Page 20 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
He trails off, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
“What?” The word is barely audible. “What would you do?”
“I would answer your question,” he says roughly.
Which one guarantees I get laid?
The implication slams into me. My knees go weak. Ethan closes his eyes for a second, inhaling sharply through his nose. Then he steps back, putting distance between us. The mask slams back into place. The CEO returns.
“Leave the tablet,” he says, his voice cold again. “Good work on the analysis. We’ll implement the changes tomorrow.”
I blink, reeling from the whiplash.
“Go home, Tessa,” he commands, turning his back on me to look at the blinds again. “Before I make this worse.”
I stare at his broad back for a heartbeat. Then I turn and walk away.
I move fast, rushing past the empty desks and into the elevator. I mash the button for the lobby, my chest heaving so hard I can barely aim.
The doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the Mosaic logo. I lean back against the cool metal wall and slide down until I’m crouching on the floor. I press my hands to my burning cheeks.
This job is impossible. They are impossible.
And the worst part? I can’t wait to come back tomorrow.
5
OWEN
If lust had a sound, it would be the click of Tessa Hartley’s heels on the concrete floor of Mosaic’s office.
It’s a specific sound. Click-click-click.
Every time I hear it, my body betrays me. My head snaps up. My pulse spikes. And my productivity takes a nosedive.
“You’re doing it again,” Asher says without looking up from his laptop.
I spin my chair around. We’re in the ‘War Room’, a glass-walled conference room we’ve commandeered for the final sprint before the beta launch. The table is littered with empty coffee cups, protein bar wrappers, and schematics.
“Doing what?” I ask innocently, leaning back and lacing my fingers behind my head.
“Staring at the door like a golden retriever waiting for its owner to come home,” Asher deadpans. He types a line of code, hits enter with a decisive thwack, and finally looks at me. His blueeyes are bloodshot. We’ve all been averaging four hours of sleep this week. “It’s pathetic.”
“It’s not pathetic. It’s vigilant management,” I counter. “I’m monitoring team morale.”
“You’re monitoring her legs,” Ethan grunts from the head of the table.
He doesn’t look up either. He’s reviewing legal contracts, marking them up with a red pen that looks suspiciously like he’s stabbing the paper. Ethan has been in a mood all week. A dark, brooding, terrifying mood that has sent three junior developers crying into the break room.
And I know exactly why.
It’s been five days since Tessa started. Five days of being “strictly professional.” And god, she is making it hard.
She’s good. That’s the problem. If she were incompetent, it would be easy to ignore her. But she’s brilliant. She plugged the biggest holes in our launch strategy in forty-eight hours, charmed the design team into working overtime without complaining, and even got Asher speaking in full sentences during the Wednesday stand-up.
She fits in, like a missing puzzle piece we didn’t know we lost.
And she looks incredible doing it. Every day, she wears these “office appropriate” outfits—pencil skirts, tailored trousers, silk blouses—that somehow manage to be sexier than the red slip dress. Maybe because now, I know exactly what she’s capable of.
