Hot Boss - Anne Marsh Page 0,14

dark jacket, suit pants and a soft, silky blouse with a loopy bow that rests on top of the boobs I am absolutely not looking at. There’s a gold necklace nestled in the hollow of her throat. I squint, but I can’t quite make out what it says. All of Hazel’s necklaces have messages, like mini billboards for her upcoming week. An elephant for good luck. A lightning bolt when she wants to “strike ’em dead.” A cactus for exploring new frontiers and ideas. At least this one isn’t an ax or a gun or some other murder weapon. Maybe she doesn’t want to kill me dead.

She looks up as I saunter past her office because I’m going to pretend everything is normal up until she tells me that it’s not. I can’t tell if she’s staring off into space or if she’s ignoring me. I’ll just have to fix this. Somehow.

This is the first time I’ve seen her since our kiss. Given we have an office full of people, I settle for muttering “hi” in the direction of her office door before burying myself in spreadsheets. I need to talk to her without the audience. Kissing her was the wrong thing to do, which makes apologizing the right thing. I’m just not sure that a handful of words can fix this. Does she think I’m a horndog? A player? A desperate ass?

Wednesday and Thursday pass much the same. Coleman and Reed has the bandwidth to take on one or two more projects, so we’re actively shopping for candidates. Thursday, we bring in one of those candidates to pitch. The company founders look like their average age is fourteen. They’re suited up, nervous and awash in cologne. If their pitch doesn’t overwhelm me, the fumes will.

Since I’m first into the room, I do the meet and greet. Hazel bursts in five minutes later. In the office, she wears her hair slicked back in this bun thing. There’s no good way to describe it. A bun is something you buy at the bakery—a squashy, delicious treat—and it doesn’t begin to describe Hazel’s neat knot of hair. I compared it once to the black racer snake that Hazel found sun-basking on her doorstep. She didn’t like that comparison, so I quit before she either killed me or sicced a snake on me. Plus, when she lets her hair down, that’s really when you need to watch out. Hazel has crazy hair. It waves and curls and tries to be straight—all at the same time.

Despite the balmy California weather, she’s wearing her favorite Theory suit, the one with slim blue velvet pants and a matching fitted jacket. I know from her previous complaints about the gymnastics required to pee that the shirt thing underneath her jacket is actually a bodysuit, that there are three snaps on the crotch, and that she’ll be commando because she thinks it’s silly to wear an extra layer underneath...

Danger.

Do not think about Hazel’s panties.

She introduces herself to our visitors, reaching over the table to shake their hands. I try to reconcile put-together Hazel with the woman I kissed on Saturday night. I kissed Hazel. My partner. As kisses go, that one is definitely in my top ten. The way she ran her hand down my chest. Her teeth scraping gently at my upper lip. Her breath catching on my mouth. The greedy pull of her mouth as if I was her favorite flavor and I made her feel just a little savage.

Hazel drops into the seat next to where I’m sprawled, still imagining her naked. She reaches beneath the table under the guise of adjusting her chair and smacks my thigh where it brushes hers.

She smirks at me. “Personal space, Reed.”

Hazel is a relentless campaigner against man-spreading, but do her fingers linger and brush over my dress pants? She smells good and I fight the urge to turn toward her body and pull her closer, because the handful of inches between us is too much. I definitely want to kiss her again, press my lips against the vulnerable base of her throat. But maybe it’s just me. Maybe Hazel’s already forgotten our kiss even though she has the memory of an elephant.

I don’t remember much about the meeting. I nod and pretend to take notes on my laptop, but the young, anxious baby executives could be pitching me luxury condos on Mars for all I know. It’s irresponsible of me to be so distracted, because there is a