Tracy hesitated, but then she did confess that she’d met a guy she liked. On Friday they were going out to a great Greek restaurant and then to hear some hot Seattle band. She had her fall schedule worked out around the TA and lab-assistant jobs she’d found. She loved Seattle. It was her kind of city.
Elise hung up feeling good about her friend. Yes, she missed her. A lot. But it was about time Tracy came in to her own.
And so far, working with Jed wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. She grabbed a sexy paperback and headed for the jetted tub.
* * *
Elise was waiting at the keyboard when Jed entered his office at 0830 the next morning. He felt a deep satisfaction just at the sight of her there, in knit pants that hugged her fine butt and curvy legs and a pale blue shirt that clung to her round breasts. They got right to work.
At a little before ten, the cat appeared. The thing was huge. It came and sat in the doorway to the office and watched him with unblinking eyes. Elise had her back to it and had no idea that the creature was there.
Well, fine. Let the cat stare. Jed went right ahead with the scene they were working on.
Eventually, the cat yawned, stretched and wandered off down the hall, its long, hairy tale twitching. Jed waited until they broke for lunch to tell Elise that the animal had gotten out.
She gasped. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“We were working,” he replied, though it should have been patently obvious to her.
“But I don’t get it. I’m sure I closed my door. How did he get out?”
“Why ask me? You think I left your door open?”
For that, he got a snippy little glare. She ran out calling, “Wigs! Come here, baby!”
The damn cat actually answered her. “Mrow? Mrow-mrow?”
He stepped over into the open doorway in time to watch it bound up the hallway to meet her. She scooped it up and buried her face in its hairy belly. “Bad, bad boy,” she said in a tone that communicated zero displeasure. Jed felt a stab of actual jealousy. He wished she’d bury her nose in his belly like that. “Come on now,” she cooed at the fur ball. “Back to our room...” She slung it over her shoulder and carried it off. The cat, its big hairy paws hanging down her back, watched him smugly through sharp golden eyes, until she turned the corner at the great room and they both disappeared from sight.
The annoying cat aside, that day went even better than the first, Jed thought. He got twelve usable pages by the time they packed it in at 1815 hours. There was just something about Elise Bravo, something soothing and stimulating simultaneously.
The woman was smart. She strictly observed his initial instructions and never spoke while he was writing. With her, as with Anna, he could concentrate fully on the next sentence, on the way the story was coming together.
Plus, every time she got up to stretch, he got to watch. He could write poems to her backside. And those breasts. He would love to get his hands on them. There was something about her, the softness of her, that he wanted to sink into, the way she bit the inside left corner of her mouth when he picked up the pace and the words were flying, her fingers dancing so fast over the keys.
He liked to move in close and suck in that clean-sheet scent of hers. And he got a kick out of the way she talked to him, sharp and snippy, but somehow with patience, too.
Elise did it for him in a big way. She wasn’t beautiful. She was so much better than beautiful. She was...the exact definition of what a quality woman should be.
No, nothing was going to happen between them. They both understood that.
But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the view, whether she was sitting, stretching or walking away. And he saw no reason he shouldn’t take pleasure in imagining the lusty things he was never going to do to her.
The next day, the final day of her trial period, he introduced the knives.
Jed found his knives both soothing and stimulating. In that sense, they reminded him of Elise. For him, there were few experiences as calming as a well-thrown knife. He often threw them while he worked. The knives were an integral part of his process. They increased his focus. He liked to send them sailing. And he liked the sound they made when they hit the padded wall that Bravo Construction had installed precisely to his specifications.
He’d put off introducing the knives to Elise. He dreaded the possibility that she might freak—or worse, walk out and not come back. And there he would be again, with no assistant, his deadline looming.
Not being all that nice of a guy, he’d often used the knives to get rid of typists who weren’t working out. No, not by stabbing them, but by simply hurling a sleek kunai or a combat bowie knife without warning. More than one unsatisfactory keyboarder had screamed good and loud when surprised in that way.
But he wanted to keep Elise, so he prepped her.
When she entered the office for work that day, he was waiting for her, an assortment of knives laid out on the credenza next to the door.
She said, “Deirdre is here. She says good morning.”
He grunted. Deirdre Keller was a perfectly acceptable cook and housekeeper. Beyond that, he had nothing to say to her. He certainly didn’t require her to tell him “good morning.”
And Elise had spotted the knives. She caught on immediately. “Okay, I get it now. The padded wall, right?”
Feeling strangely sheepish, he confessed, “I like to throw while I’m working. It clears my mind.”
She glanced at the array of knives, then at the wall in question. “What about all the targets? Do you throw darts, too?”
“Just knives.” She seemed puzzled. So he elaborated, “I throw the knives at the targets sometimes. And sometimes I just send them flying at the wall. It depends.”
“On...?”
He hadn’t expected all these questions. But he was willing to indulge her if answering her would keep her happy. “I honestly don’t know what it depends on, why sometimes I want to hit a target and sometimes I just want to throw—the scene I’m writing, I guess. Or the mood I’m in.”
“Have you ever missed the wall and hit your assistant?”
“Not once.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Though now and then, I’ve been tempted.”
A burst of laughter escaped her. He found the happy sound way too charming.
“Oh, you’re just so scary, Jed.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied darkly. “And you should remember that.” She had that look, as though she was purposely not rolling her eyes. He added, “And as you can see, your desk is over there.” He gestured in that direction. “And the wall is there.” He indicated the wall. “You won’t be in the path of a throw unless you get up and put yourself between me and the wall.”
“What about if you get tempted?”
“I won’t.” Not to throw a knife at you, anyway.
“Hmm,” she said, as though still suspecting she might end up a target one of these days. And then she asked, “Is this it, then?”
“Define it.”
“Will there be more potentially life-threatening activities you’re going to want to do while I’m in this room with you?”
He admitted, “Sometimes I clean my firearms. Handguns. Machine guns. Assault rifles. That kind of