Chapter 9: Corban

The two perfect globes of Luna’s ass had lodged themselves in my brain and wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t just that she’d worn a lacy thong, or that she was toned but curvy in exactly the right way. It was the thought of her half naked in my office. Stripped bare to my hungry eyes.

In. My. Fucking. Office.

With a door that locks.

The shock when I entered the room yesterday afternoon and found her bent over, shielding herself from gawkers, had been replaced by arousal and then outrage at the gyrating washers outside. I didn’t give a shit that I’d already imagined her naked and bent over my chrome desk because I didn’t want any other lewd male eyes surveying the goods. From the meeting with the execs to the skirt debacle, I didn’t want another man even mentioning her name.

I had the window washing company replaced this morning. That kind of behavior couldn’t be tolerated at Unique Corporation, even if the boss’s son might’ve joined in had he been present. Luna was a guest at our office. A guest. And she’d been treated like a two-bit whore standing on a street corner jonesing for a twenty.

Luna had gone silent after it happened, and I hadn’t bothered questioning how or why her skirt had gotten stuck in my desk drawer. I had my suspicions but no reason to bring them up.

I stared at my closed office door and willed Luna to appear. Nothing happened.

The opaque glass didn’t budge, and neither did the long list of tasks on my desk.

One of our newest clients, Kiss Boutique, had asked for a total revamp of their brand. That meant a lot of new ads, discussions about the business’s vision and purpose, and meetings with the owner – a forty-year-old woman who loved fashion but didn’t have a head for the corporate side of things.

I shifted the latest mockup of a Kiss Boutique ad on my desk and frowned at it. They’d chosen a gorgeous model, a little curvy to fit in with the store’s target market, and our marketing team had suggested a sultry kiss pose in the photo.

The branding part was easy, but the feigned kiss just didn’t look right to me. I couldn’t put my finger on the reason, and it didn’t help that Luna had taken over the reins in my mind.

What did she look like when she blew a kiss? Her full lips were perfect for that job. Or another one equally as sexy. I shook my head against the image. As if that would ever be happening. After the boneheaded and frigid way I handled her embarrassment and pain, I’d be lucky if she ever even talked to me again. Shit. I’d never been good with a woman’s tears. I’d never been good with women. I should have hugged her, stroked her hair, and told her it would all be alright. My fingers still itched to do it.

But I hadn’t touched her.

“Get your head out of your ass,” I muttered.

I slipped the card mockup into my thin briefcase and resigned myself to figuring the perfect kiss out during my lunch break. I shifted the next task into view. A list of all the questions I had for Luna with regards to the Twins event.

I snatched my phone off the daily planner, then dialed her number.

Two rings passed, and anticipation dominated my mind. That… and the vision of Luna’s ass spread open while I licked it. Man, I had to let that one go. Each time it appeared, I got hard as rock in broad daylight – an unusual occurrence for me.

“Hello?” Luna’s breathy voice didn’t help the boner situation, and my dick gave a violent twitch.

“Hi… Luna?”

“Yeah, who’s this?” The sound of cars on the other end of the line told me she wasn’t inside.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. It’s Corban Drake. I had some notes about the Twins event to discuss with you. If you’re busy–”

“Oh hi, Corban,” she said, her voice sounding breathless. “You kinda did catch me at a bad time. I’m out getting some material for the event, actually. Flowers, linens, stuff like that.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to–” I cut off. Maybe I wouldn’t leave her to it. Why couldn’t I tag along and help her? It would get my mind off things. “You know, this list can’t wait. The event is looming, and I’ve got to make sure that we’re presenting the right image. The one Unique wants to convey.”

“I understand. I’ll get this stuff later and come to your office to discuss the list.”

“No, that’s okay,” I said and crossed my fingers. “I – uh, how about I come meet you out there in the field? I could give you the list and help you pick out the décor. Make sure it’s in keeping with Unique’s vision.”

Luna didn’t answer. She hadn’t clicked off, though – a car horn honked in the background.

“Sure,” she said at last. “That would be really helpful, actually. I was wondering how I’d get all of these tasks done before ten tonight.”

“Awesome.” I rolled my eyes. Awesome? I sounded like a pimply teenager about to meet a girl for his first date. Except this wasn’t a date, this was a professional meeting. Pull it out of the gutter, Drake. “Where should I meet you?”

