Yeah, it all flew out the window.
Because there was no mistaking the look he was giving me right then.
Hunger.
For me.
ELEVEN
Rush
Work was proving the exact distraction I needed.
I'd worked with King a lot over the years, so I guess I had walked in on my first official day as a full-time employee a little more cocky than I should have.
As it turned out, subbing in when Kingston needed a hand was a completely different beast than getting in on the daily nitty-gritty grunt work.
The fucking paperwork.
I woke up during a nightmare I was having about being under a paperwork avalanche.
That said, all the busy work kept my mind occupied. Which was exactly what I needed.
Because it was doing far too much fucking wandering. And in one specific direction.
Back to her.
And once it got going, it was hard to turn shit back around.
So it was better to keep my days busy. After work, I dragged my ass to the gym and let Shane Mallick go all drill sergeant on me for an hour or two until I was too exhausted to do anything but go home, shower, eat, and drop into bed.
Bed was the problem, though, of course.
Body tired, mind quiet, there was finally a chance for thoughts to weasel their way in. Those thoughts, overwhelmingly, traveled back to the office, to a familiar face, and an even more familiar voice.
I spent more time than I cared to admit mixing the woman on the phone with the woman in the woods, creating a whole picture. One I liked more than I should have, more than I wanted to.
Especially given the situation.
King was right. The anger dulled. But that didn't mean it was any less fucked of a situation either.
I tried to tell myself I would stop thinking about it, that a little space would help a lot, that, eventually, she would stop dominating my thoughts.
Invariably, though, I woke up hard and frustrated with the sound of her orgasm in my ear, made even more intense now that I had a face and body to put to the sound, an actual woman rather than a voice through a phone.
I thought I was making some progress.
Then there she was.
Looking like a whole goddamn meal standing in the waiting area of the office.
She'd always been cute. Bookish and sweet, body mostly obscured in loose-fitting work clothes and oversized sweaters.
It was impossible to know what she would look like in something form-fitting, something that clung in all the right places, with her hair down and wavy, with her eyes made up to pop more.
She looked sexy as fuck.
And, what's more, she seemed confident.
At least at first before it started to fade, leaving her shifting her feet, a flush creeping over her cheekbones.
It probably didn't help that I was staring at her like a creep at a bar catching a woman separated from her clique.
"Fee, ah, she wanted a girl's night," she told me, eyes darting to the floor. "Hunter was spending time with his brothers. And, ah, her girls are pretty much grown. She was bored. We ordered Chinese and she brought over half her closet."
"If you think she could bring half her closet over without a moving truck, you are sorely mistaken," I teased, getting her head to lift again, her lips curving up. "I've never met someone with as many clothes as she has. And, I swear, the woman doesn't own a pair of sweats. She's always dressed up."
"She told me if her shoes fit me, I had to wear them," she told me, grimacing down at her feet.
"They hurting?" I asked, giving her a smirk.
"Only when I'm breathing," she said, getting a chuckle out of me.
"My sister would call those sit-down-shoes," I told her, waving over toward the seating area, moving in that direction as well, but not sitting down. It was a close space. I didn't want to get too tempted. As it was, she was making it hard to ignore the rekindled desire moving through me. "She didn't tell you that she was bringing you here, huh?" I asked, sensing the tension sparking off of her.
"No. She just said we were going out. I thought to a bar or something. Because she was, um, pressing me about dating earlier. I just...assumed."
"Yeah, you kinda can't assume shit with Fee. She's unpredictable."
"I'm starting to see that," Katie admitted, but there was a softness in her eyes at the admission.
"Do you want to leave?" I asked, knowing from Dusty—Ryan Mallick's wife—that having an escape clause could help with anxiety levels.
"I, ah. Yes. But no," she immediately rushed to add. "I, uhm, I wanted a chance to say I'm sorry," she said, eyes squeezing shut as she took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry. I just... I planned to stop. You know... calling. I was working on stopping doing that. And then, I guess, I just figured no one ever had to figure it out. And I know that isn't right. Like, if it was just a random person on the phone," she went on, tapping her foot, "I guess it wouldn't matter. But because you weren't a random person. That wasn't right. And I didn't mean to, I don't know, play you. Or mess with you. Or make you feel stupid or betrayed. I truly didn't mean for any of that to happen. I just... I just didn't think anyone would ever know. I thought it was going to be my dirty little secret. And I'm so sorry."
Christ.
She looked like she was crumbling right in front of me. All that confidence that had had her standing straighter when she'd walked in was gone, leaving her mumbling and glassy-eyed.
"Okay," I said, releasing my breath as I moved across from her in the seating area, my knees practically brushing hers. "It's alright, Katie," I told her, watching as she vigorously shook her head. "It is," I repeated. "I overreacted at the office. I was surprised. And shit got confusing. I was harsher than I normally am. That wasn't fair. Can I ask you something?"
"After all this, I think you have a right to any answers you want," she said, still avoiding eye-contact.
"Who was that?"
"Who was what?"
"On the phone at work that day. Who was that?"
"Oh, ah, uhm, that was my ex-husband.
Ex-husband?
How did I not know she was married?
I guess because she never talked about herself unless she was prompted to. And I had, apparently, been selfish in all of the conversations we'd had over the years.
"You were married?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Up until two years ago."
"And he was still calling you at work?"
To that, she let out her breath on a snort. "He wanted money," she admitted, glancing up at me, a mix of exasperation and anger on her face. "I didn't realize until after the divorce that he had been using me in a lot of ways. And, apparently, hitting on Fee. I learned that tonight. He was making a fool of me in every way he could think of."
"His shit isn't on you," I objected.
"No," she agreed. "But it was on me to stay with him as long as I did when I was miserable."
"Why did you?" I asked. If she was talking, I was going to keep her talking. There were so many things I didn't know about her, that I found I wanted to know. For better or worse. Whether it made sense or not.