A/N: Happy Birthday, Captain America. Nothing else going on today, right?
"Dude, you can't make vaginas in front of an audience. There will be little kids there."
At Jasper's words, Bella paused what she was doing—restocking an aisle away from where Emmett was practicing his project for the day.
"They're not vaginas, perv. They're flowers made from a Russian Tip." Emmett sounded distracted, and Bella could easily imagine him bent over his task, carefully pressing fancy flowers onto the head of a cupcake.
His best friend snickered. "There's a 'just the Russian tip' joke in here somewhere, but I can't find it." He paused a beat. "And these are vaginas."
"What the fuck do you know about vaginas anyway?"
"Just because I don't play with them doesn't mean I don't know what a vagina looks like. Are you sure you've seen a vagina?"
Bella's cheeks flushed hot when she heard Emmett snicker. "That's what I'm trying to say, man. I've spent some up close and personal time with a vagina very recently"—Very recently given that he'd woken her that morning with his tongue between her legs— "and it didn't look like this."
"Thanks for that image. Bleh," Jasper said. "Are you making an actual bouquet of vaginas?"
"They're not—" Emmett huffed. "I'm calling security on your disrespectful ass. Boss!" he called out so Bella could have heard him if she was in the office.
Fighting her broad smile with little success, Bella walked around the corner. Her heart did a little clip-clop kind of beat in her chest when she saw Emmett. It had been doing that lately, which was annoying, but…
Well, his eyes always got brighter when he saw her. She had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from beaming at him. With some effort, she put on a cool expression, crossing her arms as she looked between the two men. "What's going on here?"
"Unruly customer," Emmett said, tilting his head back to his work. "You should kick his ass out of here."
Jasper smirked. So far, he was the only one who knew about her and Emmett. The day after their first/third date, when Emmett didn't come home, Jasper had bombarded both their phone numbers—Bella still didn't know how he'd managed to get a hold of hers—at five-thirty in the morning. He'd declared them even and invited them to a lunch double-date with Peter. Now that she wasn't just Emmett's boss, he'd taken to teasing her just as much as he did Emmett.
Now, he crossed his arms, mirroring her serious pose, and shook his head in mock-irritation. "Ma'am, your employee is brazenly flashing vulgar images on your fine desserts."
Emmett walked around the counter with the exuberant but gentle grin she'd come to realize he saved only for her. He extended his hand, presenting her the cupcake he'd been working on. "I got you flowers."
In spite of herself, Bella flushed with pleasure as she took the dessert. The head of the cupcake was covered with different kinds of frosting flowers, including tiny green leaves dotted here and there. It was a lovely, if small and edible, bouquet.
"Jesus," Jasper muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes. "You see, this is why there are fraternizing rules. Emmett could steal money from the till in front of your eyes, and you probably wouldn't fire him because he gave you vagina flowers."
"You know flowers are the sex organs of plants, right?" Bella asked, letting her fingertips surreptitiously brush Emmett's. "They look like vaginas in nature too."
Emmett nodded, putting on an innocent face. "That's why people refer to their virginity as their flowers. Like that Jane the Virgin chick. Or their rosebuds." He smiled as though genuinely glad to be sharing this helpful information with his friend.
"Well, that settles it. You'll have to excuse me as I have many, many florists shops to picket for indecency."
"Toodles."
Bella couldn't stop her giggle at that. Toodles. Who the hell said toodles?
Yeah, okay. She was smitten.
When Jasper left, Emmett examined the head of the cupcake he was working on. "Do you really think they look like vaginas?"
She smirked. "If I squint, sure. You can kind of see the folds and the bud right there with this tip." She pointed to a flower on her bouquet. "But mostly I think Jasper was just trying to get a rise out of you."
"Ooh." Emmett glanced around the empty shop before he tilted his head toward hers. "Well, I know of a pretty pussy that can get a rise out of me."
Bella's blood boiled hot, and she shook her head at him. "You're filthy, you know that?" she hissed under her breath.
His eyes sparkled with merriment. "Don't pretend you don't like it, boss."
Before Bella could think about responding, Emmett's eyes cut to the front of the shop. Outside the glass wall, Bella could see Carlisle crossing the parking lot, a phone to his ear. She and Emmett both straightened up.
"So, are you nervous at all about your on-screen debut?" Bella asked a little too loudly. Carlisle didn't notice, obviously wrapped up in his phone call.
Emmett put the piper down and rubbed the back of his neck. "You know I still think you're crazy, right?"
Since Emmett had to develop his classes, Bella had come up with the plan to start a vlog. There was a good chance they could go viral. After all, there was no reason to limit Emmett's audience to whomever was in the immediate area.
"Yes, I find it completely insane that anyone would find you charming, but I've learned that people are very strange."
"Your face," he mumbled, his eyes still teasing.
"Such maturity," she said, but she was smiling.
"Bella?"
