She let out a slow breath. If she didn’t distract herself from the images of this morning that were permanently etched in her brain, she was going to have to skip lunch and go home and change into a new pair of underwear.
The office door opened. Harper bit her lip and sent up a quick prayer that it wasn’t Luke. She wasn’t ready to see that perfect face, yet.
“You must be Harper,” a cheerful voice called out.
Harper swiveled in her chair. A curvy redhead with a tiny stud in her nose breezed in holding a giant bundle of flowers.
“Beth?”
“That’s me!” She set the vase on Harper’s desk and stuck out her hand. “I want to hug you, but I didn’t want my gratitude to come on too strong and scare you off.”
Harper laughed as she took Beth’s purple-manicured hand. “That bad, huh?”
Beth shook her mass of auburn curls and rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. I’ve been on Luke’s case for a solid year about hiring a full-time manager. He just keeps saying, ‘I’ll get to it.’ And then never does.’”
“Let me guess, he’s been —”
“Busy,” Beth finished for her. “Yeah, that’s Luke. I’m just so glad you’re here, and I can already tell that you’re a nice, normal human being, so I’m not even going to worry about how it will be working with you.”
“Were you expecting someone with two heads?”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect from the woman who finally landed Luke Garrison,” Beth dropped her giant purse on the floor next to her desk and flopped down in the chair. “With these long-term bachelors, you can never tell if they’ll be bowled over by beautiful and normal like yourself, or if they’ll just finally go insane from loneliness and grab the first crazy that comes their way.”
“I could totally be crazy and just be hiding it to lure you in to a sense of complacency,” Harper warned.
“That’s true,” Beth said, booting up her computer. “Maybe I should take those flowers back until you’ve truly earned them.”
“Oh, before I forget. Luke told me you’re a caffeine fiend so I made extra coffee, and there’s French vanilla creamer in the fridge.”
“You’ve earned the flowers back,” Beth said, springing up and making a beeline for the coffee pot. “I don’t care if you’re crazy or not. You’re thoughtful, and you understand my deep and abiding love for caffeine. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Harper laughed and turned back to her computer. Beth would be a good distraction from thoughts she didn’t need to be thinking right now. Like the feel of Luke’s hard cock against her.
Damn it.
***
Harper beat Sophie to the cafe by a few minutes, so she settled in with the menu and an iced tea. Sophie all but collapsed into the chair opposite her.
“Oh my God, thanks for having lunch with me today. Josh is driving me crazy,” she said, wringing her hands around air. “He gave himself a hair cut with freaking safety shears. I didn’t even notice until I caught him trying to put his hair clippings in the dog dish.”
“And here I thought parenthood was all ethereal moments of story time and nap time.”
“And scraping dried spaghetti off the legs of the dining room table time and holding your ears because your toddler is practicing for a career in opera time,” Sophie added.
Harper smiled into her drink. “Rough day, huh?”
“I should have just had you meet me at the liquor store so we could drink our lunches. But enough about me. How’s work? How’s living with Luke?”
“It’s good. I’m still working through the backlog of paperwork and updates, but I like it.”
“Uh-huh. And how’s the home life?”
“It’s, uh, good, too. Luke’s pretty easy to live with.”
“I hear you both were caught practically naked in the kitchen this morning.”
Harper choked on her tea.
