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Nicotineandseabreeze do nothing to dull the irritation searing the nape of my neck.
Doesn’t matter. I’m not smoking to calm down, I’m smoking to procrastinate. Wiping mist from my jaw, I suck in a lungful of chemicals no worse for me than a red-head moaning into my palm, and exhale them toward the denim horizon.
I’m annoyed for a million reasons, only half of them rational, and only one that needs my immediate attention.
I tug Blake’s cheap wallet out of my back pocket, flick it open, and sneer at his driver’s license photo. It was lying at the bottom of the spiral staircase, no doubt from where Penelope tossed it. There was nothing left in it except a prepaid credit card and a condom.
As I flick it into the sea, the impulsive thought simmering at the back of my brain still lingers: I should throw him in with it. That’s why I’m going after Penelope and not him right now. Embarrassingly enough, I can’t say I wouldn’t shove my Glock in his slimy-ass mouth if I did.
Images of Penelope on her fucking tippy-toes, gazing up at my newest recruit like laying one on him was at the very top of her bucket list, burns bright behind my retinas. The way my hand had twitched toward my gun was wild, and for a moment, I had a glimpse of what it must be like living in Angelo or Gabe’s head, where violence follows impulsion and consequences are a foreign concept.
I already knew she was a dirty little thief, but now I know it’s worse than I thought—she’s good at it. Well-seasoned. If I was in my early twenties and still chased trouble, I’d be losing my mind at the sight of it. And although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little impressed, and more than a little turned on, I’m running a business, not a juvenile detention center.
I drop my head against the side of the yacht. Slide another cigarette out of the carton and bring my Zippo to the tip.
No. I snuff out the flame with a flick of my wrist. If I smoke one more cigarette, she might have put her dress back on.
Below deck, the faint hum of a hairdryer seeps under the locker room door. Galvanizing my self-control, I push it open and stride down the row of lockers toward the sinks.
I slow to a stop. Drag my hand over my throat. Greasy burgers, weed, Sunday morning lie-ins. Just because I crave things that are bad for me, it doesn’t mean I give in to them. I should have applied the same hard-and-fast rule to seeing Penelope in her underwear and tights, because that’s the epitomeof bad for me. As I slow to a stop behind her, the weight of a bad decision throbs inside my slacks.
Christ. The last time I saw her like this, I went on to sit behind my desk with a rock-solid erection I refused to relieve, and almost managed to convince myself that it simply wasn’t real. That nine whiskeys had romanticized my memory of her next-to-naked.
Unfortunately, as I roll a heavy gaze over the curve of her ass, the paleness of her skin, and the outline of her thong shaded by her tights, I realize it was wishful thinking. She doesn’t flinch when I enter the room and it both turns me on and pisses me off. I wonder; would she still stand there in her panties with that indifference carved into her face if it was one of my men who’d strolled in here?
I steal another glance at her ass. Confirmed: she wears thongs. Unconfirmed: whether they’re lacy like her bra. Whether I could rip them off with my teeth.
The buzz of the hairdryer stops. I lift my attention to the spotlights in the ceiling and run a finger over my pin collar. A slow, deep breath, and only then can I feign enough nonchalance not to look like a pervert.
She meets my gaze in the mirror. “You know, in a conventional workplace, a boss following their employee into the locker room would be considered sexual harassment.”
My dry laugh doesn’t tilt my lips. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a conventional workplace.”
Her eyes spark with amusement. “Do you pay taxes?”
I glance at the bills peeking out of her bra cup. “Do you?”
When she laughs, a delicate flush stains her neck, and despite the fact that both the sight and the sound of her hum like a live wire down the length of my dick, I don’t return her smile.
Draping her dress over her arm, she pushes off the sink and saunters toward the cubicles behind me. “Touché, boss.”
Impulsion. Violence. Her sass falls off a cliff because I can’t stop myself shooting out a hand and hooking a finger into the waistband of her tights. She wobbles to a stop, and her next breath fizzles through the part of her mouth.
My cock pulsates to the rhythm of a dripping shower head.
“What did I tell you about calling me boss when half-naked, Penelope?”
Her gulp stokes the flames of my annoyance. Only when I’d acted on it, did I realize the sight of her was pissing me off. Bending over the counter, prancing around with a bounce in her step. She knew exactly what she was doing and has made it near-impossible to be serious with her.
I’m a dirty hypocrite; I know. I purposely smoked a single cigarette to make sure I caught her half-dressed. Besides, deep down I’m more pissed with myself than with her, because if I’m fooled by the way her body moves and the way her laugh sounds, then I’m no better than my lackey.
Despite the heat of her soft hip burning between my first and second knuckles, I regain enough composure to look at her. “Tell me, where did you learn to be such a dirty little thief?”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
“I saw what you did to Blake. What did I tell you, Penelope? You want to work here, you have to be a lady. I said no more grifting, no more stolen dresses. I’d have added no more stealing wallets to that list if I’d known you were into that shit.” My mood darkens a shade. “What are you, feral?”
She glances down at my hand, as if only now realizing I have her hooked like a fish on a line, and she didn’t stop by my side on her own accord.