Luna fired off the address of a local florist, and I took it down, then hung up. Shit. The thought of seeing her outside the office setting made my palms sweat. More rumbling in my crotch ensued as I wondered if I’d just made a huge mistake. Timothy’s inappropriate words buzzed in my ears on top of some of Ross’s. He’d been able to see straight through me too. Was I so enamored with this woman that I was acting so out of character?

If Jones Le Blanc had walked into this office right now and asked me whether I had a type, I probably would’ve ticked off all of Luna’s attributes on the list. Ambitious, intelligent, beautiful, kind, mysterious, and now, a little bit clumsy. Okay… maybe a lot clumsy.

But I found that adorable instead of frustrating. The best part? It wasn’t an act.

I grabbed the list and slipped it into my briefcase, then zipped it up and made for the door. Perhaps, I’d get the opportunity to discuss some of the event’s details with her over lunch.

A little extra time discussing important matters. That was the excuse I’d use.

I fired off a text to Jeffrey and asked him to summon Lou to the front of the building, then jogged down to meet the car. I gave the chauffeur the address, bundled inside and hunkered down for the drive.

Ten minutes later, the car halted in front of the florist, and I got out. “Hang around, Lou. I might need you soon.”

“No problem, boss,” Lou said, even though he knew better than to call me boss. It was a standing joke between us. The first day we met, and he called me that, I’d teasingly told him if he did it again, I’d fire him.

He’d consequently called me that once a day every day just to get a rise out of me.

I marched up to the florist’s door, briefcase in tow, and caught sight of my reflection. My suit was crease-free, hair in place, and I’d redoubled my workout efforts over the past week. I looked good. So, why did I feel like an ignorant ass?

I opened the glass front door, and a bell tinkled overhead. An elderly woman rose from a seat behind the counter and smiled at me. “May I help you?”

I gave her a warm smile. “I’m looking for someone.”

“Looking for roses?” she asked and cupped her hand to her ear. “Sorry, dear, you’re going to have to speak up. Do you need roses?”

“No, I’m here to meet someone,” I yelled.

“All right, all right. No need to shout.” The lady sat down again. She picked up her newspaper, flicked it open and disappeared behind the pages. “Just thought you looked ready for a date. All gussied up and smelling good.”

With the overwhelming scent of floral bouquet, how could she even begin to know what I smelled like? I shook my head and paced past her toward the rows upon rows of fresh flowers, some of which grew in pots or flowerbeds. I looked over the tops of roses, petunias, and all the other kinds – colors from every spectrum of the rainbow – but didn’t spot Luna.

Shit, had I missed her? I hadn’t asked her to hang around, and I could hardly expect her to shop for flowers when there were other items she needed for the event.

“Hi!” Luna popped up from behind a bouquet of roses.

I grunted and took a step back. My heel hit a pail of flower food, and brown grains skittered across the concrete.

“Sorry,” Luna said with an oops look on her face. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay. I thought maybe you’d finished picking out flowers and left.” I wrinkled my nose at the smell in this place. Floral scents were all right in moderation, but the mixture of roses with lilies and whatever those strange, orange bird looking flowers overloaded my senses.

“Not yet,” Luna said. “Come over here and take a look at this.”

I walked around to her aisle and halted just behind her, my gaze straying to the delicate curve of her neck. Her skin reminded me of the china my mom always kept in her cupboards and never allowed me to touch. The china that only came out for special occasions during the summer months when we had visitors. And just as illicit.

“Smell this,” Luna said and thrust a flower up to my nose.

I inhaled and almost sneezed. “That’s, phew.”

“Too strong? I think so too. I wanted to get something that’d reflect the colors of the Twins uniform. Something creamy white like the lilies.”

“Red like roses?” I asked and pointed at the only flowers I could easily identify.

“I thought about it, yeah,” she said and touched a delicate flower. “But no. I don’t want roses for this. Roses are for romance, and they don’t have the right shade of red.” She showed the roses her back and pointed to another specimen I didn’t recognize. “Daisies. You can get them in every color and kind. I don’t know if they scream sophistication, though, and that’s what we’re going for, right?”

I examined the flower. “It doesn’t have to be over the top. Bear in mind, these are professional baseball players we’re talking about. I don’t know if you know any, but they can be kind of dense.”

She snorted a laugh, but her flushed face turned ashen as if I’d said something horribly wrong. The woman had a web to unravel, and I was just the man for the job. I’d get to the bottom of her secrets.

We continued down the aisle and picked out flowers as we went. I gave Luna my opinion on each, though I didn’t have much to add. She was the professional when it came to this aesthetic stuff. Compared to her, I was a bumbling idiot – not a position I’d ever filled before.

