Broken Records

by Cassie Mae

  “Miss your mouth?” I ask, foolishly looking up at him. His gaze fixates on the corner of my lips where I was just toying with my piercing.

  He takes the hangers from me, his fingers grazing mine, sending a trail of goosebumps up my arm. His head tilts, his lips near my ear. “Trust me, Paige, my mouth never misses.”

  I know he’s just trying to get under my skin, and dammit to hell, I’m letting him. I step back afraid if I don’t, the desire to hit him will turn into something more. Business and pleasure never mix, and I’m standing on a tight rope.

  “Good luck with that,” I say, swirling my finger around, only to realize I’m not just circling the stain but his crotch. I need to get out of here before I do something again that I can’t take back.

  I hurry to the door, trying not to break out into a sprint. I’m almost in the clear when my name floats across the office like a silky caress.

  I close my eyes and suck in a steadying breath before turning back to Ethan. “Yes?”

  “You were right. Everyone deserves a second chance. The demos are still here for you. So if you want to come by at five, I’d be happy to have you back.”

  A smile spreads wide across my lips, and not because he’s giving me a second chance, but because he heard what I was saying to him in the stairwell, and he cared enough to think about it. ““Absolutely. I’ll see you at five then.”

  I head back to the door, trying not to fist bump the air when Ethan calls my name again.

  I spin back meeting his dark gaze. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  Another irritating ping sounds from not only my computer, but my iPad and my cell. The fax machine follows, and the intercom lights up on the office phone.

  “Mr. Davis,” Nora says from the speaker. “The office closes in five minutes.”

  “You don’t say,” I laugh under my breath, clicking off the intercom and pulling the fax from the machine. Every few minutes my entire office makes its own music with the constant pings and click clacks of every electronic device going off. Nora did something to my calendar, so now I’m receiving notifications for emails, deadlines, almost deadlines, and twenty, ten, and five-minute reminders before meetings and conference calls. My back teeth slip off each other, and I rub at my jaw, surprised it’s not fractured.

  I crumple up the sheet from the printer that has my itinerary for tomorrow—something I’m sure I’ll get a few hundred notifications for in the morning. Nora sent it along with a note saying, “If you need anything else, Mr. Davis, please let me know! Smiley face, smiley face.”

  I slam a finger on the intercom button. “Feel free to take off, Nora.”

  “It’s four fifty-six, Mr. Davis.”

  Dear Lord. “Go. Enjoy your weekend.”

  “You too!” Her cheery tone is so high-pitched I’m surprised I hear it. “Do you want me to grab the outgoing mail?”

  “No, no.” Please, for my sanity, do not come in here. “I got it.” Clicking off, I slump back into my chair and spin to face the wall, waiting for her to barge in with her color-coded notebooks. What’s better: an overzealous assistant, or one who’s after my job?

  Ripping my glance from the empty space on my wall, I let out a huff and open the drawer full of the demos I still can’t listen to and shuffle through them. The sound of the drives knocking into each other fills the silence of the office, reminding me of a bucketful of Legos.

  My father and I used to collect them, create elaborate designs, and drive my mother crazy with different inventions spread randomly throughout our giant house. My back straightens, and my fingers rest on the pile as something hits me right in the chest—I’ve finally had a pleasant memory while this drawer is open.

  A soft knock comes at the door, and I brace myself for Nora and her endless reminders, but it’s Paige, confidently striding through before I get a word out. She gets to the edge of my desk, resting her chipped nails on top of the stack of mail I wouldn’t allow Nora to take.

  Our eyes meet, and a jolt zings up through my midsection. “Hello.”

  “Hey.”

  I gather a few demos and then slide them over. She takes them in silence and plunks down with her laptop on the velvet couch by the window. Her hair floats over her shoulders with the motion, and I involuntarily inhale, hoping that I might get a scent of her lemon shampoo.

  She carefully places her earbuds in, one by one, my mouth watering just witnessing the act. I bet she pulls at her lip ring. I bet she closes her eyes. I bet she starts humming along, and I not only bet… Damn, I hope she does. My breath locks up somewhere in my throat as I wait for those small, insignificant movements that drive me absolutely wild.

