I turn around just as I feel like I can’t breathe at all, and rush back to Lily, who’s looking petrified.
Lily
“We can’t go out that way,” shouts Ryan at me. I can barely hear him above the noise of the fire and the alarm.
“What are we going to do?” I say.
“Is there another exit?”
This is his office, and he doesn’t even know the layout. He really doesn’t come to work often.
It’s weird to have this thought in such a crisis situation.
For a moment, I feel calm.
But now I’m panicking again.
It’s a fire! We’re going to burn alive.
Shit, this isn’t the way I wanted to go.
My whole body feels like it’s freezing up.
I haven’t even had sex yet! I can’t die a virgin.
How ironic, if that’s the right use of the word, to die, burnt alive, with the sexiest man in San Francisco, who I rejected just a couple nights ago.
I have a sudden urge, despite my full-body anxiety and panic, to jump his bones right now, to thrust myself onto his rock hard cock.
“Lily! Listen to me, do you know where the exit is?”
He snaps me out of it.
We’re not going to burn alive. There’s another exit!
“There’s another exit!” I finally say. It feels like my brain isn’t working properly, and I don’t know whether it’s thinking about Ryan and his cock that’s distracting me, or the fire.
“Show me,” says Ryan, in an understanding, yet commanding way.
I take him by the hand, finding it strange to be leading this huge man by the hand, and we rush down to the other end of the hallway.
The smoke is a little less dense here, but by the end of the hallway, we’re both coughing almost comfortably.
I feel like I might vomit, and I actually bend over once, thinking that I’m going to puke, but fortunately, nothing comes out. He may be a prick, and this may be a serious fire, but I still don’t want to puke in front of Ryan Hudson. What does that mean? Probably nothing, right?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” says Ryan. There’s urgency in his voice, something I’ve never heard from him, but there isn’t a hint of panic.
“I…” I start to speak, but I start choking again.
All I can do is point to the other exit, which is hard to find, near one of the back closets. It’s not something Ryan would know about, since apparently he never comes here. I only know about it because I spent so long reading the employee manual, which covers fire escapes very carefully, as well as all other emergency procedures.
I feel like I’m about to pass out, but his strong arms suddenly embrace me and pick me up as easily as if I were a rag doll.
He carries me through the smoke, and I’m barely aware of what’s happening.
There’s smoke and heat, and I’m still coughing intensely, a rough, hurried cough, feeling like I’m on the verge of blacking out.
Next thing I know, we’re standing in the back alley by the rear parking lot. I’m still in Ryan’s arms, which are huge and strong. I can feel his hard muscular chest pressed against me. My breasts are against him, and so is my face. I look up, and see him looking down at me, smiling.
“You survived,” he says, his smile cracking, growing bigger.
I cough right into his face.
“Sorry…” I manage to say.
“I’m just glad we got out of there,” he says.
“My laptop?” I say.
“I’ve got it,” says Ryan. “Tucked into my pants.”
“I thought I must have dropped it…”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” he says.
I take in deep breaths of the fresh air. It’s a strange sensation, being able to breathe properly for the first time… in… I don’t know how long all of that took. It felt like an eternity, trapped in all that smoke. But it probably wasn’t more than a few minutes.
“I think I figured it out…” I say, trying to speak, but my voice is crackly and hoarse.
“It’s OK,” says Ryan. “You can tell me about it later.”
He’s carrying me around the building, walking at a safe distance from it. I can see smoke coming off the building roof. The fire turned out to be much, much worse than we’d thought.
The sound of fire engine sirens is close by, and wailing.
We’re almost around the corner of the building, where even in my state I know that the rest of the office will be waiting, looking at the building in awe, as they watch their workplace burn to the ground. Can the firemen still save it?
Despite what just happened, barely escaping with my life, I feel safe in Ryan’s huge arms. I feel completely protected, and I let my head fall to the side and rest against his chest, feeling his breathing as his chest moves up and down.
He looks down at me, gazing into my eyes without saying anything, and I look back up at him.
We’re around the corner now, and everyone from the office is gathered, just as I thought they would be, standing a safe distance from the burning office building.
There are two huge fire engines parked here, with the firemen in their suits and boots already shooting huge streams of water on the building’s roof. Other firemen are standing by the front door, apparently considering if they should enter or not.
There’s an ambulance by the fire engines, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see someone sitting upright with a blanket around them, inhaling deeply from an oxygen mask. A huge cylindrical oxygen tank is sitting nearby.
“Is she hurt?” says someone, an EMT rushing up to us. He’s outfitted in a navy blue uniform, with all sorts of gear hanging off his belt. He’s got a wide face, close cropped hair, and a bit of a belly.
“I don’t think so,” says Ryan. “She inhaled a lot of smoke.”
“What about you?” says the EMT.
“I’m fine,” says Ryan, his voice deep and powerful. “You’d better check her out. I’ll take her.”
