ANNE MARSH writes sexy contemporary and paranormal romances because the world can always enjoy one more alpha male. She started writing romance after getting laid off from her job as a technical writer—and quickly decided happily-ever-afters trumped software manuals. She lives in North Carolina with her two kids and five cats.

CARA LOCKWOOD is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including I Do (But I Don’t), which was made into a Lifetime Original movie. She’s written the Bard Academy series for young adults and has had her work translated into several languages around the world. Born and raised in Dallas, Cara now lives near Chicago with her husband and their five children. Find out more about her at caralockwood.com, friend her on Facebook, Facebook.com/authorcaralockwood, or follow her on Twitter, @caralockwood.

Also by Cara Lockwood

No Strings

Look at Me

First Class Sin

Hot Mistake

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Intern

Anne Marsh

Double Dare You

Cara Lockwood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90113-4

HER INTERN & DOUBLE DARE YOU

Her Intern © 2019 Anne Marsh Double Dare You © 2019 Cara Lockwood

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Her Intern

Back Cover Text

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Double Dare You

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Her Intern

Anne Marsh

A red-hot story from New York Times bestselling author Anne Marsh! Billionaire Devlin King goes undercover to expose the company that’s stolen his work—but after a sizzling encounter with his new boss, can he keep his eyes on the prize?

My company’s software has been pirated by a tech start-up, but its owner, the beautiful Lola Jones, would never admit it. As a renowned Silicon Valley CEO, I couldn’t exactly walk into her office and accuse her—so when I saw a chance to go undercover as her new summer intern, I took it.

It shouldn’t have been difficult to prove my theory, but Lola is smarter than I gave her credit for—and the chemistry between us is an unexpected complication. She might be an infuriating boss, but her power over me drives me wild with desire. When our sexual tension threatens to bubble over, we cross a line, and one night of exhilarating pleasure soon turns into several. Evidently, she’s more than a match for me in bed as well as business.

As I’ve grown closer to Lola, I can’t stop thinking about her. Each irresistible encounter is more electrifying than the last, and when she discovers my true identity, sparks will really fly...unless I can convince her our connection is worth fighting for!

Mills & Boon DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Mills & Boon DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

CHAPTER ONE

Lola

HELL IS A party where the hosts expect you to mingle, asking random strangers for obscene amounts of money. It feels like a bad joke. Hi, my name is Lola. I’ll do anything for a million bucks. I have very few boundaries left, although anal or sex slave for a year are still out. Around me, a crowd of beautifully dressed people chat about their newest business projects and sip champagne from crystal flutes. Waiters in black tie circulate, offering trays of delicious nibbles. I don’t fit in here, a nerdy girl engineer in the thrift-store little black dress that’s my go-to for social functions requiring heels.

This is the glamorous side of Silicon Valley, the part featured in glossy business magazines starring successful, extroverted dealmakers. It’s also a pond stocked with fat, captive fish and I need to toss in my line and pluck one out. Tonight’s mixer isn’t even one of the now-legendary venture capital parties where the VC boys make disgusting come-ons and would-be girl bosses choose between start-up funding and ethics. This is a perfectly respectable party for grown-ups.

Instead of schmoozing, I watch from the sidelines, clutching my champagne flute. I don’t “people” well. People are best in small doses. Plus, the VC guys judge relentlessly from the moment I start my pitch. It’s like a beauty pageant but without the fun tiaras. While trying not to fall over in my heels, I’m expected to produce insightful, thirty-second sound-bite answers about how the company I founded is going to contribute to The Greater Good and make tons of money in the process. Coding is so much easier.

So I’m pathetically grateful when I spot a familiar face. Maple weaves through the glittering throng toward me. She recently launched an online yoga wear company building on her brand as a successful athleisure influencer. After six months of swimming in the start-up waters myself, I know she’ll succeed. She doesn’t take no for an answer and, thanks to years as a principal for the San Francisco Ballet, she’s happy standing out while everyone looks at her. Tonight, she’s a flamingo in a sea of penguins. In her neon yellow bandage dress, white blazer and chunky, tasseled heels she looks like the million bucks I need so badly.

She clicks to a halt by my side, heels together, toes out in a perfect first position. “Hit me with tonight’s plan.”

Lists are awesome, and without a checklist of things to accomplish tonight, I’d just walk from one side of the room to the other and go home. I hold up my phone so she can see tonight’s list.

Hunt down two venture capital groups

Introduce self to reps

Trade business cards

Be charming (heh)

Maple borrows my champagne before delivering the bad news. “The partners from J&H have already come and gone.”

Well, poop. VC firms pick a very few companies to invest in each year and most look for unicorns—privately held start-ups worth a billion dollars or more. Invest in the next social media sensation and you can buy your very own tropical island (and a yacht and a private jet) when it goes public. Calla, my start-up, is worth more like a thousand bucks, and that’s just because I bought good office furniture.

Move on, I remind myself. Start-up funding is like speed dating. “Bayview Capital.”

“Four o’clock.” She points helpfully as I’m currently sans glasses and can’t see more than two feet in front of me. While I plot the shortest, least-peopled course toward the Bayview guys, Maple hums under her breath and scans the room. Her party game is dividing its suit-wearing occupants into hypothetical keep and discard piles. Some people apply Marie Kondo’s organizational theories to their closets and kitchen cabinets; Maple applies those principles to men. Since she’s in a committed relationship and I’m adamantly not, I’m the one who’s supposed to rummage through the keepers and pick someone fun. She refuses to believe me when I say I simply don’t have time for a relationship right now.

Ten minutes later, I’ve located Bayview Capital’s representative (wearing a lovely Hugo Boss suit), made painful but effective small talk and exchanged business cards. The basic premise of the networking event is simple. Collect business cards and make introductions, hoping to score a request to come back and interview for the big money during working hours.

Mission accomplished, I return to Maple, scanning the room for the nearest exit.

As always, Maple cuts straight to the chase. “Are you going already?”

Uh, hello? The room is pushing the fire marshal’s stated limits. Leaving would be civic-minded. “I’ve had a glass of champagne, handed my business card to twenty-seven random strangers who gave me their cards thus promoting us to casual business acquaintances and met the people I came to meet. Why would I stay?”

Maple gazes at me patiently. “To have fun?”

I get the sense Maple is serious and not making a joke. I love to laugh as much as the next person, but challenged in the humor department? Yes, yes, I am. Clarification is required. “You want to stay here?”

“Let me sum up—free champagne, free food.” She tucks her arm in mine, ensuring I can’t escape without towing her like a boat anchor. Thirty seconds later, we’re tucked into prime real estate—a padded window seat with picture-perfect views of downtown San Francisco and the city night lights. When I first moved here, I visited the aquarium on the Wharf and strolled through a huge glass tunnel while a dozen species of sharks and rays swam up checking me out. This feels remarkably similar except the sharks in this room aren’t particularly interested in me. I’m the tiniest fish.

“This is a party, Lola.” Maple mimics scanning the room like a sailor checking out the horizon. Probably for pirates. “There are hot guys here.”

“Really?” Successful people possess many fine qualities, including drive, discipline and intelligence, but when God handed out looks, they’d been too busy standing in the drive, discipline and intelligence lines to score hotness.

“Yes.” Maple nods vigorously. I’m pathetically jealous that her sleek ballerina bun doesn’t so much as wiggle on top of her head. “How about that one? Does he spark joy in you? Would you keep him?”

The blurry blond guy on the other end of Maple’s pointing finger is perfectly fine. Emphasis on perfect—perfect blue suit, perfectly coordinated navy blue tie, perfectly groomed hair with just the right amount of styling products to keep everything perfectly in place. He’s a total sand shark. Dating needs to be less work. From the data points of my most recent Friday night experiences, choosing a random stranger ends in disappointment. Imagining the possibilities is more fun and less work.

Maple smacks my arm when I share this conclusion with her. “Pick better, then. How about that one? I’ll bet he has a huge penis.”

Her new choice is tall, dark and handsome. He’s absolutely yummy even if he seems like the MBA type. My ovaries vow on the spot that he’s smart, dependable and the best baby daddy ever. Mentally I check off cow shark in the game of mental shark bingo I’m playing with myself.

Maple sighs and nudges me in the side. “When’s the last time you went out on a date or had me time?”

“I don’t have time for a relationship.” She’s only trying to be helpful, but as much as I appreciate her concern, it also makes me want to run and hide in my very nice bed. I’m thirty-one, I’m the baby sister who’s failed to make good (so far) and I’ve just founded my first company. I have time for nothing but work.

“Sex,” Maple announces in her outside voice, cupping my face in her hands. “Hot sex. The only ring you have to put on it is one of those vibrating cock rings. When’s the last time you had fun?”

“Never with a cock ring. It’s like plugging up the bath and running the water full bore. The poor guy’s blood has nowhere to go, so he’s totally focused on what’s going on down there because it’s distracting as hell, and he has no choice but to keep it up. It’s like a corset for dicks.”

The waiter leaning in to offer us a new round of appetizers beats a hasty retreat.

Used to my verbal diarrhea, Maple just waits for me to finish. “If cock rings aren’t your thing, find some other toy that you do like.”

“Have I ever struck you as a playful person?”

“Practice,” Maple deadpans. “You just need practice.”

“I could practice until I was eighty. It wouldn’t make me fun. I’m an engineer. I’m a nerd. I’m a freaking entrepreneur. And I like all that. I might not be fun, but I’m happy.”

Am I 100 percent happy? Details. I’m at least 51 percent happy, and that rounds up to 100 percent. It’s basic math. In college I had Friday night study groups and lived in the computer lab. I wasn’t a troll, but working on my social skills hadn’t been a priority. After I dropped out due to a lack of funding and time management skills, I bounced from job to job. This was great for building my skill set, but not so good for peopling. I’d always moved on before I could build genuine friendships. Boyfriends had been the same song, different verse.

Maple, however, has no intention of giving up. “I bet you could be perfectly happy with someone in this room.”

“Sex is a lot of work.” I shrug, forcing Maple to make an emergency grab for my sleeve before I accidentally flash the entire networking event. Off-the-shoulder dresses are worse than corsets, requiring minimal movement and perfect posture. I should probably look for a new dress.

Slapping my sleeve back into place, she snorts. “Don’t be such a giver, then. Be a taker. Let the guy do all the work.”

“I’m not even sure I like sex all that much.” Before Maple can tell me I need a good therapist, or to embark on a journey of self-discovery to find the right penis, I barrel on. “I mean, I don’t hate it, but it’s kind of like going to a spa for a massage. Do I really want to give up an hour of my life to tell someone where and how to touch me? Or do I want to keep on living the happily single life where I DIY and wear old sweatpants to bed and no one points out I haven’t shaved my legs in days? Self-care is much more satisfying.”

Maple groans. “Just promise me you’ll get out there and sample a penis or two. DIY is for home repairs.”

I polish off my champagne and squint, but I can’t spot a waiter. “Maybe after Calla’s launch.”

“At least stay a little while longer.”

“How long?”

“Twelve minutes.” She beams beatifically at me.

Even though she’s pulled that number out of her ass, I nod. Twelve minutes and then I’m out. I can kill at least six minutes in the bathroom if I play my cards right.

“Potty break.” I stand up, twitching my dress back into place. Either it’s gotten shorter, I’ve gotten taller, or parts of me have gotten larger.

Four minutes later, I’m procrastinating in front of the bathroom mirror. My dress is definitely shorter and tighter. The black jersey stops barely south of my butt and far, far above my knees. The off-the-shoulder sleeves seem to be squeezing my boobs in a manner that’s far too friendly. When Maple came by my apartment earlier for a pre-party assessment, she redid my hair into a high ponytail. She also applied my makeup, which means I’m wearing a ton since Maple only does stage makeup. There’s also a whole lot of bare leg between the dress’s hem and my three-inch strappy heels.

Maple vetoed a wrap. She also ixnayed a bra. The no-panties thing, however, is entirely my fault. I prefer to go commando, although I’m usually wearing yoga pants and therefore not in danger of sharing my beaver with the world. Still, I look good. Maybe I do fit in after all.

My return trip through the throng of glittering people takes much longer. I manage to score another glass of champagne, but the event organizers dim the lights before I reach Maple, and someone is holding forth in the center of the room in the sole pool of light. I’m actually relieved to throw myself onto our window seat—my feet are killing me. Instead of hitting cushions, however, my left knee drills into a hard, male thigh while my right lands on something much softer. Off balance, I flail. Champagne sloshes everywhere. I’ve crash-landed on the wrong seat—and it’s already occupied.

Hands catch me, probably more to halt my accidental assault than to help. Fantasy hands, my stunned brain supplies. Wow. I’ve definitely had too much champagne and not enough orgasms, because I swear I go supernova staring at the strong, capable fingers wrapped around my wrists. Capable is a judgment call on my part, but the fingers’ owner is definitely strong—unlike ballet-honed Maple, I’m no lightweight. It’s dark, but I’m close enough to tell he wears no rings. The most delicious black ink disappears beneath pristine white shirt cuffs. A dark tailored suit jacket stretches over his forearms.

