Not Safe for Work (12 page)

You’re welcome.

My pride wanted to rear up and say
oh hell no
, and technically, he’d done this even after I’d expressly told him not to, but we’d also agreed that what we were doing outside of work didn’t exist when we were here. Either way, at this point, I was too tired to protest.

So I texted back,
Thank you. I’ll let you know when I’m awake.

And then I got the hell out of there.

* * * * *

I awoke to daylight and the clearest head I’d had in days.

The clock on the bedside table said nine forty-five in the morning. Panic surged through me, followed immediately by apathy. I’d just slept away over eighteen hours that could have been productive, and it felt great, so I just didn’t give a shit.

I closed my eyes and exhaled, simply basking in the luxurious feeling of being rested. I was a shower and a cup of coffee away from being human again.

First things first, though, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand. Unsurprisingly, I had two texts from Rick:

Get some rest. Looking forward to seeing you.

Also bring a toothbrush. Not letting you go home tonight. ;-)

Oh God. Yes. Finally.

Giving orders now, are we?
I wrote back.

When my phone buzzed again, it was a call, not a text, and Rick’s number on the screen made me grin.

“Hey,” I said. “Calling to give orders this way instead of via text?”

He laughed, sounding sheepish even over the line. “No, nothing like… I mean, I—”

“Relax. What’s up?”

He cleared his throat. “So how much time off is your boss giving you?”

“Today and tomorrow.”

“Well, the invitation is definitely open. I have to be in the office tomorrow afternoon, but I’m yours until then.”

My skin prickled with goose bumps. Jesus, the idea of having him all to myself made my mouth water. Pity my body was so fucking tired. “Full disclosure, though—I am fucking exhausted. Much as I’d like to, I can’t promise much tonight.”

“It’s okay.” The smile in his voice made me dizzy. “I’ll be home around six. Why don’t I make some dinner, and we can just kick back for a while?”

“I am one hundred percent on board with that idea.”

“See you tonight.”

Chapter Seventeen

I forced myself to stay awake the rest of the day so I didn’t screw up my body clock even more than it already was. When Rick texted me to say he was on his way home, I didn’t fuck around. After a quick shower, I grabbed my overnight bag and hurried over to his place.

As he always did, he came out the front door before I was even up the walk. Our eyes met. We both smiled the way we didn’t dare when we saw each other at the office, and barely contained excitement swelled in my chest. When was the last time the sight of someone made me giddy like this? I had no idea, but the sight of him was damn sure doing it now, and I couldn’t get to the top of those steps fast enough.

I’d just cleared the top step before we were in each other’s arms. I didn’t know or care who was in charge right then, who initiated or led that deep, hot kiss. All the domination and submissive games could wait until I wasn’t so tired, and until I’d just spent some time with him. Some time like this—arms around each other, lips and tongues meeting for the first time in too long. My head spun and my heart pounded, and it wasn’t because my heels were precariously close to the edge of the top step.

We finally came up for air, and I whispered, “I needed that.”

“Makes two of us.”

I let my lips graze him again. “Pity we can’t do this at the office. It’d be enough to keep me going for
days
.”

Rick laughed, running his hands down my sides and drawing me closer. “Sorry, I only use this power for good, not evil.”

“Keeping me awake at work is evil?”

“Giving you a reason to spend more time in that office and less time on top of me is definitely evil.”

Yep, I was awake now. “I can’t argue with that logic.”

“Didn’t think so.” He kissed me once more, and then gestured for me to come inside. “I can’t believe how long it’s been since you’ve been here.” He laughed. “Guess I should’ve made sure you could still find the place.”

I followed him inside. “Find it? It hasn’t been that long.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure how badly your job had eaten your brain.”

I chuckled. “And points for not bringing my advanced age into the equation.”

Rick laughed. “You do recall I’m not that far behind you, right?”

“Fair point. And hey, zombie or not, it’s kind of hard to forget where this place is, fortunately. And it’s—good God.” I’d been here a handful of times but never really taken the time to drink in my surroundings because I’d been too preoccupied with their owner. Now, though… “This house really is amazing.”

He laughed quietly as he shut the door behind us. “Thanks.”

I gazed at our surroundings. Though the exterior was distinctly Tudor, the interior wasn’t. The foyer in which we were standing had clearly been designed with Roman architecture in mind, from the meticulously tiled archways to the intricate mosaic on the floor.

“Did you design this?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” He snorted. “If I could design something like this, I wouldn’t be pouring money into Mitchell & Forsythe.”

