Ink

by Michaela Scott

  “I’ll say this for Jace,” she says, “He knows how to work a crowd.”

  “It’s because he’s not bullshitting them,” says Dad, “He’s genuinely excited, and it’s infectious.”

  Laura nods, eying me as she takes a sip of her champagne.

  “Just think, Haley: after tonight, you’re going to be up there too.”

  “I can’t wait,” I say.

  “I haven’t seen much of Haley over the past month,” says Laura, “Jace has been working with me, while Haley’s been…doing her own thing, I guess.”

  “Well, since I can’t negotiate directly until my title is official, I’ve been planning RentNation’s expansion. I have two models that I think would be good next steps for the company: one where we expand into San Francisco, and one where we go to Seattle.”

  What I don’t mention is that I spent the last few days furiously throwing those models together just so I would have an answer when people asked what I’ve been doing over the past month.

  “That’s great,” says Dad.

  “It is,” says Laura, “But I was hoping Haley would devote more time to developing her interpersonal skills and less time reading books.”

  As I try and resist the urge to take the glass of champagne from my stepmother’s hand and throw it in her face, I look towards Jace and see him hanging out by the podium with Amber draped all over him.

  There we go. I may not be able to touch Laura, but I can definitely get that psycho away from my stepbrother.

  “If you two will excuse me,” I say to Dad and Laura, “I think I’m going to go congratulate Jace.”

  I’m halfway to Jace when I feel a hand wrap around my arm. “Haley, how are you?”

  It’s Glenn, camera around his neck, looking more than a little drunk.

  “Hey Glenn,” I say, hoping that he’s too drunk to notice how little I want to talk to him.

  Thankfully, he definitely is. He wraps me up in a huge hug and picks me up off the floor.

  “I love that dress,” he says, after he sets me down.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Jace wanted me to wear one of his insanely skimpy dresses here, but I convinced him to let me go pick out a normal dress so Laura wouldn’t get suspicious. It isn’t until Glenn looks me up and down that my definition of what constitutes normal has changed: this dress is still pretty revealing.

  “How’s your story coming?” I ask.

  “Oh, it’s good. I took some notes on Jace’s speech, interviewed your Dad and a couple of the guests…I definitely have enough to make it work.”

  I look over at Jace and Amber again. Shit, Jace is staring straight at me.

  “Can I take a photo of you?” Glenn asks.

  “Uh…yeah,” I say, “Right here?”

  “Yeah. You in front of the party. I’m going to put it right across from the end of the article. You, newly rich, standing in front of a crowd of old money millionaires.”

  I shrug.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Cool.”

  Glenn steps back and lowers himself to one knee, and I cock my head to the side and smile.

  It’s going to be surreal seeing myself in a magazine a month from now, but for now, I need to get away from Glenn and talk to Jace.

  “I can’t wait to read your piece,” I say, “But I’d better let you get to it!”

  Turning away from the drunk journalist, I set my sights on Jace and Amber.

  “Hey Haley,” Jace says as I walk up, “Check this out. What’s my favorite color, Amber?”

  “Silver,” says Amber.

  “What’s my favorite band?”

  “Nirvana!”

  “Which do I like better…uh…Thai food or Indian food?”

  “Indian food!”

  “I don’t know how she knows all this,” Jace says, “This is not publically available information.”

  “It’s part of my job as your personal assistant, Jacey.”

  Amber gives me one of her malicious fake smiles.

  “I mean, I’m sure she doesn’t know everything about you,” I say, looking into Jace’s eyes and smiling.

  “Haley,” Jace says, “You looked like you were having fun with that reporter. Why don’t you go find him and make sure he’s got all the material he needs?”

  “Hmm,” I say, “I don’t really feel like talking to him right now. He’s about as drunk as Amber is, so, you know, he’s not very fun to be around.”

  “Haley,” Jace says, with a warning in his voice that makes my breath come faster and my nipples harden, “I just told you to do something. Are you going to do it?”

  “No.”

  Jace’s eyes blaze dangerously.

  “Fine,” he says, “If you want to talk, we’ll talk.”

  He wraps my wrist up in an iron grip and I come this close to letting out an aroused gasp.

  “Sorry, Amber, we’ll have to keep talking when I come back.”

  Jace leads me out of the ballroom, but instead of into the lobby, he takes me through the doors at the far side of the room into some kind of huge conference room with a couple hundred seats and a stage with a podium on it.

  “Sorry, Amber?”

  “I was in trying to talk her into a change of position that would take her out of New York.”

  “So you were going to promote her?”

  “Yeah, but I want to get her out of my life, because she knows way too much about me and she’s way too eager to get into my pants.”

  “So why not fire her?”

  “Look, Haley, I know you’re jealous, but I think we both know how much trouble a girl like that could be if I just fire her. I’m going to get her out of my life, and she’s not going to be super important to our business, so it doesn’t matter how much I pay her.”

  Jace leads me up to the stage, picking me up as he climbs onto it. The conference room is dark and empty, with all sound from the next rooms muffled into oblivion. I know that there are hundreds of partygoers in the room next door, but as soon as my body feels like we’re alone, it starts to throb for Jace.

