Chapter 13 Elijah
ELIJAH
“Your most important job today,” I inform Cleo, “is to make sure I don’t miss a FaceTime call from Paxton.”
“Roger that,” she says as she changes the batteries in the Christmas tree that should not be displayed on her temporary desk.
The front-office elf is having a seat on the sofa.
The one in my office was sitting next to the keyboard on my desk, and I have no idea when she moved it because she left before me yesterday and got here after me today.
“I’m charging my phone in my office. But if I happen to forget to take it with me when I go to the men’s room, or if I’m on a call on the landline and you hear my cell phone, or if we’re both in my office and I’m pacing around, so caught up in my genius brainstorming that I don’t hear the phone—you answer it for me. Got it?”
She grins. “Yeah. I got it.”
“They’ll land at Jackson Hole in a couple of hours, and when they get to the lodge, Paxton will find out I had tons of presents shipped there so he can open them on Christmas Day. I don’t want to miss that call because I know how busy they’re going to be starting this afternoon.”
“That is very sweet, and I will make sure you don’t miss it.”
“But it’s equally important for you to type up your notes.”
“Right.” She nods once. She’s sitting behind the desk, so I can’t see her boots anymore, which is probably a good thing, but it’s also making me really angry.
Or maybe the thing I’m really angry about is the fact that she actually likes that terrible script.
How dare she?
It is very unhelpful.
I can see what she’s saying now, about the satire, but it still pisses me off and it’s still not helpful.
What’s most unhelpful is the fact that she’s wearing her hair all loose and wild.
Thick, dark blonde curly hair frames her face, and I have to put my hands in my pockets to prevent them from pushing each strand away.
And then combing my fingers through all of it and tugging.
Her lips are a pale glossy red today and she doesn’t appear to be wearing any other makeup, so her astonishing eyebrows are even more prominent than usual.
“Anything else?” she asks as she removes her red cardigan, revealing a white blouse that is practically see-through.
I can see the blue bra she’s wearing underneath it.
How am I supposed to focus on a script when she’s wearing a see-through blouse and a blue bra and a short skirt and knee-high boots and bare thighs?
There is a lot that I want to do with her today, but I need to get some real work done first.
I think?
I do.
I definitely do.
Do I, though?
I do.
I can’t look at her.
“I need the good sticky notes,” I hear myself grumble. “I haven’t been able to find the good sticky notes, and Elaine swears she ordered more last month.”
“Okay. So, you want me to find the good sticky notes?”
“Yes. That is what I want.”
“Would you like to give me a hint as to where I might find them?” She stands up and then bends forward as she looks into the drawers of Elaine’s desk.
“Might they be in here?” Her blouse is unbuttoned more than it was a second ago—I am certain of this—and now it’s just hanging open and I can see cleavage. I see her blue bra and her cleavage.
“Supply closet,” I snap as I pace back and forth. I need to keep moving. I need to stay focused on everything that is not her. “They’re in the supply closet.”
“Ah.”
I point at the door to the supply closet, next to the laser printer.
She sashays over to the supply closet. In that flouncy black mini skirt and those knee-high leather boots and those blue socks that go over her knees.
The socks match her bra. What the fuuuuuuck?
That is so witchy. Now even when I can’t see her bra I’m still thinking about her bra when I’m looking at her socks.
And I have never seen her sashay before, but she is definitely sashaying now. There’s a jingle-bell rockin’ sway to her hips. Those fucking hips. I’ve touched those hips. She clearly wants me to touch them again. I really want to touch them again too.
But after we’ve made some headway on the script notes.
Right?
After I’ve had my call with Paxton.
After we get the good sticky notes.
Or maybe we should get the sex out of the way first?
Clear my head?
Empty things out…
Cleo has disappeared behind the door of the supply closet, so I can’t see her bending over or reaching for things, and that is unfortunate. “Is it the hot-pink sticky notes you want?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who wants hot-pink sticky notes?”
“Well, they’re definitely good—you said you wanted the good ones. I need you to give me more information!”
I’ll give you more information. “I want the lined ones. They’re yellow sticky notes with lines on them.
Blue lines.” I huff. Not the same shade of blue as your bra.
She’s never going to find them. If I didn’t find them there the other day, there’s no chance she’ll find them.
But I might as well look again before having her order more. I stomp in there. “Let me look.”
“Oh. Okay.” She steps to the side.
This closet is about five feet on all sides, with shelves along three walls. I’ve never been in here with another person before. It’s roomier than I thought. Plenty of shelf space for thousands of pads of sticky notes—but are there thousands of the good kind? No. There are not.
But fuck, this woman smells amazing.
“Why are you so fucking fragrant?”
“I think what you’re smelling is my deodorant spray. I made it last month. I am so glad you enjoy it.”
Why does that make me angry and horny at the same time? Why does almost everything about this woman make me angry and horny? “You make your own deodorant? Why?”
“Because I’m good at it and because I enjoy it,” she states very plainly.
This makes no sense to me. I grunt while aggressively rearranging boxes of pens on the shelf in front of me. With her brilliance and skills she could be making millions. Why does this infuriate me?
“Would you like me to leave?” she asks calmly as she leans back against the wall next to the open door.
“Yes.”
She slides her hands behind her lower back. Her white top is see-through, her blue bra is not padded—I can see her nipples through them, and they are hard. They are reaching for me. I want them.
“Fuck. No. Yes. Fuck.” I take one step toward her, cup her face in my hands, and kiss her. “You’re making me crazy.”
