It's Complicated (The Agency Book 2) Read online

  “Oh god, don’t stop. Ever.” My pulse starts to race again as I tighten around him. I manage to kick off my shoes in time for him to reach for my left foot, hoisting it around his waist.

  “Oh . . . fuck . . . Vi,” he whispers through laboured, panting breaths, the tightness in his crotch straining against my inner thigh. I loosen his belt and push his trousers and underwear down. His cock springs forward like a jack-in-the-box, ready and willing, and I immediately take his full length in my hands. I circle the sensitive tip lightly with my fingernails – the way he likes it – and he groans into my chest.

  “Where’s my wallet?” He breaks away, his eyes scanning the office.

  I can’t think what he means at first, my brain is too frazzled, but then I realise he’s thinking of protection. “We don’t need that anymore. I’m on the pill.”

  “Since when?” he says, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of our first bareback shag.

  “Since I told you last week, but you’ve clearly forgotten. I finally made an appointment at the clinic.”

  “You’re sure? I mean . . . you’re sure you want sticky sex?”

  I laugh. “Well, that was the idea.”

  The corners of his mouth curl as his body presses against me, his cock resting hard against my hip. “Are you totally sure?”

  “Yes.” I place one leg on the chair and wrap the other around his body. “So just fuck me now. And fuck me hard.”

  I feel his tip pressing into me slowly – too carefully – and I wonder if he missed the gigantic “fuck me hard” signal I just gave him. He catches his breath as I grab his behind and push him inside me, raising my legs as high as I can so he can plunge deep. I want to feel every single inch of him, hoping the sex endorphins will erase all the shitty, crappy feelings that have been hanging around my brain all day.

  He builds a fast rhythm that forces a guttural growl from my throat with each plunge. I wrap my arms around his neck and stare straight into his eyes as he thrusts so deep that he hits my cervix.

  “Please don’t stop.”

  “Nothing could make me stop,” he says, tilting me on my back. “I want to fuck you like this every day for the rest of my life.” He pushes hard into me again and I’m alarmed by how loud I’m grunting. I sound like I’m playing Centre Court at Wimbledon. “Oh god, oh . . . fuck . . .” He picks up the pace, slamming into me so vigorously that my head cracks against the desk and I wince in pain. “Shit, sorry,” he says, moving his hand to gently cradle the back of my head.

  Every movement is a tantalising mixture of pleasure and pain – pleasure from the monumental shag and pain from the hard-as-a-rock desk I’m lying on. He gives one last push before his body stills and a second later he empties into me.

  “God, that was good.”

  “Only good?” I say with as much seductiveness as I can muster whilst lying uncomfortably on a wooden desk, with sticky man-juice oozing down my leg and a six-foot-tall bag of muscle collapsed on top of me. “I must be losing my touch. I’m usually better than good.”

  “Sorry, I meant awesome . . . That’s the most awesome shag I’ve ever had.”

  I snuggle against him, basking in how much I love the feel of his hard body, but the moment is interrupted when his phone pings.

  “Sounds like someone wants you.”

  “Hmm?” he says, his face hot against my cheek. “Oh, my phone. It’ll be nothing.” He rises to his feet and helps me sit – too quickly; I shriek in agony as my back jars and a sharp pain shoots from the base of my spine down to my left shin. It feels like I’ve been pummelled by an instrument of medieval torture. Or, to be less dramatic and more truthful, it feels like I’ve been fucked on a desk.

  “Jesus Christ all-fucking-mighty, shit, shit, shit!”

  My stomach lurches. “What is it?”

  “Stella.”

  A look of abject terror sweeps over his face, and my first thought is that we’ve been captured on CCTV. I wouldn’t put it past Stella to have a live feed of the office beamed directly to her swanky Chelsea townhouse. My eyes scan the ceiling for a camera. Nothing. Phew. Maybe the office is bugged? No, Violet, that’s TV, not real life. I make a mental note to stop watching Homeland on Netflix.

  “What time is it?” he asks in a panic.

  I glance at my watch. “Just after five.”

