Working Title

by Holley Trent

  The light clicked on.

  Finch? Fuck.

  The wave that had been about to crash over him—and perhaps out of him—began to recede. He had little doubt, though, that he could easily call it back. Interruption or not, Lisa was still pulling his cock into her.

  Maybe she didn’t care if Finch saw.

  To be honest, neither did Joey. The look of mortification on her face would probably make him even harder. She deserved to see it after what she’d pulled.

  “Lisa, you in here?”

  “Shit.” Lisa’s whisper almost disappeared beneath the roar of the heating system.

  That wasn’t Finch.

  “Lordie, where’d you go?” Keely’s clicking footsteps sounded on approach.

  Lisa clasped a hand over Joey’s mouth, tugged her shirt down, and carefully pulled herself more upright. “Oh, hey!”

  “Oh!” Keely squealed. “There you are! Figured you must have been in here. Nowhere else for you to sleep. Heh. Listen, I wanted to—”

  “Don’t come closer,” Lisa croaked out.

  Joey had rocked his hips and plunged deeper into her.

  He doubted she’d ever make the mistake of trying to shut him up like that again.

  Patting the side of Joey’s face, she let out a dry laugh, found the perfect angle to give him a light warning smack, and said to Keely, “I’m not fit to be seen right now. Not wearing a bra.”

  “Oh. Yikes! Ha-ha.”

  It sounded like Keely backed up a few steps.

  Good.

  So she couldn’t hear how wet Lisa was.

  Joey could. He stirred his cock in her and notched his teeth into his lip at the arousing sheathing sound.

  Fuck.

  The added risk—the danger of being discovered—elevated his already-ascended stimulation to a dizzying new height.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Keely trilled, “but I had to warn you that my daddy’s on the way here.”

  “Your what?” Lisa balked.

  Fuck.

  Joey thrust.

  Her hand tightened in his hair.

  He might have come right then and there if not for the fingers of her other hand looping tightly around his nuts. That usually worked when she wanted to keep him on the edge, but not for long. There was no mind-over-matter where Lisa was concerned, either. Just like how a pot didn’t stop boiling over immediately after the fire was turned down, what Lisa started couldn’t be stopped.

  And she’d started him. Every clench of her around him made the ache in him surge.

  While she looked on, he kept pushing into her, kept stirring his cock in her heat to make those rapid little spasms dance around him.

  Yes. Yes!

  “Mm-hmm. Daddy’s driving up with his foreman. I know it’s short notice, but he had some time between jobs. He wanted to take a look around and see what he can do when the weather warns up. I would have told you sooner, but he just texted me three hours ago to let me know they were near the state line. Of course, I was asleep then.”

  “What…what exactly is the urgency?” Lisa’s voice was pinched, her thighs shaking.

  Joey had her exactly where he wanted her, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

  “Couldn’t he wait until after the holidays?” she whimpered.

  Using what little space he had to move, Joey pulled himself out as far as he could and tapped back into her.

  “Ahhhhfu—” Lisa’s voice came out in a croak and her grip on his nuts loosened. She was scrambling to grab anything else, and Joey was scrambling to find bliss in her body. “I mean, not to sound un…ungrateful.”

  “Well, if you want it done right, especially if there’s a man involved in the thinking, you’d better get them to start early.”

  Lisa dug her knees against his sides in a warning, but that made other parts of her tense, too.

  Writhing beneath her, curling up into her, he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into the fleshiest part of her ass.

  Joey was so on-edge at that moment that if Lisa’s heart rate made the error of increasing, the extra thrum would probably send him over the edge.

  So he did what any idiot would and thrust up hard, making her yelp.

  Her awkward nervous laughter as she clamped a hand tight over his mouth and tried to be still despite his body’s quaking, erupting, was likely the cause of Keely’s query of: “You all right? Did I do something wrong?”

  The spasms in Joey’s belly subsided, but being inside her, swathed in his own come, the feeling of urgency persisted.

  It’d stop soon, though. It usually did.

  “Um. Okay. Um…so, he’s coming? Yeah. Let’s…chat a bit during breakfast when I’m a little more awake, okay?”

  “Oh! Sure, okay. Want me to go check on the dishes since I’m up? Didn’t have enough coffee mugs yesterday.”

  “You know what? That would be amazing. Check on the napkins, too.”

  “Sure thing, boss!”

  Keely bounded away, closing the door behind her.

  She’d left the light on, so Joey could see perfectly well the tart look on Lisa’s face.

  Wrapping her hands around his neck, she purred, “You fucking asshole.”

  “Keep talking like that, and I’ll be hard again in no time.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I offered at least one permanent solution. I suggest you take it.”

  She smirked and eased off of him.

  Leaning back on the armrest at the far end, she straightened her bra. She must have been incredibly grateful to have put sheets and covers on the sofa before the eventful chat of the previous evening. Ridding the furniture of wet spots wasn’t how most people wanted to start their mornings. “If I hadn’t come, you’d be getting a mouthful of your own spunk right now.”

  “Glad to know you can perform under pressure.”

