“As much as I like thinking about licking your clit.”
“And when I went to my knees . . .”
“Holy shit, just imagining him fucking my mouth.”
“Oh Jesus, that’s the second hottest thing ever.”
“What’s the first? Talk to me about the first.”
“You telling me about it. Telling me you want it,” she said.
Then he leaned in to tell her more. He breathed hot words against her lips, hand now frantic on his bursting cock. “Ohhhhh man, you’re sexy. I knew, I knew as soon as I met you that you’d be hot like this, horny like this. Fuck I’m going to come,” he gasped. And in return she gave him the same enthusiasm.
She tumbled over into her orgasm, gasping and moaning as she did. Partly at the thought of all of this—of things she hadn’t even known she wanted until right now—but mostly because of him. Because of his hand covering hers as she went over, those eyes on her the whole time. First passionate and full of desire, but then more than that. There was exhilaration in the gaze he hit her with, and she understood what it was for.
She understood because she felt it, too.
The floodgates were open.
Now, anything was possible.
Chapter Four
She did her best not to think about it too much. She had other things to think of, after all. Like finding a new job before her savings ran out.
The trouble was, it kept barging into their lives. It kept taking them over. They would spend a lovely evening together, as if they were a perfectly ordinary couple dining out at delicious restaurants, most of them brimming with food and drink she’d never tried before: nisperos de batata and sesos empanados and rich dark coffee that made her almost giddy. He might talk about his day and she might talk about hers. Their favorite books would come up to be dissected. Hand-holding would happen. Then they’d get to the bedroom, and suddenly they weren’t an ordinary couple at all.
Hartford was threaded through almost everything they did. When Abel tied her to the bed, she could tell he was emulating that stern voice and those cool eyes. Every time she unbuttoned her clothes, his eyes grew hot, as if he was thinking of that first act of rule breaking, that first defiance of the rule maker.
And she couldn’t deny she was thinking the same.
She couldn’t deny it even when she wanted to. Not even when she wondered if this was all they were: two people drawn together because of some third person they couldn’t have. Though that seemed crazy, considering how much she wanted Abel, too. Abel, who seemed almost the opposite of everything Hartford was. He had no problems admitting his feelings. He didn’t care if she knew what he wanted. He told her what he wanted. He described exactly how he would fuck that man. He confessed that he wouldn’t care if she fucked him, too. He told her things about threesomes that she’d never dared to consider before.
But god, she considered them now. She imagined them being three, not two, and went weak all the way through her body. She found herself thinking about how they could do it, how they could persuade Hartford to be involved in something like that. Though, of course, she didn’t really imagine that it would ever happen.
Things like that never happened in real life.
Or so she thought.
But then Abel asked her to meet him at his office one sultry evening toward the end of summer, his voice heavy with the sort of promise she had come to know well. She even wore her sexiest underwear when she heard that note of desire, thinking that they were going to role play again. Maybe they would even taunt Hartford with the sight of their happiness and passion. And then she got there, and she saw they were definitely going to do that.
They were going to do it with Hartford actually there, in person.
Or at least, that was what it looked like to her. Hartford swiveled his seat by Abel’s desk the second she walked in, eyes troubled but oddly bright and a little feverish. His body was tensed as if anticipating a blow he wasn’t sure he could take. That broad chest of his rose and fell in a way she had never seen before.
She knew this was going to be something insane.
But she couldn’t say anything at first. She could only wait for Abel, and whatever wickedness he had planned.
“I persuaded him to come so that we might have a little talk together,” Abel said as he entered his office, as cool as she’d ever seen him. Though, when he continued, dark delight shone in his gorgeous eyes. “Mostly about his deplorable behavior. Maybe about some other things, too.”
She shot a glance at Hartford when Abel finished speaking. Then waited for the backlash, the remonstration: How dare you accuse me of deplorable behavior when it was you who forced me to fire this vile creature?
But nothing like that came. He just glared at Abel, jaw tensed, his fist a tight knot on the arm of the chair beside him. His mouth pinched into a mean line, each breath flaring his nostrils just ever so slightly. It was as if a real emotion like fury was fighting to get out of him, but found itself blocked somehow. Abel had apparently covered his mouth with invisible duct tape just before she arrived.
Or put a leash of some sort around his neck.
“Firstly, I think what we should do here is have you apologize to Ms. Elliot. What do you think to that, Ms. Elliot? Does that seem like a productive use of our time, here?” Abel asked.
Hartford still didn’t express his fury. He just turned to look at her, seething.
“I guess it depends on whether I get murdered afterwards,” she said.
Then watched with wide eyes as Abel put a hand on Hartford’s shoulder. A warm hand, followed by warm words. “See how funny she is, Tommy?”
Tommy, she thought. He just called Thomas Hartford Tommy.
“I see that you are being an insufferable nightmare,” Hartford said to Abel.
“Then maybe you should tell me to stop. Or fire me, along with your best employee.”
