Friction(39)

It’s Sonora. The cuffed redhead from Mr. B’s swinger party. And her ass is parked right on my boss’s desk.

Dammit, what the hell is she doing in here?

Jace looks around Sonora, his expression mirroring hers as he rubs his hand over his beard. "Ms. Williams," he acknowledges.

"I'm sorry." I shift my hazel eyes between the two of them, and a smirk crosses Jace’s bronze features. What have I walked in on? God, why the hell does my chest hurt when I ask myself that? Folding my fingers together, I take a breath and stiffly say, "I wanted to talk to you about something before I followed up with a prospect, but I can come back--"

"No need." She shimmies off the desk, trailing one hand over the back of her dress, making sure she adjusts the fabric over her ass in a slow and sensuous manner. Her other arm is in a sling, and I can't help but stare at it. "I was just taking off."

"Behave yourself, Nora," Jace tells her as she walks toward the door. I step out of her way, the side of my body banging into a filing cabinet.

So much for my big balls that were going to get shit done today.

"Always, E," she responds, tossing her hair over one shoulder and reminding me of Jessica Rabbit. "And I'm sorry again about the wrist.” She strokes her good hand over the white sling and sighs. “I know you needed it, and I hate to let you down."

Jesus H Christ. She’d let him down when he needed her hand? What was she planning to do with the damn thing?

“I’ll figure it out.” He grants her a sympathetic look, and she laughs—a beautiful, sexy, throaty sound that makes me think of Lauren Bacall in my favorite scene from “How to Marry a Millionaire.” Sonora shrugs on a stylish white trench coat that flares out slightly at the waist.

“I’m sure you will,” she says softly. Her gaze flashes to mine just before she steps out onto the walkway. "It’s wonderful to see you again, Ms. Williams. I hope you’re keeping Jace in line, he can be a real pain in the ass."

"I’m trying," I say, but she's already walking down the walkway, her black, five-inch pumps clicking a staccato beat on the concrete floor. I drag in a harsh breath before I return my focus to my boss. His elbows are rested on his desk and he steeples his long fingers to his mouth, but all I can think about is Sonora’s hands and what he’d wanted to do with them. I can almost guarantee it was filthy, hard, and wet. "I really am sorry, I--"

"Sit down, Williams."

He motions to the seat across from his, but I clench my fingers around the cold edges of the filing cabinet behind me, continuing, "Daisy gave me a message from a satellite radio show host this morning, and then she said you don't like interviews. I figured I'd speak to you before I returned the call. If I had known you had someone in here, and that—"

"Sit. Down," he orders again, this time his voice an octave lower. I glare at him as I stalk across the narrow space separating us and lower my ass to the seat. "Don't apologize for doing your job. It’s what I want from you. Now, what is it you wanted to ask of me?"

I want to tell him that I'm not apologizing for doing my job but for interrupting him and ... Sonora's hands, but I decide to avoid going there. It's none of my business, I say to myself. Just like his relationship with Michaela has nothing to do with me. What he does with other women shouldn’t matter one. Little. Bit.

Straightening my back and giving him my best attempt at a professional, I-don't-give-a-damn-whose-hands-you’re-into expression, I tell him about Allene's show and my ideas for getting her on board with EXtreme.

His attention wavers several times while I’m speaking, and I feel a wave of irritation claw down my spine when he glances at his computer screen for the eightieth time just as I finish. "You know," I say in a dangerously soft voice, tapping my fingers anxiously on the edge of his desk, "I really can come back when it's a better time and you have a moment to pay attention."

He lifts his eyes from the screen, his lids lowering partially as he regards me. "Believe me, Williams, I heard everything you said."

"Okay then, what do you think?"

He starts to shrug his wide shoulders, but then he pauses. He drops his attention to my hands. And he just … stares. When I cease my drumming, and link my fingers, his brow furrows in irritation. “Don’t stop,” he says, but I don’t make a move to obey him. “Fuck, Williams, do you ever listen?”

“When you’re eye-humping my fingers?” I say through my teeth because if I open my mouth any further, the sigh I’m desperately holding back will slip out. “Jace—”

“Shh, love, and let me look.”

He slides as close as possible to the other side of the metal desk and bends his head over my hands, locks of his dark hair brushing my knuckles as he carefully traces his gaze over my rounded, blush-painted fingernails and the length of my fingers. Beneath his stare, every part of my body clenches—from my hands that are suddenly trembling to the very center of my core. When he backs away, stroking his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger, there's a gleam in his eyes that tangles the pit of my stomach into a deliciously perplexed knot.

“Jace, what the hell are you doing?”

"Hold your hands out in front of you,” he says in a harsh voice that spreads goose bumps up my arms and across my chest. He trails his thumbs along the insides of my wrists, and that sigh I was trying so hard to hold in pushes past my lips. Only now, it’s a moan. “Put your wrists together."