Typically it was used to highlight marker boards set up on easels on the table. Now it highlighted every bit of data concerning her.

She heard his footfalls as he came around the table, the roll of the chair a moment before she felt the touch of his hands on her face. He removed the mask’s blinder section so she could see. She blinked a moment, despite the dim light of the conference room.

“Savannah, I’m so glad we decided to do this.” In his magical way, he almost made her feel like she’d had a hand in planning the evening. “I’d like to do something to give you pleasure, something I’ve invented.

You’ll be the first woman I’ve tested it on, and I’d like your permission.”

His long, clever fingers stroked her forearm, making her shiver.

She was wrong. She had fantasized about these five men, in one way or another, for months. Matt had always been central, but they’d been steamy appetizers. They’d been her sex life, all in the realm of her mind.

What does it do?Her eyes asked the question she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Of course Jon read it easily.

Every man in the room was an expert at reading body language. Even with the gag, they’d likely understood her every wish. Though Matt alone seemed to have a clear window to her darkest fears, with no curtains to keep out his shrewd gaze.

“It brings a woman to climax almost immediately, and keeps her there, through programmed adjustments of the angle, for a prolonged period of time, to satisfy her fully. It stimulates her between the legs and the buttocks both.”

“I’m not sure. I’m… I’ve never… done that.” She’d actually never done any of this, but she’d never contemplated anything in that back area, even in her fantasies. She didn’t know if that was naïveté or revulsion, but she didn’t feel revolted about the idea now. Just nervous.

“It will be very gentle,” he promised.

“Not invasive at all. And I’ll stop if you want me to stop.”

It was strange, feeling as if she were alone with him, but at the same time being aware of the others that were listening. Of Matt in the shadows, watching over it all, his presence a pulsing awareness in her body.

He’d known Jon would be perfect at this juncture, after that first hard climax. To slow her panic, after having lost her infamous control. The handkerchief was in a ball in her sweaty palm, her fingers clutched tightly on it, as if her subconscious was afraid she’d drop it by accident and be misunderstood.

She’d seen Matt choose a moment of intense conflict to have lunch brought in by a pretty, cheerful office assistant, diffusing tension. Or he’d suggest a break, and they’d adjourn to the roof garden to enjoy the spectacular view of the city. It changed the moment, made his opponent feel cozened, good about giving Matt and his team nearly everything he wanted. He did it so strategically that the calculation was obscured. Even recognizing it, she felt its effect stealing over her own senses, as if that emotional part of her could care less about what her rational mind knew.

She could set him back on his ass by denying Jon now, but she was curious, extraordinarily, intensely so, about what Jon had devised.

It was as if her body, so long suppressing its enjoyment and exploration of physical desires, now could not get enough. A lever had been flipped, suggesting she could safely do and explore everything tonight.

Had Matt known that? Provided her a unique way of losing her virginity? And when that moment came, would it be him, in front of all of them? Or would it be all of them?

Somehow, despite the titillation that such a thought should cause, based on how aroused she was, the idea did not please her. She could not block the vision that rose within her of more private desires. Just her and Matt, the ruthless hands becoming gentle, the weight of his body bearing her down, taking her into its shelter…

She reined back that thought. It didn’t matter if it was him, or the whole group. In fact, there was no reason to get emotional about this situation at all. Tennyson Rule Eleven: Unpleasant experiences at the hands of your enemy become lessons to turn against him later. While she wasn’t certain she’d call this an unpleasant experience, and Matt was an unpredictable business partner versus an outright enemy, she’d known her physical innocence combined with her looks was a handicap in an industrial world dominated by men. She’d put on a good façade, and managed to do well enough without full understanding, but by losing her innocence here tonight, in these many ways, Matt was really doing her a favor, giving her a leg up.

“I really want you to be the first woman to try it,” Jon repeated the appeal.

“But I just…climaxed.”