“Well, we do the technical side of it, but you could have—”

“Trust me. I can’t.” He gazed around. “No, this was designed by an old friend before he retired. I couldn’t settle on one style for the whole thing, so I basically told him what styles I did and didn’t like, and let him go to town on it. Every room is different, but he made sure the styles segue into each other, or at least they have fairly plain hallways in between so nothing clashes.” He paused. “I’d finally give you the tour, but I just put dinner in the oven. In fact, I should probably check on it.”

“Sure.”

We moved into the kitchen, where something savory was cooking. The air was warm and filled with the smells of spices and a touch of garlic.

“You’ve been busy,” I said. “And your kitchen is spotless. What the hell?”

Rick laughed. “That’s because I hate doing dishes, and if I don’t do them as I go, they’ll never get done.”

“Smart.”

He checked on the food—which smelled even more amazing when he opened the oven—and set the timer for another half hour. While the food cooked, he poured us each a glass of wine, and we moved into his living room.

“I’ll give you a tour eventually,” he said. “Promise. But you look like you could stand to relax for a while.”

“I won’t argue with that.” As we sank onto the huge, plush sofa, I said, “So, did you have anything to do with my colleague and me getting booted out of work yesterday?”

He started to speak but hesitated. “Was that out of line?”

I rolled it around in my head for a second. In theory, it was more forward than I liked; I didn’t need someone rescuing me from my own workload. On the other hand, though, it meant I was here with him instead of hunched over a miniature hotel and inhaling glue fumes.

“No, it wasn’t out of line. I’m only your Dom in the bedroom.” I brought my wine to my lips and added, “I’m hardly going to bitch about you getting me a forty-eight-hour vacation.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Okay. Good. I didn’t do much, really. I just sort of put the bug in Mitchell’s ear that it seemed like the two of you were putting in a lot of hours.” He shrugged. “Made some noise about how the human body could only take so much, and fatigue might lead to shoddy workmanship, and…” He waved a hand. “I guess he got the message.”

Laughing, I put my wineglass down and wrapped my arms around him. “Damn. I should’ve hooked up with you sooner.”

“Why?” He smirked. “So I could get you some days off?”

“Well, you know. Every relationship has its perks, right?”

“Though it benefits me too.”

“Still. You got me out of Purgatory.” I kissed his cheek. “I’ll make it worth your while. Promise.”

“You always do.” He touched my face, and his expression turned a little more serious. “And I know you’re exhausted. I don’t expect anything tonight. I just wanted you out of there. And I wanted to see you.”

I hooked a finger under his chin, turned him toward me and kissed his lips. “I wanted to see you too.”

“Can’t promise I’ll be as entertaining as the people you work with. Sounds like you all keep each other on your toes.”

“You could say that. But I’ll take your brand of entertainment over theirs any day.”

We both grinned.

“Seriously, though.” I gestured around the room. “This place versus a room full of tables and computers? Fuck yeah.”

“I kind of prefer it over my office too, believe me.” He sipped his wine. “Especially when I’ve been spending too much time there.” He looked around. “It’s funny. This place is definitely home now, but I never imagined living in a place like this. It’s, um, a bit different from where I started, that’s for sure.”

“Is it?”

Rick nodded. “One of the ways I knew I’d really made it was when I was able to buy my mom a new house so she could move out of the double-wide she raised us in.”

“Oh wow. So you really moved up in the world.”

He nodded. “Nothing motivates a kid to find a good living like spending his childhood hearing about what trailer trash he is.”

“Ouch.”

“It is what it is.” He shrugged. “My mom worked hard, and she bought what she could afford. Anything more than that would’ve meant working three jobs instead of two, and she didn’t want to spend less time with us than she already did. Even then, most of what she made went into just keeping that damned roof over our heads. Kind of ironic when the price of your living space is killing you.”

“That explains why you’re pushing so hard for low-rent housing and office space.”

He nodded. “Exactly. I’ve seen what it’s like for someone to struggle just to make ends meet. I didn’t make a fuckload of money just so I could sit up on a hill and watch people kill themselves for minimum wage and still not be able to make rent.” He paused. “As it is, I think this place is a bit much. I might downsize at some point, but with as busy as I am with the company, it’s a lot of headache and paperwork that I’d just as soon not deal with at the moment.”

“That makes sense. It’s a gorgeous place, though. In your shoes, I’d probably hang on to it.”

“Oh, I love it. But, I mean, the sad thing is, I only use probably three or four rooms. There’s two on the third floor that are completely empty and have been since the place was built. Seems a shame for one person to take up this much space, but…ugh. Moving. Pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, it is. But why have something so big if you’re not going to use it?”

