Stiletto Sisterhood

Original Edition: PRIYA| Hello, Whoremones. We meet again.

After an hour of meeting with the firms HR staff to fill out appropriate forms and paperwork, Priya finally had a single, desolate moment to breathe. Or panic.

She slipped into the empty—YAS!—staff kitchen, shut the door and sucked in slow, deep breaths while counting to ten. Even in here the furnishings, the cabinetry—all eye-watering white with pale washes of aqua and chrome. Desperate for something to quench the dry ache in her throat, she filled a glass with water from the tap and guzzled it down while inside she screamed in frustration.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She was a top student; she'd excelled at every challenge, and conquered every adversary. Priyanka Seth did not lose.

So why did this feel like a loss?

Because she'd thought having her resume plucked out of an endless pile by Marai Nagao herself meant that her days of sweat, blood and effort had finally gone recognized? That she was done proving herself and could now concentrate on forging her name as a litigator on the rise?

This associate-ship was hers by right. Grueling years of personal sacrifice and academic hell should have seen to that. Trial period? Compete against twenty potentials for the sole first year associate-ship position where she'd have to claw out throats like some warped episode of Suits meets the Bachelorette?

Annoyed and aggravated beyond measure, Priya pounded her glass against the counter—though careful not to break it.

"Look what the tiger dragged in."

That voice...that sinful, deep, velvety voice stroked up her spine and glided across delicate nerve endings like a tongue to her skin. Intimate and bold, hearing it snapped her senses awake. She recognized the voice as well as the low, heady rumble of his laugh that followed as Priya turned around and came face to face with Mr. Panty-thief.

Four years of law school, she had developed a keen eye for details. How to read between the lines and see beneath the skin.

To sum him up in three words? Broad. Tall. Delicious. Dark hair styled and skin golden from heritage instead of sun, his eyes molten brown and lips full, all framed by the hard edge of his jaw. And that was just his face.

This guy was breathtaking while sober, drunk?— she'd have never stood a chance.

"I thought I saw you streaking down the hall," he said and heat flashed in her cheeks at his select choice of words.

"I think you meant cat," she said, "but either way I take umbrage. I'm an accomplished, independent woman. Not a feline."

"Yes, you are. And I have the scratches on my back to prove it." He leaned casually against the frame, his body doing all kinds of things to a navy suit that should have been considered illegal.

Then his smile flashed and somewhere in heaven an angel had a screaming orgasm.

"I think these belong to you." he added, voice low as he pulled his hand out of his pocket to spin a scrap of hot pink from the end of a capped fountain pen.

Mortified, Priya rushed forward to snatch them before anyone happening by and saw him waving her panties like a flag of truce. Or a call to war.

Sighing, she tucked them into a tight wad in her first. "So, you're the guy I slept with last night."

"Alas, to my great dismay, we got as far as my shirt and your panties before you succumbed to an alcohol-induced coma. You slept in the bed, I took the couch. Nothing happened," he said stoically, laying a hand over his heart. "My word as a gentleman."