by Various
“Nothing, really. You just look like you’d rather be wearing anything than a suit.” Her cheeks colored. “I mean …”
“You’re right,” he reassured her, with the easy smile that had invited countless women to confess their secrets while they all but melted into his embrace. “I’m more a jeans kind of guy. Or gym shorts. Or nothing.”
Her blush deepened; it was utterly adorable. Vance wondered what happened to the skin on the rest of her body when she was embarrassed … or aroused.
Dammit. Unless he really was going to fuck her right here in the office with Cort standing guard, he had to get his mind back to the business at hand. “Let me rephrase my question,” he said, drawing her attention back to him. “I didn’t mean to ask if you’re proficient in everything each department does, but whether you have a good overview of what goes on there.”
“Oh. Sure. I mean, I work with all the departments to draft and prepare their portion of the annual review, so I have a basic grasp of what everyone does.”
“And how would you describe CityFarms’ mission?”
She frowned. “Our mission statement is on every page of our website and every piece of communication we put out. Surely you’ve seen it.” If you’re not some kind of incompetent fraud, she didn’t say, but Vance caught the almost-irritated undertone and smiled inwardly.
“Of course. I just wanted to hear it in your own words.”
Alexa narrowed her eyes at him. What’s your game? her expression said. Vance waited—he’d long ago learned the power of silence—and after a few moments, she huffed out a breath and sat back.
“Poor people have limited access healthy, affordable food.” She paused; the men nodded their understanding, and she continued. “Grocery stores aren’t built as often in lower-income neighborhoods, so residents either have to choose from a small selection of mostly junk foods at other types of nearby stores, or they have to pay higher-than-average prices at the grocery stores they do have access to. Or both.”
“Not a lot of fresh veggies at the corner liquor store,” Cort said.
“Exactly.” Alexa gave him an approving smile and went on. “Kids who don’t have enough to eat, or don’t have healthy food available, have a much harder time in school. They’re more likely to fall behind and eventually drop out, which increases the odds that they’ll be unemployed, or get caught up in criminal activities.”
“Aren’t there school lunch programs?” Vance said.
“There are. But for a lot of poor kids, that’s the only actual meal they get all day, and it’s not enough. Our brains need fuel to work, just like the rest of our bodies. And some schools also have breakfast programs, but having to administer all that is an added burden. The better fed their students are, the easier it will be for the teachers and administrators, because it reduces problem behaviors, too.”
Vance noted the sparkle in her eye, the warmth in her voice. This mattered to her. “But farms?” he said. “That seems a bit much.”
“Not really,” she shot back, her earlier discomfort with him forgotten. “Depending on the locale and how much land is available, it’s completely feasible. Until the end of World War Two, in fact, almost every city resident had some kind of little garden, and usually some chickens too. This isn’t a new thing, really.”
“So you go into urban neighborhoods and build farms there.”
“Not quite. We work with residents who want community gardens in their neighborhoods; we don’t just come in and start digging.”
“I sit corrected,” Vance said mildly.
Alexa shot him a look—smartass—and wrapped up her mini-presentation. “CityFarms provides matching funds to purchase land, equipment, and seeds, and any training needed. But the residents prepare the land, design the gardens, install the drip lines, build the frames, plant and harvest the crops, and so on. It’s their farm. They own it. We just help get it started.”
She’d leaned forward, animated, while she talked. Now the light faded from her eyes. “Or we did, anyway.”
For just a moment, a vicious stab of guilt twisted in Vance’s gut. Even though he knew the nonprofit wasn’t being dismantled, he didn’t want to be responsible for putting that look on her face.
And wasn’t that a strange thought?
He looked at Cort, who gave him a slight nod; Vance returned the gesture and turned to Alexa. “We’d like you to stay on for a few extra days, if you’re willing, to help us transition.”
The instant distress on her face might have been comical under different circumstances. “Why me?”
“We need someone who knows how things are done,” Vance said. Someone we can trust.
Alexa said, “I mean, why not have all of us help with the transition?”
Vance didn’t want to upset her again, but there was no way around it. “For reasons we’re not at liberty to discuss, that is not a viable option.”
She understood at once. “I see,” she said, very quietly.
Her arms had wrapped around her torso in a self-protective gesture. “I’m sorry,” Vance said, and meant it. “But that’s the way it has to be. Will you stay?”
Alexa glanced at Cort, still troubled. “If it helps,” he said, “we have no intentional of changing the essential mission here.”
It did help, Vance saw; her mood had lifted. Time to close the deal. “We need you, Alexa.”
Bingo. She sat straighter, unconsciously rising to the occasion. “All right. Um, how long do you think—?”
“For the rest of this week at least,” Cort said. “We’ll see where we are on Friday.”
“Okay.” She stood and glanced toward the door, her mood going dark again. It bothered Vance. He’d have to figure out what made her laugh, so he could cheer her up.