“It won’t matter,” he said. While she’d been subconsciously aware for some time of the sexual undercurrent between herself and all of them, seeing the desire unmasked in his direct gaze slammed it home so that she could not draw a deep breath under the intensity of it. “That’s its magic. By the time I give you the full setting, your body will be more than ready, and when you come…” That light smile touched his lips. “Let’s just say we could go through the entire first quarter financial report and you wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

It was an intensely erotic image. Her body, writhing and straining through climax after climax in the center of the table, while business was conducted as usual. Only she could vividly imagine the way that the words would drift off to silence, into a sexually charged stillness as the attention of every male was absorbed by her display. Their bodies, so marvelously different from a woman’s softness, becoming even more hard, aroused, waiting to be unleashed.

The way this team interacted during meetings to go over market trends, cost analyses and production reports often reminded her of a dinner scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers . Ben gesturing with a carrot stick off the vegetable tray, making a side riposte, Lucas coming back with a quelling retort and then continuing his point with barely a break in stride. Peter pacing, working the latest MENSA-level brainteaser in his hands as he considered the issues of contention and fired thoughts from different sections of the room. Matt interjecting a vital piece of information, seemingly out of left field, but which tied everything together. Jon smiling at them all and working the numbers.

As their latest cooperative ventures had required more and more frequent meetings with her, they’d included her in the banter, in such a natural way that it had taken her awhile to recognize the tone of her inclusion was somewhat different, low-level flirting dynamics. Something she found she liked, even if she parried it with appropriate cynical retorts.

She’d enjoyed being surrounded by them so often, being the one-woman beneficiary of their mingled scents, voices, the feel of their heat and strength around her as palpable as physical touch. Once, she’d even caught herself letting out a breath when she sat down among them, as though she’d arrived somewhere she could relax. Be at home.

“That might be a bit distracting, to all of you.” Her voice shook with nerves. “You could miss a crucial piece of information, lose your advantage.”

“We could at that.” His lips curved.

“Maybe we’d make you participate, get you to go through your numbers with us, answer our questions. See if we couldn’t catch you in a mistake, make you lose that infamous cool of yours.”

“I’d hardly call it infamous.”

“Honey, you don’t know the half of it.

Don Blatovsky said you were ice from inside out, though he put it in less than flattering terms.” Jon’s eyes took on a gleam. “Which is why Peter utterly destroyed him in racquetball.”

There were a series of chuckles around the table, male sounds of satisfaction that made her feel… protected. Championed.

“Plus, he didn’t have this crucial bit of information.” Jon leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers as his hand slid across the table, under her suspended body, and found her pussy.

He dipped into her heat and wetness, making her gasp. “There’s no ice here. In fact, there’s heat enough to burn.” He smiled at her from inches away, those glowing eyes dominating her vision. “I’m waiting for your answer to my original question.”

She had to struggle to remember. “I’d like to try it.” Then, because it made her feel raw to see the warmth in his eyes, and sense the pleasurable approval of all men at the table, she added, “Maybe I’ll buy the first one off the line. The Who-Needs-A-Man vibrator.”

Jon withdrew his hand, brushed his knuckles over her cheek so she smelled herself on his skin. “Honey, I’ve never seen a woman who needed a man more than you do. You’ve needed one your whole life.”

Before she could fashion a reply to that appalling and confusing statement, he had removed the device from his suit pocket. After all that talk, she would have expected a complicated design. Instead, it was innocuous and sleek, and appeared to have three main pieces. An oblong disk of a soft material, a curved shaft, and a circular piece about the size of a silver dollar. The circle looked like a tiny wagon wheel, with a short, thick piece of rubber as the hub and a pinwheel of silver spokes. A network of slim straps tied the whole thing together.

He laid it on the table before her and rose. Placing his hands together before his chest in an attitude of prayer, he bowed, nearly touching his forehead to hers, then straightened. “I see the divine in you, the face of love, and I honor it.”

At her curious look, he gave her his angelic look. Not quite a smile, but then the expression didn’t need it to convey the same delicious feeling inside of her. “That’s the namaste.

It’s from Hindu culture, used in various ways, but in Tantra it’s a way to begin lovemaking, a reminder that coming together with a lover in true sexual intimacy is a way to spiritual development.”

The knowledge he gave her of its meaning caused that delicious feeling to spread out through her torso into her limbs. It should have seemed incongruous to be restrained the way she was and yet to feel so suddenly… cherished, but she couldn’t deny the reaction. Lucas’s mouth on her body, Jon’s quiet approach, even Matt’s watchful regard abruptly became something else.