1
Katie screamed, jumping up so fast her desk chair crashed to the floor behind her. The spider on her desk was gargantuan—approximately the size of Godzilla—covered with spiky brown hairs. She could tell by the menacing look in each of its ten million beady eyes it was preparing to leap at her and inflict a lethal bite.
Maybe it already bit me!
She checked her arms for signs of puncture wounds.
“Is something wrong?”
The deep voice startled her, and she whipped around, stumbling on the overturned chair. The room tilted and a sledge hammer impacted the back of her head. She looked up from the floor, stars swirling in front of the face that bent over her. Thick brows furrowed over crystal blue eyes.
I know that face—it’s Superman!
Pain thudded in her skull, forcing her eyelids closed.
“Are you okay?”
“Just hit my head,” she mumbled.
Her eyes came open as gentle hands lifted under her shoulders. The blue-eyed hero was kneeling beside her, so close she caught a whiff of his enticing scent, a combination of minty clean and a dash of masculine aftershave. Curling her legs to the side, she sat up and groaned, raising her hand to the back of her head.
“Let me see,” he said.
Her face was pressed against his clean black t-shirt, as his fingers parted her hair to probe the tender scalp on the back of her head. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the intoxicating smell.
“It’s not bleeding,” Superman announced. “Good thing you have this padded rug under your desk. The tile would’ve split it open.”
As her hero uprighted her chair, she couldn’t help noticing how his back muscles flexed and bulged, pressing against the thin cotton.
That’s strange… I’ve never wished I was a t-shirt before.
Stretching to his full-height, something over six feet, he turned to face her and bestowed a slow smile that sent warmth furling in her belly. Damp tendrils on his forehead suggested he’d been in the shower moments earlier.
Had he come from the company gym? She only interacted with a few of Gherring, Inc.’s employees, the ones who came to the board room to meet with Steven Gherring, her boss. She’d certainly never met this guy before. No way she could forget Superman.
He rubbed his hand across the stubble of dark beard on his square jaw, and she imagined her fingers doing the same, tracing the sharp angle, relishing the masculine feel of the soft bristles on her sensitive skin.
His eyes sparkled as if he somehow read her thoughts, and blood rushed up her neck to highlight her embarrassment.
As if it wasn’t humiliating enough to meet Superman when I’m sprawled on the floor.
“I’ll help you up,” he said.
She placed her palms in his outstretched hands. Big mistake! Charged like an ongoing static shock, his touch sucked the air from her lungs in a whoosh. Before she could escape his electrifying grasp, his large hands folded over hers. With what seemed to be little effort, he hefted her up and eased her into the chair. Then he sat back on the edge of her desk, folding his arms.
The spider!
“Stand up! Get off the desk!” she yelped.
At her cry, he jolted to his feet and whipped around, staring at it as though it might explode at any moment. “What’s wrong with the desk?”
She aimed a wobbly finger at the desktop, the last place she’d seen the spider, who’d now retreated into some unseen place. No doubt, his plan was to hide away, waiting patiently until she’d forgotten about him, only to spring out and clamp his jaws on her skin.