by Abby Knox
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, scraping the tape dispenser against her thumb for the seventieth time that day, “Devin—I mean, Mr. Halpert is all set for his trip to Kansas the day after tomorrow…no, he hasn’t checked in with me yet today.”
Wynn sounded impatient on the other end. “Claire, I need you to make sure he knows you are his assistant, which also means you are his handler. He is flying blind. He hates using his cell phone, but make sure he is giving that number out to our clients and investors so they know they can call him personally, do you understand that?”
She finished taping up some shiny red paper over the Xbox One. “Yes, ma’am.”
Claire hung up with Wynn and fastened a handmade green velvet bow onto the shiny red package. She was nearly done and she hadn’t seen any of the gifts meant for her siblings. Just as well, she thought. She had just been paid and she would have no trouble finding those simple gifts for the kids. She might not be able to afford new winter boots for herself or get the snow tires put on the car, but she’d be damned if those kids didn’t have Christmas.
She boxed up all the wrapped gifts and logged off her computer. She could grab a quick lunch after she dropped off the gifts at the agency.
But first, she had to call Devin, per Wynn’s instructions. But there was no answer.
She huffed, hung up the phone and grabbed up the box along with her purse. She was relieved he didn’t answer the phone just as much as she was disappointed.
Claire had been waffling between these two feelings—relief and disappointment—all day. She really did not want to come face to face with him after what happened last night while they were shopping. And yet…she did want to see him swagger into the office in his cowboy boots, walk past her desk in jeans that fit his backside perfectly snug. She missed watching him sneak into the conference room first thing in the morning to cram two donuts into his mouth and sneak back to his office with that cute grin on his face, his mouth covered in powdered sugar.
Get yourself together, woman. A guy who doesn’t call you the next day and explain his reaction to you never having been kissed before does not deserve this much brain space.
Claire hauled the huge box through the office toward the exit, none of the other workers offering to help. She couldn’t even see over the top of the box.
Just as she carefully pressed the bar on the double doors, they moved outward and she tripped, nearly dropping the whole box of gifts there in the vestibule.
“Oh!” she cried.
“Whoa there, darlin’.” The voice was attached to a set of two strong arms that lifted the box away from her.
“Mr. Halpert!”
He laughed, towering over her with presents as she dusted herself off and adjusted her purse.
He insisted carrying everything for her.
She followed him out to the parking lot. “Thank you. Let me pop the trunk for you,” she said, rustling her keys out of her purse.
“No need, Claire. I got this. We’ll take my truck.”
She shuffled along behind him with her arms out for balance. “Speaking of enough to do, where have you been all morning? Wynn is not happy that I’ve been the one fielding all the client phone calls.”
She watched as Devin set the box down carefully in the bed of his truck and then nimbly walked over and offered her his arm. “Lunch?”
“Yes, I was going to lunch, but you just got here and there are like 10 messages, not including five from Wynn. You need to call people back.”
But instead of answering her, he walked her over to the passenger side and opened his truck door. “Get in, I’m taking you to lunch.”
“But…work!” The air was numbing her lips and they were about all the words she could get out.
“If anybody asks, it’s a working lunch.”
The truth was, Claire was hungry. She hadn’t packed herself a lunch, hoping to work straight through lunch to help save money over the holidays. She could use a good hot meal. And the company was a bonus, even though he wasn’t good for her. He still gave her a thrill just by inviting her to sit in his truck.
But no, she was resolved to not let him use his charm to get away with shirking work and leaving her high and dry.
All that resolve went right out the window the moment he slid into the truck next to her and parked a massive kiss on her.
Chapter 9
Devin
Her lips were cold, but he aimed to warm them up.
He moved in aggressively, and she warmed to him like hot cocoa after a day of ass-numbing snow sledding.
She accepted his lips on her, but then she needed to speak. “Devin, stop.”
He backed away with the hopes that she couldn’t see his heart bleeding all over his sleeve.
She didn’t look happy, “Are you serious right now? You abandon me at the Mega-Mart after kissing me like a hundred times and then don’t show up for work, and now instead of explaining yourself, the first thing you do is kiss me?”
Devin smiled. “If you’re just joining us, ladies and gentlemen, Claire has brought you all up to date with her version of the story. Now here’s mine. I didn’t abandon you. I was trying to show you how I feel about you, and then you got scared and took off. I did not abandon you. You left me.”
“I had to go get wrapping paper. And by the way, that look you gave me when I let it slip that you were my first kiss made me feel a little bit weird. You looked at me like I had an STI or something. I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t look at you.”
Devin smiled at her.
“What?” she asked.
He raked a stray lock of hair from her face. “I like your voice. It makes me feel good. Like an angel is coming to tell me everything is going to be all right.”
He thought that would work. He thought his awkward charm was what she liked about him. But he would be only a little bit right about that.
“Why weren’t you at work? Were you hiding from me?”
