She broke her kiss with him, because her common sense had finally caught up with her libido. He just looked at her, his shirt rumpled, his tie askew.

"What's going on here," he asked, "Why did you stop?"

C.J. just looked at him, her lips swollen from his kissing a moment ago and her blouse half unbuttoned.

"We're in the conference room."

His eyes blinked.

"Yeah I know…I had it renovated with the rest of the suite when I bought the building."

She rolled her eyes at Matt and pulled away from him, straightening her blouse because unbuttoning it proved to be impossible when she discovered a couple of them missing.

"I think I saw one roll under the table," he said, trying to be helpful.

"Houston what are we doing here?"

He just looked at her blankly.

"I thought it was obvious."

She put a hand on a hip and just shook her head at him.

"I'm not going down this well-traveled road of yours."

His mouth quirked into a knowing smile, taking in the view in front of him. They had known each other way back when they had been in the same grade school but then she had moved away until their paths had crossed in college. They had fallen back into their friendship easily enough and soon after that, a successful business relationship. Some separations here and there when they'd been on opposite sides of the world…but right now, they were on the conference room table.

They hadn't come into the office intending to do the horizontal mambo for sure. When she had crossed the threshold, nothing like that had even been in her mind. She had a couple calls to return and she even had a date with Clyde down in accounting. They had plans to go to the Philharmonic or something like that…something to do with listening to music.

First she just had to get some last minute things done in the office but then Matt had gone back with her to knock a few things off of his list of things to do as well. Then when they had passed the wet bar, he had asked her if she wanted a drink. Nothing that hadn't happened dozens of times before when they had finished up a deal…business as usual or so she thought.

But then came a few shots of tequila to celebrate the completion of a business deal and one thing had led to another and next thing she knew they had been kissing, with his hands fondling her breasts beneath her blouse. It had felt wonderful, and she had arched her head back in delight until she realized they had crossed a dangerous line.

Not before he told her what beautiful breasts she had, creamy white in contrast to the tanned skin surrounding them and the rosy pink tips that had hardened beneath his fingers

But then reality hit.

"I can't…"

He looked up at her.

"But god, I've wanted to taste them and you for so long," he said, readjusting her blouse for her, returning into the shoes of the man she had known for much longer than she had seen this side of him.

She stroked his jaw line with one fingertip, strongly built like the rest of him. His skin felt stubbly there because he hadn't shaved this morning.

"We can't…we can't cross that line or we'll never find our way back."

He grabbed that hand and damn if he didn't move his lips over it, including his tongue. Her insides wanted to melt and her legs, buckle but she had to be strong. She had to be firm with him. Everything depended on it.

"It won't matter C.J.," he said, backing her into the table until she sat on it, then he moved his hands up her thighs, bunching up her skirt. Damn he had always loved her legs, supple and strong and he knew he'd love them gripping his waist while he rocked against her.

She put her hands against his chest.

"I can't…it's wrong…"

He grabbed her hands and held them together while looking into her eyes.

"It's never felt so right," he said, "We've known each other forever. There's no reason why we can't mix things up."

She sighed, realizing that it really was just a dalliance to him. He nudged her thighs open with his body, and ran his hands over her back, very persuasively. Damn he could be quite persuasive. Her body already had been sold but her mind, damn not to mention something called her heart, where deep down inside it she harbored feelings for Matt that she couldn't even tap into most times.

Except when she lay quietly alone in her bed at night and her mind wandered to where it had been forbidden to go during daylight hours.

Matt must have caught a glimpse of that desire etched on her face just now, when he had her where he wanted her on the damn conference table. Because his hands remained around her own, keeping her captive some might call it. But his eyes looked directly into hers without blinking, and she felt herself unable to move away.

Oh he definitely had that effect on her and he knew it. She just wished she weren't so transparent in how he got under her skin as deftly as he'd gotten his hands underneath her shirt.

"Oh there's every reason Houston," she said, "It'll mess everything up we've got going…our working relationship…the fact that right now we're just about to head on off to the Bahamas to look at that vacation resort Murray raved to us about."

He sighed, releasing her hands.

"That's tomorrow…this is today," he said, "and when this deal's done we'll be spending our time on a tropical island and why not have some fun?"

She smiled looking forward to that but until then she really had to get off the conference table and they needed to get to their opposite corners.

If only to cool themselves off before they did something totally reckless, that couldn't be taken back again. C.J. envied Matt's ability like most men to compartmentalize different sections of his life so they didn't overlap in any messy ways. On the other hand, her entire life was a haphazard pile of overlapping the parts of it she'd tried to keep separate from one another.

His hands moved towards her blouse and began to fidget with the damn buttons, but she noticed his hands shook a little as he tried to undo them one at a time.

Hah! The Casanova of Century City was having some trouble navigating himself through a passionate interlude. She bit back her smile but she didn't stop him when she really should before this went any further.

