She couldn’t help smiling. “Aren’t we beyond that?”
“We’re back to that. Your missing panties robbed me of coherent speech.”
“You have very eloquent hands . . . and other body parts.”
“I’m trying to decide if I want to know if you took them off before or after the interview.”
Chloe was enjoying her unexpected role of femme fatale. “I—”
“Don’t tell me,” he broke in. “I can enjoy the fantasy without wanting to kill the fellow who interviewed you.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a woman?”
“Now that’s an interesting thought.” His tone was rich with innuendo.
“You too with the lesbian fantasies?” Chloe lightly smacked his arm.
He retaliated by nipping her earlobe, which sent a little arrow of heat zinging down between her legs. “They’re only fantasies, darling. I don’t share, even with other women.”
The heat blossomed at the raw possessiveness of his statement. And the darling.
His grip on her tightened. “How did the interview go?”
The question jolted her out of the delicious haze of sensual satisfaction she’d been drifting in. She became aware that she was lying on a car seat half-nude in broad daylight, wrapped in the arms of a fully clothed man whom she’d known for less than a week. “It went pretty well. I’m the last candidate they’re talking to, so the decision should be made quickly.”
She must have made a subtle shift away from him because Nathan’s hold on her waist became like steel.
“What kind of position is it?”
She repeated what Judith and her interviewer had told her. As she talked, she realized how dismal the position sounded; all it promised was a good salary and benefits and a way to avoid working for Larry Clarke. She’d accept the job if it was offered to her, but she would be bored. “I’d rather talk about what’s going on with the Prometheus project. Have you been back to help them?”
Now Nathan shifted. “I checked in on the team this afternoon between meetings.”
She heard the longing in his voice. “And you wanted to blow off the meetings and stay to work on it.”
“There was some temptation.”
After his reaction to her going commando, Chloe felt brave. “Send one of your dozens of executive VPs to the meetings. That’s why you have them.”
“The meetings are my responsibility.” His response was clipped.
“So is Prometheus.”
“I have to let my R and D staff do their jobs.”
“Why do you act as though working on Prometheus is some kind of guilty pleasure you should deny yourself? You would be doing your staff a favor by working on it.”
The silence was filled with the muffled hum of the Rolls’s engine and the occasional thump as they hit a pothole even the car’s weight and suspension couldn’t compensate for. Then he skimmed his hand up from her waist to cup her breast. “Speaking of pleasure,” he said, “we should have time for at least one more.”
He flipped over, bringing her with him so she was sprawled on her back on top of him, open to the exquisite invasion of his roving hands. Before the Rolls took the exit ramp off the Garden State Parkway, they’d managed two more pleasures.
As she felt the car slow down, Chloe untangled herself from Nathan’s arms and legs. “We’re getting close to my house. I’ve got to get dressed.”
Nathan helped her sit up and retrieved her blouse, bra, and blazer from the carpeted floor before shifting to the seat opposite her. “I’ll watch,” he said, handing her the crumpled pile of clothing. Without taking his eyes off her, he shrugged into his own shirt and began to button it.
After what they’d just done, it seemed ridiculous to feel self-conscious about having him see her dress, but it marked the transition from lovers to . . . whatever they were. She half turned away from him as she slipped into her bra and fastened it before pulling on her blouse. Her skirt was still bunched up around her waist, so she squirmed to pull it back down to her knees. Now she had to get her panties out of her handbag and find a graceful way to put them back on.
“You can leave them off.” Nathan’s voice made her turn on the seat. His eyes held a wicked glint. “I won’t tell anyone.”
The waves of his hair were rumpled from being tangled with her fingers, and although his shirt was tucked in, he hadn’t bothered to put his jacket or tie back on. He looked completely at ease, while she felt like a wrinkled, rumpled, deliciously used mess. “It’s bad enough that I have to face Grandmillie knowing what we’ve just done. I’m not doing it without underwear.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes still gleaming. “More entertainment for me.”
Torn between amusement and irritation, she pulled the panties from her purse and bent over to get them over her feet and up to her knees. She faced the fact that she was going to have to pull her skirt back up to get the lace where it belonged.
“Now for the good part,” Nathan said.
“You’re not helping.”