“Wish what?”
He racked his brain for a generic response. “Things have been tense lately. I wish I could make her smile for more than a couple minutes at a time.”
“When was the last time you did something random and out of the blue for her, just because?”
“You mean besides lose my job and add another layer of stress to our lives?” He meant the words to be a lighthearted joke, but the bitterness in his voice disturbed him.
“I mean besides that.”
Last time he did something random for Chloe? Friday morning in her office? Fuck. That was incredible. The memory was enough to flood his skin and tug at his cock. Not the kind of thing he wanted to share. Mostly because Chloe was so pissed last time he did that.
“If you’re hesitating that long for an answer, it’s not a good sign.” Liz interrupted his thoughts. “Little gestures go a long way.”
Did little gestures include watching next time Chloe kissed her? “Like what?”
“Flowers. Candy. That kind of stuff.”
“Chloe’s not really a buy-me-flowers kind of girl.”
Liz raised her brows as if she didn’t quite believe him. “It’s one example. What does she like?”
That was an easy one. “Whips. Leather. Alien lasers.”
Pink dotted Liz’s cheeks, and she turned her gaze to her hands. “Leather’s an option if you do it right.” Her voice grew quieter as she spoke, until he had to strain, to hear her. She cleared her throat and jerked her head up. “Anyway. She writes.”
“Brilliantly.” Sexy, hot, astounding stories.
“Do her characters ever fall in love?”
“All the time.”
Liz leaned in. “What kind of things do they do for each other?”
“Buy whips. Leather. Alien lasers…” Jordan’s flippant retort faded as Liz’s question sank in. “Oh.” There was always something small in Chloe’s stories, whether she was writing for one of the game franchises or fan fiction. Sometimes it was poetry. Frequently it was a sketch or something else.
“Lightbulb moment?”
“You could say that.” He nodded at the monitors. “You don’t want to spend your time doing relationship counseling. Though, thank you. Tell me more about this Jordan’s-a-brand concept.” It was a simple enough solution. He should have seen it sooner. He’d put more energy into showing Chloe he cared, and things would get better.
Liz worked her jaw up and down a few times before saying, “Can I drive for a minute?”
“Sure.” Jordan rolled his chair out of the way, so she could slide up in front of the computer. He watched in fascination, as her fingers flew over the keyboard. She’d type a few sentences, then delete half of one or copy, paste, and tweak another. For the first few minutes, he tried to keep up, but he surrendered the idea when he couldn’t tell where one thought ended and the next started. She was writing some kind of letter, which appeared to be from him, but it was too fractured to make sense.
“The goal is to say you’re sorry Stew was assaulted. That you hate to see something so horrific happen to anyone, and that you hope the true perpetrator is brought to justice. You never say anything that hints at you being involved, or at any animosity toward him or implication he’s making things up.”
“Except the bit about me being responsible.”
“Except that. You do have to pretty heavily imply that.”
A silence settled between them as she worked. He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt. Maybe he needed to walk away and check on Chloe? Not that he minded the view, but it felt creepy to sit and stare.
A faint tune drew his attention, and he realized Liz was humming. She carried a tune well, and after listening for a moment, he realized it was from Phantom of the Opera. “All I Ask of You.” The tune tugged at something inside, pulling strands of the past to the surface. One of the first times he and Chloe traveled for work, they managed to get tickets on Broadway to see Phantom. It was the first night they slept together.
He missed those days. Life wasn’t so demanding, and they had a lot more creative freedom. At the same time, neither of them had the confidence they gained since. Apparently, like the present, the past had both its up and downsides. While Liz hummed, he drew and mouthed the lyrics, his voice building in volume as the tune continued. He wasn’t sure when, but at some point, she started singing with him, offering Christine’s parts as he sang Raoul’s. She could hit the notes, too. He didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone do that.
He heard Chloe approaching, but he was enjoying the music too much to give the sound attention. Liz turned to face him, smile bright as they finished the duet. The song hit its crescendo and faded. That was fun.
