Thank you for your continued interest and support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Glee or the characters, neither do I own Checkmate.
"Let me go!" Mercedes barked as Sam kicked the office door shut behind him.
"Sure thing," he said, releasing her just as she tried to yank her arm free. But the movement sent her stumbling backwards and she muttered a few choice words about him and his ass...which he easily ignored.
He then walked around her desk and sat down in her surprisingly comfy chair.
"Get the hell out of my chair!" she ordered, even as she walked around the desk and glared down at him.
'Perhaps I shouldn't have stolen her hot cocoa. The little addict seems on edge,' he thought. 'Then again, I do enjoy ruffling her feathers. She's so damn cute.'
"I'm sorry. Did you want to sit down?" he asked innocently.
"Yes!" Mercedes hissed out as her hands clenched and unclenched into fists.
With a shrug, Sam reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a good yank, taking her by surprise.
And with an adorable little squeak, her beautiful ass landed on his lap. But before she could move he had his arms wrapped around her waist and had her pulled tightly against him, so that her side was pressed up against his chest and her legs hung over his.
"Now, I think we should probably go over your duties, don't you?" he asked brightly, loving the murderous scowl she sent him.
"The only duty I have at the moment is to kick your ass," she bit out, practically shaking with rage.
He, of course, ignored it and settled more comfortably in the chair.
"The most important thing that you need to remember is that I take two sugars in my coffee and just a splash of half and half," Sam explained as he allowed his eyes to roam.
Was it just him or did she look hotter when she was pissed?
His eyes ran from the soft skin on her neck, now with a few tendrils of damp hair plastered against it, down to the beautiful brown skin of her shoulders, to the pair of large breasts that stretched the shirt's material to perfection.
She truly was magnificent.
"My eyes are up here," Mercedes pointed out.
"Uh-huh," Sam said, but he didn't bother to look up.
With an exasperated sigh, she cupped his chin and forced him to look up and meet her eyes.
"Stop pissing me off or I'm going to have to kill you," she said in a low even tone, sounding as though she meant it.
And he knew that if she could figure out a way to hide his body that she probably would do it. Then again, she'd been saying that same damn thing to him since they were six years old, so he really wasn't too concerned.
"That's nice," he said absently as he shifted her on his lap and pulled her closer. "I'll tell you what, Mercy. If you do a really good job and stay away from my work site, I might just give you a special bonus when this is all done. How does that sound?" he asked in his most patronizing tone, unable to help himself even though he knew that he was pissing her off...more.
"This is my project, too," Mercedes said, glaring daggers at him through narrowed eyes.
He nodded in agreement and continued,
"Which is why you should be a good little girl and stay the hell out of the way so that we can get this project finished on time."
Mercedes tried to climb off his lap, but of course Sam wouldn't let her. Not when he was comfortable and well, that's all that he really cared about.
But apparently, she couldn't give a damn about his comfort.
Kind of selfish of her, he thought, just as she went for his nipples.
With a curse, Sam released his hold on Mercedes so that he could protect his poor little nipples before the vicious woman could tear them off.
"Do the rules mean nothing to you?" he demanded, feeling like an idiot with his hands plastered against his chest.
He dropped his hands away and came to his feet and moved so that he could glare down at the woman.
"As long as I'm stuck with you on this project and you try to get in my way, anything goes," she said, stepping into him as she met his glare.
He just barely bit back the groan that was threatening to escape, as her big, warm breasts pressed tightly against his chest.
But somehow, he forced himself to ignore them and focus on the little problem at the moment...the owner of said breasts.
He leaned down further until their noses were practically touching.
"Is that a fact?" he demanded evenly.
"Yes," Mercedes practically hissed as her eyes narrowed on his.
"You're only here because of my generosity, Mercy. Push me and you might just find yourself locked in the trunk of a car and on a ferry headed off to Nova Scotia...again," he said softly, loving the way she practically shook with rage against him.
"I knew that was you, you bastard!" she snarled, looking torn between going for his nipples again or just outright killing him.
"You deserved it," he felt obligated to remind her.
She scoffed.
"I was twelve!"
"You superglued my shorts to my ass!"
The smile that teased her lips transformed her face from beautiful to breathtakingly beautiful in a matter of seconds.
And he was so damn thankful that she didn't know the effect that it had on him or she'd do it to bring him to his knees.
And God help him, but he'd love every fucking second of it.
Mercedes chuckled softly as she moved to put a little space between them.
"I actually forgot about that."
"I haven't," Sam bit out tightly, pissed off that she moved away from him and had taken her warmth with her.
"I'm sure you deserved it," she said with a shrug, like it was no big deal that it took a month, five specialists and about a hundred experimental procedures that took a pound of flesh from his ass, before they were able to remove every last scrap of his basketball shorts from his butt.
"I didn't!" he snapped, unable to remember exactly what he'd done to upset her enough to break into the boy's locker room and squirt superglue into his shorts.
But he was sure that he hadn't done anything to deserve it.
As far as he was concerned, the move was unprovoked and he was the innocent party in all of...
"Now I remember why I did that," Mercedes said, looking angry once again. "You snuck laxatives into my food and then locked all the girl's bathrooms in the school with bicycle locks, so that I was left with no choice but to use the boy's bathroom...where you and your stupid friends locked me inside without any toilet paper or paper towels, you jerk!"
Sam nodded, suddenly remembering. He'd actually forgotten about that one.
With a careless shrug, he said,
"Whatever. The point is, Mercedes, this is my project. I've busted my ass to get it and I'm not about to let you fuck it up for me."
