Going Down: The Elevator Series (8 page)

“10-4, good buddy,” I grumbled, refusing to look at Cole.-

Mercifully, I was able to release the intercom button before Cole guffawed.

I turned around and unleashed my fiercest bitch brow. “Not one word, mister, or I’ll make you sit through the next trucker movie marathon with her. I mean it. She wants to spend this Saturday at a highway truck stop, trolling for long-haul honeys. I will drag you along if you mess with me.”

Cole backed up, doubling over laughing, and snorted.

Cole snorts?

He righted himself and caught his breath. “Maggie seems so uptight and professional. Are you trying to tell me she has a trucker fetish? I’m not sure if I believe this.”

“Oh, she’s very uptight and professional when it comes to her job. When she’s off the clock, though, she’s a little ball of energy. She’s kind of the ultimate fangirl. She picks a thing and throws herself completely into it. Last year it was superheroes, and if I ever attend another comic-con it will be too soon. This year it’s truck drivers. We’ve watched all of the movies and the TV shows. She even bought a damn CB radio. The next phase is going to visit a truck stop so she can see them in action. I’m not sure I will survive this particular obsession.”

He smiled and put his hands in his pockets. He had a relaxed confidence about him. “How about you spend the day with me instead?”

I wondered if he could actually hear my brain creaking. I fought through the lust haze to rein in my hormones a bit. “Uh, I don’t know. That—well, you work for me, and that might not be such a good idea. Maybe we should tap the breaks on this thing a little.”
Damn it, I’ve watched too many of those driving shows.
Registering his look of disappointment from the loss of his smile, I quickly amended, “Not that I don’t want to! It just might be a good idea to keep our hands to ourselves going forward.”

“Oh. I see. So I should probably not do this, then?” He ran the back of his hand across my cheek and down my throat until it ghosted across my breast.

I gulped. “Well, let’s not be too hasty.” My tenuous resolve was slipping again. “At least until we figure something out.”

“That seems wise,” he said in between soft pecks down my neck. “We should definitely not touch each other until we have a solution to our problem.” He pushed my blazer off my shoulders and tossed it on the floor. Without realizing it, I had removed his jacket, cast aside his tie, and was undoing the last of his shirt buttons.

“I mean, for sure we should keep it professional at least during workdays. You know, until we have a resolution.” I did that breathy thing again. I bit down on his shoulder when he rolled my nipple through the lace of my bra.

“I couldn’t agree more. Strictly professional,” he mumbled from somewhere between my bosoms. “Baby, did you wear this bra for me?” He pulled the left cup down and sucked the peak into his mouth. My leg latched itself around his hips like a prehensile tail. He ground himself into the juncture of my thighs, pushing me further back onto my desk, and we both ignored the
ka-chunk
of the stapler.

My senses were on overload. “Maybe—oh God, yes, right there—maybe, if we just keep it platonic—harder, baby—until lunchtime—oh, Dwight D. Eisenhower!”

“That’s it, Cici. Let go,” Cole murmured while he worked me through the confines of our pants. “I want to take you on this desk right now.”

“Yes!” I yelled. He unbuckled his belt and worked on the button of his trousers. “Oh, wait, no!” I grabbed his hands.

“No?” He raised his brow, halting his movement.

I pushed him off me and tried to tuck everything back where it belonged. “My presentation. I’m so late.” It took three attempts to get my shirt buttoned up correctly. “Fudge sticks.”

Cole raked his hand through his hair. “Shit, Cici, I’m so sorry. I lost my head.”

I rifled through my top drawer, pulling out the hard copy of my materials. “I think we both did. I don’t think very clearly when you do that thing you do.”

“What thing is that?” he asked as I raced toward the door.

“That thing where you stand there and breathe and just generally exist on the planet.”

“Cici, wait!”

I turned back to face him. “Cole, I know we need to sit down and have a serious talk. There’s so much that we need to figure out. It’s going to have to wait until a little later, though.”

