“What do you think his family is going to say?” I asked. “I’ve gotten pretty close to them. Especially Minnie. Do you think she’ll get mad about it? Or will the idea of a new grandbaby who isn’t covered in fur be enough to ignore the whole mess her son and I made?”
Olivia scooted closer to me across the mattress and rub my hair to comfort me.
“It will be okay,” she said soothingly. “It will.”
I appreciated her being there for me and doing everything she could to make me feel better. But I wasn’t completely convinced. I didn’t know if she could really tell me that for sure. This wasn’t a situation she had ever been in, and neither of us had any idea how it was going to actually turn out. But for now, I was willing to hold on to it and convince myself she was right. I could pretend it was all going to be okay. As long as it got me through Monday and the conversation I had to have with Quentin, that’s all that mattered for now.
37
Quentin
Getting Rosie was definitely one of the best decisions I’d ever made, but I was learning she had some unintended consequences. She kept everybody in the complex so happy and reduced stress and anxiety so much, Mom didn’t have as much need to bake anymore. Rather than running off to the kitchen and finding solace at the bottom of bags of flour and sugar, she just came to my office and spent some time relishing the never-ending supply of puppy kisses Rosie was more than eager to give her. Then what time she did spend in the kitchen was divided between producing sweets and goodies for us and baking up batch after batch of homemade puppy treats.
I couldn’t really blame her. Rosie just got cuter by the day, and they loved her visits. She would lick and cuddle as long as somebody let her or until she toppled over into one of her frequent naps. That was one of my favorite things to watch her do. I loved to see her play and bounce at work, but when she stretched out, her soft little belly up toward the sky, and fell into a deep sleep, it made me feel happy and contented. I liked knowing she was happy with me and I was giving her a good life. She was doing so much for me, the least I could do was try to give her something in return.
But I was definitely missing my sugar fix. It was probably better for my health, but I didn’t really want to think about that. I first got to work in the morning or wandered into the kitchen in the middle of the day looking for something to give me an afternoon boost, I wanted to find a platter of lemon bars or a freshly baked plate of cookies. Instead, I discovered a heavily picked-over tray of apple turnovers and three different types of dog biscuits. She’d even taking the time to use different shapes of cookie cutters for each of the flavors and was standing over one of the plates applying icing.
“Are you putting icing on a cookie for my dog?” I asked.
Mom looked over her shoulder, then turned around and grinned at me.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “I found a puppy-friendly recipe that’s good for her coat and her little digestive system. And it’s delicious, and that’s the most important part.”
“Did you taste it?” I asked.
She gave me a glare and whipped back around to finish the cookies.
“Yes, I did. It’s made completely with human food ingredients, so why shouldn’t I? I had to make sure it tasted good for her. Princess Rosie deserves the very best,” she said.
I grabbed one of the apple turnovers and balanced it on top of a cup of coffee, scooped up a handful of the other dog biscuits, and headed to my office. Rosie happily trotted along at my heels. She and her leash had come to a begrudging agreement, but I barely even needed to use it anymore. She quickly adapted to just walking along beside me and unless I told her it was okay to run, she stayed close by. I walked into the office and was surprised as hell to see Merry there waiting for me.
“Hi,” I said, walking over to my desk and setting down the coffee and turnover. Opening the lid of the cookie jar I’d gotten for Rosie’s treats, I dropped the new cookies inside, then fished one back out. Rosie went over to her corner of the office and started examining her bed and each of her toys. She did the same thing every morning. Everything was always in the exact same place where she left it the night before, but the first thing she did when she got into the office was sniff and examine everything as if to confirm it was right.
When she was satisfied, she got onto her bed, circled around a few times, then plopped herself down. I set her cookie down in front of her, and she set her paw on the end of it, making it stand up so she could chew on the other end. That would keep her content for a little while. Now that Rosie was situated, I looked over at Merry.
“Are we done avoiding each other?” I asked.
