Men at Work: Through the Roof / Taking His Measure / Watching It Go Up

She dropped her Vuitton bag in his visitor’s chair and put her hands on her hips. “Wherever did you get that idea, silly?”

“Ben told me yesterday.”

Aha! They’d been in touch. “Really. Well, that’s news to me. You know,” she said, fiddling with her earring and batting her eyelashes, “he did say he’d be out of pocket for a while, but…”

Mathew’s eyes almost popped out of his head as she shamelessly forced her shoulders back so that the twins thrust forward, launching like pleasure missiles.

She cocked her head and turned a melting gaze upon him. “Oh, gosh. This is a tiny bit embarrassing, but…darling Mathew…do you know where he is?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Tremaine said, rapidly blinking. Then he fixed her with a too-bland stare.

“Mmm.” She sashayed forward and sat on the edge of his desk, never taking her eyes off his.

He swallowed convulsively and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His gaze fell into her cleavage again.

Marina leaned forward some more and shook her finger at him. “Naughty, naughty, Mathew. Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to lie?”

He blushed to the roots of his hair. “Lie?”

Her voice low and husky, she said, “I should spank you, bad boy.”

His eyes glazed over and he almost drooled onto his desk. “Sp-spank?”

“Mmm-hmm. Take down your pants and—”

He shot backward in his rolling chair and crossed one leg over the other, clasping his hands over his crotch. He wiped sweat from his temple with the back of one hand. “Ms. Reston, please.”

“Please what, honey?” She moistened her lips.

He jerked at his tie as if strangled.

“Where is Ben, sweetie? C’mon, you can tell me. I know he’s working construction. Is he on the job at that new auto dealership you’re doing?”

Tremaine shook his head.

“Then—” She tapped her fingernails on his desk “—on site at the lieutenant-governor’s beach house?”

“N-no.”

She sauntered around the desk and grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Where is he, honey? Don’t be a bad boy, now. Tell Miss Marina where Benny is. I know he’s working for you.”

She didn’t, but bluffing got her the information.

“Davie,” he gasped, cross-eyed, his nose disappearing into her cleavage. “Our big condo units there.”

“Oh, Mathew.” Marina smiled. “I could kiss you.” She stepped back and then did kiss him, right on the mouth. No tongue action, though—she had to draw the line somewhere.

Tremaine sat stunned and paralyzed as she picked up her purse, hitched it over her shoulder and walked to the door. His eyes were riveted helplessly to her ass, as if it were a priceless piece of art and he were a collector.

Just to punish him a little for trying to keep Ben’s whereabouts from her, she rolled her hips with the last few steps and shot him a provocative look over her shoulder.

Evil? Not at all. Women had to use what power they had in this man’s world.

“Thanks, babe,” she said. “You enjoy the rest of your day, now. And don’t worry—I never reveal a source.”

3

MARINA GUNNED the Porsche down a dirt road in Davie, Florida. She wore a very short, painted-on white jean-skirt, hand-embellished with embroidery that climbed her hips and blossomed on the small seat. The button on the fly had been imported from Morocco and the artist had signed the low-dipping waistband.

Giuseppe Zanotti had crafted her sandals, Catherine Malandrino had sculpted her clingy, belly-baring top and Bobbi Brown took responsibility for her lush lips and full, expertly lined lashes. God had given her a set of long, slim legs; her trainer had perfected them. God had not provided her highlights or her voluptuous bustline, but Marina would go to her grave swearing that He had.

She had dressed to kill and, if she did say so herself, she looked like hot sex on a stick. Ben would drop to his knees and crawl after her.

She pleasantly envisioned herself planting her bejeweled toes in the center of his forehead, so he had to suck on her spike heel. Then he’d beg her forgiveness….

The 911 sped around a last curve leading to a vast construction site that teemed with hot, sweaty, shirtless men framing out a very large building. According to Mathew Tremaine, one of those hot, sweaty, shirtless men was Ben.

She squealed the car to a halt, unbuckled her seat belt and vaulted out, her chestnut hair streaming in the wind. Several guys on the crew stopped work to stare as she strode toward them wearing her oversized Dior sunglasses. One of them whistled, one clapped a hand over his heart and another almost stepped on his tongue.

“Hello, boys.” Marina accepted a big beefy hand up onto the concrete slab and rewarded its owner with a dazzling smile. Then her gaze narrowed on a set of familiar shoulder blades about a hundred feet away.

Ben’s back was brown from the sun and rippled with muscle as he bent toward his task. Sweat ran in rivulets down his spine; dotted his neck and soaked his hair. She stood stock-still in helpless female appreciation at the way his torso segued into a narrow waist and slim hips; at the firm, well-developed backside under his leather tool belt, the long legs encased in filthy jeans.

Delgado personified power. Raw, dirty, animal force—dear God, her Ben had it in spades. No matter how angry or hurt or devastated she was, he was the kind of man a woman would lift her dress for. Hungrily. Shamelessly. Almost involuntarily—not having any real choice about it.

As if he could sense her gaze on his bare back, Ben turned, his eyes widening as he saw her. For a split second, she felt that naked, helpless feeling and she craved the scent of his skin as it moved over hers. Then he broke the spell himself.

“Go away,” he said.

Rage and frustrated love exploded inside her. “You son of a bitch!” she shrieked.

He closed his eyes, while every man on the site turned and stared, now. She didn’t care.

Relief burst within her next. He was alive, not broken and bleeding in a ditch somewhere, or unconscious from pills or booze. It was one thing for Gina Keys to tell her—and quite another for Marina to see it herself.

“How could you? How could you do this to me, Ben? I’ve been a wreck, worrying about you!”

“Marina, mi amor, get back into your car and go home. This isn’t the time or the place—”

She ran at him, her fists clenched. “A letter, you coward? How could you break up with me in a letter? You didn’t have the nerve to say it to my face?”

Marina reached him and threw a wild punch at his chest.

Ben allowed her to hit him once, then twice.

“A letter?” called one of the onlookers. “Christ, Delgado. That’s cold.”

Another guy spit on the ground. “Whoa. You let this little hottie go?”