“But, Cici, I really—”

“Cole, I know.” I cut him off in a soft tone. “I know this is a crazy, impossible situation. I want this to work, too. I like you a lot, if that’s not evident. I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone, and we’ve only just met. I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. The only things I’m certain about are that you make my knees week and my tummy do this fluttering thing. I want you desperately, and knowing that I’m not supposed to have you is causing me physical pain. I realize I ran away this morning. I’m not running away this time. I’m coming back. I promise.” I flitted over to him and placed a delicate kiss on his lips.

“Cici,” he muttered against my lips. “I was only going to tell you that you have some Post-It Notes stuck to your back.”

Oh.

The presentation was never-ending. I may have been absent the day they handed out coordination and verbal filters, but I had a business composure that was second to none. I could turn it on with the flip of a switch, and I was never more grateful for that skill than today.
If only I could transition it to my personal life…

The suits asked far too many questions they already knew the answer to and did the usual dance of pretending they weren’t even interested in our services. I was happy to dance with them, but I really needed to eat some food that wasn’t unearthed from the bottom of my purse. They begged off my offer to continue our talk over lunch, citing a previous engagement. I’d been in this business long enough to know that was guy code for, “We’re headed for a strip club next, little missy.”

After leaving the meeting, I decided to smooth things over with Maggie. If I knew her, she had already planned either an intervention or a commitment hearing on my behalf. She should see that I had a slightly firmer grasp on my sanity since this morning. Her office was empty, but I could hear her impassioned tones one door down.

“Barry, you either have to wear headphones or turn off your creepy videos! You can’t stream this crap at work.”

I stood in the doorway watching the exchange.

“It’s work-related research, Mags,” he retorted without looking up. “Would you mind closing my door on your way out?”

“How is this work related? What could possibly—why are they putting pantyhose on that dog? What is happening here? Oh, God, my eyes!”

I wish I had some popcorn. Damn, I’m hungry.

“I have clients in Japan. I need to understand their culture. Don’t forget to close the door,” he countered, still staring at his screen.

“What’s going to happen to that dog, Barry? Is it dancing to techno music now? What? How? Why?”

That was my cue to step in. “Thanks for breaking Maggie again, Barry, you filthy cretin.” I grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and steered her toward the door. “C’mon, sweetie. Let’s go get some lunch.”

“That dog danced better in pantyhose than I do, Cici,” she rambled nonsensically as was her custom after any exchange with Barry.

“I don’t think so, honey.” I patted her head soothingly. “You do a pretty fierce Running Man.”

She shook her head. “Ugh, why does he have to be so obnoxious? I can’t wait to move. I’m putting another note in his file, by the way.”

“Maybe some food will clear your head. Where do you want to go?”

“How about that Italian place up the block?”

“Your wish is my—” I wasn’t able to finish my sentence due to a certain suit-wearing sex god rounding the corner. My mouth went dry and I could feel the cartoon hearts popping out of my eye sockets. Something passed between us. I didn’t have a name for it, but I could tell he felt it, too.

“Ladies,” he said when he stopped in front of us.

I never thought of myself as a swoony girly-girl, but I was swooning lately. Oh, I was swooning like no one had ever swooned before. Tales of my swooniness would be told for generations. I was probably counterbalancing the women’s suffrage movement with how hard I was swooning.

“Hi, Cole, how’s it going so far?” Maggie chirped.

“It’s going very well, Ms. Vin—Maggie. Thank you for asking. Ms. Carrington took time out of her busy schedule to show me some amazing things this morning that I won’t soon forget.”

I had no idea how many shades of red existed in the universe, but I could feel my face turn every one of them. Cole steadfastly avoided eye contact with me, but I was beginning to recognize his devilish grin.

Maggie smiled at me. “I’m so glad. I’m sure there’s so much you two can teach each other.”

The devilish grinner turned in my direction. “Oh, I think you’re so right, and I can’t tell you how grateful I’m for the opportunity to be both student and teacher.”

I plastered a generic smile on my face, but placed my hands firmly over my hips just in case my panties tried to throw themselves at Cole of their own volition.

“See? I knew you two would be a great fit. Cole, why don’t you join us for lunch? It will give us all a chance to get to know you better.”

This just has disaster written all over it.
“Oh, I’m sure Cole has more important things to do than go to lunch with us.” I shot him the universal
abort
look.

