by L. A. Witt
It was the perfect work environment for me. Probably not something I’d ever find anywhere else, and I loved it, but for all the same reasons I loved it, I was nervous about coming into it that particular Monday morning. If any member of my crew had even the most minute reason to suspect what—or who—had gone down over the weekend, I’d never hear the end of it. And these fuckers could read me like a book sometimes.
But it couldn’t be avoided, so I steeled myself, walked past the “NSFW Zone” sign and into the lion’s den.
At first glance, all was normal. As normal as it ever was, anyway. Silent Dave was insulated from the rest of the world by his massive noise-cancelling headphones. The other drafters—Cal, Scott and Bianca—stared at computer screens and clicked mice with music thumping in the background. Hunched over one of the modeling tables, Teagan snapped her gum to annoy Cal. Across the room, Scott crunched loudly on chips to annoy Bianca. Yep, business as usual.
The current CD was one of Scott’s many KMFDM albums. I wasn’t usually a fan of industrial rock, but today, I fully intended to let myself get lost in it, if only to drown out the rest of the world. There was nothing quite like a screaming guitar, an angry singer and some ear-shattering percussion to give me a temporary ticket to elsewhere.
I should’ve known that would be too much to ask, though. I’d barely set my coffee cup on my desk before Cal called out, “Hey, Gramps! How was your weekend?”
Funny you should ask…
“Oh, you know.” I started shrugging off my jacket. “Just the usual boring shit at the old folks’ home.”
“Another weekend without falling and breaking your hip,” Teagan said. “Can’t complain about that, right?”
“Ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes and hung my jacket on the back of my chair. “You know, I’m not that old.” I eased into the chair at my desk, pretending not to notice the residual soreness in my back and hips.
Scott clicked his tongue. “McNeill, we’ve talked about this. You’re over the hill with a few years’ practice. Therefore, you’re old. Deal with it.”
“Don’t make me beat you with my cane, fucking whippersnapper.”
“You’d have to catch me first.”
“I could probably outrun you any day of the week.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, but I can run faster scared than you can mad.”
I laughed and shook my head. Mercifully, they didn’t try to pry my weekend out of me. Of course they had no reason to suspect I’d been with anyone specific, so I was just being paranoid for no reason.
No one knows. No one will know. Get a grip and get to work.
Once I’d caught up on my e-mail, I moved to the table where I worked on models. The one I had in progress right now was a relatively simple one. A basic 3D representation of one of three luxury hotels Rick was building on a piece of prime oceanfront property. Between distraction and fatigue, I couldn’t even focus on that. The pieces that needed to be put into place were already cut, painted and piled neatly at the edge of the platform, and despite the drawing sitting right there in front of me, hell if I could remember what I’d intended to do with them.
My brain was fucking toast. It usually took me a few minutes to get back in the groove after a few hours or days away from a model, but this time, I could barely remember which end of the X-ACTO knife to hold.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The weekend had its own dot on my timeline now. Everything existed as either before or after. The model in front of me was from before, and it was in no hurry to cross the divide into after. Concentration wasn’t going to come easy today, and no amount of coffee was going to fix that.
Christ, McNeill. Get it together.
Like that would happen any time soon. Especially not with a Horizon Developing meeting coming up this afternoon. God help me.
It wasn’t like a one-night stand whose awkwardness could be euthanized by the purr of a taxi’s engine. We still had to work together—sort of—and we’d still slept together. This wasn’t over, which was good. And bad. And really good. And kind of bad. We’d shown our kinky sides. Rick wanted to be bound, gagged, fucked, tormented. Not just once, but over and over, and I couldn’t wait to—
“Hey, who let the zombie in?” Teagan’s voice made me jump. Raising a triple-pierced eyebrow, she eyed me over the half-constructed roof of a proposed shopping center. “You’re awfully quiet today.”
“What’d you do, McNeill?” Cal smirked. “Get laid or something?”
“Yes, Cal,” I said with mock exasperation. “Your mom wouldn’t leave me alone, so I finally broke down and—”
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Come on, fess up,” Teagan said.
I flipped her the bird, and she snickered. I knew that sound—I’ll get the truth out of you sooner or later.
“Well, now that you’re back from the Twilight Zone,” Scott said, “we need you to clear something up for us.”
“Does it involve Calvin’s mom and her baby-oil fetish?”
“Shut up, McNeill,” came the growl from behind Cal’s computer.
Scott laughed. “I sure as hell hope not.”
“Okay, so what’s it about?” I asked.
Teagan stood up from leaning over her model and gingerly rubbed her lower back. “Cal and Bianca are convinced the G-spot is just a myth.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
“I think it’s like the emperor’s new clothes.” Bianca glanced up from whatever drawing she was working on. “Everyone knows it doesn’t exist, but no one wants to be the first to admit it.”
“And I think,” Teagan said, “that Bianca’s boyfriend needs a lesson or two in pleasing a woman.”
Bianca snorted. “Hardly. He does just fine, thank you.”
“Not if he hasn’t found your damned G-spot, he hasn’t,” I said.
“What?” Cal scoffed. “You buy into that whole thing too?”
