by Taryn Quinn
“First day.”
“Ah.”
I glanced at Dre. “Got a bag I could borrow?” I threw the box in the green trash bin attached to the crosswalk pole.
“Let me get you another box.”
I waved her off. “It’s okay. I don’t have time.” I used the tips of my fingers to pick up the bag that surprisingly wasn’t dented too badly. “I just need to get this off.”
Dre nodded and ran back into her shop.
Silver Eyes looked at me. “Can I help?”
“Not the way I envisioned asking a guy to help remove my clothes.”
He laughed and lifted my mangled braids off my shoulders and skillfully tucked the ends back into my fractured bun.
I glanced over my shoulder in surprise.
“Three younger sisters. I braided a lot of hair.”
Dre came back with a canvas bag. “Sorry, I only have reusable ones.”
Silver Eyes smiled at her again. “That’s a good thing.”
Dre pinked up again. “Gotta do my part.”
As much as I appreciated the romantic dance going on around me, I had to get this stupid sweater off to see just how much trouble I was in.
Dre and Silver Eyes helped me get each sleeve off. Dre gasped.
“Ugh, how bad?”
“Not bad at all,” Silver Eyes muttered.
Dre gave him a quick look. He shrugged with a wolfish smile.
“That’s some jewelry, Ry.” Dre held out the bag for me to dump the sweater inside. It was one of my favorites. Hopefully, I could salvage it with a soak tonight.
“Oh, crap.” I’d forgotten about the low back on the dress and the tiny straps. Hence the sweater. “Not exactly business casual.”
Dre pressed her lips together against a laugh.
“You’ll be a hit at the office,” Silver Eyes said with a grin.
My phone rang again. I blew out a breath, and then shoved the fritters bag into my purse. “Thanks, Dre. Sorry about the bag.”
“All good.” She crossed her arms. “I wish I had something I could give you to wear. Don’t think my array of aprons will work.”
I laughed. “No, not really. Wish me luck.” I wiped cream filling from my upper arm.
“Preston’s gonna love that.”
Pretty sure Dre meant to say that under her breath, but I didn’t have time for another witty answer. I glanced up at the clock in the square with a groan.
“Definitely not going to make a good impression today.” I crossed the street to the large building where Shaw’s office was located. My phone rang again as I opened the door. “Oh, shut up.” I checked the directory before I slapped the button on the elevator.
I dug out the baby wipes I kept in my bag for emergencies. I went through half the pack by the time I got to the fourth floor. Cripes, I even had frosting on my damn neck. I was debating taking off my body jewelry since it was on display now, but the door slid open and made the decision for me.
Whatever I’d been prepared for was a million years away from the man standing before me.
Dear goddess, please don’t be my boss.
My gaze travelled up and up. He was all angles from his jawline to his broad shoulders to the tapered waist accentuated by the cut of his suit. Even his cheekbones were severe and hollowed out in annoyance. Dammit, he even had the little muscle flex in his upper jawline that said danger! Danger, I’m pissed off.
He lifted his chin and looked down his nose at me, which effectively cooled my panties.
Sort of.
I hooked my bag over my shoulder and sauntered out of the elevator. The only thing I could do at this point was try to pull off this outfit.
My bracelets shimmied down my arm to brush my hand. The chains of my necklace shifted under my dress and the crystals down my back felt warm. I liked to think they were doing their job to keep all my shit together, but it was probably the heat of the August day.
“Miss Moon?”
“Mr. Shaw.” I just knew he was my boss. This was exactly how my day was going.
“You’re egregiously late.”
I pulled the crushed sack of fritters out of my bag and handed it to him as I walked by. “I’d explain the ridiculous start to my day, but it would probably bore you. Nor would you believe it.”
The desk outside the glassed off corner office had to be mine. It had April’s energy all over it. I set my bag down on the corner, shot the canvas bag full of sticky sugar cotton under my desk, then leaned against the side.
Mr. Shaw was still standing in front of the elevators, his jaw tight and his eyes blazing, his long fingers holding the crumpled bag away from his suit.
Like a dog’s dirty business.
Panty alert again.
What was wrong with me? Had I hit my head and not realized it?
I kind of liked the heat in his gaze. And the attitude. Maybe even the sneer.
I’d assumed I would only find icy disdain from my texts and emails. And yet it was a miracle the glass around the office behind me hadn’t shattered from the force of his stare.
He was a rude man, even when he wasn’t saying a word. But rather than being infuriated by his annoyance, I was…eager.
Ready to get my spar on with a worthy opponent.
I crossed my legs at the ankle and gripped the side of the desk. Fake it till you make it, girl. “Would you like to inform me of my tasks for the day, Mr. Preston Michael Shaw, Esquire?”
Five
April had invited the devil into my serene workplace.
To be fair, I had no knowledge of any supernatural evil at Miss Moon’s command. Other than the fact that her so not business-appropriate dress had a slit up her leg to approximately just south of her panties, assuming she was wearing any.
It sure didn’t look like she was wearing a bra, considering her nearly indecent top. If she was wearing one, I couldn’t imagine what the contraption looked like.
