Chapter 10 #2
She did me the great disservice of peeling down the front of her dress just enough to pry out her phone. Then she handed it over. “If you destroy it, I will do a binding spell on your unmentionables.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded unpleasant. Besides, I had a brand new fixation.
Her phone was warm from her body. All those delicious curves had been snuggled up against this plastic.
I’d never been jealous of an inanimate object before.
“Are you okay?”
I wasn’t at all sure, but I nodded and let out an exasperated breath. “You have to unlock it first. I don’t have your face.”
“You are truly the king of the obvious.” She did the honors for me before setting it in my hand again.
I scrolled through her contacts in her message app. Luna was on top—labeled Best Bish—but half a dozen down was an entry labeled Big Dick Energy.
“Who is this?” I stabbed her phone.
“I can’t see it when your big finger is blocking the screen. Stop flailing about and let me see.” She batted my hand away and smiled slowly. “Oh. Him. He’s no one.”
“That’s why you reference his dick in his contact information? Or is that just standard operating procedure for you to reduce men to their most base level?”
“Turnabout is fair play. But if you must know, he’s our yoga teacher.”
“I want to petition for a nickname change,” I muttered as I went back to her phone.
“You certainly make his look small.”
I was not above preening as I did something I had never done in my life. I pulled up Luna’s chat window, hit the camera icon and reversed the direction, and then cocked my head and hoped for the best as I pressed the button. I hit send without looking at it.
“Did you just take a selfie?” She snatched back her phone and started to laugh. “Oh my God.” She doubled over with her hand over her mouth as she giggled at my expense.
When I pulled back the phone and saw what I’d sent, somehow I started laughing too.
I’d messaged a stranger a picture of the top right corner of my head, and the one eye in the picture looked cock-eyed and droopy. That was surely going to satisfy Luna’s requirements for a photo.
“That’s the best. Wow.”
“It was my first one.” I straightened my tie.
“Ever?”
“Yes.”
Ryan sobered quickly. “But you wanted to send her one for me.”
I shrugged.
“Come here.”
“What? I have a client due to arrive in approximately—”
She yanked me toward her by the tie before angling my face toward the camera she held away from us. Then she pressed her cheek to mine.
“Smile, PMS.”
I didn’t know what expression I managed in that one second before I gave into temptation and turned my face into her neck. Dimly, I heard the shutter go off as I nibbled her earlobe. “Jesus, you smell good.”
“Not exactly the picture I was going for,” she said as as she tilted her neck to give me more access.
Which I took, greedily and without shame.
I kissed my way down her throat, scraping my teeth over her skin. She hummed in her throat, and my dick hardened in a nanosecond.
I’d probably give up everything just to spend an hour in this woman’s bed.
Even her desk would do.
“But I think I like it. Keep going,” she said breathlessly as I licked my way across her throat to the pulse hammering wildly under her jaw.
“Oh, I will.” The proximity to her lips was making me mad. “I have to kiss you.”
“For fuck’s sake, don’t ask. Just do it.”
“Not the only place I want to kiss you.” I slanted my mouth across hers and absorbed her groan like oxygen.
All at once, it was overwhelming. Just like yesterday. Wildly wandering hands competed with the desperation of my lips racing against hers. I couldn’t taste her enough. I knew I was being rough, and hell if I could stop it.
She tasted like cinnamon. Fiery and unforgettable.
I cupped her jaw to direct her where I needed her.
She opened up to me freely, lifting one of her legs to wrap around me.
I was still kneeling on the floor and she was sitting on her chair, and I couldn’t keep from rocking into her, grasping for any part I could touch.
The chair tried to roll away and I scrambled after her, holding on fiercely as our mouths warred with each other.
In a minute, I’d pull her down onto my lap. Finish this insanity once and for all.
The elevator dinged. It might as well have been miles away for all the attention I paid to it. Same for the sudden flurry of chimes from Ryan’s phone.
I was too preoccupied with Ryan’s lips, all luscious and wet. And her body, sensuously wrapping around mine.
Sex hex be damned. I think I loved that curse.
Then I heard a loud sniffle. And another.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Is this—are you—oh, God, are you cheating on your wife too?”
My head whipped around. My new client—at least I assumed—was sobbing into a too small tissue that allowed approximately a gallon of tears to leak onto her pale pink top.
