Pun not intended on the ‘fucking’ part.
Like the excellent and professional employee I was, I barely listened to George make his speech about restructuring and eliminating the constant pace we’d maintained with downsizing. All the while, I was fishing stupid poppy seeds out of my teeth and studiously avoiding making eye contact with the man whose face I had practically tried to swallow the night before. Felicia, the ‘subtle one’ of the office, made advance after advance in Ben’s direction, since she was seated directly to his right, but he was deflecting them with an ease I was impressed with.
Not that I was looking at him. Oh, no. I most certainly was not.
When George announced private meetings to discuss our positions for the company, with Ben, I choked on my bagel, which had become rock-hard in my mouth, and gagged down some cold coffee, before ducking out of the room entirely and into the hallway.
Oh, I could tell Ben all about my fucking positions. Literally. But I wouldn’t have to, because he already knew.
Every swear word I’d ever said or thought or read flew from my mouth as I paced the hall outside the conference room.
I was going to fucking throw up.
I was going to die.
I was going to die with a giant bite of bagel still in my gullet and poppy seeds all over my teeth, in a pile of my vomit.
I’d barely made it to the bathroom when I heard the meeting disperse and people greeting Ben with limp fish handshakes and half-hearted messages of welcome.
I waited a full five minutes before exiting the bathroom, hoping to sneak by without that little one-on-one meeting, but I’d barely made it past his door before he was calling me in.
If there was a God who’d have listened, I would have sent him/her/them every prayer request I’d ever withheld, just to not be alone, with Ben my boss.
“Hey,” he said casually, like this wasn’t a Big Fucking Deal—proper style like that. “Have a seat.” He closed the door behind me and I sat unceremoniously into the chair across from his wide and empty desk. I wanted the chair to dissolve under my ass, and then under my feet, so I could just fall straight through the floor and not be here.
“So…” I began, clasping my hands in my lap and rocking back and forth. “You’re my new boss.”
“Yeah,” he said on a laugh and wrapped his hand behind his neck, rubbing the tension that had to be there away. “I guess this is awkward, right?”
No, I thought. You dusted off my vagina a mere twelve hours ago and now you’re my boss. Totally normal, bro. “Just a little.”
“I’m just going to get this out of the way—if I’d known…”
“I know,” I interrupted, wringing my hands together, wanting to say what he was going to, before he had the chance to. “Last night was a mistake.”
Silence fell over us, the ticking of the clock and the beating of my heart in my ears the only sounds I heard, until he asked, “Was it though?”
I lifted my head. “Are you seriously asking?”
“Yes. I am.”
He pinned me with those baby blues and I wanted to groan when that stupidly perfect eyebrow rose. It was like he knew what that did to me. I’d thought banging him would get him out of my system, but seeing him, in a suit and in the daylight was blowing a lid off the cap of my libido.
“This…” I waved between us. “Complicates things.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t think last night was a mistake.” He came around the desk and instinct had me pushing in the chair—thinking it was a wheely one, but instead I just wobbled and nearly fell over. My dignity was still at the bottom of my trash, along with my microwaved nachos. “It means that while we’re in a delicate situation here…” He paused for effect and it worked because I raised my head, so I met his eyes. “We don’t have to pretend that last night never happened.”
“But don’t we? This makes you unbiased, especially if you’re examining our individual positions in this company.”
The side of his mouth curled. “Positions…”
I hated and loved the way that word hissed from his mouth. “See? Oh, shit. You cannot possibly be unbiased.”
“You’re wearing the leggings you wore last night.” He was eyeing them the same way he had then, like he wanted to remove then with his mouth. I crossed my legs.
“Oh no.” I laughed. “See? This will never work. Now, you’re my boss and you have to decide if I’m worth keeping around here or not and you can’t very well make a clearheaded decision about that considering the fact that we boned on my couch last night and now you’re looking at my legs like you want to nibble on them.”
“I do, you’re right.” At my tortured groan, he laughed and stepped even closer to me. “So, whether we continue what happened last night or not—it makes no difference, right? Because it’s already happened, so—in your mind—I’m already biased.”
I slouched in my seat for a moment, forgetting where I was. “Then what do we do?”
“We.” He smiled at my use of a plural pronoun. “I simply disclose my inability to be biased when it comes to you, which means that George or someone else will take over in interviewing you for your position.” He said this matter-of-factly, like it was so obvious. “And then we figure out us together.”
We and us, when the night before the only we I’d known had been me and my chicken pajamas. “And that’s it?”
“That’s it.” He leaned against the front of his desk, so close that our knees brushed and neither of us pulled back. “I like you. And I’m willing to bet you like me at least a little. You need fun and so do I. So, if you’re up for it, I am too.”
I chewed on my lip for a moment, studying his stupidly perfect, handsome face. He made it sound so simple. I mean, my job was still on the chopping block if the downsizing continued, but the night before I’d been lamenting about my boring life and now I had a man-sized snack asking me to figure shit out with him.
“Was it the pajamas that sold you?” I asked.
“The cocky pajamas? Yeah, pretty much sealed the deal for me.”
I nodded. “I figured.” What was I waiting for? Chicken pajamas and sad nachos were yesterday. A baby blue convertible and a man named Ben were today. “I guess we owe it to Elizabeth to find out what this is,” I said and was rewarded with that cocksure grin.
“Like I told you before, I won’t take unless you give.”
I crossed my legs at my knees, remembering how much he had taken and given the night before. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
The End
About the Author
Whitney Barbetti writes character-driven contemporary and new adult romance novels, heavy on the emotional connection. She lives in Idaho, where potatoes are abundant and delicious.
http://www.whitneybarbetti.com/
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* * *
--- STANDALONES ---
The Sounds of Secrets The Weight of Life Hooked Ten Below Zero
--- DUETS ---
The Mad Love Duet - Six Feet Under (Book One) - Pieces of Eight (Book Two)
The Bleeding Hearts Duet - Into the Tomorrows (Book One) - Back to Yesterday (Book Two)
The He Found Me Duet - He Found Me (Book One) - He Saved Me (Book Two)
A Wicked, Cocky Plan: A Prequel to Wicked Force
Sawyer Bennett
Short story prequel to Wicked Force, featuring Kynan McGrath from the Wicked Horse Vegas series. Kynan will be spinning off a new series called Jameson Force Security in March, 2019.
Copyright ? 2018 by Sawyer Bennett All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Kynan