Chapter 7
ADAM
Ihad to give myself props this morning despite the fact that this wasn’t exactly a surprise.
I was accustomed to crushing presentations.
Regardless of circumstance.
It didn’t matter how foreign the territory, how early the meeting, or how annoyingly cold and unwelcoming the client—like the one sitting in front of me at this table.
Sean Knox. Twenty-nine. Right-handed pitcher with a cutter you couldn’t hit if he told you it was coming.
He was an incredibly talented athlete with a nightmare reputation and just about no other agencies pursuing him, thanks to the whole nightmare reputation thing.
But I’d had my eye on the kid for awhile now.
Three years to be exact, which was why I’d been preparing for this meeting since the day he dropped his agent last month.
That agent, of course, had been his unqualified friend from back home whom he’d hired because he was famously untrusting of authority and the so-called “suits.” Which put my chances on the slim side.
But I didn’t give a shit.
I was hell-bent on landing this prickly motherfucker and that started with crushing this goddamned meeting in spite of multiple obstacles, the first being that Knox had moved the start time up three hours on short notice.
The second being that I was coming off one serious mindfuck of an unexpected night.
One that ended with me adjusting my fully hard dick under my sweats just ten feet from where my assistant lay asleep.
Or fake-asleep.
Whatever it was she was doing.
I’d come out of the bathroom last night to see AJ completely hidden in the sheets, wrapped like a cocoon with only a few locks of dark hair peeking out from under the comforter.
But her feet were still moving here and there and I could hear her breathing patterns, which weren’t the actually-asleep breathing patterns I knew well from basically a thousand flights and layovers in which she’d dozed off right next to me.
If I had to guess, she was awake for at least twenty minutes after I got out of the bathroom last night, and as annoying as I found it when she pretended to be passed out—which was often, given how often I emailed her past work hours—I was half-grateful she’d pulled that stunt on me last night.
Because talking to her about jerking off wasn’t exactly a breeze for me either.
Especially not when her eyes got all big like that. Her cheeks all pink.
I’d witnessed a lot of AJ’s expressions—in fact, I was sure I knew them all.
But I was clearly wrong, because I’d never seen that look from last night.
Just that second of reluctant lip biting had been enough to make my dick stir, but then she started squirming under those sheets.
It was subtle, but it was just enough for me to notice.
And just enough to have me willing down a hard-on for the rest of the night. Though needless to say, my dick won that battle.
Thankfully, of course, that was doing nothing to hinder my performance today.
“Well, in case it didn’t come across, I have to say we’re certainly impressed with everything you put together today.”
The grinning praise came from Ben, Knox’s older brother and one of three men in the team of advisers who were clearly pushing him to hire a real damned agent already.
They had both spoken on his behalf all meeting while Knox grunted here and there with a disinterest that remained even now at the end of the presentation—which was fine.
Because if we’d swayed the brother, we’d won half the battle.
“Adam. We’ll be in touch soon,” Ben said as we all got up from our seats in the rented conference room and did the obligatory round of handshakes and goodbyes.
And before long, the room was cleared out. Our financial advisor Craig was still lingering out side the door with Ben, but aside from them, it was just me and AJ as we gathered the files off the table.
Shamelessly, I watched her as I did this.
She was wearing what she had on by the time I got back from the hotel gym this morning: a navy blazer and pants with a white shirt buttoned nearly to the collar—her way of warding off unnecessary attention at the office.
It usually worked.
Of course, it wasn’t doing shit on me today, since my brain was back to thinking about what I hadn’t let myself think of last night—her palms pulsing on my chest. Her full, fucking perfect tits barely contained in that paper-thin lingerie.
Christ.
I’d successfully forced the image away for most of last night while we were watching TV, and though it had come briefly back in the bathroom—after I witnessed the closest thing to a fuck-me face as I’d ever seen on AJ—I had ultimately kept the thought of her knockout curves wrangled, because there was something entirely too fucked about getting hard off the thought of your half-naked assistant while she slept innocently in the same room.
But we were both fully conscious now, so I let myself have it, running my eyes over her and trying not to smirk because while she’d had her game face on throughout the meeting—staying doggedly on top of the discussion, anticipating Knox’s questions and flipping to the exact page of research for my every point, just in case I needed backup—I could see now that it had all been her trusty poker face.
