by Nikky Kaye
He tapped his mouth. “I can ask Ash to pick something, if you like. Or I can take a look and see if anything catches my eye.”
Oh no. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“See? You’re already working well together.”
That was somewhat true. We’d managed to find a reasonable rhythm. He stuck to his niche and I stuck to mine. Sometimes I felt really stuck, though.
I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to Ash Garrison—and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. I was so pathetic at flirting that I couldn’t even tell if he was flirting with me. I didn’t think he was, but he bought my lunch an awful lot.
He’d gotten in the habit of texting me before he arrived, and just bringing it with him. The one time I got the jump on him and brought in some soup and salads from home for both of us, he complained that he was craving a big, greasy cheeseburger. So we ended up having both. Easy for him—since he went to the gym pretty much every day.
The most exercise I got was wrestling with my conscience.
The next Friday, I was still looking for a good question to follow-up on when we’d had to meet for dinner instead of lunch. The real question I was struggling to answer was, why it felt so much more like a date instead of a business meeting. It could have been because Ash brought a bottle of wine with him, as well as Italian take-out.
The office was mostly deserted by the time we spread things out on the conference table. The lights were down around the whole floor, making everything seem a lot more intimate and quiet. We even spoke in hushed tones, as though we were working on a secret project or something instead of an advice column.
“Dear Guy’s Guy,” he read from his screen, “Do you have any advice on how to learn to deep throat?”
I nearly choked, accidentally deep throating my pasta. Ash handed me a napkin and pushed my coffee mug of red wine closer to me.
I shook my head. “I think I’ve had too much already. You’re a bad influence, bringing this to the office.”
His eyes gleamed like melted chocolate in the low light. “I think you need more bad influences in your life, Lizzie.”
What was I supposed to say to that? “One of us has to behave.”
“Sure, but which one?” he teased.
He’d gotten better at gently pushing my buttons. He was feeling around, trying to figure out how to get under my metaphorical skirt and make me crazy.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so metaphorical.
Ash was a much more accomplished flirt than I was, for sure. Every time I felt a quiver of excitement, I had to remind myself that he was probably like this with all women. I wasn’t special.
“Next question,” I said after a swig of wine. I pulled my head back and spun around on my chair a little, taking care not to knock his knees beside me.
“Huh. Mooney highlighted this one. What’s that about?”
Maybe an option for the ongoing feature he wanted? “What’s the question?” I asked.
He hesitated before shrugging. “I have a crush on a co-worker,” he read out. “How do I find out if she might be interested in me?”
I stopped spinning and leaned over. “Is that yours or mine?”
“Yours, actually.”
“Hmmm. I guess it depends on the context of the workplace. Do they work in fast food or in adult entertainment?”
He chuckled. “Does it matter?”
“Sure. If he’s a prison guard and she’s an inmate, then I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
“Then they wouldn’t really be co-workers.”
“Okay, then. If there’s no uneven power dynamic between them, then he could just ask her out.”
“Isn’t that considered sexual harassment these days?”
I rolled my eyes. “I suppose it would depend on how he asked her. If he took his dick out and asked her if she wanted to suck it, then yes.”
His mouth fell open. “I didn’t know you had such a dirty mind, Elizabeth Bell.”
Heat crawled up my face. “Sorry, I’m not ‘behaving’.”
“Don’t apologize.” His brow creased, but the corner of his mouth curved upward. “I like it.”
Oh boy. I definitely needed to slow down on the wine.
He tapped his chin. “He could try giving her signals and see if she returns them.”
“Signals? Like what?”
He spun his chair around, and grabbed my seat so I was facing him. Spreading his legs wide, he pulled my chair closer until my knees were wedged between his.
Oh.
It became preternaturally quiet, just a cocoon of dim light around us from our glowing laptop screens.
“Like he could get closer to her, physically,” he suggested, reaching out to place his hands over mine on the arm rests of the executive chair.
I inhaled sharply. He was so close I could smell the wine on his breath, and the fading spicy scent of whatever body wash he’d used after the gym. I really did envy that body wash.
“He could try touching her casually,” he murmured, lacing his fingers through mine at the same time as squeezing my knees between his thighs.
“Casually?” I squeaked.
Oh god, this was definitely flirting.
His head tilted, his eyes dark. “Or not so casually.”
“And h-how would she return these signals?”
“By touching him back, maybe. Body language. The way she smiles.”
My voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “And what if she’s not sure what to do?”
“For professional reasons?”
“Or personal reasons.”
“Then I guess she should read the Employee Handbook. Or she should listen to her instincts.”
“What if they say different things?”
I moved our entwined hands from the armrest to the top of his thighs. His muscles flexed under his pants.
Warm. Hard.
He sucked in a breath. I stared down at our fingers, our arms, my knees pressed together, his lap surrounding me.
It wouldn’t be difficult to climb up there on his lap, in the big leather chair. I could straddle him, my knees going around his hips and thighs. Feel the hard plane of his quads under my backside, shifting me from side to side as I got comfortable.
