Submission Specialist(Still a Bad Boy #2)(80)

I realized that last night was the first time I’d felt really good about myself for a long time. All my life, when somebody noticed me at all, I usually saw indifference or disappointment. Last night, I looked up at Jace and saw that I was the center of the universe for a moment. What a feeling.

That fleeting illusion had come at a price though. The way Mr. Kinsley was talking, I might be looking for a new job or moving home to my parents once he had the paperwork in order.

The thought of doing either made my heart sink, the latter far more than the former. If I went home, it would be humble pie for dinner for the rest of my life. I was given a golden opportunity and all I had to show for it now was a sore pussy, and even that would fade with time.

The sound of scraping chairs startled me out of my day-mare and I saw that the meeting had apparently come to a close. Without making eye contact with anybody, I crawled around retrieving my notes for reasons I couldn’t have explained, useless as they were.

As I grabbed one piece, I saw the note “group home from 6 years old” and had a flashback to the momentary crack in his expression when I had asked him about that over dinner. My breath caught in my throat as I felt a ray of hope shining through the clouds.

This was the first thread of a story. This was where he came from. All I had to do was get another meeting with him and I would at least know where to start. I’d already, technically, had two meetings with him, so I was already ahead of anybody else in the journalism world, so I had a better chance than anybody. How hard could it be?

Three hours of telephone hell informed me about how difficult it really was. It started with the tall blonde receptionist stonewalling me and finished with me trying every number I could find for any companies remotely linked with Jace Barlow. I vowed that even if he was the hottest guy I’d ever met, if I got another meeting with him, I’d get my story out of him just to see the look on Lucile’s face and so I wouldn’t have to see the looks on my parents’ faces.

Suddenly, as I listened to terrible hold music in one ear, the background noise of the office changed completely. Rolling like a wave from the direction of the front desk, animated conversations on telephones changed to hushed whispers with whoever was close enough.

The wave swept past me, but I didn’t look up, I didn’t have time for anything except tracking down the most heavily tattooed businessman in the city. My finger was hovering over the button, ready to hang up and dial the next number when my search abruptly ended.

I smelled him before I saw him. Cologne, money, the faint essence of him under it all. I hung up the phone as I spun around in my office chair, and there he was, leaning casually on the wall of my cubical as if he owned the place. Oh. My. Gosh, he smelled good.

Mere minutes ago I’d been vowing to keep it all business if I was ever face to face with him again, but something about Jace Barlow seemed to break my mind.

All at once, it felt like there were invisible ropes tied around each knee, pulling my legs apart. Sore or not, there were parts of my body that absolutely cried out for him.

That wasn’t the only battle waging inside of me though. I wanted to run and hide. That was a more familiar sensation.

Standing right here in front of me as I failed to come up with even a “hello” let alone a comprehensive interview was the first guy I’d had sex with. The previous night. He’d seen me, he’d felt me. I felt exposed all over again, except this time it was in front of the entire office.

I blushed and folded my arms across my chest, trying to make myself small enough to disappear completely. That primal, sexual, part of me that had been so utterly satisfied by Jace last night called me crazy from whatever dark room of my brain it called home.

Jace was taking his time giving me a full body scan and it felt like he had x-ray vision. Maybe it was because out of everybody in the entire world, he was the only one who really knew what I looked like under these clothes.

“Hi Jace… er… Mr. Barl-”

“You can call me Jace, Kendall, it’s fine, remember,” he said, calm as the eye of a hurricane.

“Right. Right. Uh… hi, Jace.”

“Hi. Sorry to drop in unannounced, but I was in the area and-”

“Mr. Barlow!”

Mr. Kinsley was striding across the office wearing his suit jacket for the first time I’d noticed in weeks, buttoning and smoothing as he went. He looked like he might have fallen off his chair when whoever it was had rushed in to tell him the most sought-after interviewee in the city had walked through the doors.

A bodyguard, standing silently behind Jace watched Mr. Kinsley’s approach like a hawk, looking ready to spring into action at the slightest misstep. My boss put on his most disarming smile.