Page 10 of Adam’s Obsession

With a start, she realized this was exactly how she picturedher Savage. With Adam’s blue eyes and long lashes. His thick black hair curlingwickedly about his nape. His broad shoulders and muscular chest and bulgingbiceps beneath his casual dress shirts. She couldn’t bear to speculate on whatdelights lay quiescent beneath his khakis.

Oh hell. Yes, she could. She spent hours in her officepretending not to sneak illicit peeks across the hall. And what demon oftorture had seen fit to place her office so close to his anyway? All thatseparated them were flimsy panes of glass and a seven-foot corridor. Shewatched as he talked on the phone, lazily leaning back in his executive chairwith his feet up on the desk. She watched as he puzzled over software code. Shewatched, drooling, as he worked through lunch, making love to a meatball sub.She watched him a lot.

And he noticed her…never.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. He noticed her when heneeded her help with a program evaluation or a financial analysis. He made nobones about the fact that he thought Katherine was a genius. He just didn’t seeher as a woman.

And that was the way she liked it. It was. She worked hardto maintain a professional persona in the office—and for good reason. No oneneeded to know how much it cost her.

She sighed and forced herself out of bed. Stretching, shepadded to her closet, which held a collection of prim, proper and downrightrepressed business suits. She selected a black pinstripe. She considered apretty mauve blouse with a plunging neckline—one she’d bought in a fit ofrebellion—then passed it over and pulled out a blouse of gunmetal gray thatcomplemented the suit. She finished off the ensemble with a lovely pair ofcomfortable black flats. In an outfit like this, she could be easily ignored.

Just the way she liked it.

Although she had to admit, as she brushed her hair back intoa tight bun, today she felt a little different. Today her comfortable suit ofarmor, one that had always kept her safe, seemed…itchy. Tight. Repressive.

It was almost as though her session with Savage last nighthad awakened something within her, some brazen insanity. Rather than avoidingthe attention of Adam Trillo, she almost wanted to provoke it.

Almost. She snorted as she poured her coffee.

Almost.

She wasn’t crazy.

Katherine had one rule when it came to men at work and itwas born from painful experience. So as attracted as she was to Adam—and shewas—she would continue to play the ice queen.

Then again, it was a moot point. Wasn’t it? Because whenthose deep-blue eyes passed over her, they passed right over her.

He was simply not attracted to her.

And that was the way she liked it.

Right?

She stopped at Jose’s Taco Shack for a breakfast burrito,one of her guilty pleasures. There was something addictive in them, Katherinewas pretty sure. It called to her as it sat there in its little paper bag onthe passenger seat beside her. Its delicious scent wafted to her nostrils,tempting her to rip off the wrapper and shove it into her mouth—to take in thewhole thing, the thick, turgid length of it…

No, wait. She was thinking about Adam again.

Katherine made a face as she pulled into her parking spot infront of Trillo–Maris, Inc. She had to stop doing that, stop thinking aboutAdam like that.

She had to save all her passion, all her wildness, forSavage.

She had to keep it in check. Keep it in line.

At least ‘til five.

She could ignore Adam until then.

As though she had conjured him with her thoughts, AdamTrillo pulled in the parking space next to her. Her heart did a littleloop-de-loop. It always did when she saw him. Every time. She wasn’t sure whatit was about him, his looks, his personality, his scent, but she’d never met aman who affected her like Adam Trillo. She’d never felt like this with any ofthe guys she’d dated. Certainly not with Greg, the man she’d met and married—totheir mutual chagrin—in her early twenties.

No. Adam Trillo was a different breed entirely. He was perfect.It was ludicrous to think a man like him would ever be interested in someonelike Katherine. It was stupid to even fantasize about him. Stupid.

Cutting the engine of his sleek black Lexus, he shot her afriendly smile. Dimples exploded across his handsome face.

Oh dear. Keeping it in check was going to be hard.

“Good morning, Katherine,” he said, unfolding himself fromthe driver’s seat.

She forced herself not to stare at the way his bicepsbunched in his shirtsleeves, the way his buttocks clenched in his Dockers as hestood. Valiantly, she ignored those broad, strong shoulders, that massivechest, the way he filled out every inch of his polo shirt. Exquisitely.