“I’ve already told you I regret that. Allow me to get on with this without your incessant badgering.”
Abel glanced at her then. He addressed her in his most arch tone. “I told you he was as hideous with me as he is with you. Sometimes I truly wonder why I like him at all,” he said.
But it was Hartford who responded.
“Please don’t say things like that, Abel.”
He spoke the words quietly, so quietly, yet they sounded loud. They practically echoed in her ears.
She had never heard Hartford say the word please before.
Or sound so wretched.
“Forgive me, my old friend. But if you behave poorly, what else am I to say?” Abel asked.
“You know I have no power over it, yet you plague me about it constantly.”
“I plague you because you do have power over your manners and temper. In fact, you are one of the most emotionally closed people I know. If you can stop a smile, you can stop cruelty and rudeness.”
“It was not cruelty that made me fire Ms. Elliot, and you know it.”
Hartford practically snapped the words. Though she could still hear the softer emotions in the back of his voice. She could hear years of their relationship, of his suppressed feelings—of his desire.
It rocked her back on her heels. It made her want to say stop.
Even as the rest of her said go go go.
“Yes, I do. But unfortunately, Ms. Elliot doesn’t,” Abel said, gesturing to her.
But Hartford wouldn’t look. “I will apologize, but I will not confess.”
“Yes you will. Go ahead.” Abel gestured again in her direction. And this time, Hartford did look.
It just seemed to take him an age. As if the tendons in his neck had seized, or something was preventing him from turning his head. His pride had become a stone block that slowly forced him away. It seemed like a miracle when he finally succeeded in looking at her.
His pale eyes met hers—though they were not so pale anymore.
They are sad, she thought. Desperate.
And warm, somewhere
deep down.
“Ms. Elliot. Allow me to express my regret over my hasty actions on July 17. I was not myself due to circumstances beyond my contro—”
“Tom,” Abel warned, his hand tightening on Hartford’s shoulder. “Tell the truth now.”
“Damn you.” He paused there, clearly fighting something. But when Abel rubbed his shoulder, his features seemed to give a little. He was able to speak. “I was not myself . . . due to certain feelings that were aroused by . . . seeing my most trusted advisors . . . together . . . in that way. I experienced a wholly inappropriate sense of betrayal, and wish to extend my apologies, and offer you the position I should have given you years ago—Head of Development. You are more than qualified and I was shortsighted not to accept that earlier.”
“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Abel asked.
“I think that largely depends on Ms. Elliot’s response.”
They both looked at her this time, one hopeful, the other sure of himself.
But it wasn’t Abel who was doing the hoping—it was her ice block of a boss.
The same boss who had told her to keep her mouth closed if she couldn’t say anything useful.
The one who hated everything and everyone.
It was staggering.
But it was something else, too.
“You shouldn’t worry. I don’t know what response to have. I want to say thank you for the apology, and accept a job I never thought you’d get around to giving me, but mostly I’m stuck on the word aroused,” she said.
Then flushed when Hartford tutted and shook his head.
“I merely meant it in the sense that feelings were triggered,” he said, composing himself again.
Thankfully, though, Abel quickly stepped in. “No you didn’t.”
“Must you contradict me?”
“I would stop but that would leave you a liar.”
“I am quite content to be one if it means I can avoid this awkwardness.”
“No you’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t have asked me to help you explain all of this to Amy.”
Her heart jumped to hear that one. However, she didn’t have time to consider it.
They were still arguing. Bantering. Flirting.
“At the time I was not quite feeling like myself,” Hartford said.
In reply, Abel licked at his upper lip, as if he was going to kiss him instead of just make a point. “Really? I thought you were more yourself than you’d ever been.”
“So then you believe the real me is a jealous, lustful fool who can’t so much as express his own desire to the people he adores? How low your opinion of me is, Abel.”
“My opinion isn’t low. My opinion is that you should embrace those feelings. They don’t make you less of a titan of industry. You won’t suddenly drop ten points on the stock market if you indulge yourself. Nobody cares if a billionaire enjoys a little voyeurism and kinky sex with two attractive people. In fact, I think it’s practically expected of a man who has his own plane.”
Hartford shot him an impatient look. “Yes, expected of philanderers and immoral thieves and treacherous blaggards. People who are beyond the pale.”
“You think you’re a treacherous blaggard because you want to watch us again?”
“I didn’t say again. I didn’t say it like that.”
“Then explain to Amy how you did say it. It seems she would very much like to hear.”
“I said . . .” Hartford started. Then stopped when her eyes met his.
He’s floundering, she thought. But over what? The thought of her judging him? It seemed like that might be the case.
It took him an age before he finally rushed out: “That if she were not my employee then perhaps I would enjoy such things.”
Once he had said it, he looked at the floor. His face actually blazed red in a way that made her almost giddy.
Giddy—and now able to talk to him with the confidence with which he’d always spoken to her.
