by Mary Hughes
As if she heard my thoughts, she said, “It’s not that nasty Bernie Botcher, is it? I could kill that man for what he did to my little girl.”
“Kill”, to my mom, meant “lecture sternly”. But it was a nice sentiment. “Thanks, Mom.”
“He was the first man you loved, Liese. Naturally you were devastated. Say, I was shopping with Rolf’s wife today and happened to read an article at the bookstore. Monogamy is a matter of genetics. Isn’t that interesting? Physical intimacy equals love for some people. In fact, it’s hardwired.”
Wouldn’t that explain an awful lot? I must have had a double helping of the M-gene because when I gave Botcher my virginity, I also gave him my heart. Even now he had a piece of it. A small, black, non-pumping piece, but he had it.
“When I read that I got angry at him all over again, leaving you standing at the altar.” My mother’s voice quivered.
Strictly speaking, the rat-bastard hadn’t left me there. He never even bothered showing. See, I’d told him about my plan to save ADD a quarter million dollars. He stole my work and used it to gain his own promotion to head of IT. Then he fired me and married my replacement. And blacklisted me so I couldn’t find another job.
But with all that, know what really ate at me? His little note, delivered at the church, telling me he hated having sex with me and could only get it up by doing double Viagras.
Yep, Black Saturday birthed several of my little issues.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I know I can’t trust men.”
My mother only sighed.
“What’s wrong? You are tired, aren’t you?”
“A little. Cousin Rolf’s wife can shop like a monster.”
My problems were small beans compared to radiation. “I should let you rest. Good night, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too.” With another sigh, she hung up.
I checked the clock. Still another couple hours of interviews. I tossed the crimper onto my desk, resolving to go. At that moment the back door opened and I heard Logan’s deep murmur drift out. Oh, who was I kidding? I’d probably suffer through a marathon of odd-numbered Star Trek movies to see him one last time. What an ID-10-T I was.
A scruffy boy came in, the spitting image of an eight-year-old Opie Taylor, and started poking at the cables in the trash. “Whatcha doin’?”
I slumped into my chair. “Waiting for the interviews to be over.”
“Me too. My dad’s in there. He’s a wrestler, stage name Thugs. What’s your name?”
“Liese. Steel Security is hiring wrestlers?”
The boy snorted. “Nah. My dad’s also a fixit man. I’m Billy Wilder. Are these wires for bombs?”
I smiled slightly. The boy was a potential scientist. We like blowing things up. “Cables for networking.”
He eyed one critically. “You screwed up the crimps.”
“Yeah.” I swept the crimper into a drawer. As I did, Bud walked in, with Lilly and another little girl, a dark-skinned brunette maybe four years old, trotting behind. They were accompanied by a pretty black girl about Bud’s age. Bud and the girl kept staring into each other’s eyes like they were limpid pools and they wanted to dive in. Cute, at twelve or thirteen. It would be obnoxious at twenty-five.
“Ms. Schmetterling?” Bud addressed me but his dreamy attention was on his pretty friend. “May I take Angela and Lilly to use the potty?”
The girl gave him a sweet smile. “I’ll take them.” At my nod she steered both little girls into the small powder room.
I raised brows at Bud. “Girlfriend?”
Bud blushed. “Frieda and Angela are Mr. Dodd’s grandnieces. As older sibs, Frieda and I have stuff in common.”
“Itsy Bitsy Spider” echoed from the bathroom, a duet this time. I nodded. “Well, she’s nice. I’m surprised so many interviewees brought their kids.”
Bud touched his throat. “Steel Security is a family-oriented company.”
“This is boring.” Billy Wilder had dug a cable out of the trash and was stripping insulation with his teeth. “Are we gonna blow stuff up or not?”
Apparently I’d spent quite enough time being sorry for myself. Time to entertain the troops. “Mr. Steel might get a little peeved if we blow up his nice new computers. Let’s see what else we can find.” I dug a wire stripper and roll of electrical tape from my purse, handed the stripper to Billy and tossed the tape onto my desk.
