With Love, from Cold World(93)

“Where to?” Sonia asked.

Lauren had never been a good liar. And she didn’t particularly want to lie, so the idea of seeing this through to making up a location and a fake itinerary seemed exhausting. “I don’t know yet,” she admitted. This time she couldn’t help but look over at Asa, whose gray eyes slid over her face, then down to where she was frantically stirring her black coffee, then away.

“Oh, to be young and single and free,” Sonia said with a sigh. “My in-laws have been staying with us for the past week, so I get the impulse to split town, for sure. What about you, Asa?”

“Not sure yet,” he said. “My plans keep shifting.”

This time she willed him to look at her, but he was staring down into his coffee mug like it held some kind of answer, so she muttered her excuses and headed back to her office. She wasn’t really surprised when Asa followed her, shutting the door behind him.

“People are going to think—”

“So let them,” Asa said. “What was that back there? Was that for Sonia’s benefit, or are you really planning to spend Christmas out of town?”

She shrugged, the movement stiff and unconvincing. “I might,” she said. “It’s a long weekend. Why not?”

She’d meant the question to sound casual, carefree, like December 25 was any other day and it shouldn’t matter one way or another what she did. But it came out all wrong, more like What other reason could I possibly have to stay, and she only realized how hurtful that implication was when she heard the words echoing in the silence that followed.

Lauren took a deep breath. “I only meant that I’m not really a Christmas person. You know that.”

She sat down at her desk, rummaging through a stack of papers until she pulled out the blue folder of yesterday’s Z reports. The numbers swam in front of her eyes, but she tried to look like she was studying them carefully, running her pencil down the margin. Jesus, sometimes pretending to work took more energy than actually working.

She heard the click of the lock before Asa knelt on the carpet in front of her, spinning her chair until he was between her knees.

“Lauren,” he said, grabbing the armrests so she couldn’t move the chair. “Is this the beach all over again?”

“What?” She wasn’t being purposely dense—it was legitimately difficult for her to follow the shift this conversation had taken when he was so close, when she could feel his body heat against her inner thighs.

He smiled, an almost private expression of amusement, like he was thinking back to some inside joke. “You told me you couldn’t come out because you had to clean your closet.”

“Which I did—”

“And then you drove all the way out there because Kiki wanted taco backup.” He ran his hands up her calves, his palms rasping slightly against the silky layer of her tights.

“Tacos are important.”

“Except you didn’t even stay,” he said, his hands flirting now with the hem of her skirt. She had two equally strong urges—one to clench her thighs together, the other to spread her knees farther apart—but instead she held herself so still she felt her muscles tremble with the effort.

“You’ve seen my closet,” she said, her voice coming out breathless. “You have to admit, it’s very neat.”

“You are a paragon of organization.” He pressed one thumb against the back of her knee, some pressure point she’d never been aware of before, but now she felt in her very core. “I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to see you in your green bikini.”

“How’d you even know it was a bikini?” She was only half-conscious of what she was saying, already slipping into the fuzzy edges she got when he touched her.

“I could see the lump under your tank top, where it was tied around your back.” He was still only touching her with that one thumb, but the pressure was so exquisite that she felt a tingling through her whole body, similar to when you’d sat on your limbs too long and felt them static back to full use. “And also the place where you’d tied it around your neck. I could draw you a diagram of that knot.”

“Asa . . .” she said, pushing against his shoulders, but the effort was halfhearted and they both knew it. “You have to get to work.”

“I’m early. Don’t need to clock in for another hour at least.”

“I have to get to work.”

He grinned, squeezing her knees before rising to lean against her desk. “You’re incorruptible, which I respect. Although for the record, I would still respect you if you let yourself be corrupted.”

Lauren would’ve never considered herself the type of person to have sex at work. Fooling around with Asa that night they’d been locked in had pushed every boundary, but at least then she had the plausible deniability of it being after hours. But she was surprised at how strongly she wanted to, how tempted she was, how disappointed that he didn’t push it further even though she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. Especially when she was the one preaching secrecy and discretion.

Which, a closed door to her office probably wouldn’t help with. It occurred to her that she still didn’t know how they’d gotten to talking about the beach in the first place. “What did you mean, Is this the beach all over again?”