by Olivia Dade
Her tone softened. “Later, I knew you wouldn’t turn me in. But I didn’t want you to have to lie, Grant. Not about that.” She gave him a halfhearted smile. “We both know lying doesn’t come naturally to you.”
“Certainly not like it does for you,” he said.
She closed her eyes for a few long seconds, and he almost regretted those words. Almost.
Her lips pinched together into a hard line. “That’s a little rich, coming from a man who’s been fucking his subordinate under the nose of his supervisor. And doing so at work, might I add. Don’t be a hypocrite, Grant.”
Mingled shame and fury clogged his throat. “I—”
“Yes, I saved my own ass by not coming clean about the contest,” she finally said, opening her eyes again and looking directly at him. “But I also saved yours. Because I didn’t tell you, the contest can’t get you fired.”
“Really?” he asked. “Are you sure about that? The way I see it, we’ll both lose our jobs if anyone finds out about this. They’ll fire you for displaying sexual content in the library yet again. They’ll fire me for sheer incompetence. The fact that I let you run this contest under my nose—when I spent hours a day in your branch—doesn’t speak well of either my intelligence or my managerial abilities. The library hired me to yank you back into line, Angie, and I failed.”
“Our conversation two days ago . . . ,” she said, her voice cracking. “Was that what you wanted? To yank me back into l-line?”
His calm fissured, and he realized the body-snatcher hadn’t entirely left. This particular incarnation simply wanted to yell rather than fuck.
“No!” he said, slapping both hands on the table and leaning forward. “I wanted to get through to the woman I loved, who was hurting herself for no good reason. I wanted to show you I knew you. That I cared about your happiness. That you had options. That I was on your side.” He barked out a bitter laugh. “Stupid me.”
“Loved? Past tense?” she asked.
She shrank into her chair. Her arms wrapped around herself, holding tight.
He chose not to answer her question. “I changed for you, Angie. I compromised my beliefs and endangered my job. A job I desperately need for my family, if you’ll remember. All for you. But you won’t change a single thing for me. You lied to me, and you didn’t stop lying even after you said you were committed to me. You’re still hiding, making sure I can’t ever really know you. Making sure you never leave yourself vulnerable.” He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. “Keeping yourself alone. But maybe that’s what you want. Who knows?”
He thought back on all he’d said and done over the past ten days, and it made him cringe. How had he let himself go astray so quickly and completely? And for what?
“No, Grant—” she said, reaching a trembling hand across the table to him.
He rolled back out of her reach. “I feel stupid. I feel like an idiot for loving a woman who endangered both our jobs and lied to me even as she spent each night in my bed. You say you care about me, but I don’t know if I can even believe that.”
She stood up abruptly, her eyes wild and unfocused. A few stalking strides brought her inches from his chair.
“You may not believe me, but I do love you,” she said. “I’ll show you right here and now.”
Without giving him a chance to evade her, she slammed her mouth down on his and devoured it. And God help him, he responded. Shoving back his chair, he stood to face her. His hands rose to tangle in her hair, taking a fierce grip and yanking her closer. He ground his lips against hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth without any hesitation or finesse.
Her hands reached down to grab his ass, and he jerked like she’d cracked a whip against his flesh. The bolt of sensation drove him forward with even more urgency. He pushed beneath her sweater, reaching up to capture and hold a breast in each hand. The thin, silky material of her bra stymied him, and he wrenched open the front hook with a growl. He didn’t bother taking the bra off, and instead let it hang from her shoulders as his fingers gave each nipple a firm pinch. She gasped in response.
The feel of her hand squeezing his cock through his work pants blinded him. He had to get inside her. Now. Flipping up her skirt, he reached inside her panties to test her readiness. She felt swollen and wet against his hand, thank God. When he pushed two fingers inside her pussy, she moaned and rubbed against them.
He took her hand and shoved it between her thighs. “Touch yourself.”
She did, and he watched as he yanked down the zipper of his pants. He pushed them and his boxers down below his ass, far enough to accomplish what he needed to do. The condom he grabbed from his back pocket, where he’d placed it only that morning—just in case he and Angie broke their no-fucking-in-the-library resolve yet again. As it appeared they would in mere moments.
He rolled on the condom and turned back to her, grasping her hand and removing it from inside her panties. Taking a firm grip on the material with both hands, he wrenched his fists apart and watched the material rip.
Angie looked up at him with big, hot eyes. In that moment, he simultaneously felt a million miles tall and like a speck of dust in a hurricane. All-powerful but out of control, and so ready to fuck her he couldn’t wait another minute. Grasping her hips, he planted her ass on the edge of the workroom table.
“Yeah?” he said, pulling her legs around his hips and positioning himself at her entrance.
“Yes,” she said.
He thrust inside her pussy with one rough stroke, and proceeded to fuck her as hard and as fast as he could. His hands grasped her ass in a rough grip, keeping her in place for his cock. She braced herself with her arms propped behind her on the table, her long legs gripping hard around his waist and ass. With each drive, she gasped, and her breasts rocked. He leaned forward, sucking each of her nipples into his mouth and grazing them with his teeth. Her back arched, and she met each stroke of his cock with a lift of her own hips. Neither one of them spoke a coherent word, communicating only through his grunts of effort and their moans as they each grew closer to orgasm.
