Going All the Way. Tanya Michaels

and, with the clarity of hindsight, she immediately regretted her fib.

      “Then I insist you let me take you out for an early dinner,” he said.

      “But—”

      “I won’t take no for an answer, Serena.”

      An occasionally stubborn person herself, she admired assertiveness in others, but the intimate timbre of his voice was downright unfair.

      “I can’t just dash off this second,” she protested.

      Actually, with the slow business day she’d had, she probably could, but why tell him that? David Grant could stand for a few more people to turn him down from time to time. She loved the man, she really did—in the nonphysical best-buds-for-ages sense—but he got his way much too often.

      “I don’t mind waiting,” he said. “I can step out and make a few phone calls where the reception’s better.”

      At the prospect of more space between them, her body sagged in relief. “All right. Give me a little bit to wrap things up.”

      “Take as long as you need.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Anything important enough to do deserves time and thorough attention, right?”

      As the president of her own company—even if it was just her and one other employee—she should agree with the work ethic of his statement. Except there was no work ethic, only veiled seduction. She recalled again the way David had pushed her to mindless limits when she’d already thought she couldn’t burn any hotter. He’d proven her deliciously wrong.

      “You really do look woozy,” David observed.

      Of course she did. It had been months since she’d had sex, and close to a year since she’d had fantastic sex. Suddenly, it seemed every molecule in her body was vibrating with the effects of the unplanned abstinence. It was like alcohol—if you’d given up drinking for a while, even a sip of something potent went straight to your head.

      His forehead wrinkled as genuine concern replaced the humor in his expression. “Are you sure you don’t want to get out of here now and grab something to eat? Or I could run and get you a snack.”

      “No, that’s not necessary.” She glanced between the receptionist’s chair and the overstuffed loveseat for guests, gauging which was closer. Deciding on the blue loveseat, she passed by David, telling herself she’d had a full five minutes to grow immune to that spicy seductive cologne. Its power over her should have waned by now.

      Maybe the warm flush stealing through her body was actually embarrassment, not attraction. He was hardly the only man she’d ever been with, yet here she was in a near swoon. Real women do not swoon. Not in the last hundred years, anyway. When she glanced up, she was relieved to find him studying the surroundings instead of her.

      “Nice place,” he said. “Took me a while to find, but great location. Definitely an improvement.”

      Hard to believe her office would be terribly impressive to someone who’d grown up in the ancestral mansion once photographed for Southern Décor, but he was right about the improvement part. Her first site had been a one-room dive with a slight bug problem. Rent here was more, but worth every penny.

      David took in the vintage lamp in the corner, the scarlet patterned swag over the miniblinded exterior window, the framed posters, and the artfully “mismatched” furniture—two chairs and a couch, each in a different primary color. “It is original.”

      “Thanks…That was a compliment, right?”

      “Yeah.” He sat next to her. “You have a way of making everything you come in contact with uniquely yours.”

      He wasn’t crowding her, but then, he didn’t need a macho tactic to make her aware of him. Some of her best memories with this man involved a couch, and she had to concentrate to keep from swaying reflexively toward him. As seemingly relaxed as she was alert, he leaned back and casually fanned his fingers against his knee. Was he deliberately drawing her attention to his hand, daring her to remember the way he’d touched her?

      She swallowed. “Well, we do parties, so I didn’t want my office to be stuffy. There are already wedding coordinators who do the whole Emily-Post-slash-Martha-Stewart thing, and planners all over the city who do the black-tie corporate banquets. We do those, too, but I try to give everything a touch of unique flair.”

      “Touch is good.”

      “W-we want our events to be memorable.”

      “You are that,” he said softly. Just when she was starting to suspect he’d traveled all this way to drive her out of her sex-starved mind, he asked, “So, how’s business going?”

      It took her a moment to adjust to the change of subject. Oh, wait, they’d been talking about work. Outwardly, at least.

      “Not bad. A little slower than I’d like right now,” she admitted. “But business comes in waves. I arranged a bachelor party last week to fill some downtime.”

      “Bachelor party?” An eyebrow arched up. “With a stripper and everything?”

      “She much prefers ‘exotic dancer,’ and I hired her through the same agency I contact for bartenders and black-jack dealers.”

      “Hm. An evening of sex, Scotch and sin, as presented by Serena Donavan.”

      “As presented by Inventive Events,” she corrected, wishing the gleam in his gaze weren’t quite so speculative. “Quit looking at me like you’re picturing I was the stripper.”

      He leaned toward her, his smile naughty. “Do I have to stop picturing it, or just stop looking like I am?”

      His husky tone seduced her into sharing the fantasy. It was too easy to envision giving a sultry performance for him alone—slipping buttons out of their holes, shimmying out of a blouse as she rolled her shoulders and hips to the accompaniment of pulsing background music.

      She narrowed her eyes. “You are a bad influence. Can’t you see I’m trying to be a respectable businesswoman here?”

      Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d been trying for years to demonstrate that she didn’t have to fit into her estranged father’s eight-to-five, corporate-America notions of respectability to be happy and successful. The results had been decidedly mixed—prompted in part by his new girlfriend, James Donavan had decided last summer to try to be part of her life again, but his brand of support included offers of finding her a job at one of his banks if “that party thing ever falls flat.”

      Then again, how reputable could she be? She had strippers on speed dial.

      David shook his head, his tone laced with amusement. “Give it up, Serena. You’re not cut out to be respectable.”

      She flinched inwardly. David had teased her plenty of times in the past and was only echoing what she herself had just been thinking. Yet somehow the joking indictment sounded a hell of a lot different coming out loud from a Savannah Grant.

      HOLDING HIS cell phone for prop purposes, David sat in the lobby where “reception might be better,” on a decorative bench uncomfortable enough to have been used during the Inquisition. Make a guy sit on one of these long enough, he’d confess to just about anything. Like being unbelievably arrogant?

      AGI had sent him here this weekend to check out apartments, but David’s personal goal had been to find out whether the burning attraction between him and Serena was as he remembered, or if his imagination and time had exaggerated it. He’d also wanted to discover if the Happy Wanderer presented any real competition. David’s earlier call as he drove though an exasperating series of one-way Atlanta streets had eased his mind on both matters. Her announcement of the breakup and the breathy, telling pauses in conversation had led him to half hope she’d fall into his arms when he walked through the office door.

      Arrogance.

      Instead of fawning over him, or even pushing him away so he could