His Package

by Bloom, Penelope

  Price was staring at Kade with furrowed eyebrows. “You’re about five sentences past the part where this should have started having some relevance to what we’re talking about.”

  “I was going to say if she’s got an issue with bullshit, she could try what I did. My therapist just kept exposing me to more and more lettuce, bit by bit. He even had me listen to the sound in headphones while I watched my mouth in a mirror. Eventually, I got over it.”

  “Great,” I said. “So we put Price’s voice in some headphones, have me sit in a quiet room, and eventually I won’t want to hurt things from the sound of it?”

  “That’s the basic idea,” Kade said. “Yep.”

  “The basic idea is that you’re an idiot,” Price said.

  “Just because I’m big, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings that can be hurt.”

  Liam put his hand to his mouth to cover a smile. “They’re special. I know.”

  Kade and Price lost track of us as they descended into a back-and-forth argument over who was truly the stupid one.

  “I can’t judge. My friends are idiots, too.” I gestured toward Grammy, who was pulling down her sweatpants to show a crowd of well-dressed businessmen the top of her leopard-print thong.

  “Woah,” said Liam. “Is that kind of like a stripper you get as a gag?”

  “That’s the birthday boy’s grandmother-in-law.”

  Liam choked back a laugh. “I see.”

  Grammy noticed us looking at her and headed for us.

  “Oh shit. She sees us.”

  “Is that bad?” asked Liam.

  “You’ll see.”

  Grammy slid her glasses down to look at Liam. She didn’t make any attempt to hide that she was clearly checking him out from head to toe and liking what she saw. “Well, well, well. She was right about you. You do look like you’d have a huge cock.”

  I cringed. Grammy’s psychological torture had been particularly effective, and I hadn’t been given the option to hold back any detail, including the size of his penis, roughly speaking, at least. I wasn’t sure what reaction I expected, but when Liam turned to me with a grin, I was relieved. “Considering your expertise in dildos and the effectiveness of varying sizes, I’ll consider that a compliment. I’m sure you’ve had bigger, after all,” he said.

  I no longer even tried to lie to myself about the heat in my cheeks around Liam. I was definitely blushing. "This is Grammy," I said quickly. "She should probably be getting ready to lie down, so she doesn't die of exertion or something. Shouldn't she?"

  “Your life expectancy is going to be a hell of a lot shorter than mine if you try to shoo me away from this hunk of man meat, bubble tits.”

  “Bubble tits? Seriously?” I asked.

  “Look at those things. I’ve never seen such circular boobs before. You need to teach those puppies to sag a little like a real woman’s.”

  “Grammy,” I said under my breath. “I don’t know Liam well enough for you to be this weird in front of him. You’re going to scare him off.”

  Liam leaned forward and lowered his voice to match mine. “I can hear everything you’re saying, and nothing is going to scare me off, not even your bubble tits.”

  I slapped his arm, but he only grinned.

  “I happen to like them just the way they are. And I’m sure I’d like them if gravity decided to start paying attention to them.”

  Grammy nodded. “Told you. Men like a little sag. They want the weight of a boob in their hands. Give them a good two-pounder and they’ll cum on the spot.”

  “Grammy!” I snapped. “Just go, please. Don’t you have strippers to prepare for when William gets here?”

  She made a dismissive sound. “I’ll leave, but only because I’m bored of you. Not you, hunkie,” she said before pinching Liam’s cheek.

  “I like her,” he said.

  “Ugh. You have bad taste, then.”

  “I must, because I like you too.”

  “Yeah. See? You’re obviously an idiot.” I couldn’t stop myself from smiling anyway. He was looking at me with a glint in his eye, and it was doing a bunch of dumb, girly things to my body.

  “Wow,” Liam said. “Is that a stripper?”

  I laughed out loud when I saw William standing in the elevator with a surprised look on his face. He was butt naked except for generous amounts of whipped cream on his nipples and between his legs. He even had a cherry buried in the whipped cream on his right nipple, but the cherry on his left had either been eaten or fallen off.

