by Savannah May
I don’t usually get my own coffee. Make that I don’t ever get my coffee, or do much of anything for myself outside of completing the deal. But after pulling an all-nighter on a negotiation with China that will net my company another hundred million dollars if I can bring it in – when I bring it in – I’m exhausted from the adrenaline rush and desperately in need of the jolt. Not to mention that the temptation I notice as I walk past the break room on my way out is too much to ignore. Even though I need to go home, my secretary had virtually thrown me out, the long legs and sexy round rear of the strange girl making coffee is irresistible.
Put it down to my deep exhaustion after working on this deal for weeks, or the elation that comes from closing it finally, but instead of exiting as I know I should, I lean casually against the door. From there I can take in the delectable little body in my coffee room. She’s wearing a short skirt and a pair of knee-high boots that combine to make an outfit more appropriate for a night in a downtown club than Tuesday at a downtown financial institution.
Not that I’m complaining. She’s upright now and going through the motions of making coffee. The smell of the grind hits me like opium from across the room so that I’m drawn toward it – and her as my pusher. I can’t get the image of her thighs, the little dip between the tops as she bent over, the flash of her panties when she thought no one could be standing there behind her.
Not wanting to be a douche, or some sort of peeping Tom, I clear my throat slightly at the same moment she realizes I’m there and whirls around in surprise.
Her face is a shock. Far more beautiful than I’d expected, but also filled with strain. A tension that tells me she’s on guard after going through a lot, probably recently too. So she’s very controlled, aware of others around her as her features immediately slam shut once she’s absorbed the surprise of me standing there. I’m kind of surprised myself. I haven’t seen her in the office before and wonder what she’s doing here so early. Maybe she’s some waif wandered in off the streets, sneaking past security and helping herself to coffee. Maybe she spent the night. Homeless or dumped by some guy after a wild night. Who knows?
“I’m not here to make coffee,” she tells me when I say “I’ll take a cup of Joe,” in a far more friendly voice than my staff usually hear from me. I’m not known for my gregarious nature. But I’ve fallen into a pit of fascination for this gamine little nymph.
She gives me a slight glare when I demand to know exactly why she is here, just stopping myself from adding, ‘babe you’re here to do whatever I tell you to’.
But the perfection of her defiance has blood gushing through me. And like a lone star hurtling toward something massive and mysterious, I’m magnetically pulled to move closer to her by the force of her obstinate glare. Even my most virulent business competitors don’t challenge me the way this girl is doing.
Right then I have the overwhelming desire to press her down and have her on her knees at my feet. There’s something dangerous about this girl, terrible in a delicious way. It’s something I want to delve into. To own and possess and tear away from her so she admits that only I am the boss.
By the way she looks me up and down, she must think I’m not much more than a clerk or the delivery boy. Even though I’m far from a boy and must seem ancient to her. To me she’s like a vibrant force in my tedious life, something new and fresh, something I haven't had in far too long.
“I’m about to find out,” she almost snarls. This girl has some feist on her and she isn’t intimidated by an alpha man in a senior position.
So why is she dressed like a hooker and in rumpled clothes that haven’t seen a washer in weeks?
I stride across the room to pour my own coffee and as I come close and inhale the soft aroma of her skin or her hair, my mind shoots bullets. I almost want to grab her and pull her to me. That, or force her to show me some respect and not this sassy attitude. The pull and push of emotions tugs at my insides, throwing me out of my usual cool state.
How does one young woman have such an overwhelming effect on me?
Either it’s been too long since I’ve spent time with someone this strong-willed or the tiredness is hitting me in bizarre ways. Whatever it is, I have to get away from her. Except I can’t. Not when she lifts her red-gold eyelashes to hit me full on with a provocative stare. As though she’s challenging me, the fiery little rebel.
But to what? I can’t leave until I know who she is. That I won’t come back into the office later and find she was a figment of my over-worked brain, a mirage.
I don’t even know what I’m doing until my brain snaps-to and I realize I have the girl’s head clamped in my palm and my mouth covering hers.
Not merely covering her lips. My tongue slams into her mouth, the way I urgently wish my cock was doing. Her body is still, no fighting me off. She’s completely surrendered. Like a lamb lying down for the kill. And then her tongue shoves back against mine, swirling and prodding like we’re a pair of martial arts mouths in a battle to the end. She presses her body into the solid barrier of my torso, no doubt detecting the raging wood in my suit pants. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done to restrain myself from ripping her blouse open. I’m in my company break room for fuck’s sake. I know my assistant is in the building even if no one else is.
I can’t pick her up and slam her onto the counter top. I can’t shove her thighs apart and pull whatever fabric covers her slickness to the side before delving deep inside her. But that ravenous desire transfers itself between her firm lips. I clamp the back of her head to tug her closer into my mouth as I devour her with an avaricious tongue-pounding.
“Who are you?” I breathe, my mouth barely a whisper from hers, the overwhelming desire to crush her lips under mine almost consuming me.
Then I pull away, pick up my coffee and exit the break room.