  He finds his pants and trousers and puts them on in silence.

  “Ethan, you’re scaring me. What’s happened?”

  “I’ve screwed up. And yes, it’s major – it would have to be, wouldn’t it? The shitty universe would never allow a guy to follow an amazing shag with anything other than a catastrophe.”

  “JET Financial?”

  He nods as he returns to his desk, picking up his papers, pens, keyboard and hard drive off the floor before sitting down. “There was a five p.m. deadline on some costings. Shit and hell. Stella will kill me.”

  “Just give JET a call. Tell them you’ll have their figures done in twenty minutes. I’ll help you.”

  “I can’t. Their deadlines are set in stone. That’s one of their main rules through the tendering process.”

  “Ethan, nothing’s impossible. Just calm down and take a deep breath—”

  “Violet, just don’t! Let me think!”

  My pulse quickens. I’ve never seen him get so stressed out so quickly. He picks up the phone and places a call through to Jared Taft’s secretary.

  The conversation lasts ten minutes. He pleads and charms and pleads again, until eventually the voice on the speakerphone – belonging to a lady called Noreen – acquiesces. Relief spreads across his face as he finishes the call. Well done, Noreen, the first person ever to believe one of Ethan Fraser’s traffic-based excuses.

  “Do you need any help?” Ethan’s a genius ad man and fabulous pitcher, but he’s shit at financials. As he can only add up using his fingers, working on a spreadsheet is the equivalent of cracking the Enigma code for him.

  His gaze is trained on his computer screen. “I’m sorry for snapping earlier. I feel like I’m out of my depth and sinking fast. I think I’d prefer to just crack on with this by myself.”

  “That’s fine.” But I’m not sure it is. It’s yet another reminder that we’re working apart now. I wish we’d got together sooner. We wouldn’t be facing any of these issues if we’d been an item for a year or two.

  I pack up the rest of the office, and when he’s done with his costings, he helps me pack up the rest of his desk.

  We say goodnight on the street in front of Covent Garden Tube. He says he’s going to chill over the weekend, but he’ll call me sometime. He seems distant, but I leave it. I put it down to the massive panic attack he almost had over missing his deadline. I give him a peck on the cheek and head into the station.

  An unsettling feeling accompanies me on my journey home. Change and loss. For more than three years we’ve been best friends and partners. But today was my last day of working side by side with him as his equal. Tomorrow we officially become boss and employee, and I know I’m going to have to dig deep and find a way to cope with all of the changes.

  6

  I DIDN’T SEE ETHAN YESTERDAY. He texted me in the morning to tell me he was spending all day prepping for the JET Financial bid with Daniel. On the one hand, it’s great that Daniel and Ethan are working well together, but on the other hand I’m jealous. Horribly jealous. Like a child whose best friend suddenly decides to play hopscotch with some other kid and steals all the chalk.

  Mid-morning, my doorbell rings. I open it and find Ethan wearing a red-and-green striped elf hat combined with pointy rubber ears.

  “Oh my god, why?” I say wearily, resting my head against the door frame.

  “Why what?” His eyes glint with mischief as he brings a carrier bag from behind his back. “I’ve been shopping!”

  “I can see that. Where did you go? Knobs R Us?”

  “Nope, I already have a fairly decent knob and I’m quite attached to it.” He ru
mmages in the bag and pulls out a Christmas cracker.

  “Ethan, it’s November.”

  “Pull it.” He holds one end of the cracker with both of his hands and offers me the other.

  I roll my eyes. “I thought you hated Christmas,” I say, remembering last year, when he bet me that he was more like Ebenezer Scrooge than I was. He lost when I discovered he’d made a Christmas tree out of empty beer bottles and wrapped a string of fairy lights around it. He jiggles the cracker in front of me until I give up and pull the damn thing.

  “Oh my god, how did you . . . ?” I start to laugh as out from the cracker tumble a packet of salt and vinegar Hula Hoops, a packet of dried cranberries and a bar of Fry’s Turkish Delight – all of my favourite treats.

