Saving the CEO

by Jenny Holiday

  “And we leave early Thursday,” he went on. “And then it’s done.”

  She nodded again. He must need reassuring once more that she wasn’t going to try to cling to him beyond the confines of their agreement.

  “Between now and then, with the exception of your shift at the bar, you will be here.”

  She tried to say something about having to go to her place at some point to pack, but he wasn’t listening. He just talked right over her.

  “Right now, I’m going to fuck you senseless. Then, between now and Thursday morning, I’m going to make you come so many times that you’ll be begging me to stop.”

  She hadn’t finished a sharp, involuntary inhale of surprise—and desire—before he was on her. The crinkling of a condom wrapper, and then he was pushing his way inside her. There was no foreplay, and she didn’t want any—she was already wetter than she could ever remember being. Just his warm hands anchoring her hips as he entered her. Once he was buried to the hilt, he paused. She loved the feeling of being filled by him and released a shaky sigh. His hands travelled up from her hips, over where her dress was bunched up around her waist, and along her arms until his hands covered her own. He guided them up, over her head, and wrapped her fingers around the lip of the counter on the other side of the island.

  “Hold on,” he whispered. And then his hands were back splaying her thighs and he was pounding into her, the only sounds in the room the slap of his balls against her ass, his labored breathing, and the gasping she couldn’t seem to control as heat coiled in her belly. He was pounding into her so hard she was inching forward on the island. She never wanted it to stop, but all too soon, he groaned, and time seemed to stand still for a moment as he froze, buried in her. Then his hips bucked wildly for a moment, and he collapsed on her.

  “Cassie,” he whispered, making her name sound like a prayer. “Cassie.”

  …

  Ten. He was counting, and by the time she left for the bar the next afternoon he was up to ten. He was beginning to see the utility in retaining a lover for more than a day or two. He’d always prided himself on making sure his partners left his bed satisfied. But they always left. This arrangement with Cassie, once he got over his initial fear that she wasn’t going to know when to say good-bye, was proving very interesting. When the same woman stuck around for a few—or ten—orgasms, you could start to figure out exactly where her edge was. There was something to be said for taking a wild, running leap over the edge. Nothing wrong with that, in fact. But once you knew exactly where the edge was, like within millimeters, you could keep her teetering there almost indefinitely. A little practice yielded the secrets. She liked her nipples, the left in particular, flicked with his tongue. Her ankles were sensitive.

  But it wasn’t altruism. He loved watching her come, yes, but he was a selfish bastard. Even more than that, he loved feeling her tightening around his cock, her face screwed up in pleasure. He loved hearing her sob his name, gasp for more. He loved having the power to make her lose her beautiful mind.

  Ten. Double digits had been the goal, and when he got her home after her shift tonight, he was aiming for a baker’s dozen, at least.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t wait until she got home. He pushed through the door of Edward’s, thinking maybe they would revisit their spot in the alley. He glanced at his watch. Three hours till she was done.

  She must get a break, though, right?

  The bar was moderately crowded, and she didn’t see him initially because she was engrossed in a conversation with a customer whose wine glass she was refilling. He could tell she sensed the arrival of a new customer, though. Her face didn’t change, and she smiled and nodded at the sixty-something woman she was serving, but she listed almost imperceptibly in his direction. The palms of his hands began to itch.

  Backing away from her customer, she set down the wine bottle and turned, still half the bar-length away. It took a moment for her to register it was him, and when she did her smile turned from generic to…something else. Enormous. She lit up like the Christmas tree in his living room. As she came closer, he could see she was turning pink. Good. He couldn’t make her come here, but he was stupidly glad to see that he could still affect her.

  “Couldn’t stay away?” she teased, drawing closer.

  “I don’t know what I did with my Christmas vacations in previous years, when I wasn’t fucking you.”

  She turned even pinker as she glanced around, eyes wide. “Keep your voice down!”

  “It’s true. I always tell everyone not to work. I close the office. I perform all the actions that a good boss does. But really, I spend the whole holiday working. I’m very bah-humbug.”

  She set an empty glass down in front of him. “You know, we used to have a nickname for you here. All those years you came in and sat in the dining room?”

  “Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow, not sure he wanted to hear this.

  “We called you Ebenezer. As in Scrooge.”

  Well, he’d walked right into that one.

  She kept talking, preventing him from having to respond. “It was mean. And you were never cheap like Scrooge. It was more that you were kind of aloof. And you worked all the time.”

  “Busy forging my chains?” he asked, trying for a teasing note, but in truth, not unmoved by the barb.

  “Um, something like that.” She turned for a moment and then reappeared with a bottle of scotch. “But now we know better!”

  Did they, though? Britney called him a humbug, but he’d always thought she was teasing. He had freaking mistletoe in his house, for God’s sake.

  He nodded his assent when she showed him the label of the scotch she’d picked out. Another customer arrived, and soon he was settled in watching the dance Cassie performed behind the bar. It was as compelling as ever, but now that he knew her, it was like foreplay. The dance was graceful and efficient because she was these things herself. She did everything with just the right number of steps—neither too few nor too many. Whether she was combing through his finances or making a drink, there was an economy about her that he admired. Which was why it was so fun to torture her in the bedroom with delayed gratification.

