Hot and Bothered. Serena Bell

prolonging the conversation. But she shouldn’t. He was her client. He was—

      Mark Webster, C.D. Certified Disaster.

      He laughed, a rough, lovely sound, like something rusty from disuse. “Yup. The haircut worked the way it was supposed to. All the parts worked, too.”

      She didn’t want to ask any more questions. Talking to Mark Webster about sex, with his eyes so big, long-lashed and luminous, his teeth so starkly white, was a bad idea. Removing all that hair should have made him more vulnerable, but she was the one rocked back on her heels.

      She cast about for another topic. “I made an appointment for Pete to come see me next Tuesday morning in my office at ten.”

      He looked down at his lap, and she was sorry she’d gone there. Bad enough she was making him grovel without making him think about it today.

      “It’s not going to be so bad,” she said. “Wham, bam—”

      Whoops, that sounded like sex again, and the one-sided quirk of his mouth told her he hadn’t missed that.

      “I’ll do most of the talking. You just deliver the line.”

      “I regret any lasting damage my temper has caused you,” Mark intoned.

      She was proud of the non-apology she’d crafted for him.

      He frowned. “I don’t think he’s going to let me get away with it.”

      “Trust me.”

      Their eyes met in the mirror again, and he gave a short, hard laugh. “If I didn’t trust you, do you think I’d let this guy put a straight razor on my throat? And cut my hair off? I feel like—Samson, right? Don’t you sap my strength or something?”

      He didn’t look sapped. He looked...potent. She had to turn away from the mirror because his gaze kept catching hers and not letting go properly.

      Mark Webster had a reputation in the media for saying and doing the wrong things, but he seemed to know the right way to get under Haven’s skin. She was having a difficult time remembering why she shouldn’t exchange smiles, meaningful glances and double entendres with him.

      Right. Right.

      Mark Webster was her client, and her job was not to land them both in the press as a seedy example of how to become his next castoff. He was a serial womanizer. By definition, that meant he was not interested in anything serious with her. And her job was to clean him up, not let herself be dragged into the mud.

      “What do you think?” Derek asked her, warming some kind of expensive styling product between his palms and smoothing it through Mark’s hair, which was now short enough to be “not long,” but still had a lot of wave. He had really great hair, thick and coppery brown with streaks of lighter and darker colors. Women paid fortunes for hair like that.

      She was not secretly envying Derek for being allowed to run his fingers through Mark’s hair. Not at all.

      Oh, she was such a liar.

      “It looks great,” she said.

      That, at least, was the truth.

      “What do you think of the new, improved Mark Webster?”

      It didn’t matter how she answered, because she couldn’t not meet the ferocity of his unblinking challenge in the mirror. So he knew. He knew he looked good, and he knew he was having an effect on her.

      Derek very politely did not roll his eyes at them.

      She wrenched her gaze away, but she couldn’t stop herself from putting her fingers to her wrist to feel the way her pulse raced under the hot skin there, and when she looked up again, Mark’s eyes were on her.

      * * *

      JUDY, HAVEN’S FAVORITE personal shopper, kept touching Mark.

      She brushed her fingertips briskly over his collarbone, tapped them thoughtfully on his muscled shoulders. “Hmm. Too tight through here. You’re nice and broad.”

      He was nice and broad. Haven’s fingers tingled sympathetically as Judy’s moved. Haven wanted to check out exactly where that seam fell on those excellent shoulders, but she sat on her hands instead, lest they start dancing through the air with vicarious excitement.

      They were in the large fitting area in the personal shoppers’ suite, and Mark stood on a carpeted platform facing a three-way mirror. Today had included altogether too many mirrors, and she wished she didn’t have to see Mark’s reflection or her own flushed face anymore. He kept looking above the button of the suit jacket that restrained her breasts and meeting her glances with his intense gray-blue stare.

      Her own clothes felt limp with heat and damp. Strands of her hair had come loose from her updo and now clung to her forehead and cheeks.

      Haven Hoyt was not feeling very put together at the moment.

      Judy tugged on the shirt to check the fit over Mark’s pecs, brushing the cotton-silk blend across his chest as if there were a speck of dust she needed to remove. “Tough to fit you for a shirt when you’re so big through here. That’s a good thing.” Judy looked up at Mark through her eyelashes.

      Haven had never really thought about it before today, but Judy was attractive, for an older woman. She had platinum-blond hair and strong bones, and she looked great in her silver tunic, indigo jeggings and knee-high black boots. She seemed to be having fun.

      Of course she was having fun, because she had her hands on Mark’s chest. Haven had noticed his size the other day at lunch, but there was something about this particular blue dress shirt that emphasized his strength and bulk. Maybe it was just Haven’s fond feelings for dress shirts, but more likely it was Mark. Judy kept messing with the buttons, as if making adjustments, but Haven was pretty sure her motives were baser.

      Still, if Mark needed his buttons checked, Haven would be willing to help out. In fact, she might be willing to go to the mud pit with Judy for the privilege. And Haven didn’t do muddy, any more than she did outdoorsy or sleep-in-a-big-T-shirt or just have a few people over and I’m sorry I didn’t have time to clean the house.

      Judy shamelessly ran her hand over Mark’s butt—was that really necessary?—to emphasize the clean fit of the charcoal-gray dress pants. That butt was a mighty fine specimen, Haven mused, giving up on not having an opinion. It was firm and high and tight and round and she bet he knew how to use it to great advantage as leverage for—

      “Nice line in front, too.” All three of them stared at Mark’s crotch in the mirror. Whatever Mark was packing under there was evident even under the “nice line” of expensive dress slacks. She briefly wondered whether it was arousing to have them both staring at his endowment like that. It would be pretty embarrassing to get an erection right now. Wouldn’t it?

      She raised her gaze from the front of his pants and found herself staring into Mark’s eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she watched her own face turn the same flaming pink as her nail polish. Heat swept through her, tightening her nipples and pooling between her legs. Mark’s dimples deepened, even though his mouth didn’t quite break into a full smile.

      She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die of frustrated desire before the shopping session was over.

      As much as she wanted to deny it, her body had decided this was foreplay.

      She’d never been attracted to a client before. Never. She’d done image makeovers on male clients, and she’d sat in Judy’s upholstered seat while Judy ran her hands over different sets of equally impressive shoulders, pecs and abs. Mark Webster should not have been any different, should not have been turning Haven’s excellent brain to mush.

      “I’m going to get some water,” she said, and for that, she got a full-on Mark grin. It was a startling, marvelous thing, bright and white and all the way into his eyes, and she ran the hell out of that dressing area.

      For