by Sophie Stern
And he doesn’t judge.
“You got time?” I ask him. He’s in his office doing paperwork, but he nods immediately and gets up.
“Let’s go,” he says, and we head into the ring. This is what I need, what I’ve been missing this week. When my stress gets to me, I need to fight, to hit, to feel. I need the pain, at least a little bit, and I need to know I’m not alone.
Ralph gets that.
“You want to talk about it?” He asks, throwing a jab. I block his punch and move, then throw my own. I make contact. He groans, and I shake my head.
“I don’t want to talk, fucker. I want to fight.”
“Fine,” Ralph shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to him. “Suit yourself.”
Then he proceeds to kick my ass.
I fight like shit. He throws punch after punch and finally gets me in a choke. I try to fight it, but I know I can’t, and I tap out.
Pussy out.
I show how weak I am in this moment, in everything I do, and then Ralph pulls me to my feet.
“What the fuck is wrong?” He asks.
“It’s Rose.”
“Your secretary?”
“Assistant.”
“The one you’ve had a boner for, for like, years?”
“That’s the one.”
“What happened?”
“We slept together.”
“And? No offense, dude, but after all this time, you should be a little bit happier about this than you seem. You’ve had a thing for this woman for a long time. What’s the deal?”
“I found out she doesn’t really like me.”
He raises an eyebrow, looks confused, so I clarify.
“She only came onto me because of a dare.”
“Ah,” he says, and hops out of the ring. I follow him over to the water station and we both get a drink. “So now you’re questioning yourself and your experiences together and you think she only wanted your D to impress her friends.”
“Basically.”
“You know that’s total bullshit, right?”
“Excuse me?” I growl. I shouldn’t growl. Ralph is just being my friend. He’s being honest with me and right now, that’s what I need.
You’d think that being high up in a company, I’d have a lot of friends. The opposite is true. When I started working for my dad, people stopped being my friend. People began to view me as either dangerous or wealthy and somehow, that never seemed to work out in my favor.
“You’re still hurt about Janine,” Ralph says simply. He leans against the wall and looks at me. Somehow, this guy can see right through me. It’s what I need. I know it’s what I need, but I don’t like it. I don’t have to like it.
Then I realize he probably hasn’t heard the news.
“She died, Ralph.”
“Fuck, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. What happened?” He looks genuinely surprised. He looks sad for me.
“Car accident,” I shrug. “Her mom called me, but she didn’t really give me any details. No idea whose fault it was. No idea if there was alcohol involved. All I know is that she was alive and then she wasn’t. She was here and then she was gone.”
“How are you holding up?”
“It’s been a long time since we were together.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You know how they say, ‘time heals all wounds’?”
“Yep,” he laughs and pats his arm, which is thick with scar tissue from an IED he encountered in Iraq. Ralph came home early because of the accident. It doesn’t hold him back and he’s luckier than most, but he’s got very visible scarring from his time in the service.
My scars are all on my heart.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“That time heals everything?” He thinks about it for a second, then nods slowly. “I think most of our wounds heal over time. There will always be scars. We’ll never be quite the same as we were before the accident or the fight or the breakup. We’ll never be the same person. Pain makes us grow, forces us to become something new. Someone new.”
“I don’t miss Janine. I’m sad she’s dead, but there’s a sort of disconnect when I think about it. I haven’t loved her for a long time. I’m not in love with her. Even though she hurt me, I just wanted her to be happy. She broke me, but I still wished her well.”
“You actually loved her, you mean,” Ralph clarifies. “When you truly love someone, when you care for them deeply, you want them to be happy no matter what the cost. When you love someone, you don’t care if they have to be with someone else to be happy. You don’t mind if they need to go somewhere else to be happy. It still hurts, but what matters is their own happiness. What matters is their own future.”
“I thought we were going to be happy together, but that changed. When I found out about her and Mike, once the shock and surprise wore off, I genuinely wanted them both to be content together.”
“They weren’t.”
“No, they weren’t, but I hoped for it. Now that Janine is gone, I don’t feel as sad as I think I should.”
“You feel like you should mourn for her.”
“A little bit, yeah.” It doesn’t really make sense to me, but I feel like I should be more upset about her passing than I am. I think I should feel more sadness for her than I do.
“You’ve moved on, my friend. You’ve found someone new to love. Are you really telling me you don’t love Rose?”
“I’m telling you we’re nothing. We slept together one time. It meant nothing to her, to either of us.”
“Wow,” Ralph slaps me on the shoulder. “You’re a worse liar than I remember.” Then he turns and heads back into his office, leaving me alone at the water cooler. I stand there for a few minutes thinking about what he said.
Am I lying to myself, to her?
Am I lying to him?
Ralph comes back a minute later and he hands me a picture.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking at it. It’s a woman: one I’ve never seen before.
