“You have to stop doing that in the office, Mr. Blaine,” I said as his arms came around me as I stood at the counter of the break room. I stepped away from him and moved toward the Keurig, popping in one of the cups.
“Okay, okay. I’ll give you five feet.” He slid down the counter so there was space between us.
“Are you drinking coffee tonight?”
“Yes. At the usual time.”
“Sounds good.” He was undressing me with his eyes, which was against the rules, but I let him get away with it anyway.
“You’re being bad, Mr. Blaine,” I said with my voice low. Mr. Craig walked in, interrupting the sexytimes. Cock blocker. What was the girl equivalent of that? There should be one.
“Hello, Rory. How are you?” All of the older men in the company had watched me grow up here, so they all got to call me by my first name. I’d tried to put a stop to it a while ago, but it had been useless. These guys didn’t change their habits.
“I’m fabulous, how are you?” I smiled as the coffee brewed into the cups and Lucah started washing his hands in the sink so he would have some reason for being in the break room. He dried them quickly and without saying a word to Mr. Craig, he left, not looking at me. Well, that was suspicious.
“How’s your new assistant working out?” Mr. Craig said.
I made some generic compliments about Lucah and then told him that my dad was waiting for his coffee, so I had a reason to escape when he started talking about his new car and what a crime it was that they had redone his favorite golf course.
I actually decided to visit Dad, since it had been a while since we had talked about work-related items. I’d also been watching the expense reports, and I had noticed another spike in ordering. Subtle, but it was still there. Dad was busy and didn’t have a chance to talk, so I just wrote him a note that it could wait. The spikes could be completely normal. I was probably just being paranoid.
I went back to my desk and found a dirty text from Lucah. He’d been sending me a lot of those lately. I typed an equally dirty response and sent it to him. I drew the line at naked pictures, but imagined the look on his face if I closed my office door and took one and sent it to him. A seductive thought, but I knew it would come back to bite me in the ass.
This was going to be a long week.
~*~*~
Something was up with Lucah the next morning when I got out of the shower. He made me breakfast, but he almost seemed grumpy, and I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he didn’t say anything.
We hadn’t discussed what he’d told me about wanting to be with me all the time since Sunday. I was going to put it off as long as possible. I’d also been subtly searching out to see if we had any positions in other departments that I could put him up for. I had no doubt that it would be easy to get him in somewhere else with my recommendation and the support of the board. I still hadn’t figured out what that was about.
“You sure you’re okay?” I said as I got dressed.
“Hm?” He looked up from where he was sitting on the other side of the bed putting on his shoes. I walked over to him and stood between his legs, then gently knocked on his head.
“Anyone home in there? What is up with you, Lucah?”
“Family business,” he said, putting his head into my stomach and hugging me around the waist as if he didn’t want to let me go.
“Your brother?”
He sighed and lifted his head.
“He’s a pain in my ass that won’t go away,” he said. “I’m lending him some money so he can get his own place and so he’ll get off my back. I also volunteered to help him get a job, which was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do. So that means that some of my time with you will be given to him, and I resent him for taking me away from you. And then I feel like a dick for resenting my brother for not having his shit together and for my parents dying and not being here to deal with it.” He seemed to realize that he just mentioned his dead parents for the first time and then ducked his head again.
“I didn’t know that about your parents,” I said, stroking his hair back.
“It was a few years ago. House fire. The smoke detectors worked, but they didn’t wake up.”
“Oh, Lucah. I’m so sorry.” I wanted to cry, but I held back.
“I know you are, Sunshine. You’re one of the only people that I know truly means that. So anyway, Tate has given up helping with Ryder, so it falls on me.”
“Family comes first, you know how crazy I am with mine. You have to do what you have to do. I’ll be fine. I’m not one of those girls.”
“You’re the best kind of girl,” he said into my stomach.
“Aw, thanks,” I said, leaning down to give him a kiss. “Okay, I have to get to that place. See you in a little while.”