“Of course I do.” I moved back to my desk, since I wasn’t getting anywhere on my model.
Bianca eyed me skeptically. “And you’ve probably seen the Loch Ness Monster too, haven’t you?”
“No, but I’ve seen what happens when I touch a woman’s G-spot.”
Cal’s head rose above his monitor like a curious prairie dog. “It makes that much of a difference?”
“Yes, you moron.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re really letting me down here, Cal, if you haven’t found a woman’s G-spot.”
“But I read a study not too long ago that said it didn’t exist,” Bianca said.
Teagan laughed. “Translation—the scientists who wrote the study couldn’t find it. Much like Calvin and your poor excuse for a boyfriend.”
“There’s something there, that’s all I know,” I said. “Call it a G-spot, call it whatever you want. There’s something there that means the difference between peeling a woman off the ceiling and sending her into orbit.” And then there’s the male G-spot… The image of Rick coming apart while I’d fucked him just right sent a pleasant shudder through me.
Teagan cleared her throat. I glanced at her, and her eyebrow arched. I’m watching you. What aren’t you telling us?
I shifted my gaze back to my screen.
“Well, I’d say it’s settled,” Scott said. “Even the old guy can find it. Therefore, the G-spot is real. I told you guys.”
“Hmm.” Bianca glared at her computer screen for a moment. Then her eyes flicked up to meet mine. “So how do I get my boyfriend to find it?”
Teagan snickered. “Sweetie, Tim can’t even find his wallet or keys half the time without your help. I think you may have to find it and then direct him to it.”
“He’s not that bad.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Oh, come on, he’s—”
“Bianca,” I said. “Tim’s a great guy and all, but come on. He literally couldn’t find his car in the middle of a deserted parking lot in broad fucking daylight.”
“Ha, I remember that.” Teagan barely suppressed her
laughter. “And let’s not forget about the—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Bianca muttered.
“So, McNeill,” Scott said, still clicking away at his mouse as he spoke. “You find anybody’s G-spot this weekend?”
Teagan eyed me, raising that pierced eyebrow again. My blood turned cold, but before I could panic, Cal groaned, reminding me who Scott was actually referring to.
I chuckled. “Are you kidding? Found it the very first time.”
“Shut up,” Cal growled. “Both of you.”
“Really?” Scott said. “Wasn’t hard to find?”
“Not in the least.”
“McNeill, Harper, I’m going—”
“And let me tell you,” I said, “I have never known a woman who was so prone to female ejac—”
A tape dispenser flew past my head and knocked a few books off the shelf behind me. I put up my hands and met Cal’s glare with a poor attempt at an innocent look. “What?”
“I mean it, McNeill. Shut. Up.”
I laughed and went back to checking my e-mail. A benign group message from Rick made my blood pressure jump, but I played it cool and didn’t let on to the people around me. Not that they would have picked up on it, especially not while Scott was explaining the particulars and mysteries of female ejaculation to Bianca, punctuating his dissertation with references to me fucking Cal’s mom. Cal groaned and held his ears.
They didn’t have a clue who I was really sleeping with, and all I could do was grin to myself.
I concentrated on my work as much as I could. I was aware of the others cracking jokes and throwing the occasional office supply, but didn’t pay any attention. I just tuned my senses to the blaring music and let my mind go someplace far quieter. Not that it needed much encouragement. From the moment I’d woken up this morning with my body still aching, and I’d realized the weekend hadn’t been a dream, I hadn’t been able to forget it.
Whenever it slipped from the forefront of my mind, something dragged it right back into the center of my consciousness. The collar of my shirt brushing my neck right where his lips and breath had done so last night. Bianca’s perfume, glue fumes, coffee and every smell that wasn’t Rick’s cologne or our mingling sweat—everything made my senses seek out what they couldn’t find.
An hour or so into my shift, I wandered down to the supply room with a list of crap I needed to continue with the model. Though our communal room was huge, it had been too crowded with all the tool chests, boxes, crates and rolls of various materials that Teagan and I used on a regular basis, so when the accounting department moved upstairs last year, we’d taken over someone’s vacant office. Walking down the hall to get a coil of wire or a sheet of acrylic was annoying sometimes, but other times—like today—it was nice to step out and collect my thoughts.
As if these thoughts could be collected. In a couple of hours, I had to be in the same room with Rick, but not in the same bed. Not until tonight. And I was losing my fucking mind.
In the supply room, I riffled through three drawers before I remembered that the tubes of cement were in the drawer clearly marked Cements & Adhesives. After staring blankly at a shelf for a good thirty seconds, I found the piece of foam-core I’d been looking for right in front of my face. It was probably just as well I didn’t find the spare X-ACTO blades—which were in a drawer under my modeling table back in the NSFW Zone—because I did not need to be handling anything sharp right then.
I rubbed my eyes. Fuck. If I couldn’t get my head together now, I was going to be a wreck when it came time for the meeting.
The door opened behind me, and I turned around as Teagan stepped into the room.
She eyed me. “You get lost in here?”
“No. I…” I looked down at the supplies I’d gathered and tucked the foam-core board under my arm. “Just making sure I found everything.”
