herself. As she gazed up at him, she could feel her jacket fall open and her skirt creep up. She was balancing herself with the heel of one boot. Her other foot had lifted off the floor.

What must she look like? What the hell was he doing?

“How much longer?” she asked, annoyed. “I can’t hold this.”

“Just a few more seconds.” He pulled the chair back toward him. “We’re almost there, and you look hotter than hell. Don’t think about anything but that—how hot you look. Amazing.”

His voice dropped low and sexy. He was still murmuring as he bent down and fitted his mouth to hers in a weightless kiss. Tess’s grip tightened. Her whole body quivered as she struggled to get up, but there was no way possible. All of the laws of gravity and physics were against her, and with his mouth locked to hers, she couldn’t move.

“Perfect,” he whispered against her lips.

Tess’s body reacted to the extreme vulnerability of her position. Her flesh felt as if it had caught fire. Her nipples zinged to life, hardening instantly, and the cotton crotch of her panties should have been steaming they were so damp. What was happening? She could feel herself lubricating down there, blushing with shock and excitement.

He broke the kiss, freeing her, and Tess sat up too quickly. Dizziness washed over her. She’d been upside down so long the blood had left her head.

“What kind of stunt was that?” she asked, fighting to get her bearings.

“No stunt,” he said.

“You kissed me.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? What do you mean yeah? This is an office. We’re coworkers. Who the hell do you think you are?”

“True, but let me show you why I did it.”

Before she could catch her breath, he was standing in front of her. Tess stole a glance at his crotch—and hated herself for it. Did she really care whether or not he’d been as turned on as she had? There was no hope for her.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to her legs. “It’s perfect.”

The man was a broken record. “What’s perfect?”

“What you did when I kissed you.” He knelt next to her. “Look at how you’re sitting—the way you raised your right leg and hooked your toe under the left.”

Tess saw that the tip of one boot was tucked under her other calf. “So what?” she said. “I was trying not to fall over.”

She settled both feet on the floor, still too dizzy to stand.

Gabriel rose and went to the double doors, drawing them together but not closing them. He left an opening about six inches wide, and then he came back to her.

“When I saw you in those boots it gave me an idea for an ad,” he said.

“An ad? Why didn’t you just say that?” So much for being turned on.

“It wouldn’t have worked. I had to catch you off guard to see what your legs would do. Can you imagine what a shot that would be for your Faustini ad? Think print campaign, maybe even billboards.”

He gestured toward her chair and the door, setting the scene. “You’re sitting there, like that, but the camera’s outside the doors, which are open just enough to show your legs levitating.”

She sat forward. “What are you talking about?”

“Imagine someone standing outside these doors, looking in. What would they see through that opening? Your legs, right? Your boots, Faustini boots. It’s the perfect tease.”

“Actually, they wouldn’t. These aren’t the Faustinis. I changed for dinner.”

His brow furrowed. “For the sake of argument, they are, okay? And that innocent bystander out there can’t see anything but your boots. She can’t see me, or what’s going on in here, but she knows damn well by the way your boots are behaving that you’re not taking dictation. What does that say to her?”

“Wear Faustini and people will sexually assault you?”

“Wear Faustini and life will surprise you.”

“There are some surprises I could do without.” Tess got up and whipped her skirt around the right way. She was done playing along. “All of this was about Faustini? My account?”

“Yes, but you don’t have to thank me.”

She emitted a sound of disgust, and he actually cracked a grin. “What are you, eight years old?” she asked.

They locked stares, engaged in a steamy visual battle. After a moment or two, Tess began to feel a little ridiculous. Maybe he wasn’t the only one being childish. But as she glared at him, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before, a small crescent scar on his upper lip, near the bow. Her stomach dipped, and something even deeper fluttered in the most pleasurable way. Damn. The scar turned his mouth into a sensual wonderland. It was wicked. You couldn’t see a mouth like that and not think about sex.

What would that feel like?

Not a question Tess wanted to contemplate. Thank God, she was highly skilled in the art of denial. Give her a couple more seconds, and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Perhaps, though, she could create a little problem for him. She smoothed her outfit into place, remembering why she’d come here. Someone needed to catch this man off guard and show him how it felt.

“Are you checking me out?” he asked. “Because I could swear you were checking me out.”

“Murderball must be dangerous,” she said, walking over to him. She touched his scar with her fingertips. If she was nervous it didn’t show, and that was all she cared about at the moment.

“You’re dangerous,” he said.

“You aren’t kidding.” Tess angled in for a kiss, but he stopped her. He gripped her arms and held her off, staring at her as if she’d gone crazy. She could almost hear those droplets of energy sizzling on his skin. She may even have caught their scent, a fiery male essence that made her throat ache. Something about all this thrilled her. Maybe it was taking a chance, calling his bluff, if that’s what he was doing, bluffing.

“Okay,” he said softly, “let’s get dangerous.” He yanked her close and kissed her.

The flutter in Tess’s gut turned bright and sharp. In her mind, she could see that damn sexy scar, but she couldn’t feel it on her lips. The only rough sensation was his hands, molesting her arms. His mouth was soft and hot. It was luscious. The sound vibrating inside her was a growl. A tiny voracious growl.

A startling hunger overtook her. She wanted her hands free, not to break away, but to clutch him. It didn’t seem possible that she was suddenly greedy for more. For something wild and deep. As deep as the sea. A kiss that would drag her under and drown her.

Her nipples brushed against his chest, and again, hardened uncontrollably. A sensation she hadn’t felt in months flared in the pit of her belly. God help her, that was hot.

In her mind, she saw the two of them spinning in the chair, whirling like tops, her facing him with her legs spread over the chair arms and him beneath her, anchoring her with his brick wall of an erection, thrusting madly, fucking like bunnies—

What? Was she crazy?

Was it the tea? Mitzi’s psychotropic tea?

Her fantasies hadn’t been that energetic in her college years, had they?

