“Someday, you’ll understand what perks really are,” he said. Reese rolled her eyes; her father considered his own parking spot near the elevator a worthwhile life goal. She did not.
She stepped from the car and immediately stumbled; the kitten heels she’d worn as part of her business attire were far more uncomfortable than her Vans and Converse. The whole outfit was uncomfortable. She was used to paint-stained skinny jeans and an oversized t-shirt, one that fit snugly around her generous chest but flattered her slightly rotund stomach.
She wasn’t the sort of girl to obsess over diets and fitness, and it showed, but only in her tummy. She thought she was rather becoming, even with the few extra pounds. Her C-cup breasts certainly made up for the extra curves in her torso, and her wide hips and plump butt reminded her of the voluptuous women of days gone by, who were considered sex symbols by the men who painted their portraits.
Her blazer made her suck in her gut, the tight skirt nearly bursting around her derriere. Her mother had brought the clothes home after Reese refused to go shopping with her, and there was no time to return them for a more comfortable size. Her chest looked almost too large in the blazer, and she felt like she was going to find bagel crumbs in between the canyon of her cleavage when she took her bra off that night.
“You look lovely,” her father said, kissing the top of her auburn hair. Reese huffed, following him to the elevator.
“So, I’ll show you to your desk, I’m sure Mandy will be there to take care of you,” he said after pressing the button for the thirtieth floor. “And then I’ll be just a few floors down the rest of the day if you need anything. Or just miss your old man.”
Reese scowled.
“I can’t believe my daughter is already working above me,” he said, turning to her with a smile so large she actually wanted to return it. Somewhere deep down, she really did love her stupid, corporate-ladder-climbing, image-obsessed, artistically dense father. And he was so excited about this…she almost felt guilty about her sour grapes attitude.
When the door slid open, Reese felt a chill. All around, people sat in cubicles. Gray carpeting covered the floor. Opaque glass offices lined the far wall. The chatter and drone of phones, keyboards, and chatter hit her ears like a train. She wanted to turn right around and leave. But, instead, she followed her father through the office, eyes growing wider at each kitschy coffee mug and poster, all seemingly designed for the sole purpose of turning a hellishly unimaginative space into a place suitable for human habitation.
Turning a corner, she saw the woman who’d interviewed her; Mandy was in her late 30’s but looked to be in her 50’s, with frizzy hair and a frazzled, anxious demeanor that made all her movements seem jerky and unnatural.
“Oh,” she said, eyes popping open as Reese and her father approached. “You’re here.”
She was holding a coffee, and thrust it into Reese’s hands. She looked down, wide-eyed, at the hot beverage, some of Mandy’s anxiety rubbing off on her.
“Oh, uh, thanks but I don’t really drink…”
“It’s not for you,” Mandy interrupted with a strained smile. “It’s for Mr. Callion. The first thing you’ll do every day is bring him his coffee. He likes it black with one sugar. I figured you should just do it now so you can meet him and get it over with.”
“Jumping right into it! I like that!” Reese’s father said, patting her on the back. “I guess I’ll leave you to it, then, doll. I know you’ll do great. Mandy, I’ll see you around.”
And with that, Reese was alone, with Mandy’s thin smile and the boring bustle of an office surrounding her.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t, like, meet him first?” Reese said, biting her lip. It seemed a bit strange to immediately be given a task, before even getting a tour of the office or filling out any paperwork.
“But you will meet him,” Mandy said. “When you bring him the coffee. He knows to expect you.”
“Oh…okay,” Reese said, looking around. “So…where’s his office?”
Mandy pointed to a door not far from them down the hallway. Green-frosted glass lined the wall, separating the private office from the outer office. With a shrug, Reese followed the glass wall to a door: Robert Callion, CEO was printed in bold black letters. Pushing the door open slowly, Reese popped her head in.
