“Hi, Taylor,” Sawyer said.
My head jerked up, my gaze sliding across the room until I found where Taylor was pushing the mail cart into my office. “Hi, Sawyer, Mr. Halstead. I have, um, some mail for you.” Taylor kept his gaze on everything except me.
I did my best to appear unaffected, but my heart rate kicked up a notch when I took in his lean frame. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and I wanted to lick it. I’d place my big hands around his neck. I bet I could wrap both my hands around his slim waist. Maybe keep one hand on his hip, while the other wrapped around his neck and felt his pulse beat beneath my fingertips. His wide eyes would stare up at me, and I would capture his lips with mine.
“Good morning, Taylor. I’ll take whatever mail you have for me. Sawyer and I have a meeting to run off to.” I needed to move fast and far away from him before I did something I would regret or that would get me fired for sure.
“Do we? I’d much rather stay and chit-chat with Taylor. Wouldn’t you, Griff?”
I shot my employee a look. He was way too used to how things were when he reported to Mark. “No. I’d rather get work done.”
Taylor’s brow rose, but he didn’t say anything. He simply picked up a stack of manila envelopes and placed them on my desk. I forced myself to look away, or else I’d watch his every move like some sort of creeper.
“Come along, Sawyer,” I said as I picked up the stack of mail. I could sort through it while we were in the boring meeting listening to his boyfriend drone on about things that could have been summed up in an email. I got up from the chair, and Taylor’s eyes widened as he looked up at me. His breath hitched. I stood an entire foot taller than him, maybe more.
“Do—Do you have any mail to send, Mr. Halstead?”
I smiled slowly, waiting a beat before I responded. “Not today, Taylor. And you can call me Griff.”
He swallowed, gulping audibly. “Okay,” he said, and he spun on his heel, leaving the room quickly.
“Bye, Taylor!” Sawyer shouted after him.
I watched Taylor leave, letting my gaze linger on his pert ass as it scurried from the room.
Chapter 2
Taylor
Not everyone liked their job, right? It was totally normal not to enjoy your nine-to-five job. I couldn’t complain, because I didn’t hate it. The people were good, the hours were typical, but the tasks… not exactly intellectually stimulating. Still, I needed it for the health insurance and consistent paycheck, because life as a full-time writer was fucking hard.
If I had it my way, I would be home all day, writing, waiting for whatever boyfriend or partner I had to come home and pamper me—or I could pamper him. I wasn’t picky. That fantasy was sofar outside the realm of reality that I didn’t even let myself think about it too much. It was more likely that Grysten, the monster in my latest novel, would come to life and sweep me off my feet rather than me finding a partner who wanted to support my writer life.
The bonus side of this job was that I wasn’t incredibly busy. Once I got the morning rush of mail done, I had time to just sit. When I first started this job, I confirmed with my boss that as long as I was there and available if anyone needed me, I could do whatever I wanted on my laptop or whatever, as long as it was work appropriate.
Editing my gay monster romance novel was work appropriate, right? I mean, it was just words on the screen. It wasn’t like there were images… which reminded me I needed to contact the artist and commission some pieces for this next release. I had been putting that off, though, because the artist was going to ask for inspiration on what my monster should look like. I didn’t have any inspiration that I could share.
I had a feeling sending her a picture of Griff Halstead, the VP in the office across the room, was not going to go over well. Not that she would know who he was. But still, you couldn’t take random pictures of people and send them off to artists and ask them to make them into giant ogres with bulging biceps, tusk-like fangs, and twelve-pack abs. Not to mention the oversized cock. Or could you? Maybe I could find a model on one of the photo sites that looked like Griff. Could I do a reverse image search using his LinkedIn profile picture? That probably crossed some sort of line.
Griff was the right size to be my actual monster. At six-seven, he towered over me and everyone else. His massive shoulders meant he had to walk in many of the doors sideways in order to fit comfortably. Any room he was in instantly felt small. Or maybe that was just because I felt small when I was next to him—in the best way possible. Not that I was supposed to be thinking about those sorts of things.
No, I needed to focus on my work. Not my nine-to-five work, but my actual work. The real things I cared about. Or rather, the fake things that existed only in my imagination until I put pen to paper and shared my words with my readers.
I had a scene that needed some work. It wasn’t often that I printed copies of my work for me to edit by hand, but this particular scene required extra focus that only came with pen and paper. It was the first sex scene, and those were always tricky. Grysten finds the lost omega in the forest and immediately takes him back to his cave, thinking that the human man must be a sacrifice from the local village and he was permitted to have his way with the little human.
I picked up my red pen and rifled through my bag, hoping to find the orange folder that I kept my work in.
It wasn’t there.
Had I pulled it out this morning and worked on it before getting the morning mail out?
No. I had a ton of things to deliver this morning, mostly external mail that came in with a few inter-office items that were in the manila envelopes. I knew my scene was in my bag, I saw it when I unpacked my lunch.
I looked around my office, which was actually just the mail room. There was nothing. Since the mail had been delivered, the counters were empty.
I rifled through the stack of inter-office envelopes. They were too close to the color of my folder for comfort. I really needed a different-color folder, or maybe I just didn’t need to print out my work and bring it to the office. The risk of someone accidentally picking it up was too great. I should have thought of that before now.
My heart raced, panic filling my veins, sending my body on high alert. If anyone found that envelope folder and read what was inside, I’d be fired for sure. It was one thing to work on homework or other safe-for-work things, but a gay monster romance where the omega is practically split in half (in a good way) by Grysten’s eleven-inch cock? Yeah, that might get me a conversation with HR.
