by Lindsey Hart
Damn it.
She couldn’t not be flattered by the way he kept looking at her all throughout their expensive meal. He’d ordered for her. Not because she’d told him to, but because he was a dick like that. He somehow picked the exact thing she would have ordered for herself and that just pissed her off further. It was some chicken and seafood dish with a white wine cream sauce that she was pretty sure was made out of pure gold because it certainly tasted that way.
Colette had never felt sultry in her life. She knew that her curves were just so-so. That her breasts were on the small side, that her waist might be narrow, and her hips didn’t flare out enough and that her ass was definitely not lush or supple. She was average height. Average built. Average all around. She wasn’t a blonde. She didn’t have blue eyes. Her face wasn’t shaped like the kind that was splashed all over magazines.
So why then, did Blaze keep studying her as if she was all of those things? Tall? Blonde? Stacked. A model worthy of magazines and billboards alike.
“So…” Blaze swirled his fork through his cheesecake and somehow made sticking it between his lips the most sexual thing on the planet.
Colette hated that the heat shimmering under her skin turned up a thousand notches, reaching near furnace levels. She squirmed a little in her chair as his eyes landed directly on her, scalding her with a heat all of their own.
“Tell me how you managed to wind up the youngest employee at HBAD. How did you manage to get your pretty, little, tight ass hired at eighteen?”
“I’m pretty sure that referring to my ass that way is grounds for sexual harassment, contract or not.”
He rolled his eyes. Actually rolled his eyes, like a normal human being experiencing humor and sarcasm at its finest. She didn’t think that Blaze Hanson actually had real emotions. That underneath that flawless skin, toned muscle, and beautiful exterior, he might just be a series of circuits and wires.
“Tell me how you managed to become one of the richest people in Florida by the time you turned thirty.”
He rolled his eyes again, and god, why was it sexy when he did that? “Richest? Please. There are so many rich people in Florida that to count them all would be like to number the rain. I’m hardly the richest. Just rich enough.”
Colette pushed her fork through her own cheesecake, which was absolutely divine. Even though she was nervous and her body was being plucked at like she was an instrument and Blaze the one to stroke her with his talented hands, even from across the table, she’d managed to taste most of her meal, not just pick at it. The cheesecake was even better, but she’d pretty much lost her appetite for being at the restaurant. She hated to admit that she just wanted to go back to his place and get it done already.
And not because she was eager.
Because the anxiety crawling up her throat and the inferno brewing under her skin were next to unbearable. The idea was a horrible one and the sooner it was over, the better.
“Well, how did you get rich enough then?”
He chuckled, a dark, spicy sound that no, she most certainly did not enjoy.
“I worked my ass off.”
“You mean you were born with a trust fund and did minimal work to get by while you partied and acted like a spoiled brat and screwed your way through school?”
His perfect lips quirked up at the corners, and no, it also wasn’t distracting that he’d had those lips on her intimate places right before dinner. Not distracting at all.
“I suppose you could say that. And after- you know. Everyone knows. I developed a few apps. They took off. Did a few more. I was always good at that.”
“Coding?”
“Giving people what they want.”
Holy. Shit. Those words and his pointed, predatory glare did not hit her right between the legs. No, her panties were not smoking or soaking. Okay, fucking shit, hell yes, they were. She squirmed uncomfortably, cursing her body for being so damn easy when it came to Blaze. For falling for his charms like everyone else with ovaries did.
She wanted to be better than that.
Though if she was, she wouldn’t be sitting there at the moment after just having signed a cherry popping contract.
Yeah. The whole thing pretty much shot her dignity to shit.
“And- you…”
“Made some good investments with that money? Developed and sold more apps? Absolutely. Got richer? Yes. Money makes more money. Did it until I could get some investors to back me so that I could make my own company? Yes. That would be right. Became a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with because we hire the best? Yes. Right, right and right.”
“Make your employees slave for you? Barely compensate them for their work while you reap all the rewards?”
His brows pulled together and his fork paused in mid-air. He slowly set it back down on his plate. The way he looked at her was absolutely terrifying, with the burning eyes of a wolf.
“I didn’t realize there was a problem with compensation. It hasn’t been brought to our attention that paying double what the average salary is for the most part, was a problem.”
“I- uh- I mean…”
“No. By all means.” He picked up his fork and dropped his gaze, but she couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief. “Tell me how you got hired at eighteen when people twice that age apply over and over and never even get called for an interview.”
Colette gave up all pretenses of eating and pushed her plate away. She met his gaze head-on, though it made her stomach cramp. Staring at Blaze’s far too handsome face was like banking another log on the blaze inside of her.
Blaze. How apt. She’d never thought of his name that way before.
Was it really his? Or maybe that was just a nickname he’d earned, judging from what he did to women, turned them to liquid, molten fire inside, and it stuck.
