by Piper Lawson
I used to be pretty fast. I had to be, running away from two older brothers at my parents’ house on the edge of town. I’d always been into scents—candles before perfume—and to tease me, they liked to play games that involved catching me and sticking plants up my nose.
“I thought you might be looking for someone in particular,” Payton commented.
I followed the direction of her nod.
Avery stood amongst some of the other associates. He looked like he was about to go for a jog. But eyeing up his ropey legs under the black basketball shorts, the white t-shirt that made his skin look tan and that fit over the muscles of his torso and shoulders?
I felt hot all over.
Suddenly it wasn’t the sun or the humidity that had my boobs feeling heavy and made me press my legs together.
It was the fact that yesterday my boss had shoved me into a closet.
Stroked my skin in a way that had me holding back a moan.
And had me thinking ready to lock the door and drag him to the floor with me, letting two years of hate and arguments go up in smoke.
As if sensing my gaze, he turned. He was too far away for me to make out his expression, but I felt the rush anyway.
Rose followed my gaze. “I’d run behind that all day. You’re so lucky.”
Redpath’s amplified voice interrupted all conversation as he pointed everyone to the start line. “On your marks. Get set. Go!” He shot off a starter’s pistol. We took off across the field.
The monkey bars weren’t bad. My hands might not’ve had calluses, but apparently it was like riding a bike.
A few people struggled with the car tires that made you run like a sumo. It gave me a chance to pull away with a small pack. That’s when shit got real.
The wall might’ve been as high as my head, but you had to use ropes to get over it. Avery was the first one there. Instead of using the ropes, he managed to reach up and boost himself over. At the top he glanced back, startled to see me so close behind.
“Morning, boss,” I panted as I pulled myself up.
He disappeared over the other side.
I reached the top, sparing a glance over my shoulder as more people started to work their way over the obstacle. Rose and Payton were approaching the wall.
“Fuck, I’m ready for that day off right now,” Payton groaned as she reached the edge.
My heart raced as I gazed ahead of us. The number of people making their way toward the next set of obstacles was growing every second. Competitiveness fired in my belly, but I looked back at my friends.
“Come on, ladies. We’ve got this.”
I reached a hand out and helped her, then Rose, over the wall.
We were still working our way through the second of three sets of obstacles when a cheer went up. Someone crossing the finish line. It was another fifteen minutes before we did the same.
We collapsed on a picnic table by the finish line. Rose reached for bottles of water in a cooler and passed them around.
“There,” I panted. “You glad you survived that paternalistic display of machismo?”
“Depends,” Rose said. “Is there lunch?”
We made our way over to the white tent where a lineup was starting.
“I’m going to use the bathroom.” Payton took off.
I followed her. The line was just a couple of people long, and when I got in I heard someone throwing up. Payton opened the stall door a moment later, looking green.
“Hey, you OK?”
She glanced around, making sure no one else was in hearing range. “No. I’m pregnant.”
I could’ve sworn I’d heard wrong, but as I watched my friend’s numb face, I realized I hadn’t. My instinct to make light of everything evaporated.
“That’s…big.” I studied her, looking for any signs of cracks in the Payton façade.
“I just found out this morning. I can’t tell Max,” she whispered. “He has issues a mile long with his parents.”
“He’s going to notice.”
Payton buried her face in her hands. I pulled her hands away, relieved to see she wasn’t crying. Just stunned.
“You wanna talk about it? We could find somewhere more private.”
“Thanks. I might take you up on that. But not right now. I just want to eat a hamburger and keep it down.”
“OK. I’ll meet you there in a few. I just need to find somewhere to change that’s less disgusting than this bathroom. I have some pretty serious boob sweat.”
She managed a half-smile. “Sure.”
I gave her a hug and walked out of the bathroom with her.
Then I scanned the horizon. The three buses we’d arrived on were parked half a football field’s length away. Behind them was the edge of a forest.
I grabbed two bottles of water and my VS bag from the bus and trudged back to the forest as I considered Payton’s situation.
There were few things bigger than finding out you were pregnant. I knew the emotional rollercoaster first-hand and felt for my friend. She must have had a million things going on.
I’ll be there for her when she needs me, I resolved.
And I’ll be clean.
I waded through the first ten feet or so of trees, parking behind a big one. I stripped off my tank top, letting out a groan as it dropped, slapping against my thigh from the sweat. “Eww.”
My shoes came next. Then my capris. Standing in my sports bra and panties, I bent my head forward and dumped the first bottle of water over my neck.
“Oh yeah.” The cold ran down my back, my stomach, trickles reaching my legs.
I stripped off my panties and reached for a fresh thong from my bag. Pulled it up my legs, sighing in relief. Then I reached for the bottom of my sports bra, starting to pull it up.
Why are these things so easy to get on and so hard to get off?
I tugged. My muscles complained, stretching and contorting.
I cursed. Now I was stuck, with it up over one shoulder and over one boob.
