Page 7 of Masked Seduction
She’s not just beautiful. She’s defiant. She’s clever. She doesn’t flirt, doesn’t posture. And somehow, that restraint makes me want her more. Makes me wonder what she’d sound like when she finally breaks—when she moans my name, desperate and ruined.
I drop the hair in the trash, disgusted with myself.
She’s your assistant. You don’t fuck the help and you sure as hell don’t think about them after they leave the room.
Yet here I am, staring at the door like I’m waiting for her to walk through it.
CHAPTER 3
JENNA
By the time I make it home, I’m dragging. My heels are in my hand, my blouse half-untucked. My brain feels like it’s been deep-fried.
My apartment is small and a little cramped, but it’s mine. Mid-century meets girl on a budget. Thrift store velvet throw pillows, string lights I never took down after Christmas, and an Ikea bookshelf I put together myself that leans ever so slightly to the left. The sink’s full again. The laundry basket in the corner is begging to be emptied, and there’s a half-eaten donut still on a plate from… God, maybe Tuesday?
Whatever. I drop my shoes, collapse onto the couch, and sink into the cushions like the plug’s been pulled on me. I grope for the remote, not even caring what I watch as long as it’s something that doesn’t make me think.
I pull up Netflix, scrolling for a second before settling onSelling Sunset. It’s so aggressively stupid, it’s perfect. Nothing like watching women with sculpted jaws and weaponized cleavage argue about listing prices while I debate whether I have the energy to microwave leftovers.
It’s no use. I can’t focus. My brain keeps crawling back to him.
Abram Vasiliev.
My boss. My tyrant. My walking HR violation of a distraction.
He works nonstop—barely eats, barely sleeps—and expects his assistant to follow suit. At his beck and call until he’s finished for the day, which could mean noon or three in the morning. He’ll shoot off a message at 10:47 p.m. about an investor meeting the next day and expect a response in sixty seconds. I’ve actually timed him. Sixty-one seconds and he’s texting me a question mark.
My circadian rhythm is a mess. Coffee has replaced the blood in my veins. I’ve forgotten what a normal weekend looks like. And yet…
I sit up straight, realizing my body isn’t tired at all. I’mbuzzing. My legs won’t stay still. My brain keeps looping little flashes of his voice, his eyes, the look he gave me when I suggested the club wasn’t entirely legal. Like he wanted to devour me and fire me in the same breath.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I pick up my phone, thumb hovering over my messages. I need to talk to someone sane. Someone not brooding, bearded, and capable of killing a man with a paperweight.
Claire. My best friend. My lifeline. She always tells it straight, even when I don’t want to hear it.
I open our chat and start typing.
You home?
Just walked in. What’s up?
Wanna hang? Like, tonight? Now? I need wine.
GOD yes. I’ll be there in an hour.
I smile for the first time all day and toss my phone onto the couch. Claire and I have been best friends since freshman orientation at Arizona State, where she rescued me from an awkward icebreaker involving a trust fall and a very sweaty guy named Chad.
We were roommates all through college and again in our first dumpy apartment post-graduation until I moved into this place, my grown-up space, complete with central air and a dishwasher that actually works.
She landed a job at a marketing firm downtown that she likes well enough but says has “too many men named Josh.” Between her client meetings and my boss’s erratic schedule, we barely see each other anymore. But when we do, it’s still magic.
True to her word, she’s knocking on the door fifty-eight minutes later. I open it to find her grinning, a bottle of rosé in one hand and a bag of cheese popcorn in the other.
“Did someone order a girls’ night?” she says, breezing past me like a spring gust.
Claire’s one of those women who looks like she belongs in a magazine ad—tall, lean, sleek brown ponytail, perfectly winged eyeliner she claims takes two seconds.