“My fiancé,” he says with a smile. “And yes, you’re invited to the wedding, fuck-face.”
“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone,” I say, feeling slightly out-of-the-loop.
“Let me tell you a little something about love, mate. You can lie all you want, but when you find someone special, you need to latch onto them. She’s not Janine. You’re going to fight and you’re going to hurt each other, but that’s part of the journey. She isn’t the woman you were with before, just as you aren’t the men Rose has been with before. Andrea and I? We hurt each other all the time. It happens. We don’t mean to, but it happens.”
Ralph is smiling as he watches me look at the picture of his bride. He’s right: she looks happy. She’s grinning at the camera like there’s nowhere in the world she’d rather be, like there’s no one out there for her but him.
Is that the way Rose looks at me?
I want it to be.
A week ago, I would have said I’m out of her league. A week ago, I would have said she’d never look twice at a guy like me. Yeah, I’ll fuck anything that moves, but I’d never fucked Rose before because she was different, special. I didn’t want to mess things up between us. I didn’t want to hurt her, but honestly, I didn’t want to hurt myself because I knew if I had a taste of Rose, there would be no going back.
Now I know I was right.
There really is no going back.
“I messed up,” I admit to Ralph.
“It’s not too late. It’s never too late.”
“Sometimes it’s too late.”
“Rose is not Janine,” he says for the millionth time.
“I know, Ralph. I know, buddy.”
“Then damn, Parker, fucking act like you know. No more whining. No more pussy-footing around. You want your girl, Parker? Go fucking get your girl.”
I hand him back the picture. Then I give him a big hug. I don’t care if it’s not very manly or masculine to hug your friends. Ralph is
a brother to me.
“Good luck,” he says, and I turn to go. I pass by other people working out, other people sparring, but I don’t even look at them as I head to my car.
One thing at a time.
I need to do one thing at a time.
Today, that thing is Rose.
I need to get my girl back.
11––––––––Rose
It would be easy to sit around and feel sorry for myself, but I’m done with that life. I’m not interested in that anymore. I’m not up for that.
No, I’m going to be better than the scared, weak woman I was before.
I’m going to be stronger.
Parker is pissed at me. I get it. He has every right to be. If he likes me as much as I think he does, he’s probably hurting and a little embarrassed. Hell, after everything he went through with Janine, maybe he feels betrayed. Maybe he feels like I betrayed him the way she did.
And I am not her.
The truth is that I should have told him about the dare. I should have been up-front with him, honest. People always talk about how much it hurts to be betrayed, but what they really mean is that it hurts to be lied to.
When I was a kid, my parents had this policy where they didn’t punish me for being honest. If I broke a vase or a glass or got a bad grade at school, I wouldn’t get in trouble if I was open with them about it. I only got in trouble for lying, which meant I quickly learned not to do it.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” my dad told me. “If you’re honest about it, we can work through the problem together, but if you lie, how will I ever know I can trust you?”
That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it?
Trust.
I betrayed Parker King’s trust. We’ve worked together for so long, been friends for so long, and until now, he’s never felt like I would betray him or lie to him.
Well, guess I proved him wrong.
I can lie.
I can deceive.
I can betray.
Only, I want a relationship with him, and I don’t want it to be based on any of those negative things, so I need to get moving. After a restless night’s sleep, I wake up before my alarm and dress for the day. Parker might expect me to skip work or to avoid him, but I’m not that girl. I’d rather have a confrontation today and get everything out in the open then sulk around for weeks until we both forget about “the incident.”
I head inside and Heather’s jaw drops when she sees me. Apparently, I dressed well this morning.
“Damn, Rose,” she says. “Big meeting today?”
“The biggest,” I say.
Heather holds out a lollipop, which I take. Diane appears beside her, also sucking on a lollipop, and gives me an approving look.
“You clean up nice, kid,” she says.
“I’m two years older than you,” I point out.
Diane just smiles and heads back to her office. She walks with a little bounce and even though she’s a brilliant engineer, I think it’s her playful attitude that makes her fun to work with and be around.
“Good luck today,” Heather says as I walk to the elevator.
“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”
I repeat the “What’s happening today?” conversation with Christina, then go to my office to drop off my purse and keys. Parker’s door is closed, but I can hear him moving around in there, and I know he probably arrived hours ago.
He’s like me that way. When he’s stressed, he needs to be at work. When he’s tired or anxious, he needs to do things with his hands. Depending on just how tense Parker is feeling, he’s probably finished all of our work for the rest of the week.
I take a deep breath, and then I go knock on Parker’s door.
Then I wait.
This is the moment of truth, isn’t it?
I know he knows it’s me.
He knows who’s at the door without anyone needing to announce themselves because he’s that good at telling our knocks apart. It’s a little creepy, to be honest, but it’s Parker.
“Come in, Rose.”