  Jace stands behind me, in the exact center of the stage.

  “Put your hands on the podium, Haley,” he says.

  “Jace, this is dangerous…”

  “That’s the point. You broke the rules of the contract by disobeying me, and now you’re going to be punished. Put your hands on the podium.”

  I know exactly how dangerous it is to be following Jace’s orders right now, so close to all these people, but the thought of getting spanked again is making me so horny that I don’t care. I put my hands on the podium, gripping it so hard that my knuckles turn white, and bend over, sticking my ass out into the air behind me.

  “Okay,” I say, “You can spank me. Just do it fast.”

  “Spank you? Who said anything about spanking you? I’m going to fuck you.”

  “Jace!” I whisper, eyes wide and knees starting to tremble.

  “If you’re worried about getting caught,” Jace says, coming up behind me, grabbing my hips, and pressing his erect cock into me, “Then all you have to do is come. Once you come, it’ll all be over.”

  My heart starts beating faster as I think about what Jace is about to do to me. I start thinking about how good his cock is going to feel inside me, hoping that it’ll help me get off as soon as Jace enters me.

  “First things first,” Jace says, “Let’s deal with these.”

  I let out a high-pitched squeak as Jace pulls my panties down my legs.

  “These are going to go in my other pocket,” Jace says, “And if you keep disobeying me like this, I’m going to have quite the collection pretty soon.”

  Jace runs a hand up my dress, rubbing the skin of my inner thigh.

  “Are you ready?” he asks, ripping open a foil packet and sheathing himself.

  I nod.

  “Good,” Jace say, lifting up my dress and sliding himself between my thighs. If Jace had rammed himself inside me
and started pounding away like he did last time, I might have actually come right there on the spot.

  But Jace probably knows that, so instead, he slides in nice and slow, making me take him one inch at a time as he slowly pumps in and out.

  It feels insanely good to get fucked like this, but at this rate, it’s going to be forever before I actually come.

  “Jace, this isn’t fair,” I moan, and Jace responds by going even slower.

  Shit. There’s no way I can talk myself out of this. If I want our secret to stay intact, the only thing I can do is get off as quickly as possible.

  Accepting my fate, I bury my face into my upper arm and push myself backwards against Jace’s cock, moaning softly with every gentle thrust. I’m hoping that if Jace can forget about trying to punish me, his natural instincts will take over and he’ll start thrusting into me harder.

  Thankfully, it works. The feeling of my hips pushing against his starts to drive him crazy, and eventually, he gives up on going slow, grabs my hips, and starts absolutely hammering away at me.

  The change in speed brings me right to the edge. I’m definitely a little too loud for a little too long, but after a couple minutes, I finally come, moaning into my shoulder and backing up even further onto Jace, who shudders and finishes at the same time.

  Then, still half-crazy from the sex, I slide off of Jace, pull my dress down over my now-bare ass, and walk to the other side of the stage, as far away from Jace as possible.

  “We should get back to the party,” I say, “So no one notices we’re gone.”

  “Fuck that,” Jace says, “It’s all snakes out there. I just want to keep hanging out with you.”

  He starts walking over to me, looking like he wants to take me into his arms, but before he can, the conference room door opens. It’s Glenn.

  Thank God I came when I did.

  “Oh,” he says, “Hey. Are you two using this room?”

  “Uh…” I say, “We were just leaving.”

  “Okay, cool. I think I’m going to sit here and finish the story.”

  Glenn walks down into the front row and sits in one of the seats.

  “Isn’t your deadline at the end of next week?”

  Glenn laughs.

  “Is that what I told you? It’s tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. What are you two doing in here, anyway?”

  Glenn’s drunken eyes look up at me with a hint of suspicion.

  “Uh…we were…”

  “They’re all asking about you out there, you know.”

  “Oh, well…”

  Jace cuts me off before I can think of something to tell Glenn.

  “It was just overwhelming out there. Not just for Haley, for both of us. We’re pretty young to be in this kind of position, you know? On top of the world? Until we’re used to it, we just have to get away from it all once in a while.”

  Glenn is quiet for a few seconds.

  “Yeah, man. I get that. That’s…that makes a lot of sense.”

  Glenn pulls out his spiral notebook and starts writing in it.

  “Feel free to use this space,” Jace says, “Haley and I are going to head back up to the suite.”

  Jace jumps off the stage and heads towards the conference room doors. As we enter the ballroom again, a few men in suits approach Jace and want to talk business.

  “I’ll meet you at the elevator,” he says, and I keep walking.

  Leaving the ballroom feels like lifting a huge weight off my shoulders. As I wait for Jace to come out and meet me, I lean against the wall of the empty lobby and try to relax.

  Chapter 27: Jace

  “Snakes,” I say, leading Haley through the open elevator door.

  When I was up there on that podium, speaking to a huge crowd of millionaires that were pretending to hang on my every word, all I could think about was how fast they would bring me down if they could. Growing up, I used to think my mom was crazy, but the more time I spend around serious business types, the more I realize that she’s probably just copying what she sees.

