by Leona Lee
While I hadn’t been to Andy’s, I knew where it was. I pushed through the revolving doors that deposited me on the crowded sidewalk downtown, and I took a deep breath and tried to gain control of my thoughts. I’d only been working for him for two days, and already, my crush on Brad was more alive than ever before.
I locked it down as well as I was going to be able to, and I joined the flow of pedestrians hurrying down the pavement to meet the others at Andy’s. Stepping into the place was like what I imagined stepping into a local bar in Italy was like.
They served antipasti only, no main courses. Andy, the owner and chef, had painted the interior to mirror the view from the first restaurant he ran in Portofino. I’d been told that if you got drunk enough, which apparently happened often with the help of Andy’s homebrewed Limocello, it was almost like you could hear the waves lapping at the beach.
“There she is,” Zach cooed the minute he saw me entering through the large wooden door. “The girl of the hour. Surviving your first week?”
At least ten pairs of my co-workers’ eyes settled on me, but they all seemed happy and relaxed. Welcoming even. April, a programmer around my age, whipped around and held a bright green drink out to me.
“Don’t know what it is,” she said. “But the bartender promised it packed a hell of a punch.”
April’s raven hair was chopped into a messy pixie cut, with pink streaks running through it. She was wearing dramatic eye makeup and carried around at least thirty extra pounds. But in the short time I’d known her, I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone so sure of herself. Except for Nicole maybe.
I accepted the drink, sinking onto the stool next to her. “Thanks, but are you sure it’s appropriate to be drinking something that packs a hell of a punch with the bosses here?”
April rolled her eyes good-naturedly, pointing at said bosses. Zach was playing some kind of slot machine derby with a guy named Theo from finance, and Brad had already turned his attention to the pool table, challenging two guys from development to a game.
“Please, it’s because of Brad that we have these little get-togethers. This time, the excuse was to celebrate your first few days, but he just has a really laid-back management style, and he likes to catch up with everyone in an informal setting.”
I watched Brad laugh with the developers, throwing his head back. The deep rumble reached my ears over the soft jazz music. It sounded one hundred percent genuine. The whole scene was so far removed from what I’d gotten used to at my old job that it seemed unreal.
“They’re really that laid-back?” I asked.
April nodded enthusiastically. “Google has nap pods and stuff, but we have this. We get unfettered access to the top management at all times. We can take personal days whenever we need to, within bounds of course. There are squash courts and a yoga studio in basement at the office, too. Both of them frequent the courts, by the way, if you ever need to talk to them. It’s pretty great.”
“I haven’t seen them, no, but I heard they were there.”
The whole setup sounded more than great to me. I’d heard of the way Woods Technologies was run before I started working there, of course. I just never imagined that all the stories could be true.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. “All this sounds great, but are they just the type that say all these things, and then they’re never actually available?”
April shrugged, motioning toward Brad. “You tell me. You ever see a multibillionaire loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves to play pool with two entry level app developers?”
I followed her gaze, and my jaw nearly dropped. Brad had lost the elegant suit jacket, hanging it over a nearby bar stool with careless precision. Just as April had said, he was rolling up his sleeves, exposing forearms that were still impeccably muscled and divine. His tie was loosened all the way to his top buttons, with a light smattering of dark chest hair peeking out from above them.
April sighed dreamily, her eyes fixed on Brad. “I know, right?”
I cleared my throat, shaking my head decisively. “I know nothing.”
April giggled and gave me long look. “Right. I hear you were his daughter’s best friend. It’s a shame. The man’s positively edible.”
“Edible?” I gaped. He was, but I wasn’t admitting it out loud.
“Edible,” April confirmed, giving me a once-over. “You know, he’s very private about his personal life, but there was this assistant last year. Not ours. She worked for another one of the companies in the compound. But there was a rumor about them. She looked a bit like you.”
“No,” I gasped. There was no way my crush was mutual. No way.
“Yes.” April laughed. “You want pics?”
“No. No way.” I didn’t know what I was refusing really, just that I had to say it out loud.
April laughed again, chewing at the straw in her cocktail while keeping her eyes on the pool game. “Whatever you say, chica.”
I rolled my eyes and took a long pull off my drink, relishing the burn of the alcohol as it traveled down my throat. I’d been pretty good at hiding how I felt about Brad. I wasn’t about to start admitting things now.
It was just a little crush, that was all. I’d been hiding it for years. I could keep doing it. No problem.
During the time that Nicole dated that older guy, I’d let my fantasies get out of hand more often than not, but I’d reined them in since then. Brad Woods saw me as his daughter’s best friend. That was all. Well, maybe not all. I was sure that I was also a pet project to him, given that I had my job because Nic had begged him to hire me.
It hurt to know that, but I did, and I was determined to prove my worth, no matter what. He’d saved me, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t good at my job. I was going to make him see that.
I just had to get my pulse under control when he was near me. Then, I had to convince my core to stop aching and stop getting wet in his presence. Then, I had to get him out of my dreams. Simple.
I was fucked.
