“Oh, no, I can call a cab,” I said, but Ava put her hand up to stop me.
“It’s my house. I’m pretty sure they’re all there. Come on, I got this,” she said and took the bill to the register.
A few minutes later we were at Ava’s house, and all the guys were crowded around a dining room table. Tom spotted me and must have seen the look on my face as he approached.
“What’s going on?” he asked, concerned.
I explained to him what Landon told me, and his eyes grew big and he hung his head.
“Shit. Okay. Well, there’s nothing I can do here right now anyway. The insurance adjuster just left and said things are looking good for getting the insurance money, but we can’t focus on rebuilding until we figure out what exactly the cause of the fire was. So, let’s just get back to the hotel. I need to work on this code.”
15
Tom
The alarm on my phone buzzed, and I reached over without opening my eyes to shut it off. It had been a long night of trying to work out the kinks in the coding, and I hadn’t hit the sack until just a few hours ago. We had hit a wall around three, and I called it off, figuring we could hit it with fresh, well-rested eyes around ten. My alarm, as usual, was set for a good hour before that, and I planned on hitting the snooze button at least once.
Then I smelled the coffee.
One eye opened experimentally, scanning the immediate distance in front of me. On the table next to the couch where I was still lying face down, my phone sat buzzing, just out of reach of my hand, and beyond it was a still-steaming cup of coffee. I leaned a bit to get to the phone and clicked the button on the side to silence it before propping myself up a bit. Looking back behind me, I saw Amanda’s smiling face, a cup in her own hands.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning,” I said, the words coming out in a rough grumble. “This coffee…”
“It’s from down the street. I’ve been up a little while and figured you could use a pick-me-up,” she said.
“Well, thank you,” I said, sitting up fully and reaching for the cup. It was at that point I realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt, as the blanket I had curled down into fell away. In my periphery, I saw Amanda suddenly look straight up at the ceiling. As I grabbed the cup and pulled it to me, however, I happened to catch her glance back down a few times. I had to hide a satisfied grin.
“So,” she said, clearly wanting to fill the silence, “I got a couple of really solid hours of sleep in, and when I woke up it hit me. What if the glitch isn’t a glitch? What if it’s something we hardwired in?”
“You mean it’s not a glitch, it’s a feature?” I asked, which received a laugh from Amanda. I marveled at how much I enjoyed hearing that sound come out of her. Or how much I just enjoyed watching her mouth in general.
“Something like that.”
“Amanda, that’s great! That means all we have to do is rewrite the coloring code to adjust. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“We were very tired last night,” she said, looking away again as I sat the coffee down and reached for a T-shirt. I pulled it on, and she looked back over. “I’m sure someone would have caught it in the next day or so.”
“Maybe,” I said, going back to the coffee and taking a deep drag. It was dark and bitter, and it was doing the job of waking me up. Though certain parts of my body had been awake since the moment I saw Amanda, but I was keeping that information to myself. I looked at her for a moment and then sat the coffee down, turning to her. “Why haven’t you ever asked to be moved to another department? You’re really good at this stuff.”
There was a moment where she seemed flustered, and then she turned back to face the laptop, like it would give her the answer she was looking for. She took a big gulp of her coffee and then looked over it to me again.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just really like my job and working with you.”
“And I think you’re fantastic at what you do, but seriously, you should try this out. You have a talent for coding that surpasses a lot of people that have been doing it for years. Maybe I could put you on a project and see how you do?”
She seemed to think about it for a minute and then nodded. “Yeah, that could be fun,” she said. Still, there was something in her voice that told me that maybe it wasn’t exactly what she wanted. Some people needed the confidence of another person telling them they were good at something to take the leap, and she was good. Really, shockingly good. If I could give her that shove and she found something she was even better at than being my assistant, it could be a whole new career for her.
Standing, I drained the rest of the mug and grabbed the clothes I wanted to wear for the rest of the day.
“I’m going to grab a shower,” I said. “Then we can get down to business figuring the rest of this thing out.”
* * *
The afternoon was winding down, and I was getting increasingly stressed-out. As we moved further and further into the prototype engine, more coding issues were popping up faster than we could solve them. I knew the team back at the office was working on it, too, but we needed the engine up and running immediately for beta testers. For the third time in the last hour, I picked up my phone.
“Thanks, Kiesha, keep up the good work. I’ll check in one more time before you guys get out of there,” I said, hanging up the phone.
“Any luck?” Amanda asked, turning in the desk chair and stretching her arms high over her head. I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander to the way her cleavage pushed together when she did, and then snapped back to the laptop on my lap.
“Not really,” I said. “Small fires being put out, but the big one is still a problem. Every time the team goes in to modify the source code, it just knocks something else out of alignment. I’m getting worried we might have to start from scratch.”
“How long would that put you back?” she asked.
“Weeks. Maybe more. Months. It all depends, really.” I glanced down at the phone to check the time. “Alright, I’m going to call my brothers again and see what they’re getting done.”
