“Alone?”
“If you mean do I have a girlfriend stashed in a hotel room, the answer is no.” Good. She’d led the way to a topic he wanted to cover. He finished off his cookie. “And while we’re on the subject, is there anyone you need to consult about this? Some silent partner I don’t know about?”
She spread her arms. “Nope. I’m it.”
You sure are. “If you should change your mind and agree to this, there will be some intense working situations until we get all the machinery in place for the various markets we plan to penetrate.” Penetrate. God, he couldn’t seem to avoid sexual language. “If you have a boyfriend who likes plenty of attention, he should be forewarned.”
Her gaze turned frosty. “I wouldn’t tolerate a boyfriend who required plenty of attention, as you so quaintly put it.”
Whoops. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that. Whether you have a boyfriend is of no consequence to our business discussion, and I was out of line to bring up the subject.”
“Agreed.”
Well, he’d outsmarted himself, zigged when he should have zagged, and been thrown for a loss. He needed time out so he could regroup. He handed her the envelope. “Then maybe I should leave you with this and go play tourist. I can check back tomor—”
“Or we can take the envelope with us while we go grab some lunch. I have a restaurant to review for the current issue, and I need to do it today.”
“Sounds good.” The idea of spending more time with her was the best news he’d had yet, but he didn’t want to seem too eager.
“Then we can have more time to talk.” She rattled the envelope. “And I doubt if all the questions I have are answered in here. On the very slight chance I might change my mind and consider franchising, I need to get a feel for the company. All my information is ten years old.”
“What information?” He was truly bewildered. Ten years ago even he, the only son of Joan and Clayton Ramsey, hadn’t known diddly about how the company operated. Hell, ten months ago he hadn’t known anything. He had trouble believing Erica had possessed any knowledge whatsoever ten years ago.
She focused those mysterious gray eyes on him. “On your performance,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t very good.”
He could feel the heat working up from his collar. “You mean the performance of Ramsey Enterprises?”
“Of course. What did you think I meant?”
“That’s what I thought you meant.” He cleared his throat. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem for you now.”
“That’s good to hear.” She smiled. “But I’d like specifics. If we spend some time together, I’ll be certain to get all I need from you.”
They couldn’t be talking about sex. Surely she wouldn’t do that. But even if they weren’t talking about sex, she was proposing that they hang out together. Good things had to happen eventually.
“Okay,” he said. “I haven’t rented a hotel room yet. Do you have time to come along while I take care of that?”
“I can do that.” She stood and picked up the tray of tea and cookies. “Let me put this stuff away and get my purse.”
“Great.” Things were looking up. He closed his briefcase and stood as she quickly put the cookies back in the package and dumped out the remains of their iced tea.
“Be back in a sec,” she said, breezing past him and heading down the hallway.
While she was gone, he couldn’t resist going over to the computer and checking out the rest of her answer to Frustrated Franny.
Practice first with fellatio, keeping your thumb and forefinger around the base of his penis. When he’s about to come, squeeze there until he’s under control again. Once he realizes that holding off will increase his pleasure, he may be more motivated. You can also consider which positions—
Dustin heard her coming back down the hall and quickly returned to the sofa where he pretended to study the gigantic flower print hanging over it. Theoretically, looking at a flower should quiet his erection, but damned if the soft, plump interior of that flower didn’t look like a woman’s—
“Georgia O’Keefe,” Erica said, coming back into the room. “On loan from the library.”
He must have looked confused.
“You can check out prints just like you can check out books,” she explained. “That cuts down on the materialistic acquisition of things.”
“Oh.” He thought of the Western art, all originals, hanging in his mother and dad’s house. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to suggest selling those, either. He studied the print more closely and found the signature. “I thought Georgia O’Keefe painted cow skulls.”
“She did that, too. But her work with flowers is quite sexual, don’t you think?”
He turned to look at her. “So it wasn’t my imagination.”
“No.” Her color was high, but she met his gaze without hesitation. “Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” he said softly, thinking about the hours that lay ahead of them, hours that just might unfold with promise like this exotic flower. “I definitely like it.”
2
AS ERICA LOCKED UP her apartment and walked to the stairway with Dustin, she wondered what in hell she was doing, inviting him to have lunch with her. Testing her courage, most likely. Venturing into the scary old haunted house to see if the boogeyman really lived there.
She wanted Dustin to think of her as a sophisticated, sexual creature, and so far she believed she’d pulled it off. The smart thing would have been to take his envelope and send him out the door with his new vision of her intact. She had a deadline to think about. Instead she was accompanying him out the door, as if she had to continue proving her point.
Apparently she did. He’d showed signs of being very turned on by her. She’d detected a bulge behind his fly as they’d been talking. The possibility that he still wanted her was so fascinating she had to follow up on it.
Besides, he looked damned good—more of a hottie than she’d remembered, and that was saying something. Although she’d been taught by her parents to be suspicious of men wearing expensive sport coats, she had to admit Dustin looked excellent in one and even better out of it.
For the trip down the stairs, he’d taken off his jacket and slung it over one shoulder. The western cut of his shirt emphasized those shoulders, which had broadened since high school. His voice was a shade deeper, too, and listening to him gave her goose bumps. She liked the tiny character lines fanning out from the corners of his blue eyes and the leanness in his face that had turned a handsome boy into an awesome man.
Maybe she’d decided to spend more time with him so she could figure out why he turned her on. Because he definitely did. All she had to do was look at him and she got all warm and pliable. But that reaction was very inconvenient, because he was not her type. Her type wore loose cotton pants and sandals, not snug western-cut slacks and snakeskin boots.
“Have you been working for your parents since college?” she asked.
“Uh, no, not exactly. I got back into the family business a few months ago.”
“Really?” She would have thought he’d slide right into a job with Ramsey Enterprises. “Then what have you been up to?”
He