“Fine. I'll buy your penis clam, but you owe me.” I nod at the security guard behind the desk and he winks at me. I frown but at least I know I paid the man enough money that he should keep his mouth shut. I slide my key card at the doors to the parking garage and watch as they slide open. Olivia keeps pace with, her heels clicking on the pavement. I glance over at her and she returns the look with narrowed eyes. “Yes, Lex is coming. Thank you for asking, Craig.” And then she hangs up the phone, jamming it into her pocket with a sigh. “We need to make a detour and head to the Whole Foods on California Street to buy a geoduck. Apparently, Maggie didn't buy quite enough of them for the geoduck and avocado salad with fruit salsa dish that she's making for our starter.” Olivia bumps her shoulder into mine in a playful gesture and my heart ceases to beat for an entire minute. Her behavior is absolutely baffling to me. “I hope you didn't expect to actually eat much at this dinner.” Olivia pauses and gives me another green eyed look. “I mean, I'm more of a meat and potatoes chick myself, so I'm not as into the hippie menus as Craig is. Be prepared for lots of arugula, tofu, and beets.”
“I've never had a penis shaped clam before, so at the very least, it'll be a learning experience for me.” Olivia gives me a look and a smile and then pauses next to her car. She voices the question I'm thinking.
“One car or two?”
“How about you drive?” I offer, trying to ignore the urge to take control. That's what I'm doing with this woman, isn't it? Learning to let go? “But first, let me grab something from my car.” I move away and head back towards the glass doors and the executive parking space near them. In fact, I don't even park my own vehicle most days nor do I drive it out. I have whoever's working security duty valet it for me at the entrance on the opposite side of the building, where the private elevator to the twelfth floor is located.
I unlock the doors and dig out a bag, packed with a pair of jeans and some boots. Since Olivia gave me no indication of when or where this little get-together was happening – and I was too stubborn to text or call her – I prepared for it. I swing the bag over my shoulder and eye the briefcase on the floor in my backseat. This one's empty, but it's the same type I used to cart around the contract I intended Olivia to sign. Be on your best behavior, Lex. And under no circumstances should you mention the contract tonight.
I slam the door and lock it, heading back to Olivia who's already climbed in and started the Lexus. She smiles at me when I climb in, and it takes me entire minute to realize I haven't closed the door. I pull it closed and fasten my seat belt.
“Thanks for coming,” she says and then, almost as if she's just realized that she's actually being nice to me, she frowns. “I have no idea what to expect at this gathering. I haven't met pretty much anyone that's going to be there, so things could get worse. Expect strange and be delighted if anything normal happens. That's all I can really say to prepare you.” I lean back in the seat and look over at Olivia, taking in the shape of her face, her long eyelashes, her vibrant hair. I can't wait to fuck her again. I've never been so obsessed with the shape of a woman's lips or the way her hands hold the steering wheel. Apparently, our chemical concoction is a good one.
“You're welcome,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice calm and soothing. Olivia and I are quick to rile up into anger. If I'm going to get anywhere with her, I need to stay calm. “And thank you for agreeing to attend the symphony with me next weekend.” Olivia nods but doesn't say anything. “And also for coming back to work. I wasn't sure if you were going to.”
“I wasn't even sure if I was going to,” she admits, blending her car seamlessly into the flow of traffic.
“Then why?” I ask, waiting in silence as she bites her bottom lip in thought.
“I'm … stubborn, I guess?” She glances over at me, noticing for the first time that I'm still nursing a hard-on for her. Her snort of laughter makes me purse my lips.
“That would be an understatement,” I growl out as she continues to chuckle at me. “And you never answered my question. Why fuck me and then run like that? I can understand the issue with interacting with me at the office, but why not call me?”
“You didn't call me either.” I grit my teeth, but force myself to take a deep breath.
“You didn't stop by,” I add, knowing what she's going to say or at least taking a guess: you didn't stop by either.
“I didn't know I was invited,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders, not like she particularly even gives a shit. But I want her to, and I don't know why.
