Going Down: The Elevator Series (16 page)

“I requested a late check out for the room. So, I was thinking… Maybe we could take an early lunch and come back here for a nooner?”

It was more of a question than a statement. As if I had ever turned him down. “I think I already have a lunch appointment.”

I’m still going to make him work for it, though.

“You don’t have any appointments at lunch, Ms. Carrington.”

Damn! I forgot he knows my schedule better than me.

“Have my assistant add said nooner to my calendar then, please.”

He pulled me tighter to him and kissed behind my ear. “I’m sure he’d be happy to do that.”

I was still trying to reinflate one of my lungs after the eight -floor walk up when Maggie trotted into my office.

“Oh my stars, is that really Cecile Alexis Carrington in the flesh and blood? Well, fiddledeedee.” Maggie had clearly been watching
Gone with the Wind
again. She never had been able to use all the expressions in proper context, but that didn’t deter her.

“I didn’t get a script for this one. Are we lamenting a beau going off to war, or is this more of an ‘I’ll never go hungry again’ type of thing?” Things never seemed to go well for me when Maggie started to improv.

She plopped down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. “It’s more like a ‘Where has my best friend gone? I don’t know what’s going on with her’ type of thing. Where have you been? I never see you anymore.”

Uh oh.

I couldn’t lie to Maggie’s face. Often. So I stared determinedly at her right ear and lied to it. “I’ve just been so busy with work. There’s so much to get in order with the promotion and the merger and the…” I quietly trailed off hoping she wouldn’t notice.

Worst. Liar. Ever.

“I thought Cole would take a lot of the load off you. Is he not performing like he should?”

I faked a cough to hide my laughter. “Oh no, his performance is really phenomenal. No complaints there.”

“You shouldn’t be overworking yourself like this. Is he not putting out the amount of effort that you need? Do you want me to talk to him? I can be the bad cop.”

“He’s definitely putting out. Effort. He’s putting out effort, I mean. Cole is great. Things have just been incredibly busy.”

Maggie looked at me exactly like Leroy had been looking at me lately. I needed to hit the bookstore to see if I could find some self-helps about to balance work, life, pet owner, and secret boyfriend. There probably wasn’t a huge market for that kind of material.

“Maggie, we’ll get together soon.”

Oh great. Now I’ve got
“
Cat’s in the Cradle
”
playing in the back of my mind. I’m a deadbeat father on top of everything else. How did everything get so out of whack?

“Is this because of what happened at the truck stop? I offered to cover half the cost of those cakes, even though you didn’t share any with me.” She took off her shoes, which meant she had no plans to leave until she got answers.

“Mags, it’s not you; it’s me.”

This is getting worse.

I needed to fix this. “I don’t have any plans this weekend. Why don’t we have a girls’ weekend at your place?”
Mine still smells like smoke.

Maggie jumped up and clapped her hands before grabbing her heels. “Yay! I’ll pick some movies for us!”

“Negative. We vote on everything we watch and my vote counts twice.” This wasn’t my first rodeo. And it wasn’t until after her rodeocentric movie marathon that I even started using that expression. That was eight hours of my life I wasn’t getting back.

She stopped jumping, but her smile never faded. “You’re such a buzzkill. Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow night!”

Now I had to break it to Cole that the couple’s massage he booked just got a whole lot less couple-y. He would understand. My libido, on the other hand, was a different story.

***

A few hours later, Cole and I crept toward the exit like ninjas. There was something so very sexy about a secret rendezvous. Even the word rendezvous was all French and sexy.

“Where are you going?”

My vertical leap would’ve qualified me for the next Olympics. I turned around to see Maggie two feet behind us, her ninja skills clearly superior to ours.

“We’re going to lunch,” Cole answered without a hint of distress.

“I’m starving. Let me go grab my purse.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And Randy is here today and that guy is just weird. I want to get out of the office.” Maggie turned without waiting for a response and walked toward her office.

The mention of Randy’s name sent a bolt of fear down my spine, but not enough to pass up sex with Cole. Maggie needed to be out of the equation though, or our excursion was going to get very unsexy. I yelled the first thing to come to mind. “You can’t!”

