Then there were the other nights she stayed late, when he wasn’t around. One of them stood out in her mind in particular. When he’d left his office unlocked and she’d been alone in the store—and lonely. Feeling more than a little reckless. Weeks later she still couldn’t believe she’d taken things so far. But exploring his office had led to imagining he was there with her, and then exploring herself…
She’d kicked back in his chair and stretched out her legs, rubbing her thighs against the supple leather. His crisp aftershave permeated the air and she’d reveled in it, spinning fantasies worthy of the sexy books she read during breaks. He’d left some paperwork on his blotter and though she hadn’t snooped, his messy handwriting made her smile. He wrote fast. Did everything fast, from what she could tell. She’d pictured him swiveling to talk to her as he always did, except this time he flipped up her skirt to rub her ass. And then he guided her down on his waiting cock, her name spilling from his lips.
“Kelly. Oh God, Kelly.”
By then she’d been on the loveseat, her fingers moving frantically over herself. She’d brought herself to the most spectacular orgasm ever. All because of him.
She released a shaky breath and blinked the memory away. No one knew. She’d just had some harmless fun. Even so, she never did crazy stuff like that. But damn, had it felt good.
“Are you dating Leigh?” she blurted.
Are you fucking her? Is she getting what I’ve never had the guts to go after?
The list on her phone didn’t count. She’d listed him as number ten on her somewhat sophomoric list of men she wanted to have sex with as a whim, not out of some misplaced belief she’d ever actually get her hands on his naked body. But for a while, that list had given her—the girl once voted most likely to be the last virgin at Middlemarch High—a way to level the playing field.
She didn’t have to wait for some guy to find her sexy. Instead she could pick her targets and go after them as methodically as some women charted caloric intake.
She charted that too. But her notes app was basically her diary and she liked keeping a record of things. Just call her sentimental. But no matter how many lists she put Spencer on, unless she changed her name to Profit and Loss, he wasn’t interested.
Or so she’d believed until she’d seen him in a semi-clinch with Leigh. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Maybe she didn’t have him pegged at all. Just because he was devoted to work didn’t mean he didn’t have sex. He had needs like everyone else.
And oh God, so did she. She bit the inside of her cheek as his gaze pierced hers.
“Absolutely not. Leigh is my employee.”As are you.He didn’t voice the rest, but she heard the implication just the same.
Kelly lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “When I came in here, I assumed—”
“Assumptions are dangerous. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
“What about a girlfriend?” she pressed, going for the gold while she had the opening. Her gaze dropped to his noticeably bare left hand. “No wife,” she added, though she already knew he was single.
“I’m married to the store,” he said simply.
If he was surprised by her line of questioning, he didn’t show it. But that was Spencer. Inscrutable, controlled, driven. He wouldn’t be flustered by a few pesky questions from one of his employees.
One of his muchyoungeremployees. He was a decade older than she, and probably considered her about as complex as a tricycle.
But Leigh was several years younger than she was. So what did that mean?
He wouldn’t lie. She might not know much when it came to the inner workings of the man’s mind, but she knew that. He’d never been anything but honest in the three years she’d known him. True, he tended to be close-lipped. But he wouldn’t shy away from a direct question. If he said he wasn’t dating Leigh, he wasn’t.
“Why did you ask to see me, Spencer?” she asked finally, the silence beginning to unnerve her.
He rarely looked at her for more than an instant, but right now those instants were piling up. Her skin prickled under his attention and a single drop of sweat slipped down the back of her knee, wending its way down to her fashionably cheap clogs.
She wasn’t dressed in something cute and flirty like Leigh. She didn’towncute and flirty. Well, maybe at the back of her closet, along with her precious few going-out outfits. But cute wasn’t her standard MO. That was a hard look to pull off when you were almost five-ten in flats.
His hand dropped to his top drawer, still partially open. His fingertips slid along the edge, drawing her gaze until she shook herself out of the mental fog he seemed to invoke every time he was within spitting distance. “Unlike everyone else, you call me Spencer. Not Mr. Galvin. Why is that?”
She tried not to frown. Why wouldn’t he get to the point? She wasn’t called to his office very often. Now he wanted to play guessing games?
“Leigh calls you Spencer.”She also undresses you with her eyes every time your very fine ass strolls past her café counter.“Marcia also calls you Spence,” she reminded him. Marcia was the store manager and Kelly’s immediate supervisor.
He waited. Apparently Leigh and Marcia didn’t count.
She hissed out a breath. He never strayed into personal territory with her but she’d also never seen him this stilted. Thisforced. “Because when we met, you told me to drop the formalities.”