“Did I tell you I ran into Larry from accounting the other day?” she calls out to me, from across the yard. “At the store.”
“Let me guess.” I hold up my hand in a wait gesture. “He said ‘finally.’”
She laughs. “Everybody knew, except us. I had a hell of a time convincing him this was a relatively new thing. He has this complex theory about how men and women can never end up together if they spend too long as friends, or…whatever we were. Because - I don’t know, something about how women lose the ability to see you as a sex object after a certain amount of time? I don’t know. At a certain point I had to force myself to stop listening because I felt like I was getting stupider.”
Laughing, I make a half-hearted grab for the knotted rope toy that she’s using to taunt one of the beagles. She feints, and the dog loses interest pretty quickly when he catches a scent on the grass.
“One of those guys who needs a complex algorithm to try and explain why not every woman in his life wants to fuck him,” I smirk. “Poor child. Probably thinks he needs to wear a funny hat to get their attention, too.”
She’s grinning. “Hey, there are much stupider things you can do. Sometimes striking up a conversation with a stranger is the hardest part.”
I just snort. “Ridiculous.”
“Of course you think it’s ridiculous,” she says. “Women would talk to you even if you were wearing sweats. Actually…I’ve seen you in sweats, I think women would be even *more* likely to talk to you in sweats."
Her cheeks color slightly as her eyes grow a little distant with pondering.
“You’re trying to think of something I wouldn’t look hot in, aren’t you?” I grin. “I’d better go pour a drink and make a sandwich or something, this could take a while."
She gets quiet and thoughtful for a moment. “Do you think they’re right?”
“What the pickup artists?” I smile at her, patting the bench beside me, but she’s lost in thought.
“No. Jesus. I mean everyone we used to work with. Did they really pick up on it before we did, or did they just assume we must be fucking because we were always snapping at each other like an old married couple?”
It’s an interesting question, actually. Looking back, I can’t quite trace how long I’ve truly loved her. But I know it’s much longer than she realizes, and probably longer than I want to admit.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, thoughtfully. “I definitely started developing feelings a good while before the conference.”
“You mean, back when you started writing your books?”
I chuckle. When Meg first found out that I was secretly Natalie McBride, author of her favorite steamy romance novels, she wanted to kill me. I could see it in her eyes. Or at the very least, seriously injure me. I’ll never forget the way my heart squeezed in my chest when I got that first piece of fan mail from her, my email pinging so innocently, unaware of the chain of events it was about to set off.
When she realized that the secretary in the books was based on her, she actually took it pretty well. Of course, by then, we’d spent almost a full week blowing off a writing conference to have rough, uninhibited sex. That does tend to cast things in a different light.
I shake my head. “It wasn’t until after that. At least…I’m pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure.” She grins, fetching the knotted rope from the ground and tossing it to the eager crowd. “You just don’t want to admit that you fell in love at first sight.”
“Maybe.” I stretch my legs out in front of me, leaning my hands on the bench. “Maybe because that’s not a real thing.”
“You’re so romantic,” she says, wiping dog slobber on her jeans.
I roll my eyes at her. “I can’t win, you know. If I tell you something actually romantic, you just say I’m a liar.”
“Well, stop lying.” A chocolate lab comes back with the rope in his drooling jaws, and she grabs it, laughing when he’s suddenly reluctant to let go. “I’ll always roll my eyes when you make ridiculous claims like…”
“Like you’re the most beautiful woman in the world? I know. I’m not going to stop saying it, though.” I shrug. “Maybe eventually you’ll believe me.”
“It’s just one of those things that people say,” she points out. “You’re obligated to say it. Nobody else in the entire world thinks that’s true, and we both know it. I’m not saying that you wish I was different, but you can’t make objective statements of fact like that and expect me to -”
I grab her arm and yank her towards me, and she stops, laughing. I’ve thrown her off-balance, not quite enough to fall, but enough to make her sit down heavily and haphazardly beside me.
Wrapping my arms around her tightly, I murmur in her ear. “You’d better start believing me.”
“Why?” She squirms around to face me, and I can see her eyes sparkle. “Think you can spank me hard enough to change my mind?”
I squeeze her tighter. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Then
“Hold still.” Meghan sighs sharply, her fingers brushing my throat. “God damn it. It’s like trying to dress a toddler.”
“I can’t stand still when I’m thinking,” I snap at her. She’s just a few inches away, and this is absurdly intimate, and I haven’t jerked off in two weeks because my fucking arm is in a cast. Which is also why she’s tying my tie.
I probably don’t need to explain the real reason why I’m fidgeting.
Dirk, the hero of my novels, gets a hard-on every time there’s a stiff breeze. It’s part of the fantasy, I suppose. But actual adult males do not have this problem, unless a curvy gingersnap of a woman, who smells like lavender and honeysuckle, is standing so close you can feel her body heat on your skin. Nibbling on her lower lip as she concentrates to remember exactly the right way to knot that length of silk around your neck.
I swallow, a little too hard, and my Adam’s apple brushes against her knuckles. I’m not looking at her cleavage, except of course I am, because there’s no way to get it out of my field of vision. I might as well give up on pretending, and just enjoy the hypnotic rise and fall of her breasts, the way they strain against her blouse, willing the buttons to pop.
