Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
July
I’m so flustered, I forget how revolving doors work.
Walking too fast, I run smack into the glass, hanging my head in shame and slowing to a shuffle. Did I even grab my purse running out the café?
Yes. Yes, it’s on my shoulder.
With sweaty hands, I fumble through the process of taking out my badge and swiping through security, blurting a hello to the guards who are watching me with speculation. Probably because I never leave my desk for lunch and the one time I do, I come back looking like I got swept up in a tornado.
In a lot of ways, I did.
His name was Theo.
When I get into the elevator and punch the button for the twenty-third floor, I don’t process any of the conversations taking place around me. I’m careful to keep a distance between me and the person beside me, just in case I’m as hot to the touch as I feel. Wouldn’t want to burn anyone alive.
What just happened?
Like… what?
For starters, I sat down at the wrong table, which is humiliating enough, because…that man, Theo, was nothing short of a ten in the looks department. Way out of my league. Tall, intense. An abundance of sinewy strength. Weathered.
Straight up hot. Life experience hot. Capability porn hot.
Who was I kidding sitting down across from him in my sensible sweater and oxfords? Now that I’m the last one on the elevator, I groan up at the ceiling. When I drop my chin again, I catch my reflection in the steel doors. Flushed. Glassy eyed.
He came.
He climaxed at the table.
The memory of it returns in perfect clarity, just throat muscles straining, his chest rifling up and down, her eyes zeroed in on my mouth. I’m going to bust if you don’t stop touching me, July. Hell, if you keep looking at me like that, it’s going to happen.
I move aside my scarf, staring at the reflection of my spiked nipples through the front of my sweater and…suddenly, I’m noticing the curve of my hips, the shape of my calves. The wild toss of my hair.
Am I attractive enough to make a man spontaneously ejaculate?
Did that really happen?
My body thrums as if it did. There’s a drumbeat pulse between my thighs and a telltale wetness making my panties cling uncomfortably. When I blink, I’m assailed by the vision of Theo on the other side of the elevator, charging at me. Shoving me backward against the wall, jerking my skirt up and filling me.
Baby’s a virgin , he mutters thickly in my ear. Lucky me.
The elevator doors open and I’ve never felt more exposed walking into the sweeping floor comprised of cubicles, offices, a lounge area. Donner Advertising has been my work home for two years, since I graduated from Tulane. It doesn’t feel like home right now, though. I’m in a waking dream in which I’ve arrived here naked.
“You have clothes on,” I murmur to myself, throwing my purse down on my cubicle desk. But I don’t sit down. I’m too restless. I’m…
Oh man, I’m so turned on.
I barely even know what this feeling means, I’ve been turned on so few times in my life. Men always make me feel like an alien. Like a placeholder until they can find someone sexier and more confident. Theo…he made me feel like the ultimate catch. My thighs quiver like jelly as I stand and stare at my workspace, my tummy in a perpetual summersault, remembering how he jerked and grunted into the cloth napkin, his ripped body in the throes of an orgasm.
Without thinking, I turn on my heel and beeline for the restroom. What I’m planning to do is shameful and scandalous, not to mention unethical, but I can’t concentrate. I think…yes, I think I need to touch myself or I’m going to melt. My clit throbs excitedly now that the questionable decision has been made, my underwear clinging tighter, as if my sex is swelling with anticipation. Have I ever been this aroused before?
Before I can reach the bathroom—and much to my horror—my boss, Elsa Vikander, blocks my path. “Miss Newsom. You’re back from lunch.”
In dramatic eye makeup and a leather dress, this woman has modeled her entire personality on Maleficent. Normally, she makes me shake in my oxfords, but I’m still coming down off the strangest lunch date of the century, so all I can do is stare at her and try not to look like I was on my way to masturbate in the company bathroom. “Good afternoon, Ms. Vikander. What can I do for you?”
“Funny enough, your lunch outing made me think…”
“It did? How?” I say, wide-eyed.
