by Max Monroe
I duck just outside the door, against the wall right beside the frame, and take a deep breath.
I picture all the skin I couldn’t see. Her breasts, her stomach, her—
Fucking hell, why in the fuck is she naked?
I scrub at my eyes, trying to unsee the perfect, endless inches and inches of tanned skin, but it doesn’t work.
The curve of her hips and the tantalizing tease of her thighs are a permanent image in my mind. For the love of God, I will probably be thinking about it on my damn deathbed.
A noise sounds from inside the room, and panic overwhelms me.
Oh, fuck. She’s coming!
That’s usually a good thing, the brain in my aroused cock teases.
Unsure of what to do, I look around for something to make me look busy, make me look, like, you know, I’m the fucking boss and not some Peeping Tom, but I come up empty-handed. Instantly, I just let instinct take the wheel, and next thing I know, I’m off at a run headed back toward where I came from.
Good God, I’m literally running away from a beautiful, gorgeous, naked woman. Cap would have a fucking field day with this.
It doesn’t take long before I hear the clack of her heels as she follows closely behind, and I dial my run up to a sprint until I make it to the stairwell.
This is fucked. I’m fucked. But what else can I do when all kinds of terrifying situations are floating around inside my head?
Gross misconduct.
Sexual harassment.
Greer witnessing an erection the size of Texas tenting my pants.
All worst-case scenarios, yet possible scenarios all the same.
With quick breaths and a racing heart, I hide inside the stairwell like a lunatic and peek through the window until it seems like a good time to pretend I wasn’t just ogling her like a fucking pervert.
Good Lord, Trent. What in the hell are you doing right now?
I adjust my traitorous cock inside my pants and try to get my shit together and, you know, act like I’m the one in control of this project.
After rehearsing some simple phrasing a couple of times, I burst through the door and steel my voice against the prepubescent squeaks I know lie just under the surface of my normal timbre.
“There you are,” I say in a way I’m hoping is normal. “We’re up on six. Come on.”
I don’t mention the change to her outfit, and neither does she.
For six flights, we don’t mention anything.
For two people who’ve spent nearly every moment they’ve been in company with each other sparring, we’re suddenly doing a hell of an impression of silent-film stars.
Mere footsteps from the doorway to the lounge, she finally pipes up.
“I, um…” I stop, but I don’t turn back. I don’t think I’ll be able to meet her eyes. “I spilled some paint downstairs, and I know—”
“I’ll have someone take care of it,” I interrupt.
“Oh,” she says, clearly shocked at the simple, nonconfrontational response.
I step forward into the room, and she reaches out to stop me with a hand to my elbow. The heat of it burns all the way through my jacket, and I jerk away in response. She takes it the wrong way—because why wouldn’t she—and immediately recoils in apology.
“Look, I’m really sorry. For falling behind and for the paint. I know—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say curtly. I need nothing more than to put some distance between us before my dick takes over again. Now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, he suddenly thinks he’s in charge. “Shall we get on with this now?”
She nods, scoots past me, and doesn’t even think about talking back.
And I’m left to wonder why, all of a sudden, it feels like something has changed. As if seeing her in that vulnerable situation has fired up a new part of my brain.
In what feels like an instant, all of that hate I’ve been harboring for her doesn’t feel so much like hate anymore.
Trent
It’s been five days since I accidentally saw Greer naked, and anytime I close my eyes, I can still see the swell of her ass where it meets her thigh.
In fact, I see it so vividly, I’ve started having dreams about catching her without her clothes on in the business center in a way that’s reminiscent of the beginning of a porno.
As a result, I’ve continued to get up an hour and a half earlier for the past several mornings, just to ensure we won’t leave our apartments at the same time, and focused on spending as little time with her at work as humanly possible.
She asks me a question; I redirect it to Marcus and relocate to another room.
She makes a suggestion; I nod and move on like my stake in her design is meaningless.
She laughs with Sarah about some secret joke; I avert my eyes and ignore them completely.
Seriously. How has it come to this? A week ago, I couldn’t stand her, and now all I do is think about the way she looks beneath her clothes?
I blame Cap and his bullshit for filling my head with all these ideas of sexual tension and letting some “steam out of the pot.”
It’s not real attraction; it’s just biology…right?
“Uh…Mr. Turner?” George’s voice fills my ears, and I blink from my stupor to find him standing in front of the makeshift desk I currently reside behind, in what will eventually become the reception area of the hotel.
Get it together, Trent.
“Yeah?” I ask, clearing my throat and forcing the scattered thoughts of Greer and her silky-smooth skin out of my head.
“I just wanted to let you know the sample shelving for the conference rooms has been installed and is ready for your approval.”
Finally. George is actually following through.
“Great,” I respond and stand.
I follow his lead, past reception and down the maze of hallways, until he stops inside the first meeting room. My eyes find and lock on to Greer standing in the center of the room talking to a construction guy named Dick. Her hands rest on her slim hips, and her gaze looks toward the ceiling.
Fucking hell, I can’t escape her.
