The Sexual Harassment Philosophy
CAI led Ember through the casino, blathering on about public spaces, audience capacities, and proposed shows as if someone who was outside the industry would give a rat’s patoot about that sort of thing. He was trying not to name-drop and failing spectacularly.
The fact that she kept asking him questions made it worse.
Whenever she asked something simple that he normally would dodge for privacy concerns from anyone else, he sighed and made big goo-goo eyes as he told her, “Yes, Jim Mythic is playing at the DD arena on June twelfth, and he’s a great guy. I’ve worked with him on two other shows. Great guy. I can get you front row tickets or backstage passes if you want. There’s an after-party, too, that I can get you into. Then you could meet Jim Mythic. Would you like to meet Jim Mythic? He’s a great guy.”
Not that Cai wanted Ember to meet Jim Mythic or any other great guys.
Cai wanted to hide this luscious little witch away somewhere so that no other great guys could meet her or talk to her or even see her.
Maybe his ducal estate in New Wales, the dragon settlement just north of Los Angeles. It had a high, spiked fence.
No, the other dragons might see her and want her for their own.
Because truly, Ember was shiny as gold and as glittery as rubies.
He tried to play it cool as he showed her the silent and dark casino, the clean and quiet commercial kitchens, and the unoccupied ballroom, where empty vases stood in the centers of bare tables.
“It’s nice,” she said, smiling like she was a little confused. “Isn’t the job to take care of some sea serpents?”
“Oh, yes,” Cai said. “The position mostly involves feeding them some fish that have been filled with vitamin potions and perhaps—” he thought quickly, “—assisting me in some of the entertainment areas.
“And we’re looking at the ballroom and keno rooms and casino because—?”
“Because all new hires get a tour of the establishment,” Cai said, “and lunch.”
She grinned at him, and it was the cutest little grin that Cai had seen in ages. Dragon ages. She shifted the strap of her enormous purse higher on her shoulder and asked, “Lunch, too?”
He nodded. “Lunch, too.”
Deep-fried Dragon Lords with biscuits and gravy, he sounded stupid.
She seemed to be struggling with that enormous, soft bag that seemed to be a purse because it kept slipping off her shoulder.
He stuck out a hand. “Would you like me to carry that?”
“Oh, no. They’re some witchcraft supplies, and they can be very particular about who carries them.”
“All right.” He tried again as he raised his arm to gesture at the entire, cavernous space, “The ballroom will seat up to five hundred guests, depending on the layout, so it’s suitable for weddings, bar mitzvahs, charity events, or other celebrations.”
Cai needed to shut up. Blathering on about the capacity of ballrooms wasn’t flirting.
Yet, he continued, “We can accommodate almost any desired color scheme.”
“Really?” Ember ran her finger down his arm. “Any color scheme?”
Cai nearly jumped out of his skin at the electricity of her touch, and he wanted to spin and shove her up against a wall to kiss her. Instead, he said, “Just about anything. We have a lot of napkins and tablecloths, plus extras for layering.”
“Napkins, you say? That sounds fascinating.”
When he glanced down at her, the snap of humor in her dark eyes confirmed that she was teasing him for saying so many stupid things.
Yeah, well, she was making him feel stupid. Ever since he’d seen her in the HR office, his entire brain had felt like he’d shorted out an important circuit. Common sense, maybe. Or self-control.
“It’s important to have options,” he said.
“Yes, it is.” She ran one fingernail, painted a fetching shade of maroon, down his suit jacket. “It’s so important to consider all your options.”
He turned toward her. “Yes, it is.”
“I like to consider all the different ways that I could do something before I do it.”
His knees nearly buckled again as all the different permutations of their two bodies crashed into his mind. “Do you?”
“Oh, yes.”
She ran one finger down the lapel of his suit jacket, almost to his waist, and he did not draw a breath until her fingertip stopped scratching the fabric of his suit and shivering against his skin underneath.
Then, he sucked oxygen because he’d nearly passed out.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Cai needed to sit down. He was going to faint. Fainting was rarely considered good flirting.
He walked a few feet around the table they were standing near, pulled a chair away from the table, and flopped into it.
She cocked her head, her dark hair falling around her shoulders, and he wanted to run his hands through that gorgeous fall of her hair.
Also, he needed to stop thinking about the word cock because his was twitching in his pants.
Cai leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He pushed his foot under the tablecloth, making his polished loafer disappear under the white linen and creating an efficient barricade across narrow space between the tables.
He gestured toward a bunch of shelves that held many napkins of different colors. “There are samples of the various linen colors in that shelving unit over against the wall. You could walk over there and take a look at them, if you’re really interested.”
To get past him, she’d have to step over his legs, straddling his hips, which was the entire point of him sprawling out in the aisle like that.
If Cai were trying to get fired for sexual harassment, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. The shortest path to the shelving unit led the other way around the table, away from him. He was blocking an aisle that led the long way, which would add a good ten feet of walking distance if she tried to go that way.
Ember glanced at Cai out of the corners of her eyes, a sultry glance that made his blood race through his body, and she looked over to where the shelves held the napkins.
