by Lexy Timms
But he had to give points for determination here.
“Fine. You start now. Impress me, and I’ll consider letting you stay. Go talk to Ms. Campbell about what you need to know for the rest of the day to keep me up to date, and have her call down to IT to have them bring a company laptop up for you to use this afternoon. There’s an empty office next door.”
The empty office was, in fact, where a PA was supposed to work from, but he’d never had one so he’d never used it. There was a desk in it, at least. The rest could be added when he’d made his decision on who to hire. Tomorrow was his last interview for this batch, after all, and he wasn’t going to cancel it just because Mr. Blake was being allowed an afternoon to prove himself.
“Yes, Mr. Reid. Thank you for the chance. You won’t regret it, I promise.” Alex’s new probationary personal assistant nearly bolted from his seat. At least he was quick about taking action on Alex’s orders. An instant later, the door closed behind him.
Alex turned his attention to his own tasks.
An hour later, an email popped up on his phone. Alex opened it, and looked down at the subject with raised eyebrows.
From: Caleb Blake
To: Alex Reid
Subject: Summary of Client Portfolio Changes for the week of 8/16-8/23
Mr. Reid,
Here’s the summary you requested.
Caleb
It seemed Mr. Blake wasn’t entirely useless, at least, though the use of his first name to sign the email was a little too familiar for Alex’s tastes. He clicked the attachment and scanned through the file, which all seemed to be in order.
At 7:30, Alex looked up from his tablet and tipped his head from side to side to stretch the cramped muscles in his neck. Most of the work force would have gone home by now, but he hadn’t heard a thing from Mr. Blake since the email half an hour ago. Not even a question about whether he could leave with the rest of them, which he would have expected. He stood, grateful for the chance to move around after sitting for so long at his desk, and crossed to the door that opened between his office and the personal assistant’s. The next room was empty.
Alex stood for a moment, staring at the desk where he had expected to find Mr. Blake sitting. There was no sign of him, or of the company laptop he had been loaned. Alex’s jaw tightened. It seemed the probationary offer had been as bad an idea as anyone he’d bothered to ask would have undoubtedly told him that it was going to be. Mr. Blake had not, obviously, needed the job quite as much as he’d made out. Or he hadn’t needed it as badly as he’d decided he needed the several hundred in easy cash the laptop would net him. Alex supposed he should have seen it coming.
He’d brought it entirely on himself; the company would easily survive the loss of a single laptop. Alex could afford to replace the laptop from his own salary. Better that the tendency for theft had come out during the probation than after he’d decided to hire the man on for real, at least.
From: Alex Reid
To: Caleb Blake
Subject: I Hope This Is Already Assumed
Mr. Blake,
I assume you have already come to this conclusion yourself, but we will not be asking you back for any further work, probationary or otherwise. Do not set foot on the premises of Reid Enterprises again, or I will have you arrested for trespass and theft. Similarly, if I see one word of this in the media, I will be forced to take action. Believe me when I say you do not want me to do that.
Enjoy the laptop.
Mr. Reid, CEO Reid Enterprises
Chapter 12
The sound of the intercom buzzing to life pulled Alex out of the whirl of numbers he was currently contemplating, and he lifted his head.
“Mr. Reid?”
He reached out and pressed the button that would allow him to answer the request for his attention. “Yes, Ms. Campbell?”
“Your five o’ clock appointment is here. A Miss Lily Westkirk?”
She was fifteen minutes early, but he didn’t have anything else pressing and he wouldn’t mind a break from the reports he’d been working on all day.
“Send her in, please, Ms. Campbell. Thank you.”
A moment later, the door swung open tentatively. The woman who entered was slender and golden-haired, with curves and features that probably made every woman she ever passed on the street jealous. Said curves were wrapped quite prettily in a neat little navy business suit that she had almost certainly purchased from some upscale business woman’s boutique. The jacket cut in at the waist in a way that said the whole thing had been chosen specifically to show off the aforementioned curves, which Alex was currently enjoying far more than was likely considered polite for an employer and the woman he was considering hiring.
“Mr. Reid,” she said, stepping up to the desk and offering one perfectly manicured hand. “Lily Westkirk. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Thank you for coming in, Miss Westkirk,” Alex said. His voice came out a little rougher than usual, more of a tell than he would have liked. “I appreciate your prompt arrival.”
“Oh, I’m never late, Mr. Reid.” She smiled. “As far as I’m concerned, early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.”
“An answer I can certainly get behind.” And a body he’d be happy to get behind as well. Alex shut the thought down and glanced down at his tablet, where he’d pulled up the résumé she’d had attached to her profile on the job-seeking site where he’d found her. “You also have an impressive set of credentials.”
“I work hard to get to where I want to be.”
“So, secretarial work at eighteen. You worked four years for the same company?”
“Yes, Mr. Reid. In the interest of full disclosure, I actually started working there when I was seventeen, just odd jobs and such. My uncle was one of the owners of the business. That’s why I got hired. But they kept me on after he sold his shares, so I think they must have been happy with my work.”