“I- I actually did work hard. I wasn’t born to rich parents. I never really fit in at school. I was a girl and I was interested in techy things, so people thought I was a nerd. Naturally, I was uncool and didn’t have much of a social life, so I spent it working on my own projects. My parents worked hard so that I could have a new computer, a new laptop, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff I needed. They sent me to camps so that I could learn new things, and they sure as heck weren’t cheap. I’m an only child, so I guess you can say maybe I was spoiled. Or at least, they invested their time to give me the things I needed and wanted. I got good at it. Spent all my time on it, so yeah. I guess I had a pretty impressive portfolio even when I was in high school. I made my first app when I was fifteen and it made just over five thousand dollars. That’s pretty thrilling, so I guess it inspired me to get better, work harder, all that. So yeah. Uh- I guess that’s that. I saw the ad and I applied. Got hired. End of story.”
“Except it’s not the end of the story,” Blaze said thickly.
She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and somehow even his throat was sexual. “What- uh- what do you mean?”
“Getting hired was just the start. Tell me…” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, making it glisten in lighting the expensive crystal gilded chandeliers overhead threw off. “Why did you really ask me for this? You could have had anyone.”
“No. I- well- I have no idea what you mean by anyone. I work too much. I have no social life. Never had. Probably never will. I don’t have the necessary skills to get guys to like me on dates, so I learned a long time ago not to bother.”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, it was possible, believe me. I’ve been on so many bad dates that I just stopped trying. Online dating sucks. Getting hooked up sucks. Meeting people at work sucks. It all sucks. So, yeah. Unless I wanted to die a virgin, which I don’t, I thought this was my best shot.”
“And if I’d said no and fired you?”
She shrugged, though it wasn’t as casual as she wanted it to appear. “I guess I would have lived with it. With myself. Got another job somewhere.”
“It was really worth the risk?”<
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“Honestly, I weighed the risk and I didn’t think you’d actually say no. Being that you banged your own secretary and the whole office knows it.”
“I never pegged you as one to listen to rumors.”
“The screams and the noises spoke for themselves.”
Blaze scraped the rest of his cheesecake off his plate and took his time savoring it. When Colette watched his tongue sweep out over his bottom lip like it had in the car after he’d tasted her, she very nearly spontaneously ovulated. She cursed herself for wearing lace and not her thick, absorbent, ugly as hell cotton panties.
She shifted, rubbing her legs together to try and ease the ache, but Blaze’s eyes landed on her and with a knowing light that made her face heat up and she stopped what she was doing.
“Are you going to eat that?” He indicated her barely touched cheesecake.
“No. I don’t think so. I was honestly too full for dessert, but since you ordered for me and didn’t ask…”
“I’ll eat it for you. Pass it over.”
She did, a little amazed that a guy like him could eat like that and still look like a bronzed Adonis.
“How many times a week do you work out?”
He shrugged as he started in on her dessert. “A few. Why? Do you like what you see?”
“Can you possibly say one thing that isn’t totally conceited?”
“It was just a question. Not at all conceited, unless you took it that way, since you like what you see, and you think I must know it.”
“You’re a dick.”
“What was that? You’re going to like my dick? I really have no doubt about that.”
Colette strangled a frustrated groan.
“I have a really nice penthouse. The whole top floor of a high rise downtown. I also own a king-sized bed, but I think that’s a little boring. Too vanilla, when the glass table, the quartz countertops, the massive leather sectional- bought because it easily wipes clean- or the floor, on top of the sheep skin rug in the living room, could all work well.”
Colette glanced around frantically to see if anyone near them at the other tables had heard. The other diners, who looked very well off indeed, if the amount of jewelry and fur was any indication- yes, fur, in Florida, but they went about what they were doing, eating, laughing, talking, and paid them no attention. Thank god.
“Wh-why- how… we’re having dinner!” She hissed anyway. “Have some care.”
“Why? I’m rich enough to do and say what I want, when I want.”
Ire spiked in her chest, cutting off her breath and the hair on the back of her neck stood up in pure outrage.
Colette leaned in, fisting her hands on the tabletop. “No. That is not how things work. Just because you have money, you don’t get a pass on being rude or being an asshole.”
“Asshole? I’m surprised you swear. You seem like the good girl, mousy type. The kind that goes to church every single Sunday, maybe on Wednesdays too. The kind that still has her twenty year old cherry intact.”
“Oh yeah?” she hissed, leaning even further forward.
She knew she probably looked like a crazed banshee or a raging bull with one of those straps tied over its junk for sport, but she didn’t actually care at the moment. The urge to throttle the smug bastard overrode any of her concerns for decorum or common sense. She might have just lectured him about causing a scene, but at the moment, the rules didn’t apply to her. And she didn’t have a cent to her name. Go figure.
“Here’s another one for you. Fuck you. Fuck you and this whole fucking thing. Fuck my lapse of judgment. Fuck the contract. Fuck the stupid competition. The only thing not getting fucked tonight is you.”
She shoved back her chair so quickly that it scraped noisily across the expensive tiled floor. At the moment, seeing a coating of hatred induced black, she couldn’t actually care. Everything seemed to slow down, including all the other people around them. Colette could feel the weight of their stares burning into her. She’d never been an object of scorn or ridicule before. She’d never actually asked for any kind of attention ever. Wearing a retro dress that cost twenty dollars, hardly any makeup, no plastic surgery, sans jewelry, and with only a couple grand to her name, she definitely stood out and not in a good way.