  His entrance was met with stunned silence. Hailey put her hand to her face and hung her head in shame as a slow-forming smile spread William's lips. "Wow, Hailey," he said. "You invited me up here for a little bangaroo, and you brought this many people to watch? You kinky little vixen."

  “William,” she said in a warning voice. “It’s a surprise party. For your birthday.”

  “Oh, I know. Grammy left a receipt for strippers on my desk. She also had Lilith send out an email to some people in the office, and I knew you guys would plan something, so I was snooping through all the outgoing messages.”

  Bruce stepped forward with a look on his face that was somehow both surprised, but not surprised, or maybe it was that he was rotating back and forth between the two emotions. “You knew we’d all be waiting here and you came up wearing that?”

  “Surprise?” he asked.

  Hailey moved toward him and pushed him back into the elevator. He was so much bigger than her that seeing the small woman shoving the naked mountain of muscle back into the elevator was comical. William gave a quick wave and a smile before the elevator doors closed.

  “He’s dumber than I thought,” Grammy said. “But he looks good in whipped cream. I’ll give him that.”

  “That was your boss?” Liam asked.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “He normally wears more than that to work, right?”

  “Why, are you jealous?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows.

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes lingered on the elevator doors. A tingle of warmth rushed up my spine at the look on his face. I felt possessed, but in an oddly pleasant way. I saw in his features that he’d already claimed me as his own, marked me. He didn’t care how minor the threat was, and he wasn’t going to whine about it, but he was also going to be watching William like a hawk from now on.

  A few minutes later, William came back in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. He was grinning like an idiot, and Hailey was following closely behind him with her cheeks flushed red.

  “Hailey,” I said, catching her by the arm as she headed back into the party. “You’ve got whipped cream on your mouth. Harlot.”

  She put her hand to her lips and rubbed away the smear of white on her bottom lip. Her already-red cheeks grew even darker. “Thank you,” she murmured before fast-walking to catch up with William.

  Liam and I were both distracted by the parade of half-naked men that poured out of the elevator a few minutes later. Each of them wore nothing but neon yellow underwear. My eyes went past the men to Claire, who was leaning against the railing of the stairs. She was clearly waiting for me to notice her, because when I did, she gave me a subtle nod and then disappeared behind the stairs.

  I frowned. I hadn’t expected to see her at the party. I guess it shouldn’t have been a total shock, since she was there for the party a few nights ago. She must’ve known someone at the company, and I made a mental note to ask her who it was later. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to signal for me to come talk to her, but I felt weird introducing her to Liam. Maybe it was jealousy, or maybe it was just me being antisocial, but I didn’t want the two of them to meet. Even without ever seeing them together, something about the idea put me off, like anticipating a bad chemical reaction.

  After William had been enforced to endure lap dances from a team of oiled up male strippers, Liam and I found ourselves a quieter space away from the main group of the party and Grammy’s non-stop catcalls.

&n
bsp; Liam took a sip of his drink and gave me the kind of eyebrow raise and sigh that was universal shorthand for “well, that was interesting.”

  I nodded. "I've learned it's best if you don't stop to question anything that happened. I pretty much sectioned off a portion of my brain for dumping all the William and Grammy-related memories. I don't think about those if I can avoid it."

  “Good advice. They seem fun, though. Must be nice working for a guy who isn’t a hard ass.”

  I reached behind Liam and squeezed his ass. “Hard asses aren’t so bad.”

  He laughed.

  “But no, it’s not bad. It’s just not what I want.” I felt my breath catch a little. I hadn’t even told Emily about the fact that I was pursuing a business degree, or about my real dreams. I didn’t know why, but of all the things I kept to myself, it felt like the most precious. Yet I could feel it rising up, like the urge to share it with Liam was a building pressure that would make me burst if I held it in for much longer.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “It’s stupid, but remember how I said my parents decided they couldn’t have their business guru because they never had a boy?”

