The Boss

by Various

  Her eyelids flutter at the proximity of her own reflection. I look naughty, she thinks. Off my head with lust. She loves it. Cars blur far below, the afterburn of their neon passing scorching across her retinas. Her hands skid wider, their skin as slick and hot as the restless ache between her thighs. From here, she can see the sign for the bar on the corner where the office crew are waiting. Anyone might come back looking for her, find them together. Thrilled panic spins her even higher.

  ‘More,’ she breathes, the syllables smudging against the pane.

  His face is still jammed up close to hers, his breath damp at the shell of her ear. His mouth parts and her pulse trips out the time for every second of silence. But, instead of speaking, he slants his lips down the side of her throat, sucking hard to bring blood surging to the surface. Pleasure cuts through her, a line from his working mouth right down to the nerve endings in her swelling clit.

  ‘Don’t mark me.’ It’s a token protest.

  He worries his teeth against her skin as if to confirm that he knows her demand is far from heartfelt. ‘I’m willing to compromise so you get what you want,’ he rumbles, ‘but you’re going to have to give a little back here.’

  She can hardly think, can barely stand still. ‘Do it then,’ she urges him.

  Without hesitation, he bites down lightly into the meat over her collarbone. She cries out, shifting anxiously against his body and thrusting her ass back into his hips. ‘Hard, please, harder.’

  Finally, finally slipping his fingers between her legs, he finds her sopping knickers and yanks the cotton down so he can massage her already plump folds. Fresh slickness coats her pussy, making them both groan. She can feel the heated pressure of his mouth on her skin all the way down to her sex.

  ‘Harder –’

  He curses, and sucks, pinching her clit between his thumb and finger as he does it. The shock of it sends the first little explosion rocking through her.

  ‘You’re supposed to negotiate,’ he reminds her, ‘not make unreasonable demands.’ He skates his fingers back across the seam of her pussy, easing out more moisture.

  Erin wriggles around in the circle of his arms so she can see him. He has to stop touching her when she moves, but the sight of him is almost as intoxicating. His mouth is reddened, his cheeks flushed. Once perfect hair skews across his forehead, and without his glasses on he’s squinting slightly to keep her in focus. His pupils are huge, spread wide and vulnerable. The boss, debauched, she thinks, and feels her power.

  He’s stroking his palm down her spine. When he closes his other hand across the back of her neck and squeezes gently, she lets out a reedy moan.

  ‘Condom?’ he murmurs, pressing his lips to her forehead. His squared-off fingernails scratch at her nape.

  She waves at the floor by the door where she’d dropped her handbag.

  His hand stills even as his breathing quickens. ‘Showing that six-figure initiative.’

  While he’s gone, she crosses dreamily to the window, trailing her fingertips along it as she chooses a place to settle. Her orgasm is still tingling through her, insulating her from everything but Ben.

  Behind her she hears the crinkle of foil and the sound tightens her nipples, her belly. His groan of pleasure as he strokes on the rubber is unrestrained. The sound travels through her, and it seems utterly sensible to lean into the window again, ready for him.

  She feels the heat of his body first, counterpoint to the chill of the glass. Then comes the shock of his bare chest against her back, as the edges of his now unbuttoned shirt tickle her ribs. ‘Yes,’ she hisses, and shuts her eyes, pushing out her ass towards him.

  His fingers hook into her knickers and he yanks them down around her ankles. He’s crowding her, holding her hips, rubbing against her skin. She wants to turn around like she had before, to see him bare and ready for her. Later, she promises herself, her thoughts feverish. Later she’ll sink to her knees right in front of him and see and taste all that she wants of his cock. Right now she wants him inside her, and her body won’t let her interrupt again.