God damn it. Control yourself, man.
Why not just get someone to take care of the job for me, so to speak? It’s my busy season, I barely leave my office. I have to draw the line at bringing women here, especially since the Miss Hips and Curves 1.0 - the original, accept no substitutes, currently running her fingers down my shoulders to smooth my shirt - might notice they look oddly familiar. And I don’t fuck at home. My home is my castle, my sanctuary, and I don’t let strangers into the bed where I sleep. With no real time to chat anyone up or schedule my usual hotel trysts, I just haven’t gotten around to it.
And it’s fine. Really. I’m a grown man, I don’t need it all the time. I can go without.
“There,” she says, at last, sighing as she steps back from me. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
“Thanks.” I turn around to get something imaginary out of the filing cabinet, just in case my dick decides to defy me. I know I’m due in the conference room in five minutes, four, now, probably - but I can’t risk it. I’ve got to calm down. Maybe I could ask Meghan to knee me in the balls; that might do the trick. I’m sure she’d enjoy it.
I wonder how she’d react if I asked her to do something else.
On her knees under my desk, blouse ripped open, pretty mouth stuffed full of -
My dick jumps to attention.
“You’re going to be late,” Meghan points out, pausing in my doorway.
“Just have to grab a few things,” I tell her. “Stall for me.”
And that’s the day I learn how to jerk off with my left hand.
Now
“Hold on.” She picks an invisible piece of lint off my shoulder, then sighs softly. “Is it too late to talk you out of this?”
“Way too late.” I cup her face in my hands, kissing her ge
ntly. “Three days. I’ll be back in three days. Unless you really want me to blow them off.”
Meg shakes her head, smiling a little. When I first got the phone call from the board of directors, I ignored it, and refused to listen to the voicemail for a week. But somehow, even after I quit my job with no notice and generally just acted like the protagonist in a bad nineties rom-com, they still want to talk to me. They’re going on their usual retreat in Jakarta, and this year, they want me to come along. I know they’re grooming me for something - a future consultancy, I bet, and I’m not really sure how I feel about that. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few things I miss about the business world. A very few things.
So I’m going on the trip. No girlfriends allowed. That was made very clear to me.
“It’s not that I can’t go three days without you,” she says, quickly. “Obviously. I’m not…”
“Codependent, or something,” I finish for her, with a rueful smile. “Of course not. What a crazy thing to even suggest.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine. I just don’t want you to…I don’t know. You hate those people. That world drove you crazy.”
There’s a hint of doubt in her tone. I know, although she won’t say it, that she feels guilty for compelling me to quit my job. What she doesn’t understand is that I didn’t really quit for her. I quit because of her, but not to win her back. I quit because she made me realize that I hated the person I’d become. That as long as I worked for those people, I’d always be the kind of man who made the girl I love cry.
“I do, and it does,” I assure her. “But…all the same.”
“All the same,” she agrees, straightening my collar again. “Just…don’t let yourself get tangled up in what those people think of you.”
“I won’t,” I promise her. “I have to go.”
She smiles a little, her hands still resting on my chest. “The plane will wait for you.”
After last night, I should be utterly drained. Meg slept here, with the stated intention of seeing me off in the morning, but we didn’t actually do a lot of sleeping. My brain says I ought to be sated, while my dick, as usual, disagrees.
Her hands slide down the front of my body until they catch my belt, and tug lightly, pulling me towards her, towards the bed.
“Come on,” she breathes. “I promise I’ll be really quick.”
“Oh, you will?” I grin, following her down on the mattress, kneeling between her legs. “What’s got your engine revved this morning, hmm?”
“You look good in that suit,” she says, inches from kissing me. “Reminds me of all the times I wanted you, and couldn’t have you.”
“Could’ve,” I remind her, teasingly. “But you were too stubborn to admit it…”
Her face is a mixture of lust, annoyance, and love. “Shut up and fuck me.”
Well then.
I wasted five years imagining what she’d be like in bed, how irresistible, how alluring, and I could’ve spent another fifty without managing to conjure this up. God. She gasps and moans, begging for more, harder, faster. I grasp her hair by the roots and growl that she’s not in charge of this, I am, and her pussy clenches around me in response. My phone starts buzzing in my pocket, and I just groan, grabbing her leg and hooking it over my shoulder.
“Fuck me,” she breathes, her eyes suddenly opening and locking with mine. “God. Fuck me, Adrian.”
I slide my fingers down to where we’re joined, and she cries out wordlessly.
“Say it again,” I demand. “Don’t stop saying my name until you come.”
She doesn’t.
Then
Meghan’s got an extra spring in her step. We’re in the midst of our busy season, and I’m about as pleasant to work with as a honey badger. So that secretive smile can only mean one thing.
“I’m going to need you to stay late tonight.” It’s a guess, at this point, but a fairly educated one. Besides, I want to feel her out.
“I figured,” she says, not looking up from her screen. “But I have to be out by eight.”
“Guess that depends on how fast you can work, doesn’t it?” With an effort, I uncurl my lip from its sneer. “What’s happening at eight?”
