by Holly Jaymes
“I’m right where I want to be.” He looked at me intently and everything inside me went from warm to hot. “Want to dance?” He nodded toward the dance floor where a band was playing love songs, presumably for Valentine’s day.
“Okay.”
I took his hand and he led me to the dance floor. At first, he held me with a modest distance between us, but as the song played, he pulled me closer. Or maybe I moved closer to him. He smelled really good. Up close, I could see a sculpted chest outlined in his white shirt. And his eyes…wow. How could one pair of eyes be amber, green, and even gray all at once?
He leaned in, his cheek next to mine, his breath wafting along my ear, sending delicious shivers along my skin.
“Sasha?” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Will you be my Valentine tonight?”
I had a mixed response. The cautious part of me clanged a warning bell. I didn’t really know this guy. My hormones, however, were already imagining him naked.
When I didn’t respond, he pulled back and looked at me. “Too much, too soon?”
I swallowed. “I’ve never done this. It feels dangerous yet exciting.”
His smile was understanding and sincere. “I get it. It’s fine. We can dance.”
“Do you do this a lot?”
His cheeks flushed slightly. “Actually. No. I tend to work a lot and don’t get out much. It just seemed like a moment. Two ships passing in the night and all that.”
It helped to know I wasn’t in a long line of pickups, but what really turned the corner for me was his blush. Professional pick-up artists didn’t blush.
“Yes.”
His brows furrowed. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll be your Valentine tonight.”
Once the decision was made, things moved pretty quickly. So quickly that by the time I was in his hotel room and he was pushing me against the door, I was breathless.
He looked at me with those fantastic eyes as his hips pressed against me, his hard length evident behind the fly of his slacks.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
I gripped his head and pulled him to me, plastering my lips against his. He groaned. I groaned too. His lips were soft, tasting of wine and sin.
He held my hips and pulled me away from the door. Our hands were a flurry of activity as we undressed, leaving our clothes in our wake as we moved to the bed.
“Do you have a condom?” I asked, sucking in a breath when he dropped to his knees as he pulled my panties down and his lips cascaded across my belly to my hip.
“I was a Boy Scout,” he murmured.
“Is there a badge for condoms?”
He stood. “There’s a motto. Be prepared.” He held his hand up with a condom held between his index and middle finger. He gave me a sexy grin and pushed me back on the bed, settling over me. “This night is turning out much better than I thought it would.”
“Me too.” I ran my hands through his hair as I looked up at him. Never in a million years did I think I’d do something like this and yet, strangely enough, this felt so right. Well maybe not right, but not wrong either.
He kissed me and all thoughts left my brain. All that existed was the feel of his lips on mine, his hands caressing my body, and finally, his hard length pressing inside me.
“Fuck, that feels good,” he groaned against my neck.
I agreed but couldn’t formulate the words. I responded by arching into him, encouraging him to move, faster, harder, more and more, until I was hanging on the edge of bliss.
His hand hooked under my thigh, lifting it, opening me to him. When he plunged in again, he sent me soaring. Pleasure radiated out, coursed through my blood to every cell in my body. I held on to him as he moved and drew out my release. Then he thrusted hard, grinding against me as his own release overtook him.
He collapsed on me. “Sorry. I usually have more finesse.”
“I thought you said you didn’t do this a lot.”
He lifted his head and looked down at me. “I don’t pick up women in bars. I have had sex a few times and normally it lasts a bit longer. I’m afraid you haven’t gotten my best.” I snorted, thinking how odd it was to be having a conversation like this while he was still inside me. I’d had a few boyfriends, and normally they didn’t give themselves a performance rating when the deed was done. “Stay the night. Give me another chance to show you what I can really do,” he said, dipping his head and flicking his tongue over my nipple.
He’d said something earlier about this being a moment. About how we were two ships passing in the night. I wanted to lose myself in that for a little bit longer.
