by Vivien Vale
I stop talking because I can’t tell if he’s getting upset or not. He’s so empty and distant now, it’s the exact opposite of what he was when he walked in. Something’s changed, but I can’t figure out what.
“Well, I didn’t think I was going to see you here,” someone says behind me. When I turn and look up, Leon is standing there with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look much different than he does when he’s at the office. He might have gotten rid of his blazer and tie, but that’s it.
“Leon,” Wes says. His voice is hard.
“And you,” Leon says, turning to me. “I didn’t think you would be invited out with the team.”
“She’s part of the team,” Wes says.
“Barely. But alright, let’s get technical.” He’s being sarcastic. I don’t know why he’s here, but I know that I don’t want to be his target all night.
“I think I better go,” Wes says, reading my mind.
I nod. I was thinking the same thing, but I spot the team in the corner, laughing and talking, and I decide I won’t ditch them. Wes and I get up and join them. I sit down next to Tanya.
“I’m off, ladies and gentlemen,” Wes says. They protest, but he graciously shrugs it off and leaves. He gives me one last intense glance, then turns to leave. I watch him walk away. His ass is perfect underneath those jeans, and his shirt is tight in all the right places.
God, I want him.
“What was that all about?” Tanya asks me when Wes is gone.
I shrug. “He paid for my drink, a welcome drink, he called it.”
Tanya nods. “He’s a great boss,” she says and lets it go to my relief.
“And Leon is here,” I say.
Tanya rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, we won’t let him get us down.”
I smile, and we both turn our attention to the conversation. I join in because these people are my colleagues and they’re nice. For the first time since high school, I feel like I fit in.
Wes
On Monday morning, I’m back in the office, and I couldn’t be happier. I spent the whole weekend golfing with clients and shareholders. It’s part of my job as the CEO, and it’s boring as fuck. I’m glad to be back in the office where I’m at home, and I’m king of my castle.
I can’t get Kylie out of my mind, either. When I was on the golf course, I had some time to think, and I’m not quite sure where we stand. When she came to my office she was more than down to fuck – the mood had been perfect, and she was just as caught up in it as I was.
But when I saw her at Alchemist, she was different. I wouldn’t say standoffish as much as careful, but it wasn’t what it had been in the office. Even with the vibrator incident, which was hot as fuck, something was different. When she started talking about her mom… Well, things shifted. I’m not even sure what I think or where I stand now. I know what she’s up to—at least I think I do—but my motivation to get her out before she does any real damage is coming into question. She’s not at all like I thought she’d be. What if I have this whole thing wrong?
I keep going back to how things were different at Alchemist. I mean, I guess that’s to be expected. Everyone from the office – including Leon – was there, and I know she’s nervous about losing her job over this, even though more is at stake for her than just her job.
She has a point – it’s not a good idea for either of us. But I can’t stay away from her. I want to do it again.
Before lunchtime, I find myself on the third floor, headed toward her desk. There she is staring at her laptop screen, and I watch her from a distance for a short while. As much as I don’t want to admit it, she’s getting to me. Getting under my skin, invading my thoughts. Consuming them, really.
She’s wearing green – a spring green – and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She’s wearing computer glasses, and the whole look gives off a sexy-librarian feel. Her top isn’t so low that it would be a problem in the workplace but I know what she looks like without a shirt. I can just picture her tits through her top.
When she looks up at me, I walk closer, as if I’ve been doing that all along.
“How are you doing?” I ask her, walking around her desk to look at her laptop screen. She’s not even on a social network or anything – so many employees are. She’s going through the suggested specs list that we got from the designers.
“Well, thank you,” she says.
“You can tell me if you need anything,” I say.
She nods. “I know. So far I’m alright.”
I nod, too. I want her to come to me, to lean on me, to ask me for advice and help. I want to spend more time with her alone. I don’t want to discuss work with her, I want to get her alone and get her naked, but I mean it when I tell her she can turn to me if she needs something.
“You haven’t had a look at my ideas for the project, yet,” she says.
I nod. “You’re right. I got a little distracted.”
She blushes.
“How about you give them to me, and I’ll go over them? Then we can talk about what you have.”
She thinks about it for a moment.
“Alright,” she says and reaches into her bag. She produces the file she had in my office last week, and I take it from her.
“I’ll let you know,” I say with a smile. Kylie nods, smiling, too.
I can’t figure out if she still wants me. I know that she liked the other day. Does she want to do it again? I hope she does – God knows I want to do it again. I want to fuck her brains out. But I’m not going to push for something she doesn’t want, and I don’t know where she stands after she told me on Friday that it was a mistake. Although, she didn’t say she didn’t want to do it again.
Women are complicated. They don’t say things straight up, and then men get blamed for misunderstanding. And things are even more complicated in this situation because there’s more at play here than just our obvious attraction. She has an end game. So do I. But mine is changing. I’m not sure I really want to fuck her over like I did before. I want to find out more. Get in her head and understand why she’s really out to get ReachCo.
