Dark Bites

But from what he could see, green had to be beautiful.

Her eyes were a bit large for her pixie face, and they were always bright and teasing when she looked at him.

He could stare into those eyes for an eternity.

Adrian ran his gaze over her lush curves, and he hardened even more as raw, demanding desire tore through him. Sam had once complained about her weight, but he couldn’t find any fault with it. After growing up with a skinny, frail mother and sister, he couldn’t stand to see a woman with no meat on her bones.

Her full, voluptuous body made him absolutely crazy with unspent lust. And for the last year, he’d been forced to learn to live with a raging erection every time he got near her, or heard the sound of her smooth Southern drawl.

Sam paused and looked up at him. “Did you need something else?”

Yeah, I need you to smile at me.

Touch me.

Better still, I need you to climb me like a ladder…

“No,” he said as another page sounded for him.

Adrian turned away from her and answered the page with his cell phone as he headed upstairs to tend Scott’s antsy twitters.

Sam clenched her hands as her computer clock showed ten after five. An anxious tremor went through her as she feared Adrian might have changed his mind about going out with her.

Taking a deep breath for courage, she shut down her computer, then walked the short distance to Adrian’s office.

He had his back to her as he typed like lightning on his keyboard while talking on the phone. “It’s switched,” he said. “Everything is clear… No, I ran the logs, and as of yesterday, we’ve cleared seven hundred thousand dollars in orders since the end of October… Yeah,” he said with a light laugh. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

He hung up the phone, and she saw him rub his hand over his eyes as if he had a headache. His cell phone rang. Without breaking stride, he answered it.

“Hi, Tiffany,” he said to their marketing director. “Yeah, I’ll be here for a few more minutes. I was planning on implementing your changeover after Christmas since there’s a good chance it could slow down site access.” He listened as he worked and Sam shook her head.

The man was simply amazing. She didn’t know how he managed to stay on top of everything, but he did.

He pushed his chair back from his computer desk and swung it around to the desk in front of her. As his gaze fell on her, he smiled that wolfish grin that made her blood race. She felt a vicious stab of desire straight through her middle.

Reaching for a stack of reports, he flipped to one of the middle pages. “Okay,” he said to Tiffany. “I’ll take care of it first thing in the morning.”

He clicked off his phone. “Sorry about that,” he said to Sam. “I didn’t know you were standing there. Just give me a sec, I’ll get this finished, and we can leave.”

Sam let out a relieved breath. Thank goodness, he hadn’t changed his mind. She moved into his office and took a seat against the window as she waited for him. “Have we really done seven hundred thousand dollars off the site since Halloween?”

He nodded. “We should easily hit a million by Christmas.” He flashed her another smile. “Should make for nice bonuses.”

Money, she didn’t care about. So long as she made enough to cover her car and rent, she was completely happy. But she was glad for Adrian’s sake. Their business-to-business e-commerce Web site was his pride and joy, and he took a lot of flak from the higher-ups when the site didn’t perform the way they thought it should.

Sam looked up as Tiffany stalked into Adrian’s office. “Adrian,” Tiffany whined as she glanced at Sam without acknowledging her. Thin, tall, and gorgeous, Tiffany should have been a model. All the leggy blonde had to do was bat her eyelashes, and every guy in the building would drop what he was doing and rush to her side.

And every time Sam got near her, she felt like a warted troll in comparison.

“Adrian,” Tiffany said again. “I got an e-mail from a customer wanting to know why he has to enter in his password every time he wants to order something. He wants us to fix it so that he can just do a one-click order option. What should I tell him?”

Adrian didn’t pause in his typing as he answered. “That it’s a safeguard to save his butt should one of his disgruntled employees get ticked off, and decide to order several thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise and charge it to his account.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes at Adrian’s sarcasm. “Well, he says – ”

“I don’t give a damn what he says,” Adrian said calmly.

Sam bit her lip as Tiffany’s face flushed bright red. That was Adrian’s only flaw. The man didn’t pull punches, and he always spoke his mind, consequences be damned.

“Those safeguards are there for his protection,” he continued, “and I’m not about to change it since he’ll be the first one to whine when he gets burned.”

