Chapter 9
Bennett
Annalise O’Neil was a lightweight.
We’d only done two shots—for research purposes, of course—and already her demeanor had changed. She waved her pointer finger in the air. The only thing missing was a light bulb in a bubble above her head. “I got it. Me so honey.”
She pronounced the honey so it sounded like horny. Then proceeded to crack herself up.
I liked drunk Annalise. “That’s actually a damn good idea.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Except it’s already taken.”
“Nooooo.”
“Yep. There’s a pale ale named Me So Honey. It’s actually pretty good.”
“You’ve tasted it?”
“Of course. How could I pass a beer with that name and not bring it to my buddy’s? Who hasn’t brought a bottle of Ménage à Trois wine to a party for the same reason?”
Annalise kicked her bare feet up on the coffee table. “Me! I’ve never bought it.”
“Well, that’s because you’re uptight.”
Her eyes went wide. “I am not uptight.”
“So you’ve had a ménage à trois, then?” It was fun screwing with her.
“No. But that doesn’t make me uptight.”
I leaned forward and poured two more shots of vodka. Annalise hesitated, but I nudged. “One more. It’ll help clear your mind.”
She’d made a face after the first two shots. But this one went down smooth. Yep. Annalise was definitely a damn lightweight.
She slammed the empty shot glass down on the table a little too hard. “Ménage à blah. I was dumped once for not wanting to swing.”
My brows jumped. Totally not what I expected to come out of her mouth. “Your boyfriend wanted you to sleep with another guy?”
“Yep. In my first year of college. And of course, he’d get to sleep with another woman.”
I sucked back my shot. “That never appealed to me. I’m not big on sharing a woman.”
Annalise snort-laughed. “Maybe you should date me. That’ll make you want to sleep with other women.”
I let that comment sink in a minute before responding. Did she just tell me she sucks in bed? “Ummm…come again?”
She cackled so hard she tipped over on the couch. I had no idea what the fuck she was laughing about, but I started to laugh, too. Watching her loosen up and be amused at her own comments was pretty damn funny.
When her tipsy giggle fit subsided, she let out a wistful sigh. “Men suck. No offense.”
I shrugged. Men do suck, especially me. “None taken.”
“Sorry. I think the shots went to my head.” She sat up straight and smoothed out her hair. “Let’s get back to brainstorming. My brain took a detour, apparently.”
“Oh no you don’t. You can’t just drop that dating you makes men sleep with other women and move on. I’m a man, remember? I suck. I can’t move on from that without an explanation. Are you bad in bed or something?”
Annalise forced a smile, but it was a pretty damn sad one. “No. At least I don’t think so. I’ve been told I’m good at…” She looked down and then back up under those thick lashes. “…certain things. I just meant because I got dumped for declining swapping once and now…my boyfriend…ex-boyfriend…Andrew and I…we’re on a break.”
That answer had a lot of information in it, but I couldn’t get past certain things.
Was she flexible?
Give great head?
I once knew a woman who did this amazing thing with my balls…
I swallowed. Fuck.
“Ummm… You’re right. We should get back to work. Excuse me for a minute.” I abruptly got up and went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. A few minutes later I’d managed to wrangle my thoughts away from what talents Annalise might have.
Returning to the bullpen, I took a seat across from her. “How about Wild Honey? Men and women both respond well to the word wild. We can market by some association with the name—wild parties, wild adventures, wild animals.”
Annalise seemed to ponder my suggestion for a while. At least that’s what I’d assumed she was doing until she spoke.
“You’re a guy. What does on a break really mean to you?”
Shit. Do I answer that honestly or tell her what she wants to hear?
“Veto.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “What?”
“You said we each have three vetoes, and when one of us hates something the other comes up with, all we have to do is say veto and we move on—no debating the idea. I’m invoking my first veto power. I’m not touching that question.”
“Come on. I really want to know. I’ve only gotten a woman’s perspective. And you don’t strike me as the type of guy to bullshit me.”
I studied her carefully. She’d been giggling a few minutes ago, but she also seemed to be sincere in wanting an answer. So I took a deep breath.