But even more than I want to get in her head, I want to get in her panties.
I can’t very well ask her if she’s willing to do it again out here in the open, where everyone else can hear us. The only way to find out is to get her alone, again. Soon.
I look down at the file again, thinking.
“You know what?” I say. “Let me go over this now. Can you free up some time to see me in my office, later this afternoon? Let’s say, three?”
Kylie swallows. She hesitates before she nods. I can’t tell what she’s thinking; I don’t know her well enough. I can decipher her O face, her eyes when there’s lust in them, but I don’t know Kylie as a person. And I’m surprised by how much I want to. She’s supposed to be the enemy, but I’m finding out quickly it’s not that simple.
“Three it is, then.”
As soon as I get her alone, I want to talk to her. I want to ask her how she feels. I want to know what she thinks of us doing it before, of us doing it again.
“You don’t have to go over it all today,” she says. “We can discuss it another time.”
I shake my head. “I don’t have client meetings, for a change. Focusing on the project will be nice. I get so little time to do it.”
She nods. “Okay, I guess that’s alright, then.”
Tanya walks to Kylie’s desk and gives her a stack of papers.
“This is the report you asked for,” she says. She glances at me and smiles. Kylie takes the papers from Tanya, and I watch them interact. Kylie is respectful and helpful, but she doesn’t grovel or make it look like Tanya is in charge. She knows what she’s doing, and her grasp of authority is attractive.
Whenever I see her, I’m reminded of how good she can be at what she does. She has so much potential; she can go far in this company. I don’t know why she was a receptionist for so long – she told me a bit about her
struggles – and I’m glad I’ve pushed her into a position where she can earn more and get noticed. The money would be well-deserved, I think. If she didn’t have ulterior motives. I wonder for the millionth time why she’s really out to get the company because I think she could really be great here.
“Do you have the printout I asked you for?” Leon asks Kylie, walking to her desk. He glances at me but ignores me, otherwise.
Kylie nods, not responding to his brash approach. She hands him a piece of paper. Leon looks at it with a frown.
“Is this all of it?” he asks.
“It’s everything I could find on it,” she says. “Will you let me know if there’s anything else you need?”
Leon grunts. “You know I will.”
He sounds grumpy. I’m getting irritated with the way he’s talking to her, and I’m not even involved in the discussion. If it gets to her, she’s not showing it. She respects Leon as her superior, and she treats him with a respect I don’t even think he deserves. Maybe it’s because she’s still new, and she doesn’t have the liberty to be sarcastic or have an attitude toward Leon. I hope that will change because he can’t keep being such a dick about everything.
“Can I talk to you for a moment, Leon?” I ask.
He nods, and I step to the side, so we’re out of earshot from the others. Leon follows me. He folds his arms over his chest and places his feet wide apart. The stance is both defensive and arrogant.
“Why don’t you lay off Kylie, Leon?” I ask. “She’s working hard.”
Leon raises his eyebrows. “I’m doing my job. Are you suggesting I don’t?”
I shake my head. “I think you can be nicer about it.”
Leon smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Like you are.”
He can’t know anything, but my stomach turns, anyway.
“If you mean checking up on her to see if she needs help and mentoring her when she does, then yes, like I am.”
Leon shakes his head. “The two of you are alone an awful lot, don’t you think?”
“Did I mention I’m mentoring her? I remember saying it.”
Leon makes a face at me. I know he’s getting pissed, but so am I.
“I wish I had that much mentoring when I was new here,” Leon says.
I sigh. “That was before my time, Leon. I can’t do anything about what happened here before I was appointed CEO. I know what I can do now, and I’m doing it to the best of my ability. Please, don’t forget that I’m your superior. Your attitude needs revision.”
Leon laughs, and it’s one of those laughs that’s supposed to be a threat.
“I’ll back off from Jordan when I know that she’s capable of doing her job, but I don’t think a receptionist deserves a position as project manager on this, and I’m sticking to it. I believe you hired her because she has a pretty face and a good body.”
I am angry now.
“That’s degrading and insulting in every way,” I say. “I would be very careful about what I say next if I were you.”
My blood boils. I’m more than angry that Leon has reduced Kylie to someone intellectually incapable of doing her job, that he thinks I have it in me to look only at her body.
Leon makes a face at me, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns and walks away. But I swear I hear him mumble something under his breath that sounds like, “I know more than you think I do.”
He can’t mean he knows about Kylie. Can he?
When I look at Kylie again, she’s buried in her work. I don’t want to bother her. Especially as irritated as I am now. It’s better for me to retreat to my office and work through it. I need to calm down.
I walk to my office and sit down behind my desk. Leon rubs me up the wrong way, sometimes. I don’t know how to deal with him now – I don’t want to fire the guy with his wife being so sick, but he can’t keep doing this at the office. He undermines my authority, and he pisses me off.
Kylie actually deserves her position more than anyone else in the company, in spite of my inside knowledge about her plans to try to take down the company. Her résumé stood out from all the others long before I was aware of what she was up to.