Tiffany stomped her foot. “Would you look at me when you’re talking to me?”

Sam arched her brow as Adrian turned around with a look on his face that should have sent Tiffany running. To his credit, all he said was a simple, “Yes?”

“I need a more tactful answer for him than that.” She narrowed those blue eyes at him. “Look, I know you think you own this Web site, but the last time I checked, you were just another flunky here like the rest of us.”

He took a deep breath as both his pager and phone went off. “I tell you what,” he said in a self-controlled tone, “since I’m a flunky here like everyone else, why don’t you come in at midnight tonight to post a press release because the man who signs our checks wants it to go live exactly at that time?” He picked his phone off his belt.

He checked the caller ID, flipped it open, and said, “Scott, it’s not a hacker. I’m validating the PHP.”

Adrian hung up the phone. “Now, Miss Klein, if you want a more tactful response, then please forward the e-mail to me and I will respond to it myself.”

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Tiffany glared at him. “I want a copy of your response.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Tiffany’s nostrils flared. Turning on her red high heels, she stalked out of his office. But as she left, Sam heard her muttering under her breath, “What a friggin’ geek.”

She couldn’t tell if Adrian heard it. He merely checked his pager, then grabbed one of the reports and swung his chair back around to his computer.

“You must get tired of all this,” she said quietly.

“I’m used to it,” he said simply as he started typing again.

Sam shook her head. Poor Adrian. He wasn’t even allowed to get sick. She remembered last summer when he had pneumonia. He’d been forced to drag himself in to work to fix some problem no one else could solve.

The man needed a break.

And how she wished she dared get up from her chair, go over to him and massage those broad, tense shoulders for him. She could just imagine the feel of his lean muscles under her hand, the sight of his handsome features relaxed.

He would be breathtaking.

Sam, you have got to quit fantasizing. Boy-genius doesn’t even know you’re alive.

Even though it was true, she wished things were different between them. Adrian was the first guy she’d ever met whom she really could see herself having kids with. She’d love to have a houseful of tall brainiacs who were fast on a comeback.

It was a full ten minutes before Adrian finally logged off his computer. He got up to shrug on his faded blue ski jacket.

“C’mon,” he said to her. “Let’s make a mad run for the door before someone catches me.”

She laughed, knowing it wasn’t a joke.

He locked his office, then they headed outside to the dimly lit parking lot.

“Why don’t you ride with me?” he asked as she started for her silver Honda. “You’re the only person in the department who hasn’t ridden in the Vette.”

Oh, don’t tempt me, you cruel man. She hadn’t ridden in his Corvette because she couldn’t stand the thought of being so close to him and not being able to touch that wonderful body. “Yeah, but you’ll have to bring me all the way back here.”

“I don’t mind.”

Sam bit her lip as her pulse raced. Don’t do it! Don’t torture yourself.

But one look at his chiseled features in the streetlight and she was hooked. “Okay,” she said with a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

He opened the passenger side door for her, then closed it after she got in. Sam drew a ragged breath at his consideration. She’d never had a man do that for her before.

Adrian got in the other side, and she had to bite back a laugh at the sight of him cramming his long body into the car.

“Don’t say anything,” he said as he put the key in the ignition. “Heather already told me I look like a grasshopper in a peanut shell.”

She couldn’t help laughing at that. “Sorry,” she said, clearing her throat as she caught his sideways glare. “I wouldn’t have laughed if you hadn’t said that.”

Sam leaned back in the black leather seat as she inhaled the warm, spicy scent of him. Good heavens, but that masculine smell made her giddy and hot. She would love nothing more than to lean over, cup the back of his neck with her hand, and kiss the daylights out of those full, sensuous lips.

Adrian started the car and did his best to ignore just how good Sam looked sitting beside him. He ached to reach his hand over to where she had her legs slightly parted and caress her inner thigh.

Oh, yeah, he could already feel the denim and her flesh in his palm. And then, he imagined where he’d like to take his hand next.

Up her thigh to cup her between her legs.

Grinding his teeth, he could see them locked in a kiss, feel her hands sliding over him as he undressed her.

It had been a long time since he’d made out in a car, but for the first time since high school, he found the idea appealing.