Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 117(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 117(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 78(@300wpm)
“Sent,” she says with a final tap. “To your email,” she adds when I don’t move, her brow raised a fraction in confusion.
I place a hand on the back of her chair and lean in closer. Her breath catches as I place two fingers on the pad of Post-It notes on her desk and drag it closer. “Write it down,” I murmur, then fight an erection as she bites her lip, her tongue darting out as she picks up a pen and jots down the same address she just sent me via email. She pulls it from the pad and turns it so the non-sticky part faces me and then holds it out, her hand tremoring so briefly I wonder if I imagined it.
I take the Post-It and step back from her desk with a brief smile. “Enjoy the Christmas break, Sandra.”
“You too, Mr. Laurent. Merry Christmas.” She turns back to her computer, her focus immediately back on the spreadsheet she’d been working on.
Shit. Maybe she just thinks I’m old?
“I hope you get everything you want,” she adds as I’m walking away. I turn back, surprised she’s added these few brief words. My eyes slowly scan her face as I nod.
“You too.”
***
I walk away curious about what she might want for Christmas. Unless it’s Andrew from marketing. Fuck that. That guy bores the shit out of me. We’re on the company softball league together and trust me, you don’t want to get stuck on the barstool next to him after a game.
I hope you get everything you want, she’d said. I mull that over. Was that Sandra-speak for flirting? I know what I’d like. I’d like her, under me. I’d like to see her face when she comes. I bet she closes her eyes, turns her head to the side and moans delicately. I’d like to change that. I’d like her so far gone she digs her nails into my skin, thrashing her head and groaning with no thoughts in her head except how good I’m making her feel.
Shit, when was the last time I fantasized about watching a woman come? It’s not something I need to fantasize about; I don’t have any trouble getting a woman under me in order to experience their reactions live and in person.
I’m out of my league with this girl.
Sweet. I have no idea how to get a sweet girl into my bed. My last relationship started when she handed me a key to her hotel room. The one prior was with my lawyer—initiated by her. The one before that… well, let’s just say I can’t recall the last time I’ve had to do more than flash a lazy grin or at most a wink before the woman in question picked it up from there. I’m a lazy prick, apparently.
I get back to my office and pull the sex survey from my back pocket and toss it on my desk, the Post-It note along with it. I grin as I take a seat. This survey is ridiculous, eighties teen movie ridiculous. I flip the paper over and look at the original meeting survey that’s printed on the front. I told Sawyer we needed to take the temperature, so to speak, on these quarterly meetings, understand what was useful and what wasn’t. Most of the meeting has become unuseful, in my opinion—and whoever has written Shut the fuck up as an answer to one of the questions must agree with me. It makes me laugh. Maybe I should be offended, but fuck that. I wanted honest feedback about the meeting, and I got it. And… now that I’m looking at it more closely, this is Preston’s handwriting. And Sandra was sitting next to him during the meeting.
I spend a few minutes sorting through the rest of the surveys. I find one that must have been completed by Sandra, the answers detailed and thoughtful, examples listed in bullet-point format. It matches the writing on the Post-It note.
I find the handwritten sex survey again for comparison. I don’t have much to go on. 5, Gabe Laurent, All, Maybe, No. I focus on the capital letters, comparing it to her survey, and I believe I have a match.
Sweet Sandra wants to do dirty things with me.
Three
Sandra
I hope you get everything you want. I’ve replayed those words over and over in my memory a hundred times, mortification flooding my system each time. I might as well have told him to take off his pants. I could not have been any more obvious. As if the thirty-five-year-old co-owner of a huge corporation would be interested in a twenty-six-year-old administrative assistant. In me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And that sex quiz. I can’t stop thinking about Gabe folding it up and placing it in his pocket. That memory is downright cringeworthy. I mean—I thought about moving during the Christmas break, I really did. While I was home on Christmas Day, I thought about staying there indefinitely. But then I saw Amanda’s car parked in the driveway next door and returning to Philadelphia seemed like the less humiliating of my options.