by May Sage
Lucy sighed, turned towards Nate to mouth a little “sorry” before turning to Barbie, and releasing the Psychobitch - just a little.
People often wondered where that eloquent term came from. People who knew about the incident assumed that it was related to her father, but actually, not at all. Truth was, it had been given to her by an ex on her senior year of high school. The guy had cheated - which was expected, because that was what quarterbacks did - but the issue was that he’d cornered a girl who hadn’t exactly seemed willing.
Unfortunately for anyone involved, Lucy caught wind of the whole thing when she’d been in PE, which mean that she’d had a few baseball bats at her disposal.
So, yeah. Maybe coming at him with a deadly weapon hadn’t been the smartest move; but as she was a clever psychopath, she’d taken a picture of the front of his shorts, clearly showing that he’d pissed himself, which meant that he hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. His worst retaliation had been calling her a Psychobitch.
She was pretty certain he’d meant it as a sort of insult, but Lucy had smiled and thanked him for the awesome nickname that wasn’t going anywhere.
If the woman had just annoyed Patrick and left it at that, Lucy would have let it go, but fifteen minutes later, she was still at it, pouting, and talking to him like he was two years old. Women like this were what had ended up giving her gender bad rap.
“Excuse me?” She asked quite politely, keeping her expression pleasant, and her tone even, as she carried on, “I’m sure you’ll think I’m quite forward, but I couldn’t help hearing you - as you’re humiliating yourself right in front of me, so I do have some advice, dear. May I be so bold as to recommend you find yourself a pair of lady balls?”
And there it was. She wasn't sure why, because she couldn't be the only woman who spoke so openly, but whenever she dropped her carefully constructed professional image and went for the kill, everyone looked at her like she grown a second head. Nathaniel actually sprayed his wine.
Okay, so maybe she was enjoying this; just a little bit.
“I know the term can seem quite demeaning of course, but somehow I don't think that growing a pair of tits has quite the same visual impact, so we’ll stick to lady balls. If you're not familiar with the concept, it means that you have to stop acting like a pathetic excuse of a human being, grow up, wise up, and also, have enough pride to avoid throwing yourself at men who don't give a shit about you.”
She never lost her pleasant smile, not even when the woman grabbed her glass, and threw the contents in her face.
Lucy drew another long sigh, before getting up. What a waste of a good martini.
To be frank, she'd known it wouldn't be that easy with that one; the woman didn’t have an ounce of sense. To her credit, she stood her ground; up until Lucy grabbed her hand, twisted it around and pulled it up her back; then, she started crying, wailing, and probably bringing far too much attention to their table.
“Don't even try, sweetheart,” she whispered softly to her ear. “I would eat you for breakfast.”
She let her go after a few seconds, returning to her seat, and calmly continuing her meal. The woman carried on screaming and pointing a finger at her, up until the owner and manager of the trendy restaurant had no other choice than to come forward.
“Is there an issue here?” he asked, looking directly at Lucy.
He knew her well enough. She shrugged, saying, “We were eating, she came and disrupted us, so I told her to bugger off. Her response was to throw my drink at my lovely, innocent dress,” she pointed to her now damp sweetheart neckline. “So, I might have possibly used some self-defense. I mean, she does seem quite unstable. It seemed like the best move.”
Three jaws had hit the floor, while Christopher Warner just shook his head, probably wishing he wasn’t related to her. Again.
“Right. I’ll get security to take her out,” he sighed. “Another martini coming right up. And Luce? Try to behave for the next five minutes, would you?”
Trick
A lesser man might have run the other way after that little display of dominance, but Trick found himself even more turned on than he had been before. Lucy was different; not in a “I’m telling myself she's different because I fancy her pants, and I need to somehow justify it,” but in an insane, certifiable, and mildly dangerous kind of way.
It was hot. Why the hell was it hot? The fact that he didn't feel like running the other way probably said a lot about him.
If Veronica been a man, he and his brother would have punched her in the teeth for what she’d done to Anna, but she wasn’t, and neither of them ever had, or would, lay a hand on a woman; so, their best weapon against her had been avoidance.
He would have loved to see someone say what Lucy had just said to her years ago; damn, if he’d known there was a woman capable of it, he would have tracked her down and paid her to do it. Women like Veronica used the most dangerous weapons; words that cut to the bone, creating deep scars, insecurities that never quite went away. Seeing the table turned was…
He shifted uncomfortably, hiding his hard on. If that made him weird, so be it, but right now, he was holding on by a thread; everything in him wanted to grab the hand of the insane redhead sitting next to him, and pull her until she was straddling his lap. He also owed the woman a huge thank you that he intended to deliver in the form of a well-deserved orgasm, the minute this stupid lunch was over.
But, they kind of were in public. And in the company of a business associate. Also, she still wasn’t all that fond of him. When his tongue wasn’t against her clit, anyway. Getting her where he wanted her - under him, over him, and everywhere in between - was going to be hard, and he had to play his cards right.