“I can’t stay the night,” I told him, “but I can stay a little longer. I’d hate for you to feel like you didn’t give me your best.”
As it turned out, he did have finesse and when I left his room, I was feeling extremely sated. When I woke in my own bed the next morning, I still felt good even though I didn’t get as much sleep as usual.
Even when I walked into Sterling Starr to do my usual job, the sting of not getting promoted wasn’t quite as acute.
“Hey, Sash, there’s a meeting in the conference room. The new manager is here,” Lisa, the receptionist said.
“I didn’t think the new manager started until Monday.”
She shrugged.
I put my purse in my office, then shoring up my strength, I headed to the conference room.
“Oh good, Sasha, you’re here. We’re having a meeting with the new manager,” Carolyn said.
I looked at the man sitting next to her and my heart stopped.
“This is Reece Alexander,” she said. “Reece this is Sasha Crawford, one of our top planners.”
My brain could only think one thing. Holy crap, I had sex with my boss.
Chapter 2: The Worst Luck
Reece
Ah hell no.
For the last twelve hours, I thought my luck had changed. Before yesterday afternoon, my dream career was crashing and burning as my latest screenplay got another big fat rejection. That meant I needed to keep working at my job, and my boss at Sterling Starr decided to send me out to this Podunk town to manage the office. Eden Lake was nice enough, but I was a city and beach guy, not a small town and mountains guy. And warmth. I liked warmth. I checked the weather today, and it was going to be nearly seventy degrees in Los Angeles. Eden Lake? It was going to reach a ball-freezing high of forty.
I drove out to Eden Lake yesterday, rented the only hotel room available and made an appointment with a property manager to help me find a place to live. She was a no-show. To make it all worse, it was Valentine’s Day. Gag. My friends never understood why I was so down on romance considering half of the events that my company coordinated or managed were weddings. If they knew all the damn drama and stress that went into putting on a wedding, they’d know why I thought a day that encouraged such behavior was a bad idea. Thank God the bar at the resort was open, because by the afternoon, I needed a drink. Or ten.
And then the prettiest woman I’d seen in a long time came up and sat next to me at the bar. She was having a bad day too and, as it turned out, two bads could make a right. One look at her, and the attraction was immediate. She had a natural beauty I didn’t see much of in L.A., especially in my line of work. Within minutes though, I was smitten by more than her good looks. I was taken in by her authenticity and humor. She was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of woman, which was refreshing. I’d never mastered mind-reading in the women I’d dated before, which was why I didn’t have a woman in my life now. I suspected that they believed I was a romantic because part of my business was putting on weddings, but coordinating a wedding had nothing to do with love and romance. It was all business and logistics.
Spending time with Sasha, I was beginning to think moving to Eden Lake wasn’t such a bad idea after all. I knew she had to be from around here as she and Bobby, the bartender were friendly. The high point of the night, and no, it wasn’t the orgasms although those w
ere spectacular. No, the best part was laying in the dark post-orgasm, next to a beautiful naked woman, talking about nothing in particular. In fact, I knew very little about her. For example, I didn’t know what she did for a living.
Now, I knew. And with that knowledge, all my hopes for enjoying my tenure as the manager of the Eden Lake office of Sterling Starr Event Planning was up in smoke because the first rule in the HR manuals, right after “don’t be an asshole,” was don’t fuck with your colleagues. Actually, it said “relationships between Sterling Starr employees are not allowed”. At the time, I understood that. We worked under lots of stress and client drama, we didn’t need that at the office as well. All of a sudden, I hated that rule.
Her eyes widened and I knew the moment she thought the same thing I was. I wondered if she was just as disappointed. I had half a mind to quit right then, but then I’d be an unemployed screenwriter and that didn’t bode well for a relationship. Women today usually liked men who could pay their own way.
