I gesture to the sketches I’ve been working on since Lucy left. I had expected to be long finished with the design for B’s newest toy, but my thoughts have focused on hazel eyes and pouty red lips. Fucking Lucy Williams.
“I like to work,” I say, although Sonora’s already fully aware of that. “Why are you still out?”
Rolling her blue eyes so dramatically my attention zeroes in on the smudges of eyeliner at the corners, she tilts her head to one side. Her hair spills from its knot. “You know why I’m still out. You should go home.”
“No plan to go home tonight.”
Her mouth parts in a silent O, and she looks down at her lap for a moment. “The woman you brought to B’s—”
“Is my new marketing director,” I correct her, the muscles in my neck straining because she’s brought up Lucy. I’d hoped to wrap up the night without giving that woman another thought, but now I have a vivid image of her in my head that won’t piss off. I lean back in my chair and scratch my chin. “My plans have me going … elsewhere.”
“Fun.” Sonora’s smile doesn’t touch her eyes. She shifts on my desk, lowering her foot to the center of my thighs. Bumping my cock lightly with the heel of her pump, she casts me a look that would make a weaker man go fucking crazy to find out what she’s hiding beneath her coat. “I was hoping—”
I grab the inside of her ankle, and she gasps. “You know me better than that.” We’ve been friends since I met her through my first client—my ex-girlfriend—and I have the same rule for Sonora that I try to maintain for my employees: No fucking. No intimacy. Nothing but friendship.
“You’re an ass, Jace Callum Exley, but you’re a wonderfully talented ass.” She draws her foot from my lap and crosses her legs in the other direction. She clenches her fingers around the hem of her coat. “By the way, your new marketing girl is … very beautiful. Andrew couldn’t keep his eyes off her when you showed him how to—”
“Why the fuck are we talking about her?” I interrupt and she twists to stare at me like there’s a bag of dicks growing out of my forehead. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s been … a long day.”
“I can tell.”
“Tell Andrew my marketing girl isn’t one for cuffs.” I hate the thought of that prick Sonora was with earlier tonight staring at Lucy. Talking about her. Thinking about her. I hate it even more that I see red at the thought of him doing any one of those things, which are all harmless. “She’s here for work, not to meet him or his bride.”
“I never said they wanted to meet her, just that he mentioned she was beautiful right before we started to play,” Sonora says cautiously. Her eyes crinkle as she flicks her tongue over her lips. I think of Lucy doing the same, and I groan. “Jace—”
“Don’t start.”
“I thought you don’t do employees ever since that Michaela fuckery.”
“I don’t.” I massage the bridge of my nose between my fingers and release a sharp breath. What the fuck is wrong with me tonight?
“You should.” She laughs as she slides off my desk. “I know I would.”
“She quit tonight.” And I’ve not been able to get her out of my fucking head since she left.
Sonora offers me a sympathetic frown. “Then there’s nothing standing in your way of sleeping with her, is there?”
“She’s not my type, and I’m sure as shit not what she’s looking for.”
I don’t remember Williams being involved with anyone in school, but I’ve got a clear picture of the kind of man she’d go for—a stuffy hedge fund manager, for example. One who takes his lattes with an extra shot of boring before he plays Scrabble and argues abstract words.
Sauntering to my office door, Sonora peeks over her shoulder and shifts an eyebrow. “Well in that case, offer her more money to work for you. The woman’s obviously a keeper.”
“Get the hell out of my office.” But I grin, and she winks just before disappearing around the corner, loudly advising me to wrap up the work and my cock for wherever I’m headed next.
If she only knew.
For the next half hour, I sketch in silence, until I’m finally satisfied with the design for B’s table. As I leave my office, I can’t resist sending Lucy a message.
Are you still upset, Williams?
By the time I get into my car, she’s already read it.
Seven
Lucy
"What exactly do you mean when you say he makes sex toys?" Jamie asks. "Like things that go buzz in the night? I thought you said he was a welder."
I hadn't planned to go out today—preparing for my workweek on Sundays has always been a ritual for me—but I laid awake for far too long last night because all I could think about was my new boss. My very sexy and verifiably kinky new boss. When Jamie texted this morning asking if I would meet her halfway in Framingham for breakfast at a place called Planet of the Cakes, a restaurant she'd randomly picked because the Yelp reviews called them pancake connoisseurs, I jumped at the chance. I needed to get out of the house before my mother had the opportunity to grill me about my evening.
I still haven't figured out what the hell I'll say to her. Mom can see right through bullshit better than anyone I've ever met, and I don’t think I can bear the disapproving smile that will greet me if I tell her I accepted a position marketing kink. Or what she’ll say.
“Three degrees, Lucinda, and a job history at one of the best marketing firms in San Francisco, and you're pitching … intercourse toys?” Mom would demand and then I would question all my life decisions up until this point. Again.
"What I mean by sex toys," I start softly, leaning in to Jamie so the couple with their teenage kids at the next table won't hear me, "is metal cages and chrome butt plugs and spinning stainless steel tables."
"Oh my," she says with an enormous grin.
"I can't believe you're smiling and making The Wizard of Oz jokes when I'm sitting right in front of you telling you my new job is marketing sex toys!"
"Calm down," she says in the same voice she uses on newborns at work. She takes a bite of her eggs, chews them slowly as she gathers her thoughts. "What's so bad about promoting ... toys?” She dabs at the corners of her mouth with her paper napkin. “You've done it before—granted those were building blocks and Jack-In-A-Boxes—but now you have a chance to broaden your horizon. You can sell ... other jacks."
I fist my hands around my own napkin, twisting until it tears.
"What's wrong is that he took me to a party where they were being used right in front of me. He didn't say a damn word—" The mother at the next table over shoots me a lethal glare, and I mouth sorry before lowering my voice and continuing. "He didn't say a word about where we were going or what we would be doing because he wanted to see my reaction. I felt like a complete dumbass because I'd been too eager about finally being offered a job to see the signs."