Steady, man, said a voice in the corner of his mind. Vance needed to pay attention to that voice—he knew that—but not right now. He glanced at his watch; almost noon. It felt like they’d been firing people all day. Of course it was hell on the employees, but it was exhausting for him and Cort too.
“Can you stay the rest of today?” he said, and Alexa nodded. “We’re going to talk with the rest of the staff fairly quickly, and then we’ll take a break for lunch.”
She nodded again, her expression almost haunted now, and turned toward the door. Her mass of dark hair swung just above her ass. Vance wanted to run his fingers through it, wrap it in his fist, and pull her back against him. Instead, he held the door open, and she went out without a backward glance.
“Did we just make a huge mistake?” Cort said softly behind him.
“No.” Vance was sure of that. “If something’s bothering her besides the obvious, we’ll identify it and deal with it. But no, we weren’t wrong.”
“Good. I like her.”
Something about the way he said it made Vance’s instincts quiver, but he didn’t have time for that right now either. “The remaining employees are all lower-level support types. Let’s take them in a group, and then we can get everyone out of the building by lunchtime.”
Everyone but Alexa. His anticipation at having her with him for the next several days set off all kinds of warning bells in his head. Vance ignored them and went to collect the final group of soon-to-be-ex employees.
*****
Alex felt like a traitor. She knew it was irrational, but it didn’t matter. Everyone else here, so far as she knew, had gotten the boot, never to return, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. How could she explain that she was staying, let alone why?
Her office was a tiny space on the perimeter of the bullpen, a central area filled with cubicles. Most of her colleagues were already gone; Alex avoided eye contact with the handful who remained and shut herself in.
Her phone had several text messages from Dayna. They’d planned to get lunch and decompress once Alex’s exit interview was finished. Have to cancel lunch, she sent back. Drinks this evening?
Dayna’s reply came at once. What’s wrong?
Nothing, really, but I’m not sure I can talk about it right now.
The pause that followed was long enough for Alex’s stomach to twist itself into knots. Are you still at CityFarms? Dayna finally sent.
Yes. That was all she felt safe saying at the moment; Dayna could read between the lines. Alex only hoped the situation didn’t put too much strain on their friendship.
File folders were still strewn across her desk; she scooped them all up and put them back in the lower drawer. There would be time to deal with them sometime later this week, before she said goodbye for good.
She went through her email to pass the time. Messages from her now-departed colleagues brought a lump to her throat. Some new ones had come in from outside contacts; she’d have to ask the men what they wanted to do about business as usual during the transition.
Even though she’d expected it, the tap on her door startled her. Vance Harper waited outside. The same raw awareness leapt between them, and his eyes darkened. Mortified, Alex looked away, her eyes darting past him to the empty bullpen.
Harper made an indistinct sound, and the next couple of seconds passed in a blur. They ended with both of them inside her office, Alex’s back to her door and Vance’s body a scant hair’s breadth from hers. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said.
Her breathing was shallow, her skin too tight, too sensitive. “What?”
“We’re both adults.”
“Yes,” she managed to say. “We are.” His scent was dark and mysterious, like a spice that only grew in deepest forest. Alex breathed him in, and her blood thickened.
“This is a temporary situation.” Vance was staring at her mouth, and for one trembling second Alex was sure he was going to kiss her.
“Temporary,” she repeated, her brain scrambling to hang onto any coherent thought. “Right.”
“So there’s nothing wrong with anything that either of us might feel.”
His eyes locked on hers, and Alex forgot how to breathe. No man had ever looked at her like that before. “Understood?” he said, after a long moment.
“Mr. Harper—”
“Vance.”
“I don’t think I can call you that.”
He scowled at her. “I’m telling you to call me that.” She tried to speak, couldn’t, and shook her head in mute defiance. “Why not?”
Alex swallowed. “It’s too—too—”
“Intimate?”
She shuddered, and with a growl Vance closed that final thread of distance.
One hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair, tightening their hold just enough to send a shock of sensation through her. When her nipples went hard against the broad expanse of his chest, Alex let out the moan she’d been holding in all day. Winding her arms around his neck, she lifed her face as he lowered his.
His mouth met hers, demanding, giving, igniting a fire in her core. His free hand glided down her hair to the base of her spine, and then lower to her ass. He pressed her firmly against him, leaving her with no doubt about what exactly he might be feeling.
Alex wanted to tear off his clothes so she could do everything to that delicious hardness: kiss it, lick it, suck it, ride it until she screamed. She settled for trying to climb his body. Vance picked her up, both hands under her ass, and she wrapped her legs around him. Pressing her up against the door, he ground himself against her clit.
Her orgasm came out of nowhere, surprising them both. He swallowed her cries, rotating his hips to send her up again. The second climax was stronger, but when it ebbed away it seemed to suck every ounce of lust from her body, leaving Alex with far too much clarity.
One moment she was quaking against him, and the next she was twisting her mouth away, bracing her hands against his chest to keep him at a distance. “Put me down. Please.”
