In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

William Blake

Rebel Pemberton-Blythe was on the warpath. Aidan heard it in the trip-trap of her heels down the hallway toward his office and barely suppressed a smile. He loved it when she was angry. In a bad mood she fairly emanated violence. All the time he'd known her, she'd never failed to fascinate him with the way she could fill a room with her mood. Today he had a feeling that life with his feisty legal secretary was about to become inordinately more interesting. The game was afoot and he had no intention of losing.

"You!"

Typically there was no preamble upon her invasion, only the opening foray into verbal assault. "Reb, if you're gonna murder me, close the door so there are no eye witnesses."

"Right." Without so much as a glance toward the door she shot her foot back and kicked it shut. Any angrier and her hair would be on fire, quite a look for a woman in a navy tailored suit. He much preferred her in red. Red better suited her passionate nature.

"Aidan Quinn, do you have a problem with the way I do my job?"

"Not one." It was the truth. While she may not have had the perfect temperament for a secretary, Rebel had never once lost his files, she screened phone calls like a champion and was constantly one step ahead when it came to filing forms and scheduling meetings.

"Then why does the entire office think I'm in trouble for having Friday off? I booked it, Aidan. I didn't leave you in the lurch, all my work will be caught up and Beverly offered to hire a temp so you won't have to answer the phone. God forbid you should be caught doing something so menial! There is absolutely no need for you to go bitching and moaning your way around the desks telling everyone in sight about how you're so hard-done-by."

Closing his eyes in sudden understanding, he cursed the corporate grapevine. "I didn't bitch. I only told Sondra because I thought it was cute. She must have misconstrued."

"Misconstrued my ass!"

Suddenly she was leaving. From the length of her stride and the stiff set of her shoulders, Sondra was probably next on her hit list. Rebel had never been one to avoid confrontation, hell, some days he thought she started arguments for fun. While some people enjoyed yoga as a form of stress relief, Rebel much preferred a good yell.

Somehow he got out of his chair, around his desk and across the room in time to fling an arm about her waist.

"Don't do it Reb," he warned, dragging her back from the door. Not that Sondra didn't deserve extermination; she was the poison ivy contaminating the intra-office grapevine. But she was also having an affair with one of the firm's senior partners. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he acknowledged his own stupidity. He never should have said anything, not even anything nice about his secretary to the viperous and often delusional Sondra.

"Why not? If she's going to gossip about me, she should be willing to look me in the eye and explain why!"

Rebel hated being contained; especially when she was dying to explode. Now his naïve secretary was stiff as a board in his arms. Her refusal to participate in nasty gossip and innuendo had made her an office darling almost from the day she started work in the Brisbane office. If she had a problem she went straight to the source. No sniping and no holding back. Knowing Rebel, she figured her own honesty would exclude her from any knifing jabs aimed at her back. He thought she gave people too much credit. "You don't want to annoy her, because she has friends in very high places. Besides, we both know you're just cranky about turning thirty on Friday. I haven't forgotten, you know."

Her knees sagged and she softened against him. With her back aligned along his chest and her lovely derriere pressed against his groin, he wanted to keep her there forever. A happy citrus smell wafted up from her dark cap of curls and he fought not to bury his face in her hair. One deep breath and he plunged back into the real reason for her temper. "We had a deal Reb, and it doesn't matter how much you yell, what you threaten or how many days you have off ... Friday night is my night." From his vantage point, he could see her eyelashes flutter closed.

"You're very arrogant. You know that, don't you?"

She was right, he was arrogant, and he'd worked too hard for too long not to be proud of his achievements. Raising a hand, she stroked fingers through the hair at his collar. Tilting her head, she inadvertently offered her throat. He fought the urge to bite her, right where the pulse beat against the line of her jaw.

"That's why you like me." He tried to sound relaxed, even though his throat had constricted at her touch.

Hands at her waist, he turned her to face him. Their eyes met and the slow burn they'd kept carefully controlled for three years sprang up with the heat of a blowtorch. His stomach clenched tight and he ground his teeth against the need surging through his bloodstream. Unable to resist touching, he ran a thumb over the dark wing of her ever-mobile eyebrows. She closed her eyes on a sigh.

"You'd better go before we really give them something to talk about." His throat was tight and his voice emerged hoarse and harsh in the quiet room.

She smiled lazily. "Let them." Soft lips whispered over his, teasing and promising at once. Amazing how quickly she could flip emotions, anger reforming as mischief, mischief to excitement.

"Rebel," his warning growl should have been enough to stop her.

"Yep," she chuckled happily against his mouth.

"Noun, not adjective," he groaned against the tension building in his chest. His breath burned in his lungs.

"Both." He felt the smile of her lips against his.

Gripping fingers in her hair, he dragged her close and ate her up. She tasted like strawberries and coffee. Her body curved and clung to him. Tongue sweeping over his teeth, she gave more of herself while tasting him. Returning her onslaught, fire spread under his skin while he bit and sucked at her lips. Everything between them was a tussle. She was soft beneath his hands as he cradled her against him, following the line of her spine with his fingers.

She murmured against his lips, a soft acquiescent sound that unleashed the desire to dominate, the need to have Rebel shaking for him. Christ, he could get off just on the taste of her. They had to stop this now, before they were both roaring to a climax on standard issue, albeit very expensive office furniture. It would be over in a blinding flash of heat if he didn't ease up right now. He wanted more than hot sex on a cold desk. He was angling for much, much more. Rebel, on the other hand, seemed to have her own agenda. Her teeth nibbled the length of his jaw, sending rivers of passion shivering down his spine. Now was the time. If they went much further, there'd be no going back.