Mesmerized, I lean closer. Great white shark. Bingo. This guy is the sleekest and deadliest shark of all. “I didn’t think they let bad boys in.”

Oops. That’s my voice.

“Jesus.” I try not to look up because his voice is every bit as amazing as his hands, a low, gritty rasp that makes me want to beg him to tell me more. About anything. This man definitely sparks joy in all the right parts of me. Looking up would spoil the fantasy.

Instead, I keep my eyes fixed on his wrists and those just-visible whorls of black ink. His skin is sun-bronzed, a downright lickable golden-brown against the impeccable white cuff of the dress shirt peeking out from beneath the dark sleeve of his suit jacket. He could have been a hand model or a mechanic, but whoever or whatever he is, I liked the way his hands caught me so firmly far too much. A guy like this shouldn’t need instructions in bed.

My stranger’s voice rumbles something. Words, words, words. As always, I’m happier filling in the blanks myself. Maybe Maple is right and I need to settle for just sex because I’m on fire where my bare skin brushes my sexy stranger. He might even be worth giving directions to if it turned out he was a little less than capable in the bedroom department.

He reaches between us, cupping my bare knee, and goose bumps erupt where he touches me. I take a deep breath, fighting the urge to rub against him. His fingers feel better than any nonsolo sex act I’ve ever participated in.

“Move,” he growls, sounding more than a little pissed off.

I look up.

And...just like that I fall in crush. Is that even a thing? It should be because with one upward glance, my overactive imagination goes crazy. The growler’s face is the perfect cherry on a sextastic sundae. Dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail reveals cheekbones a sculptor would kill to immortalize. He looks like the guy from The Princess Bride but a thousand times larger, harder and less nice. He stares at me, irritation painting his cranky, gorgeous face. When he shifts beneath me, I confirm he’s all muscle. I take a hopefully discreet sniff. Cologne, my best friend. I’ll have to go to Macy’s and do my research because his scent will haunt my fantasies. God, if he could just never open his mouth, this would be perfect.

Maple teases me all the time about my crushes. I spot a guy and I fall in love or at least in like from a safe distance. Imagining the possibilities excites me. Once I get to know my crush, however, my feelings fade rapidly. Cinderella probably came to her senses, too, and realized that Prince Charming wasn’t who she’d imagined him to be. Maybe he was better or (more likely) he was worse, but once the distance between them was erased, things changed. I usually solve this problem by avoiding real-life dating and opting for an active fantasy life instead where there’s zero disappointment as long as I’ve remembered to replace the batteries in my battery-operated boyfriend.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a number of memorable crushes. My first was the hot guy who played third trombone in high school competitive band. I spent more time staring at the impressive bulge in his shorts than at my sheet music. Next was a college literature professor for a required freshman seminar—I zoned out once imagining giving him a blow job and rejoined reality with the professor and the entire class staring at me because “I’d been making noises” (I’d dropped that class because there’s no going back after relative strangers know your porn sounds). And then there were plenty of noncontact fantasies that started with sexy emailing and texting and ended abruptly when my correspondent announced the ball is in your court and waited for me to make good on my dirty promises. Actions aren’t my thing—I ghosted those guys.

“Hello?” Tall, Dark and Cranky frowns at me. We’re nose to nose thanks to my perch on his lap.

“I—” My heart does a delicious nosedive. Now is the perfect time to snap out something witty, but I’ve got nothing. I’ll just have to make it up later.

“Never mind.” He tips me off his lap and onto the seat as he gets to his feet in one fluid, panty-melting move, more barbarian than white knight. To be fair, I just crushed his balls with my knee. He straightens his jacket, revealing that my champagne has christened his right sleeve in addition to darkening his shirtfront.

I give him puppy dog eyes as he strides away. Fortunately, he can’t see, so what’s left of my dignity remains intact. I’m not sure he even looked at my face. He definitely didn’t ask my name. Or tell me his. And there’s nary a business card involved. He’s perfect fantasy fodder.

Later tonight I’ll relive these moments and remember the way he touched me. The heat of his fingers braceleting my wrists. His scent and the crisp rustle of expensive cotton. I’ll touch myself when I’m alone, imagining what could have happened next.

Of how he might have kissed me with that sinful mouth.

Of how I might have bitten that full lower lip just to make him pay attention to me.

Of how I could have pushed my hands beneath his suit jacket and explored the hard, muscled chest he’d so thoughtlessly hidden from the world. The truth is, I love not knowing who he is. Tall, Dark and Cranky is a mystery. I know only that he’s fit, horrifyingly attractive and—given his presence at this mixer—likely business-minded to a sharkish fault, but everything else about him is just a gorgeous possibility. He’s the ultimate fill-in-the-blank problem where I can pencil in absolutely anything I want and he will never, ever disappoint me since I will never see him again.

CHAPTER TWO

Dev

MONDAY MORNING SHOULD not surprise me. After all, I wrote the agenda for my company’s executive team meeting. When I stroll into King Me’s San Francisco conference room, however, the mood is not jubilant. I closed a major e-commerce deal at the Friday mixer despite crazy chick’s drenching, and that means more stock options, bigger bonuses and the hugest possible gold star. Winner.

I drop into my chair at the table and eyeball the room. People claim my surfer boy outside in no way matches my CEO insides. That I’m a cranky bastard who routinely demands near-impossible coding heroics from my people. I offer this truth: I make those people money and ergo there are no complaints. Something is up today, however.

“Explain.” I point to the head of my engineering department. Simon Rand is an excellent software developer. He doesn’t do the bullshit dance around unpleasant truths. This forthrightness saw him let go from two previous start-ups, where the CEO-owner-entrepreneurs preferred team members to blow expensive, happy smoke up their asses while the companies burned through VC capital and made rapid descents into bankruptcy. I prefer making money hand over fist, so I insist on truth-telling.

Simon makes a sour face. Rather than ask the logical question explain what?, he assumes I’ve acquired telepathy powers over the weekend and already know the what. He plunges into explanations.

I hold up a hand. “Stop.”

Simon stops.

A tense pause follows as the team attempts and fails to get on the mind-reading train to figure out who I’ll fire for this. It’s tempting, because Simon’s news (and it’s news to me) falls into the no-good-very-bad-day bucket. It’s also humiliating, frustrating and makes me see red.

I recap on the off chance I’ve misheard. I don’t make mistakes but hell could freeze over. “Someone stole our brand-new e-commerce shopping cart code.”

Simon nods.

“The exclusive code we’ve presold to twelve major online vendors.”

Another nod.

“Exclusive code that is no longer exclusive unless Merriam-Webster has changed the definition of the word.”

A veritable storm of head-bobbing around the table. We’re all on the same page.

“Who is the cause of this really big fucking problem?”

No one moves because the first thing you learn in the corporate world is that moving makes you a target. Simon looks like he might be sick.

I try again. “How?”

This one should be easier to answer given the multiple levels of security I’ve instituted. Unfortunately, this question is also met with silence.

“So essentially we know nothing.” The theft may now be a fact, but revenge remains an option. I build a back door and handy-dandy detonator into our apps. Steal my shit and poof—your e-commerce site sells rubber ducky dildos in fashion colors rather than whatever you’ve really got in your warehouse. And because industrial espionage is rampant and I trust no one outside my immediate circle of friends, I build in that safeguard from day one. I also build in a tracker that alerts when my software goes live on the internet, which must be how Simon knows.

“Yet,” Simon clarifies. “We don’t know anything yet.”

Now it’s my turn to nod. “Exactly. All we have to do is figure out the connection between the three seemingly unrelated businesses illegally using our code. We didn’t sell it to them, but they’ve got it. Somehow. There’s a pattern even if we don’t see it yet.”

Simon leaps to his feet, grabs a dry-erase marker and starts sketching on the whiteboard. While the rest of the room pretends to listen intently to the stream of engineering coming from his mouth, I brainstorm internally. The first business sells mail-order hemp candles and I assume they’ll likely get arrested on drug distribution charges. The second business, an adult pool float company, might not mind a deluge of rubber ducky dildos (I’ll trigger the alternate version of my destructo-code for them, the one that crashes your site by playing endless loops of puppies and kittens). The third company is a woman-owned, eco-friendly, socially conscious feminine hygiene products start-up that promises to donate a box of tampons for every one you purchase in the ultimate two-for-one deal. The only obvious connection between the three is that none of these companies can possibly make any money.

The marijuana maker inhabits office space three hundred and forty miles north in Humboldt County and an ocean separates me and the pool party, which maintains offices in China. That leaves the girl boss company. I check my phone. I can get there in forty minutes, straighten out this Lola Jones who thinks she can steal from me and still make my two o’clock. I just need to know. I hate secrets. I’ve always sussed out my Christmas presents early, I read the ends of books first and I check for spoilers on my favorite TV shows. Enjoying the ride is easier when you know how the ride ends.

When Simon finally comes up for air, I stand up. “Meeting adjourned.”

CHAPTER THREE

Dev

THE HIPPIE CHICK at the receptionist’s desk either doesn’t recognize a heartless bastard when she meets one or she optimistically believes dating is the ultimate DIY project and she can fixer-upper me into happily-ever-after. From the slack-jawed way she’s stared at me since I strode through the door and demanded to see the company founder, she may also be entertaining naked fantasies. My expensive suit is gift-wrapping on an amazing package and we both know it. Strip me down and, heartless or not, I’m gorgeous. I’m also not afraid to play dirty—in bed and out—and I’m confident.

Too confident?

Borderline asshole and all the way arrogant?

Noise.

I know my worth. In addition to my billions, I have surfer hair, sun-streaked and shoulder-length, salt-tousled and unruly. Ironically, given my chronic inability to sleep, I usually look as if I just rolled out of bed. Beast lord, billionaire bad boy, surfer, Conan the Barbarian, pirate king—I can star in any fantasy you jill off to and Hippie Chick has clearly zoned out to her personal favorite.

Her forehead wrinkles as she tries to bring her brain back online and do her job. “You want to see Lola?”

Pay attention to the fact that she doesn’t ask why I’m here. She’s made an assumption, an important and entirely incorrect assumption.

“That’s why I came.” She’s wasting my time. I could have been in and out already, and that’s no euphemism.

Hippie Chick beams at me. I could ask her out right now, but I’m not here to score a date. I have two rules: never bring a girl back to my place and never screw at work. It’s too risky. Too drama inducing. Too boring. And while Calla Enterprises isn’t technically my workplace, I’m here on business.

“Okay.” Hippie Chick bounces to her feet. Literally. Instead of normal, ergonomic office chairs, this place has neon-colored yoga balls. As she flip-flops away, presumably to fetch Lola and not on a karmic journey of self-discovery, I admire the view even if I’m staying otherwise hands-off. Business casual has achieved a whole new level of undress, and the ripped jeans hugging her ass are spectacular—as is the white T-shirt over the jewel-green bra.

I used to be Mr. Impatient but surfing taught me to slow down (some) and pick the right moment to rush in full speed. Nothing beats chilling on the ocean, hanging on my favorite board until the right wave arrives and I ride it home. I put that same, patient plan into action at King Me, my software company. My IPO might have made me a billionaire, but my impeccable sense of timing has kept me riding the financial wave when so many of my competitors have crashed and burned—and I’m only in my midtwenties.

Calla Enterprises is ambitious. It’s a fledgling start-up that promises women around the world easy, nonembarrassing access to tampons because tampon access is apparently an important first step toward gender equality. According to the website copy, tampons remove a critical barrier between women and important things like an education and a job. And while I’m all for vaginal self-care, this company will fail long before the grenade I planted in their e-commerce system ever detonates. In the company’s brief life span of thirteen months and two days, it has yet to close a round of venture capital funding or bring its product to market. Cue the death march.

In addition to lacking both operating capital and actual product, the company naively assumes that its customers possess genuine humanitarian spirit. Calla promises to donate one box of tampons for every box purchased online. Think about that for a minute. If you were dating and scored two girls for the night, would you really want to hand one off to an unknown guy at the club? Nope. You’d keep them both for yourself and have a threesome. No one is as altruistic as Calla’s founder hopes.

And hope is clearly said founder’s strategy. Calla is located in a repurposed loft/warehouse deep in San Francisco’s Mission District. The neighborhood reads like a Who’s Who of busted start-ups. Despite constant tenant turnover, the building’s great—a loft-style, three-story workspace with a big atrium, an open-space kitchen that reeks like lunch and an enormous disco ball. A handful of flip-flop-wearing, jeans-clad twentysomething women hunch over laptops on tables.

Oblivious to the impending financial doomsday, Hippie Chick flip-flops her way inside a conference room separated from the main space by a wall of glass. It’s like a gigantic fishbowl, except it holds a lone woman and an odd collection of furniture instead of fish and fake mermen. The woman perches on yet another inflatable yoga ball. She’s also head-down on her laptop—I’d have fired her on the spot.

When Hippie Chick bounces in, however, Sleeping Beauty somehow rolls off the ball and onto her feet without serious bodily harm. Seconds later, she marches toward me. Hello. The reason for my visit flies out of my head as the blood in my body heads south and stages a fiesta in my dick.

