by Kira Barker
Darren’s eyes zoomed to me and went wide before a frown appeared on his forehead that I’d only seen a couple of times, most notably that afternoon when he’d realized that Ray had cornered and propositioned me. I immediately wanted to assure him that this hadn’t happened again but was wise enough to keep my mouth shut. But under his scrutiny, it was hard to remember that my reason for coming over was innocent, or as innocent as feeling kind of lost but in dire need of physical reassurance ever got.
“Penelope, what are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth, ready to repeat my reason for what felt like the millionth time since I’d arrived, but the younger of the two men interrupted.
“Don’t you want to introduce us? She has a mighty fine ass, that one.”
If anything, the thunder in Darren’s eyes multiplied, but he was quick to wipe his face of any emotion aside from a nondescript smile.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. If you will excuse us?” He stared at me directly as he came over, then took my arm—none too gently—and pulled me toward the door.
I went willingly, hard-pressed not to trip, but didn’t protest when he pushed me outside into the corridor. He sent me a sharp look but ducked back into his office before I could get a word in edgewise.
So, just maybe, this hadn’t been my brightest idea ever.
Wincing softly, I rubbed my arm where his fingers had been digging into it. I could understand that with the way he reacted to unexpected circumstances he might not have been too happy to be surprised, but that didn’t quite explain the underlying rudeness. Sure, to the receptionist I hadn’t known how to introduce myself, but that was mostly because I didn’t want to say anything that Darren didn’t approve of; why he’d been so dismissive of me now puzzled me.
The other offices around his were dark, most of the employees already on their way home, I presumed, leaving me feeling a little less awkward about standing in the hallway. I wondered if I should just leave, or get another coffee. There was also the option of looking for the restrooms and hiding out there until the air had cleared. Before I’d reached a decision, the door behind me opened anew and the two men left, but not without devouring me with hungry looks and what they possibly thought of as murmured comments.
Darren followed them but stopped right outside the threshold, then turned to me as soon as they’d rounded the corner. His gaze caught mine, and while he looked slightly more pacified now, he still seemed annoyed with me.
“Come in,” he offered after studying me for a few seconds, following his not-quite suggestion up with a steady hand pressed to the small of my back. I let him push me into his office, then over to the chairs in front of his desk where he let go, then took his own seat at the other side. I still didn’t know what to make of this, even less so that now he was treating me like just another client instead of his… whatever I was to him.
“So,” he started, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his leather chair. “We don’t have an appointment tonight.”
“No,” I agreed, then tried but failed to offer him a hopeful smile that died at his utter lack of a reaction. “I didn’t think I’d need one just to see you?”
Joking didn’t work much better, but at least some of the tension leaked out of his shoulders.
“Why are you here? And no, you don’t. I’m just surprised.”
Clearly not in the most positive way, it seemed. Looking down, I gnawed on my bottom lip for a moment, a little nervous.
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done this. But I had kind of a bad day, and with you not completely untouchable outside of the space we’ve carved for us, I just got this stupid idea into my head that I could come over after work to see you.”
The look on his face remained completely unchanged at that, which was starting to make me uneasy. Quickly going over what I’d just said again, I wondered what he read into my words that made him so obviously displeased. Or maybe it was just the fact that he didn’t want his whore parading around where people actually knew him? That might be a contradiction to what he had repeatedly told me, but then he wouldn’t have been the first john to lie. That idea was sobering on an entirely different level.
“I should go,” I said as I pushed away from my chair, but one sharp look from Darren was enough for my ass to hit leather again.
“Stay.”
His command—and it really sounded like one—made me feel even worse, but it also got my irritation to flare up. I already knew that he didn’t deal well with mistakes on my side, but this was approaching the kind of territory where I was getting reluctant to give myself another chance to screw up. Or I was still projecting heavily, damn my subconscious, while he was trying to sort things out.
“Do you really want me to? Because you don’t look happy to see me,” I observed.
The left corner of his mouth quivered, making me hope it was to hide a smile, not to turn down.
“My desk is a little too heavy for you to actually make an accurate guess of that,” he replied, sotto voce, but more tension left his body. “What happened to so utterly screw up your day that you come to me?”
The more I thought about it, the more I regretted my impulsive action.
“Had a boring midday appointment, then got even more bored until I was stupid enough to go talk to Adam. That didn’t go over well, so I thought, why not try to make the best of the rest of an already screwed-up day?”
He snorted, still not exactly amused but getting there.
“Why? What did your boyfriend nag you about?”
“He’s still not my boyfriend,” I huffed, but part of me was glad that he apparently wasn’t above teasing, which was a good sign. Feeling myself relax a little, I settled more comfortably into my seat. “Thinking about it now, I’m wondering if Brigitte and he are colluding on this. Some of what he said kind of echoed her concerns.” And I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to blab about Adam’s accusations.
