She stopped short, seeing me shirtless and sipping alcohol as I took her in. She was wearing black heels and a tight black one shoulder dress with a Gucci bag across her body. Compared to her chunky sweaters, I could see her tight body, still full of curves, on display.
My dick jumped awake when my eyes trailed up her legs in a way I wasn’t hiding so well.
“Why are you shirtless?” Her face made a quizzical expression, but her voice sounded seduced, past tense.
“Really on a date, huh?”
Her arms draped across herself, hugging her body, as she felt my eyes taking in every inch.
“Seriously, why am I here? I was on a date. This better be good.”
“I need you to patch me up.” I moseyed to my living room with the black furniture and floor to ceiling windows that gave a view of the ocean.
Falling into the clouds made of cushions, I sunk deeper, feeling the Xanax dance with the whiskey.
Ethanol mixed with the medication only intensified being drunk and slumped from the benzo. It was a stronger trip, but a bitch to live through the next day. I preferred my Xanax untainted.
Slipping her heels off and jiggling the big medical box, she looked unconvinced still. “You look fine to me. What’s this about? We need boundaries if I’m gonna work for you.”
“Vic is all about boundaries—so many boundaries that I swear his soul skipped town on his ass.”
She laughed and sat on the coffee table, waiting for more direction.
“Bullet in my arm.” More whiskey went down cold, as my body heated up against the Xanax.
She laughed again. “Grimm, seriously, why am I—” Showing her my arm, she stopped talking to examine me, then said, “Normal people do not get shot!”
“You think we’re normal?” I could stop the laughter erupting from my throat.
“How did this happen?” She kneeled on the couch next to me, and I could smell her perfume. She smelled like a good time and green apples, and that made me hate whoever she went out with.
All I needed was one sign to give me permission to touch her how I wanted.
“Happy accident. I just need the bullet out, Abigail.”
Her knees touched the side of my leg, and I watched her dress ride up, showing more of her taut thighs. She was too focused on my wound to notice she was giving me a tease.
“You need a doctor… or an emergency room.”
Leaning over into her, I tucked her perfectly curled lock of hair behind her ear. “No. You’re my assistant. I only want your help.” My lips were seconds from hers—so close I thought I could taste her already.
She didn’t pull away, like I expected. “Exactly… your assistant. This is beyond the scope of my job description.”
Letting my head drop back, I looked at the ceiling, officially high as fuck. “I’ll change your contract tomorrow... What do you want? More money?”
“How drunk are you?” She straddled my lap with ease, like it was purely clinical, and her hand rested on my chest. “You’re gonna need to finish that.” She made wide eyes at my glass of whiskey.
“You don’t know what pain is, Abigail.” Downing the rest of my pretty full glass, I placed the glass on the cushion next to me and let my hand smooth up the outside of her thigh.
I had all the signs I needed to act on the heat building between us.
“Hands... Don’t distract me.” She had her phone in between us as she pulled up Google. I peered at it upside down, but I saw it “how to treat a gunshot wound” in the search results.
I didn’t even mean to grow harder, pushing against my pants and into her thigh, but I couldn’t help myself with her on top of me. I assumed she was sitting there to keep me still, which was laughable. I could probably lift her tiny body with one hand…which was all I had to use right now.
“Just do it quickly.”
She didn’t flinch as her delicate fingers picked up the tweezers, and she looked at the hole in my arm. It made me wonder what kind of monsters she already had inside her life that this didn’t scare her.
My grip on her thigh tightened, and my fingers curled around to brush the front of her panties, feeling exactly how wet the delicate material was. She could pretend to be professional all she wanted, but the heat between her legs had other ideas.
I prepared for pain, but all I received was the mercy of black.
I must have passed out, because I woke up on my couch to a note on the coffee table in front of me that read: Skip work today, and go see a damn doctor. Next time just go to the ER.
Abigail was feisty. She didn’t like doing what she was told, even though it was her job, and everything about her made me turned on. That wasn’t something easily done; it was a feat, really—a kind of gold star I didn’t give out.
Looking at my arm, I saw the bandage wrapped around it almost expertly. I was impressed—another thing I didn’t feel often.
My phone said it was almost two in the afternoon. No chance of me going to the office now anyways. Not just for a few hours, I wasn’t Vic.
The only thing enticing me was fleeing from my overbearing mother. She’d never look for me there.
ABIGAIL
The office was buzzing with rumors with the men almost giddy on a Monday morning. It was alarming to see the world’s grumpiest men seeming... happy.
In the small kitchen, I made another cup of coffee just to have something to do, since my boss was clearly taking a sick day. One of the other office girls, her name escaping me, who I rarely work with, snagged a sugar packet to dump into her already cold coffee.
She blurted out, “Guess the boys had a good weekend. I heard it’s basically some freaky cult. Very Eyes Wide Shut, sex parties, and masks.”
“Then why do they call it the Hunt?”
“I heard back in the day they used to sacrifice people after hunting them. Guess even cults modernize after a while.” She bounced off, like she had just reminded me of the date, instead of dropping bombs.
Dumbfounded at the rumor mill, I laughed to myself, heading back to my still bare desk.
After adding random things to my Amazon cart, the office stopped buzzing with office white noise. When I looked up, I realized why: Grimm had arrived. This wasn’t normal by any means. Just since working for the Clave, I could count on one hand how many times he’d come to work.
Must be nice.
Sitting back in the standard swivel chair, in his uncomfortable glory, I thought about my white chair that I had rewarded myself with after being on Vic’s desk for six months from West Elm. The blonde I was replaced with was now enjoying reaping my rewards.
Lucky her.
“Shouldn’t you be at a doctor’s office?” I quipped, while fiddling with the loan piece of office equipment I had: a stapler.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” he retorted, then added, “It’s the only place Mommy Dearest isn’t gonna look for me.”
Every girl knew Mommy problems meant you should run the other direction, but I stood up and followed him into his office anyways. He sat behind his desk and rolled the sleeve of his shirt up enough for me to see that the dressing needed to be changed again.
Stepping around the desk into his space felt personal—not as personal as last night after a few glasses of wine with dinner and then straddling him later—yet still personal.