A steady clapping broke the abrupt silence and tore Jordan’s gaze from Liz’s face. He whirled to see Chloe standing in the office doorway, staring back with an unreadable expression. No, that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t looking at him, but rather past him. She looked tired and almost… wounded? He couldn’t be reading that right. Whatever it was, he wanted to hold her and kiss it away until she was better. Little things, right? He’d take Liz’s advice, and they’d be fine.
Chapter Eleven
Chloe was conflicted. The duet was beautiful. She always loved hearing Jordan sing, and Liz was the perfect complement. The way they were looking at each other when she walked in the room, though—the nearly tangible tension stretching between them—knocked her off kilter and made her question everything.
Their curious gazes now were enough to help her push doubt aside. “You’re amazing together.” Quickly, she added, “Singing, I mean. Sorry for taking so long. Rae goes on sometimes.”
“Welcome back. We were just working.” Liz nodded at the screen.
That’s a funny thing to call it. Chloe hated her own creeping envy. “On what?”
“Ms. Thompson thinks I’m a brand. That you and I both are. So she’s going to make me all sparkly and clean.” The upward quirk of Jordan’s lips counterbalanced his words.
“Not quite what I said. I’m making him say he’s sorry.” Liz explained the theory behind it all. Chloe had to admit it made sense. She was embarrassed not to have thought of such a straightforward idea herself, but it had been a long twenty-four hours. Liz pointed at an open document on the screen. “When I’m done, I was hoping you’d give it a once-over. Both of you, of course, since it’s supposed to come from Jordan, but Chloe last, to make sure it’s got that extra oomph.”
They made sweeping changes at first, taking out entire sentences, and then swapping around individual words. Did that comma need to go there? Should they use a different adjective in that sentence? By the time they were all satisfied, the sun had dropped low enough in the sky, it looked as if it rested on the western mountains.
Chloe spun away from the computer, to face the other two, and blinked until she could see straight again. “Now he sends it?”
“Now we let it sit for half an hour, give it another glance, and then he sends it.” Liz rolled her head, stretching her neck.
Chloe liked the simplicity of the idea, but at the same time it felt too easy. “Are we doing the right thing?”
“I can’t guarantee it; I can only guess what the internet is going to say. Keep in mind though, once it’s out there you can’t take it back. There’s no backpedaling on this, because retracting anything here is going to look worse than not saying it at all.” Liz looked at Jordan. “That’s your one saving grace right now. You may have stayed silent, but that means you haven’t said the wrong thing. If you’re not comfortable with the idea, don’t pull the trigger. Is this what you want to do?”
Jordan reached for Chloe’s hand and squeezed her fingers. He searched her face, as if he might find the answers to the mysteries of the universe in her eyes. She tried to give him a reassuring look, but the gravity of this weighed on her. They were fucking creatives. How did something like a letter become so important in their worlds?
He puffed out his
cheeks with a noisy exhale. “Yeah. I’m sure. Half an hour, we’ll give it another look, and I’ll click go on whichever sites you tell me to.”
“It’s a done deal, then.” Liz slouched in her seat, as if the news was a relief. “And with any luck, it’s better than trying to be spies.”
What? “Who was being spies?” Chloe asked.
“The two of you. Secret agents, digging up any dirt you could find on this Stew guy?”
Chloe laughed at the comparison, more out of gratitude at not having to do the pointless digging after all. “I guess we were. Agents double-oh-six and nine. That’s us.”
“Nice. Working on top secret enemy penetration?” Liz rolled her eyes, but amusement sparkled in them.
“Nah. Enemy penetration sounds too James Bond,” Jordan said. “I prefer the friendly variation.”
Liz raised her brows. “Doesn’t that make you a double agent?”
“I’m digging for a pun about double penetration, but it’s not coming to me.” The jokes might be on the immature side, but Chloe enjoyed the excuse to laugh.
“If you actually had the double penetration, there would be plenty coming to you.” Jordan frowned. “Wait. That didn’t sound right.”
“Sounds perfect to me,” Chloe countered.
