“If I didn’t have to leave, you’d be spillingallthe tea. But, God damn it.” She taps the screen of her phone on the table. “My boss is already getting fucking cramps without me there. Such a baby. I hate man babies.”
Her boss is a tool. She’s been working at Evergreen Marketing Group since she got her undergrad, and it’s a small boutique agency, but in a short time, she’s already basically running the entire creative department.
Which is not surprising. She won every graphic design competition and award in school and has more artistic talent in her pinky finger than I have in my entire body.
“We are talking later. Drinks at Don’s, six o’clock?”
I nod as she gathers her phone and coffee, stepping my way for a side hug and air kiss.
Guilt sends a chill over my skin as another call from Benjamin flashes on the screen of my phone, but I let it go to voicemail.
I don’t have anything for him. I don’t have a solution to his problem yet. I will, but not yet.
I shake my head back and forth, dread sinking into my bones, knowing I have to figure something out. And fast.
But, for this moment, right here, I’m going to stick a pin in that problem and finish the world’s best breakfast.
Twenty minutes later, I’m riding a maple bacon cheesecake and double espresso high, and simultaneously dreading and counting the seconds until I hear the knock on my door.
Chapter 15
Emee
God, please believe me, I’m trying to keep this professional.
King has his head in my lap as we lie side by side on the bed.
If I’m wearing my therapist hat, there’s no reason for the tingling between my legs at the proximity of my pussy to this man’s face, the way my fingers long to curl into his hair and pull him down onto me.
Or the way my breath hitches as his fingers trail along the inside of my thigh, inching closer to the hem of my skirt.
I don’t wear skirts for meeting clients. Never. It goes entirely against my code.
“Are you wet, little firecracker?” he rumbles, his deep voice connecting with all those dark parts of me that he’s been waking up. “Wet just for me… makes my mouth water. Want a lick?”
“N—no,” I stutter. “I’m your therapist right now.”
“And I’m your King.”
I ignore him. Or try to, as my mind gets all flustered and I struggle to think clearly. “Tell me about your time at school,” I say clumsily, silently berating myself for being so blunt.
The tiny increase in pressure of his fingers on the inside of my leg tells me I’m getting close to the truth of King Hertzof. But instead of answering, he asks a question of his own. “What do you dream of, firecracker? If you had a magic wand, what would you wish for?”
“That’s not what we’re here for.”
“Humor me.”
I let out an exasperated sigh.
As his therapist, I should be keeping things professional. But that ship has already sailed… “Well, it’s pie in the sky…stupid, really.”
“No.” He runs his hand up and down my leg, making me shiver. “Never say that. Nothing about you is stupid, baby. If it’s your dream, then I want to hear it.”
“There’s this farm,” I say, then shake my head. “Well, it’s notthefarm.Thefarm was a mixture of Green Gables and a painting my parents had hanging in what passed for our living room. Not the best painting, but when things would get really bad, I dreamed of living on the farm in that frame. I used to wish I could take Benjamin’s hand, wish hard enough, and jump into that painting.”
“It sounds perfect, baby,” King says, but there’s a hint of something in his voice. Something I can’t place. Interest, not just in me but in the idea, I guess.
“It would be, and I had a place I was looking at, but… Something came up, and the people selling the farm took another offer. I don’t blame them, but that’s what I’d want. That farm.”