“You’re smiling,” Lucy grumbled, before turning to Nate, asking, “Why is he smiling like a crazy person?”
Nate snorted.
“You’re calling someone crazy, after that little display? How come we haven’t been kicked out and banned from this restaurant anyway?”
Very pertinent question.
Lucy broke into a wicked smile, confessing in a whisper, “I have an in with the manager.”
Yeah - all of a sudden, the handsome man who’d seemed all too willing to accept her actions was on his shit list, too.
Trick wondered if the woman was, on top of everything else, a witch. That would explain why, for the first time in his life, he really felt possessive over a woman.
“Anyway,” Nate said, turning to Trick.
He seemed considerably less formal now, loosening his tie, leaning back against his chair.
“I know why you’ve been trying to suck up to me for months. There’s no need. I’ll keep the terms of our agreements exactly how my predecessor arranged them. I have plenty of loose ends and bad deals to sort out; Harris Toys isn’t one of them. If you send me the exact same contract you had with my father, I’ll sign it. The terms are fair.”
Trick nodded, wishing business deals were always that straightforward; Carter and he and tiptoed around Nate for over six months, knowing that if he changed the deal, they had to re-evaluate their entire operation. But they hadn’t just gone and said that; it wasn’t the way. Negotiators never showed their hands.
“That’s very generous of you,” Trick thanked him.
The market had changed over the last few months - Harris Toys had planned to eat a ten percent increase in production cost, at least.
Nate shrugged.
“I probably should make you sweat and get a few more millions - but believe it or not, money is the least of my problem right now.”
Something flashed in his eyes - something dark, that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
“I find that most issues can be resolved with a baseball bat. Or if you need the big guns, you could ask this guy,” Lucy offered, pointing towards Trick. “I heard he has a knack with hacking federal information.”
At first, Trick shook his head, snorting along with Nate, but then, h
e froze, eyes narrowed, realizing what he’d just heard.
The tales of how he’d been nicknamed Trick might have been big in his youth, only a few people knew of it; people he’d known for a long time. Those he’d gone to school with.
How has she heard of it?
He opened his mouth to ask, and closed it as his mind replayed a very similar scene.
There was a kid sitting in front of him, deadpanning one liners that never failed to distract him from the mess his life was. He saw her smile; she had obnoxious braces, but every time she smiled, it looked like someone had turned the light on. It didn’t happen often. The kid never shared personal information, but it didn’t take a genius to know that her life wasn’t all that outside of school. He didn’t ask, because he certainly didn’t want her - or anyone - into his business. Instead, he did the one thing that seemed to cheer them both up.
He got his chessboard out.
No. Fucking. Way.
This knockout couldn’t be little Luce.
Right?
Lucy
Lucy wasn’t sure what had happened, but all of a sudden, Trick was in a hurry - so much that he almost seemed rude when he gave a pathetic excuse to Nate, before tossing a wad of cash on the table and dragging her out by the elbow.
“What the…”
He hailed a cab and open the door, gesturing her to climb in first.
“Is there some sort of an emergency?”
The man didn’t reply, looking at her so intensely he almost seemed to glare. She wondered if it was a delayed reaction to her admittedly unprofessional behavior back then. If so, he was in for a rude awakening: Carter and he may be friends, but there was no way her boss would fire her over it.
“Yes. Get in.”
She frowned, trying to make sense of his urgency, but just as she was about to open her mouth and demand an explanation, he added, “Please.”
Right.
They rode to the office in silence, and every passing second, she grew more restless, and perhaps a little excited, too.
They made it to his floor, and he gestured her to follow as he walked past the open office, toward the break room.
At three in the afternoon, it was empty: everyone had eaten lunch, and it was a little too early for the coffee break rush.
“Coffee?” he offered; she nodded, taking a seat, and watching him start the coffee machine, before turning to a chest of drawers.
“You used to prefer tea.”
“Got used to coffee - it’s not like most places stock Chai,” she started; but then her mouth closed as she caught on.
Yes, she used to prefer tea - she still did. But he couldn’t have known that information unless…
Lucy’s breath hitched, when he came back with the geekiest thing known to man: a handmade wooden chessboard featuring characters from Lord of the Rings.
The exact same board he’d always had.
Suddenly, it was hard to see the sexist bastard; this really was Trick, the geek, the genius. The very fantasy she’d built in her mind six years ago, before he’d shattered her illusion with a few careless words that had cut too deep.
Chess. He wanted to play chess.
Which meant that somehow, over the last few minutes, he’d remembered her.
She eagerly watched him place the pieces in their respective places, and turn the board so that the whites were on her side.
“Don’t worry,” he smirked, “I’ll go easy on you.”
He didn’t. It was clear from his very first move that he was giving it his all, taking his time to analyze her strategy.
Two minutes in, she had a headache, and her heart was beating like crazy against her chest. That game had always aroused her brain, and stimulated every part of her mind and body like nothing else - mainly because at the time when they’d played in way back when, she hadn’t really known what vibrating rabbits were for. Now, she expected the experience to be less exciting; it wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Playing with a man who knew what he was doing was foreplay. The original mindfuck.