With the EMT trailing behind, Ryan walks me over to the ambulance and sets me down ever so gently.
The EMT starts checking my vitals, hooking up various gadgets to me that I can’t keep track of.
“You’re going to be fine,” says Ryan to me, his voice deep but gentle.
“I didn’t know you were like that,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.”
I do know, but I don’t want to tell him. I didn’t realize there was another side to him. I thought he was just the douchebag billionaire, the tough alpha, the muscular badass, the guy who didn’t take shit from anyone, who just wanted money and didn’t care about anyone but himself. I didn’t realize there was a, dare I say, tender side to him.
Ryan just shrugs.
“Looks like you’re fine,” says the EMT after several minutes. “But you’d better use this.”
He hands me an oxygen mask that I gratefully take in my hand and breathe in from.
Instantly, my head starts to feel clearer. I didn’t realize how foggy headed I’d become.
I’m grateful that I’m not able to speak without taking the mask away from me, because I don’t want to tell Ryan that I’m seeing this new side of him. I don’t want to tell him that I… have feelings for him.
Do I, though? Maybe it was just all that smoke that I breathed in. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly.
But as I watch the firemen and the burning building, I’m actually focused intently out of the corner of my eye on Ryan, staring at the side of his head as he watches his building with folded arms. My head’s clear now, but I still see something in him that I didn’t see before.
The firemen seem to have put out most of the fire. A few of them have entered the building now. I think that means it’s structurally intact to a certain level.
Ryan gives me one final look before walking away, towards the office building.
He doesn’t ask if I’m OK, but I
can see it in his eyes. I can see something else… something like caring for me. But that’s absurd, right? He’s the douchebag billionaire, and he doesn’t care about anyone but himself and his money.
Ryan
Somehow she still manages to look incredibly sexy, sitting there hunched over with an oxygen mask over her face. She looks so innocent, but yet her body screams at me at the same time. Her curves draw my gaze towards her, and I have to pull my head away, quite literally, to keep from staring at her. She’s been looking up at me with those beautiful eyes, her long eyelashes flittering down along them. There’s a look of sleepiness or exhaustion in her gaze, but there’s something else too.
“I’m the owner of the building,” I say to the nearest fireman. “Can you tell me what the damages are?”
“Pretty bad,” says the fireman, wiping some black grime off his face.
He’s one of the ones who’s just come out of the building, and he’s covered in black smoke residue.
In one hand, he’s holding a huge fireman’s ax.
“How bad are we talking about? Do you think we’ll be able to use the building again?”
He shakes his head vigorously at me. “There’s no way,” he says. “The structure is holding up for now, but the inside is completely destroyed, and we don’t yet know what kind of damage has been done to the walls, the foundation, and the roof. Except just by looking at it, I know the roof isn’t going to hold up for more than another day.”
“Isn’t it risky going in there now?”
He shrugs. “That’s what we do, though.”
I nod my head. “So the place is basically fried?”
He nods. “In situations like this, usually the whole building has to be razed.”
I nod my head.
This puts a bit of a damper on my plans, but not much. It’s not like the office building was doing me much good, anyway. I’ll have to find a temporary place for the sales team, in case there are any new clients. But as of right now, the potential new clients are probably just waiting to see what happens with the Simmons algorithm, waiting to see whether they should buy that instead of mine when it comes on the market.
The office workers are standing around looking at the burned out building. They see me approaching and look nervous. That’s understandable, since they don’t really know me at all. Many of them I’ve never seen in my life, and they’ve probably just seen me in the news.
There’s a middle-aged woman who I think is the secretary. She’s biting her lip nervously. Her clothes have a little bit of soot on them.
“Is it Stacey?” I say, approaching her.
“It’s Sheila,” she says, looking up at me. “Are you OK, Mr. Hudson?”
I nod. “I’m fine,” I say. “Is everyone all right?”
She nods. “Everyone got out fine. At first, we didn’t see you or the new employee, Lily, and we thought the worst.”
“We were trapped in there, until Lily pointed out the other exit,” I say. “At first, we didn’t think it was a real fire alarm.”
She nods and continues biting her lip. Her finger nails are painted neon green and if they weren’t, I imagine she’d be biting those too.
“So,” I say. “Do you think you can organize the set up of a new office?”
“Right now?” she says, sounding shocked.
I guess I’m understanding how traumatic an experience like this could be for people. But we’ve got to get back to work. That’s one of the things that helps me make money—staying on track with a laser like focus, no matter what happens.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “It’s going to take me at least a day to lease a new office building.”
She nods at me, but looks worried.
“Why don’t you pick a couple good people in the office that you work well with,” I say. “And you guys can make a little team to organize the distribution and ordering of new office equipment. Here, take this.”
I hand her one of my no-limit credit cards. “I forget how the finances were set up for office materials but you might need a higher limit. Order whatever you had in the old office, or whatever you need. And it goes without saying that it’s not to be used for anything personal.”