  “Are you impressed?”

  “Very,” I say as I pull open the bag of crisps. He grabs a handful before I can get one. “Hey, go easy. I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “You do surprise me.” He tosses a crisp into his mouth and crunches it. My stomach growls. “Get yourself dressed as quick as you can. We’re going out.”

  “Where?” I ask, my mouth full of salty, deep-fried potato snacks.

  “Don’t know yet,” he says. “Wherever the mood takes us. I’ve been stressed to hell these last few days and work starts for real tomorrow, so today we’re going to enjoy ourselves.” I stuff some more crisps into my mouth. “Do you think you can get dressed and eat at the same time?”

  Typical. I get all excited only to find out he has no plan. “Okay, I’ll go out – somewhere – with you, on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The hat stays behind.”

  He forces the corners of his mouth downwards, pretending to be upset. Then he takes off the hat to reveal that the rubber ears are attached to a headband underneath. “If I ditch the ears can I keep the hat?”

  I’m tempted to make him keep the ears on instead. “Okay, deal.”

  * * *

  Ethan suggests a stroll along the Thames, so we take the Jubilee line south to Westminster. It’s a short ride and, as usual, the train is crammed with passengers, so we both have to stand and grab onto poles. Although the day started with laughter, I’m suddenly sensing awkwardness from him. It’s written in the creases of his eyes and the way he’s holding his body as if he’s trying too hard to look relaxed. He isn’t the only one. I’d rather climb through the carriage roof and jump out into the blackness than discuss how I’m feeling right now. I’m sick of myself and my baseless insecurities, so god only knows what he’s thinking about me.

  The Tube pulls in at Westminster and without saying a word to each other, we disembark to the familiar sound of “mind the gap”. The heels of my winter boots clip-clop over the concrete floor as I head for the exit. He follows behind me, his Vans trainers producing a softer shuffle. I try to think of something positive to say to him, but the only thoughts my brain is capable of producing are a series of nightmarish “what ifs”: what if he decides our forbidden romance is not worth it? What if he wants to go back to being friends? What if he’s decided to tell Stella he’s chosen me over Tribe?

  Oh, shut up and fuck off, stupid brain.

  “Wait,” he says suddenly as we’re just about to exit the platform. “We need to do something more fun than a boring walk.”

  “Boring?” I say with a laugh. “I was picturing a very romantic stroll along the Thames.”

  His brow knots even tighter. “We can do that later. I want to do something fun first.”

  A cold blast of air carries my hair over my shoulder as a train thunders through the station. I push a few strands out of my face and tuck my hands in my coat pockets until the rattling noise dies down. “This is me you’re talking to,” I say, smiling. “I have a different idea of fun to you. Unless you’re thinking of getting shitfaced?”

  “No, I’m thinking of heading to South Kensington.”

  I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “You want to go to a museum? Are you feeling alright?” I could only imagine Ethan visiting a museum if they were offering free drinks on the way in and a free test drive of a Maserati on the way out.

  “Yeah, why not?” he says with an enthusiastic grin. “Show me things and teach me stuff. Fun stuff.”

  “Uhm, okay. I’m not sure this is going to end well, but if museum-fun is what you want, I’ll introduce you to my favourite visual arts exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert.”

  A deadness crawls into his eyes. “Sounds great,” he says with the smile of a man who’ll endure being bored out of his mind in order to impress his girlfriend.

  * * *

  Over the years I’ve examined every detail of every gorgeous costume displayed in the V&A’s dress collection, but this morning, as I give Ethan the guided tour, I feel like I’m seeing it for the first time. And seeing it through his eyes is teaching me I’ve missed so much hidden detail. I’d never noticed that my favourite dress, the impossible-to-wear 1740s red silk court dress with the six-foot-wide pannier hoop skirt, is embroidered with birds as well as flowers.

  We have lunch in the café, then we spend a few hours touring the History of British Design exhibition, before venturing to the Asian and Middle Eastern antiquities section. Ethan studied art at college for a time, so he should know more than me about what we’re seeing, but he tells me he was only ever interested in Warhol and album covers. I laugh because that’s so him.

