Ashlei
“So, you took the lead, pitched the launch event to Mrs. Delure from Bare·ly, and then she asked for you to be the lead event planner on the account?” Sophie asks, leaning on one elbow with stars in her eyes.
We’re in one of the smaller conference rooms at Okay, Cool, finishing up what has been almost an hour of her asking me questions.
We’ve covered everything from how I first became interested in event planning to my studies at Palm South University, from my first day of the internship to my duties today.
I’ve never been watched with such reverence before, never been asked so much about myself as if I had something to offer that wasn’t just a pretty face and an occasional creative event idea.
Sophie is making me feel special, like my role here actually matters.
And as the hour ticks by, I wonder if I’ve made a mistake about her.
I chuckle. “Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly how it went.”
“Wow,” Sophie remarks, sitting back in her chair with a shake of her head.
She clicks the top of her pen back and forth, jotting down something in her notebook.
“That’s pretty impressive. I mean, I feel like I’ve made strides as an intern, but I can’t imagine being offered the event planner position on an account.
I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that. ”
“Oh, more than you can even think of or try to list out. I had more than a few times where I was sure I was going to land flat on my ass, but somehow managed to pull the event off by the hair of my teeth.” I smile.
“That was the first time I realized that working in event planning is a lot like trying to put out a house fire with nothing but a bucket of water and a handful of prayers.”
“I’m sure you’re selling yourself short,” Sophie says, tapping her pen on my knee. “From what I hear, you’ve been rocking that account since the day they placed the first binder of information in your hands.”
Appreciation settles in her fierce eyes, and those eyes trail the length of me, her tongue wetting her lips a little as they flow over my legs.
I’m dressed in a rose gold, silky blouse and my favorite white pencil skirt, complete with hose underneath, and nude stilettos.
Sophie nearly matches me in a skirt and blouse of her own, except her skirt is short, her blouse revealing, and where I’m all light and airy this afternoon, she’s all mauve and black, dark and severe, all the way from her black heels to the dark blood shade of her lips.
And the way she just licked them, it looks like she wants to have me for lunch.
The trust she’s built over the last hour fizzles out of me like the bubbles of a champagne bottle, and suspicion cools its place, making my skin prickle.
I clear my throat, gathering up the notes and files I’d brought for her to browse through for the interview. “Alright, does that about do it, then?”
“I think so,” she says, but I don’t miss the disappointment in her voice. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to speak with me. Truly. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. You’ll have to let me see the final product.”
“Absolutely.” She clicks her pen, still watching me as I pack up. “Can I ask you one more question? Off the record.”
“Sure.”
“Are you bisexual?”
I drop the files I’d been about to shove into my bag, sending papers flying around our heels on the floor as I watch her wide-eyed.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, I know that’s forward,” she says hurriedly with a blush. “I just… Well, you see, I’m bisexual. And I guess I just thought I had a knack for sniffing out another bi. My friends and I always joke that I have a radar of sorts.”
She chuckles, and on the surface, she looks pleasant and friendly and like she genuinely is just curious.
But my insides shrivel up in warning.
I swallow, standing and holding my skirt tucked against the back of my thighs as I slowly lower down onto my knees and begin picking up the papers that fell from the file.
Sophie doesn’t move an inch to help me.
She just sits in her chair above me, her crossed knees level with my face.
“I don’t know that that’s work-appropriate conversation,” I murmur, focusing on getting the pages back in place.
“I didn’t mean any offense. Honestly, I don’t think being bisexual is offensive. Do you?”
“No, of course not,” I answer quickly.
“Then, what’s the big deal?”
What is the big deal?
I try to find the answer to that myself but come up empty. What is it about her that sets me off? What is it about her that makes me want to strangle her and be best friends with her all at the same time?
I grind my teeth. “I am.”
“You are what?”
I huff, sitting back on my heels and looking up at her with half of the spilled papers in my hands. “Bi.”
Her lips curl up slowly. “I knew it.”
“But, I’m with Brandon now,” I quickly add.
Sophie chuckles. “And I don’t blame you for shouting it from the rooftops any time you get a chance. Mr. Church is…” She shakes her head, whistling. “Let’s just say I’d let him put it where no man has put it before.”
“Watch it,” I warn, jaw tight.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Sophie quickly adds, and then right in front of my face, she uncrosses her legs, spreading them just wide enough to show me a flash of her black panties before she leans forward and balances her elbows on her knees.
Her eyes skate over the features of my face before they meet my gaze.
“I’d let you fuck my ass, too. If you wanted. ”
A zip of something hot and electric shoots straight down between my legs.
Sophie’s lips part, just barely, enough for her tongue to dart out and wet her lips again as she watches me. From this angle, I can see the mountains of her breasts, the black lace of her bra from where her silk blouse gapes at her neck.
And I’m rendered completely speechless.
Get up.
Get the fuck up and get the fuck out of this room.
But I’m under her spell.
Sophie spreads her legs again, this time lowering one knee to the ground, and then the other, placing one knee between mine. Her leg is warm and smooth as she presses my knees apart, just a little, and she picks up a few stranded sheets of paper as if that’s why she was on the floor.
But her eyes don’t leave mine.
And when she hands them to me, I hold onto them without moving an inch to put them in the folder, and her eyes flick to my lips.
She leans in.
I lean back.
At least, I want to. I should. But maybe I don’t at all. Maybe I sit there completely still, shocked, knowing I should move but not knowing how.
Maybe… I lean in, too.
And in what feels like a stolen breath of time, Sophie kisses me.
I know I feel the kiss.
I know I feel her lips on mine, slightly dry from her lipstick but warm and soft all the same.
I know I feel her hands shakily resting on my thighs for balance, and her hot breath on mine, and the silk of her blouse as I hold onto her, too.
I know I hear her whimper of a moan, and taste that moan on my tongue.
I know I’m present for every searing moment of it.
But I awake on the other side as if I’d blacked out, as if someone had drugged me, as if I’d been betrayed and violated in the worst possible way.
“No!”
I shove her backward, sending her flying to her elbows with a shocked curse. I stand as soon as she’s off me, swiping what’s left of the papers off the floor and hastily shoving them into the folders before I shove them into my bag.
“Fuck, Sophie. Fuck. What the hell was that?”
I’m still packing up my shit, and I wait for her to say something. To apologize. To leap up and beg me not to overreact, not to tell, not to freak out or hold it against her. I expect her to blame it on a moment of passion, or a late night, or a connection she felt through the interview.
But when I finally tug my bag onto my shoulder and look down at her, she’s not making any excuse at all.
She’s just lying there on her elbows staring up at me.
With the most wicked smile I’ve ever seen.
I shake my head, frowning at her with a mixture of horror and astonishment whirling inside me. It’s like she’s the devil or a witch or both wrapped into one, and I can’t reconcile the fact that I just fell victim to her spell.
“Stay away from me,” I warn.
And then I run out of the conference room to wash her lipstick off my mouth.