“Well now you know. You have a permanent, standing invitation to my house.”
“For sex?”
“For whatever,” I snap back at her. Olivia sighs and turns on the satellite radio, switching it until raucous screaming echos from the speakers.
“Whispered voices singing loud as I slay up all the crowd. Cut them off and bleed them dry; rot their hearts; make them cry.” I stare at the radio in shock for a moment, fully expecting Olivia to change it. And then I realize she's mouthing the words and I stare at her harder. Her fingers tap the song's rhythm out on the steering wheel.
“Darkened angels, no, no, no. Take their wings and make them fall, tear them from the sky, destroy them all. Darkened angels, oh, oh, oh. Darkened angels have to go, go, go.” She's singing the words now, not just mouthing them. After a moment of silence she notices that I'm staring at her. “What?”
“What is this?” Olivia laughs again, so hard that tears actually come to her eyes. Her music choice is horrid, her singing even worse, and now she's laughing? Something tears inside my chest, and I struggle to find my next breath.
“This is metal, Lex. I like to listen to angry music when I'm angry. Don't ask. I can't really explain it. I guess … it makes my problems seems like drops in an ocean or something?” I lick my lips as we pull into the parking lot for Whole Foods.
“What are your problems exactly?” I ask, leaning in close to her as she pulls into a parking space. Olivia tears off her seat belt, unlocks the doors and then tosses me a wicked smile.
“Well,” she begins, opening the door and pausing with one high heeled foot resting on the ground outside the vehicle, “you, for starters.” And then she's climbing out and walking away before I can even get my door open.
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?” I ask as I catch up to her with long strides and follow her through the automatic doors into the store. Olivia's eyes scan the signs until she sees one labeled for seafood.
“It means,” she begins as she marches across the floor in her heels, “that you are an enigma as well as an asshole and that I have no clue what to do with you.” I follow Olivia into the back of the store and help her scan the refrigerated areas for geoducks. We don't find anything and end up having to ask an employee. I try to wait until Olivia's done with her brother's errand before I pursue the conversation. “No, it's pronounced gooey duck. My brother says it's a clam that's shaped like a penis.” I cringe, feeling uncomfortable and out of place in the busy grocery store. I don't often – wait, don't ever – go grocery shopping. I go out to restaurants, to parties, have Mavis the cleaning lady or Claudia purchase food for me. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I went to a grocery store. It's … overwhelming, to say the least. I almost begin to wonder in that moment if Olivia's right, if I am a 'brat'. What sort of man is so unfamiliar with a supermarket that he feels out of place standing in the seafood aisle?
“No,” Olivia says, exasperated. She makes a vaguely phallic shape with her hands. “He distinctly said it was shaped like a penis. I'm sure of it. You know what? It's okay. My brother's girlfriend will just have to live with a few less penis clams in her salad tonight.” Olivia storms away, like a cloud of purple, gliding through the aisles and pausing next to the wine. She searches the labels with an expert eye and snags one before I can even see what she's selected. “I promised to give up wine once I got rid of you, you know?”
“That's admirable of you,” I say, ke
eping step beside her as we fly across the floor and end up at a self-checkout. Olivia breezes through this as well, scanning the wine, swiping her card before I can even offer to pay and pulling me along in her orbit on the way out. When we get to the parking lot, she yanks her keys from her purse and presses the button on the key fob to unlock the doors. Before she gets a chance to tell me no, I move to her side of the car and open her door.
Olivia gives me a look but doesn't say anything, sliding into the Lexus and letting me slam it shut behind her.
“And here I thought chivalry was dead?” she asks as I climb into the passenger's side and fold my arms across my chest. “Or at the very least that you were immune to it.” Olivia pauses with her hands on the steering wheel and then forces a smile onto her lips. “See? I can be reasonable at times. If men want to open the door me, I can accept that with grace.”
“Why are we even discussing it then?” I ask, leaning back against the window and looking her up and down. “If it matters so little?”