Blaze watched her every move, but even after she stormed away from the table and picked her way through the maze of tables, to the front of the extravagant restaurant with the fountain complete with koi fish and the chandelier that looked like it was probably thirty feet long. She rushed past the startled hostess and out into the night air.
It wasn’t cool and the humidity rose up to give her a wet slap to the face. She could almost instantly feel her hair straightening out and frizzing up top. A sticky sheen of sweat blanketed her skin as she walked, huffing, a few feet down the sidewalk.
Blaze still didn’t come after her.
Not that she wanted him to.
She meant what she said about the whole thing being a ridiculous mistake. Not that she’d said it like that. She could have been nice, but really, what was the need when Blaze so clearly loved being crass instead?
Her parents would have been ashamed of her. Her granny would have wept. And the fact that she thought about those two things made her want to scream. And scream and scream and scream. It didn’t matter if she walked down the sidewalk looking like a deranged psycho.
She made it down the block and Blaze never came out to see where she’d gone. He probably didn’t care. Probably wanted to finish that cheesecake. God, he probably had six other girls on speed-dial, if that was still even a thing, and was burning up his phone at the moment, ordering them to his house to fuck them in his huge bed, on the glass table, on his expensive furniture and in his kitchen.
Fuck Blaze Hanson.
Not literally.
Just figuratively.
Because she was so done with that. With guys who thought that being an ass was the only way to treat a woman. That all women were just pieces of meat and- and holes to stick their wieners in.
Colette managed to hold her head high as she marched down the street. She may have caved and looked behind her once but Blaze still wasn’t there. She was glad she had her purse and her phone and enough cash to call for a cab.
By the time she reached her apartment, an hour later, she’d decided that it didn’t matter if she stayed a virgin until she was fifty. If all that was out there were guys like Blaze Hanson, shiny and pretty on the surface, rotting on the inside, a wormy apple with in all actuality, a small dick- since he seemed to be compensating for so much by being rich and a huge jerk- she was just fine with staying single.
Maybe by the time she was fifty they would have invented robots and she could marry one of those. A robot that never talked back and answered politely, let her finish first in their strange (and likely very kinky) machine sex and actually helped around the house.
Yeah. Not likely. But she could always hope.
Until then, she was just fine with the fingers and the vibrator that Blaze had scorned. Screw him. He knew. Absolutely. Less. Than. Nothing. She’d given herself far more satisfaction in the past than he did with his stupid dinner and his stupid limo.
And no, no she wasn’t a liar.
CHAPTER 8
Colette
The shitty thing about messing up an already complicated date with a man-whore boss, was that the complications were tenfold. Colette spent the entire weekend worrying, sweating, anxiety and nerves gnawing away at her insides. She had all of Saturday and all of Sunday to think about how the date had gone wrong.
Correction. It went wrong from the second she walked into Blaze’s office and opened her big mouth. It just went downhill from there.
By the time Monday morning rolled around, Colette was such a mess that she was afraid she’d barf up the breakfast she hadn’t been able to eat, all over the elevator floor.
Somehow, she managed to make it up to her department without spewing, though bile flooded the
back of her throat and her stomach felt like a tiny little boat trapped in the middle of a storm-tossed sea. Or maybe like she was on that boat. Maybe she could make an app about that. The user was the boat. Trying to navigate stormy, tossing waters before it sank.
Yeah. It could fly.
Because thinking shitty thoughts about even shittier app ideas was still better than thinking about Blaze Hanson.
And how he’d had his mouth all over her sex. Even if her panties were in the way. And no, she didn’t think about his mouth all weekend. No, she didn’t have to tuck herself into bed after her failed date and ease the frustration with her fingers. The only reason she thought about the incident at all, was because she was trying to work out how she was going to look Blaze in the eye ever again.
Or any of her fellow employees.
She was still worrying about it, her pulse point nearly jumping out of her skin, her heart rattling around in her chest, her stomach sloshing all over the place, when Margo spotted her and made a break down the hall to trap Colette in the break room where she was tucking her lunch bag into the fridge.
Margo, who was normally fairly composed, given that she worked in accounting and had the world’s most boring job- her very words- looked like she’d just been entrusted with one hell of a secret and was dying to blurt it. Her palm hovered near her lips, as though she could keep the secret jammed inside.
Margo was one of those people that never seemed to age. She was in her early thirties, no boyfriend, no kids, two cats at home, but she looks like a cross between a teenager- with her vibrant yellow sweater and red plaid skirt, paired with canvas flats, and an 1800’s spinster, due to her hair and her old school glasses.
She had mousy brown hair that was naturally curly and never quite tamed. It usually puffed out around her head like an ominous, unruly cloud of dust kicked up on a dry back road. Her big brown eyes were wide and luminous behind her cat eyeglasses. She literally looked like a cat who just ate its owner’s favorite bird and was bursting at the seams.