by Emma Nichole
“How can you sound so confident?” I reach out and grip the left lapel of his suit coat.
“Because when I’m in control, everything is better.”
He leans in, closing the gap between us. Our lips are so close I can smell his peppermint toothpaste when the sound of his cell phone ricochets off the walls.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, before he pulls it from his inner pocket and peeks at who is calling. “Piper, I need to take this. I’ll see you in the conference room, okay?”
The shift in his mood and the tension radiating off him is so quick that I’m left with a raging case of whiplash.
“Yeah. Of course. Take your time. I’ll let everyone know.”
He nods once then turns on his heel with his phone to his ear, stalking back down to his office.
I don’t move until I hear the click of his door closing at the end of the hallway. Once I do, I move with quiet, soft steps like I’m a dumb blonde sneaking down the corridor toward the killer in a horror movie, when she should be running screaming in the other direction.
I can hear my mother’s voice in my ear with each step I take closer and closer to his office.
Don’t eavesdrop, Piper. That’s rude, unacceptable, and childish.
I shove those words down, ignoring them completely, as I come to a halt right outside of his office door. Honestly, I look so obvious that I might as well have a glass pressed between the door and my ear.
I’d be lying if I said going to get one hadn’t crossed my mind.
I close my eyes to focus on hearing anything I can. I can’t make out the words he’s saying exactly, but I can hear his tone and it sends a shiver down my spine. Not in the good way.
He’s upset. Very upset.
I catch a word here and there, but I’m not able to make out a complete phrase.
How… when… impossible… I don’t understand… How bad… Doctor… Unacceptable… Dad.
Did something happen with his dad? I don’t even know what is wrong with him, but my mind automatically goes to the worst place.
I shake off the thought. I’d never wish losing a father on anyone, no matter the kind of relationship they had; so I can’t even bring myself to finish that thought.
There is silence on the other side of the door. Complete silence that is almost deafening. I want more than anything to open the door and take him in my arms, absorbing any of his stress and worry into myself so, for even a moment, he can feel at ease.
Inability to trust my own feelings stops me, and I step away.
Nathanial
“How bad is it, Mom?” I ask with my head in my hands.
It feels like an eternity passes before she finally answers me. I can hear the ticking of my clock on the wall and the sounds of the busy New York streets below. I can hear everything around me, yet nothing at all.
“I’m fine. It’s just a little bump on the head.”
“Which was caused by him,” I growl.
“Nathanial, I was trying to help him shower this morning and he got upset. He wouldn’t let me dry him off and he tried to take the towel from me. I didn’t loosen my grip and fell when he pulled it.”
“That’s fucking ridiculous, Mom, and you know it. Sick or not, he shouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Ever.”
“Don’t curse at me. I know you don’t handle things like this well, especially where your father is concerned, but I’m still you mother.”
That tone has sent my tail between my legs too many times to count, and it still does now as a grown man.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I clear my throat. “Look, I have a meeting to run and they are waiting for me. I’m already very late. I need to go.”
“Don’t freak out over this. Promise me. It doesn’t help anyone. It’s not like he hit me, which he has never done by the way. Don’t make something out of nothing.”
She kills the call without even saying goodbye.
For my entire life, I’ve released pent-up stress, anger, and sadness in the form of rage-filled fights, sometimes with words, sometimes with fists, but never with an ounce of forethought.
As I got older, the fights evolved into taking out my aggression in the form of sex, which was a much more exciting and invigorating way to mentally cope with anything life threw at me.
Now that I’m at Lennox, dealing with the imminent death of my father’s mind, it’s showing itself in the form of being an aggressive, mean asshole of a business owner and employer.
I claw at my tie until the knot comes loose then pull it over my head, tossing it at my desk before yanking my office door open and marching down to the conference room to drop a bombshell on my staff in the wake of a grenade being dropped on me.
***
The buzzing sound of one hundred and fifty voices all chattering at once comes to a halt as soon as I walk in the door with my hands shoved into my slacks pockets. Our conference room is vast, with a black, U-shaped conference table taking up most of the space. Each seat is filled, plus chairs line the windowed wall, each of those occupied as well. Every single eye is on me as I take my place in the open space in the middle of the room, but mine are searching for a pair of sapphire blue ones.
She is seated in the back corner of the room, on one of the chairs lining the windows. Her legs are crossed one over the other and she has a tablet in her hand, prepared to take any notes needed, just as she does every time we have a meeting.
“All right. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” I speak out loud to no response from anyone in the room. “I suppose there is no simple, or easy way to say this, so I’ll be as blunt as possible. Lennox Publishing is no longer going to be under the ownership of my family. We are in the market for an interested buyer, and when that occurs, there will be a transition of power.”
A steady hum of questions, statements, and gasps overruns the room, and I hold my hands up to quiet them. “Enough. Stop speaking and let me continue,” I snap. I take a breath to steady myself. “I don’t know when this is happening, but my hope is it will be sooner rather than later. I think that will be better for everyone involved.”
