Page 32 of Work: Strictly Professional

Wait.What?

My eyes fly open in horror, and I look straight into black.

“Whoopsie!” I cry, attempting to extricate myself from the chokehold I have on Derek MacAvoy. One arm is under his neck, hand curled tightly into his hair, and the other is burrowed between his pecs. I have to wait for him to lift his head to free myself fully. I hurriedly scoot back to my side of the bed. “Sorry! I-I don’t know what happened. I don’t usually sleep like th—”

Derek blinks slowly, blacker-than-black pupils expanding and contracting from the morning light. I distantly wonder if molesting your boss in his sleep is a fireable offense.

I think it must be.

“Sorry!” I say again, with even more gusto.

“You laugh in your sleep.”

“Oh. I, um, yeah, Gould and Bridget have told me that. I don’t know why though. I don’t remember my dreams, so I don’t know what’s so funny. I—”

“Who’s Gould?”

“He’s my bestie. My other bestie. We used to live together before he got together with this older, um, I mean, until he got together with this lovely man named Stuart. Now they’re married and disgustingly happy and, and…”

Fuck. What was I talking about?

I drag myself into a seated position and lean against the headboard to get my bearings. The sheet slips off my lap from the motion, and I’m left scrambling to pull it up.

One thing flimsy, feels-like-silk-against-my-skin fabric isn’t at all good for is disguising wayward boners.

A sexy single brow arches up. “Daddy’s Boy, huh?”

“No! No, no, no. I’m not…I mean, absolutely no judgment if that’s what you’re into. I mean, notyouspecifically, I mean people, you know? No judgment if that’s what people are into. It’s just not—I’mnot a Daddy’s boy, that’s what I’m saying. My Gould, I mean my friend, Gould,isa Daddy’s boy. He’s the Daddiest boy who ever Daddied. Or boy-ed. He and Stuart have this whole Daddy discipline spanking dynamic going on.”Holy shit. What am I saying? Why am I still talking?“Anyway, long story short, Gould owns this company called Daddy’s Boy, and he makes these shorts. He gave them to me for my birthday last year when I turned twenty-nine.”

“You need coffee,” says Derek, diagnosing me with a glance.

15

Derek

Wyn walks over towhere I’m sitting, white pearlescent notebook and matching pen in hand. He’s all but drowning in a fluffy white robe wrapped tightly up to his neck. He sits and pushes his empty breakfast plate to the side. He’s had two cups of coffee in quick succession and seems to have rallied.

“Right,” he says, all business, despite the fact that every hair on his head is standing perpendicular to his scalp and there’s a faint crease on his cheek where the bed linen imprinted on him.

It’s adorable. Completely adorable. Not adorable as in I adore it. Adorable as in holy fuck, that’s cute. Cute like a puppy or kitten. No, cuter than that. Cute like a rabbit. A bunny with soft, fluffy ears and a velvety nose. Unbearably, impossibly cute. Don’t think I can stand it cute. So cute my teeth clench and I have an overwhelming urge to pinch him. To squeeze big chunks of him until he’s pink and squealing. To shake him and bite him.

Holy shit.

Is Wyn Foster giving me cute aggression? Is that what this is? Can a person give you cute aggression?

I look down and surreptitiously tap on my phone.

Shit. I just Googled it.

Wynisgiving me cute aggression.

Great. Just great. I’ve managed to acquire a neurochemical reaction to him in addition to all the other reactions I’m already having.

“So, I was thinking we should just run through the questionnaire I designed real quick before we head out to meet everyone. We don’t have all that long as Miller and Ryan and Barbara Anne and, uh, Sage will be here soon.”

He hands me a twelve-page document—typed back and front—and a pen with the resort logo. I start working my way through, but I’m barely able to make it through the first page. “My favorite color, Wyn? Who asks that kind of thing? My family knows these things about me. They’re not going to come up in casual conversation. We can’t scratch the surface. We need to be believable, or it’s not going to work.” I flick through the rest of the questions, looking for something that might actually be useful. “Here, first impressions of each other. Perfect. You thought I was an ass, and I thought you were uptight.”

“I’m not uptight!”

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