Her lashes feathered closed as his hands came down on her shoulders and his fingers began kneading.
Oh, yes. She almost melted. God, this was what a woman needed at the end of the day. She could have just sunk into her chair and become a puddle of goo at the intense pleasure that began to move through her.
His thumbs worked into the backs of her shoulders, then her neck. He rubbed and caressed until she would have given him anything to continue. Until she was nearly a weeping mass of relaxed sensation.
And as the stress moved out of her, another tension invaded her. His fingers on the bare flesh of her neck, his breath at her ear as he leaned close.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he whispered as he kneaded and manipulated tight, aching muscles.
She wasn’t going to argue with him. Not even.
She forced her fingers to move, releasing the tiny pearl buttons and letting the material part over the white, lacy bra she wore.
Her br**sts were hard, swollen, aching. She was so ready for his touch. So ready to be stroked everywhere, taken in every way.
Her lips were parting, her head turning for him, when a hard “Natches knock” sounded on the door.
Janey’s eyes widened as Alex paused. She knew Natches’s knock. She knew he didn’t wait. She barely had the first few buttons of her blouse redone when he walked into the office from the outside door and came to a hard, shocked stop.
He blinked back at her as she flushed; then he glared at Alex before he slowly turned his back.
“One. Two.”
Fuck, he was counting. She moved to hurriedly button her blouse and restore herself as she pushed at Alex’s hands.
“Three. Four.”
She had managed the final button when he reached five and turned back. His expression was dark, accusing, as he stared at Alex behind her.
“We need to discuss your assigned duties in this little matter,” Natches growled. “Touching doesn’t come under that list.”
Alex grunted but moved back from her.
“You should wait for an invitation to enter,” Janey informed him in frustration. “Geez, Natches. You don’t just walk in.”
“My name is on the deed, too.” He used that as such an excuse and she knew it.
He moved into the room, wearing jeans and riding chaps and a thick leather jacket over the dark shirt beneath. Chaya should keep him locked on the houseboat so he didn’t cause so much damned trouble.
“What do you want?” She lifted the wine and took a healthy sip. “Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you,” she assured him. “But midnight is an odd time for a visit.”
“Not when your sister has a stalker.” He flicked a look over her shoulder at Alex, then grimaced. “You know he’s too old for you, right?”
She was in serious danger of breaking her one-glass-of-wine limit and going for the bottle.
“Natches.” Her voice was warning.
He grunted.“I just came to see how you were doing.” He shrugged his shoulders restlessly. “Chaya,
Crista, and Kelly are doing some kind of girl thing on the boat, and Dawg and Rowdy were pouting in Dawg’s. I didn’t feel like putting up with the pouting.”
“So they were picking on you, and you thought you would share the fun and pick on me?” she asked sweetly.
He grinned, then frowned back at Alex.
“The produce people called me today,” he finally told her. “Manager was screaming something about an abusive foreigner cursing at him over celery. Said he lost the restaurant account.”
Janey leaned back in her chair now. “So?”
He shrugged again. “The manager’s a friend of mine. I just wondered what happened.”
“You don’t want to know anything about the restaurant unless it finally burns to the ground, remember?”
she reminded him. “So why are you here about this?”
His eyes narrowed. “I just told you why.”
“Tell your friendly manager to remember me the next time he decides to send out inferior produce.” She crossed her arms on her desk and leaned forward. “It was crap, Natches. I was getting the worst of the deliveries, deliberately, because of Dayle. They haven’t figured out yet that the perfect Mackay princess was just as much a pawn in Dayle’s games as anyone else was. I don’t care about the comments, but I won’t serve my customers crap.”
Natches was still, silent for long moments. His expression never changed, but she watched his eyes, watched the slow burn of his temper.
“Look, I can take care of the business,” she told him. “Desmond arranged a new supplier out of Louisville. We’ll get produce later in the day, but we’ll have it on time and we’ll get it fresh. No big deal.”
“The suppliers in Louisville charge more,” he reminded her.
“I’m sure we can weather the small jump in cost,” she breathed out roughly. “I’m not going back to your buddy for supplies, Natches.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he told her. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”
“Why don’t you tell me every time Chaya chews your ass for being arrogant and full of testosterone?”
she asked mockingly.
“But you’re my business, too, and the problems you have here because of suppliers that I know is my business,” he informed her, his voice a hard, lazy drawl. A dangerous sound. “Especially when I arranged with someone I called a friend to make certain you were given exactly what you needed.”
“Maybe he didn’t believe I needed anything better,” she remarked, before pushing her fingers through her hair in irritation. “Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s business, nothing more. I wasn’t satisfied with their product so I went somewhere else.”
He nodded abruptly, before rising to his feet once again and heading for the door. As he opened it, he turned back to them, leveling a look at Alex.
“I’m going to cut your f**king hands off if I keep catching them on her,” he growled. “Damn, find someone your own age.”
He slammed the door before either of them could retaliate.
“One of these days, I’m going to cut his tongue out,” Alex mused behind her.
“Better do it before he cuts your hands off.” She almost laughed, before turning back to the piles of papers on her desk.
God, she wanted his hands on her. But it was do this now or it wouldn’t get done at all.