Bella took another step back, away from Emmett, clutching her clipboard as she turned to the side to face Carlisle. She did her best to put her business-cap on, to concentrate on her job. There were always decisions to be made and fires to put out, especially now that they were officially embarking on this new venture.
For the last five years, particularly just after Edward's death, this job had been a refuge. It was just so manageable—all numbers, percentages, supply, and demand—when nothing else in her world made sense.
But for the first time in so many years, Bella was distracted, not by crushing grief, but by pure elation. She was so aware of the fact Emmett was in the same room. The playful mood from before hadn't lifted, and it was difficult to be so serious. She wanted to giggle, but not for any good reason.
Emmett must have been in much the same mood. He hadn't stopped grinning since Carlisle interrupted them. He'd worked diligently, trying different tips and different techniques to figure out the best flower arrangements. But when he saw her glance his way for the umpteeth time, Emmett flashed a mischievous grin that sent a thrill down Bella's spine. That was the look of a man who'd hatched a devious scheme.
Biting the inside of her lip to keep control of herself, Bella struggled to answer the question Carlisle had just asked. It was utterly ridiculous that her skin was crawling, not in disgust but anticipation.
Then again, maybe she should have given herself a little credit about her intuition. Just as she'd finally gotten a firm handle on herself so that she could give Carlisle a list of potential expenses for the vlog venture, she noticed Emmett wasn't piping onto the cupcake currently.
When she realized what he was doing, Bella started stumbling over her words. "The uh… Um. I mean… I'm not a cameraperson by any means, and umm… the lighting."
Carlisle furrowed his brow. "Words, Bella," he said, teasing gently.
Bella ducked her head with a huff. Her cheeks were so hot.
Her gigantic brat of a boyfriend had piped a flower between the V of his fingers. If it had only looked vaguely vagina-like before, now the comparison was much more accurate. He waggled his eyebrows. Under the guise of rubbing her neck, she glared in what she hoped was a look that said, "Don't you fucking dare, Emmett McCarty. I will tell your mother."
Either Emmett couldn't read her non-verbal threats or he was just that big of a brat, because he lowered his head, and ran the tip of his tongue along the flower's folds oh, so, slowly.
Bella shuddered, and Carlisle's smile fell. "Are you okay?"
"Um, yeah." The words came out warped as she had to stifle a maniacal giggle. Emmett, of course, had found the flower's bud and he was poking at it gently, tongue coming away with just the barest smidge of delicate pink frosting. "Yeah, I'm…"
Bella was mortified. And wet. Yeah. She was really wet. And Emmett was incredibly fired.
"Sorry, I just...Well, anyway. I'm going to have to talk to someone about the lighting. I'm sure the store overhead lights are fine, but you never know, so…" She ran a hand through her hair. "I'll go make those calls now."
"Okay." Carlisle looked confused, but he didn't say anything else as Bella hurried for her office. In fact, he must have turned his attention to Emmett because she heard him ask, "So, I was thinking if you wanted, you could invite your mother to the taping. Do you think she'd enjoy that?"
Bella didn't even have time to smirk about the fact Carlisle was so obviously smitten with Esme, just as she and Emmett had plotted. She couldn't get her door closed fast enough. With a soft groan, she leaned up against it, her eyes closed.
She should have been furious. That had been ridiculously unprofessional, and in front of Carlisle to boot? It wasn't that she feared discovery in any real way—she was almost ready for the Cullens to know—but thatway?
But no. Instead of being furious, which, she reminded herself, she had every damn right to be, she was ridiculously turned on.
Christ, that had been so filthy. So damn naughty. She was out-of-her-mind horny, her skin hot and tingling all over. Her nipples pebbled painfully hard. Annoyance would hit her, but maybe later, after she felt like she could catch her breath again and after her skin had cooled to somewhere below sauna level.
Her office felt stuffy, though that was probably more her imagination than reality. The shop was always just a little bit chilly. She wondered if she could dart outside without Carlisle noticing. There was only so much odd behavior he'd let go before he began to press her to find out what was wrong.
Nothing was wrong. Everything was so right, she still hadn't quite wrapped her head around it. And it wasn't just the sex, though, that was great. She liked all of it. It had been three weeks. A small amount of time for a new relationship, but she'd seen the partner Emmett could be. He was a good listener, always attentive when she talked about the things she dealt with at the shop and her latest conversation with her parents. He was an open book, talking freely about his life with his mother and sister. She marveled at his ability to acknowledge a frustration and let it go in the same breath.
"It is what it is. You kind of" —he made a clicking noise with his tongue— "readjust your reality and move on."
He'd brought so much light to her melancholy, sedate life. Not that she hadn't been living before, but these days, she felt full of life. She knew she was smiling more. Each of the Cullens had said so.
And, yeah. Apparently, she was now the kind of person who got horny to the point of distraction. At work. That was new. That was something she didn't really have context for. She and Edward had only had one class together in high school. Oh, yeah, she'd been very, very distracted sitting next to him in Biology, but it was a high school biology class. Who wasn't distracted? Not to mention, at seventeen and a virgin, she hadn't really had the experience of getting all hot and bothered over someone. That came later.