The questions brought her back to reality. Somehow Gabriel had turned her around, all while kissing her ardently. Clearly he was going to take this further. Next, he would be scooping her up in his arms and laying her out on the conference table.

She gave his shin a sharp little kick.

He swore and released her.

She stepped back, panting. “You kiss good,” she said.

“Jesus, so do you. I’m coming to that dinner tonight. In fact, I’m taking you home from that dinner tonight.”

She drew herself up. “No, no you’re not. Tonight is about my work, and my work is not about kissing, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He nodded, but she had a feeling he would have agreed with anything she said at that moment. He seemed far more interested in her mouth than her point. There was a time, not so terribly long ago, when Tess would have succumbed in a New York second to the charms of a man like Danny Gabriel. Make that a nanosecond. She’d been a total pushover, a wuss in every way. Of course, that had to stay her secret. She was stronger now. She’d had a lot of practice not having sex. The denial thing.

And more important, she hadn’t made her point yet.

“Canceling out on the dinner,” she told him, “was petty and insulting, Mr. Gabriel. I guess I may have you on the run, hmm? Otherwise, why would a man of your stature have to lie your way out of my dinner?”

He started to speak, but she overrode him. “I may not be a genius, but I’m damn good at what I do, and I deserve respect.”

He began to shake his head, but she wasn’t listening to any lame apologies. “I think we’re finished here, at least I am.” She tweaked the lapel of her jacket, shot him a burning stare, and turned to find a distinguished-looking man in an immaculately tailored suit standing in the doorway. Obviously he’d heard every word.

Gabriel spoke from behind her. “Tess Wakefield, meet Oliver Handel, the vice president of international marketing for the Kashogi Corporation.”

Shit. It looked as if Gabriel had told the truth. She was staring at his deadline. Possibly, her inner-life coach might have some advice for her at this inopportune moment?

Don’t ever let them see you sweat, Tess.

The self-talk that most people called an inner voice had always come to Tess in the form of old television commercials. It was probably what had led her into advertising. And in this case, it was exactly what she needed to hear.

She made no attempt to make herself presentable. That would have drawn more attention to the fact that she wasn’t. She walked straight over and took the man’s hand, shaking it firmly. “Mr. Handel, how do you do, sir? Such an honor, really. It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”

Handel returned her grip. He smiled, chuckling aloud. “You have my utmost respect, Tess, if I may call you that. I’m sure Daniel deserved every word of that lecture.”

Tess smiled knowingly. “He’s just brilliant, isn’t he?” she said, deciding to take the high road. She’d already expressed herself to her complete satisfaction, and maybe it was karma that Gabriel’s client had shown up. “And now, I’ll leave you two to your meeting.”

Tess turned to Gabriel. “We’ll miss you at dinner,” she said with a wicked little lilt in her voice.

“I’m sure.” His response was as dry as dust.

On the way back to her office, she retraced her path through the deep-sea aquarium. Pleased with herself, she grinned. Maybe now she’d be able to get some work done. She had an ad campaign to come up with, but it damn sure wasn’t going to feature levitating boots.

Chapter Four

He was down on one knee, rearranging her legs and inadvertently brushing against her bare skin. He’d removed her boots, leaving her legs and feet exposed. Why had he done that? He didn’t seem to understand that his fingers tickled like feather fringe, and his skin was the richest shade of tequila gold she’d ever seen. He touched her ankle, innocently positioning it, and streamers of light shot up her thighs, straight to her sex.

No, straight to her pussy, she thought, giving in to a wicked urge to use the bad-girl word. The words and images assaulting her overheated brain were bordering on lewd, but they might be the only way to get this man’s attention.

He cupped her calf with his palm, and her pulse raced out of control. His hands were warm, strong, smooth against her flesh. He was going to wreck her. Now he was playing with the back of her knee, lingering in that secret, unbearably sensitive spot. If he went higher, she’d faint. If he didn’t, she’d explode.

Fainting was less dangerous.

“Danny,” she whispered. She drew up his head, gazed at the crescent scar on his lip—and didn’t know whether to kiss him or slap him silly. How could he not know what he was doing?

Desperate, she inched up her skirt, letting him see that she wore no panties. “See that?” she whispered. “It’s a pussy, in case you were wondering. Help yourself, for heaven’s sake. Stop making me crazy and make me co —”

Tess slapped the desk with her palm. This had to stop. Her eyes snapped open, and she breathed out an exasperated sigh. She’d been drifting off into crazy X-rated fantasies all morning. And they all revolved around her spread-eagle legs—and him. He didn’t get all the credit, though. This was at least partly biological. Could doctors induce periods the way they induced labor? Her never-ending PMS was killing her.

And, she’d figured it out. Now she knew who he reminded her of with his cut-you-like-a-knife eyes. Tess prided herself on having left her past behind, but there was one man who’d touched a chord that wouldn’t stop resonating in some darkened corner of her mind. If every woman had her indelible bad-boy experience, then Professor Jonathan Wiley, her theater arts instructor in college, was Tess’s, except that he wasn’t a boy. He’d been her phantom of the opera, in a manner of speaking, but without all the soaring romance—and his image had come to her during her fantasies about Gabriel.

Not good, she thought. Nothing about this was good.

She drew herself up and surveyed the chaos on her desk. It was Saturday, but she and her entire team were working this weekend in order to be ready for the pitch to the Faustini brass next week. Even Erica Summers had agreed to make herself available, probably to set an example for the troops.

Tess’s desk was strewn with eight-by-ten glossies that had been sent to her by casting directors. She’d spread them out hoping that photos of fit young male and female models would inspire a killer idea for the Faustini promotion, but no such luck. Some of the women were promising, but the guys reminded her of southern California’s yuppie bikers, who dressed up in black leather and swore off shaving for the weekend. A couple of them were cute, but definitely not the millennium outlaw with the soul of a poet she had in mind.

Tess sorted through the glossies one more time, creating a stack of hopefuls. Too bad she couldn’t blame her fantasy trips on pictures of buff bikers. Unfortunately, Danny Gabriel’s sneak attack had triggered the daydreams, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate worth a damn since.

