The Crime of Protection

by Gloria Martin

  Then, he pushed me back against the wall, allowing me to feel how much he wanted me, which made me feel excited and amazing.

  We didn’t make it out of that hallway; we didn’t even make it out of our clothes the first time around. We simply stayed where we were, pushed up against his hallway wall, up against his mirror, and quickly pushed our underwear to one side – too desperate to feel one another to wait.

  As he pushed inside of me, I felt myself gasp loudly at how well he filled me up. This was frantic, passionate, exciting, nothing like what I was used to, and that was enough to send waves of passion quickly crashing right through me.

  One time wasn’t enough for Jason. It wasn’t enough for me either, so not long after we’d finished, he lay me back on the stairs and teased me with his fingers until I almost burst, then he took me hard and fast once more.

  By the time we actually made it to his bed, we were both ready to slow things down, but not to stop. So we took things at a much calmer pace, really exploring one another’s bodies. He seemed really turned on by my curves which made me feel like a sexy goddess, and it was safe to say that he was driving me crazy too.

  By the time we actually fell to sleep, I did so with a big smile on my face – the opposite to what I was expecting!

  *****

  Jason

  As morning rolled around, I woke up with a massive smile on my face. Sure, I hadn’t meant to sleep with Blair, but I was over the moon that it had happened. I never gave myself so wholly to someone so quickly, I was normally much more careful, but as soon as she’d kissed me, an intense desire had sparked inside of me, and there was no way I could have held back.

  Thankfully, because it had been one of the best nights of my whole damn life.

  But then, that all vanished when I turned around to find myself alone.

  I sat up quickly, that familiar feeling of dread, of being used, settling over me once more. Only this time, Blair hadn’t been after my money, she’d just wanted to use my body, to help herself get over her ex.

  Of course she had, how could I have been so stupid!

  As I lay back down in my large bed, in my massive home, all alone, I felt sadder than I had in a very long time. This crappy feeling, this was why I normally locked myself away from the world.

  What a shitty start to my new life!

  But I couldn’t focus too much on that. I couldn’t worry too much about this random chick who screwed me and left me. I had too much else to worry about.

  I had a company takeover to organize, and I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride.

  I was going to do things differently with this business; I was going to go back to basics, to how I used to do things. Lately I’d gotten lazy, and I’d been allowing things to run on their own, with much less success.

  It had taken me a while to get there, but I figured that I was the key to success, and I wanted to carry on with that trend.

  With that in mind, I had all kinds of meetings to attend to today; I had no time to dwell on this chick that clearly wasn’t thinking about me…

  *****

  Blair

  Urgh.

  What a horrible weekend! I still felt like utter shit on Monday morning – my hangover felt like it was never ending, which hadn’t been helped by the emotional wreck I was. I just couldn’t believe that Gary had screwed me over in such a shitty way! It was as if the shock had finally worn off, and all I was left with was sadness.

  Why? I just couldn’t work out why, and that was the killer part.

  And then there had been the one-night stand, which I was trying not to think too hard about. I’d had to creep out in the early hours of the morning, to complete the walk of shame in private, and it wasn’t an experience that I particularly wanted to repeat.

  Sure, it had been a lot of fun at the time, when I was drunk, but in the cold, sober light of day I felt like a fool. I just couldn’t believe that I’d acted so out of character. It was not like me at all! I couldn’t face the awkward moment with the man who was effectively a stranger – whatever I felt for him inside – so I’d escaped before it came to that.

  So, it was safe to say that I was not in the mood for greeting a new boss today – someone else I was going to have to be a personal assistant for. This company had been suffering a high staff turnover recently, which was driving me mad. Just as I got used to one person’s way of thinking, they decided that they couldn’t cope with the demands of a failing organization, and they quit leaving me in the mess. I felt like I was constantly on egg shells, and it had been messing with my performance.

  Apparently this new guy was supposed to be amazing. I just hoped that he would stick it out for a while, that was all I cared about.

  As I reached the office building, I took a few deep breaths, trying to prepare myself. Then I shoved the door open with my most confident face on. I was just going to act cool, and hope that everyone else would believe that.

  Except that all fell apart when I saw the man who was to become my boss, standing in the reception area, talking to some of the giggling girls from accounting.

  My heart stopped, and my whole demeanor just fell away.

  It was him!

  The last person I wanted to see in the entire world – well, maybe except for Gary and his slutty secretary.

  Jason.

  He was here in my office, and I was going to have to work for him. As his personal assistant. It was the sort of thing that horror movies were written about!

  The guy I had a one night stand with. The guy who’d seen me naked, who’d given me multiple orgasms, was here. In the office. As my new boss. It was too much for me to wrap my head around.

  I wanted to die. I wanted a hole to open up in the ground, to swallow me up. And as our eyes finally connected, and he realized who I was, the humiliation flushed through him too, showing me that he felt the same.

  I was frozen to the spot, panic wildly coursing through my veins.

