Chaos ruled at High Society on Monday morning.
With one half of the stage-one grow house padlocked on the outside and hermetically sealed on the inside, employees were justifiably spooked.
Liam had taken delivery of the extraction machine and was waiting for the contractors to arrive, when Kiki, the consultant who handled paperwork for the various revenue and enforcement agencies, showed up in terrorize mode. Not only hadn’t they called her when the MED agents were onsite, with Macon out of the country for an indeterminate amount of time, she’d have to deal with Stirling.
He watched Kiki barrel into Stirling’s office—but she only got as far as Stirling’s assistant Shanna’s desk. So as Kiki paced and texted on her phone, Liam leaned in the doorway, figuring he should stick around in case Stirling needed moral support.
Or maybe you want to see Stirling shift into ass-kicking mode because it’s highly entertaining… Especially when you’re not on the receiving end.
Shanna crossed over to Stirling’s office and opened the door. “Miss Gradsky will see you now.”
“About goddamned time.” Kiki stormed in and Shanna left the door open so Liam could follow her.
Stirling flicked a quick look at him but her expression didn’t change. “Kiki. Won’t you have a seat?”
“No.” She slammed her hands on the desk and loomed over Stirling. “I want to know what is going on here right now. First, there was an infestation that required the MED onsite for hours as the affected plants were destroyed and no one contacted me. Then I find out there’s an industrial extraction machine going in? And once again, no one told me about this development or asked about the dozens of hours that will be added to my workload.”
Stirling tapped her pen on her desk blotter and studied Kiki coolly. “Is that all?”
“Is that all?” Kiki exploded. “Don’t you think that is enough?”
Stirling rolled her office chair back and stood. Then she mimicked Kiki’s pose, angling her body across the desk until they were face to face. “With all due respect, Kiki, I own this business. I don’t answer to you. I certainly don’t need your permission to purchase equipment for my business.”
Liam did a mental fist pump.
“Dr. Argent handled the situation with MED. He told me about the outbreak as soon as it was discovered and the measures he’d taken to contain it. I was here Sunday when the authorities were onsite. Besides Dr. Argent, I was the only person required to be here. What I didn’t want to have happen is exactly what happened when you came storming in here like an ill wind, throwing out accusations and rattling my employees.”
Kiki’s back snapped straight. “I only—”
Stirling held up her hand. “You acted as if you have more power here than you really do. While Macon and I appreciate the work you’ve done for our company in the past, if you believe the decision we made together last week will create more work than you’re willing to take on, I’d completely understand if you felt the need to turn in your resignation.”
Damn. Miss Gradsky was sneaky good. It gave him a feeling of…not pride, but…
Lust.
Beautiful, brilliant, belligerent… The woman had massive balls.
When a dude pisses me off I’m gonna tell him to woman up and grow a goddamn uterus. Balls are for pussies.
Thankfully he’d perfected his poker face or he might’ve started laughing.
“Wait. I didn’t say I wanted to quit.”
Watching Kiki backtrack wasn’t nearly as interesting as seeing the class and grace that Stirling used to handle her.
Oh. And hand Kiki her ass.
The rest of the conversation lasted about four minutes.
He stepped aside, allowing Kiki to exit. When he grabbed the handle to close the door, Shanna, the office assistant from hell, blocked the door open with her body.
“Nice try, Dr. Argent. But I doubt Miss Gradsky wants to be stuck in here with you.”
Want to bet?
“And the cleaning service charges extra to remove blood from the walls and carpet,” she added.
“It’s all right, Shanna. Liam and I have a few boring matters to discuss in private.”
Boring? Ouch.
Shanna had frozen in the threshold with her mouth hanging open.
He said, “Hold her calls,” and shut the door in Shanna’s face.
And locked it.
When he turned around, Stirling was still standing. “Well, if it isn’t Rip Van Winkle.”
“Nice to see you too, Sleeping Beauty.” He stopped behind the visitor’s chair in front of her desk. “I’m sorry for falling asleep last night.”
She shrugged. “Now we’re even.”
“Are we? Remember what transpired in my office the day after you crashed at my place?” He began to stalk her. And she played the prey so well; she started backing up.
“You kissed me.”
“So for it to be truly even between us, Miss Gradsky…?”