  “Do you want to go back to the suite?” Haley asks.

  “Nah, too many people could find us there.”

  I look at the columns of elevator buttons, wondering where the two of us could get the most privacy.

  “You know what?” I say, “Let’s go to the roof.”

  “We can get on the roof?” Haley asks.

  “Technically.”

  ***

  After taking a couple flights of wicked metal stairs, we come out onto the roof of the Fisher Building. It’s pretty fucking cold up here, so I wrap my blazer around Haley’s shoulders as the two of us look out over the city.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Haley turns to me, chewing on her lip like she’s embarrassed by what she’s about to say. “What’s with the ink?”

  I immediately burst out laughing. “What, don’t you like it?”

  “Yeah, but…I’m just a little surprised, is all. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d do.”

  “Right, why risk ruining what’s already perfect? I didn’t have any tattoos until the app blew up and I started meeting with all these business big shots. Everyone was trying to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do if I wanted to succeed. Then they started telling me who I should or shouldn’t be if I wanted to succeed. They wanted me to be like them, wearing suits every day, talking like a damn robot. But fuck that. So I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I’m going to do what I want to do and I’m going to be who I want to be, and that’s what this ink is. A promise.”

  “I get that.”

  “It also makes girls like you ridiculously wet.”

  Haley elbows me in the ribs, but she doesn’t deny it. Instead, she takes my hand and leads me over to the edge of the roof so she can look down at the street.

  “Did you mean what you said down there?” Haley asks.

  “When?”

  “When we were talking to Glenn, and you said you overwhelmed by it all sometimes.”

  “I mean, mostly I was just trying to give him a good quote so he stopped asking questions. He can put that stuff about us being a little too young for this at the end of his article and his bosses will like it, and then he’ll stop snooping around.”

  “So you were just covering our asses?”

  “That’s why I said it, but yeah, I guess I kind of feel like that sometimes.”

  Haley smiles.

  “Okay,” she says, “Is it wrong if that makes me happy?”

  I shake my head and shrug, and Haley snuggles closer, taking my arm and pulling it around her body.

  “Good,” she says, “Because I feel like that a lot, and I thought I was the only one who did.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say, “Forget about what these people think. We’re on top of a skyscraper that I built, and I’m only here because I didn’t care about all the people that told me I was naïve, or too young, or making a horrible mistake.”

  “But I’m only here because of you.”

  “Yeah, because I knew you were selling yourself short out in California, and I wanted to help you see what you can really do. You feel stronger now than you did in San Diego, right?”

  “Yeah, I feel like a whole different person.”

  “Good,” I say.

  Haley looks up at me.

  “I’m glad I came to get you,” I say.

  “I’m glad you came to get me, too,” she says, turning away from the edge of the roof and looking at me with the lights of the city reflected in her eyes.

  Then, just like that, it happens. I fucking kiss her. And I know it’s technically not the first time I’ve kissed her, but this is different. This isn’t the desperate, hungry making out that I’m used to. This is a real fucking kiss, the type you can only share with someone you really care about, and all I want to do right now is keep kissing Haley right here on this roof.

  Haley pulls her mouth deeper into mi
ne, and I pull her body closer, loving the way she smells, feels, tastes.

  I’ve kissed a lot of girls in my life, but I’ve never really felt anything like this before. Something about this just feels…right.

  After a few minutes, I start wanting more, so I pull my blazer off Haley’s shoulders and start running my fingers down her body. My hand finds her calf, and slowly travels up until I’m almost underneath her dress, but before I make it there, Haley pushes hard away from me.

  “What?” I ask.

  Haley looks across the roof with a terrified expression on her face, and as soon as I follow her gaze, I find out why.

  Fucking Amber. She’s standing on the other side of the roof with a huge smile on her face and the craziest psycho eyes I’ve ever seen. How the hell did she get up here?

  “I knew it, you’re fucking her.”

  Amber walks up to us with anger in her eyes, the wind ruining her hair.

  “What are you talking about?” I say, “Are you drunk?”

  Not like I need to ask. She’s really drunk. She looks like the wind might knock her over.

  “I wondered why you wanted a loser like her to join the company, and now I know.”

  “So you’re just going to tell everyone that you went up on the roof of the building and saw us…doing what? We were just talking.”

  “Oh, sure, okay, you were two seconds away from ripping her clothes off, but you were just talking.”

  “First of all, that’s not true, and second of all, who would believe you? It would be your word against ours.”

  “I don’t know,” says Amber, “But someone will.”

  “You think? Well, if you’re going to go around telling lies about me, then I really have no choice but to fire you.”

  “Fine,” says Amber, “Who needs you? I’ll make more money bringing this whole place down.”

  “Alright,” I say, “Cool. What are you waiting for? There’s a whole room full of important people downstairs you can try and tell about this, and then we can see what happens.”

  “You’re right,” Amber says, staggering towards the stairs, “Thanks for the tip. Enjoy the view while you can,”

  “Don’t trip on the way down,” I say.

  Amber closes the door behind her, and the metallic sound of her heels on the stairs gets further and further away. When I look over at Haley again, she’s crying.