She picked up the cup from the desk and moved toward the door, then paused. “Mr. Powers, can I ask one more question?”
He leaned back in the chair and held out his hands, exasperated. “Yes?”
She wiggled the cup and her nose at him. “Where is the coffee pot?”
CHAPTER THREE
Christina found herself daydreaming about the day she’d met Lucas Powers. It was at his father’s lake house, the summer before high school graduation.
“Christina. I want you to meet Lucas, Doug’s youngest son. He’s a graduate of Washington-Graves University. He just started working for Martin Marketing in the city.”
Christina looked up from her cellphone and gawked at the young man standing next to her mother. The phone slipped from her hand, and it was all she could do not to drool.
She was used to high school boys, who were nothing like the man smiling back at her. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she could tell from the muscles of his arms and the way the shirt stretched over his chest that he was solidly built. His face was beyond gorgeous with just a hint of stubble that her boyfriend tried so valiantly to grow.
“Shit,” she muttered as she reached down for her phone.
“Language,” her mother snapped.
Christina rolled her eyes and looked up. “Nice to meet you,” she said flippantly, trying to act cool. She saw a flicker of interest in his eyes as they openly roamed her scantily clad body. She was dressed in a tight fitting tube dress that stopped high up in her thighs. For a moment, she considered bending over to give him a show.
“Nice to meet you too, sis,” he said with a grin.
For some reason, the word sis sounded dirty on his tongue. “We’re not family yet,” she said coldly. She brushed past him and moved back to her room.
“I’m so sorry,” she heard her mother apologize. “I don’t think she’s taking this engagement well. I’ll go to talk to her.”
“Don’t worry about it. She’s just a kid,” Lucas said, sounding much older than his twenty-two years. “Sullen is what they do best.”
Christine didn’t let on that she’d heard him call her a kid. She wasn’t a kid. And Lucas Powers certainly wasn’t looking at her like she was a kid. At seventeen, she was on cusp of womanhood and she was determined to plow her way through.
Still, if Lucas was going to be hanging around to get to know his new family that would make the summer go by much more quickly. An evil grin spread across her face. Maybe she’d have a little fun with him to help alleviate her boredom.
If Lucas enjoyed what he saw today, wait until he saw what she would wear tomorrow.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Christina? Christina? Are you listening?”
Her eyes snapped up as she looked up to find Lucas’ assistant, Desiree, looming over her. Desiree’s face was red and angry. Her look made Christina cringe. For some reason, whenever they were alone, Desiree turned into a viper.
“I’m sorry, Desiree,” Christina said, shaking the daydream from her head. “What were you saying?”
Desiree rolled her eyes and set her hands on her hips. “I found an error in the design you turned in! If Lucas had seen it first, well, I can only imagine what would have happened. He has a zero tolerance for shoddy work.”
“Shoddy work?” Christina echoed. Christina was a girl given to harsh reaction. In the old days, she was quick to bite back when bitten, but she held in her emotions and pushed herself up from her desk. “I’m sorry… What did I do?”
“You’d better be glad that I caught this before it went to Lucas,” Desiree said, waving the printed pages at her. “I smoothed it over for you, so he’s not too mad.”
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I don’t know what happened.” It was a lie. She knew exactly what happened. Lucas knew that she’d been bored doing gopher work the past few days, so he let her help design the layout for the fashion center. Although it was only two pages and she was just a helper, it was a huge responsibility, and Christina really wanted to impress him.
Unfortunately, she also had a paper due for class that morning, so she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before.
“You set a full page ad in a quarter page ad space. If I hadn’t checked it, it would have gone to press, and there would have been some angry advertisers.” Desiree smiled smugly. “It looks like you’re not ready for real work.”
“But, Desiree, it was a mistake. I promise…”
Desiree held up a hand and cocked her chin. “Not another word. For your sake, I won’t say anything to Lucas, but for now you need to stick to getting coffee and running errands.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Christina said quietly. She wasn’t used to being chastised. She bit her tongue and stared at the floor.
Christina noticed that Desiree was holding Lucas’ empty coffee cup. Desiree set the cup on the desk and said, “You can start now. Lucas would like a fresh cup.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Christina was practically in tears by the time she’d filled the cup almost to the rim and walked slowly with it back to Lucas’ office. She paused outside the open door and mustered her courage. Desiree wore a snide smile as she watched her standing there with hot coffee dripping onto the toe of her best shoes.
“You wanted coffee, Mr. Powers,” Christina said meekly. Lucas was focused on his computer screen. He was leaning into it with a serious look on his face. He waved a hand to tell her to enter.
“I’m really sorry,” she said as she crossed the floor to his desk. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Please let me do something to help fix this. Please.”
Lucas looked up alarmed as she put the coffee down. A bit sloshed out on the desk, and Christina gasped. She leaned over and wiped it up with the sleeve of her white shirt. It was hot and burned her skin through the fabric, and she cried out.
