Blackout Read Free

selfish asshole…more than that. Fuck, I hate what it makes me. I always figured I was a liberated guy, you know? I thought I was above it, but you…” He curled his hands into fists. “It’s you. You didn’t ask for it, but that’s it. The truth. I felt certain things for you and when I saw the video, I couldn’t stop. I needed to see it—you—over and over again.”
    Kenzie didn’t know what to say to that, so she opted for nothing. She blinked and walked backward until she hit the elevator wall.
    “What about you?” Lennon asked.
    “What about…my feelings?”
    A ghost of a smile touched his face. “What about that file?”
    She glanced down as though needing to confirm she still held it. “Oh. Kayla Bryant offered me a hundred gees. My little brother—”
    “Scott,” Lennon supplied.
    She nodded. “Scott…he lost his scholarship. He needs the money, and I know how important his education is to him. And tuition, last I checked, doesn’t grow on trees. I was going to help him with school. And I needed cash to live off while I hunt for another job.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Kenzie winced. His apology made her feel more like a criminal than breaking into his apartment had. “This…this isn’t me either, Lennon.”
    “I know. I told you as much.”
    “Well, you were right.” Kenzie worried a lip between her teeth, a long shiver coursing through her body. “What happens now?”
    “Hell if I know.”
    “That’s reassuring.”
    He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s all I got.”
    Their eyes met again, and they shared an awkward smile. At last, they had landed near honesty.
    As far as starts went, it didn’t totally suck.

 
     
    Three
     
    Fired.
    Lennon sat with his back against the elevator wall, his gaze flicking every few minutes to his cellphone for any sign of life or connectivity. It was easier than looking at her and contemplating what he’d confessed and what he’d learned in turn.
    Fired.
    In all fairness, he should have assumed something like that had happened. After all, Kenzie had not once come by his office to thank him for the promotion. He hadn’t seen her in the break room, and his replacement secretary seemed timid and nervous. At first, Lennon had associated the newcomer’s behavior with start-of-job jitters, but it made all kinds of sense that she’d be uncertain how to proceed around him if she thought the job could be stripped with one misplaced step.
    All because of his obsession with the damned tape.
    Was it possible only three weeks had passed since then? Since the day he’d returned to work after lunch to find a pile of mail waiting on his desk. Kenzie usually made a note to grab everything assigned to his office on her way back from the bistro up the road. She’d sort through the junk and pass along only the things she felt he needed to see, and it—the manila package with no return address—had been buried under a stack of white envelopes. Inside was a VHS tape labeled FOR YOUR EYES ONLY.
    On the tape was Kenzie. Naked. And touching herself.
    The spell had snapped after that, the schoolboy crush he’d nursed for her over the months exploding into the strongest wave of pure, animal lust he’d experienced in his thirty-one-year existence. Perhaps it would have been more bearable if he hadn’t already stroked his cock to release half a dozen times to the fantasy of Kenzie’s tight pussy wrapped around him, but hell, crushes were harmless, and he couldn’t help himself. With her long, raven-colored hair, petite hourglass build, brilliant green eyes, bright smile, and melodic giggle, she was any man’s wet dream. To top it off, she was kind, she made him laugh whenever she told her joke of the day, and she was a Battlestar Galactica junkie. A pretty girl who loved science fiction…it just didn’t happen in the real world. Had it not been a horrifically bad idea, he would have set ethics aside and asked her to dinner well before things grew out of hand.
    But he