Not that I was considering my assistant’s underwear choices. I was not that sort of boss. I was merely making note of several irrefutable facts.
One, Ryan G. Moon was inexcusably late, even if she had given me a bakery bag of goods. But that gesture lost points because the bag looked as if it had been doused with grease.
Two, Ryan G. Moon was not dressed in business wear. I couldn’t call her outfit casual either, since I doubted anyone wore a dress slit to there just to sit around the house.
Perhaps this was part of her calling it a “gig” last week. She’d forgotten what one actually did in an office, so of course she couldn’t dress properly for it.
Three, Ryan G. Moon’s hair was sheer black. Not dark brown. Pure, unadulterated black and escaping in endless rivulets down her nearly bare back from its messy twist.
Her back wasn’t actually bare. As far as material covering it, indeed. But she also wore crisscrossing chains bisected with miniature colored rocks. Before she’d turned to face me, I’d been momentarily blinded when a chunk of rock caught the sun and refracted a rainbow of light.
Perhaps that was her plan. Render me visionless, force sweets upon me, and then I would be at her mercy. Helpless to chide her about being late or being dressed like…that. Incapable of even questioning her ability with a spreadsheet or if she knew how to take dictation.
Instead, I stood rooted to the spot, caught in her intoxicating floral scent, reminiscent of a garden after midnight. Surrounded by forbidden flowers I didn’t dare pluck.
I really wanted to pluck.
I finally snapped out of her spell and strode into the security of my glass-walled office. And slammed the door.
The bright sunny day beckoned from beyond the wall of windows just behind my desk. Though I rarely ventured outside during the workday, I wanted to get the hell out of there before I did something…rash.
Now what?
She was still out there, waiting for instruction. That was likely a ruse too. She would wait for me to tell her to do something then she would grab one
of her chains and render me mute with some witchy stone.
I dropped the bakery bag on my desk and pressed a hand to my temple. I hadn’t had anything to drink today. This was likely dehydration. Not coffee—the delivery had not yet arrived, naturally—and not even water. Then again, I had a decanter of bourbon on the wet bar for clients that I’d never once touched myself.
Desperate times.
I splashed a healthy amount into a short glass. Then I tossed it back in one gulp.
It didn’t make me feel better but some of the cobwebs cleared away. Just in time for my desk phone to ring, the light for April’s dedicated line flashing.
I reached up to loosen my tie. Just a little. Not a full-on destruction of my perfectly composed knot, just enough to allow increased airflow.
So I didn’t have to sit down and put my head between my knees.
Calmly, professionally, I took my seat and pressed the button beside the flashing light on the phone. Was it my imagination or had the light become intense since Friday?
“Yes.” My tone held no inflection.
“Yes? Hello, I’m new here, remember? You gave me nothing to do.”
Even her voice sounded like sorcery. Not that I’d forgotten it after listening to her podcast—three episodes in total, but I wasn’t counting—but it seemed even worse on the other end of the line.
I’d have to end this call swiftly.
“There is a list.”
I heard the obvious sounds of her making a mess on April’s desk. “Where? I don’t see any—” She huffed out a breath. “Unless you mean this bill from Coffee Emporium with big block letters that says ‘call them.’”
“Yes. My delivery is late.” And I needed it. Desperately.
“Um, not sure if you’re aware, but I’m a legal assistant, not a nursemaid.”
“Nursemaids do not check on delayed coffee deliveries. They provide milk.”
Right. Because that was just the image I needed in my head only moments after I’d debated whether or not she was wearing a bra.
I didn’t do these things. To the point that I was almost smug when it came to other men who seemed less in control of their baser instincts than I was. I liked sex, but it didn’t rule me. Women and their wily charms definitely did not.
I couldn’t say I’d never been led around my dick—I was human, after all, much to my dismay—but it had been a damn long time and not since college when Lissa Luwellan had convinced me we should have sex in the fountain in the town square in the middle of the night.
Then the cops had shown up.
I’d ridden in the back of the police car, soaked wet and frustrated. Lissa had broken up with me the next day, and my father had lectured me on upholding the law, not flagrantly breaking it.
Since then, I’d put sex in the box it belonged in. Often, I handled things myself. Such as Friday night when Ryan G. Moon’s auditory porn podcast had turned out to be merely a preview of upcoming attractions.
Ryan’s heavy sigh brought me back to my current predicament. “I took this position to do actual work tasks. Besides, calling a coffee place will take me, what, three minutes?”
“So you’ll do it?” I couldn’t disguise the hope in my question.
Mondays always went better with coffee. This Monday definitely required it.
“Since I was so egregiously late, I suppose I can help you out this once, because whoa, grumpy pants without your java, huh?”
I didn’t appreciate her emphasis on my words. Nor did I like her calling me grumpy pants. But I did enjoy getting my way through whatever means possible.
“Excellent.” I clicked off.
I had barely replaced the receiver when the line rang again. How was a person supposed to get any work done around here?
“Yes?”
“Do you say goodbye? Hello?”
“You don’t need to say hello, I heard you just fine.”