  Erin’s palms slide in an uncontrolled arc at the first heavy nudge of his cock against her pussy. Her cheek flattens against the window. The angle’s awkward; her shoulder burns in protest. Pinioned between his strong body and the fragile glass separating her from the night, she’s hypersensitive to every inch of him as he pushes into her. She claws at the glass, mindless with him. The sensation of falling is almost unbearable and the insistent pressure of his cock is her only anchor. This is worth it, she thinks wildly, anything, anything –

  ‘Yeah?’ Ben mutters into her hair. His fingers move erratically over her skin, and she realises with a thrill that he’s touching the place where he’d marked her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she moans back at him, and that’s all the confirmation he seems to need to grab her harder. He shoves, holding her in place. Riding her up onto the very tips of her toes. Deep waves of pleasure make her clench around him. They groan in unison as he keeps her there, balanced on the edge, while he rocks against her.

  She closes her eyes, unable to bear visual as well as physical stimulation. Her breasts feel full and ripe; lights spark behind her eyelids. Between their frantically rubbing bodies, sweat pools hot then spills down over overheated skin.

  Erin reaches between her legs, seeking him. Her rubbing fingers brush the soft skin of his full sac, and his groan vibrates all the way down her spine. She can feel the tension gathering in his muscles already, the trembling of his thighs. It’s filthy, the way she can feel him moving into her like this. It drives her right to the edge.

  She bends forwards, making it easier for him to clamp hands onto her hips and draw her to him. Fast and deep, long and hard. Over and over again, until the friction of him is good, so so good –

  Ben suddenly holds very still, his breath sawing as he begins to come. He shudders, pulsing into her. His weight drapes across her back, heavy, and her hands make sympathetic fists against the glass until, with a sigh of pleasure, he slowly pulls out. Her juice trickles down her inner thigh; she feels the sticky heat and thinks again about sucking him, of tasting herself on his glistening cock.

  She’s lost in that fantasy, still close to coming herself, when he spins her around and pushes her into the position he wants. Nudging between her legs, Ben half-lifts her with hands underneath her ass. When he jams his thigh up against her needy pussy, she wraps her arms around his neck and gratefully rubs herself off across his hair-roughened skin.

  ‘Erin,’ Ben urges, hitching her higher.

  Pressure builds then implodes, and she can only hook her leg around his waist, unable to speak as she grinds out her orgasm. He doesn’t even give her time to recover before he’s picked her right up in his arms and laid her back down on the desk. He brackets her body with his, and kisses her. He tastes like sex and salt, and the bitterness of too many coffees.

  ‘I feel amazing,’ she tells him when she finally catches her breath. And she does: every inch of her skin feels alive. Flushed and energised … and ready to go again as soon as possible.

  ‘Winning your negotiations will do that.’ He grins down at her with an expression that, for once, is perfectly readable. Half hunger, half humour – he’s letting her know that he’s ready to clear his schedule for whatever she’s planning.

  And yes, she has ideas.

  ‘Best of luck with your future endeavours?’ she mimics, her nails digging into his back until he gasps.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘Insulting.’The words are damp against the hollow of her throat. He licks her there until she gasps back. ‘We’ve still to discuss your benefits,’ he reminds her. ‘Can’t have anyone taking advantage.’

  Smiling up at the ceiling, she stretches to give him more of her to play with. She thinks about what they’ll do later, at his place or hers. The way she’s going to negotiate all his clothes off again, and then have him naked against her in bed so he can fuck he
r till she’s screaming. She wonders what his initial offer will be, and how soon she’ll counter-offer the lavish blowjob she’s planning. But why not take the initiative right from the start?

  She smirks up at him. ‘I want you. Again. Now. Or I walk.’ She shrugs innocently. ‘Sometimes I just don’t feel like making concessions over the important points.’

  He eyes her. ‘We’ve unleashed a madwoman here. You never really needed my help at all, did you?’

  ‘Probably not. But feel free to make me any offers you like.’ She grabs his tie, yanking him closer so she can whisper her next words directly into his ear. ‘I promise I won’t make you wait too long before I’ll say yes.’

  Charming the Boss

  Olivia London

  Not a day goes by when Elena Carlton doesn’t feel like a throwback to a less tendentious time in history. She simply wasn’t made for competition; she was always more comfortable being acted upon and done for. She would accept the milestone of the big three-oh with the knowledge she couldn’t possibly change a tyre or enjoy dining at a restaurant alone. It was a thrill when she finally mastered the art of boiling an egg.

