Magic at Work: a Love or Magic novel

by Sotia Lazu

  “Are you all right?” His question seemed to startle him as much as it did her, because he hastened to elaborate. “I mean, is that translation too hard for you, maybe?”

  Ah, now this was the Richard she knew and disliked. His mocking tone made her want to put her finger on that raised eyebrow and lower it to its normal height. “Nothing is too hard for me. I can take it all.”

  Incredibly, Richard blushed. Then he scowled. “I doubt the all you’re getting here is much of a challenge, little girl.”

  Lexi felt her own skin flush. Not only did his words reflect her thoughts about her position, but also his little girl remark made her feel like she was twelve. She couldn’t let that slide. She scowled back. “So what? You think I’m doing nothing difficult? You’d be surprised. This translation isn’t easy. It has all these technical terms. I’d like to see you tackle it.”

  She didn’t have time to feel bad about the lie, because Richard’s eyes grew darker. If she knew what pissed him off now… she could do it again. Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t help but notice how good pissed off looked on him. The muscle ticking in his jaw made his cheekbones and hard-set angles of his face more prominent.

  “I was thinking you should start coming to meetings. You know Edmund’s planning to reorganize some interdepartmental processes, and there’s no time like the present for you to get more involved.”

  Edmund wanted her more involved? That was great. Although attending meetings meant she wouldn’t be at her desk as much as usual. “But—but my work. I’ll fall behind.”

  “I’m sure you’ll more than manage both paperwork and doing something useful.”

  His tone implied she wasn’t doing something useful at present, and maybe she wasn’t, but only because she’d finished sooner than expected. Her ire rose, but she managed to once again wear her custom-made grin for dealing with assholes. “I’d love to be useful. It’d be such a change from being the waste of space I am now. Oh, wait. That’s not for you to decide. You’re not the manager of this department, are you?”

  Richard narrowed his eyes.

  She bit on the inside of her cheek. Should she attack or be ready to defend herself? And why was he silent? The man was never silent when she was snarky.

  And then he was right in her face. Close enough for her to… smell the smoke in his breath. Filthy habit. And that was most definitely all that came to mind about him.

  “I don’t need to be your manager, to see you’re too fucking good for this.” He spat the words out and left, while Lexi opened and closed her mouth like a fish, trying to grasp what just happened.

  Did he just pay her a compliment?

  If he did, if he thought of her as better than an airhead, thrown his way by nepotism, he didn’t show it again. If anything, he looked at her with even greater disdain every time she flicked her gaze his way between chapters.

  She didn’t care. She was feeling hot. As in, extremely-horny hot. She’d just finished a deliciously wicked chapter and was tempted to go to the ladies room, to seek a little release of her own. No. Bad Lexi. There would be no taking the edge off during work hours. It was wrong enough that she got horny while at the office.

  Should she even still be there? A quick glance at the clock showed her it was half past six.

  It was official—she had no life. If she were still in New York, she’d be getting ready for happy hour with her friends, and here she stayed late at work on a Friday afternoon just to read smut. Her stomach chose that moment to protest. She should go home. Nah. Even though she had plans for Saturday, the prospect of spending a weekend without feeding her addiction to hot, passionate make-believe sex was the opposite of alluring.

  There was a way she’d yet to try, to take her new favorite reading with her. She opened her personal e-mail account and copied one of the chapters she’d already read into a new message which she sent to herself. Aware she was bordering on paranoid, she checked the room yet again, and when she was sure nobody else was there, went to John’s desk and switched on his PC. Username and password. What could they be?

  She slid open his top drawer, and on a small piece of paper read John_Rocks and God_s_Gift.

  He needed a cheat-sheet for that? Lexi typed the words with a snort.

  She wanted to kick John’s PC to smithereens when she saw her inbox did in fact have a message from her, but the message was empty. Had she really expected it to work?

  And what was it with that website?

