Chapter 12
Dane
Fucking your assistant is a bad idea, in more ways than one, and I’m paying for it now.
That little trick, forcing me into the same suite as her for the duration of the conference—it’s a twisted knife from some cosmic force, from the universe, delivering the ultimate punishment for my lack of control.
To dangle her in front of me, her sweet perfume floating through the sitting room, her warmth just at my side as we calmly stood in the hall, watching the demonstration of a libido-building lube.
Edible lingerie, eco-friendly condoms, and more pleasure products than a single person could ever possibly make good use of.
For the first few days of the conference, I’m able to avoid Lucy for the most part. The first night, when I find her drawing me, I wait for her to walk away before grabbing the paper, picking it up like I’m checking a hand at the poker table.
It’s just a drawing of me, but it’s practically fucking obscene.
She’s captured the way I feel about her in this sketch, the look in my eyes like I could eat something alive. And that something is her.
Not only does it capture the way I feel about her, but the pencil strokes feel like a confession, too. I don’t think Lucy spends time drawing men she’s got no interest in.
Which just makes it worse for me. It would be better if she hated me, if she’d already quit and levied lawsuits against us. I’d rather give her millions than have to endure the torture of knowing she wants me and trying to resist taking advantage of that.
Now, I turn to Lucy, who’s standing next to me in the wings of the big stage, her clipboard clutched in her hands. “Where the hell is Akela?”
“I—I’m not sure,” Lucy says, looking paler than usual.
Beyond the heavy ruby curtain, I can hear the thousands of attendees shifting, murmuring, crinkling their programs with impatience.
We have five minutes until I’m supposed to go on, and Akela is nowhere to be found.
The other marketing demonstrator, Lily, was so sick from the sushi the first day that she still hasn’t been able to leave her room.
They’re both technically part of the marketing department, but the company trots them out when it’s time to show off a product in a pretty hand. We’ve sent them to various pleasure stores and conventions like this one. They also usually get a spot at the adults-only sections of certain festivals.
It was Nico’s idea to create a presence like that in marketing, a younger voice to show off the products. Of course, like most of his ideas, it was a good one.
“I’ll try and find her,” Lucy says, turning on her heel and walking away, but this is the third time she’s tried to go and find her.
Our original script for the demo had two, then we adjusted it down to one. At this point, I’m going to be going up on the stage without any support whatsoever. It’s the exact reason I didn’t want to come to the convention, why I didn’t want to do my father’s friend a favor and make an appearance.
Sure, there’s a little reward in exposure, but too much risk. It’s much harder to control the narrative when the presentations are live, and things like this can—and do—go wrong.
“Okay. Ready.” It’s a shaky voice behind me and I turn, expecting to see Akela with her.
Instead, I find Lucy standing in front of me, wearing a skin-tight, glittering dress and heels that look way outside her pay grade.
I blink, my mind attempting to understand what I’m looking at—the girl who walked into my office wearing mass-marketed, poorly manufactured, and already-fraying crap, now looking almost natural in this.
She could be a bottle girl at a club, her blond hair swept up into a high ponytail, her hands still clutching at her clipboard.
“Lucy.” It’s the only thing I manage to get out. Every ounce of my energy is spent on keeping my eyes on her face, keeping myself from taking in her breasts, her legs, the way the hem of the dress clings to her thighs.
Fuck, I could so easily slide a hand there. I could so easily get to hear those little gasps again, feel her pulse under my thumb. Right where I want her.
“I’ve got it,” she says, giving her ponytail a confident swing. “I know the entire presentation, Dane, front and back. I can do this.”
I should argue, tell her that it’s not her job. Maybe even softly inform her that there’s no way she’s going to be able to walk in those shoes. But the event coordinator is flashing let’s go hand signals in our direction, expression tight and anxious as the woman on stage finishes introducing us.
“…Dane Rourke, with Ember!”
So, giving Lucy one last look-over, I turn and step out onto the stage, hearing the click, click of her heels following right behind me.
