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Chapter Fifteen
Aaron was seeing double.The words on his monitor blurred and bled together.
He was so freakin’ tired of this damn case. He couldn’t seem to get his usual adrenaline rush. The management of this national beverage company were all dickheads. Prize morons who all needed to do the legal and decent thing by paying their employees their entitlements.
Thank Christ he didn’t have to work in a big corporation, like Carts or Dan.
Speaking of Carts… He flicked his wrist and looked at his watch.
Would he go? Heck, it had been running around his head like a rat on a wheel these past few days. The quiz night. Since Alice had doused him in cold water at the train station, he’d been determined to keep some distance. Typical woman. As soon as you brought in sex they wanted to get emotionally close, analyse you, stretch you out, pin you down and pick pieces out of you. It had happened so many times before. That dewy-eyed look full of misplaced compassion. He could almost hear the cogs in their brains turning: “Poor darling, he’s so damaged from childhood.” Followed by: “I can save you. Pick me, pick me.”
He gritted his teeth.
The problem was, his cooling-off efforts had been abysmal. Friday night Carts had flicked him for a family function and Dan had some rugby team do, so he’d gone to the pub with Hamish. But then Jacinta turned up and some others, and they all kept asking after Alice until he wanted to rip out his own fingernails.
So he’d left. Taken an Uber straight to Alice’s. Spent five minutes like a burglar checking that Alice was home alone, his suit jacket nearly torn apart by Rowena’s frigging rose bushes. Thankfully Polly was out; Friday night was her prowl night. He knew that of course, because he’d seen her often enough when he was on the prowl himself.
But now the only woman he wanted to pounce on was Alice.
She’d let him in with her hair wrapped in a towel, her glasses slightly wonky on her nose. When his eyes slid to her feet, there were those fucking slippers and he’d turned into a wildebeest.
They’d had crazy sex up against her bedroom door; he’d lifted her up and she’d wrapped her legs around him and afterwards he knew she hadn’t come. He felt guilty about that—he was a jerk. A great big needy jerk, he’d realised as he went limp against her and his legs would hardly hold him up from the force of his orgasm.
And then they’d made awkward conversation that completely weirded him out, so he’d said he had more work to do and left. Pretended he didn’t see the hurt in her eyes. He’d ached—yesached, an almost physical pain he couldn’t place at any exact spot in his body—to make it up to her. Kept imagining her face as she broke apart in his arms. The little guttural sounds she would make as she orgasmed, how she’d spasm so tight around his fingers, his cock.
But he couldn’t do it. Because then she’d think she owned him, wouldn’t she?
Aaron rubbed his aching eyes. Focused again. They’d be well and truly halfway through the stupid event by now. So what? He hated quiz nights; he’d lied to Carts because he couldn’t stomach the thought of Carts moving in on Alice. Except now he’d left the door wide open for it to happen.
Well. Marvellous. Carts could offer Alice everything he couldn’t. Slavish devotion, hours of endless listening. Real lovemaking. Not just sex.
He checked his phone. She hadn’t messaged him. He’d sent her a vague noncommittal message yesterday when he couldn’t stand not having contact any longer, when his arm ached from relieving himself in the shower. She’d sent a cool, deeply unsatisfying response.
Now he tapped her a quick “Going to be late. Smash ’em for me.”
Alice didn’t answer. Probably her phone was on silent.
If he hurried, he could get this report wrapped up in fifteen minutes. He could get there for the last part. Tonight he could sleep with his nose pressed against that little dip in her shoulder blade, inhale the smell of apple blossom. Or at least what he imagined apple blossom smelled like. Just like Alice. In fact, he could almost smell it now…
The outer electric doors swooshing brought his head up in surprise. He’d thought he would be the last one here. Low laughter, a man’s and a woman’s. Aaron got up, navigated around his desk and peered out of his office to see two heads bobbing along the partitions at the other end of the open-plan offices. One was the unmistakably Nordic dirty blond mane of Archie Bendt. The other was several shades lighter, framing Lauren’s perfect features.
Shit on a great big stick. It was 8.30 p.m. Why wasn’t Archie at home with his beautiful wife and his two angelic children?
The door to Archie’s office closed with a meaningful click. The laughter became muffled.
Aaron went back to his desk and slumped down in a cold sweat. He really didn’t need to know about this. He tried to focus on the screen but his mind wouldn’t stop going over and over the many little clues: the looks, the way Lauren and Archie’s hands would linger over a file passing between them. The way Lauren would lean her breast against Archie’s shoulder as she placed a coffee in front of him, the way he’d look indulgently back at her.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He scrubbed his hands through his hair, down his face.
Suddenly a spine-chilling howl split the air.
A woman.
Christ almighty, was Bendt attacking Lauren? Were Trojan, Bendt and Fink about to have their very own #MeToo scandal?
There was no getting past it; as the screams hit a higher note he knew he had to intervene. He sprinted towards Archie’s office and heard Archie bellowing with a level of desperation Aaron had never before heard. And now there weretwofemale voices.