  She sighed. She’d just stay at work longer. If anyone showed up, she’d say she wanted to get a better grasp of operations. Actually, she’d do that anyway. Starting on Monday, she’d start getting more involved with things. If she wanted to spend time reading Exotic Beast, she’d either come in early or stay afterhours and find a way to explain her long hours to Edmund without appearing to work overtime.

  Yeah, that sounded easy. Not.

  Eh, she’d figure it out after a couple more chapters. She returned to her novel and kept reading. What came next not only gripped her attention, but also chained it in place and double bolted the lock.

  “I hate that he’s touched you first.” Rex withdrew his fingers and took in the sight of her, splayed and ready for his pleasure. She whimpered a pitiful plea in response, but he continued down the possessive road he’d chosen. “Have you ever begged him, like you do me?” His need became more heated, more urgent as he unbuttoned his jeans and freed his already rock-hard cock. Without further preamble, he plunged inside her to the hilt.

  Lexi gasped, feathering her fingertips over her neck and collarbone, through the opening in her shirt.

  The next few paragraphs broke her resolve to not be too naughty at work.

  “Did he make you scream, Xandra?”

  “No. Only you.” She opened her eyes, caught his gaze, and said it again. “Only you.”

  Pleased with her answer, he pushed back inside her and used one of the fingers he’d soaked in her wetness, to stroke her ass. “Did you let him in here?” He slowly pushed the slicked finger inside the tight hole.

  Lexi scrolled down. She inched her free hand under the hem of her skirt and caressed her thigh in ever widening circles, inching the fabric upward until her thumb brushed her soaked thong. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and brushed the thin fabric aside, to run a finger along her slit.

  Chapter Four

  Ric felt shaky since Lexi said she could take anything. His mind turned her words into a sexual innuendo, and he barely refrained from indulging in yet another fantasy of her taking all of something hard he had to give.

  He was planning a peace offering when he went to her desk, but she was so defensive, he had to clench his teeth to bite back the same words he’d been telling Edmund since she set foot in the company.

  Her being in that position was a mistake.

  It didn’t take a profiler to recognize the bored sighs and dazed looks. One translation a week wasn’t letting her live up to her potential. He’d bet his ass it wasn’t her task giving her a hard time. No. She excelled in what smart people did when they found no interest in their work—slacking off.

  And she did a right good job of it too, the way she made sure to always look preoccupied and stay late. His inner Rex was almost proud of her, although he wouldn’t let that show.

  She was frightened at the prospect of more responsibility, but he couldn’t guess why that was. Perhaps she doubted she was capable of more. Or maybe she wasn’t just pretending to be busy. If it was the latter, what was she busy doing?

  He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. Yell at her that she was being wasted. Tell her to ask Pedelty—hell, demand of him—to be given more responsibility. Maybe become her stepdad’s assistant. Couldn’t she see Ric was hard on her because he expected more? He could just…

  Kiss her.

  He shook off the thought. He wouldn’t go there. Pedelty had treated him better than anyone he’d ever known. Ric shouldn’t fuck with the man’s stepdaughter.
Unless she—

  No.

  He gave up trying to get through to her and returned to his desk, but couldn’t stop wondering what she was doing. For some reason, he doubted it was the translation. Seriously doubted it. She looked too flushed and half-hid silly grins. Maybe she was just reading her email. He’d ogled her enough, so he turned back to catching up with his own work.

  When she showed no sign of leaving at five, he didn’t even try to convince himself he had a valid reason for deciding to also stay late. It was because of her, and he didn’t give a fuck. He’d finally see what her extracurricular activities were.

  Someone had turned off the overhead lights except for the one right above Lexi’s desk. That was no surprise; everyone at the office knew Ric disliked fluorescent light. Taking advantage of the shadows, he sat back, made himself comfortable, and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Lexi just looked at her screen, on occasion pressing a few keys.

