Though he always knew where she was and what she was doing, he’d hardly spoken to her all evening. She seemed to be doing fine on her own, and honestly, he didn’t trust himself in close proximity. This was the company party, and the boss couldn’t disappear upstairs with the party’s most noticeable guest for an hour without raising eyebrows. Still, he looked at his watch every few minutes, growing increasingly agitated with the never-ending party. By the time Carl and Britney and Diana started making moves toward departing, his skin was prickling. When Amy announced her intention to leave, too, he practically threw her coat at her.
His vice-president caught the coat and inclined her head slightly toward Cassie, who was on the other side of the room. “This is a very interesting development.”
“There is no development.”
“Oh, so maybe we should just stay a little longer then?” She teasingly handed her coat back to him. “Hang on, honey,” she called after her boyfriend Mason, who was already pulling on his boots in the entryway.
Jack’s answer was to lift her coat, holding up the sleeves for her to slip into.
“So chivalrous.”
“You know me.”
She kissed him on the cheek, and maybe it was the holiday, or maybe it was three glasses of Pinot, but he suddenly felt a rush of gratitude for the loyal lieutenant who knew him better than he might want to be known.
“She’s amazing,” Amy whispered.
Damn. If Amy was invested, he was in trouble. He should have listened to Cassie when she tried to worm her way out of the party. In a few short hours, she’d managed to charm everyone, which meant they were all going to be disappointed when they came back to work in January to the news of their breakup.
This is what he got from thinking he could pretend to be a normal person.
This is what relationships did. They messed up everything around you, causing you to lose sight of what was important.
But before he could follow that line of thought any further, the she-devil in the red dress appeared at his side. She seemed to think she was joining the exodus train.
“Stay,” he whisper-commanded, pointing back toward the kitchen. Because the damage was done, and hell if he wasn’t going to make the most of it. And also because if he didn’t touch her soon he would detonate. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something. But then she closed it and followed his silent instruction, retreating to the kitchen. He had to stop himself from fist-pumping in victory.
A few minutes later, he’d bundled Dax and the analysts out the door. He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if a literal weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He usually enjoyed the Christmas party despite his protestations to the contrary. But all the gingerbread in the world couldn’t make him stop wishing for a speedy end to this year’s.
“Hey,” came a low, throaty voice. She strolled toward him, and if there was anything hotter than those fuck-me shoes of hers, it was Cassie walking across his living room in her stocking feet. She had a hole in the big toe on one side of her stockings, and an emerald-green-painted toe stuck out. He wanted to bite it.
“Hey,” she said again as she took a step closer than could be considered strictly friendly. “You’re standing under the mistletoe.” He looked up reflexively, though of course he shouldn’t have been surprised to see the damn plant he’d hung there himself under Britney’s instructions.
“Yeah?” he countered. “What are you going to do about it?”
But she was already there, her lips on his before the final syllable was out. It was like she was pouring water on flames and simultaneously dousing them with oil, so complete were the contradictory sensations of relief and agitation. They kissed and kissed, tongues engaged in a battle for control as surely as all their races up stairs had been. He slid into her mouth only to find her pushing back, breaking her way into his. Each suck, every nip, was met in kind, and it ratcheted his desire up and up and up until he thought they might both catch fire.
He put hands all over the red dress, shaping her curves beneath it, sliding it up her thighs and letting his hands brush her bare hips. Breaking the seal of their lips, he looked down. “Christ,” he bit out. Her hips were bare because she was wearing old-fashioned thigh-high stockings, lace-topped and held up by garters. She was also not wearing any panties, her dark curls practically begging for his mouth. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Visible panty line,” she said, a hitch in her breath as his hands slid down her creamy thighs. “The mark of a bumpkin. To be avoided at all costs. So say the ballerina girls at Edward’s.”