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And this instant is all I need to remember—vividly—what it felt like to be in Ben’s home drinking his wine, staring into his eyes expectantly, and wondering what in the hell was about to happen. The excitement, the anticipation, the terror …
He’s your boss, whispers a voice. He’s untouchable. Turn away.
Turn away.
That’s precisely what I do. The eye contact breaks, though I can’t say whether it’s me who looks away first or him. I’m out of the conference room and crossing the office space. Every person I pass is a blur. Every face is every other face. Every tie is every other tie. Despite trying to push away thoughts of Ben, he’s the only damned thing I’m thinking about. I’m stony-eyed and lost in so many thoughts, I stumble twice on my way, almost walk into an opened filing cabinet, and literally forget where I am.
What a crap-tastic situation.
I finally make it back to the round table where the others are sitting. Elijah’s lit-up face sobers me. “Dude! How was it?”
I blink, completely lost. “H-How was what?”
“Getting to sit in a meeting with the man himself,” he answers, like it’s the most obvious thing. He wears a permanent smile of excitement that bunches up his cheeks. “You gotta tell me. What was it like, seeing him work his brilliance in the flesh?”
When I let my bewildered eyes drift from Elijah’s, I realize three of the other interns are also paying attention to me, having stopped their tasks to hear my answer. I haven’t quite had the pleasure to meet these three yet—including a pretty girl with short curly black hair, cute dorky glasses, smooth rich russet skin, and bright green eyes that seem to drink in everything. I notice her especially, since she’s standing right next to Elijah.
I shrug. “It … was interesting, I guess.”
“Don’t hold out,” teases Elijah, nudging me.
“I was just sent in there to take notes for Emilio, since he’s not here. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Elijah gapes at me. “Dude, that’s not even the point. You do realize everything has an ulterior motive, right? Rebekah chose you and Brandon to go in there and absorb. You weren’t supposed to just take notes, dummy. You’re learning the business! You’re picking up on his technique, watching the master at work!”
The other interns are still staring at me. I press my lips together and shuffle uncomfortably, not liking all the attention.
“Alright, alright.” My roommate lets off his tough, pressing demeanor. “I get it. You can tell me later,” he adds in a whisper. “I’ll order some teriyaki wings from the local wingery. That oughta loosen your tongue.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I state aloud, “and ‘wingery’ isn’t a word.”
“Sure it is.” He gives me another obnoxious nudge, chuckles, then adds, “You missed a spot,” with a poke at my belly before he returns to his work.
I glance down and notice a tiny smudge of toner I must’ve missed when I went to clean myself up before the meeting. In a haze of questions and frustration, I make my way back across the office to the restroom. In the quiet, offensively fluorescent-lit tiled room, I stand in front of the mirror and quietly scrub the last bit of toner off my shirt. Unlike the rest which came off easily, this bit only seems to smear, much to my jaw-tightening chagrin.
The door sweeps open suddenly. For some reason, I expect to see Brandon waltz in all smug and proud. But it’s not Brandon.
It’s Ben.
When the door closes, he just stands there, all six feet of him. His muscular shoulders fill that pinstriped white dress shirt. His sculpted pecs pull the thin fabric of his shirt across them as though the material was painted right on his body. His sleeves are rolled up slightly, giving a hint of his thick, muscled forearms. For some reason, I also happen to note how big his hands are.
Maybe because I want them on me right now. Maybe because I regret cutting off our Friday night so abruptly. Maybe a part of me secretly wishes we had gone all the way, since I now realize that the opportunity will never arise again.
Especially not in the office restroom. I turn away from him and face the mirror as I continue to scrub away, but now with more fervor than before.
“Trevor.”
In stark contrast to the dominant, powerful way in which he addressed me in the conference room, his voice is soft and sends a chill of sensitivity up my spine, feeling not unlike a pair of gentle, teasing fingertips tracing along my naked body. I feel goosebumps everywhere just from the sound of it.
And then I instantly resent the tingly, sexy feeling. “What?” I shoot back rudely, not looking his way.
He comes closer to the sink where I stand. The scent of his spicy cologne fills my nostrils. I fight an involuntary desire to drop against his meaty body, succumbing to the way he makes me feel when he’s in my presence.