“Hello?”
A branch snapped behind me and I whirled.
The man’s voice wasn’t directed at me. Avery was holding up his cell phone, looking irritated.
One of my boobs was still covered and I managed to put a hand over the other. There was no hope of covering the rest of me, given my bra straitjacket. The best I could hope for was that I looked like one of those Greek statues. The kind with fabric casually draped over curves and the odd boob peeking cheekily out.
“Charlotte.”
“Avery.” I tried for professional.
I said I tried.
His startled expression turned into something else when his gaze pulled down my body.
“I was just in the middle of something.” I shifted from one foot to the other.
“I was trying to get cell phone reception. And there is none. Not there. Or here. So…” He seemed to realize way too late that he was staring and glanced back toward the white tent in the distance as he tucked the phone into his shorts pocket.
“I should go.”
“You could stay. Watch,” I blurted.
His brows shot up.
“I mean, not watch me. Watch to make sure no one comes. While I change.”
“Right.” He turned away. I went back to pulling off the bra. “I didn’t realize changing was so difficult,” he offered over his shoulder.
“For women it is,” I grunted. “It’s the curse of boobs. So let me guess—you crossed the line first?”
His profile appeared as he turned to the side. “Yeah. Not that Redpath gave me any credit for it.”
I tried twisting a new way, wiggling a strap over my head. “What do you mean?”
“I cross the line and he says “where’s the rest of your team?” I say “back there”. He shoots me this look like he’s a damned Zen master and walks away. What the hell was that about?” The disgust in his voice was evident in every syllable.
A muscle in my shoulder complained, and I tri
ed a new angle. “Maybe he was making a point,” I panted. “That being a director’s not just about you.”
“You were right there with me through the first wall,” he said over his shoulder. “Is that why you fell back?”
“Payton needed help. This course was not made for pregnant chicks.”
I froze as I realized my mistake.
“Fuck. That was not public news. Don’t say anything.” The last female associate that had a kid was completely forgotten.
I glanced back to make sure he wasn’t looking. My words didn’t seem like they’d even registered so I went on.
“You meant what you said yesterday? About sticking around even if the brass is looking to cut corporate?”
“You think it’s stupid.”
“It’s also admirable. Going down with the ship or whatever.” Maybe he was more of a team player than I thought.
He groaned. “That’s just it. I don’t want to land this director job because I like to sit around holding hands and smiling at people. It’s because this program will change things for us. Give the company a secret weapon against our competition.”
“What does it do again?” I asked, mostly to keep him talking and to ensure he kept facing the other way. I took a few breaths to lower my heart rate, which was higher than it’d been during the race from fighting with this damned bra.
“It pulls data from every source imaginable and links it to a common client file. If you’re an Alliance client, for instance, it’ll pull from emails, records, even the internet. So it’d know your birthday is the day before Valentine’s Day. That you prefer to be called Charlie, and that you get these lines in your forehead when someone calls you Charlotte—even though it suits you.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise, but he went on.
“That you spend an inordinate sum of money on clothes and shoes and…are you done yet?” He glanced back, his eyes widening. “Dammit, Charlotte. How are you more stuck?”
“I don’t know,” I whined.
He crossed to me before I could stop him. “Bend over.”
“That’s what they all say,” I grumbled.
He reached for the edge of my bra. “One. Two. Three…” He tugged, hard, and I felt the bra give way over my head. I stumbled back, my hands fumbling to cover my boobs.
When I glanced up, my boss’ eyes were closed.
“No peeking.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I struggled to remember what we’d been talking about as I reached for my bag and pulled out a fresh bra. “For the record, I don’t spend anything on shoes. I get them for free.”
He made a noise of skepticism. “Whatever you say.”
“It’s true,” I protested as I slipped into the lace. Fastened it at the back. “I do reviews on my social feed. Retailers send me the shoes. I take pictures of me wearing them, ranting about them. Good or bad.”
“You get free shoes for going on a Twitter rant to your friends.”
I pulled out a skirt and stepped into it, zipping it up the back. “Not friends. Followers. About fifty thousand of them.”
His eyes flew open. “Fifty thousand people read about your…” he trailed off, realizing I was still shirtless. His attention landed on my bra and he flushed.
I tried to ignore the awareness that flooded me. “It’s fine,” I said, reaching for the clean top in my bag. “I mean you already saw way more.”
“I saw nothing.”
I arched a brow at him. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“That’s not true.”
I folded my arms over my chest, the shirt dangling from my fingers. “I remember when you got that box of cigars from that client who was an importer last Christmas. You swore you liked them so you could have some common ground, and then right before the holidays—“
“He gave me a box of the most expensive kind,” Avery finished.
“Did you smoke any?”
“Not a damned one. I gave them all to my uncle.”
I swear the corner of his mouth twitched. Go figure the most relaxed I’d been with my boss was half naked in the middle of the forest.