I think I know this woman. She’s the one who crash-landed on me Friday. She drowned me with her champagne. She all but gave me a lap dance, and then I tipped her off and left. At the time all I could think was what the fuck was that? I scowl. It was dark and I didn’t get a good look at her face—although just remembering the luscious peach of her ass wriggling against my dress pants... This woman is my thief?

I may need to revisit Friday night’s rejection. Lola Jones is unexpectedly, seriously hot for an engineer turned CEO. Dressed even more casually than her receptionist, she wears black yoga pants and a tank top with skinny straps. The tank top is cute and pink, and even though I’d have bet my man card that she isn’t wearing a bra, my thumbs itch to check. To nudge those thin strips of cotton down her shoulders. To mark every creamy inch of her with my mouth, my teeth and my body. I promptly start a Lola to-do list.

Lick her

Explore that sexy shoulder hollow

Nip

Suck. TBD what and where—or everything

Palm a sweet little tit hard

Catch her nipple between my teeth and—

Focus. The porn film in my head is simply reflex. See a pretty girl, think dirty thoughts. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Just as soon as I’ve finished here, I’ll retreat to my Porsche and handle the problem she’s created in my pants. Or I could be a gentleman about our other problem and let her make amends. On her knees, on her back, on top as she rides me like an enthusiastic cowgirl—I’m unexpectedly flexible about the terms.

She shrugs into an oversize, black-and-white flannel shirt, doing up the buttons as she gets closer. Dragging my eyes away from her now-covered tits doesn’t help. Her hair is long and dark brown. She’s twisted it up on top of her head in a spectacular feat of engineering. Perfect for fisting. We should totally try it. She wears tortoiseshell glasses that rest just above a spray of freckles on her right cheek (hello, dirty librarian fantasy). And since she wears no visible makeup, including no nail polish on her bare feet, my brain—both the big one and the smaller, temporarily in charge one below my Gucci belt—fixates on one thing. She’s wearing pajamas.

And yet even half-dressed, she radiates confidence as if she knows this is her space and she completely owns it. I admire that assuredness, even though it’s probably the reason she thinks she can get away with pirating my software. For those of you who’ve ever contemplated doing that: don’t. Like many things in life, software is worth what you pay for it.

Despite my reputation as a bastard, I try to stay friends with karma. I buy flowers for my dates, I routinely spot the panhandler on the corner five bucks and I donate generously to animal charities. I can’t and won’t, however, let people steal from me. It’s like sex and marriage. Why buy the cow if the milk is free? Why pay my premium subscription fees if you can just download what you want from a mirror site in Asia?

Oblivious, my sexy thief pads to a halt. She looks stunned, but only for a brief second. “You.”

“Me,” I agree.

“God,” she groans. “This is so embarrassing.”

Pink creeps up her chest and over her cheeks as she looks at me. She’s staring, but I stare right back. I won every staring contest growing up.

Yes, you sat on my lap.

Yes, you felt me through your dress.

Yes, I know you weren’t wearing any panties.

She has a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and that distracting spray of freckles beneath a pair of melting brown eyes. A crinkle grows between those eyes as she frowns. I imagine kissing away that little look of confusion. She doesn’t look impressed by who I am. Or scared. Or even, ever so slightly, wowed. It’s more the embarrassed kind of look when you’ve just bitten into the last doughnut and realize you were expected to share. Perhaps Friday night’s crash landing was an accident after all and she wasn’t a founder hounder trying to meet and marry a tech billionaire.

She abruptly shoves a hand at me. “Perhaps we can start over? Lola Jones.”

Ballsy but nice.

“Devlin King, but the jury’s out on the second chance.” I wrap my fingers around hers. Smooth and delicate, her hand would feel better wrapped around my dick. No polish, no rings, short nails, but that’s okay. She can scream my name instead of digging her nails into my back.

She purses her lips as she reclaims her hand, skepticism written all over her pretty face. She rocks back on her heels. “You’ve never screwed up and needed a do-over?”

“I don’t make mistakes.” I lead off all my interviews this way, but my trademark quote doesn’t appear to ring any bells.

Instead, she snorts. “Despite your unhuman good looks, I’m certain you’re Homo sapiens. Ergo, mistakes happen. Crap.” She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Let’s pretend I never said that.”

“It might be hard.” Something about her makes me want to break my rules and flirt shamelessly. Her touch is electric, making my body burn, my hands itch to touch her more.

“Come with me.” She’s already turning, and anticipation hums through me.

Happily.

I follow her toward the fishbowl. I assumed she knew who I was on Friday night. Founder hounders are common on the Silicon Valley social scene, looking to strike it rich and score a start-up-wealthy mate. The demand is great; the supply is low; and I’m Grade A billionaire material. My company’s grown to stratospheric levels and I have the cash and lack of a personal life to prove it. And although I’ve also got the racing cars, private jets and oceanfront property, the kicker is that I’m top five on the Billionaire Bachelors app.

Yes, there’s an app for spotting tech billionaires. My best friend Max O’Reilly launched it three years ago and his dating algorithm made him a fortune when he IPO’d. Fork over your hard-earned cash and you unlock dozens of extra date-finding features, but the one that rakes in the biggest bucks is his signature Billionaire Bachelors List. For the price of a cup of coffee and a quick download of the Happily Ever After app, he’ll push you a monthly hot list of Silicon Valley’s top bachelors and bachelorettes—complete with rankings, pictures and favorite stomping grounds so that you, too, can hunt the elusive wealthy mate in native territory. I’ve topped the list for the last two years.

Lola drops onto a yellow yoga ball and waves a hand at me. “Sit.”

Normal chairs of any type do not appear to be available. When in Rome, right? I choose a blue ball because I enjoy symbolism, roll it over and sit down. I don’t rush into explanations or accusations. I just watch her. People rush to fill up silence. You learn a lot that way, plus it makes the other person nervous and confess misdeeds.

This time, the silence stretches on and on until the soft skin between Lola’s eyes crinkles as if she’s thinking about something tricky. The frown deepens, so probably not thoughts of me naked.

She darts a longing look—at the laptop on the table. “Give me a moment?”

Her fingers are flying over the keyboard before I can respond. Okay, then. Totally lost in thought, she rolls back and forth like a metronome on top of that stupid yoga ball. She must have amazing abs.

After thirty seconds, I get bored and set the stopwatch on my phone. After ten minutes, I tap the table in front of her. “Earth to Lola.”

“Oh.” She turns bright pink and promptly loses her balance. I catch her by the elbow. For the count of three, my mouth is by her ear. Her hair brushes my cheek and that’s all it takes for me to learn that she smells like vanilla, like cookies and sugar. Danger.

I force myself to roll my ball away from hers. “We need to get going here.”

“Right.” She slides the laptop away with obvious reluctance. “So you start. Tell me about yourself.”

I haven’t decided how to play this. Threaten her with my lawyer? Present her with a hefty invoice for the software she stole? Or just inform her that her pirated e-commerce system will switch her product to rubber ducky dildos as soon as she goes live because of my anti-theft safeguards? As Inigo Montoya assured Miracle Max: humiliations galore. Making small talk, however, is not part of my revenge plot.

“You know all about me.” The words come out more growl than nice. Whatever.

“Uh-huh.” She fidgets with the edge of the laptop. Her gaze flicks to the screen. Back to me. “Well, Lev—”

“Dev,” I correct.

She makes a face. “Sorry. I thought I read—”

“You can’t believe everything you read.” I glance at her laptop as I speak. It’s just code—lines and lines of the stuff in the typical developer environment. Not my code. Not my problem. But the mess on the screen is all wrong. It’s inefficient and poorly organized.

I nudge her yoga ball abruptly, scooting her out of the way so I can pull the laptop toward me. “This is so wrong. Jesus. Who taught you how to code?”

She sucks in a pissed-off breath, reaching for the laptop. “That’s mine.”

I shoot to my feet, balancing the laptop in one hand, typing like a fiend with the other. Delete. Delete. Delete. I scroll down, check a line, scroll back up. There aren’t even any unit tests—does she really believe testing is optional? Lola yanks furiously on my arm, but not only am I much, much taller than her, I also spent a year commuting between San Francisco and Santa Cruz on the train. I’m a master at typing while the world around me sways, lurches and violates my personal space.

I hit Save at the same moment the laptop flies out of my hand. Lola glares at me from the top of the conference room table she’s climbed so she can repo her hardware. Score one for her. She transfers the glare to her screen and anger morphs into visible outrage. Whatever. I drop back onto my blue ball and smirk up at her.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Love me, hate me, or plan to bury my body in the alley behind Calla—but I’ve just fixed a major showstopper of a bug in her code. She knows it, too.

Hippie Chick chooses this moment to stick her head in the conference room door. “Are you done?”

Not a chance.

But Lola jumps off the table, laptop clutched to her chest. As she lands, her hip not-so-accidentally checks my shoulder hard enough to rock my ball.

“You bet,” she tells Hippie Chick.

“No,” I snap at the same moment.

I’m supposed to discuss the reasons that brought me here. Read her the riot act. Make her life generally unpleasant and ensure that she never, ever touches anything of mine again without permission. Spank her for being a bad girl.

“He’s hired,” Lola announces as she strides out of the room. “He’ll start tomorrow.”

Wait.

What?

Hippie Chick fist pumps. “Welcome aboard, new summer intern.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Lola

“ASS,” I HISS under my breath. Exaggerated sibilance sounds way less cool than, say, when a wizard is speaking Parseltongue. Yes, I’m a nerd with a Harry Potter fixation (House Ravenclaw, naturally), and yes, some days it sucks being the girl boss. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, though, so I don’t scream the truth to the rafters of Calla’s amazing three-story loft space. If I did, that truth might deafen the departing ass.

My newly hired nemesis, Mr. Devlin King. My intern.

My Friday night crush.

I’d worked my clit feverishly remembering his muscled thighs and stern face. Even though I apologized for crash-landing on him and his magnificent lap (at least I think I did—the details are fuzzy), he’s holding a grudge. He certainly doesn’t seem to have spent his weekend fantasizing about the mystery woman who gave him a free lap dance.

He’s still impossibly gorgeous, though. To preserve what remains of my sanity, I retreat to the kitchen and pretend to deep-dive into my code while what I really do is watch Dev walk away from me for the second time: tall, built and still in possession of the most amazing backside I’ve ever ogled. He totally owns his ridiculously expensive suit. He’s also quite possibly the most brilliant programmer I’ve ever met, having solved in seconds what a team of Calla engineers has been wrestling with for a week. Unfortunately, a continental-sized ego and the suave manners of Attila the Hun accompany his stunning good looks and big brain. Working with him will be impossible, but there’s no viable alternative. The man is a genius and he works for peanuts, almost literally. Naturally, I’ve already forgotten whatever was on his résumé—UC Santa Cruz?—but he’s definitely a college student with a willingness to intern for almost nothing. Given Calla’s financial state, personality is negotiable.

Nellie woofs, poking her square white head out from behind the trash can. Nellie is a scaredy-bear and she hides whenever she spots intruders. She resembles a miniature zeppelin on squat legs. Bringing her to work with me is the perk of being the boss.

I reach down to stroke the soft fur on top of her head. “The coast is clear.”

Like me, Nellie prefers to people in small doses. Another surreptitious peek reveals I’ve been overoptimistic in my estimate of Devlin’s leave-taking. He’s still on the premises, talking up Katie, Calla’s receptionist.

As Nellie eases out to say hello to me, Devlin nods at Katie. Not a smile, nothing pleasant, just a brusque tip of his gorgeous head that makes parts of me long to grab him by that stupid tie and yank his head down to mine. I should look away but I can’t. I blame the way his shoulders stretch his dark suit jacket, framing all those delicious muscles. It’s too bad the man ever has to open his mouth. If he could just work and glower in silence, seen but not heard, he’d be perfect. If he could do that with a Scottish accent and a tartan, I’d come on the spot.

Katie clearly agrees with me about the pretty boy factor. She stares at Devlin King, her mouth working like a fish. I can practically hear the stunned pop, pop, pop from my hiding place as she drinks in our intern’s brand of hotness. His voice rumbles, low, rough, way too sexy. I can’t catch the words, but Katie beams as if he’s actually, finally said something nice. Finally, our sexy troll steps out into the San Francisco sunshine and is gone.

No, thank you. No excitement. Definitely don’t let the door hit your mighty fine ass on the way out.

That man is trouble, and not just because we’re an all-girl team and he’s the lone slice of chocolate cake. Diversity is good. A roomful of people who think the same way does not solve coding problems. But because Calla is on the edge, one nudge in the wrong direction will also send us careening to our doom. After getting turned down by the last venture capital firm I approached for financial backing, we’ve burned through our remaining operating capital and yet electricity and flushing toilets remain nonnegotiable items for my team members. I not only need to launch soon, but I need the launch to be a success. It would be even better if someone left a sack of large-denomination bills on our doorstep. Wishful thinking. I’m a master.

