“No lady right now. Actually, I’ve been woman free for a few months now.”
“Well, that’s no fun; what are we going to talk about at lunch then?” Rob said.
We did find plenty to talk about and quickly reverted to our business talk and goals for the future. Having a group of friends that supported my grand plans for business growth was a huge benefit, and I always used our time to run ideas past them.
Ted didn’t usually talk too much about his business anymore; he had phased himself out after his last daughter was born. He hired an executive to oversee the day to day functions of the company so he could spend more time at home and less managing the sporting goods stores.
The telecommunications world was constantly changing, and Rob always filled us in on the latest new gadgets and technology. I preferred as little technology as possible, but it was nice to hear about fun new things that were being developed.
“You have to get into the Cyber Romance book genre; my wife says they are making a killing at the bookstore she works at,” Ted said.
“Hmm, I’m not sure I even know what that genre of book is,” I said, and we all laughed.
“Maybe it’s when a girl has sex with a cyborg?” Rob joked.
“It’s when the two main characters fall for each other online before actually meeting,” a woman’s voice from behind me said.
I turned to look and found Candice standing there. She looked magnificent in a flowing red dress and heels. I found myself scanning up and down her body as I took her total picture in. Her blonde hair was slightly curled, and her breasts pressed vigorously against the top of her dress.
I wasn’t the only one giving Candice a good look over; both Rob and Ted had stopped eating their lunch and were also caught staring at Candice.
Candice
I saw Josh and his friends when I first walked into the restaurant, but I didn’t want to interrupt them. I had just been ordered by Gene to grab some lunch so we could continue working, and I really didn’t want to talk to Josh just yet. My plan to keep things professional was only working because I had avoided him for the last several days.
I knew the second I started to talk to him again that I wouldn’t be able to avoid anything and everything that had to do with his lips.
When I overheard them talking about the new genre of Cyber Love Story, I had to interject. It was something that I really had been interested in and hoped I could find a good script to fill that void at EverHouse. I hadn’t had the chance to really go through too many of the manuscripts on my desk yet, but I did read a couple that would fit into the Cyber Romance genre. The problem was, they were horrible books.
“Well, that’s how people meet nowadays, I guess,” Josh said as he pulled out the empty chair next to him.
“Yes, it’s a tough thing to write successfully, though.”
“Guys, this is my newest manuscript reviewer, Candice Richards,” Josh said as he introduced me to the table. “This is Rob Balk and Ted Schneider.”
“Hey, guys, nice to meet you. I was just grabbing lunch and needed to head back to the office,” I said as I started to stand up.
Josh grabbed my chair and pushed it back in to prevent me from leaving. I laughed as he forced me to sit with them and continue our conversation about cyber love and romance novels. It didn’t really seem like this group of men would be the best people to be discussing such a topic.
I looked at him and saw a sly smile cross his face, and his hand drifted from the back of the chair down to my leg. He left his hand on my thigh while he listened as his friends and I shared a little small talk.
“Ted, don’t you own T.S. Sports?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. We have five stores in the area now.”
“Love to buy my workout clothes there,” I added. “Rob, what about you? Are you a businessman as well?”
“Yes, I own Banner Telcom. We just came out with a new tech device to map your runs and count calories for you.”
“Wow, that sounds perfect. I’d love to get one; how much are they selling for?” I asked.
“I’ll get you one,” Rob said as he smiled widely.
I noticed both Rob and Ted smiled at me and seemed very interested in everything I had to say. They continued to look at me and then back to Josh with these boyish smiles that just wouldn’t go away.
Josh continued to play with my thigh and appeared to have already forgotten that I wanted to keep things as friends and professional. Or maybe he sensed that I was full of bullshit, and he could read my body language and knew just how bad I really wanted him. In reality, a professional relationship was the last thing I wanted to do with Josh.
I just didn’t want to get hurt by Josh, and he seemed like the kind of guy who could break a girl’s heart pretty easily. My heart was very delicate, and I just didn’t want to get wrapped up in something that would end with me being devastated.
Ideally, it would be great to have a fun relationship with Josh and then move on, but that wasn’t the reality of life. It was much more likely that one or both of us would say or do something to hurt the other. Then that would make it very difficult to continue to work together.
Every night for the last week, I had dreamed about Josh and woken up practically soaked with desire for him. I really didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. It was inevitable that I would eventually just cave in and make love with Josh. My only hope of avoiding it was to just stay away from him.
“Candice, maybe you could find me a couple of manuscripts with the Cyber theme and give a little presentation on what we should be looking for?” Josh said as he finally removed his hand from my thigh.
“Sure, I’ll put together an oral sex presentation,” I said.
What did I say?
I saw the look on all three of the men’s faces, and I knew they had heard exactly what I had just said. For a moment, I wanted to believe that I had just thought those words and not actually spoke them. But as Ted broke into laughter, I knew the words really did come out of my mouth.