God, if I’d only waited to come in on Monday, I might have had tonight and all weekend with her. Jesus, being a responsible employee was biting me in the ass. But since I didn’t have anything else to do today except try to rent a place to live and ask Bobby the bartender for Sasha’s last name or phone number because I forgot to get it before she left, I figured I’d come into the office. I’d say hello. Meet the staff. Get a sense of the place with the help of the current manager who was retiring after today. That was the worst idea I’d ever had.
“We’re having a meeting this morning,” Carolyn the manager had said when I showed up. She looked at me like I stole her ice cream, but she managed a smile and invited me to chat with her.
“Excellent. It’ll give me a chance to meet everyone and find out what events are planned.” When I was first assigned this job, I thought I was being demoted. I was the number one celebrity event planner in the office in L.A. But then I was told that this office had been doing several celebrity events over the last year, and the home office wanted to build it up. It could be a destination wedding or event place for celebrities, and apparently several famous people lived in the area. I couldn’t figure out why. Two hours west were the ocean, the center of the entertainment world, and warmer weather.
When I’d researched the weddings coordinated from this office and saw they were held in a fifty-year-old run-down resort, when just up the road there were several ritzy places that could have given the Vegas strip resorts a run for the money, I knew they needed my help. I nearly choked when I saw Pax Ryder, one of the biggest names in music, was getting married on a snow tube slope. Who did that?
The last thing I expected was to see Sasha, my sweet Valentine, walking in. The universe was definitely fucking with me.
“Mr. Alexander,” Sasha said with a smile, but it wasn’t that dazzler she’d given me last night. She was also going to pretend she didn’t know me. That was probably a good idea. I was new in town. If it got out that I’d spent the night with her, one or both of us could be fired, even though officially we didn’t know each other at the time. Then again, officially, we still worked for the same company.
“Ms. Crawford.” I gave her a friendly nod.
Several other people came in and sat around the table.
“I brought in scones and muffins from Paradise Java,” Carolyn said.
“You’ve never done that before,” a balding roly-poly man said. He looked more like an accountant than an event planner.
“It’s never been my last day before.” She grinned at the group.
She gave everyone time to grab a baked good. We never had those at meetings in L.A. No one I knew in L.A. ate carbs. Or sugar.
“Before we get started, I want to introduce Reece Alexander. He’s going to be your new manager starting Monday.”
Several gazes shot to Sasha, but she kept hers on Carolyn. I wondered what that was about.
“It’s not Monday,” said the roly-poly guy.
“I was in town and wanted to introduce myself and have a chance to learn from Carolyn how the office ran,” I said. I wanted them to feel like I was eager to work with them.
“Sort of strange sending out a fancy guy from Tinseltown,” a fiftyish-looking woman who gave off an earth mama vibe said.
“He’s here to expand the celebrity events we’ve been putting on,” Carolyn explained.
“Why? We’ve done them fine on our own,” Earth mama said with a glance to Sasha.
I tried to hide the snort, but I realized I failed, when Sasha’s sage-colored eyes narrowed on me.
“It looks like you have an opinion about that, Mr. Crawford,” roly-poly guy said with disdain.
I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m just observing today.”
“No. We want to hear your opinion of our humble office.” Sasha’s tone was nothing like last night. I wracked my brain to try and figure out what I might have said so far to offend her. Should I have told her I worked for Sterling Starr? Was she mad that I was her boss? That made two of us. I was pissed that I was her boss too. But that couldn’t be it.
“Well, for one, Tucker McLean took his team to the Superbowl two years in a row. He’s the highest-paid football player in the league. So why is he getting married in an old resort on the outskirts of town, when you have several resorts that could have been spectacular?”
There were a few gasps.
“Maybe because Tucker McLean and his brother are part-owners of said resort and have spent a great deal of money to fix it up for retreats and other events,” Sasha said, with an undercurrent of venom that made me think she’d been the event planner for McLean.
“Tucker is an Eden Lake boy who cherishes his home,” another man who was older than me by a decade or so. He looked like I imagined someone in the mountains would look. Hair slightly unkempt, full beard, and a tan on his face except where his sunglasses would normally sit, giving him a raccoon appearance.