  As beautiful as she was and thoroughly lacking in ambition, it was her dire luck to be born working class; a woman of her sort needs a trust fund. But, lacking this essential, she tried making her way in the world while keeping the door open for a little help.

  Elena had grown up in Florida, ‘the pawn your jewellery state’ as she liked to call it, and seized the first opportunity to leave. That opportunity came when, at the age of nineteen, a pizza-dough salesman lured her away from her waitressing job at Tino’s, Tampa’s only Italian restaurant, to help him with a gourmet pie establishment in San Francisco.

  So she said goodbye to too much sunshine and put her trust in the hands of Vic, a salt-and-pepper-haired, silver-tongued lothario sixteen years her senior.

  Vic offered to front the rent for a swank apartment but her stomach went queasy at that one. Instead, she found cheap digs in the Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood, renting a flat with an art student named Peg. Elena worked constantly and Peg spent every spare moment with her musician boyfriend so the two young women got along just fine. Outside of stray cats caterwauling in the alley and a neighbour who went through life wearing housecoats and watching endless television shows with the volume turned to its utmost stentorian level, the place was perfect.

  She bought a scooter to motor around the city as driving a car gave her road rage. Vic didn’t like her living so far from the job but he never asked her to move in with him. He said he was estranged from his wife, mumbled something about divorce and intoned that he just wasn’t ready to settle down again.

  El could accept that. She was at the start of her life – her real life, as Florida was just a blur now – and she crested towards every peak and thrill of adventure.

  The Bay Area’s North Beach neighbourhood vaunted so many places to enjoy authentic cuisine that she was rarely homesick for her mother’s marinara. And Vic was a great boss. Every time he sent her out on an errand he told her to take her time and keep the change. She loved watching him work a room. He could have been an august statesman in ancient Rome or a cravat-wearing film producer. Instead, he was a charismatic purveyor of pasta and calzones, the man to go to if you wanted to know about sauce.

  He had big dreams, as so many culinary kings do. Vic wouldn’t rest until he got his mug on the home cooking channel and convinced American housewives a meal just wasn’t a meal unless it was served al pomodoro.

  Vic and his star employee would take frequent trips to Napa Valley wine country, where they purchased the best reserve vintages for upcoming banquets. Once, Vic even treated El to a hot-air-balloon ride and she knew that must have cost a packet. When her boss mentioned above-ground flights were the discovery of eighteenth-century French aristocracy, she tried to imagine what yesteryear’s Francophones would think of today’s tourists capitalising on their art. It would have them reaching for the nearest bottle of Chambord, surely.

  Fall was fast becoming El’s favourite time of year. It was certainly the best time of year to be young and living in the Bay Area. In September, after a few grand tours of wineries and much anticipated wine tastings, El didn’t balk when her boss said he’d booked a room for them in one of the quainter bed and breakfast inns. The sexual tension between them had been climbing steadily like a Russian vine and, away from work and the bustle of customers, they were able to conduct their lovemaking in earnest.

  Elena was every man’s dream girl. She was a firm believer in fellatio for breakfast, loving nothing more than the sight of a hard-on in the morning. The morning after the balloon-ride extravaganza, she burrowed under the percale sheets to give Vic’s cock a ride of its own. She let her tongue caress the tip of his cockbefore zigzagging it down to his scrotum; then, using her palm as a net, she cupped his cobs with one hand while using her other to guide his magnificent shaft down her throat. She sucked him greedily until he was about to erupt and then he straddled her so he could come on her nipples and belly, his hot semen tickling her skin as she writhed and sighed from the satisfaction.

  She wanted only to please. Was that so wrong? She loved the way she felt when she was with him. Some days, her boss made her feel as substantial as meatloaf, relying more and more on his second-in-command for advice regarding décor, menu offerings and the ever delicate task of hiring and firing bartenders and servers. Other days, she could have been the powdered sugar on a hot cross bun, so light and airy as he picked her up by the waist and twirled her round and round after a particularly successful day.

