by Timms, Lexy
This might totally go up in flames. In fact, I was sure that it would. But why not enjoy it, while it lasted? No point in going home just now. Might as well see where it led.
I submitted to his touches, letting him use me as he wanted to. He was gentle and tender, and that was all that I could ever ask for in a man.
But Daniel still, somehow, managed to go above and beyond.
He laid me down on his bed as though I were as fragile as a piece of spun glass. He kissed his way along the length of my body, looking up at me as though trying to make sure that I was still okay with all of this. He slid his fingers into my core, lightly stroking at the spots where I was most vulnerable.
I had never felt quite like this before. I had never felt quite this needy and turned on. But then again, I had never been with a guy like Daniel before. He really seemed to want me to cum. He really seemed to care about my pleasure.
And that in itself was heady. That was something I wanted more than I could explain.
He tongued his way down the length of my body, and then, staring deep into my eyes, he lined himself up against my entrance.
In that moment, it hit me. This was my boss. The head of the company that I currently worked for. The guy I had studied in college. The guy that Leanne and Matt had warned me against. The guy that the tabloids had only bad things to say about. But none of that mattered in that instant.
I trusted him. And not only that, but I had the feeling that he trusted me as well.
I leaned back against the pillows, letting him spread me wide for his own use, and nearly sobbed as he thrust inside of me.
It was so much more than I’d expected, bigger than I had ever had before, but it was so perfect at the same time. He gave me a moment to adjust, letting me just breathe and focus on the incredible feeling of him filling me. Then, he slowly began to rock into me, pressing toward the very end of my hole, letting me feel the whole length of him, letting me feel like I could barely breathe for the feeling of him inside of me. He wasn’t rough but rather tender, something I hadn’t expected.
I had to wonder if he was like this with all of the people he slept with, all those women who showed up in the tabloids, but of course, I couldn’t ask that. I gave a full-body shiver as he pulled almost all the way out of me and then pushed back in again.
He continued to rock into me, picking up the pace more and more until I was gasping with the feel of it, until I could barely believe how well he fit into me, until I knew that it was only a matter of time until I flew apart into a thousand pieces.
“Please,” I whimpered, squirming against the sheets, my fingers twisting into the soft, silken material.
Daniel gave an incredulous laugh, as though he could barely believe that I was begging him to cum. “Please yourself,” he said. He groaned as I twisted and my hole tightened against his length. “Abby.”
It was my name that really did it for him. He slammed into me one last time and then spilled into me, his eyes widening as though he had barely expected that. And as for myself, I hadn’t expected it either, or expected what his cumming would do to me.
Something twisted in my gut, as I realized that he found this just as good as I did. That he wanted me, not just any one of those other women he had ever gone home with. Something made me clutch for him, holding his body close against mine. We were both breathless with the feeling of it all, our two bodies coming together like that, and I couldn’t have let him go if I had wanted to.
My walls clenched around him again and again and again, as I cried his name hoarsely into his empty, lonely house. But it didn’t feel so lonely just then.
He collapsed down next to me on the bed, and it was like we were the only people there in the world, let alone in the house. His hands moving in gentle caresses against my skin as I calmed down, my own fingers clutching for him as I drifted endlessly away.
I couldn’t be his. I knew it right there and right then, in that instance. He was something more than I could ever hope for. He was Daniel McGregor, beloved of all the paparazzi in Chicago—and the women, moreover.
I couldn’t have him, and there was no point in trying. And that, in itself, felt like a stake stabbed into my heart. I knew that I should get up and walk out of there, that I should go home, that I shouldn’t make this into something more than it was.
But as I started to roll away from him, Daniel reached out one warm hand and settled it on my hip, just like he had done when we had kissed before. “Stay?” he asked, and I could hear something hopeful and almost needy in the way he said it.
I glanced back over my shoulder at his face and knew that I had no choice in it. Sure, he would have let me leave if I really wanted to. But seeing that hope in his face, I suddenly had no heart to upset him. I smiled and settled back against him, and he wrapped his arms around me.
Chapter 21
Daniel
I HAD TO ADMIT THAT I was surprised when Abby had been so willing to go home with me the night before. Obviously, I could tell she was interested in me, and the date had gone well. But I still had expected her to draw a very firm line. That she would go home alone for the night and that I would have to take her on another date, or another string of dates, if I wanted her to come home with me.
Instead, she’d made it known that she wanted this just as badly as I did.
There was just that one moment of indecision, right there at the end. She had almost left, like she thought that was what I wanted from her. I hadn’t been able to kiss away the tension in her shoulders after that, and even though we had fallen asleep and eventually woken up tangled together, it made my heart ache that she might think this was just about sex.
Right now, though, she was still sleeping peacefully. I watched her for a moment, not wanting to disturb her. There was the faintest hint of a smile on her face, and the tension had bled from her shoulders. I lightly kissed one of them, but she didn’t stir. I headed downstairs to make breakfast.
