Even if she was.

She found him relaxing comfortably at the breakfast table, sipping coffee and reading something on his iPad, a plate of fresh assorted bagels sitting in the center. Without saying a word, she went straight for the coffee pot, hoping like hell a little caffeine would erase the images from last night from her brain. The shower certainly hadn’t helped.

“How’re you feeling?” Xander asked, not looking up from what he was reading.

“Fine,” she grumbled as she rummaged through the refrigerator, searching for the creamer and the cream cheese.

She was far from fine after the events of last night, but by the way he was acting so nonchalantly, she got the impression she was the only one of them who was still thinking about it.

“Why are you here?” she asked him as she poured a little too much creamer into her coffee. Seriously? Why were her hands shaking?

“Meeting with Shane,” he answered easily.

Shit.

Glancing over at the clock, Mercedes noticed it was fast approaching nine o’clock. She hadn’t slept that late in… hell, in as long as she could remember. Her days generally started before dawn on a good day.

“Is he coming here? Or to your place?” she asked, trying to sound casual as she shoved the creamer back into the fridge.

Most of the time, they held their business meetings at Xander’s. His condo had double the amount of space that hers did, and he had three offices, his, his assistant’s, and an empty one, along with a conference room that he used for God knows what. Unlike her setup, his offices were separate from his actual living quarters. As for Mercedes, she merely worked out of her condo’s secondary master bedroom that she’d had converted into an office.

“I told him to come here,” Xander answered as she approached, placing his iPad on the table and sliding the bagels toward her. “You’re looking a little pale,” he added, tipping his head slightly to the side as he studied her with another of his infamous smirks.

“I wonder why,” she blurted, immediately regretting her lack of filter.

She blamed him.

“I hear orgasms will do that to you.”

Mercedes glared at him from across the table, letting him know with her eyes that she wasn’t going to take his shit this morning. She was not getting into this with him. What happened last night shouldn’t have happened. It was a demonstration that had gotten way out of hand.

So what if he’d given her one of the best orgasms of her entire life. With his fingers.

It wasn’t like she was going to tell him as much.

Refusing to dignify his statement with a verbal response, Mercedes reached for a bagel and opted to move the conversation back to neutral ground. “What’s Shane coming over to talk about?”

Xander grinned, an all-out, panty-melting smile that had Mercedes fighting to keep from looking away from him. Rather than say something entirely inappropriate, which Xander was known to do from time to time, he morphed into the business professional that she knew him to be, his smile fading away entirely.

“We need to talk about the two properties we’re planning to bid on,” Xander explained.

“By ‘we’, you mean you and Shane are bidding against each other? On both properties?”

Xander kept his eyes on her. “Honestly, I could give a shit less about the land, he can have it if he wants it that bad. I want the Milton building.”

Mercedes knew about both properties, the one hundred plus acres off of the toll road up in Frisco and an old office building off of Milton right there in downtown that had just come on the market. Both of them were zoned for either commercial or residential, which was the factor that always put Shane and Xander at odds with one another.

Admittedly, Mercedes had significantly more knowledge regarding the Milton building. After all, Xander had been interested in it since she first brought it to his attention, so she had looked into a few specifics and taken him on a tour earlier in the week.

“I think that’s smart,” she told him. “The Milton building will be your best option of the two. He’ll want to turn it into condos anyway, and there’re an overabundance of them in that area. He’s better off with the land. Much more opportunity for residential development up that way.”

That wasn’t going to make Shane a happy camper, but then again, going up against Xander in a bidding war wasn’t exactly one of Shane’s favorite things to do either.

Mercedes had known both men for quite some time. She knew how their minds worked because she’d worked with them both on practically a daily basis for the last decade.

She sold commercial real estate, and they dealt in commercial and residential property development, respectively. And many of the property transactions they dealt with were handled by her. Although she had a handful of other high profile clients, Xander was definitely her bread and butter. He knew it too.