  He ducked under his desk to tie his shoelaces, and heard the clackety-clack of her high heels. He never understood how women could walk around in those torture devices. Still, they made Lexi’s shapely legs look miles long. He had to lean down a little lower, to look at those legs through the opening at the front of his desk.

  But what was she doing with the asshole’s computer?

  A couple of scenarios ran through Ric’s head. Lexi could be making a practical joke on John, screwing up his settings, or she could be leaving him a message. Ric snorted. She was too good for the likes of John. If she were anyone else, Ric might suspect she was logging into files she had no access to on her own PC, but he doubted she’d be selling out company secrets.

  The thing was, she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who’d make practical jokes, either.

  Wanking off to thoughts of her a couple of times was no reason for him to feel the rage he did at the thought of something going on between her and John, but he felt it anyway—and then some. He tried to be a good man. Tried hard not to give in to his urge to just walk up to her and bend her over the nearest horizontal surface. At the same time, he was the only one seeking a way for her abilities to be put to the best possible use at work. All because he owed it to Pedelty to look out for the man’s and the company’s best interest.

  But he wasn’t about to sit back and watch John swipe Lexi away.

  John was a prick, and even if he treated Lexi right, they wouldn’t know whether he cared for her or was making his best sales pitch ever by selling himself to the boss’s daughter. And that would be bad for the company.

  Yeah, that was all.

  Ric didn’t convince himself, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t care.

  Even if she was so bloody beautiful and flirted with him when they first spoke. She shouldn’t be flirting with him. She was off limits, and he had to respect that. Was trying too buggering hard to respect it…

  And he had to stop looking at her legs.

  He carefully sat up, slid forward so he his screen hid him, and tucked his legs underneath his chair. Peeking around the side, he saw Lexi smack her hand on John’s desk before marching back to her seat to once again lose herself in whatever spell the screen held over her.

  When she caressed the creamy column of her neck, her eyes hooded, Ric thought she knew he was there. He grinned. She was putting on a seductive show for his benefit. Disappointment replaced glee, once he noticed how riveted she was by what she was watching.

  He had half a mind to stand, to see what Lexi was doing. Whatever it was, she enjoyed it. It was evident in the way she threw back her head, her chest heaving, her breath coming out in short pants of pleasure. Her upper arm moved faster and faster, and—oh, yeah—he got a very good idea of what she was doing. He inwardly cursed at her desk, for preventing him from zeroing in on her activities.

  His cock stirred, but he ignored it in order to satisfy his curiosity. She was touching herself, but what had prompted it? Was the golden girl watching online porn? He could use the company’s tracking system to check her activity. Nah. He didn’t want her internet history recorded on the log, plus the company monitoring system didn’t work around the clock on all computers.

  With barely a second thought, he fell back on the skills he’d accumulated during his brief tenure as a hacker.

  It took a few minutes, before he could see on his screen what she saw on hers. It would have taken less if Lexi didn’t let out those sexy little mewls every once in a while, forcing him to readjust his jeans and want to crawl to the restroom for a quick hand-job.

  She let out a moan and shuddered with release, and Ric looked away. It was weird to draw the line here, when he hadn’t minded watching her get to that point, but this wasn’t for him. He hadn’t earned it.

  His gaze landed on a random line in the text filling her screen. His jaw dropped, his straining cock forgotten, as he took in what was before his eyes.

  “Did he fuck you like I do, Xandra?”

  She was incapable of answering him, only managing to exhale his name in pleasure. "Rex…”

  What the hell was that?

  Deep breaths. He took slow, deep breaths and tried to remain calm. She was reading about sex between her and him… or another Rex.

  He read back, trying to find a description of that other Rex, but none was available in the part of the page visible on Lexi’s screen, and therefore on his. Then his screen showed her desktop. She was shutting down her PC. He considered making his presence known to her—ask her what it was he’d seen—but he somehow doubted that conversation would be in any way favorable to him. He remained quiet while she packed her bag and left, and then he waited another ten minutes or so.

