She was inches from him and she felt the months of rage bubbling up from within her, “So yes, Chad. I was trying to be fuc—”
He stopped her. His lips crashed against hers, engulfing her fire with a kiss.
6
Chad’s hands tangled in her hair before he realized what he was doing. He let the dark locks wrap between his fingers and around his wrists, tugging her against him, forcing their bodies to touch.
Devyn’s soft lips parted, letting him take her mouth in his and deepen the kiss between them. What the fuck was he doing? He had spent the better half of his job keeping away from Devyn and trying to make her stay far away from him.
Devyn’s fury had set him off, reminding him of everything he loved about her.
She pulled away, breaking the kiss between them. She stared up at him with her wide eyes, lipstick was smudged around the corners of her mouth. He could only imagine he was wearing a similar color now.
“What was that?” Devyn threw her hands in the air, shaking her head in disbelief.
Chad let the memory run through his mind, making his body react. He felt the bulge in his pants beginning to grow.
“That was me taking what I wanted,” he growled, stepping closer to her before leaning into her side and wrapping his strong hands around her waist.
Devyn placed her palm on the center of his chest, pushing against his strength. “No.”
Chad cocked his head at her though he was unsurprised by her protest. He pulled her tighter against his body, letting his lips brush over the tip of her ear. Her body stiffened in his arms.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want it,” he purred in her ear, forcing her out of her head.
Devyn bit her lip, staring at his mouth. Oh I totally want it, she thought.
“I don’t,” she said sternly.
“Liar.” Chad’s lips stretched into a smirk, making her cheeks turn red. The ache he felt wouldn’t stop and he craved her taste again. He tugged her closer. His hand rested on the small of her back, but he itched to let it go lower to cup the curve of her ass.
The corner of Devyn’s lip twitched, edging into a smile.
“Admit it, boss,” he whispered into her ear, “you love the way I feel pressed against you. The way my hand curled around your hair. The smell of my skin against you. You want to know what it’d be like to have my lips on your neck, your chest. You want to feel me all over your body. And you know that you want me as badly as I want you.”
Her eyes drifted away from his, resting on the broad chest he was hiding behind his white button up shirt. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down.
Chad slid his hand back into her hair, tightening his grip as he got closer to her scalp. She gasped, looking up at him with the same wide eyes he had seen just moments before. He lowered his head, hovering his lips over hers. His core ached with anticipation.
“Just admit it.” He whispered softly, building the tension between the two even more.
Devyn’s lips pressed together in a line. Her body relaxed in his arms despite the stern look she was giving him. She pressed against him, letting him feel the softness of her belly against him.
Her hand searched for him, wrapping his brown locks in her hand like he had done hers. She pulled him to her lips, letting him take her mouth in his again.
Holy fuck, she was amazing. He knew she would be good, but he didn’t know how badly he had craved the soft curves of her body pressed against him. Chad wanted to clear off the desk behind them and lay her down on it, trace every inch of her body with his lips and make her scream his name.
Devyn wrapped her arm around his neck, pulling him into her.
“Why are you such a fucking asshole?” She asked, though her words came out muffled. Devyn couldn’t bring herself to stop planting kisses on Chad. Her lips burned from the strength of each kiss.
He lifted her, forcing her legs around his waist.
Chad shoved Devyn’s body against the nearest flat surface, causing them to collide with force. The heat from her body radiated around the office. She was so fucking sexy. He gripped a fistful of her hair from the base of her neck, pulling it roughly, causing a moan to fall from Devyn’s lips.
“I want you,” he growled, nipping her earlobe with his teeth, making her arch into him.
Chad had never wanted to break his own rules as quickly as he had with Devyn. Her body reacted to his, moving with him. She made him forget he wasn’t supposed to get involved. He shouldn’t be tangling his body with hers, and hardening at the sound of his name on her tongue. But it was more than just her being his boss.
He had found himself drawn to her since he walked into Maxi's. He just never let himself admit it.
Her fire drove him wild.
“Yeah, in bed,” her sharp tone cut through the moment, making him pull away from her.
“You’re funny.” His expression hardened matching the bulge in his pants.
A hard tap came from across the room.
“Devyn?” Penelope’s voice called from the other side of the door.
“Fuck,” she swore under her breath, pushing his body off her.“Just a second, I’m with an employee.”
She smoothed the edges of her skirt down and cleaned the smudges of lipstick off her lips.
“Here.” She handed him a makeup wipe. “Clean my lipstick off your mouth. We can just forget this even happened.”
She pushed away from him, taking a seat at her desk.
“Not likely, Kennedy.”
He wiped the edges of his mouth, erasing the traces of red lipstick, before throwing it onto her desk and walking out of the room.
7
“Holy fuck is an understatement,” Maria quipped, dropping the nail file in her hand onto the table and folding her arms. “He just walked into your office and made out with you?”