After a minute, he knew he couldn’t last much longer. He shoved his hand between them and pressed hard on her clit, rubbing the way he knew she liked. She cried out, her arms collapsing beneath her so her upper body lay flat on the table. Her pussy gripped him in violent spasms, and he was done. Done.
He came with a roar, watching her body jostle with each of his final thrusts inside her heat. His teeth gritted as the piercing pleasure almost took his knees out beneath him. On the verge of falling, he finally let go of her ass and supported himself over her with shaking arms.
For a minute, he stood buried inside her, her legs wrapped around his hips. His head was bowed toward his chest, and he breathed in harsh pants. Slowly, reason returned and he took a look at the woman spread beneath him on the table.
Angie, though, didn’t look back at him. Her arms lay limp by her sides. She’d turned her head, and was staring blankly at the cabinet to her right. He leaned over, trying to see her expression. As soon as he did, she released her legs from around him and pushed him away. Not roughly, but firmly. With her back to him, she straightened her clothes and shoved her ripped panties in her purse.
Oh, God. What had he done?
“Did I hurt you?” he rasped, regret closing his throat.
“No.” But she still didn’t look at him.
She turned toward the women’s bathroom, and what he saw in a brief glimpse of her face made his heart clutch in his chest. Tears streamed down both of her cheeks. Her gaze was pointed at her feet. Her shaking hands clutched her purse. Her shoulders hitched with suppressed sobs.
He quickly disposed of the condom, pulled up his boxers, and tucked his shirt into his pants.
“Angel,” he called to her back as she walked away, “I’m so—”
Then she came to an abrupt halt, just outside the workroom door. His hands froze on his pants zipper as he saw what had
stopped her.
“Well,” Tina said, “it appears we have more to discuss than I originally thought.”
24
The three of them sat in tense silence around the workroom table, the door to the library firmly shut. Penny and Mary had arrived while Angie cleaned up in the women’s room, and the two women had stationed themselves at the circulation desk for the duration of this impromptu meeting. Each had squeezed Angie’s shoulder in a silent show of support before heading out the door and closing it behind themselves.
Angie still wouldn’t meet his eyes, but he could see her expression. She’d clearly washed her face in the bathroom. The trails of tears had disappeared, and splashes of water darkened patches of her bright pink sweater. She now wore glasses. Probably because her eyes hurt from crying.
If he hadn’t seen her tears firsthand and known the significance of those glasses, he’d never have realized her distress. Observing her lovely face felt like admiring an ancient sculpture. It looked hard. Cold. Truthfully, many of those sculptures displayed a lot more emotion than Angie did. Right now, her telltale worry lines didn’t even crease her forehead. Her blank calm was impenetrable.
He’d done that to the woman he loved, and the shame weighed like a millstone in his gut. At this point, he didn’t even know whether he’d hurt her while they had sex. She’d said no, but Angie’s instinctive need to hide her distress made it hard to take that assertion at face value. His only comfort? He’d managed to scrape together enough shreds of decency to ensure her willingness before pushing inside her. If grunting the word “Yeah?” could be considered asking for permission, that is.
He did know he’d hurt her with what he’d said before they’d . . . what? Made love? Fucked? For him, the act had been imbued with the love he felt for her, even though that love had twined with the fury twisting inside him. Would she believe that, though?
God, he didn’t know. He’d never in his life—not even once—had sex with a woman while angry at her. As was so often the case with Angie, he had no frame of reference with which to judge their relationship or his actions.
All he knew: The memory of her face during their confrontation and after she pushed him away from her body would stay with him. He couldn’t blame himself for his anger when he’d discovered her lie. But he could blame himself for how he’d addressed it, how he’d allowed his hurt to overshadow what he understood about the woman he loved and her need to protect both herself and the people around her.
Now that he’d had a minute to think, his reaction shamed but didn’t surprise him. The swift changes in his life and behavior had discomfited him from the beginning—so much so that he’d half-jokingly blamed them on a body-snatcher, for Christ’s sake. So he’d grabbed the first real excuse to abandon those changes and wrestle back control over his life. He’d torn into Angie while telling himself his reaction was logical and reasonable, even though rationality hadn’t driven his words. Fear, pain, and frustration had.
All this time, I’ve been hiding too, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips. Behind rationality and logic. All the while lamenting—and eventually condemning—Angie’s own need to protect herself. And I attacked her for making one stupid decision, even as I encouraged her recklessness when it came to me. Even as I risked both of our jobs by renewing our affair.
“My original purpose in coming here today was to address a complaint I received,” Tina said. She pushed a thick strand of gray hair behind her ear, and looked down at the notepad in front of her. “A Mr. Julian Younkins called to complain that his entry in a Valentine’s Day sex-scene contest at Battlefield hadn’t won. He insisted that he knew his entry was worthy of publication, and that the librarians at Battlefield were prejudiced against him.”
