Bossed

by Sloane Howell

  Jenny’s face lit up. She really did love baseball, and that was completely awesome about her.

  “But you knew that already. Of course.” I waved a hand forward to accentuate my statement. “Anyway, we were both projected to be first-rounders after our senior year. Halfway through the season I heard a pop in my elbow. Never played again.”

  “Brutal. Tommy John?”

  “Yeah, they did the surgery. Still didn’t bounce back. I was a finance major already.” I tapped my index finger on my temple. “Had to have a backup plan because nothing is guaranteed, obviously. So, I finished up my degree and took on Matt as my first client. And thus”—I held my hands out—“Mason and Associates was born.”

  “Interesting. Do you miss it?”

  I hadn’t thought about what it was like playing baseball in years. It all rushed back with her little four-word question. “I try not to think about it—”

  “I’m sorry.” She dropped her head down to stare at her place setting.

  I leaned over and lifted her chin with my index finger. “You didn’t let me finish.” I smiled into her innocent blue eyes. “Yes, I do. There’s nothing better than staring down a hitter right before you strike his ass out.”

  “It’s a great game, isn’t it?”

  “It really is. I need to get out to the ballpark more often. I spend all my time in meetings and staring at contracts.”

  “And back-talking me.”

  Her deadpan delivery did me in. I nearly choked on my water. “You were definitely a surprise.”

  “Never had a woman give the shit right back to you, huh?”

  “I’ve never had anyone give the shit right back to me.”

  “Well, maybe if you weren’t such a dick all the time, people wouldn’t be so afraid of you. You’re a pretty great guy outside of the office. You know that, right?”

  I straightened up. Jenny must’ve noticed.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude.” She sunk into her chair a bit.

  “No, sorry. Force of habit. I just—I do things a certain way, run my business a certain way—I have my reasons.” I glanced out the window at the cars flying by in the street.

  “Which are?”

  Her persistence was annoying and cute at the same time. “You’re not letting this one go, are you?” I grinned.

  She twirled a lock of brunette hair around her finger and shook her head slowly at me, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Fine. Look, my—”

  “Are you folks ready to order?” The waiter appeared seemingly out of nowhere at the side of our table.

  “Yes,” I shot back at once.

  Jenny laughed. “Saved by the waiter.”

  We ordered our food. I took far longer than needed, hoping she’d forget all about her question, which she did. She was smart but I was still a master at distracting people.

  We finished up lunch and I held her hand and had my driver take her to her house. I rode in the back, of course, and walked her to her door when we arrived.

  “Today was fun. It was nice to get a break from reality.”

  Ouch. Was she talking about dealing with her father’s illness? Or did it mean today was just a fling and tomorrow we’d be back to butting heads at the office?

  I ran my hand along the side of her face and pushed a few strands of hair over her ear. She leaned her cheek into my palm.

  “I want to do it again.” I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. She always tasted sweet, like some kind of watermelon lip gloss. The kiss started to heat up, and I had her pressed up against the door.

  She placed her hand on my chest and pushed me away. “I do too.” She grinned. “But I have to go.”

  I held her hand and stared at her for a few seconds too long.

  “What is it? Do I have something on my face?” She tried to move her hand but I gripped it tighter.

  “No. I just want to look at you a second more.”

  Her face flushed with pink, and then she leaned out and kissed me one more time. “Okay, you got your look. Now go, before I end up yanking you into my house.”

  “Well, now, there’s an—”

  She shoved me once more, playfully of course. “Go!”

  “See you tomorrow?”

  She opened her door and nodded to me. “At work.”

  “Fine. Make us work.” I started down her steps. “Ruin all the fun, Jenny. Always so serious.”

  I turned back to get one more look at her smiling. I even got some teeth. She waved and then her door closed. I missed her already.

  Chapter 17

  Jenny Jackson

  It was the next morning and I raced around the house. I’d forgotten Kelsey had to work early doing inventory or something and it was her usual day to drive.

  Keys. Where the hell are my keys?

  After a good ten-minute search, I found them underneath a pile of clothes next to my bed. How they’d gotten there, I would never know. I rushed out the front door, grabbing my bag on the way.

  I turned around to lock the door.

  “You’re gonna be late for work, Miss Jackson.”

  What in the…?

  I whipped around and there was the smirk that always sent my heart racing. Ethan was in jeans and a black V-neck tee, leaning against his car with both hands in his pockets. His stare was like fire on my skin, even when he was smiling at me.

  “What—what are you doing here?” My mind hadn’t recovered from get-your-ass-to-work-on-time mode. “Why aren’t you at the office?”

  “We’re working out of the office today. Hop in.” He patted the roof of the car.

  Part of me was intrigued and excited at the idea, and part of me wondered what people at the office were going to think or say. I didn’t like coworkers thinking I was getting special treatment and I definitely didn’t want them thinking I was sleeping my way up the corporate ladder.

  “Work, huh?”

  “Yeah, just work.” He grinned.

  I narrowed my eyes at him as he walked around the car to open the door for me. “I don’t know if I believe you,” I said, half-jokingly.