It was all she could do not to gasp; the office was like night and day compared to the workroom outside. Huge, clear glass windows made up the three walls, with darkly vibrant flowering plants in each corner. Natural light flooded the space, made the artificial lighting of the workplace seem even harsher. At the far end, with a view of Manhattan stretching out behind it, a dark wooden desk sat, ornamented with a computer, some type of small statue, and nothing else.
Except, that is, for the man behind it, who Reese immediately saw as something of a work of art himself. If the office itself hadn’t taken her breath away, her new boss would have. He was on the younger side of his 30’s, with full, jet black hair and broad shoulders; she could see, even from across the room, the strong dimple cut into his chin. His well-tailored suit seemed to fall like molten obsidian on his muscular arms.
Reese felt her body reacting immediately, and strangely; he was exactly the sort of man she’d always imagined when she let herself fantasize about lovers she might have. Older, dark, well groomed and well kept. She’d just never seen someone like him in the flesh, believing such men to exist only between the pages of books.
Get over it; she scolded herself, crossing the room now as his face turned up to take her in. He’s your boss, not some could-be Casanova.
“Hi,” Reese said as she approached, holding out the coffee like it was some piece of trash she wanted nowhere near her own body. As she got closer, her pace slowed. His eyes – boldly green – were so intense she almost felt afraid to approach. And as they scanned her from top to bottom – and back again – she felt her heart fluttering behind her ribcage, her stomach turning over on itself.
He’s looking at me like I’m a piece of meat, she thought. Or art…
Indeed, it was hard to tell exactly what was going on behind Mr. Callion’s eyes. Whatever it was, it stopped almost immediately as she stood in front of his desk and his eyes snapped back to his computer.
“I’m Reese Sherman,” she said, setting the coffee down and waiting, awkwardly, to see if he would react to her at all. “I’m Mandy’s new assistant.”
A pause. Mr. Callion clicked his mouse. Finally, turning to her slowly, as though still distracted by something on the screen.
“You’re young,” he said finally, leaning back and crossing his arms across his chest. Now, his eyes stayed firmly on her own, though she still felt strangely judged. Reese didn’t know how to respond, so she simply shrugged.
“They hired me,” she said, blushing now. Was this really the man she was going to work for? Despite her immediate reaction to his good looks, she already got the distinct feeling they wouldn’t get along very well. He seemed so distant, so gruff, so…mean. Her father’s fear of him, and Mandy’s attitude, suddenly made a lot more sense.
“Obviously,” he said with a smirk. “Well, as we’ll be working together quite a bit, I hope you’re prepared.”
“Prepared for…what?” Reese asked. She’d been under the impression she’d mostly be working with Mandy, and that the job was very entry-level.
“To not fuck up,” Mr. Callion said, his words biting against her ears. Reese flinched, then scolded herself for flinching. She was no stranger to curse words, but coming from this impressive man in his tailored suit in his magnificent office…well, she hadn’t been “prepared” for that.
To cover her initial reaction, she merely shrugged, trying to force her eyes to take on a disdainful boredom. She got the picture. She was the employee, he was the boss, and he would probably treat her like crap. Well, whatever; let him fire her if she didn’t take that crap the way he wanted her to.
“Okay,” she said. “Anything else I can do
for you this morning?”
“No,” he said, finally taking the coffee and sipping it, turning back to his computer and resuming work as though she wasn’t there at all. Reese slipped out, back into the grotesquely normal outer office, where Mandy awaited with a stack of papers, a binder full of rules and regulations, and that pursed-lip smile Reese knew she would come to hate.
Chapter Two
Now why would they hire someone like that, Robert Callion wondered as he watched his new second-tier assistant walk out of the room. He’d hired Mandy himself, liking the fact that she was eager to please, but liking even more the fact that he felt no attraction to her whatsoever. That had gotten him in trouble once before, when a saucy secretary had nearly cost him his reputation.
