by C. Morgan
“Office” was a general word. This room didn’t feel like an office to me. It felt like a mashup between a financially struggling travel agency and a teenager’s bedroom. Paperwork was scattered all over the place. There were holes in the pale blue drywall. The baseboards were chipped, broken off, or missing altogether. There was absolutely no artwork to be found and the only decor I could lay eyes on were mismatched personal items that I could only assume had been picked at random off the shelves of a thrift store.
It wasn’t inviting, and it wasn’t a suitable place to run such a huge operation out of.
This place didn’t align with my expectations of Good Fellow’s because of all the research I’d done. I’d found nothing but praise about Kayla’s organization. Everyone in Seattle pretty much considered her an angel but there was nothing angelic about this place.
It was a hellish, low-budget nightmare. And it smelled like cardboard and stale tea. I spied the half-drunk cup of tea on the desk and chalked that mystery under the solved category.
Kayla watched me with apprehension. Her unease was written all over her face.
She’d been in my thoughts since she showed up in my office building the other day. She was nothing like the skinny girl who followed me around like a lost puppy when we were younger. Nothing at all. Now she was all woman. She had a strong gaze, pinched lips, and expressive eyebrows. She’d never been good at hiding her thoughts or feelings and those sharp brows of hers were the culprit. She was dressed plainly today in jeans and a white T-shirt but her beauty could not be played down.
Seattle was right. She was certainly angelic.
Not only was she physically attractive, but her big heart and generosity were appealing. How early did she come to work in this dive of an office? How many hours did she put in before she concluded she’d done a hard day of work and could go home to rest? What did rest look like for Kayla?
Was she the kind of woman who liked to run a bubble bath so she could sink up to her chin in the water with a good book and a glass of red wine?
Based on the state of this office, I assumed not.
“So are you going to tell me these terms of yours or not?” Kayla prodded.
I clasped my hands together. There were things I needed to get out in the open. Like, for example, how annoyed I was that both Lisa and Kayla had railroaded me. I leaned forward. “Did you help my sister come up with her little plan with the journalist?”
Her eyebrows lifted. The corners of her lips twitched. She broke eye contact. She gave herself away without having to say a word.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.
“Lisa already had the plan in mind when she brought me in on the project. I swear. She ran it past me and I didn’t think it was a bad idea.”
I grunted.
Kayla bit her bottom lip. “But in the interest of transparency, you should know that I did agree to help by planning some activities that I thought might work well for the story Rebecca is writing.”
“I figured as much.”
Kayla fidgeted. She straightened out the pens on her desk, lined her laptop up so that it was parallel to said pens, and pulled her hands back into her lap. “I didn’t want to cross any lines, Lukas. But I’m not in a very comfortable place. I’m trying to make Lisa happy and she’s the one who hired me. But I’m also trying to make sure I don’t—I don’t know.”
“Don’t what?”
She shrugged and looked at her feet. “Piss you off.”
I sighed, got to my feet, and smoothed out my tie as I walked around her desk so I could lean against it and look down at her. Kayla tilted her head back and her lips parted ever so slightly.
The sight of her looking up at me like that was maddening.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to walk on eggshells around me,” I said.
Kayla frowned but didn’t say anything.
So I continued. “Look, I’ll go along with this little game you and my sister have concocted because I don’t have much of a choice right now, but don’t expect me to suddenly give my fortune away. I’m not Bill Gates. I’ve come by my money through hard work and ambition. I’m never going back to the days of having nothing. Ever.”
Kayla swallowed.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “So I’ll go through the motions. I’ll jump when you say jump. But you’re wasting your time if you think this is going to end with me having some kind of change of heart. This isn’t a movie. It’s real life. I’m not the guy you and my sister want me to be.”
Kayla’s brow furrowed and her stare hardened. She got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “I’m not forcing you to do anything, Lukas. I’m just trying to help. If you’d prefer to work with another charity, that’s your prerogative. But you listen to me. If you’re going to work with me, then you’re going to have to check your bootstraps mentality at the door. I’m here to help the people who need it. I don’t have time to convince you to be a better person, and to be perfectly honest, I think it’s absolutely ludicrous that you’ve come all this way to try to convince me that you’re not who I think you are.”
“Excuse me?”
She gestured around her office with an incredulous laugh. “Can’t you tell I’m just as busy as you are? I have my own priorities. You aren’t one of them. Lisa wanted a favor and I have the means to help but that does not mean I have to cater to your every whim and smile and nod when you talk down to me. I won’t stand for it.”
This wasn’t going how I expected. My temper flared as she continued to glare daggers at me. Who did she take me for?
“There’s nothing wrong with the person I am,” I said darkly as I stood from where I leaned against her desk.
She continued glaring up at me with her hands on her hips.
“I’m the personification of the American Dream, after all,” I said.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Not everyone’s dream is so generic, Lukas.”
I scoffed. “Generic?”
“You heard me.”
“There’s nothing generic about what I’ve done with my life.”
Kayla shrugged and turned her back on me.
My temper pricked like a strummed chord on a guitar as she sat down, opened her laptop, and proceeded to work.