I meant it as a joke, but it must have fallen flat because Merry flinched. Maybe I was going to need to be more careful with my wording.
“Yes,” she said. She hesitated for a second, shifting where she sat on the couch. “Uh. We need to talk.”
A joke about the way she said that formed in my mouth. It sounded like she was about to break up with me, but since we’d never actually gone on a date, it wouldn’t have been a very effective breakup. Fortunately, this time I thought about what I was going to say before it came out and managed to catch the words on my tongue before they came out of my mouth. That definitely wouldn’t have gone over well, especially considering the strained, nervous look I now noticed on her face.
I picked up my coffee and turnover and walked over to sit beside her on the couch. Breaking the turnover in half, I held a piece of it out to her. She took it but didn’t bite into it. Instead, she let it sit in her lap as she looked around like she was searching for what she was going to say next. I didn’t push. Obviously, there was something on her mind and she was having difficulty finding a way to say it. As much as the stretch of silence was twisting in my stomach and making my heart beat a little faster, I wanted to give her the time to say whatever she needed to stay in the right way. Finally, she let out a sigh and looked at me resolutely.
“I’m not good at doing things like this,” she offered, almost like a disclaimer.
“Not good at doing what?” I asked, suddenly feeling dread form in the pit of my stomach. “Are you quitting?”
She laughed, but the sound didn’t have any happiness in it.
“I almost wish I was,” she said. “At least I’ve done that before, and it would probably be easier than this. But no. I love working here and don’t intend on leaving.” She straightened her spine and let out another breath. “What I mean is, I’m not good at talking about my feelings. I have a really hard time with even having them, so acknowledging them and putting them out there for somebody else to know about is a really major challenge to me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Let’s just say my history with guys is not great. In fact, among everybody who knew me from when I was younger, I’m known for making bad choices. Really bad choices.” She pauses for a second, her eyes widening slightly as she looked off into the distance like she was reliving some of those unfortunate moments of her life. A second later, she shook her head slightly as if coming back into reality. “Anyway, I’ve done some stupid things. After more than my fair share of bad relationships, I all but gave up on men in general. I figured I would just do this whole life thing on my own.
“It was just easier to think about being alone. As sad as it was and as much as I saw the people around me at finding their partners and getting married and being all joyful and everything, that just wasn’t going to happen for me. It wasn’t worth the stress and complication. I couldn’t trust anybody and didn’t want to go through all that over and over again just to get my heart broken. So, I decided I was just going to devote myself to my career and be a confirmed single.”
Just sitting there listening to her was so hard. I struggled to keep my hands to myself. All I wanted to do was pull her close to me and hug her. I wanted to comfort her and let her know I was there for her and she could trust me. But I didn’t. I continued to listen and stayed still exactly where I was. She ne
eded this. Merry needed the opportunity to express everything that was going on inside her head and know she was being heard. Finally, she finished it and let out a big breath.
“Anyway,” she said. “I just want to say I’m sorry for being at least fifty percent at fault for all our problems. It’s not totally your fault. I don’t want you to think that. I mean, I know you think that. Everybody around you isn’t exactly making it easy for you, and I’m sorry about that, too. I am absolutely to blame for the whole mess, too. Because we never talked. And that’s what I want to do. I want us to talk now.”
I figured she was finished because she looked down at her hands and seemed to notice for the first time that she was holding the half a turnover. Tearing off a corner, she popped it into her mouth, hesitated for a few seconds like she was gauging something about it, then kept eating.
“I’m sorry, too, Merry. I also don’t want you to feel like you caused all these problems. I like you. A lot. I don’t know if that’s come across.” It made me smile when she chuckled softly. “But I’ve been burned by women, too. I can’t say I’ve had many relationships. But the ones I’ve had have not been good. I’ve encountered plenty of women who were only after my money and didn’t care about me at all. And I never thought that about you, but the possibility of it always makes me a bit jumpy. I came to work on your first day and saw you, and it just threw me for a loop. You were so young and beautiful, and I was instantly drawn to you. But I couldn’t help but put up a wall because of what’s happened to me. So, I’m sorry, too.”