After the flowers, we did linens, then cutlery and crockery. Finally, when I couldn’t take the interior design a second longer, I suggested lunch.

We took a seat in the corner booth in Borough, separated only by the rough, wooden table and two tall wine glasses.

“This place is gorgeous,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I love it here. It’s the perfect mix between classy and relaxed. This is the type of atmosphere we’d need for the Twins event.”

“I agree.” She took a sip of chardonnay and twirled the stem of her glass between her fingertips.

Once again, her beauty struck me right between the eyes. A few strands of hair had escaped the messy bun on top of her head and clung to that fragile, elegant neck. Her eyes were animated, gaze dancing from table to table, those succulent lips parted. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from them. All my cells fired, and I leaned forward a few inches. If I could just get close enough, I could…

“So, about the list,” I said, coming to my senses and unzipping my briefcase. I had to keep the conversation flowing, or I’d end up gawking at her like an idiot for the rest of the meal.

“Oh, right,” she said and put down her glass. The refined elegance of her hands struck me. Like a virtuoso of the piano. I wondered if she played.

I whipped out the first piece of paper from my briefcase and frowned. It was the mockup of the Kiss Boutique ad I’d meant to work on today. I put it aside and reached into my case again.

“Hey, what’s this?” Luna asked, stroking the bright magenta of the Kiss logo with one of those fingers. As if on cue, my mind drifted to an image of her fingers tracing every plane of my body.

“Just something I’m working on. We’re re-branding for Kiss Boutique, and that’s one of the first ads they’ve given me to take a look at.”

Luna scooted around to my side of the booth and leaned in to get a better look at the model. After scrutinizing the copy for several seconds, she speared me with an annoyed gaze and sighed. “That’s all wrong.”

I froze and focused on her face, mere inches from mine. Her thigh grazed mine, but she didn’t notice. She frowned at the image on the card, focused on the ad as she did it.

“What is?” I asked.

“The model’s pose. It’s supposed to be a kissing pose, right? Like she’s blowing a kiss.”

“Right.” I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. Didn’t want to. The words slipped toward my ears and around them. All I could focus on was the tiny beauty mark just beneath her chin. My lips would fit perfectly just there. Then my tongue. I wondered about her taste. I craved it. I wanted to put my mouth over every inch of her tender skin.

“But this pose, ugh, I’m just not feeling it. It’s like she’s forcing the kiss.” Luna poked the model’s lips. “She’s not even puckering properly.”

“Hey, that’s really helpful,” I said and finally tore myself from the beauty spot. I’d been sucked into orbit for so many tortured seconds, I thought I’d never slam back into earth. “Do you have any other notes? I’ve been struggling with this ad for a while. I felt like something was amiss but couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“Well…” Luna said and planted her finger on the model’s lips again, “there’s your problem. She’s beautiful, but she’s not pulling it off. There’s something missing. Something inherent in a woman’s sex appeal, and she doesn’t have it. You know that… magnetism.”

“Right,” I said in a low tone. I knew exactly what kind of magnetism Luna referred to because she had it in spades. “What kind of pose should she strike?”

“You want me to show you?” She reared back with no small amount of uncertainty, and my heart started hammering double time. It wasn’t what I meant, but now that she’d misinterpreted, I could see how this situation could be used to my advantage.

“Yeah,” I said, and my cock roared to life again. I willed it to stop but failed and just tossed my linen napkin in my lap.

Luna turned her head. Her gaze swept down my torso, then back up again. “You’re sure? I don’t want to make a fool of myself.” She laughed, a bright, musical sound. “Or should I say an even bigger fool of myself. It seems I’ve been doing nothing but since the moment we met.”

I fought to keep a straight face. “Yeah, I’m sure because I really need help with it. Go ahead.”

Luna sucked her bottom lip, then shrugged. She puckered up and closed her eyes, tilting one shoulder toward me, the other pulled back. Hair that’d fallen free from her bun framed her face.

That was it. I was done.

I grasped the back of her head and drew her into a kiss. Perfection.

Luna sucked in a breath. She hesitated, then surrendered to the intimacy of the organic moment, lips parted, breasts pressed against my chest. I was trapped by this woman and my desire. Seconds passed, and I wallowed in her sweet taste and the slight, coconut scent of her skin. My imaginings hadn’t even come close to the real thing. And now that I’d tasted her… one sip would never be enough.

She broke away and searched my face, a tiny frown creasing her flawless skin. “I–”

I captured her lips to crush her doubts, words unnecessary.