by Marika Ray
“Come in,” a deep male voice called from the other side of the door.
I cocked my head, something making me pause. Was this that sixth sense all those self-defense experts say to listen to? I shrugged and pushed the door open, walking in before I lost the job before I even had it.
“Thanks for coming. My assistant—”
My jaw dropped when the man in the gray suit turned around, mirroring his own look of surprise.
“Jayden?”
“Nora?”
“Wha-what are you doing here?” I stuttered, just like I was afraid I’d do, but I had good reason. What was my soon-to-be boyfriend doing in the office where I was to have my first interview?
He snapped his jaw closed and his face went pale. “Are you here for your interview?”
I nodded, seeking out and gripping the back of the chair situated before a huge desk with a single solitary piece of paper on it.
“Um, yeah…” I raised my eyebrows, a feeling of dread mixing with the butterflies in my stomach.
Jayden ran a hand over his face and then gestured to the chair. “Why don’t we take a seat and I’ll explain.”
And to my shock and horror, he sat in the huge black leather executive chair behind the desk like he belonged there. My satchel slipped off my shoulder and hit the tile, nearly tripping me when I came around to sit down in the straight-backed club chair. My legs buckled and the chair caught me, even as my feet rejoiced. My mind was scrambling and I couldn’t come up with one reasonable explanation for Jayden to be there that didn’t spell trouble for me.
He sat there staring at me with those gray eyes I’d seen lost in pleasure multiple times before, his thumb tapping out a rhythm on the desk. I couldn’t help but notice he looked damn fine in a full suit. The forearms were covered, which was a shame, but damn me to hell if that fitted suit jacket wasn’t doing funny things between my thighs. Finally he clasped his hands together and got on with it.
“Okay, so I meant to tell you about this whole thing eventually, but the mayor asked that I keep it quiet until we opened. And well, I didn’t think until last night that we might be, well, more, so…” He trailed off, looking highly uncomfortable.
“Seriously, man, you gotta spit it out. I’m on the edge of my seat here.” I gave him an incredulous smile, feeling a bit light-headed and maybe a little crazy. Not the ideal feelings for a job interview. Although this didn’t feel like a job interview anymore, so maybe a little crazy was a good thing.
Jayden pushed back from the desk and started pacing the small office. My gaze tracked him like he held the answers to the universe or at least the location of the last dark chocolate bar on planet Earth.
“Remember how I told you I sold my last business?” At my nod he continued. “So, the mayor approached me the first time I visited Auburn Hill with Bain. He congratulated me on my success and then asked if I’d be willing to fund a start-up here in Hell. I agreed, liking the idea that I could keep my hand in a business without running it day to day. I’m too young to just retire, but I want to be able to spend as much time with Red as possible, so it seemed ideal.”
“So, I’m here to interview with you as my boss?” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, afraid my eyeballs were about to pop out of my head.
This was bad.
I’d slept with my boss before I knew he could be my boss.
Jayden cringed before smoothing out his features. “Well, yes, but remember, I won’t be here in the office day to day. I’m more of the investor behind the thing. So, you’d be the main person in charge. We wouldn’t really work together that often.”
I shook my head to clear the thousands of questions pinging through my brain. “Wait. What even is this business?” I crossed my fingers mentally.
Please don’t be a fish sticks factory.
Jayden pulled at the tie around his neck.
“It’s a subscription box company.” His gaze fluttered to my shoes. “For sex toys.”
Time froze and I froze along with it. For a hot second there I wondered if I was still tucked in my bed, having this nightmare while I slept, but unable to wake up from it. The thought gave me hope, so I unfroze to pinch my arm.
“Ouch!”
Jayden frowned and sat back down in his chair.
I tried to assemble the threads of ideas floating through my brain in an order that made sense. Like a Sudoku puzzle for people who hated math, it just wasn’t working.
“So you’re telling me that I’m sleeping with the guy who might be my potential boss, while applying to be the head sex toy maker in some sort of twisted Santa’s workshop company in the small, conservative town I grew up in as the pastor’s daughter?”
Jayden’s lips twitched. I knew that look. It was his look when he found something hilarious, but was trying to act stoic. Usually it set my panties on fire, but not now. Not when I had such hopes and dreams for this job. Not when the situation was so ridiculous it couldn’t be salvaged.
“Essentially, yes.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Oh, well, then in that case. Great. Sign me up.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you being sarcastic?”
Mine narrowed right back at him. “Are you being purposefully obtuse?”
The lips twitched again. “That’s kind of my MO if you haven’t noticed.”
I sighed long and loud.
“Need a hug?” Jayden asked innocently.
I jumped to my aching feet. “No! I need a goddamn job!”
Jayden jumped up too, sending his chair flying into the wall behind him. “Great! Run my company and I promise I’ll pay you extremely well.”
I grasped the top of my head with both hands. “You don’t get it. We’re sleeping together.”
Jayden came closer, the walk of those approaching a wild animal. “I know. And it kind of freaks me out too, but I trust you, Nora. After last night I was thinking about what you said. How I overcame the issues with my ex, but really, I haven’t. I haven’t learned to trust again, but with you…well, I finally want to trust again.” His hands cupped my face and my knees went wobbling again for an entirely different reason.