It was a terrible, tempting idea.
I looked up to meet his heated gaze. It had me locked in my seat. A shadow of beard darkened his jaw, but I could still make out the way he was grinding his teeth together. He searched me, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for.
My instincts?
“Miss Behave…”
“My name’s Lizzie,” I reminded him softly.
I licked my lips, my heart pounding. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to kiss him. Suddenly, there wasn’t anything in the world I wanted more than to feel his lips sliding against mine, but this was as far as I could go. I wasn’t about to humiliate myself further. He would have to take the last step, make the last move.
He didn’t.
Tugging his hands free, he placed mine back on my knees like I was a schoolgirl.
Then he leaned back in his chair, his chest moving up and down more quickly than his slumped posture would suggest. The tendrils of the tattoo over his heart snaked up out of his denim shirt, glinting darkly at me in the blue light from the computer.
“Then she should go with the Employee Handbook,” he said, his voice tight.
I felt almost bereft as he pulled away from me. It was embarrassing how much I’d wanted him to reach forward and touch his mouth to mine. I licked my lips.
“Ash…”
Using his feet, he pushed his chair away from mine and turned back to his laptop. His left hand rubbed his thigh as his right went to the track pad.
He cleared his throat. “I have an idea. Why don’t you answer that one for me, and I’ll answer it for you? We’ll see who’s closer. Your editor would probably love that angle. Do you know why he highlighted it?”
I said s
omething vague about the back-and-forth Rob had suggested. Ironically, that was exactly how I felt at that moment.
I was adrift, a solitary dinghy in an ocean of sexual tension. And Ash was a big ship, passing me by without throwing me a line. I just bobbed along, moving with the waves, my throat dry and my body overheated.
My instincts, apparently, were wrong.
6
Ash
I won't lie. I went home that night and took myself in hand—literally.
Fuck, what was I thinking? Lizzie wanted me to kiss her—I could read the signals pretty loud and clear—and I chickened out.
Face palm.
Palm cock.
Rinse and repeat.
Was I being too much of a gentleman? Or was I just being a complete fucking idiot? Either way, it left me with a bunch of self-doubt and a hard-on that could probably pound away on a mechanical keyboard.
I still wasn't sure what to make of her response to the question I'd sent her under a fake name, about having a crush on someone at work. Was she for an office romance or against it? I got no clear answer from her.
That frustrating lack of clarity was what dragged her column down.
That was the problem with Miss Behave, I was beginning to realize. It just didn't have any oomph. It had a throwback feel that the editors at Hot Mess had clearly supported for the past couple of years, but now it was running the risk of seeming seriously disconnected from reality. I mean, come on? She was one step away from answering flower-arranging questions.
At least my column dealt with the truth—whether that was sexual fetishes, fears, or real relationship problems. Me, I laid it all out in black and white. Lizzie doled out a lot of gray.
My readers bared their souls to me. I appreciated the hell out of that, and gave mad props to anyone who wrote in to me with that kind of vulnerability.
All of Lizzie's vulnerability seemed to be in her, not in her column—which is why maybe it wasn't getting the clicks that mine was.
She seemed to get more etiquette questions than anything else these days. And here I was, dying to know what she believed her own etiquette should be.
These were the things on my mind when I got the email from Robert Mooney about the plan for Lizzie and I to create online dating profiles for each other.
Holy shit. Cue demonic internal cackling. This could either go really, really well, or be a nuclear explosion of bad judgment.
So I picked a dating website and went to town.
* * *
“I need to see your profiles,” Mooney said a week later when I was at the offices of Hot Mess.
Lizzie threw me a panicked look. “Um, I’m still working on Ash’s.”
Shrug. “I’m done. I’ll email you the link.” My eyes narrowed at Mooney. “As long as you keep it to yourself.”
I wanted to surprise her with it.
“Why do I have the feeling that this is going to result in me being humiliated?” Lizzie asked to herself.
When I wrapped my pinky finger around hers, a jolt of electricity went up my arm. “Hey, I’m putting a lot of trust in you,” I said softly. “Afford me the same courtesy, okay?”
She stared down at our hands and nodded mutely.
“Great,” the senior editor said. “I’ll set up the date.”
My brow furrowed. “Wait, what?” That wasn’t part of the plan.
He looked a little too pleased with himself. “I’ll set up a double date for you guys, based on your profiles and who matches them, and it can be your column for next week.”
It was Tuesday now, and the column ran on Mondays.
“Isn’t that kind of, uh, quick?” Lizzie said, squeezing my whole hand now.
Mooney waved a hand. “No problem. Get me Ash’s profile link by the end of today. I’ll set you up for Saturday night.”
For a smart man, he sure was making a lot of assumptions—for one, that he’d find matches that were available for a date that weekend. I began to worry. It was one thing to trust Lizzie with my profile, but another altogether to trust a guy I barely knew. I didn’t think Lizzie would throw me under the dating bus. Mooney… I wasn’t so sure about. He might do anything for the right cost-per-click.
