“Hardly,” he said, because he wasn’t the party boy type, but then he wasn’t usually the first one to leave either. Tonight, however, needed to end early because tomorrow was the one he wanted to last all night long. He called for the check, fished some bills from his wallet, and paid for their drinks.

“Why are you leaving so soon?”

“Because the glass is empty. I’ll get you a cab,” he said, and walked out with her, the neon lights of the diner across the street flickering behind them. “Do you want to…” she said, but the rest of her words were swallowed by the sound of a siren a few blocks over.

“Want to what?” he asked when the noise faded.

She swallowed, then spoke quickly, faster than usual. “Do something this weekend? Have dinner maybe?”

He shot her a look like she wasn’t making sense, as he hailed the first taxi he saw. “Davis is out of town,” he said. He and Michele didn’t have dinner together. Drinks maybe. But dinners were something the three of them did together, and Davis was off in London for a few months, directing a production of Twelfth Night that Clay had hooked him up with.

“Yeah. I know,” she said. “That’s sort of the point.”

“Point of what?”

She shook her head. Rolled her eyes. “Nothing. It was nothing,” she said, and something about her tone seemed clipped.

“You okay?”

She nodded quickly. Too quickly. “I’m great,” she said, as he held open the cab door for her. “Anyway, you probably have big plans this weekend.”

“I think it’s safe to say I’ll be tied up,” he said, though as her cab sped off, he realized it was more likely the other way around. That Julia would be.

He hoped she would be at least.

* * *

He’d woken up at four-thirty, worked out at five, and hit the office by six-thirty. He’d skipped lunch, ordered in a sandwich, and reviewed a contract for a new sci-fi flick a movie director he repped was working on. He sent in notes to the producers, a list of points and items that needed to be changed, and if they weren’t his client wouldn’t be happy, and Clay was all about having a hefty stable full of happy clients.

His junior partner at the firm, Flynn, poked his head in around mid-afternoon. “Hey. I got a lead that the Pinkertons are looking for new representation,” Flynn said, his blue eyes wide and grinning. A pair of British brothers, the Pinkertons had been bankrolling some of the most successful films in the last few years including Escorted Lives, based on the bestselling books.

“We need to lock that up,” he said and he was sure the glint in his eyes matched his partner. Flynn was three years younger and eager as hell to grow his role at Clay’s firm. He’d hired him fresh out of law school, and Flynn had become invaluable, pulling more than his weight in helping to land top clients and sweet deals for them. They’d seen eye to eye on just about everything, with the exception of one minor rough patch a year ago over a client that Flynn had reeled in all on his own – a big-time action film director.

A client they’d lost.

“No kidding,” Flynn said, tapping the side of the door twice for good luck. Flynn was like that, always crossing his fingers, and knocking on wood. “I’ll get some more details and aim to set a meeting with them next week.”

“Perfect. The Pinkertons are huge golfers, so if you have to schedule a tee time, you should,” he said, and it wasn’t so much a suggestion, as it was an order. One he knew Flynn, a former college golfer, would jump at.

Flynn mimed swinging a club. “Shame I hate golf so much,” he joked.

“All right, get out of here. I need to finish up so I can take the weekend off.”

“I’ll email you when I hear more.”

“I’m not answering email this weekend,” Clay said, making it clear in his tone that this was a do-not-disturb kind of weekend. “You can update me on Monday.”

“Fair enough.”

Flynn left, and he checked on Julia’s flight, pleased to see it was landing on time. He brushed his teeth, ran his fingers through his hair, not bothering with a comb, because she was the kind of woman who’d have her fingers sliding through his hair in seconds, messing it up the way she wanted. He said goodbye to the receptionist, let her know she could shut down early too, and slid into the town car waiting outside his office. On the way to the airport, he worked his way through his west coast calls, ending them just as the car pulled up to the terminal.

The sun was blaring, high in the sky in April, so he put on a pair of sunglasses. He loosened his tie; he couldn’t stand the way it constrained him. He glanced at his phone, hoping for a message from her. None was there, so he clicked on the app for his stocks, checking his portfolio, and looking up every few seconds to scan the crowds. He couldn’t focus on the market right now.

