I know she saw the necklace. Not my most fashionable piece, but I needed her to know that she had me on my knees for her and I’d come crawling if all she did was ask. I wasn’t delusional, though; I knew this wasn’t anything more than using each other, but God, did I ever want her to use me. The problem I was having was that I wanted her toonlyuse me. And I couldn’t seem to bring myself to entertain the attention of anyone else.
I was leaning against the wall behind the bar near the bathrooms and waiting patiently for my little vixen to return with my gift in place. To say I was eager to play with her was an understatement, and though I was confident it would be her up on that stage accepting the promotion, I couldn’t wait to havemy fun with her after. I couldn’t sit through another round of speeches and announcements, waiting for that playful gleam in her eye to appear, the way her smile lights up her entire face.
“There, you happy?” Rosie’s beautiful face scowls playfully up at me as she rounds the corner from the bathroom door, her arms crossed over her chest, creating a shelf for those incredible tits.
“Extremely.” I bop a finger on her nose and she swats me away.
“I know I don’t need to remind you, hotshot, that we are in a venue full of people we work with.” Her words are a hissed whisper as she continues to look over her shoulder, like someone is going to round the corner and know in an instant that she is wearing a vibrator in her panties.
“Are you already giving in, Rosebud?” I give her a devilish grin and the little brat, I kid you not, stomps her foot like a petulant child. I laugh, but ignore her little tantrum. “Let’s test it out, shall we?” Her arms remain crossed as she narrows her eyes at me, her hip popped and that fucking split going all the way to her hip,showing off her incredibly delicious thighs.
I pull my phone from my pocket and open the app linked to the toy and drag a thumb across the screen for a low vibration. The only signs that things are working just as I’d hoped, are the parting of Rosie’s lips, the quick intake of breath, and the way she stumbles slightly. Her arms drop and I close the gap between us, letting her fall into my chest.
“Well,” I breathe, using the knuckle of my free hand to lift her chin, our lips barely an inch apart, “looks like everything works just fine. What’d you think?”
“Uh-huh.” She bobs her head a few times, and it isn’t until she whimpers with her eyes lingering on my lips that I realize I haven’t let up the low hum of the vibration.
“Oh.” I take my finger off and she slumps forward, catching her breath gently. “My bad.”
“You’re the worst,” she whispers, but her eyes betray her words because she is looking at me in the way that makes my blood hot and my skin prick with awareness. My knuckle still under her chin, I rotate my grip on her jaw and run the soft touch of my thumb across her bottom lip again. I can’t help myself. It’s so plump, and she has this red lipstick on that has me imagining a world of dirty, dirty things. Her tongue darts out ever so slightly to wet her lips and I can hardly contain myself. The words that slip into my mind, that want to rip free into the air, are barely restrained. The way I want to shout that I want her, badly, that I wish she wanted me the same way, but I’ll take whatever she’ll give me.
Unable to silence myself for long, I press my lips to hers, her hands curling in the front of my suit to pull me against her. My tongue just starts to dance with hers, the kiss beginning to turn into something far more intimate when a few passersby laughing brings us back to the present and we startle apart. Standing there staring at each other, panting. Until we’re interrupted, again, by someone clearing their throat.
Rosie and I snap our heads in the direction and a snarl moves across my face.
Daniel Loughty.
Also known as the creep who groped Ava. The barely eligible idiot who is up against Rosie for the promotion. How this loser still has a job I’ll never understand. I’ve fired people from Karvelas Media for less.
“Can we help you?” I say, though my voice is low, the anger I feel toward him evident. I feel Rosie take a few hurried steps away from me. When I chance a quick glance in her direction, I’m pleased to find that the look she directs toward him matches my own disgust and annoyance. But the sound of him chucklinghas me looking back in his direction. Something about the sound of his voice is unsettling.
“You two are a bit far from your tables, no? The presentations are about to start, wouldn’t want to miss the look on your face when the promotion is given to me, Garcia.” He takes his time looking her up and down, and it takes everything in me not to smack the look off his face as he does so. I’m suddenly feeling awfully possessive of any heated looks when it comes to her.
But, I have no claim to her, absolutely no reason to feel such a thing, so I bury it, and I say nothing. I’m not sure what kind of reaction Daniel was hoping to have, but by the look that spreads across his face when Rosie speaks, he got what he wanted.
“Choke on a dick, you stain on society.” She takes a few steps forward, not looking back as she continues, “Hope you have your tissues ready, you’ll need them while you sob in your cubicle watching me move into the corner office.” She gets right up in his face, making a big show of looking down her nose at him before patting his chest and storming away. All but leaving me in the wind, like I wasn’t even here, like she didn’t just have her tongue in my mouth.
She walked away because ofyou.
I shake it off, taking a few steps forward into Daniel’s space, where he doesn’t notice me because he’s too busy watching Rosie walk away from us. He stumbles back a few steps when I gently shove his shoulder, closing the distance between us, I take a few steps closer so I’m right up in his shit, staring down at him. I’m six foot three and towering over him, ensuring he can read the message in my eyes; he touches her and he answers to me.
“Nice piece of ass, isn’t she? Too bad she’s also a catty little cunt.” An involuntary sound, like a growl, rises up my throat as I tighten my fists by my side, trying my hardest not to react, but I want to smack the ever-loving Christ out of his smug face.Such a punchable face.
Thankfully, he has the sense to back up. He tries to hold on to his look of confidence, raising his hands, like he isn’t guilty of being an A-grade asshat and a perv. I take a beat to cool my jets, trying to focus anywhere else, before I head back for my table, giving his shoulder a decent prod on my way past.
The path back to my table, unfortunately, doesn’t pass Rosie’s, but I watch her, running a quick thumb across my phone and watching her feet stumble.
“Goddamn,” I whisper to myself, a slow shake of my head and a deep chuckle, washing away the red haze of rage that Daniel had me spiraling into.
My eyes never stray from her. I watch as she takes a beat to balance her feet, shaking out her shoulders and raising her chin like nothing happened.
I let her off with just the once—for now—and watch her take a seat and start chatting with Halle and Jasper. Her fake smile plastered across her face, her mask almost completely perfect. I hadn’t even realized how fake that smile was all those times she threw it at me and everyone else. Not until Wednesday night when she laughed. Like, really, properly laughed.
We sat in the dark on the floor of her lounge room for hours that night. We talked, we laughed—at each other’s expense and at shared stories of our friends. I learned so much about the military-like upbringing she had, never really knowing her parents, how disconnected she feels from her culture. She told me more about this festival thing she kind of half invited me to. It felt like a privilege to see the Rosie behind the mask and the façades she keeps firmly in place. It was just so easy to sit there and listen to her, to watch the smile that had stretched so far across her face my own couldn’t help but copy. It was invigorating being with her like that, fully clothed, sober, and just existing without any walls or defenses between us. I felt human, like I mattered in some way, like the hollowness that isalways just a breath from the surface was only in my imagination because her presence made everything seem full and vibrant.
It was a relief,shewas a relief.
When she finally fell asleep on the couch, I carried her to her bed, planning to throw a blanket on her and boot home before I fell asleep myself. But she had her fist gripped in my shirt.