“Red Tie strikes again,” Angie muttered.
“What?” Tina asked.
“Julian’s right,” Angie said. “His entry was publication worthy, in the sense that it had already been published. He plagiarized a book from my earlier erotica display, one about witches. When we read his story—”
“We?” Tina cast a sharp glance at Angie. “Who else was involved in this contest?”
“No one. We both know Mary and Penny are much better rule-followers than I am,” Angie said with a faint smile. “Let me rephrase that. When I read his story, I got suspicious. It seemed familiar. So I Googled key phrases and found out he’d stolen the passage from Carlotta and the Carnal Coven. W—” She paused. “I checked all the other high-scoring entries too, by the way. I’d covered up the names of the entrants before reading their stories, so I had no idea the witch entry was Julian’s before I e-mailed him to say he hadn’t won. I didn’t mention why. I only thanked him for his work and participation in a library event.”
“Which brings us to the main problem here, Angie,” Tina said. “I don’t care that much about Mr. Younkins’s complaint. What I care about is the fact that you’ve once again placed the library in a potentially dangerous position. You violated the strictures we set out for you.”
“I know.” Angie sat still in her chair. “I won’t make this any harder on you, Tina. Do what you have to do.”
Grant turned to Tina, determined to defend Angie even if she wouldn’t defend herself. “Tina, you should know something. From what I understand, Angie planned the contest before you had your last talk with her. By the time I started, all traces of the contest had disappeared from the library. She couldn’t cancel it, though, not without causing discontent amongst her patrons.”
For the first time in minutes, Angie’s gaze swung briefly in his direction.
Heartened, he continued. “You said you’d fire her for one more complaint. Canceling that contest—which, again, she created before you warned her about the one-complaint rule—would have manufactured the complaint that would get her fired. What choice did she have?”
“She could have chosen to tell the truth and face the consequences,” Tina said.
At the near-perfect echo of his own words to Angie, he winced.
Tina swiveled her chair toward him. “By all means, though, let’s talk about your role in all of this, Grant. When did you know about this contest?”
“Not until this morning,” Angie broke in. “And he was planning to tell you immediately.”
That’s not true, he thought. Does she really believe that? The idea of her believing such a thing sent a sharp pain through his heart. Of course, after their confrontation, he guessed she had good cause.
“Assuming that’s true,” Tina said, “then Grant hasn’t directly disobeyed my orders when it came to you. But he evidently hasn’t been doing his job when it comes to supervising you, either. Otherwise, he’d have known about this contest.”
“You know I’m good at hiding things,” Angie said, the ghost of a humorless smile still on her lips. “I’m the problem here, not him. Once I’m gone, he’ll have no trouble keeping all the branches in line.”
“From what I saw this morning, his possible incompetence is the lesser of my two main concerns about him.” Tina turned back to him. “The concerns are interconnected, though. Did you fail to discover this contest because of an affair with your subordinate? When did you two become intimately involved? And at what point did you deem sex in the workplace permissible for library employees?”
Angie interceded once again. “This is my fault, Tina. I’m the one—”
“I’ve got this,” Grant interrupted. “Please let me speak for myself.”
She subsided back into her chair, her mouth set in a mutinous line. Her fingers drummed on the table until Tina laid a gentle hand across them. Then Angie moved her hands to her lap, where they twisted together.
“We became involved shortly before I started at this library, and neither one of us knew I would become her supervisor. We ceased our involvement once we found out,” he said.
“That obviously changed at some point,” Tina said.
“Last Friday,” he said. “And I’m the one who pushed to resume t
he relationship.”
“No!” Angie exclaimed. “It was all me, Tina. I lied to him and seduced him. He’s not to blame. Especially not for the workplace sex.”
Why the hell was she taking the fall for all this? He tried to catch her eye again, but she continued to stare beseechingly at the assistant director.
Tina flicked her gaze between the two of them. “Okay,” she said slowly. “I think I’ve heard enough for today. I’m scheduling separate disciplinary meetings for the two of you tomorrow morning. I’ll call later with the details about when and where. For the rest of the day, both of you need to go home. Separately. I don’t want you conferring about your stories before the meeting.”
Tina rose from her chair, and he and Angie followed suit. He waited for Tina to head out the door, but she stood there while Angie gathered up her purse and coat and went to tell her coworkers she was leaving. After a minute of awkwardly loitering in the workroom, Grant realized Tina wasn’t leaving until she saw him depart the library without talking to Angie.
He threw on his down-filled jacket and shoved open the door leading to the parking lot. The last thing he saw before the heavy door slammed closed behind him was Angie’s expression as she returned to the workroom. Her face remained set, pale, and pointed resolutely away from him.
From the look on that face, he knew he might very well never see Angie again. If so, the fact that his final glimpse of her showed a woman hurt—maybe broken—because of him . . .
It would haunt his memories forever. He knew it, even now. His instincts told him so. No logic required.
Angie lay curled up on her couch, staring at nothing in particular. Darkness, mostly. Night had fallen a couple of hours ago, but she hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. When Vicky’s ringtone had blasted from her cell earlier, she’d ignored that too.