“Of course, Mr. Hudson,” she says.
“Great,” I say. “Give me your cell number, and I’ll send you the details. You’ll be responsible for letting the rest of the other employees know the new address. I’m going to get a place with a good conference room so that my small programming team can keep working on our new project.”
“Is everything OK with the… uh… algorithm, Mr. Hudson?” she says.
I nod. “Of course,” I say. “We just might need to make a few updates. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but tell everyone not to worry.”
I walk away and stand looking at the building for a moment. There goes the end of an era that I was barely part of. I can count the number of times on one hand that I actually came into this office building, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent a whole day there until very recently, trying to fix this new problem with the algorithm.
I scroll through the contacts list on my phone, and find a guy named Jeremy Green who helps me get what I need. He works as a sort of intermediary for things like real estate and business equipment, so that I don’t have to deal with realtors.
He’s not there, but I leave a simple message. “It’s Ryan Hudson,” I say. “I need a new office building, quickly. I’ll text you the capacity details right now. Tomorrow would be best. Money isn’t a problem, as always. But keep it reasonable. These employees don’t need anything too fancy. Professional, but not luxurious.”
I hang up the phone and my gaze finds its way back to Lily, who’s still breathing through the oxygen mask.
“You can probably take that off now,” I say, approaching her.
She removes it.
She looks shaken, the way she’s huddled there. Her clothes are tinged with soot, and her hair is a mess, but she still looks fabulous.
“You’ve got some soot on your cheek,” I say, using my hand to wipe some of it off.
As I do so, she gazes into my eyes, and my hand lingers on her cheek for a moment.
“Let me take you somewhere and buy you a drink,” I say. “You need to put that spark back in you.”
“I can’t go anywhere looking like this,” she says.
“Then come back to my place,” I say. “I’ve got a full bar. You need to relax a little.”
“It’s OK,” says Lily. “I’ll just go home.”
“Really,” I say. “It’s the least I can do, after my office almost killed you.”
“But you also rescued me,” she says.
“Then I guess you owe me,” I say, trying not to wink at her.
I can see her interpret the meaning a variety of ways. I can see it in her eyes as the thought passes through her.
“Not like that,” I say. “I just mean that you’d be doing me a favor if you let me give you a drink and feed you, after all that you’ve been through. That is, if you can stand hanging out with the douchebag billionaire for an hour or so.”
She shrugs, looking somewhat noncommittal in her body posture. But I see something there in her eyes, a desire for me that she might not even be admitting to herself yet.
“OK,” she says, after a long pause.
“My car’s this way.”
She walks with me, and as we walk, she leans her head towards my torso. She’s more than a full head shorter than me, and her head doesn’t fall right on my shoulder. That’s pretty normal for me, since I’m just over six foot.
I let my left arm drape around her shoulder and pull her closer into me, and she doesn’t fight back.
We walk in silence, and when we get to my car, I open the passenger side door for her. I can’t remember the last time I’ve done that—maybe just when I was first starting to date.
“Wow,” she says. “Fancy car.” But she doesn’t sound impressed. I’m getting the sense that the
se kinds of displays of wealth don’t do much for her… she’s so much different than the other women I’ve known.
I start the car and pull out of the parking lot, leaving the burned office building behind us.
“Did you happen to see Johnny?” I say.
“I didn’t.”
“He must have run off,” I say. “That’s just like Johnny. He always runs at the first sign of any trouble now. But I can hardly blame him, since he basically lives his life in constant fear that some authority figures are going to come knocking on his door. That’s what it’s like to be in the black hat world, I guess.”
“At least he gave us the article,” she says, perking up a little at the mention of programming.
“Yeah,” I say. “We don’t really need him.”
“Oh!” she says suddenly, excited. “I completely forgot! But just before the alarm went off, I found something…”
“You figured out what Simmons is doing?” I say.
“Yeah” she says, her voice barely containing her excitement.
I’m driving slowly, and I look over at her. For a moment, I forget all about the algorithm, because all I see is how her face is lit up with excitement, shining with beauty.
My cock starts to swell in my pants.
I want her, and I need her.
I need to sink my cock into her tight virgin body. That’s all I need.
This has never happened to me before—mentally putting a woman above my business needs in a time of business crisis, not even for a moment.
I force my mind back onto what she’s talking about.
“Yeah,” she’s saying. “So I don’t have the terminology to describe it. But basically I think I found what to look for in Simmons’s algorithm. He isn’t doing exactly what he’s doing in the paper, which I don’t think would have worked. But it was a jumping off point for him, where he was able to find something else… something that worked… worked really, really well…”
I have to force myself to keep my eyes off her, with her breasts heaving in and out in excitement as she talks, and keep myself focused on the road.
In another couple minutes we’ll be at my house.
SEAL'd Lips: A Secret Baby Romance Page 38