I stumble down the hall like a drunk. Weaving side to side and palming the wall with a slam, forcing myself to get it together as coffee sloshes over the cup.
Jesus fuck.
Chapter 3
Grace
“There you are Grace. I told you to stay where I left you.”
A voice I think I know shatters my – what?
What do I call what just happened? A fantasy? An assault? No, no that. Because after my initial shock at his kissing me so abruptly, my pussy starting to clench so hard I almost unwound into a frenzy of need. I’d never been touched or kissed by a man that much older. He must be at least forty. Although he looks damn good on it. A rapture then. Yeah, I’m enraptured.
“Grace, this is Janice Markle – she’ll be your boss here at Hopper Financial. You’re to do whatever she asks and not make any trouble, promise?”
Why do they speak to me like that? A wayward child. A rambunctious pet to be tamed.
“Yes of course. Whatever she wants.”
The woman actually seems okay. Older, almost motherly. If your mom was your best friend which mine never was. And not looking at me like I’m a dirty smear on her shoe.
My eyes flit to the ground like I know they want me. Humiliated, shamed, grateful for their charity. Repentant is the word. I hate that word.
I feel the two older women’s gazes fixed on my head as I surreptitiously lift my lids to seek out that hunky guy’s disappearing back. He’s good and gone however. Leaving only confusion roiling around in my stomach. When he pressed his mouth over mine, it was like having every last drop of me sucked up between his powerful thick lips.
Why does Janice Markle have to be the big boss around here? Because if it was the guy that just claimed me, I’d be willing to work for nothing but more of his hard hands all over me.
“You’ll be a general office assistant,” she says. “Helping me with whatever tasks I need done as well as a runner.”
“A runner?” I ask. “Does that mean I get to come to work in sneakers?”
“Grace,” Commandant Treadwell says with a warning tone.
“Here at Hopper we like wom
en to wear office smart, so a skirt and heels will be required.”
She eyes my current outfit with all the disdain of inappropriate.
Ya don't look at me like that B because I was just attacked in this break room and could bring some vicious assault charges if I was that sort. Your office policies can ram themselves in my cherry.
“Back to the corsets it is,” I say.
I can imagine that dominant guy would have me all trussed up in bondage outfits if he thought he could get away with it. So much for equality in the workplace.
“Grace, you’re very lucky that Hopper has taken you on. Try to get along with people while you’re here.”
It was wanting to get along with people that landed me in this situation in the first place. I was just a girl aiming for good grades and a great job but wanting to be liked finally got the better of me. When Jed approached me, coming up on me outside the gym – a place I rarely frequented – to ask me to drink a beer with him, I admit it I was flattered.
“I don’t drink,” I murmured, terrified I was going to trip up over the words, my lips almost numb from the sexual energy pouring off him.
“Come on, don’t make me drink alone. I’m new here.”
“Well okay, just one.”
I caved that easily. He was also a man with experience, at twenty eight years old. His eyes trawled through my soul and through my chest cavity like he was burrowing for treasure. I couldn’t stand up to that much intense examination, being more accustomed to being a girl that people ignored unless they were seeking someone to criticize.
“I think a different outfit is required for this job,” Janice Markle says. “You can start tomorrow. Be here tomorrow at nine.”
“Ready to start running,” I say.
“She’ll be here,” Cynthia says and after thanking Janice profusely she leads me back out of the building, now starting to heave with workers swarming in the opposite direction. They part around either side of us then merge again like rushing water.
“Remember how lucky you are that the judge agreed to all my recommendations,” my adviser continues now, scrolling her finger down the top paper in the stack in front of her. That’s me there, my life, reduced to a set of papers in a file. That’s who I am now. “He isn't usually this lenient, even for a first offense.”
That word.
Offense. I’m an offender. I’m offensive.
“His only stipulation was that you must stay in this job you’ve been given. Stay out of trouble, no drinking and stay employed. He wants to see commitment to your future now. If you lose this job he’s offering rehabilitation instead.”
“Prison?” I gasp, barely able to comprehend the horror of that. One mistake. One wrong emotion crashing through your body and your whole life can go to, yeah, pot.
“Well yes, but don’t worry about that now. I’m sure you can manage this job as an office um, associate. Just keep your head down and don't get involved with anything unsavory.”
“Where will I live? I’m not from here.” I guess she knows that. She has my entire life noted in bullet points in front of her. She knows more about me than I know about myself – or so she tells me.
“You have a room in a shared house. It’s nothing glamorous and it’s a bit of a ride into the city to get to the job but it’s a start.”
“Can’t I just go home? Back to Missouri and do my penance there?”
“I’m afraid not. The offense was committed in this jurisdiction.”
That word again. I doubt I’ll ever hear it without this shudder of shame rippling down my back.
“Look on the bright side,” she continues. “Most girls would be thrilled to land a job at a good company and a room in the city.”
I try to smile back at her sudden perky optimism. She’s already filing her papers away in her bag and pulling out her car keys.
