More Money...Better Benefits

Good Friday Morning!  And a happy start to the Fourth of July weekend to one and all!  The only fireworks I have for you today are the ones lighting up between Ziva and Nick.  

Thanks to Ziva's new position at the G&B, she's been in rare form inside my head.  I've come to realize that most of my heroines are all a little naughty.  They like to make waves.  Not big ones so much as small personal waves, but certainly they like to keep their men on their toes.  Ya gotta just love that in a heroine, ya know.  ~wink~

Have a Safe and Sassy Fourth everyone! 

~~~~

Hot damn!  I’ve been sprung from personals hell.  Ziva fought the silly grin threatening to explode across her face as she looked between a very pissed off Rex and her still could not admit they were mates, boss man, Nick.  She already had an idea of what the new site would look like and what it would offer the residents in Talbot’s Peak.   

She mentally stripped and chopped page after page of the G&B site as she followed Nick back to his office.   

First thing on the block would be the articles Rex had picked for the daily story.  She wouldn’t get rid of an articles section, just make it a bit more eclectic.  Perhaps she’d add a local sightings spot to increase the towns growing influx of tourists. The monkey’s out there loved to read about the paranormal and the shifters like to make a scene.  As long as no one got caught, it could be very profitable for the business owning shifters. 

There could be a recipes section as well, where the locals could submit their favorites for possible addition to the daily or weekly page.  Maybe she could sneak a few of Elly and Vernon’s fav’s in there, just to see the fur fly and the heads butt… 

There should be a news section, both local and worldwide, and she supposed there should be some sort of classifieds along the line of that dudes list, Clyde, Clive, Cleo…hell, a swap and drop sort of thing.  With the way those bunnies went at it there was always a need for new or borrowed baby paraphernalia.   

“…are you?”  The deep, sexy sound of her mate’s voice wormed its way past thoughts of her new project. 

Now, a local entertainment page, tattooed, pink-haired, dancing flamingos around a bon fire…that would have been a great write up.  Probably a good thing she missed the opportunity, some of the males in this town were just insecure enough to be okay with their she’s partaking of that show

“Ziva!”

“What-oh, sorry, what were you saying?”  Speaking of insecure.  Not that his gripes and growls would stop her from some innocent fun, nor did he outwardly show insecurity, but she had to wonder if his lack of follow through in their mating dance was because he feared she’d turn him down? 

The riled up wrinkle that curved down between Nick’s eyes, in both human and wolf form, deepened as it always did around her. Damn, but she adored the little crinkle.

“Where are you, Z?  You’re a million miles away…”

Ziva watched the crease expand; etch itself further into his skin, making his eyes even darker and sexier.  What could she add to the website that would keep that look on his face here at work?  What would taunt him; pull him over the line into finally admitting what it seemed that everyone else already knew?

A shrill whistle cut through her wayward thoughts and Nick stood in front of her, snapping his fingers and loudly calling, “Here Ziva, Ziva.”

Oh no he did not…  Ziva slapped his hand away from her face, wondering if she was fast enough to break his fingers.  “You did not just snap at me and call me like a common dog.”

“I wouldn’t have to if you’d stop drifting…what the hell are you thinking about anyway?”

Lust simmered beneath her skin as she watched Nick turn and head back to the desk.  That crinkle, topped off with wide alpha shoulders, muscled forearms that bulged with whatever he did and an ass that begged for her teeth all made Ziva a happy, happy bitch.  Unfortunately, she was just as Alpha as he was and liked to give as well as she got and that little stunt of his, just gained her mate a bit of a verbal spanking.

“Hell, woman, there you go again.  Is this new position going to be too much for you to handle?  Do I need to give it back to Rex?”

Ziva slid onto the very smooth and quite hard desk Nick cherished and looked him straight in the eye.  “Don’t you frigging dare give it back to that mutt.  It’s mine now.”

“Good…”

“But, I have…requirements.”  She leaned close to the pen box sitting next to the computer monitor on Nick’s desk and began to fondle one of the wooden rulers she’d been stashing in there while he was out.  “I’m going to need more money…”

“What!”  Nick barked, though his gaze remained on her stroking fingers.

“…and better benefits.”

The low growl was a warning, one she wouldn’t heed.  This wolf was hers, but she needed him to know that she too was Alpha, and ornery macho behavior would not work on her, just love.

“What benefits!”

“Now, Nicolas Taggert McMahon,” she whispered, running her fingers down the ruler one last time before slowly climbing off his desk and heading for the door.  “I shouldn’t have to tell you what those benefits are…”

***

Ziva adjusted the skirt that had somehow managed to climb up so high around her thighs that she could feel the cool, canned air of the office on her bum.  The barking and growling coming from behind his closed office door made her smile.

“I’d wait a few before going in there,” she told Penelope, whose knowing look always gave her a little tingle.  “He’s a real beast right now.”