Mind Over Matter

turned her concentration back to her work. She heard the sounds of her staff leaving for the day. Doors closing, scattered laughter.
    David stood in the doorway and watched her. The rest of her staff was pouring out of the door as fast as they could, but she sat, calm and efficient, behind her desk. The fatigue that had had him half dozing on the plane washed away. Her hair was tidy, her suit jacket trim and smooth over her shoulders. She held the pencil in long, ringless fingers and wrote in quick, static bursts. The daisies he’d sent her days before sat in a squat vase on her desk. It was the first, the only unbusinesslike accent he’d ever seen in her office. Seeing them made him smile. Seeing her made him want.
    He could see himself taking her there in her prim, organizedoffice. He could peel that tailored, successful suit from her and find something soft and lacy beneath. With the door locked and traffic rushing by far below, he could make love with her until all the needs, all the fantasies, that had built in the days he’d been away were satisfied.
    A.J. continued to write, forcing her concentration back each time it threatened to ebb. It wasn’t right, she told herself, that her system would start to churn this way for no reason. The dry facts and figures she was reading shouldn’t leave room for hot imagination. She rubbed the back of her neck, annoyed that tension was building there out of nothing. She would have sworn she could feel passion in the air. But that was ridiculous.
    Then she knew. As surely as if he’d spoken, as surely as if he’d already touched her. Slowly, her hand damp on the pencil, she looked up.
    There was no surprise in her eyes. It should have made him uneasy that she’d sensed him there when he’d made no sound, no movement. The fact that it didn’t was something he would think of later. Now he could only think of how cool and proper she looked behind the desk. Of how wild and wanton she was in his arms.
    She wanted to laugh, to spring up from the desk and rush across the room. She wanted to be held close and swung in dizzying circles while the pleasure of just seeing him again soared through her. Of course she couldn’t. That would be foolish. Instead she lifted a brow and set her pencil on her blotter. “So you’re back.”
    “Yeah. I had a feeling I’d find you here.” He wanted to drag her up from her chair and hold her. Just hold her. He dipped his hands into his pockets and leaned against the jamb.
    “A feeling?” This time she smiled. “Precognition or telepathy?”
    “Logic.” He smiled, too, then walked toward the desk. “You look good, Fields. Real good.”
    Leaning back in her chair, she gave herself the pleasure of a thorough study. “You look a little tired. Rough trip?”
    “Long.” He plucked a daisy from the vase and spun it by the stem. “But it should be the last one before we wrap.” Watching her, he came around the desk, then, resting a hip on it, leaned over and tucked the daisy behind her ear. “Got any plans for tonight?”
    If she’d had any, she would have tossed them out the window and forgotten them. With her tongue caught in her teeth, A.J. made a business out of checking her desk calender. “No.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    She flipped the page over. “Doesn’t look like it.”
    “Sunday?”
    “Even agents need a day of rest.”
    “Monday?”
    She flipped the next page and shrugged. “Offices are closed. I thought I’d spend the day reading over some scripts and doing my nails.”
    “Uh-huh. In case you hadn’t noticed, office hours are over.”
    Her heart was drumming. Already. Her blood was warming. So soon. “I’d noticed.”
    In silence he held out his hand. After only a slight hesitation, A.J. put hers into it and let him draw her up. “Come home with me.”
    He’d asked her before, and she’d refused. Looking at him now, she knew the days of refusal were long past. Reaching down, she gathered her purse and her briefcase.
    “Not tonight,” David told her, and took the briefcase to set it back down.
    “I want to—”
    “Not tonight, Aurora.” Taking her hand again, he brought it to his lips. “Please.”
    With a nod, she left the briefcase and the office behind.
    They kept their hands linked as they walked down the hall. They kept them linked still as they rode down in the elevator. It didn’t seem foolish, A.J. realized, but sweet. He hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t held her, and yet the tension that had