“I think if they keep so much of the building as original, it maintains a heritage listing,” I tell him without thinking, remembering the tax information I handled when the building was up for renewal for heritage status not long ago.
Jack lets out another low sound and turning towards me, his smile broadens.
“You’re as smart as you are beautiful,” he announces, making me blush and look at my feet again.
“I mean it, Avery,” he says, coming closer and lifting my chin with his finger.
“Coming here today, I wanted to meet the new company… the new staff. I had no idea I’d meet someone as special as-”
“Oh, Mr. Cole? Mister Cole,” a voice calls out, the clip clip of thin heels cutting through our moment.
Cutting through my one chance.
“I thought you said this place was deserted,” he says slyly, winking at me before shrugging a little and then leaning in.
He leans in so close, I can feel the warmth of his mouth near mine, “Hold that thought,” he whispers, and I feel my legs starting to buckle as I sigh.
“Mr. Cole!”
My sigh becomes a quiet groan as I recognize her voice.
Those heels.
That damned perfume as she gets closer without me even having to look to know it’s her.
I swear this woman’s out to ruin me.
Angela Fitzner.
“Mr. Cole? Now, where did you get to?” she asks, sounding like an old mother hen more than an employee.
She clips over, ignoring me while trying to push me out of the way and taking Jack’s arm in hers.
“You ran away from us. Mr. Cole and we never got to be properly-”
Jack disengages himself with a swift movement and his face clouds over.
“Who are you?” he finally asks with an air of disbelief, scanning her like she’s some sort of acid rain come down to piss on our parade.
Without even missing a beat, and not minding the brush off either, she introduces herself.
“Angela Fitzner. I’m head of accounting, down on the ground floor,” she tells him like it should impress him.
Jack’s mouth’s open slightly and his eyes almost roll but look to mine with a couple of subtly raised brows.
Like he knows we’re in the presence of a freaking lunatic.
“Angela?” Jack asks, as though he’s dealing with a child.
Her eyes flutter and she thrusts her chest out.
“I’m in a meeting right now, and you’re interrupting. If it’s life or death, call 911. Otherwise…” he says, trailing off and making a little walking movement with his fingers in the air in front of her.
She follows them with her eyes, watching them lead to the door she just came through.
I’ve never seen Angela speechless, but instead of pulling her talking doll cord, Jack’s just gone and ripped it out and tossed it to the cat.
Her eyes narrow on mine and she almost says something, but thinking better of it she turns on her heel and clips out of the room.
Chapter Six
Jack
“Please tell me not everyone here is like her?” I ask Avery, who looks as stunned as the Angela doll but ends up smiling then laughing.
“Who is she again?” I ask her, glad to see her smiling for once.
“She’s my boss,” Avery says, looking embarrassed now.
I cock my brow, fighting the urge to grab her and pull her closer.
“I’m your boss now, Avery,” I remind her, and I feel my dick twitch as she shivers a breath in, hugging her elbows over that chest of hers.
She looks up at me, her clear blue eyes filled with one thing, picking up where we left off.
I want to, I really do.
But I also want to get to know Avery. I need to make sure I’m not imagining things either.
Just because Jack Cole is a man who knows what he wants, doesn’t mean he can just take it without asking first.
I need her to want me as much as I want her.
She said she adores old things, Jack. Not, ‘I want you to take me over this leather chair.’
She goes quiet and despite my not wanting to spook her, I just have to know.
“So… You don’t have a boyfriend, married?” I ask, wincing internally but like I said, I need to know.
Avery looks a little hurt, almost like I’m one of ‘them,’ the people trying to tease her.
“I’m just asking,” I tell her quickly.
“And you?” she retorts with just a hint of venom instead of an answer. “I suppose you could have any girl you want?”
No one’s ever put it to me quite like that. Most people who work for me wouldn’t dare, I guess.
I feel her little stab of hurt, ‘cause she’s given me one of my own.
“I don’t have anyone, Avery. I didn’t mean to upset you by asking, I just-”
That awkward silence again.
Awkward because each of our brains is boiling over with thoughts and ideas about the other, I can just feel it.
Then why won’t she just say so?
There must be someone else, why else would she get so defensive. She’s so hot, I’m guessing it’s her who could have any guy she wanted.
Sometimes, not often, I get taken down a peg. Jack Cole realizes he’s not a man of steel after all, and he has a large soft spot, right about where his heart is.
I never let it show, but I guess now is one of those times I feel like life has called me to heel.
I just assumed Avery would feel the same way I do.
I guess I was-
“I don’t have anyone either,” she says quietly, almost sighing as she turns away, walking back out to look out the huge windows. Across the frozen city that hugs an icy coast.
That sore spot in my chest? It just bloomed into something magical.
The magic words I’ve longed to hear from her, but could she, would she really feel the same way I do about her?
An older guy and someone half his age. Could she really fall in love with someone old enough to be her-
I can’t even bring myself to think the word, let alone say it.
