18

My Little Princess

Bryce looked up as a shadow briefly darkened his office door. His brother — all hunched shoulders and tucked-in chin — strode past without glancing inside.

He smiled. With Drew in sulk, everything was right with the world again. He squared the papers in front of him and slid them back into the file he’d been working on, standing and stretching. He’d come in an hour before he usually did, hoping to catch Drew’s walk of shame — it had been worth getting out of bed early.

Drew jerked at the knock on his open office door.

“Morning, bro.” Bryce leaned against the door frame and widened his smile. “Feeling a little tender this morning?”

“I’m fine.” Drew chugged back whatever had been in his travel mug and made a face at him. “And I’m busy.”

“Whoa, where’s the love?”

“Get out.”

Instead, he stepped inside. Drew slammed his briefcase on his desk and glared at him over the top, but it only made his smile deepen.

“So, Kelly seems fun.”

Drew, in the act of opening his briefcase, paused. “Get out.”

“Not exactly my type — a bit too uppity, you know? — but I can see why you’re after her.”

“I swear if you don’t leave—”

“You’ll toss me out?” Bryce crossed his arms over his chest. “Like you tossed Angel out?”

“What?”

“Your other girlfriend. You know, the barely legal one?”

“She’s not—” Drew bit off whatever he’d been going to say and pushed the top of his fist onto his desk, staring out the window. “I did toss her out, okay? She’s gone.”

Bryce snorted. “Yeah? Pull the other one.”

His brother began unnecessarily straightening the things on his desk. A pile of already neat papers was subjected to a few seconds of intense scrutiny as Drew’s mouth worked.

“She left this morning.”

Bryce pushed away from the door with his shoulder, frowning. “For real?”

“For real. Made me breakfast and took off while I was in the shower. Didn’t even say goodbye.” Drew shook his head and then let out a bitter laugh. “Who can blame her? I was probably the worse lay she’d ever had. God knows why she stuck around as long as she did.”

“True.” He shrugged when Drew shot him a scathing glare. “What? It is.”

His brother straightened, shoved aside his chair when it caught his leg, and stormed up to him. He kept his ground — Drew pissed off wasn’t the scariest shit he’d ever seen — but warmth flooded his chest and neck. What the hell was up with his brother? Why wasn’t he backing down? Why would he be looking to pick a fight?

“I said get out.” Drew stabbed at the doorway, stopping less than an inch from him.

“That’s it? No exchanging pleasantries before the meeting? I thought we could talk about Kelly. You know, compare notes?”

He should have seen it coming — if he hadn’t been so busy trying to figure out if his brother was lying about Angel, then maybe he would have.

Drew’s fist connected with the side of his jaw. He staggered back, lifting a hand to touch his aching flesh. Drew’s snarl didn’t disintegrate like he expected. It stayed there, growing more ferocious when his brother made another stab into the hallway.

“Get—the—fuck—out.”

He paused only long enough to paste a smile back on his mouth. Then he backed up, keeping an eye on Drew as he turned and headed back to his office. The only spectator to his brother’s sudden flash of bravery was one of the cleaning maids, and she already had her head down as she hurried away to attend to something that wasn’t in sight of Bryce.

He sat carefully in his chair, wincing at his jaw gave a hard throb.

There was no way in hell that Drew had sent Angel packing. He’d seen them last night; the girl had him hooked. She was the dealer, he was the crack whore. He glanced up at his closed office door, and then to the wall as if he could see through it and past the two offices separating him from Drew.

He sat for a long time, staring through the wall, thinking. Running various scenarios through his head. Anticipating.

Then he picked up the phone, hesitated only a second, and punched out a phone number. His chair creaked quietly under him as he shifted. It rang five times. Ten. Went to voicemail.

Bryce put the receiver down and tapped his index finger against the plastic. Then he lifted it to his ear again and redialed.

This time, it only rang twice.

“Yeah?”

Bryce smiled. “Angel? I thought you’d left.”

“Couldn’t just leave.” There was a soft sound as if the girl had sat down. “Not without saying goodbye.”

He shifted in his chair, and then spun around to face the painting mounted behind his head. It was some abstract piece full of textured blobs of paint that resembled an apocalyptic sky just after a nuclear blast.

“Well… can’t say I’m not looking forward to that.”

“Yeah?” Angel’s voice had transformed into something husky. “Why’s that?”

“Because I was hoping to get to see you naked one last time.”

“Yeah?”

He could picture her; wrapping the phone cord around her finger, twin braids dangling over her breasts. Wearing just a bra and pantie set; gold-colored satin.

“Almost not sure I can wait that long,” he murmured, looking up at the door. “In fact, I wish I was there right now.”

“Don’t you have that big meeting this morning with your boss?”

Jesus, did Drew sit up all night plaiting the girl’s hair and telling her of his dreary day? Bryce rolled his eyes, bit hard on his bottom lip, and then sighed heavily into the phone.

“I know. And it’s making me crazy that I can’t be with you. But I can’t skip out on it, you know I can’t.”

“Yeah, I know.” Fabric rustled. “But, Mr. Sugar, can’t you take an early lunch or something?”

Bryce’s lips curled into a beatific smile. “I sure can, princess.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the girl to mention the term of endearment — something he doubted Drew had ever used — and figure out who it was that was calling. He touched a finger to the bruise Drew had given him, wincing at the wriggle of pain that caused.

“Princess?” Angel giggled quietly. “What happened to sweetheart?”

He licked his lips and ran two fingers over the small bump on his jaw. Then again, harder. Another wince, but this one he forced off his face as soon as it arrived.

“You’re my little princess, aren’t you?”

Angel breathed into the phone and made a small, satisfied sound in the back of her throat. “You betcha, Mr. Sugar.”

“Well, princess.” Bryce leaned forward and rested both his elbows on the table. He glanced up at the door again, tilting the phone to put the receiver directly over his mouth. “Best get ready for me then.”

“When’ll you be here?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, now would it?”

Angel drew breath, but if she spoke, he didn’t hear what she said. The receiver’s click sent a thrill down his spine that gave his dick another dose of blood it didn’t need.

He spent a few minutes wondering what the girl was doing — how she’d be getting herself ready — and then forced his hard-on away through focused and deliberate thought.

All it really took was one.

Juliet.

Her beautiful face. The coy smile she’d given him over her shoulder as she got into her parked car and pulled away into traffic.

They met outside Denny’s bakery most afternoons of the week. Eventually, the clerk at the motel one block down didn’t even greet them when they came through the door; she’d just push the register over the table and hold out her hand for his credit card.

They never needed the full hour. But he’d paid for it anyway.

It had always been worth it.

Not the sex; sex with Juliet had only ever been average; even when she’d let him lash her to the headboard. It was the knowledge that, several miles away, Drew was hard at work at Trent & Morgan, oblivious to the fact that another man had a dick in his wife.