The front door swung open. I braced myself for another beautiful girl but the one who entered was an eight-year-old going on forty. Her sparkly little pink backpack was decorated with the face of William Shakespeare. She planted herself in front of my desk with all the assurance of a born commander. “I have to urinate. Where’s the bathroom?”
Bud hid a smile. “Ms. Schmetterling, this is Jane Austen Smith. Her mother’s an English professor.”
“Never would’ve guessed.” Logan’s interviewees were getting stranger by the minute. “The bathroom’s over there, but it’s in use right now.”
“I’ll wait.” Jane plopped herself in a guest chair, pointed at the desk. “Is that non-conductive adhesive material?”
“Electrical tape, yes.” Rooting in my bag past Carmex and key ring and a dozen drained batteries, I found my mini soldering iron. Well, that was always good for some fun. I set it and some solder next to the tape.
The door opened again. A thin, nervous-looking dishwater blonde skittered in, eyes on the floor. At least they weren’t all Miss America contestants. She was holding a red-headed boy of about seven in front of her like a shield. She stopped at my desk. “Can Tad use the bathroom?” she whispered in my general direction. Still no eye contact.
“There’s a line.” I dug around, found more batteries, my sunscreen, two extra motherboards and a disposable camera. Now how the heck did that get in there?
She whispered, “A bucket, then? Tad had a little too much for dinner.”
Tad’s complexion did look a little green. “Um, I can look in a minute. Does he want to sit for now?” I indicated the other guest chair, nudging my wastebasket into position for quick speweous-interruptus.
“Yes, please.” Tad slid gingerly into the chair. Before his mother could rabbit, Zinnia emerged from the back. “Mrs. Theodore, good. You’re next.” She latched onto Tad’s mother and yanked her through the connecting door. Tad’s mom may have whispered something about returning later.
Tad himself was looking distinctly green. I ransacked the stuff on my desk, decided I’d use the electrical tape on his mouth only in an emergency. That was when my eye lit on the camera.
I’d only seen it done on YouTube. But it might be interesting enough to take Billy Wilder’s mind off blowing things up, take mine off the interviews, and maybe even take Tad’s off barfing.
I picked out the camera and a couple six-inch lengths of wire. After pulling the battery, I disassembled the camera. While I wrestled with the bulb, Bud’s friend Frieda and the little girls emerged from the bathroom and wandered over to see what I was doing. I managed to remove the bulb without breaking the circuit board, then soldered the wires to the capacitor contacts. Gingerly I placed the battery in the circuit, then taped the hell out of everything (except the picture-taking button and the wires, obviously).
I held up the finished product. “Okay, guess what this is.”
“A camera?” Tad’s color was actually normal.
“Take my picture,” Lilly chirped. Angela clapped her hands and bounced.
“It’s not a camera anymore.” I turned it so they could see that tape covered the aperture.
“A bomb?” Now Billy Wilder clapped his hands and bounced.
“It’s a Taser.”
All bouncing stopped. “Is not.” Lilly pouted adorably. “It’s a camera.”
“Sweet,” Frieda said. “Can I zap someone?”
Well. Another budding scientist. I was about to explain how the homemade Taser worked when the connecting door whooshed open and Zinnia bopped through. “Are you ente
rtaining the children, Ms. Schmetterling? How nice. Something innocent and wholesome, of course.”
“Of course.” Blushing, I shoveled everything into my purse. “Interviews going well?”
“Wonderful, wonderful! But you children shouldn’t take up Ms. Schmetterling’s time. Back to the bus, now.” As she shooed them out the next interviewee strode in. Zinnia fawned over the regal blonde, all Dr. Farah this and that. Farah was so beautiful and so obviously intelligent I wanted to puke.
Should have looked for that bucket. Or at least left out the electrical tape.
Five more cables, a totally unnecessary backup and ten games of Solitaire later all the interviewees had gone. I was thinking how beat I was even though I’d done nothing but crimp bad cables and play with kids when the connecting door whooshed open and Zinnia bopped through, fresh as a daisy. “You were absolutely amazing, Mr. Steel! What incredible interview technique. What patience!”
Logan glided out after her. Dark circles under his eyes spoke of something other than amazing for him. But even tired he was so disturbingly handsome he made me want to grab a blender between my thighs and push liquefy. Stupid female hormones.
