Persuading Perfection

by TC Matson

  I’m all teeth and wide eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was in the area. Figured I’d bring you something to eat.”

  “In the area?” I don’t believe that for a second.

  He shrugs a shoulder. “Okay. I was an hour away, but I wanted to see you.”

  I tighten my lips, nodding. “Uh-huh. And you don’t think your boss will get mad?”

  Leaning his elbows on the counter, he moves closer and lowers his voice. “I’ve been thinking about telling that anal asshole to fuck off.”

  It surprises a laugh out of me and I slap a hand over my mouth and glance around to make sure no one is paying attention to me.

  He tips his head toward the box. “I had one yesterday for lunch and it was so delicious it made me think of you. It’s a chicken pita sandwich. When you moan, make sure it’s my name.”

  I glance to the clock. “I have fifteen minutes before I can go to lunch. Can you stay?”

  His smile dips. “Unfortunately, I have a meeting with a builder soon. I can’t.”

  I’m both relieved and disappointed. “So you drove all the way here to hand deliver me food?”

  “You’re worth it.”

  “And you’re crazy.”

  “Make it up to me by staying with me this weekend.” Ah, there’s the real purpose of stopping in.

  “Is everything okay, Jade?” Melissa purrs as she steps up beside me pretending to give a damn. But I know she’s only interested in smoothing her slutty fur.

  She makes me want to roll my eyes and slap those seductive eyes off her face, but instead, I reply politely. I mean, she is my boss. “Everything is fine. This is Zachary Calloway.”

  His delighted smile contorts with conceitedness and I’m surprised he hasn’t roamed her frame since she is very well maintained with store bought breasts. Instead, he holds her ogling stare.

  Her face lights up and she sticks her hand out for him to shake. “I thought you looked strikingly familiar. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Melissa Childers, the branch manager.”

  Amused, Zach shakes her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” She doesn’t even try hiding her attraction to him and it’s pissing me off.

  “I’ve got it handled, Melissa. Thank you.” My irritation slips into my tone.

  “I came to see, Jade,” Zach says coolly. He points. “I’m the baby daddy.”

  Melissa’s eyes widen, her smile faltering as her mouth rounds the word “Oh.” She glances between us and then nods to Zach. “Very well then. It’s nice to meet you. If you need anything…” she pauses there. Right fricking there! “Please let me know.”

  I’m boring holes in the back of her head watching her walk off when Zach interrupts my visions of choking her out. “Damn. She comes on strong, doesn’t she?”

  “As usual. She always throws herself out there to the attractive customers. I don’t know how she hasn’t lost her job yet.”

  His eyes glimmer. “So you do think I’m hot?”

  I titter. “I’m obligated to think you’re kind of cute since I’m carrying your baby.” Damn, that was incredibly flirtatious.

  He chuckles as he checks his watch. “I have to go. Will you be heading my way tonight?” His eyes hold so much hope.

  All this feels as though he’s acting like my boyfriend, a title I’m not wanting to give him. It’s a path I’m not ready to walk with him, or for that matter, even share. “I don’t know. I need to talk to Freya and see—”

  “Don’t do that,” his tone is stern. “Don’t try to find a way out of it. We both know if you had plans, you would already know about them. Quit fighting all this and just come…many times.” He smirks, proud of his quip. “I’ll even cook.”

  “You’re begging?”

  “Need me to hit my knees?”

  “No. I just don’t—”

  “You realize the more you fight it, the more I’m going to pursue? I know I have a lot to prove and I’m doing it, but I’m sitting in quick sand because you’re forcing yourself to look over all my efforts. If you’d open your eyes, Jade, just for one second, you’d see me standing right in front of you.”

  I feel like a petty bitch. “I’ll call you when I get off work and let you know.”

  Pacified, he grins. “Have a good rest of the day.”

  He raps his knuckles twice and winks, and I feel it in my chest, tightening before traveling the length of my body and exploding between my thighs. Without breathing, I watch him stroll out the door.

