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I laughed. "I think I understand now why you don't want to work for him. It's the one part of your life you don't want him to control, right?"
She nodded. "If I lose my job, he'll stop at nothing to get me to come there. He's still pestering me as we speak."
Well, I couldn't let that happen now, could I? Not only would I be out of a job, but it also meant I would have no reason to see her every day. Frankly, I'd become so used to seeing her daily that I couldn't imagine any other way.
"Don't worry, Felicity. No one is losing their job. Not if I have a say in it."
She smiled then, a small, genuine smile that somehow lit up her entire face, and it was all I could fucking do not to lean forward, pull her to me, and kiss the shit out of her.
"And how do you plan to do that?" she asked.
"Simple. By overworking. We might have to tweak our schedules a bit to accommodate the time constraint, but I'm nothing if I'm not efficient. Do you think you can do that?"
She nodded. "I'll do anything as long as I don't have to work for my father."
I smiled. That's my girl.
ten
Felicity
I liked being near Aaron.
He made things easy. I didn't have to overthink or dissect every action before I took it. It was just…easy. Most importantly, I liked how he made me feel: special, wanted, desired.
When he looked at me with those glazed-over eyes that did all sorts of wicked things to me, I swear all I wanted to do was give in. Close my mind to the warning bells ringing at the back of my head, drop every thought, and let him do with me as he pleased.
But my fears were persistent. For someone like me who had been burned before—badly in fact—it wasn't easy to open up a second time. This wasn’t to say that I wanted anything more with Aaron, just that I hadn't thought about letting anyone else touch me since…him.
I had no doubts Aaron would know what to do. Just a flick of my nipple had me almost weeping. What would happen if we went further? If he did more than touch my nipple?
And then there was AaRogue. I didn't owe him any exclusivity or anything, given that we weren't even a thing. But at the same time, I had no idea what we were. He'd said he enjoyed talking to me, and I'd say it back to him. Because it was true. I did enjoy spending time with AaRogue, though admittedly, since the time he'd talked me through an orgasm, things had been really weird between us.
From my end, that was. I'd barely gone on Jungle Justice since then because I didn't know how to face him after what had happened. I didn't even have the heart to touch the stupid toy again and had shoved it to the back of my closet.
The irony. I'd avoided men for so long, and now it seemed I was caught between two.
The rest of the day was spent making more sketches. Since the project window had been drastically reduced, I'd had to spend less time thinking and more time sketching. I meant it when I said I would do anything as long as working for my father was not the end result, and if that meant I had to put my creative juice on times two, then that was what I would do.
After four hours and fifty rough character sketches later, I sat in anxiety as Aaron went through my work. The working day was over, and we were the only people on this floor, just like we had been the last time. Since this was our first time working together, I didn't know if he was cutthroat or not, and any rejection from him would completely shatter me. I tried not to focus on the reason for that.
"What's this one supposed to be?" he asked, and I leaned forward to peer into my sketchbook.
"A Kameleon-dragon."
He blinked at me. "Say what?"
"Oh, a chameleon that's half Komodo dragon."
"Felicity." I could've sworn he was holding back a laugh. "Explain."
I suddenly felt self-conscious. "Uh…so, you know how I talked about animals being characters, and how human avatars are fast becoming boring? So, I thought, why don't we merge animals? Spice things up. Each avatar will have advanced powers of the actual animals that have been merged. For instance, a Kameleon-dragon will have a venomous bite as well as the ability of camouflage."
He stared at me like I was a demon who’d suddenly been sent packing from hell for sharing rainbows and sunshine. The silence was stretching for too long, and I was just about to say Ha! Just kidding, when his face suddenly broke into a broad smile, and he let out a bark of laughter.
"Jesus, that's fucking brilliant!" He was on his feet, flipping through the pages of my sketchpad as he rounded his desk to pace the space behind me. "Oh, my God. How the fuck did you even think of this? And I thought I was the genius," he scoffed as he flipped another page. "What is this one? Wait. Let me guess. A bird that's half horse?"
I chuckled at his enthusiasm. "An eagle, actually. And I'm still working on a name for that one. Hoggle doesn't sound so good."
