Give It To Me: Taboo Romance

by Ami Snow

  I froze, my fingers on the knob. I said nothing, my heart pounding.

  “Was it really so unfortunate?” His tone was muted, questioning.

  His mouth between my legs, his tongue hot and pliable, the pleasure more intense than anything I’d ever felt before in my life.

  The sound of him gasping in my ear as he lost control, pressing me down into the carpet, his whole body trembling as he came.

  His hand, hot and strong under my thigh as he picked my leg up and thrust into me, the hot water drenching us both.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes, Mr. Sharpe. Unfortunate.” I turned the knob then and walked out, shutting the door without looking behind me.

  ***

  Ethan

  I watched her leave, nursing a sense of frustration and hurt that was entirely unusual for me. Unfortunate? Had she really just used that word to describe the night she’d taken me home to her house? I could think of many words to describe that encounter, but unfortunate wasn’t one of them. Hot. Sexy. Mind-blowing. Those were words I might use to describe it. But not unfortunate.

  I believed her when she said that she hadn’t known who I was. It was a rookie mistake, a common thing for student interns to do. They researched just enough to answer the boilerplate questions in the interview, and then they stopped there. She’d have known my full name, but not what I looked like.

  I imagined what might have happened if I’d told her my full name that night at the bar. She’d have turned pink, stammered, and held out her hand for me to shake, maybe? She might have said how excited she was to work for the company, or what a pleasure it was to meet me.

  No, I didn’t think that was Elizabeth’s style. She had a great presence of mind for a girl her age. She would have raised an eyebrow, smiled, and thanked me for the drinks. Then she would have returned to her table and her friends, and left me there at the bar.

  I wouldn’t have had her up against the door, or on her knees. I wouldn’t have found out what she tasted like while she writhed on the carpet underneath me. I wouldn’t have fucked her in the shower.

  My body responded to that line of thinking with a surge of lust, and I looked down at my lap with an expression of frustration.

  No, Elizabeth hadn’t known what she was doing that night…or whom. But she was definitely making my life a whole lot more difficult as a result.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Elizabeth

  Once back at my desk, I sent a quick email to my boss. I made up an excuse for the meeting, saying that he had wanted to introduce himself to the intern who had sat in on the meeting in the morning. I told her he had given me some tips for success at the firm, and that it had all been very brief and businesslike. She didn’t seem to be suspicious, as the email that came into my inbox later was entirely positive.

  Elizabeth,

  Mr. Sharpe rarely speaks with interns, so this is good news for you! He approves all new hires post-internship, so this means you are a step ahead. Keep distinguishing yourself in the intern pool and I think you will have a bright future here.

  A bright future indeed. I tried to picture my career after graduation here. I’d be sitting in on meetings with Ethan, avoiding him in the hallways, pitching ideas to him. I wondered if the awkwardness would fade with time, if it would become just a forgotten misstep, or if I would forever feel as if I’d done something terrible, stepped over a line that I shouldn’t cross.

  The really infuriating thing about all of it was that we had both done the exact same thing—unknowingly slept with someone inappropriate. If it came out, though, only I would be blamed. I would be the conniving woman who tried to sleep her way to the top, and Ethan would get away with it. He didn’t need to get to the top, after all—he was already there.

  I knew, although I didn’t want to admit it, that the misstep of sleeping with Ethan would result in this not being somewhere I could hope to be employed. The best I could do was continue working hard during my internship so that I could get a good letter of recommendation and employment elsewhere. I hoped I could get offers, so that I would have a reason to turn down any offer that might come from this company.

  For that matter, I had no idea if Ethan would even approve an offer of employment made to me. Surely he didn’t want me here in his building, a constant reminder that he’d foolishly had sex with me. I resolutely looked at my list of tasks for the day, determining that I needed to stop thinking about it. There was nothing to be done now except to keep pushing forward.

  The rest of my week passed without incident, as did the next. I wasn’t invited to attend any more meetings, and although I worried sometimes that it was a mark of my performance, I was also secretly relieved. I didn’t want to see Ethan. It was all I could do to stop from thinking about him sometimes, and when I saw the other interns whispering it made me anxious. I knew it wasn’t rational to think that they somehow knew—there was no way for anyone to know, but I still worried. I heard my boss mention in passing to her co-worker that Ethan had shown up to multiple meetings the past two weeks, and she wasn’t sure why.

  “He hardly ever attends meetings unless there’s a big merger or something else coming up. I wonder what could possibly be going on.”

  “I have no idea.” I heard the co-worker respond. “It isn’t like him at all. Doesn’t it make you nervous, not knowing when he’s going to pop in? At least his visits used to be pretty regular—once every two months or so…”

  Their voices faded down the hall, and I couldn’t hear anything else of their conversation. I let that bit of information sink in. Ethan had been going to meetings—something that was out of character for him, apparently. I knew without too much thought what it must mean—he was hoping to see me. I supposed he couldn’t just call me to his office without questions. It would seem strange for him to be paying too much attention to one of the interns.

  I hadn’t been asked to attend any more meetings. I had been drowning in work anyway, so I hadn’t really thought about it very much until exactly that moment. If anything, I had been a little bit disappointed that I hadn’t had the opportunity to sit in again. Now I just felt relieved. If I had gone, I would have had to see Ethan again.

