by Vi Keeland
“Wow. That must’ve been some accident.”
The muscle in his jaw flexed. “Yeah.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-two.”
I leaned my head down and kissed the scar, intending to trail a line of kisses from top to bottom. But Bennett’s curt voice stopped me.
“Don’t.”
I froze. “Okay.”
Settling my head back on his chest, I suddenly felt really awkward.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just thinking of something my grandmother used to say. ‘Scars are the maps to the story of where we’ve been.’”
He stayed quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “Not every scar leads to a story with a happy ending, Annalise.”
“Okay,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”
For the next hour or so, neither of us said a word. I wondered if he regretted asking me to stay. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought it might be better if I just went home. But if he’d fallen asleep, I didn’t want to wake him.
“Bennett?” I whispered.
He didn’t respond, so I carefully pulled back the covers and tried my best not to make the bed jiggle around so he wouldn’t wake. I’d gotten as far as sitting up when his voice startled me.
“Where are you going?”
“Shit. You scared me. I thought you were asleep.”
“You were going to try to sneak out?”
“No. Ummm… Yeah. I thought maybe it would be better if I went home.”
He pulled me back down to his chest, hugging my shoulder tight to him. “It wouldn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re a nice girl. A nice woman. I like you here. But if I tell you that some of my scars aren’t healable on the inside, you’re going to try to heal me.”
“And something is wrong with that?”
“Some scars don’t deserve to be healed. But that doesn’t mean I want you to go home. Get some sleep, babe.”
Chapter 31
* * *
Bennett
“The board has selected the last of the accounts that the two of you will be reviewed on,” Jonas said. “It’s a new account to both of you, so I think you’ll be as happy as you could be under the circumstances.”
“That’s great. What kind of an account is it?” Annalise asked.
At the same time, she also uncrossed and recrossed her legs, so I lost track of the conversation. It didn’t help that I knew she had no underwear on under that skirt. After an hour-long fuckfest in the shower this morning, I’d gone for a run while she went home to get dressed. We happened to pull up for work at the exact same time, and both of us had to park in the lot down the street rather than the usual spots we snagged near the building when we were early.
She’d texted me from her car, asking me to walk ahead so people wouldn’t suspect anything when we walked in at the same time. I’d thought it was overkill, but I’d soon realized she was full of shit and why she really needed the minute alone.
The doors to the elevator I’d entered had started to slide closed when Annalise strolled into the building lobby. Instead of letting it go and taking the next car, she waved and yelled from the door. “Hold the elevator, please!”
There were a few other people in the car already, and a woman from accounting pressed the open button.
“Thanks.” Annalise rushed in and stood next to me. Trying to follow her request that no one at work find out about us, I acknowledged her with a simple nod and faced forward. She, on the other hand, went out of her way to address me in front of people.
“Bennett.” She held out a brown paper bag. “I think you might’ve dropped something getting out of your car in the parking lot.” Her face didn’t give anything away, but I caught the twinkle in her eye.
What the hell was she up to? I took the bag, even though I hadn’t dropped it. “Yeah, I did. Thanks.”
At our floor, she exited the elevator first, giving me a fine view of her swaying ass as I followed her down the hall. Curious, I walked into my office and ripped open the brown paper bag. A note sat on top of balled-up red, lacy fabric. The thong was still warm.
Don’t let these distract you today. Or the fact that I took them off in the car.
I’d laughed, thinking she was being cute. But now I realized I truly was fucking distracted. Was it me, or did she look even more fuckable today than usual? How far was the closest motel from the office? I wondered if she’d be up for a quickie at lunch.
That thought had been still rolling through my head when Jonas had given the name of the new account—Pet something or other. But the change in Annalise’s tone brought me back from fantasyland. She sounded apprehensive.
“Pet Supplies & More? The online company based in San Jose?”
“That’s the one,” Jonas said. “Are you familiar with them?”
She side-glanced over at me and then back to Jonas. “Yes, I am.”
I squinted. “You’ve pitched them before?”
Annalise shook her head and spoke to Jonas. “Trent and Lauren Becker, right?”
Jonas nodded. “Yes, that’s them. Have you worked with them before?”
Something about Annalise’s reaction was off. She didn’t seem excited that she knew them, when that could be a clear advantage.
“No, I haven’t. How did the RFP come in?”
“Our CEO got a call from their CEO.”
“Oh. Okay. Lauren may not even know I work here with the merger and all. But I can give her a call.”
“Why you?” What kind of a game is she playing?
“Because I know her.”
I straightened my tie. “Obviously not that well if she didn’t call you for the RFP and doesn’t even know you work here.”
“I’ll make the call, Bennett. Don’t worry your pretty little head. I won’t try to exclude you from getting information. But we both know it’s better for someone with a relationship to take the lead than someone without one.”
“I guess that depends on who is more competent.”
Annalise gave me the evil eye, then spoke to Jonas. “I’ve been to quite a few functions with Lauren and Trent.”