Devyn nodded. “Basically yeah. He was an asshole, as usual. He downright refused my apology and then came into my office yelling. The next thing I knew I was against a wall, and he was whispering all these things in my ear.”
Devyn shivered, remembering the way his lips felt against her skin and the way his words had haunted her.
A smile stretched across Maria’s face, “What kind of things?”
“I am not repeating them.”
Blood rushed to Devyn’s face as she remembered the way his tongue danced over her skin. I want you. She had never considered herself attracted to him before, partially because he was an asshole. She had never considered him anything other than her annoying and overly rude coworker. But now? Now Devyn wasn’t so sure.
Sure he was tall, handsome, and built like a god, but he had treated her so poorly for so long. She couldn’t let the harsh treatment be overruled by one extremely hot make out session, regardless of how badly she was craving it again. Her nipples peaked from the memory of being pressed up against his hard chest.
No.
Her body be damned. She was not falling for it.
“It doesn’t matter.” Devyn stood from the table. “It’s time for my least favorite thing of the year.”
Maria’s face lit up, beaming like the lights hanging all over their house. She had been patient, waiting for Devyn to agree to let the 10 foot tall tree take over the better half of their living room. She knew Devyn hated Christmas, but Maria didn’t hesitate when she was given the opportunity to make the house look like Santa’s north pole.
She sprung out of her chair. “I’ll get the tree.”
Devyn watched Maria disappear into her bedroom. Even from across the living room she could see Maria’s collection of sugar skulls sitting on her bedroom dresser. Devyn had begged her to get rid of them.
Even though Devyn loathed putting up the Christmas tree, it was better than being bombarded with questions about her all too personal encounter with her least favorite coworker.
Maria had Christmas music playing on her turntable which had been a gift from their father. The upbeat tune of Feliz Navidad
almost made her regret the decision to add another festive flare to their townhome. Damn the music was loud though, and she almost didn’t hear the ring of their doorbell over it.
“Who the hell is that,” Devyn swore under her breath.
She inched around the corner, seeing a silhouette of a man standing in their doorway.
“Maria, someone is at the door. I’m going to get it,” she yelled over the music.
Maria yelled something back at her, but her voice was muffled. It sounded like she was already buried in the tote of ornaments she kept in the back of the closet.
Devyn tugged a sweater over her head and hoped like hell it wasn’t as cold as it had been when she had gotten home earlier. The blanket of snow hadn’t been kind to the exposed tops of her feet and her flats were drenched once she climbed the final step on her porch.
With a forceful tug, Devyn opened the door to find Chad standing on her doorstep. Her face paled at the sight of him, remembering their short encounter from earlier. Devyn started to close to door in his face.
He put his hands up. “Please wait.”
“What are you doing here?”
He pressed his lips in a firm line. He was sure that Devyn didn’t want to see him before he showed up unannounced. But the tone of her voice and the look on her face when their eyes met confirmed his suspicions.
Devyn felt her stomach flutter. Despite the cruel things he had said to her, she couldn’t help but see him differently after their moment in her office. Her body reacted, urging her to pull him close.
“I came to apologize to you,” he said, letting his arms fall to his sides.
Devyn nodded and stepped outside onto the porch with him. The snow was falling heavier than it had been on her drive home. A thick blanket of white fluff laid in the flower bed she usually had roses in. She hated winter. Her green thumb ached for the warm sun on her skin again.
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I should have called first.” Chad ran his hand through his hair. “But I didn’t think you’d see me if I did that.”
“Probably not,” Devyn’s voice was barely over a whisper.
“I wanted to apologize about earlier.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth.
“What about earlier?”
He looked at the ground, sighing before running his hand over his brown hair again.
“I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you.” His lips pressed into a line. “I was angry. I don’t know what came over me. You came into my office trying to make peace, and it made me angry. I don’t know why.”
A harsh laugh escaped her lips and her mouth hung open. He drove all the way to her home— though she wasn’t sure how he found where she lived— to apologize for raising his voice at her? Hell. No.
“Is that what you’re really apologizing for? Because you’ve had no problem being a dick to me in the past.” Devyn leaned into the dirty white siding of the house.
He gritted his teeth again. “Okay, no. That’s not all.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Then I’m waiting for the rest.”
“Can you not just accept the apology?” Chad growled.
Devyn’s eyes grew.“No. You came to my house and interrupted me while I’m off the clock to apologize to me. I’m not just going to accept your damn apology. You should be apologizing for pushing me up against a wall and shoving your tongue down my throat without at least asking me if I was okay with it first.”
“You didn’t seem to be complaining much,” he retorted, a smirk growing on his lips as the memory flooded his brain.
Devyn’s face grew hot. She paused, trying to count backwards from ten.
“Is that all, Chad? Because I’d like to get back to what I was doing before you decided to ring my doorbell.”