And damn, but it had been so long since her brain had taken a proper screw.
Lucy wasn’t modest enough to deny it: she was smart - cunning, maybe. That meant that she had any adversary by the balls a few minutes into any game; there were some challenges online, but no one she knew had been worth playing with for too damn long.
It took a while, but finally, it came - focusing on his imminent victory, Trick made a careless move, intending to attack. She waited until he’d put his queen right in front of her king, before smirking, moving her smilingly useless pawn out of the way, and announcing, “Checkmate.”
Trick
She’d won. She’d actually demolished his rusty ass, proving that he should definitely have honed his skills.
He hadn’t gone easy on her, not for a split second, as part of his mind had already accepted what he should have seen from day one.
How the hell did he miss it? It wasn’t like she’d changed all that much. Sure, she was older, but she had the same eyes - the cat-like eyes green at the rim, almost gold inside.
When he’d first met her, they’d been fixed everywhere else though - she’d been one of those shy kids, but even then, he remembered thinking to himself that she’d break some hearts in a few years.
Still, he’d had no idea that his little Luce could have turned into Lucinda Warner. People as confident and domineering as her always made it look like it was their inherent nature, like they’d never been anything else.
Damn. That was a trip down memory lane.
The year they’d been in the same school had been a bad one, with his father fighting cancer, and Trick desperately attempting to distract himself. He hadn’t seen his actions as rebellious at the time - but yeah, the stunt with the FBI’s security system probably beat drinking, stealing cars, and whatever-else his peers were up to.
All that had mattered to him was finding the next challenge - something that could occupy his mind long enough to forget that his world was falling apart.
And there she’d appeared, as if dropped at the door of the chess club by his guardian angel. Trick had been so damn tired of winning without having to rub a couple of neurons together in the process; if President of the Chess Club hadn’t looked quite so good on his college application, he would have dropped it altogether.
Everyone had been paired up by the time she’d made it, and he remembered sighing out loud when the awkward teenager hiding her voluptuous boobs under a sweater that swallowed her whole had come in, knowing he was going to have to play with a damn kid.
That day, he made a mistake. He took it easy on her at first - so she destroyed him in five moves.
That simple action had taught him the most valuable lesson - a lesson that completely destroyed the concept his mother had tried to teach him. Appearances didn’t matter. Judging anyone by what he saw on the surface was the best way to lose.
From time to time, he forgot. Being a bigot was par for the course, in the crowd he grew up with; so yeah, he had the tendency to base opinions on his first impressions. He’d just gotten better at admitting to being wrong when evidences were brought forward.
“Luce.”
The woman rolled her eyes, smirking like a Cheshire cat. Oh, she’d enjoyed watching him making a fool of himself for six damn years.
“Luce O’Daley.”
That had been her name, then, he was pretty sure of that. A glance down her left hand confirmed that it was ring free; and he was certain it had been since she’d stepped into the old office Harris Toys had rented back in the days. Just because he hadn’t been allowed to touch didn’t mean that he hadn’t looked - at everything.
“I took my mother’s maiden name after my father died,” she explained, seeing the direction of his gaze.
That made him frown, confused.
“Let’s just say the guy wasn’t exactly nice.”
There was an edge to her words, and he wisely let it go. For now. He
wanted to know anything, everything about her, from the day he’d graduated to now.
But first and foremost, he needed his mouth on her, to tell her something he should have admitted to long ago.
“I tried to call you,” he told her. “When I came back to New York, I went looking for you, but the phone number was disconnected, and no one knew where you were.”
He should have looked harder. Hell, he should have stayed in touch when he’d moved to LA, instead of conveniently waiting to be in the same city as her to go looking for her; but he hadn’t, and he’d lost twelve years.
He remembered the time he and his dad had taken Luce home once, after school; his father had been in remission at the time; he’d talked to her for a few minutes, before turning to Trick, and saying, “You’ll marry that chick one day.”
How stupid could he be? After his father’s death, he’d fled, purposefully leaving everything connected to him behind, but she shouldn’t have gone down the drain with the rest, dammit.
“Well, I moved when I was sixteen,” she hesitated, and chose to leave it at that after a while.
That wouldn’t do.
“Tell me. Tell me everything…” Then, his eyes drifted down to her lips, and he amended, his statement, adding, “Later.”
Lucy
It was impossible to stop, inconceivable, and even forcing herself to think hard about every reason why she might want to, Lucy couldn’t come up with a valid one. She hadn’t forgiven or forgotten anything, but right now all that mattered was feeling more of this madness. The kiss wasn’t tentative or teasing like the one he’d stolen in the copy room, he wasn’t testing waters, asking permission. He was taking, and giving pleasure like it was his damn job, fucking her mouth with his tongue and teasing her clit through far too many layers of clothes. Never had she hated her pantyhose quite as much as she did now. They needed to go. His trousers, and anything he had underneath, needed to go.