“Well, it’s a good thing you fired me then.”
Behind Hartford, Abel brought his fist to his mouth and bit down. His eyes flashed with delight, as if she’d said the rudest thing in the world.
And Hartford seemed to agree with him.
“You can’t possibly mean that. It’s obscene to ask it of you.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s exactly what I like about it. The obscenity.”
“Perhaps you would not say so if you knew what my proclivities truly are.”
“Are they mostly a fetish for watching people you are attracted to having hot sex with each other while you masturbate? Because if so, then I have to say: It’s not that much of a mystery. Or that obscene.”
“You would probably think so if you knew the rest of it.”
He dropped his tone when he said the words, as if to warn her off.
Not that he succeeded in any way whatsoever.
“I’m going to guess that you would like to eventually join in.”
“I see. So you do know the rest of it. Well, there goes my aura of mystery.”
“Oh believe me, your aura of mystery is still intact. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons you drive both of us wild with desire. All those hidden layers and secret kinks. Who could resist?”
“It isn’t a question of could. It’s a question of whether you should.”
“I think my answer to that is a resounding no, you shouldn’t resist it. And I doubt Abel feels differently.” She raised an eyebrow at Abel then, part of her still a little unsure if she was playing this right. But she need not have worried.
“I think you both know I don’t feel differently.” Abel paused, letting the words hang. “So I guess the only question now is whether you can resist, Tom.”
“You talk as though it’s easy. Just that easy to indulge yourself in such a way.”
“It is easy. I’ve told you time and time again it’s easy. You don’t have any real hangups. You’re not restrained by some tragedy from your past or problem with men or women. You’ve just let yourself gradually be governed by a set of rules you barely believe in any more. Rules you’re just afraid of removing now, in case you no longer command respect or seem in charge.”
“I will always command respect. I will always be in charge.”
“Yes, exactly, you will. You know it and we know it. So what are you waiting for?”
“My good sense to abandon me, perhaps.”
“It isn’t good sense that has to abandon you, Tom. My good sense hasn’t abandoned me. I still know which risks to take and which ones to toss away. Which ones that are worth the cost, and which aren’t. This, to me, is worth the cost. But of course, everyone has to decide for themselves.”
“And what if I decide we all return to the way we were as though none of this ever happened?”
He was looking steadily at Abel—for reassurance, or maybe for persuasion.
But it was Amy who answered. Amy, who understood what he needed.
“Then it never happened,” she said.
They both regarded her, their expressions saying different things. Abel’s was almost nervous, as if wondering whether her words had tipped it to a no. Hartford’s was torn, quite clearly between some sense of duty and his own desires. Between holding onto the rules, and letting them go.
She didn’t expect him to eventually land on desire.
Yet somehow, he did.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he said, so abruptly it stole her breath.
It made her stomach flip, it made her hands shake.
Though of course she went ahead and did as told.
She did it more eagerly than she’d ever done anything. She almost tore a button off in her haste, and was on the verge of discarding her blouse entirely when Hartford spoke again.
“Did I say remove it?” he asked.
In response, arousal sung through her body. It was everything she’d thought it would be, hearing him say the words. Seeing him be like this, but in a sexu
al context. In fact, when she thought about it, most of his work-based commands had possessed a kind of frisson. She just hadn’t let herself think it. She’d forced her mind and her body away from it, sure that it was impossible.
It still seemed impossible, even as they actually did it.
She was going to do filthy things in front of her former boss.
And she wasn’t going to do them alone.
Abel now leaned on his desk, eyes on both of them, waiting for Hartford to strip her down—or for something more than that. He seemed to fizz with anticipation, impatient for the next part.
The part where he would get to unbutton and undress. When he would be told off for taking a step too far.
It seemed he was thinking of doing so right now, just to get Hartford’s attention. His hand went to his tie and she thought: Maybe, maybe. But then he flicked his gaze back to her, and his hand dropped. Delight curled the corner of his mouth, and she knew he would wait.
Clearly, he wanted to see her strip first.
“You do things at my pace, or not at all, Ms. Elliot,” Hartford said.
And in response she nodded shakily. She tried not to grin, even though it was straining at her face. He wanted to play this seriously—to keep his rules while abandoning them at the same time.
She could do that. She had dreamed of doing that.
“I understand, sir,” she said.
“Now, put that blouse back on.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And pull it together.”
“Absolutely, sir. What would you like now?” she asked.
But he seemed to take a long time to answer. He was fighting himself, she could see.
And she was right.
“I can’t,” he said. “I just can’t,” he suddenly burst out, as if the enormous ramifications of this were starting to hit him. He wasn’t just embarking on a sexual relationship with one woman, which would have been difficult enough on its own, no, he was doing this with two people, one of whom still worked with him. It was obviously going to be hard for him.
But that was okay. That was fine.
Abel knew how to make it easy. “Then let me,” he said, stepping toward her.
Not Safe for Work Page 4