Darren shrugged, managing to make the motion a lot more self-absorbed than should have been possible.
“He’s jealous, if you ask me.”
“Jealous?” The idea was kind of ludicrous, but then he had given me that puppy dog stare before things had gone south, and…
“Yes, jealous,” Darren continued.
“Of what?”
“Me, of course,” he drawled, then actually smiled for a second when I stared at him flatly. “If not in a sexual way, then because I’m taking up so much of your time that you’re neglecting him. I guess I can’t even hold that against him. I love spending time with you, and I’d want to punch anyone in the face who would get between us.”
Although I knew that he was joking, that statement still made my hackles rise. Yet considering that we were finally breaking the ice, I did my best to ignore that.
“Maybe, maybe not. It just upset me. Oh, and Alison tried to buy me. For you, not to keep me away from you. Thought you’d find that amusing, too.”
I’d expected at least a frown, but, if anything, Darren didn’t even seem surprised by that.
“She cares about me deeply, although she has strange ways of showing it sometimes. Her action is likely a response to how my last two relationships ended and how that affected me.”
He’d never really told me anything about the women who came before me, except for what most had done for a living. I had to admit, my interest was piqued, but I didn’t know if now was the time to pry.
“Why, does lack of sex make you grumpy? Can’t take that long to find a new girl willing to suck your dick.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped as he clenched his jaw, and I immediately felt as if I’d lost all the ground I’d gained so far.
“I would like to think that I’m a little more selective about the company I keep,” he ground out, but after a few seconds he shook his head and looked almost—but not completely—apologetic. “I’m not that much of an urge-driven buffoon. Thank you so much for thinking of me so highly.
”
“That’s not what I meant—“ I tried to interject, but he silenced me with an offhand gesture.
“I know. You’re an intelligent woman. I don’t have to tell you that you’re not the first temporary companion that I grew fond of. But not all of them reacted like you did.”
“You mean traipse into your office and make you ashamed of my presence?”
That was probably uncalled for, but the annoyance rising in me, paired with latent unease, made it impossible to be completely blasé about this subject that I shouldn’t have cared about if all he was to me was just another client.
I was so screwed.
Contrary to what I’d expected—and likely aimed for—Darren was neither taken aback nor angry at my little jibe. In fact, the way the quality of his gaze darkened as it roamed over me made me feel all kinds of hot.
“I was never, and will never be, ashamed of you. As I said, you surprised me. And considering the company I sometimes have to keep, have you considered that the reason why I don’t want you to come in here is to keep them from you, not you from them?”
That made me blink, and he was only too happy to add another succinct observation.
“Penelope, I have no idea what your friend rambled on to you about me that has you so on edge now, but I don’t make money with charity cases, or by defending poor old women who some evil mega-corporation has tricked out of her pension fund and poisoned her dog to threaten her. Not all of my clients actually deserve to rot in prison, but there are a few of them who’d feel right at home there. Some of those, like the remarkable specimen you saw earlier, are the kind of people your kind of people should not interact with too closely. Or do you think that I like the idea that you could end up drugged to your gills in some kind of street-corner brothel? Because that’s part of the allegations I’m dealing with in this case, not that you couldn’t have found that out from the media if you just looked at the right sources. Even if you were the purest, naivest girl with good upbringing, I wouldn’t want you anywhere near these guys, but considering that you might be the kind of woman they prey upon if things suddenly took a turn for the worse for you, I’d like to keep you from them even more. Don’t you understand that?”
Suddenly, his misgivings were looking a lot less strange, cast into the right light. I couldn’t help the unease crawling up my spine; technically, what I did wasn’t that dissimilar than the drug-addict-turned-hooker on the street corner, but there were vast differences I didn’t even want to think about.
“I get your point,” I agreed, my voice sufficiently hollow.
Something—pity, maybe?—crossed his face but was gone before I could latch on to it. He leaned closer, his eyes intent on me, and a look that was almost imploring appeared on his features.
“You can come here any time you like. It would likely be a waste of your time, considering just how full my schedule is, but I always want you around me, and I’m always happy to see you. I don’t give a fuck what our snotty secretary thinks. She treats everyone who’s not hung with diamonds or looks like Al Capone’s nephew with disdain. I think Alison actually pays her a bonus for that, otherwise I can’t understand why no one has fired her yet. I also can’t imagine you care about what a woman who everyone ignores and sees as inferior is thinking about you.”
“I generally don’t care,” I let him know, even if it was kind of a lie. He probably saw right through it, judging from the lopsided smile appearing on his face. “And, I guess, next time I will make an appointment, if only to harass her.”
“That’s my girl,” he said and flashed me a grin before he leaned back in his chair. “So my boss thinks she has the right to offer you money to keep fucking me. You’d be stupid not to take her offer, considering that’s already what you’re doing, with great enjoyment, I’d like to think.”
