by Zoey Parker
I try to be prepared either way. On my way out to my car, I get a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall in my apartment building’s foyer.
My coat is parted, so I can double check the color coordination of my blush pink sleeveless blouse and burgundy cardigan with its pearly white buttons. I paired it with a simple black pencil skirt, the hem brushing my knees.
Makeup is a bit of foundation, a brush of blush, black mascara, and plenty of concealer to cover the dark circles thanks to Luke. After Russ had taken me home, I stayed awake for hours thinking about what had happened.
I know Luke provided me with an alibi in case I’m ever questioned about last night, but what kind of woman sleeps with her boss?
One who was shock from having a gun pulled on her.
And a horny one, I guess. I’m no virgin, but I’d spent four years without a man.
The sight of Luke, his confident stare daring me to contradict him, awakened feelings long dormant. His kiss, his touch were mesmerizing, like I was under his spell.
And now I’m expected to go to work, knowing Luke’s only a few feet away.
Before I contemplate heading back up to my apartment and calling in sick, I’m swiveling from the mirror in my black peep-toe pumps and hurrying to my car. I need the hours and money.
For a small enough town, Potentia doles out some expensive rental rates. With her private school teacher’s salary, Kerry has a place of her own. She complains about barely making a dent into her mortgage, but she says it beats the years of rent she’d accrue if she hadn’t been a homeowner.
I make about a third of what she makes, and with my school loan still a cloud over me, I’m lucky to have a roof over my head. One day, I tell Kerry and myself whenever we get to talking about it. One day I’ll own a home, too. And whenever I think about the future, I can’t see past Potentia.
Part of the reason why I want to keep Luke happy…
I want to live here. Really live here.
But the Hanleys run this town, as far as I’ve been told. So Luke and his father are not the kind of men I’d want to irk. Luke pretty much proved that last night.
The sex had been amazing, though, better than I remember sex being, and then Luke drifted off to sleep. I tried to do the same but mostly just stared at the ceiling. When he woke almost an hour later, he snapped away from me like I had a deadly contagion, walked off with his phone, and returned to tell me to dress. Then he passed me off to his thug, Russ, who dropped me off at my place.
The only thing keeping me from dwelling on his reaction, his switch from sleeping cherub beside me in his bed to insensitive jerk is the memory of having left my car in the dealership’s lot.
I jerk to a stop in front of the apartment’s entrance.
“Oh, no,” I moan, sucking in a reviving breath of nippy early autumn air. Unable to decide how to move forward, I do my thinking out there, in the seasonal bitterness.
My hair, with its wild abundance of waves, keeps my cheeks warm, but the unwelcome breeze creeps up my legs. My toes shrivel in their heels and I’m back to seriously considering calling off. Playing hooky isn’t as bad as having sex with a virtual stranger—a stranger who happened to be my boss.
Just as I’m ready to cave and head back inside, a flashy silver Mercedes sports coupe pulls in from the main road and draws to a quick stop in my path. The driver’s side opens and a dark-haired man, dressed in head-to-toe black, rounds the hood and comes to a stand before me.
“Get in, woman.”
It isn’t until he speaks that I recognize who I’m facing.
Russ the thug.
Without his hoodie and the black scarf over his mouth, he looks dramatically different. Good-looking even. Then I remember how he murdered in cold blood. Or how he stood and watched while his taller friend killed somebody.
“I’m your ride to work today,” he says.
Then without checking if I’m following, he opens the passenger side and gestures for me to do as he tells me. When I don’t hop to his order, he hooks an arm over the open door and heaves a sigh. “Listen. Mr. Hanley sent me, cool? You need a car, I got one, and we happen to be heading the same way.”
“You’re going to the dealership,” I blurt.
“That isn’t your business.” He slaps his hand over the car door. “Now get in, or deal with finding your own way to your damn job.”
I’m ready to go with that second option, but I recall the bills that’d be landing in my mailbox at the end of the month next week. I need to go to work, if not for the money, then to get out of the apartment where I’d probably end up pacing and thinking about Luke some more.
Why not go see the man for myself, perhaps figure out where we go from here?
“Fine,” I say, keeping my eyes on him. Clinging onto the strap of my purse with both hands, I prepare to use it if he tries anything funny. But Russ lets me pass into the car unharmed.
He shuts the door after me, and then he comes around, sliding into the driver’s seat. The engine is on, so all he does is move the gear out of park and we’re shooting off, the vehicle smooth and fluid in its handling.
Between keeping an eye on Russ and ensuring he’s indeed driving to my workplace, I’m enjoying the leather interior cushioning and the hand-crafted, polished wood paneling on the dash and the side of the car. It’s truly a magnificent vehicle. Expensive, obviously, and maybe not procured with clean money, but my mind is moving to a happy place for the duration of the ride.
