AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Logan knocked on the jamb of the open door to Sam’s office. He’d spent the rest of the morning in meetings with his new team and Jack. They prioritized the research projects Jack wanted everyone working on and the acquisitions Logan would be looking into in the coming months.
“Hey, Sam.” Logan watched as Sam’s head shot up, her attention ripped from her computer, which apparently held something enthralling. So enthralling, she hadn’t noticed he’d been watching her for the past few minutes. The woman intrigued the crap out of him. Unfortunately.
She had a habit of rubbing the tip of her nose with her index finger as she focused, then tapping it whenever she smiled as though she’d had a breakthrough or some big “aha!” moment.
Logan blinked his eyes purposely, a trick he’d used during his years in special ops when he needed to clear his mind and refocus. Like the click of an old slide show projector, Logan moved to the next frame in his mind.
He focused solely on Samantha as a co-worker, not as an erotically tantalizing woman with a kick-ass body he’d love to get his hands on. It was an exercise he’d be doing a lot of, if they were going to work together.
He had no business getting involved with anyone with the state his head was in. He needed to focus on planting one foot in front of the other, right now. On just making sure he made it through the day without losing the shit that seemed to be swimming around in his head for brains nowadays. There wasn’t time for anything other than that, and sure as hell not with a woman like Sam.
“Jack told me to come see you at two. He said you’ve done some of the preliminary work for us on a few of the companies he wants to look into,” Logan said, a little intrigued with the way she openly ogled him from head to toe.
She didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it. It was almost comical how blatantly she allowed her eyes to skim him from head to toe. If it wasn’t so comical, he might squirm under the scrutiny, but nothing about her gaze made him uneasy.
“Sam?” he prompted when she still hadn’t answered him.
“Hmmm? Oh! Lunch.”
“What?” He didn’t know what she meant. He hadn’t mentioned lunch and it was already two o’clock.
Her eyes cut to the small clock that sat on the corner of her desk and he heard her murmur quietly about it being lunchtime already. He wondered how often she forgot to eat when she was into something. And how often she talked to herself, even when there was someone else in the room.
“Uh,” she said almost distractedly as she leaned over and used her mouse to save something on the screen before locking the computer. “I need to go eat lunch. Come with me and we’ll talk while we eat?” She picked up her purse and faced him.
“Uh.” Real suave, idiot. How to explain that he brought lunch so he wouldn’t have to leave the building? “I, uh already ate.”
“No biggie,” she said, seemingly unfazed. “You can have dessert.” She walked to the office door as though she expected him to follow her, and follow he did. Like a freaking puppy. What the hell was wrong with him?
As they stood by the elevator, Sam cocked her head to one side, her expression thoughtful. As he waited to see what she’d do, trying to decipher the maddening scent that had to be a pheromone of some sort, he noted she was even taller than he’d thought. She must be close to six feet tall.
So close to his own six feet two inches in those boots, he wouldn’t even have to duck his head to close the space between them and taste those full lips of hers. He imagined they’d taste like cherries or strawberries, but that was probably only because of the berry red lipstick she wore.
He didn’t expect it at all when Samantha reached a hand out and squeezed his bicep. Her hand felt too damned good over the cotton of his shirt. She ran her hand up to his shoulder, her fingertips grazing lightly over his collarbone. Hell, if that didn’t send a message straight to his groin. The expression on her face was almost analytical in its intensity. Her touch was clinical, but his body didn’t seem to give a damn.
Great. A hard-on at the office on his first day. What a proud moment.
“Hmm. It really is just like a romance novel.” She left the odd statement out there and turned to enter the opening elevator doors, as though she hadn’t just felt him up.
Logan felt a grin on his face and another laugh he hadn’t expected bubbling up in his chest. Luckily, the strange way her mind worked intrigued him enough that his dick started to settle down in his pants and he was able to follow her.
Catching up, he let one hand fall to her elbow for no other reason than he wanted more contact with her. He leaned in close. “What’s like a romance novel?”
Samantha froze and turned round eyes on him. “Damn, I said that out loud? Have to stop doing that,” she seemed to admonish herself, stabbing the button marked L for Lobby in brass letters.
“Did I—” she cut herself off as she glanced at his shoulders.
He laughed. “Feel me up? Yes. That wasn’t happening in your head, either.”
Logan put his back against the wall and turned to face the double doors. Standing shoulder to shoulder, she turned to him with one of the most earnest expressions he’d ever seen.
“I apologize. I don’t have an internal filter. I’m the only one in my family who was born without one. It used to embarrass the heck out of my sisters. I always said the wrong thing in front of their boyfriends. I never fit in at school. I would have been a total pariah if it weren’t for my sisters and brothers paving the way for me.” Samantha sighed and he bit back a grin. “Anyway, I just never managed to grow a filter so you’ll have to excuse my random babbling from time to time.”
Logan felt the corners of his mouth twitch as he nodded. “Got it. No problem. Ignore random babbling.”
The hell he would. He loved the random things she said. They were funny, and when she combined them with actually reaching out and feeling him up? He could get on board with that in a heartbeat.
Logan held the elevator door open when they landed in the lobby. The crowd of people moving in and out of the four units that made up the elevator bank of the large building kicked an unwelcome agitation into high gear. He gritted his teeth as they moved through the crowd and tried to get Samantha to begin babbling again.
