“Sable!” came a shout from Eli’s office.
“He does not call you that.” Chloe gasped.
“He does.”
“It’s kind of sexy, though. Don’t you think?”
She did. For some reason, whenever he bellowed her nickname, shivers tracked down her spine. And not in a bad way.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Gotta go.” Isa hung up on her friend and dropped her phone on the table, straightening her outfit for maximum Bettie Pageness on her way to Eli’s office.
***
Isabella was clacking around his warehouse—he could hear those spike heels every time she stepped off the carpeting onto the concrete. His concentration had been interrupted several times in the last hour. He looked away from the calendar reminder announcing his friend was arriving soon to shout her name. Again.
“Sable!” There was a pause in her steps; then those steps came his direction. The closer the clacking drew, the tighter his gut went. She’d been here, what, two weeks now? Every damn time he saw her, that tightness extended from his gut to his chest the moment she poked her head—
“Yes, Eli.” She leaned in, wrapping her hand around the edge of the wall, her dark hair coasting over one shoulder, her nails pale and manicured, her eyes catlike as she gave him a slow blink. He absolutely did not look at her cleavage, on display in a ruffly white shirt she’d paired with a black skirt that ended demurely below her knees.
“Your shoes are irritating,” he said through his teeth.
“These?” She pointed a toe in a pair of shiny black heels that led to delicate ankles and the tempting swell of her calves. He shifted his legs beneath the desk, because it was either that or bite his knuckle in sexual frustration.
“Yes. Wear something quieter. Those are disruptive.” Each time he heard her clacking, he had to mentally restrain his imagination.
Oh, the places it could go…
“What, like Crocs?” she asked.
He gave her a bland look.
“Apologies, Eli, but I’m not changing my shoes.” She came into his office, her hips swaying with each sure step she took toward him.
“Fine. Then you’re fired.”
“Oh, no, not again.” She smiled, her lush mouth tipping at both ends. She lifted his empty coffee cup from his desk. “Refill?”
He breathed in the spicy scent of her perfume. How was it that she smelled like exotic temptation? He’d be damned if he was going to tell her to change her perfume. Then she might ask why he didn’t like it, which wasn’t the case at all.
He liked it way too much.
“No,” he said.
She started away from him.
“Wait.”
She spun on that spindle of a heel and cocked her head. “Yeeees?”
“Sit.”
“I’m not a dog, Eli.”
He raked his teeth over his bottom lip and called up his patience. “Ms. Sawyer, won’t you have a seat?”
“I’d love to,” she chimed, sitting prettily after relinquishing his empty mug to one corner of his desk.
“I heard you on the phone. Personal call?”