Lock You Down (Rivers Brothers 2)

"Oh," she said, her lower and upper lips thinning out, exposing her teeth, clearly contrite. "I did some actual damage, huh?" she asked, moving toward her seat, sinking down, hands spread wide to plant her palms on either side of the desk. "Are you going to sue me?"

"For a bruise? No."

"You're sure there's no real damage? You should have gotten checked out."

"You shouldn't have hit me," I countered.

"Obviously. It wasn't like I meant to do it. And you did startle and threaten me."

"I don't remember any threats."

"I distinctly remember feeling threatened."

"Then you are not remembering things clearly. I never threatened to hurt you."

"No," she agreed, nodding. "But you delivered an unfinished threat."

"An unfinished threat," I repeated. That was a new one for me.

"Yeah. You know. Like when you say something like 'I better never catch you around here again.' That is an unfinished threat. Clearly, the person speaking isn't about to say that 'Or I will buy you a giant cup of coffee and a full stack of blueberry pancakes.' Obviously, what is going to follow is going to be something, well, threatening."

"Fair enough," I agreed, even if I wasn't too fond of the idea of any woman thinking I was threatening her.

"Are you here to finish the threat?"

"In a sense," I told her.

"Alright. Let's have it."

"Let's have it?" I parroted, brow furrowing.

"Yes," she declared, bringing her hands in closer together, tapping the desk three times. Nervous energy. "Out with the doom and gloom. What's it to be? Shoots under my nails? Body in a ditch? A swirly? A really bad Indian burn? Though, I don't think it is PC to say that anymore. But I don't know any other term for it. They really need to work on that. I can't even fathom the origins of that. Such a weird saying--What?" she asked when I must have been giving her a look.

"You done babbling?" I asked, tone dry.

"Reagan?" another voice behind me asked, female, light. "Not likely," she added as my head swiveled, finding a woman around Reagan's age with somewhat unruly coppery red hair hanging down past her rather ample chest. Her face was angular, an inverted triangle with a strong forehead and gently pointed chin. Her blue eyes danced. Her artificially red lips curled into a smile as she looked me over. "Though, I think you could find some fun ways of shutting her up," she offered, smile getting saucy as she moved to drop her hip on the edge of her boss's desk, facing me. "She'd probably really be into that."

"Krissy," Reagan said, tone a little strained. Whether it was annoyance or embarrassment was hard to tell. "Remember our talk about putting on your professional pants when you come to work?"

"I didn't put any pants on this morning," Krissy said, clearly inviting me to take a look at her long, shapely legs on full display thanks to the short hem of her blue and white polkadot dress.

"Krissy, down girl," Reagan demanded with what sounded like a laugh in that sexy voice of hers. "Go sit on a block of ice. We have, ah, business to discuss here."

"Oh, are you the new advertising guy?" Krissy asked, recovering just enough to stand up straight, letting her hem slip back down an inch or two.

"Yes, yes he is," Reagan agreed, lying a tad clumsily to my ears, but since Krissy had no reason to suspect dishonesty, she seemed to miss it.

"Right. Well, can I get you a coffee? Latte? Cappuccino? Tea? Green juice?"

"Green juice?" I asked, lip curling.

"Reagan makes it fresh every morning. Spinach, kale, celery, dandelion greens, wheatgrass, spirulina, ginger, and lemon."

"That sounds fucking disgusting," I told her honestly.

To that, Krissy laughed, full, uninhibited. I had a feeling that uninhibited was her default setting. "You strike me as a black coffee kind of guy."

"That's more like it," I agreed.

"Reagan? Soy mocha?" she asked.

"I, ah, yeah," she agreed, clearly feeling a little off-kilter.

"Extra shot?" Krissy asked, interpreting her boss's odd mood to tiredness.

"Two."

"Oh, watch out," Krissy said, moving past me, giving me a smirk. "If you thought she was chatty before, wait until you see her after an extra two shot latte."

With that, she was gone, leaving a heavy silence between the two of us for a long minute. "I'm the new advertisement guy, huh?"

"Well, I couldn't exactly tell her why you were really here, could I?"

"Can't imagine it would be good for office morale to know their boss is a creepy stalker."

"Anyway," she said, sidestepping the title. "What is to be my threat, so I can get on with my day?"

"I..." I had no idea, honestly. Telling them to back off typically worked. I was getting the odd feeling that this course of action was not going to work for Reagan Hoffman. "A restraining order?" I supposed.

"That could be embarrassing if I were served at work," she mused, lips pursing a bit as she contemplated the idea.