“I spoke with the current owner. He had a glowing report.”
Her cheeks went a little pink at the praise, and Alex had to think very determinedly for a moment of things that were very much not how she would look with her neat hair unwound from its chignon and falling around her, sex-flushed and languid with afterglow.
“Harry was a good boss. Very kind.”
“Do you actually type ninety-five words per minute?”
“I do.”
“Impressive, Miss Westkirk.”
Again that flush, and Alex was beginning to think that hiring her would not be a very good idea at all. He realized a little suddenly that he was staring. His eyes flicked back up to hers, but it was obvious that Miss Westkirk had noticed the wayward look. She now appeared like she was trying not to smile.
“A hypothetical situation,” Alex said, trying to get the interview back on track. “It happens to be one of those days where everything that can possibly go wrong is going wrong. I’m trying to handle damage control. How would you aid in that?”
“Well, Mr. Reid,” she said, and her voice had dropped lower than the bright register she’d been speaking in before. Alex stifled the sound that wanted to escape and tried to think professional thoughts. “I’d take over any jobs that you didn’t have to do yourself. Most of the time it’s the little things that weigh people down, and having someone else take those on can help quite a bit.” She leaned forward a little, revealing that the undone top button of her white blouse allowed a view of the shadowed space between her breasts.
Damn.
“Of course, I find that stress relief also helps after a busy day.”
It was entirely inappropriate to hit on a prospective employer. He wasn’t going to give her the job just because she flashed her breasts at him. That didn’t mean Alex wasn’t tempted. “Do you have something to say, Miss Westkirk?”
The little smile she was wearing widened. “I think, Mr. Reid, that you can call me Lily, if you like.”
“I think you’re propositioning me, Lily.”<
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“Not at all, Mr. Reid. I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing.” She pulled a pen out of her purse, under what pretense Alex wasn’t exactly sure, and promptly dropped it. Her eyes widened. “Oh, excuse me. I’ll get it.”
His cock knew where it was going before his brain did. He was half-hard before she’d even finished standing. The bend at the waist, though, pulling her short little skirt tight across the curves of her ass, was a little too much. Alex stood. “What are you, a walking storyline from a porno?” He traced the lines of her hips through over her clothes.
Lily straightened and turned to look at him, her head tipped back so she could meet his eyes with her own enormous blue ones.
“Go lock the door, if this is what you want.”
She went and locked it.
The moment she was back within arms’ reach, Alex caught her around the waist and dragged her back to his chair, where he dropped down to sit with her weight in his lap. She squirmed in his hold.
“You’re going to have to be quiet,” Alex said, tipping his head down to whisper against the curve of her ear and feeling her shudder with the warm wash of his breath over sensitive skin. “Because my secretary is right outside that door, and I’m not fucking her. So I don’t want her to know that I’m fucking you.”
“Quiet,” she whispered back. “Yes, sir.”
And hell, if that didn’t take him from half-hard to aching in point-five seconds.
Her smile said she knew it, too.
Alex let his hands slide up her thighs and under her skirt, cupping the swells of her buttocks through the thin fabric of her panties as she moved so that one of her knees rested either side of his thighs. Lace. They were definitely lace. “We’re going to have to get these off you.”
She gave him a look that made him rock up against the warm weight of her body.
“So get them off.” She grinned. “You’ll just owe me a new pair.”
That was the kind of invitation he was not going to refuse.
Alex hooked his fingers under the waistband of the underwear and ripped against the tension of the hold with one hand. They shredded under the touch like they hadn’t been meant to hold together in the first place. He tossed the scraps aside, and she lifted up so that he could unbutton his pants and yank them down to his thighs.
Her weight settled down against him again. She was already wet, soft, and warm, and rubbing against the length of his cock. Alex swallowed a groan and reached up, unbuttoning her shirt with hurried fingers so he could open the catch of her bra, baring the white curves of her breasts and her hard pink nipples. He pinched one gently between thumb and forefinger, and she gasped through her teeth.
“I don’t do this usually,” she said above him. “I mean, have sex with people I’m trying to get a job with.”
Alex laughed. “Are you sure about that?”
Her hips rolled, stroking her wet slit the whole length of his cock, and he muffled his moan against the valley between her breasts.
“Absolutely sure.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” He reached around past her and flicked the switch that locked the intercom, keeping it from accidentally coming on. Whatever porn said, his secretary was not going to be impressed by the sounds of him having sex in his office with the girl he’d been interviewing for the personal assistant job.
His hand slid down between them then, thumb stroking her clit, and she rocked against it. She rolled her hips against his cock again, making both of them fight to hold in the sounds that wanted to escape. He rocked his thumb over her clit in short little motions, firm enough to make her bite her lip to hold in a moan and writhe in his lap. Another, and then again, and she was arching up away from his hold with a gasp. She lifted up, and then she curled a hand around his cock and started to lower herself.
“Oh. Fuck. Wait. Condom.”
