by Haley Travis
Digging through my closet, I found the right combination of cool, casual, exclusive, and expensive items that stylists loved to write about. Part of me hated that I actually looked into these things a few weeks ago.
As I finished getting ready and went out to my garage to jump in my flashiest car, I couldn’t help wondering whether I was being too aggressive with Jenna.
She seemed thoughtful and delicate, but at the same time feisty enough to hold her own. At least, I hoped so. I had to be careful not to be too pushy with her. The last thing I’d ever want to do would be to make her uncomfortable, no matter how much I needed to pull her into my arms and cross every single line.
I’d always been incredibly forthright with people. I didn’t have the patience to play games and fake being nice to anyone. My life was my job, and that was that.
Jenna was already making me second guess the things I wanted to say, trying to be softer and more polite for her, and somehow, I didn’t mind at all.
7
_____
Jenna
The past few hours were a blur of studying. Stalking the attendees online, I had to memorize dozens of critical faces. And I had to have a protein-rich snack in case there was no food there.
By the time I was tucked into Andrew’s dazzling red car on our way to the Sky Lounge, my brain felt like it was about to burst.
“Are you alright?” he asked as we turned the last corner, driving down the street to a massive crowd of people lined up to get in.
“Yes, sorry,” I muttered automatically. “I had to cram like crazy before we left. I hope I remember it all.”
His hand reached out to gently pat my knee. “Well, I’m already having a great time. I’m about to walk in with the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen on my arm.”
Turning to blink in shock at him, he’d already pulled his hand away, gliding smoothly right in front of the building. “Stay put,” he said, dashing around to my side of the car to help me out. After tossing his keys to the valet, he took my arm, looking pleased as punch.
It was hard not to stare at his snug designer shirt that showed off every muscle to perfection. He hadn’t shaved today, his dark scruff rugged against his tanned skin.
“Over here!” yelled one of the photographers, and I gave him a wave as I recognized him. Cliff often took photos of our events too, and I’d sent him a text earlier, tipping him off.
Guiding Andrew closer, we posed right in front. As soon as some photographers saw that Cliff was zooming in on us, others took note and followed suit.
“This is crazy,” Andrew muttered through his smile.
“Yes,” I murmured, trying to put a few inches of space between us, but his arm wouldn’t budge.
“Hey, Cliff,” I called out, loud enough for the others to hear, “This is Andrew Harper of HarperTech. Big news coming soon – I’ll tell you next week.”
The flashing increased until I was nearly dizzy. Andrew noticed and guided me toward the door.
Corina was standing just behind the official-looking people with tablets who were checking people off. She wore a plain black dress that made her look efficient, but nearly invisible if she wanted to be. Even the clips keeping back her dark hair were black.
She gave me a subtle nod as I barely smiled at her, but inside I knew that we were laughing together.
Andrew’s voice purred in my ear. “Should we go say hello to your friend?”
I was genuinely touched that he remembered her. “She works for a rival firm, so we politely ignore each other at events if possible,” I whispered.
“Gotcha. I certainly understand strict security.” His hand on the small of my back was strangely comforting.
We were checked off the list, then Andrew guided me straight to the bar. “Water, or something stronger?” he asked.
“White wine,” I said automatically. Even if I only drank half, it looked social. I scanned the room quickly. “You should have beer in this crowd.”
He leaned down to breathe, “Yes, dear.”
A shiver ran through me. Even though I knew he was teasing, I couldn’t help it. Every time we were close, I turned into a love-struck maniac who couldn’t stop staring at his lips.
We took our drinks for a walk diagonally through the vast room, as I nodded to several people along the way. “Do you know them?” Andrew asked, using every excuse he could find to bring his lips close to my ear.
“Only from their photos online. I’m gauging which ones have the most open expressions and body language, so that we can chat when we bump into them again.”
His deep chuckle made me grin up at him. “And here I thought Terry was the mad scientist. You’re a mad psychologist.”
“I’ve studied a bit, yes, but I wouldn’t say that I was quite mad yet. Maybe I’ll go crazy in a few years, if I keep it up.”
“Tell me something that really does make you mad,” he said, slipping his arm around me as he led us to a quieter corner. “Does it make you angry when I touch you?”
“Um, no,” I nearly whispered. Why did this man make every intelligent word fall out of my head and run away?
“Because you want to be with me,” he said, running his hand slowly up my bare back. When I didn’t answer, he smirked at me. “You wore this dress knowing that I’d need to touch you.”
“Not really. Lots of women wear backless dresses to these things. I wanted to fit in.” I didn’t mention that this dress camouflaged my wide hips, putting the spotlight on my breasts so everything else looked smaller.