Maggie stopped and looked at me like I had two heads. “Why?”

The question I should’ve anticipated most had me stumped. My mouth did that open-close with no sound coming out thing again. That was getting tiresome.

“It’s a prospective client lunch,” Cole said without any sweat running down his face. At least that made one of us.

Maggie looked a little crestfallen. “Oh. Maybe next time then. Enjoy your lunch.”

I think we made it out of that relatively unscathed. That could’ve been a lot worse.

I was so close to the door that I could touch it when I heard Maggie’s voice again.

“Where are you taking them?”

I vomited out an answer before running it through my brain. That tactic has a one hundred percent failure rate, but that hasn’t dissuaded me yet. “McDonald’s.”

Both Cole and Maggie looked at me as if I might be having a silent stroke. I wasn’t so sure of my own health at that exact moment.

I really have got to get better at lying.

Cole broke the awkward silence with a much more plausible answer. “We’re taking them to Luigi’s.”

“It’s next to a McDonald’s,” I added for no logical reason whatsoever.

Stop trying to recover, Cici. Shut your pie hole.

Cole looked like he might be thinking the exact same thing. “We better get going before we’re late.”

As we walked out the door and down the hall, I couldn’t help feeling like the biggest jerk the human race had ever seen. I felt like I was cheating on Maggie, and that didn’t set well with me. I didn’t have a solution to the problem yet, so I had no choice but to keep plugging holes in this dam with lies. Really awful, unbelievable lies, but lies nonetheless. If I told Maggie the truth, she would have to choose between firing me or joining us in this intricate web of deceit. She didn’t need that kind of pressure. I pushed back the rising tide of guilt so I could enjoy the time with Cole.

As expected, Cole was disappointed but understanding about me canceling our plans for the weekend. He grew up with a sister, so he understood the importance of girl time. He might have understood it better than I did.

Maggie was positively giddy when I showed up at her door Friday evening. I knew we would be applying facial masks within minutes of my arrival, so I rolled up already in my pj’s. The cab driver didn’t bat an eye, but I couldn’t say the same for the residents of Maggie’s building. The doormen in her high rise loved me.

I also packed fifteen movies because I had no intention of watching anything associated with any of Maggie’s many fandoms. I loved her like a sister, but everyone had their breaking points.

With our pore-reducing masks on and our hair braided, we sat down to watch the first of several mindless comedies. It felt good to sit and laugh and eat our way through Maggie’s fridge. It wasn’t until we finally collapsed into bed in the early hours of Saturday that I missed Cole. And not just because he let me be the little spoon. Sleeping with Maggie was not the same as sleeping with Cole on so many levels. It startled me to realize how quickly he had fit into my life. Other than the gigantic hurdle of not actually being allowed to date him, dating him was… easy. It was nice to have one uncomplicated part of this highly complicated mess.

***

By the time Monday morning rolled around, I had gained four pounds, but my skin had never looked more radiant. I had helped Maggie pick out three wedding hairstyles, depending on location. She was all set once she found a groom. My hair had seen everything from Princess Leia buns to quasi-dreadlocks over the course of the weekend. I evaded several questions from Maggie on what I had been up to lately by tossing out buzzwords like “cat” and “work” and “gym.” I could tell by the disbelieving expression on her face that I overshot with the gym. That was an amateur mistake. I ignored the twisting feeling in my gut from piling on more lies, but I continued to sweep that into a dark recess of my brain. I raced back home with my guilt safely tucked away, to put on an ensemble that didn’t include fuzzy socks.

I felt like a teenager again, racing to school so my boyfriend could walk me to class. I was so anxious to see Cole again that I contemplated taking the elevator. Since we were days away from moving into the new building, I decided not to tempt fate. I trudged up the stairs, regretting the last chocolate pie Maggie and I split.

I got a surge of energy when I came around the corner to see more fawning women huddled around Cole’s desk. You’d think this place ran a brothel out of the basement or they pumped pheromones through the air conditioning. I wished I had a water hose to turn on them like cats in heat. I heard Cole’s exasperated voice as I got closer.

