Sugar on the Edge (4 page)

She doesn’t respond to me though, so I raise my gaze up to her after turning off the water and pulling the pot back. Her wide eyes stare at me in indecision, and I suddenly wonder if she’s daft or something. “Cat got your tongue?” I ask.

Shaking her head, she casts her eyes downward. “No… it’s just. Maybe you should get dressed first before we talk.”

I blink a few times, trying to register what she’s saying, and then drop my own gaze to casually peruse myself. Well, what do you know? I’m only wearing a pair of boxers with the fly gaping wide open, and my cock is sticking out half erect.

Oops.
Bet she got an eyeful when I answered the door.

Shrugging my shoulders, I adjust myself not so discreetly. I turn my back on her to fill the coffee machine up with water. Setting the pot on the burner, I flip the switch. Turning back around to face her, I lean back against the counter and cross my arms over my chest. She can’t help herself… her eyes involuntarily flick down to my crotch and while I’m sure I’m completely covered after my adjustment, I’m betting I’m tenting my underwear nicely. Her face flames pink, and her eyes quickly come back up to mine.

Giving her a tiny smirk, I say, “So… I need you to come probably twice a week to do general housecleaning… probably my laundry since I suck at both.”

“You aren’t going to get dressed?” she blurts out.

Pinning her with a direct stare, I curve my lips up and say, “No, Savannah, I’m not. Got a problem with it?”

“It’s slightly awkward having you standing in front of me half naked for a job interview,” she says, and I’ll have to give her some credit for having a sass mouth. Oh, the things I’d love to do with a girl that smarts off to me.

“You’re lucky I had my boxers on when you woke me up. Half the time I walk around naked,” I tell her with a serious look. I don’t, but I sort of like the blush she’s wearing and I wonder if I can get it to go a shade brighter. “Think of it this way, the less clothing I wear, the less laundry you have to do.”

I watch as Savannah clutches her purse a bit tighter to her body, and indecision filters into her gaze. I wait her out, certain that I’ve scared her off for good, which is no skin off my back.

“I really need this job,” she admits, and then her gaze falters to the floor. “But I’d be wasting your time if I stayed to discuss the details. I just can’t work here if you’re going to walk around naked all day. Thank you, Mr. Cooke, for your time, and I’m really sorry I woke you up.”

She never looks back at me but spins on her heel and heads for the front door. I watch her for just a millisecond, and then I push off from the counter to go after her. “Wait a minute,” I call out.

She stops and turns to look at me over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised.

“I don’t really prance around naked all day,” I grudgingly admit. “You woke me out of a sound sleep this morning, and I didn’t even realize I only had my underwear on when I answered the door.”

Savannah doesn’t say anything, just levels those brown eyes… which now that I look at her some more, are really quite lovely.

“Besides… I’ll be in my office most of the time, and you will probably never see me,” I add on, hoping she reconsiders my offer. I really don’t have time to interview other companies, and I’d like to get this taken care of so I can get working on my manuscript.

“What exactly would my duties be? And the pay?” she asks as she turns fully to me.

“Like I said… clean the house, do my laundry. Nothing too hard… twice a week. I’ll pay you five hundred dollars.”

She blinks at me in surprise, and I realize the money I just offered her was ridiculously generous. I didn’t know that until she blinked, but based on the look on her face, it’s clear I have no clue what the value of a cleaning service is. Oh, well… too late to take that back now. I’ll just have to make sure she earns it… like maybe scrub the floor with a toothbrush or something.

“That’s too much,” she tells me, and now I’m the one blinking at her in surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“You would be paying me way too much. It will probably take me about no more than three hours a day if I were to come twice a week. That’s got to be something like… eighty bucks an hour or close to it. Way too much.”

Seriously… this girl… woman, just had a major opportunity to make some serious cash off me, yet here she’s telling me that I’m overpaying her? Who the fuck is that honest these days?

“Tell you what… how about you cook dinner for me the days you come to clean?” I offer.

“That’s still too much,” she says, her eyes determined not to take advantage of me. This is fucking weird? In fact, she’d make a fantastically kooky character in one of my books… a character that was honest to a fault, which means she probably doesn’t have much in the brains department. She’d get eaten by one of my monsters in a nanosecond.

But, I’m officially over being amazed by her naivety and tell her, “Take it or leave it. I don’t have time to mess around with this further, as I’m already terribly behind on my work.”

There she stands again… staring at me in uncertainty, and I can see she’s actually contemplating turning down a job that will pay her more money than she’s probably ever been paid for a job before. It sort of irritates me this foolishness she’s exhibiting, and I start to open my mouth to tell her to get the fuck out, when she says, “I’ll take it. When do you want me to start?”

“How about next Tuesday? The house is practically spotless right now… that will give me a chance to mess it up a bit,” I tell her with a loose grin. “I’ll also make sure to wear clothes every day so you have some laundry to do to earn your paycheck.”

She returns a tentative smile. “I can do that. How about I come on Tuesdays and Fridays then?”

“That will work.”

“Any particular time?” she asks.

