by Nikki Chase
The scary thing is just how much I’m attracted to him, though. And not just his body (although that big cock is just magnificent).
He’s funny, considerate, kind. Surely it can’t all be fake, an act?
But I can’t let myself get too drawn in . . . I just can’t. The fall will be that much more painful when it comes if I do. And it will come, I’m still certain of it.
I have to keep things professional if I want to keep this job and my baby.
Easier said than done. It’s not professional to be screaming his name as he nails you from behind.
There’s a knock at the bathroom door, and I damn near jump out of my skin.
“Open up,” he says. “I’ve really got to pee.”
“I can’t. I just got out of the shower and I’m not wearing anything.” It sounds weak as soon as it comes out of my mouth, but I can’t face him right now.
He laughs. “What? We fucked all night and now you’re too shy to let me see you naked?”
Sadness twists in my gut. “It’s complicated, Luke. I just need a little space, okay?”
He’s silent for a few moments. Sitting on the toilet, I put my head in my hands. Is he he’s angry, sad, confused, or what?
“Well, okay, whatever you want. But listen . . . I had a great time last night. A really great time. I don’t want things to be weird between us. Can . . . can you come out, so we can talk this through?”
I don’t have it in me to do this right now. He doesn’t deserve this . . . but I need some time to clear my head, organize my thoughts.
“I’ll take your silence as a no, then, I guess.” His voice is gentle, coaxing. He pauses for a moment, probably expecting an answer I can’t muster. “Look, I have a meeting I need to get to. I’ll call you later. We can get this all worked out.”
I hear the apartment door open and close.
He got what you wanted, and now he’s gone. Typical.
I know I’m being unfair on him. Maybe it’s the hormones surging through my body, maybe it’s just regret. But I need to stop this. Now. Before things go too far.
Luke
I’m all mixed up inside as I head down from Tessa’s apartment and climb into my car.
Why is she so hot and cold like this? Last night she was screaming my name, this morning she can’t even look at me or talk to me.
What the hell is with her? I thought we’d finally turned a corner, and I was so fucking happy when we fell asleep in each other’s arms last night . . . but it’s like, one step forward, two steps back.
She’s confusing the hell out of me, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I chew my lips, deep in thought the whole drive into work, then try to shake it off when I reach the office. I’ve got to focus. Can’t let this distract me too much—there’s so much work to be done.
I’m on my way to my executive shower when Brock notices me and rushes up to me, his eyes wild, the rest of him looking disheveled as hell.
“Where the fuck have you been, Luke?” He grabs my arm. “You can’t just disappear whenever you feel like it, especially not when we’re making a deal as important as the InFini acquisition.”
“Brock, look,” I say, “I haven’t even had the time to pee yet this morning. Sorry I’ve been incognito, I left my cell in the car—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He cuts me off, shaking his head. “We’ve got a problem. A big problem.”
I swallow. Great. Fucking perfect timing. “Okay, lead the way. Just let me take a leak quick, okay? I’ll forgo the shower for now.”
He paces back and forth. “Sure. Hurry it up, though, dude.”
A few minutes later and we’re striding through the office. Brock fills me in as we walk.
“We got notification from the regulators last night. They’re concerned that Adler Corporation acquiring InFini is going to breach some monopoly and anti-competition law. Specifically in the biotech space. They’ll shut the whole goddamn thing down unless we can convince them it’s not a monopoly.”
Shit. Just what I need.
“Okay. Take me to the suits, and let’s see what we can do about this.”
They day is a complete whirlwind of activity as we all try to put out the fires. It’s certainly not easy. They’ve all been sitting around, waiting for me to arrive because they need my final say on most of these decisions.
It’s billion-dollar stuff—decisions I make today will affect a whole shitload of people.
I spend most of my time in calls—with government regulators, other corporations, competitors, even my Dad. I don’t like calling him about work, but I’ve never had to deal with anything of this magnitude before. I’m confident I can get this shit done, but it never hurts to make sure I’m on the right track.
“You can do this, son,” he tells me. “Stick to your guns, and don’t let them squeeze you a millimeter more than they need to.”
In the end, it comes down to a basic principle: Adler and InFini together are just too fucking big. Tens of billions of dollars, almost all of the physical retail space in the sector, almost all of the jobs. The government doesn’t like that.
So we either have to split the businesses up, which makes no sense at all because we’ve only just bought the damn company, or we have to start selling off certain departments to stay within the letter of the law.
This isn’t ideal—I only bought Infini because it’s profitable from top to bottom, with great potential for future growth. None of its divisions make much sense to sell . . . but I have to. If we fall afoul of the regulations, it’ll mean ridiculous fines and endless problems, legal battles, and on and on.
Nope, I need to do something.
I need to get creative, and it’s not easy. But as the day goes on, I’m finding that I’m actually . . . enjoying myself, somehow? I’m not just a pencil pusher, a signature in an expensive suit.
The decisions and choices I make today will have an actual, real-life impact on the future of both the businesses. I’m back at the coalface, making decisions that matter.
