Page 47

“Shrew,” I muttered at her very straight retreating back.

“Wastrel,” she shot back without slowing down.

That did it. It may as well have been an invitation.

I moved to follow her, I wasn’t done giving her a piece of my mind, and stating my case, but two steps in I remembered why it was a bad idea to chase after a delectable virgin while sporting a relentless erection that may as well have had her name on it.

God, what was I doing? She was the best assistant I’d ever had, and more than that, much more, she was my friend. I liked having her around. I enjoyed the hell out of it, in fact. She was, quite simply, the most fun I could ever remember having in my life, and that was saying a lot. Fun had been a close friend of mine for some time.

As far as I was concerned, she and I were a permanent arrangement that never needed to stop. In fact what I needed was to maintain it. I wanted to keep her around for good. This had nothing to do with that.

But I couldn’t fuck her? That seemed like a strong stance to take.

A little extreme, I decided.

This was about two different needs altogether, and the one didn’t have to have anything to do with the other.

But she was waiting. For love, or some nonsense that didn’t matter, because whatever it was, it wasn’t me.

But if she wasn’t a virgin, some evil voice in my head piped in, what would a little consensual sex hurt?

Or hell, something else. A dozen satisfying activities came instantly to mind that would leave her physically intact, more or less. Did she care about what kind of a virgin she was?

It was worth asking, I decided.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I WAITED A few hours before I approached her in her office.

She was dressed for work now, in possibly the worst outfit I’d ever seen. No one ever would have guessed about her take no prisoners body in that getup. Ignorance is bliss.

She was pulling her OCD act, lining everything up just so on her desk, long boxy skirt showing nothing but her ankles, with horrible tan pantyhose, and horrid flat, orthopedic looking loafers.

I moved behind her quietly.

I ran my nose along her jaw, breathing her in. “We’re good, right? You’re not upset with me?”

“Are you demented?”

“A little bit, sure. Will you answer me, though?”

“We’re fine,” she said without looking at me. “I’ve organized your entire chaotic system,” she said in that matter of fact way of hers. “I’m fixing your messes all the time, cleaning up after all of these other assistants you’ve had, who, as far as I could tell, did nothing but dress sexy and make thirsty TikToks all day.”

She wasn’t wrong. It was why I’d hired them then, and why I’d hired her, an actual professional, now. But that plan was obviously backfiring on me in a hurry. “Things are fine,” she continued, “if you quit trying to fuck it all up, Thorn.”

“Oh ho, it’s Thorn now, huh?”

She just kept organizing, not looking up.

“I need you to take some notes for me out at the pool,” I told her, not bothering to explain the subject change. “Go put on a swimsuit.”

She looked up and started shaking her head.

I shook mine back. “I know what you’re going to say. Some bullshit about doing other work or wearing that atrocity of an outfit to the pool. Save it. Your job is to accommodate me. Go change into a swimsuit and get your adorable little ass outside.”

She looked mad enough to spit as she replied, “All right,” blandly.

I rubbed my hands together, smiling and soaking up her delicious reaction.