She flicked her head to the side, grimaced, and cursed loudly. “FUCKING APESHIT HAIRY BALLS!” Then she looked back at me, her eyeballs taking a second to center on me. After that, she breezed by and said, “My angels said to be nice to you so stay out of my way, kid. Unless you have a fork and a tail, and if that’s the way you party, let’s go a few rounds.”

Everyone was right. She was nuts.

The first day she came in, she was another version of Bonnie, except with graying and white hair. She liked to wear old polo shirts, and mom jeans, with socks and sneakers. Her feet smelled. A lot. It wasn’t a coincidence that the day Bonbon came into the office, it became mandatory to keep the windows open and the fans at full blast. Air needed to be circulated out windows ASAP, and the air-conditioner tended to let the stink stay confined indoors.

Besides always muttering to herself, always shoving her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, she mostly stayed away from me. That wasn’t to say the same for anyone else. She mooned over Big. She brought cookies in for Burly. She watched Brock, sniffed her nose at Hawk, and there was usually an argument behind closed doors once a day with either Bonnie or Gramps. They rotated, apparently.

But Trundle and me, she stayed away from. I wasn’t even sure she knew I was there.

As for my concussion, I had stayed home for the first week. I was allowed back into the office the last few days of my second week, and I only did paperwork. And that meant, if I had to copy, scan, or print something, I was their girl. I ran errands, too. Coffee. Lunch. I ordered pizza if they asked me to. I answered the phones, too, because there was no way they were going to let Bonbon do that.

Someone called in once, and before anyone else could pick up, she answered it, “9-1-1 operations.” And then she hung up, saw us all watching her, and laughed. “They’ll call back, but I made them shit their pants first.”

I kinda loved her after that, but from a distance. A far, far distance.

Big seemed intrigued. Burly stopped accepting her cookies.

As for Cross and me, he was kissing his way up my body right now.

Shoving my legs open, he slid inside, and we were good. We were really good.

“Fuck,” he panted against my throat. “You feel so good.”

Pleasure was licking up my spine, and I ground against him. I scraped my nails down his back in response, and he shivered, as I knew he would. Winding my legs around his waist, I moved against him, almost damn purring. “Fuck me, Cross.”

I was panting right alongside him, the throb in my body deep and demanding.

He growled, rearing back.