Hostile Takeover by Hill, W (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📕

He wore those modest oversized shorts that most guys did for a swimsuit, but she preferred to imagine him in far more fitted swim trunks. Ones that would cling to his ass and groin like a second skin when he hefted himself easily out of the pool on strong arms, one of her siblings clinging to his back.

If he was lying behind her now, she’d feel the hard planes of his body, that impressive groin pressed up against her ass. He’d cup her breast, play with the piercing jewelry as he dozed and she got more aroused, until she was squirming against him, rubbing against his cock, waking him up on several levels. Of course he’d probably grumble at her for disturbing his rest, threaten to punish her. Push her down under the blanket so she had to service his morning erection. Maybe he’d let her use her hands, to cup his muscular ass, stroke the taut lines of his thighs.

Her lids were drooping. She really had slept poorly last night. She needed to get up, finish that work. Hold it all together, even though she was afraid everything was falling apart. She was just so tired… If she had a nap, she’d be better off. She wasn’t going to give up, even if she had to go through a hundred days like the last two. Which would technically be two hundred days…

* * * * *

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, yeah, bitch, bitch. Stop being such a little girl about it. Think how much better production will be after the turnover.”

“We’ll lose about a million during the outage.”

“You could pull a million out of your ass right now. This will triple our investment in two years.”

Slowly, she surfaced. Where was… Oh holy hell, she’d fallen asleep on the couch, apparently some time ago, because Ben was back in his office. With at least Peter and Matt, the two who’d been arguing with him. Was Lucas in here? She froze, wondering if she should just keep her eyes shut and hope they hadn’t noticed her. Yeah, that was likely. From the direction of Peter’s voice, he was in the chair that faced the couch.

She’d fallen asleep like a sleepy, trusting child, her nose nestled in his pillow, arms wrapped around it like she’d wrap them around him, never wanting to let him go. God, she was like a Taylor Swift song, probably not the picture of mature woman at the moment. If they were looking at her, they’d know she was awake, because she was turning the color of a tomato.

The hell with it. She opened her eyes. Peter was actually standing, leaning on the wall behind the chair, all that restless energy too out front to be contained for long in a chair. Though he’d retired from the National Guard to be here for Dana, he still looked like he should be carrying an assault rifle, ready to lead a unit into a firefight. He was built like a muscular tank, and to the delight of every woman who met him, he was the one K&A man who usually wore khakis or dress jeans and form-fitting heavy weight tees that emphasized that physique. Since he oversaw a lot of the plant operations, the casual look was more appropriate for him.

Matt was as intimidating and riveting as ever in his dark suit, polished shoes. He was in what Marcie privately called his raptor pose. Though he appeared relaxed, ankle on the opposite knee, hands loose on the chair arms, there was something about the position of his head, the focus of the dark eyes, that suggested he was about to swoop down five hundred feet and pluck a hapless field mouse out of a dense meadow.

Ben had his chair pushed back with one foot against the edge of the desk. He was tapping a pen against the arm. None of them were looking toward her, but they all realized she was here. They hadn’t woken her. It was as if her being in Ben’s office made her part of his other belongings. She wondered how Lucas would feel about that. Had he already been here? Seen her?

“I have something else to handle now,” Ben said, tilting his head in her direction. “Are we done?”

“Yeah. Hey, don’t forget next Friday’s benefit.” Peter pushed off the wall. “Black tie. Stale finger foods, open checkbook. The girls are really looking forward to it.”

Today was Thursday. Were they anticipating him being gone for the next seven days, such that Peter was mentioning it now? She held her tongue, though cold dread filled her stomach. Had she known him well enough to anticipate his escape out of town?

Then Peter gave him a grin. “It will take you that long to get some unlucky woman to agree to be your date.”

“I’ll ask your wife,” Ben said dryly. “You know she’ll choose me.”

“Yeah. Keep it up, I’ll wrap your oversized appendage around your throat and choke you with it.”

“Don’t you wish yours was long enough to do that?”

“Gentlemen,” Matt warned in a mild voice. She knew he was a stickler about talking crude around women, at least in normal conversation. The others followed the same code, though she’d always noticed Ben strayed outside the lines more than the rest.

Through Cass, she knew he’d lived on the streets as a kid. Maybe that was why he slipped in the manners department more often, though she’d never seen Ben treat the K&A women with anything but the greatest respect. That street experience probably contributed to his versatility as a lawyer, but he’d have made a good investigator as well, because he could easily adopt different personas. He’d delighted her siblings with his command of accents. Cajun, Irish, Midwestern, New England. What she found interesting was how the accents would show up unconsciously when his moods changed, as if the situation called forth that particular personality.

When Matt rose and he and Peter headed toward the