"I'm at 7th," I told him. "How soon can you get here? Vega had some shit in Dogwood that we need to discuss."
Zed let out a small, frustrated groan, and I initially thought it was in response to my news. But then I caught the low, seductive sound of a woman's laughter and reassessed.
"Actually, never mind," I snapped, letting my annoyance take control of my tongue for a second. "I'll call if I need help."
"Hade—" His protest cut off as I ended the call.
For some reason my anger had spiked dramatically, so I carefully placed my phone down on the desk and drew a few calming breaths. As a teenager I'd taken a trip to Tibet and studied meditation with monks for a month. I was awful at it, but more and more these days I found myself remembering their lessons in control. Even if it only worked on the surface.
By the time I’d finished my drink—admittedly in just a few mouthfuls—there was a knock at the door, and my heart slammed into my rib cage harder than ever.
"Enter," I called out, already knowing who it would be. The quintessential male stripper song had stopped playing downstairs, and the crowd was already more subdued.
When Jo had said she would send him up when he got off stage, she'd been literal. Lucas stepped into my office still glistening with sweat and wearing nothing but a black towel draped around his hips. I was going to assume he had a thong underneath, too, seeing as my strippers didn't go fully nude. Not front of house, anyway.
"You asked to see me, Hades?" he asked, all innocence.
Dammit. This had been a bad idea. Why had I asked to see him in my office alone, again? Oh yeah, to fire his lying teenage ass.
"Close the door, Lucas," I told him in a curt voice, trying really hard to keep my eyes off his body. Had he gotten more buff since the weekend? My pussy clearly hadn't gotten the message that Lucas was now off-limits because it was throbbing with need just having him so close and so very undressed.
He did as he was told, then sat down in one of the chairs opposite me. He didn't look even the slightest bit worried that he might not walk out of the office alive, and I still wasn't sure if that was total ignorance or the biggest balls in the goddamn world.
"What are you doing here?" I asked before the tension could ramp up any higher. "Do you have some sort of death wish?"
One of his brows tweaked up, and he ran a hand over the back of his neck, swiping sweat away. The motion made his chest and biceps flex, and I clamped my lips tight to stop from drooling.
"I was on the roster for my first shift tonight," he replied, a tiny smile playing at his lush lips. "And no one told me not to show up, so..."
I glowered. He knew damn well he shouldn't have.
"My mistake," I seethed. "Consider yourself fired, Lucas. I don't take kindly to my employees blatantly lying to my face."
He let out a breath, some of that cocky arrogance slipping away. "I didn't lie—" He started to say, then cut himself off when my eyes narrowed further. "Okay, so I did lie a little bit," he amended. "But I had no idea who you were when I said I was twenty-one, and I really needed this job. I know your clubs don't usually hire anyone under the legal drinking age, so I had my ID tweaked..."
I said nothing, just glared, but he didn't flinch away. Not once. Balls of fucking steel.
"Look," he tried again, this time totally dropping the playboy bullshit in favor of what seemed to be sincerity. "I lied to you about my age and my surname, but that's it. Everything else was one hundred percent truth, and can you really blame me? You wouldn't have looked twice if you'd known I was eighteen."
Oh wow. Eighteen. Better than seventeen, I guessed.
"You're right," I murmured. "I'd have thrown your ass out of my bar for using a fake ID and risking my liquor license." He cocked a brow at me, like he was silently calling me out, and I let out an annoyed growl. "Fine, I probably wouldn't have. But you can bet your ass—"
"That you wouldn't have dragged me into the supply closet of a grunge bar and let me fuck you against the door?" he finished my sentence for me. "Yeah, like I said, can you blame me? That was easily the best night of my whole damn life, only to be topped by the next day at your place."
My cheeks warmed at the reminder, and I scrubbed a hand over my face. This had definitely been a bad idea to bring him up to my office. All I could think about was how good he felt sinking into my cunt and the way he whispered my name like a prayer as he fucked me.
"You're a liability, Lucas," I told him, desperately fighting my baser instincts. "You distract me, and that's something I can't afford in my line of business."
Determined to extract myself from a situation that was fast slipping out of my control, I pushed back from my desk and stalked over to the door. Opening it, I turned back to Lucas with a tight jaw.
"Leave now, and I'll pretend this never happened. I'll even put in a good word for you at the Starbucks near Shadow Prep." Okay, that was a bit of a low blow, but my brain was misfiring all over the place.
He stood slowly from the chair, then gave a short, humorless laugh as he shook his head. There were only a couple of steps between him and the doorway, and for a hot second, I thought he was going to pass straight through without another word.
But then he paused, his fingers gripping the edge of the door and his sheer nearness making my skin prickle.
"So, that's it? I'm fired?" his tone was low and thoughtful, and I frowned.
"Yes. Do you need it in writing?" Anxiety was making me snappier than my usual cold, detached self, and my reply made him smirk.
His gaze met mine, his green eyes twinkling with victory. "Good."
He pushed the door, slamming it shut, then slammed his lips against mine. Shock held me immobile, but I really should have seen it coming. I’d said I couldn't fuck him because I was his boss. Then I’d fired him.
It didn't take a high school graduate to add those numbers up.
And yet I didn't immediately push him away. Why? Because holy god, he kissed like the devil, all sinful and intoxicating. Lucas whatever-his-name-was hit my bloodstream like pure cocaine and lit me up like a fucking Christmas tree.
I groaned, kissing him back and letting him crush me against the wall as his towel dropped to the floor. The level of willpower I needed to summon to push him away was staggering, but somehow, I managed it.
Except with that space between us, and his towel on the ground, his little black thong was doing fuck all to hide his massive erection.
My mouth watered and my pussy clenched. I'd officially lost my damn mind because I was already trying to work out the easiest, quickest way to get his dick inside me, considering how tight my damn skirt was.
"Don't push me away, Hayden," he pleaded in a rough whisper, his gaze burning with intensity. "Just give me a chance."
He drifted back closer again, and when I didn't shove him back, his lips dropped to the bend of my neck and his hands clasped my hips. It was a bad idea. It was such a bad idea. But Jo’d had a point earlier... so long as he was legal, age was just a number. And I wasn't exactly a cougar, either. So was it really such a bad idea?
"Goddammit, Lucas," I groaned, sliding my fingers into his hair and gripping it tight as I brought his lips back to mine.