  “I’m the boss. So it’s work if I say it is.”

  I wanted to tell him no, that we needed to go to the office. But I couldn’t. Nobody had ever surprised me like this with a date—whisked me off my feet on a workday. My heart rate clicked up another notch as he closed the door behind me and walked back around the car.

  Where was he taking me? What were we going to do?

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, then leaned over and kissed me full on the lips. All the tension in my body left me the moment his lips made contact with mine. He owned me with every kiss and he damn well knew it too, I could tell.

  He was getting close. Close enough to hurt me for sure, but I couldn’t stop him if I tried. Every time he was in my presence—staring at me, touching me—my body just ceded control.

  When he finally leaned back and stared for a moment, I gazed into his eyes.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  “I may have missed you too.”

  He chuckled and pushed a tuft of hair behind my ear.

  I smiled and leaned into his hand. “So, where are you taking me?”

  “It’s a surprise.” His hand left me when it moved down to shift the gear into reverse.

  I wanted his hand back on me. I always wanted his hands on me. “Do you even know how to drive your car?” I faked a serious stare.

  “Such a smart mouth on you.”

  I leaned back into the seat. “So I’ve been told.”

  “It’s okay.” He reached over and squeezed my thigh. “I have something that can shut it up.”

  I squirmed in my seat and squeezed my thighs together. “You have a filthy mouth on you. Do you know that?” Once again, I did my best to look serious.

  “So I’ve been told. Don’t worry. You’re going to have a filthy mouth on you soon enough.”

  Fuck.

  More squirming.

/>   I shook my head at him in disbelief, and the corner of his mouth quirked up into his devilish smirk-grin.

  Two could play at this game.

  I spread my legs apart and grabbed him at the wrist. I moved his hand down between my legs and up my skirt so that he could feel what his words did to me. “You promise?”

  His stare shot down to his hand and then up to my face. “Jesus.”

  Bam.

  We both shot up straight in our seats and our eyes grew wide. I glanced back behind us and died laughing. Ethan’s face was stone-cold serious. He’d backed right over my mailbox.

  He threw the car into park and glared, then smiled. “See what you made me do now?”

  I clutched my ribs, laughing hysterically. “What I made you do? You were driving!”

  He started to chuckle and fought it back. “Fuck it. I’ll fix it when we get back.”

  “Don’t you need to see if you damaged the car?”

  “No time. We have work to do.”

  I nodded. “Yep, work. We have work that needs to be done.”

  —

  I adjusted the batting helmet that was approximately three sizes too large for my head. It wobbled around anytime I moved. I was still in shock that he’d brought me here. My head rotated on a swivel as I took in the empty baseball stadium. It was beautiful during the day, even with nobody in the bleachers.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think about the helmets being too big.” He stood out behind the screen that the coaches used for batting practice with a bucket full of baseballs next to him.

  “Probably because your helmet isn’t that big.” I laughed and tried to spit on the dirt like the players did. I failed.

  Ethan laughed. “Shit talking already? You would’ve made a fine ballplayer, Jenny Jackson.”

  I grabbed my crotch at him and smiled. “I have no clue what I’m doing over here, by the way.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how to grab your crotch like a pro.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  God, his dirty mouth heated me up in all the wrong—or right—places.

  “Are you going to hurt yourself out there? Throwing the ball?”

  He stared for a second and then chuckled again. “Don’t worry. I can still strike your ass out if I want.”

  I took in the stadium for another brief moment. This was perfect. He’d brought me to the most perfect place in the world. I’d never been on the field before and it was an entirely different experience from sitting in the stands. There was only one problem. I was not athletic. At all.

  “Just because I know stats doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing up here. So just remember that.” I choked up on the bat and wiggled it behind my ear.

  “I’ll go easy on you.”

  Dick!

  I gripped the bat tighter. “Just throw the ball, pussy.”

  He glared at me over the net and I grinned.

  Ethan rolled his shoulders and then tossed the ball at me. At least I thought it was coming at me.

  I jumped back and squealed. It looked like it was coming a million miles an hour.

  “You okay?”

  I shot a heated stare in his direction because I wasn’t a fan of looking like a scared baby holding a bat. “I’m fine! Don’t throw at me next time or I’ll come out there and kick your ass!”

  He held his arms out, palms facing me. “It was right down the middle!”

  “Don’t give me that shit, Mason! You threw at me because you’re scared I’ll take you deep.”

  He laughed. “You should be the one afraid of getting taken deep.”

  I tried to hide the “please take me deep” look on my face and tapped the bat on the plate. “Yeah, right. Just throw a strike this time.”

  “Just watch the ball as it comes in and move your hands to it.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Don’t be afraid. Okay? I won’t let you get hit by a pitch. I promise.”

  This was it. It seemed silly, but he was asking me to trust him. I could see it on his face. I stopped the fun banter and nodded back to him. “Okay.”

  He smiled. A real genuine, happy smile. “Wait until it’s about halfway there and then swing.”

  “Okay.” This was it. I wanted to show him that I believed him.

