Satin Pleasures by Karen Docter Read Free Book Online Page B

discarded napkin where it belonged? Dan had no idea what he was talking about. Look at his lackadaisical approach to life. The man was living in the back of a truck!
    How could he fish for months on end, especially after engaging in such a demanding career? She would think he'd get bored eventually. She'd certainly go nuts.
    His illusion of balance was an illusion. A fantasy. He'd lost touch with the real world and didn't even know. Poor man.
    The whole thing was nonsense anyway. She wasn't stressed and a piece of plastic couldn't tell her otherwise. She'd prove it. Pressing her thumb in the middle of the box, she closed her eyes and counted. For good measure, she counted again. When her eyes opened, she threw the card across the room.
    Black. She'd always hated that color.
    ***
    Late the next afternoon, Dan yawned under cover of his hand and watched the conference room fill up. The air conditioner blew overhead, but the sunny room had obviously been closed for some time and too many bodies made it worse. A nap on the balcony of his newly leased cliff house overlooking the beach, the warm sun caressing his naked chest, sounded like the only prescription worth swallowing.
    He smiled at the thought of his productive morning. The first thing he'd done after signing the papers on the house was to buy a couple of double chaise lounges. He was dying to try one of them out. Alone, if necessary, although it would be more fun if someone joined him.
    Like Tess.
    He could easily imagine her lying next to him on the ultra-soft cushion, her luxuriant curls loose and blowing every which way on the playful ocean breeze. It would trail over his bare skin as she leaned over to plant slow, drugging kisses in an erotic line from his throat down to his chest. He swallowed hard when she dropped lower and—Laughter from beside him made him tug at the knot of his tie. He shifted in his chair, grateful the conference table shielded his lap. Sporting a hard-on in front of the entire Merchants Association was not good business. "What?" he demanded of his aunt.
    Aunt Mary grinned from her seat at the U-shaped line of tables. "Nothing." Her tone said 'everything'.
    He'd hoped to avoid this conversation altogether. "I'm sorry you had to unlock the door at three a.m. If I'd realized the time, I'd have camped out in the truck for the night. My watch is still packed in a box."
    "I don't know why you keep apologizing, Daniel." Her eyes widened with innocence. "You shouldn't feel guilty about last night. If it will make you feel better, I can assure you it's already forgotten." She suited her actions to the words and turned to a new arrival on her other side.
    "I don't feel guilty," he muttered.
    What he felt was hot and bothered and frustrated as hell. He'd met a woman who brought his blood to a hard boil with one look, hell, one thought, and she was a workaholic with a boyfriend. A live-in boyfriend. For all he knew, she was married to the guy.
    After speaking to Tess on the phone last night, Dan ordered himself to walk away. It wasn't any of his business if the woman chose to work herself to death. He told himself to let Anthony worry about her.
    Did it work?
    No.
    What had he done?
    He'd spent hours in the middle of the night, traipsing an unfamiliar area looking for twenty-four hour stores that carried car parts. Car parts! All those hours in a bass boat, frying in the sun, must have baked his brains into peanut brittle!
    Tess chose that instant to enter the room and clue him in as to why he couldn't keep thoughts of her at bay. Each time he saw her it became more difficult to see her as the consummate businesswoman he knew her to be, rather than the answer to some teenage boy's midnight fantasy. His fantasy. Unnerved by the raw power of his own desire, Dan stared.
    The day had taken its toll on her hair, pulled into a knot on top of her head. Playful tendrils had escaped confinement, framing her face in romantic curls like those a lover's exploring