“I believe we have a new secret weapon, gentlemen.” Ian lifted his wine glass in the air, and Ryland, Sascha and I lifted ours to clink against it.
We’d just finished having dinner with a few big investors and they went nuts for Sascha. She’d only been at the company a few weeks, but she answered any questions thrown at her with the confidence of myself or Ryland. She told jokes with a level of intelligence and sophistication that the investors clearly didn’t expect of an assistant, and had even managed to perfectly walk the tightrope line between being flirty and being friendly. I could see the investors watching her with a dazed gaze by the end of the meeting, but whether they signed on the line for us or for her, they signed, and that was all I cared about. Ian had suggested we stay for a little longer for a few celebratory drinks, and I certainly wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to sit with Sascha in her professional, yet sexy, black dress. ‘A few,’ had turned into about six each and everyone was feeling pretty good.
“Hardly,” Sascha replied. “All I had to do was talk about how awesome this company is, and that’s not hard for me to do. I’ve been following you guys since before I started school.”
We all shared a communal drink, with each of us offering Sascha a warm smile in the wake of her compliment. I was setting up to continue the praise when I noticed Sascha’s phone light up and Noah’s name flash across it. She picked it up, stopped the ring, but quickly went into a text. She smiled widely as she typed her message before setting the phone back down.
“Sorry,” she said. “That was Noah, just wondering if I’d be in tomorrow.”
My skin sizzled. I didn’t want to hear her talk about him. “You two seem close,” I hissed before I could stop myself.
She looked at me with a perk to her brow. “Yeah, we have a lot in common. He’s so down to earth, you know?”
“So, you’re getting to know him pretty well then?” I asked.
“I know his preferred coffee order, if that’s what you mean,” she returned. She wasn’t dumb, I had to give her that.
“You know damn well that’s not what I mean,” I replied.
“Carson,” Ian warned.
Sascha’s eyes narrowed. “If there’s something you want to say, just say it.”
I guzzled down the last of my drink. “Very well. My assumption is that you’re getting to know him biblically.”
Sascha’s jaw flexed; she was disgusted. “Even if he wasn’t 100% engaged to his live-in boyfriend, I would never approach a co-worker like that. It’s totally unprofessional.” My heart stopped for a moment. I didn’t even know that Noah was gay. Sascha scoffed. “Maybe if you spent more time in the office with your employees, you’d know even the most basic information about them.”
My heart began to pound as my eyes widened in Sascha’s direction. Who the hell did she think she was talking to? She was just an assistant. I didn’t need that sort of attitude from her. “Hush now,” I told her. “I’m sick of all these snarky comments you keep making.”
I reached for another one of the drinks on the table, but Sascha snatched up the one I was reaching for. I looked up at her and she was staring right back at me, unphased. “Why don’t you make me?”
“Allow me.” Sascha and I looked over at Ian in equal states of annoyance, but he got the jump on us both.
He reached out, grabbed the strap of her dress and pulled her to him. She opened her mouth to retort, but she got no words out before Ian planted his lips firmly on hers.
Sascha
Completely outside of my wishes for my own body, my fingers threaded into Ian’s hair and I pulled him towards me. The sweet taste of the white wine we were all enjoying lingered on his lips and I started to feel myself float outside my body. I knew that Carson and Ryland’s eyes were on me, and I was afraid to admit that it turned me on. Ian’s tongue pushed its way between my lips and I began to suck, dragging it even further into my mouth. The world faded away around us and I sensed myself started to get lost in my kiss with this breathtaking man. It wasn’t until I felt one of Ian’s chilled hands start to slide up my thigh that I was snapped back to reality. What the hell was I doing? I tore away from Ian, grabbed my purse from the table and ran from the restaurant as fast as I could.
Since there was no one around to judge me as I rode in the taxi home, I sat swearing at myself for being such an idiot. Why would I allow myself to kiss the head of human resources at my brand new job? Maybe I should go dangle raw salmon in front of a bear next. The only thing worse than the fact that I actually kissed him back was the fact that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. That was an amazing kiss, and even knowing how wrong it was, I yearned for another.