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of that fact, not me,” she said simply.
“You’re stubborn,” I grated.
“Maybe I learned it from you. We grew up together, after all. Not that you seem to remember that. You’ve been treating me like—”
“Like what?”
“Like your chew toy,” she said with frustration. She slapped her laptop closed and got back to her feet.
I almost grinned. So she wasn’t as unbothered by me as she wanted me to think.
“You have no idea who I am now,” she said boldly. Her eyes danced back and forth between mine and her hands balled into fierce little fists at her sides. “I am not someone to be taken lightly. Success comes in different shapes and sizes. Just because you have a glitzy office and a stupid shiny watch and I don’t does not mean I’m not exactly where I want to be, Lukas. Do you hear me? I’ve worked just as hard to be here and I refuse to let you walk all over that in your stupid expensive shoes and your—”
I grabbed her chin. Kayla fell silent. Her eyes widened with surprise. Her body went rigid. But she didn’t pull away.
“Stop talking,” I growled before I leaned in and grazed my lips across hers. Her breath hitched in her throat and her eyes fluttered closed. Her long dark lashes cast shadows on her flushed cheeks and she smelled like vanilla.
I pulled her close and sealed my lips over hers.
Kayla drew a deep breath. Her hands raced up to the front of my shirt. She gathered it in those little hands of hers as I lifted her off the floor and set her on the desk. I stepped between her thighs and cupped the back of her neck as the kiss deepened.
As her lips parted and she let me explore her m
outh, I tried to figure out how I’d gone from furious to desperate for her in a matter of seconds.
Chapter 10
Kayla
My body was rigid with shock as Lukas stood between my legs and kissed me like he needed to taste me to breathe.
The boy I’d had a crush on since I was a little girl was kissing me.
Lukas Holt is kissing me.
My thoughts whizzed around my brain at a million miles an hour. How is this happening? Is this real? Is this a trick? Is he playing me?
It took several seconds for me to completely give in to the kiss and start taking what I wanted. I forgot I was in my office, forgot the door was unlocked, forgot anyone could walk in at any time and catch me on my desk with a billionaire’s tongue halfway down my throat.
But the kiss set my nerves on fire.
His big strong hands gripped my thighs. He squeezed and worked his way up to my hips. His fingers rested in the groove there, his thumbs pressing against the fly of my jeans. He reached up and grabbed the waistband of my pants to pull me closer to the edge of the desk. All the while, he kissed me like nobody had ever kissed me before.
He stepped in closer and I felt the press of his bulge against me. My eyes snapped open. Lukas slipped his hands under my shirt. His touch wandered up my spine and paused at my bra.
“Wait,” I breathed.
His hands stilled. We broke apart and I put my hands on his chest as I bowed my head and stared at his feet.
“We can’t,” I managed.
My cheeks burned furiously as I slid off the desk. I put my back to him so he couldn’t see my embarrassment and shook my head. “We have to keep this professional, Lukas. I have a reputation to protect.”
I could hear him breathing heavily behind me. I looked over my shoulder. His stare was icy. Just seconds before, his eyes had burned with lust. Now, all I saw there was anger.
“Fine,” he growled. He moved out from behind my desk, marched to the door, and wrenched it open.
“Lukas, wait.”
But he was gone.
I collapsed into my chair and pressed a hand to my forehead. What the hell was that? I couldn’t believe he’d just kissed me.
No, not just kissed me. He’d wanted more. A lot more.
Did I want more? I wasn’t sure. The way my body burned for something I couldn’t have suggested that perhaps I did want what he was offering.
But I couldn’t take a bite of that apple.
The way he’d left spoke volumes. While the kiss was a dream come true, his departure left something to be desired. Lukas ran hot and cold. That much was obvious. I had to be careful. Otherwise, I’d end up in trouble. He wasn’t the kind of guy who was looking for a relationship, and even if he were, it wouldn’t be a good idea.
For one, it would be a conflict of interest of sorts since we were now working together.
Secondly, I wasn’t sure Lisa would love the fact that I had the hots for her brother. She knew how attractive he was, and she knew he had a certain effect on the women in his life, but I doubted she thought I had ever looked twice at him. He was her brother, after all.
But oh man, had I looked twice. Three times. Hell, I’d looked a thousand times over. How could I not? He was perfect.
I couldn’t risk anything coming between me and my best friend. Lisa was protective over Lukas and always had been. He was her brother, and with everything they’d been through as kids, she was particular about the girls he dated—or didn’t date based on our conversation over drinks last night.
Either way, I’d seen Lisa’s jealousy when it came to her brother and I wanted no part of that mess.
I glanced at the time on the clock above the door. “Shit!”
I was going to be late for my volunteer shift at the soup kitchen.
I leapt out of my chair and dashed for the door. Before pushing outside, I reprimanded myself for being so scatterbrained, went back inside, grabbed my purse and keys, and turned off the lights. I locked up my laptop in my safe, made sure all my files were put away, and locked up behind me as I stepped outside. I forgot to switch the Open sign to Closed and had to unlock it again to do so.
