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Bowie: They were delicious.
Hollis: Thank you. Lennon, can you come to my office in an hour, I see from your calendar you have a space free.
Monty: What was in the mystery parcel then? Color me intrigued.
Bowie: What color is intrigued?
Lennon: Of course, Hollis. I’ll print off the spreadsheets and bring them with me.
Lennon didn’t touch the color question when he knew one of the others would explain to Bowie what Monty meant. No, Lennon was back to thinking of things that he could plausibly say he’d gone to get during working hours to Hollis because he would ask. Yes, he stayed and worked extra hours, but that was beside the point. He couldn’t tell his boss he’d been to a sex shop to buy a new paddle.
It had been over a month and Kodi was demanding to be spanked at least twice a day. Three on the days he pushed at Lennon—on purpose, he suspected. Kodi was so eager that Lennon found himself getting sucked deeper into the moments they shared. It was confusing when he found himself aroused just looking at Kodi’s ass. He couldn’t say he hadn’t been attracted to Kodi, because he wasn’t blind. It had been more superficial, much like him thinking all the brothers were attractive. Now, feelings were getting mixed in. Messy ones that would do no one any good. His thoughts about this being dangerous to his heart were spot on!
He hated being right.
“Wanna talk?” Ziggy asked when Lennon finally got his head back in the game and realized he was staring into space.
He gave Ziggy a sheepish smile, not giving himself time to find a reason to say no when he really could do with an impartial person as a sounding board.
“Not here, but if you’re free after work for a beer or cocktail then yeah… I could do with someone to talk to.” His brother didn’t count because he was too close to Lennon and wasn’t exactly happy when he’d mentioned how often he was spanking Kodi. There may have been a lecture on crossing boundaries.
They were way past that point.
“Can do. I’ll just get Silas to drop us off at the wine bar on Cooper Street. They do two for one from five to seven weekdays. He’ll drop you home, too. And I can pick you up in the morning if you leave your car here.”
Lennon’s lips creased into a big smile. Ziggy hadn’t been with the team as long as the others, but he had slotted right in. “Prefect, I better go and get sorted for Hollis.”
“I’ll be free and here at 5.30pm. Does that work?”
He nodded and headed back to his office, his mind firmly back on work—kind of.
At the allotted time, he rapped on Hollis’s door clutching the spreadsheets in a plastic file, along with his iPad.
“Come in, Lennon.”
Hollis was sitting behind his desk, glasses slipping down his nose as he squinted over the top of them at a piece of paper he held. “Why do they make these figures so small when you print them?”
He sounded utterly frustrated that Lennon had to hide his smile. “If they are the figures I sent you, I have them printed so you can see them more clearly.”
“Thank the Gods, I was going crossed eyed.” Hollis’s look of relief was comical. He took the extra copy Lennon brought and frowned at them. “How do you get them to fill the whole sheet? I tried seven different settings and couldn’t get them like this,” he said in a frustrated tone.
“I’ll show you.” Lennon took the seat in front of the neat desk. “Once we’ve answered all your questions.”
Hollis beamed, pushing up his glasses from the bridge of his nose with his index finger. “Wonderful. Now can you go through the profit margins. I’m unclear if these figures are gross or net.”
Lennon moved his chair around the desk and placed the sheets next to each other, grabbing a colored pen from the tub in front of him. “Let’s start with the comparisons to last quarter.”
This, at least he, could do. Answering questions about a certain box hidden under his desk, that was another matter.
Chapter Eight
Kodi
Kodi’s ass was so tender he couldn’t find a spot to sit that he could settle on. It wasn’t his only problem, because with the heat and tenderness came arousal. Not a great combo when he was home and sat with Jupiter.
He had wandered in with Emmy five minutes earlier and plonked himself down next to Kodi, who had thought watching a movie would distract him.
It wasn’t.
