Stir (The Sizzle TV Series Book 5)

Chapter 12 – Nic

Pounding on Finn’s door at seven forty-five in the morning isn’t what I’d call neighborly, but fuck it. I’m not feeling particularly neighborly this morning.

“Nic? Everything okay?”

Finn answers the door, his dress shirt unbuttoned, cuffs open, barefoot. He lets the door fall open wide as he wrestles with the buttons on one sleeve.

“I need to get to the office. Should I go on without you?” I avoid his eyes, focusing somewhere over his shoulder, ignoring that he’s only half-dressed, thinking carefully about anything but last night.

Except there’s a long, heavy-looking table in the hall behind him.

Finn notices the direction of my gaze and clears his throat. A quick glance tells me he’s not looking at me either. His cheeks are burning.

“No, give me two minutes,” he says.

“Fine.”

“Do you want to, uh…” He points vaguely over his shoulder.

“No.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course. Two minutes.” The door snicks shut.

Jesus Christ.

I’ve been careful to think about other things all morning. Something else, anything else. Meal delivery. Cat’s litter box. Whether or not I could possibly double my caseload so I’d have to live in my office. Leaving the country for a while, perhaps. Anything but last night.

The air this morning hints at spring, not nearly frigid enough to cool me off. I’m not that guy. I don’t begrudge my personal assistant her personal life. On the contrary, Natalie deserves to have everything she wants.

Which is, evidently, wall-banging sex with my next-door neighbor.

I shiver as Finn opens the door. He hasn’t pulled his jacket on yet, so I get to see the leather straps of his shoulder holster and the pistol strapped in near his left arm. It’s hotter than hell, even hotter in person than seeing them in TV cop dramas I absolutely do not watch, and don’t ask me where the hell I picked up a leather kink, but in about five seconds, these suit pants are going to make it clear to anybody who looks just how I feel about the leather.

Maybe it’s not the leather. Maybe it’s the weapon. Or his shoulders. Or it’s the ease with which he settles his suit coat over the whole setup. Competence is sexy.

Which is irrelevant because this I do not need. The whole morning so far, combined with a nonexistent night’s sleep, does nothing to improve my outlook on this day.

The drive to work takes twice as long as it ought to because of an accident. Possibly also because the universe hates me. Either could be true today. So much for trying to avoid seeing Natalie this morning.

Not that I don’t want to see her. I always want to see her; that’s the problem. Today, it’ll be with the full knowledge of what happened last night. If I’d just stayed in my damn apartment last night, she’d never have known I was there at all.

I’dhave known. Finn probably would have known. But Natalie wouldn’t have to worry about what I might think of her. If I could go back and spare her that, I would, and not just because it would spare me knowing about the fucking lace at the top of her stockings or her blue lace lingerie. I only caught the smallest glimpse as she jerked her skirt back down, but that color is written in my memory for life.

If I hadn’t opened that damned door, I probably would have stayed in my bedroom, where I can’t hear any sound coming from Finn’s. I wouldn’t know what she sounds like when she wants more, when she’s overwhelmed by lust. What she sounds like when she comes.

“Easy there, boss man,” says Finn, his knuckles white on the armrest. “If we end up in an accident, we’ll really be late.”

I huff at him but back off the gas pedal anyway as we approach the building. I pull into my spot, throw the car into park, and if I slam the door a little too hard, well, it’s my fucking car, and I’m allowed.

Finn trots up behind me, hustling to catch up.

“Do we need to have a conversation, Nic?”

“No.”

That shuts him up until we get into the elevator, which is mercifully jammed full of other people.

Finn is at my elbow, jostling just a little too close, when the woman next to him shifts her laptop bag. His arm grazes my stomach, and I stare at the numbers over the door as though, with enough focus, I might just be able to set them on fire.

“You sure?” asks Finn. His voice is low, hushed.

“I am. Don’t ask me again.” I meet his eyes.

Three orgasms ought to have been enough to tide me over. I’m thirty-four years old, for God’s sake. Still, a year-plus of celibacy combined with the dual powers of Natalie and Finn-fucking-Hale is driving me crazy. He holds my gaze as the elevator arrives at our floor.

It would be too much to hope he takes the hint and stays in the outer office. Nope. He follows me right through, closing the door to my private office behind him. I set down my things deliberately, raising a brow at him.

