Chapter Thirty-Nine Rae
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Rae
I AM LITERALLY TIED to my chair. And… I don’t hate it.
Okay, if I’m being completely honest, the way my body’s reacting is… shockingly inappropriate for a work environment.
Which is apparently the way Grant and I roll.
And, yes, I feel lots and lots of guilt about it.
It’s just that, at this very minute, the guilt is far outweighed by all the other stuff.
Stuff like my nipples, which are currently hard at attention and firmly pro-Grant, and my skin, which has gone prickly hot.
A new email pops up in my inbox. I open it, focusing hard on the words and on controlling my breathing. Okay. I can do this.
I respond to the message with information that I literally gave to the entire team last week. It’s fine. I’m used to it.
Alrighty then. Back to updating the employee development file.
Behind me, Grant’s typing like nothing ever happened, and the sound of it is too much.
I shut my eyes, squirm a little in my chair, and test my legs for wiggle room.
The belt is loose enough that I can wrestle my way out if I want to.
If necessary, I can also just reach down and pull the bow open, but…
I really, really don’t want to. I want…
“Sticky notes,” I say through dry lips.
When he doesn’t immediately reply, I push on the desk to spin his way and wait for his eyes to meet mine. He removes his headphones, looks down at where my nipples are fighting the good fight to get out of this top, and back up.
“Yes, Rae?”
“I, um, I need sticky notes.”
“Ah. And where would those be?”
I point at a storage cabinet on the far wall. “Second shelf, left.”
He seems perfectly content to walk over to the cupboard and search it, his hand finally finding the big, yellow stickies. When he holds them up, I shake my head.
“I need the Les Mis ones.”
“The Les Mis ones. I assume you mean Les Misérables, the musical.” At my nod, he returns the stickies and continues his search. After a good thirty seconds, he says, “I don’t see them.”
“Oh, they’re… in the box, actually. There, beside the little clothespin thingies.” I smile. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem.” He takes a long look at the miniature clothespins before handing over the stickies. “Anything else?”
At my headshake, he returns to his desk.
Twice more over the next half hour, I ask for things, and both times, he gets them for me, no complaints. Nothing, really, except for this knowledge—this secret—between us.
When someone knocks at the door, I jolt halfway out of my seat, almost tripping in the process. I sit just as a head pops in and, oh shit, it’s Otty. Is it after 6:00 p.m. already? I forgot she was coming. Suddenly, all our subtle, sexy transgressiveness disappears, and I am frantic.
“Hey, Beanie! Nice digs!” she says, casting a quick look at Grant and then back at me with an obvious eyebrow hike. “Hel-lo, there!”
“Otty!” I force a smile, even though I have never fought so hard not to cringe, because I have found one more flaw in this game, and it is that I can’t even turn fully to look at her.
If I do, she’ll see the front of my legs.
And she’ll know. Hell, she’s my sister. She’ll know something’s up anyway. “Meet Grant! Grant, Otty.”
“Grant? It’s a pleasure. You must be Beanie’s new colleague.”
“The pleasure is mine. Otty?” I don’t have to turn around to feel Grant’s eyes shift to me. “Beanie?”
“Yes. It’s my childhood nickname,” I say awkwardly over my shoulder. “Otty is my sister.”
“Ah.” I strain to watch his gaze go from me back to my sister. “I see the resemblance.”
“Yeah?” Otty grins, her dimples working overtime. “I’m the youngest, obviously.”
“Of how many?”
“Three,” I tell him.
“The kids…”
“Not mine. Thank god.” She shudders. “I’m still in the sowing wild oats phase.”
Grant smiles at her, and I feel the strangest combination of pride and hurt. I’m proud because Otty’s funny, and I’ll always be proud of my baby sister. The hurt is 100 percent that smile. Grant never, ever smiles at me like that. Only scowls and frowns and glowers for me.
“She’s here for the laundry.”
“Laundry.” Grant looks at me blankly.
“In the closet. The top.”
“Ah. Yes. Of course.”
The second he goes to grab it from the top shelf, Otty makes an inappropriate—but shockingly apt—two-finger-and-a-tongue motion behind his back, and I swear I almost die a little, trapped here at the very desk upon which he did indeed recently perform possibly the world’s best oral.
If only Otty knew.
No. No, hopefully she will never know.
“Thank you, Grant,” she says, accepting the pile of laundry, which I belatedly recall prominently features at least one pair of lace panties and… yep. That’s me, even closer to dying than I was a second ago.
“Want to go grab a little cocktail, or…”
“I can’t. I’m…” I cast my captor a frantic look.
“Meeting,” he provides. “Very important.”
“O-kay.” Otty slides a look between us.
“I’ll go for a drink!” Sam yells from her desk back in the lobby, followed by the clop of her shoes across the hardwood floor. And then she’s here, too, in the office, where I’m being willingly held prisoner. “Come on, Rae. Everyone’s gone home.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She’s needed.” Grant couldn’t be more serious.
“Sorry.” Avoiding Sam’s eye, I give a weak nod. I swear that my heart’s about to give out. “Important audit stuff.”
“Really.” Sam’s eyebrows lift almost to her hairline.
“Yes. Really,” I say, forcing a tepid smile.
“Fine. Have a good meeting.” I can almost hear Sam’s air quotes on that last word.
“Bye, guys. Where to, Samuela?” Otty follows Sam to her desk.
“Just so you know, every single person has left the building,” Sam calls from the lobby. “Good night!”
“Bye!” I reply as they head to the door, and then outside, their voices fading as they go. They are 100 percent going to spend the next hour talking about Grant and me.
“Did you do your sister’s laundry?” Grant asks.
“Oh my god.” I drop my head on my desk.
“You washed and folded your adult sister’s clothes?”
“Do you think she saw? Does she know?” I ask, ignoring his question entirely in favor of much more pressing details.
He shakes his head. “No. I’ll lock up. You stay put.” Just before he heads out into the lobby, his eyes do that thing where the humor gives way to that dark, knowing glimmer. That heat.
I spend an excruciating couple of minutes waiting, tied to my chair, while Grant takes his time making sure the offices are empty. When he returns, he shuts the door and leans back against it, watching me.
“Can you take this thing off me now? Please?” I beg, feeling silly and excited. We both know how easily I could remove the belt myself.
“Are you going to stay in your seat like a good girl? Stop getting up and running around and doing everything for everyone?”
“Yes.”
His head tilts at a curious angle. “You’re lying.”
I’m about to deny it when the truth hits me. He’s right. I am constantly running. The only time I’m not is when I’m at home working on my book nooks. And even then, I’m keeping busy. Busy hands, busy brain.
“I see what you’re doing, Grant.”
“Do you?”
“You’re trying to get me to… do less extraneous stuff. Just stick to my job?”
“Will you?”
“There’s no way my extracurricular activities fall under your purview.”
“Actually, Sunny, I’ve decided to take a personal interest in your extracurricular activities.”
Whoosh. All my blood rushes to my bottom half, leaving me lightheaded.
“Oh?” I manage.
When he sinks to the floor beside my chair this time, there’s a strange tenderness in my chest and my throat. I feel swollen and full and off-kilter, like there’s too much or too little oxygen flowing to my brain.
“Grant.”
“Yes, Rae?”
“What are we doing?”
He stops moving, my trench coat belt now stretched between his hands. Only his eyes shift up until they meet mine, the connection like a hit of something illicit. Bigger, better than anything I’ve ever felt.
He exhales, mouth open, so silently I wonder if my hearing’s gone. And then, still quiet, he says, “On the floor, Sunny. Now.”