AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dom?”
I jumped so fast at his new proximity, I pushed my chair back where it crashed into the wall behind my desk, bumping me out of it so hard I fell to the floor. Where I promptly buried my face in my hands.
A hot second later, Peyton was kneeling beside me, those fucking hands on my shoulders as he peered deep into my eyes. “Dom, are you okay?” Genuine concern shone through. He cocked his head. Leaned in. Inhaled. Leaned back. His eyes widened. “You… You were…”
“Nope!” I literally crawled to get away from him.
I was such a mess when I got home last night, I drank myself into a stupor and passed out on the couch. I woke up late this morning, which was not like me. I didn’t have time to shower and rushed into work. Either he saw that silver sparkle on my skin, which I thought I wiped off this morning in my haste to get ready. Or he smelled the vanilla on me. The scent I put on when I went to the club.
“What the hell is going on?” Ah, Perry, just the man I wanted to see. Not when I was on my knees. At least not in these circumstances.
My head craned back so I could look at him. “What’s up?” Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
“Why are you crawling? And why is Pey slumped against the wall?” He paused. His mouth gaped. “Did you take him down? I’ve only seen three men able to do it and they aren’t here.”
I climbed to my feet with grace I didn’t feel. “I didn’t fight Peyton.” I nearly fucked him last night, but we weren’t talking about that.
The man in question still hadn’t moved and his face was a myriad of emotions. Lovely. If he blurted out I came on his chest in the club, I was quitting my job as an executive assistant on the spot.
“Pey?” Perry leaned over my desk to snap his fingers in his best friend’s face. I’d never seen Peyton anything but a hundred percent on when Perry was around. Yet, here he was, a zombie, reliving our night in his head as the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
It wasn’t like I denied it when realization struck him. He knew it was me. What would be the point in trying to prove otherwise?
Peyton shook his head, finally coming around. He stood, slowly, tipped a little when he was upright. He had to grab the edge of my desk to steady himself. I was drawn back to his fingers. Mind reenter gutter.
“What happened out here?” Perry asked. “You two are being weird, and I have too much other shit to figure out to worry about whatever this is.”
“We’re fine.” I smiled. “I saw a spider, jumped, and fell off my chair. Pey was making sure I was okay, but it leapt for his face and hissed at him. He fell too. I crawled away in my haste to flee.”
“Hissed?”
“Mmhmm.” That was my story, and I was sticking to it. Could spiders hiss? Not a fucking clue.
Perry legit looked at the floor behind my desk for the hissing arachnid. “Is it gone?”
Jesus Christ. I turned to Peyton, silently begging him with my eyes to rescue me from this nightmare.
“It hissed,” he confirmed. His voice hoarse, reminding me of the way he begged me to get him off last night.
Perry eyed us both before turning and heading back for his office. He stopped, his gaze on me. “If you see it again, we’ll call maintenance and ask them to do something about it.”
“I think they only fix things, not exterminate.”
“Whatever, someone will know what to do.”
“Yes, Mr. Altair.”
He growled and stomped into his office like I knew he would.
I found my chair and the dent in the wall behind it. A bit of sheetrock was dusted over my suit jacket. I picked it up and brushed the dust off. At least it wasn’t ruined, unlike my relationship with Peyton, if I even had one to begin with.
Peyton and I got along. We had to since we both worked closely with Perry. We traveled together. But Peyton loved Perry, so I kept a distance, didn’t want to disturb the balance, even if I harbored a secret crush on our boss.
That balance was gone.
Peyton had to figure out what to do with what he knew, while I went back to work, because anything less and I would curl into a ball beneath my desk.
My computer became fascinating as I typed the same sentence over and over for something to do.