The welcome dinner with the board last night had gone as predicted. Gabriel was conspicuous by his absence and probably on everyone’s mind the whole time. Certainly he was on hers, the snake. Sure, he’d been acting as if he wanted to help her with the campaign, but she had to wonder if that wasn’t about hiding his real intentions. He was a saboteur at heart. And she didn’t need one of those. She was doing well enough on her own.

What had happened to that headlock she was supposed to have on her emotions? More than likely, she was suffering from simple estrogen overload. In theory, the human body was like a hydroelectric dam, which overflowed if left untended, and she was definitely untended. All she needed to do was open the sluice gates a little, and the quickest way to do that was with some good old-fashioned masturbation—or what her mother had called “naughty fingers” when Tess was growing up.

The Queen of Euphemisms, her mother. “In the family way” meant pregnant and the birth was a “happy event.” The bathroom was “the smallest room in the house,” and a woman’s period was “a visiting friend.” Tess’s favorite—“tired and overemotional”—was how her mother described her father when he got carried away with the communion wine.

God bless them, her parents could never have been accused of neglect. Tess was a desperately wanted only child, and her mother had anxiously attempted to control every aspect of her daughter’s existence. All in an effort to protect her, of course—from life’s pain, from its ridicule and shame. Sad that her mother had resorted to ridicule and shame, herself.

Tess had been shy and overweight, and her parents had tried to embarrass her out of both. Her mother had weighed Tess before every meal, bought her clothes that were too small and put her on her first medically supervised diet at five. Five? Mom, what were you thinking? The debating team and the glee club had been Dad’s idea. Under all the pressure, Tess had developed a stutter.

Fortunately, she’d outgrown it and the weight, which had turned out to be a combination of baby fat and adolescent rebellion. But when she’d slimmed down in college—and started getting attention from boys—she’d gone a little crazy. Enter the wild-child phase. She’d been looking for love in all the wrong places, needing to prove to herself again and again that she was desirable to men when what she’d really wanted was the love and acceptance she didn’t get as a kid.

Most of the boys she was with couldn’t handle the sex part, much less provide any sensitivity toward her emotional needs, which even she wasn’t aware of at the time. Tess could barely remember the encounters, probably because she didn’t want to think about all that furtive groping in hallway alcoves and the sweaty fumbling in parked cars. But there was one guy she did remember.

What a wicked kinky dude Jonathan Wiley was. Not a boy, a man—and maybe a demon escaped from her id, if anything Freud had said was true. Wiley had quietly insisted that she had talent and could have a big acting career, if she wanted. Yeah, sure. She’d barely heard that part, given the blazingly erotic stuff he’d whispered in her ear during their after-hours coaching sessions.

Tess remembered his suggestions in far too much detail: If I had you where I want you right now—naked with your bottom in the air—I wouldn’t know whether to swat you or lick you like an ice cream cone.

He’d talked about restraining her with the ropes that hung from the stage rigging, freeing her from her clothing—and her inhibitions—and arousing her until she fainted dead away. He’d been particularly obsessed with her ass, and all the amazing things he could do to it, including love bites and erotic discipline. Spanking, to be exact. He’d whispered about disciplining her in ways that had made her hair stand on end, but only to bring her the most intense pleasure, of course.

Honestly, he’d frightened the hell out of her, and she’d run for her life. She was only eighteen. But much of what he’d said and done had stayed with her, and as she’d matured into her twenties, the fear had faded, and she’d become secretly fascinated with some of his suggestions, especially the darker ones.

That had scared her a little. Still did. Especially given that just thinking about it made her hot and twitchy. Like now.

“Enough, Tess,” she warned. “You’re not a college kid anymore, and Danny Gabriel is not an incarnation of Wiley.” Despite the sensual features and the seductive ways. All Gabriel did was kiss her.

She got up from her desk and went over to the water dispenser, hoping a cold drink would put out the fire. On the way she passed the Messerschmitt mounted on the wall. “Give it your best shot,” she said softly. “I’m pretty fast.”

She drank several tiny paper cups of water and went back to her desk. This wasn’t her first time dealing with sluice gates. She was a healthy thirty-two-year-old woman, who’d been celibate for a very long time, and she’d had to find creative ways to deal with the situation. Quite by accident, she’d discovered a certain yoga position that had brought about some spontaneous relief. It might even have made the Cosmo orgasm quiz.

She needed to start doing yoga again. Quickly.

She was thinking fondly about her version of the full lotus position when the phone rang. It was the landline, which reminded her that her PDA was still missing. She’d looked everywhere, including the lost and found in the coffee lounge. She’d stopped by security this morning and reported it. She’d also picked up a replacement phone, but it contained none of her vital information, of course.

She went back to studying the glossies as she picked up the receiver. “Tess Wakefield,” she said.

“I know who you are. I just don’t know why you’re not here.”

Tess had a moment of confusion. The male voice struck a familiar chord, but she didn’t know how to respond. It had to be Danny. “Where are you?”

“Waiting for you down here in the Sandbox.”

“The Sandbox? Why are you there?”

“Tess, hello! It’s Andy. We’re all waiting for you down here in the sandbox. You called a team meeting this morning, remember?”

Tess fell back in her chair. Suddenly her heart was pounding when before it had been utterly still. She’d just daydreamed her way through fifteen minutes of the session she’d scheduled with her team. And after all the peptalking she’d done, trying to impress upon them how important it was for them to be prepared. Oh, yes, she definitely needed to get busy with those naughty fingers.

“Okay, this is major,” Carlotta told the team. “We choose one man and one woman with tremendous potential, and we call them Faustini spokesmodels. We create images for them that are totally distinctive, maybe something like Darth Vader for the man.”

Tess had been hoping for something other than Darth Vader, but Carlotta clearly loved the idea. Her expression said she was waiting for affirmation, applause, something. Her shapely butt was perched in a belt swing that hung from the ceiling on chains. Andy had taken the other swing, right next to her, and the rest of the team was sitting around the conference table, which was an old-fashioned picnic table.

