His only complaint was her tendency to arrive for work five to ten minutes late. He’d put his foot down on carpooling. He needed some time without the Janiyah temptation. Seeing this side of her was making it hard to remember she was the type of woman he stayed away from.
“So, will you?”
“Fine, Janiyah. I’ll stay late and help you.”
She grinned. His heart thudded.
He watched the door for several seconds after she left, before cursing himself for being a fool, and returning his attention to the audit report.
• • •
The corner of Fredrick’s mouth twitched as he listened to Janiyah talk fashion with Phyllis outside his office. Phyllis’s taste in clothing was severe to say the least, but she always tried some way to liven it up. Usually with clashing results. Now that Janiyah worked here, his stiff employee was growing increasingly excited about being more eccentric with her wardrobe.
Janiyah’s laughter flitted through the air, sending an unwelcome thrill through his body. He jumped up from his seat and went to the door. The faster they got through this budget session the better.
They didn’t notice him when he stopped at the door. Janiyah stood next to Phyllis, her lips pursed prettily while they both gazed at a catalogue. He let his gaze quickly rove over her blue and pink outfit and licked his lips. He’d buy cupcakes on the way home tonight.
“Don’t worry about what your husband says. I think that dress is fantastic and appropriate. You definitely should buy it.” Janiyah tapped the catalogue with her finger.
“That’s what I said. Just because I’m over fifty doesn’t mean I can’t pull it off.”
Janiyah grinned. “Exactly.”
When they slapped hands and giggled Fredrick’s jaw dropped. Never in his life had he heard Phyllis giggle. He didn’t even want to see what they were discussing. The last thing he needed was a mental image of her in any type of dress that could be described as inappropriate.
He cleared his throat. They both looked up from the catalogue. Janiyah’s smile softened at the edges, sending another shot through his body. She’d wanted him to kiss her the other night. Now, whenever she smiled like that, all sweet and happy, it made him want to do just that. Forget the reasons why he was fighting this attraction, and make her smile like that all the time. So he broke eye contact and looked at his watch.
“Are we going to work on your budget, or am I interrupting fashion hour?”
Phyllis closed the catalogue and shoved it under her arm. “You’re not funny.”
“That’s exactly what I tell him,” Janiyah said.
He cocked a brow. “I’m ready to get to work. Going through your finances might take all night.”
Janiyah sucked her teeth. She hitched the strap of her denim bag on her shoulder. “My finances are not that bad.”
“I’d be surprised, considering you’ve never created a budget before.” He waved her over.
Janiyah rolled her eyes at Phyllis. “The man lives to torment me.”
Phyllis smiled at Janiyah, then gave him the evil eye. He returned her glare with a so what look of his own. She finally turned away and left.
Janiyah pulled off her blazer and tossed it over her arm. The tops of her breasts pushed above the white lace camisole, and his mouth watered.
“You have that all wrong,” he said, snatching his eyes way from the enticing view of her cleavage. “It’s you who lives to torment me.”
She reached up and patted his cheek. “Oh, Freddy, if only.”
Adrenaline surged within him from the simple touch. He stepped back into his office. “Let’s get started.”
He sat at the conference table beside the windows. When she didn’t follow, he glanced at her. She stood by the door, the corner of her mouth twisting as she studied him.
He pushed out the seat next to him. “You coming?”
She sighed then closed the door. The intimacy of the simple action caused a tightening in his pants.
He shifted in his seat. “Why close the door?”
Her shoulder lifted in an unassuming shrug. “As of now, I’m a client, not a friend.”
“Since when did we become friends?”
She plopped down into the chair next to him. The sweet smell of her vanilla perfume drifted over. She smelled like a cupcake. The discomfort between his legs increased.
“Ahh, Freddy, don’t be that way.”
“One day I’m going to make you call me Fredrick.” He could think of a lot of ways he’d make her call his full name. Ways she wouldn’t expect a “good guy” like him to do.
Her full lips lifted into a playful smile. “I’d like to see you try.” She leaned forward, bringing her scent and a view of her breasts with her.
“I don’t think you do.” He would turn her around. Hit it from the back as she screamed his full name.
The teasing glint in her eye turned to something more threatening to his good sense. “Oh, I do.”
Damn, his dick got hard. This was going down the wrong path. He leaned back. “Interesting outfit choice today.”
Her eyes called him a coward for pulling away, but she leaned back. “Do you like it?”
“It’s colorful.”
She bumped him with her shoulder. “It’s cute and you know it.”
“You look like a cupcake.”
“You love cupcakes, so I take that as a compliment.”
Double damn. The woman knew too much about him. “I like eating cupcakes, not looking at them.”
She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward again. “Hmmm, that’s interesting.”
His heart beat triple time. His erection pulsed painfully with each beat. This conversation was beyond going down the wrong path and over into dangerous territory. He was reading too much into it. Another unfortunate side effect of the almost-kiss: he saw innuendo and flirtation in everything she did.
“Where’s your paperwork?”
She pulled the bag off her shoulder. “All my bills, income statements, and the other stuff I could think of.”