Cai said, “We won’t be using the ballroom for a month, not until the gala opening. But if you want to see them, they’re right over there.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I’m comfortable here.” He stretched his legs a little farther to emphasize his point.
Ember said, “I think I’ll take a look at the napkins, just to see what colors they have.” She slung her purse on the table where it thumped, and she began walking directly toward Cai.
Oh, so the little witch wanted to play, did she?
Cai watched her approach, his head dropping back as she stood over him.
He hadn’t expected this. He’d completely expected her to take the short route over to the napkins or else to declare that she didn’t really care.
And now, somehow, Cai and this gorgeous, leggy woman were playing a game of sexual harassment chicken.
Ember stared straight into Cai’s eyes like she was daring him to leave his legs where they were.
Cai could take a dare.
Cai always took the dare.
He retracted his left leg, digging his heel into the carpeting and making an even higher barrier for her to climb over, if she dared. He wove his fingers behind his head, elbows out. “The napkins are right over there.”
Ember didn’t look away from his eyes. “Yeah, I’d like to see them.”
That fantastic, cocky woman bent her knee and lifted her leg, swinging her thigh over his legs like she was mounting a horse.
Cai had a hard time keeping his eyes directly on her gorgeous, dark, fathomless eyes because he knew that her skirt must be riding up her legs. He would dearly love to see more of those long, curvy legs that seemed to go on forever.
But he watched her eyes, and she didn’t look away either.
Cai unlaced his fingers from behind his head and grabbed arms of the dining room chair he was sitting in to hold on for dear life.
Her thighs slid over his hips, rustling the fabric over his naughty bits and sending all kinds of delicious impulses from the many nerve endings in his dick and balls to the rest of his body.
Ember leaned toward him as she shifted her weight, her lips hovering perhaps an inch from his, and a puff of mint and fresh air caressed his lips.
Cai clenched his fingers around the wooden chair arms, resisting the imperative to run his fingers up her bare thighs and under her skirt.
He wondered if, perhaps, she might not be wearing panties.
A crack zipped through the air, and the chair arms splintered in Cai’s fingers.
Just like that, Ember lifted her other foot over his legs, and his ordeal was over.
His wonderful, wonderful ordeal.
If Ember wanted to play, Cai could find all sorts of opportunities for her to play with him. He was an expert at this kind of game.
She walked over to the case—swinging her luscious hips as she walked, the hem of her skirt fluttering above her knees—and perused the many colors of napkins, all the color options for weddings or handfastings or bar mitzvahs, while Cai brushed wooden shards of splintered wood from his fingertips and pant legs. Oops.
He swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say. “Are there enough napkins for you?”
Oh, wow. That was particularly stupid.
He said, “I mean, there are a lot of napkins—”
She refolded the blue napkin she was playing with and tucked it back on a shelf. “Why, yes. There are enough napkins for me.”
And then she strolled back toward him.
Good Lord, was she going to give him another abbreviated lap dance?
Because if she was, he was going to sit there and let her.
She approached.
He tried not to leer at her. He may have failed, but he tried to keep his grin as non-creepy as possible.
When she stood next to him, she squinted at the arm of the chair where he’d crushed it a little. “Was it like that before?”
He shrugged. “That sort of thing happens sometimes.”
Ember twiddled her fingers over the damaged chair arm.
Wooden splinters rose from the floor and the seat of the chair. One even tugged itself free from Cai’s pant leg.
They coalesced around the arms of the chair, and with a healthy zap, the chair was as good as new. The varnish shined in the overhead chandelier light.
He grinned, surprised. “Hey, thanks! I promise I’ll go easier on the furniture in the future.”
She smiled at him and said, “Oh, I think you can be as rough as you want.”
Had he heard that right?
Cai slowly looked up at her and raised one eyebrow.
The beautiful, little witch was gazing down at him where he sat with a perfectly innocent smile. He might have believed her comment meant nothing, except for the mischievous sparkle in her dark eyes.
Cai said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She just kept smiling at him, her dark eyes never wavering from his.
This sort of flirting was entirely inappropriate for the workplace. If Math or Arawn had been there instead of Cai, either one of them would have found someone else to work with Ember or reprimanded her for behaving in such an unprofessional manner.
That thought didn’t even occur to Cai.
Cai was an event promoter in the entertainment business, and as such, he dealt with musicians and the hangers-on around them every day. Musicians, themselves, were often carrying a load of emotional baggage that explained their unquenchable need for arenas full of people to love them every night. Most of them needed affirmation for everything about themselves—the attractiveness of their faces, bodies, eyes, and souls—and they flirted with Cai or anyone else who would pay attention to them to fill that desperate need.
Ember’s flirting felt different, however.
It seemed playful, yet earnest, and less like it was from a place of damage.
He liked everything about it.
And her.
Yeah, he liked everything about her.
Ember caught her lower lip in her white teeth, and Cai managed to stop himself from groaning just in time.
She said, “Should we go look at those big, slithery sea serpents?”
He was not allowed to say something horny back to her, he reminded himself. While they were in public, she was the player, and he was the plaything.
When the bedroom door closed, that would all change, of course.
Cai said, “They’re in the fountain out front. Right this way?”