I smile. “Okay, yeah. Been there. It’s ‘cause he seems so strait-laced and put together, and you can’t help but think about messing him up a little bit.”

“Yes,” Jourdan cries. “That’s exactly it. The moment I met him, all I wanted to do was see if shoving his dick down my throat would exacerbate that adorable little nervous stutter.”

“It does,” I tell her.

She purrs. “You’re different, though.”

“Yeah?” My eyes go to the clock on my desktop computer. Two minutes.

“You are also very put together, but I don’t want to mess you up?”

“No?”

“No. With you, I just want to please you.”

I moan.

“I want to make you smile. And shiver. And feel your pussy cream around my fingers.”

I run my hand over my overheated neck. “You’ve done that.”

“But I didn’t get to taste you.”

I whimper.

There’s a knock on my door.

“I’m… Fuck. I have to go.”

Jourdan laughs. “Okay. Bye.”

“Wait.”

I recognize Avery’s nervous knocking.

“Yes, ma’am,” she croons.

I can hear the smile in her voice. “I want to know what you’re wearing. Show me.”

I hang up on her, grab my tablet, and rush to the door. I fling it open, and Avery sighs in audible relief. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m ready; let’s go.”

On the way to the meeting, Avery catches me up as if they know that I should have been preparing, but I wasn’t. They’ve more than earned their quarterly raise.

When we get to the conference room, Avery ducks back out of the room to get me a cup of tea. I check my phone. Jourdan has sent me a picture of her in a yellow thong.

And nothing else.

We call her after we’re in bed.

Darren is in the Christmas pajamas the boys got him two years ago. I have on my bonnet and my expensive overnight mask.

Jourdan’s in her bathroom brushing her teeth.

She props her phone on the ledge above her bathroom sink and tells us about the worst customer of the day. We listen, me settling into Darren’s arms. She crawls into bed, and Darren tells her what he made for dinner.

I fall asleep to the sound of their voices.

Thomas scheduled a three-hour meeting.

I thought he was joking. I thought it was just a suggested block of time. I thought it would last an hour.

It did not.

My back hurts, my eyes are sore, hell, every one of my toes hurts from being shoved in these goddamn heels. It’s only a thirty-minute drive home, but with my state of exhaustion, that thirty minutes feels like three hours.

Darren calls me as soon as I get on the freeway.

“I’m on my way,” I tell him instead of hello.