His eyebrows drew together as she pulled handfuls of paper from the bag. After three grabs, there was a pile in front of him. He looked from the pile to her.
“This is in no kind of order.”
She shrugged. “I usually stuff everything in a drawer. This is the entire contents of that drawer.”
He lifted several sheets of paper. “How do you keep up with everything?”
“I pay as it comes. Or if it’s not important, put it off until I can.”
With a shake of his head he continued to riffle through the stack. “This is crazy. I’m going to need my laptop.”
“For what?”
“To put your expenses, earnings, and savings into our budget management software. We’ve got to get a handle on this before we can create a roadmap for the future.”
She pushed the chair back. “Okay, sounds good. I’ll go home and when you finish, you can stop by my apartment and let me know what you came up with.”
When she tried to stand he grabbed her hand. “No, ma’am. You’re sitting here with me, and we’re going through this together.”
She groaned and rolled her head in a circle. Her ponytail brushed the back of her neck, drawing his eye to the softness of her skin there. “I figured you would say something like that. Come on, Freddy, do it for me, please.” Her thick lashes batted and her lower lip poked out temptingly.
He shook his head and turned away. “No. You want to become more responsible with your money. You’ve got to do this with me.”
She sighed. “Fine, but you owe me.”
“I can’t possibly see how I owe you for doing you a favor.”
“You know I hate math. You owe me for making me do math.”
He let go of her hand. “How do you make money as a virtual assistant when you balk at the idea of getting your stuff in order?”
She frowned. “I don’t get paid to put my stuff in order. I’m better at getting
everyone else’s stuff in order. Mine works itself out.”
With a shake of his head he turned to the mess on the table. “Just get my laptop off my desk.”
Two hours later it was past nine and they’d finally gotten through the pile of material she’d dumped on the table. The papers were separated into neat piles corresponding to bills and expenses and further broken down into necessities and extraneous purchases. Her knees were tucked under her in the chair, and her elbows rested on the table as she leaned forward to look at what he input on the screen. He should be used to the smell of her perfume by now, and the warmth of her body next to his, but he wasn’t. He was easily distracted whenever she shifted next to him. His body hummed with tension, and he was more than ready to finish her budget and get out of the office.
She leaned forward to point at the computer screen. Her plump little breasts nearly spilled from the top of her camisole. His mouth went dry and he licked his lips. Definitely buying cupcakes tonight.
“No, Freddy, that should be $350 not $450,” she said. Her voice was low, her exhaustion from going over numbers for two hours apparent. Still, his mind imagined it as the way she’d sound first thing in the morning after a long night of lovemaking.
He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “My bad. I’m getting … tired.”
She blew air between her lips. “You’re tired. I’m exhausted. Are we finished?”
He nodded. “Almost.” He corrected his mistake and frowned. “Janiyah, your budget works out … miraculously.” She hit his shoulder but he continued. “But you’re spending way too much money on clothes. You almost didn’t meet your budget last month.” She leaned closer to the screen. “What? I buy from consignment shops and online. I don’t shop in fancy department stores. You’re looking at something wrong.”
He shook his head. “No, you spent nearly twenty-five hundred dollars just on eBay last month. If your dad hadn’t given you that money for your birthday, you would have been short.” He turned to her. “Do you spend that much regularly?”
“No, there were just a lot of good deals last month. And it was my birthday. Nothing was that expensive,” she said, still examining the spreadsheet as if the numbers would change. “Twenty-five hundred isn’t much. And now that I’m working here, I’m making more and it should cover my spending.”
“Maybe while your dad is supplementing your income, but it won’t be if you stop accepting his money.”
“I’ve already stopped accepting his money.”
She said it with a little bit of an F-you in her voice that he couldn’t help but admire. “All the more reason to use your salary here for your everyday expenses and put the money from your virtual assisting clients into a high yield account. But to do that, you can’t afford to spend that much on clothes. You’ve got to slow down with the consignment shopping.”
“Okay, fine.”
With a sigh, she pulled her hair out of the ponytail. She massaged her scalp and moaned, then pushed the thick strands behind her ear. He stared at the pulse at the base of her neck. Never had he had a vampire fetish in his life, but he wanted to lean in and softly suck on that spot with a vengeance. His fingers flexed on the keyboard before slowly running across the keys, the smooth surface a meager substitute for her skin.
When she turned back to him he quickly looked at the screen.
“Are you okay? You look kinda flushed.”
He nodded stiffly. “I’m good. Overall, your budget isn’t bad. You could manage to pay all your bills just off your virtual assisting job. But I still recommend less clothes shopping. And maybe cut back on purchasing items on a whim, like the violin you bought a few months ago.”
She hmphed and sat back. “You know why I bought that.”
His desire cooled a notch. He kinked his brow. “And that relationship lasted how long?”
She waved a hand. “I developed an appreciation for music.”
“And he developed an appreciation for … ”
She narrowed her eyes. “We’re not talking about him.”