“Okay. To me, being on a break means I want to have my cake and eat it, too. I don’t want to commit to just one woman, but I also don’t want her to commit to anyone else—in case the day comes when I decide I’m ready to settle down. So I keep her on the hook, while I go fishing somewhere else for a while.”
She frowned. “Andrew said he needed to discover who he is. On Valentine’s Day. I got dumped on Valentine’s Day.”
What a dick.
“How long were you together?”
“Eight years. Since junior year in college.”
She’d probably hate me for it, but someone had to tell her the truth.
“So he’s what…twenty-eight…thirty?”
“Twenty-nine. He was a year ahead of me.”
“He’s jerking you around.”
Her jaw dropped. “You don’t even know him.”
“Don’t need to. No stand-up, twenty-nine-year-old man who loves a woman is going to set her free because he needs to find himself. Especially on fucking Valentine’s Day.”
She straightened her spine. “And you know this because you’re such a stand-up guy?”
“Didn’t say that. In fact, I’m the opposite of a stand-up guy. Never even had a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. I make sure I get rid of them beforehand so there’s no expectation of candlelight and romance. That’s why I can say with certainty that your ex doesn’t really need a break to find himself. Because it takes an asshole to know an asshole.”
Annalise’s blue eyes blazed. Her lips pursed, and her cheeks flushed with anger. If I’d been uncertain I was the asshole I’d just admitted to being before, the fact that seeing her getting pissed off made my dick twitch would’ve proved it.
She stared at me for a solid two minutes and then got up to stand at the foosball table. “Let’s go,” she said. “I feel the need to kick your ass.”
***
It was hours later before we made any real progress. But once we started, we got on a roll, and the two of us really started gelling. I’d say one thing, she’d take it and run for a while, that would spark an idea in me, and in the last half hour, we’d come up with a name, sketched out a rough idea for a logo, and jotted down a dozen complementing ad concepts.
Annalise yawned.
I took a look at my watch. “It’s almost midnight. What do you say we call it a night? We have a good start. I can work on the logo tomorrow morning and get something drawn up on the Mac. Maybe we can toss around some more ideas Wednesday so we can nail down which ones we want to present to Jonas.”
She leaned down and slipped on her heels. “That sounds good. I’m wiped out. And I think I may be starting to get a hangover from those shots earlier, if that’s even possible.”
Bent over like that, her blouse gaped, and I had a clear view right down her shirt. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to turn away. But you already know I’m an asshole. Plus…she had a black lacy bra on. Black lace against pale skin is my kryptonite—something about the contrast let my imagination run wild with a cook in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom fantasy.
Which had me thinking…
I bet she’d look great in a chef’s hat and stilettos.
I definitely needed to get laid. Not a good idea to be fantasizing about someone at work, no less a woman I planned to annihilate. The news of the merger might have deflated my perpetual hard-on, but apparently Miss O’Neil had pulled me through that dry spell. It wasn’t the first time my dick had perked up around her.
I diverted my eyes in the nick of time, a half second before she looked up at me.
Her smile was genuine. “We did good tonight. I’ll admit, I wasn’t so sure we could work together.”
“I’m easy to work with.”
She rolled her eyes—a common response to my shtick, I’d noticed. But this time, it was more playful than real.
We packed up what we’d brought into the bullpen, and Annalise wrapped the leftover pizza in some tinfoil she found in a drawer.
“Can I borrow the Sharpie you were using to sketch before? I want to label these.”
I reached into my pocket and handed it to her. In big, bold letters, she wrote across the front of the silver foil: NOT MARINA’S.
“She’s going to think I did that.”
She smirked. “I know. I agreed you were easy to work with. I didn’t say you weren’t an asshole. I saw you looking down my shirt before.”
I stilled, unsure how to react to her comment, and closed my eyes. The sound of her heels clicking on the floor told me when it was safe to open them. A few steps from the door, she spoke without stopping or turning around. But I could tell from her voice she was amused.
“Good night, Bennett. And stop watching my ass.”