The only father I want to be is to our own children.
There, I said it. The sight of her, within a few minutes and I already want to fill her with my seed, not just my dick.
It’s not just for fun, it’s because I just know she’s the one. The one girl on this earth I’ve waited my whole life for and we can have the perfect family as well as the perfect life… if only she’ll say yes.
If only she’ll be mine.
But she has to want it.
“Do you always work Christmas too?” I ask her, changing the subject, and feel myself satisfied when she stabs a nod.
“Every year, Thanksgiving too. Every holiday.”
I’m the same, but it’s not unusual for a CEO to be on call 24/7 every day of the year. Kinda have to be in my business.
But the thought of Avery alone.
Without me.
That’s a problem we need to fix.
And maybe something I need to look at too. How much time do I need to spend staring at a computer screen, when I could be gazing into her eyes? Showing her things, pleasing her, and spoiling her.
“Avery?” I ask her, suddenly noticing how quickly she looks up again, waiting for me to say something.
“How would you like to help me arrange a Christmas party, for the whole building? All the staff. What do they call it? A Secret Santa? We can have gifts, that tree you were wrestling with, the whole bit.”
She makes a face, the kind I make whenever anyone mentions Christmas.
“What happened to holding that thought?” she asks, pouting, looking down and away again like I’ve already forgotten.
I feel my heart go again like someone’s flicked a switch and set it pounding into my ribs as my mind spins.
I’d ask her to repeat what she just said, but I don’t want to, just in case, I’m dreaming.
�
��Oh, I still have that thought,” I confess, and going out on a limb I tell her.
“I just wasn’t sure you shared the same thought.”
Her face flushes hot and I feel my palms getting wet, my mouth going dry. All the blood in my body seems to be gravitating someplace I haven’t felt so hard in years.
“I want you, Avery,” I stammer, reigning in my words as I latch onto my true feelings for her. “But I need you to want me too, to make it right.”
“Then why don’t you? I thought you were gonna,” she says absently, her eyes getting misty as she starts to sway a little.
“Because when I do, I know I won’t be able to stop. It’s all or nothing Avery, I’m not making this up,” I tell her, moving a few steps closer.
She whimpers, her body breaking down into a swoon before I can grab her gives me her answer.
“Say it,” I demand gently. “Tell me you want this. Tell me you want… me. Tell me you’ll be mine and nobody else’s.”
Feeling her soft chest against me, her hands in mine, her head pumping as she moans something.
“Mr. Cole.”
“It’s Jack,” I remind her. “And you can practice that name a little louder all you want,” I tell her, leaning down and pressing my mouth over hers.
Chapter Seven
Avery
One minute I’m wondering just how many women Jack Cole has, the next, he’s commanding me to be his only.
His lips over mine is a start, a start of some magic healing between myself, the universe, and Jack of course.
I won’t throw myself at anyone, or so I’d thought. But with Jack Cole, with his serious intentions, his honesty.
I know it’s right. The look in his eyes when he told me he’s alone, just like me.
I’d be a fool to deny him and more of one to deny myself the pleasure of his touch some more.
But he wants much more, I can feel it.
My excitement is also anxiety. I’ve never kissed anyone in my whole life, let alone a man like Jack Cole.
Sensing this, I feel him pull back just a little. Enough to give me some air.
My head’s still nodding. I’m trying to tell him. But it’s useless. Under his firm grasp, I’m a leaf in the wind.
I can barely hold my mouth open so he can kiss it, moaning softly as his tongue gently finds its way to mine.
On instinct, and the feelings I have for him, our mouths and our bodies melt into each other.
No further explanation required.
My hands run up his flat, hard stomach. I can feel the outline of his muscled ab’s through his shirt, making me moan harder.
His feet gently push mine apart, drawing a new sound from me as I feel my pussy open, and my legs wide for him, his hands, which I feel working their way onto my mound with the same increasing intensity of his tongue in my mouth.
He groans too, and I can sense his own arousal, long before I lay a hand to it myself.
A thick, throbbing line in his pants. Like all of him. Hard and intense, but with such an edge of give to it I only want to touch him all over. And without his clothes in the way.
Suddenly clinging to each other, we have a new and unspoken agreement to find someplace soft and very private.
“Where’s his office?” Jack asks, lifting me off my feet and into his arms.
I can only nod my head towards a huge pair of wooden doors before my own gasps take me over completely.
Jack’s strength is obvious, and he lifts me up like I weigh nothing in his huge arms.
I’ve never been in Dane Jennings’s office, and by the looks, neither has he for a while.
Like the rest of the top floor, it’s old school. Heavy furniture, old books, and cigar smoke etched into the woodwork. A snapshot from a bygone era.
It’s clean though, and in seconds Jack’s kicked the door closed, locked it, and has me laid out on a huge Chesterfield couch whose leather creaks under us, mixing with our breath as he eases me out of my blouse and then my pants.