  He nodded slowly, and I could see understanding already seeping into his features. His inherent grasp of where my motivations came from made me fall for him even harder. It made me feel like I wasn’t so silly or ridiculous for using such a trivial thing to drive me to my goal.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I’ve always been about metaphorical middle fingers. What better way to make them pay for the way they raised me than to become their dream son, minus the penis, and to do it without their help? Oh, and to never give them a dime, no matter how much they beg.”

  Liam nodded appreciatively. “I wondered about that part. Some kids get so screwed up in the head that in your shoes, they’d still want to give money to their parents if they did make it big.”

  "I'm screwed up in the head, but not like that. They're currently running a car wash into the ground with their latest ill-advised loan. I don't think I'm cruel enough to ever let them go hungry or homeless, but that's as far as my mercy goes. So yeah, it's probably all a pointless fantasy, anyway. I set out to become some business badass, and here I am, years later, working as a secretary for that idiot and slowly building up crippling debt to get my Master's degree."

  “Am I allowed to offer you a job?”

  “No. The power fantasy is me doing something awesome and becoming the femme phenom of the business world. Not the ‘sucked dick to the top’ phenom.”

  “Technically, you haven’t sucked my dick. Not that I’m keeping track or anything, but it’s worth noting.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll do it when you beg.”

  He laughed. “I don’t remember making you beg to be eaten out. Either time,” he added.

  “That’s because you’re too nice and you passed up an opportunity to assert your dominance. I’m not going to make the same mistake. Beg, and I’ll do it. Otherwise, no sucky sucky.”

  There was a challenging flicker in his eyes. “If I get you horny enough, you’ll be the one begging me.”

  “Oh, I doubt it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Besides, how can you get me horny against my will? I’m pretty much immune to the usual acts of seduction. The two times we’ve been together, I chose to be seduced. There’s a big difference.”

  He grinned wolfishly. “Now you’ve made a mistake. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m competitive as hell, and you just challenged me.”

  “Somehow, I think I’ll survive.”

  He took a step closer. I stood my ground, which may or may not have been a mistake, because he was close enough that I could feel the heat pouring off his skin. My mind lit up with still frames of when we’d been together. Images of my fingers pressed into his sweat-beaded skin. The way my heels looked as they wrapped around his slim, muscular waist and slid against his hard ass. The way it felt when he breathed heat into my neck during his climax, and the way the scruff on his face scratched against my chest as he kissed me like he was starving for more.

  I swallowed, and it was, unfortunately, one of those cartoon swallows that made a loud clicking sound. He apparently had a talent for drawing those out of me. With considerable effort, I kept my eyes locked on his. Don’t show weakness. Don’t let him see that his penis has infiltrated your mind already. Don’t let him sense that your vagina, which has been mute your entire life, has spontaneously found a direct path to your thoughts and is currently trying to rewire the stubborn section of your brain so you’ll just give this gorgeous man exactly what he wants.

  He put his thumb on my lower lip and studied it. Every movement was deliberate. Slow. Careful.

  “It’s a lip,” I quipped, hoping to dispel some of the magic he was already working over me. “You looked confused by it,” I said when his eyes flicked up to mine with dangerous intensity.

  “I was just imagining how good it’d feel on my cock.”

  “Oh. I see you’re going with the direct approach here. Can I be direct too?”

  “Please.”

  “As much as I probably would enjoy it, I’m not about to get on my knees and suck you off in the middle of my boss’ birthday party. I’m also too stubborn to do it now that you said you’d make me beg, so we’re kind of at an impasse here.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Ever hear about classical conditioning? Basically, it shows that people can be trained just like animals. You pair a stimulus with a reward or a punishment, and you can encourage or discourage the behavior.”

  “Interesting, professor.”