And it’s only now that I remember why I agreed to take over from my Dad in the first place. It would have been so easy for me to just take a cushy, meaningless position and live off my trust fund. Recently, I’ve even actually been considering it.
Eventually, I find a solution that seems to work. The accountants can’t find any faults with it, and we won’t lose too much control. We’ll just need to sell off a few smaller departments and get creative with the ones we have left and their organizational structure.
Once we finally get it solved, there are tired cheers and high-fives all around. It’s late, and already dark outside—most of the office has gone already.
I never got the chance to take a shower, and I must have drunk a gallon of coffee over the course of the day.
“Nicely done,” Brock tells me. He’s slumped back in a chair, sipping on a bottle of beer. “I thought for sure that we were fucked there.”
“We still could be,” I say. “But I think we’ve done enough to keep the feds away. I guess we’ll find out soon.”
He peers at me. “Where were you last night, anyway? Your flight back from Paris landed, and then you disappeared. Cosy night in with the wife?”
I realize that I haven’t even had time to mull over Tessa’s confusing mixed signals all day.
“You could say that,” I reply carefully.
“I thought she was still full steam ahead with the annulment?” he asks, puzzled. “You two are still banging though? How does that work?”
I shrug with a wry smile. “Beats me. I’m just along for the ride.”
He opens his mouth to say more, then decides against it.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Brocky boy. Go home and get some rest. I’ll need you fresh again for tomorrow.”
He gets up to leave. Before he does, he turns. “TMZ and co. are still calling me every fucking day, trying to get an interview or a photoshoot and stuff
with you, you know.”
“Whatever. Just ignore them. I’ll be old news before long.”
“I doubt that, Luke. Not unless you somehow lose all your money and those muscles of yours.”
“Sure,” I grin. “I’ll work on that.”
Once Brock’s gone, it’s just me in this spacious conference room. I’m still too wired from all the coffee; don’t feel like sleeping.
I take a wander through the office just to stretch my legs a little. And who should I happen to find but my darling wife, tapping away on her computer.
“Tess? What are you still doing here?”
She looks up at me. “I’m your PA, remember? I thought I’d stay just in case you needed me. It’s in the job description, right? I also thought I’d take the time to do some research and familiarize myself with the different businesses under your control. I want to take this job seriously.”
I’m impressed—she’s gone way beyond the call of duty. “Great work. With the way things have gone today, and how badly my brain’s fried, I could well need some of that knowledge.”
Her gaze follows me as I sit down next to her with a groan. “
Sooo . . . I guess we’ve both had long, boring, kind of shitty days huh?” I wink at her. “But at least it started off kind of good?”
She blushes a little, and it’s super goddamn cute.
“Luke,” she starts, “about that. I’m sorry for the way I acted this morning. I was just kind of . . . freaked out.”
“That we fucked?” I ask.
She looks taken aback by my brazen statement. “Uh...well, yeah, if you want to put it as bluntly as that.” She giggles. “Because we fucked, and we probably shouldn’t have.”
“Why? Didn’t you like it?”
She hesitates. I can almost hear the gears turning in her head as she tries to come up with something. “It just wasn’t the right decision to make, considering everything else that’s going on.”
So she still wants to unmarry me. Great.
I’m too tired to think about this now. Luckily, she seems to notice.
“You look like you could use some sleep,” she says. “And probably some food. Why don’t you head on home? I’ll take a cab back to mine.”
“No way,” I say. “I’ll drive you.”
She frowns. “That’s . . . probably not a good idea.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ravish you against your will, if that’s what you’re worried about. Anyway, we do need to talk. About . . . whatever it is that’s going on between us now. After a shower and bite to eat I’ll be good as new, and we can have it out.”
She still looks uncertain, but she’s not going to say no. I can tell. She thinks she should, but she won’t. “Okay then. Talking. Talking is good.”
Tessa
He’s coming back to my place. Again.
This is starting to become a habit of mine—a bad habit.
We pull up outside my place . . . and I know that I should just thank him for the ride, go up, and get some sleep.
But . . . I can’t.
Luke obviously wants to come up and I feel like I owe him at least an explanation for my behavior earlier in the day. Plus, there’s just this magnetism between us . . . like, I rationally know that I should be pushing him away, and getting that distance between us, but my heart just doesn’t want me to do it.
He slumps down on the couch as soon as we’re inside, looking absolutely exhausted.
I’ve been watching him work all day, talking animatedly on the phone, a procession of people entering and then leaving his office. They all need to talk to him, relying on the decisions he makes.
It seems like a lot of pressure to be put on one set of shoulders, but he’s handling it well. And from the discussions I heard around the office as his plans progressed, he did a good job and averted what could have been a disaster.
“I’ll make us some food,” I say. “Any preference? I’ve got instant ramen, or instant mac and cheese. This isn’t Paris, I’m afraid.”
“Hey,” he smiles, “you’re can never be too rich or famous to enjoy some mac and cheese. That sounds so damn good right about now.”
I start preparing it as he stares around my tiny apartment. It’s still a mess—it feels like I’ve had no time at all to even finish unpacking since I moved in, let alone put my own stamp on the place.
