Jingle Ball

One

Wendy Stanton picked up a length of multi-colored garland and sighed. Red, blue and green garland wasn’t classy enough for Martin & Warner Real Estate’s annual Jingle Ball. The event was the biggest schmoozer they held all year and lots of rich, important guests would attend. They’d already decided the color scheme would be silver and blue, so the decoration she’d picked up on a whim would just have to go.

She wrapped the garland around her neck and turned toward the full wall of glass behind her boss Des’s desk. She thrust out a hip and grabbed a long, narrow notepad, using it as a microphone. Then she rocked out, dirty Christmas style. She didn’t remember the lyrics to the song on the radio so she fudged them, making them up as she went along. Her husky voice wouldn’t win any awards, but she vamped it up, pushing a hand behind her head and wiggling her butt.

Behind her, someone cleared their throat. Wendy spun around and dropped the notebook, her eyes going wide at her boss lounging in the doorway. His hands were tucked in the pockets of his snug, faded jeans, and he wore a gray silk shirt and striped tie that offset his golden skin.

And he was smirking.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt your concert, Ms. Stanton.” His voice was as warm and rich as the java he walked over to dispense from his personal coffeemaker. He preferred an expensive Costa Rican blend, the best of the best. Just as he preferred top of the line in everything in his life, from clothes, to office space, to girlfriends. She still wondered how she’d slunk into his office almost a year ago when his secretary had quit on short notice.

Des desperate was a mouth-watering sight to behold.

Fine, he was mouth-watering regardless. He had the kind of spiky dark hair that always stuck up in all directions and his eyes were a bright blue-green she’d only ever seen in the waters of the Caribbean. And his body?

Not. Going. There.

“Song’s over,” she said with a shrug, picking up the notebook she’d dropped. Feigning calm around him wasn’t anything new, considering she’d had a crush on him pretty much since the first moment she’d stepped into his swanky office. He’d asked her what she considered her strongest skill and she’d been tempted to say sucking cock, just to see if she’d get a chance at his.

Instead she’d gone with the safe answer of her one hundred words per minute typing speed.

That she’d inquired about the job advertised in the window wearing a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, with her hair held back by an assortment of bobby pins and paper clips—hey, she’d been out grocery shopping before she’d wandered past the office—hadn’t ruined her chances as she’d feared. He’d called to hire her the next day.

They’d had a cordial, utterly frustrating relationship since.

“So it is. But as it’s a radio station,” Des gestured with his coffee cup at the sleek wall unit currently playing another Christmas classic, “they keep playing them. Keep singing.”

If she was anyone else, she’d probably hurry to obey the command in his tone. Though they were both barely thirty, Des and his best friend Cole Warner had one of the most successful real estate businesses in Eugene, New York, a decent-sized city just outside the one that never slept. They’d climbed far and fast, and that meant they weren’t strangers to making demands and ensuring they were met.

She suspected that was true in the bedroom too. Not that she knew firsthand. Both men were nothing but professional to their secretaries. Unfortunately.

It wasn’t as if she could tell Des she wasn’t a lawsuit waiting to happen. Nor was she trying to climb the corporate ladder, unless it led straight up to the eye-popping bulge in his pants. But that was just her fantasies talking. She wasn’t that girl.

Those jewel-like blue-green eyes stared her down, and like a fool, she began to sing into the notebook. She had to look ridiculous with her garland and her steno microphone, but he leaned back against the wall and watched her, seemingly riveted.

Yet again she didn’t know the words to the song, so she improvised. A smile began at the corners of his mouth, creeping inward until it turned into a full-blown grin. He set aside the coffee and clapped, the width of his hands catching her attention for the umpteenth time before her gaze skipped to his face.

His smirk returned. Did he know what she was thinking?

Forget that, did she know what she was thinking? He was her boss. He signed her paycheck and ponied up for the fancy health benefits that even allowed her to cover her ailing mom too. The extra expense was significant, but Des hadn’t blinked when she’d explained her mom’s heart condition and her search for affordable health care since her mom wasn’t old enough for Medicare. He shelled out a ton of extra dough each month, and she couldn’t afford to fuck that up just to…