A test version of Calla’s website is up and operational in a sandbox, I remind myself. We’ve just finished integrating our new e-commerce platform. That platform is a thing of beauty, although I’m also secretly grateful I didn’t have to tell anyone how I obtained it. My small budget inspired an equal measure of creativity and embarrassing desperation.

Nellie whines, alerting me to incoming humans. I mentally flush my thoughts of Dev—mooning over my much younger intern is crazy—and find myself face-to-face with Valerie. Valerie is our director of international marketing. At twenty-three, she has a degree from UC Berkeley, pink hair and glossy pink lips that match the hair. She was an “influencer” before we landed her, which means she posted carefully curated content to Instagram and other social media. Her brand, she’d informed me during our interview, was Start-Up Chic and she makes more money documenting the start-up lifestyle than she does from Calla’s actual paychecks. I live in terror that she’ll abandon us, but so far, so good.

She leans down to pat Nellie on the head. Nellie flinches. “Who was that and why are we hiding in the kitchen?”

“I’m caffeinating, not hiding.” To back up my claim, I beeline toward the coffee bar, almost tripping over Nellie, who believes my energy level means we’re hunting doggie treats. Ugh. All ten of Calla’s team members are serious caffeine addicts, but none of us has a Martha Stewart–esque penchant for organizing or cleaning. The coffee bar is a sticky collection of used cups, spilled sugar and empty coffee pods. I made a note on my phone to Google proper intern responsibilities—maybe he can take over coffee duties.

Val points to the front door. “Our guest was gorgeous. Now tell me he’s smart. And ours.”

“He’s definitely smart. He’s got a huge brain. He has the personality of a troll.” Darn it. Out of coffee pods. I sift through the cupboard, searching for instant coffee, and discover an empty box. “I’m naming him Director of All Things Coffee.”

“Uh-huh.” Val nudges me enthusiastically. She’s a hugger, too, whereas my personal space requirements are more generous. “Bet he’s got a huge something else, too.”

I make the buzzer sound. “Inappropriate, Val. Would you want your future teammates discussing your body the minute you walked out the door?”

Pot. Kettle.

“Sorry.” She pulls a face. “You’re right. Not here.”

I look at her apologetically, but I know she understands. Lusting after the summer intern falls into the category of Shit You Do Not Stir. Above all, it’s wrong. Whether you’re Team Vagina or Team Penis (or prefer not to state your allegiance), you should be able to come to work without your coworkers imagining you naked and performing sex acts. And second and more practically, not only is everyone working all out to launch Calla in two months, but we simply can’t afford the drama and expense of a workplace harassment lawsuit.

I shut the cupboard door and toss the empty box into the recycling. “Come with me to the coffee shop?”

Val nods enthusiastically, which experience has shown is her default factory setting. She’s enthusiastic about everything. When we step outside, my head starts swiveling. I tell myself I’m just soaking in the sunshine. It’s a balmy seventy-two degrees and the morning fog has already burned off. Normally, I’d take a few centering breaths and appreciate being outside, but instead I scour my surroundings. For him.

Fortunately, Val doesn’t notice. Instead, she enthusiastically launches into conversation. “Do you have weekend plans?”

Right. It’s Friday, the day of the week normal people get excited about because they actually intend to leave the house. On purpose. I personally prefer hiding inside where there are fewer people. After I finish my monster to-do list, I have a hot date with a new book and takeout. And Nellie. Nellie and I are practically an old married couple. I tie her leash to the bench outside the coffee shop and plunge through the doors. There are thirty-two people here and the sound wave deafens me.

“No plans,” I roar, stepping up to the counter and placing my order. Don’t feel sorry for the introvert, folks. That’s how she likes it.

“No hot date?” Val examines the muffins on offer. Smart. It’s unlikely we have time for lunch and I’ve eaten my way through the box of tasteless granola bars stashed in my desk. I pull out my phone and make order snacks the two hundred and forty-seventh item on my to-do list. “When’s the last time you went out?”

I tap my calendar. Dates are violet as pink feels clichéd—and violet is as rare on my calendar as unicorns are in my life. Which is A-okay with me. My crowded schedule has no room for hearts and true love.

Val snorts. “If you have to check your calendar, it’s been too long.”

“Three hundred sixty-one days.” Precision is important.

Val digests my disturbingly long period of celibacy as the baristas bellow out names, the space-age coffee maker whoosh-whirs, and a dozen customers chat each other up and make business calls at the top of their lungs.

“You need to get out more,” she says finally. “There are apps for that.”

“Hello? Married to the firm?” I grab my chai latte off the counter and head outside. Nellie barks enthusiastically. She loves coffee dates, even if she anxious-pees if I take her inside. Popping the lid off my cup, I pour her a taste. Uh-oh. Whatever’s in this cup isn’t chai latte. Once again, I’ve stolen someone else’s drink.

I debate slinking back inside and buying—I rotate the cup until I spot the owner’s name underneath my pinkie—Ross a new drink. It’s too much work, though. Plus, if he really likes steamed coconut milk, we’ll never work out. I opt for fleeing back toward Calla, Nellie trotting alongside me, licking her chops.

Val is right behind me. “Sex is like flossing. You should do it once a day, twice a day is better, and if you haven’t done it, you lie and say you did anyhow.”

I roll my eyes. “Who has time to do it twice a day?”

My brain helpfully supplies an image of Dev. He likely has both the time and the stamina to do it twice a day. Probably twice an hour. Bad brain. Not only is he much, much younger than me, but he’s my intern. I meant what I said to Val about respecting our team members. It shouldn’t matter if Devlin is tall, short, fat or supremely built. His outside package has no bearing on his ability to do the job, and I won’t treat him any differently than I’d want to be treated. My social skills might be lacking, but even I know having your boss come on to you is at best horribly awkward and at worst criminal.

Plus, I’ve already had naked fantasies about him, and he’s brought me to orgasm twice since Friday night even if he didn’t know it.

Shit.

Hiring him is a bad idea. If anyone finds out I’m crushing on him, I’ll look ridiculous. And then there will be the usual stupid, giddy delight at going to work, knowing that I’ll see him for a few minutes. Or our shoulders will brush, our knees bump under the table when we work together. He’ll lean in so I can point out something on my laptop screen, and his breath will rush over my arm, and then the kibbles of those brief contacts will turn me into a brainless babbler. It’s happened before.

But how can I fire him now? Not only do I need his big brain to sort out the bugs in my software, but I have no legal ground to fire him for hotness. The grumpy asshole part gives me material to work with, but I need him. And not just in a naked-and-thrusting way. Stop thinking about him.

The ache between my thighs as I walk back into the office is totally wrong. And Devlin King has given me zero reason to believe he sees me as anything other than his new boss, so this is one-sided chemistry.

I’ll just shut it down.

That’s what I’ll do.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dev

JACK LEVELS A look at me, an impressive feat since we’re bobbing up and down on our boards a quarter mile off the Santa Cruz shore.

“I’m not sure if I should congratulate you on your new internship or knock you off your board,” he says.

Jack is a big guy with the size to follow through on his threat, although we both know he won’t. This is partly due to us having been best friends since our freshman year of college, where we shared an apartment and a major in computer science at the University of California at Santa Cruz. We spent most of our time hacking or surfing. Before I met Jack, however, I was the youngest brother in a family of four boys. I’m competitive about everything and Jack knows it.

Long-term friendship has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, Jack makes an amazing wingman and he really gets me. On the con side, he often knows what I’m thinking and acts as a self-appointed conscience and guardian angel whenever he decides I’m headed for the moral deep end without a life jacket.

His superpower is that, despite being the size of a professional hockey player (which is why I at least pretend to listen to him) and having the killer instincts of a shark, people like him. Unlike me, he’s the amiable, happily married prince among men that ladies love to borrow as a loaner husband and confidant. Today, the shaggy hair that usually falls around his face is pulled back in a ponytail and his wet suit outlines his muscles. I squint. He looks sort of like the Hulk, but less green and way more smiley.

“You shouldn’t have let that girl think you were her intern.” But I have been, for a couple of weeks now. Jack eyeballs the ocean.

Today is the kind of day that comes to mind when you think of California. Bright blue sky, supernova-heated sand on the beach thanks to the sun, and ocean everywhere. Plus, the waves are perfect.

“She assumed. I capitalized on it.” Jack plays by a very black-and-white set of rules, so in the Jack Rulebook, I’ve been a very, very bad boy. And while I know my new internship is questionable, I still feel I have a winning proposition.

“Why?”

“Because I need to find out who stole my software, Jack Ass.”

Jack ignores his college nickname, stroking his fingers over the surface of his board as he tests the wax job. I’ve pointed out that the whole stroking thing makes it look as if he’s jerking off an enormous dick. “You always build in a Trojan because you’re paranoid.”

True.

“So it’s not like she can go live with it,” he continues. “Plus, you have an awesome legal team, a big bank account for bankrolling a lawsuit and the social capital to burn her. Either pick the right fight or let it go and move on.”

I grin. “The day after she launches, I’ll pull the trigger on the Trojan and all her product will turn into rainbow-colored dildos and rubber duckies. Then I’ll hit her e-commerce server with a million requests a minute.”

“She’ll be down within the hour, so why go out of your way now to infiltrate her office and give her any kind of leg to stand on?” Jack’s familiarity with my game plan may have something to do with the number of times we pulled this stunt in our younger, more lawless days. Now that he’s married, and owns a very successful VC firm with his best friend Hazel, he claims to be reformed.

“Who’s Dev getting horizontal with now?” Max pops up behind me. Max O’Reilly is the third in our triumvirate and I blame him for the worst hacking offenses of our college careers. I may hate secrets, but Max has a vendetta against ignorance in any form. You know that stupid line about curiosity killing the cat but satisfaction brought him back? Just substitute Max for cat.

“He’s upgraded his skill set to super ninja infiltration.” Jack makes big eyes in my direction.

Max frowns. Literal at the best of times, Max takes a sledgehammer approach to most social situations—which makes the fact that he’s the billionaire owner/creator of a successful dating app hilarious. Only Max would reduce human interaction to neat lines of code and end up with a fat bank account rather than an actual date.

Like us, Max wears a black wet suit. Even in June, the water off the California coast is cold enough to turn your balls into blue Popsicles.

“Remember the rule,” Jack says.

“Which one?” Jack has too many. I bought him a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order the same Christmas he gave me a label maker. Like the British royal family, we have a gag gifts–only rule for present-giving.

“The rule. No sex at work.”

There’s silence for a beat as we bob up and down on our boards. And while all three of us have flirted with the rule, none of us has ever broken it. The most we do is flirt, especially if the woman in question is a client. If she’s an employee, we don’t even look in her direction. It’s asking for trouble. But...

“Does Lola’s office count as work? Because technically I’m her employee. She’s paying me.”

“You need to keep your hands to yourself. Don’t look at her, don’t touch her.”

Max nods solemnly. “Personal space bubbles are important.” Max has learned this in his capacity as uncle to his sister’s twin demon spawn.

“What if she looks at me? And invites me into said bubble?”

Jack shakes his head. “Don’t. I can have it tattooed on your dick if that helps.”

Jack reaches over and slaps me on the back. “Does this mean your new boss is hot?”

“You bet.”

“So what’s it like having your first internship?”

Jack laughs so hard he almost falls off his board. None of us interned in college—we’d been too busy launching our first companies. We’d found the magic, winning chute in the Game of Life.

“Taking orders sucks. She wants coffee runs, photocopies, meeting minutes and code reviews. I’m not allowed to check in any code changes without written permission—it’s like getting a field trip note from my parents. Then she points out every place I’ve done something different from how she would have done it—which is everywhere—and tells me to redo it.”

“None of those are unreasonable requests,” Jack points out.

“They’re not requests. They’re orders.” Great. I sound like an unhappy five-year-old. Maybe I could whine it’s not fair for my next trick. “I have no idea how normal twentysomethings handle this.”

“They need the paycheck.” Max sounds serious. I can’t tell if he’s pulling my leg or not. We all know interning isn’t a lucrative proposition.

“But I’m right.”

Jack, naturally, mock-wags his finger at me. “And she’s the boss. What if she knows something you don’t? Or her way of doing things is equally good?”

I consider the possibility before dismissing it with a middle finger in Jack’s direction. “I’m the best at what I do.”

“Think of it like sex,” Jack says, checking the wave coming toward us.

“I do not want to think about sex and you.” Max nods, in vigorous agreement with me. In college, we didn’t hang neckties on doorknobs to indicate that the room was occupied; we’d just agreed that our triple was a bang-free zone and that we’d take girls anywhere else. The rooms at Santa Cruz were too small for sexcapades.

“Work with me here.” Jack sighs, a long, dramatic, oh-woe-is-me sigh I blame on his one and only stint as a thespian. He’d signed up for UC Santa Cruz’s summer production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream because he’d wanted to bang Titania. Hazel had been the stage manager and she superglued the ass head to his hair because Titania—aka Molly—was her best friend, and she was too shy to tell Jack to bugger off. Jack married Molly four years later, and he and Hazel have been friends and partners in crime ever since. She’s the prettier but no less cutthroat half of their VC company. Together they have their thumbs in some of the tastiest Silicon Valley pies.