“Okay, but seriously.” Liz held up her index finger, as if to pause the conversation. “Huge guilty pleasure for me.”
Jordan didn’t hesitate. “Double penetration?”
The line of joking evoked Chloe’s memories of Thursday morning, and the flood of sensations across her skin made her hotter than her embarrassment and amusement did.
“Maybe. But no. But maybe. I’ve never tried, but I’m open to it.” Liz bit her bottom lip and ducked her head. “Seriously-seriously, though—James Bond movies. Huge guilty pleasure.”
When Chloe focused on the notion of Liz being penetrated, it fuzzed her logic and short-circuited her brain. Chloe would get nothing else done tonight if she let herself drift down that lane of thought, so she took the switch in the road at the term guilty pleasure. She’d never liked that notion. “Why?”
Liz met her gaze. “They’re action packed and a little over the top.”
“A little?” Jordan asked.
Chloe playfully smacked his arm. “Not why do you like them. Why do you feel guilty about it?”
“They’re action packed and a little”—Liz paused—“a lot over the top. They’re sexist. They’re illogical… Do you want me to go on?”
Jordan shook his head. “Guilt is for things that cause others pain. Like this bullshit Stew pulled. If you like the movies, like the movies. You can recognize their flaws, but don’t qualify it.”
Chloe couldn’t have said it better.
“All right. No qualifiers. I love James Bond movies.” She rolled away from Jordan’s computer and gestured for Chloe to slide into her spot. “One last glance, and then Jordan publishes this to his website and shares links on every account he owns. Chloe, you back him up. Nothing extravagant. Sharing the links with a comment that says you support him and agree with everything he has to say.”
“Why does she get off easy?” Jordan asked.
Liz twisted her mouth in amusement. “Fresh batteries in the vibrator? I doubt this is easy for either of you.”
She had that right. Chloe and Jordan followed her instructions. With each new site they published to, the knot in Chloe’s gut tightened a little more, until she wondered if she resembled a pretzel. She shared on her last social media account. “Done.”
“Good.” Liz grabbed both their phones from where they sat on their desks, and then hot-keyed their laptops to sleep mode.
Chloe was impressed with the quick click-work, but confused. “What are you doing?” Having her computer off and her phone out of reach amped her buzzing tension off the charts.
“We’re walking away. Both of you. Me too.” Liz slapped Jordan’s hand when he reached for the mouse, then moved out of reach when Chloe lunged for her phone. “Turn them off.” She handed the devices back. “Because if you spend all night obsessively refreshing for responses, you’ll drive yourselves insane, and one of you will break and reply before the sun rises tomorrow. Like I said, you can’t undo this now. It’s out there, and it’s the best solution we could come up with. If we were wrong, you can hate me, but I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it might fail.”
Chloe didn’t like cutting herself off from the online world this way. It felt like severing a limb. She might be exaggerating a little bit—she was offline half the time, when she flew—but this was no-computer, as well. Liz’s logic made sense, though. “What do we do instead?” Chloe asked.
“Order pizza and watch James Bond.” Jordan sounded as if it was the only logical conclusion.
Chloe stood and moved to sit in his lap. She draped her arms around his neck. “I love the way you think. But Liz has to order, because she cut us off from the rest of the world.”
A few hours later, half-finished pizza stuffed in a box in the fridge, they’d made their way through From Russia with Love and were watching Skyfall. There was no reason to watch them in order, so instead they picked from whatever Netflix showed them next.
Chloe sat curled against Jordan, her back and weight resting against his shoulder and chest. Somewhere along the way, she’d moved her feet onto the couch and rested them on Liz’s lap.
On screen, Bond swam through the dark waters, while the baddies moved about on the boat. Séverine disrobed and stepped into the shower. Moments later, Bond joined her.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about when I say guilty pleasure.” Liz pointed at the screen. “I know this is going to happen in the movie and the kind of message it sends—societal impact and all that—but I like the films anyway.”
Liz had a point, but Chloe didn’t want to back down from the concept of not feeling guilty for liking something. “You’re over-thinking it.”