  When he was sure she wasn’t coming back, he got up and walked to her desk with a plan in mind.

  He planted his ass in her chair, hoping she hadn’t bothered to change the username and password set up for her PC by the IT department. Namely, him. Only a few employees changed the codes they received, but even that wouldn’t be a problem to crack. It would stall him, however, and Ric was in no mood to be stalled.

  He needn’t have worried. Her codes were the standard ones assigned to the position of her PC—23$$68b and sal!!un9. No challenge there. When he opened the browser, it loaded the last page visited. The one that had shocked him. He pressed Home, and was directed to a page showing the front cover of an e-Book.

  What the actual fuck?

  He was seeing what had to be a Photoshop manipulation of him in the good old days. He sported the spiked hair and full-black outfit—the whole façade he put on when he was going around calling himself Rex, for Bridget’s sake. But it wasn’t his ex in his arms. The one he held was a slightly blonder Lexi. They both had such passionate looks on their faces, Ric couldn’t tear his gaze from the picture.

  He shook his head. He had to focus. He entered the book and skimmed through bits and pieces, suppressing his arousal in favor of figuring things out. He tried to make sense of it all. The picture. The story. His old name in it. Not possible. He clicked on the author’s name, Xopi Chilli, and was directed to a page that listed her as the author of several online novels, all about Xandra and Rex. He could get none of the links to the novels to work, and the search engine he used came up with no results.

  Having seen his picture with Lexi, he no longer doubted the story was about him. He didn’t know whether to be ecstatic or horrified. He had to trace the poster’s IP to be sure, but the whole thing screamed stalker. For fuck’s sake, the woman was making manips of the two of them and writing about a version of him fucking her. He ran his fingers through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. A smoke would clear his mind. He fumbled in his back pocket for the crushed packet of Marlboros.

  Did Lexi have the hots for the punk version of him? Pedelty shouldn’t have fucking told her about his past.

  She shouldn’t fucking want him as Rex, when she disliked the real Ric.

  Sucking on his unlit cigarette, he tried to calm
down.

  There was no Rex. Ric invented that persona to convince the girl he loved he was enough of a bad boy for her to give him a chance. Months had passed before he realized Bridget didn’t do exclusivity. He’d reacted badly, hurt people he loved. He’d tried to become Rex after that. Be bad. Stop caring.

  Until Pedelty had smacked some sense into him.

  The cigarette’s filter turned soggy. He swiveled around in the chair and pulled the window open far enough to throw the useless cancer stick outside. Then he turned back to the screen and clicked on History.

  There were several pages with the words Xandra and Rex in the last couple days. Ric took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Why would Lexi do that here, especially if she didn’t know he was watching? What was more, why would she write a whole book, just so she could read it? It made no sense. He read the rest of the author’s bio and realized she bore no resemblance to Lexi. That didn’t say much; the bio could be bogus. Still, something didn’t fit.

  This was going to be a long night.

  It was three in the morning by the time he reached the page Lexi stopped at. He didn’t have time to read it all, just skim it, but he knew one thing—she hadn’t written it. According to the word count on the first page, the novel was about eighty-six thousand words long, and that was a bit much for her to have written in the three days she’d known him. He barely ever saw her type anything.

  Lexi probably had no idea he was Rex, and something fishy was going on.

  That an author happened to write about a couple so similar to him and Lexi, names included, wasn’t probable, but weirder things had happened. He tried to think of one, failed, and finally admitted it was the oddest thing ever. Nevertheless, he’d always been a practical man. He wouldn’t focus on how the book had come to be, but on what it meant that Lexi was so hooked on it.

  On Rex.

  Having jotted down the website address, he made sure to return to the page she’d last visited, then shut down her computer and went back to his desk to pack his laptop. He didn’t care what Lexi had been doing with John’s computer, after all. She couldn’t be interested in John, since she wanted Ric. Well, Rex, but still…