Take Me to Bed: A Collection of Naughty Bedtime Stories

by Michelle Windsor

  Nina: What cat toys?

  Jana: Shut up.

  The next text message is just a cartoon of a cat on its back, laughing. I roll my eyes and climb out of bed. The phone rings as I’m brewing my first cup of coffee.

  She’s still laughing. “I’m surprised it took you that long to call me out on it.”

  I look at the flowers, tucked carefully in the corner of the counter so the cats won’t knock them over. “I was busy.”

  “In a knockin’ boots kind of way?”

  “In a none of your business way. What are you going to Belgium for?” I open the pantry door and pull out the cat food. Breakfast for everyone, and they know it. I feed them while Nina tells me about her work trip, then I put on toast and turn the TV on, keeping the volume down.

  “So yeah, it’ll be kind of a whirlwind trip, but I get to go through Paris, and that’s fun.”

  “Sounds like it. I bet—” I stop mid-sentence, because something caught my eye on the TV. I’m not sure what at first. There’s a newscaster talking about the CEO of Aston Corp, and the photo over her shoulder is the company’s logo. But then it changes as she talks. SwiftEx. Maybe that was it. “Hang on, Nina.” I turn up the volume. “Sorry, there’s something on the news about SwiftEx.”

  She giggles. “And just because your crush delivers for them…”

  “I’m just staying current on the news, that’s all. Shush.”

  Apparently most of the executive team from SwiftEx was fired this morning by the parent company that recently bought them. The newscaster recaps those details, then says, “We’ll go now to the lobby of the Aston Corp building here in New York where founder and CEO, Jake Aston, is holding a press conference.”

  “What channel?” Nina asks, but I can’t answer her, because Jake is on TV.

  My Jake.

  Of the flowers and orgasms and pretending to be a regular Joe at my doorway for the last three weeks.

  Jake Aston knows what I look like mostly naked.

  Oh my God. Jake Aston knows what I look like when I come.

  “I gotta go,” I whisper, then hang up the phone, because there’s no way I can explain this without sounding like a crazy stalker.

  I look at the flowers again, then the television screen. I move closer, my hand shaking as I try to find Jake’s text message again.

  Jake: I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.

  I hadn’t replied yet, because I was playing it cool and thanking him for the flowers was enough.

  But what do I do now? Do I tell him I’ve seen him on TV? Do I…not? Can I keep pretending that I don’t know who he really is?

  I sit down on the ottoman in front of the TV. A cat leaps into my lap and I absently scratch Larken behind the ears as I devour Jake-in-a-suit with my eyes.

  I like him in his uniform, but this? This is off the charts hot.

  And then I feel a crazy pang of guilt. He doesn’t want me to know who he is. He wants to be just Jake, at the door. If he wanted me to know who he was, he’d have found a way to tell me.

  The next thought to slam through me is…he doesn’t want me to know for a reason. Anonymous hook-ups followed by a generous bouquet of flowers is probably his modus operandi.

  I look down at the phone in my hand. Right. No replying to his text. Maybe he’ll be in touch, maybe he won’t. But he’s not really SwiftEx driver who lives in Baltimore, so does it really matter?

  12

  Jake

  Christmas Eve

  “Should I even ask if you’re doing anything for the holidays?” Cath asks as she sets the leather folder of letters for me to sign at the right-hand side of my desk.

  I don’t look up. “I’m going to my mother’s for dinner tomorrow.”

  “And tonight?”

  “I don’t want to have dinner with you and Vince.”

  She laughs. “Vince is working, and I’m going to Mass with his parents. I assume you’re not interested. It was more of a general reminder that tonight isn’t a night to be working.”

  I glance up. “Of course not. I’m heading out soon.”

  It’s a lie, but she lets it go.

