Mistletoe Mistress

As the burning liquid hit his torso Hawk swore-once but very thoroughly-leaping up from his chair like a scalded cat-and scalded he certainly was. The bedlam was immediate, Maggie's horrified apology cut short as she burst into tears, several people from the outer office cannoning into the room at the sound of Hawk's yell, the telephone choosing that moment to begin ringing and all the papers on Hawk's desk tumbling to the floor as Joanne jumped up to help and knocked them with her arm.

'Quiet!' The thirty-second mayhem stopped as suddenly as it had begun as Hawk roared the order into the chaos, the only sound breaking the dead silence that followed being Maggie's muted wailing and the continuing ring of the telephone. 'Please, I'm fine, no harm done- get Maggie a cup of tea or whatever else you keep out there for emergencies,' Hawk fired in a staccato burst that told Joanne he was very definitely not all right. 'And someone answer that damn phone!'

As the others filed out, taking the weeping Maggie with them, Hawk shut the door behind them, wincing slightly as he did so, before peeling his steaming shirt out of the fiat waistband of his trousers, discarding his tie and beginning to undo the buttons.

'What are you doing?' It was a squeak.

'What do you think I'm doing?' He clearly wasn't in the mood for rhetorical questions and she really couldn't blame him, but neither could she quite believe he was going to strip half naked in the office in the middle of a working day. He was, and apparently with a complete disregard for modesty that left her breathless. Only it wasn't just his lack of propriety that was causing the blood to race through every nerve and sinew.

Clothed, Hawk Mallen had the sort of lean, athletic physique that made the female heart beat a little faster; half clothed, the dark power radiated from him in tangible waves, impossible to ignore. Not that Joanne made any attempt to ignore it-she looked; she couldn't help it.

'Joanne?'

It was humiliating to realise he had spoken her name twice before it registered on her dazed senses, but the big broad shoulders and hairy, muscled chest had her knees ready to buckle under her. Useless to tell herself she was pathetic, ridiculous-a female voyeur; he was affecting her in a way no other man had ever done before and in a way she wouldn't have dreamed possible even moments before. He was…well, he was… She dragged her eyes up to the piercing blue gaze which was waiting for her.

'I asked you if you would get someone to pop to Harrods and pick up a shirt,' he said softly, his lips quirking with amusement. 'It's nearer than my hotel and I have an account there; they'll know what to send.'

He knew! He knew the thoughts that had shocked her with their lasciviousness and he was laughing at her.

Her head shot up, her honey-brown eyes darkening as the knowledge provided a welcome shot of adrenalin. 'Of course.' Her voice was taut and she kept her eyes strictly on his face, but the tanned expanse beneath them was still there.

'And perhaps you'd dispose of this?' He handed her the damp shirt, the muscles in his chest flexing as he did so. 'I'm going to hose myself down in Charles's washroom; I can feel that damn coffee's still burning my skin.'

She took the shirt as though it were going to bite her, knowing her face was flooded with colour but unable to do anything about it. He'd done this on purpose-oh, not the coffee, she couldn't blame that on him, but this… this flaunting of himself, she thought balefully. To embarrass her, to show her he was as unconcerned about her seeing him in a state of undress as…as the office furniture! It was added confirmation, as if she needed any, that she was just a working machine to him, little more than a number-

'Joanne?' The dark voice was patient. 'Harrods?'

'Oh, yes-yes, of course.' She shot out of the office as though the devil himself was after her, and in a way she felt that he was.

How could she have ogled him like that? she thought miserably after she'd sent one of the office staff darting off to Harrods. She'd all but licked her lips! What must he have thought? That she was attracted to him? Worse, that she was letting him know that she was attracted to him? She'd die if he'd thought that-she would; she'd just die-

'Joanne?' Maggie's woebegone voice cut into her painful introspection. 'How mad is he-Mr Mallen? I can't believe I did that.'

