Page 15 of Dirty News
I found not only his attention on me, but everyone else in the class as well. I could feel Duke’s blue eyes on me—like I could feel his touch just through his gaze. My body heated automatically, and I had to ignore the way my pulse spedup.
“Okay, at WOLF we have different teams we’ll be working with. We don’t all work together. For instance, I’m on the nightly news team. What would be wrong with me seeing someone from, another team or department at WOLF that I would never work directly with, or even interact with? Say, for instance, someone inaccounting?”
The professor seemed to be mulling that over before answering me. “In my opinion, I don’t think that would be a problem. But Mr. Wolfe has said he wants no relationships between any of his employees. I suppose if you find yourself attracted to someone in another department, you’d have to get your boss’s permission before you even made anyadvances.”
“Which I would deny.” Mr. Wolfe stood up to let us all know. “You see, I’ve told a couple of people about my reason for wanting to have such strict rules about this. Maybe you should all know. Maybe then you’ll understand what I’m trying to dohere.”
Duke’s eyes were still on me. They twinkled as he looked at me. Then he mouthed,“Nicetry.”
I didn’t know what to mouth back. My stomach went all fluttery inside, heat pooling between my legs, and my heart pounded so hard I was afraid everyone could hearit.
The man was on the other side of the large room, and had only mouthed a couple silly words to me, and here I was all but falling apart over him. Thank God I wouldn’t have to work withhim.
What a distraction he’dbe.
Chapter Eight
Duke
The lecture on bullying the next day was broken up into a morning and afternoon session, giving us an hour and a half break for lunch in between. I’d found myself thinking a lot about why Lila had asked her question during the class on sexualharassment.
Had she been thinking aboutme?
I had no real reason to think that—she and I were competing for the same job, after all—but I couldn’t shake the thought from my mind. The girl was savvy—I had to give her that. But Artimus wasn’t about to give in on any of his rules. In time, I had a feeling he’d have to adjust to how reality worked—it’d be impossible to maintain that much control over people’s personal lives and desires. But in the beginning, he’d try hard to keep his rules inplace.
When I walked into the lecture hall that morning, I noticed Lila was already there. The seat next to hers was empty, too. Heading her way without her knowing, I surprised her when I sat in the chair next to her. “Morning,Lila.”
She’d been talking to Nina, who sat on the other side of her. Her head swung around, and her pretty sky-blue eyes went wide. “Duke!”
“Yep, that’s me.” Placing my pad of paper and pen on the table in front of me, I leaned back in my chair. “How’d you enjoy the eight hours of boring shityesterday?”
She smiled a devastating smile that made my heart lurch just as much as my cock. Clad in only jeans and a T-shirt, I really had to watch my excitement level with her today. After the harassment class, I knew letting a hard-on show up was a definite no-no.
“Oh, I loved it,” she joked. “Didn’tyou?”
“Boy, did I.” Sarcasm coated my words. “So now onto bullying. You ever get bullied when you were a kid,Lila?”
“Well, there was this one girl in the third grade who didn’t like me at all. I have no ideawhy…”
I had to interrupt. “Probably because she was jealous ofyou.”
She stopped and looked into my eyes. “That’s what my mother said at the time, too. I don’t see why she would’ve beenjealous.”
“Because of your shiny blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. That’s enough to make an insecure little girl turn jealous and mean.” My hand moved of its own accord, reaching out to stroke her hair. Thankfully, my brain worked fast, and I ran it through my owninstead.
Lila’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red. Her makeup was different from the previous days I’d seen her. Her blouse was black, her skirt white, and she wore makeup to match that color scheme. The blush on her cheeks was more red than pink, and her lipstick matched as always. The ruby red color made her lips look more kissablesomehow.
“This may surprise you, Duke, but I wasn’t always as put together as I am now. I had a fair amount of freckles from being out in the New Mexico sunshine so much.” She ducked her head a bit as she seemed to be remembering her less attractive years. Her red-painted nails trailed a small path over her right eye. “My sister was swinging a yo-yo around one day, and I wasn’t paying any attention and walked right into the thing. I had this little scar. It’s faded away now, but it was still kind of gnarly back then. And Gina Witherspoon had to point that out all the time.” Her fingers rested above her eyebrow. “Especially in front of the boys in our class. She’d call me Scar-Face and Mutant, along with freckles and fat bottom lip.” Her fingers moved to trace her lower lip. “See, it’s bigger than the top oneis.”
“I can see that.” I tried hard not to pull my own lower lip between my teeth as I watched her do the same thing. “Most people have a larger lower lip than top lip. Everything you’re saying just confirms to me that she was jealous of your good looks. I’m sure even in your awkward years you were still a cut above therest.”
“I don’t know.” She looked away shyly, something that didn’t seem in character for her. But perhaps thinking about a bad time in her life, when a mean little girl had made fun of her and embarrassed her, had her feeling slightlyinadequate.
So, she is human afterall.
I’d kind of pegged her as a superhuman, with powers beyond my imagination. A woman who was capable of sweeping the rug out from under me and taking the job Iwanted.
But there she was, looking all human andshit.
