Seth moved silently into the control room behind Mia, stopping to quietly shut the door and turn the lock. As if sensing his presence, she started to turn toward him, a look of surprise on her face. He stopped her progress with a hand on her waist. “No, baby, face forward like you were.” He reached lower to squeeze her ass, saying, “I couldn’t think of anything but doing this the first time I saw you in here.” He heard her breath hitch as he used his feet to wedge her legs farther apart. As his hand slid under her skirt, he had never been more grateful for thong underwear and women who refused to wear hose in the summer . . . God bless them. She rubbed against his hand, like a cat wanting to be stroked. He followed the line of her thong, sliding past the sensitive skin of her ass before finding her already wet slit.

She moaned as his fingers stroked through her heat before abruptly stiffening. Her legs tried to close against his hands as she said, “Seth . . . wait . . . we can’t.”

He lowered his head to her ear, nipping it lightly with his teeth. “It’s okay, baby, I locked the door when I came in. We just need to be quick before Margie starts looking for me.” When he attempted to move his hand between her legs again, she held firm even though he could feel her quaking.

“It’s not that,” she whispered. “My boss knows about us. I can’t let anything else happen until the job here is finished.”

“How?” he asked, wondering if everyone including Margie had been spying on them last night.

“Suzy and Gray Merimon were at the Ivy. Suzy recognized me from Danvers and Gray recognized you, although luckily not me. She told my boss, because she wanted me to cool things before someone else found out.”

He felt his cock scream in protest as he pulled back slightly. Having something you wanted literally in the palm of your hand and having it yanked away was sheer torture. He had only known Mia for a few days, but he had a feeling he would have a severe case of blue balls if he had to wait a day, much less a week until he had her again. He had never wanted another woman the way he wanted her. He had turned into a horny teenager seemingly overnight and his cock now ruled his head. Fuck! He still had one hand between her legs and one on her ass. Neither of them had bothered to move farther away from each other. “If we keep this quiet, no one would ever find out. We could avoid being seen together in public until the project is finished here. Hell, what I want to do with you would get us arrested in most states.”

She finally eased away from him, letting her skirt drop back into position. When she turned to face him, he could see the desire and the conflict on her face. “You have no idea how much I want to take you up on that. And you’re right, we could probably get by without being caught, but I would know. My job at Danvers is one of the things that I am most proud of. I got it on my own, without my parents’ help or their approval. It just seems . . . wrong to sneak around. Could you wait for me until we’re finished here?”

Seth looked into her big blue eyes and knew he would agree to whatever she wanted. He might need to ice his lap by the end of each day, but he could make it if it meant another night with her. Giving her a smile, he said, “Yeah, I guess I can do that if you can do something for me?” When she gave him a questioning look, he looked down at her skirt and said, “Please don’t wear anything like that again. Nothing is going to stop me from fucking you if I walk in this room and see you like that again.” With those last words, he went back into his office, pulling the door to the control room closed behind him. He needed the visual out of his mind if he was to survive the day.

As he settled into his chair, preparing for his morning conference call with his family at the other Oceanix Resorts, he felt a trickle of unease. What was he doing with Mia? Hadn’t he decided to avoid romantic hassles and just keep things casual? Of course, he had only agreed to wait until she was finished with the installation project before they had sex again, but that was still a commitment of sorts. When Margie buzzed his phone to let him know the others were ready for the morning conference, he shrugged his paranoia aside. It was just no-strings-attached sex. Nothing had changed for him and he needed to remember that.

Chapter Nine

Mia knocked her head against the wall in frustration. Her installation at the Oceanix Resort was now running into the fourth week. It seemed like there was something that happened daily to push them further behind schedule. Of course, no one else at Danvers was complaining because the cause of most of the delays was the Jackson family deciding to upgrade more of their communications and security equipment. Even Seth had contributed to the project delays. He was having monitors installed in his top-floor penthouse so that he could view any area of the resort from there. She understood his reasoning. It was a lot easier for him to look at a camera in the evening rather than walking through the hotel and being stopped ten times on his way.

Today the finish line was finally in sight when the latest problem cropped up. Their last shipment of cameras had been damaged upon delivery and were going to have to be returned and another set ordered. They could have them overnighted, but she still cursed the delay. She was horny and oh-so-frustrated. The one good thing to come from it all was the additional time she had been spending with Seth.

They had kept to their word and there had been no sex and just a slight blurring of the lines between business and pleasure. More days than not, they managed to find the time to have lunch together in the dining room downstairs. They also usually had a cup of coffee together in his office in the mornings and sometimes a snack in the afternoon. At first, she had done most of the talking. She had told him about going to Brown University and then getting a job at Danvers. He knew her parents well enough to know how they felt about their daughter being a technology geek who was determined to find employment without their help. He constantly asked questions and seemed genuinely interested in her life. After a few days, he opened up to her about his parents and his family. She learned that out of all of his brothers, he was the closest to Ash who ran the Oceanix Resort in Charleston. He laughed as he told her about all of the hell they had raised when they were young and about his mother wanting to send the lot of them to military school. He was glad that his father had put his foot down and said that boys should be boys. Sadly, that seemed to be a saying that his father had continued to live by in his personal life until the very end.

