AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Seven-fifteen and shewas stuck working late, again. Two of the other secretaries had gone home early with the flu, which was systematically wiping out everyone in their department. After a nasty upstate New York winter, it was almost March, and only she and two of the partners had remained germ-free.
Thatwas due mostly to her preventative measures, such aswashing down her Echinacea tablets with orange juice, as she was doing right now. Liberal applications of antibacterial cleanser. And her twice daily vitamins, plus a full nine hours of sleep a night, especially now that her vibrators were broken. Her bath time had been cut short thanks to that pitiful fact, which meant she was nice and rested.
And horny.
She stifled something between a giggle and a yawn and rolled her chair away from her desk. No wonder she was feeling extra pent-up.
Of course, the subject of her writing didn’t help. She considered herself an artist caught in a tedious job that paid the rent and little more. Books were her escape, but she’d discovered she didn’t have time to read or write outside her genre, not if she wanted to build her name and her fanbase.
She wanted to write other things, too. She wasn’t a one-trick pony, after all. But sex paid, and she needed money. Her family and friends knew she wrote, but she told them she wrote “spicy romance.” Not all out sexfests with toys and bondage and sometimes even orgies.
Her conservative Mormon parents wouldn’t understand. Neither would her friends from college.
Hell, she didn’t even totally understand herself.
She didn’t want to write only kinky stuff. Sure, it was fun sometimes. Fun to break through her own inhibitions and explore them on the page. But she wasn’t just that girl. She had relegated sex to the bottom drawer in her life, and that was where it had stayed for the year or two since she’d last had a boyfriend, even briefly.
Perhaps it had been three or four years. She didn’t keep track. She had her pride, didn’t she?
Regardless of her motivations for writing erotic romance, she needed to get home and actually get some words down. She hadn’t been able to concentrate all afternoon after her run-in at the printer with the Italian god of all things mechanical, and she’d had enough work to keep her busy right through lunch and dinner.
Now her stomach was rumbling, and her eyes were bleary, and she’d sell her soul to Lucifer for a shoulder massage.
And maybe a nice massage between her legs, too, if the printer guy had time to getherparts humming again…
Elena sighed and stood to sort through the papers on her desk. Not happening. Even if he’d called her Bella in a voice made for silk sheets while he’d undressed her in his mind.
Yeah, right. She was so sexy in her business clothes and her sensible shoes. She hardly showed any skin below the neck at all, and her makeup was sedate and professional. Even her hair was restrained in a very respectable bun.
She wasn’t some office sex kitten in short skirts and cleavage-baring shirts.
Not like Candace in Receivables. She always looked like she bought her clothes three sizes too small and usually had the entourage to back it up.
But he hadn’t calledherBella, now had he?
She rolled the name around in her mouth like rich Port wine, rather than the orange juice she’d sucked down too fast. She was pretty enough, but nothing outstanding.
Even if the office Lothario IT guy had named her the Italian word for beautiful.
She smiled despite herself. A fun night of writing loomed ahead of her, just as soon as she gathered up the manuscript she’d printed off that afternoon. She’d actually printed the whole damn thing, all 47 pages of it. She shook her head as she started to put the pages in numerical order. How embarrassing. Well, at least she’d saved herself some ink at home?—
43, 44, 45. She blinked and glanced around her desktop. Everything was in tidy piles and she never lost anything. Her OCD-esque tendencies were legendary around the office. She avoided germs and she didn’t like disorder.
But where were pages 46 and 47?
Panic tickled her throat as she scanned the floor next to her desk. Had she dropped them? Shuffled them into another file?
Her cheeks flooded with heat. Oh God, what if Mr. McGinty found them?
She had her name in the header. Her pen name, but still. E.L Thomson wasn’t exactly a stretch from Elena Thomas.
She clasped the back of her neck.Think. Where could they be?
“Looking for something?”
Him. The voice. Oozing sex and Italian charm and arousing her in ways she’d given up thinking she could be aroused.
She didn’t do casual attraction. She planned dates. Picnics, movies—usually rated PG-13 or lower—and the occasional bloodless sporting events.
