Matt transfers Lexi’s call to me and I hit the intercom button, letting her voice fill my office before I even have a chance to say hello.

“So I trust you had a chance to look over the contract,” she says. It’s morning in LA but it’s lunchtime in New York, and I can picture her rudely waving over some poor busboy to refill her water glass.

“Uh, yeah,” I say, pulling her firm’s attorney’s email up on my screen. I looked over every detail of the contract after Sara left last night. I thought she was into it, and I thought we were operating under a veil of perceived professionalism. If some paparazzo prick was taking a video of us from somewhere in the bushes, he wouldn’t have much of a story to print, not compared to some of the shit I’ve been caught on camera doing.

Ryan Hart and a gorgeous young woman caught talking in a guest room isn’t a very exciting headline.

After she left suddenly, I went out to the party to find her, but she was gone. I asked everyone if they’d seen her. I checked the hot tub, the bar, to no avail. I don’t know what I said. I thought we were having a good time playing around. I thought I was making her wet and ready for me.

She was here in the office early this morning, already working in the conference room when I arrived at nine fifteen, poring over the library books Kayla obtained, making outlines and preparing her presentation. I tried to get her attention when I came in, but she’s had her nose diligently in those books all morning, and she hasn’t even looked at me. It doesn’t feel good to be ignored by the girl you’re crushing on hard, even if you haven’t made a clear delineation between what’s appropriate and what is not. Whether I can stay on the correct side of that line or not remains to be seen.

The contract from Lexi is very straightforward, and I was mostly pleased when I reviewed it. I sent it to Dirty After Dark’s attorney for his review, but I like to know exactly what I’m getting into, so I read every word of it, too.

Yeah, everything is straightforward. Everything except one thing. It outlines the timeframe I would be required to stay at the party, it says I’d have some degree of latitude when it comes to what I want to talk about to the party-goers (this is where Sara’s presentation would come in), specifies that I’d be entitled to free drinks, states how long I’d be expected to stand on the red carpet outside the club, and verifies what I’d be paid.

“Lexi,” I say, copying a pasting a clause in the contract into a new email and sending it to her. “Check your email. I don’t remember discussing this part of the contract with you.”

“Hold on,” she says. She’s probably putting a finger up in the air to shoosh me, even though I’m not there. “Oh, that. I thought you’d like it!”

“I never agreed to be your date, Lexi,” I say, rolling my eyes. She’s mostly harmless at this point, with several years between us, but this is the kind of petty bullshit she’s known for pulling.

“But Ryan,” she whines, “I thought it was implied. I told you I wanted to see you!”

“I’ll see you at the party, but I never agreed to be your date. And you left that line vague on purpose, didn’t you?” I almost call her sweetheart sarcastically, but she can’t take a joke. “You left it vague so you could say that sex was part of the contract, right? Did I guess right?’’

“Ryan, baby, I just want to spend some quality time with you.”

“By sneaking it into a contract and hoping I won’t notice?”

I should pull the plug on this whole thing. Anything Lexi and I have been involved in together has become a shit show. But it’s for a good cause, and I saw how excited Sara was when I offered her the gig, and I cannot take this away from her.

“I didn’t sneak it in,” she says, taken aback. “It was right there in black and white just like the rest of it was.”

The contract also does specify that I can bring one staff member along with me, and I decide against telling Lexi the details of me and Sara.

And anyway, what would I say? That I’m bringing a girl I’m into, and I know she feels it too, but she’s denying her feelings to me, and even worse - to herself? Fuck no, breathing any word of another woman to Lexi would just send her reeling. I’ll submit the name of one of my male interns and pretend I brought Sara at the last minute. It’s not a problem. I’ll just have to spring for a plane ticket for her out of my own pocket, which is not an issue.

“We done here?” I ask, getting impatient with Lexi. “I have to go. I’ll sign and scan the contract back to you.”

“Daddy was asking about you,” she offers brightly.

“How is your old man?” I ask. “Still working?”

“Yes, he is. He wants to see you too.”

“I’d love to catch up with him. Will he be at the party?”

“He’ll be there,” she says. “I’ve got to go. I have to have this waiter fix my order.” Her voice becomes muffled. “I’m so sorry, I thought I said I wanted the dressing on the side, can you please take this back?”

“Goodbye, Lexi,” I say, clicking the phone off. I get up to stretch my legs, pacing around my office. I glance over to Sara and wish she’d look up at me. I walk over to the glass wall separating my office from the conference room where she’s working. When she looks up, surprised, I wave her over.

She smiles meekly and leaves the conference room, coming around to my office and slipping in.

“Close the door behind you, please.”

I perch on the edge of my desk and motion for her to take a seat.

“You left the party rather suddenly yesterday. I hope it wasn’t something I said.” She arches an eyebrow and looks up at me, and smirks in spite of herself.

“As a matter of fact, sir, it was something you said.”

“I thought you liked it.”

“That’s the problem. I did like it.”

The way she calls me sir makes my cock stir in a way it never has before. I’ve had girls bent over my desk before while they call me sir and beg me to get the off, but I’ve never had it as bad for any of them as I do for Sara.

“Call me sir again,” I say. “I liked it.”

She looks up at me with an innocent intensity I’ve never seen before.

“Okay,” she smirks, “sir.”

“Good. I just got off the phone with my contact in New York. Today I’m signing the contract for the appearance. Would you mind if we went over some of the things you’ve been working on?”