“I never said that it mattered so little.” She imitates my voice and I glare at her. “Only that it's … nice. Just because a woman wants to be a capable adult person doesn't mean she doesn't want anyone to do anything nice for her ever, that's all. That's all I'm trying to say.” Olivia starts the car and, in true city driving style, peels out into an opening in the traffic without blinking at the nearness of the surrounding vehicles.
I watch her, focus on the small bead of sweat near her temple. Looking at her like this, she doesn't seem so unreasonable anymore.
“Where does your brother live?” I ask, deciding to change the subject before it gets too heated. I need to resist fighting with Olivia tonight, even if in some perverse way I enjoy our squabbling. This is about bringing her closer to me, not pushing her farther away. Olivia snorts and shakes her head.
“Are you kidding? My brother rents a shitty apartment in the Tenderloin because he likes it there. We're actually going to the house of one of his girlfriends, the one who asked the rest of them to marry her.” Olivia wrinkles up her nose and I'm glad to see that she's just as confused as I am about the whole situation. “Maggie lives on Kansas Street in Potrero Hill, some fancy hippie compound that she shares with her other girlfriends, Marina and Angie.” Olivia looks back at me and we both smile.
“I don't know how they do it,” I say, trying my best to relax and let Olivia handle the evening, guide me through it like she guided me blind and gagged through some of the best sex of my life. I bite my tongue to keep from groaning at the memory.
“I know, right? I'd get jealous, I think. One lover's more than enough for me anyway.”
Silence descends and neither of us speaks for several minutes. I wonder if she's considering the implications of her own words, or if it's just me who's reading into them.
“You can put your shirt on when we get there,” she finally says, shrugging her shoulders. “I brought a change of clothes, too. Trust me, you'll feel super out of place in your suit. Nobody there will be wearing them.”
“You're serious about me and this T-shirt, aren't you?” I ask as we pull up in front of a pale pink house with orange accents and a whimsical fence that borders the property, giving it an oddly private appearance in the middle of such a crowded street. The buildings on either side loom up and over the cottage, but it doesn't appear to mind.
“As a heart attack,” Olivia says, snagging one of the last spots on the entire block. She shuts off the vehicle and looks over at me. “Lex,” she begins and then thinks better about whatever it was she was going to say. “Don't embarrass, okay?” Olivia climbs out and I follow after, my bag in hand, feeling that strange sense of displacement again. I'm not in my usual element, so far from it in fact that I actually start to feel beads of sweat on my forehead. I realize with a start that I'm nervous. I never get nervous.
“Knock, knock,” Olivia says, reaching down to grab my wrist when I hesitate at the open door. “Craig? Mom?” She yanks me inside, through a narrow living room and into a kitchen where a woman with dreadlocks stands, cooking something on the stove. When she hears us, she glances over her shoulder with a smile.
“Oli, so good to see you again,” she says, wiping her hands off on her apron and moving over to us with quiet footsteps. Her arms are covered in tattoos and she has at least three nose piercings that I can count. Olivia tries to shake the woman's hand but she pulls her into a tight hug, making murmuring noises that Olivia wrinkles her nose at. “Mmm. So good to see you. So so good.” The woman pulls back and studies Olivia's suit and the plastic bag she's carrying along with her purse. I was so nervous I didn't even notice it until now. “We're family now, Oli. Family. That's so important in this day and age, don't you think?”
“Um, sure,” Olivia says, raising her eyebrows and trying to gesture at me for an introduction. “And this is – ”
“Welcome,” the woman says, wrapping her arms around me before I can protest. My nostrils flare, but Olivia's flashing me a warning glare in the background, so I stand stone still, the last remnants of my hard-on fading away in an instant. When she pulls back, she smiles at me and rubs my shoulder in a loving circle. I look to Olivia again for clues on how I should act. At the parties I normally attend, nobody hugs, nobody rubs strangers in comforting circles and they absolutely do not rise up onto their toes to sniff each other. “Wow, you smell good,” the woman says and Olivia's face cracks with laughter. I watch as she tries desperately to bite it back.