  She said so many things today that were spot on, and I wonder how she knew without me saying a word about them. My walls aren’t so transparent with anyone else, including my mother. No one has put it out there so bluntly; I find myself wanting to be around her just to see what else she has picked up on.

  Shaking my head, I turn to my computer screen and attempt to set my calendar back to where it was before Nora made it sing at me every twenty minutes. My phone rings, and I slip it from the inside of my jacket pocket and check the ID. Mom. After a quick glance at Paige, who juts her gaze away when I catch her staring, I push from my desk and step outside the office, a smirk on my lips that maybe she’s just as distracted by me as I am by her.

  “Stay away from the TV tonight, you hear me?” Mom says before I get out a hello.

  “I probably would have if you hadn’t warned me,” I joke, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s going on?”

  “That brown-nosing assistant of your father’s is on there, tearing down your name. If I wasn’t stuck in this mud spa, I’d find him and—”

  “Wait… what?”

  “Ethan Cameron Davis, don’t you dare turn on that TV.”

  She scolds me, but I’m already halfway across the offices, fingers tumbling over all the shit in Jerome’s desk drawers to get to the waiting area’s TV remote. After digging around, I finally find it with a bright pink Post-it stuck to the back that states in perfect handwriting, Remote: Davis Office, 12th floor.

  I rip the ridiculous label off and press the power and volume buttons.

  “…there seems to be a sense of panic among stockholders,” a newscaster in a blue blazer says to a very healthy-looking Jerome. His arrogance is etched into every line of his smarmy face.

  “I don’t blame them,” he says. “With the label losing four of its major artists, selling might be a good option if a new CEO doesn’t step in.”

  My heart drops with a dull thud in my gut. I press the remote to my chest, jolting from the cold plastic against my suddenly sweaty clothing. Four artists… where the hell is he getting that information? It must be something he kept from me—he’s smart enough to be accurate before going to the media.

  “Ethan, turn it off,” Mom says in my ear, but I’m barely paying attention.

  “For those of you just joining us,” the newscaster says, the shot taken just outside the label’s doors, “it’s rumored that Broken Records may be headed for trouble with Ethan Davis, the late Cameron Davis’s son, at the helm. With several contracts coming to a close, many artists are apprehensive to sign with someone with so little experience. Davis’s assistant verifies the disarray happening behind closed doors and won’t be surprised if stockholders end up selling…”

  “I mean it,” Mom scolds again. White-hot flames lick up the back of my neck, and I rip my jacket off and chuck it onto Jerome’s chair. A muttered expletive slips from my clenched teeth, something I normally wouldn’t dare say in front of my mother, even though it was her who taught it to me. I scour Jerome’s desk, throwing piles of Post-it-covered office supplies to the floor.

  “Look at it this way.” Mom tries to calm me, but I’m beyond that shit. My heart may short circuit, and for once, I’m not concerned about it. Let it quit. Let it hammer until I’m barely breathing.

  “…and go do somet
hing you want to do.”

  “I’m not selling,” I growl over the phone, having caught enough of what she’s saying to understand at least that.

  “You could get enough for it still,” she argues through a hacking, croaky cough. “Hand over the reins to someone else. Or hire board members to handle everything—”

  “I’m. Not. Selling.”

  She pauses while I continue to turn over my assistant’s desk. Even if I do find anything, my brain probably won’t comprehend it. As my blood boils, I settle my weight on my arm, resting it on the edge of the desk, and try to regulate my breathing.

  “Why do you care about this label so much?” Mom asks when she senses my attempts to calm myself. “I’ll be honest… I thought you would’ve sold it already.”

  I don’t have an answer for her—at least not one I can put words to. Paige seems to understand it more than I do. Maybe this is my way of giving my father the second chance I never gave him when he was alive, but it seems I’m incapable of doing even that.

  My head drops. “Sorry,” I say, knowing that losing my temper in front of her—even if it is over the phone— only reminds her of days when she lost hers and walked out. She always came back, for me, but the moment I was an adult, she filed for the divorce she’d wanted for so damn long.

