31. Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Paige took a bite of her crappy granola bar and chewed, hardly aware of what she was eating, since the majority of her brain cells were focused on her Kindle and the steamy rockstar novel she was reading.
I pull from her grasp with a slow kiss, drop open-mouthed kisses over her body as I crawl down the bed. I taste the indent of her waist, the curve of her luscious hips, the smooth skin of her thighs. I push her shorts all the way down her legs as I go, toss them behind me into the darkness, and then I’m crouched in the perfect position.
God, why didn’t I turn on the lights so I could see her pretty pussy?
I kneel between her legs and she opens for me. I want her knees up, toward her shoulders, leaving her completely open to me, and she doesn’t resist. Even in the dark, I find her wetness easily, soak my fingers—
The phone on Paige’s desk rang, pulling her out of the fledgling sex scene and making her jump. Knowing she probably wasn’t going to like whatever the interruption was about, Paige glanced at the extension and picked up the receiver with a sigh. “Yes, Andrea?”
“I know you just clocked out for lunch, but … there’s a gentleman here who’d like to talk to you,” Andrea said, using her best Calm down and please don’t kill the messenger voice. “About getting a quick quote for a function.”
“He wants a quick quote? Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“There’s no such thing as a quick quote.”
“I know. I told him that, but he insisted it could be done. He said he knows exactly what he wants and he only needs a few minutes of your time.”
“Well, you know what I want? To be able to eat lunch once in a while,” Paige muttered, before tacking on a disgruntled sigh. “Can he possibly make an appointment for another time? Because it doesn’t matter if he knows what he wants. He’ll need more than just ‘a few minutes’ of my time.”
Andrea switched to whispering mode. “I know, but he’s pretty adamant about seeing you right now. He said this is the only time he has today. And … he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who takes no for an answer.”
If anything, that annoyed Paige even more and sent a few red flags waving; this man was going to be a total asshole. “Great. Those are my favorite kind of people.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Just … ugh. “Fine,” Paige told her, shoving the rest of the granola bar in her mouth. “I’ll be right out.”
“Too late. He’s already headed your way,” Andrea told her.
“He’s what?”
“He’s headed your—”
Paige hung up the phone a little harder than was necessary, cringing at the resulting loud noise in her small office. Chewing furiously, she shoved her Kindle in a drawer and began to quickly straighten her desk as much as she could by grabbing all the loose papers and folders and transferring them to the floor, out of sight, before pushing her chair back and getting to her feet. She was halfway to the door when the man entered her office without knocking, then stopped and smiled at her.
“Happy Halloween,” David said.
Completely taken by surprise, Paige quit chewing for a moment to swallow and check him out in his boot-cut jeans, dark red Henley and brown leather jacket. “Seriously? You’re the walk-in?” she asked him with a scowl. “Jesus, I’m going to kill Andrea.”
“Don’t,” he said, stopping her from reaching for the phone on her desk. “It was my idea, so if you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me.”
“Did you say … ‘if’?”
He nodded. “It’s your favorite holiday. So, you, more than anyone, should be able to appreciate a good ‘trick’. And you have to admit, it was pretty good.”
“I admit nothing.”
Her stubbornness only seemed to amuse him more, so she looked away from his handsome face (his hair was down today, damn him) before she was tempted to kick him in the shin for the sadistic trick he’d just played on her—even if she could appreciate it now that the initial terror was over. As her eyes dropped, Paige noticed he was holding a Panera Bread bag in one hand, and a small, orange plastic pumpkin with a black handle full of Halloween candy in the other. “What do you have there?” she wanted to know.
He held them both up. “Your ‘treats’.”
She reached for the pumpkin, which he immediately pulled back. “Wrong,” he admonished, giving her the bag instead. “Lunch first.”
He was sadistic and a tyrant, she decided, as she turned and emptied the contents on her desk—a sandwich, salt and vinegar potato chips, and a shortbread cookie shaped like a ghost, with white icing and black eyes. “You’ve been going to Panera Bread a lot.”
“I know. I’m racking up a lot of reward points. The cookie I got you today was free.”
His voice had dropped a little, and when she glanced over her shoulder at him, his expression had gathered some heat.
“Nice costume,” he murmured, looking her up and down. “You look … fantastic.”
“Thanks.”
While it wasn’t discouraged to dress up for Halloween at The Main Event, it wasn’t exactly encouraged, either. But since it was her favorite holiday, Paige always dressed up, usually going all-out. One year she was Princess Leia, complete with fake, side-hair buns—which ended up being almost more trouble than they were worth, when they had to be removed every time she needed to talk on the phone. This year she was dressed as Geena Davis’s character, Dottie, from A League of Their Own, in a light pink Rockford Peaches uniform with a red belt, red baseball cap, and a pair of cheap catcher shin guards worn over red knee-high socks. She’d pulled her hair back and curled the ends, and was wearing dark red lipstick, but the true attention to detail was the smudge of dirt on her face.
She’d also been able to say, “‘There’s no crying in baseball’!” several times to Andrea, who had finally demanded Paige stop.
David looked like he wanted to say—or do—something, but then sighed with regret because he had to return to his studio. He’d left Kim, the assistant he’d hired to replace Ashley, in charge of the studio and even though she was more than capable of handling things in his absence, he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. “I have to go. The part about my only needing a few minutes of your time really was the truth. I just stopped by to bring you lunch and do this.”
He leaned down to kiss her, careful not to mess with her hair and cap. When he pulled away, it was with reluctance, and she smiled as she wiped at his mouth to get the faint traces of red lipstick off, before walking him to her door.
After watching him leave—because his ass in those jeans absolutely required it—Paige returned to her desk and retrieved her Kindle from her drawer before sitting down. She’d just started reading Wycked Escape again and taken bite number one of the Napa Almond Chicken Salad sandwich, when Andrea appeared in the doorway.
She had supposedly dressed up as Edna Mode, but Paige didn’t really think that cashing in on an uncanny resemblance and sticking a name tag that said ‘Hello, my name is Edna Mode’ on an outfit Andrea normally wore, counted as a real Halloween costume.
Giving her assistant a quick, narrow-eyed look, Paige said with her mouth full, “You’re not forgiven, in case you were wondering.”
Seemingly unconcerned, Andrea pointedly glanced at the almost barren top of Paige’s desk, then at the cluttered floor around it, before pursing her lips in amusement and leaving the office.
Paige glared at the empty doorway for several seconds, sighing. God, she hated Andrea.
Then, pushing aside thoughts of her assistant, Paige took another bite of her sandwich and dove back into the sex scene.