by Quinn, Cari
I’d nearly leaned across the desk for a taste, until sense had kicked in—hard.
So instead I watched her make conversation with everyone who passed, chatting easily and pleasantly while never missing a task. She outpaced me sometimes, basing priority lists on what we’d done the day before. Already, she was reading my mind more than I felt comfortable with.
Because if she knew what else was in there, she probably wouldn’t wear off-the-shoulder tops ever again.
Except she did. The next time, she wore a suede-fringed top over a snug black skirt and pencil heels, the kind she shouldn’t have been able to walk in. She definitely shouldn’t have been able to sashay into my office bracing a couple of packages in one hand and the nearly empty box of invitations from the Light Up The Night event in the other.
“Almost all gone,” she announced, setting everything on my desk. She bent far enough forward that her top dipped, revealing a slice of her purple bra.
She loved fucking purple.
“I sent them to everyone you noted in the company, and we received RSVPs of attendance from all but six. I wasn’t invited, but I’m going to go. I figure the more people, the better—Sir?”
“Yes.” I dragged my attention to her face and for a second, she smirked. Was she teasing me on purpose?
If so, she would soon learn that wasn’t a wise idea.
“As for you not being invited, I expected you would take one of them for yourself. I indicated who to invite, but that didn’t mean you weren’t to take some initiative.”
“Oh, I take plenty of initiative. In fact, you might be surprised what I could initiate.” She turned and headed for the door, her long fall of blond hair swinging. It was uncharacteristically loose, and even that caused an odd quickening in my chest.
And much farther south.
“Jack ordered lunch again. I’ll let you know when it’s here,” she called, letting the door snick shut behind her.
I’d been so fixated on her ass in that tight skirt that she could’ve said “Jack was between my legs under my desk” and I might not have realized.
So that was a lie. I’d have realized—and acted—on that in a heartbeat.
Before I could think better of it, I pulled up an IM and typed.
What’s on the menu for today? Not in the mood for nutty chicken.
It annoyed me I’d begun thinking of it that way. So much prickled me these days.
Most of all? That I wasn’t to touch her again. That I couldn’t. A momentary lapse was one thing. More than once made it a problem.
An addiction.
Even if Violet and her all-seeing camera weren’t still watching, there was still the little matter of boss and employee and all the lines of impropriety that would breech. I’d be damned if history repeated on my watch.
Repeated again.
There was also the fact that Grace’s employment was all part of some greater plan she’d hatched. One I didn’t understand yet, but found myself wondering about more than was sensible.
How could a woman like her think she could tangle with a man like me—and win? Unless winning wasn’t even her aim.
That she would try to run a scheme on me didn’t irritate as much as it should have. It intrigued me. Turned me on. Made my curiosity toward her verge on madness.
Jack ordered from a deli. I’m not sure what he got you. Something about corned beef on rye, extra pickles.
Say what I would about Jack—and I said plenty—he knew what my stomach liked. I could eat pickles by the case.
What did you get?
She didn’t answer for so long that I assumed she was working on something else. One of her many spreadsheets, perhaps.
But when I glanced out at her desk, she had her finger caught between her teeth and she was staring at her computer. Her other hand was in her lap.
Did she not want to answer me? Why? What was the big deal about lunch?
I frowned. Maybe she was on a diet. The last few socialite types that I’d dated had always seemed to be on one. But Grace wasn’t like them. And by God, her figure was perfect. My hands had itched to touch those curves again since the moment they’d left them.
Or maybe it was something else. Perhaps she didn’t have money for a meal. Eating out could get expensive for someone on a budget. We paid her well, but she still received an entry-level assistant’s salary.
I hated the idea of her scrambling for money for food—or anything else. She shouldn’t have to pinch pennies.
Ms. Copeland? Have your fingers ceased to work?
My jab caused her gaze to fly to my office. She knew I was watching. I’d revealed my hand intentionally.
I would rather have her annoyed at me than worried for even an instant.
I also wanted the truth and would use any means to extract it.
Come in my office, Ms. Copeland.
After a moment, she rose and tugged down the skirt that crept higher with every moment. It wasn’t indecently short. She never dressed provocatively. Then she strode toward my office and hovered on the threshold, still gripping the doorknob.
“Yes?”
“Shut the door.”
Her nerves intoxicated me, the scent of them as pervasive as the light hint of her floral perfume. She closed it, but came no closer, keeping the mile of glass floor and seating between us. She stared down, her gaze on the harbor.
I wanted it on me.
“If you don’t have money for lunch, that isn’t a problem.”
Her chin lifted and her eyes blazed. “I work for my money. I don’t take charity.”
“So it’s charity if I ensure you don’t starve.” I rose and undid the single button on my jacket, well aware of how her gaze dropped before skittering away.
Nice to know I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t keep from watching.
I walked around my desk and leaned against it, crossing my ankles. “Starting this week, I will be adding a lunch allowance to your wages. Consider it a stipend of sorts.”
She tilted her head and tightened her fingers around the doorknob she still clutched behind her back. “As payment for services rendered?”
