Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Between a Ridge and a Hard Place

It’s finally here! Hope you enjoy reading it. Let me know :)

Blurb:

Is it love? Or sabotage?

After a year of being ignored as a woman by her boss, Morgan steps up her game—and strips down. What better way than a miniskirt to capture her hardheaded boss’s attention? The butt floss she can do without, but hey, if the ploy works…and it does, with spectacular results. Now if only she can keep him interested permanently.

Ridge can’t believe it when the woman he’s quietly lusted after for a year shows up dressed…or rather, undressed…to drop any man to his knees. Instead of worrying about winning a bid after losing the last two under strange circumstances, he whisks her to his place to demolish any notion she might have of changing her mind.

Then it becomes clear why his company is losing bids—there’s a mole planted in their midst. Ridge suddenly has to question Morgan’s sudden transformation from faithful P.A. to office vixen.

Is she the woman he’s been waiting for? Or a corporate saboteur sent to take him down?

Warning: Contains several graphic love scenes. You know, on the bed, on the couch…whichever is closest at the time.

Excerpt:

“How sweet. Little Morgan thinks she has a chance in hell of getting Ridge’s attention. You know those clothes won’t make a damn bit of difference, don’t you?”
Morgan Crenshaw clenched her jaw. It was all she could do not to slap the smug look off Amy Lee’s face.

“He doesn’t go for ho,” Amy Lee continued.

Oh, that was rich coming from someone who wasn’t dressed much different. Amy Lee had gone too far. Yes, the skirt was mini and the top, well, she’d call it formfitting, but she did not look like a ho. Did she?

Amy Lee gave a contemptuous sniff as if she were better than everyone and flipped her long hair off her shoulder with the backs of her fingers. Morgan started to rise only to stop dead when her boss’s business partner, Carter, crossed between her desk and Amy Lee, saving the other woman from Morgan’s desire to strangle her.

“Sweet, Morg.” Carter paused at her desk and took in her outfit. “Like the new duds. You get hit by the make-over fairy last night?”

“Something like that,” she muttered and slumped back in her chair. Amy Lee’s snort nearly had her getting back up.

“Bitch,” she said to Amy Lee’s retreating back.

A few seconds later the outer office was empty. The prissy woman who thought she was God’s gift to men had finally gone back to her own workstation and Carter—one of the owners of the architectural firm, Malone and Casey, where she worked as the other owner’s PA—had sequestered himself in his office.

She had to get to the task at hand and not let Amy Lee get the better of her. Today was announcement day for a bid they’d put in for the design of the Honor Center and there was plenty to do for when they won it. She was sure they would. Losing those last two bids had to have been a fluke, even in this uber-competitive business.

Morgan took a moment to collect herself, sucked in a deep breath and tried to clear away the ugliness that was Amy Lee. As if she wasn’t already self-conscious enough about the outfit. Her sweaty palms itched. She wiped them on the short, short skirt she wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. Jeans and a T-shirt were more her style, but since her tomboyish clothes hadn’t caught the attention of a certain hardheaded man, she’d had to branch out.

She wiggled in her seat, shut her eyes and inhaled again. How the hell did women wear this kind of underwear? She smiled. Maybe this was why Amy Lee always looked like she had a stick up her ass. Only it wasn’t a stick, it was a string one had to dig for in the crack of one’s ass to get out. She must wear this kind of underwear all the time. In the hour since Morgan had arrived, she’d spent more time trying to pick the floss from between her cheeks than actually working. But hey, if Ridge Casey liked the black lacy string, who was she to care, right? Certainly enough women had paraded through the office dressed as she was now, so this had to be where his tastes ran. Morgan wasn’t naïve. She knew where those skanky women ended up.

And there it was. She had turned into a skank. No better than the women who oohed and aahed and fawned over her boss like they had nothing better to do than drool over the most beautiful man in the world.

God, she was such a loser. Deflated, Morgan sank back into her chair. Her face flamed with both embarrassment for having lowered herself this far and anger for not having the nerve to flat-out go for the man of her dreams in her normal modus operandi. Maybe she should just go home and change before he saw her. If he didn’t think she was good enough for him as is, she should move on.

“Morning, Morgan.”

“Morning,” she grunted, then shot up in her seat, her once heated cheeks draining of blood, leaving her lightheaded. Lord, she hadn’t even seen him come in.

Ridge came to a dead stop at the door to his office, those fantastic navy blue eyes facing away from her, his hand resting on the knob.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

He cleared his throat. “Morgan?” His voice cracked despite how he’d tried to avoid it, but he didn’t turn.

His broad shoulders were rigid beneath the starched white shirt that tapered down to lean hips. His ass clenched under his slacks. Morgan did a double take. His ass clenched? Had to be her imagination. She openly gawked—he was facing away from her, after all. There! He did it again. This time she didn’t miss the action. No doubt his jaw was making the same movement. The man had a tic in his jaw whenever he was angry.

“Morgan,” he said with more force, snapping her out of her perusal of his very fine backside.

“Yes, sir?”

His shoulders relaxed, as did his butt. Damn. He nodded once. “Just making sure it was you.” Why did he sound so strangled?