  “My whole life has been a performance under pressure. And you really shouldn’t extend marriage proposals while you have your dick out.”

  “If I put my cock away, are you going to say yes?”

  “With the issues we have? No.”

  He gritted his teeth.

  He’d known better than to ask, though. She hadn’t been privy to the conversation he had in his head the previous night. She had no idea what he planned to do.

  So tell her. Just fucking say it.

  “Lis.” He gave her knee a gentle squeeze and waited for her to look him in the eyes. “I’m going to be here, Lis. As much as I can be. Whatever happens with work, happens. I’m going to do whatever I can to land on my feet in the event of the unexpected.”

  The unexpected was what frightened him more than anything else when the stakes were so high.

  Her brow creased with that powerful incredulity that had probably been passed down in her family from one woman to the next for millennia.

  It was difficult not being offended. He’d always tried to be straight with her, but he appreciated that their situation was a complex one and that her expectations of him were extremely high.

  As they should have been.

  “You mean that?” she asked.

  “Of course I fucking mean it. I mean it when I say I don’t want to lose you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Does the idea of breaking my backboard, of sorts, scare the shit out of me? Yeah. Not gonna lie about that, but if you’re gonna accept me with all my neuroses…” And accept his family… “Then I’ll give you whatever the hell you want.”

  Lisa sprang on him so fast that he didn’t see her move. She peppered his jaw with kisses, squealing as she struggled to get her arms around him.

  He laughed, because all that writhing was tickling him, and he was starting to get hard again.

  Intensely concerned about the structural soundness of certain delicate parts of him, he found the perfect leverage and flipped her over.

  As she wrapped her legs around his waist, he braced his hands against her
cheeks, intending to claim what he believed was a much-deserved kiss.

  But then that fucking door swung open again.

  This time, Keely didn’t call out.

  Finch walked past the sofa side, polishing a pair of eyeglasses on her thin shirt as she moved, paying them no mind.

  She grabbed a sweater she must have forgotten the night before off the table and spun on her heels.

  She put her glasses on as she turned.

  Spotting them—a pants-free Lisa and Joey with his cock out—she yelped and dropped the sweater.

  Lisa gave her a friendly wave. “Um. This is exactly what it looks like.”

  “I…” Finch squeezed her eyes shut tight and knelt.

  She patted the floor blindly, wildly.

  “A bit to the right,” Joey offered, wishing a little that she’d open her eyes.

  There was nothing to be ashamed of—not for them, and not for her.

  She slapped the floor, tapping the cuff of the garment. Then she snatched it up, turned her head as far as she could away from the sofa, and scurried out, mumbling apologies.

  Slowly, Joey met Lisa’s worried gaze.

  Oh fuck.

  He knew that look. That was her “New Problem” look, and Finch was the problem.

  Unfortunately, Lisa was the sort of type-A phenom who could never leave good enough alone. She had to make things better than they were.

  She sighed. “Put your cock away, Joe. The moment has passed.”

  Relenting, he straightened up and righted his pants. “I think you broke her heart.”

  And stunningly, he felt awful for her. Whether or not he agreed that her shooting her shot with Lisa was rational, he could appreciate how difficult making the effort was.

  He wouldn’t want to be a rejected Finch Alice in that moment—or even in a million years. He already knew too well what being turned away by Lisa felt like.

  The worst possible thing would be that Finch learned the wrong lesson and decided that reaching for the stars was never worth it. She had guts. He could respect that.

  “Yeah.” Grimacing, Lisa shimmied into her panties and gave her pants a malevolent leer.

  He would have bet good money that her next stop was to a shower. His certainly was. He didn’t mind smelling like sex, but he’d never been the sort of man who’d show off like that.

  She plopped onto the sofa, holding her jeans against her chest and staring at nothing in particular.

  This time, when that low, anxious thrum settled into his gut, he knew there would be no sweet relief to immediately follow.

  Lisa was wearing her “gotta fix this” stare again. She’d had a similar one right before she decided to take out a loan to do an emergency renovation on the dining hall’s kitchen.

  “What’s wrong, Lis?”

  “I don’t know, Joey, I just feel…a lot of things right now.”

  “Because of…” He canted his head in the direction Finch had scrambled.

  “I can’t describe what it is. Or maybe I can but doing so wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “I’m a big boy. Humor me.”

  She let her breath out in a long stream and dispassionately studied her nails. “Fine. It doesn’t seem fair to me that someone like her would be unattached.”

  “Like her? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. She’s just…lovely.”

  He grimaced, knowing how much that word hurt Finch, and suddenly not liking it much, either. There had to be a better word for her, but it wouldn’t be his duty to find it. Or Lisa’s.

  Grunting, Joey helped Lisa to her feet. “There’s someone for everyone, sweetheart, and she’ll find whoever is supposed to be hers.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

  “Come on,” he said in a spirited voice. He needed to pick up Lisa’s mood. Things were better. He had to make sure she felt that. “You can use the shower in my cabin. Guys I’m bunking with do early morning runs. They should be outside already.”

  He wasn’t going to make any promises to keep his hands to himself, though.

