Page 10 of Masked Indulgence
And I couldn’t be happy with a man who wasn’t at least somewhat dominating,either.
I felt stuck in a terribly deep rut. The thing I wanted the most was the thing that had hurt me so much in the past and made me wary of relationships. And I had no idea what I’d ever do to remedy that. Being alone wasn’t the answereither.
Getting up, I went back to my desk and tapped on the computer to bring up pictures of hot, muscular men so I could pick one for the next book cover I’d bemaking.
One by one, I blew them all off as none compared to Nixon. His tight abs, his broad chest with massive pecs, his hulking biceps—no one compared tohim.
How in the hell would I ever get him out of mymind?
Would time eventually rid me of that perfect memory? Would I even want itto?
It had one perfect night. The best night of my entire life. Why would I want to forget aboutit?
Maybe because it already haunted me. Maybe because I already knew no other man could come close to comparing to NixonSlaughter.
I wasdoomed.
Chapter7
Nixon
Fall weather madethe drive to work a pleasure. I didn’t even mind the hour I had to sit in traffic at the airport. It gave me time to think about my night with Katana, afterall.
It’d only been a little while since I’d left her, but I had to admit I found myself missing her a little too often. She had my number, and I kept wishing she’d call. Maybe she’d ask me to come down and play for the weekend or something. But the phone neverrang.
When traffic began rolling again, I made it all the way to my office building. Champlain Services, located inside the Century Plaza Towers on Century Park East, was my home away from home. With six offices on the top floor, we had a great view of thecity.
When I came into the reception area, I saw my admin assistant, Blake, busy on the phone. I gave him a wave and headed to my office. He paused in the middle of his conversation to call out to me, “Don’t forget you have the Skype meeting this morning,boss.”
“Thanks.” I had forgotten about the meeting, but I wasn’t behind schedule even with the hour lost intraffic.
Getting into my office, I turned on the computer monitor on the wall and got ready for the meeting with my partners in the nightclub endeavor. The call came in from Gannon Forester’s office, and I clicked the accept button and found his adorable little secretary looking at me from the conference room in his office. “Good morning, Mr. Slaughter. It’s nice to seeyou.”
“You too, Janine. Is Gannon there?” I pulled up my most comfortable chair and settled in for themeeting.
“Yes, sir. And I’ll be adding Mr. Harlow to this meeting in just one moment. Sit tight,” she said with a smile, then pushed her thick-framed glasses up her nose abit.
After a minute, August Harlow’s face filled half the screen. “Hey, ugly,” I joked withhim.
“Hey, precious,” he said with a chuckle. “How’s life treating ya? You weren’t in town yesterday. Where might you havebeen?”
“Oh, nowhere special. Did you miss me?” I winked athim.
“Of course, my little buttercup. Halloween was nothing without your sweet little ass there,” he kidded with me. “But seriously, you missed one hell of a good time. Gannon and I had some fun with some nurses. At least they were dressed as nurses. There were three of them and only two of us, and one nearly got left out until I decided I could take on two at atime.”
“What a hero,” I said as I clapped. “Always helping out the citizens of our fair country, August.” Retired from the Marines at only thirty, August had seen some pretty grim shit that he didn’t like to talkabout.
“I do what I can. Being retired, I can only help stateside. I like to keep up the morale over here.” He laughed again, then Gannon’s face filled the other side of myscreen.
Gannon’s smile was bright as always as he greeted us, “Morning, gentlemen. And I do use that termlightly.”
August took the lead, as usual. “So the time has come for us to put our bickering behind us and agree on a name for thisnightclub.”
We’d argued over this one thing for far too long. Seemed it was time to shit or get off the pot. So I gave them my idea one more time. “Let the record show, I like the name ClubX.”
I knew it would be Gannon who had something to say about that. “And I’ve told you before, that name is much toocommon.”
August pointed out one major problem to Gannon. “Yes, but Gannon, you have yet to come up with a single name. You’ve had no problem shooting down all the ones we’ve come up with, though. So I am throwing you into the middle of this debate and challenging you to come up with a name on the fly. You have oneminute.”