My cock stiffened. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. It was like the beat of my heart speeding up at the sound of her voice, or the incline of her chin. It was an involuntary reaction no different than the rush of blood in my veins.
That didn’t mean I had to like it.
I also didn’t alter my stance. If she saw what she’d caused, so be it.
“What services would you like to render, Ms. Copeland?” I asked softly as color rose in her cheeks. She would flush everywhere I knew, beyond the collarbone-bearing top she wore to the curve of her breasts. To the tight little nipples that beaded for me just from the mere question.
“I didn’t buy lunch because I brought my own. I don’t need a stipend.” She glanced again at the harbor beneath us and pressed her lush lips together. I wanted to bite the lower one until it bloomed red like the rest of her. “Besides, you all order out all the time. You must live in the gym to look like…” She waved a hand. “That.”
“I run,” I said simply. “Usually in the mornings, though I’ve skipped a few recently.”
I also didn’t tell her that I’d taken to running at night when I couldn’t sleep. Due to her.
“It’s the holiday season. Time to eat, drink and be merry.” I’d said it to be sarcastic—I didn’t celebrate holidays, and hadn’t since childhood—but the quick flare in her eyes made me grip the edge of the desk. “Do you not celebrate?”
“Celebrate what? Christmas? It’s not Christmas yet. And Thanksgiving—no, I don’t do that anymore either.” Her gaze snapped to mine and I was amazed that sparks didn’t go off between us. She was angry at me again, and I didn’t know why. “I just work, okay? I want this to be about work. No fun lunches, no talk of holidays I can’t celebrate.”
Not don’t celebrate. Can’t celebrate. That was a different thing altogether.
When I didn’t reply, she pivoted and walked out.
I was getting really tired of her walking away from me. Mostly because I watched her go, every damn time.
I returned to my desk and picked up the phone. For once, I didn’t overanalyze what I was going to do. She had a habit of causing those kinds of reckless actions in me, and I was going to have to put a stop to it.
Eventually.
“Next Friday, I want to hold a company-wide Thanksgiving banquet. Yes, less than two weeks before the holiday. I’m well-aware it’ll be a scheduling nightmare, Jack, but that’s why I called you. You’re the king of your domain, right? You know how to get these things done. Or better yet, know who to contact to do them for you.”
Jack’s sigh almost made me smile. “What about that brand-spanking-new assistant of yours? Isn’t this more under her purview than mine? Not to mention she can actually tolerate your ass, unlike me.”
For a moment, I wondered if I’d imagined the knowing tone of Jack’s voice. Had Violet blabbed what she’d seen to her best buddy?
As soon as I considered the idea, I dismissed it. That woman was a vault, and sticky fingers Hollister didn’t have the combination.
“This isn’t for Grace. She’s involved with other things. Can you make it happen or not?”
“You do realize you’ve held company-wide events that aren’t work-related approximately never, right?”
“I know that. Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.”
Jack snorted. “Yeah, and maybe I’m the Sugar Plum Fairy. Wanna see my tights?”
“I’ll pass,” I said drily. “Make it happen.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Whatever you say, sir. Anything else I can do for you, sir?”
I had to laugh. The guy was such an asshole. This time, he just happened to be right.
“Yes. Make sure Ms. Copeland attends.”
Before he could mull over that statement, I hung up.
Four
After eating half the corned beef sandwich and all the pickles, I wrapped up the other half and stuck it in the employee fridge. I labeled it “for anyone who wants it” hoping Grace might eat it, but I was acting like enough of a pussy. If she didn’t want the damn sandwich, she didn’t have to eat it.
Maybe she didn’t like deli meat. Maybe she’d become a vegetarian in the last week.
Maybe I needed to jerk off until all this ridiculousness I was spouting drained out of my mind.
I buried myself in work until dinnertime came and went. It was hours past dark the next time I looked up from my schematics and stretched my neck. My eyes were starting to blur and I needed to clear my head.
At least my other head had taken a temporary break. Thank fuck. I hadn’t been this perpetually horny since high school. Probably not even then, since I’d always had control of my impulses. If I didn’t want to be attracted to a woman, I ignored the feeling until it dissipated.
Why that had yet to work with Grace, I didn’t know.
I rose and bent at the waist to stretch out my back. My ergonomic, extremely high-end desk chair wasn’t getting the job done today. Perhaps I’d look into getting a new one someday, when I had time.
Right now, I needed to take a walk. The coffee I’d been mainlining all afternoon had done a number on me. My muscles were jangling, my heart racing, my blood pounding under my skin. It was as if I was in a flight-or-fight situation instead of feeling the natural effects of sitting for so many hours in a row.
I walked past Grace’s desk. Her computer was dark, her chair tucked in. She must’ve gone. She’d probably left sometime ago. Only workaholics like me regularly lived at their desk. And she had another job, one that suited her far more than this one.
She wasn’t meant to be stuck in an office. Not with her kind of eye. She had the sort of talent that deserved to be nurtured, not squandered on spreadsheets and ordering supplies.
