by Harley Stone
I was clearly arguing with an idiot, so I dumbed down my message. “Fresh Eyes LASIK has eight locations in the Pacific Northwest, each staffed with reputable surgeons who don’t want to be seen as an adventure, or a mission to Mars, or whatever this promises.” I picked up his ad and waved it around in the air. “They want a family friendly ad aimed at serious patients between the ages of twenty-five and forty. That’s exactly what I sent you and what I intend to send the client.”
Chad stared at me in shock.
I couldn’t blame him. I’d never stood up to him like this before. My hands were sweaty and shaky, and I felt like I’d downed a quad-shot latte mixed with jet fuel.
“I’m your supervisor,” he reminded me, in case I’d somehow forgotten.
“I realize that, but you’re still wrong.” And I was bordering on insubordination but didn’t care. Fresh Eyes was a huge client, and I’d worked hard to earn their commission. If Chad thought he could take it from me with some half-assed ad, he had another think coming.
Chad’s nostrils flared and his cheeks pinkened. “Maybe we should talk to Don about this and see what he thinks.”
Trembling hands and all, I held my ground. “Maybe we should.”
He held my glare for a moment before scooping up the ad and putting it back in his folder. “I could just send my design to the client.”
“Great. I’ll send mine, too, and we can see which one they prefer.” I’d bet my entire career that it wasn’t Chad’s. I’d taken the time to get to know this client and I understood their vision.
“We don’t compete with our own employees. That would make us seem unprofessional.”
I shrugged. “Sounds like a problem then. Look, my ad is good. It’s what the client wants, and my job is to keep them happy. You can fire me if you want, but I’m not sending them your ad.”
He flipped his hair back and let out a huff. “Look, Jessica, I know you wanted the supervisor position, and that you’re disappointed that I got it. I expected pushback from you, but I thought you’d at least be professional. Don’t you think this is a little extreme? Are you really willing to lose your job over one ad?”
“Have you ever been held at gunpoint?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
The thought had never crossed my mind. “No, Chad. I’m not a thug. I was held at gunpoint, though. Recently. You see, I’m not nearly as boring as you think I am. The difference between us is that I’m not confrontational, so I don’t fight you. But that doesn’t make me a doormat. You’ve been trying to stand on me for a long time. You need to stop now.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll walk. My clients love me. I wonder how many of them will stick around if I leave?”
“You signed a non-compete. You won’t be able to work advertising and you’ll have to find another field.”
I most definitely did not sign a non-compete. I was such a small little guppy when I started that nobody thought I’d make it. I barely got my bank information to accounting in time to get my first direct deposit. But I let him believe what he wanted to and shrugged. “You do what you have to, Chad. I’m not letting you push me around anymore. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do and an ad to send to Fresh Eyes LASIK.”
“What is wrong with you, Jessica?” he asked.
Everything. Nothing. For the first time in my life, I felt free. Spade was right, I was feisty, fierce, and ferocious… a goddamn savage. And I liked it. I stood and marched out of his office before he could respond.
And my legs only shook a little.
Spade
MY MOUTH STARTED watering the moment Jessica opened her apartment door. Not only did the place smell like an Italian restaurant, but she looked downright edible herself. She’d changed out of the work clothes she was wearing this morning into a knee-length black dress beneath a cupcake print apron. Her hair was up in a clip, and she’d darkened her eyes and lips.
“You look delicious,” I said, dropping my head down to give her a quick kiss hello while keeping the rest of my body back so I didn’t touch her. I was still wearing my work clothes, and I smelled like sawdust, dirt, and sweat, and didn’t think she’d appreciate any of that rubbing off on her. “I didn’t know this was a date.”
She blushed. “It’s not. I mean, it’s just dinner. I had a pretty crazy day and felt the need to look nice.”
“You always look nice, babe.”
She dropped her gaze. “Thanks.”
Hooking my finger under her chin, I raised her head until she was looking at me again. “You’re gorgeous, Jess. You should own that.”
Looking into my eyes, she replied, “Thanks.”
I held up the duffel bag in my hands. “And I brought clean clothes. Can I use your shower?”
She showed me to the bathroom, and I showered and dressed in the jeans and T-shirt I’d packed. When I returned to the kitchen, Jessica was plating breaded stuffed chicken breasts in red sauce over noodles with a side salad.
“This looks amazing. Anything I can do to help?” I asked, sidling up to her.
“Nope. Sit. I have it under control.” She set the plates on the table, opened the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of Summer Shandy, setting it in front of my plate.
Impressed that she’d paid attention to the type of beer I drank last night, I eyed the bottle. “I’d love to drink that, but I gotta work tonight, and I don’t drink when I work. Ever. Gotta keep a clear head to make sure everyone stays safe.”
“Right. Of course.” She exchanged the beer for two water glasses before removing her apron. The black dress she wore beneath it was tight around the chest and stomach, flaring out a little over her hips and basically showcasing all her sexy curves. She looked amazing.
I let my gaze drift down her body, making my attraction known. “Thank you.”