“Then you’d better come here, Dr. Hottie, and pucker up.”
Liam kept walking forward until he’d pinned her against the wall.
Then Stirling’s mouth was on his in a carnal kiss. She jammed one hand in his hair and the other gripped his lapel. She poured every bit of hunger and sexual frustration into him. Grinding her hot body into his. Making sexy noises as she sucked on his tongue and pulled his hair.
Good thing he’d locked his knees. And the door.
When she finally released his mouth she said, “We really shouldn’t be doing this.”
He laughed against her lips and said, “No we shouldn’t,” initiating another ravenous kiss.
She dug her nails into his scalp trying to keep him in place as he slid his lips up her jawline. “Getting involved with a coworker is a bad idea,” she panted in his ear.
“Very bad,” he said, sucking on the pulse point in her throat.
“It never works out,” she murmured, arching back, offering him full access.
“Never,” he repeated. With his hands squeezing her ass, he hoisted her higher against the wall. He brushed butterfly soft kisses over the shell of her ear. “Do you want me to stop?”
She said, “Don’t you dare,” and returned his lips to hers by hooking her arm around his neck.
The heat between them blazed.
Stirling whimpered softly when he slowed the kiss down.
Liam forced himself to take a break while his big head retained control of his body, before his brain surrendered that control to his dick. He exhaled a breath and rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“Why the big sigh, big guy?”
“I don’t want this to be just dirty talk between us.”
“I thought we established that last night,” she said carefully.
“And we established that on Friday, too.”
“Oh. Right. Now I get what you’re saying.”
“The missed sexy time opportunities have gnawed at me since I woke up alone this morning. Even when I know it’s ridiculous, because it’s only been three days since the massive shift in our attitudes toward each other. Yet it feels—”
“Like you’ve been waiting to get naked with me for a lot longer,” she finished.
Liam lifted his head and looked at her. “You feel it too.”
“Of course I do. We’ve known each other ten months, Liam. We didn’t like each other. Or at least pretended not to like each other so it masked our mutual attraction. We certainly didn’t take the time to get to know each other outside of work.”
“Have you had a life outside of work in the past year?”
Stirling blinked those beautiful blue eyes at him. “No. There’s so damn much to do around here. So much more that I want to do. Even if I’m onsite fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, it isn’t enough.”
“Exactly.” He pushed an errant dreadlock over her shoulder. “Our work selves are who we are. There’s no mystery to me, Stirling. It’s embarrassing to admit I’ve always been this…”
“Work obsessed?”
“Yes. I recognized that common element in you before we dropped the attitudes and started communicating on a different level.”
Smiling, she pressed a soft kiss to his chin. “I prefer this more intimate manner of communication anyway. I was running low on prank ideas.”
Liam stared at her, wondering if she’d taken their pranks at face value. When to him they’d always been so much more.
“Why so serious all of a sudden, Dr. Sad Eyes?”
“Just…hypothesizing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Scientists.”
“Tell me five personal things you learned about me during our prank wars.”
“Why?”
“So, suspicious, Miss Gradsky.” He planted a quick kiss on her mouth. “I need to prove a theory.”
“If I do it, you have to do it too.”
“Of course.” And I intend to win this “What I Like About You” face-off.
“You listen to blues music in your lab when things are going well and no music when you’re frustrated.”
“Excellent observation. That’s one.”
“You whistle in the break room if you’re by yourself.”
His face heated.
Stirling laughed. “It’s cute. And it’s cute how you blush.”
Cute. Great. “That’s two.”
“You enjoy talking to Hip in the drying room. You two can blather on about nuances of varieties for hours. The first time I ever heard you laugh you were shooting the shit with him. If Hip gets behind, you help him. You even let him tell you what to do, which annoyed the piss out of me.”
“Hip is a West Coast guy. He knows his weed. You’re up to three.”
“You have the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Your eyes are a silvery light gray, unless you’re angry and then they darken to pewter.”
“While I appreciate the compliment, that’s not a valid answer. Another personal example, not a physical attribute.”
“Fine. You wear the same watch every day.” She tapped the face of it. “Four months ago…you showed up on a Tuesday morning, sans watch. You were so bad tempered, I worried if you’d lost it, you’d blame me for taking it. Then two weeks later, the trusty watch was back on your wrist.”