Devin considered how to answer this. He told the truth. “Sort of. I was out at the ranch. I just needed to be on the back of a horse and having my coffee outside and watching the sunrise instead of in my office with people. No offense. Plus, I had to do some thinking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Next time you need to leave and do some thinking, call me. And next time, I’m giving your cell number to every person who calls for you.”
“I don’t have a cell phone. It somehow got trampled by a bull on the same day Wynn promoted me.”
“You should have told your sister; the company can get you a new one.”
“Don’t want a new one. I’m hungry and I’ve been outside thinking all morning. Let’s go eat.”
It was the truth. He had been out on the back of a horse all morning, thinking about work. And Claire. And how to combine working with Claire and not get himself into trouble with Wynn. He had thought about being Claire’s first kiss. If he was her first kiss, then she was most certainly a virgin. He thought about whether that mattered. Whether he was prepared for the responsibility of being her first lover. And how would he do it. She was special. They were kindred spirits, having lost their parents at a young age.
Seeing her now, beside him in his truck, he felt even more sure.
Moments later they were eating pie for lunch at Hawk’s Diner. More like three slices of pies each, even though what he really wanted was a Reuben.
Ever, their server, had come over and explained that they were all out of homemade bread that day because she had screwed up by spending all night working on her pie crust for the Holiday Pie Bake Off. But, she added, she could provide the usual options with store-bought bread. She explained to him all of this, as if he should know exactly what she was talking about.
“You know, Mr. Halpert, it’s tonight and you’re one of the judges. It’s a fundraiser to help the town put in some wheelchair-accessible toys at the city playground.”
Claire looked utterly gleeful. Devin must have looked horrified.
Ever backpedaled. “Well, your predecessor, Pete, was slated to be a judge, so now it’s you.”
Claire clapped her hands. She thought this was hilarious.
“Uh, I’m sorry, Ever, but I have a lot of work to catch up on tonight.”
Claire shook her head and said, “No way, Devin. As your assistant, I set your schedule, and let me look…” She fiddled with her smartphone. He doubted she was even looking at her calendar. She was probably looking at one of those cat videos. “Nope, you are in fact set to judge the Holiday Pie Bake Off tonight. What fun!”
Devin and Claire exchanged looks as Ever continued. “So if you still want to eat here, all I have is pie and sandwiches with store-bought bread, but please don’t let that affect your decisions tonight. We have peanut butter pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, persimmon rhubarb, and apple. There’s also savory pie. Shepherd, chicken pot pie and a ham and cheese thing that I sort of made up.”
Devin looked at her incredulously. “Isn’t a majority of your menu home-made bread-based? How have you not closed your doors and how do you still have a job?”
Ever shrugged. “I know, crazy right? I’ll understand if you don’t want to stay.”
Devin considered his options. “No strawberry? That’s my favorite.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s all seasonal ingredients. But you can come back and judge the summer contest, when we have mainly fruit pies.”
Claire finally slapped the table. “I am freaking starving. Ham and cheese pie and also a slice of apple and a slice of peanut butter, and quickly please. This is a working lunch and I can’t work on an empty stomach or I might hurt a small animal.”
He laughed. “You’re crabby when you’re hungry.”
Ever laughed. “I believe the term is ‘hangry.’”
“Hangry, that’s it.” Devin ordered a slice each of peanut butter, pecan and apple.
When Ever walked away, Claire said, “I might have to be in charge of your diet as well. You’re going to give yourself Type 2 diabetes eating all that sugar.”
Don’t say it, Devin. Don’t say it.
But Devin was still Devin. And he said it. “What a coincidence, since yours is the only sweet pie I care about.”
Claire blinked at him. “Devin, I don’t know what you mean. I don’t bake.”
She was totally serious. She had no idea what that silly metaphor meant to a guy. On one hand, he felt he had dodged a bullet despite his runaway mouth. On the other hand, she was in her early 20s and had never heard of pie as a metaphor for a woman’s genitals? And she was a virgin. Devin was getting a picture of a truly sheltered life, and he was both fascinated and scared.
Fascinated to know her whole story. Scared because he was more and more feeling like a bull in a china shop around her. More like a giant, rabid, clumsy woolly mammoth about to step on a perfect Victorian dollhouse. She was uncharted and pristine. He was a giant, bumbling mess.
How could this possibly work?
But later, watching her scarf down her apple pie with extreme pleasure that almost seemed to make her eyes roll back into her head, he knew it could work. She was easy enough to please, and he knew exactly how to put that look on her face.
“One question. Has your sister ever considered hiring someone to handle sales? Because I don’t understand half the questions from the prospective clients. One man asked me if we use an ‘AV or a false mount.’”
“That’s easy,” Devin said, through a mouthful of pecan pie. “Artificial vagina.”
She nearly did a spit take of her Sprite. “Excuse me?”
He laughed. “Baby doll, do you even know what we do at WX Genetics?”
She stared at him and blinked for a moment. “We…sell specimens?”
He goaded her on. “Yes, and…”
“I don’t know, we clone things? I have no idea, I’m only an assistant.”
He laughed. “We sell bull semen.”
