Julie Leto – Insatiable (страница 3)

But four weeks after their first scheduled return date, Brandon and Serena were still sunning and loving on a beach in Rio de Janeiro. Never mind that Sam had bought and installed a state-of-the-art computer system. Never mind that she’d used next month’s office rent to invest in several tracking devices, night-vision goggles and the smallest communications mechanisms she’d ever seen. They’d be the best-outfitted outfit in the personal-protection game.

If they didn’t go out of business first. Okay, that was an overstatement. She’d only spent a couple thousand of the petty cash and next month’s office rent. But if she didn’t restore the treasury soon, she’d have to call Brandon and ask for more money—and admit she’d spent slightly more than he’d authorized.

A growing disturbance near the west entrance caught her eye, sending her senses to alert mode. Flanked by two security guards, a threesome of somber-faced suits made their way through the crowd. Sam recognized the first man as Tim Tousignant, the dynamic young executive at the helm of the massive Expo and the man who’d approved her assignment. Good-looking and driven, he impressed Sam with his desire to run any event with smooth precision. Not enough to accept his invitation to dinner, but Sam didn’t mix business with pleasure. Not anymore.

The woman on his left, a tall, dark beauty with luminous olive skin clutched a stack of presentation folders and barely contained a wry smile as she glanced at the growing crowd. She leaned nearer to the man in the center and said something she obviously thought was hilarious.

Nearly a head taller than the others, the CEO of LaRocca Foods obviously didn’t agree. He shot his companion a sharp look and muttered a few words that caused her laughter to die a quick death. He watched his feet and held his hand up to the growing number of followers in a gesture more like a “stop” sign than a wave.

Samantha’s skin prickled.

Lured by the presence of this reluctant Pied Piper, people left the other displays to follow the hulking executive and his burgeoning entourage toward Sam’s end of the aisle near the north exit. An electric buzz rippled through the Superdome until waves of convention goers, mostly female, rushed toward the five-hundred-square-foot area reserved by LaRocca Foods. Mitchell said the CEO, right? She glanced at the label again, then back at the man in the middle of the swarming horde.

Her heart skittered, but then she smiled. A few moments ago, the man’s incredible looks and intense gaze, captured on the pasta label, had affected her like a virulent potion. Now she had the perfect antidote—his obvious arrogance.

If he wasn’t the end-all, be-all of shameless self-promotion, she didn’t know who was. Mr. Chief Executive Officer, sans the top half of his pressed Italian suit, was indeed the sexy hunk-o-rama on his newest product.

Samantha started to laugh, but stopped when the security guards approached, their eyes wide as the swollen throng closed in. A few women squealed. Manicured hands reached across the guards, grabbing at the CEO who still walked, head down, until the mob stopped his progress.

“Oh, God, it’s him! Dominick LaRocca!” someone shrieked.

“You can dig in my field anytime, Pasta Man!”

“I’m hungry for more than sauce, hot stuff! Over here!”

For an instant, Sam thought she’d been transported onto Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. A middle-aged woman in a silk blouse lifted her shirt and bra to the delight of every man within leering distance. The crowd, effectively incited, surged, pressing the small group of five to the wall. Sam jumped onto the dais to regain her fix on LaRocca and company.

Time to work.

She radioed for backup, then shouted at the two security guards ineffectively trying to hold the women back with drawn nightsticks. Folders scattered as the pretty olive-skinned woman twisted in front of her boss to put one more barrier between him and the tentacles of hungry hands. Sam lost sight of Tim altogether, but figured protecting the man at the center of the disturbance was priority one, especially since he was the one causing the melee.

She couldn’t wait for the guards to lead him closer to the exit. She tucked her hair under her cap and slipped into the crowd, diving low and pushing through the writhing mass until she reached her colleagues. They begged the women to stand aside, using minimal force despite the growing danger.

“I called for backup,” Samantha yelled before pressing between the ineffective wall they’d formed to keep the CEO from harm. “Keep them back!”

