Page 44 of Undeniably Corrupt
I kiss my girl a few extra times, tell her I love her to the moon and back, and get on the elevator to head into work. The office is quiet as I’m the first to arrive. Things seem to get going a bit later here than what I’m used to. In the hospital, change of shift is at seven a.m. Most people arrive here around nine, and that’s likely because Vander comes and goes at weird hours. Champagne wasn’t lying about that.
Sitting on my desk are two thick contracts that require Vander’s signature. I set down my things, tuck my cell phone into the pocket of my pants, and carry the contracts down the two doors to Vander’s office.
His door is open, and I walk in, feeling a little intrusive for doing so. His door is usually closed, whether he’s here or not. I have no idea what time he left last night. I sent him a text asking if he needed anything because I hadn’t seen him much all day, and he said no, and that was that. I left.
What happened the other day in the garage is where we left it. It was scratching an itch. Working out some of our tension, and now we’re back to cold and distant. Which is exactly how we need to keep it.
I set the contracts down on his desk and take a moment to look around. It’s a big office with multiple spaces. The far wall is all windows, same as mine, and to the left is a short hallway that’s almost closed off from the rest of the space with a door at the end of it. His closet, or whatever you call it, has fancy and forbidding locks on it. It’s somewhere he doesn’t want anyone to gain access to without his permission.
On the other side is a brighter hallway that has two closed doors. The rest of the office is a standard office. A large desk with monitors, a table with four chairs, and a stiff leather sofa that looks relatively unused. Something catches my eye, and I walk over to the table and smile when I see the long, pale wooden sticks with white plastic tips.
Drumsticks.
I pick one up, running my fingers along the nicked wood. He still plays the drums. For some reason, this makes me insanely happy. Like not everything about him has changed. There are still pieces of the boy I knew in him. He loved to play. He’d do it for hours, and by the time he was done, he was a shirtless, sweaty, delicious mess. It used to turn me on like crazy. The power and strength in his muscles, the music he’d make, the calluses on his hands from it.
Maybe that’s what’s in his closet. His drum set. Maybe it’s where he goes to unwind and destress and that’s why he doesn’t like to be bothered. He used to hate it when someone would interrupt his sessions.
The far door down the right hall suddenly opens, startling me so badly that I jump and the stick goes flying out of my hand, clattering loudly on the floor. Shit. I dive down quickly to retrieve it, feeling like I just got caught touching things and being somewhere I shouldn’t. Vander walks out of what is obviously a bathroom with his hair damp and wearing nothing but a black undershirt and charcoal pants with bare feet. He sees me standing here with nothing but his stick in my hand, and a slow, easy smile spreads over his lips.
And holy hot sexiness. I can feel my lips part as my jaw goes slack.
I force my gaze away from his colorful, muscular arms and broad shoulders, and his hair—good Lord, his stupidly sexy hair. I clear the lust from my throat. “Good morning, Mr. Moore.”
He raises an eyebrow at me calling him that. “Coming in early to sneak into my office, Miss James?”
“What? No! I got in early today and found two contracts on my desk for you to sign. Your door was open, so I came in and… put them on yours.”
He stalks toward me until he’s standing directly in front of me, closer than social bubble space allows for. I can smell his masculine shampoo and bodywash and feel the heat of his skin. It makes my pulse race and my toes curl in my terrible heels. His finger runs down the length of the stick in my hand. “And this?”
“I was touching your stick.”
His lips twitch, and my face heats. Did I actually just say that? I set it down on the table with the other.
“I see that.”
“It’s memories, you know?”
He nods as he slips into a long-sleeved black button-down, and I can’t help but watch his skilled fingers as he buttons it from the bottom up. My stupid nipples are getting hard just thinking about those fingers and what they’re capable of.
I sigh and turn toward the window. “Do you ever wear color?”
“You wear enough for both of us.”
“Probably true.” Today I’m in blue and cream floral pants with an orange cropped sweater that hits right at the pant line. It’s one of my favorites that I found in the thrift store. “What are you doing here so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I ran in.”
My eyebrow hit my hairline, and I flash back to him. “You ran here?”
“Yes. It’s only like five or six miles.”
“Five or six miles?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say that way?”
I laugh lightly. “Only when you throw stuff like that at me.”But now that I’m getting a better look at him, he has dark shadows under his eyes. Before I know how I got here, my fingers run along them. “You should take something to help you sleep better.”
He moves into my touch, and my hands drop. I shift my weight under his steady gaze. “I do sometimes if I really need it.”
