She knew that Joe was out of her reach. But a girl could dream, couldn’t she?
*
Joe was late today. He bustled in the office when Rose was having a lunch break in the kitchenette. He casually said “Hi,” as he grabbed some mineral water from the fridge. His eyes zeroed on the bowl of salad she was having. “Yogurt and salad again for lunch? Don’t you get bored having the same stuff every day?” he noted.
That was when Rose saw Joe sported a cut on his upper left eyebrow and it seemed it hadn’t been treated. “Joe!” she jumped up from her seat. “What happened?”
He blinked innocently before realizing what she meant. “This? Oh, nothing. I got into a scuffle earlier. Hazard of the job.”
“Joe!” Rose immediately fussed. “Has it been disinfected? It looks like it needs stitches!”
He touched the wound gently with his fingertips. “It’s fine, Rose. You’re making it into a big deal. Believe it or not, I heal faster than other people.”
“Still. If it isn’t properly cared for, it’s going to fester. Let me look at it. I think I have a bandage in my purse,” she protested.
Unexpectedly, a smile broke out on his face and her heart skipped a beat. “Thank you, Rose, that’s so sweet of you. I haven’t had anyone worry about me in a long time. But I’m fine. It’s not a big deal.”
“But—“
“I’m okay, Rose. Really.”
Rose watched him hopelessly.
She was sure that he was more than capable of avoiding danger but she hoped that Joe would take care of himself. He was too careless, in her opinion. Her thoughts drifted to the accounts she managed. She wondered what kind of people he got into scuffles with. All those big name clients. Or the subcontractors he hired. And Joe had never discussed any of it with her. It wasn’t in her job description to meddle with closed or active cases but she wished he would. She wanted to help him anyway she could. He was the best boss she’d ever had and she loved working for him.
She had no real complaints, as the pay was absolutely phenomenal and he was a great boss. In fact, she estimated that after only a few months of working there, she would have enough money saved up to move out of her parents’ house. It was difficult sometimes, working strange hours and being so wrapped up in trying to decipher exactly what kinds of things Joe actually did. It was frustrating, having to relay coded messages back and forth between Joe and his associates—all of whom she addressed via pseudonyms. She was starting to wonder if her boss’s name was really, well, his name. Everything she typed up for him was run through encryption software, rendering it nearly indecipherable to outsiders.
There was no way this was just a private eye outfit. There had to be something less mundane going on underneath its already shifty exterior. Rose didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended that Joe had picked her for the job. Did he think she was trustworthy and clever enough to take the position? Or did he think she was so dense that she wouldn’t possibly unscramble the conundrum that was his business? Joe certainly regarded her with a measure of respect, never talking down to her. He often even complimented her on her wit and ability to quickly learn new techniques.
Her mind was constantly running in circles, unable to put him out of her thoughts for very long. And at night, when she lay in bed, she allowed her mind to run wild.
He was such a mystery—the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.
Not to mention dangerous.
That much she knew to be true, even without any detailed evidence to back it up. Not long after starting her position with Joe, she had begun to pick away at his claim that he was simply a private investigator. It was true that being a PI was a hazardous career choice. He had his associates do the research for him so he could do the bulk of the field-work himself. Constantly having to sneak around, hiding in the shadows, discovering the sleaziest back-alley deals… there was a reason why it made a good front. To the outside observer, it would appear that Joe Sanford’s injuries and his secrecy were all just part of his job investigating affairs and tailing dangerous, powerful clients.
But Rose knew it was something more than that. It had to be. He was more than that. She bit her lip and closed her eyes tightly, her mind conjuring an image of him in his typical work ensemble: black, black, and more black. She vividly recalled how powerful he looked even as he was sprawled out in a hospital bed the day they first met. He had been like a wounded beast: temporarily weakened but still bristling with an unspeakable wildness just itching to burst free.
She wondered what it was like when he did let loose.
Lying in bed, she sighed and reached under the sheets, her hand trailing down to the warmth between her thighs. She slipped her fingers inside her silky panties and began to gently stroke herself, thinking of Joe. She wanted so badly to feel his muscular arms wrap around her, lift her up and take her the way she knew he really could. There was so much Rose wanted to do with him.
But it was inappropriate, and she knew it.
He was her boss.
And she absolutely could not do anything to risk losing this job. It was the first streak of good luck she’d come across in a very long time and she was not about to throw it all away over a crush.
Keep yourself together, she thought to herself as she withdrew her fingers from her aching clit and turned over in bed, willing herself to fall asleep. But even when she finally fell into unconsciousness, her dreams were filled with visions of Joe’s glistening, hard body.
Hours later, she awoke in a cold sweat, gasping as she sat up in bed. Her heart raced and she looked around, blinking in the darkness, recovering from a nightmare that was already slipping away out of memory. Rose couldn’t recall what she’d been dreaming about, only that there had been someone—no, something—chasing her.
Something big and strong and ferocious.
Something that was hungry for a taste of her blood.
She jumped in fear when the alarm clock on the nightstand went off before smacking it into silence. She took a deep breath and began her morning routine of showering, dressing, then getting the girls ready for the day.