The patter of bare feet on hardwood announced Abby’s arrival in the kitchen a little while later, but they did nothing to prepare me for what I saw when I turned my attention from the omelets I was frying on the stove. I stared for a moment. She was dressed in one of my shirts, and those legs of hers went on for days. Of course, I had noticed her shapely legs the previous night when she’d been wearing that sexy black dress of hers, but it was something different to see them now, bare beneath the hemline of my favorite shirt.
Abby plucked self-consciously at the collar of the shirt. “Is this okay?” she asked nervously.
I growled wordlessly and stalked over to her, grabbing the collar of the shirt and pulling her tight against me, covering her mouth with mine. We made out sloppily for a long moment, until I finally released her. Her fingers crept up toward her lips, and a slow smile broke across her face. “Good morning,” she said, sounding almost dazed.
“Good morning,” I told her. “You want some coffee?”
“That’d be great,” Abby said.
I poured out coffee and put the omelets on plates, adding some fresh fruit on the side. “I hope these are okay?” I asked. “I didn’t know what you would want.”
“Anything is great,” Abby said brightly. She took a bite of her omelet and her eyes widened. “Oh wow, this is better than okay!”
I laughed and settled in across from her at the table. “Good,” I told her.
We ate in companionable silence. My phone chirped with a message at one point, but I ignored it for now. I’d rather just enjoy this strangely domestic breakfast with Abby, strange as that might sound. Normally, I was such a slave to my work.
After breakfast, though, as Abby cleared the plates at her insistence, I glanced at the message. And groaned.
“Something wrong?” Abby asked from over by the sink.
“My friend Austin just wanted to give me a heads-up about something,” I said. “Hold on.” I had been so sure, the previous night, that we weren’t going to end up in the papers. I had been
careful about choosing the restaurant, and I had booked the private room in the back. I had gotten the restaurant to sign a form saying they wouldn’t go to the press themselves for the sake of publicity. I had done everything right.
So why was I back in the papers now? It was anyone’s guess.
I quickly brought up the latest news on myself, my hands clenching into fists the minute I saw what the stories were about. “It seems,” I told Abby, “that everyone thinks I fired Gerrard so that I could replace him with a sexy new blonde.”
“What?” she asked in surprise, coming over so that she could look at the articles over my shoulder. There was even a picture of me escorting Abby into the office building the other day, the day the press had crowded her and were asking her all those questions.
“This is the price for being with me. Or working with me,” I said grimly. “Your brother was probably right when he warned you against working for me. My reputation forces people away.” I couldn’t help the bitter note to my voice.
Abby’s hands, to my surprise, came to rest on my shoulders, lightly kneading the tension away. “A little media gossip isn’t enough to scare me off,” she said firmly. “And besides, I’m not looking for a new job just yet anyway. Doesn’t matter what the other businesses think about me.”
I gave her a small smile, still feeling horrible for dragging her into all of this. I really should have hired a male advisor. The press would still have found plenty to say about me, but at least they would never have found out about Abby.
Abby bent down, though, a serious look in her eyes as she kissed me gently. “It’s okay,” she murmured as we pulled apart. “I’m not running away.”
Chapter 22
Abby
LAYLA SHRIEKED AS HER brother and I both ganged up on her, tickling her until she was practically crying with laughter. Leanne smiled at the three of us as she came into the living room. “All right, you tickle monsters,” she said. “Dinner’s ready. Go wash your hands, Zach and Layla.”
The two kids ran off, and Leanne shook her head as she looked at me. “Thanks again for keeping them entertained,” she said. “I’ve been trying to let them help out in the kitchen sometimes, but tonight was not the night for it.”
I laughed. “No worries,” I told her, hauling myself up off the floor once I had finally caught my own breath again. “You know I love playing with them.”
I loved listening to them chatter at the dinner table too. Would I ever have anything like this? I found myself wondering. Oh, maybe not with Daniel. But with anyone?
Daniel would make a great dad, though, I was sure. He was patient and kind. Clearly athletic too. I smiled a little to myself as I thought of him and then hurriedly turned my thoughts back to the kids’ babbling, hoping no one had noticed my lapse in attention.
After dinner, though, the topic of Daniel came up. The kids were already in bed, and the adults were in the living room with wine, a normal cap to these dinners we shared. “So Leanne said you went on a date,” Matt said.
I glanced over at Leanne. I knew she must have told Matt everything about the date, who it had been with. I couldn’t have asked her to keep that from him. But at the same time, I didn’t want them to interrogate me about it. It had been a good date, and I’d had a lot of fun. Daniel and I had shared breakfast the previous morning, and then I had gotten dressed and let his driver take me home.
The whole thing had left me wanting more. I hadn’t heard from Daniel since I had left, but he had definitely been hinting at a second date later that week.
And I wanted that.
Matt was shaking his head, though. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to get involved with him?” he asked. “The media follows him around like a plague.”
