Chapter 1
Jason
The office is dark, and I’m all alone, but I prefer it this way. It’s when I get my best work done. I’m the main tech guy for an elite security company so I spend a lot of my time downloading, upgrading and coding. Which means I have access to everyone’s computers.
I’m currently sitting at the main reception desk and I’ve had to raise the chair to the highest setting because Sam—she’s our receptionist—is pocket-sized. Well, in height. In every way that counts, she’s full and lush and so fucking sexy I have a hard time thinking straight when we’re in the same room.
The first week she was here, I couldn’t be around her at all because I had a constant hard-on. The number of times I had to lock myself in one of the bathrooms to jerk off was embarrassing. Like I was a goddamn teenage virgin. I haven’t been a virgin in a long damn time. I might not have the same game as a lot of the ex-military dudes I work with. But plenty of pretty girls like nerds.
Just not Sam. Sam, who liked everyone, who joked and teased and flirted with every guy who walked through the front doors, clammed up and went silent whenever I was around.
Because that was just my fucking luck.
It’s already distracting enough sitting here in her chair, surrounded by her intoxicating scent and all of her personal things. The picture of her family, the stack of weird stuffed toys. They’re shaped like beans, but I think they’re supposed to be characters from Star Wars. Tsum-Tsums I think they’re called. For someone as pretty and decidedly not nerdy as she is, she sure has a thing for Star Wars. She even has tiny Kylo Ren and Rey figurines. Don’t even get me started on all her colored pens. The woman is obsessed with pens of varying colors.
I push my glasses up my nose and focus on my task.
I login and move through the screens to get where I need to go, but something grabs my attention. I double-click the icon on the file labeled “forbidden.”
I scan through the first several pages until I realize what I’m reading. This is a story of some sort and I can only assume part of Sam’s secret fantasies.
The rain pours down around us, but I can’t feel the cold or the dampness. All I feel is the intense arousal that flows through me whenever he’s close to me. He crowds into me, pressing my back to the bricked wall behind me.
“So you have any idea how much I want you?” his voice is low and growly.
My core tightens as his deep blue eyes search my face.
“Fuck, Sidney, I’m hard all the time around you.” His finger drags along the edge of my low-cut sweater. “You wear things like this to tease me, don’t you, baby?”
“I can stop if it bothers you,” I say. I slide my hands up his hard chest. The rain is pure background at this point and my lips are dying for him to kiss them. My breasts ache for his hands.
His hand slides along my neck to cup the back of my head, then he’s kissing me. Long and deep and hard. His tongue is magic as it spears into my mouth and slides against my own. I know I’m whimpering. I know I’m rubbing against him like a cat in heat, but I don’t even care. I’ve wanted him for so long and finally—FINALLY—his mouth is on mine.
I look away from the document and adjust my pants which are noticeably tighter than they were before. I shouldn’t be reading this. It’s her own private intellectual property.
I’ve heard her talk about the fact that she’s a writer, but I never knew what kind of writing she did.
My impression of Sam has always been that she’s a good girl. She doesn’t dress provocatively, she’s friendly to everyone, and she’s hilarious. This bit that I read though suggests there might be more going on than I expected.
I know Sam is too good for me. I’m a reformed convicted hacker, and I’m not gentle in the bedroom. I’m not a romantic guy. I’m not a relationship guy. I’m the stereotypical geeky loner who stays home with his laptop and video games. When I get the urge, I find a willing woman and we’re one and done. She knows what she’s signing up for.
But Samantha, she’s a forever kind of girl and I have zero things to offer a woman like that. Doesn’t make me not want her though. Doesn’t make me not go home and think of her rocking curves when I’m in bed alone.
I’m not even a good guy. Case in point, I’m violating her privacy by reading this. Even acknowledging that, I don’t close the document, I read the whole damn thing.
And a couple days later when I rescue her on the side of the road when her car breaks down…yeah, any good guy could do that without kissing her. That is not how I handled it.
Chapter 2
Samantha
I’m shutting down my computer for the day and getting ready to leave the office when the front door opens. The owner comes in, tall and broad and ridiculously handsome—as all the men who work here are. He walks with a slight limp because he has a prosthetic leg from the knee down.
“Hey bossman, I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”
It’s then that I see the red-headed bombshell behind him.
He smiles widely at me and it’s not that Cade isn’t a smiler, but he’s not really a smiler. But that grin is big and effortless and one hundred percent authentic.
He grabs the woman and pulls her close to him. “I wanted to show Summer the offices and introduce her to everyone.” He kisses the woman’s cheek. “Sugar, this is Sam, she keeps us all in line and makes sure everything runs smoothly.”
I stand and walk around the desk to shake the woman’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Summer, was it?”
“Yes, it’s Summer. And the pleasure is all mine.” She glances around the open space that acts as a lobby for Windsor Securities.
“If you’re on your way out, I don’t want to keep you. Just wanted to show off my girl,” Cade says.
“I didn’t realize you’d been seeing anyone,” I say.
“It’s new,” Summer says at the exact same time as Cade says, “it’s forever.”
Interesting. “Oh hey, how was your brother’s wedding?”
The couple in front of me crack up and I know I’m missing the joke.
“It’s a story for another day.”
“Sounds like it.” I watch from my desk at reception as Cade shows Summer around making introductions.
I feel a spike of longing as I watch them interact, not because I have a crush on Cade or anything like that, but they are so obviously crazy about one another. I can’t imagine they’ve been together long—because surely he would have mentioned a girl before now. Plus, his entire demeanor is different.
Still, this is the stuff of romance novels. It’s the kind of love I write about. The kind of love I dream about for myself—when I let myself dream about that kind of thing.
Of their own volition, my eyes scan the bull pen of desks to land on the familiar chiseled jaw and tousled brown hair of Jason Murphey.
He’s standing by his desk, shaking hands with Summer. Those sex-god, pouty lips of his tugging into a rare genuine smile as he chats with her.