Jack has suggested repeatedly that we grow up and include Hazel in our Saturday surf dates rather than shut her out of our boys-only tree house. She’s great, but I’ve shot him down every time—not because she’d prefer to discuss the hotness of the male of the species, but because she honest-to-God can’t swim. Drowning Jack’s business partner isn’t a friendly move. The compromise is her sitting on the beach with a book and holding on to our wallets. Currently she’s a bright pink dot wrapped in three blankets. In addition to not being a good swimmer, Hazel gets cold easily.

Jack continues, “You’ve got the moves, you’re the foreplay master, you’ve got the whole night mapped out and it’s going to the best orgasm she’s ever had.”

“So, a typical night.”

Jack ignores that. “But your date knows what makes her come, so what if she wants to do something different? She’s not wrong, right?”

Put that way, my actions might possibly seem a little immature.

Jack taps his heart. “What do you want to happen next?”

I blame Hazel for Jack’s insane willingness to talk about feelings and relationship next steps. She’s a terrible influence. Jack claims it’s a side effect of being married, which just underscores what a dangerous idea the whole two-becoming-one state is—he’s turned into a girl.

“Pretty certain misrepresenting yourself in the hiring process is illegal,” Max says. “Plus, if she mistook you for the intern, there must be a real one out there somewhere. What if he shows up?”

“No problem. I’ll be in and out.”

“That’s what she said.” Max waggles his eyebrows and I knock him off his board.

CHAPTER SIX

Lola

MAPLE AND I are having sad desk salads for lunch. She’s on some sort of mason jar salad kick this month, so she’s brought us each a glass jar crammed with more fiber and vegetables than I usually face in a week. Nellie flops by my feet, disappointed that it’s not bacon cheeseburger day.

Frankly, I’m voting with Nellie. When Maple hands me my jar, my first thought is ooh, super pretty. The greens and vegetables are layered inside like a healthy version of three-bean party dip. I unscrew the lid and poke my fork inside.

Maple aims hers at me. “How is Pretty Boy?”

She thinks it’s hilarious that my summer intern is none other than Hot Lap Guy. She asked how he took finding out I’d be his boss for the summer, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her. I tried to apologize, he announced he wasn’t pro second chances, and then he stayed anyhow. I think that means he’s decided we can work together. Yes, I’ve felt his penis up through his pants and he’s had his hand on my knee, but no one has seen anyone naked and there’s been no tongue (which is slightly disappointing, if I’m being honest).

I chew before confessing. “He’s a grumpy bastard.”

“A grumpy, gorgeous bastard?” Maple beams at me.

“He thinks I’m an idiot.” I wrestle with a cherry tomato that’s gotten wedged beneath a chunk of walnut.

“You’re crushing on him.” Maple doesn’t bother making it a question. I’m always crushing on someone, probably because it’s the safe kind of fun—I don’t have to actually do anything besides lurk on the sidelines and watch. This makes me sound like a creepy voyeur, when it’s more that if I ever actually had a real-life relationship, I’d want it to be a spectacular success. I hate failing.

“I’m not discussing my intern with you.” I shovel far too much salad into my mouth just in case she wears me down. Anything I say now will be garbled by arugula.

“So there’s something to discuss?”

“No!” I choke-swallow.

“But you wish there was.” She daintily spears her own cherry tomato. “You’ve imagined it.”

“It wouldn’t be professional.”

She sighs and screws the top back onto her mason jar. “You should go for it.”

“I don’t think we’re compatible. He’s gorgeous, but he insists on talking. Or barking orders. You’d think he was the company founder. I gave him a Burger King crown last week and he recycled it.”

“So not Prince Charming?”

I make a face. “Think troll living under the bridge. He’s cranky and he likes to jump out at people when they’re least expecting it and make ridiculous demands.”

“So shut him down.” Maple waves her hand for emphasis. Unfortunately, it’s the hand holding her fork and a piece of spinach crash-lands on my shirt.

“He’s useful.” I pick the spinach off my shirt, consider eating it, but opt for the mature route and instead deposit it in the trash can. “He organized the kitchen last week. He owns a label maker—do you think he qualifies as a psychopath?”

He’d tackled the kitchen because he was bored. Unfortunately, he had good reason to be. I’d code-checked the code he’d written for Calla and he could have sold it on the open market. He’d also finished in forty-three hours. When I’d questioned how he’d found the time, he’d yawned and said he had chronic insomnia and therefore more than enough spare time to knock out my stupid project. Then he’d proceeded to explain—in unnecessary detail—why my original request was flawed, which had led to yet another flaming row between us.

Maple groans. “Neither of you is crazy, okay? He’s just super organized and you’re—not.”

“I could learn to be.” My jaw is sending distress signals to my brain, demanding we go on chewing strike. I give up on the salad and make a mental note to hit the taco truck.

Maple snorts. “Or you could just keep driving him nuts.”

I eye her doubtfully. “I either babble or go mute when he shows up. I don’t think he’s exactly struck dumb with lust by my sexy person.”

Maple pats my shoulder. “Just sit on his lap again and it’ll all work out.”

Dev

Two weeks into my “internship,” I have a workable morning routine. I get up at the crack of dawn and power through whatever King Me requires before heading over to Calla. I’ve been putting out feelers, doing the social engineering thing, but so far none of my new office mates seem aware that their e-commerce software is pirated. And since their network is lamentably unsecure, I’ve had a few opportunities to poke around in their files—and yet I’ve turned up nothing. No clues. No answers. I suspect I need to get my hands on Lola’s laptop to uncover the truth.

Frankly, anyone who knows me as the billionaire boy genius would be horrified that I’m presently an administrative assistant and low-level code monkey, fetching coffee and contributing the odd line of entirely redundant code. Lola mumbled something about bikes and training wheels before darting off when I demanded better job opportunities, but she just doesn’t want anyone else touching her code.

I get it.

I suck at sharing, too, but after five years running King Me, I’ve learned some important lessons. As much as I hate giving up control, I also can’t do everything myself—and there are some tasks (accounting, payroll and cleaning the restrooms come to mind) that I refuse outright to do. I pay people well to do what I won’t. Lola, however, is everywhere at Calla, doing everything. She’s here constantly.

I sort of envy her her passion. I’ve considered selling King Me at the end of the year because I’m bored. Which probably explains why I’m here undercover at Calla rather than working in my posh office in downtown San Francisco. Yes, I named my company after the first game I ever won. I demolished my brothers at checkers and this way they can’t ever forget. It was too easy after a while, rather like King Me. I’m still not sure what I’ll do next. Sitting around on the beach and surfing all day isn’t enough.

Today, I stick to what I’ve dubbed The Routine. I chat briefly with the receptionist because establishing goodwill with Cerberus is smart. You never know when you might need to escape hell quickly. After a minute of witty repartee, I hole up with my laptop and check email. Next, I fetch coffee. I’ve coded a coffee app that lets my temporary office mates weigh in and change their minds a half dozen times without my having to kill them.

Lola has yet to use the app since her phone is always buried at the bottom of the ginormous tote bag she hauls around. I’ve already suggested using a tile, a pocket, or her bra strap to keep track of her phone, but she shot me down on all three counts.

I step into Lola’s office without knocking. Since her office has no doors and the wall between her and the main floor is glass, knocking is superfluous. Plus, her fat white dog makes a teakettle noise whenever I approach. She’s sitting on top of her yoga ball, half staring off into space, half frowning at her screen. She puffs her cheeks out and exhales. In an instant, I’m imagining what that small breath would feel like skating over my skin. It’s a stupid thought. It’s not like she’s even noticed that I’m here. Based on previous encounters, she’ll ignore me unless she’s decided to give me shit.

I saunter toward her, coffee tray expertly balanced in one hand. Time to effect some changes. This time when I slide her drink in front of her, I slide her laptop away at the same time. It’s a well-timed move, rather like turning the TV off on one of Max’s nephews. Her eyes widen in outrage, and like the nephews, she’s seconds away from vocal protests unless I provide her with a better option or break out the voice of God.

I squat down beside her yoga ball, pop the top off the cup and make a show of wafting cardamom and cinnamon-scented fumes toward her. The dog materializes seemingly out of nowhere, waddling toward me. As the bearer of treats, I’m allowed temporary access to her domain.

“You know you want it.”

Work inappropriate? Sure, but watch this. Lola just nods her head and grabs the cup. She’s challenged in the dirty innuendo department. Pretty much everyone here at Calla has a Lola story about some spectacularly funny moment where our boss failed to grasp the subtext. But those same people really like her. Lola might be annoyingly vague and slow to get a joke, but she’s painstakingly fair. She goes out of her way to be helpful, and where other people grant second chances, she’s willing to go up to imaginary numbers. Last week Lola hired a random old lady from the Chinese market down the street to translate when the twenty-two-year-old director of shipping lost Calla’s entire product inventory somewhere on the Chinese mainland.

Which makes it harder and harder to believe that Lola knowingly pirated my software.

After two weeks in her office, I’ve also learned that Lola needs more people time. While she might be introverted, she chats the ear off everyone she encounters, oversharing an unintentionally blunt stream of consciousness series of observations. Rideshare drivers are scared to come near our building. I appear to be the one exception to her nonstop talk fest because she promptly clams up whenever she sees me.

I wink at her. “Reporting for duty, sir.”

After my “interview” at Calla, I haven’t worn a suit again. I switched to jeans, a leather jacket, boots and a crisp button-up shirt. And a tie. I never forget the tie. A tie guarantees you attention.

Watch.

I adjust the knot, stroking my hand down the silky length, straightening it out. It’s a 1920s-style brown-and-blue-checked tie.

My boss’s hazel eyes zero in on my hands. It’s like waving a string in front of a kitten.

“Nice tie.” She drags her eyes back up to my face with remarkable willpower and I bite back a smile. Still got it.

A small frown crinkles her forehead. “Exactly how many ties do you own? You’ve been here two weeks and I’ve never seen the same one twice.”

See? She notices me.

“Last Monday—plum with pink dots. Tuesday—yellow polka dots. Wednesday—gray silk. Thursday and Friday—skinny black tie, navy blue black tie. That’s five ties in one week.”

She ticks my tie wardrobe off on her fingers. Lola likes to count.

“Maybe I’m a tie model in my spare time and get paid in ties.” I lean in. Her hair smells amazing.

Oblivious as always to my proximity, Lola sets her cup down and starts fixing her hair. The twisty-thing she does with it rarely lasts more than a few hours, necessitating repairs right about when I deliver her coffee. She wriggles and stretches, forcing her hair into an updo that looks like a double-scoop ice cream cone. Her arm brushes my shoulder. “You’re what, twenty? What normal college guy owns an entire business wardrobe?”

Danger.

“Wait.” She holds up a hand. She has a thinking pose like Rodin. “Don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure it’s an HR violation.”

Saved by the rule book. “Are you sexually harassing me?”

“What?” Her face turns a fabulous shade of bright pink.

Has she thought about me in HR-inappropriate ways?

“Feel free to lie to me if it’ll make me feel better.” When the pink deepens, I help her out and change the topic. “I do have an awesome tie collection.”

She frowns. “I’m not good with jokes. Is there an allusion hidden in there?”

“Do you want there to be?” I’m not ashamed to admit (to myself only and never to Jack or Max) that I’ve replayed our conversations in my head more than once over the last few weeks. I’ve also had more than one porn-worthy fantasy starring my boss, so I can’t help noticing that she’s staring at my mouth.

Does she...have a crush on me?

She sounds distracted, her eyes a little dreamy as she looks through me—again. I’m finding it hard to focus, too. I’ve never really noticed how pretty she is. We don’t spend much time together like this—usually she drops by my desk, we fight over my interpretation of my most recent assignment and then she flits off to do whatever it is she does. I’ve looked at her ass, her tits and all my other favorite parts, but it’s like I’ve never really seen the whole Lola.

I lean toward her without conscious thought, one hand resting on the side of her yoga ball. For balance. Not because it puts my fingers closer to her ass. Her leg brushes my hand.

She takes a hasty sip of her drink and chokes on it, spraying chai everywhere. I feel a small smile tug at my mouth, which I quickly hide as I whip out a handkerchief from my back pocket and start mopping up the mess.

Lola waves me off, producing a wad of paper towels from her bag. “Are you eighty? Who owns a handkerchief?”

“No, and this guy.” I touch my handkerchief to the corner of her mouth. “You have a spot right here.”

I don’t miss the way her lips part.

I think she does like me.

Or parts of me.

She abruptly rolls her yoga ball backward, putting some space between us. “We need to discuss the rebrand of our packaging.”

Right. She’d given me some dumb-ass to-do about researching “cute little pouches women can tuck a spare tampon in.” I pull out my phone and look at her.

“You realize I’m a software engineer and not a graphic designer, right?”

She raises a brow. “Scared?”

I text her the list of options I’ve come up with. Hazel suggested I look on Pinterest for inspiration, and she’s a genius.