“Is Lily Maddox a partner too?” I asked. “She was second only to her mother in terms of being a top model, until she retired.”
“Some people don’t like all the fanfare and pomp and circumstance when they marry,” Carolyn said.
I nodded, noting that Lily had dropped out of the spotlight, probably on purpose after rumors of her and Trask Holloway spread. “Fair enough. How about Pax Ryder? Seriously, a wedding on a snow tube?”
Sasha bristled, and again, I felt like my foot was likely in my mouth. But dammit, I knew what I was doing and never in a million years would I have sanctioned a snow tube wedding.
“Oh yeah, how’d that go?” Earth mama asked Sasha. “It was a beautiful day for it.”
Sasha sat up straight. “They were ecstatic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people slide off into the sunset with smiles as big as theirs.”
Shit, that was her wedding.
I had to salvage this somehow. “Clearly, you’re all doing a fantastic job-“
“Yeah right,” raccoon eye guy said under his breath.
“No, you are. That’s why I’m here. The L.A. office has seen what you’ve been doing-”
“Yet they send you to punish us?” roly-poly guy said.
“Jim,” Carolyn censured him.
“Not punish. Help you expand the celebrity market. You’ve been lucky to have celebrities fall in your lap. Eden Lake has potential to be a real hot spot. I can help with that.”
“Did anyone ask if Eden Lake wanted to be a hotspot?” Earth mama asked.
Carolyn stood. “Listen, we all work for the same company. Mr. Alexander, like you, is here because he was told to be here. They told him what they want, and as their employees, it’s all our jobs to deliver. Or all your jobs, because after today, I’m out of here.”
“Have you ever managed an office?” Sasha asked me.
“I’ve managed a team of twelve.” I scanned the room and only saw the five who’d spoken, plus another three who were quiet and one taking notes. She was probably the office admin.
Carolyn took control of the meeting again, and I sat back, trying to hide in the woodwork so I could get a better sense of how they worked and who specialized in what types of events.
When they were finished, she excused everyone to go back to work. I waited behind in the chair deciding to have a scone after all.
“Well that went well,” I said.
Carolyn sighed. “I know you’ll eventually get the lay of the land, but may I give you some advice? Not just for being in this office, but in Eden Lake.”
“Sure.” I was always open to advice.
“The people of Eden Lake aren’t impressed by flashy-“
“Rich people are,” I said.
“Not all. And many who come here do so to avoid flashy. Lily Maddox, now Dalton, is one of them.”
I broke the scone in two. “I get it. I’m going to be pulled apart by a local office that wants to maintain its low-key vibe and a main office that wants to make this place an event destination for the rich and famous.”
She sat back and smiled. “I think that about sums it up.”
“Great.” I tossed a piece of the scone in my mouth. “Hey, this is pretty good. Where did you say you got this?”
“Paradise Java. Come with me. I’ll get you all the details for settling into town. Fitting in, that will be up to you.”
I stood and followed her out, searching for Sasha, but not seeing her. Just as well. She was pissed at me. I hoped that it would make it easier to work alongside her. If she hated me, I would avoid her, and hopefully, I’d not be tempted to touch her again.
Chapter 3: Thief
Sasha
I hurried out of the meeting room and to my office, shutting the door before I let out a scream. It was bad enough that my sexy-eyed Valentine stole my job and was now my boss, but he thought I was a hick-town event planner. He thought Pax and Victoria’s wedding was beneath him. He also thought that Lily and Wyatt’s wedding, and Tucker and Emma’s were low class. He was practically laughing at me. Jerk!
And he saw me naked. Oh God. I dropped my head onto my desk, wondering how my life had come apart so quickly. He probably thought I was a skank too. I didn’t know him, and I had sex with him. Would he use that against me? He seemed so nice last night, but today in the bright light, his charm seemed fake.
