The new guy in the office was a serious distraction.
How was a girl supposed to concentrate when there was a six-foot specimen of male perfection strutting around, on his way to the copy machine, the fax machine, the coffee maker--always on his way somewhere, and always passing by Yasmine Talbot’s desk.
As he walked by just now, his ocean-and-evergreen scent wafting over her, Yasmine’s fingers halted on the keyboard, and when he was well past her desk, she turned to watch. Two days ago, she’d nearly fallen out of her chair watching.
He knew the effect he was having on her, and he probably reveled in his power. From the moment they’d first laid eyes on each other last week when he’d emerged from the new employee training session and stood across the room from her blinking under the fluorescent lights, they’d begun a silent office flirtation that had progressively gotten bolder by the day. Now, it bordered on the ridiculous that they’d yet to even say hello to each other, even in an office as big as VirtualActive’s. Were they just going to exchange hot and heavy glances forever?
Yasmine was both amused and embarrassed by the animal mating dance quality it had taken on. She imagined them starring in their own Discovery Channel documentary--mating habits of the common office drone. He fluffed his feathers, strutted to and fro, made searing eye contact. Essentially, he was staking his claim. But Yasmine didn’t want to be claimed. Nor did she want to star in any mating ritual documentaries in the midst of her workplace. And yet she couldn’t deny how mesmerized she was by him. It was as if she’d been biologically programmed to want him.
This guy, with his windswept hair and his perfect ass, was the stuff heroes on the covers or romance novels were made of. Put him in a billowing white shirt unbuttoned to reveal his chest, with a beautiful damsel draped on one arm, and he’d look right at home. But put him in the middle of the mundane offices of VirtualActive, Inc. and he was likely to spawn his own interactive sex game, Virtual Alpha Male. And don’t think that as the only female programmer at the virtual sex software company, she hadn’t seriously considered it.
In fact, she realized as she glanced at the file full of notes on her latest software project, Sexcapade, probably just what she needed to kick start her creativity was a night with a guy like him. So far, she’d been uninspired, and the project was going badly.
But her attraction to the new guy was slightly bizarre. She didn’t do beefed-up, all-American surfer boy types. She was completely immune to the charms of calendar hunks with too-perfect hair, and yet here she was, her girl parts getting all tingly every time this guy who was prettier than her strolled by. It had to be the lack of attractive available men in her life.
Her type of guy was darker, more brooding, prone to motorcycles and leather. True, she had a bad boy fixation--particularly if they were the unattainable, strictly fantasy type--but the way she figured, bad boys and bad girls went hand in hand. Yasmine might have turned pretending to be good into an art form, but in her heart lurked a rebel.
He disappeared into the break room, and Yasmine tried to turn her attention back to her work. But her mind kept wandering.
One other problem with him--he looked more like he belonged in LA than San Francisco. He had a tan, for crying out loud.
Where would anyone, especially a programmer who spent his days attached to a computer, even get a tan in the city in the middle of December? The answer was that they wouldn’t, not unless they were going to a tanning bed--did those even exist anymore?--which this guy must have been. A fact that should have repulsed Yasmine.
Instead, she found herself wondering if he had tan lines. One of her more disturbingly detailed fantasies even had her freeing him of his khakis, inch by inch, to discover not a single line. It was ridiculous. He was probably the kind of guy who had a Playboy Bunny tattoo right next to his schlong.
The break room door opened, and the object of her wacked fantasies came out carrying a bottle of Evian water. She watched him walk to the printer, his snug pants advertising the well-sculpted muscles beneath them, and shook her head. It was official--Yasmine was losing her freaking mind.
She glared at her computer screen and promised herself she would do no more ogling today. She would focus on her work. Focus, focus, focus.
If only he looked like any other code-slinging brainiac who spent too much time indoors and could use a trip to the nearest fashion consultant, there would be no problem. But he didn’t. And he worked in her office, no less. Yasmine didn’t do the office help. So she took her tingly feelings as a sign that she’d spent a few months too many sans boyfriend.
She just needed to get laid, and she’d stop drooling over her strutting, preening officemate.
“Excuse me,” she heard an unfamiliar male voice say.
Yasmine looked up to see the object of her constant ogling looming beside her desk. He smiled faintly, his gaze locked on her. She opened her mouth to say hi, but nothing came out.
“Is this yours?”
She stared at the document she’d printed an hour ago and nodded. “I, um, I...forgot to go pick it up.”
He placed it on top of her inbox pile and smiled. He had perfect white teeth. “We should stop this, don’t you think?”
“Stop what?”
“Staring at each other but never talking.”
Staring? Had she been staring?