  “Sounds like a plan. And maybe a long shower will help me to stop thinking.”

  About Finch, she meant.

  “I mean, ugh. She definitely has a few screws loose, right? But that’s kind of part of her charm.” Lisa stepped into her pants but didn’t bother fastening them. In a weary-sounding undertone, she added, “I seem to be swimming in charm lately.”

  “You think she’s charming?”

  Lisa shrugged. “Why does it sound like you’re judging me?”

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of wondering if you have a type and if I am exactly the same sort of weirdo that she is.”

  “Oh, no. Totally different. She’s a late-night snacker. You are the snack.”

  Joey laughed, and so did Lisa, but hers wasn’t her usual bold cackle.

  It was a phoned-in, reflexive laugh of a woman who had too much on her mind and not enough body to do anything about it all.

  “You can’t rescue everyone, Lisa,” he said quietly, wanting her to know that he knew what her confounding and ever-busy brain was doing. It was trying to make her responsible for one more thing.

  For one more person.

  Sometimes, brains were cruel betrayers.

  “I know,” she said after entirely too many seconds of silence.

  He wasn’t entirely sure he believed her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Finch hated all-hands-on-deck meetings.

  There was something intensively gross about stuffing every full-time employee into one tiny conference hall during the throes of flu season, especially the day before December hiatus.

  But what made being squeezed to death on that bleacher bench between an Athena attorney and the accountant even more miserable was being in the direct line of sight from the one who’d won.

  Joey was two rows behind her and probably staring at the back of her neck and wondering why it was so pink.

  Every time she thought about what a fool she’d made of herself at that so-called “retreat,” her whole body heated.

  Come on, say what you have to say and let’s get this over with.

  She wanted to go home, burrow under an afghan for a few days, and catch up on Great British Bake-Off episodes. Those Brits with their soggy bottomed pies and boozy cakes might just be distracting enough to dull the ache she’d been nursing since returning from the Bungalows.

  She still wanted Lisa. That wasn’t going to change.

  And she hated that she didn’t exactly…hate Joey the way she thought she had in that moment of passion when she’d tried to put him in his place.

  No. She envied him.

  A lot.

  And if she had to be honest, she’d admit that she was maybe a little jealous of Lisa, too, because how often could a woman find someone she could be truly, genuinely bold with and who in turn thought she was the greatest thing God had ever created?

  Finch would never be so lucky to find that on her own. Things like that just didn’t happen to her.

  The division president finished his rambling rah-rah spiel, wished them happy holidays, and congratulated them on the year’s successes.

  Most of the staff rushed to the doors, likely eager to go home and pack for their holiday travels and beat the traffic out of the city.

  Some, like Finch, held back.

  There wasn’t anywhere she needed to be urgently.

  Her parents knew she’d show up whenever she got there, and probably not until after lunch on Christmas day, assuming she showed up at all.

  Everyone in the family was paired off except for her. Even her oldest brother’s oldest daughter had entered the dating rodeo and brought boyfriends to family meals on occasion.

  Finch didn’t want that weird aunt, that lonely sister, that spinster daughter they all pitied.

  While waiting for the path to the door to clear, she fidgeted with her watch band and kept her gaze down.

  Joey
hadn’t left yet.

  It was impossible to miss him in those eye-burningly neon yellow running shoes.

  Three minutes later, the spots of yellow moved in her periphery.

  His presence loomed to the right of her, seeming unusually heavy. It was funny how uncomfortable experiences often added weight to people’s energies.

  And he wasn’t alone. She risked a glance rightward and suppressed a groan.

  Raleigh.

  Both men were staring expectantly at her, though likely for different reasons.

  She didn’t really want to know either reason.

  “Come on,” Raleigh said, flicking a bit of lint off his Warhol-esque holiday sweater. It showed four different tones of Rudolph. “Walk and talk.”

  Finch cast her gaze about her wondering if Charlie was nearby or one of the interns due to leave at the end of the quarter.

  But there was no one else.

  She cleared her throat and pointed to herself. “Who, me?”

  “Yep. Gotta sort out a Stacia thing before I leave because I don’t want to take work home with me.”

  That time, Finch didn’t bother suppressing her groan.

  Stacia.

  The name may as well have been “Ax Falling.”

  Finch unfolded wearily from the bench and sidled past the men.

  She made her way down to the floor without a word and headed straight for the doors.

  If there was a Stacia issue, that likely meant Finch needed to be at her computer to put out some sort of manuscript fire.

  The men followed her all the way to the editorial suites and into her office.

  It was a cozy room with a built-in desk and a loveseat she perused the slush pile from. But like most windowless caves, she tried to spend as little time in there as possible.

  She’d already packed her laptop into its case, expecting she’d have little to do in the office following the meeting. She wriggled it out, murmuring, “Did she have a problem with the edits? I know they were aggressive, but—”

  “No, no, no,” Raleigh said with a laugh. “She already did them. Just letting them marinate. She wanted to ask if it was possible you could remove her name from your acquisitions bio.”

  Tucking the laptop back into its case, Finch frowned. “My…bio? She doesn’t want people to know that—”