Drawstring bag (pineapples, llamas, dogs)

Velvet pouch (crazy cats)

Anything with pom-poms

Bag with stupid inspiration quote

Anything Kate Spade

I also have a spreadsheet, product cost per piece and production times. I nailed it. Packaging isn’t hard—it’s mostly point, click, shop.

She sets her phone down. “Wow.”

“Fuzzy bunnies, puppies, baby seals—cute sells to women. You can’t help yourself. Big eyes, chubby cheeks and squishy bodies activate your mesocorticolimbic system and give you a major high. The more that high gets triggered, the more you seek it out.”

“You think our tampon packaging should be addictive,” she says dryly and then ostentatiously taps the trash can icon on her screen. “You need a do-over. The African artisans creating our pouches encountered technical issues ordering supplies. They have two thousand units of pink beads we have to incorporate.”

“So now we have to redo the packaging to match. It’s like making the drapes match the carpet.”

Her face colors. “You’re disgusting.”

Okay, false alert.

My boss does pick up on some innuendos—and she doesn’t like me.

At all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dev

AT SEVEN IN the morning on a Saturday, San Francisco’s Mission District is torn between waking up and getting the day started and going back to bed to shake the Friday night hangover. When I park in front of Calla for some covert investigation, I spot two drunks passed out in nearby doorways. The snack vendors trundling their carts up the street bob and weave around them. Even the cinnamon scent of fresh churros can’t erase the stink of days-old alcohol and piss.

Lola gave me the alarm codes for the door on my second day of work. This might have been a gesture of good faith, or it might have been insurance against a repeat of what happened after I accidentally set the alarms off when I arrived at 6:30 a.m. on my first day of work. I’ve never needed much sleep—a good thing given my chronic insomnia—and I like an early start.

Just in case I run into anyone, I’m wearing my usual work uniform of jeans, a button-up shirt and a tie. Today’s neckwear selection is the horny prep school special—a big, bold, look-at-me-or-better-yet-look-down-and-admire-my-awesome-hugeness number with pink-and-maroon stripes. No one’s around to appreciate it, however, when I enter.

The building is quiet, the lights off. Sunlight filters through the skylights and ricochets off the stupid disco ball hanging from the ceiling. It’s immediately clear people have once again failed to clean up after themselves. In some start-ups, engineer ego and the bro-culture keeps trash lying around. Calla’s engineers are simply oblivious, pushing code and driving toward launch while their dirty coffee cups overflow the kitchen sink, spawning mold and mutant germs.

I rearm the door and wage brief but effective war on the kitchen. The sink takes heavy casualties—a Hello Kitty mug that resembles a petri dish and various fossilized Tupperwares. Once I’ve got clean coffee cups lined up by size to dry, I place an online order for disposable coffee cups—the organic, compostable, made-by-some-worthy-charity cups that Lola prefers. Order coffee cups is probably on her to-do list, but her action items list is long and she refuses help.

OCD temporarily placated, I prowl my workplace, looking for magically delicious clues. It’s really freaking quiet, despite the occasional siren or car horn burst from the outside world. Everyone seems to have dutifully taken her laptop home for the weekend. My spying plans were stupid anyhow and hanging around Calla is a colossal waste of time. I should turn the theft over to my lawyer, except I sort of like my ringside seat for the Lola show. I’m not sure what, if anything, is happening between us, but for the first time in a long time, I’m not bored.

Wait.

Maybe not everyone has taken her hardware home.

Light glows dimly from the far side of the workspace. I follow it straight to Lola’s office.

And...wow.

Lola is truly hard core. Or dead. She’s curled up underneath her desk in a ball. It must be more comfortable than it looks because when I check, she’s not dead—just sound asleep on a yoga mat, head pillowed on her arm.

It feels like eternity while I watch her sleep, staring at the soft curve of her cheek. Her lips part ever so slightly, Sleeping Beauty waiting for a kiss, although I prefer Anne Rice’s dirty version to the happy cartoon princess story. I itch to crawl under the desk with her, wrap my arms around her and kiss her awake.

Peel back the cardigan she’s draped over herself like a blanket and taste her from those perfect lips to her bare toes. There are so many places I could start. All I have to do is reach out, to begin. I’ve thought about it more than I’ll ever admit. What I don’t know, though, is if she thinks about me. I think she might have a crush on my body, but I could be nothing more than her intern.

The strap of her tank top slips down one strong, toned arm when she shifts. Lola may not make time to go home, but she definitely makes time to work out. There are sculpted muscles beneath the soft skin. Somehow she feels almost naked, as if sleeping Lola is magically more vulnerable than awake, working Lola.

I don’t need Jack to tell me this staring thing is wrong. You don’t creep on a sleeping woman, and if you do, a restraining order and a long talk with Officer Not-So-Friendly are just a few of the well-deserved presents Santa Claus will deliver for Christmas.

So I force myself to walk away and pull out my phone. Not to take pictures—although I’m tempted—but to call for reinforcements. Ten minutes later, I’m armed with a chai latte courtesy of Uber Eats and ready to poke Sleeping Beauty.

In the sweeter versions of the fairy tale, the prince awakens Sleeping Beauty with a kiss. Anne Rice’s prince gets straight to the screwing, crossing all dubious consent lines. My beauty is asleep, though, and that limits my options. As much as I’d like to kiss her awake, she hasn’t told me yes. Yet. I thump the door frame with my free hand.

“Room service,” I bark at her comatose figure.

Lola wakes in a rush, shooting upright and banging her head on the desk. Ouch. Fortunately, the enormous hair bun she rocks cushions the impact.

Patting the bun back into its orbit, she mutters something in Russian. Per office gossip, she spent a summer at a Moscow software start-up and learned more than curse words. The same gossip suggests we may be under intensive FBI scrutiny as a result. Color me skeptical. Tampons aren’t terrorist weapons unless it’s five minutes before midnight, the store is closing and you’ve forgotten which kind you were sent to fetch.

“What are you doing here?” She squints at me from her desk cave, pulling her cardigan around her.

I pluck her glasses off the top of her desk and extend them to her. With my other hand, I extend the coffee cup to her. “Getting a head start on my Monday to-do list.”

She pops the glasses onto her nose and grabs the cup. She’s remarkably composed for someone busted sleeping on the floor. “A for effort, Mr. King.”

“Are you coming out?”

I shove my hand at her. It’s reflex, a vestigial trace of gentlemanliness instilled by my mother, and honestly, I expect Lola to ignore me. It isn’t easy being a girl boss and I hate that Silicon Valley so often put its women entrepreneurs through the wringer. Women have to play harder, fight dirtier and put up with stupid male shit because some of the most successful guys I know haven’t progressed beyond dirty jokes and hoping to score. To my surprise, though, she places her fingers into mine.

It’s the first time she’s touched me intentionally. She crash-landed on me and we shook hands at my interview, but those don’t count. We’ve also bumped shoulders, brushed arms. But this is different because she’s chosen to put her hand in mine when touching isn’t forced by gravity or dictated by good manners.

This is deliberate.

The heat from her fingers scorches my skin. Why do I want this woman? My brain yells that it’s a very bad idea, that I should step back, walk away, walk out of this building and Lola’s life and away from whatever it is I think I’m doing here.

Which is making a mistake. Making the worst possible, horribly awful, so-wrong-it’s-good mistake.

I tighten my grip anyhow. She’s my boss, or thinks she is. We’re in the office, and offices are officially a sex-free zone. But the seconds tick away, my fingers holding hers, and she says nothing. Or maybe like me, she doesn’t know what to say. Because my whole body’s tight, on full alert and begging for more. She just breathes harder, or maybe that’s my imagination.

I stroke my thumb against the palm of her hand as I pull her forward and up onto her knees. Her hand twitches in mine. She’s waiting for me to do more, and I’m waiting for her to stop me. To drop my hand, to tell me to go away, to leave and to never come back. I’m bigger, larger and standing over her. She’s shorter, smaller and kneeling in front of me. I take the decent half step back although I hate retreating. Sounds filter in from the outside world—the whir of pigeons sounding off and the Spanish bark of the snack vendors trundling their carts up and down the street. There’s no air in here. Just heat and each of us waiting for the other to make a move because there’s too much at stake to be the first.

“Sometime today, Mr. King.” Her firm voice breaks our standoff. She looks up at me, and I have no idea what she sees.

Heart pounding, I pull her up slowly. Lola’s on the tall side for a woman, maybe five feet seven inches, and she’s got a few curves. She says nothing about the helping hand even though she’s spent the last two weeks roasting my balls about not being a team player. Or maybe it’s because she almost-not-quite brushes said balls in her upward trajectory. Or maybe I’m just an asshole. But whatever the reason, my dick makes like the Grinch’s heart having a Christmas revelation and grows three sizes.

Lola’s chest rises and falls rapidly and she stumbles as she comes to her feet. And then somehow she manages to lose her balance entirely and crash-lands on my chest. It’s not my fault because I’m off balance, too, not expecting her to fall. But she does and my brain promptly goes off-line. If I had to pick a word, it would be soft. She’s got great tits and she’s not wearing a bra—just two layers of soft, fluffy fabric.

She barks something. It might be Russian or back off, King. I hesitate, however, to let go of her hand and her waist—somehow, yes, I’m groping the waistband of her leggings—because letting go means she definitely falls and her LZ will be me or the floor. And part of me wants to let her go, let her fall, and then I’ll fall with her and take her right there on the floor.

“What are you doing?” She slaps her hands behind her, bracing herself against the desktop. There’s too little space between us. Our thighs bump, our knees brush.

“Saving your ass.”

I set my own hand beside her hip and my thumb brushes black cotton. I still want to fight with her, but now I want to strip her down, too. Make her admit that she wants me, too. My balls tighten. My finger traces her hip, finding the line of her hips but no panties beneath the cotton. Is she commando? Dirty, dirty girl.

She hasn’t said no.

She hasn’t said go.

Her eyes lock on to mine. “Do you have a white knight complex?”

I smirk. “Knights were supposed to be chaste, Ms. Jones.”

Angry color flags her cheeks. “You suck.”

“An interesting professional assessment. I’ll give you mine. Your problem is that you think you like to be in charge. That you have to tell other people what to do or you won’t like the results. Here’s some free advice for you. Independence has teeth and it likes to bite people in the ass.”

Her eyes narrow. “Really, Mr. King?”

“Why, yes, Ms. Jones.” I snap my teeth at her.

“Because based on your work here, you very much prefer to work alone.”

“I’ve finished both of my projects.”

“They were group projects,” she hisses, pulling off her glasses. “You were supposed to be collaborating with other members of the Calla team. Instead, you just went ahead and did them yourself.”

“They’re done.” Point. Made.

Her pretty mouth tightens. “Perhaps your coworkers would have had valuable insights.”

“I knew exactly how to handle those projects,” I tell her. “You know it. I know it. You should be grateful to get that kind of work for twenty bucks an hour.”

“You are an intern.” She glares at me, trying to set my hair on fire with her eyes. “You are supposed to be learning.”

“And I am.” In the past two weeks, I’ve learned that fetching coffee sucks, that I dislike taking orders even more than I thought I would (which is a lot) and that working two jobs is exhausting (so my hat’s off to all of you who are doing it). Oh, and that I can program circles around anyone here at Calla.

She leans forward. “Name one thing that you’ve learned.”

I wink at her. “That I’m the best programmer you have. You should promote me now.”

Her eyebrows practically marry her hairline. “Are you serious?”

I smile innocently. “One thousand percent.”

“One thousand percent is impossible,” she scoffs. “Plus, you’ve only been here two weeks!”

“I move fast and I’m great.” This is like the fortune cookie game, where everyone breaks open his or her cookies and reads the fortune out loud before adding in bed to the end of it.

She just shakes her head. “You have to learn to work in a team.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s important. Because life is not an individual event.” And then she pulls out the big guns. “Because I said so.”

“You are the boss from hell.”

“How?” She actually throws her hands up in the air. “There is not one thing wrong with your internship except for you.”

“Because you don’t let anyone help you.”

And then it happens. Lola launches herself off the desk, her knees slamming into mine. “I’m in charge here. I’m the boss.”

“Really?” I drop onto her stupid, asinine yoga ball seat, tugging her down until she straddles my knees, her legs hugging mine. “We should definitely discuss that.”

“Yes.” The word explodes out of her mouth, a harsh, sharp burst of sound that I feel on my own.

My hands dig into her hair as my mouth slams into hers. Or meets hers halfway because she’s reaching for me, too, as if she could devour me with her lips and her teeth. Her tongue pushes into my mouth, taking the space it needs, and I bite back a groan and lean into her. She tastes so good. We kiss harder, deeper, a noisy, wet, perfectly messy kiss that makes me forget all the ways we hate each other and wonder only how she could surprise me next.

At first we kiss with our eyes open, both of us refusing to break eye contact. This is a game I’ve played before and I press myself against her, moving in a hard rhythm against her thighs and ass. I watch her lashes flutter down, as if she doesn’t want to watch what happens next and is raising the white flag.

“Please,” she whispers, eyes still closed.

“No,” I growl. “You have to use your words, Lola.”