  I jabbed his chest with my finger and grinned. “In other words. You should ask yourself what you had to do last time you got some action? What behavior was I rewarding?”

  “My memory is fuzzy. I remember falling on my ass. I remember you dragging me off the ice by my feet. Have I struck gold yet?”

  “You took me to do something cool and kinda romantic.”

  "Kinda? Damn. I thought the ice skating thing qualified at least as ‘pretty romantic.'"

  “On its own, yes. But your clumsy ass falling detracted a few points.”

  He smirked. “Well damn. If that was my reward for a sub-par performance, what do I get if I hit it out of the park?”

  “That blowjob you seem to want so badly, maybe?”

  “Deal. But you still have to beg. Your boss isn’t the only one with a fragile ego, you know.”

  “Somehow I doubt your ego is even close to fragile. So when do I get to see your romantic gesture? Tomorrow night?”

  He sighed. “I wish I could. I have to do a little after hours work tomorrow, but this weekend. I promise.”

  I didn’t let it show, but I felt giddy. Being around Liam made me feel a lot of ways I’d told myself I shouldn’t feel. Excited. Happy. Girly. Sexy. He made me feel like I didn’t have to run from all the qualities my parents had tried so hard to hammer into me, like I could finally relax and just be me for a change.

  I wondered if there was still a catch lurking, though.

  There was always a catch, after all. A free vacation package if you just show up to the meeting. A free iPhone if you click this advertisement. If it looked and sounded too good to be true, it probably was. And Liam looked the part. He was way out of my league, charming, nice, and even funny when he tried. For some reason, he liked me.

  So where was the catch?

  Before I met Liam, I was perfectly discontented to show up to work, help William avoid his responsibilities, and then deal with whatever homework or virtual classes I had to handle that night. It was boring, and it was tedious, but I was used to it.

  I knew I wasn't supposed to see him today, and I was trying my damnedest to not be a lovesick thirteen-year-old who mopes around all day because she can't hold her boyfriend's hand during study hall.

  I put on my normal, mildly annoyed expression and braced myself for a l
ong day.

  The office was quieter than normal. Our floor of the building was made up of the more eccentric “idea people” who helped William think of creative and groundbreaking new ways to market for Galleon’s clients. In theory, it was supposed to be a bunch of creative geniuses with massive IQs. In practice, it was more like a bunch of people who didn’t understand good hygiene and would go to extreme lengths to avoid actually sitting in their chairs. It was almost like sitting in a chair was some kind of social stigma. Whatever it was, men and women on our floor were always perched on the edges of desks, on flower pots, in alcoves built into the walls, or even on the floor in kindergarten-style semi-circles for reading time.

  They were all ridiculous, and I had never met anyone I actually liked among them.

  So when a girl I vaguely recognized and her super thick-framed glasses and I went to an Ivy League College face came up to my desk, I made sure to ignore her and her subtle coughs to get my attention.

  “Lilith!” She finally snapped. “Some woman is here for you. Can I send her in?”

  “Who is she?”

  “She said her name is Claire.”

  “Oh. Uh, yeah, sure. Send her in.”

  Claire came wandering toward my desk a minute later. She was looking around the office with an interested expression, but once she spotted me, her features darkened.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I kind of need to admit something. And I hope you’re not going to hate me for it, I really do.”

  “No promises,” I said.

  She gave a half-hearted grin. “Meeting you wasn’t actually an accident. The night I hid under the front desk because a guy was giving me a hard time? Well, you actually know the guy.”

  “Was it William?” I asked. My heart was already pounding at the thought of that idiot betraying Hailey’s trust. She was the sweetest thing in the world, and if he—

  “It was Liam. He was my boyfriend at the time, and he accidentally let it slip that he’d asked the girl across the hall on a date. I’ve always had issues with jealousy, and I… I took it too far. I had to meet you. I wanted to see what he liked about you more than me. I dug around, found out where you’d be, and I showed up.”