“That was fantastic!” the coordinator blurts, and I think she’s addressing me, until she flies past and lands in front of Lucy, who’s coming off the stage right behind me.
On stage, Lucy somehow seemed to… transform. Up there, she was sexy and effortless, making the crowd laugh, playing off my speech with ease, and even ad-libbing a few.
My phone is pinging in my pocket. No doubt messages from Nico, who probably watched the entire thing on the feed, and is likely sending me more shit like what he said the night he met Lucy at the office.
Cole is still in Brazil and probably wouldn’t have watched the presentation even if he were right here, attending the conference.
“Thank you,” Lucy says, a little breathless, moving a single tendril of hair that’s escaped from her ponytail away from her face.
“How did it go?” Akela appears, croaking through a dry throat, wearing Lucy’s skirt and blazer, which look a little big on her.
She’s shaking, her face pale and sweating.
I take a step back—I take plenty of supplements to keep from getting sick, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take the chance at catching whatever they have.
Which is clearly not food poisoning, if Akela managed to catch it from her roommate.
“It went perfectly,” the coordinator says, still gushing. “Tickets for next year’s conference are already nearly sold out. We really can’t thank you enough, Mr. Rourke, for agreeing to come—”
Then I’m pulled into a conversation with her, and it’s another ten minutes before I’m able to disengage. By the time I do, Lucy is back in her own clothes, standing to the side, clearly waiting for me to say something to her.
I should tell her she did a good job. I should thank her for her quick thinking and the way she was able to save the presentation.
What I want, though, is to press her against the wall, lean my head down, and tug the hair tie right out of her hair, letting her waves fall down around her shoulders again.
Instead, I just turn to her, giving her a perfunctory nod, once again not allowing myself to really look at her. I can’t let my gaze linger, because I’ll just be torturing myself with what I can’t have. Or, worse, talking myself into taking it.
“Thank you, Lucy.” My voice is rote. Professional. Automatic. “You can head back to your room.”
Her eyes flash, just like they did the first night I told her to go back to the suite. With any luck, though, she’ll be tucked away in bed by the time I get in.
Typically, I aim for at least eight hours of sleep each night, but over the course of the convention, I’ve been getting less and less, coming back to the room later to make sure I don’t run into Lucy.
And, apparently, tonight, I don’t do a good enough job with the timing.
When I open the door to the suite and step inside, I can hear the shower running in the bathroom nearest to her room. Closing my eyes, I pause for a moment and curse softly under my breath—this is much worse than just seeing her here in the seating area.
The sound of the shower practically begs me to imagine her in there, hot water sluicing over her shoulders, hair pushed back from her face, droplets clinging to her lashes and breasts.
And, as stupid as it is, I walk over to the door to listen.
“…no, I’m not being sarcastic,” she laughs, speaking loudly to be heard over the water.
For a second, I think someone might be in there with her, then I hear the faint crackle of her phone speaker.
She must be balancing it on the edge of the shower.
“I really am happy for you. That’s great, Auggie. ”
Auggie. I think that’s one of her brothers.
“…because you were starting as a freshman—”
“Oh, please,” Lucy laughs again, and I can practically see her shaking her head, “there were like, three other girls on the team with me. Coach had to start me, or there would have been an empty spot on the court.”
The rest of their conversation centers around him starting on the football team, his excitement and nervousness, and his hope that he’ll be made a JV captain. For some reason, I stand at the door and listen to the whole thing, something aching and hollow in my chest.
If I’d gone the typical route, I could have a son. A daughter. In fact, I could have multiple grown children and several divorces under my belt by now, if I’d taken the route most men do.
But it never felt right. Staying with one woman for too long was incongruous with my other goals—and how much time I spent with Cole and Nico.
Girlfriends always had a problem with that, either not liking them, or just not understanding why we needed to keep going with the company-building when we were already so wealthy.
Not that any of them ever had a problem spending my money.
“Hey!” Lucy says, voice saccharine, and I realize she’s made a new call. This time, it’s a woman’s voice that responds.