She pulls her head back and says, so innocently, “You’re making yourself crazy.” And then she proceeds to suck my thumb into her mouth while staring up at me, flicking her tongue against the tip of my thumb and then licking the length of it as she smiles.
“Oh, fuck.”
Curly Jones is a bad, bad girl…
This is the meanest, best thing anyone has ever done to me. Until I feel her hand glide up and down my hard length, so lightly, barely touching me over my pants. It’s like getting a hand job by the ghost of Christmas future, and I want this future to happen now and forever.
I slide my thumb out of her mouth and kiss her again.
A deep, punishing kiss for the naughty elf that she is.
I comb my fingers through her hair. I notch my knee between her legs, and she squeezes her thighs around mine.
Rocks her hips, riding my thigh, making little high-pitched breathy sounds, and she confirms that she is trying to drive me crazy.
She sucks on my tongue, moaning, and—that’s it. “Fuck.”
Lowering to my knees, I kiss down the front of her.
Not frantic. Not crazy. I know what I’m doing.
I am getting down to business. I can’t imagine how many producers have gotten down to business in this supply closet over the decades.
That is why I made sure it was steam-cleaned and disinfected before I moved in.
Not that I planned to do this in here. Not that I’ve ever done anything like this in here before.
But if I’m going to do this, it will be done the classy, business-like way.
My temporary assistant will come on my face like a lady.
She’s so fucking petite, I am directly facing her perky tits when I’m kneeling, so I have to suck on her hard nipples through the thin fabric of her blouse and bra.
I have to. When she sighs, I have to bite into the flesh of her small, perfect breast, and when she combs her fingers through my hair and says my name, there is nothing else to do but tear her blouse apart in a gentlemanly manner and pull down the fabric of that bra so I can taste her.
Swirling my stiff tongue around that pink areola, I pinch her other nipple.
“God dammit, woman, I have wanted this for so fucking long.”
She exhales and leans into me, pushing the closet door shut. “Me too.”
“Yeah?” I pull my suit jacket off, and she cradles my head in her arms, pulling me to her breasts—which is a fantastic move that I respect.
“Yeah.”
“You wanted this eight years ago?” I flick at her nipple with the tip of my tongue and then take it into my mouth.
She hums.
That is not an answer.
I lower myself more and disappear under her skirt, pushing her panties to the side. She gasps and lifts one leg, resting it over my shoulder. Those fucking boots are touching me through my shirt, the heel digging into my back, and why is that so hot? It’s so hot.
Circling her clit with my thumb makes her whimper.
I like that. I like everything that’s going on down here.
It’s so slick and—“Jesus, you are so wet.” Fuck, I want to be inside her.
She tilts her hips toward me, and I lick up her center.
Once, twice, three times. “Baby…” She’s trembling.
I am making Cleo Jones tremble. Finally.
I reach up and around to grab a handful of bare ass cheek—what?
She’s wearing a thong?
Under her short skirt?
With no tights?
To the office?
Oh, hell no, little girl.
Her bare ass cheek gets slapped for that.
Twice.
It sounds like she’s covering her mouth, and that’s smart and also a shame, because I want to hear her cry out my name but I feel exactly how much she liked it on my tongue.
How does she taste so good?
Like the melted icing on her gingerbread cookies.
Sweet and warm with aromatic spice.
That’s what paradise tastes like right there.
It is a distinct fucking pleasure to fuck that inviting, delicious gateway to heaven with my greedy, eager-to-please tongue.
One more thing I’m happy to learn about this naughty elf?
She has very strong thighs. Like, Bond-villainess strength.
She could strangle me with those thighs.
She would strangle me with her thighs while singing a parody of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and bucking against my face, and I would love it.
Not as much as she’s loving it right now, but I would love it.
“Elijah! Oh my God.” She stage-whispers like the theatre performer she is.
I am relentless, and she is meeting me where I’m at and going so far beyond, just like when we were in film school.
I hear her sweet muffled voice say “Motherfucker…” followed by a string of unintelligible curse words that sound adorable and hot at the same time as she convulses and wreaks havoc on my face. The heel of her boot is jabbing into my back, but I’m into it and I hear her say “Don’t stop!”
And I will not stop.
I won’t stop until my tongue gives out. Even if my tongue gives out, I will use my fingers until she says, “Oh, God! Elijah!” freezes, and then loses her ability to remain upright.
That’s when I stop.
“I got you, baby,” I tell her. She doesn’t know it yet, but I mean that in so many ways.
Kissing her inner thigh before I untangle and free myself from her skirt, her leg, that boot, I hold under Cleo’s armpits to slow her slide down the wall to the floor.
Wouldn’t want her to bruise her beautiful ass from falling onto it.
I have other plans for that ass. For another time.
My temp appears to have lost the use of her neck.
And her spine.
I press against her shoulders, trying to prop her up. “Did you want to lie down?”
“Hmmm?”
I brush that crazy mane of hair from her face so I can watch her blurry eyes flutter open. She has a dumb, satisfied look on her pretty face. “Who’s the dummy now, huh, baby girl?”
She giggles, slowly licks her lips, and then smacks them together. “Hiiiiii,” she says, her voice throaty like she’s had a long nap. Then suddenly her eyes go wide. “Shit. Where’s your phone?”
Why does she want my phone?
Oh, shit.
My phone.
It’s still in my office.
But I don’t think they will have landed in Wyoming yet, so it’s okay.
I don’t think we’ve been in here for two hours.
Except…
I slowly stand up, still feeling a little dizzy, and try to turn the doorknob.
It turns a little. There’s no lock on this door. But it’s stuck. Because of the door-jamb thingy. I forgot to use a ream of paper to prop the door open.