If the roads aren’t busy, the drive to work is about fifteen minutes. That almost doubles this morning, and it has nothing to do with Russ’ driving. Most of Potentia heads out on an hour drive to St. Louis for their jobs, but there are enough car owners here who work locally to make me regret not waking up as early as I usually do. Even though that had something to do with not falling asleep until 4:00 a.m.
If I had woken up earlier, I would probably be catching a bus to the dealership. But I can’t complain much when Russ signals his blinker and pulls into Hanley Auto. This was definitely more comfortable than the bus.
Russ doesn’t park, which means he has no plan to come inside. Parking in front of the main entrance, he waits for me to exit his ride. He doesn’t give a farewell either. He revs his engine and motors off like I’d been a minor speed bump along the way.
Good thing for my ego that the sentiment is mutual.
Chapter 6
Lily
With my getting-to-work problem solved, I’m free to worry about seeing Luke again. Unfortunately I’m not left with my thoughts for long. The office is quieter than usual. In most of my three years at the dealership, I’m the one who prepares the coffee, so I get to thinking it might be a lack of caffeine...or a properly good brew explaining the silence.
I’m wrong.
When I enter, it’s like a spotlight follows me in. All eyes snap to me. The entire sales team—all thirteen of those grown-ass men—are staring like I’ve grown a third arm on the ride in with Russ. As I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the outfit, I meander to my desk, looking around, just as wide-eyed as everyone else.
My butt barely touches my office chair when I’m bounding out of it to answer to my name. Luke is filling his office door, looking deliciously wonderful in a white dress shirt sans tie, smoky gray vest, and matching trousers. His sleeves are rolled up, hands tucked in the pockets of his perfectly-tailored slacks.
There’s no way to block the full brunt of his piercing stare or to stop my quivering physical reaction to his gaze.
“Miss Erickson,” he repeats, back to formality in the office. “Will you join me in here for a moment?”
With surprising grace, I shrug off my coat and hook it over the back of my seat, and lift my purse off my chair and tuck it under my desk. Aware of my skirt swishing over my bare legs, I walk past the salesmen on the way to Luke’s office.
I can feel their eyes following me, but to be sure I glance back and confirm what I’m sensing—the zeroed-in attenti
on on me in the room. Funny thing is this is what I pictured the first time I walked into Hanley Auto for an interview with Floyd. At the time he’d been handling the hiring of staff.
Luke’s father noticed my shock at the all-male staff and he brought it up, lamenting on the lack of gender diversity in the office. And before offering me the job, he asked if I’d be comfortable working with his men. I’d said one-hundred percent, as long as sexual harassment wasn’t a problem.
It hadn’t ever been. These men all breathed their jobs. They couldn’t care less about their mousy office administrator. And they didn’t treat me unfairly, save last night, when they all dumped their work on me. All right, I volunteered, but still, they knew the task required time—time they all apparently agreed I had.
Jerks.
Now I’m on their radar, and my intuition screams it isn’t for the right reason.
As soon as he shuts the door after me, Luke says, “They all know we’re fucking. I told them this morning, during an impromptu meeting, which you missed because you were late.”
In another world, I would care about missing a meeting on what has to be the first day I’ve ever been late for work. But right now, I’m stuck on the part where he announced our sex life to everyone.
“You what?” My voice has to carry outside the office. It sure fills the room loudly. “How?” I gasp, with only slightly better volume control.
“Oh, I told them.”
“You what?” I repeat, my eyes growing wide enough I’m fearing they’ll pop out of my head. When I get my mouth working past the flopping state of shock, I ask, “Why would you do that?”
Luke circles past me to his desk, his spiced oaky musk perfuming the air around me. If I hadn’t been so concerned about the consequences of his brainless action, I might have allowed his scent to carry me over to him.
Luke drops into his seat, puffing out a breath, his hands gathering open files on his desk. He collects and stacks them off to the side, his elbows now freer to perch atop the space he cleared. His hands form a steeple under his chin, strong jaw deliciously sprinkled with darker blond hairs, his Cupid’s bow mouth quirking up at the corners.
“Forgive me if I caught you by surprise. I thought it pointless to sneak around though. Besides, it isn’t exactly ethical. I’m sure bigger companies have a dating policy in the workplace. It’s not something we ever considered here, but there’s a first for everything I suppose.” Luke smiles innocently.
I’m not bowled over so easily by his charm.
“Uhh, dating? And why didn’t you speak to me first? I would have liked a little warning in advance.” My anxiety raises the pitch of my voice again. I sound hysterical to myself, and I can’t imagine what Luke might be hearing.
His brows slash down, clouding over his bright green eyes. I’m reminded of startling emeralds, once the world’s most valuable gems, long before pearls and diamonds took that contending spot. Luke, like those cherished emeralds of ancient times, is a long-standing, valuable member of this community.
And I’m freaking out on him. It’s enough to have me backing up toward the office door, away from his desk. The power of his stare unnerves me. With a snap of his finger this man could steal this town, this home—this life from me.
