Authors: Carmie L'Rae
“You’re hiring associates who look like this?” The woman lifted her glass and raked an approving glance over Josea. “I’ll keep better track of those late hours you keep, darling.”
Only two major firms in Atlanta housed intellectual/patent attorneys with a background in biochemistry. Layton, Masters, and Chiles, where she’d landed a job, and the one headed by Ari’s father.
Sure there were smaller places that might have hired her, but in an area as specialized as hers, if she didn’t have an easily recognizable name backing her, she may as well flip burgers at McDonald’s.
Layton’s firm had just undergone a large expansion. A half-dozen new associates had been hired around the same time as her. Ari knew she had taken the job, but hopefully he wouldn’t make the connection without being prompted.
If Roy Layton spoke her name, her cover with Ari would be blown. And with Mrs. Layton’s hand play, at the very least she’d lose credibility in the eyes of her firm’s senior partner. As a new associate, she had enough hurdles to jump. Being the office nymph wasn’t one she wanted to add to the list.
Hidden Nymph
25
“Hey, Pop!” Kevin Layton dropped into the empty chair next to his father and gave Josea a slow, approving gaze. The newest partner at his father’s firm, Kevin had given Josea her initial interview. She’d met him when she was dating Ari, but he hadn’t brought up their connection in the interview, or since. She admired him for that. No doubt, Ari had told him things between them hadn’t ended well. Or rather, that she had fled like a lunatic when he tried to make love to her.
“Who does she remind you of?” Roy Layton asked his son with a big grin and nodded toward Josea.
“Is your father really hiring women who look like this?” Mrs.
Layton gave her husband a playful wink and drew her fingertips in small circles behind Josea’s knee.
Josea could barely breathe. Thank God they treated her like a fly on the wall and didn’t expect her to speak. She didn’t trust her voice not to give her away.
“One of the new associates is hot alright.” Kevin leveled his gaze on Ari. “I wouldn’t mind snipping the laces on her.”
Ari’s jaw tightened and his lips twitched. “I don’t think—”
“Easy.” Kevin laughed. “I know better.” His gaze landed on Josea’s shoulder and traveled down to her thigh. “Damn,” he muttered and lifted his glass to Ari. “You know how to pick ‘em.”
Josea turned to flee, almost bumping into a statuesque blonde who had arrived at the table. Stunned, Josea’s knees locked. She hadn’t thought the evening could possibly become any more uncomfortable.
The men at the table all stood in greeting.
“Sorry I’m late,” Angela Capenella said as she planted a polite kiss on Ari’s lips. “I can’t wait until that new associate starts doing more of this crap work I can’t get out from under.”
Ari stood to pull out the chair next to him. For her mentor. The woman she would be working directly under until she’d proven her merit. Josea’s stomach rolled again. She should leave. If she stayed, her entire career may ride on how well she could play this 26
Carmie L’Rae
masquerade. If she left, she would be penniless and possibly homeless if her landlord’s threats were credible. She wouldn’t even be able to reserve a hotel room on the credit card she’d maxed out, thanks to the move and new wardrobe she needed for the job she was on the brink of losing. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Angela had kissed Ari.
Josea’s cheeks flamed as she made her way back to the bar.
Possibilities swarmed in her mind like bees. Was Angela just Ari’s date for the night, or more than that? How much more than that? Had she fucked her mentor’s boyfriend? Fiancé? She hadn’t noticed a ring.
But she hadn’t looked for one either. Oh, hell.
She should just go home. Now. Forget the money. She’d survive.
Somehow.
Josea berated herself for getting so caught up in her little fantasy.
Ari had obviously known Angela would be here. His promise of after-dinner plans had been nothing more than a post-coital lie to keep her from regretting what had happened between them. Not that she could ever regret the power that surged through her long before the orgasm did. For the first time in her life, she had given and taken what she wanted from a man, without embarrassment, without shame. And she hadn’t had this experience with just any man. It had happened with the man who mattered most to her. Even knowing her hopes for later were vanquished, her clit tingled, awakened and alive. And ready for more. So much more.
She had barely made it to the bar when the staff manager appeared at her side. The woman didn’t have a hint of tolerance on her face.
