Page 1 of Don’t Scream

Noah Brennan

Tuesday, October 28th.

Three days before Halloween.

My name is Noah Brennan and I am still stupid enough to think this is going to be a good night.

I am at my desk on the thirty-sixth floor with my tie already loose and my shoes kicked off under the chair because no client is coming up this late. Preswood Tower is a tower of glass on the north edge of Harrow Mills. Rhys Preswood’s name is cut into the granite in the lobby, and you can’t miss it as you walk through to the lifts. It is three days before Halloween, and the town square below is already covered in orange lights and pumpkin decorations. I should be preparing my case file for court. Instead, I am watching the little green light on my desk phone and waiting for a man I am not supposed to be sleeping with to call me.

Rhys Preswood owns this building. He owns the firm. He owns the way the air feels on every floor when he walks out of a meeting. He is forty-two, disgustingly filthy, laughably rich, and at six-two, one of the tallest men in the building. He has broad shoulders that fill out a suit like it was made just for him. Seriously, the man has so much money, I’m surprised he doesn’t own this whole damn town.

His dark brown hair, which is going silver at the temples, is always pushed back with two fingers when he is thinking, which is always. His eyes are like bottle glass in the sun, green-gold, unhelpful, the kind that do not blink first. He has olive skin that holds a tan into October, a mouth that looks carved, and hands that have never done a cheap thing in their life and are always perfectly manicured. I have watched those hands sign a settlement that ruined a family and then watch them lift a coffee like the cup should be grateful. And damn, the guy has a fucking hot ass that molds perfectly to his pressed suit pants. He is the reason I took the job. He is also the reason I keep my door two inches open whenever he is on the floor, which is a problem I am not going to solve tonight.

This afternoon I passed the firm’s gym and saw Cruz Maddox inside. He is thirty-four. He is Rhys Preswood’s personal trainer. He is so fucking hot that half the floor pretends not to look at him.

His black hair was wet from working out. His shirt was molded to his chest and stomach. His arms were thick. He smiled like he had all night.

I have trained with him twice this month. The gym is a perk in the building, and I booked the sessions myself so I would look good for Rafe. Rafe likes his men solid and ripped. When we trained, he put his hands on my back and counted out the reps in my ear. That was as far as it went. This afternoon he had a towel around his neck and waved. I kept walking. Tonight was for Rafe, not him.

Tonight is only about Rafe.

Rafael Ortega, thirty-one, senior associate, two offices down, the one with the laugh that makes the younger associates sit up. Black hair. Warm brown skin. A mouth I have had on me in the nineteenth-floor file room and wrapped fiercely around my cock on many occasions. We do not say boyfriend where anyone can hear it. Instead, we say Tuesday.

The desk phone rings. Extension. In-house.

I pick up too fast.

“You’re late,” I say, already smiling.

A breath. Then Rafe’s voice, low, the one he uses when his door is shut and he wants to talk dirty. It sounds so much like him that I do not question it.

“I’m not late. You’re hard already. Don’t lie.”

Heat hits my face. I glance at the glass. Willa Nash is at the reception desk in a black dress that should be illegal after six, blonde hair in a knot, mouth red, scrolling and pretending she is not listening to everything with that headset over her ears. She looks up and I quickly turn my chair.

“I’m at work,” I mutter.