  Once I sign everything, she disappears again, and I reach for my phone. I’ve only texted Jana once since I came back to New York, after she thanked me for the flowers. Something’s held me back from reaching out again. I don’t want to make any false promises to her. The reality is I’m needed here. I’m probably not going to be able to return to my undercover boss routine, ever. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to find a way to see her again…but it hasn’t happened this month and I feel like shit about that.

  But I’d feel even worse if I didn’t reach out to the one person I’d actually like to spend tonight with.

  Jake: Merry Christmas, beautiful.

  She replies almost right away.

  Jana: Hey! Merry Christmas to you as well. I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you.

  Jake: Sorry about the radio silence.

  What do I say next? I miss you? You’re the first person I thought of when my assistant pointed out how sad and lonely my life is? I settle for something way less emo.

  Jake: I’m still out of town.

  Jana: Me too, actually. Flew to my parents’ for a week.

  Jake: Where’s that?

  Jana: Vermont. They’re ski nuts.

  Jake: Do you ski?

  Jana: Sometimes. I brought work with me.

  I laugh. Maybe I miss her because for all our differences, we’ve got a lot in common. Both workaholics.

  Jake: Sounds about right.

  Jana: I’m being summoned for a rousing game of Monopoly. But…you should text me again soon.

  Jake: I will. Drink some hot apple cider or something for me.

  I wait until the building is empty, then I call and place an order for Chinese food to pick up on my way home. I go to sleep thinking about playing strip Monopoly with Jana. Trading railway properties for sexual favors. That morphs into a fantasy of a Christmas Eve not spent in a sterile Upper West Side co-op, but in Jana’s cozy apartment in Baltimore. Stockings hung for cats and kittens and humans alike. Cookies for Santa and over-the-top Christmas decorations everywhere.

  Never in my life have I been a sentimental man.

  But my last thought as I drift off is that I should probably find an evening to fly up to Vermont this week.

  13

  Jana

  Four days after Christmas

  I’m trying to decide between a fuzzy sweater and a cute plaid shirt—both Christmas presents to myself that I bought in the village yesterday—when my sister yells up the stairs. “Jana, you’ve got a delivery!”

  Ugh. Sometimes I hate how accessible I’ve made myself to my company. There’s not even anyone really there this week. A skeleton staff answering phones and fielding emails, but my editor and director and the VP they report to are all on vacation.

  That didn’t stop me from agreeing to proof a couple of card designs so they could go into production the first week of January.

  Almost everything we do is digital these days, but as the artist with my signature in the corner of the design, I have it worked into my contract that I get to sign off on a physical proof of the final copy before they go into the full print run.

  It’s important, and a quality assurance step I wouldn’t want to give up. But it means that I need to have a quick turnaround on my approvals, and be accessible wherever I am in the world. When I went to Italy for my birthday last year, clearing those two weeks from my schedule was surprisingly difficult.

  I need to get better at the whole work-life balance thing or I’m never going to have a social life.

  And no, almost banging a billionaire doesn’t count, because after the almost-banging, he disappeared from my life—which just proves that I’m attracted to workaholics just like myself.

  It’s so freaking unhealthy.

  What I should do is check these cards out, approve them online, and then get out there on
the ski hill. Meet a ski bum and find a way to drop the hint that I’m an easy lay.

  I’m not, really. Or at least I haven’t been historically. Jake is the fourth guy I’ve ever been with. But I was totally easy for him. Maybe it’s the start of a new and exciting trend.

  I grab the sweater, then throw it back on the bed. The plaid shirt over a tank top would show off some cleavage. Probably covering my entire torso in an inch of fluff is the wrong message to send if I want to get over Jake with the help of a snowboarder.

  I pick up the sweater again. Nope. I don’t want to do that. Not yet.

  “Jana!” My sister sounds exasperated now.

  Great. I take a deep breath as I round the top of the staircase.

  “I can just sign for her,” she says, and I shake my head. I already know what the driver’s going to say.

  “Sorry, ma’am, but this requires the recipient’s signature only.”

  I trip over my feet, because while I was totally expecting those words, I was not expecting that voice.