She paused, her eyes widening as she realized she’d almost forgotten. It was kind of hot, knowing she wanted him so badly she hadn’t been thinking of anything except how much she needed his cock inside her. It probably wasn’t a good idea to forgo protection, though. Alex was very scrupulous about it.
“I’m clean,” he said. “But it’s still probably better for everyone concerned not to try bare-backing.” Alex reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a condom, and her eyebrows lifted as she took it.
“You sure this is your first time having sex in your office with a prospective hire?” she asked.
“Very sure. I wear these suits places other than work, you know.” His voice caught on the words as she rolled the condom on.
“Always prepared, huh?” She reached down again, then and held him in place as she lowered herself onto his cock. He pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle the moan that nearly escaped when the head slid into her, and had to swallow a groan of his own as she rocked slowly down onto his length until her thighs met his.
“Fuck,” he breathed, low. “I told you to be quiet.”
“Sorry,” she said as he took his hand back.
Alex didn’t think she looked particularly sorry. She looked like she was enjoying herself far too much to be sorry. He curled his hands around her hips, and pulled her up until he almost slid from her, then dragged her back down again. Her head dropped back and he heard her whine low in her throat. His secretary really wasn’t going to be happy if she heard the noise from his office. Alex really didn’t care that much in the moment.
His hips rocked up to the meet the heat of her body as he pulled her down again against him, and then she was moving on her own, sliding up and down with the motion of her thighs, and he could sit back with his hands on her hips and watch her. Or with his hands on the dip of her waist, the curve of her rib cage. He curled them around her breasts and flicked his thumbs over her nipples, which made her whole body jolt against his and a cry catch in her throat.
He wanted to take her home, fuck her in his bed, and listen to the noises she made. Wanted to forget his rule and let her make them here. He buried his face against the curve of her throat, and bit down on the place where it met her shoulder just hard enough that it must have almost hurt. Her body tightened around him, her fingers twitching on his shoulders and curling so that the nails left crescent marks along his shoulder blades.
Alex bit her again, a little higher, still gentle. Lily moaned, and the rise and fall of her body was faster, more eager and needy. He smiled against her skin.
Another little nip, a sting of teeth against the arch of her collarbone. One side and then the other. She whined above him, and the nails digging into his shoulder became almost painful, an echo of his teeth on her skin. Her head dropped so that her forehead rested against his hair, and the space between them was warm and full of the sound of their breath, panting and desperate.
“Fuck. Yes.” Alex growled the words against Lily’s shoulder, and bit a mark into the skin that would hide under her collar when she buttoned her shirt back up.
She made a sound that might have been a half-swallowed cry.
“Faster,” Alex said.
Lily lifted again and then rocked down, faster. The new pace made her breasts shake with the motion, and he found them too tempting to ignore. His teeth caught one nipple and then the other, his tongue flicking over them before he drew away again.
“Can’t—Alex.”
“Can’t what?” He wrapped his hands around her hips again and helped her lift up from his lap, helped her slide down his cock again, and then again.
She sobbed his name through the rapid hiss of her breath in and out, and clutched at him. “Coming,” she gasped suddenly. “I—Fuck!”
The final word was hardly more than a low moan through her clenched teeth, and then she was coming, rippling around him. Alex slowed, but he moved her through it, his hands still lifting her up and down, and his hips rocking to match the rhythm. He heard her start to come down from the rush of it, her breathing evening out, and he picked up the pace again, fast and hard. In
seconds she was breathless and whimpering again, her head dropping down to rest against his shoulder this time, forehead against her own arm.
“I want you to come again for me,” Alex said through a tight jaw and teeth clenched with the effort of taking her over again before he let himself fall. “Come on, Lily.”
He reached down with one hand and rubbed his thumb over her clit again. She jolted like he’d hit her with an electric shock, and the sound that came out of her mouth was definitely too loud for an office not ten feet from his secretary’s desk, but Alex was past caring. He was the boss; he could do what he wanted. Lily was managing the boss right now. And he wanted to fuck Lily Westkirk until she came again in his arms and on his cock.
The little noises she was making with her stuttered exhales were rising in pitch again, and Alex circled his thumb over her clit with a little more pressure. A little more speed.
“Please,” she gasped. “Oh shit.”
The words dissolved into a groan. Again she was coming, and this time Alex let himself follow her over. Stars lit behind his eyelids as the pleasure of it exploded outward from the tight knot at the base of his spine, spreading out through his limbs before fading away.
He sat for a moment like that, catching his breath, with Lily slumped against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. The hair that had been caught back in a neat, careful bun was coming loose when she looked up at him, little tendrils escaping to cling to her flushed cheeks and brush against her neck. She looked debauched like that, with her shirt open and her breasts bared, her skirt hiked up around the tops of her thighs.
“Well, that was not exactly the interview I had in mind,” Alex chuckled.
“No.” She laughed a little. “Definitely not what I was thinking of either.”
She started to lift up, and he helped her get back onto her feet, holding her with his hands on her hips until she was steady enough to stand on her own. He smoothed her skirt back into place, and refastened her bra for her. She buttoned up her shirt while he tossed the condom and zipped up his pants.