“Jesus, Christina. What is wrong with you?” Lucas said as stood quickly and grabbed her arm. He immediately pushed her sleeve up to inspect her skin. “Are you trying to burn yourself?”
“Is everything OK, Mr. Powers?” Desiree asked from the door, a look of genuine concern on her face.
“Just a little coffee accident,” he said, waving her away. “Please close the door.” Desiree hesitated a moment, her face red, then closed the door with a slam.
Lucas held her wrist and blew a cooling breath across it. Suddenly, Christina found it hard to breathe. In the week that she’d been there, he hadn’t touched her once since that initial handshake. Now his lips were an inch away from her skin. His touch was warm and comforting, and Christina gently tugged her arm back.
Lucas immediately stiffened, realizing their closeness. He said, “I’ll get the medical kit, some burn ointment.”
“No, please, it’s not necessary,” she said, embarrassment burning her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
“Forget it,” he said with a smile, mopping up the mess with tissues from a box on the desk. “It’s just a little coffee.”
“Not about the coffee,” she said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “About the ad that I screwed up.”
He stared at her until her words registered. “Is that what you’re upset about? Christina, I never turn in ad pages without checking them first. Desiree caught it, but if she hadn’t, I would have. That sort of thing happens all the time around here. You’re new at this. I expected that you were going to make a few mistakes.”
Christina felt a new emotion rising to the top: anger. “Desiree made it sound like I had put the entire company at risk”
“Desiree can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes,” he said, rolling his eyes toward the door. “I’ll talk with her about it.”
“Oh no, please don’t do that. I don’t want her to know how much it upset me. And she had every right to point it out.”
Lucas shook his head. “No, she didn’t. She’s not your boss, Christina. I am. And I’m telling you that you did a good job. So chin up.” He remembered nibbling that chin…
; She gave a loud sigh of relief. “Thanks, I appreciate you cutting me a little slack. I’m just a bit overwhelmed with school and this job. I mean, not so overwhelmed that I can’t do the job, but… well, you remember how it is.”
He sat down and propped his elbows on the desk. He nodded slowly, “I do remember how it is. My first internship was a complete disaster.”
She looked at him coyly. “Was that the time you were caught in the supply closet with the president’s secretary?”
He looked up suddenly and bit his lip. “You heard that story, huh.”
“Among others,” she said, her head bobbing. “Your dad was very proud of your sexploits for some reason.”
“Well, now you know why I’m such a big believer in the employee handbook.”
She spotted the incorrect ad sheet on his desk, partially stained with coffee. She reached for it and asked, “So I can redo the layout?”
He shrugged. “I can call it up on his computer and take care of it. No need for you to worry about it.”
“No, please, let me do it. Let me prove that I can do it right.”
Lucas studied her face for a moment longer than he’d meant to. He cleared his throat and said, “Why don’t we work on it together? That should save us both a little time. Come on around the desk and I’ll pull up the file.”
She came around the desk and he moved out of the chair, making way for her to sit at the computer. He held the chair as she sat down. She scooted in close and put her hand on the mouse and started making adjustments to the layout on the screen.
“That’s it,” he said, standing close enough to smell the scent of her shampoo. Her hair was up in a ponytail, exposing her neck. His eyes went down at the back of her neck and followed it as it disappeared into the collar of her blouse.
He inhaled deeply, resisting the urge to sink his teeth into her soft flesh. He felt himself getting hard. As Christina worked on the design, he moved around the desk and sat down; hoping his erection would subside by the time the ad layout was finished.
CHAPTER SIX
Lucas had stared too long at the marketing reports. He turned away from the computer and leaned back to close his eyes. The first image that came to mind was a teenage Christina, moving toward him, wearing a purple string bikini.
The memory of her young voice rang in his ear. “Lucas! What are you doing?”
Lucas glanced up from his book to see his future stepsister sauntering his way. He’d been relaxing in a hammock tied between two oak trees and thought he had the place to himself. She was supposed to be out shopping with her friends and he had no idea where their parents were.
This week of hanging out with family old and new had been harder than he thought, thanks to the silly, teenage girl who seemed to take great pleasure in teasing him. Christina was nineteen now, and it was getting harder and harder to simply think of her as his kid stepsister.
“What are you wearing?” he asked, laying the book conspicuously over his crotch.
She was dressed in skimpy purple bikini that showed off nearly every inch of her young, tanned body. The straps were nothing more than strings that could have easily been untied with one tug at the end. That’s all it would take to bare those luscious breasts, he though. And the bottom wasn’t much more secure. He could have her out of the skimpy suit in two seconds flat.
“What does it look I’m wearing?” she asked sarcastically, holding out her hands, glancing down at herself.
“It looks like you’re wearing purple string,” he said, sounding very much like a prude. He diverted his eyes toward the pool at the back of the property. “Are you going for a swim?”
“I’m going to work on my tan.”
“Here? Why wouldn’t you go lay out by the pool?”
“I thought I’d keep you company.”