Before they could go into further detail, her home phone rang. Grabbing the handset that was on the breakfast bar, Mercedes greeted the doorman, letting him know it was fine to send Shane up.

Rising from her chair, Mercedes contemplated getting more coffee before heading to her office. She definitely needed caffeine and a much more structured atmosphere or she would likely do something foolish such as allow Xander, or worse, Shane, know exactly what she was thinking. And the absolute last person who needed to find out what happened last night was Shane Gibson. If he found out, she would never live it down.

 “Let’s do this in my office,” she told Xander when she turned back to look at him, her face flaming when she realized how that sounded.

Shit. She was going to have to get a serious grip.

And soon.

The devilish gleam in his eyes said he’d caught on as well.

~*~*~*~

Doing his best to hide his amusement, Xander pushed back from the kitchen table and followed Mercedes through her condo. He didn’t, however, try to hide the fact that he was staring at her ass as she moved gracefully through the house.

The woman was fucking gorgeous, and she had an ass that made a man’s mouth water. Heart shaped and the perfect size to fill his hands nicely.

He’d been hoping she would come out of her bedroom after her shower wearing one of those form fitting, yoga outfits that she favored when she was home. Casual wear, she called them. Much to his dismay, Mercedes had clearly armed herself for battle wearing a short skirt and a blazer with those damn red heels that gave him an instant hard on.

Still, it didn’t matter what she wore. She was hot as hell. Shit, he was pretty sure she could wear a potato sack, and his dick would still stand up and take notice.

Mercedes cleared her throat, and Xander forced his eyes to move upward. He wanted to laugh because he’d been clearly busted while admiring her perfect ass. Rather than pretend he hadn’t been eyeballing her, he tossed her one of the heated looks he’d perfected over the years.

“Sit down,” she said with a choked laugh.

He was fairly certain that Mercedes was on to him. How could she not be though? After last night?

If she seriously thought that what happened between them at Devotion was just a demonstration, the woman was clearly missing a few marbles. And he knew that wasn’t the case because Mercedes was one of the most perceptive, intelligent women he’d ever met.

He waited for her to take a seat behind her desk before he lowered himself to the chair across from her.

“Mornin’,” Shane greeted as he made his way into the oversized room.

Xander glanced back over his shoulder, offering Shane a tilt of his chin in response. The man was decked out in one of those three thousand dollar suits he’d recently begun sporting. Although his own watch probably cost more than Shane’s entire closet, Xander had to admit, he was impressed with his friend’s recent transformation.

Shane Gibson was one of Xander’s closest friends. They’d known each other for approximately fifteen years after they’d met during their junior year in college, were both turning thirty-six this year, and although Xander’d started growing his business back in his early twenties, Shane had just recently started getting serious.  Now that Shane was starting to rake in the money, he was definitely beginning to look the part, which Xander found amusing considering all the shit Shane had given him through the years.

He wiped the smile off of his face when he looked up to see Shane glaring at him.

Based on the stern expression on Shane’s too handsome face, it was clear that this was going to be a tense meeting and truthfully, Xander would’ve preferred to spend his time finding a way to get Mercedes naked again.

Twenty minutes later, Xander found himself fisting his hands in his lap as he sat patiently waiting for Shane to calm down.

Tense had been an understatement. Shane had lost his cool the moment Xander hadn’t given in to his demands. It would’ve been comical if Xander were in the right frame of mind.

Keeping his composure, he remained as relaxed as he could while Shane paced the floor behind him. Mercedes was sitting at her desk, watching both of them intently which was the only reason Xander didn’t lose his shit.

She’d been the main reason his focus was off all morning, and the last thing he could afford was to let Shane win this round. Clasping his hands together in his lap, Xander crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and glanced over at Shane, who was moving up beside him.

“Come on, man. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Shane grumbled, his face contorted with anger and frustration. He turned and stomped back the way he’d come before Xander could say anything.