The Guy Next Door (Forbidden Love Book 1)

by Kelly Myers

  “I’m feeling off. I think that lunch may not have been my friend,” I announced.

  “Are you okay?” Zack asked. “Are you going to want dinner?”

  “Maybe I’ll feel better after I get a chance to rest.”

  I left the conference room, expecting that I would be by myself for the rest of the evening, never once getting a moment to say anything to Zack without an audience present. I wanted to pout in privacy.

  “Just a sec,” I called out when I heard the knock on my door a few hours later.

  Zack leaned against the door frame. He looked all long-limbed with stretched-out muscles, strong and dangerous. I blinked a few times before I realized he had changed out of work clothes and the faded jeans and cable knit sweater he wore changed my whole perception of him.

  I stepped back, inviting him in without a word.

  Kicking the door shut behind him, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest before claiming my lips. His kiss was full of all of the promises I felt that I was missing being in this place with all of my coworkers, and not alone with him.

  I toyed with the hem of his sweater before I slid my hand underneath to find the hard planes of his defined pecs. He felt so warm and solid. He grounded me to the present when I wanted to hide from it all. But I wanted to hide with him. His hands pulled my tunic up until his hands could run along my hips and backside.

  “It’s been making me crazy knowing you don’t have panties on underneath these leggings,” He growled into my mouth. His hands slipped past the waistband, and fingers slipped between my legs.

  I pulled him back toward the bed. This is what I wanted him for, needed from him. Touching, kissing.

  “Won’t the team be looking for you?” I asked with a moan. His fingers stroking my clit made focusing difficult.

  He pressed me back into the bed and pulled my leggings off.

  “We’re taking a break. Meeting in the lobby at twenty after. If I can’t touch you I’ll go mad.”

  “You are touching me,” I gasped.

  He dipped two fingers into my heat.

  “Fuck me, you are so wet.” He undid the fly of his jeans. His beautiful cock sprang forth, erect and pulsing with anticipation.

  He placed one knee on the bed and slid up my body until our hips met. I hitched a leg over his and pulled him in closer.

  “I want you,” I let out a needy whine.

  He palmed my breast through my clothes. And kissed me hard. His tip teased my entrance.

  “Why do you feel so good?” he murmured.

  He slid in. I sighed as my body welcomed him home, wrapping him in my need. His withdrawal was fast, unexpected.

  “Condom!” he barked. “Fuck, I didn’t pack any. Didn’t think we’d have a second alone. You?”

  I shook my head. “I’m on the pill.” I reached up to pull him back to my body. “We’ll be fine. The condoms were mostly for diseases. We don’t have to worry about those, do we?”

  “No we don’t,” he said with a smirk.

  I didn’t cry out as much as I wanted when he slid back into me, just in case someone was listening at the door. That didn’t stop him from moaning.

  “Fuck, you feel so good Crystal. So much better with your skin around me.”

  I thrust my hips up, and he drove into me harder.

  I pushed my hands underneath his sweater and teased his nipples with my thumbs as he continued to pound. His arms braced on either side of my head. I was trapped beneath him. Pinned to the bed by his glorious cock.

  “Oh fuck!” he practically roared. His face contorted in that expression that looked like pain, but was really the ‘oh so good’ of an orgasm.

  I wanted to laugh with delight because my body did that to him. The smile was wiped from my face as my body responded to his as I joined him in ecstatic spasms.

  I wanted to stay weighed down by his body. I wanted to wrap him around me and sleep together until morning.

  With a groan, he rolled to the side. “That was intense.”

  A buzzing sound came from his jeans somewhere around his knees.

  “I’ve got to go.” He kissed me quickly and pulled his pants back up as he stood. “Are you coming or staying?”

  “Staying. Have fun.”

  He kissed me again before leaving me alone.

  13

  Zack

  I left Crystal depleted on the bed. Her limbs hung as if she had no muscular control, half-naked and utterly spent. I loved shattering her that way. Always so responsive to my touch, she stirred something primordial inside me. The mere thought of getting her hot and bothered was enough to redirect all blood flow straight to my cock.