I could touch her clit. I could rub until I find the perfect rhythm for her body, the pressure, the beat, the tease that makes her scream for me. Or I could come over her now, strip her down and ride her until we’re both shaking from our orgasms. I could bare her, kiss her, teach her to ride my fingers and my tongue, but I don’t. I don’t feel like playing nicely, so I slide my tie free and use it to tie her hands behind her back.

Her eyes fly open. “Do I need a safe word?” She’s laughing at me, her expression a little unsure, a whole lot amused.

“It’s the magic word no. Tell me stop and I stop.” I rock against her, teasing her.

Our second kiss is longer, slower, less mean. It’s as if the first kiss was two people bumping into each other, both angry but trying to hide it. This second one, however, we’ve discovered that maybe we’re not strangers after all, even if we don’t quite know each other. Yet.

“Is that it?” she demands when we finally break apart.

“So impatient, Ms. Jones.”

She growls, lunging for my mouth. Yoga balls make poor office furniture. Lola bounces off my lap, I roll to catch her and we both end up headed for the floor while the yoga ball streaks in the opposite direction. I twist so she lands on top of me. Lola holds her breath, as if she’s afraid someone else might have heard us. As if she can’t believe she’s reacting this way.

“Tell me,” I say quietly. “Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you. How you want me to touch you. What makes you come the hardest. If you’re going to order me around in the office, you have to use your words here, too.”

The blush staining her cheeks is the hottest, brightest pink, but her eyes stare into mine.

“Slow,” she orders. “Today I want it slow.”

“Like this?” I cup the side of her face, running my fingers down her cheek. I skim the line of her throat, learning what she feels like.

She’s so warm and soft, the best weight pressing me down. Is she wearing panties? I plan on finding out. Why does this girl make me so crazy?

“Do you want to be naked?”

She thinks about it. “Not in the office.”

Part of me is disappointed. No, not that part. I’ve seen the outside parts and Lola’s gorgeous, but I’m a greedy bastard with a great imagination. I’ve been imagining what her tits look like underneath those cotton tank tops, how her ass curves like the perfect pear, if she waxes or shaves or just does whatever she likes.

I have to kiss her, so I reach up and shove my hand into her hair. She comes willingly, her face finding mine, her mouth open and seeking. We kiss, tasting, exploring, testing each other. I can’t stop thinking about other places I could put my mouth and what she’d taste like there. Her breasts press into my chest, her legs hug my hips and she grinds against me in a slow, hot roll.

“This is sweet.” She leans into me, catching my bottom lip sharply between her teeth, and nips. The sweet sting blossoms through me. Like she just rang the doorbell on my dick or something. I’ve never been into biting, but this I love.

“But I’m not in the mood anymore,” she continues. She must see my disappointment because she laughs. Somehow, smiling up at her beautiful, happy, take-charge face, I have the strangest thought. I like her. Don’t tell anyone. I’m not headed to Harry Winston to buy the biggest, most ethically sourced diamond available. It’s just that she’s more person than boss or business rival now. She’s Lola and that means she’s funny, sometimes vague, always game and quirky.

“I can make you be in the mood.” I slide against her where we’re pressed together.

She’s flushed, nibbling on her lower lip with her teeth. Her eyes sparkle with humor. “But did I ask you to do that?”

Point to Lola. “Tell me what you want.”

She manages to get her hands on the top button of my jeans. “Binary or infinite? How many options?”

“Do you want a list? Now?” I can’t stop looking at where we touch, can’t stop wondering how much better it would be if we were naked.

“Send me the list later. Boobs or mouth?”

“What?”

“Do you want to fuck my boobs or my mouth?”

Holy shit.

“Is it Christmas? Can Santa come twice?”

She grins at me. “Unless you’re really, really anatomically gifted, you have to choose, intern boy. You can’t be in both places at once.”

“Then boobs—although we may need to revisit that decision.”

She gets busy, sliding her tank top down with a sexy little wriggle. By the time I’ve got my brain working again, the shirt’s near her waist. I should either lean back and enjoy my show or I should be showing my appreciation. With my tongue.

She frowns down at her boobs. “I like them and they feel great, but Cleavage-R-Us I’m not.”

Small, medium, large or supersize, I’ve never seen a boob I didn’t appreciate, but I’ve spent too much time these last two weeks imagining what these particular boobs would look like. Now the only thing between me and dreams coming true is the cotton bralette skimming the top of her nipples. White has never seemed so sexy. She wriggles off me and I groan.

“Up.”

I can do up. I stand up and wait. It’s weird, letting someone else call the shots. It’s also the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. Maybe it’s because Lola’s really telling me what she likes, sharing her fantasies with me and letting me in. Or maybe it’s just dirty and, just this once, I’m willing to try something new.

“Lose the jeans,” she orders.

Her wish is my command. I shove the jeans and boxer briefs down. I watch her looking at me and get harder. “Can I touch you?”

“Only what you can reach,” she orders—and then she drops to her knees in front of me. God bless yoga because Lola turns out to be very, very limber. Her hair brushes the inside of my thighs as she reaches for me and I bite back a groan.

The disadvantage to tying her hands is that she can’t work me with her palms. My balls also regret that decision. The rest of me, however, thinks it’s fantastic. I work my fingers through her hair and discover it’s a ponytail tucked inside itself like that alchemy symbol of a snake eating itself. The long brown length comes apart in my hands and I wrap the thick length around my palm and pull her closer.

She looks up at me, mouth parted, my dick resting on her bottom lip, all impish eyes. This is Lola, my annoying, spacey, grouchy boss. Her tongue slips out to wet her lip, grazing me. Fuck. Me.

Her lips part wider and I slip inside an inch. She hums something and I push inside her mouth. Screw waiting. Everything about her turns me on. If I’m not careful, I won’t last long. She pulls harder, taking me deeper. Shit. Her mouth is sweet, wet heat. My balls tighten, ready to shoot my load.

“Tell me to come,” I growl.

I’m not sure how she’s supposed to answer when her mouth’s full, but Lola’s creative. She nods her head and groans something. Good enough—or maybe that’s the wicked edge of her teeth skimming my sensitive head. Girl boss is still trying to take control. Unfortunately, I don’t care because she’s sucking me off with a skill and speed I didn’t expect. I tunnel my fingers into her hair and fuck her mouth hard. Harder than is strictly nice, but she lets me. Nothing has ever felt so good and that makes this whole banging-my-boss thing an even worse idea.

I should pull out.

I should ask if she’s okay with this.

Instead I lose myself in the soft wetness and blow up in her mouth.

She rocks back on her heels as I pop free. Then she wipes her mouth on her shoulder as I put myself back together.

“My turn,” she says.

I shove her pants down her long, toned legs. She’s not wearing panties. She’s completely naked from the waist down, and it’s not enough. She leans back against the desk, off balance because her hands are still tied, and I lift her up until she’s seated on it before stepping between her legs. I can smell her, so wet and slick.

“Sucking me off turned you on.”

“I’m selfish.” She crosses her legs behind my back, her heels resting on my ass. “If it didn’t turn me on, I wouldn’t do it. Did you think I was faking it?”

I reach between us, sliding my fingers down, until they rest against her where she’s so wet. I lean into her, pressing her back against the desk until she’s flat beneath me and our mouths are so close that I feel her breathe.

“You’re wet.”

“Do something about it,” she challenges.

“Do you want my mouth between your legs? Or do you have other fantasies?” I pull my fingers free and paint her lips. “Tell me how to do it.”

Her breath hitches, her eyes drifting closed. She’s thinking about it. Lola loves fantasies. This is her favorite thing, imagining the possibilities. When her eyes open, I know she’s picked a favorite, her expression changing from slightly awkward awareness to 100 percent sensual.

Hazel eyes are hard to pin down. Are they goldenish or brownish green or do they change when you least expect it? This close, Lola’s eyes are almost amber today, and I fight the urge to keep tipping forward, to fall into her eyes. Falling would waste the time we have.

She levers herself up on her elbows. “Run your hands down my body. I love your hands. They’re big and a little rough.”

I do as she narrates, dragging my hands down her body and over her hips. My fingers press against her skin, traveling over her curves and digging in. She’s soft, her skin pebbling beneath my touch.

“Are you cold?” I slide my hands beneath her ass.

“Your mouth follows your hands so I’m not cold.” Her eyes darken. She’s watching me, waiting for me to do as I’m told.

I kiss my way down her body, learning what she tastes like. When I reach the soft curve of her belly, I turn my head, resting my cheek against her. “And then what do I do?”

She thinks for a moment. Or maybe she rehearses what’s coming next in her head because the sweet, salty scent of her arousal grows stronger. It’s as if she feels everything twice as intensely, once in her imagination and then once more with me.

“I might be shy, so you brush one cheek over me, and then the other. You haven’t shaved recently and I love the way your stubble feels.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.” She exhales, eyes still closed. “Do it again.”

“Perhaps I blow on you, teasing you,” I suggest. “Since you like it slow.”

“I like it slow today,” she says. “Maybe.”

Her breathing grows faster when I send my next breath skimming over her. And then the next. And the next after that. Her heels rub against my shoulders in a gentle, dreamy rhythm and I wish I could see inside her head. Her eyes are closed again.

“But you’re impatient, so you push my legs over your shoulder so you can see me. You love looking at me.”

“I do,” I answer. “I could look at you all day. You’re fucking gorgeous here.”

“That feels good,” she says. “But it feels even better when you taste me.”

She’s so right. She tastes unbelievable, sweet and juicy. I hold her open with my thumbs and I kiss her, breathing her in, licking up her wet. All the usual words tumble through my mind—peaches, sugar, cream—but those are fantasy words and the reality of Lola is even better. I wish I could tell her how good she feels, but instead I show her.

“Do I push a finger inside you?”

Another pause.

“No,” she says dreamily. “You lick me deeper, over and over.”

I do it. I drag my tongue through her slick folds, learning which spots make her moan and which make her squeal. She opens wider, her heels digging harder into my shoulders, because it feels good. Sweat dampens her body and I kiss her harder, rougher, surer. She’s told me her secrets and I know how to please her.

“You—” Her voice catches as her thighs tense.

I dig my fingers into her ass, controlling her movement and how she rolls against my mouth. “You want this.”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I do.”

“But you want to be the one in charge.” I suck lightly at her clit and she makes a noise I haven’t heard before, a rougher, greedier sound. She’s so close.

I give her clit another kiss. “You think your way is best.”

And she breaks character, forgets the rules of our game. “Make me come now.”

“So bossy.” I give her pussy the smallest of smacks and she moans. “Always certain your way is the best. But what if you’re missing out on something better?”

Another tiny tap. Another moan.

“Too bad for you, princess. I’m not in the mood to play your games today. Naughty bosses don’t get orgasms.”

I could sink into her.

I should finish her.

Instead I step back.

She glares at me, dazed. It’s a bitch trying to lever yourself up with your arms tied. This is why I don’t let my lovers tie me up. Or take control. You end up out of control.

“See you Monday.”

I saunter out the door. I have to hand it to her, though. She doesn’t beg or plead. She pulls it together enough to yell after me.

“You’re the world’s worst intern.”

I’m not fired, though.

Not yet.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dev

I DRIVE TOO fast down the coast to Santa Cruz. I need to get out of The City and put substantial distance between me and what just happened. Or more accurately, what didn’t happen. Scenic Highway 1 is gorgeous, the classic California experience with enormous redwoods that seem older than God. Late afternoon sun flashes through the branches. The road twists, knifing back on itself with zero tolerance for stupid mistakes, and the curve up ahead claims lives every year.

I did my boss.

No. You cock-blocked her to prove your point. I pick up speed, hurtling through the next bend. I have a problem with arguments. And with power plays. And with feeling out of control. So instead of doing Lola right, I blew up in her mouth and then left her high and dry. It’s funny in a practical-joke-gone-wrong way, but it’s also painfully stupid. I could have done her tonight, but instead I’ve likely not-screwed my way out of discovering who stole from me.

Fair enough.

I’m an employee with zero follow-through. I’d fire me.

I shoot out of the last, tree-lined curve and into the straightaway fronting the ocean. The Pacific stretches away on my right, dotted with oil refineries. Closer to shore, where some truly spectacular waves break, surfers ride their boards. A smallish strip of beach houses and surf shacks cling to the sand between the highway and the water. The break is close—a short paddle, and boom. I’m tempted to stop, but I don’t have my gear and I hate rentals.

Plus, as Santa Cruz has twenty-nine miles of beaches, I haven’t surfed this particular spot, which makes a good ride less likely. I’m not familiar with how the waves break, or with what lies underneath the ocean’s surface. Predictable is good. Like my well-organized life, my surfing habits are a finely honed balance of discipline and routine. I’ve practiced the same surf breaks for years, polishing my skills, growing better until I’m the absolute best. I won the last two surf competitions I entered, wiping the floor with my competition.

I keep moving and make it to Santa Cruz without getting pulled over or wrecking my car. There’s no one-size-fits-all label for Santa Cruz. Parts stink like cheap beer (college town), while other parts reek of hemp oil (the outdoorsy types), money (check the real-estate listings and you’ll know what I mean) and suntan oil. There are beaches, cliffs, awesome surf and sixty-five thousand residents shoehorned into less than sixteen square miles of living space alongside surf bums and cruise ship visitors. All types of people pass through, but living here year-round is a different game. Real estate is pricey, building up is necessary and there’s always at least one house under construction in my neighborhood.