Of all the agency’s themed conference rooms, the Sandbox was the favorite, probably because it suggested a day at the beach. Only a wall-size wipe board and a flip chart said business as usual. Otherwise, the wedge-shaped room was lined with real bamboo in naturalistic planter boxes, and the floor was exotic pink sand, imported from somewhere in the South Pacific. The rustic table could have been found at any state park, and the ceiling was painted sky blue. Several large skylights washed the room in sunny yellow.

Natural light, bare feet and sifting sands were supposed to inspire greatness, apparently. Mostly, they inspired Tess to nap like a cat in the sunshine, but that was about it. All this outer pressure and inner tension was getting to her.

“Batman and Catwoman?” Andy suggested.

“That’s distinctive?” Carlotta’s tone dismissed him. “With my idea, we save the client money because the spokesmodels do the entire campaign, and we create magnificent brand identification.”

“Only if the models are magnificent,” Tess countered.

“They will be—”

“Listen to this,” Brad cut in. He rose from the picnic table, his bare feet squishing in the sand. “We set the photo shoot in one of those hot new S&M clubs in the city. We’ll find ourselves the fucking Prince of Darkness and outfit him in Faustini.”

“I love it!” Carlotta squealed.

Tess wasn’t thrilled with the concept, nor did she think Faustini would be, but she was curious where her team might take it. “What about the woman?”

“Streetwalker chic? Gothic glam?” Brad offered his suggestions with a shrug. “I disagree that we need to be distinctive. Faustini already is distinctive. We need to get low-down and dirty. Make people notice.”

“What’s wrong with pulling women’s underwear out of a briefcase?” Andy said, apparently referring to his idea from yesterday.

Tess reached for her tote, where she’d put the manila envelope with the glossies. A moment later she had the pictures fanned across the picnic table like a large deck of cards.

“Good luck finding Darth Vader in this bunch” she said, “and by the way, I’m not sold on the club idea.”

Jan Butler got up from the table and went over to the wipe board, where she grabbed a grease pen and wrote two words.

“Performance advertising,” she said, turning to the group. “We hire actors in all the major cities to walk around in their underwear carrying Faustini cases, chanting ‘Clothes don’t make the man, Faustini does.’”

“And get our client charged for indecent exposure?” Tess shivered.

“Or,” Butler said, not giving up, “we could hire the actors to be human billboards, print Faustini across their foreheads and send them into the streets. It worked for a company named SnoreStop.”

Everyone laughed, but it didn’t work for Tess. “Sorry,” she said, “it’s back to the drawing board, everybody. I really am sorry.”

Andy fell out of the swing and onto his knees, pretending to collapse as he sank into the sand. His meaning was obvious. Tess was asking too much. It didn’t escape any of them. Nobody looked happy about her announcement, and neither was she. They were working 24/7 now, and they were running out of time. The meeting with Faustini was scheduled for late next week, but prior to that there was a dress rehearsal for Erica. If the boss wasn’t happy, Tess was screwed.

Tess quelled the urge to end the meeting with a pep talk. She couldn’t very well whip the group into shape when she’d just nixed all their ideas and didn’t have anything to offer herself. It was up to her now.

“He’s hot,” Mitzi said as Tess came out of the stall.

“Who’s hot?” Tess straightened her jeans and cashmere turtleneck as she walked to the counter, wondering if the sweater’s oatmeal color was washing her out a bit. She used to be a blue-eyed blonde. In this light everything looked dishwatery, even her eyes.

She glanced over at Mitzi, startled to see the washroom attendant holding up a glossy of one of the male models from the stack Tess had left on the counter.

“That’s my work you’re going through,” Tess said.

“Of course.” Mitzi seemed confused. “That’s why you left it out, isn’t it? A lot of the creatives consult me on their ideas, and I assumed—What? You didn’t want me to look at the pictures?”

Tess felt as if she should be angry, but she didn’t have the energy. “I was in a hurry. I left it on the counter because it was awkward taking it into the stall.”

“I see. Well, if you don’t want my input, that’s strictly up to you.”

Mitzi was quiet for exactly two seconds. Tess counted. One one-thousand, two one-thousand.

“But if I were you—” Mitzi flapped the picture, a young stud in a black biker’s jacket and low-slung jeans, “I’d give this cutie a Faustini briefcase with fake dials and have him turn it on like it was a boom box. He could be walking down the street with it, bopping along, and suddenly there are a bunch of tall sexy women coming his way, and they surround him and make him dance with them.”

Tess cocked her head. The idea had some originality at least. “How did you know who the client was? Did you read my notes, too?”

“Well, sure, I thought that’s why you left the envelope. The slogan could go something like ‘Faustini makes you feel like dancing.’ You know, from the song? But, it’s up to you. If you don’t want my opinion, I’ll keep it to myself.”

The slogan wasn’t too bad, either, Tess allowed. Of course, she couldn’t steal Mitzi’s ideas. It wouldn’t be ethical, and she really couldn’t blame Mitzi for looking at the pictures. If Tess didn’t want people messing with her stuff, she shouldn’t be giving them the opportunity, which included the information on her PDA.

Meanwhile, Mitzi looked wounded, and Tess felt guilty.

“I really should hire you,” Tess said. “Your ideas make more sense than a photo shoot in an S&M club, which seems to be the way my team wants to go.”

“S&M? For Faustini?”

The voice came from one of the stalls. It was followed by the music of a flushing toilet, and then the door opened, and Danny Gabriel appeared.

The man had amazing timing. If eavesdropping were an Olympic event, he’d take the gold.

His hands lifted away from his fly, and the graceful movement drew Tess’s gaze directly there. Fortunately, he was already busy tucking his tuxedo-front white dress shirt into his pants and didn’t notice her gawking. He wore old-fashioned blue jeans, but the fit was killer. The waist was low and the legs were high, stovepipes that shot all the way to his crotch, creating a cupping effect.

She could almost imagine placing her hand there…and squeezing.