  “Oh…my…god…” I moan with a mouth full of chicken pita sandwich, my eyes rolling to the back of my head.

  Zach was right. So deliciously right. This thing is amazing.

  Jade: I definitely moaned but I’m sorry. It wasn’t your name.

  I smile, putting my phone back on the table and diving into another savory bite.

  Melissa enters and snatches a bottle of diet coke from the fridge. Even though I’m lost in total food bliss, I can feel her eyes on me, burning up the back of my neck.

  “So you and Zachary Calloway…” She leaves it hanging,

  But instead of forcing me to abandon the ecstasy I’m in, I take another bite of the sandwich prolonging her prying curiosity.

  “I didn’t know you knew him,” she nudges the conversation again.

  “Yep. Since we were kids,” I chirp with extra cheer as I swallow.

  She moves in front of me across the table. “And you’re pregnant with his baby?”

  Irritation is climbing my back. “Yes.”

  “That’s interesting. I pegged him having many sex trophies and not knowing any of them.”

  I narrow my eyes.

  “You’d think with all the practice the rumors suggest, he’d know how to protect himself from getting women pregnant.” Resentment drips from her tone. “So are you two a thing?”

  “No.” I drop monotone, keeping my anger bobbing just at the surface. “We’re being parents together.”

  Unabashedly, the whore tugs the corner of her lips. “Then he’s available?”

  “He is.” The words burn my tongue and I sharpen my claws. “But even so, I doubt you’ll convince him to leave my side.”

  Her puffed giggle is sinister and mixed with desperation. “Oh and what makes you so special?”

  I stand to toss my box in the trash, spin around and glare at her. Manager or not, no way she’s going to talk to me like this and think I won’t respond. I will, just not the way she’s hoping for. I don’t rile easily. “I’m not.” I lift a shoulder and grin like a bitch. “You’re just not his type.”

  Drop the mic and strut out of that room like a boss…

  Except my heart is beating like crazy against my chest. My legs feel like rubber as I make my way to my car for some fresh air.

  Fuck her. I bet the only reason she still has her job is because she’s probably fucking the HR manager and her husband. I’m shaking with adrenaline, wishing I could have just laid her out and not worried about losing my job. When I first started, she was caught up in some drama where she had slept with a customer’s husband, but somehow, she kept her job. Who does that and how? What magic sorcery does she possess?

  I take a breath and grab my phone.

  Jade: You have broken hearts coming in here today. Melissa made it clear she wants to sink her teeth into you.

  Zach: They and she will get over it. Walking into my meeting. Call me when you get off work.

  Zach: PS: Mashed potatoes…this weekend.

  I laugh out loud at his last text. Of course, he’s trying to bribe me with my weaknesses—sex with him and mashed potatoes.

  I haven’t made up my mind on what I want to do yet. I’ve gone back and forth trying to decide and I’m still just as confused as I was when he asked me to come. I push open the door to the apartment and see Freya with her head on the counter and a ginger ale in her hands in front of her.

  “Don’t come close,” she mumb
les into the laminate before lifting her head. “Apparently, it wasn’t just morning sickness you had but some demonic stomach bug.”

  My feet stop beside the couch. Her skin is pale, eyes dark and weak. “Have you been sick all day?”

  “Your porcelain god started flirting with me before lunch. I came home and we’ve been on a hellacious date since.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well he wanted a piece of me too,” she says with a weak giggle.

  “Do you need me to do anything? What do you need?” I ask.

  She holds her hand up and glowers evil at me. “Stop. You’re pregnant. You don’t need this again. Go somewhere for the weekend.”

  I smack my lips together. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Zach put you up to this.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “He showed up at my work with lunch and asked me to spend the weekend with him. I never gave him an answer.”

  She shakes her head and drops it back onto her arms on the counter. Her kinky curls bounce but then fall flat. “I don’t know why you’re so anti-boyfriend. Give it up and just give in. Get over your past and give the man a damn try.”