His hand brushed my fingers as he took our drinks and set them on a table. “You wanted to tease me,” he nearly growled, pulling me against him. “Tell me to stop, Jenna. Tell me not to kiss you and ruin your luscious lipstick.”
The right thing to do was guide him through the crowd and start making introductions. The right thing to do was remind myself that I was a professional, and this was my slightly obnoxious client.
The wrong thing to do was slide my hands up the front of his shirt, listening for his sharp inhale as I wound my fingers up the back of his neck.
But I did it anyway.
“Last chance, Jenna. If you don’t tell me to stop, I might not be able to.”
Stretching up, my lips parted for his. His mouth crushed to mine, those huge hands so warm against my hips as we ground together.
Hearing his low voice mutter, “I want you. Let’s leave now,” made my stomach seize, my inner muscles clenching as I suddenly felt empty for the first time ever.
I’d never thought much about sex, perhaps because I’d never been close enough to a man who made me feel ready for it.
“I can feel how much you need this too, Jenna.”
My mind was spinning as my lips parted wider, his tongue slipping inside. Melting in his arms, I needed to wrap my legs around him so that I could feel his pressure between my thighs.
“Come with me,” he rasped as we finally parted for air. “The car. Now.”
Staring up at him, I began to nod, then saw lipstick all over his mouth. Grabbing a napkin from the table, I handed it to him. “Lips. Get it off fast.”
I was impressed that he obeyed immediately. Digging in my purse, I found a mirror and a tissue, swiftly tidying up the worst of it around my mouth.
“I need to fix this in the ladies’ room,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “We’re here to mingle. Think about your company.”
His hand slipped into the back of my hair, fisting it, tugging my face to his. “When you’re near me, you’re the only thing that exists, Jenna.”
I loved how he was almost a bit rough with me, but I couldn’t be seen like this. Running a hand through my messed up hair, I shook my head. “Mingle, now,” I ordered.
He released me with a dramatic eye roll. “Fine.”
Dashing past him to the ladies’ room, I tried to wipe around my smudged lips with a damp paper towel.
“Stop that,” a voice behind me said.
Spin
ning, a willowy woman with bright teal hair was smiling at me. “The more you rub the skin, the redder it will be. Hold on.”
She pulled a makeup wipe from her purse. “Go around the lips gently.”
“Thanks.” The wipe worked perfectly, then I was able to blot the rest carefully with the paper towel. “You’re a lifesaver, thank you,” I smiled at her.
“You’re welcome. Impromptu make out, I assume?”
“Yes. I know this isn’t the time or place, but things happen, I guess.”
She laughed, and I suddenly recognized her from the photos I’d been studying online earlier in the day. After I dotted on just a little more lipstick to even things out while she fluffed her hair, I said, “Hey – let me buy you a drink for saving me.”
“Sure,” she shrugged.
“I’m Jenna.”
“Caitlin.”
We went out to the bar, and Andrew seemed startled that I had someone in tow. “Andrew, this is Caitlin, and you’re buying us both a drink.”
They laughed, and she asked for an espresso martini. I led her back to a quiet corner, and by the time Andrew arrived with our drinks, her boyfriend, gamer Jimmy Vieki, FlashFleaze’s right hand man, had joined us.
Once everyone was introduced, the guys immediately began talking tech, so I asked Caitlin about the intricacies of having teal hair. Then she told me that her gamer name was LazerPixxxie, spelling it out for me carefully.
“Some guys hate playing with girls online, so I let them know up front, so they don’t get furious later,” she explained. “A lot of them take this way too seriously. Aren’t games supposed to be fun?”
I laughed, agreeing completely.
A few people noticed that Jimmy was out in an open area, and our chill nook became the new party zone in about ten minutes. I was able to fake that I’d met a few people before, which is why I knew their names to introduce them to Andrew, making him sound like a tech guru.
Maybe it was because she’d seen what Andrew had done to my lipstick, but Caitlin didn’t treat him like a corporate guy, just one of the gang. Everyone else picked up on her cue, and soon we were chatting with the whole group like old friends.
To my great relief, nobody said a word about Andrew and the paparazzi punching incident. Perhaps they hadn’t heard about it, because it wasn’t specifically about gaming.
Most of the crowd was extremely curious about the “new upgrade specifically for gamers,” which was the only information I was allowed to drop. I told them it would be revealed at the booth at the Lightning event, which they were all attending.
Collecting addresses and t-shirt sizes, I assured a dozen of them that they’d be getting full details on Wednesday.