After kissing Emma and Cassidy and waving goodbye to her parents, Rose headed off to catch the bus to work. She got into the office just as Joe was leaving for an early morning meeting of some sort.
Or at least that’s what he called it.
She somehow doubted that he would ever need to meet a client at eight in the morning, especially since as far as she knew, there wasn’t anything scheduled. Rose was the one who set up his meetings, but Joe still slipped out for last-minute engagements all the time, always tossing out some half-hearted attempt at a cover story as he waltzed out the door. It was infuriating, working for a man who kept her out of the loop so much.
But that was about to change. Because Rose had cracked the code.
On the bus to work, she’d been thinking over some of the messages she received from clients to give to Joe. And it occurred to her that there was a pattern—loose and complex, but undeniable. So as soon as her gorgeous boss slinked out the door, she immediately jumped into trying to decipher his calendar for the day. Joe was out of the office nearly all morning and afternoon and the calls were sparse, leaving Rose plenty of time to spend figuring out exactly what was going on.
Before too long, she had a time and a place.
And without even giving it too much thought, she decided to put her own intel mission into play. Rose was going to follow Joe to his meeting tonight and find out once and for all what kind of crazy business they were dealing with.
When he popped back into the office later, just before it was time to clock out for the day, Rose gave him an innocent, winning smile. “Welcome back! Busy day?” she greeted, folding her hands on the desk in front of her and cocking her head to one side.
Joe nodded as he walked by, doing a double take as his eyes fell on her. It was subtle, but Rose caught it all the same. She struggled not to blush every time his golden gaze landed on her, but it was grati
fying to know that he wanted to look at her in the first place. After all, a guy who looked like Joe Sanford could easily get any woman he wanted with a single glance. But sometimes the way his eyes lingered on Rose’s face, her body… well, she wondered if maybe he saw in her even a hint of what she saw in him. It seemed impossible.
But she needed to know more about him, either way.
That night, Rose tucked the girls into bed and then put on an all-black outfit, almost like Joe’s usual attire, and she sneaked out to track him down. She waited at the office, waiting for him to leave. Then a half-hour later she went after him.
She knew the address of the warehouse he was going to, so she took a cab, then got out and walked the last few blocks until she could see Joe’s car parked in the darkness. He had to already be inside, but she couldn’t just walk in through the front door. Rose scanned the building’s perimeter, biting her lip. She was no secret agent, and this was new territory but when she spotted a ventilation opening about fifteen feet up, she made her choice. That would be her way in. And luckily, there happened to be a stack of old packing crates near the opening.
Mustering all her strength and courage, Rose took a deep breath and started the climb, the whole time questioning her own sanity. Am I seriously about to break into a creepy warehouse in the middle of the night and crawl through the ventilation shaft just to spy on my hot boss?
It was insane. It was ridiculous. But it was definitely happening.
Definitely happening.
“All I wanted was a nice, secure job with a flexible schedule,” she muttered as she shakily reached the top of the stack and clambered into the musty, rainwater-stained ventilation shaft. Her stomach plummeted as she realized the scariest part was up next: crawling through the darkness. She quickly turned on her cell phone flashlight and sighed, moving along carefully. As she moved up the long, slight incline, she started to hear male voices somewhere vaguely below. They were discussing some deal, with the phrases “eco-freak charity case” and “sending a message to the lobbyists” being tossed around.
What the hell was she getting herself into?
She arrived at the end of the ventilation corridor abruptly, nearly falling out of the hole—now at least twenty feet above the concrete floor below!
Rose gasped in panic, her heart pounding so loud that she worried the men down beneath her might overhear it. At first, she didn’t see Joe. He wasn’t one of the guys talking down there. But then…she caught sight of him.
Two reflective golden eyes flashed in the darkness.
She backed up a couple feet in terror as she realized that he was perched in the rafters, balancing on a couple of crossed beams. His body was so agile and lithe in its movement as he glared at her, moving ever so slightly closer. His eyes widened in shock as it dawned on him that he was looking at his sweet little secretary.
Panic mingled with genuine concern flickered across his darkened features and he tried to approach her, stepping lightly across the beams toward her. But Rose was terrified to see him essentially walking a tightrope twenty feet up in the air, and she let out a little shriek of fear.
Instantly the conversation down below came to a halt.
“Wait—did you hear that?” asked one of the men in a business suit.
The second man, who was just out of sight, hissed, “Rats in the rafters.”
A third guy pointed upward—directly at Rose! “There! Who the hell is that?”
“Rose, watch out!” shouted Joe, just before there was a bright flash of light and a deafening crack. A bullet whizzed just past Rose’s face to lodge itself in the crumbling wall. As the men below caught onto Joe’s presence, as well, he nimbly leaped from the beams to land on the top shelf of a metal storage rack. Rose clasped her hand over her mouth in shock as her handsome, mysterious boss bolted for the two men in business suits.
They aimed their guns at him and fired multiple rounds, several bullets exploding in the sacks of sawdust littering the warehouse. Rose screamed, tears blurring her vision. If they killed him, it would be all her fault. She couldn’t live with that. Just then, the third man went barreling out of the warehouse before the clouds of dust even cleared.
