Chapter 6 Between a Cock and a Hard Place
Between a Cock and a Hard Place
“I don’t know what you’ve been hearing around the office, but I have not slept with Hudson Bailey.”
That probably wasn’t the best entrance I could have made into my boss’s office. But hey. I was frazzled and horny and anxious and convinced that one night of fantasizing about a coworker was going to wreck everything, so give me a break.
Clara looked up casually from her computer screen, completely unfazed.
“Hello, Scout,” she droned drolly in her posh Emma Thompson accent. “Can I get you anything? Alkaline water? Kombucha? Maybe some condoms to take home with you?”
“I said I’m not sleeping with him!”
“No, I imagine not, but it is very funny to see you so worked up. It’s very unlike you. I couldn’t resist.”
The corners of her lips crinkled as she smiled, removed her brightly colored spectacles, and let them dangle loosely from the chain around her neck.
Clara Mason was an empress of industry. Pushing sixty-five, she’d founded BuzzCorp just seven years ago and taken it from a one-person start-up to one of the leading operators in the sex toy space.
A #girlboss queen of the highest order, she had a tall, willowy figure and white-blond hair that looked positively angelic on magazine covers and under our office’s harsh halogen lighting.
She was powerful. She was beautiful. She was constantly closing some business deal or closing the bedroom door on her latest conquest. She was everything.
She was also correct. I never acted like this—at least not on the surface.
“So you haven’t heard that we had sex this weekend at the conference?”
“No, is that what the rumor mill is saying?”
“Yes, and it’s not true.”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you had, you know. He’s leaving when his contract is up in a month and a half or so, which means it would be a fairly unmessy affair. And he’s got…something, hasn’t he?”
Something was the understatement of the century.
How hadn’t I noticed it before? For weeks, we’d been working in the same building, in the same company, attending the same meetings and drinking from the same damn water filter.
But one rogue erection during a conference talk and suddenly I saw him as if it was the first time, with all his softness and infuriating kindness and stupidly kissable lips.
What was it, anyway, that something? Something special? Something sexy? Something more than both of those things put together?
Fluorine Scout wanted to run experiment after experiment on him. Argon Scout, the Public Scout, on the other hand, wanted to go back to the old way things were, without him.
No. Hudson Bailey and I could not be a thing—not even a totally platonic thing.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been too busy trying to get this prototype finished. Remember? The one that we were blue-skying before you told the entire world it would be out and ready by next Christmas?”
She waved her hand at me, like the details of her “move fast and break things” ethos hadn’t turned this office from easygoing days at the sex toy office to nightmarish crunch to meet this insane deadline.
“Do you ever think about anything but work?”
“You pay me too much to think about anything else. Besides, I think about work twenty-four-seven and it’s still not enough.”
She clicked her tongue. “Ah. You’re still hung up on the Mr. Ose deal.”
“You’re not?”
The events of the last thirty-six-odd hours had given me much to stress over. Clara’s disappointment over our Mr. Ose meeting was at the top of that list. But she couldn’t look less worried.
“I knew it was a big ask, pushing him to order all those units without ever seeing a prototype.”
“Then why’d you ask me to take the meeting? With a guy who has never even used a sex toy, no less.”
Clara smirked. My stomach dropped.
“You knew about that?”
“He mentioned it in his interview. I didn’t think it was relevant.
Anyone good at their job should be able to port their skills from one vertical to the other, and he’s proven himself quite adept at doing so, having worked in so many industries as a contractor.
Besides, I thought he could learn on the job. ”
For a moment, I considered not telling her about his little request. But it was Clara.
I told her everything. We were in this business together.
She’d picked me up when I was at my lowest, after the GalacticSolutions explosion, and I owed her my unfailing loyalty.
“Speaking of learning on the job…He wants me to give him sex toy lessons.” Clara’s eyes lit up, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. “Lessons, Clara. Not demonstrations.”
