Not Safe for Work (5 page)

He damn near collapsed into my bed, and immediately, his eyelids drooped. I smiled—if he crashed this hard after sex, he was going to be liquid after he’d been into subspace. Perfect.

I stripped off my own clothes and joined him.

He was sweaty, shaky, his skin still flushed, but he was coming down. His pupils weren’t quite so dilated or distant now.

I smoothed his damp hair. “So were you serious about wanting to try hot wax?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Eventually. I mean, we’re just starting, so we—”

“Of course.” I kissed his forehead. “But when you’re ready, I’m looking forward to it.”

He slowly ran his tongue across his lips. “You’ve done it before?”

I nodded. “Enough to know what I’m doing, yes.”

“Have you had it done to you?”

“Of course. There’s nothing I’ve done to a sub that I haven’t experienced myself.”

“Really? I didn’t think you were a switch.”

“I’m not. But I have a friend down at the local dungeon who I trust enough to try things out on me. He knows damn well I’m not a sub, and I’m just doing it to understand what it feels like.”

“The local—” His eyebrows flicked up. “You go to those?”

“Sometimes. You?”

Rick shook his head. “Never been to one.”

“Really? They’re a lot of fun. I mean, if you don’t mind being in a room full of other people.”

“That’s the part I’m not sure about.” He met my eyes. “Is it always out in the open?”

“Not at all. There are private rooms and open areas. Sometimes it’s fun to watch or be watched, and sometimes you just want to focus on what you’re doing.”

“So why go to the club?”

“Well, you might want to find someone new to play with, or share a submissive with someone.” I shrugged. “Just depends on what you’re into.” I tipped his chin up and kissed him. “And no, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

Some tension left his shoulders. “Okay. Good. I mean, I might. Someday. But—”

I kissed him again. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve just met—well, I mean, in this context—and we’re still figuring each other out. That kind of thing doesn’t even need to cross our minds right now.”

“Fair enough. Admittedly, I
have
always been curious about it, but let’s see how things go when it’s just the two of us first.”

“Of course.” I caressed his cheek. “And for the record, so far I like how things are going when it’s just the two of us.”

He smiled and pressed against my hand. “Me too.” Sobering a bit, he met my gaze. “It’s a shame we won’t have more time. We’ll have to play the workweeks by ear—I work some long hours.”

I scowled. “Yeah, me too.”

“Really?”

“Sometimes. Right now, it’s fairly quiet, but that can change on a dime.”

“Duly noted.” Rick grinned. “Well, that’s why God invented the weekend.”

“Didn’t Henry Ford invent the weekend?”

“Eh, close enough. Either way.”

“Good point.” I kissed him gently. “Bottom line, as long as the slave drivers aren’t keeping me on overtime, my weekends are all yours.”

“What a coincidence, because on the weekends,
I’m
all yours.”

Oh fuck. This was going to be
awesome
.

Chapter Seven

I’d had sex with Rick Pierce.

Oh my God.

All weekend, he’d been Rick—amazing kisser, eager submissive who loved to be teased and fucked. I’d been tempted to get into some heavier kink, but I’d held off. I wanted to make sure we really were that comfortable with each other, and that it hadn’t just been the heat of the moment making us want to push the envelope. Later, once we’d done the groundwork, we could break out the toys and see how things went.

I was pretty sure that would come sooner rather than later. What had happened between us definitely wasn’t just the heat of the moment. I knew I wanted Rick, and I couldn’t wait to see him after work tonight. But first, I had to see him
at
work.

Shiiit
.

As I drank my coffee on the way to the office, hours after that long kiss good night, he’d become
Rick Pierce
again in my mind. The CEO of our biggest client ever. The man with Mitchell & Forsythe wrapped around his finger.

What would happen when he walked into the office again? His company had its own offices elsewhere, but he’d been working so closely with the architects on this enormous project, he’d become a regular fixture around our building. He’d been distracting as hell from the beginning. Seeing him on the app had fucked with my brain.

Now that I’d seen him…

I shivered.

Of course I trusted him to keep this on the down-low, and I sure as hell wouldn’t say anything. Still, during my twenty-five-minute commute, I checked my rearview three times to make sure I didn’t have “I handcuffed Rick Pierce and fucked his mouth” tattooed across my forehead. I was irrationally certain that the second I walked into the building, people would look at me and
know
.

The powers that be would have my head on a pike if they knew I’d even entertained impure thoughts about Rick. They couldn’t outright fire me for getting involved with him, but they could find another reason to direct me to the unemployment line. Maybe they’d reconsidered their stance on modeling and decided to go with 3D printing or CGI instead of continuing to pay me to painstakingly build them by hand. Budget cuts could fall from the sky and kill my job, along with those of the other builders and drafters who I supervised.

My blood ran cold. Fuck. My crew.

It occurred to me that my job wasn’t the only one on the line these days. If the firm found out I was sleeping with Rick, and decided to replace me with the high-tech modeling techniques that Teagan and I had been afraid of for the last few years, everyone in the department would likely be downsized. Drafters were necessary, but they’d be absorbed by another department, and that department would quickly phase them out in favor of some recent graduates who’d do the same job for half the money.