Kissing his way up the creamy line of her throat, he snugged her under his chin, stroked his hands through the softness of her hair and on down her spine, easing them back to reality. Understanding his intent, she let her head rest on his chest; her breath warming his skin through cotton shirt.

By the time the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat had slowed, her brain was back in gear. He could feel the cogs clicking over. "What's up?"

"You're doing Phaegan at one."

"I'd rather do you."

She smiled against his shirt, burying her face in his chest. "You're just lucky I ate all my lipstick at lunch or we'd both be a mess and you wouldn't be making your meeting on time."

"Oh yeah, that's what I'm grateful for."

Arching a perfect eyebrow, she brought him back to order before straightening to leave. "Aidan?"

"Reb?" Single syllables were as much as he could manage when she looked at him with that heated suggestion glimmering from somewhere behind her eyes.

She bit her lip. "Should I clear Friday afternoon off your calendar then?"

Laughing was still too hard, so he smiled instead. "Yes. You really should."

When the door shut behind her, he navigated his desk and flopped back into his chair. Jesus! Now he knew why he'd instinctively let her win their argument the day he'd turned thirty. She was too scary for words ... and now she was all his ... about bloody time too!

Rebel wobbled back to her workstation before dropping her forehead to the blotter. Jesus! Obviously thirty was going to be an interesting age; apparently it came with insanity preselected! In the last three months, since Aidan had become a senior associate with Kinsey, Brannigan and Hart and she'd been assigned as his secretary, she'd spent a good long time pretending she didn't care about her birthday. In reality he'd been right on the money regarding her reason for storming his office. She was completely foul on the whole concept of thirty. Her twenties had been good to her and she'd achieved a lot, but three decades of life was a serious matter. She was officially a grown-up, no longer a girl with time to change her mind about what she wanted from life.

Now, thanks to her big mouth and her innate impulsiveness, it seemed the woman and the girl were about to get all mixed up in thirty.

They'd met as office juniors after all, she a relatively junior secretary and Aidan an article clerk. Together they'd traversed the wilderness of interoffice conspiracies, learned which secrets to keep, who was to be obeyed without question and who could be fobbed off. All the while her heart had skipped beats when he was around, her breath stopping in her throat when he stepped too close. On the twenty-fifth of March 2001, while celebrating her twenty-seventh birthday with co-workers, she'd realised that her work was fast becoming her entire life and might forever remain that way. An eternity spent stroking a keyboard rather than a man had stretched out ominously before her ... a life sentence. Something had needed to be done, so she'd done it.

A plea bargain ... A stay of execution.

Swaying drunkenly up to Aidan she'd leant into the solid strength of him and whispered into his ear. "If we're still doing this 'work is my world' crap when we're thirty Aidan, take me home and ... take my mind off it!"

Watching him stiffen almost imperceptibly, she'd noted the inadvertent straightening of his spine even though he'd stayed slouched against a bar stool. He'd eyed her cynically, narrowed gaze perusing the length of her body until she'd thought he might refuse her deal. "Let me get this straight. If we're both single at thirty, you want us to get together?"

"No," she'd sighed and begun patiently explaining while swirling her straw through the lovely ice of a margarita. "If we're both still single at thirty, I want us to have sex. Mad, frenzied, mind-blowing sex, until I forget I'm thirty and can't remember what I do for a living. Deal?"

"Absolutely. No loopholes, no codicils, no amendments. Air tight--right?" He'd chuckled at her description but it had been very off-putting the way he'd hemmed her in. Completely serious, he'd changed the tone of their previously glib conversation in a flash. He did that a lot, she'd noticed, letting her think she was in charge then flipping the tables so quickly she had trouble keeping her balance. In that moment she'd understood why he was such a good lawyer. Aidan was the perfect predator, pretending relaxed indifference until his opportunity arose. In one swift strike, sometimes one terse observation, he pounced, leaving his victims stunned and silent.

She'd flailed in the face of her momentary lack of caution, trying to regain her footing. "Are you implying I might renege?"

"Never!" He clasped a hand to his chest as though aghast at her implication.

"Good!"

A handshake had sealed the deal.

Rebel had never backed out of anything in her life, but this was different. This could well turn out to be the stupidest thing she ever did. Lawyers and their secretaries were famous for hot and hurried affairs. The hours they worked and the intensity involved with preparing cases meant hours of close contact, frayed nerves and the creation of an intimate rapport. Once bitterness replaced the relationship, hours of close proximity became a constant torment. The secretaries were always the ones to leave. Rebel didn't want to leave. She loved her job.

Just as she was about to make a sensible decision, Aidan appeared. Suited and smoothed, with his sandy blonde ruff of curls forced into some kind of order, he looked too good for reason. He stopped in front of her desk, looking down at her and smiled. This was his 'I know you' smile, the one he pulled out whenever she flitted nervously away from his touch. She felt a response quiver in the pit of her stomach as her heart stopped dead in her chest. Flattening his palms on her desk, he leaned down so she could smell the spicy fragrance of his cologne. How was it that he even smelled warm?

"Have you cleared my calendar yet?"

"I'm on it," she confirmed in her best business tone.

"Good. I'm off then. See you at thirty Reb." He used the same line every time the tension between them got to be too much. Managed the same grin and the same sweep of his hand through the waves of tawny hair.

That was the last straw, damn it!

She was going to have earth-shattering sex with Aidan Quinn if it was the last stupid thing she ever did!