“One heck of a security plan you have here,” LaRocca growled.

She ignored him and grabbed his elbow.

“Follow me.”

“Wait. Where’s Anita?”

Samantha felt certain Anita would fare better once the object of these women’s desires was removed from the hall.

“She’ll be fine once you’re safe.”

“Wait!”

Undoubtedly used to calling the shots, he dodged her attempts to pull him out. Samantha knew better than to argue, especially when only about every third word could be heard over the fervent screaming, blatant offers of sex and even a marriage proposal or two, if you counted “marry me, marry me!” as a true invitation. Instead, Sam twisted around him and used her full body weight to shove him to the exit. The sheer velocity of her push sent the crowd fumbling and tripping over one another, allowing her the split second she needed to squeeze him through the heavy security door.

She slipped in behind him and immediately threw her back against the door to attempt to close and lock it.

“Which one are you, anyway?” she asked, annoyed. “George, John, Paul or Ringo?”

A growl tore from her throat as she met with resistance from the other side.

Sex-crazed bimbos! Desperate, man-stupid teenyboppers!

“Don’t be shy,” LaRocca said between pants. “Tell them what you really think.”

She’d tossed him into the hallway so forcefully, he’d hit the opposite wall with a grunt. The loosened knot in his tie had flipped over his collar and the left hip pocket of his jacket hung loose at his side. His nostrils flared as he gasped for breath, then he used the opposite wall to launch himself against the door.

Against her.

The contact cracked the air around them with a pop nearly inaudible with women screaming on the other side of the door. But the surge of static electricity burned Samantha from the outer layer of her skin straight through to her heart. She shook her head, trying to dispel the resonating tingle, and pressed her back to the door. She dug in with her powerful legs, legs now tangled between the Pasta God’s marble thighs. His scent was as crisp and clean as his starched white shirt, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. The image of him in nothing but a fluffy white towel immediately sprang to mind.

“Did I say that out loud?” she asked, hoping like hell that he’d interpret the flush of her skin as natural exertion, even embarrassment at her mouthy tirade. She refused to look up in his face, though gazing straight into his chest wasn’t any less dangerous when she knew, thanks to the sauce label, exactly what his chest looked like bare.

“Loud and clear. But I’m not arguing. You’d think these women had never seen a man before.” He struggled to help her close the door, but hands and fingers, even an ankle or two stuck through the six inches of space between the steel barrier and quiet freedom. Over the noise from the other side, Sam finally heard the arrival of reinforcements.

“Back. Back. Move back!”

Hands and feet disappeared from the doorway, but the press from the other side remained constant, probably from the guards struggling to clear the doorway. They wouldn’t be safe until they closed the door, and her counterparts on the other side apparently had their hands full just blocking the exit.

Glancing down at her for approval, Dominick LaRocca took another deep breath. “On three.”

She nodded, bracing herself for further impact. The rush of adrenaline snapped her head up. Good Lord. He’s going to throw his weight against the door. Against me!

He counted, “One…”

His eyes mirrored the color of freshly crushed mint.

“Two…”

His jaw looked chiseled from flesh-toned granite.

“Three!”

Pressed Italian silk didn’t hide an erection worth a damn.

2

NICK THREW HIS FULL weight into shutting the door. In his mad rush, he trapped the sapphire-eyed security guard beneath him. The latch caught and a sensation not unlike an electric shock snapped all around him. Instantaneous stimulation surged through his blood and rushed straight to his groin.

He hadn’t expected the spitfire in uniform to have anything soft about her, anything luscious or feminine. He’d been wrong. Just the brief contact stirred the primal male urge he’d kept in careful check for so long—a self-restraint made especially difficult with women of various degrees of desirability making offers any sane man couldn’t refuse. Yet, as she pushed the deadbolt into place, the lush warmth of her curves hugged him straight through his jacket, shirt and tie, making him wish he could forget his responsibilities to his family. Just this once.