Secrets and Lies (14 page)

She worked with a few design firms, she was kind of their go-to woman when they had a question on the stability of a product’s material design. The other designers she had met through working for other clients. Some had been royal pains in the behind, and others had been fun to work with. She had to admit, her father’s contracting business had grown into more than just a contracting business when she took over. This may not have been her idea when she worked her way through school for architectural engineering and design, but in some respects, it was better. Now, she wanted to grow the business more.

She had done a double major in college and still had a minor. She studied landscape design thinking it would be perfect to design the entire package for clients when she opened her architectural firm, but when things changed she abandoned the idea. Now she wanted to add it back in. She wanted to design not just the homes, but the yards as well. She had met with a friend, Kelly Donavan, about contracting her business out to make her designs come to life.

Kelly had the greenest thumb she had ever seen. Everything she touched seemed to grow to beautiful proportions. They had gone to college together. Kelly was in an agricultural studies program, but they had one landscape design course together that made them instant friends. They were still friends now, but after college life took over and they lost touch. They were living right there in the same city and they saw each other once, maybe twice a year. At their meeting they had vowed to change that. Of course they would have to. Kelly had agreed to become her exclusive landscaper.

Thena would do the designs, her guys would build any stone structures that needed to be put in, waterscapes and the likes, and Kelly’s team would go to work installing the plant life. Having Kelly onboard was great because Kelly could tell her when a tree would be better placed elsewhere, or when a garden feature might not work with the vegetation requested by the client. Thena knew much about design and a little about plants and how close they could be put next to other plants and trees. Kelly was a genius when it came to things like that.

Thena didn’t want to take on too much. The fastest way to ruin a business was to try to over expand, or to expand too quickly. But she knew she could take this on. It was the last part of the business that she wanted to add—for the meantime anyway. Her mind was always busy formulating new ideas. She continuously thought of services to add, things she could offer clients so they wouldn’t have to run to four and five different contractors. She had general contracting needs covered. She had connections to specialists as well, and now she would be able to add landscaping and design without having to finagle with another contractor to get the services her clients would need. On top of that, it pushed her architectural business side up a notch too. Now she could offer home and office designs along with landscaping designs. Her dad would be proud, she was sure of that. She wondered if her mother would have been proud too. Would her mom had preferred that she go to school for medicine? They had never talked about future career choices. Thena figured the reason for not discussing it was because they both figured there would always be time. But there wasn’t time. Somebody had made sure of that.

By the time two o’clock came Thena was a near wreck. She had contemplated driving home to change clothes again, but decided a special trip just to try to impress a man who may or may not still be interested in her was just plain stupid. She was wearing her gray pencil skirt that had a show of six buttons as decoration on the front waist area, three down on each side to draw the eyes inward and away from having a solid focus on her curvy hips. She had on a simple pink button down blouse that hugged her curves in all the right places, and simple pink and gray stilettos. She always, unless she was on site to work, wore stilettos at least three inches and at most four inches in height. She wasn’t super short, but she wasn’t super tall either and high heals always made her feel just a little sexier. Three-inch or four-inch designs usually put her at the right level for any guy she danced with whenever she went out…of course, since she took over her father’s company she hadn’t actually gone out any. “It’s your company now,” she mumbled to herself as she stepped through the doors of McGregor Investigations. She really needed to realize this was now her company, no longer her father’s company. While she felt a responsibility to do right by the memory of her father, she had to really make this company her own. The way to do that was to start calling it her company.

“Hello,” she called out, noting the lack of Janet’s presence. Thomas was in wasn’t he? Of course he was. Janet wouldn’t just leave the door unlocked if nobody was here. Unless she had left for lunch and forgot to lock the door.

“Come on in.” She heard Thomas yell from the office. Maybe she should have known he wouldn’t hire somebody who would walk out the office and leave his files unsecure.

She approached the office with caution. What would their conversation be like? Of course he would probably have something on the case…at least she thought he might. But would he bring up Friday night? Would he act as if it didn’t happen?

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Close the door behind you.”

She nodded, closing the door. “How was your trip?” It seemed like such a cliché question to ask, such a dumb question to ask. His trip was business, not pleasure, should she even be asking about it?

“Unfruitful, unfortunately. On your case, however I did hear something that I need to talk to you about. Something I need to know more about, and I want to know why you didn’t tell me;” he frowned.

“What?”

“Doctor Livingston.”

“What about him?”

“He touched you?”

“The man was always touching somebody. That’s just who he was. He would rub my shoulder, or my back, pat my head as if I were a poodle or something.” She laughed. “Why do you ask?”

“Hancock told me Neenah didn’t approve of the way he touched you. He implied that there was something unnatural in his interactions with you.”

She gasped. “Why would he do that? It never bothered me—not really.”

“Not really?”

“Well, I didn’t like being touched a whole lot and he was very touchy feely, but I never thought there was anything unnatural about it. I think my mom told him once that he shouldn’t rub on my back so much, which is probably why he started rubbing my head.” She frowned just thinking about all the times Livingston had messed up her perfectly secure French braids by rubbing her head as if he were rubbing a shaggy poodle. “Anyway, it was nothing. My mom didn’t have a problem with him. If she did she wouldn’t have gone to the parties he invited her to. And she certainly wouldn’t have let him come to the house—ever.”

“Okay,” he conceded. He wasn’t sure Thena’s conclusion was completely true. He was still going to have a talk with Livingston as soon as he could. He wanted to know his side of the story, because right now he wasn’t sure the man wasn’t a closet pervert. “How was your weekend?” He changed the subject, letting Livingston drop—for now anyway.

