Free Just About Sex by Ann Christopher

glared at him, desperately wishing that his voice didn’t slide over her skin like a warm island breeze, and that he’d stop looking at her as if he planned to peel her clothes off at the earliest possible opportunity. “Oh, hello.”
    Pat jumped to her feet and turned to face him. “Who are you?”
    “Alex Greene,” he said, not bothering to look at Pat. “Who are you?”
    Pat went right into snarling pit bull mode. She drew herself up, squared her shoulders and bared her teeth. “Pat White. Her lawyer. Gimme one good reason why we shouldn’t sue your butt off over this little Web site you put up.”
    Greene sauntered over to one of the chairs in front of the desk. He sat, crossing one ankle over the other knee and draping both forearms over the arms of the chair. To Simone’s supreme annoyance, he exuded relaxed confidence, as if he was lounging in a poolside deck chair waiting for a server to bring him his frosty tropical drink.
    He smiled and shrugged, finally looking at Pat as he addressed her. “Do what you want. Don’t let me stop you.”
    Greene’s cool, unfazed gaze locked with Pat’s. Pat faltered and spluttered, the battery on her motor mouth apparently dead.
    Simone, having never seen Pat speechless before, almost laughed. Pat’s attack dog routine usually had opponents cowering in her path, but not this time. Simone felt the unwelcome stirrings of a new feeling for Greene: grudging respect.
    Recharged after a few seconds of silence, Pat revved up again. “If it was up to me, we’d’ve sued you into oblivion and back already.”
    Greene looked back at Simone. “Protecting me, are you?” His voice lowered. “Or hiding something? I wonder.”
    Alarm squirmed to life in Simone’s gut. She studied her cuticles, both to pretend she was bored and to avoid Greene’s intent, glittering gaze. “I would never protect you, and I’m certainly not hiding anything,” she said coolly. “It’s just that something as obviously idiotic as your Web site doesn’t deserve that much of my attention.”
    One dark, heavy, mocking brow shot to his hairline. “Then why were you reading it when I came in? Just curious.”
    Trapped and pinned, Simone couldn’t think of anything to say. Luckily, Pat came to her rescue. “We’re monitoring the situation.”
    “Of course.” He paused. “Why don’t you just apologize, so I can pull it?”
    “No.”
    Greene fell silent and continued to stare at Simone as if that had been his sole purpose for coming. She felt exposed, like one of the polar bears at the Cincinnati Zoo. How did those poor animals go about their daily business of swimming and sunning with idiots like Greene watching their every move?
    The warm flush she’d felt when he first arrived turned to a burn, and her heart rate stubbornly refused to return to normal. Flustered, she fidgeted, uncapping and recapping her ballpoint pen. Finally, thoroughly unraveled, she tossed the pen down and opened her mouth.
    Greene’s eyes widened with obvious anticipation.
    “I’m assuming you’re here for the meeting, even though it doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes,” she said tartly. “Didn’t they teach you how to tell time in law school?”
    Greene smiled with a devastating flash of white teeth and dimples. Simone heard Pat’s breath catch, and Simone felt mollified to discover that she wasn’t the only woman on the planet who had trouble breathing around Greene’s masculine perfection.
    Greene didn’t seem to notice their turmoil. “Believe it or not, I do know how to tell time. I even have a watch. But I wanted to come early.”
    “Why?” Simone demanded.
    “I’m eager.”
    “For what?”
    His gleaming gaze skimmed over her face, lingered on her lips, and then slipped to her torso—the only part of her body visible while she sat at her desk. She felt naked, and with good reason. Why, oh, why had she taken off her lavender suit jacket earlier? Wearing only her white silk tank top, with