He hardly wanted to admit it to himself, but there was something about this moment – the minutes before he saw her – that felt like first date nerves. Like knocking on a woman’s door, and waiting, hoping she’d be just as eager for the night to unfold. Weird, considering the way he and Julia had started. Free of pretense and bullshit, they went straight for each other, the physical chemistry overpowering anything else.

His phone buzzed. He clicked open the message and it sent a bolt of electricity through him. White stockings coming your way…

Stockings – one of those items of clothing on the right woman that could send a man to his knees. Especially the sight of the top of a pair of thigh-highs peeking out from a skirt, revealing an inch of skin, hinting at what lay beneath. On Julia, stockings were a playground for his eager hands.

The nerves in him disappeared and turned into something else – adrenaline, maybe. The sharp, hot charge of desire all through his blood and bones.

He spotted her before she saw him; that red hair was hard to miss, even in a sea of frenzied, frantic travelers jostling for a cab, a car, a bus. She wore a black trench coat, belted at the waist, black heels and white stockings. A grin took over his face; she had done it. Of course she had done it. He was at attention in seconds and his fingers itched to touch her, to peel off those stockings, inch by delicious inch, then lick his way down her legs to her ankles and back up, savoring her every single second.

Leaning against the town car, he kept his eyes on her the entire time as she threaded her way through the crowds. She was a tall drink of woman, and her red hair was blowing in the late afternoon breeze. She brushed some strands away from her face. Soon, she noticed him, smiling wickedly. He nodded, trying to act cool, even as his temperature rose. Then, she was in front of him, and before she said a word, her hands were on his shirt and she pulled him to her, pressing her lips to his.

She was lightning fast. A blur of movement, of teeth and lips and that intoxicating taste of her lipstick that would be gone in seconds.

He responded instantly, kissing her hard like she deserved. Cupping the back of her neck, he jerked her close. He wanted her to remember that she might have made the first move, but he liked to lead. He nipped on her bottom lip, then sucked on her tongue, drawing out a moan from her that pleased him deeply. He kissed more, sliding his tongue over hers as he lowered his hand to her thigh, skimming his fingers along the thin, barely-there fabric of her stockings.

When he broke the kiss, he raised an eyebrow. “They look good on you, and I bet they look good coming off too.”

“Don’t rush it. I want you to enjoy the view.”

“I’ve been enjoying the view since the second I laid eyes on you, gorgeous.”

He opened the door and gestured for her to enter the car, watching the whole time as she stepped inside and crossed her legs, giving him a very brief preview of where the stockings ended. He shook his head approvingly, and she shot him a look that said nothing short of come and get it. He took her suitcase as the driver emerged, scrambling to deposit the black carry-on into the trunk.

After he got in the car and hit the partition button, closing them off from the driver, with the tinted windows shutting them off from the whole wide world.

She looked at him, her pretty green eyes meeting him straight on. That beautiful face, that divine body, and that naughty, naughty mouth – it was hard to believe he’d only spent one night with her. She stared at him like she was as famished as he was. Like she needed the same thing.

“You look like you need to be fucked right now.”

“Do I?”

“You sure do,” he said, raking his eyes over her, perched in the leather seat so properly, and so damn sexy at the same time. He ached to touch her, but savored the tease, so he kept a distance between them, drawing out the tension as the car pulled into afternoon traffic.

“And I suppose you think you can solve that problem?”

“I don’t think so. I know so. And I intend to. But not yet.”

“You gonna toy with me?”

“Been thinking about it.”

“Like a cat playing with a mouse,” she said, her voice nearly a purr.

“You’re hardly a mouse.”

“I know,” she said, then ran her index finger across her bottom lip, then around to her top, so suggestively he nearly tossed his plans to wait out the window. He wanted her now. He wanted her bad, especially with the way her hot gaze was locked on him as she parted her lips, and ran her tongue along her teeth.

A challenge. One that he planned to meet. A low rumble worked its way free of his throat as he moved to her, his body next to her, just a trace of contact. Slowly, so as to torture her, he reached for the belt of her coat, taking his time untying it.