I push the door open and step inside. I close it behind myself. I don’t make eye contact right away because suddenly, my heart is pounding out of my chest. It’s beating so loudly that I’m sure the whole office can hear me.
“Look at me,” his voice is clear and sharp.
When I look at Parker, though, he doesn’t seem angry or even hurt. He just looks relieved. Can that be right? I thought I was going to have to beg, going to have to convince him that I’m not a liar who wants to hurt him. I’m not Janine. I’ll never be her. I’m different. I’m me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. I clasp my hands in front of myself and look at him. In his suit, he looks every bit the CEO. His beard is perfectly trimmed, and his face is a mask. He’s great at negotiating because people can’t get a read on him.
But I’ve seen what’s beneath the suit.
I’ve seen the tattoos that mark his body in remembrance of the friends he’s lost. I’ve seen the way he looks when he takes off the mask of self-control. I’ve seen the way he moves when he’s not just the boss, but a lion ready to pounce.
I’ve seen all of that and I want to see it again.
I want more.
I want Parker King.
He starts walking across the room toward me and I open my mouth and start talking. I’m not even sure what the point of talking is or what I’m trying to say, but I’m going to try anyway.
“I fucked up. I should have told you about the dare. It’s just that I’m a huge wimp and kind of a dork and I’m awkward around men and I thought Stephanie was giving me the push I needed and I-”
He silences me with the kiss of a lifetime.
He silences me with his mouth and his tongue and his hands in my hair.
He silences me because in this moment, all we need is the silence.
All we need is each other.
And I know in this moment that Parker King is a bigger man than I thought.
He’s not going to let hurt feelings stop us from exploring this thing between us. He’s not going to give up just because we had a misunderstanding. He’s not going to give up just because the thing that brought us together was a little dare.
He’s still Parker.
He’s still the man I admire more than anyone else in the world.
He dominates the business world and now, judging by the look in his eye, he’s going to dominate me.
12––––––––Parker
“On your knees, little flower,” I say. The words come out clipped and harsh, but Rose pulls out of my arms and drops to the floor without hesitation. I don’t know how much experience she has with power exchanges, but right now, there’s going to be a major one.
She looks perfect kneeling before me, like a little princess I’m about to defile, and I like it. I like knowing I’m going to take her, conquer her.
I like knowing I’m about to devour her.
She kneels there with her hands on her knees and her head bowed. She looks submissive, even demure. We both know it’s not real. This is just a game and it’s one we both want to play. Rose isn’t really submissive in real life. She bends to no man. The fact that she’s bending to me, in this moment, makes her kneeling even more meaningful.
The fact that she would willingly obey me in the bedroom – or in this case, my office – makes my dick hard and my heart swell.
“You look perfect, you know,” I murmur, slipping off my jacket. I toss it onto the desk and begin to take off my belt. She doesn’t move or react. She just continues kneeling for me, waiting for me to give her another command, another request.
Rose waits for me because she wants me, wants this, and I want it, too.
“If this is going to work between us, we’re going to have a lot of honest discussions,” I tell her. At that, she does look up. “Eyes down,” I tell her, and she quickly lowers her gaze, then closes her eyes. “We’re not going to have lies between us,
darling. We aren’t going to have secrets. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She licks her lips. I wonder if she knows how seductive she looks in this moment. “I understand.”
“Show me you understand,” I say. My cock is out now, hard and long, and I stroke it several times before Rose kneels up and presses her lips to it. I groan as she slides her tongue out and swirls it around the head of my cock.
Delicate.
Soft.
Gentle.
But I don’t want gentle right now.
I want everything she has to give.
All of it.
I need it, desire it.
“Oh, you can do better than that,” I taunt her. Rose’s eyes flash fire and I know she’s taking the bait. I know she’s about to show me what she can do. I know she’s about to show me how she can work a dick.
And she does.
She slides my length down her throat and swallows, sucking hard on my dick. She moves up and down, fondling my balls with her hands as she plays with me.
How many times have I fantasized about this exact moment? Far too many to count, and the truth is that the reality is better than anything I could have ever imagined.
“That’s it, baby,” I growl. “Fuck, your tongue feels so good on me.” She snickers as she continues to suck me. The sound comes out muffled, but yeah, it’s obvious that she’s snickering. I get the feeling Rose knows exactly how she affects me and I get the feeling that she loves it.
She loves feeling this power over me.
She loves feeling like I can’t do anything about the way she turns me on.
Well, it’s time for her to learn that two can play this game.
I grab her hair and pull, forcing her to look up at me.
“I need to be inside of you,” I tell her. She nods. Her mouth is still wrapped around my cock, still tight around my dick. She lets go of me and I help her to her feet. Then Rose kisses me. She wraps her arms around my neck and plays with my hair, strokes my beard, touches my cheek.
She kisses me softly, like a woman in love.
“Take off your clothes,” I tell her, and she stops kissing me.