ONE
CLAIRE LOOKED FROM THEPAGES spread out on the raw concrete floor to the steel I-beams overhead. The first time she’d seen a set of electrical plans it had been as a little girl peering over her daddy’s shoulder. Then the lines had just been squiggles and scratches. Now when she looked at the drawings, the flat page morphed into three dimensions, and she could see exactly the way the wires needed to snake through the building’s structure. She saw the fixture placement and sensed how the light would wash the finished space.
She glanced back at the plans just to confirm what she already knew. She could rough in for the fixtures the way the architect specified, but the client wouldn’t be happy with the result. Another contractor – hell, lots of other contractors – would do the install according to the drawings and then let the client pay to change it when they realized it wouldn’t work. Claire was tempted. God knew she needed the money. She was okay on this job, at least for now, but she was so overextended on the property she was flipping on the side. All it would take was for something big to go wrong and she could lose everything.
It didn’t matter. The craftsman in her wouldn’t let her do a job she knew wasn’t right. She wasn’t about to take money for someone else’s short sightedness or worse put her family name on a job with bad lighting because the client was too cheap to redo it.
She gathered the plans, shifted her hardhat so it stopped pushing on her pony tail and made her way through the forest of metal studs outside to the construction trailer.
“Hey Sparks,” she said, banging open the flimsy door. “The architect fucked up the lighting plan for the restaurant. I’m going to fix it.”
As soon as she was inside the tiny temporary building, Claire took off her hardhat and pulled the elastic out of her hair, shaking out the thick auburn mane. She had her arms above her head refastening her ponytail when she saw the pained expression on the gray-haired construction manager’s face and realized they weren’t alone.
“I paid my architectural firm a great deal of money, Ms.?”
“English,” Claire answered, taking in the staggeringly handsome man sitting in the corner of the trailer.
She didn’t know how she missed him. He was like a tiger, all coiled energy. Power. Danger.
His dark brown hair fell in careless waves, skimming the collar of a crisp white dress shirt so finely tailored she was sure it cost more than any single piece of clothing in her wardrobe. The polished cotton did nothing to hide the strong shoulders and a back more suited to physical labor than life behind a desk. But it was his eyes that stole her breath and held her pinned in place. Rich chocolate pools, intense and far too discerning. She was sure he could see right through her, and the small trailer suddenly felt even smaller.
“As I was saying, Ms. English, I pay my architects a great deal of money to get things right. What in the world would lead you to believe that you know more than they do?”
His voice was low and commanding, like rich caramel with a burnt sugar bite, and it washed over her, waking up parts of her body that had been dormant for a long time.Jesus.Then the meaning of his words hit her and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“Because I do,” she said with a shrug. “I can light the room the way it’s drawn, but when it’s done instead of being vibrant and exciting, your restaurant will be flat. Dull. Nobody wants that.”
Sparks stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray that constantly overflowed on his desk. Claire had no idea what his real name was or how he’d gotten his nickname, but she’d liked him from the first moment she’d met him. He reminded her of her daddy. Gruff and no nonsense, definitely not one to put up with any bullshit, but he treated her like one of the guys and never made her feel like she couldn’t do something because she was a woman. She already knew she and her crew were as good as any electrical contractor out there, but it was nice not to have to prove it all the time. Navigating her way through a predominantly male industry had set her teeth on edge on more than one occasion.
“Show me,” Sparks said, around the unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth.
Claire unrolled the plans and laid them on top of the papers piled over his desk. She felt the man – it had to be Luke Masters, the developer, who else would pay the architects – come up behind her. He radiated heat, and she fought the urge to lean back into all that warmth. What was wrong with her? He’d acted like an arrogant prick, and she sure as hell didn’t let herself get attracted to the client. But her body didn’t seem up to speed with that concept, and her stomach clenched as she sensed more than felt him stepping closer.
“See here,” she said with a mouth gone suddenly dry. “This is where the bearing columns are, and this is the logical place for a partition wall, but the way the fixture layout’s drawn, this area is going to be flooded. No one’s going to want to sit there. And over here, it’s so dark, your patrons will be lucky to see their fifty dollar chicken.”
Sparks nodded, and she knew he got it, but the guy behind her stayed quiet.
“I can show you what I mean in the space if you want, but trust me, you don’t want to do this.” She rolled up the plans and shoved the hardhat back on her head.
Without waiting for an answer, she put her hand on the knob and pushed the door open. She glanced over her shoulder at the bare-headed man following her. “I suggest you put on a hardhat Mr. Masters. Unless you like paying OSHA fines.”
SHE WASRIGHT about everything. Standing in the empty space lined with bare metal studs, he watched her move around, gesturing to his construction manager about the ceiling, and he started to see what she did. He’d give her permission to make the changes she wanted to make, but from the flash of green in her hazel eyes, he doubted she was waiting for his approval. He sensed that if he turned his attention away, she’d do what she wanted without giving him time to come around and prove she was right with the finished product. She was five foot four inches of lush curves and barely contained energy, and he wanted her more than he’d wanted a woman in as long as he could remember.
He wanted her tied to his bed, naked, flushed and breathless with pleasure, begging for his permission to come.
Fuck, where had that image come from?She had him so distracted; he’d almost walked out of the trailer without a hardhat. He’d been around job sites for two decades, since he started working construction to put himself through college. Wearing a hardhat was second nature, and he’d nearly gone out onto his own site without one. He had to regain control of the situation and then he was going to get to know the fiery auburn-haired vixen a lot better – like with her on her knees while he fucked her pretty little mouth.
“Very well, Ms. English. You’ve made your point. And you’ve probably saved me a great deal of money. Tell your boss I need you for a few hours.” He laced his voice with heat and the command that usually had people jumping to do his bidding. “We’ll discuss your plans over lunch.”
He realized his mistake when her eyes flashed, and Sparks took a step away from him to lay a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“I don’t have a boss, Mr. Masters. It is Mr. Masters, isn’t it?” Heat radiated off of her in angry waves. “I have a crew upstairs and a client in front of me.” She spat the words at him in a way that let him know exactly what she thought of that client. “I am the boss.”
Well fuck. Apparently the C. in C. E. English Electrical Contractors stood for Claire. She glared at him like she wanted to eat him alive. All it did was pour gas on what was quickly becoming an all-consuming fire of want and hunger for her.
First, he was going to get her to agree to lunch and then he’d figure out how to get her naked and writhing with pleasure underneath him. He always got what he wanted. It was what made him such a formidable businessman and let him build a billion dollar empire from almost nothing.
This time what he wanted washer– and when he wanted something, he made damn sure he got his way.