In the meantime, Lizzie had been very careful not to spend much time alone with me since our dinner meeting. I hadn’t seen her in person since then, when I read her official online response to my dating question.
“Dear Cubicle Crush: A lot of people meet their significant others in the workplace these days. After all, it’s where we spend the most time other than at home. Presumably, if you were meeting new people at home, you’d have a home invasion problem on your hands.
So, first you have to determine if it’s worth pursuing. Before you ask if she’s interested, first find out if she’s even available. Not everyone wears wedding bands or has pictures of their spouse on their desk. Frankly, a picture of my boyfriend on my desk would make me feel like I was being watched.
If she’s free to date, then you could channel your thirteen-year-old self and ask her friends if she might want to go to a movie with you. Your mom doesn’t have to drive. Or you could pass her a note, asking her to check a box ‘yes’ or ‘no’ if she likes you. Or… you could get her alone after office hours and accidentally lock you both in the supply room and play the workplace version of Seven Minutes in Heaven.
In any case, be a gentleman and ASSUME NOTHING.”
Miss Behave
I sat back in my chair after I read it, tapping my chin. That helped… not at all.
“Assume nothing?” Well, there went my whole strategy of assuming that she might actually have useful advice.
I compared it to my answer, wondering what she’d thought of it.
“Dear Cubicle Crush: If you want to know if a girl might be interested in you, then the best way to find out is to ask her out. It’s not rocket science. Don’t suggest coffee or lunch, though—that is ambiguous AF when you guys work together.
The trouble is that we live in the #metoo world, where brushing back a bit of her hair from her face could be seen as an inappropriate assault. For the most part, that’s a good thing. If someone in my office tried to brush my hair back flirtatiously, I’d probably knee them in the balls.
But if the girl of my dreams decided to back me up against a filing cabinet and try to unlock my drawers, I might just spin her around and kiss her. No room for ambiguity. If she’s interested, you’ll find out right away. If she’s not, then make sure you have a good lawyer.”
A Guy’s Guy
I snorted at the disclaimer that Mooney had added—that by publishing this column, the company wasn’t endorsing sexual advances at the workplace.
Maybe there was something in the employee handbook? Did they even have an employee handbook? My next email might have to be to HR, not Miss Behave.
* * *
On Saturday night, when I showered and dressed, I thought of Lizzie.
Not my blind date.
Recalling the way that Lizzie had checked out the tattoo on my chest, I left the top few buttons of my black shirt undone. The rest of me was pretty standard, though I did put on some nicer shoes.
There was only so far I was willing to upcycle myself for a blind date; either they took me as I was or not at all. Most women, I’d discovered, didn’t have a problem with me.
Except for Lizzie. I really had a hard time figuring out what she thought of me. Normally that kind of thing didn’t matter to me—except that it did. Maybe it was just because I was so damn curious about her… Like tonight, what would she wear? A little black dress? Another tight sweater?
I found myself mentally skimming different fantasy outfits while I waited outside her apartment building. I’d texted to let her know I was here, and she responded that she’d be down in a moment. The sidewalk was the perfect place for people watching, and I leaned against the brick of her building as I waited.
“What’s that?”
Startled, I straighte
ned, the brick scrubbing my leather jacket. I’d been so distracted by the world walking past that she’d gotten the drop on me. And now that I saw her, I was momentarily speechless.
Miss Behave was dressed to misbehave.
At first glance she was demure, even staid. But her long black skirt had a slit that went up her thigh when she moved, and the way her top fell off her creamy shoulders under her shawl made me wonder if she was even wearing a bra.
She’d managed to find the precise intersection between prim and prostitute, and my body reacted immediately. This could get embarrassing very quickly, even before the “blind date” began.
“Is that for me?” She nodded toward the plastic box in my hand.
Oh, right. I handed her the corsage, shrugging. Yeah, I found a flower shop that did that. It seemed to fit her personality.
Her eyes widened with admiration. “That’s incredibly… sweet.”
What every hot-blooded man likes to be called—sweet. But I’d take it. “May I?”
I saw the color spreading down her cheeks to her neck as she shifted her scarf. The cropped peasant top she wore underneath revealed a tempting line of bare flesh at her waist.
Moving closer to her, I raised my hands and carefully pinned the little ribbon-wrapped spray of fragrant white flowers to her blouse. Her breast was warm and soft beneath my knuckles, making me wish I’d chosen looser pants.
Her breath juddered against my neck as I bent over her. Her perfume rose up in my nostrils, sweet and light. My fingers slipped over the flowers. Stupid corsage. It would be helpful if I could stop breathing and seeing and feeling, as well.
“Just a second,” I said, trying to adjust the pin. The last thing I wanted was to stick her—especially there. I’d never forgive myself. It would be like defacing a Picasso.
Her head bent close to mine. “I can try—”
“Done.” There was absolutely nothing wrong with staring at her chest to admire the flowers, right?
Softly, she lay her hand over mine, stilling it, and looking up at me. “Am I going to regret tonight, Ash?”