  I needed to watch it or my dick would spring back up, ready for action. Not the preferred choice for an evening out with a bunch of programmers from work. If I had a choice, I would be taking the rest of her clothes off, and stripping myself down to the skin. Instead, I was walking down the hotel hallway shoving my hands into my pockets pretending that I hadn’t just had one of the best damned quickies in all of my life.

  “Hi, Zack,” Allison greeted me with a reserved smile. “I came to check on Crystal. Her room is up this way.”

  Allison pointed. I twisted to follow the direction of her gesture.

  “Yeah, I was just checking on her. She’s gonna stay in for tonight. I thought maybe we should pick a little surprise up for her.” I continued to stride away from Crystal’s room.

  I swallowed the ‘oh shit almost busted’ lump in my throat. Not quite gone, I coughed to clear it away. I covered my mouth and smelled Crystal on my fingers. I closed my eyes and inhaled her heady musk.

  If I didn’t stay focused, thoughts of her would have me hard and miserable all evening. I coughed again. Maybe I could pretend to not feel well and go back to her room?

  “We should call a car or two. I feel like drinking tonight. I shouldn’t be driving,” I announced. If I couldn’t have Crystal, I’d have whiskey.

  “Ooh, the boss gets wild and crazy,” Allison chuckled.

  When we reached the lobby I excused myself to the restroom. I needed to wash Crystal from my fingers. I didn’t want to, but I was not going to share any of her, even accidentally. She was mine.

  My hair was a disheveled mess. Sex hair. Had Allison even noticed? I smoothed my hair back and started washing. With hands full of soap, I awkwardly wiped at my eye. My arm came close to my nose, and I smelled Crystal. I finished washing my hands and began sniffing my sweater. Her scent was on me. I didn’t bother to hide the cocky smile that took up residence on my face.

  Two cars ferried us into the middle of the touristy area of Fisherman’s Wharf. I kept my eyes open for a gift, something I could get Crystal that wouldn’t be out of character for an appreciative boss to give an employee.

  Allison pointed out a fudge shop. “Let’s get Crystal some fudge.”

  “Does she like chocolate?” I pretended to not know. She liked her chocolate dark and bitter. Her favorite came with a swirl of orange zest, and a dash of salt. If it wasn’t dark, she preferred her chocolate to have fruit in it.

  “Are you buying fudge for the rest of us?” The sneer in Greg’s voice set the small hair on the back of my neck on end.

  “Get your own fudge Greg,” Allison said.

  We ignored him, and with the help of the teenager behind the counter, we bought Crystal a modest collection of flavors.

  I ignored Greg’s more asshole oriented comments through dinner. There were brief moments when he wasn’t being a complete dick. There were not enough of those to provide a counterbalance for the rest of his attitude.

  After a few glasses of wine with dinner, and a few rounds of shots at some bar on Cannery Row, my tongue was feeling a little loose and I was feeling a little dangerous. I picked up my chair and sauntered to the other end of the table where Greg sat. The expressions around me made it clear that my move was unexpected. The panicked expression on Greg’s face made me want to cackle maniacally.


  The sound of scraping chairs needled in my brain, a reminder of unpleasant things and I needed to tread very carefully. I placed my chair down, sat, and draped an arm over Greg’s shoulder. I squeezed hard. It was intended to intimidate.

  “Greg, are you having a good day?” I asked.

  The expression he gave me was one of confusion. What was I doing? Did he need to be concerned? How drunk was I, and could he leverage this behavior with my fucking, self-proclaimed uncle?

  “Yeah, Zack. Today has been good,” he answered with noticeable hesitation.

  “I have had a fucking brilliant day,” I said with a laugh. I may have jerked my arm a little tighter around his shoulder. It slid so the hold was more like a neck lock.

  “You know who hasn’t had a good day, Greg?”

