Chapter Six
Asher
“Tell us about this software developer helping you,” Marcus said after I sat down at the table with him, Cassie, Lucas, and Miles at the local watering hole after work.
“Emma? What’s there to say?” Emma had been very distracted this afternoon; so was I, and her honeysuckle fragrance still tickled my senses.
“Evasion,” Miles said.
“You met her; what’d you think?” Lucas asked Miles.
“Nice lady. Kind of shy. She had no idea what kind of company Fantasies, Inc. is.”
“What?” Marcus’s voice rose, and he leaned forward. “And you—” He lowered his voice and waved his hand at me. “—brought her to R&D first?”
Okay, that might not have been the best idea.
I shrugged. “It seemed like the logical choice.” Actually, it had given me some valuable insight into Emma.
I was attracted to her, but it seemed to be more than a simple attraction.
I liked the way her eyes widened at the array of toys, how her skin flushed when I told her how I’d use the massage oil.
Maybe I liked her a little too much. Taking her to R&D gave me a chance to see how she would react to the company and what we did.
Oh, some might argue with me about it, but she’d been aroused from my words. And I noticed how her skin flushed, and how she’d shifted from one foot to the other and wouldn’t raise her gaze to meet mine.
“Logical?” Miles stared at him. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t get an HR complaint against you.”
“We were talking about what was needed, and she asked me about R&D. I decided to show her what they did. In order for the IT expansion and reconfiguration to go smoothly, she needs to understand what FI does from the inside out.” Sure, I could’ve started gradually with Cassie’s department or even Lucas in finance.
Marcus shook his head. “We’re lucky she didn’t run screaming out of the room.”
“Emma is made of sterner stuff.” My gut told me she was tougher than she wanted anyone to know, and she didn’t seem to shy away when we walked into the room.
“Bring her up to my department tomorrow,” Lucas commented. “Finance would be a good place to start. We’re getting buried in paperwork right now.”
“I can do that.”
Dinner conversation was enthusiastic, sometimes pointed, and covered everything from the weather to sports to vacation plans to the latest movies. A great way to let off steam. We were all driving, so the alcohol was limited, but the coffee flowed freely.
The party broke up some three hours after it started. On the drive home, I kept going back to the massage oil fantasy I’d described to Emma. I couldn’t shake my attraction to her. She’d intrigued me when I first encountered her at the party, but now… Yeah, there was something more going on here.
I arrived home, and after parking the car in the garage, I sat for a moment to decompress and enjoy the silence.
Once inside the house, I locked the door and kicked off my shoes, then stopped at the bar in the great room and poured two fingers of Macallan 25 into a crystal tumbler. An expensive, rare indulgence.
The drapes were still open on the picture windows overlooking Puget Sound. I took another sip of the exquisitely smooth bourbon, enjoying the warmth as it slid down my throat and warmed my center.
I needed some ocean time. Maybe this weekend.
My house in Moclips is right on the beach. The property became available four years ago. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and snatched it up. Getting oceanfront property was difficult. The place needed work, and refurbishing it had been therapeutic for me.
I closed on the property right after my divorce was finalized. The end of the marriage was a nightmare, but thanks to the prenup, at least the distribution of the assets and the settlement had been cut and dried. Once free from my ex, my life was my own again.
I spent guilt-free weekends at the beach house stripping, painting, remodeling, restoring, basically living the DIY dream. The real life This Old House odyssey had soothed my soul and helped me recover from the matrimonial disaster and, yep, my ex.
My thoughts wandered. What would Emma think of my beach house?
We could sit out on the deck, watch the waves roll in, and soak in the tranquility. Emma had a quiet personality. She might enjoy some peace and quiet.
Turning away from the moonlit beauty of the small white capped waves on the Sound, I finished the last of the Macallan and left the tumbler on the bar on my way into my home office. I booted up my computer, curious to see how much progress she’d made today.
The logs showed Emma had reviewed the network architecture and the mainframe configuration and set up a file for her notes. Not bad for an afternoon’s work.
After shutting down my computer, I wandered into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, twisted the cap off, and padded into the family room. I found the remote under one of the throw pillows and flipped on the 70-inch flat screen TV.
The baseball game was still on. I settled into the recliner, took a long pull of the beer, and felt the tension of the day finally leave my neck and shoulders.
I’d see Emma tomorrow. She fascinated me, and my heart raced as I made a promise to myself.
I would discover all of her secrets.