“I’d love to.” He rubbed his hands together like he was starting a fire. “I’m starving.”

Perhaps the look is not as universal as I thought.

“Great!” Maggie clapped her hands together. “Let me go grab my purse, and I’ll meet you both downstairs. I’m so glad they got that elevator working again. Do you know I had to walk down eight flights of stairs last night?”

I barked out a nervous laugh. “That’s crazy, huh? Isn’t that crazy? I should go grab my wallet, too.”

Way to play it cool, Cici.

“Roger that, good buddy. Let’s roll,” Maggie replied in her deeper than normal trucker voice.

“10-4. I’ll meet you ladies downstairs,” Cole quipped.

Et tu, Bruté?
The last thing Maggie needed was encouragement for her big rig fetish.

Maggie laughed so loud it hurt my ears. “I had a feeling about you, Cole. You’re going to fit right in.”

***

I grabbed my wallet from my purse and started downstairs. I’d never been one who was good at keeping secrets. I could keep other people’s secrets all day long, but when it came to concealing my own from the people I loved, I was rather awful. I tended to blurt things out at the worst possible moment just to alleviate the guilt. Like the time in high school when I confessed at Thanksgiving dinner that I’d let the neighbor boy show me his you-know-what and the aforementioned boy’s entire family was eating with us. My mother packed up a lot of to-go plates that year. To this day, Zach still asked me if I’d “seen anyone’s pee-pee” every turkey day. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this from Maggie.

Cole and Maggie were in the lobby when I arrived. Thankfully the walk to Bella Notte would only take a few minutes. I didn’t trust myself around my best friend right now. My verbal filter wasn’t in exceptional condition, and I preferred not to let her know I molested my first assistant within hours of his hiring. She’d probably have to fill out some paperwork on that. The idea of sitting at a table making small talk with my human resources director and the man whose serpent had recently entered my Garden of Eden was not my idea of a relaxing afternoon. I might as well have been walking to the gallows as we entered the small Italian restaurant.

We were promptly seated by the hostess—an uncommon occurrence in this part of the country. Our waitress was at our table with menus and water glasses before my backside was even in the chair. She was cute and perky and attentive. Very attentive. Cole must have looked like a simpleton to her because she tried twice to help him place his napkin in his lap. When listing off the specials, she made certain to mention that her
ex-boyfriend
, whom she’s no longer dating, was a fan of the salmon. I cut in to draw her attention to the fact that my place setting was missing silverware, to which she curtly told me to wait my turn. Rounding out her unbridled thoroughness toward Cole, she handed him her mobile number in case he needed anything before she brought out the bread course.

I’d never seen the likes of this. Maggie had lent me enough of her romance novels to have seen the cliché before. Hunky guy plus big-boobed waitress equals a torrid romp in the bathroom. I didn’t think this extreme behavior existed in the wild. I had experienced waitresses getting a little flirtatious with my boyfriends for a better tip in the past, but Cole wasn’t my boyfriend. Frustratingly, I couldn’t make any claim to him in front of Maggie. All I could really do was fantasize about pelting our server in the back of her curly head with the saltshaker. I should’ve known Maggie wouldn’t brook this nonsense.

“Listen here”—she craned her head to read the girl’s name tag—“Brittney, is it? I would be much obliged if you would put a leash on your coochie cat and bring some bread for my husband and sister wife. We’re all starving and we don’t have any more room in the harem, if you catch my drift.”

Brittney stood wide-eyed for a moment and then turned back toward the kitchen without a word.

“‘Much obliged?’” I raised one eyebrow.

“‘Sister wife?’” Cole raised both eyebrows.

Maggie waived her hand dismissively. “I was flipping back and forth between
Gone with the Wind
and
Sister Wives
this past weekend.” She no doubt felt this was all the explanation necessary for her outburst.

I hoped to avoid small talk, so I picked at an invisible stain on the white tablecloth. In my peripheral vision I could see Maggie shooting daggers with her eyes, willing me to speak, but I could be every bit as stubborn as she was.

“So, Cole.” Maggie finally caved. “How are you liking it so far?”