She laughs lightly. “Nope. No way. I’m not falling into that trap.”
“No reason for you to be secretive about it,” I point out, crossing my arms as I lean against her desk. “It’s at night, so it’s obviously not an embarrassing doctor’s appointment.”
“I actually see one of those newfangled twenty-four-hour gynecologists,” she deadpans. “It’s the only way I can find the time, working for you.”
“Well, reschedule then.” I straighten back up. “I’m not sure how late we’ll be here, and I’d hate to keep the speculum waiting.”
“I can’t,” she says, sighing heavily. Her fingers still tap-tap away at their preternatural speed, even as she talks. “I have a date, okay? There are tickets involved. Can’t just reschedule.”
“A date.” I repeat, slowly, turning on my heel. “So you admit it.”
“Yes, a date. And down here in the real world, with the plebes, it’s considered rude to cancel a date at the last minute.”
“First date?” I lean on her desk again, this time with my hands, both of us facing the same direction. But she’s still not looking at me. “Because otherwise, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Not a first date.” She tip-taps a little harder, faster. She’s getting more irritated by the second. “Far from it, in fact.”
“Oh, so maybe I wasn’t too far off with the speculum.” I blurt it out before I can second-guess myself, and anyway, she’s the one who brought up vaginas. I mean, in a roundabout sort of way. I’ve got that immediate gut-twisting feeling I might’ve gone too far this time, but she just chuckles.
“I’m leaving at eight,” she says. “If you have to fire me, fire me.”
She’s bluffing. Her guilt complex is far too strong to let her walk away when there’s work to be done, and we both know it. Thing is, there’s no way I’ll have an excuse to make her stay past eight. And maybe she knows that. Maybe she can read me better than I imagine.
I walk away from that conversation with only one thought ringing in my ears:
Meghan has a boyfriend.
It’s not her first, of course. And it won’t be her last. But each one irritates me more than the previous, to the point where I’m starting to question my own motivations. I don’t like her being distracted, and I don’t like how she sneaks away to take their calls or texts them under her desk, like she thinks I don’t notice. I’m not going to say anything. I’m her boss, not her goddamned high school principal.
She’s stepped out on an all-important coffee run when the boy himself shows up. I wasn’t expecting that. Usually, I only ever hear of these mythical creatures - I assume because she tells them to stay the hell away from her toxic fucking workplace and her toxic fucking boss.
I’m just popping out of my office to leave something on her desk, and the kid’s just standing there, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other like he’s not sure how he ended up here.
“Can I help you?” I force myself to smile, sort of.
“Um, yeah? Sorry. I’m looking for Meghan. Meghan Burns.”
So that confirms my suspicion. I fold my arms across my chest, surveying her choice in dating material. Completely inexplicable. How did someone this timid actually manage to land Meghan?
He’s cute in the way that lost puppies are cute. Is she really one of those people who needs a project? She always struck me as smarter than that.
“She’s out of the office at the moment,” I tell him, my tone clipped.
“Oh. Well, I can wait.” He swallows audibly.
“I’m afraid we’re very busy at the moment. There’s no time for personal visits.” Do I sound like a prison warden? Probably. A little bit. But I don’t particularly care. “I can certainly pass along any messages you might have for
her.”
He’s taken aback, of course. There’s no reason for me to be this rude, except something about being in this kid’s company is making my skin crawl. “Uh, okay. Sure. I’ve been trying to call her, but I think her phone’s turned off. I know her voicemail gets a little weird sometimes, so I wanted to make sure I talked to her. It turns out I have a gig tonight, last minute thing, and I really have to go. I’m gonna sell our Lion King tickets to my buddy and get some for another night. Can you just let her know?”
“Sure,” I mutter, as he thanks me and shuffles down the hallway.
Lion King? Really? I’ve got all sorts of ammunition now. Grinning fiercely to myself, I retreat back into my office and slam the door behind me.
If we lived in a sitcom world, I could simply not tell her, and it would somehow lead to them breaking up spectacularly. As much as that thought warms the cockles of my heart, it would be childish. Also, we live in reality, where human beings actually talk to each other occasionally. Also, she might check her phone and notice the missed calls. Which brings me to…
Meghan walks in with my coffee.
“Your boy toy stopped by,” I tell her, and she hesitates by the corner of my desk. “Tonight’s cancelled anyway. Guess you can stay.”
“Oh,” she says, simply. I can’t quite read her expression, and her eyes are on the floor.
“Said he had a gig,” I go on, taking a sip of my coffee. “He wouldn’t be a musician, would he?”
She sighs. “I know you’re dying to run me through the ringer over my choice of boyfriends, but can I please just get back to work?”
“Of course.” I wave my hand towards the door. “Oh, and he said he’s selling the tickets to a friend, so don’t worry about that. The Lion King tickets.”
Meghan pauses in my doorway. “Are we done here?”
“Just one more thing.” I clear my throat. “Is your voicemail…acting weird?”
She bites her lower lip and chews on it, thoughtlessly. “…no?”
His Secretary: Undone and Unveiled (The Complete Series Collection) Page 27