“We’ll sign contracts and nondisclosures and all kinds of things to protect us both, but take this job, Nora.”
His gaze bore into mine, begging me to take the job and the man. More than anything I wanted to say yes and celebrate by peeling that suit off Jayden one piece at a time like a Christmas present. I mean, really, how perfect was this whole situation? I got a man who set my soul on fire AND a dream job marketing a brand-new company? All the details screamed at me to take the offer, but there was that one pesky problem.
“I can literally see my father’s church from the parking lot,” I responded in a daze of indecision.
Why couldn’t it have been a fish sticks factory?
16
Jayden
For one glorious second I thought my little daydream of role-playing was coming true. In my new office, Nora walking in with those heels that nearly stopped my heart, all business like with a blouse and suit jacket, her soft lips in a little “O.”
Then I realized she was as shocked as I was and right on time…if she was my interviewee that morning. When I’d asked my assistant to set up an ad and schedule the interviews, I’d left all the details to her, focusing instead on my big move. And spending time with Nora.
I’m such a dumbass.
I hadn’t even connected Nora’s excited announcement of an interview with my own company. What were the odds? I guess they were pretty good given the size of Auburn Hill, but I was still coming to terms with small-town life.
Her wide brown eyes were swimming in indecision. I could practically see the war she was waging inside her own head. I was handing her an exciting opportunity to start that career she wanted so badly. But a sex toy shop?
For the first time, I felt shame about the industry I was involved in. Which pissed me off because I had enough shame swirling in my gut
on a daily basis. I didn’t need any more and especially not over something as fundamental as sex. We’d literally been doing it and enjoying it since the dawn of mankind.
Stroking a thumb across her cheek, I begged her. “Just think about it. To hell with whatever the gossip junkies will say about it. You can run this thing all on your own. Build it from the ground up. A vibrator’s nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart.”
Her cheeks heated and she tried to duck her head, but I held on tight. “But what about my dad?”
An arrow of mortification hit me square in the chest. “It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that. But you’re an adult, Nora. Your parents will see that and realize just because you work for a sex toy company, it’s not like you use them all the time.” I paused. “Though I hope you’ll want to try out some of the products.”
She whacked my arm and I let go of her face. I could see her struggling to keep a straight face.
“We’re not even open to the public. This is an internet-based business. We just compile the boxes here and ship them out. All your marketing efforts will be on building a website and advertising. Completely safe and dildo-free if you so choose.”
She barked out a laugh disguised as a cough. “Bejesus…” She had a seat in the chair, her hands folded in her lap. “Fine, tell me about this website.”
By the time we’d gone over what I was looking for and how she could hire whatever web designer she wanted, her cheeks were still flushed, but from excitement this time. She wanted the position, I could tell.
“You’re not giving me the job just because we slept together, right?” she asked.
“Please,” I assured her, “the only other applicant was Grayson, your brother’s friend. And he said he only wanted it because our names would match.”
Nora frowned.
“Jayden, Grayson,” I supplied.
“Okayden.”
I snorted back a laugh. She was so weird she would keep my life interesting.
“Do it, Nora,” I whispered, leaning closer to her over the desk my assistant had delivered just two days ago.
She leaned in and the light dancing in her eyes turned me on more than her stripping down in the middle of the fair parking lot last night.
“Let’s do it.”
I smacked the table and let out a whoop. My girl was doing it. We’d be a team in more ways than one. I hadn’t been this excited about anything since I logged into my bank account and saw all those zeros after my first business officially sold.
Nora stood up and we crashed into a celebratory hug, which turned into a celebratory kiss. And once those gorgeous lips were on mine, clothes were coming off. Jackets, pants, shirts, and shoes came off in the blink of an eye.
“Wait, keep the heels on,” I told her when she bent to slide them off.
She gave me a wicked grin and every muscle tightened in anticipation. I trusted Nora and she trusted me back. She’d been right. Trusting again felt good. I felt whole for the first time in ages.
When she was naked except for her heels, I spun her around and bent her over the desk with a hand on her back. I slid a fingertip down her spine, watching shivers follow in my wake. Her skin was soft and fragile like silk, yet calling for me to grab it rough. So I did. My hands left a red mark on the globes of her ass from where I kneaded her flesh. She was fucking amazing.
“Maybe now I really can give you some dick-tation, huh?” I whispered in her ear as I bent over her, trailing my hands along her sides. I felt her giggle more than I heard it. I took a handful of her perfectly straight hair and felt the need to mess it up. I crushed it in my fist and pulled, her head coming back even as she panted.
“Oh, you like that, huh?”
She gasped and I took that as a yes.
I grabbed my cock with my other hand, already locked and loaded. Nora just had to look at me and I was hardening. Apparently the same was true for her, considering the moisture coating her inner thighs. With one well-placed thrust I was inside, the warmth of her surrounding me and making me shiver with pleasure. I was so far gone I almost let her hair slip through my fist.
“Oh God,” Nora panted.