Lifting a shoulder, he said, “Fine. Just limit your purchases and you should be able to start saving. I know someone who can help you with a retirement savings plan.”
“Retirement? Goodness, Freddy, you’re killing me.” She stretched her hands over her head and yawned.
His eyes zeroed in on her breasts pressed against the shirt. He might have been able to speak if her nipples weren’t pebble hard beneath the flimsy fabric. His lips parted, breathing became difficult, and heat burned inside. Uninhibited visions of pulling the top down and watching the dark tips pop free of her shirt projected in his mind. He’d grab them gently. Squeeze them just enough to cause them to protrude even more before slowly running his tongue across them. His teeth would tease them, she’d pant his full name before he finally took them into his mouth. Would her skin be as soft as cake? Would she melt against his tongue and moan deeply?
“Freddy?”
Her voice snapped him back. Embarrassment heated his face. Instead of meeting her eyes, he looked at the computer screen. He was making a fool of himself. Janiyah Henderson was not the woman for him. She stretched and he was ready to forget that and have sex on a table.
“We’re through here. I’ve got some other stuff to wrap up before leaving the office.”
“But it’s late and you’ve been staring at reports all day. Let’s grab something to eat then go home.”
He shook his head. “No, you go. I’ll pick up something later.”
She touched his shoulder. The warmth from her small hand only increased his arousal.
He jerked out of reach. “Look, I’ve gotten behind doing this. We can finish up another day.”
“Are you mad at me?”
The hurt in her voice almost weakened him, but he ignored it. Bruising her feelings now prevented him from making a fool of himself later.
“I’m not mad at you. I’ve just spent too much time on this.” He glanced in her direction. Her shoulders slumped. A real pout pursed her full lips. He softened his tone. “We’re done. Go home.”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a sad smile. “For what it’s worth, thanks.”
She leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek. Without thinking, he turned his head so that their lips brushed. She gasped, her soft breath caressing his lips. His body prepped to go in and take her mouth the way he wanted. Explore every soft crevice before ripping that damn scrap of a shirt off and reliving his fantasy.
He stopped himself. He had a plan. She wouldn’t fit in that plan. If he forgot how she twisted every man she knew into agreeing to everything she wanted, he could kiss all of his hard work goodbye. No longer would he be the smart businessman who opened his own accounting firm and made it one of the most successful in the area in two years. He’d be the guy who sleeps with his assistants. Possibly lose his best friend. Be the latest schmuck to fall in love with Janiyah. And the fool who tossed aside his well laid plans because of a woman who lost interest in him after a few weeks.
He leaned back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She frowned, confusion and disappointment clear in her eyes. When she slid back in her chair he mentally relaxed, but didn’t trust himself enough to relax his body. Otherwise he might reach toward her again.
“Sure. Have a good night,” she said softly.
His tension didn’t go away until the door opened and closed behind her. With a sigh, he did the one thing that would snap him back to reality after being tempted by Janiyah. He called his dad, knowing there would be some new drama with his parents that would quickly remind him why he should continue to ignore this desire.
CHAPTER 11
Fredrick slid the key in his door at the same time Janiyah’s door flew open.
“Thank God you’re home,” she said.
He turned toward her with a sigh. After his reaction to her earlier in the week, he’d spent an extra hour at the gym two nights in a row taking out his frustration
on the weight bench. The last thing he needed was to further tax his muscles moving a piece of furniture she’d found at a consignment store. The extra workouts helped. But not as much as the call to his parents. Instead of being excited about possibly luring a client that would help save his fledging insurance company, his father had told him about the new cooking classes his mom signed up for. He had at least gotten his dad to nail down a day for the meeting with the client by agreeing to come.
Janiyah hopped from one foot to the other. Her silky hair, which hung straight today, bounced around her face with the movement. Her workout shorts and Atlanta Falcons t-shirt meant she wasn’t going out tonight.
“Too much sugar?” he asked.
She rushed over and pushed him out of the way. “There’s a spider camping out in my bathroom and I can’t go in there.” She opened his door and flew inside. “I’m gonna use yours until you kill it,” she said over her shoulder.
He pulled the key out of the door. “This is why I’m moving,” he said to himself. If he was going to work with her he definitely couldn’t continue living beside her.
He set down his gym bag and sat on the couch with a groan. He stretched his right leg out in front of him, placed his foot on the coffee table, and rubbed the dull ache in his knee. He’d hurt it a year ago playing in a flag football tournament. It always bothered him after a strenuous workout. Usually he paced himself, but physical taxation was worth it. If he was exhausted, he wouldn’t stay up half the night dreaming about her.
He rested his head along the back of the couch with his eyes closed when she came out of the bathroom. He sensed her beside him before the scent of her perfume wafted over him. He probably smelled worse than his gym bag.
“Freddy, what’s wrong?” she said, her voice soft.
He kept his head back and eyes closed. “Nothing.”
Cold fingers moved his hand out of the way and massaged his knee. His head popped up, and he pushed her hand away. “What are you doing?”
“You were rubbing it like it was bothering you.”
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