“Oh.”
She spread a towel out on the grass a few feet from the hammock. He nearly groaned out loud when she bent over to smooth out the edges. As every nerve in his body jumped to attention, he tried to avert his eyes. Did the little minx have any idea what she was doing to him?
She reached down and pulled out a bottle of suntan lotion. She reached behind and tugged the string loose so the bikini top hung freely over her breasts, barely covering her nipples.
“Can you put some on my back?” she asked with an innocent pout. “I burn easily.”
“That’s not something you ask a grown man to help you with,” he said, feeling the bulge in his shorts growing. He rolled off the hammock and used the book to cover his crotch. In a huff, he stalked back to the house. He heard her laughing behind him as he went.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Are you asleep?”
Lucas opened his eyes up and saw her standing there, the real her, not the one in his memory. She had only gotten more beautiful over the years, more alluring, more difficult to resist. His erection attested to the fact. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “What?”
“Sorry, were you asleep?” She had a sheepish grin on her lips.
“No, just resting my eyes. Migraine,” he said, tapping a finger to his right temple. He blinked at her. He hadn’t even heard her come in. He rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat.
“Can I get you some aspirin?”
He shook his head. “Next time, please knock.”
“Your door was open,” she said. “I was wondering if you had anything for me to do? I finished proofing the ad copy and gave it to Desiree. Try as she might, she couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”
“You work fast,” he said, finally offering a smile. She does everything fast, the little voice in his head mocked.
She’d been interning for him two weeks, and it was anything but smooth sailing. He tried to keep her as busy as possible, but it seemed more important to keep her at arm’s length than to make her useful. Mostly, she’d been fetching coffee, lunch, and acting as a go between for him and his team. Now they were almost caught up and he had absolutely no idea what to do with her.
Well, he had some ideas, but bending her over every surface of the workroom didn’t seem like a great way to keep his job.
He pushed the thought out of his head and studied her. There were dark circles seeping through her make-up, and he watched the way her shoulders slumped.
It made him think of his last semester at college where he was also juggling an internship and school. But he hadn’t worked nearly as hard in school as Christina did. Her mother boasted every chance she got the past few years about how well Christina was doing in school.
She looked overworked and tired. Lucas wanted to tell her to take the rest of the day off and get some sleep. Actually, he wanted to put his arms around her and hold her while she slept.
“So…” she said, singing the word.
“So, let me think,” he muttered, clearing his throat. He took a minute to consider his options. He reluctantly dismissed the ones that involved burying his face in her crotch.
Finally, he said, “Let’s see how much you’ve been paying attention in all those design classes at school.” He clicked open a file and an ad layout came up on the screen.
“This is one our advertisers, an online retailer called Tracer’s Boutique. A few months ago, they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund their new line of designer bags and satchels. Within three weeks, they’d reached their goal and then some. The product and the demand were huge because of the bag’s versatility. It’s a purse, it’s a diaper bag, it’s a computer bag. We’ve offered to help with their ad design and this is what our team has come up with.”
Christina’s eyes were glued to the screen, and she seemed to have no idea that her hair was brushing along his shoulders or that if he moved his head up just a few inches, he could press his lips to her neck. “It’s nice,” she said finally.
He chuckled. “You say nice because you know it’s missing something. I know it’s missing something, but I’m just not quite sure what it is.”
She leane
d in toward the screen with one hand resting on the back of his chair. He could smell the light trace of perfume on her neck. She smelled of soap and deodorant and desire.
“Let’s see,” she said, taking the mouse and moving it around. It was a simple design meant to show the clean lines of the leather bag combined with the elegant beauty of the color and styling, but Lucas was right, the ad itself just seemed flat.
“It’s kind of boring,” she said, thinking out loud. “The writing is great. It’s meant for women of all ages, it’s affordable… I think it’s the image of the bag and the girl holding it that’s falling flat.”
Lucas tried to focus on the screen. “Think so?”
“The image doesn’t do justice to the product. I think there needs to be something more to show its versatility rather than just stating that it’s versatile. You know; show, don’t tell.”
Lucas smiled. She was right on point. “They tried doing three different images, but it ended up being too much imagery for one page. What do you think of one picture with three different women all wearing the same bag?”
“I think that takes away from the uniqueness. I don’t want to buy a bag that my Mom has,” Christina said, wrinkling her nose.
“Why not? Your mom’s cool.”
“My mom’s also twice my age,” she said, making her forty year old mother sound ancient. He smiled when she rolled her eyes. He loved picking on her.
She straightened her back and used a red fingernail to trace around the computer screen. She said, “Why don’t you break the one page ad up into four quarter ads and place them throughout the magazine and test the result. Women in their twenties are going to pay attention to the bag being something they can use as a purse or an overnight bag, and soccer moms will like that it can double as a diaper bag, and even older women – like my mom -- will love that it has a cross body strap that makes it easy to carry.”
Romance: My Stepbrother's Plaything Page 2