And yes, I fucked her, and I think she’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen, but I sure as shit didn’t hire her because I thought it would be easier to get into her panties.
Leon is way too upset over Kylie’s promotion. There’s something I can’t put my finger on, Something that’s not quite right.
I’m going to have to do something about him if he doesn’t reign in his bad attitude.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I can’t let Leon work me up like this. I’m his boss, and he shouldn’t piss me off the way he does. I open the file I got from Kylie and start reading through her projections and ideas.
And again, I’m impressed by the way she thinks, by the way she approaches her work. She is technical about it, approaching the business side of it logically, but she has a creative flair that makes her work unique and I like it.
I am engrossed in her work, and as I page through it, my bad mood dissipates. I see a side of her here that I don’t know yet, and I like it.
When I’m done, I’m glad I asked her to come to me so soon. It’s not just because I want to see her as soon as possible, but because I want to talk to her about her work. Maybe, this time, I’ll get around to it.
I lean back in my chair and look around my office. I’ve had her everywhere in here I can except for the floor. I glance at the couch. I can almost still feel her lips around my cock. Just the thought of it makes me want it again. I harden, and I want her. I don’t think I’m ever going to not want her. She’s sexy and beautiful and intelligent. The whole package.
In spite of all the reasons I shouldn’t, I want her. I want her all to myself. In just a short while I’ll find out if she wants me, too.
Kylie
I didn’t go to Wes’s office. In fact, I didn’t even stay at work. I became so nervous about our meeting, about what he might expect from me, I started feeling sick. After lunch, my stomach was a knot of nerves, and I couldn’t concentrate.
Tanya asked me if I was feeling alright because I looked pale. When I told her I felt sick, she suggested I go home.
I didn’t wait for her to tell me twice.
I fear seeing Wes, alone. I don’t know what he wants from me. Okay, that’s a lie. I know what he wants from me. I even know what I want from him. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I need to stay far, far away from this guy. He’s bad news. The bad ones are always the most attractive and this one is my absolute weakness.
I’ve always thought I was immune to men. I want to be with someone, sure, but I don’t need to be. And if a man is flirting with me – no matter how charming – if I’ve made up my mind about it, it’s not going to happen.
I used to take pride in being able to walk away.
I realize now I just haven’t met the right kind of guy, yet. Or is that the wrong kind of guy? I don’t know. And not knowing is what makes me unsure about Wes.
He’s not at all how I thought he’d be. I’m starting to second guess everything.
My dad was a cheating son of a bitch. He had an affair when I was in high school, and my mom found out. Not that my mom was blameless. I found out years later that she had an affair first. In fact, she used to work for ReachCo way back in one of its pre-IPO iterations. She was a receptionist, just like I used to be. Except she worked for the owner of the company. Who also turned out to be a cheating son of a bitch. He seduced my mom. I don’t know all the details, but I do know he was a manipulative womanizer. My mom was one of many. And he has the nerve to institute a no fraternizing policy?
So both my parents cheated, ripping apart our family and leaving my mom and I practically destitute, especially when she was fired from ReachCo. It’s the main reason I want to make the company pay. Its very owner almost singlehandedly destroyed my family.
So yeah
. Obviously, I don’t trust men. They’re all the wrong guy, in my opinion. So, it’s hard for me to decide what Wes is. I can’t seem to stay away from him, which is unusual for me. I’m always able to keep my head in the game. I can’t help but wonder about him, what more there could be if I dared to pursue it.
But I don’t think that’s something I’ll be able to do. I don’t know if he wants anything more than sex. Most women don’t want sex without any strings attached. They want love, commitment, monogamy. I don’t care about those things. At least, I didn’t. Now I’m starting to wonder if I should care about those things.
I doesn’t bother me that I don’t have it, but it bothers me that I don’t care about having it.
Is it Wes that brought on this change? Or my new job that, for the first time ever, will allow me to think about myself because I can take care of my mom and Gran now? Or is it that Wes seems like he’s actually a decent guy and I’m questioning everything I thought I knew and believed?
It’s too much to think about, too many questions, and that’s just another reason why I should stay away from Wes.
Which is why I ran like a coward yesterday, why I didn’t go to that meeting, why I don’t know how I’m going to avoid him for the rest of the week, or the month, or my career.
I get dressed for work. I put on black dress pants and a butter yellow blouse that makes my skin look more like porcelain than it already does. I brush my hair and braid it loosely. When I’m done with my makeup, I head to the office. It only takes twenty minutes to get to the office from my place, and I’m one of the first people there.
I don’t see Wes on my way to my desk, and I’m relieved when I sit down. I can’t stop him from coming to check on me the way he sometimes does, but this is a good start.
When I open my email, I have five new ones. Two of them are spam – where do they get my email address? One is from my mom, one from Tanya and one is from Wes. It’s flagged urgent, and my throat swells shut. My heart beats faster, and I’m scared to open it.
I tell myself not to be a coward and open the damn email.
