4. Random Hipster
Sacha
Magnes Loch strolls into my office without any preamble, ducking his long green neck to clear the door frame. The human-sized plesiosaur is wearing a dark gray suit—his usual color of choice—with an emerald button-down shirt under it. It compliments his scaly yellow-green skin.
The suit is a custom Brooks Brothers. I know because there’s only one decent tailor in town who can make a suit for an odd body shape like one of ours, and both Ness and I use him.
Back in college—when Cryptech was just a start-up—Magnes, Pleasant and I could make do with t-shirts and whichever pair of pants we found in extra-tall, but these days, we have to look good to be taken seriously by humans. I don’t mind the buttoned-up look, but Magnes really thrives in it. He was meant to be rich; he’s so comfortable with the advantages that come with this life.
“New assistant? Again?” Magnes asks in his thick Scottish brogue. He still hasn’t dropped the accent since he moved to America after the Decrypting.
I grunt a non-response from my sport behind my desk. “She’s a temp. Just got here today.”
“She’s bonnie.” The Scottish bastard twists his neck completely over his shoulder to peer through the door. I feel my blood pressure rise.
“Stay away from her, Ness,” I say without thinking. For a talking dinosaur, he’s always found it easy to sleep with humans. His accent, money and fashion sense seem capable of seducing any type of woman. He had a fate-mate once, but since Caddy left him, neither my heart nor my memory can keep up with the bevy of partners that sweep through his bedroom.
The dinosaur’s head jerks back to me, and he raises one smooth eyebrow. The jerk has the gall to smirk. “Feeling possessive, are we?”
“No.”
He folds his large frame into one of my chairs. He’s technically a few inches taller than me, if you include his neck, but his limbs and torso are closer in scale to a human man. “You can be distracted after we close the Illiad deal.”
“I’m not distracted,” I reiterate.
“It’s the biggest account we’ve ever had. It could double our capital.” He continues the conversation as he pulls out his phone and uses his large green fingers to unlock the screen. Face recognition technology doesn’t always work with his odd physiology.
“I’m the fucking CFO, I know what the stakes are.”
“Double the capital means double the pussy.” Ness grins lasciviously at his phone. “Until this is finished, I need you on your A-game, buddy.”
“I’m fine,” I snap. “I’m not you.”
“Obviously.” Ness snorts. “I know how to handle myself around women I want to fuck.”
I hiss at him to be quiet. “I don’t—” I stop, stepping past him and crossing to the door between my office and Bay’s alcove. I reach for the handle and catch her eye; she gives me a gut-wrenching smile. Her blue eyes brighten, and her cheeks plump up as she grins.
I feel my face struggling to respond correctly. I hope she can’t see the lust battling with sheer excitement in my brain. I barely know the woman, but my inner beast roars when she looks at me.
“You were saying, Sacha?” Ness laughs.
I close the door and whirl at my company co-owner.
“I don’t want to fuck her,” I hiss, hoping she won’t hear past the door.
“It’s okay if you do,” Ness says before his face softens a little. “Just wait until this deal goes through. Then, you can go for it.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter, unwilling to admit my real feelings to him. I don’t know how he would react if he knew I’d found my mate, not after his rejected him.
“I am,” he grins, “and you have a thing for that woman.”
“She works for me. The power imbalance is too high in my favor. It would be wrong. I?—”
Magnes gives me a look of complete pity that stops me mid-rant. I realize I’m starting to sound like an obsessed fool. “Come out with me this weekend,” he says. “There’s a hot new cryptid bar. We’ll meet some women who like their men tall, repressed, and hairy. You can find a random pink-haired hipster to take home with you and get your mind off of that one.”
“I don’t want some random hipster,” I insist. I want her.
“Come out with me anyway! We’ll get drinks, have a good time. You haven’t let loose for a while, Sacha.”
“No.”
He leans forward, resting his hands on his knees, his long neck craning toward me. There’s a moment of serious silence—something you rarely get with Ness.
“When was the last time you took a vacation?” Ness cocks his head to one side.
“What does it matter?” I ask.
“Pleasant and I wondered if you might want to take a break?”
“A break? Now?”
“Once we’ve wrapped up this case.”
“I don’t have time to take a break.” I huff out a breath.
“You’re stressed, Sacha.”
“We’re all stressed.” I gesture between the two of us.
“You”ve been an even bigger jerk than usual. You need to take a break.”
“We’ve all three been working nonstop since college to make this company what it is.”
“You’vebeen working nonstop. Pleasant and I have both taken a number of stops. He’s wrapped around the finger of that terrible woman.” Ness’s phone pings and he glances down at it with a smirk. “And it looks like I’ve got a blonde pit-stop lined up for this weekend.”
“I should finish the presentation this weekend,” I grumble.
“You should go out into the world, get laid, take your mind off the pretty little lass.”
I glare at him. She’s mine. Nothing is going to take her off my mind. “I won’t come into the office. Is that good enough for you?”
“What are you going to do instead?” he prods.
“I’ll make plans.”
“Staying home and thinking about your assistant while you tug on your little foot, isn’t a plan.”
“I’ll figure something out,” I snap. There are things I would like to be doing, with Bay, if she’d let me. “Sushi. I heard about a new place I’d like to try.”
“Can I come with?” Ness asks.
I shake my head, “You wouldn’t like it.”
“How would you know?” He asks.
“Because they don’t serve the sushi on top of a naked woman, Ness.”
Ness laughs and smiles. “Fair enough. As long as you are getting out of the office.”
“I will be.” I ignore him. I’m certainly not going to tell Ness that I heard about the place while eavesdropping on my sexy new assistant’s conversation. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.