“It doesn’t take much thought.” Liz shifted to face her, displacing Chloe’s feet. “Mr. Bond, I was sent to kill you.” Liz’s voice shifted an octave and smoothed out. “But please, I’d prefer if you assume we’ll have sex first.”
Jordan squeezed Chloe’s arm, kissed the back of her neck, and then shifted her into a comfortable position, before standing. He extended his hand to Liz and pulled her to her feet. “But my dear”—he adopted a flawless English accent—“no means yes.”
“Oh, my.” Liz’s words were exaggerated. She swooned, spun, and fell back into his arms.
Chloe laughed at the antics but couldn’t ignore the nagging in the back of her mind. Shards of jealousy threatened to disrupt her mood. This was ridiculous. She enjoyed seeing Liz and Jordan get along. As she thought the words, they felt real, not like an attempt to delude herself. She must still be struggling with the stress of the day.
Liz straightened again and whirled to face Jordan. “No, Mr. Bond. As in no means no.” She stepped closer, fluttering one hand near her chest and resting the other on his arm. A sharp thread of tension ran between them, similar to what Chloe swore she saw earlier, when they were singing together. The two of them fell into this so easily. Zero hesitation.
Liz stood on her toes, bringing her face inches from Jordan’s, and licked her lips. “Perhaps they should issue you a dictionary to go with your secret-spy training.” She moved back with a smirk.
Jordan seemed to consider her words. “Or perhaps”—his accent was still place— “you need a better offer. Is my counterpart more to your liking?” He grasped Chloe’s hand and tugged her to her feet. Chloe’s clawing envy receded.
“I’m not sure.” Liz raked her gaze over her, and heat rushed over Chloe’s skin. “I hesitate, not because I want to say no, but because I want to say yes.”
“You have to choose.” Chloe hadn’t meant to interrupt the banter. The silliness of the dialogue didn’t detract from the hotness of their proximity.
“Why?” Liz asked.
Chloe didn’t
have an answer; she couldn’t understand why she said it in the first place. If she talked fast she could take it back. “I suppose if agents double-oh-six and nine worked together, maybe they could seduce the assassin.”
“How does that work?” Liz looked intrigued.
“Our agents have their target.” The story nudged its way into Chloe’s mind, and the words spilled out without consideration. She was pushing a boundary, and she wanted to see how far she could go. “And they realize she’s watching them. Counter intelligence and all that. Ms. Spy is supposed to distract the villainess, while Mr. Spy sneaks into her room and secures the top-secret documents.”
Liz watched her, pink creeping over her skin, but gaze unwavering. “Distract me, how?”
Chloe knew what she wanted to say next, but she wasn’t sure she should. The lighthearted mood of the moment and the interest in Liz’s expression pushed her past the hesitation. “She’s going to put on a show. I stand in front of the window, darkness outside and enough light inside to make me easy to study.”
“I’m watching.” Huskiness melted into Liz’s fake spy voice.
“You’re wondering where my partner went, but stop caring so much when I strip off my shirt. I try not to think about the details of my task.” Chloe paused. Should she do this? The two sets of eyes watching her, movie all but forgotten in the background, told her yes. Anticipation tingled inside, pinging in her breasts as her nipples strained against her bra, flowing through her gut in anticipation, and humming between her legs as her brain leaped ahead several steps. She pulled off her shirt and tossed it onto the nearby chair.
“But I can’t ignore the arousal at the thought of you watching my every move.” Chloe couldn’t turn back now—had no desire to. She met Jordan’s gaze and recognized the lust staring back. Liz was harder to read, but she wasn’t turning away or protesting, and the way she trailed her finger along her own neck and then the edge of her ear, was enough to keep Chloe going. Chloe pushed her jeans to the ground. “I’m disrobing, a piece at a time. I need to keep your attention captive long enough for my partner to get in and out, but now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I have the patience to take things slowly.”
Leasing Love: A #GeekLove Contemporary Ménage Romance (Your Ad Here Book 2) Page 10