He brightened when he saw me. “Liese. You stayed.”
“It’s only ten thirty. I like to give my employer good value.”
“Mr. Steel?” The Zinnigizer Bunny flounced between us. “Why don’t we go over the interview results? I have a preprinted table to list positives and negatives for each candidate. Then you can weigh the results—”
“Tomorrow, Zinnia.” That firm tone was the CEO expecting instant compliance.
Apparently Zinnia’s power meter wasn’t as sensitive as mine. She plowed right on. “This list isn’t going to get any fresher, Mr. Steel. Sooner started, sooner finished, as my Aunt Violet used to say. You only have until Monday to decide. ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ That was Grandpa Aster’s motto.”
Good grief. Zinnia, Bud and Lilly, and now Violet and Aster? Was there a whole garden of them?
“Zinnia. While normally I’d jump right on it—”
Even with all my worries, the image caught me. Two hundred pounds of muscular male, jumping right on it.
Zinnia caught it too. We both shuddered.
“—I have a previous engagement. With Ms. Schmetterling.”
“But Mr. Steel—”
“Thank you for your help this evening, Zinnia. Good night.” It was a clear dismissal.
“Oh.” Zinnia got it this time. Her smile dimmed a few hundred watts and even her boobs seemed to sag. She trudged—trudged—to the door. There she turned. “Tomorrow, Mr. Steel?”
That’s when Logan showed what made him an exceptional CEO. He demanded and received obedience, but he also knew how to solicit buy-in. “Tell you what, Zinnia. Why don’t you start on the list yourself? Then give me a call.”
I swear her breasts perked up. “After sunset, right?”
Such an odd way to phrase it. Logan, for some reason, flushed. “Er, right. Since I have meetings all day.”
“Tomorrow night, then, Mr. Steel!” Zinnia bounded out the door.
It clanged shut. The sudden silence that followed made me aware I was now totally alone with Logan Steel.
Logan turned to me and I immediately saw we weren’t going to talk about interviews or fresh concrete. His eyes had shot to flame-broil. I wheeled my chair backward out of habit. When my phone rang, I was grateful for the interruption. That’s not contradictory. I wanted to see Logan one last time but I didn’t want to actually deal with him. “I have to take this.” I hit connect. “Blood Center.”
“Hey, sugar,” Dolly Barton greeted me. “I waited to call. Hate to break up a party.”
As she spoke the bus roared away from the curb. “How do you know these things, Dolly?”
“Ways. But in this case it’s because I’m next door and can see out the window. You missed your appointment, sugar. I hope you have a good reason.”
“Shizzle.” I forgot my appointment because it wasn’t my usual trim but a free bikini waxing. Yeah, well, I’d won it in a sheepshead tournament and what self-respecting Meiers Corners resident turns down a freebie? Although being upset over Logan and the missing blood might have also contributed. Oh, and Zinnia, and the scraping, and the filled-in hole. And if I told Dolly even one of those things it would be MC Headlines at Ten. “It’s just been so busy here.”
“That’s an excuse, not a reason. And not nearly good enough.”
I cringed. “Er…what reason would be good enough?”
“Tall, blond and drop-dead handsome.”
I stared in consternation at the phone, then scanned the room. Nope, Dolly hadn’t installed surveillance, at least not that I could see. “Do you have a timeshare on a spy satellite?”
She laughed like I’d made a funny. I hadn’t been joking. “Reschedule tomorrow at six?”
“Sure.” I noted it in my calendar.
The instant I clicked off my headset Logan advanced purposefully on me. The gold flecks in his eyes were practically glowing now.
“Stop. This is way too dangerous.” I jumped out of my chair, backed toward the wall. Botcher had burned sixteen months and all my savings. Movie-star gorgeous Logan would incinerate me. Sizzling hot, with his molten gold eyes and bright blond hair…maybe just a little taste of those luscious lips…maybe getting incinerated wouldn’t hurt…much… What am I thinking?
I clutched my glass ring, erected an image of Botcher like a shield. “I said stop.” I thudded into the wall.