Shrugging my shoulders, I walk back into the kitchen and pull a cup out of the cabinet above the coffee pot. The liquid gold is still brewing, but I’m done waiting for the caffeine. I pull the pot back, noting the hiss and sizzle of coffee that drips to the burner before sticking my cup underneath the stream. “I don’t care. I’ll give you a key.”

My cup doesn’t take long to fill, so I pull it back and put the pot back in its place. I take as big of a sip as I can without burning my tongue and turn back to face her. Her eyes are leveled with the fly on my boxers again and they snap up quickly, but not quickly enough to miss her look.

Caught your hand in the cookie jar, little girl
, I think to myself and smirk at her while my cock jumps at the attention. I’m surprised by the boldness of her actions, because she’s seems to be nothing but a shy slip of a girl. But when I see the worry in her eyes that I just busted her sneaky peek, I realize that her look wasn’t bold at all. It was more of an involuntary reaction when I spun around on her, and now she is mortified to have been caught looking at me like that.

Yes, she’d be a lamb left to the slaughter in one of my books. She’s the antithesis of everything that I would find attractive in a woman because while I like my conquests to keep their lips sealed for the most part because conversation is usually a turn off to me, I don’t like the work involved with someone that seems so unsure of their self. I like a woman who knows what she wants and lets it be clear to me that she’s available for the taking. It’s easier that way.

Which makes it very odd that my body would even give the slightest reaction to her. It usually takes a lot to get my dick to twitch since my tastes are pretty singular, yet here I’ve been sporting a semi the entire time I’ve been talking to Savannah this morning.

Oh, well… no sense in dwelling on it. She’s so not my type, so I’ll chalk it up to my cock just having general curiosities.

Setting my cup down, I walk over to the set of keys that Casey left me with yesterday that I had tossed onto the back kitchen counter. I see there are three keys that all look the same, so I twist one off the ring and hand it over to her. Savannah steps forward and quickly takes the key, grabbing it with the very tips of her finger so we don’t touch.

That amuses me somewhat, and I snicker to myself. Yes, she’d make a wonderful character in one of my books… an anti-heroine of sorts that the reader would feel a bit of kinship to, but would be well satisfied when she met her demise because she’d probably deserve it due to her lack of confidence and complete innocence. Maybe I’ll use her as a muse in my current project. I can never have enough bloody and tortured bodies in my work.

Picking my cup back up, I turn toward the staircase that leads up two flights to my office. Not looking back at her again, I say, “I probably won’t see you on Tuesday because I’ll be working, but I trust you can let yourself in and lock up when you leave. I’ll pay you in cash on Friday.”

She doesn’t say a word in response, but that’s okay. She’s forgotten, and I already have my head wrapped up in the manuscript I’m getting ready to delve back in to.

It’s ten o’clock on Friday night, I’m dressed in the sluttiest-looking outfit I can manage to put on without blushing, and I’m walking into Last Call… the oceanside bar that my friend, Hunter Markham, owns and that has become the hot hangout here on the islands. While the summer season is long gone, there’s still a pretty sizable crowd for late January.

I’m taking advantage of it tonight. Meeting my girlfriends, Casey, Alyssa, and Gabby for a night out on the town. It’s Gabby’s turn to be designated driver, and I intend to get drunk. Well, I really don’t do drunk well, but I intend to get buzzed enough on sweet alcohol to try to erase the last half of my day today.

I had another awful portrait session assisting Eric, the douche photographer I work with part time. We shot a local couple for their engagement photos, and my job was simple enough. Handle the lighting equipment, adjust the odd lock of hair that would fall funkily over the woman’s shoulder, or smooth out the wrinkles in the horrendous lavender colored drop cloth they chose for their background. It was lame actually, especially when I was used to doing my own work and on far more interesting subjects than happily grinning couples who would probably get divorced in a few years.

After Eric snapped the last picture and sent the duo on their way, he told me he wanted me to start editing the photos tonight. I blinked at him in surprise because he never turned the photos over that quickly, and I knew without a doubt he wanted to keep me there so he could throw some of his cheesy and slightly disgusting moves on me some more.

I easily capitulated though, because Eric pays me by the hour and I need the money.

For the first hour of editing, he pretty much left me alone and I heard him periodically moving equipment around or talking on the phone in his office. But eventually he sought me out, as he often did. I didn’t have an office but rather a little cubbyhole off the lobby that had a thin, wooden desk tucked up against the wall.

Eric walked up behind me and leaned over to watch my progress. Putting his chin just inches over my shoulder, I could smell the hot dogs with onions he ate for dinner on his breath and tried hard not to shudder in disgust. He watched me work for a few moments, and then said in a low voice, “Your work is very good, Savannah. It has a very sexy quality to it.”

Seriously? I was brushing out acne blemishes from the man’s face and he called that sexy? I cringed internally but kept a level voice when I said, “Give me a break, Eric. There’s nothing sexy about what I’m doing right now.”

He chuckled at me and stood up straight. His fingers came up and rested on my shoulders, digging in slightly in an attempt at a clumsy massage. “It’s looking pretty sexy from where I’m standing.”