"This is our project!" she said, getting back in his face where she belonged. "And as long as you remember that we'll be fine. But the next time you try to stop me from doing my job...I. Will. Kick. Your. Ass!"
Sam leaned in closer.
"Your job is to fetch my coffee, food and whatever else I need. And as long as you remember how I like my coffee everything will be fine."
"You can shove your coffee right up your..."
"We have a problem," Mercedes' assistant said as he burst through the door.
"We're not finished talking," Sam said.
Mercedes moved away and didn't even bother slowing her pace or looking back as she shot him a one finger salute.
His deep chuckle that followed however, did not send a delicious shiver throughout her body that had her fighting the urge to lick her lips.
It didn't.
She sighed heavily as she adjusted the tool belt around her hips.
It really wasn't her fault that her body betrayed her the way it did when Sam was around.
He might be a life ruining bastard, but he was a hot life ruining bastard and her poor neglected body didn't realize that it should hate him as much as her heart and brain did.
One day her body would be on board, but until that day came, and she prayed that it came quickly, she was just going to have to ignore its response to him.
"What's going on?" she asked as they stepped outside.
"Work has come to a halt," Jason announced as he gestured with his clipboard towards Sunset View Manor.
One look and Mercedes knew that the man hadn't exaggerated.
There were no men manning the equipment, the scaffolding that was supposed to be completed by now was left incomplete against the outer walls of the manor, and it appeared that every single one of her and Sam's employees were in the middle of the yard, having a shouting and pushing match.
'Great,' she thought dryly. 'Just what I need.'
But when she spotted a familiar beat up red pickup truck parked near the coffee truck, she nearly cried.
Why did he have to come here today of all days?
Why couldn't he have come when she had this situation under control?
The last thing she wanted her father to see was this or the fact that Sam was treating her like some weak woman.
"You planning on handling this?" her father asked as she stepped passed the coffee truck.
She looked to her left to find him leaning back against one of Sam's trucks, with his impressively large arms crossed over his standard black tee shirt covered chest and a hint of annoyance in his brown eyes as he looked passed her towards the men arguing.
"Just give me a minute, dad," she said, wondering when all this nonsense would end so that she could go back to focusing on Sunset View Manor.
Right now she should be inside assessing the water damage in the attic, but thanks to Sam, she was stressed and needed a hot cocoa fix soon, or she was afraid that she was definitely going to kill someone.
If that wasn't bad enough it seemed as though all hell was breaking loose among her and his employees.
And having her father around to witness it, was just the icing on the cake.
Her father nodded firmly as he pushed away from the truck.
"I'll be in the building looking the old girl over when you're finally ready to get down to work," he said, making Mercedes inwardly cringe at the unspoken criticism.
She wasn't handling the job right and her men were not only wasting her money, but they were also wasting time. And that was something her father taught her never to do.
Relieved that he was going to let her handle this without an audience, she walked around the crowd, stole the bullhorn from one of Sam's men...since the man was just standing around looking useless...and moved to stand between the manor and the large crowd of men.
As she turned the bullhorn on and scanned the large crowd she couldn't help but wonder where her brothers were.
They should've handled this.
"You have exactly sixty seconds to go back to work or you're fired!" she announced, keeping it simple and direct.
Her men noticeably startled amongst the large crowd. And not even ten seconds later, they were shoving Sam's men aside as they rushed back to work.
One thing she made sure of, was that everyone that worked for her understood on the first day that they were hired. And that she always backed up her word.
Whoever wasn't working in sixty seconds would be fired.
She didn't play games and she definitely didn't have time for her men to screw around.
With an annoyed sigh, Sam, who had suddenly appeared, took the bullhorn from her hands and made his own announcement,
"Get back to work or leave!" he said, before tossing the bullhorn back to his supervisor, who was still standing around looking useless.
"Try to keep your men in line, okay, cupcake?" he drawled as he walked passed Mercedes.
"Don't call me that," she bit out, even as she yanked out a pair of pliers from her tool belt and ran to catch up with him.
She was careful to wait for just the right moment and when that moment came, she didn't hesitate.
"Son of a bitch!" Sam cried out, as Mercedes sauntered by him, whistling a jaunty tune, even as she casually returned her pliers back to her tool belt.
Then she sighed contently as she made her way past the men, who were still hustling to get back to work.
It never ceased to amaze her how torturing Sam always seemed to calm her down. It wasn't as good as a hot cocoa fix, but it would do.
But when she saw her father waiting for her in a half-gutted room with his arms crossed over his chest and his lips drawn into a frown, she was tempted to go back and hit Sam with the sledgehammer that was close by.
Her fingers literally twitched with the need to get one good hit in. But that went against the rules.
They weren't supposed to do anything that left permanent damage.
Pity.
"Rule ten," Sam said, chuckling softly as he advanced on Mercedes.
She glared at his back even as she wondered how he knew. Then again, they'd been at each other's throats since they were kids, so he probably could sense these things.
Now that she thought about it, she realized that perhaps the sledgehammer was a bit of an overkill.
The only thing he was guilty of today was annoying the hell out of her. So she pulled her needle nose pliers out of her tool belt and walked towards her father, loving the startled little groan Sam let out as her pliers 'accidentally' pinched him on the ass.
He didn't say anything as she traipsed by him. And she honestly didn't expect him to.
But she would have to keep her guard up for the rest of the day. Because if there was one thing that she knew about Sam Evans, it was that the man liked immediate retribution.
Stay safe!