Amanda nodded and stood. “I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, heading to the door. “A nice walk sounds good anyway. Anything, but that chair,” she said, smiling, and headed out. I hit the Call button on Mason’s number, and he answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Tom,” he said. He sounded frazzled. Immediately, I worried something had gone terribly wrong.
“Mason, what’s going on?” I asked.
“The same thing that was going on the last time you called an hour ago. Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, not nothing, nothing. Just nothing that will solve anything just yet.”
“So there’s something?”
“Well, I feel like we’re getting close to tying it all together with Danny, but it might take time.”
The conversation continued for a solid thirty minutes, and Amanda returned from her walk. When she saw me on the phone, she tried to duck back out, but I waved her in. I was on pins and needles and like I might lose it at any moment. The more Mason and then Jordan talked, the more I felt like I was losing a grip on everything. While we had been talking, I had gotten at least four text messages and two emails from the team at the office with questions and concerns. Then, just before Amanda came in, an investor emailed, and the tagline had simply said, “Glitches?”
“I have to go, Mason. Please, if anything else changes, call me.”
“I will, Tom,” Mason said. “Try to relax. We’ll get this figured out. It has to be Danny.”
I hung up the phone and stared over at Amanda. Even in my panic and worry, she was absolutely stunning. Something about the way she sat across from me, one leg bent over the other, drove me insane. More insane than everything else was at least.
“Amanda, could you email Richie and Paul and tell them I need status updates every hour. On the hour. Starting with one in ten minutes,” I asked.
&nb
sp; “Sure,” she said, pulling her tablet to her. “Did something happen while I was gone?”
“Nothing I want to mention to the team yet, but apparently word is leaking out we’re having trouble with the pre-beta. We need this fixed immediately.”
“An investor?” she asked, her eyes wide. I nodded. “On it,” she said and began drafting an email.
I stood up to pace the room, racking my brain to try to figure out the latest piece of the glitch puzzle. Two of my best debuggers had moved on to other companies in the last few months, and I was tempted to call them and offer them handsome bonuses if they could work as consultants on this for me. It would be a conflict of interest for at least one of them, who went, with my blessing, to a competitor. But at this point I was willing to take whatever help I could get, even from a supposed enemy.
“I know it seems hard right now,” Amanda said, putting the tablet down on her lap. “But everything is going to get figured out. The bugs, the bar, all of it, we are going to get it all figured out.”
“Do you really believe that?” I asked, now just a few feet from her. I sat down so we were just a foot or so apart, and she sat the tablet down on the table beside her.
“I do. You’re brilliant, and your brothers are smart guys, too. You will figure out the bar stuff, and together with the rest of the team, we will get these bugs fixed,” she said.
“I….” I said, trying to find the words that were swirling around in my brain. But none of them were coming. I couldn’t focus on anything except her lips. They were soft and baby pink. I wanted to touch them, to taste them on my own lips. I wanted to smell her skin and feel her body against mine. The drive to kiss her was overwhelming, and I tried to resist it, but it was no use.
I leaned forward, sliding one hand behind her head, and crushed my mouth into hers. A surprised sound came from her pursed lips, and I pushed further, and she slid back in the chair. Suddenly her lips opened, and she relaxed, and my tongue slid into her mouth, brushing against her own and tasting the forbidden fruit. I pulled her close to me, my mouth stretching to open further and hers doing the same. Her arms wrapped around me, and she shifted, so I pushed through between her legs to get to her more easily.
16
Amanda
I couldn’t think. It was as if my brain was an Etch-A-Sketch that had been shaken violently.
Our lips were pressed against each other, and his tongue was in my mouth. I registered that these were things, real things, all of which were really happening, but I had no idea how or why. My body was operating without any instruction from my brain, and I tried to resist the urge to pull at his shirt, to yank it off and throw it on the ground.
I leaned back, and he came with me, either by choice or because I knew my hands were now behind his neck and pulling him in. He slid to his knees on the floor between my thighs. Our kiss broke, and for a split second, I was afraid he was going to move away, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved his lips to my cheek, then my jaw, then the crux of my neck. My head fell back, and my mouth opened as I concentrated on the hot breath and growling, hungry sounds he made as he moved down to my collarbone. I was aware of his fingers pulling at the hem of my shirt, and I arched my back toward him, giving him more access.
Suddenly, my shirt was in the air, soaring toward the couch where he slept. The cool air of the hotel room created goosebumps along my arms and raised the hair on them. I didn’t care. His lips were pressing further down my chest and now settled between my breasts. His fingers were pulling at the clasp in the center. Then, it was open, and his mouth descended on one of them, taking the nipple onto his tongue, while his hand filled with the other.
I moaned at his touch, the soft strength of his tongue on me, licking me, tasting me as he made his way down further. It swept across my belly and back up before he pulled away, reaching for the waistband of my pants. I sat up to help him, and he pulled them down in one movement and tossed them away.
I was naked, fully exposed in front of my boss. The taboo and the excitement were overwhelming, and I felt more forward than I ever had. Like a switch had been flipped inside me, and every inhibition suddenly vanished. I reached for him and pulled him to me, and he went willingly, diving between my thighs.
