Versed in Desire by Anne Calhoun Page B

you’ve found Morrison.”
    Names weren’t my strong suit. I’d heard dozens of them in my first two weeks at Cooper Bensonhurst and was just beginning to remember the ones I could attach to faces. The other shoe dropped: Luke the tongue-tangling rake was also Luke Morrison, VP of Special Acquisitions, Tony’s best friend. We hadn’t met because he’d been in Tokyo for the last two weeks, acquiring something special worth just over half a billion dollars.
    Math geek, my ass . Corporate raider, more like.
    Speechless yet again, I took what I hoped was an inconspicuous step away from Luke and did my best impersonation of innocence for Tony.
    â€œShe’s awesome,” Tony continued at full volume, oblivious to the severed power line of longing showering sparks around us. “Don’t even think about stealing her away to replace Bonita.”
    Bonita was Luke’s beak-nosed harpy of an admin, and on my best day I couldn’t hope to match her scary efficiency. “That wasn’t what I was stealing her away for,” Luke said. I shot him a quelling look, but thank God Tony was already gone, drawn into a circle of fashion types.
    Luke and I stood immobile in the foyer, people parting around us to flow in and out of the open front door. I looked at him and he looked at me. “I thought you said your name was Erin.”
    â€œ Cor -ryn,” I enunciated twenty minutes too late. It wasn’t the first time someone had substituted the more familiar Erin for my unusual name.
    Hands on hips, Luke looked at his battered Birkenstocks, then stepped towards me, using his body to shift me back, out of traffic. He shoved his hand through his hair, which was a couple of weeks past a haircut and starting to curl. “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.”
    Trapped between him and the wall, oh, how I wanted to agree, to sneak out with Luke and channel the wildfire flowing between us. I had a healthy appreciation for the adrenaline rush of casual sex…but not with my boss’s best friend two weeks after I’d started a job at the most prestigious investment house in New York. I’d scraped by waiting tables and temping. Cooper Bensonhurst paid well enough for me to get my own apartment and I had big plans for a writing schedule set around the regular hours.
    â€œI don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. I laid my hand on his chest as I spoke, intending the gesture to appease, but the heavy thud of his pulse traveled through my palm and up my arm. Our heart rates slowly synchronized and for a bewitching, bewildering moment the connection seemed to amplify the pulse and rhythm I felt emanating from the city. My fingers curled into his sweater.
    He read my mixed message without effort. He leaned in, brushed his beautiful mouth over my cheek, then murmured, “You sure?” in my ear.
    I could smell whiskey on his breath and that hot-earth aroma of lust rising from his open collar. Backed into a wall, Luke tense and expectant mere inches from my body, my senses jerked into overdrive, recording the images his question inspired. Hiking up my dress, gripping my ass with both hands, sliding inside. Heat flickered through my pussy and a little breath of a sigh wafted into the air between his mouth and mine.
    Two more people worked their way into the tiny space, urging him against me. He put a hand by my head to keep from crushing me, but I still felt him against me from hip to shoulder, the strength of his erection pressed against my belly. The other hand curled around the back of my thigh, edging up my skirt while his eyes, dark and daring, searched mine.
    â€œI’m sure.”
    My firm tone surprised both of us. He stepped back and blew out his breath, a visible crack in his cool facade. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen frustration on the face of a man who’d been denied what he wanted. It was the first time I regretted it as