  And this was the problem—and the reason why I was certain this firm would no longer be a potential landing spot for me after graduation. I shouldn’t be grateful to be missing the opportunities to sit in on meetings, simply because there was a man I didn’t want to see. I needed to be pushing forward, plowing ahead. I resolved then and there to spend the weekend at home, recharging, and then to come in to work on Monday morning and speak to my boss about sitting in on meetings again. I couldn’t allow myself to fall behind.

  So, when Catherine and Billie inevitably asked me to join them that night, I said no. Instead, I waved them out the door and poured myself a glass of red wine, changing into my fleece-lined pajama pants and favorite worn-in college tee, and curled up in bed with one of my books. The room was warm and quiet, and despite myself, I felt my eyes closing about thirty minutes into my reading. I didn’t even realize that I had drifted off until I heard my phone chime, and I opened my eyes, pushing the book that had fallen onto my chest away.

  Ethan, read the name on the text message.

  My heart leapt into my throat at the same time that my stomach sank, and I felt a little sick. I debated for a moment if I should delete it without reading it. That would be the wise, adult, professional thing to do.

  But I also knew that I would wonder forever what it said if I didn’t open it.

  So I did.

  It was just one line. I can’t stop thinking about you. The words leapt off of the screen, and for a sudden moment I felt elated, joyful. He wanted me. He hadn’t forgotten me.

  And then I remembered that he was my boss in the highest possibly capacity, and the excitement died. I was not a girl happy that a boy had texted her. I couldn’t be that person in this circumstance. I needed to be the professional woman who looked out for her
self first.

  I think you’ve gotten the wrong number. I texted back.

  A few moments later, my phone chimed again.

  Elizabeth?

  I wondered if I should play dumb, suggest that he really did have the wrong number. Would he hunt me down at work, demand to have the right one? Or would it end this nonsense for good?

  Finally, I sent back: Yes. But you shouldn’t be texting me.

  Have you forgotten about me?

  I sighed audibly, as if he could hear me. No, I typed back. It’s hard to forget the man who occupies the highest position in the company you work for.

  What about the night at the bar?

  I didn’t know who you were then. And you didn’t know who I was. Things were different.

  I just want to talk to you. Somewhere that isn’t work.

  What could we possibly have to talk about? We made a mistake.

  It wasn’t a mistake, Elizabeth.

  I think that it qualifies on every level as a mistake, Mr. Sharpe.

  Please meet me, Elizabeth. Just a drink, even. I need to see…to talk to you.

  I paused, my fingers hovering over the letters. Part of me desperately wanted to take him up on his offer. That was the part of me that still remembered the way his hands felt on my skin, the way his lips skimmed across my mouth. The part of me that was particularly attached to my tiny cubicle and piles of papers knew that I should shut him down until he gave up.

  I couldn’t help it. I wanted to see him again. I knew with every fiber of myself that it was a bad idea, but in the pause between his last text and the one I was about to send, I convinced myself that it would be easier to turn him down in person. That I could explain, face-to-face, why we absolutely had to put that night behind us.

  I will meet you for coffee, I typed. Tomorrow morning at 9:30. I gave the name of a coffee shop near my house.

  See you then, was all he wrote back.

  ***

  When I walked into the coffee shop the next morning, he was there already, seated on the far side. He was wearing chinos and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up, a leather jacket hung on the back of his chair. The shirt looked soft, worn-in. I wondered if he particularly liked that shirt, or if he had bought it that way.

  I’d dressed down on purpose, wearing black leggings and a long grey merino wool sweater with a hood, and slouchy black boots, a thick plaid scarf wrapped around my neck. I pulled the cable-knit beanie I was wearing off of my head, and my hair tumbled out. I heard him breathe in sharply.

  I ordered a coffee, and sat down.

  “Of all the marketing firms in all of D.C., you had to walk into mine,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile.

  “Mr. Sharpe,” I began, and his expression dimmed.

  “Elizabeth, call me Ethan. This is foolish.”

  “You’re my boss,” I pointed out. “It would be unprofessional to call you by your first name.”

  I could see his jaw clenching. “Elizabeth, be reasonable. We’ve slept together. We know each other intimately. Drop the act.”

  “It’s not an act,” I said, but I conceded the name. “Ethan.”

  “Thank you.” He sat back in his chair, and took a sip of his coffee. “Have you been avoiding me?”

  “Not on purpose,” I admitted. “I’ve been buried at work, there hasn’t really been an opportunity to sit in on meetings. Which,” I pointed out, “I’ve heard you’ve been at more frequently.”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  “Why? What’s the point, Ethan?”

  “I told you last night,” he said patiently. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “You need to stop thinking about me,” I insisted. “You are the CEO of the company I am interning for. What we did was unprofessional, and it can’t happen again.”

  “So you admit you want it to happen again.”

  “We shouldn’t put ourselves in that situation.”

  “Do you want me, Elizabeth?” His eyes were intense, his stare brooding as he watched me across the table.

  “That’s neither here nor there, Ethan.”