“If you know them so well, why haven’t you pitched them before?”
“Because it was one of those things that, at the time, I thought it was best not to mix business with them.”
What the hell was she being so shady about? “At the time? And now it’s okay to mix business with them? What’s the deal, Annalise?”
She sighed and caught my eye before turning to Jonas. “Lauren is my ex’s sister. The company was actually started by Lauren’s grandparents sixty years ago. But she and her husband mostly run it now. I know them pretty well. Andrew and I were together for eight years.”
“Great. So we’re being judged on three accounts. One, the new creative director wants to get inside her pants, and another, the brother of the owner has already been there.”
“Bennett!” Jonas scolded. “You’re walking a fine line. I know this job is important to you, and in a perfect world, the only advantage in landing an account would be that someone’s pitch is better. So I’ll cut you some slack for being upset. But I will not sit here and listen to you speak about Annalise in that way.”
I stood abruptly. “Fine. Then I’ll leave. It sounds like Annalise will be heading this pitch with the Beckers anyway.”
***
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” The door shook as it slammed shut behind Annalise.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and growled. “Go back to your office. I’m not in the mood to argue, and I have work to do.”
She marched toward my desk. “You’re acting like a child. I clearly had no idea this account pitch was coming in. I don’t know what you’re so angry about. I’ve proven that I play fair when it comes to clients I have a relationship with.”
“A relationship, huh?” I scoffed. “Thoug
ht you didn’t have that relationship anymore.”
Annalise’s brows drew down, and then a look of understanding crossed her face. She moved closer to me. “Is that what this is about? Andrew? I thought you were mad I had an advantage at work.”
Unfamiliar feelings rattled my cage, making me feel like a locked-up lion. My first instinct was to strike out of the hold.
“Who you fuck isn’t any of my business, unless you’re fucking me over at the same time.”
She looked hurt. “Who I fuck isn’t any of your business? I thought we’d decided neither of us would be fucking anyone else.”
I didn’t want to feel bad. I was pissed. Fucking Andrew. If she wasn’t in on it, that douche was playing some sort of a game. This wasn’t a coincidence.
“He might not be good at going down on you, but I found out this morning you’re a little pro at giving head. I’m sure you can take one for the team and drop to your knees to help land the account.”
She reared back and went in for a slap across my face. Only I caught her wrist before it landed.
“Screw you,” she seethed.
I flaunted a smug smile. “Been there, done that.”
Her other hand came up, and she attempted a lefty smack. That one was even easier to catch.
“You’re an asshole.” She glared at me, her chest heaving.
Looking down, I noticed her nipples pointing through her shirt. I let my eyes linger so she would notice what had snagged my attention, and then raised them to meet hers.
“You must like assholes, then.”
“Go to hell,” she hissed.
“I’m already there, sweetheart.”
She looked back and forth between my eyes, and a wicked smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “At least fucking Andrew might lead to something productive. I don’t know what I was thinking wasting my time with you.”
I took a deep breath and felt like a bull letting steam out of its nose. Annalise was waving a red cape in the damn air, challenging me. That thought—the thought of a red cape—reminded me what she’d given me this morning. Moreover, what she wasn’t wearing.
I leaned in to her, nose to nose. “Do you enjoy screwing with me? Are you wet for me right now?”
Yup. I’d lost it. My dick hardened, and I needed to touch her, no matter how insane it might seem.
Her eyes went wide. Still holding her wrists, I tugged them up and lifted her arms into the air. Then I transferred both wrists into one hand and slipped the other under her skirt. Her pussy was warm and soft. If arguing with her was hell, this was heaven.
I couldn’t give her a chance to screw her head on straight and stop me. So without any warning, I went for it. I slipped two fingers inside her, and she gasped. My mouth came crashing down on hers, and I swallowed the tail end of a moan as I pumped my hand three quick times.
When she arched her back and pushed into me, I assumed it was safe to let go of her wrists. I guided her to lean against the edge of my desk and dropped to my knees. I needed to taste her so badly. It wasn’t lost on me that we’d just been fighting about her anti-oral ex, and I’d chosen to go down on her.
I just didn’t give a fuck what, if anything, that meant at the moment. The only thing important to me right now was that I needed her to come. In. My. Mouth.
I went at it like a storm—licking and sucking, burying my nose so deep inside of her, she started to ride my face. Some men say the sexiest thing a woman can do is to talk dirty or to submit to them, but they obviously haven’t had their hair pulled and face ridden by a woman who currently hates their guts.
Nothing. Fucking. Sexier. In. The. World.
When I slid two fingers back into her and sucked hard on her clit, she started to get loud. Thankfully one of us remembered where we were—obviously I didn’t give a fuck since I was eating a woman on my desk with an unlocked door—but I was with it enough to at least use my other hand to cover her mouth.
After she went slack, I slowed my pace but stayed on my knees to enjoy a few more leisurely laps of her sweetness. Then I abruptly stood and wiped my face with the back of my hand.