I glanced over at Leanne again, but she was biting her lower lip and looking just as worried about me. “I think he’s right,” she said. “There’s just something weird about the whole situation, don’t you think? He’s your boss. He knows what could happen to you if the two of you date. It’s like he doesn’t care about your career at all.”
“I’m still working for him,” I pointed out.
“For now,” Matt said darkly.
“He’s a good guy,” I protested. “He wouldn’t fire me just like that.”
Matt shook his head. “Do you really know that, though?” he asked. “I’m afraid that you’re letting this wealthy CEO cloud your judgment. Letting him use you. And when he’s done using you, do you really think he’s going to keep you around?”
“You don’t know him at all!” I snapped. “He’s nothing like what the media makes him out to be. He’s kind, and he cares about me. He cares about all of his employees. You just have no idea.” I was on my feet by now, practically shouting, and I suddenly remembered that there were little kids upstairs. I tried to calm myself down, but taking deep breaths just made me feel like I wanted to cry.
“Even if it was just about him using me,” I continued, “I do my work well. He knows that. He’s not just going to fire me.”
“We just want to make sure you’re safe,” Leanne broke in, clearly trying to calm me down. “I know you think that he’s different, that he’s a great guy, but this isn’t the first time you’ve thought that you were working for a different kind of boss.”
I stared at her, mouth open, shocked that she would ever bring up something like that. What a slap in the face. It was true that no employer of mine had ever appreciated my value before. Nor had any of the men I had been with. But now my own family was doubting me too, not trusting me to make my own decisions about things.
“I need to go,” I said, suddenly realizing I didn’t want to have this fight with them. I wanted this to be my haven, the place I came to get away from all the other shit in my life. I didn’t want them to take that away from me.
But right then, it felt like the only person in my corner was Daniel. And that, in itself, was frightening. I thought that I knew the man. I thought that I trusted him. But I had only been working for him for a couple of weeks now. What if it was all an act?
No. The only reason I was thinking like that was because of the things that Matt and Leanne had said about him. I thought back to the previous morning. He had slipped out of bed, trying his best not to wake me, but I had felt the brush of his lips against my shoulder. I had lain there for a while, debating whether I should slip out unnoticed, but then I’d realized that he was cooking breakfast for us.
He’d been so tender with me, almost as though this was more than what it really was. It definitely didn’t feel anything like a one-night stand. I trusted him.
But I trusted Matt and Leanne as well. Things were all just too complicated right now. But that wasn’t enough to make me never want to see Daniel again. I just wished that Matt and Leanne could be happy for me for once.
Chapter 23
Daniel
BY WEDNESDAY, I COULD tell that something was up with Abby. She’d been reserved all week so far. Distant. Aloof. Oh, she did her job just as well as ever. But her eyes never quite met mine, and the conversation between us just didn’t feel as easy as it had felt before.
It was killing me, seeing things go this way. Had I misunderstood what she wanted? Had she really only wanted a one-night stand? Or was it to do with those stupid articles about my leggy new advisor? Had that bothered her more than she had let on?
I had been hoping to take her out on another date that week, had hinted about it on Saturday even though I knew that it was more proper to wait a couple of days and give her a little time to think. Maybe that was what was bothering her. But I had thought that she was on board. I had thought that she wanted this just as badly as I did.
I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to puzzle out her behavior. But I couldn’t come to any conclusions that made any sense to me. So I asked her to stay late with me in my office, ostensibly to go over some documents. It was sort of an abuse of my position in the company, but I told myself that I would have done th
e same for any of my employees if I suspected that there was a problem that was really bothering them.
“Is something wrong?” I asked Abby as she sat across from me at my desk. I kept my eyes trained on the papers in front of me, trying to act casual, giving her time to say whatever it was she wanted to say without feeling any pressure from me.
Abby started. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her paste a fake smile on her face. “No, of course not,” she assured me. “Why?”
“Abby,” I said quietly. Gently.
She sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.
“All right,” I said easily, trying to pretend that those words, themselves, didn’t twist my heart. “But something is wrong?”
“My brother and his wife—my best friend since high school—don’t think I should be involved with you,” she finally admitted. She swallowed hard. “They’re just worried about me, and they don’t want my career to get messed up because of this, either here at McGregor Enterprises or in the future when I apply to other jobs at other companies.”
“That’s fair,” I said, even though my mouth felt dry at the thought of losing her. But I could tell how torn up she was about all of this. And I knew that no relationship with me could ever be worth the loss of her family. “I can’t let you choose between me and your family,” I said quietly. “You should choose them, of course. You should always choose them.” I smiled crookedly. “If I had any family left, that’s what I would do.”
I paused and then took a deep breath, preparing to say the words that I knew were going to hurt me to say. “I’ll stop being...intimate with you. If that’s what you want.”
Abby shook her head, though. “That’s not what I want. Not at all,” she said, staring down at her hands. “I don’t want to choose, that’s the problem. Them over you, or you over them. I don’t want either of those things. I care about you.”