Chapter 24
Brynne
When my eyes pop open, the first thing I notice is the heavy weight on top of me. The second thing is how much I like it. I start to stir, but the heaviness on top makes moving impossible. My legs are spread wide. One is on top of the couch, and the other is off it, with my foot touching the floor. The parts that are covered are warm, but my shoulders and one of my legs are chilly.
I blink a few times, and as earlier memories start returning, I hope and pray it was a vivid dream. Because there’s no way that happened. Then I realize that my hand is on someone’s bare flesh. I slide it around and gasp. I know what I’m touching. I’ve touched it before, and it’s Colin’s very firm ass.
I lift my head and turn it. His face is right next to mine.
“Oh, god dammit.” I try to push him off, but he’s too heavy. “Colin,” I whisper. When he doesn’t budge, I repeat it, only louder. “Colin,” I whisper-shout.
“Hmm,” he says. His eyes pop open, and they lock onto mine. I don’t see the shock that I’m feeling right now. He seems much too calm for the situation. He bats his eyes and rubs them.
“Hey, Honeybee,” he says softly. He even has the audacity to smile at me. “I see we got ourselves in a bit of a situation here.” He lifts himself off but doesn’t roll away. That’s when I get a look at us. Half my pants are off. My panties are torn. His bare dick is at half mast, and there are dry remains on the tip. His shirt is practically off his body, and his tee is bunched up and rests underneath his pecs.
“Will you put your dick away?” I ask after sneaking another peek. “How the hell did we fall asleep?” I check my watch. “Oh my God! It’s three-thirty! We’ve been asleep for over two hours in the middle of the workday.”
He stares at me as if he’s still in a daze. Of course, he is. I’ve woken up with this man before. He’ll sit or lie there for about ten minutes before he gets his bearings. Only now, we don’t have that luxury.
I slide my hand under his T-shirt, grab one of his nipples, and twist.
“Ouch! What the hell was that for?”
“Do you not realize what just happened, you dummy?” I slide a hand over my face. “And to think you got this job over me,” I say under my breath. I shove at his chest, and he just sits there like a log. “Can you get up?”
He blinks a few times and groans like a man fifty years his senior, but he finally stands. “Oh God. You look a mess.” His pants have fallen down, but he still has on both shoes. His underwear is halfway down his thighs. His hair, which is usually well-coiffed, is a mess. He finally bends down and pulls his pants and underwear back up.
When I look down at myself, I realize out of the two of us, I’m the much bigger mess. My black clothes have white spots all over them.
“Fuck,” I say and hop off the couch. I trip and fall on my ass because I only have one boot on, and I’m entirely off balance. My bare ass hits the cold floor, and I wince from the pain. Colin runs to me and helps me back to the couch, where I sit. He trips along the way but manages not to fall.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I most certainly am not okay,” I say as I shove my leg back into my pants. “You and your damn dick should stay away from me, and you didn’t even bother to put on a condom.”
He tries to button his shirt, but there are no buttons there. He looks down, seemingly surprised by that discovery. He looks at the rest of him and sighs. The front of his pants is wrinkled and moist. There’s a damp stain, and I look away from him in disgust.
“Aren’t you on birth control?” he asks as he buckles his belt.
“Yes, but that’s not the point, is it?” I snap. “I don’t know who you’ve been with.”
“I haven’t been with anyone but you,” he says.
“Jesus, you’re a dummy. I’m not the only woman you’ve ever been with.”
“Well, I’m not some playboy who sleeps around, Brynne,” he snaps back. “I hadn’t been with someone for almost a year when I met you.”
I open my mouth to argue with him, but I notice that the buttons on my shirt are gone as well. I look at the floor and spot three of them. The front of my pants has white stains that look like dry cum, and my panties are torn and hanging off my thigh. I lift my weight and pull my pants up.
“Where the hell is my other boot?”
He finds it and starts to bring it to me, but there’s a loud knock on the door before the knob begins to jiggle.
“Maybe he passed out in there,” I hear Heath say. “And I’m going to need a set of those keys.”
“If you don’t move your scrawny little ass out the way before I snap you in half,” I hear Ernestine say.
When I hear keys start to jiggle, I panic.
Of course, his office has nowhere for me to hide, so I dart across the room and dive under his desk just as the door opens. I hear heavy footsteps behind me, and my boot is thrown underneath the desk. The heel hits me on the shoulder, and it stings.
“What the hell is going on here?” I hear Ernestine ask, and I pray that she doesn’t notice the buttons on the floor. I also pray they don’t detect any remaining sex smell.
“Mr. Kincaid, are you okay?” Heath’s annoying voice says. “I’ve been knocking and calling.”
I’m usually a light sleeper, so how the hell could I have missed all of that?
Maybe because you were in an orgasm-induced middle-of-the-workday nap, you ho.
“Uh, I’m fine,” he says. “Um, I think I’m feeling a little under the weather. I fell asleep.” He clears his throat three times.
“You think you’re feeling under the weather?” Ernestine asks. “You fell asleep?” she asks again in total disbelief.
“Are you deaf, Ernestine?” Heath responds. “I’ll go make you some tea, unc—” After a loud throat clearing, he says, “Colin. What you need is vitamin C, not to be nagged to death.”
“Why is your shirt so wrinkled?” Ernestine asks. “Where are the buttons?” I put a hand to my mouth to cover my shocked gasp at Ernestine’s questions. I can only hope and pray that Colin will come up with a convincing lie, but I wonder if I’m the reason for the discarded buttons. Either way, he’s reimbursing me for my damaged shirt.
“They must have fallen off,” Colin says before loudly clearing his throat. All hopes of him coming up with a believable story are dashed. The man is a complete idiot.