Devyn turned to go back into the warm house despite the loud Christmas carols and tree branches that awaited her.. He caught her arm, pulling her back away from the door.
“Devyn please—,”
She spun around. “Do not put your hands on me like that ever again.”
Chad pulled away.
“Earlier wasn’t supposed to happen. I’ve worked really hard to stay away from you, but then I let it happen anyway. I don’t know why, but I just lost control.”
Her eyes softened and she peered up to him. Mentally, Devyn cursed herself. She felt as though she let her defense, down too soon.
“Are you saying you’ve wanted to do that before today?”
Chad looked away, stealing a glance into the house. He saw Maria, tugging the green tote full of Christmas decorations from the couch and onto a coffee table next to her.
His eyes met hers. “Yes.”
Devyn let her breath sit in her throat, pausing to let his words sink in. After all the time he had spent insulting her, he had been wishing to wrap his arms around her and press their mouths together.
“That would have been much better than you screaming at me everyday.”
His expression hardened. “Funny.”
A smile flickered on her lips, the curve of her mouth pointing up.
“Am I keeping you?” He pointed inside.
Devyn looked puzzled, but then remembered the task she was leaving inside.
“Oh.” She hesitated. “No, it’s okay. I hate putting up the tree.”
A cold breeze grazed her skin, sending shivers down her spine. She rubbed her skin harder trying to generate some heat.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
“I just don’t like Christmas.” She shrugged.
“Have you ever liked Christmas?”
“Not really,” she admitted, her hot breath making a cloud in the air. She looked out into the city at the snow that was beginning to fall. “Christmas reminds me of my mom and I don’t like my mom.”
Devyn looked back up at him, eyes softened at the mention of her mother.
“Why don’t you like your mom?”
“You’re nosy.” She gave him a sharp stare.
“You just told me you didn’t like her. You can’t expect me not to ask.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever. It’s not a secret. I don’t know why I'm pretending it is.” Devyn sighed. “Drugs. She chose drugs over me. She always made the holidays miserable, so I just avoid them. I hate the Secret Santa they make us do every year. I’m just glad we don’t have a tree up in our office.”
Chad raised an eyebrow and looked like he was thinking up an idea of turning the entire office into a scene from “The Polar Express.”
Devyn raised her finger, cutting him off before he could tell her his plan. “Don’t even think about it.”
A smile stretched across his face. His right cheek showed a small dimple, one she hadn’t seen before now. Probably because she had never seen him actually smile before their encounter today.
“I bet I can make you like Christmas,” Chad said confidently.
“Sure, and you can prove that Santa is real too,” she mocked, shoving her hands into her pockets.
“I’m serious,” he said, his face falling flat. “Bet on it.”
His confidence made her belly warm and the flush in her cheeks reappear. She shouldn’t want to take him up on his offer, but she couldn’t help but wonder what her prize would be when she won. There was no way a week from now she would feel any differently about the absurd holiday.
Why the hell not?
“What are your terms?” She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I bet I can make you like Christmas by the Christmas Party,” he said with a smile.
She snorted. “That’s about a week away.”
“I’m pretty good at what I do.” He shrugged. “If you win, we’ll pretend this thing that happened between us never happened, but if I win you’ve got to go on a date with me.”
“Your way of asking me on a date is by making a bet that you can get me to like Christmas? You must suck at this whole dating thing, because it would have been m
uch easier to get me to go out with you by not being a total dick and just asking me a couple months ago.”
“Do we have a deal or not?” He stretched his hand out in front of her.
She stared at his palm. If she wanted what was going on between them to stop she just had to proceed as normal. There was no way he was going to get her to like Christmas, but what if she didn’t want it to stop? What if she wanted to see just how much further they could take it?
Her heart swelled. There was no way anything between them would ever work out in her favor. She was his boss. He was her employee. She gripped his hand in hers.
“Deal.”
8
“Listen, I know Christmas is next week–”
“Sorry Ms. Kennedy. We don’t have any product left in stock. If you want me to be honest with you, we had no idea that Jamie Ray Cosmetics was going to take off like it did. We only bought a couple hundred thousand units. They sold out on the website in minutes not to mention what we sent to the other department stores.”
The woman over the phone held her tone steady despite Devyn’s voice raising.
Devyn squeezed her eyes shut. Other stores. No wonder her boss was on her ass about stocking Maxi’s with it. She knew it was in other stores, but what made her think Devyn could get it in theirs? They were a new company. Yeah, they were performing above average for a store their size, but they were not a household name yet.
But getting Jamie Ray in their store could put them there. It could make them a household name.
“What other stores? I was told no one got Jamie Ray.”
“There were only a few. The big ones, you know? Macy’s, Sephora and Dillards...”
Devyn’s heart sank.
“Are you positive there aren’t anymore? We are a new store. We just added ten new branches to our company and we need these products for our holiday shoppers. We are willing to pay more.”
His Secret Santa Page 3