I turned flush with embarrassment and couldn’t bear to look at any of them. I looked at Josh and hoped for him to save me from the embarrassment.
“Well, we can do that presentation another time,” he added as he and his buddies laughed.
I couldn’t take it another second and got up from the table. As I watched the three of them laugh and joke at my expense, it was more than I could handle. Deep down, I knew it was funny that I had said ‘oral sex presentation’ but I was just too embarrassed to stay. I had to get out of that restaurant and fast.
Josh, Ted, and Rob were all in their thirties, and I was barely twenty-two. Their experience and comfort level talking about sex was far beyond anything that I could feel comfortable with. I hadn’t even had sex yet!
I’m sure I misspoke because of all the dreams I had been having about Josh. There was no way to take it back now. Or perhaps I had been thinking about doing the presentation on his conference table in his office. My mind must have been on sex if I said something like that.
I tried to hide my embarrassment as I excused myself.
“Well, I better get back to work; I have an oral sex presentation to prepare for,” I joked as I started to leave the restaurant.
I turned and walked away and tried not to cry. The last thing I wanted to do was break down crying in front of Josh and his friends. I had to keep it together at least until I was out of sight of the restaurant.
“You’re not nailing that? What’s wrong with you?” I heard Ted say to Josh just as I got to the door of the restaurant.
“She’s innocent and sweet,” Josh said.
“Like pure. Like still has her flower?” Rob asked.
I couldn’t stay another second and pushed through the door and out to the street. My heart pounded with anxiety, and I felt the tears as they started to pour down my face. I was embarrassed more than anything else, but I also was mad that Josh would talk about my virginity with his friends.
Why did guys feel like they had to talk about sex all the time? Certainly, my virginity should be my own issue and didn’t need to be shared with all of his friends.
I sat in the alley around the corner from the restaurant for at least twenty minutes before I felt like I had actually stopped crying enough to go back to work. I didn’t want Gene to know I had been crying; I certainly wasn’t going to explain the conversation to him. Gene already had his suspicions about me and why I called Josh by his first name; I definitely wasn’t going to give him more reason to be suspicious.
“Did you actually cook the food yourself?” Gene asked when I finally returned to our office.
“Long lines.”
“Well, let’s eat, and then I think we should finish going through this stack of new manuscripts.”
“Ms. Richards,” Susan said from the doorway to my office.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Henderson would like to see you in his office for a meeting at four o’clock if you are available.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
My heart pounded as I thought about having to go in and see Josh after that embarrassment at the restaurant.
For the rest of the afternoon, all I could think about was the meeting with Josh at four o’clock. It was impossible to think about anything else. That was until my new personal trainer showed up and reminded me we had a session.
Chapter 2
Josh
She never showed up. Candice told Susan she would meet me at four o’clock, and then she never showed up. I presumed it had something to do with the slip of the tongue that happened at lunch, but she really didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. It was just funny, and that was it; nothing more and nothing less.
After she left, I smoothed things out with the guys and reminded them how innocent she was. At her age, she didn’t have the dirty mind and previous history like the three of us did. Of course, they went right to asking if I was fucking her, but I distracted them away from the questions. I had never been much for the kiss and tell stories that guys liked to talk about. Every now and then, I would give them the basics about a girl I met at a club or if we did something especially kinky. But typically I kept that stuff to myself.
They truly did live vicariously through me, though. Their love lives were not exciting, and the idea of adding some excitement was always off limits with their women. It was one of the main reasons I was still single. I didn’t want to stay with one woman who would eventual give up on sex and just think of it as an obligation.
Sex was so much more to me than an obligation. And it wasn’t just because I was a man, although that obviously was part of it.
I enjoyed the excitement of having sex with a woman. I liked to explore their bodies and learn what drove them crazy. With each new woman, I was presented with a challenge that I needed to concur before I could move on. Most of the time, the challenge was minimal, and I moved on quickly.
Every now and then, I felt like I had a connection with a woman, and we would give a relationship a try. Eventually, they all ended, though.
“Susan, do we know what happened to Candice?” I hollered through the speaker in my office.
“Let me go check with Gene,” she responded.
Five minutes later, Gene was standing in my office.
“A ripped guy came and picked her up; it sounded like they were going down to the gym. She must have forgotten about your meeting,” Gene said.
“What guy?”
“I think he’s the personal trainer at the gym next door.”
I felt my blood boiling as I talked to Gene. What the hell was Candice doing going with a gym rat instead of coming to the appointment she set with me? I was livid. Whether she wanted to talk to me or not, I was the boss, and she needed to respect that.
“Alright, thanks, Gene.”
“Do you want me to call her?” he asked as he made his way back toward the door.