So the fact that this new employee was…well, to say she was just his type would put it mildly, made him worried. He could control himself in almost every aspect of his life, and did. In fact, control was something Robert Callion had in abundance. He had so much control that he liked to use his excess on other people. But there was one thing to which he would always be something of a slave. The women who had that effect on him were few and far between, but when he encountered one…
It didn’t matter that this Reese girl couldn’t have been more than 18 (though she had to be, in order to work at his company). It didn’t matter that her last name was the same as one of his highest performing managers. It didn’t matter that she was his employee. None of that mattered to his heart, which had immediately struck a match to itself when she walked in, all wide-eyed and luscious, with curves to kill. But it was that something underneath her eyes - that was what he saw, what he liked, what he couldn’t force himself not to want.
There was something there, hiding.
And he wanted to rip it out into the open.
Chapter Three
Reese cracked her back. It was her second week as Mandy’s assistant, but she’d realized soon enough that she wasn’t really Mandy’s assistant at all. She was Mandy’s scapegoat. The one Mandy pawned her least desirable jobs off on. When there was bad news to be delivered, or boring filing work to be done, or an unpleasant interaction with Mr. Callion to attend to, it was Reese – not Mandy – who had to do it.
Which didn’t seem fair, but she had yet to realize her dream of being fired, and she certainly couldn’t quit.
Reese felt like she’d worked a year in those past two weeks. Mr. Callion was a demanding man. When he wasn’t ordering her to get someone on the phone, find a lost file, round up old accounting papers, or bring him a three-year-old invoice, he was demanding coffee or lunch or his dry cleaning to be sent out. She felt more like a gopher than anything else, and it was wearing her thin.
It didn’t help that every time she saw him – whether it was bringing him the morning coffee or watching him grumble over some paperwork she was delivering – she felt an undeniable tingling in that area her mother would call the “nether regions”, but which she knew, far more casually, as her pussy.
She’d had a crush on her art teacher. This was different. What she felt towards her boss wasn’t some romantic idyll - it was full-blown lust. And it frustrated her, because why should she feel that way towards someone who’d never said a kind word to her? Who was nothing but a jerk? Maybe it was the way those eyes of his captured her in their gaze, the way he sometimes scrutinized her from head to toe, enigmatic and visceral in his stare. Just the thought of it drove a shiver up her spine.
Now, as the day groaned on towards seven p.m., far later than Reese ever wanted to be in the office, she was still laboring over a massive box of lease agreements that needed to be sorted, cross-referenced, and filed.
Overhead, a blinking red light taunted her in her periphery. There were cameras all over the office. Mandy had told Reese that they all streamed, live, to Mr. Callion’s computer, so he could keep tabs on his employees at all times. She abhorred the very idea of it, feeling everyday like she was working in a prison instead of an office.
Besides, she felt that they were just there to inspire fear. There was no way he was actually watching those cameras. He was too busy, wasn’t he? Now, as she took a brief break, musing on the camera and its watchful eye, a devious idea crept into her head. Turning towards it, eyes narrowed, she decided that a little act of defiance never hurt anyone, and in the end it would make the rest of the night’s work go by much quicker.
With a wicked smile on her face, Reese leaned back in her chair, pulled open the button of her blazer, and drew her shirt up to her neck, giving the camera a full view of her tits. Sticking her tongue out, she shook them slightly in their bra before turning around once more, giggling as she re-clothed her torso.
It’s the little things, she thought, strangely satisfied by the tiny act of rebellion. But, with a sigh, she resumed her work, checking the names and dates of a lease against the computer’s database, now arching her back, which was already sore again from hunching over the keyboard.
“Excuse me.”
The short, sharp bark made Reese jump in her seat. Closing her eyes, her cheeks blushed bright red.
Oh…fuck…why is he still here?! Oh my God, he saw…he saw! He actually saw me! I’m so…
Fired. The thought brought a smile to her face. Maybe this would be the thing that actually got her pink slipped, at last; then, she’d never have to return to this crappy office with its sad workers and sadder decorations.