“Shall we go?” she asks, as though I have a choice.
I follow her, back to the parking lot where the jockey brings out her small car. Then charges her $22 for the half hour we were in the office. Wow, this place is expensive. How am I ever going to pick myself up at these prices? I get in beside her and we drive out through the midtown crush toward the suburb I’ll be calling home for the next year of my life. The house she parks in front of looks the same as every other on every street for the last few miles. I climb out and only hope I can be equally nondescript for the time I’m here. I don’t want to attract any attention. All I want is to get this time in purgatory over with, prove to the authorities holding my life in their steel clad palm that I can be a good citizen, then get the hell out. Where I don’t know. I don’t know much of anything any more. Life seems to be floating freeform and not in a good way.
“Well, it’s not much but it’s all yours,” my adviser says as she unlocks the door to the house and leads me directly around the shared living space and kitchen with its ancient cabinets, the laminate peeling from the edges of the doors. Burn marks from cigarettes covering most of the furniture.
She heads straight up the stairs and I follow. One bathroom shared between six of us, all girls of course. No men allowed into our lives while we prove ourselves as penitents. That’s going to make for some aggressive mornings as we fight over the one mirror.
She unlocks the door onto a small room with a twin bed supporting a thin mattress and a half closet, freestanding set at an angle, there’s so little space.
“Last in, you have the smallest room in the house,” Cynthia says with a shrug. “At least it’s cozy.”
I resist the urge to say, ‘Yeah if cozy means being able to rifle through your closet while lying in bed.’
Instead I say “Thank you.” And “Yes see you next week for my review, bye then.”
And watch her disappear down the stairs. I know I’m supposed to be grateful that this room doesn't come with a set of bars across the door and window. But I can’t help feeling like I want to run after the woman who controls my life and beg her to take me home with her. Anything but leaving me here. It’s almost as bad as the detention center. Jail.
I drop my backpack and throw myself down on the bed. I need to bite my lip to stop hot tears gushing from my eyes. Break Room guy’s face swarms up in my thoughts. And my hands find their way down my stomach to rest in the crease between my thighs. He was so gorgeous, more so the way every limb was energized with confident power. My palm came up to his chest to push him off then fell under the spell of touching him. As my body succumbs to filthy thoughts, I yank my hands away from my tingling pleasure spot.
How could I have been such an idiot to throw everything I was working for away just because some hot guy, and not even that hot, gave me a snippet of his attention? Was I really that desperate for a man to find me attractive that I allowed him to convince me to break the law? Forget it. No point dwelling on the past. Just let’s call it a lesson learned and at least I learned it early enough that I have time to correct it. I will not become intoxicated by some old dude that works in the office. Not for anything.
Chapter 4
Hopper
Instead of calling my car, I walk the few short blocks to my loft, going against the tide of office workers pouring toward the core office towers. The apartment is close, purchased specifically for clients visiting from out of town. One of a bunch of real estate I own. It’s handy for quickies, whether power naps or the other kind I prefer not to have in my own home.
“Good morning, Mr Grady sir,” the doorman touches his hat as I stride through the lobby and into the elevator. I want to be inside, alone, sequestered from others, where that girl’s face won’t continue to probe my mind. Her eyes searching, looking into me as though burrowing into my hidden self.
What was it about her that was so unsettling? I’ve known plenty of women and although she’s young, she has the aura of someone way older.
It was bad enough that I was picturing her on her knees, wearing nothing but panties and those knee high boots. Maybe some light restraint on he
r perky round tits. Just enough to have her gaze up at me with that look of rebellious submission before I tore the panties right off her. She’s way too young for me.
When I get into the bathroom and see myself in the mirror, it doesn't surprise me that she was completely unimpressed by my presence. I look like a bum that just woke up beneath a dumpster. My suit all rumpled, my tie hanging loose and a solid black field of stubble across my jaw. No wonder Janice advised me to go home.
I strip everything off, leaving the clothes wherever they fall. Then I pull back the heavy glass door to the double shower stall and step inside. I throw the huge chrome faucets and the two shower heads blast against my taut muscles. I’m tighter than normal after an all-night deal session. My body flexing with unmet needs.
“Alexa, order the masseuse,” I shout over the forceful pattering of the rainhead.
“Would you care for the regular or upgraded service, Sir?”
“Upgraded obviously, you idiot,” I bark in frustration. “That wasn’t very nice, Sir,” the machine replies with a pout in her voice.
I don’t feel nice.
What I feel is that I’d like to wring something between my fists and squeeze everything out of it. The image of the girl in my break room rises up through the steam building in the shower. Her head cupped in my large palm, my other hand on the curve of her hip, my fingertips digging into the swell of her cheek with a hunger I can barely contain. My dick is standing straight up, pointing up at me angrily. The pounding of the water doesn't even register and the stiff wood aims straight as an arrow, without the slightest sway.
I take the fucker in my hand and slide along the heated length.
“Alexa, cancel the upgraded and order the regular masseuse,” I rasp at the machine.
She repeats my order back to me.