“I worked on some blueprints with Kyle on Saturday and then helped him with a build out on Sunday…that’s a fun weekend for me,” she laughed. It really was a fun weekend for her, although she imagined it probably made her seem like a bore to him.

“I’ll have to remember to introduce you to some real fun,” he stood from his seated position, walked from behind the desk and slowly approached her. For the first time she realized she hadn’t actually taken a seat. In fact, she hadn’t moved very far from the door.

He reached out just past her, turned the lock on the door and then escorted her toward the desk. Instead of sitting her in a seat he backed her up against his desk. “I missed you,” he mumbled before lifting her from her feet and plunking her down on the desk. Her slender pencil skirt limited her ability to move.

“I missed you too,” she admitted freely. She had missed him. She had thought about him a lot too. Most of her thoughts had been fears that Friday night was just a fluke. “After you left I wasn’t sure where we stood…what we were too each other…” she realized she was babbling again. She hated when she did that. No, she hated that he made her do that. Being around him made her head spin, made her dizzy with desire and lust and craving, and that rush of emotions seemed to knock all coherent thoughts out of her head.

“Allow me to show you just where we stand, and just what we are to each other.” He brought his hand to the back of her head, unclasping the clip she had holding her hair up into a messy, yet elegant up do, and then he clasped her hair, clutching it in his hand, twining his brawny fingers within her curly tangle of hair. He pulled her head back, looked deep in her eyes and then, as if needing desperately to taste her, his lips descended on her mouth, plundering her without mercy, exploring every cavern as he deepened each thrust of his tongue.

She returned, lick for lick, thrust for thrust. “Hmmm,” she moaned as he deepened the kiss.

As if driven by desire to be closer to her, he tried to push her thighs apart. Her skirt only allowed for limited width. Seemingly unhappy with the restriction, he lifted her, just long enough to bunch her skirt up around her waist and then he sat her back down on his desk, letting his gaze rake over the stockings and garter belt she wore. He slipped both hands between her thighs and made provision for the position he craved.

Closer, tighter, he held her, kissing her fiercely as if claiming her mouth as his alone. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer as she deepened the kiss.

She felt his hand slip between her thighs and close over her, caressing her, stroking her. The brush of his fingers pushed the fabric of her panties against her sensitive, wet flesh. She tore her mouth free from his, threw her head back and let out a heated cry.

They couldn’t do this, not here. They were in his office. His office had floor to ceiling windows and the blinds were not drawn. This was not a good idea, but she couldn’t stop it; she couldn’t deny his touch.

He placed sweet kisses on her neck as he tugged her blouse off one shoulder. His lips curled into a devious grin before placing a succulent kiss on her smooth skin. She felt him unhooking her garter from her stockings; felt him pushing the lace and satin fragments of the garter to the side.

One hand continued its ministrations between her legs, and then, without notice, without any prelude to his actions, he pushed her down onto his desk so that she lay on her back, and he leaned into her, rocking against her and letting her know, in no uncertain terms, just what he planned to do.

In one fluid motion he had her panties down and off her body. “Thomas,” she moaned. Good Lord she hoped he had a condom because she hadn’t made the drugstore run yet. She planned to do it only after she knew where she stood with him. Now, she wished she had stopped at the store on the way.

“He slid one thick finger inside her. “You’re so wet for me,” he moaned. “I like it, your heat, your smell, your taste.” He leaned in ready to devour her mouth once more.

“Thomas, I’m back early.” Janet called from just outside the door.

Thomas pulled back so swiftly Thena barely registered the action. It took a second, but once that situation registered she realized what might have happened. “Oh my God.” She jumped down off the desk, straightened her skirt and went for her panties that Thomas had already picked up off the floor. She couldn’t fasten the garter to the stockings until she had the panties on because if she did then she would just have to undo them all over again. A few minutes in his bathroom and she could fix her clothing back to what it was when she walked into his office. He obviously had a different opinion.

He shook his head. “I’d prefer to hold on to these,” he brought the peach cotton bikini cut panties up to his nose and inhaled. “I do love the smell of you, Thena Davis.” He walked around to his chair and tucked her panties into his suit jacket pocket before sitting down. He pressed the intercom button. “I’m in with a client, Thena Davis,” he said. “Hold all my calls until we’re finished here.”

A client.
Right, she was a client. What else would he say to Janet? “I’m in here stripping Thena Davis” wasn’t highly professional, nor was it something she wanted to walk out of that room knowing his secretary knew about.

She made sure her skirt was smoothly in place and that her blouse was covering her body where it should be covering it, that no buttons were undone, and no evidence of what they had just been ready to do still existed—well, maybe she wasn’t completely free of evidence. She was sure her cheeks were still flushed—just like the rest of her body.

“Thena—”

“So what did you find out about my mother’s case?”

He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Is that how we’re going to play this?”

“You did say you wanted to talk to me about my mother’s case today. I’m just thinking with Janet back we should get down to business.”

“Fine,” he shrugged.

“Thomas, if I stay in here with you much longer, secretary or not, I’m going to come over there and jump your bones.” She was uninhibitedly honest with her confession. “I’m on fire here, Thomas. I mean literally I’m aching for your touch, your kiss. Watching you sit over there, thinking about what we were just doing on that desk…” She crossed her legs, squeezing them tight. “Mon Dieu,” she moaned.

His nostrils flared in triumph. “Tonight I’ll be sure to give you the release you crave.” He sat back, lazily letting his eyes drink in her features.