Passion and Scandal Read Free Page B

fabric down to his waist. Then, with his back still to her, he unfastened the fly of his button-front jeans, quickly tucked the T-shirt in, and began buttoning up again.
    Willow felt her whole body flush with unaccustomed heat. "For heaven's sake," she muttered, appalled at her reaction to his reverse striptease. "Get a grip, girl," she admonished herself sternly. "You're not seeing anything you haven't seen before." It's just arranged a whole lot better.
    "Excuse me?" Steve turned around, his hands still at the waist of his jeans as he nonchalantly slipped the last metal button into its buttonhole. "Did you say something?"
    Willow hurriedly jerked her gaze away from the vicinity of his fly, focusing it on a point just over his left shoulder. "Your coffee's getting cold," she said, holding it out to him as he approached her.
    "Thanks." He plucked the insulated foam cup from her fingers and lifted it to his lips for a long sip. "Mmm, that's good," he murmured, closing his eyes briefly to better savor the flavor. "I'm pretty sure Thuy grinds vanilla in with the coffee beans—" he put the cup down on the edge of the desk and reached for the bag of pastries Willow still held clutched in one sweaty palm "—but she says no, and I've never been able to catch her at it." He opened the top of the bag as he spoke and bent his head, taking a deep, appreciative sniff. "Ah, the tempting scents of fat and sugar. There's nothing else like it. Come to Papa," he crooned as he reached into the bag and pulled out a thick golden pastry, glistening with raspberry filling and smeared with creamy white frosting. "You didn't get anything for yourself," he said, frowning when he realized one pastry was all the bag held.
    "I've already had breakfast, thank you."
    "Hours ago, I'll bet." He gave her a quick assessing look over the pastry in his hand. "You look like an early riser. Up with the sun, right?"
    "Well, yes, usually, but—"
    "We'll share," he decided magnanimously, and began to tear the Danish in half.
    "No, really." Willow reached out and put her hand on his wrist to stop him from mangling the pastry. "That's your breakfast. I don't want..."
    Her voice trailed off as heat sizzled up her arm, and she stared, mesmerized by the sight of her long pale fingers against the tanned, hair-roughened skin of his thick, sinewy wrist. She couldn't seem to lift her hand away and her fingers moved, seemingly of their own volition, lightly caressing, unconsciously savoring the incredible heat and texture of him. And then the tendons in his wrist twitched once, hard, as he tightened his fingers on the pastry. Willow looked up and met his gaze, head-on.
    Neither one of them said a word for a full ten seconds as they stood there, staring at each other, bright blue eyes boring into golden brown. Frissons of heat passed between them, full of fevered imaginings and rampant speculation, intemperate fantasies and delicious, dizzying possibilities.
    And then Willow gasped and snatched her hand away.
    And Steve made a strangled noise, deep in his throat—like a chicken that'd just been grabbed by the neck—and beat a hasty retreat to the other side of his desk. "Well, let's get down to business, shall we?" He dropped the untouched Danish back into the bag and set it aside. Sitting down behind the desk, he reached for a stack of papers, busily flipping through them as if he were trying to find something important. "I suppose the agency has already filled you in on the basics?"
    "Agency?" Willow croaked. She cleared her voice and tried again. "What agency?" Angie hadn't said anything about going through any agency. She'd just given Willow a phone number and said to call it.
    "Did they tell you I require someone who can type at least eighty words a minute? And who can take dictation?" he added, making up the requirements as he went along. "You can take dictation, can't you?" he asked, hoping she couldn't.
    He didn't want another secretary who looked at him as if