She is everywhere, all the time, and the brain in my pants can’t resist appreciating the vision that is her perfect ass and long, slim thighs encased in one of those tight-fitting skirts she insists on wearing nearly every day of the week.
For fuck’s sake, doesn’t she own at least one pair of pants?
Capris? A fucking parka?
Anything but those damn skirts and silk blouses?
“So, what do you think?” George asks, and I turn to find his uncertain gaze locked on me.
“What do I think…?”
“About the shelving.”
Oh, right. The fucking shelving. The whole reason we came into this room.
Thankfully, no shelving for me to approve is located in the center of the room.
Slowly, I move around the space and take in the way the professional cabinetry and shelf installations create practicality while maintaining a modern and sophisticated appearance. They transform the room into exactly what I’d hoped.
At least one thing is going right today.
“I approve,” I say and turn to meet his eyes again. “Go ahead and get the guys working on the rest of the meeting rooms.”
“Will do, sir.”
George strides back toward the hall, and I’m left to my own devices.
Alone. With Greer.
Shit.
She’s still standing in the center, Dick long gone with George, and I watch as she moves to the corner of the room to grab one of the brand-new, plastic-covered office chairs.
Her fingers grip the back cushion as she rolls it across the floor until she stops just below one of the newly installed sample light fixtures.
With a lightbulb in her hand, she uses the armrest to steady herself, and I watch in absolute horror as she goes to step onto the chair.
The chair on fucking wheels, mind you.
“Uh…what
are you doing?”
“I just want to see how the lighting would look if it were a bit softer.”
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” I say. “Get down and let one of George’s guys do it.”
“It’s fine,” she says, too fucking determined. “I do this all the time.”
“Greer—”
“It’s fine,” she cuts me off.
Her heels dig into the plastic covering the seat cushion, and she focuses her eyes on the ceiling.
She lengthens her slim body, stretching her hands toward the fixture, and the chair does not appreciate the movement. It wobbles and wiggles, and I know she’s exactly ten seconds away from disaster.
“Oh shit,” she mutters, and I’m already moving toward her, quick as my feet can take me.
In a matter of seconds, the chair and her feet slip out from under her, and she free-falls from standing and heads straight for the floor.
But I jump toward her just in time.
Arms flexed outward and my hands braced, I catch her in midair—before her fall turns tragic—with my hands directly on her ass.
On instinct, she leans forward to catch her balance on the back of the chair, and that abrupt movement only lifts her ass more toward my face and pushes the plush, perfect flesh deeper into my hands.
Her ass is literally in my hands.
What the fuck is happening?
“Uh…” she mutters through a shocked breath. “I’m so sorry… I… Shit… Just…”
Her stuttered words tell me she’s just as confused as I am.
I’m utterly speechless. Probably, I presume, as a means of defense while I’m trying not to focus on just how good her ass feels in my hands.
And it does feel good. Better than I imagined.
Now would be a good time to stop gripping her ass…
Shit.
Quickly, I move one hand to her stomach, and with a firm grip around her waist, I lift her body away from her complicated situation with the office chair.
Once her heels hit the ground, I put a good ten feet of distance between us.
“Are you okay?” I heave, forcibly pushing the words past my lips.
“Uh… Yeah… Thanks,” she says, and with those big blue eyes of hers, she moves her uncertain gaze from the floor and looks at me. “I’m okay.”
“Okay…well…” I pause and run a hand through my hair. “I’m…uh…glad you’re all right.”
“Yeah. I’m all right.”
“You’re all right. Good. That’s good.”
Fuck, this is awkward.
“So, I’m just going to get one of George’s guys to help me with that…” She pauses, and I nod like a moron.
“Okay. Yeah. That sounds good.”
“Okay, good.”
Certain we’ve met our quote for okays and goods and all rights for the next two years, I do the only thing I can do in this situation. I turn on my heels and walk right out of the conference room.
If someone had told me Greer Hudson’s ass would end up in my hands by the end of today, I would have bet my entire share of Turner Properties on the contrary.
Yet, somehow, some-fucking-way, that is exactly what just happened.
And I thought seeing her naked spurred some seriously dirty thoughts.
Touching her…feeling something I’ve been imagining vividly…was the last thing I needed.
Greer
Coastal Crepes is one of the best breakfast, brunch, and lunch restaurants in the French Quarter, and has a convenient location smack-dab in between my office and the hotel.
And it also just so happens to be owned by my brother.
My grandfather opened it in the sixties, passed it on to my father, and then, when my parents died in the car accident when my mom was pregnant with me, he took over running operations again—along with raising his grandchildren.
We spent so much time here when I was a kid, I often wonder if that’s what made my brother the passionate chef he is today. When my grandfather died, it only made sense for him to leave Coastal Crepes to my brother rather than to me.
In fact, I’m pretty sure it would be about out of business if it were up to me. I’ve almost lost my design firm, and I actually know stuff about design. The only thing I know about the food business is how to eat.
The wrought-iron-and-glass door is heavy as I swing it open onto the stone sidewalk and duck inside. Dark compared to outside but lighter than much of the masculine design in the French Quarter, the restaurant settles my soul with everything familiar.