She sat. “For what?”
“Making me dinner. Caring enough to remember what kind of beer I liked. Dressing up. Being the sexiest woman in Seattle. I don’t want you to feel like you have to impress me, but I recognize and appreciate your efforts.” She was too far away, so I grabbed her chair and scooted it closer.
She squealed and held on to the seat.
When her chair bumped into mine, I released it. “Better. Now, tell me about your crazy day.”
She broke into a story about some asshole manager named Chad who was sleeping with her boss and giving her hell about her ads.
The name rang a bell. “Is this the Chad who called you ‘too safe’?” I asked.
“The one and only.”
She’d been rambling about him after the shooting.
I was interested in her story, but the smell of food had my mouth watering, so I took a bite. The sauce was flavorful, and the chicken was moist, tender, and stuffed with mozzarella, spinach, and bacon. “Mmm. This is great.”
She beamed a smile at me. Normally compliments seemed to make her uncomfortable, but that one practically made her glow.
“Your boss is a woman?” I asked, getting back to her work problem.
“Nope. Don’s a man. And this sounds gossipy, but LaTisha—who’s one of my good friends at work—said she caught Don and Chad doing the nasty in Don’s office. I’ve known LaTisha for a few years, and she’s never been anything but honest with me. And truthfully, it’s the only explanation that makes sense. I mean, Chad’s designs are horrible. That makes me sound catty and rude, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. We’re talking seriously tacky. He doesn’t follow protocol, basically ignores the focus groups, and Don just rolls with it. But if Don’s cheating on his wife with Chad…”
“Don’s married? To a woman?”
“Yes! And she’s super nice, too. It’s all so scandalous.”
“And it has to be frustrating for you.”
She nodded. “But I haven’t gotten to the good part yet. Today, Chad was going off on me about how he wants to use his sci-fi looking ad and I told him no.”
“You told him no?”
The corners of her lips kept curving upward. “Yes! I stood up to Chad for the first time ever. I sat in his office and told him I wasn’t his doormat and there was no way I was sending his design to my client.” A wide grin stretched across her face. “It felt amazing.”
“I’m proud of you, babe. I knew you were a savage.”
Her grin grew impossibly wider.
“What’s your next play? Are you planning to do anything about them? Maybe tell Don’s wife or the owner of your company or something.”
She shrugged and her expression fell. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I know Chad’s not going to let up on me. It’s probably time to start looking for another job.”
I dropped my hand to her bare knee and squeezed. “Is that what you want?”
“No.” She met my gaze. “I love my clients and I’ve worked my butt off to earn their business. I’ve made friends at Emerald City Advertising, my focus groups are amazing to work with. The idea of starting all over makes me break out in hives.”
“You shouldn’t have to leave. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But if I stay, Chad will keep harassing me and making it impossible to do my job. I don’t know what I ever did to that guy, but I can’t seem to get off his radar.”
“Why don’t you let me handle it?” I asked.
She tensed. “Listen, Batman, I didn’t tell you this so you could swoop in and save the day.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like seeing good people get railroaded by assholes. There’s a shortage of good people in this world, Jess. You’re basically an endangered species. I don’t want this shithead working you over for being nice. I’ll tell you what, text me their full names and any contact information you have for them. I’ll pass it along to Morse and Tap. Those guys are geniuses. They can hack into computers, phone lines, security systems, anything you can think of. They’ll get proof of what’s really going on between your manager and your boss, and then I’ll bring the information to you and you can decide what you want to do with it.”
“Invading their privacy is illegal,” she replied.
“And what they’re doing to you is wrong.”
“But what about Morse and Tap? I don’t want anyone to get in trouble.”
“Babe, I don’t think you understand how good those two are. Tap joined the club around the same time I did, and nobody even knows where he lives. Trust me, we’ve tried to figure that shit out, but he’s too goddamn stealthy. Nobody will catch them. Let them poke around and see what they find out.”
She still seemed hesitant. “They’d do that for me?”
I chuckled. “Yes. But don’t go gettin’ a big head about it. They’d do it for anyone. I swear they get off on this kind of shit. If your boys are on the up and up, they have nothin’ to worry about. But if they’re doing some shady-ass shit, they need to be taken down.”
Her eyes lit up with laughter as she pressed her lips together.
“What?” I asked.
“Shady ass shit.” She giggled. “Because Chad’s taking it in the ass.”
Glad to see her happy, I laughed with her. Then I tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Text me their info, Jess. Let’s see exactly what these two are up to.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, she pulled out her phone and forwarded me two contact cards. I forwarded them on to Morse and Tap, giving them a little background on the situation. They responded immediately to let me know they were on it, and I could practically see them rubbing their hands together in anticipation. I wasn’t lying when I told Jessica they got off on this kind of thing. They were the type of men who liked to overturn rocks and expose shit hiding in the shadows.
Jessica and I finished dinner and headed into the living room.
“You post the ad for a roommate yet?” I asked as I sat next to her on the loveseat.