  What should I do? Did I act like I didn’t know him? I certainly didn’t want anyone to find out the truth – this was a very gossipy place after all. Or was I going to have to suck it up and confess? What sort of issues was that going to cause around here?

  I simply stood there, dumbfounded, waiting for him to make his move, wanting him to decide.

  Eventually, he stepped slowly towards me, seemingly doing what I so desperately needed him to do.

  “Hello,” he stretched his hand out to me. “I’m Mr. Evans, your new boss.”

  Denial, it was!

  “H…hi.” I stammered, taking his hand in mine.

  As our skin connected, I felt a fission of excitement burst through me, and it took all that I had not to let it show on my face. There was still something there, still a sexual atmosphere, and that was really difficult to deal with. It was inappropriate.

  A bit of embarrassment and regret I could deal with. Even an ill-advised one-night stand. But desiring my boss? Having real feelings for him? No, that I couldn’t do.

  “I’m…I’m Blair,” I gulped down, feeling everyone’s eyes upon us. That might have been my paranoia more than the truth, but I could feel it all the same. “Blair McLeod. It’s nice to meet you?” I phrased that like a question in my shock, making me sound foolish. But to be honest that was the least of my problems.

  My job was about to get a whole lot harder.

  I was going to have to work very closely for Jason, whilst trying to hide my feelings, trying to disguise our slightly shady past.

  It was not going to be fun!

  *****

  Jason

  When I spotted Blair wandering in to my new building, my heart leapt into my throat. All the feelings that I’d been feeling for her on that crazy, drunken night, came crashing back. All the rejection I’d felt, all the sadness, it just disappeared. All I could focus on was the fact that I had another shot, I could make things right.

  But then it hit me that she was my employee now, and that it
was all wrong, and from the look on her face she’d realized that too.

  Shit!

  I needed to find a way to make this easier for the both of us, so in the spur of the moment, I decided to act like I didn’t know her. It seemed like the right decision at the time, but a few weeks later, we were still skating around our past as if it never happened, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable about it.

  I wanted to discuss it with her – but it had been far too long now.

  It was there though, in the air permanently and it was affecting us both. Blair was my personal assistant and we barely spoke. I hated every second of that – I liked Blair, as a person as well as in every other way, and I didn’t like this radio silence. The night we’d spent together had been a whole lot of fun and I really wanted to get to know her better.

  Now I finally had the chance to do that, and she wouldn’t let me in.

  We were stilted, stiff, and it was making me crazy.

  All I could really think about was Blair, and it was affecting all of my decisions. I couldn’t concentrate with her around, tempting me, but not letting me in. I felt like I was going insane.

  So one night, a month into my new job, I decided to ask her to stay behind after work under the pretense of a new project, but of course my real intention was to clear the air in private – without prying eyes to make her nervous. I couldn’t go on in this awkward way, I needed to make things right. This was the only way I could do that.

  Even as I mentioned the whole ‘work project’ to Blair, I could see how uncomfortable it made her, but I persisted, hoping that I could have this all sorted soon.

  “It’s important.” I finished, hoping that she would understand my underlying meaning.

  “Okay,” she whispered, practically shrinking in on herself.

  As the office started to empty at the end of the day, I found myself feeling oddly anxious. I didn’t want to screw things up with Blair, I was terrified of losing her completely and I really felt like this was my only shot!

  The whole building had been empty for at least fifteen minutes before I worked up the courage to speak.

  “Erm, Blair. Can we talk?” I indicated towards my office, praying that she was going to give me the chance to speak.

  She followed tentatively behind me, shuffling, trying to keep herself as small as possible. I hated that. I wanted her to really feel like she could be as comfortable as possible with me. I wanted the Blair back that I met that night.

  “What work do you have for me?” she asked, looking down at the notebook in front of her, refusing to make eye contact with me.

  “None,” I replied, causing her to snap up, to finally see me. “I just… I wanted to talk to you alone.” I watched as she nodded slowly, accepting that this was inevitable. “I just think we need to clear the air to make our working relationship better.” Something about that sentence felt clunky and uncomfortable, and I ended up blushing brightly.

  “Okay,” she nodded. “I’m sorry if I haven’t been performing well…”

  “No, no,” I jumped in quickly. “It’s not that, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” I sighed deeply, smiling at her. “It’s just a little strange, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted, sending me that smile which had really attracted me to her in the first place. “I know.”

  “So, I… erm…” I had no idea where I was going with this, which she could sense. And after a few moments we both burst into an awkward laughter.

  I had no idea who made the first move, but all of a sudden, as we were enjoying ourselves together once more, the sexual attraction became too much and we moved into one another like magnets who couldn’t keep apart. And we started kissing ferociously – all of the suppressed feelings finally making their way to the surface once more.

  She fell back against my desk and I started to trace my hand up her leg, desperate to feel her wet heat once more, but before I got there she freaked out.