  I’m shocked at her level of bluntness.

  It’s as if she could feel my jolt. She shakes her head, keeping her forehead on her arms. “Sorry. My filter isn’t on. I feel like shit.”

  She pushes up, flicks her hand dismissively, and goes to her bedroom.

  I close my eyes and drop my head back, tipping my chin to the ceiling. All the signs point to Zach and staying with him for the weekend. Synchronicity holds no bounds…

  Not one to go against the clearer path, I pack a weekend bag. Yep. Zach wins. He’s bribed the universe into joining his strategy.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” I ask Freya from her bedroom door.

  She’s lying on her back in the middle of her bed with her arm over her eyes and her other hand on her stomach. “Just let me die in peace.”

  “Text me and let me know you’re okay. Please. I’ll worry if not.”

  She rolls to her side and curls up into a ball without opening her eyes. “I promise. But you have to promise, in my obituary you tell them I went out with force.”

  Even sick, her humor shines. I giggle. “Hurled into the darkness. Expelled from earth. Ralph will be missed.”

  “Add it all to my tombstone with a picture of a toilet bowl,” she laughs weakly.

  “Call me if you need anything,” I tell her. “And get rest.”

  Zach

  I toss Providence’s folder on my desk as I plop the hell down into my leather chair and massage above my eyebrows to release the tension of Mr. Morrell, the uptight, anal as fuck CEO for Providence. Meetings with him would drive a nun to drink. We’ll present him with a proposal he loves, but then after we draw it up and present the blue prints, he’ll change everything critical. It’s never an easy fix. No. That’s too damn simple and not his fucking style. We worked hard on this, and now I’m back adjusting for his pickiness.

  I decide to ease my anger with the woman who brightens my day.

  “I need to rectify this name moaning problem,” I say when she answers. “Anything being moaned from your mouth should only be my name or the pleasure I bring you.”

  She cracks up and instantly the aggravation of my day melts. “You’re conceitedness teeters on the verge of an obsessed fantasy.”

  I rock back in my chair and cross my ankle over my knee. If only she could see my smirk… “Conceited? You’ve got it wrong. See, my concerns rest solely on you and your well-being. I know what my name can do to you. Therefore, I’d like to take the burden of you having to prime yourself fraudulently. I don’t want you to have to sacrifice satisfaction.”

  “You seriously just gave me a lecture on why it’s important to moan your name. If that doesn’t scream narcissistic, I’m not sure what constitutes it.”

  I grunt. “You have me all wrong, Miss. Lauder. Narcissism is an excessive interest in oneself. That’s not me. I have an excessive interest in you, and I’m very unselfish when it comes to your needs.”

  She laughs. “So you’re saying I tame your narcissism?”

  “Obliterate it.” I laugh.

  “How was your meeting? Did you score big?”

  She never asks about my work…

  “I did. I negotiated and landed a robust job, but have a few minor things to fix before we’re able to start.”

  “That’s great. Business seems to be going well.”

  Skeptical, I narrow my eyes. “What gives? You never ask about my work.”

  “I guess I’m trying to adjust to things being different. Baby steps.”

  My grin explodes. “If you were here, I’d kiss you. Speaking of, will I be seeing you?”

  “After a sandwich like that, how could I resist?” she snorts.

  Scraping my teeth along my bottom lip, I feel victorious. “My bargaining chip worked.”

  “Actually, Freya is sick with the same stomach bug.”

  “You couldn’t let me think I convinced you, huh?”

  “What would the fun be in that? But to ease the sting to your ego, I’m about an hour away.”

  I jerk, sitting up, and begin closing up shop for the day. “Then I need to hurry the hell up and get home so I can start dinner.”

  “You’re laying it on thick.”

  “I’m trying to impress you. Is it working?” I jest.

  She barks a laugh. “I’m pregnant with your baby. I think you’ve impressed me enough.”