  “Stay away from the TV,” she presses, not that it matters at this point; the damage has been done.

  I click off the phone and chuck it next to my jacket. I’ll take this as Jerome’s resignation, adding another item to my long list of things to do—find a new assistant. Preferably one who won’t go running to the news to boast about my incompetence.

  It’s not so much that he’s publicly shaming me—it’s more because he isn’t wrong. In or out of the suit, I’ve yet to make a smart decision around here. Even the contract with my “next big thing” has a hiccup in it that could send the shit into the fan.

  “Damn it,” I hiss under my breath, shoving at the chair. It spins into the wall, knocking down a canvas photo of my father holding his very first golden record. Maybe Mom’s right; I should just sell the damn thing. This place and all the people in it can suck it.

  I blow out a breath and storm back to my office, ignoring the mess I’ve made.

  Paige’s eyes catch mine as soon as I enter, her delicate, careful hand slowly rising to pluck the left bud from her ear. She lifts an eyebrow as if to ask if everything is all right, and I give her one hard shake of my head before slumping behind my desk.

  The words blur on the computer screen in front of me, dancing with red dots. Trying to ignore the pounding of my heart in my ears and the words Jerome said repeating themselves in my mind, I click onto my email and send a memo to Alex.

  Attn: Alex Bishop

  An assistant position has opened up in my office. Please see attached prerequisites and offer the chance to interview to the intern(s) of your choice. A non-disclosure agreement will be mandatory going forward for any person in this position, whether temporary or permanent.

  Ethan Davis, CEO

  Broken Records, Inc.

  A swoosh sounds through the room as I click send, and Paige clears her throat, ripping me out of my computer screen.

  “Here,” she says, setting an unfamiliar drive down on the wooden top of my desk. I lift my gaze to meet her penetrating, determined stare that only has a touch of fear resting in the mesmerizing green irises. I see myself reflected in her glasses—a man beaten and in hiding, terrified to come out and see what will become of him. I wonder if that’s who she sees, or if by some miracle she sees someone worthy to sit behind this desk.

  I let out a short sharp breath. “That wasn’t a demo I gave you.”

  Her jaw ticks, as if she was prepared for that response. “Those were crap. This…” She slides the drive across the wood, settling it right under my set chin. “This is worth your time.”

  Keeping eye contact, I put a single finger on the drive and push it back her way. I’m not in the mood to argue over this shit.

  “Get out.”

  Her eyes narrow. “Still won’t listen to it?”

  I run a hand over the scruff of my chin, determined to hold back from taking out all my frustration on her. I’m still unsure of what form it will take when I finally break, and if she doesn’t leave now, both of us will find out.

  “I said get out. You’re done for the day.”

  Her slightly parted lips press together, and a short puff of breath escapes her nose. She swipes the drive off my desk, whipping around toward the door. I don’t get a single breath out before she’s swiveling back around.

  “You’re a jackass,” she says, putting it bluntly.

  “And?” I say, unable to muster the energy to disagree, not that I would anyway. My eyes follow her as she strides back up to my desk, my heart pounding yet again beyond a comfortable pace. She slams two hands on the wood, leaning in so close that if I weren’t so captivated by the flames dancing in her eyes, I’d let my gaze drift south and let my blood boil for something other than work.

  “You asked me to do a job for you, and I’m doing it. Why won’t you listen to me?” Her lips inch forward, and I swallow hard, her lemon and coconut scent wafting in the air between us. “Maybe I don’t understand you. You don’t feel the music anymore. You don’t love it, or live it. You’re just a stubborn stand-in, pushing back on everything anyone says that may actually help.”

  A sharp pain digs its way through my skin and pushes me from my seat. I lean across the desk, my face a breath away from hers. “I don’t feel music?” I sputter through clenched teeth. “You have… no idea how much I feel when I listen to those damn things.” My finger juts to the drawer next to me, and I watch her eyes follow it for a brief second before they cut back to mine. “Music is everywhere. It follows me around like a ghost, and do you know what I hear? I hear the voice of my father. I hear him telling me over the phone how he’s sorry he missed another event. How he spent my high school graduation with headphones over his head. How when my mother asked for a divorce, she had to say it twice because he was listening to music. If you think that I don’t feel anything, that I don’t live with music every second of every day, then you’re damn wrong.”

