Chapter 1

Joey

“No,” I hiss into the phone taking my anger out on my best friend, even though she’s not the one I’m mad at. “Someone fucked up the entire college expansion design.”

“How is that your problem?” Andi asks on the other end of the line.

“That’s the exact same thing I asked when my boss called me in tonight to fix it,” I mutter as my hand stretches out to press the button for the fourth floor.

“And why after hours?” By the tone in her voice, I can tell she’s pissed by proxy, which is why she’s the closest friend I’ve ever had. “It’s almost seven.”

“He didn’t say, but I guess he doesn’t want anyone else in the office knowing his grandson may be fucking the company out of a multimillion-dollar deal.”

“That asshole again?” she breathes into the phone.

“Apparently,” I spit as the elevator doors open to the empty offices of GMQ Architects. “I have to go.”

I hang up before she can reply, and sneer at the shadowy figure behind the frosted glass of the conference room. Looking around I don’t see another soul, but Freddie Macintosh is going to get a piece of my mind. I don’t give a shit if his grandfather has the right to fire me from my cushy, mostly work from home job. No one and I mean no one interrupts HGTV night without bearing the brunt of my disappointment. Add in the fact that tonight is part one of a two-part series is enough to make me spit fire.

Peeking inside, the man I’d seen walking around earlier is now bent over the large conference table, back facing my direction.

“Let’s get this shit show started,” I bellow the second I step fully into the conference room. “Since I have nothing better to do than fix your fuck ups.”

You’ve read the stories, right? The ones where the guy turns around in slow motion, wind coming from absolutely no place feasible, blowing shaggy but somehow perfect hair, and the smile. You know what I’m talking about. The one where the top lip lifts just enough for the light to cast a sparkle from the corner of the top incisor?

That is in no way, shape, or form what is happening right now.

Instead, I’m faced with a frustrated scowl and bloodshot eyes. The man before me has the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, and ignoring the musculature of his forearms, I glare at him. The same way he’s glaring at me. The nerve of this asshole.

He doesn’t speak.

I don’t speak.

We just spend the next sixty seconds sizing each other up, which is jacked up because I’m here as the damn Fixer. I didn’t create this mess. I wasn’t even on this flipping project until half an hour ago.

“I didn’t fuck anything up,” he snaps, the baritone of his voice hitting me in a way that I refuse to acknowledge.

“Really, Freddie? Your granddad was pretty candid on the phone earlier. I think he finally sees that everything you touch crumbles.”

“Freddie?” His laugh either grates on my nerves or makes me hot under the collar, but it ends too fast for me to figure out which. “You think I’m Freddie?”

My head angles of its own accord.

His scent, something masculine tinged with something I can’t quite distinguish…

The rush of his laugh in my ears…

And now that I fully look at him, the sexy scruff on his jawline, and the golden notes in his irises…

His denial of who he is…

It’s all a little too much for me to handle, but my cock twitches behind my zipper nonetheless.

“What?” Am I confused, or is he confused? Are we both confused?

“I’m. Not. Freddie.” He says slowly like small words and perfect enunciation will clear the confusion.

My eyes narrow, and his lip twitches revealing a small yet gorgeous smile. As my brain tries to reboot, I just stare at his mouth waiting for the glint of the light off of his teeth to blind me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen, and as I’m blaming the company’s switch from bright whites to energy-saving LEDs for ruining this moment, he takes a step forward.

His hand is outstretched as if I didn’t just bust in the room and call him a fuck up. “You must be Joseph.”

I stare rudely down at his hand, my body refusing to move and provide the common courtesy of a handshake.

“Joey,” I correct.

His hand inches closer. “Anthony.”

“Where’s Freddie?”

His hand finally drops, and I’m relieved.

Just because he’s handsome and working his suit pants like Ralph Lauren is his best friend, and he just happens to have the perfect amount of hair on his masculine jaw doesn’t mean he’s forgiven for ruining HGTV night. Maybe.

“Freddie has been reassigned,” he says after clearing his throat and taking a couple of steps back.

“Really?” Surprised his grandfather has actually seen the light, I still ask for verification. “Which floor?”

“The first,” he replies before turning back to the conference table and leaning over a laptop.

“No shit?” The first floor at GMQ Architects is where the interns and those near termination are relegated to.

I should really stop talking. I should do nothing that would cause him to stop hunching over the table because that, in turn, would likely stop the perfect pull of his navy slacks from hugging his seemingly perfect ass.

