“You enjoy browsing office supplies?”
“I’m always trying to reinvent my office. Think of it as a brainstorming session for that. I feel like, if I tweaked this office just a bit, it would make me write faster.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be writing all day?” she asked pointedly.
“Hush,” I said, “don’t talk back, and go eat some eggs.”
I was ready to go when I tracked her down in the kitchen.
She was chatting with my hook-up from the night before. Real friendly like.
I did not like that.
First of all, I’d forgotten that I had company. Veronica was a regular, a tall, busty, insatiable redhead who was down for any damn thing, and she’d shown up the night before (without invitation) at booty call hours. I’d accommodated her, because I was an accommodating kind of guy, but I was surprised to see her still at the house. She usually didn’t stick around after.
And I didn’t like the way she was looking at Ro, like she thought Ro might be a particularly delectable dessert.
No. Uh uh. Ro was off-limits, for me and especially everyone else. I realized right then that I might have to readjust some of my patterns for her. I’d never shared a house with anyone who wasn’t cut from the same cloth as me.
“Let’s go, Ro,” I said impatiently. “Have a good one, Veronica. I trust you can find your way out.”
Ro started moving toward the door.
Veronica just smiled, not moving an inch from her perch on the counter, so I decided to leave her to it. Sometimes women came and decided not to leave for a bit. My policy on this had always been to ignore the issue until it went away. I figured she’d be gone by the time we got back, and if she wasn’t, we’d just go about our business as usual until she did.
We took my Harley, just to shake up Ro’s composure a bit.
She didn’t like it.
“I’ll follow you in my car.”
“That’s silly. Hop on.” I handed her a helmet.
She wasn’t happy about it, but she did it, pushing the helmet on and straddling the bike awkwardly in her too-long skirt.
She thought she could hang on by barely touching my shoulders, but the second we started moving her little arms snaked around my waist and held on for dear life.
I felt the problem right away, or should I say problems.
It was one thing to speculate about nice breasts under a thick, ugly, unflattering shirt. It was another thing entirely to feel them pressed firmly against your back.
Yep, her tits were nice. I could tell for sure. Soft and pliant. Big and bouncy.
And her shapely little thighs gripping my hips were almost as distracting.
Fuck.
I spent way too much time in Office Max. I was on deadline, so of course I was going deep into procrastination mode.
And the fact that I couldn’t glance at Ro without my eyes dropping to her tits after that ride was not helping me to be one bit faster.
I’d swear I could picture just exactly what they looked like after that ride, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to see her body firsthand.
On the contrary.
“So this is how you shop for office supplies?” she asked me after about a half an hour of aimless wandering. “You didn’t even bring a list?”
I shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be writing right now? This feels like a colossal waste of time.”
“Hush. Procrastination is a key component to the writing process.”
“Your process maybe.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.”
“Didn’t you tell me that part of my job was to keep you on task? This is the opposite of on task.”
“Hush,” I said absently, playing with a random pen. “Look at this pen.” I was drawing on the display I’d pulled it out of. “Isn’t it cool? I’m pretty sure I need a pen exactly like this.”
“It’s a pen,” she said flatly. “Are you messing with me?”
I kind of was. Also, I was trying not to look at, or obsess about, her tits. “Define messing?” I asked, still drawing on the display.
With a sigh, she grabbed a pen and started drawing with me.
After a while, I had a very shitty looking stick figure with big boobs. I looked over at hers.
She’d drawn a small, detailed unicorn, and it was actually quite good.
“These pens are cool,” she said, still drawing. “We should get some.”
I threw a handful of them in the cart.
“So I have a question for you,” I asked her abruptly, trying and failing to make it sound casual.
She straightened, studying my face. She caught on right away that what I was about to ask was going to be awkward for us both.
I cleared my throat. “I was told, erm, I mean, I heard that you’re, um, wholesome. Can you tell me exactly what that means?”
She blushed. Flat out blushed bright pink.
It was not helpful. I wasn’t sure why, but seeing her blush got me hard at a glance.
She fidgeted, looking down at her feet.
That also did not help.
“I, um,” she started, sounding as uncomfortable as I felt. “I’m not like you. I’m not experienced. I don’t take sex lightly.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“Well, for example, all of the women coming and going from your sex room is nothing I’ve ever been exposed to before. As a matter of fact, the idea of a separate room for sleep and sex isn’t something I’ve ever even heard of. I’m not completely ignorant about that stuff, but I guess you could say I’m somewhat innocent.”
She’d said somewhat innocent. I found this encouraging, because it meant that she wasn’t completely innocent.
And those weren’t the only words she’d spoken that had gotten through.
“I’ll try to keep that stuff away from you,” I said solemnly. I could work out other arrangements that didn’t involve Ro having to entertain a parade of different women in my kitchen every morning.
Because, all jokes aside, I hated to think that my dissolute bed habits might negatively affect her.
Corrupting Ro was not on my agenda. Ever.
I intended to keep repeating that to myself until my dick got the message.
I wasted another half hour looking at office supplies before we headed home.
I grinned when I saw cars parked in my driveway upon our return. I didn’t recognize all of them, but I spotted Dair’s Tesla right off the bat.
He got out of his car and waved at us as I parked my Harley and helped Ro get off.
She looked as terrified from the return trip as she had on the one going. Motorcycles weren’t for everyone.
I gently took off her helmet and patted her on her cute little head. “Chin up, Ro. We lived.”
She glared at me, but the glare turned to a smile when Dair greeted her.
“How are you settling in?” he asked her.
“It’s an adjustment, but it’s going well, all things considered.” At the all things considered, she sent me a less than friendly look.
Dair grinned. “Have time to sit down and talk some shop?” he asked me. “I’d like to shoot some ideas off you.”
“Always,” I replied. Dair was another author and had been one of my heroes since I was a teenager. He was a decade older than me, and he was one of the reasons I’d started writing in the first place. I considered his friendship to be a privilege. Growing up, I’d never dreamed I’d one day become his colleague. We usually had a coffee and book talk session at least twice a week.