  Fear ran through me, because hitting a baseball was actually difficult, it seemed. And it came way faster when I was in the batter’s box than it did from out in the seats. I also feared I was doing what I always do—cooking up some metaphor for a situation when it really meant nothing. Did this all mean nothing? Did he really just want to have fun on a baseball field and I was turning it into something it wasn’t?

  “You’re overthinking this right now. Trust me. You can do it.”

  He always knew the right things to say. I relaxed.

  He threw the ball again and I did as he said. I watched it and when it got about halfway I swung, taking my hands to the ball.

  Crack!

  I made contact and watched the ball fly out over where the shortstop would usually stand. “OH MY GOD!” I squealed and jumped up and down.

  Ethan ran around from the net and I ran out to meet him halfway, still yelling. “Did you see that? I hit the ball!”

  “A good one too! I thought it had a chance of leaving the park.” He held a hand up to his brow and turned out toward left field like he was searching for the ball in the bleachers.

  I laughed and he turned back to face me.

  I hugged him and squeezed as hard as I could. I wasn’t sure if I was so happy about hitting the baseball or that I’d given in and trusted him not to let me get hurt.

  He draped his arms around my neck and kissed me, right in the middle of the stadium. It was one of those kisses like in the movies, where the camera pans all around and everything seemingly disappears in the world and it’s just the two main characters, sharing an intimate moment. Shocks of electricity skittered through my limbs and it was like I was weightless, floating on air.

  He kissed me harder, his tongue searching my mouth, and his hands moved into my hair. God damn his hands in my hair. It was my kryptonite. His hips surged against me and his cock was thick and hard against my pussy.

  “I want you now,” he growled in my ear.

  Jesus. It was like a command.

  “Then take me.”

  He looked around and then to the dugout. His eyes grew wicked. He scooped me up under my knees and my breath hitched. I grabbed around his neck for support as he rushed us toward the dugout.

  “I plan on it.”

  Chapter 18

  Ethan Mason

  I knew exactly where I wanted her and I couldn’t get there fast enough.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  I walked down the steps of the dugout and into the clubhouse with her cradled in my arms. “Anywhere I want.” My cock strained against my jeans, aching to be released. How could Jenny infiltrate me so easily? It’d be a sweet moment with her and me, and then we’d kiss—and then it was all over, I had to get my dick inside of her. Touching her did things to me. Then there was the fact that she’d trusted me on the field. She probably thought it was just me trying to have fun, but to me it was so much more than that.

  I asked her to trust me and she did. It was huge in my mind, even if it was only in her subconscious.

  She tensed under my grasp when she heard my words, and the promise that came with them. Her mouth was next to my ear and she whispered, “Well, hurry. I’m so wet for you right now.”

  Fucking hell.

  I got to the wooden double doors and yanked one open. I’d told the GM I was bringing a potential client to the ballfield. They were working the stadium with a skeleton grounds crew, so employees were going to be scarce. It was perfect.

  Jenny’s eyes lit up when I walked us inside of the team’s locker room. She could ogle it later though as far as I was concerned. I had things to do to her body. I sat her down and she began to stare at the benches and lockers.


  I gripped her around the waist and pressed her hard up against the wall next to the doors.

  She gasped. “Ohh.”

  I pressed my chest into her back, pinning her tighter against it, and ran my hand over the curve of her hip and down to her ass.

  “You’re really going to fuck me in the locker room?”

  “No, I’m going to eat your pussy from behind in the locker room while you claw your nails into that wall. And then I’m going to fuck you up against it.” I shoved her skirt up over her ass.

  “Oh my God, Ethan,” she cooed, her cheek flat against the wall and her eyes closed.

  I loved saying naughty things to her that left her speechless. She wasn’t wearing panties. I stared down at her soft ass teasing me out in the open, practically begging for me to fuck it from behind.

  I clapped a palm over one of her cheeks and kneaded her soft flesh. “Yeah, you weren’t expecting to get fucked today. Were you? Not wearing any panties.” I smirked.

  She acted as if she was shocked at my words. “I didn’t want any panty lines.”

  I bent down and spread her ass so I could get a good look at her pale pink pussy. I could see her wetness already glistening from the lights overhead.

  “Mmhmm, I bet. So fucking naughty.” I leaned in and teased her slit with the tip of my tongue. She moaned. I smiled, knowing my tongue could get any reaction it wanted out of her.

  I reached up and pushed down on her lower back to give me a better angle. “Do you like when I eat your pussy from behind?”

  “God, you’re so filthy.”

  “We’ll see who’s filthy when you’re coming and my name is echoing around the room.”

  “Fuck,” she whisper-screamed.

  “That’ll come after.” I kept her spread wide and moved in, flattening my tongue over her entrance. Her thighs trembled and I worked her clit with the tip of my tongue.

  “Oh my God.”

  I worked her faster and harder, my mouth never leaving her until I could feel her teetering close to the edge of release. I backed off and stood up next to her.

  “What are you doing? I’m so close.” She panted, her cheek flat on the wall.

  I moved next to her and worked my fingers back and forth through her hot, slick folds. “You’re going to finish on my fingers,” I exhaled into her ear.