“What about our jobs? Is this something we should be concerned about?” I am not sure who the voice belongs to, but it’s a male seated to my right.
“Once the new management and ownership steps in, I will have no control over what they do with the staff in place. That will be at their discretion.”
That answer certainly causes a ruckus, and voices erupt across the room, continuing until I hold up my hand to stop them.
“Now, I know that’s probably not the answer you were looking for but…”
“You’re absolutely right about that, Mr. Lennox,” a voice I know intimately, as she was just moaning my name in my ear two nights ago, speaks from the corner.
I turn my body toward the side to see her rising to her feet as all heads sweep to her direction.
“Ah, Ms. Kingston, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I…”
“No.” She stops me again with a shake of her head. “Whatever you have to say isn’t going to be good enough. Every person on this staff has been nothing but loyal to you and your family. Lennox Publishing is a cornerstone in the publishing industry and is only growing larger. While that should give all of us a small amount of ease and job security, it doesn’t, because we don’t have a voice in our corner anymore.”
I look around the room to see nearly everyone nodding in agreement with her.
“Mr. Lennox, with all due respect, you haven’t wanted to be here since the moment you walked through the doors. I’m usually so willing to do whatever is asked of me. Do I push back sometimes? Of course I do. I’m from Brooklyn.” She pauses briefly as there is a flutter of quiet laughter at her joke. “But I can’t stand by and watch as people I care about are told they could lose their jobs because their soon to be ex-boss is refusing to fight for them. Regardless of what is happening in someone’s personal life, they should always remembe
r the little people in their lives who are counting on them to survive, and you, sir, seem to be forgetting that all of these people in this room count on Lennox Publishing to just that… Survive.”
Before I’m even given the chance to respond, a burst of applause ignites in the room for her. I could be proud of her if I wasn’t so fucking pissed off at her for taking me to task in front of the entire company. And the dig about my personal life… well that just won’t fly.
This woman, even as she is bucking up to me in front of everyone, pushing back as she always has, looks so fucking incredible. I want to take her over my knee and spank the shit out of her for the outburst, but then I want to make love to her for being so goddamn incredible and loyal to those she cares about.
“Have you quite finished, Ms. Kingston? Because if so, I’d like to see you in my office. Now.” I stand firmly in place, checking the time on my watch. “If everyone else could return to your desks. Ms. Kingston will be sending an email to you this afternoon, outlining everything I had intended to say during this meeting that she so gracefully halted.”
I stare across the room at her. She clutches her tablet in hand and marches toward the door, giving me a glorious view of her ass being hugged in that tight skirt.
I follow her into my office, closing the door behind me, making sure to twist the lock into place.
“Nathanial, look, I’m sorry I…”
“No.” I stop her. “No more fucking talking. You’ve said enough.”
I cross the room like I’m a man starved and she is a perfectly aged ribeye steak, crowding her against the large window behind my desk, and kissing her like my life depends on it.
I can feel her stumble as she nearly loses her footing in those fuck-me heels she likes to wear, but my body and the window keep her upright.
She curls her fingers into my suit coat and I think she means to shove me off and away from her, but with a slide of my tongue on hers, her resolve melts away, and she slides her hands around my back, pulling me closer. Her tongue tastes like sugary, sweet coffee and breath mints. It’s soft, slick, and mine.
“You infuriate me,” I murmur against her lips. My hands find their way to her outer thighs and without preamble, I yank her skirt skyward and the plump, roundness of her ass presses into the glass with a squeak.
“Fuck you. You’re an asshole who only cares about yourself,” she moans, tipping her head backward to expose her neck to me, which I happily sink my teeth into. “Mmmmm.”
“You’re right.” I rip open the white button-down top she has tucked into the skirt, exposing her perfect tits pushed up in an emerald green bra. “I’m a horrific bastard. A selfish fuck who doesn’t deserve to have you like that.” I suck gently at the pulse in her neck before kissing and sliding my tongue to the curvy swells of her breasts.
“You are running away without a care of how this affects all of us here.” With sure but hectic movements, she works my belt open, forcing her hand into my slacks, and gripping my cock like a vise in her fist.
“Christ,” I groan out, and slap my hand on the window behind her, leaving it there to brace myself. “Keep doing that.” I bend my knees a bit, bringing myself at eye level with her chest and biting at her nipple that I can see just beneath the lace of her bra.
“I don’t know what’s happening or why you hate this place so much.” She slides her thumb over the tip of my cock, smearing the precum back and forth. “But I know you’re wrong for handling it this way. I want to hate you so much for it.”
“But you can’t, can you?” I take her shoulders in my hands and whirl her around, pressing the front of her body into the glass. “You can’t hate me because you want me as badly as I want you.”
She reaches out to place her hands on the window for balance and I snake an arm around her body, cradling her throat gently, but giving it just a bit of a squeeze. I feel the shiver spread over her body, and I know I’ve found a kink.
“I want you so badly all the time, I can’t stand it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stand up to you or defend people I care about.”