  Life was good and she thanked the lucky alignment of stars that brought her to this delicious fate.

  She never pressured Vic about their future but, as more and more shady characters moved into her building, she started to wonder what it would be like to have a stabilised home. She brought the matter up one early afternoon as her boss was shaping flat tyres of dough into what would eventually be focaccia bread drizzled with olive oil then sprinkled with salt.

  Vic sighed. ‘Elena, you’ve been great. It’s just – well, I’ve been meaning to tell you … my wife and I got back together. She found out about us and I have to let you go.’

  Elena nodded. She reached into her pocket for a scrunchie to pull back her long blonde hair. Her mind was already wandering to a certain bakery on Columbus whose focaccia and cappuccinos rivalled what she’d grown accustomed to at work.

  ‘I’m famished. Mind if I eat?’

  Vic smiled at the rhetorical question. He was never one to let an employee go hungry.

  Elena worked out the week and collected her pay, which included a bonus to tide her over until she found another job. She and her former boss parted as friends and she quickly found work at one of the big hotels in Union Square. She was remarkably calm about her situation. While she was quite fond of Vic, she had to admit she wasn’t in love with him so there could be no real future for them. Still, it was mighty fun while it lasted.

  She eventually found an affordable apartment in Noe Valley that was close enough to Market Street to catch a bus to and from downtown. Now, her backyard was a love nest for raccoons; the only cats she saw were fluffy butterballs perched on windowsills, eyeing passers-by with cheeky insouciance. She didn’t know how long she could live among the DINKS – the Double Income No Kids set seemed to sense in her a cautionary tale: a single woman with no real direction in life. Well, at least she wasn’t doing anything illegal.

  El had great difficulty finding her niche. She made numerous attempts to obtain a college degree but she wasn’t exactly a wonk. She went from job to job and she had to admit the only thing she was really good at was the enjoyment of sybaritic culture.

  She didn’t know how it happened but one day she turned thirty and she was still working as a banquet server. On her lunch break she was flipping through a recent issue of the San Francisco Charmer, a free weekly tabloid where employers placed
the most unconventional ‘help wanted’ ads.

  She decided she would give the Bay Area one last chance. If she couldn’t find her calling, she’d pack her bags and move back to Florida.

  And that’s when she met Declan Donohue. Mr Donohue owned a condo in Pacific Heights and he asked El to meet him at a coffee shop on Fillmore. He was wearing a business suit and she immediately felt underdressed, having shown up in jeans and a hoodie.

  He smiled at her embarrassment. ‘It’s OK. I told you to dress casual. Remember?’

  She gulped and nodded, trying not to openly stare. He was so handsome! How could she possibly get through this interview without making a fool of herself?

  ‘Ahem, let’s get started. If your résumé is authentic, it’s apparent you have no career objectives. You hold no degrees and you’ve never worked a job that didn’t require you to wear an apron or a nametag. Is this information correct?’

  El gulped again. ‘Um, yes. That is absolutely correct. I’m not exactly driven. I like to eat, drink and merrily pursue what life has to offer for free. To be perfectly honest, I wish I didn’t have to work, but, since I do, I’d like to find something not too stressful.’

  ‘Great! You’re hired. I need a factotum, not an MBA. I want someone who will stick around. Like I said in my ad, I write mysteries and science fiction novels. Sometimes I do a little ghost writing. I just need someone to file, organise my notes, run to the post office for me and not complain about making coffee. Can you start today?’

  El looked around to see if this was a joke; maybe she was being filmed for some silly reality-TV show.

  ‘Sure, Mr Donohue.’

  ‘Declan, please.’ He shook her hand and when Elena felt his skin on hers it was the equivalent of being faradised on the spot. She didn’t care if this bespectacled gent wrote books for a living. She was going to fuck this man until his brainpan rattled. It was only a matter of time.

  Pacific Heights is one of the city’s few low-density neighbourhoods, so, as they strolled back to the boss’s place, the occasional bird could be heard warbling when their conversation lulled.