“I’ve asked myself that millions of times.” He scowled at our surroundings. “The house was fine when I built it because there were two of us. My ex liked having a lot of space, and we definitely needed space between us sometimes.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

Rick quirked his lips and then shrugged. “Not at first. He’s one of those guys who needs his space, and I didn’t mind giving it to him. We had other shit that split us up.”

“And he left you with the house.”

“Well, it was in my name. I offered to buy out his half, but…” Rick rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t having that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, he didn’t like the idea of taking money from me. I tried to explain to him that the house was a joint investment, and we could sell it and split the proceeds.” He waved his hand. “He was more interested in making it sound like I was trying to buy his love, or that giving him half the money from our house somehow cheapened our relationship.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Trying to make sense of it was exhausting. So he left and I stayed.”

“I guess that’s…marginally better than battling it out over divvying up every cent and scrap of property?”

Rick shrugged and took a deep swallow of wine. “Probably. I was just ready for the whole thing to be over.” He paused, eyes distant, and then met my gaze. “Like, if you’re going to leave, just leave so I can start getting over it.”

I studied him for a second. “Tough split?”

“For me more than him, yeah.” Rick shook himself and broke eye contact. “We’d been stringing each other along for ages, and I thought we were trying to make it work, but apparently he was just putting in the work so he’d have some security.”

I cocked my head. “I thought you said he didn’t like the idea of being bought.”

“Oh, I think he liked the idea right up until it became clear we weren’t going to make it. Then he was suddenly too noble to even discuss money.” Laughing bitterly, he rolled his eyes. “Anyway. It’s in the past. Thank God.”

I raised my wine. “I know exactly what you mean.”

He clinked his glass against mine. “Been there?”

“Well, not with shitloads of money involved, but I have my share of relationships in my past, and they’re welcome to stay there.”

“Here, here.” He sipped his wine. “Seems like you and your ex-wife are on good terms, though.”

“My first wife, yes. Both of my marriages and divorces were about as different as they could get. With Karen, we just drifted apart. At some point, we realized we didn’t even know each other anymore. When we tried to get to know each other again, we realized we had virtually nothing in common except the kids. So we split up, but we’ve always stayed friends. My second wife, though.” I whistled. “That whole fiasco was a mistake on so many levels.”

“How so?”

I thumbed the stem of my wineglass. “I honestly can’t even tell you what we were thinking. She wanted kids, and I didn’t want more. We…well, we just didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything. Really, the only thing we got right was the sex.”

“Which doesn’t carry a relationship very far.”

“No, it does not. So that went downhill fast, and the divorce got nasty.”

“As they do.”

“As they do.” I absently swirled my wine. “The third time I
almost
got married…” I swallowed.

He slipped his hand into mine. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, it’s…it’s okay.” I watched our hands clasped together. “We had a fifteen-year age gap, which in itself was fine. But there was a generation gap of sorts.” I met Rick’s gaze. “On one side of that gap was me. On the other, a kid who didn’t want to be with a closet case.”

Rick’s eyebrows flicked up, but then he nodded. “I had the same problem with my ex, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Literally everything was fine except for that. He did not like me being closeted, and as he put it, ‘Either you come out of the closet, or I walk out the front door.’”

“That’s more or less the conversation we had. In not so many words.” I picked up the bottle off the coffee table and topped off both our glasses. Then I twisted toward him, pulling my knee up so I could rest my glass on it. “So your ex was…older or younger?”

“Younger. When we split up, he was thirty and I was forty-one.” Rick sighed. “You wouldn’t think eleven years would make that much of a difference, but I guess times are changing pretty fast.”

“Tell me about it. My kids may as well be on a different planet than the one I grew up on.”

“Do they know you’re… Are you bi or gay?”

“Bi. And yes, they do.” I laughed softly. “It’s kind of crazy how it played out, actually. I wasn’t going to tell the kids until they were older because I was afraid they wouldn’t understand, or they’d be ostracized by other kids. But then when the twins were about twelve, my younger daughter started behaving horribly. She acted out every chance she got, she was falling behind in school even though she’s ridiculously smart. Her brother and her older sister were doing fine, and we didn’t think it was the divorce since that had happened a long time ago, but she was just…” I shook my head. “We didn’t know what to do, so Karen took her to a counselor. And one day the counselor said Brooke wanted Karen to join her for an appointment. That there was something she needed to talk about.”

Rick sipped his wine but kept his gaze fixed on me.

I went on. “Brooke explained that she’d been depressed and distracted because she’d figured out she was a lesbian, but was scared because a friend of our older daughter’s had been kicked out of his house for being gay. So she was afraid to tell anyone—especially me—and just started acting out because she was angry all the time.
All
the time.”