The neighborhood itself is a warren of one-way, twisting streets jammed with cars. Getting a parking permit may require screwing the city council, and I’ve heard two permits necessitates an outright orgy. My house is the queen bee of the block, perched at the very end of a cul-de-sac (score!) and so close to the ocean that spray hits my bedroom windows on a windy day. Three thousand square feet of Spanish mission style, it fronts an amazing stretch of ocean.

I slam into the house, pissed at everything and the world. Despite the miles between Lola and me, she’s still right here in my head, taunting me. I ignore the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. It might be guilt or discomfort. Whatever. It’s unfamiliar and I don’t do feelings. Fuck. I almost never make mistakes.

Lola’s scent still clings to my fingers, a little fainter each time I bring them to my nose. Usually I hit the shower fast after hookups, but she smells amazing. I expected to be over her now that we’ve played our game, yet I have a bad feeling there’s no forgetting this afternoon. She twists me up inside somehow.

Giving up on the shower, I head outside. A steep, private staircase leads to the beach, a quarter-mile stretch of sand bookended by some serious rocks. The tide’s been out for hours and the few waves are flat; it’s the worst possible time for surfing, but still a good time for clearing my head.

I flop on my board, staring at the sky. It’s peaceful, my board rocking gently with each baby wave. After a while, the noise level picks up. Music pounds from Max’s house, a house distinctly resembling a pink cupcake with turrets. Max, Jack and I are neighbors. There wasn’t much on the market when we bought, so three houses in a row required the flexibility of a yogini. Max drew the short straw and had to settle for Casa de Pinkie.

My board bumps sand—and kneecaps. I open my eyes.

Max frowns down at me. “Did someone piss in your cornflakes?”

In no mood to discuss my epic screwup, I flash him the bird. “Did you raid my kitchen again?”

“Not in the last two weeks. And there was definitely no golden shower action, although I may have stolen a beer.”

A beer sounds great, but Max is empty-handed, the tease. He also isn’t dressed for surfing. Instead of a wet suit, he wears knee-length black swim trunks, a white T-shirt with a pink bow tie bedazzled at the throat, and a two-thousand-dollar tuxedo jacket that’s slowly absorbing salt spray. Crap. Tonight is the launch party for Max’s newest dating app.

The party is the love child of his publicist and PR person. Max himself is adamantly antisocial, but he’s been promised loads of D-list celebrities and paparazzi, so it’s party time. Speaking from experience, many guests will regret the open bar when they check their social media in the morning. I promised weeks ago to make an appearance, although I drew the line at participating in a bachelor auction featuring the best of Billionaire Bachelors.

“Party time,” Max announces.

I stand up, haul my board out of the water, peel off my wet suit and follow Max to his staircase. Max will loan me a shirt to go with my board shorts, and the party’s likely to be clothing-optional anyhow.

Because I’m pathetic, I check my phone. After the third time I went swimming with it, I realized that I either had to take up skinny-dipping or take preventative measures. I opted for a waterproof phone condom. There are no messages from Lola.

Max’s pool contains more women than water and appears to be swimsuit-optional. A bar with blow-up palm trees, pink flamingos and a tiki man with a gigantic dick round out the decor. Music pounds because Max hates silence. He codes to earsplitting music—it’s a miracle he retains any hearing.

“Classy.” Coming up behind us, Jack slings an arm around our shoulders.

My phone dings and I look down. Two-for-one pizza offer. Delete.

The arm around my shoulder digs into my armpit. “You didn’t surf today.”

I make a show of checking my phone. “I went in to work. I may also have made a tactical mistake.”

Neither Max nor Jack seem surprised, although it’s Max who correctly interprets tactical mistake and asks the obvious question. “Did you bang her?”

“Technically? No.”

Jack shakes his head. “I told you being her intern wouldn’t have a happy ending.”

“Yeah, well, Lola definitely didn’t get her happy ending,” I overshare.

“Gonna need a few more words about that.”

Max snags three longneck beers from a passing waiter while I try to find the words to explain. His pool is now filled with foam and the photographers are going nuts. This might have something to do with the behavior of Max’s VIP guests. It’s raining bikini tops on our private beach.

I finally settle on a strictly factual account. “I got her consent. We fooled around. I tied her up—which was also consensual—I came and then I left her.”

“Tied up.” Jack pops the top on his bottle.

“Yes.”

“High and dry.”

I shrug. “I’m certain she took care of business later, but yes.”

“You have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Jack keeps his voice low, an effort that I appreciate. I don’t need to find today’s episode of stupidity plastered across a gossip website.

“Depends on whether Lola has a sense of humor or not.”

Shit.

I’m in so much trouble.

Jack, of course, presses his point. He’s the responsible one, which is one of many reasons why he’s also the only one of us who has actually managed monogamy, marriage and genuine friendship with not one but two girls. “You think there’s anything funny about tying a girl up and leaving her like that? What if someone else comes in while she’s tied up? What if that someone takes advantage or takes pictures or just sees that mental image in his or her head every single time they see Lola after this?”

“I used a tie,” I point out. “Not cables or plastic handcuffs.”

Max cuffs my shoulder. “Even I know that this is not about the delivery mechanism for your kinky fantasies.”

Maybe we could have had sex. Maybe we could have had something really great or even something that was just nice. But now I’ve likely made her feel frustrated and stupid—plus, I’ve probably screwed up my chances of busting my software pirate. It’s a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

“Should I text her and apologize?”

Jack smacks my other shoulder hard enough that I almost land in the pool. “You want to put your stupidity in writing?”

No, I want to put it behind me, but that doesn’t seem to be an option.

I point my bottle at Jack. “I don’t have her phone number.” Which is an oversight I can remedy with a laptop.

“No,” Jack says. “You don’t get to do that.”

Max just grins. “What aren’t we doing?”

“No hacking,” Jack tells him. “You’ve reformed.”

There’s an eighties movie about a kid who hacks into the Department of Defense computer system and plays games with the artificial intelligence brain controlling the country’s nuclear arsenal. The kid isn’t thinking about nuclear winter or accidentally wiping out the world; he’s just a curious smart-ass who thinks it would be fun and wants to see if he can pull it off. That kid could have been Max’s mini-me. Or his doppelgänger. Max loves hacking and he’s really, really good at it.

I slide a sidelong glance at Max. “Does she have a Happily Ever After account?”

Max pulls a pained face. “Privacy laws, man. I can’t disclose that kind of stuff.”

“People post dick pics and beaver shots!”

Max just shrugs. “If Lola wants to post her phone number, she can. She can draw it on her tits in black Sharpie and take a picture. I don’t care as long as she’s the one initiating, but you can’t look without her permission.”

“You suck,” I tell him, and he takes a bow.

For the next couple of hours, I put on my happy face and concentrate on having Max’s back even if I don’t want to be here. I turn down multiple phone numbers and fend off several drunk girls who would like to show their personal appreciation for my software. I can’t stop thinking about Lola, however. What she looks like when she’s about to come, the tiny sounds she makes, the way her legs tighten as if she’s holding on to the sensation with everything she has.

Promptly at ten minutes to ten, Max literally pulls the plug on the music. Snatches of overloud conversation fill the sudden silence.

And then he said “nice panties.”

I can’t believe he’s cheating on me.

She has really nice tits and I—

“Party’s over,” Max roars. “Gift bags are by the front door.”

A stampede ensues as the party guests head for said door. Max’s generosity is legendary, plus word has leaked about the sponsors.

Jack looks at me. “Are you hitting the bar? Molly’s traveling for business, so I’m free.”

During the daylight hours, we borrow Jack from his wife and surf until our balls are Smurf-colored. Afterward, we head to T&T for tacos and tequila (the two Ts, naturally) when it gets dark. But instead of surfing today, I almost-banged Lola. I’m off-kilter. Tequila and company seems like a bad idea.

“Not tonight,” I tell him.

Max mimes astonishment. Being Max, he’s none too subtle about it. He likes making a point as much as I do. “Are you sick? Unexpectedly married? Self-flagellating after today’s earlier sexual misfire?”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

And the funny thing is, the tired part isn’t actually a lie. I am tired. Not with the flu or even with something that can be fixed with a visit to the doctor, or I would fix it. I have a reputation as a player, a reputation I’ve earned. Practice makes perfect, and I’ve put in my hours in the bedroom. I’ve always loved sex, but lately? Well, lately, it’s all seemed a little too routine, a little too predictable, so tonight I’m taking my toy and going home.

CHAPTER NINE

Dev

TWO DAYS AFTER I stripped my boss naked, put my mouth on her pussy and ate her until she not-quite-came, I try out various apologetic combinations of words in my head. Nothing feels right, and that’s all wrong, too. Since when do I have feelings? And what do I think happened? My usual insomnia was worse than ever, giving me plenty of time to relive each moment and pick my favorite. Contender number one: Lola dropping to her knees and taking me into her mouth. Contender number two? She let me blow up in her mouth and then she swallowed. Contender number three...the whole goddamned handful of minutes, if I’m being honest, because I can’t forget any of them. She’s under my skin and I don’t like it.

Still, I’m officially one up in our game, so Monday morning I saunter in to Calla, playing things nice and easy. You can’t tell I’m evaluating the chances I get fired or sued. A casual glance toward Lola’s office doesn’t turn up my boss, although it reacquaints me with her desk. I promptly get hard remembering what she looked like, spread out before me.

Figure your shit out, Sherlock.

With a ticking clock, I need to prioritize. Plus, there’s always the risk that someone at Calla recognizes me. As far as I can tell, I’ve gotten away with the masquerade only because Lola is too new to the industry and her team members are equally young. Eventually, though, someone is going to connect the dots, read an online piece or just use Max’s stupid Billionaire Bachelors app—and I’ll be busted. Pretending to be the intern was stupid, my “employment” most definitely has an expiration date, and I need to make the most of the time I have. Ergo, I take advantage of the morning coffee run to swing by the IT gal’s desk. She hasn’t placed an order, but I know what she likes, and I slide it in front of her.

“Wow.” IT Tech Babe stares at me. “I did not see that coming.”

“Just being helpful. Trying to learn. Working up to world domination.” I’ve brought her an iced triple-shot espresso with four artificial sugars, but the pièce de résistance is the can of Mountain Dew I wave in front of her.

“You are so evil.” Cara fixates on the can in my hand. She’s been on the South Beach Diet since Friday, so she’s got to be ready to crack.

I open the can and take a sip. The sugar rush is instantaneous. “I figured we could chat. You can tell me all about what your job entails. What you like about it.” Look at me, Mr. Butter-Won’t-Melt-In-His-Mouth. “What sucks.”

“Why?” Her flip-flop smacks against the floor. Bwap-wap-wap-wap.

“Self-improvement.” I wink at her and hand over the soda can.

“Bless you,” she breathes. Before I can even roll up a yoga ball, she’s mixed the espresso and the soda together in the world’s biggest stainless-steel coffee mug. Soooo gross.

We make chitchat about her job for a minute and then I go for the kill. “So how did you pick our e-commerce platform? I mean, it’s not one of the usual suspects. Did you roll it yourself?”

Cara snorts. “Do I look like a sadist? Not a chance. Lola gave it to me and had me integrate it into our site.”

I take a casual sip of my own coffee. Reel her in. “You got it shrink-wrapped in a box?”

She outright laughs. “Not even close. Lola put it on our file server and I grabbed it from there.”

Okay. So it makes me wonder if Lola has told anyone where she got the software. It doesn’t look good. It shouldn’t be such a secret and I’m sort of tempted to stand up and announce who I am. That they’re using my software without my permission and that it’s all rather felonious from where I sit, sprawled on top of their freaking yoga ball. In other words: Boo.

“Cheers.” Cara taps her cup to mine.

I flash her a smile, kiss her mug with mine and then thank the universe that I’ve got to my feet already because my phone goes off in my back pocket.

The Jaws theme song fills the air. Duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh. Followed by tiny guppy pops because you really can’t take life too seriously and Lola is only slightly scary. The scary parts include her big brain and the way she puts two and two together at lightning speed. She could be an apex predator in the programming world if she wasn’t so nice. She gives a genuine shit about the people who work for her and she has morally upright social justice missions that have her investing her time and talents into revolutionizing feminine hygiene rather than making a mountain of cash.

That’s the guppy part, the part that genuinely believes everyone swimming along in the Silicon Valley fishbowl has equally great intentions and will do the right thing. It makes Lola vulnerable, a fact I plan on taking full advantage of.

I look down at my phone. My office. Now.

Go. Don’t go. I don’t know who has the upper hand now. She came on to the summer intern, but I’m the one here under false pretenses and who had my hand in her panties. Followed by my mouth in places my mouth had no business going in the office.

My phone dings again.

You don’t get to make me wait twice.

Good to know where we stand.

I saunter toward Lola’s office.

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