Because with the room about empty now, she was already breathing faster. I could see it in the rise and fall of her chest. She looked completely worked up, and given it could’ve been one of a handful of things bothering her, I broke the silence by asking, “What’s on your mind right now?”
She glanced at me before swiping the last few printouts off the table. “Being petty,” she finally said without looking up.
I raised my eyebrows, studying her for a second before dropping my gaze to her phone, which was actively lighting up with new texts. I didn’t need to look too hard to know who they were from.
“What’s he been saying?” I asked.
AJ
Once upon a time, I had actual nightmares about my boss being able to read my personal texts.
And yet now here I was, voluntarily handing Adam my phone, giving him a VIP, first-look tour of my shitshow personal life, all because I simply couldn’t think anymore.
Last night had been, in a massive understatement, fucking wild.
My fiancé cheated, my boss nearly beat the shit out of him for me, and then said boss and I had an increasingly inappropriate sleepover that started with whiskey and ended with me asking about his masturbation habits—and then getting very openly flustered by his answer.
I genuinely could not imagine the monumental levels of awkwardness that awaited me in the morning. But then I awoke at 7AM to an empty room and an email from Knox.
Can’t do noon. Let’s do 9 or reschedule.
Shortly after, Adam rushed back from the gym looking pissed. “You see the email?” he demanded. “I’m letting everyone know,” I said, on the phone.
And then we were off.
I made a round of calls while he showered and just like that, we were too busy to think about the night before. It was a miracle. An actual godsend of a dick move from Knox, and it had me thinking this day might just go by drama-free.
But then came Caspar.
Deciding to blow up my work phone mid-meeting, with what I’d thought might finally be reflective, remorseful texts, but nope.
They were completely unhinged.
CASPAR: Tell me what you did with him
CASPAR: I know you fucked him. Just admit you always wanted to
CASPAR: I should state for the record that I did fuck Vicky
CASPAR: Twice last night and once this morning.
CASPAR: Depending on what floor you’re on you might’ve heard
It didn’t even stop there.
He went on to detail how I could have prevented this. How he’d only slept with Vicky after I chucked his engagement ring. How Adam probably couldn’t even make me come. That he probably just pounded women like sex toys.
Yep.
Super charming.
In a weird way though, I was almost grateful for the texts, because they were so revolting that they fast-tracked me to about the ninety percent mark of getting the hell over this jackass.
The downside, however, was the fact that they had me so fucking pissed that I was thinking of all the filthy, sweaty sexual acts I could tell him I did with Adam. He was harassing me for the info, so why not?
Well.
Because you didn’t actually sleep with Adam, you will never sleep with Adam and thinking about this is the last thing you need after getting kind-of-almost turned on by Adam last night.
Not that that counted, I reminded myself, feeling my neck getting warm as I watched Adam read the texts from my phone.
His brow was furrowed as he stroked his thumb across his bottom lip, drawing my eyes to all the places they didn’t need to be right now. His mouth. His long fingers. Those thick goddamned forearms that brought me right back to last night’s dirty thoughts.
Okay—easy, perv, I warned myself, trying to remind myself that I was angry right now, not horny.
My nose crinkled. Unless there’s a fine line. Is there?
Potentially valid question but I didn’t ponder the answer for long because Adam finally got to the part about how he probably “pounds girls like sexy toys.”
“For Christ’s sake,” he exhaled a laugh that I could only describe as amused disgust. Then he handed back my phone, his blue gaze locking on me with a look of intrigue. “So are you going to respond?” he asked.
“I mean…” I swallowed, my eyes on my phone as his eyes remained on me.
And just like that, I was asking myself how the hell I survived five years of standing this close to Adam, being the recipient of his scrutinizing gaze.
He was so damned casual, his hands slid in his pockets and his head tilted just so as he watched me with interest. Meanwhile, I could think of nothing but the fact that I was standing barely a foot away from him, my eye line right at his chest, forcing me to look up at him from under my lashes.
“I definitely want to respond,” I finally answered, my bones feeling every millisecond of silence between us as Adam’s lips turned slightly up at the edges.
“With what?” he asked.