“I’m spending so much time here I should bring over a change of clothes and a toothbrush,” he quips.
I roll my eyes, and he grins.
As the water boils, thoughts of telling him about the baby bubble up in my mind.
I feel like I haven’t given him enough credit—he might freak out, he might not. But he does deserve to know, and at least once the marriage is annulled I’ll know for sure that the baby can be provided for.
There’s always the risk that he’ll try and fight me for custody, but I get the feeling that, playboy or not, he hasn’t got it in him. He’s not evil, and hell, he’d even make a good Dad, probably.
The words are on my tongue and I’m ready to blurt them out, but when I turn back he’s fallen fast asleep on the couch. Sleeping like a baby.
It’s been a really long day for him—the baby news can wait. He’s got enough on his plate with this regulatory crap from the government and I shouldn’t burden him more.
I debate letting him sleep there on the couch, but two nights in a row probably won’t do his neck or back any good. I kneel next to him.
“Hey,” I whisper, shaking him gently. “Wake up. You’ll be as stiff as a board in the morning if you sleep there. You take the bed, I’ll have the couch.”
His eyes flutter open and he smiles up at me. “Stiff in the morning? Baby, I’m stiff right now.” He takes my hand and guides it downward.
My eyes widen as my fingers are pressed against his huge, rock-hard erection.
“I was having some sweet dreams about you,” he whispers. “Normally I’d be angry if someone interrupted a dream as good as that, but seeing as it’s you . . .”
He surprises me by springing up off the couch and scooping me up, off my feet and into his arms. He crushes me in an embrace, his urgent lips forcing mine to part, his tongue darting in, claiming me for his own.
There’s a small part of me, quietly in the back of my mind, that goes, damn it, Tess . . . really? It’s telling me that we shouldn’t be doing this, that I should push him away. But it’s drowned out by the much louder voice that tells me it just feels right.
He carries me in his strong arms and places me down on the bed, then kneels in front of me, ravenously devouring me with his eyes.
I’m still wearing my work outfit, which today is a knee-length gray skirt and some lacy pink panties underneath. I feel dirty, and not in a good way—like all the grime from the day is clinging to my skin.
But Luke doesn’t seem to notice that. He puts his hands on my legs, hiking my skirt up my thighs, his eyes widening as he goes further up.
“Lift your ass up so I can get this skirt out of the way,” he says.
At his demand, something stirs inside, right down in the pit of my stomach. I meet his eyes and the desire I can see in them spurs me on. Still staring into his eyes, I help him with my skirt, pulling the hem up around my waist.
He breaks eye contact, unable to help himself. His gaze is fixed on my panties, watching my every movement. “You look so fucking sexy right now,” he says, his voice a choked whisper.
I don’t know what’s come over me—I don’t normally do this, honest—but I run my hands down the length of my body, squirming with pleasure at my own touch.
My fingers flutter on the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and I let out a sigh of satisfaction. I tease him like that for a little while, brushing my heat gently through the thin fabric of my underwear. Wetness drips out of me now, my body responding to his hungry gaze.
Luke’s eyes widen as he notices the slight damp spot on my underwear from my we
tness.
“Play with yourself,” he commands. “Show me what you do when it’s dark and you’re in bed on your own, thinking about me.”
A smile tugs the corners of my lips up. He’s so cocky . . . but it kind of suits him.
I slip one delicate finger under my panties and groan as I feel how slick I am.
Darkness flashes in his eyes; he’s holding himself back, but soon enough he’ll have to unleash the beast within. He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and it’s pure desire, pure longing. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”
As he watches, I find the engorged, sensitive nub of my clitoris and begin to finger myself slowly, my breathing growing heavy as I writhe on the bed.
The sound of metal clinking draws my eyes to the front of his pants, where his big, rock-hard cock is tenting the fabric. My fingers speed up, fluttering more firmly across my clit.
Luke’s eyes never leave my exploring fingers, my pink wetness, as he fumbles with his belt. A smile plays on his lips when he notices where my gaze is directed, and a blush creeps up my neck, filling my cheeks with warmth—from embarrassment or arousal, I don’t know.
Luke pulls his boxer shorts down, freeing his huge, beautiful cock. He traps my gaze as he brushes his palm over it. “Enjoying the show?”
“I can ask you the same question,” I comment, my voice husky with arousal. “That must have been some dream you were having.”
He smiles, his eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on my busy fingers as he grips his thick shaft and strokes. “It’s all coming true too. You’re a dream come true.”
He runs his hands up and down his length as he watches me, his breath coming in deeper gasps as he pleasures himself. I can’t wait to touch that huge shaft, to taste him, to take him inside me.
For a while the two of us just watched each other, my back arched on the bed as I fingered my wet pussy, Luke’s eyes heavy with lust as he caresses his huge, thick shaft.
“I’ve got to taste you,” he rasps, hot urgency in his voice.
I can’t take it any longer either. I need to feel his touch, to feel his hot skin against mine. I hear myself beg, “Luke, please . . .”
