When I pulled my hand away, she moved her hips to chase me. Greedy woman. I smacked her lightly on the gusset of her wet panties, and her lips fell open on a breath, hips rolling to meet my hand. My cock was so hard it ached.
“We have a meeting to go to,” I told her, and I twitched her skirt back into place. Her pout made me laugh, and I brushed my lips against hers. I pulled her off the desk and steadied her as she stood. “And Iris,” I said, “you’re not allowed to touch yourself until I say so. Not allowed to ease that ache between your legs until I do it for you.”
She glared at me. “This is the last time I’m ever doing something nice for you.”
I grinned. “I doubt that very much.”
Iris’s POV
The inkling that I might be in over my head entered my mind as I sat in that boardroom, as horny as I’d ever been, trying to focus on the schedule projected on the far wall. The rasp of my underwear against my tender flesh was almost too much, especially when I glanced across the long table and found Jared’s gaze on me.
“…and Raphael Garcia has approved our initial storyboards, and he wants to take you out to dinner to talk through the new plan,” Clara explained. “He specifically asked for Iris to be there. I’ve slotted that in for Thursday evening.”
Jared’s gaze left mine, and I felt like I could breathe. He nodded at Clara. “Good. Send me the names of the team members that got that over the line this weekend and I’ll head down to thank them in person.”
“Will do,” Clara said, fingers flying over her tablet. A chime sounded from Jared’s phone a moment later.
The woman was an efficiency machine. I tried to uncross my eyes to focus on what was going on. The perfume commercial. My idea. Right.
Minor tweaks were made to the schedule, and I jotted down some notes about events. I’d have to research some of the upcoming projects and clients and make sure I had the appropriate clothing to wear to a few of these formal events. There was one white-tie gala that would require a new dress, but I thought I could manage the rest on what I already had.
“That’s it, then,” Clara said. “Thanks for your time.”
Jared stood, straightening his tie. His gaze landed on me as I busied myself writing notes, and, fine, maybe avoiding his gaze.
“Little,” he said, voice sharp.
I looked up. “Yes?”
“Are you coming?”
I frowned, glancing at the page. “Coming where? I thought today was clear.”
“Down to thank the people who are going to make your idea for Garcia’s commercial a reality.”
“Oh,” I said softly, straightening. “Really?”
“You should see what they came up with,” he said. “You’re the one who understands what Garcia really wants.”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread over my mouth. I slammed my notebook shut and tucked it into my purse. My heart thumped as Jared came closer, opening the conference room door for me. I followed in his wake as we cut to the elevators, my gaze tracing the broad line of his shoulders, his trim waist, his long legs.
It felt like I was floating. I couldn’t believe that one of my ideas would actually be useful, that I could be part of something bigger than myself. And when the elevator doors closed on the two of us, I knew there was something else that gave me that floaty, delicious feeling.
Jared watched me from the other side of the space, his gaze dark. One look was enough for lust to spark in my veins. I was desperate for him to touch me, to make good on his promises. But he just let one side of his lips kick up, then glanced at the changing numbers above the door. When the elevator slowed, he moved closer, his hand sliding across my lower back.
I shivered, tendrils of heat wrapping through my abdomen.
We stepped out of the elevator, and I wondered if my face was very red. It certainly felt flushed. But no one gave me any weird looks until we entered a section of the office that held a few cubicles and group-working desks. A few heads popped up above the cubicles to stare like meerkats looking out for danger.
On the other side of the room, a few people clustered around a white table. I recognized Ophelia when she glanced up from the papers they were poring over. She straightened at the sight of Jared, her wide-eyed expression turning slightly confused when it landed on me.
Jared’s shoulder brushed mine. He greeted most of the people around the table with a nod, then said, “Ophelia.”
She blinked away from me and beamed at him. “Hi, Mr. Branson.”
“The client is pleased with the work you’ve done so far. Thank you for turning it around so quickly.”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” she said, then turned to me, frowning slightly. “I thought you were fired.”
Now, one thing about me is that I’m a staunch member of the Women Supporting Women club. But the way her eyes sharpened on me made my hackles rise. I gave her a toothy smile. “I was,” I said.
Her brow wrinkled.
Jared’s hand slipped down the back of my arm to my elbow, and I resisted the urge to shiver. “Iris’s the one who came up with the idea for the revised commercial,” Jared explained. “She’s the one who pitched it to Garcia.”
“Was she,” Ophelia said, and it sounded more like a statement than a question. “How wonderful.”
“Show us what you’ve got so far,” Jared said, and we were herded through to a conference room. Jared pulled out a chair for me, which Ophelia noted with a glance in our direction.
I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was making it pretty hard. Maybe she had a crush on Jared, or she didn’t like the fact that I’d popped up somewhere she hadn’t expected. Either way, it seemed I didn’t have a friend in her. It probably didn’t help that neither Jared nor I had really explained the nature of our relationship. How could we, when we didn’t know ourselves?
I sat down on the creaky, faux leather chair, and Jared took a seat kitty-corner from me, rolling the chair back slightly so he could rest his elbows on his thighs. The lights were dimmed as Ophelia fired up the projector to take us through the work they’d done so far.
She was halfway through the storyboard when the touch of Jared’s bare hand on my knee nearly made me jump out of my chair. He squeezed, and I forced myself to relax.
I glared at him, and he didn’t even meet my gaze-but the edge of his lip twitched.
His fingers made tiny circles on the inside of my knee, and I forced myself to keep my breathing steady. On the other side of the table from me, Ophelia clicked through the slides to show what models they’d already booked for the shoot.
“Two of the models we used for the original shoot aren’t available, but we should still be able to use some of the footage we got with them if we need it,” she said.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.