“Mmhmm. You’ve been out of it since you got here. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
She cocked her head. “Cal’s mom really ran you into the ground, didn’t she?”
“Yes, Teagan. That’s what happened.”
She snickered and brushed past me. As she pulled open the drawer where we kept paint, she said, “So who is she really?”
I actually felt a little guilty that Teagan still thought I was straight. I was closer to her than anyone else in this building, but even after almost ten years in the same office, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her when that the woman I was dating was actually a man.
She turned around, eyebrows up. “Jon?”
I shook myself. “Sorry. And her name is none of your business.”
Teagan huffed. She pulled a couple of bottles from the drawer and closed it. “Well, even if you won’t share the fun details, I’m glad you’re getting laid.” She elbowed me playfully as we headed for the door. “It’s good to see you smiling like this.”
“Smiling like what?”
Teagan held the door as she rolled her eyes. “Like a man who got something this weekend that he’s been needing for a long, long time.”
I couldn’t argue with that, could I?
Chapter Eight
No client had warranted as many meetings as Rick’s company did on a weekly basis. It made sense, though—they were aggressively revitalizing the city, especially the downtown area. During the real estate crash, they’d swooped in and bought millions of dollars in property, mostly from companies that had gone bankrupt. It had been a smorgasbord of foreclosures, and they’d bought acres and acres of land. For some of it, they worked hard to keep businesses open. They lowered leases for struggling companies to help them recover from the economic downturn, which ultimately forced other landlords to do the same. According to a report released a few months ago, that alone had saved about twenty percent of businesses that had been otherwise doomed to fail during the worst of the recession.
Other properties had old, decrepit structures on them, or obsolete ones for businesses that had failed. Those were, one by one, being torn down and replaced with new state-of-the-art structures—a low-rent office building where a decrepit factory used to be, museums and such to attract tourists, a series of hotels ranging from inexpensive to five-star luxury to house those tourists. He and his business partners were giving the city the facelift it desperately needed, and they were pouring money into Mitchell & Forsythe to help make it happen. With that many projects going, and with Rick and Dion as heavily involved as they were in every step of the process, it was no wonder they were in our building so often. And our bosses insisted on Teagan and me being present more often than not.
So at eleven o’clock sharp, I put aside the windows I’d been trying to install in my current model and stood up. “Ready, Teagan?”
“Fuck. Is it that time already?”
“Yep.”
Teagan groaned. “And Marie is on the warpath today.”
“Great.” I took a long swallow of cool coffee. “Well, wish us luck, guys.”
“Should we all gather round and lay hands on you?” Cal asked. “For, you know, protection or something?”
“Cal, damn it, we’ve been through this,” I said. “You are not touching me.”
He showed his palms. “Hey, I’m just trying to keep you from getting eaten alive.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I muttered.
“Ungrateful bastard,” Scott said around the pen in his mouth. “We’ll light some candles and sacrifice a virgin for you, though.”
“Thanks, man, you’re a real pal.”
Teagan brandished an X-ACTO knife. “You heard him, Cal. We need a virgin sacrifice for our safety, so—”
“Shut up.”
As we headed out the door, Bianca called out, “Ogle Pierce for me!”
I almost stumbled, but Teagan answered, “Always do, baby. Always do.”
Jesus. I’d forgotten those two had a thing for him. Couldn’t blame them. Who could? Cal was convinced they were just in love with Ric
k’s money, but Dion, Horizon’s CFO, was just as loaded as Rick, and they barely gave him a second look. I didn’t bother debunking Cal’s theories or backing up the women because I didn’t want to tip my own hand. There was so much more to Rick than money. So much more. Holy—
“Hey.” Teagan elbowed me as we continued down the hall. “You’re zoning out again, McNeill.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Clearly I need more coffee.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Just stay focused in the meeting, okay?”
“Of course.”
I’ll try, anyway.
Yeah right.
The meeting turned out to be hell, but not for the usual reasons. Oh, there was the usual death by PowerPoint, endless yammering about shit I didn’t care about, and terse, unreasonable demands from my boss. There was also the restlessness that comes with needing to get something done to meet a deadline but being unable to go do it.
That wasn’t what did me in this time.
Rick was hot. It was that simple. Especially now that I knew what he was hiding beneath that tailored suit. I was a captive audience too, sitting around a broad table with nothing to do but look right at him and listen.
On some level, I was aware that he was explaining a new project he wanted to break ground on sometime next year. Something about a new convention center overlooking the river. A massive project with a price tag that had enough zeros to give the firm’s entire upper echelon wet dreams for months.
Something like that, anyway. The content was all white noise to me, because all I heard was his voice.
He was completely focused and didn’t seem to notice me at all, which was good, of course, but how the hell did he do it? The more he spoke in his stern this is what I want and I won’t accept any less tone, the more I heard the echoes of his breathless whispers in my ears. He talked about cold, calculated numbers and strategies. I heard him moaning and begging and damn near sobbing for more. Someone asked a question, to which he gave a sharp “yes”, and my mind superimposed a very different “yes” in its place.