“I was asking if you say goodbye, hello, or any common pleasantries really. I mean, do you know me yet? No. You just expect me to sit down and be a faux April.”
I couldn’t stop my quick laughter. “Hardly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think I can be as good as April?”
I blamed my lack of coffee, extremely long sexual drought, and general discombobulation for the picture that formed in my mind of Miss Moon on her knees beneath my desk.
I shifted in my chair. “I don’t make such value judgments, and it doesn’t matter in any case, as your employment here will end in,” I consulted the gold clock on my desk, “four days, seven hours, and seven minutes.”
“Wrong. It’s nine minutes.”
“Are you saying my clock is wrong?”
“I was late, but don’t make it worse than it was. I risked my life to get your stupid donuts. Do you care? Doesn’t seem like it. Do you have any heart at all?”
Interest piqued, I took another look at my gifted greasy bag. “You brought the donuts?”
“No. They’re fritters.”
I hung up on her. Rather gleefully, in fact.
She didn’t call back. I wasn’t disappointed.
Much.
I focused on expanding my quick hit notes from a client meeting I’d had on Friday afternoon. My tendency was to jot down first impressions then fill in the details later. I’d barely made it halfway down the page when my email dinged.
“Why are you fucking dinging,” I muttered, slamming the mouse against the desk as I ignored the email in my box from Miss Moon.
Someone had altered the settings on my email—probably April, for her own amusement—and I was going to rectify it this instant. If I could figure out just how Ryan was bypassing the very clear “no notifications” toggle switch in my mail program.
Another ding sounded. And another. Then it was like a freaking ding fest, my computer nearly shaking from the endless barrage of them.
I picked up the phone and pushed the button for April’s direct line.
“Good morning, thank you for calling Shaw, Shaw, and Shaw, Attorneys at Law. Rather pretentious, don’t you think? You’re all Shaws here, so why name each of you separately? Were all of you unloved as children?”
“Can I help you?” I asked between gritted teeth.
“Uh, you called me?”
“I called you to avoid reading your eighteen emails.” Another one came in as I was speaking. “Do you have them on automatic send or something? One word per missive?”
She ignored my questions. “I’ve spoken to Coffee Emporium. They regret that your coffee order is unavoidably delayed.”
I growled. I simply could not help it. “Until when?”
“Tomorrow morning. However, as a gesture of good faith, they’re including more of the little honey stir sticks you enjoyed so much last time. They really appreciated that review you left them.”
I harrumphed.
“Hmm, I’ve never heard of putting honey in coffee. Is that really a thing?”
“No, I lapped it off the thighs of a woman in tech support last month.”
She barely paused. “Your law firm has tech support? Why? You only have several lawyers and a few assistants, although I’ve yet to see anyone but me out here. Did they all quit? Can’t say I blame them. The conditions here are deplorable. Have you been reported to the labor board?”
“Thank you and good day. And stop emailing me.” I clicked off before she could reply.
The only salient point of her word salad was that I would have to wait until tomorrow for my coffee order. What was this world coming to?
Good question, since I had no business talking about honey lapping—even if it was entirely fictional—in the workplace. But what else was I supposed to say? April had already detailed my donut weakness. If I gave Ryan any more ammunition about my preferences for sweets, who knows what she would do with such information?
And she was still emailing me. Over and over. By now, I suspected she really had resorted to one word each, becau
se there was no way she could have that much to say to a man she didn’t even know.
I didn’t click on her emails. Instead, I put a call into the IT department of the public relations firm on the second floor. Talking about lapping honey from Colleen had given me the idea that maybe she could fix my damn notifications. Quicker than I could, that was for sure.
“What did you break this time, Pres?” The laughter in her voice managed to tease out a smile.
“Nothing. I don’t think so, anyway. I keep getting email notifications and I don’t want them. You need to make them stop.”
Colleen’s laughter didn’t grate on my nerves like Ryan’s. Even in theory, her laughter pissed me off. “This is an easy one. You go into your settings, which is that gray button with the little cog wheel I showed you last time—”
“I did all that,” I said impatiently. “She’s still emailing me.”
“She?” Colleen clucked her tongue. “Are you finally dating and holding out on me?”
“No. Absolutely not. Not in this life or any other.”
“Well, that was rather vehement.” More laughter at my expense.
That was just how this week was going, evidently.
Colleen promised to stop by before lunch, and I ended the call during another flurry of email dings. Then I settled upon a novel solution. Within a few clicks, the soothing sounds of Chopin brought a sense of calm heretofore lacking in my day.
Smiling smugly, I went back to my notes. I worked on them for a while before looking up again, when the tickle in my throat turned to a full-blown need for water. I rose to pour a glass and foolishly decided to look out the window of my office to ascertain Ryan hadn’t yet burned down the place. I didn’t know what she was doing to occupy herself in lieu of instructions from me, but I hoped she could at least manage to take phone calls without being told to do so, along with dealing with any foot traffic.
One glance into the outer office told me that yes, she was dealing capably with such. Even if the feet in question were hers—as in one propped on the edge of her desk while she painted her toenails and smiled far more warmly at another man than she had at me.
The man was Dexter Shaw. Also known as my little brother.