With her hair askew and her lips swollen, Ryan rocketed back in her chair. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”
I was still kneeling, dizzy and half crazed, when my assistant somehow got her bearings and hurried around the desk to scoop Stacey into a hug.
“That’s okay. That’s a girl. Just let it all out. Men are pigs, aren’t they? Yes, they are.”
I cleared my throat, but no one seemed to notice me and the unattended club between my legs.
On second thought, that was a good thing when it came to Stacey. I didn’t need a lawsuit on my hands.
“I’m sorry I interrupted.” Stacey pinned me with a slightly accusing stare out of streaming eyes. “But it was just like my husband. He was screwing his secretary. Oldest cliché in the book, right?”
“She’s not my secretary.” I cleared my throat. “We aren’t…having intercourse.”
“Oh, sure, right.”
Had I ever heard a less sincere agreement? I had to say no.
Ryan didn’t seem to mind Stacey was calling our character into doubt. No, she was too busy steering her to the small sofa in the client waiting area. “Clichés exist for a reason. They happen all the time. As awful as it is, you aren’t alone, Mrs.—”
“Franklin. Well, soon to be Platt. I’m divorcing that dirty cheat.
Do you know he gave her my brownies? I teach elementary school, and I stayed up after grading papers to make them for his lunch.
I hope she enjoyed them, the hussy.” She dashed at her tears while I tried to read the sudden slew of messages flashing on Ryan’s phone screen.
Lu:
OMG, he’s kissing you. Or…licking you?
Lu:
Fuck, that’s hot.
Lu:
He’s hot.
And then something about a big dick, which could either be about me or the yoga teacher, but no matter how I stabbed the phone, I did not have Ryan’s face. Also, my dick was not visible in that picture.
Was it?
“How low did you aim that selfie?” I demanded.
Both Stacey and Ryan glared at me.
“Never mind.”
“He didn’t deserve your brownies,” Ryan said soothingly, rubbing Stacey’s back while she sobbed.
I set down Ryan’s phone and decided I’d assume I was the well-endowed one Luna was referencing. Ryan’s commentary had indicated such.
The extent of their conversation I probably didn’t want to know.
My own phone vibrated in my pocket. I dug it out and saw an unknown number with an interesting text.
Unknown:
What happened to no cookies in the office?
I frowned.
Excuse me?
Unknown:
Don’t play dum. Are you conning her? She has a legion of spirit sisters behind her.
I looked up just as Stacey burst into a round of fresh sobs while Ryan poured water into a paper cup. “He told me he was taking me to Bimini for our anniversary. I found the tickets. Then I realized he was planning to take her.”
I needed to usher Stacey into the conference room if I had any hope of getting out of here anytime soon. And I had to, due to my followup appointment from yesterday’s impulsive move. Whatever happened, it had to make more sense than the chaos my life had recently become.
Forget sex hex. A life hex might be more accurate.
Another text appeared.
Unknown:
I realize you’ve been in a drought—or is that a lie too?
Finally, the mad texter had revealed herself. La-la-Luna. It had to be.
I quickly responded.
What do you mean too, as if there is more than one lie? You don’t know that I’ve lied. How did you get this number?
Unknown:
How do you think I got it? I borrowed Ryan’s phone when she was drunk dozing.
My frown deepened. When had Ryan been drunk? Obviously, in the recent past, since she’d only had my number for a matter of days.
I quickly added her to my contacts and tapped out an irritated response.
And you accuse me of lying when you are a thief?
Luna:
Hello, I am her best friend. All her stuff is mine & vice versa.
Thank you for educating me. Now if you’ll excuse me from this inane conversation, I have work to do.
My client was now dramatically reclining on the sofa while Ryan slid a pillow under her head and cooed softly to her. I didn’t know how we could possibly have a meeting while she was prone. This was not a therapist’s couch. I didn’t deal with people who weren’t upright for the conversation.
But thank God Ryan was here. She was handling all…that. I’d had a few crying clients in the past—and screaming, swearing, and occasionally physically violent ones, though usually at their soon-to-be ex-spouse, not me. But Stacey Franklin seemed particularly full of woe.
“It was just yesterday that he told me about Bimini. I was so excited. Then I came to pick him up after work because his car was in the shop, and his penis was in her mouth!”
I shut my eyes. Was it too late for me to consider a new career? Right now, anything sounded good.
And la-la-Luna was still texting.
