Authors: Cat Johnson
“Hi.” She was sounding pretty breathy herself.
His chest tightened, and so did parts lower. “What are you doing here?”
A half naked girl was draped on his desk and he stood frozen with guilt and asked her why. This lying stuff really sucked.
“Finishing what we started this morning.”
Holy cow. This was a side of Tessa he hadn’t seen before. He swallowed. “Um, this morning was probably a mistake. We need to talk about something first.”
She raised a brow, and also one knee as she ran the toe of one stiletto up and down her opposite leg. “Come over here and we’ll talk.”
Somehow he doubted that. When he still didn’t move, she stood, slid the coat off until it landed in a heap at her feet and started to close the distance between them. Torn between running out the door and closing it in case anyone should come into the office, he chose the latter. Strictly to avoid embarrassment, of course.
She smiled and ran a hand up and down his chest. All right, so closing the door had been a mistake. Lesson learned. He grabbed her hand as it began to run back and forth just beneath his belt.
“Tessa.”
“Aren’t you attracted to me?”
He swallowed audibly and held her as far away from him as the length of his arms would allow. “You know I am. But there’s something I have to tell you, and it may affect how you feel about me. I can’t go any farther with you until you know the whole truth.”
“What truth is that,
Jason
?” Tessa smiled slyly.
He was just trying to figure out what to say when he realized she’d called him by his real name. His eyes widened. “You know?”
She nodded and reached up to touch her lips to his. He groaned and pulled her closer. He kissed her until he was breathless, before breaking away. “You’re not angry?”
Her hands snaked around behind him and roamed below his belt to cup his buttocks. “Does it look like I’m angry?”
He closed his eyes as she pressed closer against him. “Troy had me terrified you’d never speak to me again after I told you.”
“Never listen to Troy.” She nibbled on his chin, and then moved to his ear, making him shiver.
“Oh God, I want you.” He ran his hands down her silk and lace clad body. He’d have to congratulate the lingerie buyers on their fine purchases. Jason took a deep breath. “But we can’t do this here.”
Tessa reached behind him and flipped the lock on the door. “Now we can. Besides, it’s kind of always been one of my fantasies. Sex in an office on a big desk while everyone else is working and doesn’t know.”
He raised a brow and began backing them both up toward the desk. One of her fantasies, huh? That was really all he needed to hear. But the knock that sounded on the door was definitely not something he wanted to hear at that moment.
They both froze, two children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, except Jason’s hand was currently somewhere where there weren’t any cookies.
“Jason? You in there?”
“It’s Troy,” Tessa hissed.
He held one finger to her lips. “Shhh. I know. Maybe he’ll go away.”
The handle jiggled on the door—thank God Tessa had locked it—and then there was silence.
Jason stifled a giggle. “I feel like a teenager.”
“Me too.” Tessa laughed, but the look in her eyes was far from funny. “Kiss me.”
“My pleasure.” Jason leaned lower to explore inside her mouth, while Tessa made short work of his belt and fly and began to explore inside his boxers.
He wanted more. He laid her back on his desk. While still standing, he covered her breast with his mouth and feasted while his fingers made their way to the wet heat between her legs. He teased her, making small circles with his fingers until she writhed on the desk beneath him.
“Jason. Make love to me.”
His breath caught in his throat at the request. If felt so good to hear her use his name. Almost as good as the feel of her hand on his cock as she covered him in the condom she’d had hidden somewhere in her lingerie. Gotta love a woman who was prepared.
He groaned and closed his eyes as he slid into her wet heat moved between her thighs.
Jason knew he’d never be able to sit at that desk again without remembering standing beside it and sliding into Tessa as she was draped over it. Even standing with his pants down around his ankles with his black dress socks showing didn’t take away from how amazing it felt to be inside her. Her legs wrapped around him, the feel of her heels digging into his buttocks as he plunged into her, how she shuddered and cried out his name when she came.
His name had never sounded so good in his ears, and he came himself with a deep shudder and a sigh of absolute and utter satisfaction.
She clung to him as he held her close, kissing her face and feeling grateful for small blessings. “I’ll never lie to you again. I swear.”
“You better not, or my big brother will beat you up.” She smiled at him devilishly.
Jason let out a nervous laugh. “That’s not funny. Particularly after he almost caught us just now.”
“Don’t worry, he didn’t hear. Besides, he told me he likes you.”
“That’s very good to know.” Jason kissed her one last time before pulling up his pants. He bent to get her coat. “Let me grab something off the sales floor for you to wear home under this coat.”
Tessa shrugged. “I drove here like this. I can drive home like this too. What difference does it make?”
“What if you get pulled over?”
“I’m more likely to get out of the ticket wearing this than clothes, don’t you think?”
He frowned and indicated her revealing underwear with the sweep of one hand. “
This
is only for me from now on. I’ll pay your ticket if you get one. You keep covered up. Understood?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir. Sheesh, no wonder Troy approves of you.”
Knowing that Troy liked him made him extremely happy. Besides the fact that Troy could probably level him with one well-placed punch, Jason had every hope of being around Tessa and her family for a very long time.
He grabbed her jacket lapels and pulled her toward him for one more possessive kiss. “You have a problem with me thinking of you as mine?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He smiled. “Good.” He was just thinking that was fortunate because he was definitely planning on her remaining his when her cell phone rang.
Again with the ringing. Now what did fate have to say?
While Tessa dug in her purse to find it, Jason shook his head. “At least we got to finish this time.”
She smiled and answered the phone. “Troy. Um, hi. What’s up?”