“Nope. I plan to do that tonight. Carly and Wasp will be back Sunday, so that’s when I’m moving back in. Carly wants to hang out with me here and make sure I’m okay, but I think I’m good. I could probably stay in my room tonight and be fine.”
“You could if I stayed with you.”
She studied me. “You’d do that? We could have an adult sleepover. I’ll make popcorn and rent a scary movie.”
“Yeah, babe, I’d like that. Especially if you sleep in the nude. But I don’t get off shift until two a.m., so you’d be stuck here alone until then. And I have to work tomorrow morning for my dad, so I’ll be getting up and heading out early. It’s probably best if you stay at the fire station tonight and I’ll creep into your room after I get off.”
“When do you sleep?” she asked, looking worried. “You need more than four hours a night.”
“When I can.” Her concern for me made my chest constrict. This girl was a fucking diamond in this rough ass city, and I needed to make sure she stayed that way. I had the perfect solution for her roommate problem that would allow me to keep her safe and sweet. “Have you ever thought about renting the room to a man?”
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You want me to live with a guy?”
“Not just any guy. Me.” My hand returned to her knee. It was like I couldn’t stop touching her. I didn’t want to stop. I craved the feel of her skin. “I’ve been thinking about moving out of the fire station for a while now. Don’t get me wrong, the guys I live with are family, but I’m kinda tired of living in the club’s version of a frat house. I’ve looked at a few apartments, but they’re expensive as hell. Even if I could afford the rent, I don’t want to live alone. So… I was thinking… you need a roommate, and I’m gonna be spending a lot of time here getting to know you, so I might as well split rent. It just makes sense.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions, mister. What if I don’t want you here?”
“You do.” I slid my hand up her leg, under her dress. “You will.”
She eyed me. “You play dirty.”
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary to spend time with you.”
Her blush resurfaced. “You seriously want to live here?”
“Yeah.” I glanced around her space. It was clean, bright, a hell of a lot more private than my room at the fire station. It’d be nice to not have to jog downstairs when I wanted a snack or a drink. The more I thought about it, the better moving in with her sounded. “Definitely. Your building manager’s an asshole, but I’ve dealt with his kind before.”
She flashed me another smile. “Thanks for handling him, by the way. The door looks great, the carpet in my room’s been replaced, the wall’s been patched, and the garbage disposal is working. What’d you do? Promise to have his babies or something?”
I chuckled. “Matt’s definitely not my type, babe. He just needed a little… strongly worded motivation.”
“Well, having you around would make dealing with him much easier.”
“Whenever you need to do battle with that dipshit, I’ve got your back, regardless of where I live. You don’t have to worry about him ever again. But with me here, you’d be safe. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“This is crazy.” Yet she was considering it. I could see the indecision in her eyes. “We barely even know each other.”
“You know I’m not dangerous, and Wasp and the rest of the club would kick my ass if I did anything to hurt you. We’d each have our own space, but we could work the fuck out of both mattresses. Trust me, babe, with the shit I still want to do to you… you’re not gonna want a roommate. Hell, your neighbors will probably want to move.”
“Is that so?” Her eyes darkened with lust, and I slid my hand further up her thigh. My fingers were about to check out the wetness of her pussy when movement above her head caught my eye. A black house spider, roughly the size of a silver dollar, skittered across the wall and stopped.
“Hold please,” I said. Since I had sisters, I knew the drill. I hurried to the kitchen and grabbed a paper towel. Returning, I leaned over her and
squished the eight-legged menace. Then I wadded up the paper towel and started back toward the kitchen.
Jessica grabbed my arm, stopping me. “What was that?”
If my sister, Abril, even saw or heard about a spider, she’d have nightmares. Used to downplaying their existence, I shrugged. “Nothing.”
Jessica tensed and focused on the waded paper towel. “It wasn’t nothing. Was it a spider?”
“Maybe a little one.”
Her gaze met mine. “Why do I feel like you’re lying to me, so I won’t freak out?”
“Would you freak out?” I fired back.
“Maybe. How big is little?”
“If this paper towel starts moving, we should probably run.”
Her eyes widened for half a second before she figured out I was messing with her and smacked my arm. “You… you…”
“Great pleasure provider?” I suggested, closing the distance between us. “Best fuck ever? Sexy dominator?” I brushed the tips of my fingers over her nipples and she shivered. “Roommate?”
She chewed on her bottom lip.
“See, I can even save you from giant flesh-eating spiders.” Stepping back, I tossed the paper towel in the kitchen trash.
“I thought you said it was little.”
“That’s before I realized I could use this to my advantage.” I held out my hand to her. “Come on, Jess.”
Placing her hand in mine, she let me heft her to her feet. “Where are we going?”
“To your bedroom. I still have fifty-two minutes before I have to leave for work, and I intend to spend every one of them between your legs, convincing you to let me rent that room.”
Jessica
WHEN I MOVED back into my apartment Sunday, Spade moved in with me. I still wasn’t completely sold on the idea, but he was exceptionally convincing. Seriously, the things that man could do with his tongue…