I shook my head, smiling myself now.
“I’d feel kind of weird about it. Plus, she had a condition.”
“What condition?”
“That I go exclusive with you.”
Darren’s brows shot up.
“And there I thought she wasn’t too concerned about what Ray does in his spare time.”
I hadn’t even considered that angle, but it made a lot more sense than her concern about Darren’s feelings.
“You think that’s her reason? That she wants me to actively tell her husband to screw himself if he comes knocking again?”
“What else?” He let that question hang between us, then shrugged. “Why did you decide not to take her up on the offer? Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of thing you could shut your madam up with?”
I shook my head.
“Brigitte’s concern isn’t about money anymore.” I wondered again if now was the time to tell him what she had offered me in turn, but decided that going through one instance of Darren’s annoyance was enough for me tonight. “Besides, she can go screw herself for all I care.”
Darren pursed his lips, looking rather satisfied to hear that.
“So you’ve finally decided to stop letting others dictate your life?”
I hadn’t considered things that way, but I could see where he would jump to that conclusion.
“Let’s just say I’m getting really tired of people telling me that I can’t have the one thing I want. I’m just so tired of all of this. Maybe I really should quit.”
Now that smile of his was definitely mischievous.
“People?”
“Brigitte, Adam. Ray, too, who seems to get a kick out of repeatedly letting me know that you’ll just discard me like an old dishrag once you’re tired of me. Alison also doesn’t seem to think that we’ll last, or that there is even anything to last.”
“Everyone’s a judge these days,” he surmised, then barked out a short laugh. “Does that make us rebels now if we continue to defy their expectations?”
With that, he got up and stalked around the desk until he was looming over me. I gazed up, tempted to just reach for the fly of his pants, close as it was to me now, but he didn’t look like he needed that kind of incentive. He offered me his hand, and I let him draw me to my feet. Instead of letting go, his fingers skipped up my arm to my shoulder, and suddenly I found myself pressed against him, both of his arms around me. His lips crashed down on mine, hot and demanding, and I moaned into his mouth as I welcomed him in.
In short order he had me wedged between his body and the desk, and a brief sweep of his hand made room so he could lay me down there. His mouth never stopped exploring me, first my face, then down my neck to my breasts. The dress was too tight to just pull it away, but he didn’t seem to mind as his hands shoved up the lower part to my hips. I wrapped my legs around his ass, pulling myself flush with him, and only eased up when he started tearing on his fly.
And then he thrust into me, hard, deep, and fast, making me cry out with need. One of his hands landed back on the desk, right next to my head so he could prop himself up, the other went straight for my clit, as if I’d needed any extra stimulation to start clenching hard around him. I grabbed hold of his hair, forcing his lips back to mine, and he let out a guttural sound in response.
With anyone else, I would have been embarrassed to come so quickly, but Darren knew exactly how to touch me, what to do to make me dissolve in ecstasy in no time. He wasn’t far behind, coming deep inside of me where he then remained, panting heavily as he grinned down at me.
Stretching out underneath him, I sighed happily, sounding a little like a purring cat. His grin turned into a much gentler smile, and he reached up to stroke my cheek with his finger, then kissed me, languid and slow now that the worst of our need had been taken care of.
“Rebels,” I agreed in barely more than a whisper before I caught his lips again, stroking the back of his head slowly. His hands slid underneath me, holding me tight, and I couldn’t help but wonder—how could something that felt so right seem so wrong to so many people? But considering neither of us cared, why should we leave it up to them to
judge us?
Chapter 18
Darren still had a few things to take care of that evening before he could leave, so I busied myself with first cleaning myself up, then picking up what he’d swept off his desk and putting it back where I presumed it belonged. He kept glancing from where he was typing on his computer to me, a slight smile never leaving his face.
By the time we left, the entire floor was deserted except for the cleaning crew making their way through the hallways. Darren led me down to the park deck and to a car that I recognized as the roadster he’d driven to one of our first outings together. As back then, I kept my hands to myself until we’d made it safely into the huge car port underneath his house, but then didn’t waste a second to climb over the middle console onto his lap. My dress and underwear were already stained so it didn’t matter, and the thought that I might get something onto his pants which would make James the butler throw a fit only added to the appeal. Darren was more than willing to let me stroke him into a frenzy, then ride him to another climax with my cries echoing uncensored through the basement.
Roughly half an hour after we’d arrived, we made it out of the car, my legs not quite ready to support my weight. Darren’s arm around my waist was both supportive and alluringly possessive, and he managed to still be able to grope my ass while holding me close. A win-win for everyone, if you asked me.
As we more staggered than walked toward the stairs leading up into the ground floor, I noticed a small door at the back of the cavernous room. Granted, we weren’t down here often as Darren had a predilection for using the office limousines so he could molest me on the way to and from whatever function he brought me along with, but now I was curious.