“Problem?” I ask.

“One of us clearly has one,” he says, his tone deceptively mild. “I need to know what yours is.” He folds his arms, bracing his feet in front of the door as though he’s going to keep me in here until I answer him.

Joke’s on him. I have no intention of stepping foot out of this room until I absolutely have to. There’s an en suite bath and everything. I could live here.

Bit dramatic, Nic. Rein it in. You’re the boss here, after all. They’ll follow your lead.

Using a trick from law school, I focus on a spot on the door just above Finn’s head and walk toward him deliberately.

“My problem is, this is my workplace. You are currently keeping me from doing my job.”

“So, this little tantrum isn’t about me and Natalie.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re awfully touchy today,” says Finn, backing off a little. The faintest hint of doubt creeps into his expression as I advance on him.

“Thank you for the observation.” I stop just that little bit too close. I don’t want to actually threaten the man—he’s got at least thirty pounds of muscle on me, not to mention the gun. “Anything else before you go?”

His lips quirk, the tiny action just enough to draw my attention to his mouth. His lips are a bit swollen today. Or perhaps that’s my overheated imagination. Certainly, they got a workout last night from the split-second I saw. And heard.

His murmuring and her cries. The pounding that couldn’t be explained by anything but hips thrusting against that table I saw in his hall.

I had closed my front door, intending to leave them to it, but my feet wouldn’t move from that spot in the hall. For a moment, the sounds vanished, and I thought Finn and Natalie had gone further into the apartment, beyond the reach of my ears. Before I could pull myself together to walk away, something thumped against the wall, and after that…

After that, I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move at all, blood thrumming, dick hard, fists clenching and flexing against the need to shut out the sounds or to hold me in place to hear it all. Her ecstasy, his desperation, their combined release, all of it. Quiet conversation I couldn’t make out. I was stunned when Natalie left.

He’d returned alone. After Finn let himself into his apartment, my knees wouldn’t hold me up anymore. I’d had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling to the floor. I’d barely gotten my fly open, managed to get a desperate grip on my cock, and came so hard it shook me inside and out. I hadn’t been quiet about it.

It never once occurred to me that he’d heard me after all that.

Fucking idiot.

The full truth of what happened last night lies written between us, and Finn is aware of it every bit as much as I am.

“You heard,” he says superfluously. His expression turns stubborn when I don’t respond. “I heard you, too.” Color burns high along his cheekbones.

I just stare him down in stony silence.

“I’m not going away, Nic.”

“This is pointless,” I say, my teeth gritting. “Natalie will be here any moment.”

“That’s right,” he says, pointing a finger at me, poking me in the chest lightly. “And if you embarrass her any more?—”

“Are you seriously warning me about my behavior toward my employee?”

“That’s the kicker, though, isn’t it, Nic?” he says, still poking me. “She’s not just an employee.”

Goddamn it. Goddamn it all to hell and back.

“Whatever you’re insinuating, I expect you to keep it to yourself.”

“I’m not insinuating anything,” says Finn. “If you’d told me you had feelings?—”

“Stop right there.” He’s bigger than me, but most people will go out of their way to avoid confrontation. That goes double for straight men when you invade their space.

Sure, Finn works for me too, and under normal circumstances, I’d never dream of speaking to an employee this way, nor a neighbor, probably not even to an acquaintance. But right now, I need him to get the hell out of here before he looks down and sees how worked up I really am over this whole mess.

I step forward, leaning into his space. He’s only slightly taller than me, so tipping up my chin has me breathing the same air. I expect him to crowd back against the door, to back off as fast as he can, to reclaim his personal space.

Instead, his lips part, his eyes dilate, and his breath quickens. He smells like soap and shaving cream and that damned leather, either from my car or the holster beneath his coat, I can’t tell. I want to sink my teeth into him, and for just that instant, I don’t bother to hide that I want him.

The main office door opens and closes firmly.

“Nic? Finn? Are you here?” calls Natalie.

And there it is—panic. All over his face. Finn’s head snaps up, and I step back, letting him go, grabbing the door before he can slam it shut in his escape.

“Morning, Natalie. I’ve got some calls to make,” I say casually, waving as I close the door quietly behind his rapid retreat to the common area.

I make it to the en suite and lock the door before doing the unthinkable, jerking my zipper down and taking my cock in hand.