She knew it was only supposed to be lust between them, but somewhere along the way, she had really started to care for Seth. Maybe if they hadn’t been forced to put off having sex, things might have been different. Now, she had gotten to know him more as a person rather than just a sexual partner and that could be bad. Despite the obvious enjoyment of each other’s company, he hadn’t suggested anything beyond sex. Never had there been the mention of an actual date. She was afraid that the delays at the Oceanix Resort could well end up breaking her heart.

It was Wednesday, and the official finish date for the installation was Friday. Mia hoped to finish on Thursday afternoon and surprise Seth that evening. She knew that he was having some painting done at his beach house, so he was spending every night at the hotel. She could barely control her need for him. Her desire for things to go further was also getting harder to ignore. Shit, maybe the old saying was right; Why buy the cow if you’re getting the milk for free? In this case, she was the cow and Seth had already tasted the milk. That was one saying she dearly hoped wasn’t true.

***

Seth was wired and edgy. Having Mia close for weeks had been somewhere between heaven and hell. She had done as he asked and not worn a skirt, but it didn’t help. She would look hot in a burlap sack. His cock had been hard so much that he felt like every drop of blood in his body stayed pooled there. He had missed meetings and was scattered on his calls. He cancelled anything that threatened to interfere with his lunch with her each day. He knew he sat riveted as she told stories of her childhood and later years. His brothers had actually been making fun of his unorganized state. His life seemed to be in some sort of free fall lately and he placed the blame squarely on Mia’s beautiful shoulders. Even Margie had long since stopped smirking at his behavior and now just gave him pitying looks. Hell, he had a longer relationship with his dry cleaner than he had with Mia, so why was he letting her practically take over his life?

As he sat brooding, his personal line rang and he absently answered. When he heard Ashley’s sultry voice on the other end, he couldn’t help but smile. They had grown up together and dated for about a year before she had moved away to California to pursue her true love: acting. She was now a regular on a daily soap opera, which she seemed to love. Their relationship had always been more a friends-with-benefits one rather than a great love affair. She was blonde, beautiful, and sexy, but best of all, a genuinely nice person. When she was in town, more often than not, they had dinner and sex. No strings, nothing exclusive, just two people who enjoyed each other both in and out of bed. He hadn’t seen her in well over six months so he was pleasantly surprised to hear her voice. He also shot a quick look toward the control room to confirm that Mia was still in the penthouse with her team working on the installation there. Fuck, why should that matter?

“Seth! It’s been so long, darling, I’ve missed you!” He smiled at the southern twang that working for years in California had never quite taken away. She told him that it was one of the reasons the producers of the show loved her so much; she was different.

“Ashley, it’s great to hear your voice. I thought you had forgotten about your friends here. I hear you are doing well, though.”

“Oh, I am,” she laughed. “We can save all of that for tonight, though. I’m in town visiting my parents for a few days and I would love to see you before I leave.” She lowered her voice to a purr, adding, “How about I come over to your place around seven?”

“Shit, Ashley, I’ve got a dinner meeting tonight that will probably run late. How about tomorrow night?”Margie walked into his office just as he was finalizing his plans for the next evening. When he ended the call, he couldn’t miss her frown of disapproval. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, he asked, “What have I done now?”

Ignoring his question, she asked, “So Ashley is back in town?”

He smiled, knowing Margie had always liked Ashley. “Yeah, just for a few days, though.”

“You’re going out with her tomorrow night?”

He was puzzled by her sudden interest in his old friend. Other than making a few off-color remarks through the years about his fuck-buddy, she had never shown much interest in Ashley’s visits when she came by the office. “Yes, I am. Do you have a point?”

“Yes,” she snapped, “that you’re involved with Mia. Don’t you think it might be a bad idea to see Ashley?”

Beyond irritated now, he said, “I’m not ‘involved’ with Mia and there is no reason I shouldn’t have dinner with a friend if I want to. Now if that’s all, I need to get back to work.” He knew a verbal dismissal never worked on her and this time was no exception. He could see her physically digging in her heels.

“Oh, well, excuse me for misunderstanding. I guess the fact that you have been running around here like a schoolboy with his first crush the last few weeks doesn’t mean anything at all. I’ve never known you to put a woman ahead of work and yet you have cancelled at least five meetings lately so that you are free to eat with her. Heck, at this point, she probably thinks you don’t work at all. There are more hormones raging in this office between you two than in a strip club at happy hour.”

Seth could feel his face color at Margie’s comments. The fact that she was right about all of it made it even worse. He was helpless to hide his defensive tone when he said, “Can we stop making this into a big deal? Ashley and I are just having dinner. As for Mia, it’s just casual. Stop trying to see something that isn’t there.”

He almost preferred the anger in her eyes to the sympathy that filled them now. “You’re going to screw this up, and short of locking you up in the trunk of my car, there is nothing I can do about it. Mia is a nice girl, Seth. Give yourself a chance to have someone like that in your life.” With that parting line, she quietly closed the door behind her. Shit, he would have preferred if she slammed it.

When Mia walked in an hour later, he had once again moved his schedule around to have lunch with her. He knew he was a distracted companion at best with Margie’s words still echoing through his conscience. Was he grabbing onto Ashley’s visit like a lifeline to get some distance from Mia? Whether he admitted it to Margie or not, he knew where his evening would go lead with his friend. Making a date with her wasn’t only agreeing to dinner. He felt guilt eat at him as Mia sat across from him giving him her usual easy, genuine smile. She was so fucking beautiful his heart stuttered just looking at her. Could there be more between them than sex? Was he even interested in finding out?