Checkmate

Granted, she could have untied him and she'd pla

"Did the supplies I ordered from Henderson's come in yet?” she asked, wondering just how long the big baby pla

He shook his head.

"Uh huh," she said, sighing heavily as she reached out and toyed with the pencils in his old Dunkin Donuts coffee cup as she shot him a hopeful look, but the stubborn man simply continued to type as he ignored her.

"Would you forgive me if I offered you a raise?" she asked, wondering if groveling was going to be necessary to get him to stop pouting.

A shrug.

"An extra week of vacation?" she asked, not really sure that she'd be able to survive even that long without him ru

That offer earned her a killing glare, which of course was understandable since they both knew that she'd probably run the business into the ground in that short amount of time without him. Last year when he made the mistake of calling in sick two days in a row she somehow managed to screw up payroll, crash every computer in the office, order a thousand user manuals in Japanese for a copy machine that she didn't even own, and ran out of hot cocoa by mid-day on the second day, making her a tad difficult to work with.

"If you don't talk to me, I'll cry," she threatened even as she allowed her chin to quiver. It was low, but sometimes she just didn't have the patience for this kind of nonsense. Jacob was temperamental, but fortunately for her, he was also a big pushover.

She usually saved the crying act as a last resort, but today she just didn't have the patience to work her way up to it. They were already ru

Sadly it wasn't just his kisses, which were freakin' fantastic, that she couldn't get out of her head, but the man himself. Somehow he managed to get under her skin and not just in the a

She knew Co

Okay, so this deal wasn't all bad. She got her project, through Co

For now.

There was no doubt in her mind that it was only a matter of time until she found out what he was up to, took control and made him squirm. It was also just a matter of time before-

"What the hell is that?" she asked with a frown when something shi

Her confusion hit an all time high when she spotted a four foot tall, beautiful oak cabinet right next to it. She threw Jacob a questioning look, but he was still ignoring her. With an exasperated sigh and an eye roll that he definitely deserved, she turned her attention back to the cabinet. She walked over to it and opened it, not really expecting much so when she saw that all four shelves were overflowing with her favorite hot cocoa products, fluff, marshmallows, etc, she found herself stu

"Do you like it?" the seductive whisper teased her ear as large, warm arms wrapped around her from behind and pulled her back into an equally warm body.

"Like it?" she mumbled as she ran her greedy eyes over twenty-five different flavors of hot chocolate, each one sounding yummier than the last.

"Mmmhmm," Co

She knew that she should play it off like she did with the flowers, but she couldn't. It just felt so wrong to lie in the presence of the most heavenly sight on earth.

"I love it," she found herself admitting like an idiot. If there was one thing that she learned from Co

Yup, she was definitely going to pay for this little slip up.

Chapter 19

It shouldn't please him that she liked his gift so much, but it did. When Andrew called him a few hours ago to let him know that Bre

Normally, well, in the past year at least, he'd been leaving that job up to Andrew, but the manager was trying to bullshit her way out of paying. It was causing too damn much drama and stressing Andrew out, which was the last thing the man needed. By the time Co

Once Andrew made his escape, Cindy invited him into her office where she suggested that the two of them talk this little "misunderstanding" over at her house. He politely declined, but that didn't seem to make her happy so she became more blatant about it. When he declined her offer to make him breakfast in bed she flat offered him a little relief in the office. She was a beautiful woman and any other guy probably would have fallen at her feet and done anything and everything she asked, but he wasn't interested.

It didn't take her long to figure out that Rory was the reason why. Well, she was the main reason, but he would never accept a quick fuck to drop the price of a bill. He didn't play games and Cindy quickly learned that. After she gave up trying to get him off in exchange for a huge price drop she went back to being a bitch. She tried to argue her way out of their contracted price and when he wouldn't budge, she cried.