Brenda Jackson - Beyond Temptation

M r. Steele, your two oclock appointment has arrived.

Morgan Steeles pulse immediately kicked up a notch with his secretarys announcement. He inhaled deeply and deliberately cleared his mind of everything except the woman who was about to walk into his office. Helena Spears.

Give me a few minutes, Linda, before sending her in.

Yes, sir.

After clicking off the line he stood and threw the papers hed been reading into his briefcase before snapping it shut and inwardly telling himself to relax. Getting Helena to his office had been the first hurdle, and he was determined to make it over the rest. He was smart enough to know that if at first you dont succeed you try again, and today he was a man with a more defined plan.

Putting his briefcase aside he found himself glancing toward the door, his pulse kicking up another notch as he remembered the nighta little more than a year agowhen he had first seen her as she walked into that charity ball wearing a very sexy fuchsia-colored dress. There had been something about her entrance that had momentarily taken his breath away, left him awestruck, mesmerized. And moments later when he had gazed into the warmth of her cinnamon-brown eyes, he had felt it. It had happened just the way hed known it would once he found herthe perfect woman he had been holding out for all these years.

The only thing that hadnt happened as hed assumed it would was her acceptance. Lena, as she was known to her family and friends, wasnt seeing things quite his way. Shed tried to explain to him, in a nice way and more than once, that she wasnt interested in a man-woman relationship of any kind. She liked her life just the way it was and had no intentions of wasting her time indulging in a meaningless affair. Nor, shed gone further on to add, was she interested in a meaningful one, either. She had been there, done that, and shed learned a valuable lesson and had no intentions of doing a repeat.

All that was well and good but she wasnt dealing with any regular man. At thirty-three he could admit to being arrogant, methodical and unwilling to bend in his pursuit of anything. Once he saw something he wanted and made a decision to have it, he refused to give up until he got it.

And the bottom line was that he wanted Lena.

He had wasted enough time and starting today he intended to use a different approach. He glanced toward the door again when he heard the sound of the knob turning. The moment it opened and his perfect woman walked in he couldnt help but release a breath. He felt the sizzle as heat shimmered all through him. She was wearing a periwinkle-color business suit and she looked good in it.

Lena, please come in, he said cordially as his gaze floated over the rest of her with an analytical eye. She had just the right amount of makeup on her strikingly attractive medium brown face, which placed emphasis on the honey brown curls that flowed around her shoulders, giving her the appearance of a Queen Latifah look-alike.

She was five feet ten, just the right height for his six-three stature. Her body was stacked, well endowed in all the right places, full breasts, wide child-bearing hips, voluptuous thighs and the most gorgeous pair of shapely legs hed ever seen on a woman. Hed once overheard a conversation shed had with his sister-in-law Kylie, who happened to be her best friend, about what she thought was a weight problem. As far as he was concerned, she didnt have one. When he looked at her, what he saw was a full-figured, thirty-one-year-old attractive and desirable woman who could start anything and everything inside him to stirring. The woman was temptation at its finest; however, when it came to her he was prodded to look beyond temptation and see something a lot more lucrative and worthwhile. Little did she know but he intended to open up a whole new world for the both of them.