  “What time are you off?” he asked when she circled back to him. “Do you get a break?”

  “Why?” She was suspicious. Smart girl.

  He shrugged. “I was just thinking about how long it’s been since we visited our favorite alley.”

  The smile she’d been wearing slid away and she bit her lip. “I get off at ten, actually.”

  Earlier than usual. His dick stirred. The ghosts of Christmas present were smiling on old Scrooge, it seemed.

  She rested her forearms on the bar and leaned toward him, looking very serious. “I was thinking, though.”

  “Yeah?” He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what came next.

  “I think I should just go home to my place.”

  “Your bed is too damn small.” He didn’t give a crap about the bed, but he really, really didn’t want her to run into her mother again. She’d told him a little more about her childhood last night, and it was clear that her mother was nothing but a drain on Cassie—not just on her money, but, more threateningly, on her vitality.

  “I think I should go home to my place alone.”

  “Oh.” He reared back a little as if she had slapped him. He hadn’t seen that coming. Nice. He was getting dumped from their non-relationship entanglement or whatever the hell it was.

  “It’s just that I have to pack, and then I think I should be getting back into homework mode, go over the numbers again. This Wexler thing is a big deal for you.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” But she did. She had to remind him.

  “I also just think…” She twisted her bar towel like she was wringing out a wet cloth.

  “What?” His voice sounded clipped, sharp. Scroogey?

  “If tomorrow is good-bye—well, not good-bye, but you know, if it’s the end of…” She waved
her hand back and forth between them and scrunched up her nose as she searched for words.

  “It’s better to pull the Band-Aid off now,” he supplied, striving for an even tone. There was no reason to be angry, after all. She was right. What had he thought? That they could fuck all night and then just roll into the car tomorrow and switch on their corporate identities?

  Just that he hadn’t expected this. Not yet.

  There hadn’t been a chance to say…thanks. He rolled his eyes, disgusted at himself. Thanks. As in “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?”

  Jesus, this was the problem with relationships. You knew exactly the route to orgasm, yes, but you also ended up getting blindsided.

  Or you would, if this had been a real relationship.

  “You’re right,” he said, belatedly realizing the conversational ball was in his court. “I should go over some stuff, too.” He drained his scotch and pulled out his wallet. “I’ll pick you up at six tomorrow morning, okay?”

  She nodded, waving off his attempt to leave cash on the bar. He threw down a fifty anyway.

  “Good-bye,” she said.

  That was it—good-bye. He hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye.

  …

  When Cassie arrived back at her place, there were a couple of people she would not have been surprised to see sitting outside her building. Her mother topped the list. Danny, maybe, since she’d texted him on her way home and reminded him she was leaving in the morning. Jack even. Not that she wanted that. Well, technically, of course she wanted that. Every cell in her body wanted that. The idea of spending the night without him made her jittery, in fact. But her higher self knew that finding Jack outside her place was not a smart thing to want. Still, when she rounded the corner of her block and saw a figure hunched over, sitting on her snowy stoop, Cassie was prepared for Jack.

  She was not prepared for Carl.

  “Cassie.” He stood up as she approached. “I’m sorry to ambush you like this at home.”

  “How did you even—”

  “But I had to talk to you without Jack around. I spoke to him earlier and when he mentioned you weren’t with him tonight, I had to come find you.”

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Carl was a crook, yes, but she didn’t think he was an ax murderer. Still, she was not about to invite him upstairs. “What is it?”

  He’d been looking at her, but then his face started to crumple and he covered it with both palms.

  “What is it?” she said again, her voice softer this time. “There’s a coffee shop on the corner.”

  The idea of a destination seemed to cheer him. He nodded and they set out. “I have to tell Jack something. Something awful. But I thought if I started with you maybe you could…smooth the way.”

  Was he going to confess? Cassie stayed silent, having learned in her years as a bartender that when people wanted to get something off their chests, it was usually best to get out of their way. Cassie watched Carl while the barista made their drinks. She assumed since he and Jack had gone to university together, they were roughly the same age. But Carl looked a decade older. Deep creases ran along the sides of his mouth, and his complexion was ashen. He drummed his fingers on the bar. Once seated at a small table in the back, he fidgeted and avoided looking her in the eye. Still, it wasn’t her job to make life easier for him. Things might be weird with her and Jack, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t firmly on Jack’s side.

  After a full minute of increasingly uncomfortable silence, Carl finally managed to look at her. “I have a gambling problem. I’ve gambled away Britney’s college fund.”

  “Excuse me?” This was the polite version of what Cassie was thinking.

  “She wants to go to art school, study photography. You’ve seen her stuff—she’s good. Could you imagine what she could do with some formal training?

  Cassie had to agree there. “Carl, I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”

  “It gets worse,” he went on, ignoring her objection. “I…I stole from the company, to try to win back what I lost. I told myself I was only borrowing the money, that I’d win it back and more. But…”

  “You lost it all.” Cassie recognized some of the same rationalizations from her years of back and forth with her mother. She’d come to learn that people like Carl and her mother actually believed their own lies, at least initially.