She finished eating and stood. It felt like a punctuation to our conversation. We were good. Both of us had apologized to each other, acknowledged feelings that existed between us, and explained the issues of the past that had kept us apart. It was good progress, but maybe we needed a break now. This was phase one. We’d accomplished it, and in a few days, I could possibly broach the idea of trying to date.
We’re walking toward the door when Merry suddenly spun around.
“Fuck it,” she muttered, just like I did in her office our first time.
Suddenly her arms were around my neck, her mouth pressed to mine, and I was melting into the kiss.
38
Merry
Oh, hell.
This was absolutely, one hundred percent not the plan. I went over the plan with myself a dozen times before getting to the office that morning. I stood in my bathroom and looked in the mirror, practicing exactly what I was going to say to him. I’d even practiced on the way to work, saying it in my head over and over so Brandon couldn’t hear me. I was completely confident in how I was going to approach it. Just like I told Olivia, this conversation was not going to be about feelings. Feelings were a difficult and sticky subject that I had no interest in getting into with Quentin yet. I wasn’t good with feelings. They were hard and made things more complicated, and the very last thing I needed the right then was for things to get more complicated. No, I was just going to go into his office, let him know I was pregnant, and figure out where we were going to go from there.
And somewhere between sitting down on his office sofa to wait for him and eating the piece of apple turnover he inexplicably handed me when he sat down beside me, everything went to hell. The plan flew totally out the window, and before I even realized what was happening, I was knee-deep in talking about emotions and my past. Everything spilled out of me, and I laid it all out for him, vulnerability, trust issues, feelings, and all. Even with all that, I almost made it out of the office. I stood up and started for the door. He was walking with me, ready to send me on my way for the day.
But no. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to wrap myself around him again, so there I was kissing him like I couldn’t get enough of him. And I never did tell him about Little Bean. But he had his hands on my hips and his tongue in my mouth, and that was just more important at that moment. Not more important than the baby, but definitely more important than me having to share the news right at that second.
I let Quentin pull me to his desk. He took his mouth away from mine only long enough to call out to the puppy chasing a ball around the office.
“Rosie, bad!” he shouted, then dropped his mouth back to mine. He pulled his mouth away again. “Oh, God. I’m going to traumatize her.”
It was going to take a lot more than that to stop me.
My hands were clenching, grabbing at anything they could touch. The overwhelming need to feel his skin under the pads of my fingers drove me to slip them through the openings of his shirt, around the buttons. The tantalizing brush against his ab muscles filled me with even more heat in my core and a light-headed sensation rising up my neck and making everything outside of my eyes feel like cotton. Only his lips broke through the haze, and I focused on them, their softness and their fullness, his tongue slipping through them and dancing with mine. It soothed me and calmed me and focused me on his touch.
We’d backed up to the desk, and now he was working his way around it, guiding me with him with his kiss and fingers working their way down the front of my blouse. One hand slipped inside and cupped my breast around the bra. I wondered if he could feel how much fuller it felt as he gently massaged it. Quickly, he slid back to my center and unclasped the black, lacy cups, and they fell away to the sides, my heavy, plump breasts spilling out into my unbuttoned shirt.
His lips fell from mine and trailed down my neck, his tongue sweeping across my collarbone and into the swell between my breasts. Leaving a thin line of saliva across my chest, he settled on one nipple, taking it into his mouth hungrily and swirling his tongue around it. I leaned my head back and focused on the sensation of my perky nipple hardening in his mouth. His hands slid down my stomach and into the waistband of my skirt, under my panties and to my hot, wet core. I yelped as his powerful fingers touched the sensitive folds of my pussy, and he wasted no time finding my pearl and massaging it firmly, encouraging my clit to open up to him.
