Lucky Charm by Valerie Douglas

feel of her body trembling beneath him and tightening around him still echoed through him. He had no doubt he’d pleased her. Every motion, every gasp, every twitching muscle had told him that. She’d reached out to touch him in return, had stroked and caressed him in ways Jeannine never had.
    The thought of it dug at him. Hadn’t he learned his lesson? Hadn’t Jeannine been enough? How many times did he need his heart broken, his ego savaged? And it had been. He’d been coldly, coolly rejected. It wasn’t enough. He hadn’t been enough. The not knowing why, precisely, tore at him. It had hurt. A lot. He didn’t want to hurt like that again.
    One night was nothing.
    If things had been different…maybe… But they weren’t.
    He drifted back among the crowd so Ariel wouldn’t see him.
    It was Bill he had to think about. That was the mystery he had to solve. He had to find a way into Marathon and he would.
    Ariel, though, wouldn’t be it.

Chapter Five
     
    “Hey, Ariel,” Miriam said on their way back from lunch, “a bunch of us are going out tomorrow night. Since it’s your last night, you should take a chance to have a little fun while you’re here. Why don’t you come with us? There’s this little Mexican place we go to, the food is good, there’s a band and everything.”
    It had been a long time since Ariel had gone out simply to have a good time. How long had it been? She cast her mind back, thinking, and her heart twisted a little at the memory.
    Before.
    Everyone kept telling her it was time to move on, though. Maybe it was and maybe here, so far from familiar memories, it would be easier. It wouldn’t hurt as much as it might have back home.
    A chorus of enthusiastic voices from the others surprised and pleased her. Although she usually made friends with one or two people in an office, invitations like this didn’t come that often. In the past when they had, she’d turned them down.
    Maybe for a change, she’d do something different.
    She laughed. “Okay, okay, you win, I’ll come.”
    One of the guys, Steve something, wrapped an arm around her waist. She’d already pegged him as the office Lothario.
    “I get the first dance,” he declared.
    She stepped tactfully out of his grasp in a fluid motion. That much involvement wasn’t on the agenda and certainly not with someone like him. He was strictly of the one-night-stand variety. Especially since he knew she was leaving. With no possibility of any future involvement, she was a safe target. Or so he thought.
    Whatever had happened with Matthew, it hadn’t been light, thoughtless or meaningless, as it would be with someone like Steve. Matthew had been both thoughtful and caring.
    Miriam stepped between them, put as arm around Ariel and gave Steve a glare.
    “Back off, Steve. We want her to have a good time.”
    He smirked. “I guarantee she’ll have a good time.”
    “I doubt it,” Ariel said, evenly enough, then added in a whisper, “Thanks, Miriam.”
    She couldn’t afford to make enemies here.
    “Welcome,” Miriam whispered back. “Keep an eye on old Steve, he thinks he’s da bomb.”
    With a grin, Ariel answered, “Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.”
    Miriam snickered.
    The training session that afternoon went well, too. It would be the first night that week she actually got back to the hotel room at a decent hour. If she was going out the next night a good night’s sleep would be necessary.
    The only problem was, she had the oddest sensation of being watched. Not when she was in the office but when she was traveling to and from the hotel. It wasn’t as if she actually saw anyone, rather it was the sense that someone watched her with unfriendly eyes. Nothing she could put her finger on, no one she could point to but it was unnerving.
    As it was, though, it would be a relief to move on to the Tampa office at the end of the week.
    She’d considered going home for the weekend but there was nothing for her there, she’d only