“The buttons on your shirt just fell off?” I can hear the disbelief in Ernestine’s voice. “All of them? At once?”
“It happens sometimes,” is all he says.
I close my eyes and imagine my hands wrapped around his neck. The man is too damn stupid to live.
“What the hell is going on here?” Ernestine asks. “Buttons do not just fall off shirts.”
“Well, I’ll get you the name of my haberdasher, Mr. Kincaid,” Heath chimes in. “Are you done interrogating him about his clothes now, Ernestine? If he says his buttons fell off, then that’s what happened.” Even in his staunch defense, I can hear a slight hesitation in Heath’s voice. He doesn’t buy Colin’s story but will defend him to Ernestine.
“And has anyone seen Brynne? She’s been gone for hours, and I’m worried.”
“She told me earlier she was going to work on door schedules,” he says. “Maybe she’s using one of the empty rooms to do that.”
I roll my eyes at him. This comment is not as dumb as his buttons falling off, but it’s close. Why on earth would I leave the comfort of my own office to do door schedules somewhere else?
“Or maybe she went home?” he suggests.
“She didn’t go home. Her coat is in her office, and so are her phone and purse. I’ve checked everywhere, and she’s not here.” I hold my breath and wait to hear what he says next. Whatever it is, I hope it puts Ernestine at ease, but given his previous stupidity, I don't have high hopes.
“I have no idea then, Ernestine. I’ve been asleep,” he says. I can imagine him covering his face and running a hand through his messy hair.
“Why are your pants wet?” she asks.
His chair is pulled back, and he abruptly sits down and pulls himself under the desk where his knees end up in my face. I reach around and pinch his calf hard. He lets out a little yelp.
“I’ll see you both later. I don’t want to get you sick,” he says. He does a series of loud and blatantly fake coughs. “If I see Brynne, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”
“Mmhmm,” I hear Ernestine say. “Something’s fishy in here.”
“Ernestine, can you not interrogate me? I have work to do,” he snaps. “Goodbye.”
“I’ll get you a sandwich with that tea,” Heath says. “Maybe you’re hangry.” No other words are spoken, and a few seconds later, I hear the door open and close. He pushes his chair back and walks around the office. Moments later, the door is locked.
I crawl from under his desk and stand with the boot in my hand.
“How can someone who reverse catfished me and hired an entire group of actors be such a bad liar? I’m doing the door schedule in an empty office?” I angrily yank my boot back on, but my shirt remains open because I have no more buttons, so I tie the bottom around my waist. He looks over me and licks his lips.
“Don’t even think about it,” I say as he approaches me.
He must remember our situation because his steps halt. “Excuse me for not being a professional liar. I’d like to see you do better under pressure. And for the umpteenth time, I didn’t reverse catfish you, whatever the hell that is,” he snaps.
“Keep your dick to yourself next time, and we won’t have this problem,” I snap back.
“Keep my dick to myself? Oh, right. It just fell between your open legs and inside your wet pussy. It wasn’t you moaning my name underneath me and coming apart in my arms.” He waves his hands away.
“I need you to go to my office and get my coat, purse, and phone so I can go home. I’ll text Ernestine from the car. Unlike you, I’ll think of something believable to tell her.” I walk closer to him and get in his face. “And you need to get Heath under control. He’s been here two weeks, and he acts like he runs shit around here. He’s rude, entitled, and not to mention—”
“I’ll get him under control when you get your bodyguard to back off,” he snaps again. “Will you give me a damn minute to think? Jesus!” he practically shouts. “You’re so annoying.”
“Well, at least I’m not a dummy. Heath will be back here any second, and Ernestine is not done searching. I can’t get my stuff myself because you destroyed my blouse. You’re paying me for it, by the way. You can afford it, Kincaid.”
He rolls his eyes and gives me a dismissive snort. “You make enough money. Replace your own damn shirt. I’m so tired of you,” he says. “I’ll go get your shit, and you can get the hell out of my face for the next fifteen hours.”
“You’re tired of me?” I say with a halfhearted laugh. “Yeah. Okay.” When all he does is tower over me and look down, I say, “Can you please go get my stuff so I can go home and scrub you off me? I’m tired of looking at your damn face.”
He takes a deep breath and finally leaves the office. I stand by the door with my ear pressed to it and wait. After fifteen minutes, I hear his phone buzz. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I go to his desk and look down at it.
Francesca: I can’t wait to see you tonight.
I touch the message to delete the entire thread and block this bimbo’s number, but it asks me for the code. I punch in some random numbers, but nothing works.
I whisper a few curse words and turn the phone over.
He finally returns after about twenty minutes with everything I asked for.
“What the hell took you so long?” I ask. He shoves my coat and purse in my arms. That’s when I get a whiff of him. “Why do you smell like fish? Disgusting?”
“I had to eat an entire fucking tuna fish sandwich Heath shoved in my face. He stood there and watched me do it, and I detest tuna. It took all my willpower not to throw up. You’re welcome, by the way,” he says back.
“Well, if you fired his little raggedy-ass, you wouldn’t have had to snarf down a sandwich. And you stink, by the way.” I pinch my nose to prove my point. I’m not a fan of tuna either, but I keep that to myself. I don’t want him to think we have anything in common.
I check my phone. There are three missed calls from Oliver, but that’s it.
After buttoning and tying the belt of my coat around my waist, I tiptoe to the door.
“Don’t you ever come near me or touch me again,” I say without bothering to look his way. “If you do, it will be the last thing you ever do on this earth.”
“I’m shaking in my Tom Fords,” he says. “You’re welcome for the orgasms.”
“I faked all three.”