Bad Boys Online by Erin McCarthy Page B

.
    Candy, who looked relaxed and sexy as hell in her red suit, kicked the heel of her crossed foot up and down, annoying Jared even further. When she did that, he had a view straight up her thigh nearly to the promised land.
    She’d be the type to wear garters, he was sure. Black ones, green ones. Red ones, cream ones.
    He shifted in his chair, slouching to hide the fact that he now had a steel boner.
    A boner. In the middle of the goddamn day, in the middle of his boss’s office.
    Trouble. Plain and simple.
    Trouble spoke. “Harold, I don’t think Jared’s ready to feel the love.”
    He sat up straight. What was that supposed to mean? He could feel the love if he wanted to. If he could ever figure out what the hell Harold was talking about.
    Candy tossed him one of those sultry, open mouth smiles that made him want to tug her full bottom lip into his mouth and suck hard. He dug his fingernails into his thigh.
    Harold frowned. “Is that true, Jared? You’re not ready to feel the love?”
    He was ready to feel up Candy’s curves. Did that count? Jared cleared his throat. “Uhh, what exactly are we talking about here?”
    “I’m talking about the fact that we have exactly three weeks to get together the ad campaign for Chunk O’Chocolate and you and Candy have barely spent an hour on it.”
    That’s because he just about ran away every time Candy came near him. She scared the hell out of him. He had been forced to leave five years of hard work and a 401k plan behind him when he’d left his previous marketing firm, due to an unplanned encounter in the copier room with the big boss’s secretary. Unknown to him at the time, that secretary was also the boss’s girlfriend.
    Work and sex didn’t mix. Jared and women didn’t mix. Every embarrassing and detrimental incident in his life could be traced back to a woman and his inability to control himself around them.
    The buck stopped here. Or his dick, however you wanted to look at it.
    He was not going to screw this up. Or screw Candy, no matter how much he wanted to taste those lethal lips.
    “We can work on it whenever Candy likes.” He avoided looking at her and focused on the bright yellow spot Harold had dyed on the front of his rapidly diminishing hair. It looked like a flashing caution light.
    Caution: Middle-aged man approaching baldness.
    Candy said, “Maybe you should assign someone else to work with Jared. I don’t think he really likes me all that much.” Her words were slow, and rolled, like a water drop across his skin.
    That’s where she was wrong. He liked Candy. Candy was sweet and lickable and belonged in his mouth where he could swirl it around, sucking and tasting every delectable inch.
    Harold clapped his hands together, startling Jared out of his erotic fantasy.
    “See, that’s what I’m talking about! Jared doesn’t like you, and you don’t like Jared. I can’t have that.”
    Candy didn’t like him? Jared turned to her in amazement. Well, hell, that hurt. It was okay if he was avoiding her, but she wasn’t supposed to avoid him.
    He was likable. He returned phone calls and held doors open for women. Of course, whenever Candy was around, he usually just grunted and bolted for the nearest exit. He supposed she might take that personally.
    But what was he supposed to do? Tell her it wasn’t her, it was her hot knockers that had him running like a cat from water? That was sure to go over big.
    “I like Candy,” he managed to say, not at all sure he wanted to know where Harold was going with this.
    Candy laughed again, and he was suddenly aware of his poor word choice.
    “Liar,” she murmured. “But that shouldn’t have anything to do with this client.”
    “It doesn’t.”
    Harold studied them both and said, “I’ve noticed the tension between you two, and it’s got to stop. It’s affecting the rest of the staff. It’s altering the feng shui state of the office. There are negative auras camped in my company, and they have