But it was impossible. When Neil asked about where she'd started in the industry, her answer was, "My plan originally was to work up from the mail room at Rock Monthly, become a staff writer eventually. Then I realized writing really wasn’t for me." She told us what she liked about her last boss: "Margot wasn't too specific, but we were on the same wave length, and I always made sure I got her what she was looking for.”
To top the perfection sundae, Deja had to leave her current job due to her boss stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of Rock Monthly. She didn’t just want the position I was vacating, she needed it, and she was capable of doing a good job.
Even if I didn’t stay at Porteras, I wanted to know the job I’d done for two years was taken care of. She was absolutely the right person to do that. I was convinced of it.
I think Neil was, too, though he played it cool. "So tell me, if you were working your way up, why would you want to take another position as somebody’s assistant?"
Deja shrugged. "I'm good at it. Look, I believe I should play to my strengths. If I'm the best at what I do, I'm going to do that, even if it’s in a supporting role."
Then I understood what it was about her I liked so much. She was like Holli's long lost sister or something. They both had the same no- nonsense attitude, couched in a likable personality.
Neil asked her a few more questions, then Deja shook our hands and I showed her out.
"How do you think it went?" she asked me bluntly as we stepped into reception.
"If it were up to me, you'd be in." Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I'd overstepped my bounds. It was only fair to warn her, "I'm not sure how many other candidates he's interviewing, though. I'll try to put in a good word."
"Thanks." She beamed her wide, mega-friendly smile at me, and we shook hands again, because I didn't know what else to do.
When I came back into the office, Neil had just gotten himself another cup of coffee, and I frowned at him. "Are you trying to put me out of a job?"
"Hmm?" He glanced down at the mug in his hand. "Don't be foolish. If I'm up and about I can get the occasional cup for myself. What did you think of her?"
I nodded, determined to come up with an answer that wouldn't seem like I was pushing too hard in any particular direction. After all, I didn't have to work with her, not for long, anyway. And while I knew my job pretty well where Gabriella was concerned, I still had no idea how to be the right assistant for Neil. But when I opened my mouth, what came out was, "You have to hire her."
He looked surprised at that. "You liked her?"
"Didn't you?" Was he crazy? She was amazing. "I really think she's going to be the right person for the job. She'll fit in with the people here, but she's not as uptight as the people here. And she has experience."
"You're lobbying fairly hard for her," Neil said with a small smile. "Does this mean you're taking the position in the beauty department?"
"I..." I frowned. I hadn't given him an answer yet, and he'd interviewed my replacement? Then again, he'd been planning on replacing me, anyway. "Was this all to force me into making a decision?”
"No, it wasn't. I swear." He headed to his office, and I followed him. "You said you didn’t want to be my assistant, and I agreed, it would be inappropriate. Why, did you make a decision?"
I leaned against the door frame and cross my arms. "Yes. I'll take the job."
"Good." He turned on the iPad and lifted it up, tapping my note on the screen. "The answer to this request, by the way, is no. And take off the ones you have on."
Oh my god. Could I do that? I looked over my shoulder at the glass wall in the outer office. Beyond, in the lobby, Ivanka was talking into her headset, and the elevator doors had just opened.
“Not here,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching as he suppressed a grin. “Go back to your desk and do it. I’m not going to take them from you. I’m not starting some demented collection. I just like the thought of it.”
“How will you know if I’ve done it or not?” The tip of my tongue darted out to touch my upper lip as I smiled at him.
“You never know, Sophie. I might check.”
The outer office door opened, and Rudy came in, headed straight for Neil’s office. Neil gestured to the chair in front of his desk and greeted him with, “Did you hear from Carol this morning?”
“I did, and it isn’t good news. They want to drop February from a two page ad to a single, and they said they would get back to us about March.”
Neil raised an eyebrow at me. “You have a project you need to finish, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I chirped, and left to do as he’d ordered.
Neil was right. There was no way I could be his assistant. We would never get anything done.
Chapter Eight
The next day, about a half hour after my usual lunchtime, Neil called me into his office. He'd had sushi delivered from some swanky catering place. My stomach had been growling all morning, and I wondered if our "friends" provision would cover me snatching and eating his entire lunch. At quarter to noon, he'd dumped a huge stack of letters on my desk and said, "I really need these to go out today. Could you possibly take a later lunch and get them done now?"
"Not a problem," I had assured him. Inwardly, I'd thought some very uncharitable things about my boss.
When he summoned me in after the delivery guy had painstakingly unpacked and plated his lunch, I realized why he'd delayed me.
His entire desk was cleared off, and he sat in his high-backed black chair, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, no tie as usual. A feast of sushi rolls and sashimi, more than one person could reasonably eat, had been laid in delicate dishes on the top of the desk. My mouth watered. I tried to convince myself it was because Neil looked so good today - he totally did - but it was mostly to do with the food.
"Close the door behind you, and hit the lock."
The tone of his voice instantly diverted my thoughts from my empty stomach to my empty... someplace else. I locked the door and took a second to pause and collect myself before turning to face him.
"Have you eaten yet?" he asked, gesturing with his chopsticks.