Vance’s jaw went tight, but he did as she asked. As soon as her feet were on the floor, Alex tried to slip away, but she hadn’t gotten the door open more than a crack before he slapped it shut again.
“Talk to me.” It was an order. Alex wrapped her arms around herself, trembling now not with desire, but something that was almost shame.
She’d just dry-fucked her boss. In her own office. Less than four hours after meeting him.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“Do what?” Vance hadn’t backed away at all; he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
“Any of it. I’m sorry, but—”
“Stop it,” he snapped. Grasping her chin, he forced her to look up at him. “Don’t you ever apologize to me for having wants and needs.”
Alex blinked at him, stunned by his fury. “I wasn’t—”
“You were about to run out of here calling yourself who knows what names because you want a man and he wants you.”
He was right, which only made her feel worse. “You’re my boss.”
“Temporarily.”
“We still shouldn’t have done that.”
“Oh, yes we should.” Vance brushed his thumb over her mouth. It was swollen from his kiss, and the rasp of his skin across the tender flesh drew another moan from her. “This may not have been the ideal time and place to do it, but we damn well should have done it. And Alexa …” He waited for her to meet his eyes once more. “We’re going to do it again.”
She wanted him with every ounce of her being, and part of her screamed a silent yes to his proclamation. But no man, not even a sexual demigod, got to give her orders about what she did with her body. “Maybe we are and maybe we aren’t.”
Vance smiled; there was enough smug male arrogance in it to irk her. “I don’t force women, Alexa. It’s repugnant. But I promise you that we are going to do this again, and much more thoroughly. And it’ll be you who asks for it.”
With that, he released her and took a step back, then another, giving her plenty of space. Mustering as much composure as she could, Alex opened the door and went out. Vance followed a few feet behind, but she could feel him watching her ass. This time, there was no doubt at all.
It made her want to tear off her clothes and beg him to do whatever he wanted.
*****
The rest of the day was sheer sensual torture. Not that Vance found excuses to touch her; just the opposite. He maintained a conspicuously precise distance, just far enough that no contact was possible.
It drove Alex crazy.
She was sure Cort knew something was up. She caught him, several times, giving her veiled looks that she couldn’t decipher. But he said nothing, which she appreciated. Having one of them torment her was quite enough.
They spent the afternoon talking about CityFarms, as promised. The men’s questions, seeming almost random at first, wove from one department to another and back again. Their intent was sometimes obvious and sometimes oblique, leaving Alex guessing as to what they really wanted to discover. The thought that she might, however indirectly, be informing on one of her coworkers was upsetting; but the thought that one or more of her colleagues had done something worthy of investigation left her deeply angry.
And this was no witch hunt; of that, she was certain. Cort and Vance were too dispassionate—not cold, but calm. None of their inquiries betrayed the ideological bias of a zealot or political operative, looking for an angle to bring down an opponent. Something had gone wrong here, and they wanted to know what.
So did she.
Time seemed to pass slowly, but before she knew it quitting time arrived. Alex hesitated, uncertain if she should mention it. The men would probably be working long hours, and might expect her to join them.
Cort had his nose buried in a report, but her fleeting glance got his attention nonetheless. He looked around, then up at the clock. “When do you normally leave?”
“About now, unless there’s some special project going on.” This certainly counted as a special project. She didn’t want them to think she wouldn’t help out as needed, though why their opinion of her should matter at all, Alex
couldn’t say. It wasn’t as though a single week of employment would form much basis for a letter of recommendation.
“No, go on home,” Vance said. “We’ll get a fresh start in the morning.” Everything he said to her now seemed loaded with double meanings.
“Okay. See you then.”
“See you,” Cort said, and returned to his report.
Alex went back to her office for her purse. When she came out, Vance was waiting, still keeping that careful distance. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.
She frowned at him. “It’s not even dark out.” Did he think she was some helpless female?
Vance’s eyes gleamed, but he said nothing. “Fine,” Alex said, throwing her hands up. She marched toward the lobby, not looking behind her, and out the doors to the parking lot.
The sky had cleared, and the air was crisp and clean. The only car in the lot besides hers was a gleaming black sedan. Of course it was.
Her compact was on the far side of the lot. When she reached it, Alex couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder toward the building.
Vance was nowhere to be seen.
Absurdly disappointed, she jammed her key in the lock and got her door open. She’d just tossed her purse onto the passenger seat when he said, “Alexa.”
She whirled, banging her elbow. Vance stood to one side of her car. If she’d looked over her other shoulder, she would have seen him. “How come I didn’t feel you?” Alex demanded, rubbing her elbow. “All day long I could feel you watching me, or near me, but not this time.”
He smiled faintly. “You didn’t want to.”
“As simple as that,” she said with deliberate sarcasm.
“Yes.” His eyes were deep enough to drown in. “When you want to feel me, you will.”
Anticipation shivered through her. “Okay, Mr. Innuendo. See you in the morning.”
“Sleep well, Alexa.”
Long after she’d lost sight of him in her rearview mirror, her skin tingled at the memory of his touch.
*****