taking another bite of banana. “She almost took your balls with her.”
“Yeah. After ripping your face off to get to them.”
She blinked at me and then snickered.
Fuck me. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean your face would be anywhere near…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Fuck. Five minutes in this room and I’d gotten a hard-on and suggested that an employee put her face near my balls. This was not who I was.
She laughed again, harder this time. “Relax, Dom. You might be an asshole, but you’re not trying to get into my underwear.”
I dropped the folder to cover what was now a raging erection because of course I was picturing her underwear. I hated myself.
“Now that Malina? She’s going to try to crawl into yours. So you might want to consider a chastity belt or shark repellent,” she suggested.
“Maybe you should get back to work,” I muttered and then left the room as quickly as I could without running.
Back at my own desk, dick under control—mostly—I put in a request to HR.
While I waited for the paperwork, I buzzed Greta.
“Do me a favor and have some kind of snack sent to the admin pool this afternoon.”
“Some kind of snack?” She repeated it like I was speaking a foreign language.
“Yes. Food. Something with protein maybe?”
“Enough for the whole department?” she asked. I could hear the curiosity.
“Enough for everyone. Use my card,” I said. I spotted the research request on my desk. The one I hadn’t bothered delivering. “Oh, and can you put a research request into the system for me?”
Five minutes later, I settled back in my chair to read everything there was in Ally Morales’s file.
12
Dominic
I’d avoided her since Tuesday just to prove that I could.
Just to prove to my stupid cock that it did not run my life. That I wasn’t a carbon copy of Paul Russo.
I didn’t know exactly what the hell was going on. But I’d wasted more brainpower on Ally Morales in the week and a half since I’d met her in that stupid pizza shop than on anything that actually deserved my attention.
That was a problem.
And I was the smart guy who decided that since I’d proved I could leave her alone, I next needed to prove that I could be around her… and not want to fuck her.
I’d requested her.
It wasn’t a big deal, I told myself as I glanced at my watch again. I’d requested admins before. Ones I knew would be less annoying or wouldn’t make weird nervous humming noises if I asked them a direct question.
Requesting Ally didn’t mean anything.
I wasn’t interested. Not in that way. I didn’t sleep with people who pissed me off and pushed my buttons. I was, however, curious about her.
What took a woman from being a semi-successful graphic designer in Colorado to a server living off bananas in New York? Her credit wasn’t great. The credit report noted a shit-ton of credit card debt in the last three months. But the street view of her home address—yeah, okay, so I’d looked up her address. I wasn’t happy about that either—showed a family home in a nice neighborhood in a decent commuter town in Jersey.
She didn’t own the house, but I’d stopped short of doing a totally legal property search to see who did.
I’d also stopped myself a dozen times from looking for her on social media.
I wasn’t an impulsive guy. This itch to learn more about her annoyed me. I didn’t even like her. But her company photo did make me laugh. I called up the picture again on my screen and smirked. Was she mid-sneeze?
There was a knock on my open door, and I jolted in my chair.
Ally was standing in my doorway with a coat draped over her arm and a backpack slung over her shoulder. “Ready to go, Charming? Or do you need a few more minutes with your porn?”
I closed her picture and rose.
Those eyes went wide, and her lips formed an O.
I glanced down, wondering if I’d forgotten to zip my pants or something.
Nope. Zipped. “What?” I demanded.
Silently, she shook her head.
I looked back down. No stains. My tie was still tied. My vest still buttoned.
“Do you have a problem?” I asked, enunciating each word.
She shook her head. “Nope. No problem,” she finally croaked. Now she was looking everywhere but me. The carpet appeared to be quite fascinating. Her neck was turning an interesting shade of pink.
“Try to pull yourself together before the meeting,” I suggested, brushing past her.
Greta