Drinking shot after shot with new co-worker after new co-worker, I didn’t see much of Brad for the rest of the evening. I heard his laugh and felt my skin prickle in awareness when he was near, but I didn’t turn around.
I couldn’t face him, or I didn’t want to. Not until I figured out what it meant that my mouth had literally gone dry when I’d watched him get dressed down for the pool game.
It was nothing good. I knew that much. Nothing that I should’ve been feeling. Those flutters down below, the ones that had woken up my lady bits? They were especially unwelcome.
A crush was one thing, but physical feelings and pondering how best to act on them, now that I had a fair bit of alcohol coursing through my veins? That was dangerous.
I was buzzing from the drinks that April kept passing me, and I knew that Brad had been pounding shots with some of the others, because I’d been keeping him in my periphery.
He looked amazing. Relaxed and sexy, he owned the room, while at the same time, making each person he spoke to shine with accomplishment. It was a work of fucking art to watch him do his thing.
Then, finally, it was my turn for his attention as he made his rounds. “And what do you think, Jordan? Your first couple of days been going well?
Those forest green eyes bore into mine, and I practically melted under them. My tongue felt like it was glued to my palate, and my breath was caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.
Say something, loser! “It’s been fine, thank you. Everyone seems really friendly.”
“They’d better be,” he mumbled, favoring me with a grin. A sexy, private one that made my blood run hot and my panties damp. I leaned toward him, the movement seemingly unavoidable, almost as if there was a magnet pulling me to him.
He was a force of nature to be reckoned with, one that had me forgetting that my purse was balancing precariously on the edge of the counter because I hadn’t been able to decide if I wanted to set it down or keep it on me. Naturally
, I destroyed the moment by knocking the purse with my elbow and sending it falling to the floor between us.
“Shit, I’m such a klutz,” I muttered, kneeling down to get it.
Brad bent down at the same time, and both our hands reached for my tiny purse. Our fingers brushed when they closed over it. His fingers lingered for just a moment too long, and my eyes leaped to his.
What I saw there was what I had been fantasizing about for years. A flash of heat, the darkening eyes of a man who was lusting after the woman he was looking at.
Me.
My lips parted of their own accord, and he was on them faster than a lightning bolt. A brush of his lips against mine, quicker than I could comprehend, soft, yet commanding. And then they were gone as we both pulled back almost instantaneously.
Breathing hard, we locked eyes for a second before he stood up straight, handed my purse to me, and strode away from me like nothing had happened at all.
As I watched his broad shoulders disappear from view, my mind was spinning while my lips were still tingling from his brief touch. It felt like someone had taken a live wire to my skin, holding it just millimeters from my flesh, enough to make my body react.
Humming, that was the only word that came to mind to describe the feeling. I’d read about it and heard about it in movies, but I didn’t know that my body could really hum.
Until now. Until Brad. It left me with just one, very complicated question echoing in my mind.
What the hell just happened?
Chapter Three
BRAD
My leg was bouncing on the plush leather seat of my town car, and my eyes were rooted to the busy sidewalks beyond my tinted windows, but I wasn’t really seeing anything. My driver, Donald, navigated the downtown traffic, expertly steering us past people dashing by to take cover from the misty rain outside.
I was vaguely aware of all of it, but my brain was working overtime, wondering how to handle the situation with Jordan that I was going to have face within the next few minutes. Two nights had gone by since that electric, drunken kiss. The mistake that I promised myself I would never make.
And today, I was going to have to confront it head on.
The day before, I had meetings out of the office all day. While I wasn’t the type to dodge bullets, I was grateful for the extra day to process the situation.
Not that I’d come up with much. Chances were that she was repelled by what happened. She probably thought I was worse than her previous boss, and she was going to resign or lodge a complaint the second I stepped into the office.
With a resigned sigh, I buttoned up the jacket of my suit and pulled on the door handle to let myself out of the car as soon as Donald parked outside of my building. My longtime driver was a few years older than me. But he was still built like a house. As a former member of the transportation corps, or the “Spearhead of Logistics,” I’d been counting on him to handle my personal transportation and security, when the need for it arose, for over a decade.
It was probably a good thing that I’d had Donald drive me that morning, distracted as I was by Jordan. I was consumed by thoughts of her. That quick, stolen kiss enflamed the lust I’d been trying to suppress. I’d struggled so hard to beat those feelings into submission, but in one drunken moment, I’d awoken the carnal beast inside me. And the beast wanted Jordan now, more than ever.
It shouldn’t matter that I needed another taste of her, but I couldn’t shake the urges burning through me every time I thought of her. Of course, I couldn’t act on those urges. The reality was that I had to deal with it, and her, before the weekend started. If she hadn’t told Nicole or lodged a complaint yet, I needed to at least try to smooth things over. It was the smart thing to do. No matter how much I wanted to do the dumb thing and kiss her again, I just couldn’t let myself.
Crossing the sidewalk, I pushed quickly through the revolving doors and jogged up the stairs to the eighth floor, same as I did every morning. I reached my office without breaking a sweat, marching past the precious few employees who were in before me with friendly, but quick greetings.