Jason tucked his shirt into his pants and was just retying his tie as Tessa hung up. He glanced up and found her face bright red. “What did he say?”
“He said in high school he used to date a girl who worked here and if we are going to have sex in the store, the janitor’s closet off the storeroom on the third floor is more private and soundproof.”
Jason’s hand slipped as he raised the knot up to his neck and he nearly choked himself with his own tie. “He heard us?”
Uh, oh. Although he couldn’t help but wonder which salesgirl it had been in the closet with Troy.
“He also asked if you wanted to come with me to his and Amy’s apartment to have dinner tonight.”
“Is he going to hit me?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he told me to tell you he wasn’t going to punch you, but you two were going to have a nice long talk about our future.”
Jason laughed. Tessa in his future he could handle. “All right.”
Tessa’s face broke into a gorgeous smile.
Jason frowned. “What?”
“You’re the first man ever that Troy has wanted to have a long talk with about my future.”
“And this is a good thing?”
“Oh, yeah. This is a very good thing.” Tessa grabbed him by his newly knotted tie and kissed him deeply, and that was definitely a good thing.
The End
CAN’T BUY ME LOVE
Chapter One
“No one at the party thought the cake looked anything like my little Isabella.”
“Mrs. Steinhoff. It was a cake. I made it look as much like your poodle as I could, but it was still a cake. I can only do so much.” A cake for a birthday party for a freaking poodle and the woman was giving her grief over it?
Zoey Massey ran a hand over her temple, trying to massage away the ache that had resided there non-stop all day.
“Well, I don’t see why I should have to pay for it if I wasn’t happy.”
“You ordered the cake, I made it and you accepted delivery. Yes, you have to pay for it.” The woman probably had as much money as Donald Trump and she was going to squabble over paying for a cake that Zoey had underpriced to begin with. A cake that took her twice as long to make as she anticipated because the woman insisted on a three-dimensional life-sized standing freaking poodle. No, no way.
“Humph. I’ll be calling my credit card company and putting a stop to that charge.”
“You do that, Mrs. Steinhoff, and I’ll not only see you in small claims court, I’ll tell every caterer in the tri-state area what you did. You’ll be blackballed. Just try and get anyone reputable to cater Isabella’s birthday party next year or anything else.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” Judging by her tone, that scared Mrs. Steinhoff more than the threat of court.
“Try me.” Zoey could bluff with the best of them, especially when her back was up against the wall.
An indignant sounding huff sounded through the phone receiver. “Well, I’ve never.”
The other line began to ring. It was really no wonder Zoey’s Events was running in the red. Zoey spent all day manning the damn phone.
“I don’t have any more time for you, Mrs. Steinhoff. Good day.” Zoey punched the button for line two. Whoever was waiting there had to be an improvement over Mrs. Steinhoff and her precious Isabella.
“Zoey’s Events.” Zoey put on her pleasant voice.
“I’d like to speak with the owner, please.”
Oh, boy. What now? “Speaking.”
“This is County Provisions. I’m calling about an outstanding invoice.”
Zoey let her head fall until it clunked against the desk, and then immediately regretted the action as the ache in her skull intensified. “I’m sure you are.”
Zoey glanced at the stack of invoices on her desk. Even if she had the money in the bank account to pay them all off, which she doubted she did, when would she have the time for bookkeeping? After over two years of trying to make a go of this business and still not making a profit, she’d laid off every full-time employee she had in an attempt to turn things around. She now did all the work herself, staying late into the night seven days a week, and brought in help only on an hourly basis when absolutely necessary.
She thought she was slowly making a dent in the bills, but it was so slow, it was hard to tell for sure. How much longer would it take for this business to run in the black? Between charge cards and loans, her credit, both personal and professional, was almost maxed out. What she needed was one good job with a nice tidy profit to get her over the hump.
“Ms. Massey?”
“Um, yeah. Sorry. The invoice is right here on the desk in front of me. I’ll cut you a check and get it out to you.” She stared at the pile again, figuring the invoice probably was in there somewhere, she just didn’t know exactly where.
She hung up the phone with a sigh and rose from the desk chair. Finally, for the first time in what seemed like an hour, she had a chance to leave her office—if you could call it an office. It used to be a coat closet. The rod was still there, just above her head when she sat at the desk. Somehow when she dreamed of owning her own catering company, this wasn’t what she’d pictured.
Sighing, she glanced at the schedule she’d hung on the wall. On the agenda for today—custom-made, penis-shaped sugar cookies. Two-dozen of them for a bachelorette party. If she weren’t so tired, she might actually be amused. She’d had to visit some very interesting websites to find that particular-shaped cookie cutter. She hoped the FBI never had cause to search her internet history because after that search, there were now some pretty questionable sites on her computer’s hard drive.
At least the dough for the cookies was already rolled, cut and lined up on the sheet pan like little penis-shaped soldiers, waiting in the walk-in refrigerator to be baked. She flipped on the oven and was pulling them out of the fridge when the phone, once again, began to ring.
“Damn, damn, damn.” Zoey flung the pan full of cookies into the oven and dashed for the phone.
“Zoey’s Events.”
“Hello. This is Lexi Cooper. I need to speak with someone about catering an event.”
Lexi Cooper. Holy cow.
The
Lexi Cooper wanted to speak to her about an event.
“Sure. What’s the date?” Zoey tried to cover her excitement and sound casual.
“One week after Thanksgiving, on the Friday night. A two hour cocktail party for at least a hundred, possibly two, just hors d’oeuvres.”