Free Secretary on Demand by Cathy Williams

She’d had the odd dance with one of the guys from the company but there had been so many people on the dance floor that it had been difficult to move, never mind dance properly. By the time she had got back to her bedsit at one-thirty, her dress and tights had smelled of cigarette smoke and had born the telltale patchy spots of spilled drinks.
    â€˜Scintillating… Where did you go?’
    She gave him the name of the club, safe in the knowledge that the last place Kane Lindley would have heard of would have been a nightclub for wild, young things—most of whom hadn’t looked old enough to earn a living, never mind be in possession of the money needed to have a good time for hours in a nightclub in central London.
    â€˜You went there !’ He sounded horrified and she felt her hackles rise at the tone of his voice. Now, more than ever, she was determined to drive home to him what an exciting evening it had been. ‘I don’t suppose you realised that that place has a reputation for illicit drugs? Not exactly fertile ground for meeting new people. Well, not unless you’re interested in meeting boys who probably haven’t started shaving yet! What would your mother say?’
    â€˜My mother isn’t here!’ Shannon declared icily, ‘so she isn’t going to say anything, is she? And,’ she continued, fixing him with a gimlet stare, ‘how do you know about this place? Don’t tell me you go there on a weekend to live it up!’
    â€˜Why not? Can’t you picture me slugging back pints of lager and gyrating on a dance floor with eighteen-year-old girls?’
    Actually, Shannon found it easier to picture herself growing five arms and three legs overnight. There was a quiet gallantry about Kane that resisted any notion of him misbehaving in any way in public. Or in private for that matter. She doubted if he had ever lost his self-control. He just wasn’t that type of man.
    â€˜Frankly, no.’ She rustled the files on her lap, waiting for his invisible signal that it was time for her to go, but he carried on looking at her, smiling.
    â€˜Maybe you’re right,’ he conceded in a low, amused voice. ‘Eighteen-year-old girls don’t interest me. And I can think of better ways of dancing than flinging myself around and bashing into everyone else.’
    His voice left her in no doubt what form of dancing he had in mind and she felt faintly unsettled at the thought. She had a vision of him on a dance floor, his strong arms engulfing the woman with him, his body pressed erotically against hers, hips grinding against hips, face and hands buried into hair. Losing that iron self-control. His body trembling slightly in anticipation of what was to come. His voice thick with desire.
    She gulped and shuffled the files a little harder.
    Every so often a rogue thought would enter her head—that his innate gentlemanliness disguised something wild and dangerous, lurking suggestively beneath the surface.
    â€˜Can’t you?’ he prompted, and she looked at him with an addled expression.
    â€˜Can’t I what?’
    â€˜Think of better ways of dancing?’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ Shannon said crisply. ‘The foxtrot can be quite a laugh. And, of course, there’s Irish dancing. You can’t beat it for burning off calories.’
    He gave a wry laugh and then said lightly, ‘And I canthink of better ways of doing that as well. Eleanor,’ he said, changing the subject before she could dwell on what he had said, ‘seems to be quite taken with you. She tells me that you’re fun. How are you finding it? Is the travelling too much of a hassle? It’s dark by the time you leave and really I don’t care to think of you traipsing through London on the underground to get back to your flat.’
    â€˜Oh, it’s fine,’ Shannon said airily, thinking of the dark, isolated walk once she left the underground and was