"What are you doing," she said, asking the obvious.

He smiled because it was obvious, and she felt the top buttons coming undone, and in a minute he was going to know her favorite color.

"Come on, both of us need to unwind after today and there's no better way to do it."

Oh, that pissed her off, she had forgotten what a shameless player Matt had always been only it had been okay because he'd done that with other women and not her. If they had never hit the sheets or the conference table together, that was because he respected her. Because platonic friendships were all about respect and a bond deeper than just sexual attraction…oh god, his fingers felt damn good. Smooth with some calluses from summers spent working in construction when he'd been younger. Her skin tingled when his fingers casually brushed against it while working on her blouse.

She put her hands up on his chest.

"Stop," she said, "and I mean it Houston."

He did, he knew what the word, 'no' meant after all but it didn't mean the urge to discover what she kept hidden under her clothes hadn't gone away. Hardly, he still kept much of his weight on the balls of his feet,

"Okay, what's wrong?"

She just sighed heavily.

"This…like I said, okay we do it on the conference table and assuming no one walking by gets an eyeful…"

He had an answer for that but then he usually did for everything.

"We're alone in the suite," he said, "Everyone else has left for the day and they're out having fun which we could be having."

Damn him, those words came quickly enough.

"I don't think we should be doing this," she said, "I'm not one of your conquests Matt. I don't want to be added to that very long list."

His brow arched.

"It's not that long…it's long but never enough so that you would be just another woman to me."

She just looked at him, reproachfully.

"Okay then what am I after we…have sex?"

He paused for a while and she really thought she had him there. Oh man, did she have him right there because if he slid in between her legs on that table, afterward…their friendship would be dust because he'd never respect her again.

But he looked at her in a way almost tender and a hand reached out to coax a strand of hair out of her face.

"You'll be my lover," he said simply, "Afterward and beyond that. Come on, you want me too. Admit it…it could be a great experience, one of the best."

She snorted.

"Really Houston," she said, "My list might not be as long as yours but I've had my share of men."

"Not like me…"

Goodness, he was trotting out that come on line that she'd heard enough times before? She thought about raking him a bit about it but she just chuckled instead.

"You are really something do you know that?"

He looked a bit uneasy at that, maybe it had been the airy tone of her voice rather than any words.

"So are you..."

Her words in response were cut off by something more powerful, his mouth which he brushed over her lips, much more gently than earlier. It almost felt like the flutter of something soft, if insistent, and just the faintest trace of his tongue, coaxing its way inside of her mouth. She closed her eyes because who wouldn't be drawn into a silky smooth as honey kind of kiss like this man brought. But if she waited…it would become more potent, more pressing and then she'd lose control…

"Houston…"

Since his lips still covered hers, only a murmur emerged and he took that as encouragement, prompting to deepen his assault on her mouth, because she really meant to stop him, really she did but oh….where did that slow burning sensation come from, the one that radiated from her lips to…other places.

He broke his kiss and focused on other areas of her face, around her mouth and her jaw line. Each one felt different against her flushed skin. Alternating tender, with tawdry the man had great skills. She had seen them from a distance always on another woman, not her and had wondered what it'd be like…

Well no more but shouldn't she be pulling away from him, telling him how wrong it was like she had just been doing…maybe when she got her breath back and her heart stopped thudding inside her head.

This time when he started in on her blouse buttons again, she didn't say anything, as one by one she felt the stillness of the air find enough energy to caress her exposed skin. His eyes widened when he saw what lay underneath.

"Damn my favorite color…"

Hers too….only she suspected he favored a deeper, darker shade of blue than the lighter, powdery hue that she had seen on the lingerie rack at her favorite boutique. She had purchased the bra and panty set, never thinking that anyone but her would ever see it. After all, it was perfect to wear beneath business attire not at night in a lover's bed.

Her little secret that while she might appear tough as nails on the surface, aggressive and rational, all the so-called masculine qualities that the men around her claimed as their own. But if so, she was better at being a lawyer than most men…still she harbored a secret beneath her clothes, that despite the harshness of her edges, she was as feminine as they came.

From his expression, she took it that Matt liked her taste in lingerie.

That surprised her a little because she figured he'd go for brighter, brassier colors that screamed sex, the rawness of passion exploding between a man and woman outside the business world that often fed that wanting. After all, boardroom deals had sometimes become bedroom deals and the two worlds overlapped. Business deals had been finalized between 700 thread sheets and bedroom encounters had of course taken place on conference room tables.

Her skin flushed further at that thought…when Matt had gotten the buttons out of the way to slide his hands inside her blouse where he met smooth, supple skin and tantalizing silk and lace.

"So soft, who would have known?"

She put her hands on his shoulders not pushing him away.

"You don't know everything about me Matt," she said, "You think you do but the last man I slept with knows more about certain parts of me than you do."

