Off the Cuff

by K. I. Lynn

  My eyes widened and I froze, unable to stop myself from staring at her chest.

  She’d worn a high-collared blouse the day before, and the V-neck she was wearing today was by no means low cut, otherwise I would have noticed earlier in the day. The issue was that we were both standing and there was easily a foot or more difference in our height. Being so close, I had to swallow at the peek of two perfectly plump mounds. It was also impossible not to notice her hard nipples pressed against the fabric.

  The view was going to be a test of my will.

  “A little chilly in here?” I asked, arching a brow at her.

  There it was—a flash in her eyes, a pinking of her cheeks, and then the flame of fire.

  Game. On.

  “It is quite frosty in here today. Too bad there’s nothing around to heat me up.”

  Not five minutes after lunch, and Roe already had one point.

  The phone chose that moment to ring, but our eyes remained locked.

  “Two rings. See if you can manage to get that right today, sweetheart.”

  Excitement roared to life inside me at the flash of anger in her eyes. Yes, the day was going to be very exciting.

  We continued our stare down as it rang again and she didn’t move. I took a step closer and leaned down. “Are you going to get that?”

  “Oh, is the phone ringing?” she asked in a sickly sweet tone.

  “Yes,” I hissed as it rang a fourth time. “Fucking answer it.”

  She heaved a sigh, rolled her eyes, and then picked up the receiver. “Thane Carthwright’s office,” she said.

  I narrowed my gaze on her, but she didn’t react.

  “Just one moment,” she said before turning to me. “A Trisha Amberley, who sounds like she has two brain cells that don’t rub together, is on the line for you.”

  “I’ll take it in my office,” I grumbled. She was all too right about Trisha. One date over a year ago and she was still calling me up on rare occasions. “And where is your blazer? It might help take that chill off.”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Still hanging up in the department store because you haven’t paid for it.”

  Damn, she was good.

  Thane—1

  Roe—6

  I was badly losing and needed to catch up.

  On Friday she arrived fifteen minutes late, and I realized I didn’t have her number in case of emergency. After she got settled, I walked out to her desk.

  “What’s your phone number?” I asked, my phone in hand, ready to enter her into my contacts.

  “Good morning to you, too. And why do you think you need that?”

  I disregarded her pleasantry, as it was a jab anyway. “In case of tardiness, like today, which you have an issue with, or call-offs, or emergency. Why are you always late, anyway? Leave earlier. Catch an earlier train.”

  Her eyes narrowed at me. “Ah, why didn’t I think of that?” she asked in a mocking tone. “Something so simple! If only it worked that way.”

  “Why do you have such an issue getting to work on time, then?”

  “Oh, I think you know the answer to that one.”

  I ground my teeth together. It’s between me and HR, my mind mocked in her voice.

  “It’s unprofessional.”

  “As is stealing an employee from her job just to work as your gofer.”

  “I didn’t realize you were a rodent.”

  “Go. For. Not a gopher.” She rolled her eyes at me, a trait that I found both annoying and enticing. I wanted to see her eyes roll for a different reason. Rolled back while her lips were parted and moaning my name in pleasure.

  “Well then, gofer. Go fetch me your phone number. Now.”

  The energy between us crackled, and that strange urge to push her against a wall made my hands twitch.

  What was she doing to me? Not that it didn’t excite me, but fuck, when was I last entranced by any woman?

  Through gritted teeth she ground out the numbers. I typed up a text and sent it off to make sure. When her phone buzzed and she picked it up, my message was on her screen for us both to see.

  +17045552956: Add my number—Carthwright

  With reluctance, she added it to her contacts along with my name.

  “Was that so difficult?”

  “Will that be all, Mr. Carthwright?” she asked in a saccharine-sweet tone.

  Each time she pushed back against me, tried to go toe to toe with me, it excited me more and more.

  “For now, Miss Pierce.”

  I didn’t have many friends that I spent time with. Occasionally I got together with James, but that had dwindled in the last few years since Bailey was born. Before then, we used to have a guys’ night about once a month, but it had been just Jace and me for a long time.

  There were others, but they were more casual friends. Jace was my closest friend. If he ever got married, a laughable thought, I was fucked.

  When I was sitting at the bar later drinking a beer, I realized something James had said didn’t sit right. Not the words, but what they implied.

  Though he was right about one thing—Roe wasn’t a game.

  “Are you even paying attention?” Jace said with a wave of his hand in front of me.

  “Sorry, I was—”

  “Thinking about a girl?” he asked, cutting me off.

  “That obvious?” I asked.

  He tipped his bottle away from us. “The blonde at the end?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody here.”

  His brow rose. “Really? What’s with the limp dick lately? I haven’t seen you pick anyone up in… fuck, months, maybe even a year.”

  “How would you know?” I asked.

  “Because you’re always free on Friday nights for drinks and Sunday for football. You’re such a fucking dating recluse lately.”

  He was right. It’d been many months since I’d even been on a date. Longer since I’d fucked anyone. I spent so many hours at work, the most time consuming being Worthington Exchange, which was the largest acquisition in the company’s history, that life outside of work had pretty much stopped.