Either way, she needed to figure out how to calm the hell down. Not only—
A knock on the door interrupted Bella's mental dressing down. She yelped, coming away from the door. Her face got hot all over again, guilt twisting her stomach a bit. She felt as though her lusty thoughts had to be written all over her. She stumbled backward, sitting down in her chair behind her desk, feeling the need to hide her crotch—which she realized was utterly ridiculous given that the physical evidence of her, well, condition could be hidden without the desk.
Huffing in irritation at herself, she sat up straight and called, "Come in."
It wasn't Carlisle. Emmett filled her doorway. There was lust in his eyes that matched hers. Seeing it made her mouth go dry, but his lips tugged down slightly at the corners as though in contrition. "Hey, boss."
She swallowed hard, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth until she could be sure her voice would be steady. "Hello." Even that came out quite a bit more gravelly than she'd have liked.
"Carlisle took off. I just wanted—"
"Wait," Bella said.
Emmett looked a little nervous. "Wait?"
She stared at him, guilt and nerves and restlessness turning into hunger and thirst. "Carlisle is gone?"
"Yeah."
"And we're alone?"
His eyes sparked and his lip turned up at one corner. "Yeah."
They were closed for business. The three of them had come in only to work out a few things for the upcoming video shoot.
No customers. No Carlisle.
Bella pushed her office chair back so quickly it fell over. She barely heard the crash as she flew at Emmett, taking his face between her hands and kissing him. He let out a startled cry against her mouth, but then, he groaned, his arms coming around her, pulling her to him.
He tasted like frosting. The memory of his tongue between his fingers—and between her legs that morning—did nothing to slake the inferno engulfing them. She was ravenous, starved for him. She kissed him as though he were the air she breathed and she was drowning. He returned her kisses in kind, stumbling forward as she dragged him into the office and slammed the door closed behind him.
"You absolute bastard," Bella growled between kisses.
"Mmph." Emmett caught himself on her desk, his hands on either side of her, caging her up against it. He kissed her again, as unrelenting as she was. "I can confirm that my mother never wed my father."
"This isn't a game." But even as she spoke the words she knew she needed to, she'd hopped up, sitting on the edge of the desk and wrapping her legs around him. "This is work. We can't be… We can't be...Oh, fuck." He'd nudged her head to the side, and he was suckling at her neck, rubbing up against her. He was hard. Ready.
So was she.
"Sorry," Emmett said, pressing her back so she was almost horizontal. His strong arms held her firm as he kissed up to her jaw. "I won't do it again." He nipped her skin. "In fact, I'll get back to work right now."
He started to pull away from her. She let out a cry, wrapping her legs tighter around him and bringing him back. She sat up straight, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him to her so their lips were millimeters apart. "You have plenty of work to do right here." She gyrated, rubbing her center against the bulge in his pants. "A one time project."
He groaned—such a wanton sound Bella clenched her walls in response—and kissed her again. "Yes, ma'am," he rumbled into her mouth.
She slid forward into the almost nonexistent space between him and the desk. "I expect you to be quick but efficient."
"Jesus Christ," he whimpered. "Bella, you're killing me."
Their movements bordered on frantic then. Bella didn't know whose hands were on whose buttons, but somehow, they both got their pants down. Emmett took her by the waist and lifted her back onto the desk.
Was it wrong how much she liked the way he manhandled her? In this setting, it was such a damn turn on. Everything about this man made her hot.
He slid inside her with no preamble, both of them letting out a cry. Bella threw her head back and he attacked her neck again. She hadn't been kidding about fast and efficient. She needed hard and fast now. Needed him to drive the itch from her blood.
"Em." She moaned, rolling her hips to meet his, bending her knees, taking him in deeper.
He pushed her so she fell back across her desk, and his hands found her breasts, squeezing and rubbing through her shirt and bra. "You're so good. You're so fucking beautiful."
Her back arched up, bowed in the middle as she felt her climax building. "Yes," she panted. "Please. Oh."
Her walls squeezed around him, and he grunted his pleasure as he began to pulse inside her. He clapped a hand over her mouth, muffling her scream of release. He threw his head back, his own ecstasy coming out in little grunts as he jerked, thrusting in her three more times before he stilled.
Then, his head still tilted backward with one hand braced against the desk, he said the weirdest thing. "Uh. Hi."
Bella's eyes focused, and that was when she noticed that her office door—which she distinctly remembered slamming closed—was open.
She had just enough time to glimpse Carlisle standing there with Esme at his side, both of them wide eyed and startled, before the door slammed closed again.
A/N: I didn't want to take us out of the moment, but for the record… Bella is on birth control, and Emmett, after a questionable encounter some months before he started working for Bella, got himself checked out. They're okay. Cool? Cool.