“Because I went to your desk to ask you a question and you weren’t there.” She laughs, as if this is the funniest thing she’s ever experienced. “It made me realize how many times you’ve worked through your lunch break. Sad, really. But productive.”
What a hoot. “Thanks. Uh. Yes, well…”
“And it got me thinking, that kind of dedication should be rewarded with opportunity.” She leaves that statement hanging in the air, for dramatic suspense, I guess. “I’m going to let you present a campaign to Yerbi on Friday.”
“You’re…what?”
I’m not horny anymore.
I’m frozen. A deer in headlights.
“You heard me,” chuckles Elsa, taking a long sip of her flavored seltzer. “I want to get some new blood into the boardroom. See if we can tackle our slump with youth and synergy.”
“We’re in a slump?”
“Eh, it’s minor.” She glances back over both shoulders. “Yerbi didn’t like what I came up with for their fall baby food flavor campaign and you know what? It probably did suck. I hate babies.” She shrugs. “Anyway, they requested someone new on their project, and I thought, why not July Newsom?”
“Because July Newsom has a fear of public speaking.”
“There’s only one way to get over that.”
“Klonopin?”
“No, silly. Speaking publicly. A lot. Starting Friday.” She pats my cheek. “Better to have you fail than me, I always say.”
Elsa sails off in a condescending cloud of Opium by YSL before I have the chance to tell her I can’t do the presentation. That I will have a panic attack if positioned in front of enough people. I’m a background person. I’m quiet. I like doing the grunt work and letting someone else take the glory. That’s what I’ve been doing up until now. Setting up ideas for Elsa to knock down. Isn’t everyone in the office comfortable with that, too? I’m treated like the cute but dorky assistant who doesn’t know how the world works.
I might not be happy in that role, but I’m comfortable in it.
I return to my desk in a daze.
A double daze.
When I get there, my co-worker, Dierdre, is sitting in my chair, looking exasperated. “There you are!” she exclaims, pushing out of the chair. “Why didn’t you show up for your date with Kevin?”
Oh my gosh, I’ve been so wrapped up in my indecent thoughts, I forgot that I’d eventually have to explain my absence at the coffee date. “It’s kind of a funny story.”
She curls her upper lip at me. “Kevin doesn’t think it’s funny. He waited for half an hour.”
I wince. “To be fair, I was actually there. At the café.”
“You were? ” Her mouth hangs open a moment. “You didn’t think he was cute?”
Do I tell her the truth? I have to give some explanation or she’ll think I’m just a flake. An abbreviated version, however, because…I’m still processing what actually happened. And maybe I want to keep it to myself. “I sat down at the wrong table. With the wrong guy.”
No, he was the right one , whispers my brain.
Despite the fact that he came in his pants. At the table.
What is wrong with me?
Dierdre is still slack jawed. “Only you, July. I swear, you’re too green for your own good. Why didn’t you get up when you realized it was the wrong dude?”
“He was…it was…” I swallow hard. “I can’t really explain it. We started talking and I found out he recently returned from overseas. I guess you had to be there,” I finish lamely.
“Are you going to go on another date with him?”
“No,” I scoff, my heart sinking at the thought of never seeing the intense former POW again. “No. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? ”
“He’d have to track me down. I didn’t even give him my number.”
I had to run out of the café before I had a public orgasm, too.
Who would believe me?
Eyes narrowed, Dierdre slowly takes out her phone. “I’ll explain to Kevin what happened and see if I can set up another date.”
“No.” I stay her hand, before I know what I’m doing. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Do you think you can do better?” she laughs a little to herself. “Or do you just like this soldier?”
Painfully aware that I’m blushing to the roots of my hair, I skirt past Dierdre to get to my desk. “Sorry, I have to work,” I mutter.
And a soldier to try and get out of my head. He stirred up something inside of me. Something needy and sexual. Against my better judgment, he left me wanting to know more about him, the source of his pain. But that doesn’t change the fact that climaxing in public is a giant red flag. I’m a safe girl. I pay attention to warnings.
Right?
Yes.
I need to pay attention to this one.