I licked my lip, and her gaze flicked to my mouth.
I knew I should stop. This was dangerous territory. This—whatever this was—was the very last thing I should’ve been doing if I wanted to protect my reputation while I was in town. Which was exactly why I’d cut off that email conversation. I couldn’t trust Devi Sereda not to publicly broadcast any-fucking-thing that happened between us. Or forward those emails… wherever.
I should’ve just turned and walked away. Left the room.
But I just stood there, too close to her. Staring her down.
“As I was saying, that’s the last of the files you asked for,” she said, tapping the stack with her nail again. “If you need any others, maybe you can ask Lizzie for them tomorrow. Or maybe next time you decide to fire a perfectly nice and efficient person like Claire from their job, you could ask Lizzie to stay late and help you. Since you chose to make her manager.”
“She had to pick up her kid.”
“So, because I don’t have children, I should be expected to work longer? For less pay?”
“You’re telling me you really wanted to be temporary manager?”
“Of course I wanted to be manager. What part of that is surprising to you, after I told you I wanted to own the agency one day?” Her dark eyes burned into mine, and I realized we were officially standing too close for anything about this conversation to be comfortable. “And while we’re at it, stay away from Kyle. He’s an unpaid intern. Work experience for his college program. Technically, he’s not your employee. And I already gave you his list of duties.”
She waited for me to respond to that. To fight with her, maybe.
I didn’t.
I glanced through the window to reception, but no one was there. Siri or whatever-her-name-was wasn’t even at her desk.
Great.
No witnesses. No reason to immediately back off and get out of Devi’s face.
I met her eyes again. I didn’t feel calm or composed, or comfortable, in a professional sense, this close to her. Yet I didn’t back off.
Her jaw ticked as she waited for me to answer her, and my dick twitched. It wasn’t hard. But it wasn’t exactly disinterested in what was in front of it right now, either.
That was probably pissing me off more than anything.
I knew, if Sir Frigid picked up on the fact that I found Devi fuckable, it might be obvious to anyone else who happened to glance into this room right now.
It might be obvious to Devi.
But just because I found her fuckable did not mean I liked her. Two different things.
I did not like her. But I did wonder what she’d be like, spread out naked beneath me.
And now Iwashard.
Did I fuck employees? No.
Did I send employees wildly inappropriate, flirtatious emails, argue with them at close range, and get a hard-on for them at the office? No.
At least, not until today.
I swallowed. I was just getting sucked in by her hate act. That was all it was. It was confounding me.
Plenty of people hated me. I may have even enjoyed the odd hate fuck in my life. A hookup with a bitter ex-girlfriend who claimed to hate me. That chick at the coffee shop who I yelled at for spilling my matcha on my suit. That girl in college who I called the wrong name in bed; she really fucking hated me.
Hate fucks were nothing but yet another dish from the sex buffet. Not my favorite, but something to dabble in on occasion.
I’d never actually wanted to spar with someone this much before we even got to the actual foreplay, though.
Come to think of it, hate fucks didn’t usually involve foreplay. They were fast and furious and that was about it.