  It’d killed my social life, which was probably why Roe had me so amped up. A fuck-hot woman within arm’s reach with a smart mouth?

  I knew I was a goner. I just hadn’t relented yet.

  “She… pisses me off,” I ground out. I really didn’t want to talk about her. It was bad enough the woman had me thinking about her outside of the office.

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s good at her job.”

  He narrowed his gaze at me, brow quirked in a “what the fuck” kind of expression. “Explain, because I’m having trouble seeing that as a bad thing.”

  “It turns me on and makes all sense fly from my brain. All I want to do is bend her over my desk and bury my cock inside her.”

  He took a long pull of his beer. “Man, I haven’t heard you talk about any tail like that since, well, never.”

  I slammed my bottle down onto the bar top. “Do you see my problem now?”

  “What if she’s interested in you? You know, for more than your dick?”

  “She absolutely hates me.” Though I knew we had chemistry and I was pretty certain she was attracted to me, I wasn’t about to let Jace in on that information.

  “Are you sure about that? Could be one of those clingy types.”

  A vision of Roe all doe eyed and clingy danced in my mind, and I burst out laughing. That wasn’t happening. Ever.

  “Not this firecracker. She’s a fucking ticking bomb.”

  “Those are the best. Go get her.”

  His encouragement in pursuing Roe for sex wasn’t a bad idea. The hate fuck vibes certainly circulated every time we were together.

  Still, she was my acting assistant, though I was certain that she did everything in her power to disobey some of the rules I’d set for the smooth running of my office. I was also certain she made it her life’s work to not answer my damn phone, or get me a decent cup
of coffee.

  What started off as an idea born of anger had me continuing to act like an asshole, but the game we were playing was as fun as it was arousing. And I wasn’t ready to stop.

  That Sunday I gathered up a baby bag, loaded Kinsey into the stroller, then headed toward the park. It was only a mile and a half to Lizzie’s house, and while not the quickest way to Midtown, our route moved through Central Park, which was a welcome scenery change over my everyday cityscape.

  Kinsey loved looking at the trees, and after about half an hour, we popped out onto Fifty-Ninth Street. I pulled out my phone and found her number before hitting send.

  After two rings, the sounds of a toddler screeching hit my ears before her voice came through. “Hey, Roe. As you can hear, Oliver is excited for our play date.”

  “Kinsey can’t wait either. She is enamored with Bailey. We’re a block away.”

  “Come on up. I let the doorman know you were on your way.”

  James and Lizzie lived in a huge apartment, where a single mortgage payment probably equaled about one year of rent for me. Then again, owning a company the size of Donovan Trading and Investment did come with perks, such as money.

  We made our way up and knocked on the door. It swung open, and we were greeted by someone who had become one of my closest friends. Her brunette hair was in perfect, loose curls, her blue eyes as bright as her glowing smile. She always reminded me of an angel, until you pissed her off. Lizzie was one of the few friends that had stayed by me and helped me more than I could thank her for when Kinsey had come into my life.

  From friend to Mom friend, she’d talked me down from so many cliffs when things became overwhelming those first few months.

  “Everything okay?” she asked as she ushered us inside.

  “Not really. Got any wine?”

  “We might.”

  “Where’s James and Bailey?” I asked, noticing the silence.

  “One of our friends is having a birthday party for their son.”

  “Oh, no. Did I keep you from going?” I asked as I pulled Kinsey from the stroller and set her down on the floor.

  Immediately she crawled over to Oliver.

  Lizzie waved her hand. “It’s okay, I didn’t really want to go anyway. Plus, it’ll be good for him to have some daddy-daughter time.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Stop it, and turn your mouth to spilling what’s wrong.”

  I blew out a breath. Lizzie had been with James for a decade, so I was pretty sure she knew a lot of his confidants in the company. “What do you know about Thane Carthwright?”

  “Thane? Not a lot, honestly. Why?”

  “Because I can tell you he is an asshole.” Just thinking about him made my blood boil.

  “Really?” she asked in surprise. “He’s always been nice to me. What did he do?”

  “He pulled me from my position to be his assistant, all because I spilled coffee on him.”

  “He what? I’m going to have to talk to my husband about this,” she said as she pulled up her phone. “It was an accident, right?”

  I swallowed hard before fessing up to my own sins of the situation. “The first bit. The second one not so much.” I held up a finger to stop her. “I’d like to point out I restrained myself from pouring the entire thing over his head.”

  Her lip twitched. “Too tall, huh?”

  “Yesss,” I groaned. “Being short really sucks sometimes.”

  She laughed and set her phone down. “I know Thane has worked for James for years. Possibly his most trusted employee. After all, when we had Bailey, he asked Thane to take over the reins while he took paternity leave, and again with Oliver. At times, Thane has practically run the company for months with James’s guidance.”

  I’d never really thought about that. “Wow. I was still pretty new when Oliver was born and was trying to impress my boss, so I wasn’t worried about who was doing James’s job.”

  “You’re not getting along with Thane?”