“What? Why? Why would you do that?”
“We buy up prize bulls and we get their goodies, and we sell those goodies to cattle ranches and dairies and what have you, so they can breed their girls with the best available jizz on the market.”
Her eyes were wide. “We’re a sperm bank, but for cows.”
“Yup.”
“Wow.”
He watched her think for a moment, then push her lunch aside and turn her attention to his calendar for the next few weeks. She had it all planned out, down to the hour. She was good.
Both their bellies full of pie, and a complete review of his schedule for the next two weeks done, the day got even better when they stepped outside, as the sky clouded up and the snow started to fall in giant cotton-ball clumps.
Devin parked the truck by the gazebo to watch the snow fall for a few moments.
“I don’t have anything interesting to say, I just thought you’d like to sit and watch the snow fall.”
He didn’t have to have anything interesting to say because to his surprise, Claire leaned over and started kissing him with a wildness he hadn’t expected.
It was different from the make-out session in front of the maxi pads. She was sure of herself. She was hungry and curious and passionate. And he was instantly hard for her. Her hands were on the buttons of his work jacket and inching their way inside to feel his chest. He helped her out by unsnapping and unzipping the heavy fabric. The closer her hands got to skin, the more frequent her little sighs of pleasure became.
It thrilled him to feel her being so forward, and it gave him the biggest boner of his life.
Her little sighs raised his heart rate as he plunged deeper into her mouth and pulled her in close. The layers of clothing between their bodies would have annoyed him if he wasn’t having so much fun kissing her and feeling her respond to him. He boldly slipped her stocking cap from her head so he could weave his fingers through her smooth hair. She responded by working his shirt buttons loose and running her hands over his chest. Her hand on him felt so sweet and sexy he dared himself to drop his hand down past the hem of her pretty navy pea coat, down to the hem of her knee-length skirt. He put a hand on her knee and felt a sigh escape from her mouth. He slowly stroked her knee as they kissed, incrementally hiking up her skirt. Her opaque tights went all the way up. As his hand caressed one covered thigh, she moaned for him and he thought he might lose his mind.
He didn’t know if all these clothes, or the fact that they were in broad daylight in the middle of downtown, made it even hotter. But it was working for him. He knew there wasn’t much mischief she would be willing to get into out here at noon in his truck, but he was willing to push the boundaries.
She didn’t try to stop him from slipping his hand under her skirt. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken she seemed to be helping him along by scooting herself closer to him and encouraging him by angling her arms up and circling his neck, giving him free and easy access to whatever he wanted. His hands slid higher and higher up her thigh as they kissed. She stifled a slight moan when his hand slipped between her inner thighs, but it had the deepest of need under it.
Claire pulled away from him for a moment, looked around, and seeing nobody watching, she unbuttoned her double-breasted pea coat for him. Wow, she was pretty daring for a virgin.
Devin pulled her back in for a kiss—her inexperienced lips were getting a workout and were now turning red from the pressure—and carefully snaked his other hand inside her coat, under her jacket, and found her breast. Over the top of her blouse he could feel the soft pillowy invitation and the hardening nipple. He wanted nothing more than to lean in and take a bite, kiss and knead her breast, see them, inhale the scent of her skin, devour them.
When his hand cupped her covered breast, she let out a gasp and even said his name. “Oh, Devin!” She dove back in and kissed him harder. At the same time, he let his other hand wander farther up and in between her thighs. Bless his grateful heart, she actually spread her legs for him. Just a little bit, but enough.
His hand claimed her center and felt her warmth radiating through her tights. Was she wearing panties? Were they wet?
Against all his base instincts, he decided not to push. She might be ready for a kissing-and-petting session with no end goal in mind, but he was going to go for the “Big O” if things got any more heated. Instead he removed his hands from her erogenous zones and cupped her face. He looked deep into those clear green eyes and said, “Claire, you are such a gift to me.”
Just then, her face changed. One moment, wantonness. The next, sheer, blind panic.
“Devin!” she shouted. “The presents!”
Chapter 10
Claire
Back at work, the presents safely delivered, Claire felt relieved. One, she was relieved that Devin was not put off by her inexperience. Second, she was relieved that he seemed to have forgotten about that other Christmas list.
All was well. Her privacy was still safe.
Or was it?
As she completed her work that afternoon, she couldn’t help but notice that Cora, the office administrator, eyeballing her.
It got to where Claire was starting to feel self-conscious. Were her hair and lipstick mussed? Was her shirt untucked? Were her lips and face bruised from all the activity? Was she still flushed?
She decided not to care, did her work, and soon it was 4:59. Like clockwork, an internal call lit up her phone.
His office door was closed. She answered. “Yes, sir?”
“Hi.” He sounded dopey and smiley. Kind of like how she felt.
She tried with all her might to hide her own dumb smile. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“I think you know.”
She was aware of Cora staring at her from her cubicle. So she pretended they were actually talking about work. “Sure, I can do that.”
“Can you work late? I have something for us to work on together. In my office.”