“Maggie, this is Lex. Lex, Maggie. Maggie's Craig's … fiancée?” she asks questioningly. Maggie doesn't bother responding and continues to rub my shoulder with her hand, looking at me like I suspect a butcher might size up a piece of meat. “Lex is my … ” I wait in tense anticipation for Olivia to label our new relationship. “Boss. Maggie here is a horticulturist and Lex is a billionaire CEO of a bloodthirsty real estate investment group.”
“That's amazing,” Maggie says, sniffing my collar again. I take a step back and push down my outrage. I imagine it won't do me much good here. She pauses to glance over her shoulder at Olivia. “And pot's legal now, so you can just say I grow pot. Horticulturist sounds too … I don't know, pompous.” Maggie turns back to me with a wink and finally moves away from me. “I have a couple of operations up in Humboldt County, but my heart's really here in the Bay Area.” She touches a hand to her chest and then heads back to the stove. “Everybody else is already chilling in the backyard. Feel free to join them and I'll meet you out there.”
“We'd like to change clothes if that's okay? Do you have a bathroom we could use?” Olivia asks, giving me another look and a silly smile. I find myself smiling back, like we're cohorts in this operation.
“Down the hall to your right,” Maggie says, humming and swaying with the sound of jazz music that's playing in the background. Olivia nods her chin at me and we head down the hallway together. When we hit the bathroom, she grabs the door and moves inside, pausing with it open like she's waiting for me.
“Well?” she asks, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I have yet another erection building for her. Damn it. “You've already seen me naked. I don't care if you want to change in here with me.” She pauses as my eyes widen in surprise. “But we're definitely not fucking right now, so don't even try me.”
“Why so adamantly against it?” I ask, wishing I'd had the balls to stop by her place last night. If I had, would she have labeled me as a stalker? Maybe I'm too concerned with not being one that I'm actually turning into one? I grit my teeth and Olivia sees the gesture, mistaking it for sexual frustration.
“Whoa there, tiger. Can't you just have one of your other lady friends come and visit you if you're that desperate?” Her words are light and teasing as she slips off her suit jacket and tosses it onto the counter, next to a small collection of potted cacti that I can't figure out for the life of me. However, I hear an intent there, a quest for information.
“I told you, Olivia, that I would be exclusive with you
for the duration … ” I almost say of the contract. Instead, I trail off and let her fill in her own words, using the brief moment of silence to admire the gentle curve of Olivia's back as she unbuttons her shirt and slips it off. She trades the professional button up for a blue cotton T-shirt that clings to her curves and begs me to touch them with my fingers. “Unless you tell me to specifically fuck somebody else, I won't. Not while we're involved.” When I wrote up the contract, I figured it would be much easier to entice a woman to sign it if I wasn't sleeping around, if they could trust that I was clean. Knowing your partner's disease free makes things a lot smoother in the bedroom. There's a certain factor of confidence that comes into play. I, on the other hand, have not done my due diligence. But how am I going to ask Olivia for her test results now? If my goal tonight is to not start a fight, that would be the absolute wrong way of going about it.
Olivia turns around, dropping her slacks to the floor and revealing a pair of … black lacy panties. It's the first item of lingerie I've seen yet. My cock gets so rigid it hurts, and I find myself leaning against the counter with one hand.
“You're telling me that if I told you to go out there and fuck Maggie, you would.” My mouth curls into a scowl. “I mean, provided she was into it which,” Olivia chuckles under her breath, “I'm pretty damn sure she was.”
“Yes,” I grind out, praying to God above that she doesn't. Olivia stops laughing and tilts her head to look at me.
“You're a strange man, Lex,” she says, sliding her panty hose down her legs. I have to look away to keep my composure. “But you don't have to take this so seriously.”
“Why? Because you're not?” I snap back at her. She yanks off her tights and then throws them at me. I bite my tongue to keep from asking her about the men in her life. It doesn't matter. It's not my fucking business, but I so want it to be. Mine. I have to fight the urge to take her in my arms possessively. That's not what this relationship was supposed to be about. I take deep breaths to calm myself.
Taming Her Boss Page 21