I can hear myself, feel myself trying to speak, but his hands on me and mine in his hair leave me breathless.
It’s all the feelings I had when I first saw him and more, times a thousand as his thick fingers waste no time in peeling my sodden panties to one side. His whole body pushing my legs wider apart as he leans forward on his knees in front of me.
Before he even does what I want him to so badly, I feel it starting up inside me somewhere.
My whole body starts to shake, and I whimper his name as I feel it all coming loose.
This effect he has on me, drawing it out of me like music in a song.
“Oh, not yet, Avery,” he orders. “You’ll come when I’m done with you and not a moment before.” His voice rumbles between my legs.
Instead of making me loose control, it seems to balance everything, setting things straight so he can get to work.
Pleasuring me like I know he wants to so badly.
His whole mouth over me, like it was over my mouth sends me bucking against him straight away.
Both his huge hands take hold of my ass cheeks and he drives the hot wetness of his mouth over my center, making me squirm and thrust in time with his tongue as it enters me.
His low groans of satisfaction send new shockwaves right through me, reaching places I never even knew existed inside me, making me moan louder and feel that climax looming quicker again.
Jack senses it, and it pleases him, but I know he wants to pleasure me some more and so I lose myself in tracing my hands through his hair, feeling his shoulders under my knees when I hook my legs over them.
I can feel my chest heaving under my bra, and once Jack starts to tug at me, pulling my whole body with his strength with each bucking of my own hips, one of the girls lets herself free.
Jack’s hand automatically reaches up, without even looking. He owns every inch of me just from his touch and senses a new avenue of pleasure soon.
His thick fingers circle my stiff nipple, right at the same moment his teeth gently scrape my swollen clit.
Taking Jack’s advice, and without even meaning to, I hear my own voice rising as if it’s far away.
Like I’m calling out to him in the middle of a storm.
Starting to call his name until I’m practically screaming it.
Just when I don’t think I can take anymore when it feels like I’m about to burst.
I guess I kind of do.
My whole body tightens, and my head jerks back as I grab handfuls of his hair.
His groan is a growl now, and his tongue savoring my essence as I feel myself shudder to an intense climax.
His hands that are so strong become so gentle as it washes over me. Tracing his fingers and gently using his mouth to ease me through until the end of what has to be the single most powerful experience of my life so far.
Lifting himself up and using one strong arm to prop himself up, he kisses me again.
Tasting myself on him, along with his own arousal is exciting, but I panic.
“I’m… I’m a virgin,” I blurt out, pressing my palms flat against his chest, shaking my head as though it’s the worst thing in the world.
He looks confused for a second, but then smiles and finally chuckles to himself.
Feeling my hands pressing harder against him. Pushing him away, I tell him I shouldn’t be here, that I have to go.
He moves off me, letting me grab my clothes, but I can tell he’s as stunned as much as I’m dying to go and I don’t even know why.
“Avery, wait,” he calls after me, just before I reach the door, having pulled on my clothes as best I can.
But I don’t look back after I unlock the door and pull it open.
I know I’m going to regret this, but I just don’t know what else to do.
“Avery,” Jack calls out, one last time before I reach the stairs, hustling down three flights before I take an elevator back down to the bottom floor.
Chapter Eight
Jack
What the fuck just happened?
What the hell was that?
If I was anywhere else, I’d be shouting for someone, demanding to explain what that was all about.
A part of me wants to chase after her, make her explain.
But what good would that do? I thought she wanted me, she got to second base and bailed.
Simple.
You lose Jack boy, you can’t have it your way all the time.
I stand in the doorway for a while, staring at the empty space between the office and the closed stairwell door. The echo of the heavy door still ringing in my ears by the time I close the office door and slump down into the large leather chair behind the desk.
Everything’s old here, but there are modern telephones, USB ports, and a drawer full of remotes. A TV in the paneling that sort of thing.
I wanted to have my office here, move the whole operation to this building.
But what now?
None of it means anything without her. Without Avery.
Growling, I stand up and start to pace, replaying everything in my mind over and over, double-checking I didn’t do or say the wrong thing.
“I just don’t get it,” I shout, holding both hands up and shaking my fists in the air.
Well, there’s no point in chasing her if she’s upset. I don’t want to make things worse, whatever it is I’ve done I don’t want to add to it.
Navigating the little switchboard of the phone, I manage to get a hold of Jason, the district manager.
He’s obviously good at what he does, and his first questions are all about what I want him to do next.
I like that attitude, taking directions but trusting enough to be left alone with them.
But my own mind… my own heart has its own agenda.
“Where’s Avery?” I bark at him, listening while he tries to decide what to say.
I realize too, I don’t even know her last name.
“Well?” I almost shout at him. “She was in the front display window, putting up that tree. Where is she?” I ask him again, feeling my panic rise for some reason.
All I Want For Christmas is You( Man Who Knows What He Wants, 218) Page 3