  There is a flicker of hesitation in her expression, almost as if I’ve said everything too fast and she’s desperate to keep up. She runs a tongue over her bottom lip, moistening her piercing to the point that it glistens in the dimming daylight streaming through the windows. I have to blink away at how that makes me feel, how it burns the back of my neck and makes my hands itch to reach out and touch her.

  “Music might feel like it’s everywhere to you, Ethan. But it’s not there.” She nods to my chest, her face so close that I can feel the soft warm electricity spike between us. Her eyes float back up to mine, and she licks her lips again. “And unfortunately, that’s where it needs to count.”

  She straightens, widening the space between our bodies. I wait for the much-needed cold air to accompany her movement, but my body is still rushed with heat, the room a locked furnace I can’t escape. My name rolling off her tongue so sweetly, so easily, pushes my heart into a desperate rhythm. I want to keep her locked in this inferno with me, stop her from leaving like I told her to.

  A long, shaky sigh escapes her, and her hardened eyes soften. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “It was months ago.”

  “Not just for his death.”

  She blinks slowly before her gaze cuts down to her pocket where she pushes the drive in. Her hair flips as she turns, washing me in that sweet scent that is all Paige. My heart thumps in my chest, pushing hot, needy blood through my veins. I quickly maneuver around my desk, hardly realizing what I’m doing until I’m reaching over her head to shut the door in front of her before she walks through it.

  “Thought you wanted me to leave,” she quips.

  I open my mouth to come back with something, anything, but my voice is gone. The unsteady rhythm of my heart invades m
y disconnected thoughts, awakening the beast that I’ve kept caged since the moment I saw her outside my elevator. My fingers curl against the door, short nails scratching and cutting through the buzzing silence between us. Paige’s neck twists slowly, her eyes flicking up to meet mine over her shoulder. Her lovely lips pop open in hopeful surprise, and I cautiously take a step forward, trapping her in with my body heat.

  “You should leave.” It’s a warning—one I pray to God she doesn’t listen to.

  She gulps, the hand resting on the doorknob slipping from the brass. With bated breath, I brush her long soft strands of red across her back, exposing that neck I’ve thought about every free second my mind gets. I can almost see the pounding pulse in her veins, echoing my own. She tilts her head to the side, encouraging me to continue my careful exploration of boundaries.

  I hesitate only a moment to worry over what this could do, how bad this could get, but my reluctance is stifled quickly the second the quietest of whimpers escapes her lips, and I dip my head, pressing a feather soft kiss to that tempting pulse.

  Her neck rolls, and her body falls back flush against mine. I drop my hand from the door and clasp it around her neck, holding her in place as my mouth becomes harder, more aggressive, matching my current mood. Her taste, her feel, her scent satiates a thirst I didn’t realize was so parched. I spread a palm over her flat stomach, pressing her ass against my strained dick, and a sharp gasp slips through her teeth. I set a thumb on her jaw, jerking her head so I can have access to the other side of her neck.

  She goes easily, something I wasn’t prepared for. Paige is so argumentative, so fiery, so passionate, that I realize I expect a fight with her over everything. The fact that we’re finally having the same thoughts has my hands more and more anxious to grab and pull and explore this woman I can’t stop thinking about.

  My teeth tug at her skin, desperate for more, to taste and feel and to act on my forbidden thoughts. I bite at her jaw line, fingers curling to keep her in place. Vibrations roll through my palm as she lets out a seductive and heady moan, and I slide my hand from her stomach to a breast, my dick hardening against her ass. She pushes her chest out, encouraging me, her nipple beaded between my fingers. I dip my head and run a tongue across her shoulder up to the underside of her jaw. My teeth nibble at the lobe of her ear, and I taste the sharp metal of her many earrings and suck hard.