“No, it’s nothing major; I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
I had no intentions of waiting until the next day to talk to Candice. She needed to understand what being responsible was all about. Just because she was young didn’t mean she shouldn’t be accountable. Quite frankly, it was a requirement of the job, and she had to start showing that she took things seriously. I wasn’t going to keep a manuscript reviewer around just because I wanted to fuck her; she needed to work hard at her job.
I changed into a pair of workout clothes that I had in my office and headed over to the gym. I just wanted to take a quick look around and see what was going on and then I would leave. I could talk to her about missing our appointment tomorrow, but I needed to see what was going on with the trainer before then.
When I entered the gym, I hopped on a treadmill so I could look around the facility without causing a distraction. It was a large gym, but it was all on one level so I could see everything. The treadmills filled the middle of the room with other cardio machines around them. Around the corners of the room were the weight machines and in the far corner, there were all the free weights.
The gym was filled with several dozen people who had all just arrived as the local businesses had finished with work for the day. More and more people would trickle in until around seven o’clock when things started to slow down. I typically came to the gym around then because I stayed at work late almost every single day of the week.
I actually didn’t like the treadmill all that much, and typically spent my time doing weights, but it was hard to see the rest of the facility from the weight area. I put my headphones in and cranked the speed up on the treadmill. I started to jog and look around for Candice.
I scanned the room for about five minutes before I finally found Candice working out with the trainer by the free weights. He had his hands on her waist and guided her in a squat while visibly checking out her ass.
She had changed into a pair of tight pink shorts and had on a matching sports bra. She certainly didn’t seem very shy around this personal trainer.
My first urge was to barge over there and interrupt their session, but I held back. I liked watching her and how she interacted with him. He obviously flirted with her, but she seemed oblivious to it. Instead, she was intently concentrating on each of her moves and trying to do them correctly.
Her ass was perfectly rounded, and I kept my eyes glued to it as she practiced her squats. She didn’t look like she needed to workout at all. The curves on her body were in just the right places. Those places made me want to touch her anytime they were near me.
The trainer’s eyes spent more time on her ass and tits than they did anywhere else. It was amazing that she didn’t see any of it, though, or at least she didn’t seem to respond to his advances at all.
It wasn’t until the session was ending that he really increased his game and must have asked her for her phone number or something. She shook her head and seemed embarrassed by him asking. Candice got embarrassed rather easily.
They said their goodbyes, and she gave him a hug. Not once in my entire life had I ever given my trainer a hug. It seemed like she might like him after all, but I didn’t care. I knew that I could steal her back to my allegiance very easily.
I quickly made my way toward the locker rooms, and just as Candice came around the corner, I pulled her into the men’s locker room. I held her hand and guided her into one of the shower stalls and pressed her up against the wall.
“Josh, what are you doing?”
Her breasts pressed out toward me as she tried to catch her breath. I had obviously surprised her, and it took her a minute to figure out what was going on.
“We had a meeting,” I said.
Candice
“I’m sorry, I forgot when Chad showed up and reminded me about my personal training session I had signed up for.”
“You forgot?” Josh asked.
His eyes searched mine for a better explanation, but I didn’t have one. Yes, I was nervous a
bout our meeting that afternoon, but I didn’t purposely ditch him. I had been thinking about it up until Chad showed up.
Chad had the ability to easily distract me; that was for sure. His ripped muscles made it difficult for me to say no to anything he offered. So when he asked if I wanted to try a free personal training session last week, I couldn’t refuse. I was happy he had just finished up a session with someone else in the office and had come to remind me about ours.
My body had never been something that I was very proud of. I had more curves than I wanted and at least twenty pounds to lose. I knew that I should be more comfortable with my body, and I hated it when other women complained about their bodies. But the truth was, I wasn’t comfortable at all with my body. I had hoped that working out would help give me more confidence and enable me to see the changes that I wanted to see in how I looked.
I wasn’t working out for Josh or anyone else. No man had ever complained about my curves. In fact, most of them seemed to enjoy my curvy figure and often commented on it. But as I had gotten older, I realized that me being comfortable with my body was much more important than what any man thought of me.
I had always wanted to work out with a personal trainer but just never knew one or had the money to try one out. The situation with Chad had all fallen into place just perfectly. Well, except that I was supposed to be in a meeting with Josh at that time.
Responsibility was the story of my life. I was the girl who picked people up when they needed a designated drive. I didn’t miss meetings, appointments, or anything else I had scheduled. So it caught me off guard when I realized I had missed the meeting with Josh.
“Yes, I forgot. Chad distracted me.”
“I can distract you better,” Josh said as his lips started to work on me.
Thoughts raced through my mind of all the ways that Josh could distract me, and every single one of them sounded like a good idea. His lips started with mine, and I felt my body get weak as the softness of his skin met my moist lips.
The Billionaire's Assistant: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 7