My eyes snap up to his when he shifts suddenly, catching me looking at his ass. A wicked grin plays across his mouth as he realizes I was checking him out.

“See something you like?” His words are smooth and practiced, not something a straight guy would say. My cock acknowledges that fact. The charm oozing off of him is enough to ruffle anyone’s feathers, and by the egotistical smirk on his face, he knows it.

“What’s happened with this generation? Back in the day, people just didn’t spit things like that out,” I huff and walk to the other side of the conference room table before opening my messenger bag and pulling out my own laptop.

“Back in the day,” he begins, once again leaning over the table, “men didn’t blatantly stare you down like they want to bounce a quarter off of your ass. Back in the day, they didn’t burst into a conference room with the mouth of a sailor in a professional setting. They had a little more couth and were more artful in their perusal of a nice ass.”

Are we flirting? It’s been so long; I’m out of practice.

“You cocky prick,” I mutter, but there’s no heat in my voice. How can I be angry when he’s watching my mouth the exact same way I was just gawking at his ass? “I was wondering if that hole in your pants has been there all day, and if it has been, why you haven’t done a damn thing about it.”

His face falls before he spins around, heading into the en-suite bathroom.

“Liar,” he chides when he comes back out several long minutes later.

He was gone long enough for me to take several calming breaths. It was enough of a reprieve to convince myself that the dry spell, sexual deprivation, whatever you want to call the last year of my life has not been so bad that I want to throw away a perfectly good job by breaking the company fraternization rule. It was just long enough to reason with my libido that shoving my dick down this guy’s throat would be the wrong thing to do. Mostly.

I smile up at him from where I’ve sat down in front of my computer.

And all of that reasoning, all of the convincing goes right out the window. A cock in my mouth is the only thing I can think of right now.

How the sight of him stepping closer as he buckles his belt is enough to make me want to shuck off my jeans and pull my silk boxers down will be something I’ll have to mull over tonight. Alone. With Hector. I make a mental note to grab extra batteries on the way home and seriously consider one of the rechargeable plugs that Andi insists is the best thing since flavored condoms.

“We can’t sleep together,” I whisper. “We can’t. We can’t.”

“Can’t what?” he asks, that same knowing smile on his face he gave me when he caught me looking at his ass.

“We can’t go home at a decent hour if we don’t get started on this project,” I say rather than asking “Can’t we take fifteen minutes getting each other off?”

“I anticipate spending all night here with you.”

Is his voice huskier now since returning from the restroom?

Why does it sound like an offer of something more?

Am I so far out of the game that I’m sitting in the bleachers turning a straight guy gay?

I blame my hypersensitivity to the handsome man on hanging out with my brother’s idiot friends. I vow to get out more as I open the email with the project details sent to me by Mr. Macintosh.

“I’d rather not spend my entire night working on fixing Freddie’s mess.”

“Me, either.” Two words in agreement with mine, yet, they seemed filled with subtle innuendo.

Watching him from my side of the table as he clicks a couple of things on his computer and the massive screen at the end of the table lights up with the project folders. He’s focused on the work, and I’m focused on him.

He’s still opening up windows in the design program and minimizing them so they’ll be there when we need them as I mull over the cause of my reaction to this man, or better yet what I should do about all of it.

I know what Andi would tell me to do. She’d suggest flirting until neither one of us could handle it anymore and then insisting that we have sex, but doggie style, because it’s less personal and the last thing I need is a rule-breaking fling with a co-worker.

I consider all of it until I hang my head to try to hide the blush the images are bringing to my cheeks. I’m wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans. The exact thing I’d be wearing, working from home, if Mr. Macintosh would’ve allowed me to do when I begged him earlier. I managed to put socks on before I left the house, but that’s it. My attire is the only power I have, the only fuck-you I could give to GMQ for calling me to work on this project.

Bottom line: Even if I wanted to get filthy with this guy, my body hasn’t been prepared for any type of sexual encounter. I need to wash my hair, shave my balls, and I’m pretty sure the garlic bread pizza I had for lunch isn’t winning my breath any awards.

The blush on my cheeks transforms from arousal to complete embarrassment. This guy is probably thinking of me as the grunt when Mr. Macintosh assured me I was working lead on this job.

“Is it that hard of a choice?”

The sound of Anthony’s voice pulls me out of my personal hell.

I shake my head, clearing it of all thought and giving up on the idea of getting freaky altogether. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted to suck my dick before or after we make the corrections?”