Logan arrested my ring-worrying with a gentle hand. “I thought you liked this.” Snagging my chin with a forefinger, he raised my head for a Logan Special—soft kiss with a brush of heat. “And this.” He kissed me again, lingering over it. “And this.” He added a dollop of clever tongue.
Botcher shields dropped to forty percent. “Arrgh!” I tore away, ran to the other side of the room, all of two feet away. “What is it with you? Are you out to blast every brain cell I have?”
“Defensive fire, Liese. After all, you gun me down.” He stalked me with that limber glide that made him look like a hunting cat. Squeak. “Your kiss is explosive, princess. TNT—tongue ’n torture. And only you detonate me. We’re dynamite together.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “How can you possibly be a brilliant Fortune-500 CEO? Those are the worst puns in the world.”
“I know.” He caught me, and soundly kissed my laughing mouth.
Have you ever been kissed while laughing? Happy endorphins bubble up like champagne. Lips are moist. Blood flows warm and fizzy. Wellbeing floods your system. Any shred of sanity flies instantly out the window.
Shields were gone, Captain.
The instant Logan touched me he knew. “Fuck, Liese. You’re so ready—treasure for the taking. Prepare to be boarded, princess.” One hand captured my face and he breached my pitiful defenses with a devouring kiss.
His tongue invaded me, stole my breath. His mouth overwhelmed me, his heat fierce and unyielding. Fingers slid into my hair to anchor my head for an even deeper kiss. When I moaned and tried to evade his plundering, his arm wrapped around me and yanked me tight into his muscular body. He seized my bottom, cupping and fondling. I arched helplessly into him, banging up against his pirate’s prow, and it was a monster.
My brain overheated. My hips rocked of their own accord, my mons rubbing against his bulging fly. Logan growled, seized my butt in both hands and jacked me onto his hips. Whirling, he planted my back on my desk, fell on top of me. His weight was a mountain of force, pressing me into a lusty diamond. I writhed, trapped between hard wood and granite muscle.
He nuzzled me, his mouth hot on my neck. Sharp little nips sent shocks of delight zinging through me. A rumbling filled my ears, a deep purr that buzzed my belly and drummed against my chest like a vibrator.
Logan rolled his hips, pumping his ballooning fly against me. Hard denim rubbed my tender mound. Desire shot to a
new level, liquid heat pooling in my pelvis. I arched into his heavy body. He ground into me, friction sparking. I was on the verge of igniting when his sharp teeth scraped over my throat, pressed into my pulse. I wriggled under him, at the very edge of something deliriously lovely.
He shifted just enough to unsnap and unzip my pants. “I want you so badly, princess. I’ve got to taste you. Say yes.”
I’ve got to taste you. He’d used that strange phrase before, but what did I know of a lover’s murmurs? Maybe it was a code phrase for oral sex. My own voice wouldn’t work. I rocked my hips into him, the only way I could reply.
His tongue licked fire over my throat. “You’ve got to say it, Liese.” He drove a hand into my pants.
Onto my clit.
I nearly shot through the roof. “Yes! Oh, Logan, yes.” I caught his muscular shoulders, pumped against his hand. It wouldn’t be long now. Another two, three minutes—
Logan bit me.
I arched so hard both my butt and head hit the desk. Lightning zapped me from throat to belly. Hot, jagged bolts tore into me, too fierce to be mere pleasure. No, I detonated. Every cell in my body combusted. I didn’t climax, I exploded.
As pieces of reality gradually filtered into my buzzing brain I felt a rumble thumping against my chest and a tongue lapping my throat. A huge bulge pulsed against my vulva.
Logan was licking my neck. Botcher wanted to slam home at the first sign of moisture. What was Logan waiting for? The orgasm left me as wet as a monsoon. Was he trying for Noah’s flood?
Although, with the size of Logan’s submarine, flood might be good. Monsoon, flood, submarine. I closed my eyes, wondering if bad puns were a disease and I’d been infected by Typhoid Logan.
Or a very aroused Typhoon Logan, nuzzling me frenetically, not so much licking my neck as devouring it. “You taste even better than I dreamed, Liese. Like moonlight. Like soft summer breezes.”