I shook my head. "No, someone asked me not to go to lunch until one-thirty," I reminded him.
He winked at me. "Well, now you see my sinister motive. Sit down."
I put my hand on the back of the chair across from him, and he said, "No, not there."
I hesitated, unsure of what he wanted. Was I supposed to sit in his lap and eat sushi? The idea wasn't unappealing, but it was a little cliché. "Is this some weird Don Draper thing?"
He scoffed. "You should know me well enough by now to have more faith in me." He moved aside a square black plate with a truly intimidating arrangement of sliced rolls and patted the desktop. "Up you go."
I looked down. I was wearing an ivory lace skater dress, not exactly the length made for sitting on desks demurely. But I had a feeling he wasn't aiming for demure. I edged past him and hopped up, careful not to sit on or put an errant hand in one of the other plates. I primly crossed my ankles and gazed down at him expectantly. "What do you mean, I should know you well enough by now? We only met officially on Monday. Now it's Friday."
"I think we packed quite a lot of getting to know each other into our night together." He slipped his hand between my knees and pushed my legs apart. "Open."
I took a shaky breath. Beneath the dress, I wore lacy crème-colored panties. I hadn't been on a purposeful seduction mission; I just liked to match my underwear to my outerwear sometimes. But the panties were awfully thin, and awfully skimpy. If I spread my legs, he was definitely going to get more than the standard panty flash.
"What happened to not screwing around at the office?" I asked, allowing him to slowly part my thighs.
"I don't believe I ever said we wouldn't screw around in the office. I said we’d have to be discreet about it." His big hands rested on my inner thighs, and I gasped as he pushed them wider apart, putting me on total display.
"I also don't believe I said we were going to screw around now."
"Explain to me how this isn't screwing around." I bit my lip to stop a moan as his fingertips skimmed over the sheer material of my panties.
Abruptly, he pulled his hands away and reached for the plate he'd moved. He settled it on the desk between my spread thighs and picked up his chopsticks again. Then he smiled up at me as though absolutely nothing were amiss, suppressing what would undoubtedly have been the cockiest grin in the history of maleness. "We're eating lunch."
He lifted a slice of roll, and I had to physically restrain myself from snapping at it like a starving dog. The second the cool rice and soy paper hit my tongue, I groaned gratefully.
"I'm sorry to make you wait so long," he said, truly apologetic. "But I wanted to have lunch with you. I was hoping to spend some time with you this weekend, but Emma is going to be in town this evening through Monday morning. I'd like to be able to see her as much as possible while she's here."
My heart sank. I'd secretly been hoping he would want to hook up again on the weekend, but I hadn't pressed. We were keeping it casual, and I figured since I wasn't the one going through a messy, stressful divorce, I'd let him take the lead. Still, it wasn't like I thought he should put me above his daughter. I swallowed before answering. "No worries. Isn't delayed gratification supposed to be a turn on?"
"Delayed by six years?" He poured some steaming hot sake from a ceramic carafe and handed me a cup, clinking his own against mine before sipping his.
Are we really drinking at work? I asked myself. Oh well. When in Rome.
He fed me two more slices, both with distinctly different tastes and textures. As a meal, it was better than the salad I'd been planning on getting from the building's commissary. As a sexual experience...
Every time he moved, he brushed against my bare legs. When he reached past me for something, his bare forearm grazed my thigh. The backs of his knuckles swept up my knee as he took food from the plate. The entire process was an exercise in frustration. All I wanted was for him to push my panties aside and plunge his fingers into me, something he seemed not at all inclined to do.
I noticed the plate of sashimi, and the cold slices of ruby red, raw tuna. Then a very bizarre association connected in my mind. "I don't know if I want you to eat tuna from between my legs."
Neil had been sipping his sake. He choked on it. He covered his mouth with his napkin, coughing and laughing at the same time. I couldn't help but laugh, too, and quipped, "Was that on purpose or something? Was this all a setup for a bad tuna joke?"
"No!" He'd recovered from his violent coughing, but his face was still bright red, and his eyes sparkled with humor. "No, it was not. I forgot I was dealing with a depraved individual. I'll try to plan our encounters with an eye for avoiding anything you might spin into juvenile humor."
"Good luck with that." I leaned down, as his hands came up to dive into my dark hair. I'm so glad I left it down today, I thought as his mouth covered mine and his palm cradled the back of my skull. It might not seem like it would be terribly sexy to kiss someone who's just been eating sushi, and okay, maybe it wouldn't be my first choice without a toothbrush, but in the moment I would have kissed him if he'd just been eating limburger cheese. Every "accidental" touch had set my body on fire, and the intimacy of being so exposed to him had only ramped up the sensations about a thousand percent. He kissed me slowly and thoroughly, and pulled away with obvious regret.
"As much as I would like to sweep all of this onto the floor and climb on top of you, that would create a bit more of a mess than I would be capable of explaining when Rudy came to our meeting at three." He brushed his lips across mine once more, briefly, then pushed back in his chair. "I have something for you, since we won't be seeing each other over the weekend."