Focused on her severe eyebrows, Josea stood completely still as if playing statue would help her situation.
“Adrianna put herself on the line when she vouched for you,” the woman said. “One more screw-up tonight, I don’t care how small, and you’re both gone.”
Josea bit her tongue, but the woman wasn’t finished.
Hidden Nymph
27
“And don’t think I’m stupid enough to believe you went to the cellar for wine. That’s not the kind of business I run.”
Adrianna let out a low whistle as Josea swore at the woman’s retreating back.
“You didn’t tell me you got caught,” Adrianna chided.
Josea shrugged and gave her friend a half-hearted smile. There was no walking out now. Adrianna depended on these gigs. Medical school didn’t come cheap. Tonight may be a one-time opportunity for Josea, but the ongoing bartending gig wasn’t one Adrianna could afford to lose.
“Don’t worry. I won’t screw up again,” Josea said, as much to herself as to Adrianna. She couldn’t afford to lose her position at Layton, Masters, and Chiles. Only one other firm in Atlanta could offer her as much as the one she worked at.
A week before she took the bar exam, Ari had called to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. But, she had refused. He had guaranteed her a position at his father’s firm. He knew her educational background because his was the same. IP/Patent attorneys with a background in biochemistry weren’t exactly a dime a dozen, and his firm had landed more clients than Ari wanted to handle on his own.
She could work for him and earn her way through the ranks under his thumb.
For most attorneys fresh out of law school, the opportunity would have been a godsend. But most young attorneys didn’t fear failing Ari in a professional setting as badly as she had in the bedroom.
Ari wasn’t the only man she’d ever given a mediocre performance between the sheets. But he was the one she had never forgotten - the one she thought of when she was alone and anything but shy. He didn’t know it, but he was the gauge of her sexual success. She would not give him that kind of power over her career. Not that he wanted it, or even that the thought had crossed his mind when he extended the offer.
28
Carmie L’Rae
No matter how professional his gesture had been, their embarrassing history made working for him impossible.
Back at the table, Josea tipped the wine to Angela’s glass, emptying the bottle.
“See the resemblance?” Roy Layton asked, nodding toward her again.
“To that little prude you just hired?” Angela laughed and raised her brows at Ari. “I’d love to see her in something like this.” She gave Josea’s outfit a once over and laughed again. “You know who Roy’s talking about don’t you Ari? A friend of yours from college or something? Although, I really couldn’t imagine you and little Miss Goody-goody having anything in common.”
Josea swallowed the humiliation that sat like a stone in her throat.
It weighed on her more than the fear of Ari blowing her cover. The bitch had nailed her with the painstaking truth. Without the costume she was a prude, a goody-goody who would never have the nerve to show Ari what her fantasies were if he knew her true identity. Tonight was her only opportunity. The one chance she would ever have to be in Ari Davenport’s every thought, to control his every desire, to take everything he had to offer and give him more than he ever thought she could.
Ari’s eyes met hers. “Would you mind bringing us another bottle of the same?” he said. “You remember where it is?”
She lowered her voice and cocked a brow. “How could I forget?”
Angela stiffened and paused, glass in mid-air, as the innuendo settled over the table. One corner of Ari’s mouth lifted slightly as heat flared in his eyes.
Mrs. Layton laughed and addressed her husband. “Sweetheart, if your new associate is strung as tight as you think, I definitely don’t see the resemblance.”
“I do.” Ice dripped from Angela’s voice, and her eyes had settled on Josea in a penetrating stare.
“Why don’t you bring us the wine, beautiful,” Ari said.
Hidden Nymph
29
“Wait a minute!” Angela reached for Josea’s arm, but she stepped away, swaying her hips as she made her way across the room.
Her body screamed haughty confidence, but Josea’s breath burned in her throat. She could very easily lose two jobs tonight, and one of them she had wracked up ten years worth of student loans for. No man was worth that. But whether she’d been willing to admit it to herself or not, this wasn’t about a man. The time had come to face her fears, find out if she had what it took to become the woman she wanted to be.