“You caused a scene in front of the entire staff.” I work my zipper the rest of the way down.
She scoffs, “That was hardly a scene. I can show you a scene if you’d like.”
“I much prefer a scene that involves floggers and cable ties.” I pull her back by her hips so she bends slightly at the waist, bare cock in hand, lining up to take her.
“Promises, promises,” she says with a hint of attitude that I plan to fuck right out of her. “OHHH!” she cries out loudly as I slam home, burying myself to the hilt inside of her body.
“You run from me instead of talk to me.” Slam. “You push my buttons and make me feel crazy.” Pound. Slam. Fuck. “You choose to air your thoughts and aggression in front of an audience.”
She uses both hands on the glass as an anchor to push herself back, meeting me thrust for thrust. Fucking me just as much as I am fucking her, in perfect sync.
“You think I drive you crazy? You’ve got me all wound up.” Her words come out in breathy moans. This is a conversation we should probably be having in a different setting, but not having each other just isn’t an option. “I can’t think straight sometimes. I’m lost in you, and I don’t think I ever want to be found.”
I wind my hand in her hair and yank her to stand up right before crowding her completely flat against the window, my chest to her back, cock still nestled in her warmth.
“You’re going to be the end of me,” I growl into her neck. My hand weaves its way to the space between her legs, and my fingers toy with her clit, stroking back and forth in a way that makes her legs tremble.
“Don’t stop. Please. Oh my God.” She tosses her head back onto my shoulder with her eyes at the ceiling. “I’m going to come.”
Her pleas send a surge of pure, masculine, caveman energy through my body, and suddenly the need to feel her contracting and quivering around my cock is the only thing in this world that matters. There isn’t a business to run. I don’t have an entire staff hanging on my decision. My father isn’t dying. There’s only me, Piper, and this moment.
She angles her face toward me so I can capture her lips in a heated, wet kiss. Her mouth parts ever so slightly and she moans quietly into my mouth until she takes in a sharp breath.
“Fuuuuuck,” she mewls. Her body trembles with release and I follow her over the edge, unable to hold back any longer.
“God. Damn.” I bury my face in the crook of her neck. My cock jerks as she milks me for everything I have.
“You know,” she pauses to lick her lips, “everything can’t be handled with sex.”
“I beg to differ. We seem to have figured it out nicely.” I lay kisses along her throat.
“Everyone in the building across the street got one hell of a show.”
I look out the window to the busy street below. “Good. It’ll give the married, undersexed executives a thrill.”
We untangle ourselves from one another, and start to piece ourselves back together.
“You didn’t use a condom,” she says as she buttons her top.
“Things got away from me. Heat of the moment. I know that’s a bullshit excuse.” I fasten my belt back in place.
“It’s okay. I’m on the pill regardless, and I trust that you’re clean… right?” She walks over to use a mirrored piece of artwork on the far wall to fluff her hair.
“I am.”
“Nathanial, don’t think because I came in here and we did what we just did, that I’m happy right now. I know you aren’t either.”
I sink into my office chair, watching her use her fingernail to fix her smudged lipstick.
“What happened in that meeting aside and the general never-ending stress of this place?” I whirl my finger in the air. “What makes you say that?”
“Is your father okay?”
She discards her heels by the door and sinks into the soft, leather reading chair I have tucked in th
e corner by the bar cart.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“I heard you on the phone, and you seemed really upset before the meeting. Nathanial, I worked for your father for five years. I’m not stupid, okay? I noticed the changes happening in him toward the end of his time here. From forgetting meetings, to seeming lost in the middle of a conversation.”
“You were spying on me? Listening to my conversation?”
Why would she do that? What kind of person listens to another person’s private conversation?
“I’m asking you about your father’s health, because I care about him and you’re only concerned with the fact that I overhead a portion of a conversation?”
“You stood outside of my door and spied on me.”
“I wouldn’t call it spying. The call seemed urgent when you left me, and I could hear you when I walked by on my way to the conference room.”
“And yet you stuck around and eavesdropped long enough to know that I was talking about my father?” My volume shifts up just enough to get my point across.
“Okay. Wow.” She holds up her hands then rises to her feet. “You have trust and anger issues that you unfairly throw at my feet. When will you get it through your very dense head that I care about you? I ask questions because I care. It’s always been my downfall. I fight for what I think is right and I want to help everyone I can. I’m standing here, freshly fucked, in the middle of the day, in your office, trying to talk to you about what is going on because I CARE ABOUT YOU, and you’re getting mad at me!”
“Piper. Sit down.”
“No. When you are ready to let your walls down long enough to let me in, come find me. I have enough happening in my orbit right now. I can’t keep trying to pick away at your walls with a butter knife. When you get your head out of your ass… I’m all yours.”
She steps back into her stilettos and bolts out the door before I can say another word.
I’ve never understood the phrase “silence is deafening” more than I do right now.
Every conflict we seem to have spirals so out of control that my brain is left spinning. I don’t like seeing her upset. The last thing I want is for her to be hurting; especially because of something I’ve done to her.