He turned in his chair and grabbed the iPad he'd lent to me before.
"There's some reading material I hoped you might look at. I've made notes in the margins." He passed it to me, the screen already illuminated.
I looked down. There were indeed three books loaded in the ebook app. The Submissive's Handbook. The Big Book of Kink. The Dominant Mind.
"I felt that before we moved forward, you might want a primer. Then you'd be better equipped to tell me what you'd like to do, and what you're comfortable with." His voice was soft and low, like a caress, and I shivered. The cover of one of the books showed an artistic black and white photo of a woman on her knees, her back arched, breasts high, her body held in the position by the intricate binding of ropes. Her eyes were blindfolded with a pale sash, her mouth parted as if in anticipation. My pussy flooded with renewed heat at the thought of Neil doing such a thing to me.
"I'll read these," I said, a little out of breath from the vivid flash of fantasy that had assaulted me. I tore my eyes away from the picture to meet his amused expression. “Definitely.”
"I'm glad to hear it. Although, I don't expect you to learn everything on your own. I'll be more than happy to give you some hands-on training." He moved the plate between my legs aside and helped me down from the desk.
"How selfless of you." I smiled sweetly at him as he stood.
"I prefer my partners to be as informed as possible."
The plural reminded me of something I knew I would have to ask, eventually. I supposed I should ask it right then. "Speaking of partners..."
"I think I know what you're going to ask." He scratched the back of his neck, looking sheepishly away. "I know you're not looking for a serious relationship, so please, don't misinterpret my intention when I tell you... I would rather we kept our sexual relationship monogamous."
Okay, not the answer I was expecting. Not that I minded. "I'm fine with that. If one of us meets someone and we'd like to pursue things we can just... end this." My throat closed up a little at the prospect. I’d just found him again; how would I feel if Neil suddenly ended things a few months down the road to date somebody? That would be horrible.
I pushed those feelings of insecurity aside. I couldn't expect that he remain available to me if his needs changed, just because I wasn't ready for something more. He couldn’t expect the same thing of me, either. I added quickly, "Besides, that's really safer."
"Ah, another point we do need to cover before we go any further. I saw my doctor on Wednesday afternoon and had some tests done, the usual, you know." He waved a hand dismissively. "The results will be in on Monday, but I have to apologize for not broaching this subject sooner. That was irresponsible, and disrespectful of me." He cleared his throat and added, "If you wouldn't mind -"
"I actually just had my yearly physical about two weeks ago. Still haven't gotten my results, though." I shrugged. "I assume you have much better insurance than I do."
"Yes, one of the benefits of being embarrassingly rich is that you find out if you have syphilis much earlier than the average peasant would." He sounded mildly exasperated by the fact that I'd referenced his wealth again, and I made a mental note to not bring it up anymore. I was about to apologize, when he added, "Contraception is another concern. I'm perfectly happy to continue using condoms. Please don’t feel the need to – "
"I'm on the pill." I shrugged. "Endometriosis. If we both get an A+ on our tests, I guess we could try it without. You know, eventually, down the line."
There was a weighty silence between us, just for a moment, and then a knock at the door interrupted us.
"Yes, one moment," Neil called, checking his watch. "Damnit. That will be the editor... I've forgotten his name."
"One of our editors?" I squeaked.
"Don't give anything away," he warned confidently, as though he knew I was capable of playing this game. He reached for a plate on the desk. "Here, take this with you, if you're still hungry."
Put entirely off my game by the unfinished erotic encounter, and the fear of being caught, I stumbled away in a daze. I popped the lock as quietly as I could, but when I opened the door, Jake stood there with a peculiar expression.
>
"Locked door lunch?" he asked, his gaze dropping to the square black plate.
"I ordered a bit too much," Neil answered for me, cool and casual as ever. He was back behind his desk, eating his lunch as though I hadn't just been sitting in front of him with my legs wide open. "Please, come in... Jake?"
I saw the annoyance at not being remembered flash across Jake's face, and high-tailed it out of the room.
* * * *
I started reading The Big Book of Kink on the train home.
I missed my stop and had to backtrack on another train.
Most of the stuff, I knew about already - God bless the internet - but I'd never considered actually doing any of it. And true to his word, Neil had added notes to the margins. Copious notes. It was one of those that had caused me to miss my stop.
Beside an essay about spanking, he'd practically written an essay of his own: Have you any idea how many times I've jerked myself off fantasizing about you, and this? I can still feel my palm smarting from slapping your cute, tight little ass. The way you licked your lips before asking me to spank you. I'd like very much to do it again.
By the time I got back to the apartment, my blood was pounding in my veins, and I hated, hated, hated the real world for intruding on my sex life. I opened the door and Holli called, "Hey!" from the couch. She was watching and old episode of Blind Date. "There's a package for you."
I went to the little dinette set against the wall, where a medium-sized shipping carton sat. I didn't recognize the company that had sent it.
Frowning, I opened the envelope in the plastic bag sealed to the outside of the box. There was a packing slip with a personal message: A little something to congratulate you on the new job. Do let me know if you find a use for them. Neil.
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