  Jake.

  In Vermont.

  Then I smile.

  Really, really big. Because how is he going to explain suddenly having a delivery route in Vermont, at my parents’ ski chalet?

  I smirk to myself and hurry down the last flight of stairs. For the first time in a week, I don’t curse the fact I had to sleep in the small bedroom on the third floor. Otherwise he’d have had the upper hand in this encounter, and after three weeks of almost complete silence, that wouldn’t be right.

  Of course, he did call me beautiful on Christmas Eve. That was nice. On the other hand, we haven’t spoken again. He doesn’t know how lucky he is that I’m wearing the fluffy sweater.

  “Jana!” My sister turns as she hollers, and I stop right in front of her.

  “Yes?”

  “Delivery.” She points to the door. “But…”

  I step around her and check Jake out for myself. Oh, I get the but now. He does in fact have a package for me—and not the dirty kind. A familiar cardboard box is in one hand, and his SwiftEx clipboard is in the other.

  Something important is missing, though. “Where’s your uniform?” I ask, swinging the door open.

  He steps inside, suddenly taking up all the room in the small foyer. Big and broad and impeccable in black. Intense, too. Suit-Jake operates at a different level than Uniform-Jake. His jaw flexes as he gives a little shrug. “Too cold in Vermont. They banned them.”

  My lips twitch. Suit-Jake has a dry sense of humor. “And gave you all Armani suits instead?”

  “It’s Hugo Boss.” He gives me a weird look and I give him one right back. He grins. “Hi.”

  And there’s the Jake I know. The butterflies that had flocked to the ready in my tummy now take off. “Hi.”

  He holds my gaze for a moment, then drops his attention to my lips—shivers—and then breaks away to look around the foyer. “So…skiing, huh?”

  I want to drag him to a dark corner and kiss him senseless, but I don’t know where we stand. So I take the more sensible approach and stick with the cover story he’s provided. I point to the package. “Actually, I have work to do. So if you want me to sign for that…”

  He hands over the clipboard and I gesture for my sister to close the door behind him. I ignore the what the fuck look she’s trying to shoot me. I don’t know what exactly is going on here, either, but the parts I do know are mine and mine alone.

  He leans in as I scrawl my name. His voice is low and tugs at something hot and hungry inside me. “Any chance you’re free for lunch?”

  Yes, are you crazy? Of course I am. But I don’t say that. I smile to myself and keep my face down. He doesn’t need to see how pleased I am. “You don’t have other deliveries to make?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Oh?” It’s mock-innocence. I can put the pieces together. I know he pulled some rank to bring me this package. I know who he is, and he’s obviously not pretending anymore, but he hasn’t said that, and it’s weird. I know you’re worth the GDP of a few small nations, and that’s kind of freaky. Yeah, I can’t bring it up. I’ll bungle it.

  “Jana…” His voice is suddenly low, rough, and loaded with meaning.

  I slowly lift my head.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “I…” I do a quick mental count of the rooms in the condo. My room is technically private, but it’s up on the third floor and that feels very high-school for the conversation I think we’re going to have.

  There’s no way I want to traipse a billionaire up three flights of stairs to sit on a twin bed and have a conversation I’m sure my brother and sister will try to eavesdrop on through the ventilation system.

  I shake my head. “Not really.”

  He nods. “Okay. We could go to Starbucks. I saw one back there in the Santa’s Village-esque center of town.”

  Uh… He’s dressed like something straight out of Wall Street and I’m… I glance down. Okay, I’m presentable. I’m wearing black leggings and these extra-long wool socks that look like men’s work socks, with the red stripe around the top, but they’re the perfect length to peek out the top of tall boots.

  It was the perfect outfit when I was planning to hit that very same Starbucks to do some work.

  Now it’s leggings next to Hugo Boss.

  We’re so mismatched it’s not funny. But I don’t want to do this here, so Starbucks it is. I grab my parka, pull on my boots, and follow him outside.