  “You can’t give me a straight answer.”

  “It’s not a valid question.”

  He sighed. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

  I pursed my lips. “Ethan, this internship is important to me. My career is important to me. I can’t risk it because we are attracted to each other. We don’t have the same things at stake here. You might be seen as a little sleazy for sleeping with an intern, but my whole reputation would be ruined. I wouldn’t be able to get a good job in D.C.”

  He frowned. “Sexism is alive and well, I suppose.”

  “It is,” I insisted. “You sleeping with an intern is seen as ill-advised. My sleeping with the CEO is seen as gold-digging, slutty, conniving. It makes me a target for men in my field and hated by women in my field.”

  “So you don’t want to risk your chances of a job. I get it.” He held up his hands. “Elizabeth, aside from this whole messy business, I wanted to see you because I see potential in you. You’re very driven, very hardworking, and I see more positive reports on you this past month than any other intern in the pool. I would like to see you grow.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” I took a hesitant sip of my coffee. It was still too hot to drink.

  “I want to mentor you, Elizabeth. I think we should meet once a week or so, grab coffee, and discuss your career path.”

  I blinked in disbelief. “You want to mentor me? And why can’t we just meet in your office?”

  “It’s common for mentors to meet with the people they are helping outside of work,” he pointed out. “Usually over coffee or drinks. It’s a form of networking—not really something done in the office. More outside of it.”

  I couldn’t really argue. I knew he was right. Catherine had a mentor at school, an adjunct Economics professor. They met for drinks after class two or three times a month.

  “And if I say yes? What’s the point?”

  “You get career advice from a twenty-six-year-old CEO. How many of those are there?”

  “You’re CEO because your father retired and left it to you,” I pointed out.

  He huffed a sigh. “I suppose you did do your research after all. Still, I’ve been successful.”

  I decided to climb down off of my high horse for a moment. What he was offering was valuable. “Alright, Ethan. One meeting here a week…to discuss work. And we keep it that way. Strictly professional.”

  He smiled. “Strictly professional.”

  ***

  I had definite doubts about the wisdom of this choice. Just our brief meeting at the coffee-shop had left my knees weak and my thoughts muddled, full of flashes to him pinning me against the door of my room, of the hot shower tile under the palms of my hands as he pounded into me. I wondered if I could keep up my resolve to be professional through the next two months. I knew he wasn’t all wrong—the insight he could give me would be invaluable. I just had to keep my focus on my work.

  I dressed as conservatively as I possibly could to our first meeting. I wore dress pants and a black wool turtleneck, my hair pulled up in a high bun. I’d worn makeup, but it was all neutral, right down to the rose lipstick I’d picked. Nothing about my outfit suggested that I was sexy, or at all interested in sex. This time I agreed that I looked like a librarian.

  Nevertheless, I could see the quick spark of heat in his eyes when I walked through the door. He was dressed much as he had the last time, but it didn’t matter—he could have worn a burlap sack and still been the sexiest man in any room. As soon as the thought flashed through my head, I realized that was quite possibly what he thought about me.

  It was a new idea, one that I wasn’t at all sure about. I’d dressed like a nun on purpose, but it was clear from the way he was looking at me that it didn’t matter how much skin I didn’t show. He was picturing me without all of the covering that I’d so
carefully layered on. I’d never had a man look at me like that before, and I had a deep, foreboding feeling that all of my plans were on rocky ground.

  My face felt flushed as I took a seat at the table, pen and notebook in hand. There was already a cup of coffee sitting in front of me, and I raised an eyebrow.

  He shrugged. “I ordered you the same thing you had last time.”

  “Maybe I wanted something different,” I retorted, and instantly regretted it. That was the kind of playful bickering I would engage in with a boyfriend, not my boss. “I mean, thank you,” I quickly retracted, and the look of pleasure on his face rankled with me. Clearly he enjoyed having the upper hand.

  He didn’t have anything in front of him, and he folded his hands on the table, ignoring the cup of coffee sitting at his elbow. “So,” he asked, diving directly into the purpose of the meeting, “what are you hoping to accomplish after graduation?”

  To my utter surprise, the next hour was spent entirely discussing work. Less surprisingly, he had a number of helpful suggestions, and he told me that he thought I was progressing well after listening to me describe my usual day at the office. I felt a small burst of happiness at his validation, and tried to squash it. I knew it had less to do with professional pride and more to do with the fact that I simply liked this man.

  He’d always had a part in the company since graduating college, but after his father had passed away he inherited the position of CEO. A lot of men in his position, with plenty of money and power and no one to answer to, would have turned over the responsibility to the rest of the board and spent his days partying on yachts with models. Ethan hadn’t done that though. He’d jumped in with both feet, and the company had seen an impressive spike in profits after he’d taken over. He’d done impressive work for his age and level of experience. I was lucky to be getting to learn from him. I needed to remember that.

  He shook my hand as I got up to leave, and I felt my palm tingle when his fingers wrapped around my hand. My eyes caught his for a second, and I could see them smoldering, could see his desire to pull me up against him. For the flash of a moment, I ached for him to do just that. Then I pulled my hand abruptly away, and the moment was gone.