  I shook my head. “I want to strangle him, Lizzie.”

  She chuckled next to me as she picked up Oliver’s bottle, which had rolled over for what was probably the umpteenth time. “With a certain part of your anatomy?” she asked with a quirk of her brow.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, he is very easy on the eyes. Speaking of eyes…” Thane had the most alluring blue eyes I’d ever seen.

  “What about them?”

  “Every time our eyes meet, I get stuck, like I’m hypnotized by them. They are the most beautiful bluish-green. The man should not be so good looking and have those eyes, because then I’m just done.”

  “You do like him,” she said with a smirk. “You know, I once read this article that said seventy percent of relationships start in the workplace. Which I can see. That’s how I met James, after all.”

  Ha! Like that would ever happen.

  “No, just no. I hate him,” I corrected her. I knew the story of how Lizzie and James worked together at an investment company before he struck out on his own, taking her with him. They were equals, and completely different than me and Thane.

  She just smiled at me. I couldn’t even convince myself. “You just want to have sex with him, then?”

  I let out a sigh and looked over to Kinsey. She and Oliver were happily playing with the toys on the floor, and thankfully they were sharing without incident. “I can’t have more than that.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course you can! Just because you have her doesn’t mean anything.”

  “She is instant guy repellent. I tried to go on a date, and he took one look at her when I opened the door and was out. Guys come up to me at the grocery and see her, and suddenly they’re gone. My last relationship completely disintegrated because of her.”

  “And you even got your nipples pierced for him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It was a stupid reason. I never would have done it otherwise, but I’m glad I did it.” Lizzie had gone with me for moral support and held my hand. She was about to burst with Oliver at the time, and said she wanted some measure of the pain James was going to feel in a few weeks when she was in labor.

  Weeks later she called him a wuss when he complained she was breaking his hand.

  “Do you think Thane would like them?” she asked.

  Heat rose in my face and I stared down at the sparkles in the granite counter. “I don’t care what the Assholian thinks.”

  “Assholian? Is that what you’re calling him? I like it.”

  “What do I do?” I needed some help, because I was at a loss.

  “You want my advice?”

  I nodded. “Give it to me.”

  As sweet as Lizzie was, she could also be brutally honest. And no matter how much I didn’t want it, I needed her to tell me everything I knew but didn’t want to admit.

  “Fuck him. Literally. It’s obvious you two have some wild chemistry going by what you’ve said, and I think you need to explore that. If you still hate him after that, move on and be happy for a good time. But you can’t keep using Kinsey as a shield or an excuse. There are men out there that aren’t afraid of being with a woman who has kids. All those guys were boys, including that shit of an ex.”

  “I just…” She was right. I did use Kinsey as an excuse, but at the same time, my life had been completely turned upside down in an instant. My only constant was work. That was the last place I could find any speck of original Roe.

  “Kinsey is lucky to have you. The sacrifices you’ve made for her are incredible. You chose her, so make sure you find a man who chooses you both. Until then, a little office romp sounds like fun.”

  Maybe she was right about one thing—there was someone out there who would want both me and Kinsey.

  The problem was, I knew it wasn’t Thane.

  His assistant put her baby before him, and the obvious disdain he had told me children weren’t his thing.

  If he couldn’t accept his assistant putting her child first, there was no way he�
��d be able to accept me putting Kinsey’s needs first.

  The entire weekend passed with me trying to work off the energy vibrating through me. I had to stop myself from looking up Roe’s information in HR’s database to find out where she lived so I could fuck it all out on her.

  I was completely unhinged. In all the years, all the women I’d dated, none had hit me so hard. There hadn’t been a steady woman in my life in years. Not that I was a commitment-phobe by any means, but there just was not a connection strong enough to make it past a night or two.

  But Roe…

  She was distracting me from my job, my routine.

  There was so much strength and wit in her, but there was something else. That something else drove my curiosity mad and kept me thinking about her more than I should have been. Something she hid, kept from conversation by omission. The short lunches, leaving early, and her sometimes ruffled appearance.

  She didn’t have a boyfriend, according to James, who only laughed when I asked. When I got defensive, shooting off how beautiful she was and why the fuck wouldn’t she have one, James only laughed harder.

  I needed to find better friends.

  Because he knew her secret.

  It was there in his words, in his warnings, and in that stupid laughter. Jealousy rose in me, hating that he knew her in ways I didn’t.

  Jealousy. Why was I feeling that emotion?

  What the fuck did I have to be jealous about?

  Maybe getting to know her better would quench that, and only time could change it. And maybe a date. Maybe then she’d open up to me.

  Then open her thighs.

  Fuck.

  I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling the intense attraction. It made me say and do things I would otherwise never do in the workplace.

  Those were two things I had always kept separate until my eyes met hers.

  All of these thoughts and feelings were unnerving to me.

  I arrived at the office at my usual few minutes before eight and she, of course, wasn’t there. Tardiness annoyed me almost as much as her refusal to answer the phone correctly. The trains moved on a tight schedule, and every few minutes. Why was it so hard to get out a few minutes earlier?