Speaking of professional. Your shirt’s buttoned wrong.
Her gaze shot down to her chest. Shit.
Another text appeared.
It’s okay, buttons are hard. Would it make you feel better if I buttoned mine wrong too?
Despite herself, she laughed.
Jennifer scrunched her nose. “What’s so funny?”
Perdie scratched the back of her head and shrugged. “Twitter.”
She sneaked a peek at Carter, but he was already looking at her this time. Wasn’t she supposed to be furious with him? Yes. Yes, she was.
And then...he winked.
Chapter Ten
Perdie held Carter’s eye. Agh, fuck her weak will. In a slow deliberate motion she stood, making the smallest inclination with her head towards the door.
“I’ll be right back,” she murmured to Jennifer and Sophia.
“’Kay.” Sophia’s eyes were transfixed on her phone. “Charles Joy is always at least twenty minutes late anyway. Imagine if we acted that way...” She shook her head.
Perdie walked out of the room, adrenaline pumping in her veins. She didn’t have a plan, but whatever naughty game she was about to partake in wouldn’t stop her from pitching her case in her practice group meeting today.
So, what the hell, why not have her cake and eat it too?
In the hallway his footsteps clipped behind her. She ducked left into the bathroom, shouldering open the swinging door and then pushing her back against the closed stall, her heart thumping.
She waited.
A moment later, the door swung open and his tall, masculine form appeared. Fuck, he was hot.
“Hey,” she whispered.
He strolled towards her with a casual gait, his hands in his pockets. He stopped when they were standing almost toe to toe, the tips of her silver smoking shoes against his brown suede chukka boots.
“Hey.”
“We don’t have much time,” she said, suddenly paralyzed, frozen against the stall door.
“Don’t need much time.”
A cold thrill ran through her. The conference room after work had been one thing, but a bathroom before a meeting?
As always he kept her guessing what he would do next. She was so curious, she didn’t even reach for him. She wanted to watch. What kind of show would he put on? She might become addicted to the suspense.
His eyes smoldered. With a deliberate motion, he shrugged his arms out of his blazer, tossed it onto the marble counter behind him, revealing the green cashmere sweater smoothed over the hard expanse of his chest. She fisted her hands to her sides to stop herself from grabbing at him like a feral animal.
With the blazer off, his eyes reflected green, except for that one little corner of blue. But she couldn’t get lost in that blue spot, because his hand had reached behind his neck to pull his sweater off over his head. Now clad only in his fitted white button-down, he shook out his hair and tossed the sweater. Like the sexiest business casual matryoshka doll in the world.
When he reached for her, her heartbeat jumped into her throat.
But she didn’t break contact, not for one second. Excitement pebbled her skin. He gently fingered one translucent button at the top of her shirt, where the off-kilter button-up job was most apparent, then with a flick of his thumb and index finger, the button popped open.
He followed the same path down several more buttons, revealing the peaks of her nude T-shirt bra, briefly letting his thumb slip beneath the inside edge of her bra cup to stroke the soft skin beneath. Her breath hitched; he was so close to her nipple, a push to the left and he’d be there, a rough thumb over that delicate, aching skin. He’d never even touched her nipples before. Suddenly it was all she could think about.
He pulled the shirt out from the waist of her pants and continued unbuttoning, until it was divided in two vertical planes down her body, the round swell of her cleavage visible in between. He ran the rough flat of his hand along the inside hem, tickling her skin with the sweep of his fingers, her chest heaving with breath.
“There are so many things I want to do to you right now.” Voice deep but quiet, he gazed at the open space of her shirt. She blushed at the thought of a few things he might be talking about. “How am I supposed to work all day with this in my pants?” He brought her hand to his erection, the large protrusion, hot and pulsating against her palm. “All your fault.”
Her hand moved, stroking through the soft material, his eyelids heavy. But he captured her hand again and brought it to the top button of his own shirt. Taking his cue, she flicked the button open, her fingertips gliding over the skin at the hollow of his neck. He rolled his head and groaned softly. She continued down the rest of the shirt.
Following his example, she pulled the shirttails from the waist of his pants, finishing with the buttons, parting the white material, letting her nails scratch at the dark line of hair that trailed from his belly button, the muscles there lean and bunched like cords, and on the sides carved in like a vee.
Perdie bit her lip at the delectable sight. This man must live at the gym. She didn’t even know where to find one. Her eyes moved to his face and his gaze flickered up to meet hers as well.
“I’m going to stroke myself off to the thought of this tonight. Alone in my bed. How desperate is that?”
Before she could say anything, he fisted the bottom hem of either side of her shirt and gave each a harsh yank until the bottoms lined up evenly. She yelped in surprise. And like that, his large but nimble fingers were buttoning her in.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Attempting to torture you. Is it working?” He smiled. “And fixing your buttons.”
“But I thought we were...”