Years of coming here—years of growing up in the seats of the wooden benches of each booth.
It’s Saturday night family dinner and the restaurant is closed, so the only people inside are the ones I’m expecting to find—my brother, Heath, his son, Brooks, and his wife, Rhonda.
Rhonda is everything I’ve never wanted in a sister-in-law and then some, but for some reason, my brother loves her. She hardly ever speaks, shows little-to-no emotion other than hatred, and wears turtlenecks even in the summer.
They married a year and a half after he divorced Brooks’s mom, back when Brooks was ten, and I’ve been forced to live in close proximity to a cyborg ever since.
I’m half convinced she’s got a pussy made of liquid gold or something—a real church lady in the streets, freak in the sheets kind of thing—but I’m determined not to ever find out.
I’m not qualified in that kind of field research, and I don’t want to be. From what I hear, it takes three-to-six months of training and a huge investment in elbow-length gloves.
“Hello, hello,” I call as I sidle up to the table—the side with my brother and nephew—and try to shove in next to them.
Heath is amused by my antics—mostly because he doesn’t know that they’re rooted in blistering, hex-casting hate for his wife—and chuckles. “Plenty of room on the other side, Greer. Maybe you should take a seat over there.”
Automatically, Rhonda’s laser eyes engage, threatening to shoot me where I stand if I dare try. For as much as I can’t stand her, I think she dislikes me more.
I entertain everyone by making my own happy medium—a spare chair pulled up to the end of the table.
Spaghetti Bolognese sits front and center, and a dish with pickles hangs out on the side just for me.
I rub my hands together in glee and reach out to get it.
Heath slaps my hand playfully and gives me a huge smile.
“Why don’t we start with giving thanks?” he suggests like the daddiest-dad there ever was.
He is sunshine where I am rain, spirituality where I am… I don’t know what I am.
I mean, I’m not agnostic, but if you compared my dedication to faith in a bar graph with my brother’s, my column would be pretty much nonexistent.
“Start with getting me more pickles. The little hoodlum in the kitchen shortchanged me again.”
“First of all, the hoodlum is your nephew.”
I shrug.
“And secondly, he gave you three pickles.”
“Which isn’t nearly enough, and if he really loved his aunt at all, he would know,” I argue sagely, giving Brooks the side-eye dramatically. The overconfident teen-man doesn’t even look up from his fucking phone. Not that he ever does. I don’t think I’ve heard more than twenty words from my nephew since he turned fifteen and got an iPhone.
“We’re eating pasta,” Heath points out. “Not deli sandwiches.”
“And?”
Heath rolls his eyes but jumps up from the table nonetheless. Crippled by his innate desire to be helpful, especially when it comes to the little sister he practically raised, he can’t resist my request even if I am being a pain in the ass.
I know the pickle thing is weird, but if I’m honest, I have no intent to change. On the sliding scale of drugs, cucumbers soaked in juice are hardly equivalent to meth.
After setting the pickles down on the table in front of me, Heath lifts a leg over the back of his chair and
climbs into it—the kind of thing only people over six feet can do—and dives right into his prayer.
Apparently, any delay is just another opportunity for me to mess it up.
I glance up a few times to make sure Rhonda doesn’t spontaneously combust from the prayer—kind of like what happens when you splash holy water on a demon—but for the most part, I listen dutifully.
When Heath finally finishes, I take a big heaping scoop of pasta and cover the entirety of my plate.
Mm, carbs.
A few twirls of my fork later, I’m about to put the glorious food in my mouth when Heath busts right through the force field I was certain I’d constructed successfully by wearing all black clothing and needlessly emo makeup.
“So, Greer. Tell me how the new job is! Is the hotel business exciting?”
“It’s great,” I say, filling my mouth with spaghetti to disguise my deceit. “No problems whatsoever.”
Besides spilling paint on myself, getting on my boss’s bad side before my actual interview, giving him constructive criticism he didn’t appreciate that led to me wondering if he even knows I exist anymore, and then, accidentally putting my ass directly into his hands, that is.
Yeah, everything is pretty fucking great.
So great, in fact, that Trent seemed like less of an asshole at work for all of twenty-four hours, until two days ago when my ass landed in his hands and served as a catalyst to revert back to barking orders and rampage.
My milk shake brings all the boys to tyranny. Go figure.
“Good. I’m so glad for you.” Heath’s smile beams. “Isn’t that great news, Rhonda?”
Rhonda sneers so hard, I’m pretty sure I see fangs.
I jerk my gaze to Heath and Brooks, convinced they’ll have seen the evil spirit within her, but they seem unfazed.
What the actual hell? Where are Alyssa Milano, Shannen Doherty, and that-other-one-whose-name-I-can-never-remember when you need them?
“And how about the new place? I still can’t believe you’re downsizing from the house to an apartment, but if Emory’s parents own the building, it must be nice. You got renters insurance, right?”
Yeahhhh. The thing is…my brother has no idea how much trouble my business was in before I got this job or how little of a choice I had in moving out of my house.