As I headed upstairs from the parking garage, still nursing my coffee, it occurred to me that I was probably overreacting—if anyone got fired over this, it would be me and only me—but the thought of my crew did stick in my head. If there existed anyone who’d be able to look at me and
know
, it was them. When it came to sniffing out dirt and gossip, the CIA had nothing on the people I worked with day in and day out. And they were unavoidable because we shared a communal workspace.

At a quarter to eight, I braced for the worst and strolled into the office, such as it was. We had commandeered an unused conference room a few years ago. It was huge, with loads of natural light pouring in through the windows, so it was perfect. The drafters worked on their computers while Teagan and I each had a desk and a large table for building our models.

In spite of the fact that we were drawing and modeling multimillion-dollar buildings for multibillion-dollar companies, and an oversight on any of our parts could result in costly problems at job sites or lost contracts for the firm, we may as well have been a few junior high kids hanging out in the art room after school. We took our jobs seriously, but the same couldn’t be said for anything else. Pretty much everything that was said in this room would be considered NSFW—Not Safe For Work—in any other office.

Only the closed door—which Cal had marked “NSFW Zone”—and our blasting music kept the rest of the office from hearing what went on in here, which was probably just as well. Otherwise, every last one of us except maybe Silent Dave would have been summarily marched down to HR, a journey brought to you by the words “sexual” and “harassment”. We were shameless, and nothing was out of bounds. In a normal work environment, Cal wouldn’t be able to randomly recite already offensive rap lyrics, which he’d carefully modified to be even
more
offensive. Lengthy discussions wouldn’t be had about whether a guy should wait until the second or third date to broach the subject of anal sex. Teagan would quietly excuse herself to the ladies’ room
without
the announcement that her nipple ring had snagged on the lace of her bra again.

It was the perfect work environment for me. Probably not something I’d ever find anywhere else, and I loved it, but for all the same reasons I loved it, I was nervous about coming into it that particular Monday morning. If any member of my crew had even the most minute reason to suspect what—or who—had gone down over the weekend, I’d never hear the end of it. And these fuckers could read me like a book sometimes.

But it couldn’t be avoided, so I steeled myself, walked past the “NSFW Zone” sign and into the lion’s den.

At first glance, all was normal. As normal as it ever was, anyway. Silent Dave was insulated from the rest of the world by his massive noise-cancelling headphones. The other drafters—Cal, Scott and Bianca—stared at computer screens and clicked mice with music thumping in the background. Hunched over one of the modeling tables, Teagan snapped her gum to annoy Cal. Across the room, Scott crunched loudly on chips to annoy Bianca. Yep, business as usual.

The current CD was one of Scott’s many KMFDM albums. I wasn’t usually a fan of industrial rock, but today, I fully intended to let myself get lost in it, if only to drown out the rest of the world. There was nothing quite like a screaming guitar, an angry singer and some ear-shattering percussion to give me a temporary ticket to elsewhere.

I should’ve known that would be too much to ask, though. I’d barely set my coffee cup on my desk before Cal called out, “Hey, Gramps! How was your weekend?”

Funny you should ask…

“Oh, you know.” I started shrugging off my jacket. “Just the usual boring shit at the old folks’ home.”

“Another weekend without falling and breaking your hip,” Teagan said. “Can’t complain about that, right?”

“Ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes and hung my jacket on the back of my chair. “You know, I’m not
that
old.” I eased into the chair at my desk, pretending not to notice the residual soreness in my back and hips.

Scott clicked his tongue. “McNeill, we’ve talked about this. You’re over the hill with a few years’ practice. Therefore, you’re old. Deal with it.”

“Don’t make me beat you with my cane, fucking whippersnapper.”

“You’d have to catch me first.”

“I could probably outrun you any day of the week.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but I can run faster scared than you can mad.”

I laughed and shook my head. Mercifully, they didn’t try to pry my weekend out of me. Of course they had no reason to suspect I’d been with anyone specific, so I was just being paranoid for no reason.

No one knows. No one will know. Get a grip and get to work.

Once I’d caught up on my e-mail, I moved to the table where I worked on models. The one I had in progress right now was a relatively simple one. A basic 3D representation of one of three luxury hotels Rick was building on a piece of prime oceanfront property. Between distraction and fatigue, I couldn’t even focus on that. The pieces that needed to be put into place were already cut, painted and piled neatly at the edge of the platform, and despite the drawing sitting
right there
in front of me, hell if I could remember what I’d intended to do with them.

My brain was fucking toast. It usually took me a few minutes to get back in the groove after a few hours or days away from a model, but this time, I could barely remember which end of the X-ACTO knife to hold.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The weekend had its own dot on my timeline now. Everything existed as either before or after. The model in front of me was from before, and it was in no hurry to cross the divide into after. Concentration wasn’t going to come easy today, and no amount of coffee was going to fix that.

Christ, McNeill. Get it together.

