Ego Maniac(23)

But I shouldn’t.

I turned over and forced myself to close my eyes. An hour later, I reached over to my end table. I was desperate for some sleep after the long, draining day.

I turned on my vibrator and closed my eyes, attempting to relax to the hum.

Ten minutes later, I was sound asleep with a smile on my face.





Drew

Alexa had ruined my job for a long time. After my divorce, I found bits and pieces of my marriage in every client’s bitter battle. It reminded me how much time I’d wasted, how from that first night I’d let my dick make decisions when it came to Alexa, instead of my head. Everything in my client’s files became personal to me, and it was like reliving the worst nights of my life on a daily basis.

Eventually, I learned to separate things—somewhat. But I’d lost something along the way. My job became a source of money and not something I enjoyed doing. While I no longer dreaded going downstairs to my office, I also didn’t look forward to it anymore.

Until today.

I was up even earlier than usual. After hitting the gym, I was in my office by seven, reviewing a case file. Henry Archer was one of the few clients I truly liked. His divorce was even amicable because he was a genuinely nice guy. I had his settlement conference today at eleven. The entire gang would be here to try to hammer out a final deal. Miraculously, I didn’t despise his soon-to-be ex-wife either.

I was in the copy room when I heard Emerie come in. Her heels clanked as she came down the hall carrying a large brown box. I stopped what I was doing and walked to take it from her hands.

“Thank you. Do you know no one offered me a seat on the subway carrying that thing?”

“Most people are assholes. What the hell do you have in here? It’s heavy as shit.” I set the box down on her desk and opened it without asking. Inside was a glass paperweight, but it might as well have been made of lead. “This thing is ten pounds. Are you worried a hurricane is going to gust through the office and blow around all your papers?”

She swiped it from my hand. “It’s an award. I earned it for a paper I wrote that was published in Psychology Today.”

“It’s a weapon. Glad you didn’t have that thing when I found you in my office that first night.”

“Yes, I could have put a dent in that pretty head of yours.”

I smirked. “I knew it. You think I’m pretty.”

I attempted to see what else was inside her box, but she swatted my hand away.

“Nosy.”

“You unpacked my boxes.”

“That’s true. I guess you can look.”

“Well, now I don’t want to, since you told me I could.”

“You’re like a child, you know that?”

I’d left my cell phone at the copy machine and heard it ringing from down the hall. I went to answer it, but the caller had hung up. After finishing making my copies, I gathered the stack of papers and stopped by Emerie’s office again.

Standing in the doorway, I teased, “You’re early today. Did you take my advice on falling asleep?”

“No.” Emerie’s rapid answer was…too rapid. Years of running depositions had made me skilled at picking up on small clues—sometimes something ever so slight took me down a path I hadn’t expected and led to something interesting. I’d picked up a scent from her two-letter word and was about to follow the trail.

“So you didn’t have trouble falling asleep last night, huh?”

When she started to blush and attempted to busy herself at unpacking her box, I knew I was on to something. Curious, I walked into her office and around to the other side of her desk so I could see her face even though she was looking down and unpacking.

I ducked my head and looked up to catch her eyes. “You masturbated last night, didn’t you?”

Her blush reddened. “Did you?” she countered.

Deflecting. We all know what that means. I grinned. “I did. And this morning, too. Wanna know what I was thinking about while I did it?”

“No!”

“You’re not even the slightest bit curious?”

Even though she was red-faced, I loved that she pushed through it and faced me. “Don’t you have any marriages to desecrate, pervert?”

“Come on. Admit it. You masturbated last night, and that’s why you had such a good night’s sleep and got to work on time for a change.”

“Why do you care?”

“I like to be right.”

“You’re really a giant egomaniac.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Will you drop the subject if I tell you the truth?”

I nodded. “I will.”

She looked me directly in the eye. “I did.”

“What?”

“What do you mean what? You know what I mean.”

Of course I do. “I’m not sure I do. Why don’t you explain what you’re referring to?”

“Get out.”

“Say you masturbated, and I’ll get out.”

“Why? So you can get off on the thought of me masturbating?”

“I thought you didn’t want to hear what I was thinking about this morning when I took care of myself?”

I chuckled. Emerie was trying to be tough, but her voice told me she was more embarrassed and amused than pissed off. Feeling unusually kind, I decided to let her off the hook before I pushed my luck.