Good grief. She would need a lobotomy to remove the image from her brain.

Mitzi slipped off her stool, scurrying to turn on a faucet for him and get a towel ready. Tess moved away from the counter, making way for Mr. Hot Pants. It was clear who got the royal treatment around here.

Tess would have to be very sure not to bow and scrape. “Why didn’t you let somebody know you were in there?” she asked him.

He shook water droplets from his hands and took the paper towel Mitzi offered. “Is that a new rule?”

He glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting an answer. She’d forgotten what she said. The jeans worked from this angle too. The back pockets cupped the part of him that seemed to be the birthright of the male gender. A great tight smackable butt.

“I wasn’t serious about the S&M,” she told him quickly. She didn’t want that getting back to the client.

“I was. It’s a great idea.” He caught her reflection in the mirror.

She didn’t look away, but she wanted to. He was so fucking confrontational. She debated telling him it wasn’t his campaign to be serious about, but her covert mission was to teach Mr. Gabriel to play nice, so she held her fire. There would be plenty of opportunities to enlighten him.

In a calm, neutral voice, she said, “In my first meeting with Faustini’s head of North American operations, he told me that he didn’t want sex, drugs and rock and roll. He was very clear about Faustini’s parameters. No nudity, profanity, silver studs or whips.”

“Then you have to give them nudity, profanity, silver studs and whips because that’s exactly what they do want. They’ve just given you a glimpse of their libidinal desires. They’re telling you what’s forbidden to them—and down deep everybody wants what’s forbidden, including Faustini’s customers.”

“You’re telling me to try and convince Faustini that an S&M club should be their new image? Who should I suggest as their spokesmodel? Satan?”

His expression brightened. “Can you think of anybody better? However, I’d call him the Prince of Darkness. It’s more romantic.”

“Now we’re romanticizing Satan? Pratt-Summers already has a reputation of not being sensitive to the client’s needs,” she reminded him pointedly, “and it’s losing the agency business. Clients know they can go elsewhere and be heard. And given the cost of advertising these days, they want to be heard. Faustini has hired us to do a job. They’re our employer.”

“Exactly, they hired us to do our job. We don’t make leather goods. That’s their job, and we don’t try to tell them how to do it. They shouldn’t tell us how to do advertising.”

Tess was momentarily stymied. “Okay…but there’s a significant difference. We’re not buying their leather goods. They’re buying our ads, and they should get what they want.”

“What they need, yes. What they want? Never.”

Tess sighed. It was axiomatic that you couldn’t succeed in advertising by ignoring the client, and yet Danny Gabriel had been doing it very successfully for years. He probably would have gone on doing it had Erica Summers not decided to change the game plan. These days Erica was more interested in expansion than in awards and prestige. She wanted Pratt-Summers to have a global presence, and that meant they needed to attract more traditional clients, like financial institutions and insurance companies, the type who would be terrified of putting their image in the hands of Danny Gabriel.

The hands of Danny Gabriel.

He touched her ankle, innocently positioning it, and streamers of light shot up her thighs, straight to her—

Tess tried to block the image, but she’d had far too much personal experience with his hands. They’d burned sensory impressions into her brain that replayed at the slightest provocation, like now. She felt like a post-trau-matic stress victim.

She looked up to see him looking at her too, but not her hands. Her eyes. He was gazing into her washed-out eyes with abject interest.

“Did you know that women can have orgasms that last up to an hour?” he said, his voice dropping to an intimate whisper. “And they stop breathing for minutes at a time, like a deep-sea diver.”

Jesus, no wonder he reminded her of Wiley. That could have been straight out of her professor’s mouth.

“Well, thank you for sharing,” she said, trying to keep her composure. “No, I didn’t know that. I doubt if Mitzi did, either.”

Mitzi was looking through the pictures and making notes on them with Tess’s grease pen. “Of course I knew that,” she said, not bothering to look up. “I had one this morning. Forty-five minutes, but who’s counting.”

What was it with this agency and orgasms? One would think they had the Viagra account. Mitzi spoke from proud personal experience. Tess wondered if Gabriel did, as well. Everyone in the place seemed to have the most incredible sex life. Was it something Mitzi was selling?

“If we’re going to talk business,” Tess said to Gabriel, hoping to steer the conversation back to exactly that, “maybe we should go somewhere else.”

Danny smoothed back tendrils of dark hair, tucking them into his ponytail. “I’m sure Mitzi doesn’t mind. She knows everything there is to know about this place, anyway.”

“Hopefully, she’s not a spy,” Tess said under her breath.

“Here’s a thought.” He glanced at his watch. “You know about our massage room, don’t you? I have one scheduled in ten minutes, and the room has two tables. I could ask the masseuse to work on both of us. She won’t mind. She can switch back and forth, and we can talk.”

He liked the idea. She could tell by his smile.

“A couples massage,” he said.

Tess thought about that. She really did. Naked in the same room with him, sharing the same masseuse, a woman who would be moving back and forth between them, her hands all over him and then those same hands rubbing all over Tess. Something about that made her nervous.

“I’ll pass,” she said. “Massages put me to sleep. I’d never be able to concentrate.”

“In that case, sit and talk to me while I have a massage.”

Somehow that option didn’t make Tess any less nervous. “Not this time,” she said.

“Rain check, then?”

“Oh, right, definitely. For sure.”

Gabriel took a money clip from his pocket. He pulled out a couple of bills that looked suspiciously like fifties, walked over to Mitzi and tucked them in the pocket of her navy blue duster coat. He thanked her without saying what for, nodded to Tess, and left.

As soon as the door closed, Tess turned to Mitzi. “What the hell was that about?”

“The one-hour orgasm?” Mitzi grinned. “One of his accounts is a pharmaceutical giant that’s developed the female equivalent of Viagra. Danny’s doing his research.”