  He shrugged.

  “Crystal has not had a good day. She should be here having fun, but she’s not.”

  “She wasn’t feeling good,” he said. “Said lunch wasn’t agreeing with her.”

  “Uh-huh, I suspect what isn’t agreeing with her is you, Greg. You know what microaggressions are Greg? Do you?”

  “Yeah, what’s your point, Zack?” he stammered.

  “You are not subtle, Greg. I’m tired of your blatant microaggression toward a very valuable member of this team.” I squeezed tighter, dragging his ear closer to my mouth. I whispered in his ear. “Stop fucking doing it, or I can guarantee George Fredrickson won’t be able to save your job.”

  I released my arm and he sat away from me with a lurch.

  “That wasn’t exactly subtle yourself there Zack.” He tried to puff his scrawny chest up. Sure he had height on me, but I had muscle and strength.

  I stood and wiped down the front of my sweater as if it were covered in crumbs. “It wasn’t supposed to be Greg. You need to cut that shit out.”

  I went to the bar and ordered another shot before taking a car back to the hotel alone.

  Crystal didn’t answer her door when I knocked. She must have been asleep.

  The next day passed in a haze of looking at fish and driving the van back to the Shingle Click offices. The headache that lurked behind my eyes was not helped by the suspicious glares Greg shot in my direction. At least he was leaving Crystal alone.

  Unfortunately, so was I.

  “Crystal,” I said as I walked into her cube the next day. Her new crown hung at an angle on the corner of one of her monitors.

  The smile she gave me made my already stellar morning even better. Her eyes sparkled, and I wanted to kiss her. I wanted her to jump up and press those warm soft breasts against my chest, and continue to wiggle the way she did when she was happy.

  She was going to be happy, but there would be no hugs or kisses.

  “I got the first round of results in. All those roadblocks Tony had pointed out,” I shook my head. “Practically nonexistent.”

  I smiled as she started to squirm in her chair. Damn, she was sexy.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’ll forward you the reports to share. If everything continues this way, we shift tracks to the next phase. Can we do any clean-up as we go if any of those issues pop up?”

  She bit her lip. Her eyes darted about as she thought. “If Allison and Armand don’t have to reinvent the wheel on those unknown factors, I should be able to pull one of them for cleaning up code.” She gave a little nod. “Yeah, I mean, I haven’t seen the numbers, but by the look on your face, they are better than expected. If everything lines up, we could enter phase two in a couple of weeks.”

  “Could we push up the deadline?” I asked with a wink.

  She laughed, “You’re cute, but you’re not that cute. The deadline has been established. It’s just meant to change the rules in the middle of the game.”

  I shrugged. Deadlines changed all the time. We could revisit that discussion after we have all the results.

  “Speaking of games,” I leaned in close, cutting my gaze toward Greg’s cube and back. “Have you noticed any changes in anyone’s attitude?”

  She tilted her head in the direction I had been looking. “He’s not in today. Seems to have caught something on our little trip. Why?”

  “I think he may have caught a case of ‘the boss told him off,’” I said.

  “Zack, what did you do?” she whispered.

  “Nothing to worry over. His attitude was on full display, I told him to check it at the door. He wasn’t being clever, and I was sick of hearing it. No possible retaliation issues.”

  She sighed. I could watch her do that all day long.

  “Hey, Zack,” Tony said as he walked past. “I just heard in QA that the results coming in look fantastic.”

  “I heard that too. It’s all wait and see at this point.”

  “Hopefully the results stay steady. I know after this weekend I’m feeling ready to hit the ground running with this. That was a lot of fun. Thank you.” He nodded at Crystal. “You should wear your crown today, you earned it.”

  With a happy undulation and giggle, she placed it on her head. Everything about her was dazzling.

