Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) by Candace Schuler Page A

door.
    "I could ask you the same question."
    "I was just checking," she said quickly, "to, ah... to see if you'd closed and locked your doors like I told you to."
    He gave her a knowing look. "Uh-huh."
    "Well, I was."
    "Uh-huh," he said again, letting her know he wasn't fooled in the least by her flimsy excuse. He gestured at the squat green bottle on the glass-topped table in front of him. "Care to join me in a drink?"
    Nikki tiptoed a few steps closer. "What is it?" she asked, trying not to stare at his bare, hairy chest. It looked a mile wide and as hard as sculpted marble in the moonlight.
    "Armagnac. Fifty-year-old Armagnac." He took a healthy swallow from the oversized snifter he held cradled in his hand. "Good for what ails you."
    Nikki reached out and touched her fingertips to the high arched back of one of the wrought-iron chairs. "And what ails you?" she asked quietly.
    Pierce snorted and gave her an incredulous look.
    "Yeah, me, too," she admitted, surprising them both with her candidness. She pulled the chair away from the table and plopped down into it. "Sexual frustration is hell, isn't it?" she said forlornly, like a child who'd just discovered that sad fact.
    Pierce very nearly smiled. "Indeed it is," he agreed. He held the snifter out to her. "Sip?"
    She took the oversized balloon-shaped glass in both hands and brought it to her nose to sniff. "Does it help?"
    "No," he said, watching her tongue flicker out to taste the fiery liquid before committing herself to anything more. Nikki Martinelli was a cautious woman. Why was he only just realizing that?
    She looked at him over the rim of the glass. "Does anything?" she asked seriously, as if she really wanted to know. "Help, I mean?"
    "Only giving in to what ails you in the first place," he said bluntly, fighting the urge to show her just exactly what would help.
    Nikki put the drink down onto the table between them, untasted. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to get you all... riled up and then—" what was it her brothers always said? "—and then not come across with the goods. I know how men feel about a tease." Which was why she'd never let herself get into a situation where she could be accused of teasing. Until now.
    "It isn't teasing if you mean it," Pierce said gently, feeling guilty for making her feel guilty. "Even if you change your mind later." He ran a fingertip around the rim of the snifter, concentrating on the repetitive motion in an effort to keep his eyes off her legs. "Besides, I'd say it worked both ways tonight." He looked at her from under his lashes, one corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. "You did imply you were suffering from some degree of sexual frustration yourself."
    "Well, yes," Nikki admitted, staring at his slowly circling finger. "But it's my own fault. You were willing to—" she licked her lower lip "—to, ah..."
    Pierce smiled. "Come across with the goods?"
    "Yes," she said breathlessly.
    "I still am," he said simply. "Now. A week from now. A month from now." He leaned back in his chair, deliberately casual and nonthreatening. If a first move was going to be made tonight, she would have to make it. "Whenever you're ready."
    She just looked at him, helplessly, not knowing what to do or say.
    Sensing her confusion, touched by it, he reached out and covered her hand with his where it lay on the table. "It's become very apparent to me that I tried to push you too far, too fast. You're not a woman who rushes into things. You need time to get to know me. To feel comfortable with me. To get used to being touched by me in a casual way before you commit yourself to anything more. That's nothing to feel guilty about. Hell," he said, and squeezed her hand, "in this day and age, that's a laudable approach to intimacy."
    "That's not the reason I said no," she said, staring at his hand on hers. "Not the main reason, anyway. Mainly, I said no because—" she shrugged "—well, partially because you're my boss. And partially