She needed to take charge of her life. Now. Before she wasted another night, and fate dealt her a hand like the one her mother had been given. Cut down before her time. In her prime. Before she had a chance to do half the things she’d had always hoped to. No, tonight she wouldn’t lose either job, and she wouldn’t lose the opportunity that presented itself either. Ari wanted to know what a fairy’s fantasy was? Well, he was about to find out.
The staff manager eyed her as she dropped the empty wine bottle in the trash and made her way to the butler’s pantry. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman followed her back to the cellar, but the tight-ass didn’t have anything to worry about. Josea’s plan didn’t include getting fired. From either job. And, it didn’t include another romp in the wine cellar either.
Her stomach tightened and her skin tingled from the memory of Ari’s touch as she pushed open the arched door and stepped into the cool room. Every step toward the back corner where she had tasted his cock and lost herself to pure uninhibited pleasure set her nerves on higher alert. She wanted him again. Now. If only this party would end and she could really have him to herself again.
It would be easy enough to hand off Ari’s wine to another fairy, and tend another table herself and that’s exactly what she intended to do. By now half the room was in an alcohol induced fog. A monkey could don a pair of nylons and work the last hour of this job.
30
Carmie L’Rae
She stepped out of the wine cellar and nearly dropped the bottle in her hand. Across the corridor, leaning next to the archway that led off the butler’s pantry, Ari didn’t say a word. Her mouth watered at the sight of him. He didn’t move until she was within easy reach, and he didn’t waste a second of the brief time they had together. Her heart pounded at his touch. She gripped his lapel and pressed her body to his.
His hand clutched her waist, guiding her to the wall behind him.
His tongue moved against hers, trailing the taste of wine and heat. He controlled the kiss, brief and deep. Heavy with want, but heavier with promise. Her stomach twisted, and desire wound its weakening vine around her knees.
The back of his fingers burned a path down her neck, dipped between her breasts, and trailed to her waist. He squeezed the leather skirt against her skin, capturing her hip in his palm, pressing nerves against bone and wrenching a gasp from her throat.
“You’re not planning to come back to the table, are you?” He was a smart man, and not used to waiting around for something he wanted.
“No. But I haven’t forgotten our plans for later.”
“What do you think we should do about my dinner date?” His breath heated her ear, his erection pressed into her stomach.
“This fairy’s fantasy doesn’t involve her, but maybe the other young man at your table could join us.” Her heart pounded. Had she really just said that? Did she really just tell him she wanted to have sex with him and his best friend? Had she ruined her chances for more time with Ari? Judging from the heat in his eyes, she hadn’t. She sucked just beneath his ear, a trigger she had discovered the first time they’d fooled around in her tiny off-campus apartment more than three years ago.
He inhaled with a groan and gripped her hip harder. He was so responsive. So at ease with his pleasure. God, what she wanted to bring out of him.
Hidden Nymph
31
“You’re a wild little thing aren’t you?” He devoured her neck, lifted her thighs, holding her off the floor and pressing his dick against her panties.
Getting rid of Angela would be his problem, and she didn’t care how he did it. She didn’t care about anything but the frantic dance of nerves between her legs.
“I’ll make that little bitch’s life hell.” Angela’s voice shot though the sensual haze Ari had Josea wrapped up in.
“Surely, it’s not her,” Mrs. Layton’s words were full of laughter.
“But the firm’ll have a hell of a holiday party if it is.”
Ari brushed his fairy’s earlobe with his tongue, torn between propriety and gnawing hunger. He should’ve expected Angela to come looking for a fight. She didn’t like being bested by anyone, even if her claim to him was nothing more than a couple of dinner dates and professional necessity.
“At the end of the hall are the stairs to the roof,” he said to Josea.
“I’ll meet you up there.”
He eased her back to the floor and stuck his hands in his pockets in a futile attempt to conceal his arousal as the ladies’ voices neared the archway. Inches from his chest, silk covered breasts rose and fell.
Long chocolate hair spilled over gentle sloping shoulders and fell across toned upper arms. A dream. He couldn’t get enough of her.
Hadn’t nearly had his fill. He should just walk away now, attend to his guests, let her do her job. He should. His head dipped toward hers again for one more taste. One more tease.