I closed my door with a dull click behind me and strode across my office to stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows behind my desk. I dragged my hands over the stubble on my jaw that I hadn’t bothered to shave.
Most CEOs chose the top floors of their buildings to have their offices on, but I had nothing to compensate for. I’d chosen the eighth floor because it was high enough to provide a spectacular view of the city, while still being close enough to the street to make out the people there.
It was the people that inspired me, staring down at them and asking myself what they needed from a company like mine. It was what kept Woods Technologies ahead of the curve, even after all this time.
But it wasn’t the people who were on my mind as I stared out at the Space Needle, slightly to my left, mist and clouds partially obscuring the SkyLine Banquet Facility. There was just one person that I kept thinking about, the one person that shouldn’t be on my mind in the way that she was: Jordan.
Why the fuck did I kiss her? Well, I knew exactly why I kissed her. It was impossible not to, being so close to those ripe lips. The real question was, how do I keep things from spiraling out of control from here. It was only the end of her first week on the job, and I’d already pushed things too far with Jordan. Sure, we were both a little drunk and it was a heat of the moment thing, but that didn’t excuse it.
There was a soft knock on my door. “Come in.”
Her beautiful face appeared in the reflection of the glass windows, and I clenched my fists in my pockets.
“Good morning, Brad. This came for you.”
I finally turned to face her. She held up a large envelope and moved quietly into the office.
“Thanks,” I said. “You can just leave it on my desk.”
Jordan’s stride faltered slightly when our eyes met, but she collected herself quickly and set the envelope down as I’d asked her to. “Will that be all?” she asked.
We stood staring at each other for just a second, our gazes lingering for just too long. That was it. It was time to man up and call out the elephant in the goddamn room.
“No, that’s not all,” I said. “Sit down.”
“I… uh… Sure,” she stammered. Something flashed in her eyes. Fear, maybe? I didn’t like it.
“Relax, Jordan. I just want to talk to you. You’re not getting fired or anything.”
The tension she was carrying in her narrow shoulders melted away a little. “Oh, okay. Listen, I’m so sorry—”
I held up a hand to stop her. “No, you’re not apologizing to me. I’m the one apologizing. I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was inappropriate.”
Jordan gave me a long look, then nodded slightly. It surprised me when the corners of her mouth started curling up into a stunning smile that lit her eyes and highlighted the amusement dancing in them. “You don’t need to apologize, actually. I didn’t mind.”
Interesting. “You didn’t?”
“No, we were both drunk, and it’s not a big deal,” she said, sinking down into the visitor’s seat across from my desk.
I followed suit, lowering myself into my chair without breaking eye contact with her. “Even so, I shouldn’t have done it. I’m your boss, and I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you. I can assure you that it will never happen again, if that sets your mind at ease.”
Too many eyebrows would raise if she quit this early on. It would be blatantly obvious that something untoward had happened, even to Nicole. And that couldn’t happen.
Jordan surprised me again by giggling softly, folding her hands in her lap and holding my gaze steadily. Her eyes were warm, none of the disgust I’d expected to encounter present in them. “It’s not going to be weird because we won’t let it be. Please don’t worry. I haven’t even thought twice about it.”
She hasn’t thought about it? The kiss was never more than a second from my mind, and she hadn
’t thought about it? That was just fucking wrong. It felt a hell of a lot like a challenge to me.
I leaned back in my chair, brought up one of my feet to rest an ankle on my knee, crossed my arms over my chest, and arched an eyebrow at her. “Is that so?”
Jordan’s breathing quickened almost imperceptibly, despite the fact that she was clearly trying to maintain her calm exterior. “Yes.”
My lips quirked into a smile her obvious lie. Her body was betraying her more than she realized. “The last thing you want is some old man kissing you.”
“You’re not some old man,” she told me. “You’re not even old.”
Both my eyebrows raised at that. I knew that some girls liked older men. I just hadn’t figured Jordan to be one of them, especially given who I was to her. “I’m not?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I’ve always thought you were kind of hot, actually. I definitely didn’t think of that kiss as some old man kissing me. It was nice.”
Fuck. Her confession that she thought I was hot was doing bad things to me. Things that I had to hide by rolling my chair forward to slide my lower half beneath my desk. “How is it that you think I’m hot? You must have men your own age falling down at your feet.”
She waved her hand dismissively without hesitating for a second. “They’re boys, not men. I haven’t even, um. Shit, no. I shouldn’t go there. Ignore that.”
Color me intrigued. There was no way I was ignoring that. “You haven’t even what, Jordan?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she started wringing her hands, dropping her eyes from mine for the first time since she’d entered my office. “You know… Uh… I’ve never.”
Holy fuck. There was no way she could be trying to say what I thought she was trying to say. “You’re a virgin?”
Jordan lifted her eyes for a beat, embarrassment shining clear in their deep blue depths, before she dropped them again. “I am.”
Good god. I groaned inwardly. What the fuck is wrong with young men these days?
I tried very hard not to think about what it would feel like to be the first one inside her tight, virgin pussy. The first one to feel her come around my cock. To own her and make her mine, to introduce her to pleasure that only real men knew how to give a woman.