  Instead of a SwiftEx truck, there’s a stretch limo at the foot of the path.

  I skid to a halt.

  He stops with me, even though it’s thirty degrees out and he’s not wearing a coat. “What is it?”

  “I miss the uniform,” I blurt out. “And the truck. I can handle that Jake. He was—”

  “More your type?”

  “Not exactly.” More my league, but I don’t want to say that out loud. I don’t want to point out how not in his league I am.

  “Funny story.” He steps closer and tugs at the open edges of my coat. “I’m not really a SwiftEx driver.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Was it the suit?”

  “Well, I don’t know if it was the same suit. Probably not. You probably wear them once and then donate them to homeless vets. But yeah, it was a suit. On you. On the news.”

  “Ah.” He has the good graces to look chagrined. “How long have you known?”

  “The morning after…” God, why am I blushing? It so doesn’t matter. “You know.”

  “I had to go back to New York.”

  “I saw.”

  “I’m sorry for not being honest.”

  “Whatever. I bet telling chicks you’re rich is kind of weird.”

  “They usually just know.”

  “Oh, great.”

  He laughs, and I don’t want him to laugh. I don’t want him to be comfortable with this reality because I am so not. “Jana, I’ve missed you.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Well, I’m…funny. And you know, my sock collection is amazing. So yeah, of course it makes sense that you missed me. Your life is obviously lacking in jokes and socks.”

  He leans in, his breath puffing in the freezing air, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Very much so.”

  “Jake—”

  Whatever protest I was going to weakly offer disappears as he kisses me. It’s rough, but it’s right, too. The confusing push and pull between excitement over seeing him and nerves over not being enough fades as he hauls me close. One arm wraps around my hips, the other around my shoulders, and his grip is possessive. I like that, a lot. But the best part is the slightly out of control way he pulls at my lower lip with his teeth before teasing into my mouth with his tongue, hot and dirty and demanding.

  Like he just can’t help himself.

  And the groan he makes as I lick back at him, because I’m hungry for this too? That’s amazing. I pre
ss up on my toes. I want him to make that sound again. I want to make him make all the sounds.

  Groans. Grunts. Dirty words that slide into desperate moans.

  We don’t need to go to Starbucks. We need to be alone, stat. “Jake,” I whisper as I lick my way out of his mouth.

  He squeezes my butt as he drops his head to my neck. “I know. Coffee.”

  “No.” God, no. “How discreet is your driver?”

  Between us, his erection flexes. He exhales roughly. “I’ve got a hotel room.”

  “That’s even better.”

  14

  Jake

  I had a whole seduction plan, but that’s gone out the window. Good. Plans are overrated.

  My driver is waiting when we reach the car. I give him a terse instruction to take us to the hotel, then help Jana into the warm limo.

  Then I tug her into my lap and out of her parka.

  She looks like she walked off the cover of a Land’s End catalogue, if Land’s End sold sex. I tell her that and she laughs.

  “I’ve missed that sound,” I say tightly, because every part of me is wound up right now.

  “Oh?” She leans in and brushes her lips against mine. “You could have called.”

  “I should have.” I catch her lower lip between my teeth and her breath hitched. “I was busy. Not an excuse, but I couldn’t spare the time to come and explain in person, and I didn’t want to…pretend.”

  Instead of pulling away, she leans in and kisses me, slow and deep. She licks her way into my mouth, and I think, this is not the same woman I left in Baltimore. When she eases back, it’s only far enough to look at me. She slowly slides her index finger across my bottom lip, wet from her mouth. “Here’s the thing, Mr. Aston.” She catches the corner of her lip, her top teeth sinking into pink flesh, and beneath her lap my cock thumps his approval of her using my whole name. “This might surprise you to know, but all the major news networks do a pretty comprehensive job of covering your companies. I don’t always pay attention, but now that I know who you are, I take note. So I know you’ve been busy.”