So, Tess hadn’t been too far off about the Viagra. But she hadn’t meant the orgasm question. She’d meant the money. Was that an exorbitant tip, or was Gabriel paying Mitzi money owed for something he’d bought? It smacked of something more clandestine, like a drug deal or a bribe, but he’d hardly do those things in front of Tess. Was he buying her cooperation, maybe her silence?

Tess got closer to Mitzi, speaking in whispers. “You said something about Danny Gabriel having a secret.”

“I also said I couldn’t reveal it.”

“Name your price. I’ll pay.” If Mitzi was an information broker, Tess wasn’t above greasing her palm.

Mitzi just smiled. “Here’s your dominatrix for the Faustini ad,” she said, handing Tess the stack of glossies. “She’s right on top.”

The model Mitzi had picked was a long-lashed beauty with cat eyes, black-cherry lips and an evil smile. She would be the perfect Mistress of Pain, if Tess were going that route. But she wasn’t.

She thanked Mitzi, but did not slip any money into her pocket. The information broker would have to do better than that.

Chapter Five

Tess stood on the corner, clutching her tote to her body for warmth as she waved at the cabs sailing by. Someone should have warned her that a standard-issue quilted coat wouldn’t cut it this time of year. Was this New York or Antarctica? It was so cold her breath had created an impenetrable fog bank, which might be the reason cabs weren’t stopping. They couldn’t see her.

It was nearly midnight. She’d just finished working on the Faustini campaign, and her next mission was to get home. Not as easy as it sounded for a native Californian in New York. She’d decided to hail a cab rather than take the subway at this hour. Her furnished two-bedroom condo on the Upper East Side was owned by the agency and used for consultants and commuting executives, but Erica Summers had promised it to Tess, rent free, for as long as she was with the agency. That had cinched the deal for Tess. Finding an affordable apartment in Manhattan was not unlike a quest for the Holy Grail.

“Help the crazy freezing woman!” White steam plumed from Tess’s mouth. She had little personal cab-hailing experience—people drove their own cars in L.A.—but she’d been coached by Andy to be aggressive. Curse at them, he’d said. Flip them the bird. Speak their language, and they’ll stop every time, out of respect.

Tess might have to throw her body in front of their wheels to get respect tonight. Interesting that she was feeling almost ballsy enough to do it. She’d made some incredible progress in the last several hours. She’d actually come up with a concept and roughed out the print ads for the Faustini campaign.

Her imagination was still soaring. Brad Hayes had inspired the idea when he’d suggested goth glam, which didn’t quite cover all the bases, in Tess’s opinion. She’d tweaked it a bit and come up with Elegant Goth, reasoning that elegance would satisfy the loyal Faustini customers, and the gothic touch would attract the new young, hip crowd they wanted. It would either be the perfect crossover, or it would miss both markets and totally tank.

But Tess had a good feeling about it. And her team had liked the concept too, at least the ones she could reach. She’d arranged an emergency after-hours conference call to brainstorm the idea, and she, Andy, Brad and Carlotta had patched together a print layout with the Elegant Goth theme. Tess had been refining it until moments ago.

“Over here!” she yelled as a cab veered toward her. It rolled past her at a good clip and stopped up the street, brakes screeching. Tess broke into a run, struggling with her coat and bag, and praying the cab wouldn’t take off without her. The back door opened magically as she reached the car, and she piled inside. The only thing on her mind was escaping the cold.

She gave the driver her address as she pulled the door shut. Panting, she turned to throw her tote on the seat beside her and saw that something was already there. Or rather, someone. A man.

“Oh! I didn’t know the cab was occupied—” Several startling truths hit Tess all at once. She couldn’t get out of the cab. The driver had already taken off. They were speeding down the street, and beams from the streetlights illuminated the other passenger’s face. His shadow-carved features were disturbingly familiar. She could even see the scar.

“Danny Gabriel? What are you doing?”

The very slowness of Gabriel’s smile made it seem sinister. Tess sprang up to get the driver’s attention, but Gabriel blocked her. He clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back with him, mauling her in a way that would have been quite obscene, if not for the quilted coat.

“The Marquis Club,” he told the driver. To Tess he said in a low, mock-menacing voice, “You’re coming with me. Don’t say a word, and you won’t get hurt.”

Tess pried his hand off her mouth. “You’ve been watching too many movies. All I have to do is scream, and the driver will call the police.”

Gabriel shook his head in slow motion. “Not after the wad of cash I gave him. Besides, I told him we were regulars of the club, and we’re playing out a little fantasy. It happens all the time.”

It was beginning to dawn on Tess that this had to be a joke. Coworkers didn’t take each other hostage in taxis in the middle of the night.

“The Marquis Club?” she said. “That’s at the Marriott Marquis Hotel, right? On Forty-second Street?”

Danny just laughed. “Sweetheart, it’s marquis as in Marquis de Sade, and it’s the perfect backdrop for the Faustini campaign.”

“But that sounds like—”

“An S&M club. You’re going to love it. But don’t feel like you have to thank me. We all work for the same agency, right?”

“But we’re not all on the same team. How did you know I was working late? Are you spying on me?”

“Mmm.” His voice dropped low. “Your every move.”

Okay, maybe this wasn’t a joke. Tess weighed her options. She didn’t lack nerve. She’d moved to New York on her own, but going to an S&M club with him was about as safe and sane as flipping off a cabdriver. In other words, not.

“Pull over,” she told the driver. “I’m getting out here.”

The driver glanced into the rearview mirror, apparently humoring her with his quick nod and smile. He did not pull over.

“He thinks it’s part of the game,” Gabriel said.

“Well, game’s over!” Tess tapped at her watch. “Do you realize what time it is? I scheduled a run-through with Erica Summers tomorrow at eight-thirty.”

“That’s why we’re hitting the club tonight. You have to see this place to believe it.”

“Hey, I already have the concept for the ad, and I’m not changing it. I want to go home and sleep.” She shot him a hard stare. “Why do you care what I do with the Faustini account? Unless you want me to make a wrong move and fall on my face.”

“That’s cold,” he said. “The account was supposed to have been mine, and I put in a lot of time thinking about it.”