“I’d like that,” she says, getting up. She’s dressed a little bit differently today. She’s wearing an ass-skimming pencil skirt, paired with a silky black sleeveless top. Her hair is done simply, with the top pulled away from her face, the rest cascading down her back in those signature loose waves. She leads me into the conference room where she’s been working and leans over the table, gathering up some of her books and papers. “Okay,” she says. “So, I was thinking for the appearance we could do something quick and dirty, like a quick tutorial on safe sex. I don’t want to go into too much detail on the history of sex education and everything, because people are at a club to have fun, not get a history lesson. Not that the information wouldn’t be interesting, it’s just not the right forum to go into all the background stuff. So,” she says, walking over to a board she has set up in the corner, “I thought we could do something about the different types of contraception. Like, for example, condom, birth control pill, IUD, etcetera.”

She has illustrations and diagrams and write-ups, and I am thoroughly impressed with what she’s been able to accomplish.

“I think this is fabulous,” I say, walking over to her and the visual aid she’s created.

“Really?” she says, her eyes bright with relief. “You mean you’re still gonna take me on this trip and everything after what happened yesterday?”

I pull one of the chairs from the conference table over and take a seat next to where she’s standing.

“Of course, Sara. What happened yesterday has nothing to do with your position, with the internship. I hope you know that.”

“Right,” she says. “Of course.” She stands up straight and stiff, with every ounce of professionalism I know she’s trying to muster.

“Sara, you can relax. You don’t have to always have your guard up.”

She looks down at me, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling slowly under the silky fabric of her shirt. She looks so vulnerable to me, so unsure. So pretty, and trying so hard to be strong. She doesn’t have to try this hard. She doesn’t have to put on a brave face for me, or for herself, or for anyone.

“I’m just trying to do what’s expected of me.” She casts her eyes down, meeting mine. I put my hands out and take her waist in my grasp and she gasps quietly, her breath becoming quicker. I can nearly feel her heart beating in time with mine.

“What do you think is expected of you?” I say. “You know the parameters of the job. You know the assignment that you’ve been given. In the short time you’ve been here, you’ve done better than many of the interns who have spent whole summers with the show. So what else do you think is expected of you?”

She smiles and draws her eyes down to my lips, then brings them back up to see mine. The shining sun behind her in the distance and the rolling waves of the Pacific makes my heart swell. It’s a strange sensation. I see her standing before me like so many of my other interns have. And like them, she’s excited to be here, but she have something more to prove. Something more to say. Something more to talk about, and I can sense something more behind her eyes. Something she won’t say.

It’s hard for me, when I’m the man with all the words. I always have something to say. Her hands reach down to mine, where I still have her waist wrapped up in my grasp. And now I have nothing to say, because I can’t find the right words. I’m so used to talking, but now I just want her to talk - to tell me what she wants.

“It’s hard to say,” she responds. “I know you expect to go on this trip to New York with me. I know you expect us to have fun. Don’t you, boss?”

“Yes. Very much so. I can’t wait to take you to my hometown. Have you ever been to New York?”

She shakes her head and I reach up to slip a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She smiles meekly and touches her ear where my fingers landed.

“I’ve never really been on an airplane before.”

“You’re going to like it,” I say. The mood in the room shifts, and the air between us becomes electric. Her eyes glimmer at me and she bites her bottom lip softly, saying a million silent words without having to make a sound.

“Sara,” I say, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

My cock strains inside my pants, and it takes all of my willpower not to slide my hands down to her hips and pull her into my lap. Her lips part slightly, and her eyebrows begin to knot in the the middle, the hunger inside her rivaling mine. My body is on fire for her, her lips, her body.

Like I said, I’m simple. I just want to run my hands over her soft curves, bury myself inside her, show her how good I can make her feel. Take away any question she has in her mind about me and her. Extinguish the questions. Replace them with all the answers and give her the right words to use.

But I know what her eyes are saying. She’s saying take me. She’s begging me. But I won’t. Not now. Not like this.

“If you want to kiss me, sir,” she breathes, her body becoming soft between my hands, “then why don’t you?”

“You’re the one who said you want to keep things professional.”

“I thought you were a man who goes after what he wants. That’s what it says on your posters, isn’t it?” There’s a hint of spice in her words, even though her voice is soft and sweet. “I saw a billboard with your face on it over the 101 about six months ago, but I didn’t know what I was even looking at. It said something about how you take, you don’t ask. It said only your audience asked questions. You just took what you want.”

“You believe everything you read?” I say, smirking.

“No,” she says, “but that just sounds like false advertising.”

“Not at all, Sara. I’ll kiss you. I’ll take what I want. But not here.” I stand up, and she backs away from me slowly, her heels clicking against the bamboo floorboards. I take a slow, deliberate step toward her until her back is against the wall. I glance outside the conference room, through the glass wall, to the cubicles. Everyone’s got their head down, busily working on tonight’s episode, but I still won’t do what I want with Sara. Not yet. “You don’t want it here, right? That’s what you said. You said you wanted to keep it professional. I can’t believe I keep having to remind you.” I reach down and grab her wrists, holding them tight as she gasps. A devilish smile spreads across her face and her eyes sparkle bright with want.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You can kiss me.”

“I know I can, sweetheart. But do you want me to?”

“Yes,” she gasps. “Yes. Please.”

I take another small, firm step forward and she presses her body into mine, glancing nervously outside the office.

“Ask nicer than that,” I say. “Ask me nicer.”

“Please, boss. Kiss me.” Her lips beg me as her body trembles against mine, every part of her begging for me to take her right here.

“I’m not going to. But if I were to kiss you, you wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it all night. Now,” I say, pressing my stiff cock into her before letting her free, “we have a lot of work to do before our trip to New York.”

As much as it fucking hurts, I turn around and start walking toward the conference room door with a huge grin on my face. When I get to the door, I turn around and see Sara leaning against the wall with her hands on her knees, a surprised smirk on her face.

“Right,” she says, standing up straight and adjusting her blouse. “Lots of work to do. Let’s get to it.”