“Gramma gave me that watch for college graduation. It quit working and the repair guy wasn’t sure he could fix it. But he did.”
“Luckily for all of us.”
“Last one.”
Stirling’s fingers slid up the back of his neck and she scraped her nails against his scalp. A groan escaped. Damn. That felt good. “This super trendy haircut looks awesome on you. Total dick move on my part to leave the ‘What Your Haircut Says About You’ article in your lab along with a pair of scissors.”
He chuckled. “I get it. Jumanji, budtender supreme, rocks the man bun. I didn’t. I did need a haircut. Flattery won’t change the fact that answer is invalid, so try again.”
She stared at him so long he began to sweat whatever answer she was wrestling with.
“Are you stumped?”
“No, I could give a dozen more examples. But the one that’s most telling about you, Dr. Argent, is that you take out the trash every night. It started the first month we opened and Shanna got accosted by the homeless guys hanging out by the Dumpster. You saw how upset she was. The very next day Macon handed down an edict that no one was to go out there alone and at the end of shift, all trash should be left in the back entryway. The employees assume the cleaning service handles disposing of it. Sometimes they do. But most of the time, it’s you.”
“I had no idea you noticed that, Stirling.”
She fiddled with the collar of his lab coat. “That means if we do this, it wouldn’t just be a fuck that we could blame on elevated emotions. It wouldn’t be an ‘oops, we were high’ excuse either.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” He framed her face in his hands. “I want you so fucking bad that I locked the goddamned door on the off chance I’d get to bend you over your desk.”
She gave him a coy smile. “Given how things have gone for us in the past three days… That’s just begging the universe for an untimely interruption, isn’t it?”
“Undoubtedly. Especially when you consider you called me Liam in front of your assistant, and not Dr. Argent, Dr. Asshat, or any of your other colorful nicknames for me.”
“Shit. I did call you Liam, all friendly-like, when as far as she—or anyone else who works here believes—we’re still in deep dislike of each other.” Stirling squirmed to be let go. “I’m surprised Shanna’s gone this long without interrupting.” She started to walk past him but he caught her arm.
“Will you tell her that we’re…?”
“Currently not fucking? I’m pretty sure she already knows.”
It surprised him this conversation made her nervous. Or perhaps the idea of telling other people about them brought out her flippancy.
“Look. I want to keep what happens between us…private, okay?” Stirling said.
“Meaning we resume bickering and trying to one-up each other during working hours?”
She blew out a breath. “No. We’re beyond that. But all joking aside, we’ve both been burned by relationships with coworkers. Neither of us needs to have our professionalism questioned.”
He furrowed his brow.
“What?”
“So fucking you over your desk isn’t a possibility?”
Stirling laughed when she realized he was joking. “Not today.”
But the truth was he was only half-joking. “Seems a shame to put the condoms I stashed in my lab coat pocket back into the box.”
“You don’t have condoms in your pocket,” she scoffed.
“You sure?” Liam fought a smile when he challenged, “Maybe you should find out for yourself.”
“You probably put a joy buzzer in your pocket.”
“I’d prefer you stuck your hand down my pants and wrapped your fingers around my joy stick,” he said and stole a kiss. “Don’t be scared.”
“Scared? As if.” Stirling locked her gaze to his, inching her hand down the center of his body. “Did you dress left or right today?” She smirked. “I mean, left pocket or right pocket?”
Ridiculous how fast his heart raced just from her touch. “Left.”
She switched the angle of her hand and slipped it into his pocket. Shifting his lab coat to the right, she squeezed his hard-on once, then her hand exited his pocket holding a fistful of condoms. Amusement danced in her eyes. “Only ten, Dr. Ardent?”
He shrugged. “I thought twenty might be overkill.”
“Maybe. Since we’ve yet to use even one.”
“Don’t pout.” Liam snagged the strip out of her hands. “How about this? I’ll put these back…except for this one.”
“Why is it special?”
Watching her face, he ripped the top packet off with his teeth and bent down to nuzzle her cleavage, tucking the condom into her bra cup. He softly kissed a line up her chest to her mouth, pausing to show her the heat in his eyes. “Let me know when you’re ready to use it. The ball—or maybe I should say my balls—are in your court.” He shoved the long strip back in his pocket and walked away.