  He slumped in his seat, looking nothing less than stricken. “I know it doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head in disgust. “It sounds ridiculous when I describe it.”

  Opposing emotions warred inside her. She wanted to berate him for stealing from the man who’d made him—gave him a job that allowed him to live in luxury, mentored his daughter. And he’d done it by taking advantage of Jack’s one weakness. But he looked so pathetic, so miserable, that a tiny part of her felt bad for him.

  “How much did you steal?”

  He winced at the word steal, but if he thought she was going to sugarcoat things, he was mistaken. Of course she knew the ballpark answer, having reverse engineered his crimes, but she wanted to see if he was still in denial.

  “A lot. More than I can repay. I can only hope that Jack doesn’t decide to press charges, which would be more than I deserve.”

  “You have to tell him.”

  “I know. I will. I plan to. I’ve already asked Seth to book a formal meeting with him for the first day back. January second, I come clean.”

  Cassie started to say he should tell Jack sooner—now. He deserved the truth. She began formulating an “If you don’t tell him, I will” threat.

  “I don’t want to ruin his Christmas holiday,” said Carl.

  That stopped her in her tracks. He had a point. Not about the holiday so much as about the Wexler trip, which of course Carl knew nothing about. Jack didn’t need any complications that would jeopardize the deal. And though it was good that Carl was planning to come clean, dealing with the outcome of the confession would be a huge upheaval. It was better for the deal for Jack to stay angry and honed. So she would hold her tongue. For now.

  “All right, but if you don’t tell him when the office reopens, I promise you, I will.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re telling me this.” It was bugging her. She hadn’t done anything except be his involuntary confessor, and now she was saddled with this knowledge she didn’t want. “You just met me.”

  Carl buried his face in his hands, and when he spoke his voice was muffled. “I don’t know. It’s just that Jack has never had a girlfriend who stuck before.” Cassie winced at the word girlfriend. “I thought it would be good if you knew ahead of time, so you could…help him when he finds out. It’s a big betrayal.” Then he looked up. “That’s not true. Well, it is, but it’s not the whole truth. I think the real reason I’m telling you is because you’re in college. God, the idea of you having to work so much to pay for school.” He raked his hands through his hair and looked at the ceiling, as if seeking divine guidance. “That’s what I’ve condemned Britney to.”

  A sharp burst of anger animated Cassie’s limbs, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she would regret. Who did this jerk think he was? She settled for saying, “My life isn’t so bad, you know.” He was pulling some kind of psychological BS on her here. Like he thought if he confessed to Cassie the College Student, she could somehow absolve him for screwing his own daughter’s future. Meanwhile, Cassie Jack’s Girlfriend was supposed to smooth the way for Carl to confess his crime. Nope, all Cassie was going to do was keep his stupid secret long enough for Jack to do a major deal behind his back.

  Carl looked down at his drink, some kind of awful Christmas-themed thing topped with a dollop of whipped cream dusted with red and green sprinkles. “It being Christmas and all that, I just wanted to be honest with someone.”

  A pit opened in Cassie’s stomach. If he only knew. How ironic that there were two people sitting at this table, and
only one of them was being honest—the compulsive gambler-slash-crook. Which left her—the liar.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By the time Jack picked up Cassie the next morning, he was in the zone. She’d been right—they needed the time apart to clear their heads. Two days from now, Wexler Construction would be his. He didn’t care what he had to do, he was going to win the company—and the island. He was now fully focused on Wexler. There wasn’t room for anything else.

  Correction—maybe there was a little room. “Hi!” Cassie called as she burst through the door of her building. She had on big Sorel boots and a bright green parka with a fur-lined hood. How could she be so bundled up and still be so hot? Anyway, nothing to do about it. It was perfectly normal to admire an attractive woman like Cassie. It would be weird if he didn’t notice her. The trick was to appreciate her from afar, like he would any other beautiful woman.

  The trick was not to think about getting into her pants.

  “Brr!” The temperature had plummeted overnight, and she did a little half-wiggle, half-hop as a gust of frigid wind hit them.

  Yeah. So much for not thinking about getting into her pants.

  “The car’s all warmed up,” he said, taking her suitcase and popping the trunk.

  “Nice wheels!” she said as she settled into the front seat. “Ooh! And seat warmers!” Another little wiggle as she ground her ass into the heated leather.

  God almighty, this was going to be a long trip.

  “This is totally the kind of car you would drive,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” He glanced at her as he started the engine. She was stroking the leather seat.

  “Aston Martin! Who drives an Aston Martin? But it’s perfect—fast, refined, but not too showy. Very you.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. He’d been worried this was going to be awkward, an extension of the weirdness that accompanied last night’s parting, but it seemed they were going to glide into being friends with no trouble at all. As long as he kept his hands to himself. “What kind of car are you, then?”

  “Ha! I’m a city bus! I wonder what that means?”