  “No, no.” She shoved me off her quickly, her eyes wild with terror and desire. She leant forward to pick up her notebook from the floor where it must have fallen, giving me a second to disguise my throbbing erection. “We can’t.” There was a sadness and frustration in her eyes – one that I could relate to well because I was feeling it too. “I’m sorry, we just… we can’t…”

  Her meaning was clear. We might want each other, but we couldn’t act upon it. We just couldn’t… there were too many obstacles in our way.

  And then I watched as she turned and raced from the room, and out of my life once more, leaving me dejected and heartbroken all over again.

  *****

  Blair

  As I raced from the building and away from Jason, I felt that horrible empty feeling of regret settling in my stomach once more. I wasn’t sure if I regretted that happening, or me leaving, but there was definitely an empty sadness there.

  While I ran, I started to think about what I’d been missing out on whilst I’d been so distracted, and a weird realization hit me. I’d been so consumed by trying to avoid Jason and trying to act professional at work, that had taken up so much of my mental capacity, that I hadn’t noticed something important happening to me.

  But kissing him, stirring up all of those feelings, acting even more inappropriately than last time because I was well aware of who he was this time, it made me really think about life.

  That was when it hit me.

  I was late. Really late.

  With my breaths coming panicked and labored, I turned and made my way to the nearest pharmacy, needing a pregnancy test, just to know.

  Just to eliminate the possibility.

  I was suddenly terribly convinced that this could be real, and I was horrified about that. How could I have been so Goddamn stupid?!

  I snatched the package quickly from the shelves and paid for it, not even making any eye contact with the cashier. A tight knot of panic was coiling around in my stomach, and creeping through my veins. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it could be real.

  As I made my way home from the pharmacy, I walked much slower, no longer so keen to get there. My mind was whirring with what this would mean for me, if I did find out that I was pregnant, and it didn’t look good.

  The first worry I had was the father. There was no doubt in my mind who it would be, and that terrified me.

  Jason – my boss. The one-night stand. The man that I’d just ran out on all over again.

  We’d gotten crazy that night, and hadn’t even considered protection as we’d gotten swept away in the moment, whereas Gary was always meticulous about it. He’d never have let that slide him by.

  But not only that, it had been too long since we’d been together. This baby – if there was a baby – wasn’t his.

  Looking back at it now, maybe Gary really had thought that he’d broken up with me, or at the very least given me enough hints that he didn’t want to be together anymore. I wasn’t excusing his behavior, but he’d been distant for ages, and we hadn’t slept together for at least six weeks before I caught him in bed with Sandra.

  I snuck through my front door, my heart hammering painfully against my chest, and I headed straight for the bathroom, wanting to get this over and done with.

  As I sat there, waiting for the answer to appear, I feel dizzy with fear, almost to the point of throwing up.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  Each second felt like an hour, and with every moment I felt like I could die.

  But then the stick went blue, and I fell apart.

  I wept on the floor, crying with confusion, with sadness, with fear. Oh God, what the hell was I going to do? How the hell could I look after a baby by myself? And how was I going to hide my bump from Jason?

  *****

  Jason

  Ever since my plan to clear the air between myself and Blair had backfired so spectacularly, everything got about a million times worse. Whatever I’d hoped to achieve, I managed to do the exact opposite!


  I was an idiot.

  I felt like I’d totally screwed Blair up, wrecking her job for her, and I felt awful because of that. She was a mess – distracted all the time, and making stupid mistakes. It broke my damn heart because I knew that it was my own fault for my misguided stupidity. I wished that there was anything I could do to take it all back, to make it better in some way, but I couldn’t.

  I should have just left things as they were.

  I knew that I was going to have to speak to her again, to find out what was wrong at some point, but I kept putting it off, not wanting a repeat performance. I knew that I was burying my head in the sand – which was a terrible personality trait of mine – but I didn’t know what else to do.

  But before long my hand was forced by other people in the office starting to notice her screw ups, and I didn’t want people to start suggesting that I fire her, so I bit the bullet and pulled her into my office.

  “Blair?” I asked her gently, once we were behind the locked door of my office. “Are you okay?”

  Her lip began to wobble, as if she might cry at any moment, and I wanted desperately to reach out to her, to touch her and hug her, to do whatever I needed to, to make her feel better.

  But she obviously wasn’t going to want that, so I tried to encourage her to open up instead.

  “Only, you’ve been very distracted…”

  “I know, I know,” she shook her head, looking terrified. “I’ve been making mistakes and…”

  “I don’t want you to worry,” I interjected, already feeling like I’d gone about it all in the wrong way. “It’s not that, I just…”

  “I think,” she suddenly stared at me defiantly, a new fire in her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t think I can stay here anymore. I think I need to quit.”

  No! That wasn’t what I wanted at all! I wanted her to open up to me, to tell me her problems and let me help her. I desperately didn’t want to lose her. Especially not like this.

  “Wait, what?” I called behind her, but it was too late, she was already gone.