You and me both, Joanne thought as the mortification burnt deep. 'He's all right; don't worry.' She forced her voice to sound bright and matter-of-fact. 'Worse things happen at sea and all that.'

'I wish I was at sea; I wish I was anywhere but here,' Maggie said flatly. 'I don't know what it is about him but he makes me all fingers and thumbs; do you know what I mean?'

I do; oh, I do. 'He's only here for another three weeks-' Joanne smiled briskly into Maggie's puppy-dog eyes '- and then Mr Brigmore's replacement will be at the helm. Just…just treat him like you would Mr Brigmore till then, Maggie.'

'Just treat him like you would Mr Brigmore.' The absurdity of the statement hit her full between the eyes a little while later when she took the neatly packaged silk shirt in to Hawk. She hadn't ventured back into his office in the meantime-she knew her limitations and sitting opposite a half-naked Hawk Mallen discussing business matters was one of them-and her knock at his door was tentative in the extreme.

He was sitting at his desk as she entered, apparently engrossed in the papers in front of him, but as he raised an expressionless face to her, his startling blue eyes hooded and cool, she knew, she just knew, he was fully aware of the impact his raw, vigorous brand of masculinity had on the opposite sex.

'Your shirt.' She wanted to fling the thing on his desk and run but she forced herself to smile politely and hand it to him without undue haste.

'Thanks.' He smiled, and her heart jerked and then flew round her chest like a caged bird. 'I presume poor Maggie is still covered with confusion?' he said quietly as he undid the Cellophane, shaking the beautiful grey silk shirt free of creases. 'Was she like that with Charles? So jumpy all the time?'

With Charles? Was he joking? She looked straight into the tanned face and saw he was perfectly serious.

'No, not really,' she said carefully.

'But I make her nervous.' His eyes were intent on hers as he pulled the silk over muscled skin and she forced herself not to swallow, although agitation had created a lump in her throat the size of a golf ball. 'Why is that? Is she worried she might lose her job?'

Oh, get a move on, for goodness' sake. He had stood up to pull on the shirt and now he moved round in front of his desk, perching on the edge of it as he began to fasten the buttons from the bottom up. There was something so intimate, so ridiculously intimate in the action that funny little sensations seemed to be going off in every part of her body, her skin hot and flushed and her mouth dry.

'Her job?' Her voice sounded vague even to herself and she forced it down a decibel as she said, 'No, I don't think so; she just isn't very good with new people at first.'

'I see.' The blue eyes narrowed and he leant forward, the last three or four buttons still undone and revealing far more dark curling body hair than was good for her pulse rate. 'And you?' he asked softly. 'What about you?'

'Me?' The squeak was back.

'Have I won you over by my decorous behaviour over the last few weeks?' he asked with wicked ease, his eyes almost silver as they moved over the rich curtain of silky red hair and down to her eyes again. 'Or am I still the monster from hell bent on destruction and ruination?'

'I didn't say that,' she protested quickly.

'You didn't have to.' The deep husky voice with its unusual gravelly texture was self-deprecating. 'I've seen dislike and fear in eyes far more adept at hiding it than yours. Besides-' he leant back again, the movement bringing hard-muscled thighs into play '-I seem to remember you accused me of throwing poor Charles out on his ear? And 'poor Charles' was your terminology, not mine, incidentally,' he added drily.

'I've said I was sorry about that.' She looked at him steadily.

'And it's very bad manners to bring it up again?' He added the bit she hadn't dared to say. 'But then I'm not a true-blue Englishman, am I, Joanne?' he said silkily. 'My paternal grandparents were of American and French extraction, and my father married a beautiful Italian countess, so that makes me a…mongrel?'

A mongrel? There was no mongrel ever born who looked like Hawk Mallen. But the Italian bit explained his dark good looks, she thought silently, and the jet-black hair that was such a devastating contrast to the brilliant blue eyes. The eyes must be from his father's side… She checked her thoughts and said hastily, 'I hardly think a