“Just stop, Lily,” Luke sighs. “Why is it you look at me like I’m a second away from gobbling you whole?”
“I do that?” I stammer, blindsided by his accusation.
Since when have we spent enough time together for him to make such an observation? Of course, I’m talking Luke here. A man with his power and wealth doesn’t get there with just a silver spoon in his mouth and sheer will. Being observant is a requisite in the car sales business, and, say, loan shark operations.
That rumor of Luke’s extracurricular activities snaps my mouth shut, dries whatever else I have to say on the subject.
So he told the office, what can I do about it now? I certainly am not going out there and contradicting him.
Or else I might find myself trapped in the trunk of some nondescript car, staring down the barrel of a gun belonging to Russ or that other man with Russ, the eager one who wanted to shoot first, no questions asked.
“I’m not a boogeyman.” Luke is both penetrative and grim.
He lowers his hands and leans back in his chair, fingers now clawing over the ends of his armrests. I notice he has large hands, and I think about how talented they were at satisfying me last night. Luke’s voice draws my attention back to his handsome face.
“Lily, we’re partners in this from here on out,” he says. “I want to keep you safe. And I’d like to think you want to do the same for me.”
My lips are suctioned together. But I bob my head once, slowly, up and down.
“I don’t like fucking repeating myself, so this is the only time I’ll say this. Listen up. For this story of ours to work, you’re going to have to trust me, and I’m giving you the same courtesy.
“It’s all about reliability. Can you put faith in me to know I’ve got your best interests in mind, and vice versa?” Luke’s nostrils flare on his loud, sharp inhale. Pushing out of his seat then, he strides around his desk toward me.
I have to crane my head up to meet his stare.
He reaches out, grasping my arms, drawing me closer until we’re a heated inch apart. His breath, warm and minty, washes over my forehead. “Lily, I trust you to keep me safe. Do you trust me?”
“What do you want from me?” I ask, my mind not working clearly. His body being so close and his hands on me fog any possible sane response to this situation.
“From this point on, until I can clear it, we’re a couple,” Luke says, his gaze dipping lower, warming a trail wherever his eyes touch. “We’ll do everything normal couples do in healthy, loving relationships, and we’ll have an audience sometimes…”
I gulp before he finishes his sentence.
“And sometimes, sweet thing, it’ll just be the two of us.” He traps my chin with a hand, his thumb tracing the outline of my bottom lip. “You’re mine, Lily, and I’m yours. Would you like that?”
Is he giving me a choice? If I tell him this isn’t what I want, will he back off? I don’t know if I’m strong enough to test it.
Whatever he hears in my silence brings his mouth lower, his lips brushing mine. It’s a gentle meeting, my mouth opening up our kiss, his tongue dashing in to swipe mine. Our noses bump lightly as we throw care to the wind.
Luke presses me to him with his arms locking around my back, and my hands gripping onto the opening of his vest. We’re clutching each other hungrily, like every second we aren’t touching is a second wasted.
Breaking for air, I arch back, my head twisting from Luke’s relentless mouth. He suckles at my throat, lashing his tongue over my leaping jugular. He nips, grazing his teeth over the sensitive spot, laughing at my breathy gasp.
“My. So touchy, Lily,” he whispers against my skin, the vibrations and heat of his words turning me into a squirming mess of wanton female.
Luke knows he has me, and I won’t stop him from doing whatever he wants in spite of our being in the office with the rest of his staff less than a few feet from us. I might die if he doesn’t extinguish some of this fire he’s lit in me.
Lifting his head up to kiss me soundly, he presses his question to my throbbing, sweetly sore lips. “What do you want for me to do, beautiful Lily?”
“Me,” I whisper, staring into those green eyes, so open, so full of carnal knowledge. “Do me, please.”
He doesn’t tease me, thank God. Taking my lips on another fast, bruising kiss, he bends down and sweeps my legs out from under me.
Carrying me around his desk, he rolls back his office chair with his polished shoe and gently settles me beside his stack of files on one side, and his computer and the old photo of his father and him on the other. He palms the front of his pants, my attention zipping to his noticeable erection. The slim-fit slacks do nothing to cover his desire for me.
With that fluttery ego boost, I go to work unbuttoning my cardigan and drawing my arms out of the tight sleeves. Tossing it atop the files, I reach down to tug the hem of my sleeveless blouse out from the waistband of my skirt.
When I’m to my bra, I realize I’ll have to stand to undo the back zipper of my skirt. Luke’s big, warm hands on my thighs freeze me to his desk. “I wonder,” he says, eyes on my chest. “I wonder if I could pinch, twist, lick, and suck your tits, and get you off that way.”
Reaching behind me, he unclasps my too-simple nude-colored bra, divesting it atop the pile of my clothes on his files. He cups my breasts, his hands filling up with my flesh. I watch as he thumbs my rosy pink nipples, hard already from his kisses earlier, and now painfully jutting to his attention.