I pushed up on my toes until I sat on his desk and pushed away the manila folders and paperweights that would restrict my movements. They clattered on the floor loudly, but I didn’t care. Neither did he. He scooted me back, and his hand left my center, reaching for my panties and pulling them down achingly slowly. His eyes widened and his tongue instinctively swept over his lips as he revealed my pussy to the cold air of the air-conditioned room. When he looked back to me, our eyes met, and I kicked away the thin, lacy underwear. They landed on a lamp, and I giggled at the thought of them staying there until the next time he turned on a light.
His hands clasped under my knees and pulled them apart, setting my feet on the top of his desk so I was presented to him. Sitting heavily in his chair, he pulled himself up to me as if I was paperwork he had longed to finish. I closed my eyes and rested back on my hands as his head dipped down into my skirt, and he licked the inside of my thigh. I shuddered in anticipation as he made his way down to my core and swept around my opening, then pulled back to blow a stream of warm air along the line where he licked. I lay back, letting my back rest on papers, and my head fell off the other end of the heavy wooden desk.
A finger traced my opening and slid inside, and I gasped at the feeling of him inside me. I raised my head up to look down my body at him, and we made eye contact as his tongue slid through my folds. I closed my eyes again and lay back again, focusing on the pleasure of his attention to my core. Flicking at my clit with the tip of his tongue, he brought a squeal of delight from me that only seemed to encourage him. His finger plunged into me and began a rhythm of entering and exiting as his tongue swirled over me and brought me to moans that filled the room. I could barely contain myself, and I reached down to fill a hand with his hair as the powerful first orgasm began to rush over my body, filling me with heat and ecstasy and making my legs shake. I clamped my thighs over his ears as my body shook and I climaxed to the beat of his tongue. He lapped me up eagerly and then stood.
I breathed deeply, letting myself come down from the high of the orgasm and
enjoy watching him unbuckle his pants. I half expected him to repeat our first desk-based romp and just let his thick cock come through the zipper, but instead, his pants fell away and I could make out the outline of his long engorged dick straining against the boxer briefs he wore. I salivated at the thought of it being inside of me again and sat up. He had just unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside when I placed my hand on his chest and gently guided him to sit in his office chair again. Sliding off the desk and letting my shirt and bra fall to the floor, I nestled myself between his legs, sitting on my knees before him.
I grinned as he settled back in his chair, a smile of anticipation and desire stretching across his lips. Sliding my fingers into his waistband, I pulled down on his boxers, and he lifted himself up a little to let it come off him. I relished in watching the reveal of his cock springing out at me, impossibly long and thick and hard. I let the boxers drop away, and he kicked them away as I pushed myself between his legs, letting his cock settle between my breasts. The saliva and sweat made my chest slick, and he nudged forward with his hips at the sensation. I clasped the sides of my breasts and rose and then fell over him, letting him fuck me between my heavy, plump tits. As I reached the bottom, I let my tongue slide out and lick the tip of his head, eliciting a groan from him. When my tongue reached him again, I could taste the salty precum forming and dove down to take him into my mouth.
Letting him slide deeply into my mouth, I let him reach as far back as my throat before sliding back up again, my hand sliding up with it and continuing to stroke him as I raised my lips off him. I glanced at his face to gauge his reaction, but his eyes were shut, his jaw open in a state of pleasure. It fueled me, and I dove back down onto him, tightening my mouth so I was wrapped around his cock and letting him slide in and out of me, my tongue caressing the soft, sensitive areas under it. One hand wrapped firmly around the base and stroked up with every motion, and the other massaged his balls underneath. Moans began to fill the room as he tightened his leg muscles around me, and his hands slid under my hair, at first just moving with me and then guiding me faster. I kept his rhythm and then increased, a hunger for him taking over and making me crave his pleasure, to desire his orgasm as if it were my own.
Millionaire Boss: A Secret Baby Romance (Freeman Brothers Book 1) Page 20
