The energy between us crackled, and that strange urge to push her against a wall made my hands twitch.
What was she doing to me? Not that it didn’t excite me, but fuck, when was I last entranced by any woman?
Through gritted teeth she ground out the numbers. I typed up a text and sent it off to make sure. When her phone buzzed and she picked it up, my message was on her screen for us both to see.
+17045552956: Add my number—Carthwright
With reluctance, she added it to her contacts along with my name.
“Was that so difficult?”
“Will that be all, Mr. Carthwright?” she asked in a saccharine-sweet tone.
Each time she pushed back against me, tried to go toe to toe with me, it excited me more and more.
“For now, Miss Pierce.”
I didn’t have many friends that I spent time with. Occasionally I got together with James, but that had dwindled in the last few years since Bailey was born. Before then, we used to have a guys’ night about once a month, but it had been just Jace and me for a long time.
There were others, but they were more casual friends. Jace was my closest friend. If he ever got married, a laughable thought, I was fucked.
When I was sitting at the bar later drinking a beer, I realized something James had said didn’t sit right. Not the words, but what they implied.
Though he was right about one thing—Roe wasn’t a game.
“Are you even paying attention?” Jace said with a wave of his hand in front of me.
“Sorry, I was—”
“Thinking about a girl?” he asked, cutting me off.
“That obvious?” I asked.
He tipped his bottle away from us. “The blonde at the end?”
I shook my head. “Nobody here.”
His brow rose. “Really? What’s with the limp dick lately? I haven’t seen you pick anyone up in… fuck, months, maybe even a year.”
“How would you know?” I asked.
“Because you’re always free on Friday nights for drinks and Sunday for football. You’re such a fucking dating recluse lately.”
He was right. It’d been many months since I’d even been on a date. Longer since I’d fucked anyone. I spent so many hours at work, the most time consuming being Worthington Exchange, which was the largest acquisition in the company’s history, that life outside of work had pretty much stopped.
It’d killed my social life, which was probably why Roe had me so amped up. A fuck-hot woman within arm’s reach with a smart mouth?
I knew I was a goner. I just hadn’t relented yet.
“She… pisses me off,” I ground out. I really didn’t want to talk about her. It was bad enough the woman had me thinking about her outside of the office.
“Why?”
“Because she’s good at her job.”
He narrowed his gaze at me, brow quirked in a “what the fuck” kind of expression. “Explain, because I’m having trouble seeing that as a bad thing.”
“It turns me on and makes all sense fly from my brain. All I want to do is bend her over my desk and bury my cock inside her.”
He took a long pull of his beer. “Man, I haven’t heard you talk about any tail like that since, well, never.”
I slammed my bottle down onto the bar top. “Do you see my problem now?”
“What if she’s interested in you? You know, for more than your dick?”
“She absolutely hates me.” Though I knew we had chemistry and I was pretty certain she was attracted to me, I wasn’t about to let Jace in on that information.
“Are you sure about that? Could be one of those clingy types.”
A vision of Roe all doe eyed and clingy danced in my mind, and I burst out laughing. That wasn’t happening. Ever.
“Not this firecracker. She’s a fucking ticking bomb.”
“Those are the best. Go get her.”
His encouragement in pursuing Roe for sex wasn’t a bad idea. The hate fuck vibes certainly circulated every time we were together.
Still, she was my acting assistant, though I was certain that she did everything in her power to disobey some of the rules I’d set for the smooth running of my office. I was also certain she made it her life’s work to not answer my damn phone, or get me a decent cup of coffee.
What started off as an idea born of anger had me continuing to act like an asshole, but the game we were playing was as fun as it was arousing. And I wasn’t ready to stop.
That Sunday I gathered up a baby bag, loaded Kinsey into the stroller, then headed toward the park. It was only a mile and a half to Lizzie’s house, and while not the quickest way to Midtown, our route moved through Central Park, which was a welcome scenery change over my everyday cityscape.
Kinsey loved looking at the trees, and after about half an hour, we popped out onto Fifty-Ninth Street. I pulled out my phone and found her number before hitting send.
After two rings, the sounds of a toddler screeching hit my ears before her voice came through. “Hey, Roe. As you can hear, Oliver is excited for our play date.”
“Kinsey can’t wait either. She is enamored with Bailey. We’re a block away.”
“Come on up. I let the doorman know you were on your way.”
James and Lizzie lived in a huge apartment, where a single mortgage payment probably equaled about one year of rent for me. Then again, owning a company the size of Donovan Trading and Investment did come with perks, such as money.
We made our way up and knocked on the door. It swung open, and we were greeted by someone who had become one of my closest friends. Her brunette hair was in perfect, loose curls, her blue eyes as bright as her glowing smile. She always reminded me of an angel, until you pissed her off. Lizzie was one of the few friends that had stayed by me and helped me more than I could thank her for when Kinsey had come into my life.
From friend to Mom friend, she’d talked me down from so many cliffs when things became overwhelming those first few months.
“Everything okay?” she asked as she ushered us inside.
“Not really. Got any wine?”
“We might.”
“Where’s James and Bailey?” I asked, noticing the silence.
“One of our friends is having a birthday party for their son.”
“Oh, no. Did I keep you from going?” I asked as I pulled Kinsey from the stroller and set her down on the floor.
Immediately she crawled over to Oliver.
Lizzie waved her hand. “It’s okay, I didn’t really want to go anyway. Plus, it’ll be good for him to have some daddy-daughter time.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop it, and turn your mouth to spilling what’s wrong.”
I blew out a breath. Lizzie had been with James for a decade, so I was pretty sure she knew a lot of his confidants in the company. “What do you know about Thane Carthwright?”
“Thane? Not a lot, honestly. Why?”
“Because I can tell you he is an asshole.” Just thinking about him made my blood boil.
“Really?” she asked in surprise. “He’s always been nice to me. What did he do?”
“He pulled me from my position to be his assistant, all because I spilled coffee on him.”