Like that would happen any time soon. Especially not with a Horizon Developing meeting coming up this afternoon. God help me.

It wasn’t like a one-night stand whose awkwardness could be euthanized by the purr of a taxi’s engine. We still had to work together—sort of—and we’d still slept together. This wasn’t over, which was good. And bad. And really good. And kind of bad. We’d shown our kinky sides. Rick wanted to be bound, gagged, fucked, tormented. Not just once, but over and over, and I couldn’t wait to—

“Hey, who let the zombie in?” Teagan’s voice made me jump. Raising a triple-pierced eyebrow, she eyed me over the half-constructed roof of a proposed shopping center. “You’re awfully quiet today.”

“What’d you do, McNeill?” Cal smirked. “Get laid or something?”

“Yes, Cal,” I said with mock exasperation. “Your mom wouldn’t leave me alone, so I finally broke down and—”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Come on, fess up,” Teagan said.

I flipped her the bird, and she snickered. I knew that sound—
I’ll get the truth out of you sooner or later.

“Well, now that you’re back from the Twilight Zone,” Scott said, “we need you to clear something up for us.”

“Does it involve Calvin’s mom and her baby-oil fetish?”

“Shut
up
, McNeill,” came the growl from behind Cal’s computer.

Scott laughed. “I sure as hell hope not.”

“Okay, so what’s it about?” I asked.

Teagan stood up from leaning over her model and gingerly rubbed her lower back. “Cal and Bianca are convinced the G-spot is just a myth.”

I blinked. “Seriously?”

“I think it’s like the emperor’s new clothes.” Bianca glanced up from whatever drawing she was working on. “Everyone knows it doesn’t exist, but no one wants to be the first to admit it.”

“And I think,” Teagan said, “that Bianca’s boyfriend needs a lesson or two in pleasing a woman.”

Bianca snorted. “Hardly. He does just fine, thank you.”

“Not if he hasn’t found your damned G-spot, he hasn’t,” I said.

“What?” Cal scoffed. “You buy into that whole thing too?”

“Of course I do.” I moved back to my desk, since I wasn’t getting anywhere on my model.

Bianca eyed me skeptically. “And you’ve probably seen the Loch Ness Monster too, haven’t you?”

“No, but I’ve seen what happens when I touch a woman’s G-spot.”

Cal’s head rose above his monitor like a curious prairie dog. “It makes that much of a difference?”

“Yes, you moron.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re really letting me down here, Cal, if you haven’t found a woman’s G-spot.”

“But I read a study not too long ago that said it didn’t exist,” Bianca said.

Teagan laughed. “Translation—the scientists who wrote the study couldn’t find it. Much like Calvin and your poor excuse for a boyfriend.”

“There’s something there, that’s all I know,” I said. “Call it a G-spot, call it whatever you want. There’s something there that means the difference between peeling a woman off the ceiling and sending her into orbit.”
And then there’s the male G-spot…
The image of Rick coming apart while I’d fucked him just right sent a pleasant shudder through me.

Teagan cleared her throat. I glanced at her, and her eyebrow arched.
I’m watching you. What aren’t you telling us?

I shifted my gaze back to my screen.

“Well, I’d say it’s settled,” Scott said. “Even the old guy can find it. Therefore, the G-spot is real. I
told
you guys.”

“Hmm.” Bianca glared at her computer screen for a moment. Then her eyes flicked up to meet mine. “So how do I get my boyfriend to find it?”

Teagan snickered. “Sweetie, Tim can’t even find his wallet or keys half the time without your help. I think you may have to find it and then direct him to it.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Oh, come on, he’s—”

“Bianca,” I said. “Tim’s a great guy and all, but come on. He literally couldn’t find his car in the middle of a deserted parking lot in broad fucking daylight.”

“Ha, I remember that.” Teagan barely suppressed her laughter. “And let’s not forget about the—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Bianca muttered.

“So, McNeill,” Scott said, still clicking away at his mouse as he spoke. “You find anybody’s G-spot this weekend?”

Teagan eyed me, raising that pierced eyebrow again. My blood turned cold, but before I could panic, Cal groaned, reminding me who Scott was actually referring to.

I chuckled. “Are you kidding? Found it the very first time.”

“Shut up,” Cal growled. “Both of you.”

“Really?” Scott said. “Wasn’t hard to find?”

“Not in the least.”

“McNeill, Harper, I’m going—”

“And let me tell you,” I said, “I have
never
known a woman who was so prone to female ejac—”

A tape dispenser flew past my head and knocked a few books off the shelf behind me. I put up my hands and met Cal’s glare with a poor attempt at an innocent look. “What?”

“I mean it, McNeill. Shut.
Up
.”

I laughed and went back to checking my e-mail. A benign group message from Rick made my blood pressure jump, but I played it cool and didn’t let on to the people around me. Not that they would have picked up on it, especially not while Scott was explaining the particulars and mysteries of female ejaculation to Bianca, punctuating his dissertation with references to me fucking Cal’s mom. Cal groaned and held his ears.