"You don't mix work and pleasure, Krissy. It's bad form."
"Oh, no, honey. That is one fine form he's got on him. But, fine, suit yourself," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "I am just here to remind you that it is not healthy."
"What's not healthy?" another voice asked from the doorway.
"Not getting a solid dicking from the hot guy who was in her office the other day."
"I have to say, Rae, I think I am on Krissy's team here," Luis, my brother, said. He was adopted like me, but clearly from other parents as I was Chinese, and he was Mexican.
He was, without a doubt, the most attractive guy in any given room with his six-foot-two, solid, but not bulky build, chocolate brown hair that matched his eyes that could only be described as sultry. Mix the looks with his intelligence, his lightheartedness, and his big heart, yeah, he was a prize. One no one had snatched up just yet.
"Such a surprise," I drawled. "You big slut, you," I added, walking over to him, throwing my arms around him, sinking into him when his arms went around me, lifting me off my feet for a long moment. "I didn't know you were coming into town," I said when he dropped me down and released me.
"Neither did I. I realized I had a day between planes, and I thought I would stop in to see my big sister." We were actually the same age, but I had been adopted as a baby, and he as a three-year-old when my parents brought him home. I wasn't sure I had a single childhood memory without Luis in it.
"Where are you off to next?"
"Australia. We are doing a shoot for charity."
Luis could have been anything in the world. He had a bachelor's degree. He could have started a business with his trust fund.
But my brother, well, he liked admiration. And he was stupidly beautiful. So he went ahead and got himself a career as a model.
"I'll have to hang up my hat in a couple years. I can start a business then. Become a silver fox. Land me some sweet honey. Live out the good life. But for now, I like this. That was what he said when my parents had questioned his path in life that they viewed as shallow and a waste of his many talents.
Me, well, I figured that we should all be doing what made us happy. Running Devil Tears made me happy, reinventing it, making it a modern brand. But Luis was happy when people looked at him. To each their own.
Besides, I had a feeling that when he retired from the modeling world, he was going to shock the hell out of people, and take the business world by storm.
That was just the kind of person he was. If you took him at face value, he could appear self-indulgent, shallow, and lacking any direction. If you were around him for long enough, though, you knew there were depths there deep enough to drown in.
"Krissy," he greeted, giving her a wink. "You could give a priest a hard-on in that dress."
"That sounds like a fun challenge. You look tanner than usual," she said, pressing her bare foot against his stomach, poking in with her toe.
"Spent a lot of time on a white sand beach, mami," he said, reaching for her foot, taking it in his hands, rolling his thumb over her arch, making her back arch off the chair like a cat. "Not as beautiful as you though, of course."
"Of course," Krissy agreed, closing her eyes, in a place of bliss.
There was nothing between my brother and my best friend. They'd always been like this together. I think the Universe knew better than to put two shameless flirts together. There would be wreckage in the wake.
"Did you want to go get dinner together?" I asked.
"Yes," they said in unison.
"That way, we can gang up on her about her getting on the hot advertising guy," Krissy told Luis.
"Sounds like a worthy mission."
"She needs some stress relief."
"I concur," Luis shot back.
"Are you two done?" I asked, moving back behind my desk, dropping down into my chair.
"Not nearly," Krissy assured me. "You should have seen him, Luis. He was a drink of water. And we both know Reagan has been dying for a sip."
"Where do you guys learn to talk like that?" I asked, brows lowering, lips parting.
"What about you, mami, did you want a sip?"
"Oh, you know me. I'm always thirsty," she told him, the two of them sharing unnerving eye-contact. It was making me uncomfortable, and I wasn't even a part of it.
"How thirsty are you, mami?" he asked, pressing his thumb in hard, making a whimper escape her.
"Um... should I leave?" I asked, feeling like this was more intense than usual.