Finally after locking up again, I rushed onto the sidewalk and looked down the street. My bus was just coming around the corner. I hurried up to the bus stop, adjusting the strap of my purse on the way, and got there just as the bus pulled up. The brakes hissed and the doors popped open. I climbed the stairs, used my pass, and found a seat near the front.
Public transit saved me even more money. A car might have been a nice luxury with all the running around the city I did but I didn’t have the money to pay for insurance and gas. So a public transit pass it was.
The ride on the bus was quiet. If I rode at night, it got rowdier, but I used this quiet time to rest. It was a twenty-five-minute ride from my office to the soup kitchen, just enough time to recharge and get ready for the next four hours serving food and cleaning dishes.
However, rest was hard to come by. My lips still tingled from the kiss and I was pretty sure the pine scent I kept catching a whiff of was Lukas’ aftershave lingering on my cheek.
I daydreamed about what might have happened between us had I not stopped him. How far would it have gone?
Would he have undone my jeans? My heart skipped a beat at the thought of him slipping a hand down the front of my pants. I imagined that expensive watch of his getting snagged on my zipper. Him tearing my panties away in frustration. My sighing breathlessly and lifting my ass off the desk so he could—
The bus came to an abrupt stop and I realized it was, in fact, my stop. I scrambled to my feet and got off the bus to make the mad dash down two city blocks to the soup kitchen. Luckily, there was no half-mile-long line of people outside. Instead, there were about twenty people in line. I said hello, smiled, and waved before slipping inside and making my way to the back room and kitchens so I could get a hairnet and apron.
I put my purse up in one of the volunteer lockers, tucked my phone in the back pocket of my jeans, and found a hairnet and apron. As I was tucking the last loose strands under the net, a pair of big arms encircled me from behind and gave me a big hug.
Rodney smelled like dish soap and onions.
“How’ve you been, Kayla?” he asked cheerfully.
I slipped out from his arms. Rodney had always been a hugger. I turned to him as I fixed the last bits of hair sticking out near my forehead. “I’m good. Busy. You know how it is. How are you?”
Rodney rubbed the back of his neck and gave me an uncommitted shrug. “Same old, same old. Every day blends into the next around here, you know? But it’s good. It’s good.”
I could feel Rodney watching me as I tightened my apron behind my back. I wasn’t sure if he tried to hide the fact that he had a crush on me or not, but if that was the case, he was doing a poor job of it. I’d had a hunch that Rodney had a crush on me since my third or fourth week volunteering at the kitchen. He was a little too comfortable with me. He liked to hug me every chance he got, and on rare occasions, he’d even taken my hand and spun me around like we were a lovesick couple dancing in the middle of a candlelit dance floor.
He was a good guy. A simple guy. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt his feelings or make it weird for us to work together. We made a good team. He was the brawn and I was the brains. We laughed easily when we were together and it was infectious. If someone was having a bad day at the kitchen, we’d sick ourselves on them and our silliness was likely to brighten even the darkest of moods.
“Hey, uh, Kayla?”
I turned to him. “Yes?”
“I was wondering if you had plans after your shift tonight. I think I’ll be able to get out of here a little earlier than usual and there’s this great Vietnamese restaurant that opened around the corner. Well, I don’t know how great it is personally, but I’ve only heard good things, and I’ve been meaning to try it for a while now. I like food. You like food. So it just makes sense, right?”
I laughed. “Are you asking me to dinner, Rodney?”
“Yes, I am,” he said with a lopsided grin.
I chuckled softly as I passed him on my way to the saloon-style doors and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, but I’m so busy with work right now that I need every minute I can get in front of my computer. I appreciate the offer, though. Why don’t you see if someone else wants to go? I bet Carl or Bev would go with you.”
Rodney pouted. “Bev is fifty-two.”
“So?” I played dumb.
Rodney’s disappointment slipped away as he shrugged off my rejection. “You know what? You’re right. I’ll ask Carl and Bev. They’re decent company.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Not as decent as you, of course.”
I flashed him a smile. “Well, of course not. Nobody is as decent as me.”
I left Rodney chuckling in the kitchen and wondered if I’d let him down too easily. He was only going to keep trying if I left room for him to think there was a chance for us—which there was not.
My tastes leaned more toward unattainable men with bad attitudes and big strong hands. Men like Lukas Holt.
He’d been my wildest fantasy as a teenage girl. If I was being perfectly honest, he’d also been my sexual awakening as a young girl. Some of my friends were crushing on animated characters in some of their favorite films. Others continued to talk about the tall, dark-haired man in all black from the dinosaur movie who draped himself on everyone and everything and looked hot as hell doing it.
But me? I was crushing on the boy next door. And now I was still crushing on him even though he was an asshole.
He never should have walked into my office and put me in a position like that. And yet he had. And he’d left me standing in his wake all hot and bothered and flustered while he’d been able to walk out without the smallest gesture of a farewell.
I moved along the line behind the volunteers to find an open station dishing out assorted steamed vegetables that smelled like garlic and pepper.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kayla.