  I shake my head like she can actually see me. “No. My dick impressed you enough to have you begging for it all the time. Now it’s my turn to impress you to stick around.”

  “You’re super charming with your choice of words,” she says sarcastically.

  “I’ve got to go. Got some hot chick coming to my house and I need to tuck away my narcissistic dog.”

  It makes us laugh together.

  “Be careful.”

  I hang up, snatch up the Providence folder and bolt out the door. I’ll finish the changes this weekend and hand them in on time Monday, but right now, I’m on a mission to see her smile.

  I barrel down the streets, dart through the door, rush and take a shower, then power into the kitchen. While the oven preheats, I jump into slicing the vegetables and peeling the potatoes. I swear the way to her heart is through my mashed potatoes. Growing up, I used to spend time with my grandmother in the kitchen and she taught me her secrets. Then when she got too old to cook for herself, I’d go over every night and cook while she schooled me on her recipes over my shoulder. And the one thing I pride myself on—Granny’s mashed potatoes. Simply the best.

  The sun is setting when there’s a knock on my front door. Confused, my brows cut deeply as I pull it open to Jade standing there with a small hot pink suit case.

  “Why did you knock?”

  She looks out of place and glances away before she shrugs. “I didn’t know what to do. Normally, I come unannounced for a surprise.”

  “You have a key. Use it,” I tell her and then pull her into me, pushing the door shut behind her.

  Cupping her face, I kiss her. Her body tenses under my hands, her lips not slacking to mine. “What’s wrong?”

  Again, she doesn’t look at me. “This feels really strange.”

  “I don’t know. I kind of like it.” I wink and then tip my head. “Come on. Dinner is almost ready.”

  I take her suitcase, place it on the floor beside the couch and continue into the kitchen.

  She inhales a deep breath. “It smells great. Please tell me you made your potatoes,” she moans her plea.

  See? A straight path to her heart.

  Peering at her over my shoulder, I flash a smirk. “Of course.”

  She looks to the ceiling and mumbles something so faintly, I can’t hear it. “What can I help you with?”

  “Nothing,” I say and flip the vegetables in the pan. “Just sta
nd there and look beautiful.”

  I pull the steaks from the oven and then grab two plates from the cabinet.

  “Are those the ones I bought for you when you were in college?” I hear the disbelief and amazement in her tone.

  I nod, spooning some potatoes onto each curved square black plate.

  “Oh my god. I can’t believe you still have them,” she snorts.

  She’s lost her mind if she thinks I’ve thrown away anything she’s given me. It’s…sentimental. “Although you did it as a joke, I like them. They’re different. Artsy. Very Jade-like.”

  A small titter bubbles from her. “I thought for sure you’d toss them after everyone gave you hell over them.”

  “Eh. A little teasing never hurts my feelings.” I finish plating the food and then tip my head to the fridge. “Grab a drink.”

  I carry our plates to the table that I’ve only ever used a handful of times—normally when my parents come to visit. Any other time, I’m planted on the couch in front of the television.

  “Seriously?” Her disbelief squeal echoes into the dining room. It makes me chuckle. “Is there anything you haven’t thought about?”

  “Those have been in there,” I nod to the root beer in her hand when she enters the room. “I know how you like to pop in. Figured it would be smart to be prepared.”

  Her body is tense, her shoulders high, completely opposite of being relaxed as she should be. She goes for the mashed potatoes first and when her sexy lips wrap around the fork, her eyes close and she releases a moan. “God. These are so good…”

  Spellbound, I watch her chew, her mouth working the food, her tongue licking her lips. She doesn’t pay me any attention and takes a taste of her steak. Slowly her eyes roll and this time, her moan makes my cock ache.

  “You’re turning dinner into a porno.” I adjust myself in my pants.

  She’s coy, arching a brow and tilting her head slightly, but she doesn’t reply and shoves another bite of potatoes into her mouth.

  “Will you promise to teach me how to make these?”

  “Nope. It’s the only thing that keeps you around, besides my dick.”