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Cole clamps down on whatever he was going to say and looks right. “Yes, Maria?”
“You have the Houston office manager on the line and it’s urgent.”
“On my way,” he says, returning his attention to me. “We aren’t done with this conversation. As I said to the team, more soon, but sooner for you.” He leaves and it’s as if all the energy in the room is sucked out with him. That’s how powerful his presence is, that’s how much he affects me.
Cole Brooks told me that he would own me, and if I’m not careful, he will.
An hour after Cole leaves me in my new office, I happen to glance up as he passes my door. Happen to look up, I ask myself, or just so hyperaware of the man that I know his every move? I glance at my computer with a news article about one of his cases on the screen. I have an excuse for the hyper-focus. It’s my duty to be obsessed, and I think I really am.
And so, I obsess for a good two hours until Maria appears in my doorway. “Hola, honey. You now have a complete file of every case Cole has ever taken to trial in your new company email.”
“That’s helpful,” I say. “Thank you.”
“He’s making you study, huh?”
“Yes,” I say. “But that’s good. I need to understand his formula for success and what he needs from me.”
She gives me a sly little smile, says nothing, and disappears. I straighten and grimace. I’m not sure what that little smile means, and I’m not sure I want to know. Cole and I have an energy about us that I am not sure is easily missed by someone sharp and smart enough to work directly with Reese Summer.
As if I’ve called upon magic in that moment, Reese steps inside my doorway. “I’m headed to court and wanted to check in before I leave,” he says, perching on the arm of a chair. “How are things?”
“Good,” I say. “Already busy and I like that.”
“How’s the chemistry between you and Cole?”
I don’t blink with his choice of wording that tells me he knows more than I want him to, but it’s not easy. “He’s tough but seems to be fair. That works for me.”
“How do you know him?” he asks.
I don’t play dumb. Reese has been good to me. I won’t disrespect him that way. “That’s his story to tell,” I say, praying he doesn’t tell it at all.
“He said it was yours to tell.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I counter. “Really.”
He considers my reply for several beats. “Come to me if ‘nothing’ becomes a problem.”
“It won’t.”
He gives me a nod and stands before disappearing into the hallway, but this topic of me and Cole hasn’t gone away. Cat will question me and she’s dogmatic about what she wants. She will push me and hard for a story I don’t plan to tell. That Cole didn’t tell, matters to me. It’s respect for my privacy that I appreciate, and in light of our workplace relationship, I owe him the same.
“I won’t let this become a problem,” I whisper, and quickly key up my new email. I need to work. I need to focus. I stand up. I need to walk. I need coffee. Actually, I never had lunch. The coffee and some pastry will be my lunch and then I’ll power through work the rest of the afternoon. I will know these cases like I know my own history, sometimes too well. I hurry down the hallway and exit the lobby through the heavy wooden door that leads to the elevator banks.
Cole is walking in my direction, and I have no choice but to walk directly to him. “I’m going to get coffee,” I explain. “Do you want me to get you some?” It could seem like an offer a secretary makes, but with him, with us, it feels like more, like an intimate offer with a more intimate meaning.
“I want a lot of things,” he says, his eyes flicking to my mouth and lifting. “Coffee isn’t one of them,” he pauses for effect, and that effect turns out to be the clenching of my sex, “But,” he adds, “I’ll ride down with you. I have off-site meetings the rest of the day. We’ll go through my cases tomorrow.” He punches the elevator call button.
I am wet. My God, I am wet from a conversation about coffee with a man who makes a lot of woman wet and then moves on to the next. I’m losing my dignity here. “I’m just going to take the stairs,” I reply quickly, inspired by the stairwell sign directly to my left. “It helps me think.” Which is true. I walk and run when I’m thinking, but right now, I can’t think. He’s in front of me. He’s consuming me. He’s a womanizer and my boss. I cut left and open the door. I’m barely inside the stairwell when Cole is with me.
I whirl around to face him as the door shuts behind him, sealing us inside. He advances on me and I back up, hitting the wall. “What are you doing?”
His hands press on the wall on either side of me, his arms caging me in. “Finishing our conversation from my office,” he says, and he’s not touching me, but I feel him all over and it’s pissing me off.
To hell with him being my boss. I fight back. “The one where I told you I knew you were a player?” I demand, my fingers curled into my palms at my sides.
“I went to that bar trying to find you and that woman sat down with me,” he says. “Had you stayed around, you would have seen that I stayed all of sixty seconds and then left…alone. I didn’t fuck that woman because I was too busy thinking about you. Which is the definition of insanity since I didn’t even know your last name.” His gaze lowers to my mouth, lingering and lifting. “I just knew how good you tasted—everywhere.”
He leans in close, his breath a warm tickle on my neck as he says, “I just knew I wanted more.” He pulls back to look at me. “And I still do.”