I tightened my fist and pulled her hair harder. She keened, the sound echoing off the blank walls of my new office. She was perfect. First she wanted my hand around her neck. Now she wanted me to pull her hair? She was every man’s sex dream.
No, not every man’s.
Mine.
“You tell me if I hurt you, Nora. Otherwise, you’ll take what the boss is giving you. Understand?”
She tried to nod but didn’t get very far with me holding her head hostage by the hair. I slid out nice and slow until I was in danger of slipping out of her entirely. When she shifted restlessly on the desk, I slammed back in, letting her feel every inch of me. Her whole body quivered.
“Did you lock the door, Nora?” I pulled back out, just hovering at her entrance. A bead of sweat dripped down my back. Holding out was harder than I anticipated.
“Wh-what?” she sputtered.
“A good manager always has an eye on security, you know.”
“Just shut up and give me the dick, Jayden!”
I tsked even though I thoroughly enjoyed the potty mouth of hers that came out in traffic or sex. But I was seconds away from losing control and asking her inane questions was the only way I could hold out.
“Is that any way to talk to your boss?” I smacked her ass.
Nora gasped and then took matters into her own hands by pushing away from the desk and backing up into me, sliding down my cock like she wanted. She sighed, the little heathen, thoroughly enjoying me filling her to the brim.
My toes curled and all control snapped.
“Nah-huh.” Not on my watch. I was the boss here.
I pushed her flat on the desk and drove in and out of her body, wrestling back control of the situation. Flesh slapping together and sex-starved grunts filled the air as I gave Nora all I had. She took it too. All of it. Over and over until her back bowed off the desk of her own accord. She screamed something about fucking bunnies in a sex spiral, but I couldn’t really make it out over the roaring in my head. I released into her, feeling every single sensation tenfold since I was in her bare, finally trusting her.
I released her hair to try to keep myself from crushing her, inordinately pleased to see I’d ruined her pin-straight do. She laid her cheek on the desk and I draped myself over her back, too weak to stand up quite yet. We lay there for long minutes as I listened to her thundering heart slow with each breath. My skin was still jumping, like a live wire had shocked me into another universe where pleasure was amplified. I could have stayed there all day.
I was happy, I realized.
Well and truly happy.
It was a heady feeling. I wasn’t even quite sure if it was normal happiness or just some post-orgasmic juju that could only happen in the crazy town of Auburn Hill. The last several years had just been a long battle to stay ahead, sell my company, deal with the havoc that two women brought to my door. Happiness was an emotion for someone else. Not me. And definitely not simply because of a brown-eyed girl from a small town.
Strange things were happening and I couldn’t be happier about it.
I finally lifted off Nora, wondering if she’d lost all feeling in her lower extremities since I’d pinned her to the desk. I saw a red mark on her left hip. Leaning down, I kissed it, making her squeal.
“What are you doing?” Nora stood up quickly, still in those heels that drove me wild and nothing else.
My gaze drifted, taking in every curve, every freckle, and every place on Nora’s body I hadn’t worshipped yet. I found myself glad we were officially dating so I could take my time with her. Explore her body and her mind one fascinating detail at a time.
“We’re dating,” I stated gruffly, still lost in lustful thoughts of what I wanted to do to her.
“Ugh, we just started working together and you’re already getting bossy.” Nora rolled h
er eyes, but a smile hinted at her lips.
I took a step closer and pulled her to me, running my hands through her hair and breathing her in.
“Hell yes I am when it comes to our relationship. But don’t worry. Work is different. You’re free to run things as you see fit. I swear I’ll control any bossy tendencies.” I nuzzled beneath her ear. “I’ll save those for the bedroom. Or the car.”
She shivered and I smiled.
Life was fucking good.
“Yoo-hoo…”
A loud yell from the front of the shop had us both whipping our heads to the closed office door.
“Oh shit. I’d know that yodel anywhere.” Nora pushed me off her and scrambled to get her clothes from the ground. She nearly wiped out in her heels and I caught her just in time.
“Get dressed!” she hissed at me, not even thanking me from saving her from a face-plant into the hard tile floor.
“I’m sure they’ll go away,” I whispered back, chuckling at her panic.
“It’s Poppy. She. Doesn’t. Go. Away,” she enunciated, eyes round.
My residual hard-on from seeing Nora in those heels died a quick death at the thought of the aging mail carrier. “Oh shit.”
“Exactly!”
I scrambled right with her, getting my shirt tucked into my pants by the time Nora was smoothing down her hair. She glanced over at me and whipped open the door. I smirked, seeing a huge tangle in the back of her hair. Anyone who’d ever had rough sex with anyone would know how those tangles got there. I gestured to her hair and she flew into action trying to comb it out while hissing at me to hurry up.
We made it to the front door, where thankfully our town’s busybody mail carrier had not come through. Instead, she stood on the doorstep with a huge box in her arms, the side of which was pressed up against the doorjamb as if it were too heavy to manage on her own.
“There you are! Delivery!” She panted, her face bright red.
“Here, let me…” I lunged forward to grab the box. For all I knew the older woman would break her back delivering my package and sue me before I was even open for business.