But something was different out here. Maybe because we weren’t that different in age. In fact, we suddenly seemed to have way more in common than I’d ever realized.
His reluctant smile caught me off guard. My boss didn’t throw those things around, and I reacted like I was starved of them. My chest tightened, and my entire body lit up, and…
“AHH!” I shrieked, dropping the shirt and clutching my hands to my chest.
“What?”
“Something just brushed my foot.”
“What kind of something?”
“Something scaly. Or furry.” I spun in a circle, lifting one bare foot and then the other. To minimize the chance of further contact.
Avery closed in, grabbing my shirt and lifting it. “There’s nothing there.”
“There was,” I insisted.
When I finally looked up, his eyes were the color of the sea on those beach travel ads in the window I walk by on my way to work. “You’re not going to get eaten in the middle of the forest on my watch.”
I nodded. “Good.” My voice was scratchy.
He noticed my reaction. The warmth faded from his eyes, replaced by something else.
How am I still sweating? I did the bottled water shower. I’d changed my clothes.
The only explanation was that being the center of this man’s attention had my entire body coming alive. The way the sun filtered through the leaves of the trees made him look approachable. Attractive. Coupled with the clothes, it was like I was facing an alternate reality version of my boss.
One that had me thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with banking.
Avery held the shirt out to me, and my fingers wrapped around it. As if that would anchor me in the suddenly dizzying swirl of sensations.
“Forest light suits you.” The words were out before I could think about them.
“Forest light?” he murmured.
I licked my lips, and he followed the movement. “It makes you look like a Disney prince. Handsome. Charming. In need of someone to save.”
“Then I’d better keep looking. Because I have a hard time picturing you in need of a rescue.”
If I’d been capable of thought in that moment, it would’ve occurred to me that this teasing was strange. Unprecedented.
But I couldn’t notice. Because noticing it might ruin everything.
Noticing would remind us that Avery was my boss. That everything in the universe said we were destined to cross paths over travel arrangements, and expense forms, and room bookings. Nothing more.
I should let it go.
I couldn’t let it go.
“Tell me something.” My voice dropped, like I was afraid nature would overhear. “If you weren’t you and I wasn’t me and we were just two people who ran into each other in a forest. What would you do?”
Avery’s gaze worked over mine. “Do people do that?” His murmur matched mine.
“Just go with it. As a thought experiment.”
He glanced down my body, stopping at the shirt clasped in my fingers. He tugged the shirt, pulling me off-balance so I took a step toward him. In my bare feet, I barely came to his forehead.
My face tilted up to his like I wanted to drown in his attention. The partly lowered lashes were way thicker than I’d ever noticed before. The bow of his lips had my fingers itching to brush it.
“As a thought experiment…I’d do this.”
The next breath I sucked in was his.
Kisses aren’t meant to be surprises. You see them coming. You stare at the other person, flirt a little. Your eyelids fall as they close in…
So by definition, this wasn’t a kiss. The fact that his lips warmed on mine, that his hard body was suddenly pressing against my tits…
Inconsequential.
That every nerve in my body came ali
ve, like he’d stroked a deliberate finger over every inch of my skin at once.
It wasn’t a kiss when his tongue pressed against the seam of my mouth. When I sucked in a startled breath, letting him in. Or when he groaned low in his throat, changing the angle and forcing my head back.
Not when I grabbed his bare arms for balance, my fingers digging into the warm muscle. When fire streaked through my veins, settling in a needy ache between my thighs.
It wasn’t a kiss.
Because I’d never been kissed like that before.
“Charlie? Are you…? Whoa shit.”
We jerked apart at the sound of Payton’s voice. My friend stood at the edge of the forest, her hands over her eyes. She peeked between her fingers, then dropped them when she realized we’d stepped apart.
“I just came to look for you. Lunch is over and I thought you might’ve gotten lost...” She cleared her throat. “You guys should be careful. If it’d been anyone else—”
“You’re in no position to be making threats,” Avery uttered beside me.
“Excuse me?” Payton looked between us, confused.
“Avery…” My voice was a warning he promptly ignored.
“Given your situation.”
Payton’s face paled. “Charlie, you told him?”
My chest tightened. “It slipped out. It was an accident.”
“Yeah, I see why it slipped out.”
The betrayal in her voice gutted me even before she turned and started back toward the buses. “Payton!” I started to follow, but Avery’s voice had me stopping.
“Charlotte.”
“What?” I demanded.
His gaze flicking over my body reminded me I was still in my bra and a skirt.
I crossed to him, yanked my shirt from his hands, and pulled it on.
“Where are you going,” he asked as I jammed my feet into ballet flats and shifted the bag over my shoulder.
“To fix the giant bomb you set off.” I stomped back in the direction of lunch without looking behind me.
10
Ten Reasons I Want to Fuck My Boss
“Show me your tits.”
The red-headed man sitting in the chair glanced up at me, then lifted his shirt to reveal hard abs and pecs. “Happy?”