Even if she was only working for me for some secret reason only she knew. I would never believe for a moment that her arrival the day I’d been hiring an assistant had been coincidental. She knew who I was, and my connection to her grandmother. She had to.
One way or another, I would find out all that she knew.
I continued down the silent hallway, passing by Jack’s assistant’s darkened office. Jack nor his assistant kept the kind of hours I did. I didn’t blame them. On the contrary, I quite liked being the only one working late on a regular basis. When I was alone, it was easier to think.
Easier to be.
In silence, my designs had room to grow. The ones I continued to sketch even as I told myself that the company focused on function rather than style. The artistic side of me had never quite died, much like my fascination with Grace. I’d used it to build my company, and now I used it in secret. As if drawing beautiful things that weren’t strictly functionary was somehow taboo.
For the man I showed to the world, it was.
I pushed open the bathroom door. And stopped.
Grace was at the sinks, her leg propped up on the lip. She was doing something to her hose and cursing a blue streak under her breath. My eyebrows rose at the colorful language until my gaze darted down the long expanse of leg revealed by her actions.
Fuck, she was wearing garters. Lacy-top hose and garters.
I was a dead man.
“Goddammit, stupid clip.” She pitched the offending item and lifted her head, blinking owlishly as if she’d just realized she wasn’t alone. How she hadn’t heard the door, I didn’t know. But goddamn that clip.
Blessed clip.
Her lower lip trembled. Yet she maintained the pose that left her gorgeous leg on display. “What are you doing here?”
Inexplicably, I started to smile. “This is the bathroom, is it not?”
“You should have your own bathroom. You shouldn’t even be here. It’s Friday night. Don’t you ever date like normal people?”
I did have my own bathroom. Not that she needed to know that. A man was allowed to stretch his legs now and then, wasn’t he?
This particular woman definitely was. And what legs they were.
I lifted a brow. “You’re a fine one to talk.”
“Actually, I’m on my way out.”
“So you do have a date then.” I didn’t think she did, but I wanted—needed—to hear her say it. “Is that why you’re doing a last-minute repair on your hose?”
“It didn’t work.” She started to drop her leg, but I stilled her by raising a hand and bending to pick up her discarded paper clip. She’d mangled it a bit, but when I stepped closer to examine the lacy tops of her hose, I could see where one of the hooks had snapped. I pried the clip apart, reshaping it, and slipped it between her warm, smooth skin, the frilly top of the hose and the band, fashioning it into a kind of hook. “If you don’t move too much,” I murmured, fixated on the creamy perfection of her supple thigh, “it’ll hold.”
“I have to walk to the train.”
“At this time of night?” I didn’t know what time it was, exactly, just that she shouldn’t be out strolling alone. Not because she couldn’t take care of herself, but because I wanted to ensure she reached her apartment safely.
If that made me an overprotective bastard—well, at least one of those terms fit.
“Not all of us have chauffeur-driven limousines.”
I ignored her snark. “When you’re ready to leave, I’ll drive you.”
She jerked her leg away from me and let her foot fall heavily to the floor. “I’m fine to get home myself. Now if you’ll excuse me—” She started to brush past me, and I reached out to grab her arm. My fingers closed around her wrist and she lifted her hand to my chest, ostensibly to push me away. Instead, her fingers dug into my shirt and she dragged me closer, her mouth dangerously close to mine despite our height difference. T
hose razor blade heels gave her more of an advantage than she’d had the last time we were together and she used it, hauling my face down to hers. “One more thing. You don’t get to say a damn thing about what I do or don’t do. If I want to ride the train naked, that is my choice and you have no say in it.”
It took everything I possessed not to fist my hand in her hair and pull her insolent mouth to mine. “Oh, you think not?”
“I know not.” She started to relinquish her hold on me, but my fingers only tightened on her wrist as I turned her toward the sink. “I said I’m leaving,” she added shakily.
“So who’s stopping you?”
“You’re blocking my path.”
Deliberately, I took a step back and gestured toward the door. “So go.”
Wary blue-green eyes met mine before she pushed off the sink. With her first step, there was a metallic plink on the floor. The clip had come free.
“Goddammit.”
“Such a mouth on you.” I bent to grab the clip again and pivoted to slip up her skirt. She didn’t move as I pushed the fabric higher and came face to face with those gorgeous thighs again, clad in that narrow band of lace attached to her garter. Or mostly attached. I pulled the clip apart once more and slipped my finger into the garter, holding it away from her toned flesh as I tried to make the clip hold. She trembled as I let the band snap back. “No sharp movements,” I reminded her, sparing her a quick glance.
Her heavy-lidded look was my undoing.
Hell, who was I kidding? Everything about her undid me—from the tendrils of blond hair clinging to her flushed forehead, the derisive curl to her lips, the defiant tilt of her chin.
Those sexy eyes that demanded I do her bidding, even if her mind—and her mouth—said something entirely different.
For a humming moment, she stared down at me as if I was bent low for a whole different reason. One I craved so much that my cock throbbed in the confines of my trousers.