  The low winter sun beats down through the glass roof as we walk through the sculpture gallery. We climb the stairs to the top floor. Through a tall window, I can see the streets outside are busy with tourists, a group of children on a trip and post-Sunday-lunch parents with their kids. Ethan joins me at the window, and his face lights up as if Christmas has come early. “Oh my god, what’s that?”

  I look out over the busy road to the familiar Victorian building built from pink and gold bricks. “The Natural History Museum?”

  “And in front of it?”

  “The ice rink?” I reply with a giggle as I watch his excitement build. “They set that out every winter.”

  “I think we just found our fun!” He makes a beeline for the exit. I figure it could be worse. He appears to have forgotten there are dinosaur bones in there, and I know he was obsessed with dinosaurs when he was a kid. He still has some of his old toys in a shoebox. I love anything ancient and historical, but I draw the line at dusty old bones.

  * * *

  The Natural History Museum’s ice rink is situated at the east entrance, surrounded by a glass fence, with a Christmas tree in the centre. Golden fairy lights brighten up the trees all around us as the sun starts to dip behind the buildings. Ethan heads off to get us some skates and my instinct is to head for the hills. I’ve never skated on ice.

  “Have you done this before?” I ask when he returns, unable to disguise the abject terror in my voice.

  “Yeah, all the time growing up. We loved a trip to the ice rink.” He plonks a pair of black boots at my feet and starts putting on his pair.

  “Why am I imagining you pirouetting in a skintight sequined jumpsuit?”

  He scrunches up his face. “Because you’re very, very weird?”

  I stare at the boots. “I’m a bit worried about this.”

  “You haven’t skated before, have you?” he asks with a grin.

  I shake my head. “What if I fall over?”

  “Then you’ll have a sore arse for a few minutes and feel a bit embarrassed, but you’ll live. Now come on, put the boots on.”

  I look at all the people having a great time skating and take a deep breath. I have to be more adventurous. A group of kids skate past holding hands, and before I know it, Ethan has joined them. He swings around in the ice in a circle as I finish lacing up my boots. “Come on, this is great!” he says as he skates around, building up speed like he’s bloody Jayne Torvill on acid.

  I take tiny steps to the edge of the rink, trying to find some enthusiasm for the inevitable sore bottom. Ethan races
back around to where I’m standing and comes to a very professional-looking stop with a little spin, a heel scrape and a spray of ice. “Come on, Vi. What are you waiting for?”

  What am I waiting for? The fairy lights are twinkling, the air is crisp, everyone seems full of pre-Christmas cheer, and the man I love has a huge smile on his face . . . but my brain desperately doesn’t want my arse to land on that ice.

  Ethan takes hold of both my hands and I tiptoe towards the rink. I expect to crash onto my bottom as soon as my feet touch the ice, but I don’t. He holds me steady, one arm secure around my waist as he leads me out.

  “Ethan, shit . . . not so fast!” I look to my feet and the ice starts to blur.

  “Don’t worry, I got you.” He grips my hand and holds my waist tighter, guiding me in front of him and pulling me around a bend.

  The fear in my belly starts to ease as I see two people fall over each other and land in a heap. And yet, I’m still standing! Yay, me! “Whoa! I guess I’m skating!”

  “Well, technically you’re sliding as I’m pushing you around the ice. Now it’s time to move your feet.”

  I look down again and wobble. “I am moving my bloody feet. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be here. I’d still be over there.”

  He hugs me closer and laughs. “You’re moving because I’m moving you. What do you think would happen if I let go?”

  “I’d punch you in the face if you let go, so don’t even think about it.”

  “Okay, Violent,” he says with a laugh. “But try to move your feet. I’ve got you. You won’t fall, I promise.”

  I summon up every ounce of daring I have – which isn’t much – and try to skate. My brain starts giving me simple instructions to follow: left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg. We pick up speed, and then suddenly I feel like an Olympic figure-skating gold medal isn’t out of my reach.