Still, she couldn’t help but be a bit embarrassed; she really hadn’t expected Mr. Callion to still be around, and now she knew for certain he’d seen her breasts. Some part of her deep down wondered what he’d thought of them, if they had, perhaps, made him see her as something other than a young girl whose father worked for the company. Maybe…
As she turned, cheeks bright and eyes low, she tried to explain.
“I didn’t know anyone was still around,” she said in a rush. “I just…I was getting so bored and I…”
“Come with me, please,” Mr. Callion said, interrupting her. She looked up at him; he was in one of his trademark form-fitting suits, dark black with a grey tie, every inch of it tailored to his muscular body. His green eyes sparked over her, hiding his emotions, his lips in a tight line that gave no evidence of his mental state. That strong, clean-shaven jaw was set hard, as usual.
He looked just the same now, about to reproach his nearly underage employee for flashing the camera, as he did receiving his morning coffee. Reese slunk behind him into the office, wondering where all that renegade fire and rebellious spirit that had caused her to expose herself in the first place had gone to now. She could certainly use some of it at that moment.
As they stepped into his lavish office, Reese admired, if only for a moment, the view of the sunset over Manhattan through the wide glass windows. She wondered how someone could be so surly when they got to spend all day with a view like that.
“Please, sit,” Mr. Callion said, taking his own seat behind the desk. Reese crept up and eased herself into the chair, feeling very self-conscious as his eyes roamed up and down her body; she felt like a bug in a jar. Or a stripper on a pole, more likely. He’d always looked at her that way, and she really hadn’t minded, but this time she’d just about asked for it.
“I get the feeling, Ms. Sherman, that you aren’t very happy here,” Mr. Callion said, breaking the tension. He leaned forward slightly, folding his hands together on his desk.
Here we go, Reese thought. Canned for showing my cans.
She shrugged.
“Why did you even take the position, then?” he asked, his voice strangely warm and soft – nothing like his normal growling, barking, animalistic anger. “Why, for example, did you decide to forgo college, as I’m sure so many of your peers had done?”
Reese squirmed in her seat. Couldn’t he just fire her and get it over with?
“Well, I got into SCAD, but my parents wouldn’t let me go. I want to study art and they don’t think it’s…uh…a pragmatic decision. My father
got me the job here and…” she shrugged, blanching further as his gaze deepened.
“Are you a good artist?” he asked, throwing Reese off further.
“Um, well, I mean, I got into that school. It’s one of the best. And, well, yeah. I’m a really good artist. Really…good,” she said, feeling awkward about having to sell herself.
“You ought to have more confidence, if that’s the case,” Mr. Callion said, leaning back and turning slightly in his chair. He crossed his legs and seemed to stare at the wall, pondering. When he turned back to her, his eyes were bright. “Are you still working on your art? Now that you’re out of school?”
Reese shook her head. Where the hell is this going, she wondered, confused. Why hadn’t he even mentioned her little strip show out in the office? Surely, he’d seen it; why else would they be having this conversation?
“I can’t afford a studio space yet, or a lot of materials, you know. And my parents don’t want to help me out with it, and I have to save everything I make here so that I can pay for my education in a few years,” she said.
A long pause punctuated their conversation. Mr. Callion broke his stare, pulling a fresh sheet of paper from a pile and scribbling something onto it. Reese leaned forward, trying to get a peek at what he was writing. When he looked back up at her, she shot backwards in her chair fast as a bullet. He smirked, and then pushed the paper across the desk at her.
“That’s the address to a studio space I lease in Brooklyn,” he said. “It’s not occupied right now. I’ll take it off the list of rentable spaces. Go there this weekend. I’ll have it stocked with supplies. What do you work in? Oils? Watercolors? Pastels? Clay?”
Reese’s jaw dropped. Her mind pulsed with sudden excitement, and confusion, and panic. Was this a trick? What was his end game in this? Why on earth would he be so generous when she clearly had no interest in being the ideal employee?
ROMANCE: THREESOME : Billionaire Brothers' Party (MFM Menage Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Threesome Short Stories) Page 4
