"You. Tricked. Me!" she shrieks before I can finish reminding her of the Voyeur Room. I was distracted the entire time I spoke to Bailon because she looked like she was seconds from writhing on the floor. Seeing her like that, with her skin flushed pink and her red lips quivering, had fucked over my train of thought.
"I didn't trick you, you just didn't do your research." I loosen my grip on the steering wheel because pain shoots through my knuckles. "You always were the sort to research every fucking detail so you wouldn't look like an arse when you forced your opinion down some poor bastard’s throat. I figured you already knew just what you were getting yourself into. You seemed so confident in what you were saying in my office."
"So that's what this was? You decided not to clue me in because you have a vendetta against me for forcing my point on you when we were kids? Thanks for being such an adult, Jace."
"I don't hold grudges." I glance her way, and her breath hitches as our eyes lock. "Yes, you were a bitch with all that underachiever shit when we were kids, but I don't hold that against you. If anything, it motivated me to be more. Better."
"So if it’s not a grudge, why didn't you say anything? Why did you even hire me if it wasn’t just to get a good laugh over stupid, na?ve Lucy Williams?"
To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t wanted to hire her because I don’t like being physically attracted to her. It’s dangerous; a disaster for business, and that’s one thing I do enjoy—my business. The people who work for me are my family, and I don’t need someone coming in and fucking that up.
I’d hoped her references would throw her under the bus. That would have made saying no simple and going with someone with less education and experience even easier. But then Lucy’s ex-husband had begrudgingly admitted the woman could sell crack to a crack dealer—just before he told me what a godawful bitch she is.
Godawful bitch or not, I knew I needed her. Not just because I thought she’d take us to a whole new level but because something about her ex’s snide tone made me want to give her the job.
My dick can find a distraction. Just so long as it’s not her pussy doing the distracting, I told myself last night when I called. I was ready to tell her everything about EXtreme. But then she’d assertively claimed she’d have our name out in every corner of the world within the year—because she thought we made clocks and that excited her. And I knew right then that I didn’t want to warn her.
That I wanted to make sure the woman I was preparing to throw money at could market cages and cuffs with the same enthusiasm as clocks and shitty, over-hyped coffee.
"I wanted to see your reaction,” I finally admit in a gravelly voice. “I needed to see it because I want to be sure you can get my product out there without acting like a nun in the Red-Light District.”
She mouths my last several words and then releases a breath and drags another in. "Don't you think my reaction might have been a little—oh, I don’t know—calmer if you had told me we were going to a sex club."
"It's not a club," I correct. "It's a private residence."
“Whatever you want to call it, I was completely blindsided, and you know it."
I take the exit toward my shop. "You've got to admit, at some points you seemed pleasantly surprised." She issues me a dark look that I immediately reciprocate. "The Voyeur Room. Or have you already forgotten so soon?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." But she does, and she squeezes her knees together at the reminder. My cock stirs inside my jeans. "I've seen that look enough times to know what thoughts were rolling through that brilliant mind of yours. You were curious. And curiosity is a beautiful thing. Despite the saying, it really didn't kill the pussy."
She gasps, and I let a grin split my face as I wait for her to form a comeback.
"Okay, for starters, you’re a raunchy person. And secondly, what makes you the expert on knowing if a woman is thinking about sex? Telepathy? Or, even better, all the time you’ve spent on the other side of that glass getting it on?”
I shrug. "I've never been on the other side of that glass."
"But you're not denying that you've gone to those—"
"No, I'm not denying I’ve gone to those parties and done naughty, filthy things that would make your toes curl," I interrupt. From the sudden twitch in her eye, I can tell dozens of images spiral through her mind all at once. Maybe she’s wondering what room I indulged in? What fantasy?
And with whom or how many?
If she asks, I’ll tell her everything because I don’t think Lucy Williams will be my employee after tonight.
She’s too prude. Too scandalized. Too …
Fuck, I wish she’d stop blinking at me and doing that thing with her throat.
“So when I say I know that look, love, I know what the fuck I’m talking about,” I say and hope she’ll respond with something other than fluttering her eyelashes and making swallowing noises that test my patience.
Focusing her attention on a fingerprint smudge on the windshield, she clears her throat and smoothes her fingers through her long ponytail. "You don't know anything about me," she finally informs me.
I laugh.
Then I turn the music back on. I’d rather listen to My Darkest Days sing about casual sex than hear Lucy pretend I haven’t known her for the last fifteen years.
We ride in silence for the next five minutes, and I barely shift the car into park before she stumbles out, slamming the door behind her. I’m right on her heels. She refuses to turn around. I yell out her name, so she finally pauses at her car door.
“What?”
"I'll see you Monday morning. Nine on the dot." I lock my car, and the beep is like a trigger, tightening her body. I’d planned to call it a night, but a few hours with the woman has left me wanting to blow off some steam. "I'm assuming since you're thirty minutes early for everything, you'll be right on time. And if you’re not going to be here … let me know now."
She balls her hands into fists then turns her head just enough to glance at me out the corner of her eye. She flinches at my expression because I’m not smirking. There's not even a ghost of a smile dancing on my mouth. Instead, I just want an answer from her.
"Goodbye, Jace," she whispers before she climbs into her Jeep and speeds off.
“Why so serious, E?” The breathy voice draws my attention up from the sketches on my desk. Sonora stands in the doorway of my office, her red hair piled on top of her head and a black trench coat wrapped securely around her body. I’d be willing to bet there’s very little—or not a fucking stich of clothing at all—on beneath it. “You didn’t message back after that last text saying you were here, and I got worried about you.”
“It’s not polite to let yourself in. Especially when you don’t even work here.” She responds with a shrug and saunters inside.
“The front door was unlocked.” She eases onto the edge of my desk, crossing her legs toward me. “It’s three am, Jace. Why are you still here?”