Friction(20)

We ride in silence for the next five minutes, and I barely shift the car into park before she stumbles out, slamming the door behind her. I’m right on her heels. She refuses to turn around. I yell out her name, so she finally pauses at her car door.

“What?”

"I'll see you Monday morning. Nine on the dot." I lock my car, and the beep is like a trigger, tightening her body. I’d planned to call it a night, but a few hours with the woman has left me wanting to blow off some steam. "I'm assuming since you're thirty minutes early for everything, you'll be right on time. And if you’re not going to be here … let me know now."

She balls her hands into fists then turns her head just enough to glance at me out the corner of her eye. She flinches at my expression because I’m not smirking. There's not even a ghost of a smile dancing on my mouth. Instead, I just want an answer from her.

"Goodbye, Jace," she whispers before she climbs into her Jeep and speeds off.



“Why so serious, E?” The breathy voice draws my attention up from the sketches on my desk. Sonora stands in the doorway of my office, her red hair piled on top of her head and a black trench coat wrapped securely around her body. I’d be willing to bet there’s very little—or not a fucking stich of clothing at all—on beneath it. “You didn’t message back after that last text saying you were here, and I got worried about you.”

“It’s not polite to let yourself in. Especially when you don’t even work here.” She responds with a shrug and saunters inside.

“The front door was unlocked.” She eases onto the edge of my desk, crossing her legs toward me. “It’s three am, Jace. Why are you still here?”

I gesture to the sketches I’ve been working on since Lucy left. I had expected to be long finished with the design for B’s newest toy, but my thoughts have focused on hazel eyes and pouty red lips. Fucking Lucy Williams.

“I like to work,” I say, although Sonora’s already fully aware of that. “Why are you still out?”

Rolling her blue eyes so dramatically my attention zeroes in on the smudges of eyeliner at the corners, she tilts her head to one side. Her hair spills from its knot. “You know why I’m still out. You should go home.”

“No plan to go home tonight.”

Her mouth parts in a silent O, and she looks down at her lap for a moment. “The woman you brought to B’s—”

“Is my new marketing director,” I correct her, the muscles in my neck straining because she’s brought up Lucy. I’d hoped to wrap up the night without giving that woman another thought, but now I have a vivid image of her in my head that won’t piss off. I lean back in my chair and scratch my chin. “My plans have me going … elsewhere.”

“Fun.” Sonora’s smile doesn’t touch her eyes. She shifts on my desk, lowering her foot to the center of my thighs. Bumping my cock lightly with the heel of her pump, she casts me a look that would make a weaker man go fucking crazy to find out what she’s hiding beneath her coat. “I was hoping—”

I grab the inside of her ankle, and she gasps. “You know me better than that.” We’ve been friends since I met her through my first client—my ex-girlfriend—and I have the same rule for Sonora that I try to maintain for my employees: No fucking. No intimacy. Nothing but friendship.

“You’re an ass, Jace Callum Exley, but you’re a wonderfully talented ass.” She draws her foot from my lap and crosses her legs in the other direction. She clenches her fingers around the hem of her coat. “By the way, your new marketing girl is … very beautiful. Andrew couldn’t keep his eyes off her when you showed him how to—”

“Why the fuck are we talking about her?” I interrupt and she twists to stare at me like there’s a bag of dicks growing out of my forehead. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s been … a long day.”

“I can tell.”

“Tell Andrew my marketing girl isn’t one for cuffs.” I hate the thought of that prick Sonora was with earlier tonight staring at Lucy. Talking about her. Thinking about her. I hate it even more that I see red at the thought of him doing any one of those things, which are all harmless. “She’s here for work, not to meet him or his bride.”

“I never said they wanted to meet her, just that he mentioned she was beautiful right before we started to play,” Sonora says cautiously. Her eyes crinkle as she flicks her tongue over her lips. I think of Lucy doing the same, and I groan. “Jace—”

“Don’t start.”

“I thought you don’t do employees ever since that Michaela fuckery.”

“I don’t.” I massage the bridge of my nose between my fingers and release a sharp breath. What the fuck is wrong with me tonight?

“You should.” She laughs as she slides off my desk. “I know I would.”

“She quit tonight.” And I’ve not been able to get her out of my fucking head since she left.

Sonora offers me a sympathetic frown. “Then there’s nothing standing in your way of sleeping with her, is there?”

“She’s not my type, and I’m sure as shit not what she’s looking for.”

I don’t remember Williams being involved with anyone in school, but I’ve got a clear picture of the kind of man she’d go for—a stuffy hedge fund manager, for example. One who takes his lattes with an extra shot of boring before he plays Scrabble and argues abstract words.