“Sounds like a reason to want to sabotage me, not help me.”

“It would be, if I worked that way. This is a concept you might have learned in kindergarten, Tess. It’s called sharing.”

Conviction again. And it was very convincing when he decided to turn it on. A shock of dark hair had worked its way free from his ponytail and was flirting with his jawline. He didn’t bother with it. She wanted to. It was difficult not to wonder what he’d look like with his hair loose and flowing. Way out of style these days, but probably wildly sensual on him. The man could have invented sex. It was that bad.

“Okay, maybe I shouldn’t accuse you,” she said, hoping to appeal to his sense of honor. Ha! “But some other night, okay? You can take me to the club and punish me for being bad.”

“You said it. I’m not letting you out of this cab, though.”

“That’s abduction, Danny.”

“You called me Danny.” He said it as if that had some kind of special significance to their situation. “And no, it’s not abduction in the criminal sense. It’s a great sexual fantasy being played out by a man and a woman, whom everyone will believe are two consenting adults. I could throw you over my shoulder and carry you into the club kicking and screaming. No one would say a word.”

“That’s evil.”

“Yeah, it is. You’re going to love the place.” His smile was panic-inducing. Probably that damn scar.

“I’ll love it some other time.”

“Come on, check it out. What are you afraid of, Tess? That someone else might have a good idea? Or that you might like the club?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You’re a freak at heart?”

“You wish. How do you know so much about this place?”

“Mitzi, of course.”

“Mitzi’s freaky?”

“She’s adventurous, which is more than I can say for you.”

Tess heaved a sigh. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk him out of it.

“I’ll take a look,” she finally said. “Fifteen minutes, and then I’m out of there, with or without you, agreed? Those are my conditions, but only if you pay the cabbie in advance to wait outside, all night, if necessary.”

“Not a problem. I already have the cab for the night, the entire night.”

Moments later, the driver pulled into an underground parking garage and stopped in front of an elevator bank. Graffiti marred the garage walls, making it look more like a tenement than an upscale club. Tess didn’t have much hope for the place, and she was more suspicious of his motives than ever.

She’d locked most of the materials for tomorrow’s run-through in her desk drawer at the office, but her sketch pad didn’t fit in the drawer, and at the last minute, she’d crammed it in her tote bag. She didn’t like the idea of leaving the tote in the cab, but it was probably safer than taking it into the club, so she put the bag on the floor, hoping the driver wouldn’t realize it was there. As she and Danny got out of the car, she noticed a symbol painted on the wall above the elevator. It looked like a snake, curled in a perfect circle and swallowing its own tail. How reassuring.

The elevator rose to an unmarked floor and the doors opened to oceanlike darkness. Things slithered and swam in front of Tess’s eyes. Light and shadows? Living beings? She couldn’t tell.

She didn’t move until Danny took her hand. “Come on,” he coaxed, leading her out of the car and onto a path illuminated by red votive candles with white flames. “I’ll protect you.”

She didn’t miss the irony in his tone, but Tess wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t need protection. Muted screams drifted up from some lower floor. The club probably had a dungeon. Tess imagined floggings and body parts being stretched. But probably it was nothing more than tattoos and piercings being done without benefit of anesthesia.

They’d only taken a few steps when a scarlet spotlight illuminated a scene to their left. Tess’s vision hadn’t adjusted, but it looked like a woman in stocks. Her head and hands were enclosed in wooden yokes that were secured to low posts, forcing her to bend at the waist. A man stood just behind her, and—

Tess ventured closer. Was she naked? At first, Tess thought they were statues. Neither seemed to be moving, but then she caught the rhythmic motion of the man’s hips, and the look of utter ecstasy on the woman’s face.

Tess jumped back. They were both naked, and he was either having carnal knowledge of her from behind, or doing a very good job of simulating it.

Was that legal in the state of New York? Tess didn’t look at Danny. She must be as red as the glow from the spotlight.

Another scene lit up the path to their right. Tess could see a man kneeling in a pool of soft fuchsia light. He was holding on to the thong of a bullwhip, the end of which was wrapped around his neck. He wore a tattered T-shirt and jeans, but the woman who wielded the whip was nude, except for her tightly laced stiletto boots and the snake bracelets coiling up her arms. Clearly, she was the dominant of the two, a fuchsia goddess as she gripped the whip handle in one hand and a branding iron in the other.

“This is all playacting, right?” Tess resisted the tug of Danny’s hand. “Tell me it is, or I’m leaving.”

“Sure, play-acting.”

Tess allowed herself to be nudged along, until a howl of anguish brought her to a dead stop. Not the branded love slave. It hadn’t come from his direction, but it was nearby. “What was that?”

“A sound track, obviously. It’s all playacting.”

“Thanks.” It was a sad state of affairs when a smart-ass like Danny Gabriel was your only ally in a hellhole like this. Tess had no desire to see what came next, but the path kept lighting up as they walked, and it was nearly impossible not to look. To their left, a sinuous female creature in black body paint writhed over the supine body of a naked man, who, except for the twitching, looked nearly comatose. And deliriously happy. Maybe he was the one who’d howled.

“She’s a succubus,” Danny explained.

“And a succubus is…?”

“A nasty little she-devil who preys on sleeping males, drains all their precious vital fluids and leaves them for dead.”

“Maybe I could help her pick her next victim.” Tess locked her gaze on the path ahead and kept it there. These places were not designed for women who’d sworn off sex, especially if they were in the throes of PMS, which for Tess was the hormonal equivalent of a Siamese cat in heat. Possibly she should have wrestled the whip from the fuchsia goddess and laid claim to the love slave, although the comatose guy was probably more her speed.

More spotlights came on, creating a vibrant rainbow in the red-to-purple spectrum. Since Tess was reluctant to look, Danny was kind enough to describe the new scenes, one being a contortionist who could pleasure herself while doing back bends, the other a female magician who was making the clothing disappear, one piece at a time, of a restrained man whom Danny referred to as unnaturally well endowed.