When it finally did, she was incredulous at the sight of Joe tackling both the corporate guys to the ground, his fists pummeling them into unconsciousness. His body moved with such animalistic force that it frightened her. The men couldn’t even get a shot in, and their guns lay abandoned several feet away from the scene. Joe slammed his fists into the pair of them again and again, blood spattering the floor, as the men resisted in vain. Finally, they both stopped struggling altogether and Joe stood up, turning back to look up at Rose.
He was covered in blood.
This had to be some kind of nightmare. It simply could not be real.
Rose began to feel lightheaded, her heart beating so fast that her chest ached. Far below, she could just make out Joe running, crying out her name.
Then everything started to go dark, and she felt herself falling… from twenty feet up.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rose wondered what it would feel like to die. And just before the world sank into total blackness, she felt the bizarre, impossible sensation of strong, muscular arms catching her, cradling her close…
***
When she awoke later, her head was pounding and she couldn’t move her left arm at all. Slowly, her eyes opened and vision returned in patches of dim light. She was alone in a hotel room, and most importantly, she was alive.
But… how?
And why was she handcuffed to the bed? Rose looked around in horror and confusion, afraid that she’d been kidnapped. And then she saw it: Joe’s laptop, the screen bright as though he had only just left the room. As she painstakingly propped herself up on her right elbow, she felt a scrap of paper crinkling under her arm. It was a note.
Rose—
You fainted in the warehouse. I don’t know what the hell you were doing there, but you are safe now. I had to leave to take care of some unfinished business. I will come back for you. Please try not to fall from any other great heights or otherwise throw yourself into direct peril while I’m gone. We will talk about this upon my return.
—Joe
Simultaneously annoyed and relieved, Rose set about picking the lock on her handcuff with a safety pin she found on the bedside table. Luckily, she had been kind of a punk kid in high school, and she had taught herself how to pick locks in order to break into people’s lockers and prank them.
It was embarrassing, something she definitely did not put on her resume, but it did come in handy at times like this. Upon finding that the doors were locked and bolted to keep her in, she settled on the bed and began doing the only thing she could do under the circumstances… snoop through Joe’s computer. She spent the next few hours reading over his encrypted, bizarre notes on genetic experimentation, mutations, and governmental agendas.
It was like reading the script to an X-Files episode.
But as much as Rose wanted to discount it, to shrug it off and just tell herself that either she’d decoded the encryption incorrectly or that her boss was a secret nutcase— something told her neither of those scenarios were true. That this was real. And that somehow, in some inexplicable way, Joe was tangled up in this insanity.
When he finally returned, he burst through the door looking disheveled, but at least he wasn’t soaked in someone else’s blood this time. However, she realized with dismay, he did have cuts and bruises up and down his arms.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Joe growled, bounding towards her with fury in his amber eyes. He stopped just short of grasping her by the collar, scaring her half to death. But she was going to stand her ground, damn it. She was tired of being the one in question.
“I’m worried about you,” she argued.
“I didn’t hire you to play detective. You’re my secretary, goddamnit.”
“I can’t help it, you never told me anything.”
<
br /> “It’s not your place to know. Your job is to manage my office.”
“I can’t help it. You came to work banged up. If you had just told me what was going on, I wouldn’t have had to tail you!” Rose retorted, anger building in her gut.
“Do you think this is some kind of game? You could’ve died back there, Rose!”
“I wasn’t planning on getting caught.”
“But you did get caught.”
“Well.” She crossed her arms indignantly. “What about you?”
“This is my job. This is what I do. And you need to stay the hell out of it, if you want to stay alive,” Joe snarled, but that tinge of worry colored his tone.
She gave up. “I can’t work like this, Joe! You ask so much of me but you refuse to trust me!” Rose shot back, standing up in front of him, glaring up into his handsome face. Maybe she was being irrational. But she had feelings for him, and not knowing what was going on was driving her crazy. She didn’t want to get a call from the morgue and find out she had a body to identify.
She didn’t want to lose him…
She had just found love. She didn’t care if he returned her feelings or not, she just wanted him to be okay.
Joe glared down at her and made her feel so small. But she held her ground.
“And why would I trust you?” He looked so intimidating. “Damn it, Rose, you almost got us both killed! If you had just stayed out of it, nothing would have happened. I can’t keep you safe this way. It just… it won’t work.”
They glared at each other with fire in their eyes for a long, tense moment. Rose’s cheeks were flushed, and a lock of strawberry-blonde hair fell over her eyes as she clenched her fists. “So what’s the point, Joe?” she breathed, anger still thick in her voice. “I read your files, I break your encryption in half, and I nearly get us killed in a firefight. If I’m so much trouble that you have to handcuff me to a goddamn hotel bed, why not just fire me?” she taunted without thinking. The second her bluff left her mouth, she immediately regretted it. She managed not to let it show.
His gaze bored into her, something more than human in those golden eyes as they fixated on her, and it was only then that Rose saw the deep, longing hunger in them.
MY BOSS IS A LION Page 4