Luna:
You know what’s inane? Claiming to be so righteous then dropping drawers in like, a sec.
She had a point, even if I’d not claimed righteousness nor stripped down. But I could agree my message had been inconsistent with my behavior. I didn’t accept all the blame, however. Some could be laid at the green-tipped toes of one Ryan G. Moon.
But Luna had more to add.
Luna:
Also, I didn’t accuse you. I asked if you’d lied. I do not tolerate the XY chromosome messing with my best friend.
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.
I put my phone in my pocket rather than telling Ryan her best bish was interrogating me. Luna’s behavior was actually admirable. She was stepping up to make sure I had honorable intentions toward Ryan.
How many people were willing to put themselves out there for a friend? My closest friend Bishop would go to bat for me, but he was rare.
As was la-la-Luna. I didn’t want to get her in trouble for being annoyingly decent.
Emphasis on annoying.
“Nothing.” I swiveled my chair to face Ryan, and then just as quickly turned again to make sure Stacey was no longer in the waiting room. “What did you do with her?”
“She booked it to the ladies’ room. Texting, huh?”
“No.”
Ryan placed her hands on the arms of the chair and loomed over me, putting her ample cleavage entirely too close to my face. “You should be thanking me.”
In a feat of Herculean proportions, I kept my gaze on her face. Mostly. I wasn’t a saint. She had a purple wand necklace dangling between her breasts. I wanted to pull it between my teeth as arousal flared in her eyes then work my way under her dress to see what sort of lingerie she wore.
If she wore any at all.
“Hmm?”
“So much hmming going around. I really earned that bonus now. While you were over here being furtive, I convinced Mrs. Franklin that you were helping me with my contact and there are no issues with propriety in this office.”
“Did you swallow your contact?”
“Huh?”
“I can’t see how I could have been helping you with it unless I was attempting to retrieve it from your throat with my tongue.”
She smirked. “There’s an image. Besides, now she knows it’s not like her situation. You’re not secretly married, right?”
“Of course not.”
Why did everyone seem to think I was lying about everything? Was it because I was a lawyer, or did I somehow give off an air of distrustfulness?
Everyone trusted my brother, and he lied as easily as he breathed.
She straightened with a proud smile. “So, yeah, I really can do this assistant thing. Stacey’s washing her face, and then she’ll be ready for the meeting. I did that. I mean, she did it. She’s stronger than she gives herself credit for, but I helped her realize men are—”
“Pond scum?” I guessed.
“Close. But actually, I told her if a guy does something like that, he’s not the one for you.” She ran the edge of her nail along her crystal necklace. “If he’s the one for you, nothing and no one can keep you apart.”
“Is that so?”
“You know it is.”
Looking into her eyes, I knew with one hundred percent certainty that she was right.
Which meant I needed to break her hold on me. Now.
I didn’t want to, but I didn’t trust myself around her. Yesterday morning had proved I was out of control, as had the last few minutes. The only way I could be certain we could stick to our respective corners was through distance.
And possibly a sex hex destroyer. I wondered where I could find one of those.
Regardless, Luna’s texts had reminded me this wasn’t a game. I couldn’t let my dick lead me into perdition because real people got hurt when these kind of things went wrong. I knew that better than most.
Ryan might annoy me more than any human on this planet ever had, but hurting her was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
I made a show of looking at my watch as I stood. “I’ll have to keep the meeting brief because I have something to get to.”
“Oh, really?” She didn’t ask what, but I could hear the interest in her tone.
Deliberately, I didn’t tell her more. Maybe that made me a bastard, but I was doing the best thing for both of us.
“Mrs. Franklin,” I said smoothly as the other woman emerged from the short hallway off the waiting room. “We’re all set up in the conference room. This way, please.”
“Stacey,” she corrected, holding out a hand. “I’m sorry about before.”
“No problem.”
After we shook, she smiled warmly at Ryan. “Your assistant is worth her weight in gold. I hope you pay her very handsomely.”
It took everything I possessed not to look toward Ryan. I could feel her pleasure at Stacey’s words, and she deserved them. Clearly, I hadn’t given her a fair shake when she’d taken this job, even if she did have some questionable personal traits and an inability to be on time.
But that didn’t mean I intended to throw all caution to the wind. She would finish her work here on Friday, and we would go our separate ways.
Thank God Luna had been the cold water I needed before it was too late.
I forced a smile. “She’s worth more than I could ever give.”