She pouted. “And you’re going to, right?”
“I said I would, but I’m going to blow him off. It’s too much. I can’t afford any distractions right now.”
“It wouldn’t be a distraction,” she countered. “Him knowing about the industry is important to our success with The Fantasy.”
“Then you teach him!”
A longing sigh. “That’s a young woman’s game.”
“We’re not going to sleep together.”
She pursed her lips. “A pity. But even so, I think you should do it. Especially since the dynamic is…changing…around here.”
Her usually breezy manner shifted. It set me on edge.
“Oh God.” I groaned. “Are you about to make my day better or worse?”
“I suppose that entirely depends on your point of view, but I imagine it’s worse.”
That was another thing about Clara. She didn’t have time to bullshit—or the inclination. We were alike in that way.
“I wanted you to hear it from me. Or, at least, I didn’t want you to find out from the internet.”
“What’s that?”
“Lloyd Exeter bought Please-U Inc.”
When she’d said she was going to make my day worse, I didn’t think it was actually possible. My best guesses were like Our silicone supplier went bust or Add some new, ridiculous feature to The Fantasy prototype.
I’d never, not in a million years, thought the name Lloyd Exeter would get thrown around like a punch straight to my jaw.
The strength in my knees took a vacation. I dropped into the nearest chair.
“Oh,” I said, for lack of anything intelligent to say. Gears in my head turned until they clicked. “That must have been who Mr. Ose was talking about.”
“I’ve been hearing rumors for a few months now, but Lloyd made the official statement publicly this morning.”
Please-U Inc. was one of our biggest competitors in the space.
Unlike LoveHoney, which seemed to be a very “basics” brand, and unlike Bellessa, which was explicitly for women, and unlike us, who embraced the fact that sex was and should be pleasurable and exciting for everyone, Please-U Inc.
had an industry-wide reputation as the man’s sex toy company—and not in a fun Pride Month way.
In that toxically alpha male, bro-y, pickup artist, making love is for pussies, I only fuck way.
In short, a very fitting portfolio acquisition for my former boyfriend.
No, not boyfriend.
He was….
Well, Lloyd Exeter and I had…
To me, Lloyd was…
A mistake.
Yeah. Please-U Inc. and my worst mistake would be a match made in hell. Or whatever was below that.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” Clara replied.
“How in the world could you even imagine that news would make my day better?”
“Look at it this way: He’s entering your world now. This isn’t like working at GalacticSolutions, when you were under his thumb. This is a chance to best him. To show him that you’re on top, and he can’t touch you—not ever again. Literally or metaphorically.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “You don’t think this is about me, do you? Like, you don’t think he bought a sex toy company because of me?”
“What? No.” She paused and visibly reconsidered. “Well, even if it is, you know that I’m in your corner. I won’t let Lloyd Exeter do anything to harm you.”
“You’re just saying that because you know you won’t be able to get The Fantasy out without me,” I grumbled, only half joking.
“And because my days would be so boring without your quick little remarks.”
We both laughed, but I had to force the sound out. My chest was still tight.
“Are you okay?” she asked after a moment.
Was I okay? I mean, I’d always known that Lloyd Exeter didn’t disappear from the earth when he disappeared from my side. It wasn’t being reminded of him that bothered me.
It was that he was here. In my space. The very space I had to run to because he’d made sure no one else would have me.
I couldn’t even claim this little slice of the universe as my own anymore. Now I had to share it with him.
So no. I wasn’t okay. But I had to be.
After all, I was not going to let Lloyd Exeter ruin my fucking career. Again.
My voice cracked when I answered, “Yeah.”
So much for strength and resolve.
Carefully, Clara placed a hand on my shoulder. Her eyes were so full of empathy; they swam with the understanding we shared. So many memories of what Lloyd had done to me, of the person he’d turned me into.
“You know what I like to do at times like this?” she asked.
“No.”
Her lips curled. “Drink.”