Everyone wants to be told a secret. People love to know things, and if possible, be the very first to know. It’s a strange phenomenon, but it seems to be universal.
The more a person can be made to feel like they’re special, that they have something most people don’t, the more memorable and important something seems – even if it’s just a t-shirt for a computer tech company.
A cold breeze ran down my bare back, shaking me to my senses. Andrew was running a billion-dollar company with revolutionary tech that was about to be in high demand. I couldn’t be distracting him, or myself.
For the rest of the night, I was nothing but professional, forcing myself to keep a mental shield of pure steel between Andrew and myself, no matter how much he stared at me, or how much I needed to throw myself into his arms to feel that electricity again.
8
_____
Andrew
Dropping off Jenna without kissing her goodnight on Saturday was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She was practically glowing with pride at all of the connections she’d made and contacts she’d gotten on my behalf.
Thanks to her, three significant players had agreed to wear our exclusive shirts at Wednesday’s event, which was going to be incredible publicity. Several more had said to send it to them, and they’d think about it. I wouldn’t have even thought of that, but since Jenna forced us to make some personal connections, it seemed easy.
Monday morning, she emailed a request for a box of the shirts and caps to be sent to her office so that she could have them specially wrapped to arrive at the players’ homes the morning of the event.
My fingers tapped restlessly on the desk in front of my keyboard. I wanted to please her. I wanted to make her job more manageable. But I also couldn’t let the merch out of my sight until Wednesday.
Not only did the idea make me a bit jumpy, I knew that it would freak Terry out. He was busy preparing the sample laptops that were going to be at our event booth, so that our tech crew could demonstrate how much of an improvement our extra chip made.
His precise schedule had him finishing everything by Tuesday afternoon, so that he could try to relax on Wednesday and put the whole thing out of his mind. I already had a new task prepped for him, updating one of our previous circuit boards. I was going to tell him it wasn’t a rush and he should take the day off, but if he felt like he needed to keep working, at least it would be on something low-stress.
If he found out I sent shirts with the new logo out before Wednesday, his paranoia might go into overdrive.
I emailed Jenna back, asking if I could send the merch out directly, and she called me within minutes.
“Listen,” she started, “No offense, but there’s a real art to preparing a merch pack so that it looks decadent. It has to look so exciting that they’ll post photos of it, or even shoot an unboxing video.”
I scratched my head. “That’s a thing?”
“It’s a huge thing, and it’s amazing promo. So it’s important,” she said. “Please, Andrew, let me do my job.”
Hearing her say my name always made my heart lurch, but the tone of her sweet voice when she was trying to be stern was just too much.
“Why don’t you come over tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll package them together? That way, nothing will leave this office until early Wednesday morning.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll swing by tomorrow around four-thirty. Can you at least promise me the doors are working now?”
“The doors work fine. It’s the passcodes that update.”
Even through the phone, I could sense how annoyed she was. That shouldn’t have amused me as much as it did. “Whatever. I’ll be sending you a list of faces and names to memorize, and a refresher list of everyone we met Saturday night.”
Leaning back in my chair, I sighed loudly. “Saturday. When you were wearing that little backless dress. Will you wear that for me tomorrow?”
She hung up on me.
Okay, that was likely crossing a line, so I sent a text.
Me: Sorry. I was just trying to make you laugh.
Jenna: Haha. See you tomorrow.
The next day and a half was a whirlwind, as our techs ran through the demo with me for practice, and everyone was taking notes and trying to work out their nerves.
Wednesday afternoon at four-twenty-five, Terry emerged from his lab, setting four laptops on the games room’s main table.
“I thought you were only making two prototypes?” I asked.
“Yes, but something might happen to them,” he said. “Can’t be too careful.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Hey, remember that I said our PR person was going to be around? She’s coming by right now to show me how to pack the t-shirts and things.”
He nodded, and I wasn’t sure if he was even really listening. “I need to go over my notes so that I can improve the next round,” he muttered, nodding to himself as his nearly black, wavy hair bobbed around him. His slight frame disappeared back into his room.
Going back to my office to answer emails while watching the security camera, I realized that I was more nervous about seeing Jenna than I was about tomorrow’s event.
When she arrived, I ran out to meet her, propping both doors open with chairs as I rushed to hel
p her take boxes from the trunk.
We spread out across the large table that usually served as a meeting area after gaming tests. Jenna went straight to work, demonstrating how to wrap each item in bright tissue of a different color, so that even with just a quick glance you could see how many items were inside.
“You know, I haven’t mentioned it enough, but you’re very good at your job,” I said, observing her eyes for her reaction. She seemed surprised.