“Lucy, are you seriously in the shower right now?”
“It’s been my only free second,” Lucy says, laughing her way through her words, just like she was with her brother. “Don’t lecture me, Mom.”
“You can’t call me that yet. My due date isn’t until the 23rd.”
“You sound scared. Are you?”
“Hell yes—” the woman cuts off, laughing, and says, “Sorry. Yes, I am. Elliot thinks I still shouldn’t swear around the babies, though they’re surrounded by fluids and don’t understand anything—”
“I promise to swear around them after they’re born,” Lucy says, loudly, apparently so Elliot can hear. “To balance things out.”
“Now Elliot is the one swearing,” Mary says, through a giggle, and the two sisters keep talking—about the ultrasound, about potential names, until eventually the topic comes around to Lucy’s work.
“…up on stage, literally holding the toys—” Lucy cuts herself off from laughing too hard, then chokes out, “I promise I looked so stupid, Mary.”
She didn’t look stupid, but Mary isn’t laughing. Instead, quietly, she says, “You should be careful, Luce. If Mom and Dad catch sight of a video like that…”
I hover near the door, wondering what, exactly, her parents might do to their adult daughter. It’s not even like Lucy is still in college. She’s a grown woman, living on her own—albeit with a family member—but with a degree and a well-paying job.
“I know,” Lucy says, with a gravity to her answer that tells me she’s already thought about it.
Sure, I’m aware there’s such a thing as the bible belt, and that some people aren’t as modern as others, but are there really people simple enough to degrade Lucy just because she works for a pleasure-oriented company?
What’s the difference, after all, between sex and cake? Or watching sports, enjoying art? Chasing bodily pleasure is just another way to express what it means to be human.
Of course, there is the proof of my own father disapproving of my company, so maybe it’s not that hard to imagine after all.
“But otherwise, things are going good? You think you’re getting the experience you need? You’re coming home during the summer to help me change diapers, right?”
Lucy’s voice is tight, “Oh, yeah. And I have planned time off for around your due date—but I’ll be treating it like a vacation, lounging in the hospital, you know…”
I pull away from the door as her sister laughs, instantly rejecting the idea of her leaving the city. It’s clear she doesn’t want to, either.
Lucy ends the call with her sister and lets out a sigh that I can hear over the water and through the door. I stand there for another long moment, even going so far as to hover my hand over the doorknob.
I could work that stress out of her. I could pick her up, have her loop her legs around my waist, and move against her until she wasn’t thinking about anything else.
And, fuck, was she tight. Likely, more from her own tenseness than from being a virgin, but to my cock, it didn’t make a difference.
I try to ignore thoughts of Lucy toweling off, rubbing lotion over her skin, drying her hair and slipping into pajamas. Is she wearing new ones, maybe a set she bought with my card?
It wouldn’t make sense, considering my reason for giving her the card is to look the part in public. But still, I hope that she did. That when she gets out of the shower, she’s going to slide a lush, silk fabric over her skin, and it will be because of me.
I want to tell her to use my card for anything. Treats, meals, more outfits. A new car, if she wants. Anything she wants. The thought of it makes my cock twitch.
Lucy lets out another sigh, and I force my hand away from the doorknob, force myself to take a step back, then another. I’ve already decided this isn’t a good idea—already told her coldly enough that it made her cry. Now, doing anything to contradict what I said would just be cruel.
I’m not looking to play games with her. And if I don’t get myself under control, all I’m going to accomplish is hurting her again.
So I turn to go, to walk into my room and stay there for the rest of the night, to avoid seeing her and finding out for myself what, exactly, her pajamas look like.
That is, I’m about to walk away when I hear another noise from her, and this time, it’s not a sigh.
It’s a startled yelp, followed by a sliding sound—the telltale squeak of a foot slipping in a tub—and a heavy, sudden thump.
Without thinking about the repercussions—without thinking, full stop—I turn and throw open the bathroom door, her name already on my lips.