Annalise blinked a few times as if she was returning from another place, but she didn’t attempt to budge. Clearly she hadn’t heard the noise the first time.
I yanked her to her feet and pulled down her skirt in one swift motion. She looked confused…until she heard the second knock at my office door.
Chapter 32
* * *
Annalise
Shit!
Bennett had pulled down my skirt, righted my blouse, and smoothed my hair before I even realized what the hell was happening. But he was so busy fixing me, he hadn’t noticed what he looked like.
Panicked as the door started to creep open, I picked up the nearest thing I could find and tossed it at the offending situation.
Only…it happened to be a large coffee.
As it connected with my target, the top came off and the entire contents splashed all over Bennett’s pants just as Jonas walked in.
“What the fuck?” Bennett yelled.
“I’m sorry. It…it was an accident.”
Jonas frowned and shut the door behind him. “The two of you knock it the hell off. The entire office can hear you going at it. You sound like two cats fighting.”
Bennett opened his top drawer, grabbed a wad of napkins, and blotted at his pants.
“It’s not what you think,” I said. “We were arguing initially, yes. But then we…we found a mutually beneficial way to work through it. We were just about to call the client together when I knocked over Bennett’s coffee reaching for his desk phone.”
Jonas squinted. He looked like he didn’t believe a word I said. But then Bennett backed me up, still wiping his soaked crotch. “We got this, Jonas. I apologized for the stuff I said in your office, and we…kissed and made up. The coffee was an accident.”
He looked back and forth between the two of us, still not seeming entirely convinced. “Maybe you two should take this out of the office. Go have a drink or eat something. Make friends. It’s on me.”
“Eat something.” Bennett nodded. I caught the twitch at the corner of his lip, but luckily Jonas didn’t seem to. “Great idea. Thanks, Jonas.”
Our boss grumbled something about being too old for this shit and left us alone in Bennett’s office again. He even shut the door behind him.
“What the fuck?” Bennett pointed down to his drenched slacks.
“You had a wet spot.”
“What?”
“A giant wet spot. You know, the drizzle before the downpour. And an erection.”
“So your answer was to throw a full coffee at my dick rather than, I don’t know, hand me a file to cover myself?”
I started to laugh. “I panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Guess I should be glad it wasn’t hot anymore.”
I covered my mouth, but couldn’t contain my smile. “That was…absolutely insane.”
Bennett’s smile was smug. “That was fucking hot.”
“That can never happen again.”
“That’s most definitely happening again.”
“You acted like such a dick.”
“Next time we fight, I’m going to push you down to the floor and feed you my dick. Right here in this office. Door unlocked.”
My stomach fluttered nervously. I had no doubt he would do it. And as insane as it was, the thought excited me. But I couldn’t let him know that.
I smoothed my skirt and took a step back. “You owe me an apology for the things you said this morning.”
He smirked. “I thought I just gave you an apology. But I’m game to give you another one.”
“I mean it, Bennett. You can’t act like a jealous boyfriend in the office.”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
He seemed genuinely confused by my comment. Did he really think what had just transpired was anything other than good old alpha-male, jealous behavior?
“You wer
en’t jealous? So what were you all pissed off about then?”
He tossed the napkins he’d used to wipe down his pants into his wastepaper basket. “It was about work. The playing field should be level for us.”
I studied his face. God, he really had no idea. “Uh-huh.”
His desk drawer was still open from when he’d taken out the napkins. I reached in and helped myself.
“New superhero?” I arched a brow.
“Give me that.” Bennett tried to swipe the notepad full of doodles from my hand, but I pulled it from his reach.
“Looks sort of familiar.” His latest artwork featured a caricature with big hair and giant breasts. She looked exactly like me—with a cape, of course.
He stepped closer and removed the pad from my hand. “You know what superpower this one has?”
“What?”
“The power to drive people fucking nuts.”
I flaunted a goofy smile. “You think I’m a superhero?”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Texas. I draw plenty of cartoons.”
I pointed to the doodle with the superhero leaning against a desk, her legs spread wide in a power stance. The only thing missing was Bennett’s head between them.
“Yes. But not all of your fantasies get to become reality.”
***
I’d debated inviting Bennett to join me all day.
What if my competition had been a sixty-year-old, happily married man instead of a thirty-one-year-old, insanely sexy single guy who’d just happened to give me three orgasms this morning—two in his shower and the other on his desk?
Would I play fair? Or was I giving away more than I should because I had a soft spot for Bennett Fox? (And maybe liked his hard spot, too?) Did I care how I won the battle, as long as I won?
Unfortunately, I did care. And I knew I was the minority. In a cutthroat competition like this, most people would use every advantage to win the war. But it was important to me to win fair and square. It’s just who I am.
So at five minutes to four, I walked over to Bennett’s office. He was nose-deep in artwork, which he’d spread all over the table in the corner of his office.