“Ladies, I appreciate you all checking to see if my stapler is loaded to capacity, but I really have a lot of work to get done today.” He kept typing while they all jockeyed for the most advantageous position to lean over his desk.

Seriously, this is a place of business. These women are out of control. And if anyone’s getting bent over a desk, it’s going to be me. The nerve of them.

I cleared my throat so hard I made myself choke a little. I had a long speech planned about glass ceilings and diligence and work ethic, but I only got as far as “Ladies…” before they all scattered in different directions.

“Thank you,” Cole said as he exhaled. “I was afraid I was going to have to pepper spray them.”

“Hey, I’m always good for breaking up a party. How was your weekend?”

He got up and walked toward my office. “Boring. We should talk about the print ads on the hot sauce campaign before you get your day started.”

Oh heck yes we should talk about those ads.

He closed the door behind me, immediately pushing me up against it. His mouth was on me in an instant, his tongue invading my mouth like it was there to plant a flag. He was pressed so firmly against me that I could feel his Don Johnson had already popped his collar and was ready to go. I dropped my bag to the floor, likely spilling enough random contents to win a scavenger hunt.

Cole broke the heated kiss for only a second. “Fuck, I missed you so much.”

I missed his foul mouth. Boy, did I miss his everything about his mouth.

His hands found their way under my dress, and he squeezed the underside of my bottom. His kisses moved down my neck into my cleavage. He traced the edge of my panties. “Fuck,” he groaned in my ear as he slipped a finger under the lace.

I tugged at his hair, urging him to not stop. He lightly traced the outside of my rose garden before sliding two fingers inside. I pulled his mouth back to mine so he could muffle some of the moans I could no longer contain. His fingers went directly to the spot that took me months on my own to find in my awkward teen years. He certainly didn’t pass Go and he most definitely didn’t stop to collect two hundred dollars.

I wrapped my leg around his waist so I had a better angle to grind down on his hand. Leaning farther into Cole, I felt the tension start to build in my stomach and the weakness in my legs. The logical part of my brain was sending
be quiet
reminders to my mouth. For the most part, my mouth listened. Unfortunately, my mouth stopped taking orders when I reached the peak of Mt. Orgasm.

“Yes, baby! Right there! Please don’t stop! God dammit, John Quincy Adams!”

My limbs felt like they belonged to another body. That had been pent up for a few days, so the release was almost more than I could handle. Cole guided my leg back down to the floor while peppering my neck with kisses. He took a gentle bite behind my ear.

I reached down to unbuckle Cole’s pants when several things happened at once.

The door was thrown open with a force typically reserved for the SWAT team, knocking Cole on top of me, and I was launched into the Ficus tree, which sat unsuspectingly in the corner of my office behind the door. Cole’s face was lodged in my cleavage. I tried to pull down my still hiked-up dress, but movement was nearly impossible since I was stuck between a proverbial rock and Cole’s literal hard place. The interloper was still leaning against the open door, but I didn’t even need to hear the voice to know who was on the other side.

“Cici? Where are you? I thought I heard yelling.” Maggie moved farther into the room away from the door, causing Cole and me to collapse onto the floor behind her. Maggie turned, following the noise. “What in the—?”

I scrambled so quickly to get off Cole and pull down my dress that I kneed him in the kidney. “Jesus jump roping Christ, Maggie! Will you learn to knock before barging in?” Cole was a little slower to get up, what with his recent kidney damage.

Maggie put her hands on her hips.

Oh no.

“I thought I heard yelling. What exactly is going on in here?”

I looked over at the true victim in this scenario, the ficus tree. It had two broken branches and a few dozen scattered leaves on the floor. “Nothing. We were discussing a project. Sometimes it gets heated. That’s all. Until you barged in, knocked us over, and damaged my plant.”

Maggie’s hands didn’t move from her hips. She wasn’t buying this. Cole opted for silence, possibly because he was having organ failure.

“Did I hear you yelling about John Quincy Adams?” Maggie’s tone was more than skeptical.