Page 10 of Filthy Liar
“Never.”
“Is that your military training?”
“Sure.”
She giggles.Giggles, which isn’t a sound I’ve ever heard from her before. Ellie laughs, sometimes with us, sometimes at us, and always with the confidence of someone who sees us as the boys we are. This laugh is different. It’s a private laugh, just between us, and it might be an act, it might be sexual, but I don’t care.
I mirror her nonchalance and lean back in my own chair. “Doyouever think about cutting loose?”
“Never,” she whispers, mimicking my word and my voice at the same time.
Ah. A game.
I grin. “Military training?”
“Sure.” The word slides between us like a silk sheet dropping from her body.
Ellie doesn’t have a shred of military training in her body. It’s one of the reasons we hired her. She’s an innocent-but-smart girl from the Midwest. New to D.C. and untainted by the corruption outside these walls.
“If we were to cut loose, what would we do?”
“The two of us?” One of her eyebrows curves high. “That’s an intriguing thought, Mr. Evans.”
I groan. It’s quiet, but we’re all alone and she’s not that far from me. Just on the other side of my desk.
Her lips part, and she crosses her legs the other way again. “Is it okay if I call you that?”
Jesus. “Ellie—” I cut myself off. My dick is rock hard in my pants and my brain is swimming, but I’m not stupid. “We can’t—”
“Of course not.” She smiles lazily. “And so we won’t. This isn’t happening.”
She looks like a very satisfied cat who has caught a canary, and as far as I’m aware, I’m no fucking bird. “Can we speak frankly?”
Her lips twitch. “Is that not what we’ve been doing?”
I stand. I need to pace. I need to think, to be sure of what I say next. Because this is so wrong, so absolutely off-limits unacceptable that if I proposition her, it’ll be like threading a needle. I’ll get one chance to do it perfectly, or it’ll be all fucked up.
I roll my sleeves up as I move past her to the window. The left first, neatly to my elbow. Then the right.
“We’re all alone,” she says from behind me.
I don’t turn around. “I won’t take advantage of you.”
“You aren’t.”
“I’m your boss.”
“I absolve you of that role for the afternoon.”
“Is that what you want?” I turn now, and she’s standing in front of me. “One afternoon?”
A dark shadow passes through her gaze, then she blinks, her dark lashes brushing her cheek. When she looks at me again, it’s gone. “I want a lot of things I can’t have,” she murmurs. “Do you have to be one of them?”
Fuck the rules. I haul her against me and her lips part, a tiny gasp rushing between us before my mouth consumes hers.
She softens immediately in my arms. Her fingers wrap around the back of my neck, crawl up into my hair, and the curvy front of her body somehow finds a perfect fit against the hard angles of mine.
As I kiss her, I back her up. Taste by taste, step by step, until we’re at my desk.
