Page 36 of Written By a Woman

“Yeah,” I gently tugged at the collar of his t-shirt as if I needed to show him what I meant, “Your clothes smell amazing. I promise I’m not trying to be a creep, but I can’t even focus on my reports for Jacqueline because I’m desperately trying to google what I’m smelling so I can buy it.”

“You want to buy my cologne,” Zaid’s head tilted slightly as he rested his forearms on the higher ledge, encroaching on my space in a way that made my gaze immediately land on his mouth.

Oh god. I was staring at his lips. Making it very obvious what I thought about our proximity. I quickly averted my gaze and made direct eye contact as I desperately tried to continue the conversation so that he wouldn’t pick up on my inappropriate brain, “Yeah. What am I smelling? Where do I get it? I want to wash my bedsheets in this stuff and snuggle in.”

Whoops, too far, Signe. Based on how Zaid’s lips parted after that particular comment, I realized there was no real innocent way to interpret that statement. Hopefully, he didn’t think I was putting the moves on him. As much as I would love to do that, he was still upper management.

…But I was still telling the CTO that I wanted to sleep in his scent.

There was nothing appropriate about that.

Thankfully, Zaid being the sweet and chill guy that he was, let that comment pass, “I can send you the link. My sister gifted it to me a few years ago, and I have been ordering it for myself ever since.” He lifted a shoulder as he stood to his full height, his eyes doing another glance over my casual work attire before he pulled out his buzzing phone from his pocket.

His lips turned down in a way that made me want to bite his bottom lip and tug, and I fought the urge to slap myself across the face to pull myself together.

“This is Zaid,” he nodded his head at me with a quick smile before walking down the hallway, taking an important phone call, and abruptly ending our conversation that my libido was desperate to turn into more.

I sighed in both relief and disappointment from our ended conversation, before pinching my thigh and giving my woman parts a stern mental talking to. Jacqueline’s reports needed to get done, and swooning over any word or movement from Zaid Ansara should not be my priority.

ChapterSeven

ZAID

I was a man becoming obsessed.

I prefer to be tossed around a little.

What else did Signe prefer?

How could I find as much detail about her sexual preferences as possible?

Late at night, I sat in my bed with my newly created social media account and mindlessly searched for Signe Lange’s. My username was a random smattering of numbers and letters, and my profile picture was a picture of the ocean. It wasn’t the most creative account to hide my identity, but I felt safer snooping through my employee’s content with a fake account in case I accidentally liked anything.

Later that night, after taking myself in hand in the shower simply from the memory of Signe wearing my gym clothes, I still felt desperate for more of her. I figured seeing what she regularly posted and talked about seemed like a good way to get to know the beautiful redhead more.

I was scrolling through her pictures, which were a lot of aesthetic shots of writing and her laptop and coffee, in what looked like her bed, when a notification popped up at the top of the screen.

Signe was starting a live feed again.

Obviously, I immediately joined.

“…any questions you have. Nothing is into touch.” I chuckled to myself at herTed Lassoreference, while Signe winked her hazel eyes at the camera, and my heart stuttered in my chest because she was still wearing my clothes. It was almost nine o’clock at night, and Signe was sitting in her bed wearingmyclothes. I guess she really meant what she said about wanting to sleep in my cologne. I made a mental note to send her the link tomorrow. I wanted to wait an appropriate amount of time to do so because part of me was afraid that I would look too desperate for her to smell like me if I sent the link right away.

Waiting a day or so to send her the link to my cologne felt more casual. Less desperate.

“Good news! I’m going to get the first round of edits back from my gorgeous, wonderful, genius of an editor soon,” Signe grinned, her smile lighting up as she reached over and scrolled on her laptop, “Obviously, I can’t say much about the content of the full manuscript yet, but you can bet your beautiful, luscious booties that I’ll let you all know as soon as I have details to share.”

I laughed to myself again. The number of adjectives Signe used to describe people was over the top, but also, I expected nothing less from her.

“…No, I’m single.” Signe didn’t shrug self-deprecatingly, or even wince or give any physical indication that her relationship status made her uncomfortable. Or something to be embarrassed about. Signe was confident, even declaring her relationship status online to strangers who asked.

“Oh, uh,” Signe glanced down at herself, the questions were flooding the bottom of the screen at this point. Hearts took over the side of the display as her followers rapidly tapped the icon, “No, sometimes I like to wear men’s clothes. These are just my jammies.”

I scoffed to myself, loving the anonymity this fake account could give me so I could catch her in her silly lies. Those weremyclothes that she still wore, not hers. Was she truly planning on sleeping in them tonight?

I ignored the twitch in my own plaid pajama bottoms at the thought.

“Nope.” Signe shook her head as she answered another random question, “My characters are figments of my imagination.”

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