Oh, he didn't seem to like that if his soft growl were any indication. She had to smile at that, while he ran his hands over her skin and up to her shoulders where he slipped the blouse off of her and it fell on the table, unheard.

Her arms were toned, from running and lifting weights because she loved developing some of her hard edges to accentuate her softness. Her breasts filled out the cups of her bra and threatened to spill over them. His hands moved towards the clasp in front and he unsnapped it and twin mounds of creamy flesh now stood proudly in front of him, their rosy tips pointing slightly outward.

She saw his mouth water and smiled, because she had always thought that nature had been generous with what it gave her. When she had been a teenager and they seemed to have grown up overnight, she had a couple awkward years when she thought they attracted too much attention. But she loved her girls as they were called and loved matching them with different styles of bras and camisoles.

And she loved it when a man worshipped them, realizing that they were attached to a living and very sexy woman, who didn't always know that. Matt stared at them for a moment, he was a man after all and then he gently cupped them in his hands and his mouth moved towards her lips again and he kissed her while gently squeezing her breasts. Not too hard but…just right…

He continued to kiss her and somehow she managed to keep breathing but when he rubbed her breasts with his fingers while grasping them, it made her want to throw her head back. Only her lips couldn't seem to separate from his and the light stubble of his jaw line tickled her.

She loved his body, the way his clothing molded to it, whether three piece business suits or casual attire. He trained hard when he could find time in his action packed schedule, and she looked at the result, muscles that twitched beneath her fingers and soft whorls of dark hair. She always had when she'd get him to strip off his shirt to fix him up after he'd gotten himself injured on some case. He'd moan and groan about how she was torturing him and she'd cajole him for being a baby.

But she liked touching him then and she loved doing it now.

He hitched his breath and pulled her up suddenly so he could capture her lips fervently in his own and she felt his need clearly in its potent urgency. He wanted her here and now just as he said and she decided she didn't want to fight it or him.

Live for the moment, she told herself, focus on today and not tomorrow. If she regretted her actions or beat herself up over them, that could wait because right now…all she wanted was in front of her.

But then the part of her that had always pulled away asserted itself once again. She reached out her hands to place on his chest not to touch him but to push him away from her. He just looked at her grabbing onto her hands tightly.

"Hey what's going on here?"

His voice had been soft, but heated underneath his words. His brown eyes pored over her face. She didn't move away from him like she should but she found it hard to be separated yet they couldn't be together either.

"I can't do this…what are we doing?"

He sighed.

"I thought we were starting something new."

She rubbed her arms and he took that as a sign to back away from her.

"Look Houston…we're getting ready to go on a business trip," she said, "and we should focus on that. The Bahamas, the specs Murray gave us on the resort and spa and just get it done."

He pursed his lips.

"Is that what you really want?"

She looked at his face for a long moment, hesitating in her answer. Because a part of her didn't want to stop what she'd started with him…god she didn't know how it had started. He'd returned from a physical therapy session for the surgery he'd had to remove an assassin's bullet from his shoulder. Residual pain and stiffness from scar tissue had served as a reminder that he had stopped a hired killer who had tried to take out a senator.

"Yeah…I just think it's better that we don't mess with what we have," she said, "It's been a tough couple of months Houston. You getting shot and all these deals coming up. Then hearing you're going to have to testify for the grand jury next month on that guy…the one who almost killed you."

She felt the emotions well inside of her whenever she remembered that night. She'd heard the shots and when he hadn't returned to her…cold fear had sliced her and she'd gone to find him. Only to see him lying on the ground in pain, his tuxedo stained with blood. She'd stayed with him and held his hand gripping it tightly in her own so he wouldn't slip into unconsciousness.

She'd waited four hours in the waiting room until the surgeon told her he'd removed the bullet without incident. But she didn't believe him until she could see for herself.

He'd healed up, came back to work as if he'd never been gone but she still worried about him. Then today when she thought the back firing of a car had been…no it couldn't happen to him again…next thing she knew she was kissing him inside the suite as soon as they left the elevator. But now…she just adjusted her clothing back to the way it had been when they'd arrived, turning back time the best she could.

"I just can't do this," she said, "It'd hurt too much if I did and it wasn't enough…so maybe we'd just better go cool off separately."

She started to walk away from him and he just watched. He knew better than to push her on this after hearing the tone in her voice. When he realized that without meaning to do it, he could hurt her. She turned her head to look at him trying to smile, to return to the world before they'd nearly changed it.

"I'll meet you at the airport in the morning," she said, "I'm sure things will look different when we've both had a good night's sleep."

He just nodded.

"See ya…," he said as she walked towards the elevator.

And like that, pleasure had reverted back to business and they both slipped back into their familiar roles.

Because the world of business deals waited, and unlike two friends and business partners almost turned lovers, it never slept.