  14

  Crystal

  I slipped my crown on my head and dove into the onslaught of emails. Its weight not only reminded me to keep my back straight, and posture corrected, it reminded me that there was a time this product rollout was moving smoothly and we all had hope and a positive outlook. We hit a hard brick wall in the integration process. As Zack said when he first took over at Shingle Click, like an arrow we had to pull back to go even farther.

  The pull-back fell squarely on my team’s shoulders. We were the victims of our own good work. There was no convincing the bosses what they were asking was not going to happen. It was impossible. There were physically not enough hours in the day. I stood next to Zack in a presentation where the damned President of the Board told us to find a way. I wanted to hand him a rock and ask him to squeeze blood from it.

  Every other cubicle in this building had a variation of the same Venn diagram. The basic image was three overlapping circles, one labeled as ‘quality,’ another as ‘fast,’ and the third labeled as ‘cheap.’ The center, where the circles would overlap always said, ‘no,’ ‘not possible,’ ‘pick two,’ or some combination of words indicating that the three: good, fast, and cheap, never happened together.

  And yet, here we were, expected to up the pre-established deadline, and deliver a quality product. All without giving me another programmer. Even with one more, we would still not be able to meet the new timetable.

  My fingers flew across my keyboard, typing away with pent-up rage. I forwarded the weekly status report to Zack. I missed our twice-weekly strolls through the office where we would take our time to review what was going on, and what was coming up next. Those days were gone. There was no time. We were perpetually behind schedule.

  “Make It Happen.”

  I fantasized about what would happen if we didn’t. There were the good fantasies where Zack would sweep in and defend me against George Fredrickson. There were the gruesome ones that made me shudder as I imagined bad horror movie graphics of heads exploding. Unfortunately, there were the reality-based ones too: we all got fired.

  It didn’t help that our initial success changed the nature of Zack’s job. Suddenly he was traveling all over, and barely ever in the office. He met venture capitalists to secure funding. He met vendors who could streamline our direct-to-consumer distribution. He was off having meetings with everyone but me.

  Email sent, I stood. The next thing I knew I was back in my chair. I placed a hand on my forehead and against my cheeks. I couldn’t tell if I felt hot or clammy. That spell had felt just like the stupid ear infection I had a month ago. I didn’t have time to get sick.

  By the time I got off the train, I was too tired to walk the extra block to the minute clinic. I just wanted to get home. I hadn’t heard from Zack, and I wanted to see him.

  Once home I knocked on his door to see if he was home. He answered
the door and waved me in. I trudged into his sparsely furnished apartment. He needed better furniture, he certainly could afford it. I slumped onto the couch as he paced back and forth having a conversation with someone on the phone.

  It was business. I could tell by his choice of words. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to hear about how the HCC mobile app was the linchpin in the future success of the company. If the work my team did was so vital, why did they suddenly start treating us like indentured servants instead of valuable employees?

  He pulled the earpiece out and tossed it onto the kitchen counter before falling onto the couch next to me.

  I sighed as he leaned against me, finding comfort in his presence.

  “How come the more success we have, the harder we have to work?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “That sounds like some kind of philosophical question they make you write essays about in business school.”

  He thrust a pointed finger straight up into the air as if he were making a proclamation. “Discuss the cornerstone principle of growth vectors in contrast to economic evidence of enterprise markers,” he chuckled.

  “I don’t know what any of that means, but I swear that’s what half of your conversations sound like,” I lifted my hand to stroke his hair.

  He lay his head in my lap and looked up at me. “Fancy words for saying prove how this thing will make money. I got today’s figures.”

  “Oh please, can we not talk about work?” I whined.

  “I haven’t seen you for days. It’s my first chance to ask questions,” he kept talking about work.

  “Exactly, we haven’t seen each other for days.” I leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

  “That’s a much better idea.” He rolled around until he was over me, pressing me back into the cushions.

  His lips slid over mine, and I stopped thinking about anything other than the feel of him. His tongue caressed the seam of my mouth and I darted my tongue out to tease his. I captured his lower lip in my teeth, and he let out a primal growl that had my entire body light up with want and need.