Rock Hard (Rock Kiss 2)

The truth was she was running away. Only for a few minutes, but that’s what this was: strategic retreat. Gabriel Bishop was overwhelming. Once, before she’d ever met him and under the influence of cocktails, she’d told Molly she wanted to rip off his shirt and sink her teeth into his pecs.

That desire hadn’t waned even now that she knew he was a T-Rex. Of course, the desire was all strictly in her imagination. The idea of actually handling him in real life? So impossible as to be laughable. Charlie-mouse was not about to play with a predator who could eat her alive and not even notice the bones. The good news was that she could admire him in relative safety—there was no chance in hell he’d ever notice her as a woman.

Getting the coffee from a nearby café, she took it back upstairs. He was in his office when she entered, the striped dark gray of his tie hanging around his neck and his damp hair roughly combed. The scent of clean, fresh soap over warm skin permeated the office. Shooting her a smile that turned him from gorgeous to flat-out devastating, he flipped up the collar of his white shirt to get the tie in place. “Thank you, Ms. Baird.”

Nodding, Charlotte escaped, though she really wanted to stay. She’d never realized how erotic it was to watch a man dress until this precise moment. And she shouldn’t be having these thoughts about her boss—especially since she couldn’t keep from quivering like a rabbit in his presence. Sometimes she just annoyed herself.

“Get to work,” she muttered and knuckled down.

Gabriel was fine for the first hour, but then he began barking orders even a six-armed woman with a split personality would have had trouble handling.

Finally, pushed to the edge, Charlotte snapped. “I’m going as fast as I can!” she yelled when he asked her for something a minute after he’d asked her to complete another task.

He scowled and held out a file. “This is a priority.”

Grabbing it from his hand, she said, “Fine,” and slapped it down on her desk.

It was over an hour later that he disappeared for ten minutes. When he returned, it was to put a small bakery box on her desk. “I think you need something to sweeten your mood today, Ms. Baird.”

What she needed was for the T-Rex who was her boss to stop snarling and growling, she thought as he returned to his office. Not opening the box until her curiosity had almost killed her, she found it held a slice of decadent chocolate cake with a white-chocolate ganache topped with curls of both white and milk chocolate. “I cannot be bribed with cake,” she muttered, eating a bite nonetheless.

Cake aside, he didn’t let up. Needing a break lest she give in to her new fantasy—that of dumping a jug of ice-cold water on his aggravating head, she didn’t cancel her lunch date with Molly, the library where her best friend worked only a five-minute walk away. First, she wanted to catch up on what was happening with Molly and Fox. Second, T-Rex needed to know he couldn’t stomp all over her.

Her conversation with Molly had her smiling in no time. Sandwiches eaten, she dragged her best friend into a fancy lingerie shop where she’d window-shopped more than once. Fine, she might have given in to temptation a couple of times, but no one had to know about her small addiction to pretty lace panties and bras.

In fact, she thought gloomily, at the rate she was going, no one ever would know.

“What’s the point of buying lingerie that’ll stay on for five seconds at most?” Molly muttered at one point.

“Five seconds?” Charlotte put a hand over her heart, her mind suddenly supplying her with images of Gabriel’s big hands tearing off the lace that cupped her breasts. “Wait while I have an orgasm.” It came out a little higher than she’d intended, her face flushed.

“What, you still haven’t jumped T-Rex? Even now that you two are attached at the hip?”

Charlotte pursed her lips while inside her head, fantasy Charlotte punished the boss for his bad behavior by tying him up naked. “Why would I want to jump a man who yells at me one minute,” she said, deciding she was losing her mind, “and leaves chocolate cake on my desk the next?”

“What?” Paying for a bra and panty set that would look phenomenal on her knockout curves, Molly pointed a finger at her. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Hah! More like I’ve been protecting you from the madness,” Charlotte said as they walked out into the sunshine. “This is only my second day in the position, but he’s already driving me insane. Yesterday he made me work till ten at night, caused me to miss a date with Ernest—”

“What you and Ernest are doing isn’t called dating, Charlie.”

Charlotte folded her arms, trying not to think about the fact she’d been fantasizing about the wrong man ever since Gabriel Bishop walked into her life. “So maybe he hasn’t made a move—”

“After a year.” Molly’s voice was gentle but firm. “Doesn’t Ernest spend the whole time telling you about his model-airplane collection?”

Glaring at Molly, Charlotte said, “I admit he’s a bit obsessed with his models, but he’s small like me, kind, and he doesn’t raise his voice at me.”

“You know I like Ernest; he’s a lovely, sweet man.” Molly shoulder-bumped her. “I understand why you want to be attracted to him, but the truth is you aren’t.”

Charlotte ducked her head, not wanting to face a fact she’d been happily avoiding for a year. As long as she was “dating” Ernest, she had a safety net, a way to pretend she was normal for at least a fraction of time.