Christine Rimmer – Ms. Bravo And The Boss (страница 7)
Plus, every time she got up to stretch, he got to watch. He could write poems to her backside. And those breasts. He would love to get his hands on them. There was something about her, the softness of her, that he wanted to sink into, the way she bit the inside left corner of her mouth when he picked up the pace and the words were flying, her fingers dancing so fast over the keys.
He liked to move in close and suck in that clean-sheet scent of hers. And he got a kick out of the way she talked to him, sharp and snippy, but somehow with patience, too.
Elise did it for him in a big way. She wasn’t beautiful. She was so much better than beautiful. She was...the exact definition of what a quality woman should be.
No, nothing was going to happen between them. They both understood that.
But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the view, whether she was sitting, stretching or walking away. And he saw no reason he shouldn’t take pleasure in imagining the lusty things he was never going to do to her.
The next day, the final day of her trial period, he introduced the knives.
Jed found his knives both soothing and stimulating. In that sense, they reminded him of Elise. For him, there were few experiences as calming as a well-thrown knife. He often threw them while he worked. The knives were an integral part of his process. They increased his focus. He liked to send them sailing. And he liked the sound they made when they hit the padded wall that Bravo Construction had installed precisely to his specifications.
He’d put off introducing the knives to Elise. He dreaded the possibility that she might freak—or worse, walk out and not come back. And there he would be again, with no assistant, his deadline looming.
Not being all that nice of a guy, he’d often used the knives to get rid of typists who weren’t working out. No, not by stabbing them, but by simply hurling a sleek kunai or a combat bowie knife without warning. More than one unsatisfactory keyboarder had screamed good and loud when surprised in that way.
But he wanted to keep Elise, so he prepped her.
When she entered the office for work that day, he was waiting for her, an assortment of knives laid out on the credenza next to the door.
She said, “Deirdre is here. She says good morning.”
He grunted. Deirdre Keller was a perfectly acceptable cook and housekeeper. Beyond that, he had nothing to say to her. He certainly didn’t require her to tell him “good morning.”
And Elise had spotted the knives. She caught on immediately. “Okay, I get it now. The padded wall, right?”
Feeling strangely sheepish, he confessed, “I like to throw while I’m working. It clears my mind.”
She glanced at the array of knives, then at the wall in question. “What about all the targets? Do you throw darts, too?”
“Just knives.” She seemed puzzled. So he elaborated, “I throw the knives at the targets sometimes. And sometimes I just send them flying at the wall. It depends.”
“On...?”
He hadn’t expected all these questions. But he was willing to indulge her if answering her would keep her happy. “I honestly don’t know what it depends on, why sometimes I want to hit a target and sometimes I just want to throw—the scene I’m writing, I guess. Or the mood I’m in.”
“Have you ever missed the wall and hit your assistant?”
“Not once.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Though now and then, I’ve been tempted.”
A burst of laughter escaped her. He found the happy sound way too charming.
“Oh, you’re just so scary, Jed.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied darkly. “And you should remember that.” She had that look, as though she was purposely not rolling her eyes. He added, “And as you can see, your desk is over there.” He gestured in that direction. “And the wall is there.” He indicated the wall. “You won’t be in the path of a throw unless you get up and put yourself between me and the wall.”
“What about if you get tempted?”
“I won’t.” Not to throw a knife at you, anyway.
“Hmm,” she said, as though still suspecting she might end up a target one of these days. And then she asked, “Is this it, then?”
“Define it.”
“Will there be more potentially life-threatening activities you’re going to want to do while I’m in this room with you?”
He admitted, “Sometimes I clean my firearms. Handguns. Machine guns. Assault rifles. That kind of thing. I find cleaning weapons—”
“Let me guess. Soothing.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Those fine dark eyes gleamed. “You find the strangest things soothing.”
He almost allowed his gaze to stray downward to her breasts. “You have no idea.”
“I’m going to assume that when you clean your guns, you make sure they aren’t loaded first.”
“You assume correctly.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Anything else you find soothing while you work? Archery, maybe?”
“I haven’t used a bow and arrow in years, but it’s a thought.”
“So I should be prepared for that?”
“No. Knife throwing is my impalement art of choice.”
She hummed again, low in her throat. “That’s a real thing? Impalement art?”
“It’s usually referred to in the plural. Impalement arts. Strictly defined, impalement arts entail throwing dangerously sharp objects at a human target.”
She considered. He loved to watch her think. “Like at the circus.”
“That’s right. A circus knife-thrower is in the impalement arts. A circus archer, too. Hatchet-and spear-throwers, as well.” She reached out and brushed her fingers over the stacked leather washer handle of a full-size USMC KA-BAR straight edge. “That’s the most famous fixed blade knife in the world,” he said. “It was first used by our troops in World War Two.”
She slanted him a glance. He couldn’t tell if he’d amused her or she found the knives fascinating, or what. For a moment, neither of them spoke. He wasn’t big on extended eye contact as a rule. But he didn’t mind it so much with her.
She broke the connection first, her gaze sliding away.
He shook himself. “You ready, then?”
By way of an answer, she went to her desk and fired up the computer.
* * *
Jed threw a lot of knives that day. And he wrote a lot of pages. It was good. Really good. Elise took his knives in stride. She never turned a hair when he sent one flying. She just kept right on filling those blank screen pages with his words.
They worked until 1900, at which point he handed her a check for 2,832 dollars and told her she was officially hired.
She frowned at the check. “I thought we said fifteen hundred for the first three days.”
“I included payment for tomorrow and Saturday at your full rate. And after this week, I’ll pay you every Saturday at the end of the day.”
She rose. “Works for me.” She headed for the door to the hallway.
He caught himself with his mouth open, on the verge of calling her back and asking her to have dinner with him.
Not a good idea. She had her life. He had his. They met each morning for work and went their separate ways when the workday was through. He found her far too attractive to start sharing meals with her.
Fantasies involving her were fine—or rather, given that he was having them, he might as well roll with it. Fighting it too hard would only make him want her more.
But hanging around with her after hours?
Bad idea.
She lived in his house. It would be so easy to get more than professional. That would be stupid. Because when the heat between them burned out, the work would get strained. She would end up leaving.
And that couldn’t happen.
He was keeping her. She just didn’t know it yet. She thought she was quitting when this book was through. But she was wrong.
Before she had knocked on his door Monday, he’d been increasingly sure that his big-deal writing career was headed straight for the crapper. He’d spent way too many sleepless nights sweating bullets over his dawning realization that Anna had been a lucky fluke and he would never find the right assistant again. Now that he had found her, he would simply have to convince her to stay. So what if she seemed determined to go?
One way or another, whatever he had to offer her to keep her happy, he was keeping her.