It was too dark to check her watch, but Tess was certain her fifteen minutes must be up. “Well, it’s been fun,” she said, “but I have to be going.”

“Not quite yet.” With a flick of his wrist, Danny drew her in front of him, as if he were partnering her in a dance move.

“Is this where I get sold into white slavery?” she joked nervously.

Before he could answer, another spotlight came on. It threw an eerie blue glow directly in front of them. Tess watched it cover her feet like a poisonous mist and creep up her legs. Her denim jeans seemed to absorb the color, but it was turning her oatmeal turtleneck a ghastly shade of red. Bloodred.

Danny had a death grip on her arms. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“Heads up,” he whispered. “It’s our host, the Marquis.”

Silhouetted in blue, the Marquis was a towering figure. But as he stepped forward, Tess realized that he wasn’t the personification of evil she expected. He was tall and lean enough to be wraithlike, but with his classically sculpted face and slicked-back hair he could have been any haughty maître d’ in a tux at a fancy restaurant. Maybe she should have been relieved.

“Welcome,” he said in a hypnotic voice that barely rose above a whisper. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Ignoring Danny, the Marquis approached Tess with studied elegance, took her hand and kissed it. His lips were warm, human. That was a relief. She wasn’t dealing with the living dead, at least not yet. Something rough scratched the inside of her palm, and she felt a mild stinging sensation, but she didn’t pull away. That would have been rude, wouldn’t it? Who knew about the rules of etiquette in an S&M club?

As he released her hand, the walls opened up behind him, revealing a dark fairy-tale world of red velvet draperies and sparkling crystal chandeliers. He beckoned for Tess and Danny to follow him, and Tess did so automatically, feeling almost as if a spell had been cast over her. She was barely aware of the small voice in her head suggesting that she should have known better than to do it again—pass through doors that magically opened.

They stepped into a hall that could have been a lavish period movie set. It resembled the lobby of a Victorian opera house, but done on a very grand scale. Ebony and gold carpeting covered the floor and staircases. Crushed-velvet drapes the color of garnets set off antique chaises and settees, and richly woven wall hangings added to the opulence.

If it was a movie, it was The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s turn-of-the-century novel about social mores. But far from innocent, Tess realized as she got a closer look at the wall hangings. Garden of Eden-like scenes were laced with furtive couplings and erotic dalliances of all kinds. Men, women, and fairy-tale beasts copulated with abandon and in all manner of combinations.

Tess glanced overhead and saw that the vaulted ceilings were painted with landscapes, mostly forests and glens teaming with magical animals, horned satyrs and swooning virgins. Women being carried off by Minotaurs was a popular theme, but there were plenty of helpless men getting roughed up by lustful nymphs, and even a princess being ravished by a god in the form of a black swan.

Several dramatic chords of music sounded, and the chandeliers dimmed. Tess turned to find out what was going on—and got the shock of her life. The Marquis had transformed in the seconds she’d turned away. His hair was now long and silvery-white. His eyes were yellow with black slits—serpent’s eyes—and the hiss in his throat was a death rattle.

Tess jumped back, bewildered. Was this some kind of joke? The sounds of high-pitched chatter assailed her. Suddenly the empty hall was filled with laughing, costumed people in various states of undress. A lion on a leash was actually a man on all fours, his handler a young woman in snakeskin with a riding crop between her teeth. A magnificently muscled black man in a turban and a diaper-like garment nuzzled with a cobra that was wound around his neck like lethal jewelry.

Where was Danny? Tess spun around, frantically searching the room, only to discover that now the Marquis was gone, too. She found herself in the direct path of a knot of men and women wearing the garish paint and powder of the French court. The men’s tight breeches cupped obscene bulges, and the women’s empire gowns were cut to expose their jiggling, rosy-tipped breasts.

As they neared Tess, one of the women drew a long, hot-pink feather from her ghostly white hair and stopped to caress Tess’s face with it. The woman pursed her violently red lips, inviting a kiss. Tess felt fingers tickling her butt, and she whirled, aware that the group had surrounded her. They were laughing, whispering, touching and petting, crowding closer.

“Excuse me!” Tess pushed through them and nearly collided with Danny. She’d never been so glad to see anyone. “Where did you go?” she demanded.

Danny’s hair was long and flowing out of the ponytail. His eyes were dark, fevered.

“I didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “You turned and looked right through me, like you were in a trance or something. You didn’t see me?”

Tess didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course she hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t been there, unless she was having hallucinations, which was beginning to seem like a possibility. She did feel a little disoriented, but who wouldn’t in a place like this?

Her thoughts raced back to the Marquis’ handshake, and the scratch she’d felt on her palm, but she had no time to reason things through. The Marquis’ voice boomed in the massive room. Tess was startled to see him just a few feet away from her and looking exactly as he had, black hair slicked back from his severely handsome features. What struck her as different was his voice. It sounded as if it was coming from speakers instead of his body.

“Good evening, my lovelies,” the Marquis said, bowing as he addressed the strange crowd. “The last live performance of the evening begins in five minutes. Please take your seats in the Exhibition Hall immediately. The red seats are electrified with a random charge of varying wattage, for your viewing pleasure.”

His lovelies began to file through large open arches that led to an auditorium. Tess caught a glimpse of massive chandeliers and gilded box seats and miles of crimson velvet.

“Are you up for a live performance?” Danny asked.

“Of what?”

“Your guess.” He shrugged. “We can always leave…I think.”

“Sometimes having options is worse than not having them.” She sighed, exasperated. “What the hell. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what-if, as I’m sure I would in this case.”

They waited until the motley crew had taken their seats before entering the auditorium. A hush had fallen over the room that made Tess feel as if she were at Lincoln Center, anticipating a performance by the Ballets Russes.

Danny found seats in a row near the back, which Tess eyed suspiciously and then refused. It was too dark to see what color they were, and she didn’t need another shock right now, thanks. Instead, she planted herself in the aisle and watched the curtain rise, wondering what in God’s name she was going to see next.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.