Sounds bubbled up from deep in my chest as his tongue swept through the folds of my hot, wet pussy. I slid down in the chair and he hooked my legs over his shoulders as he swirled his tongue over my clit. A thick, strong finger slid inside me, and I cried out loudly as I clenched the arms of the chair. My grip tightened as he licked me, his finger sliding in and out, brushing the top walls and increasing in speed until I felt dizzy.
My skin was on fire, and my mind raced with one singular purpose. I wanted his body. And more than anything, I wanted to feel him inside of me, filling me, fucking me. I drove my hand into his hair to pull him up, but as I did, the tension that had been bubbling up inside me exploded, and I screamed out as a wild, untamed climax took control of me.
Tom’s strong hands clamped down on my thighs, holding me in place as I wriggled and writhed in his grip. His tongue pressed into my clit, and he seemed to derive pleasure in how much I bucked under him as he lapped me up. When I finally stopped shaking, I looked down and we made eye contact over my soft mound, and a burst of unbridled desire welled up in me. I pulled him up and slid out of the chair, turning him by his hips so he switched places with me. I yanked on his belt as our mouths met for another kiss, and his hands slid down to clasp my ass, clenching hard.
I could feel his hard, thick erection pressing against my core through his pants, and as I undid the belt, he nudged it toward me. One hand slid down to rub over the edge of it while the other undid the button of his slacks. When his pants dropped to the ground. I pushed him gently in the center of his chest, and he sat down in the chair. Kneeling between his legs, I pulled his waistband down slowly, my eyes trained on his own until the last moment.
Suddenly, his cock sprung free, as I got the boxers the rest of the way down, and my vision tunneled on it. He was huge and thick, and I wasted little time wrapping one hand around its base. He groaned as he undid the buttons of his shirt, opening them the rest of the way to reveal the chiseled abs underneath I had glimpsed earlier when he woke up. I scooted forward and met him with another kiss while I stroked him, the head of his long, incredible cock bouncing against one of my breasts.
I made my way down his neck, kissing him as he had done for me, until I was tracing my tongue over the ridges of his muscular chest and stomach. I tried to pace myself, but I was too excited, too eager, and I plunged my lips over the head of his cock, tasting the salty fluids that had gathered there. I circled my tongue around it, then slid him deep down my throat, trying to let myself relax so he could go as deeply as possible. The loud, rumbling groan from above me rattled through his body, and I felt the vibration on my tongue. As I slid back up, I stroked him, and his head fell back as he enjoyed the sensation.
I bobbed on him, feeling him harden even more under my grasp until suddenly, he grasped my hair and pulled me up. I thought he was going to guide me in a rhythm, but instead, he sat forward, pressing his mouth onto mine in a searing kiss and then guiding me to stand.
“Bedroom,” he growled, and the sound of his deep voice commanding me sent a shiver up my spine.
I darted into the bedroom and dove on top of the mattress, turning to face him. As he climbed in, he pulled at my legs so I landed on my back giggling. Climbing on top of me, his cock slid through my soaking folds and I braced myself for his colossal length to fill me. As the head found my opening, Tom leaned down to kiss me again, and I cried out into his mouth when his cock plunged into me.
He held me there, as my body shook and stretched, and I felt incredible ecstasy. Grasping the comforter, I balled it up in my hands and then dropped it to reach back, grabbing the rails of the bed frame for support. His hands slid up my body until they clasped around mine, and he rocked back before driving even deeper inside me.
&
nbsp; I wrapped my legs around him, holding him deep in my pussy, trying to find some measure of control. But the oncoming wave of another powerful orgasm was beginning to crash around me, and Tom continued to pound deep inside. His grip over my hands on the railing tightened as he rocked into me, and our eyes locked together. I watched as the pressure to release built on his face and the intensity and speed of his thrusts increased.
The climax began to bubble over, and I lost control of time, no longer paying any attention to the world around me, only existing in that very moment, our bodies locked together, his thick cock slamming into my soaked pussy. A roar built up from deep in his chest, and I let myself release along with him. My entire body lit up as he came, exploding inside me and filling me with his seed. I tensed along with him as he thrust a few more times, milking him for every drop until we both collapsed into each other, sweat beading from our brows, and the taste of one another on our lips.
If I had my choice, I could have just stayed there in his arms, kissing Tom languidly for the rest of the day, perfectly happy.
But that wasn’t reality. As I lay there cradled in his arms, my head against his chest so I could hear his heartbeat, he stroked his fingertips along my spine and ran his hand over my hair. The touch sent chills along my skin and kept my blood running hot through my veins.
My body couldn’t cool down completely while he was touching me that way. Brushing my lips across his skin, I was tempted to go for another round. As satisfied as he left me, I wanted more. A hunger low in my belly that felt like it would never be all the way filled up.
I swept one leg over him and eased up so I straddled him, ducking my head to kiss him. His hands came to my waist and pressed me down onto him as our mouths moved across each other. My lips parted to allow access to his tongue, and his fingertips pressed into my skin.
Taboo Boss: An Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 9