Taken by the Aliens

by Anna Lewis

  This was bad, really bad.

  “Mr. Archer?” Shelby finally entered the room, crossed to Jackson and wrapped her arms around him.

  She didn’t think that he would accept the hug but, much to her surprise, Jackson just relaxed into her and dropped his lovely dark head on to her shoulder.

  “Jackson?” she tried once more and this time he responded.

  “Shelby,” he said, voice muffled by her shoulder. “Someone from the board of directors called me this morning. Apparently, someone found out that we had some Archer Enterprise shares coming available and they bought them before we could reacquire them.”

  “What are you saying, Jackson?”

  “I’m saying that I no longer own the majority of Archer Enterprises.”

  Shelby’s mouth fell open in surprise. She knew that the stock reacquisition was an important deal, but she had no idea that it might mean that Jackson could lose control of the company.

  “Oh, Jackson, no,” she muttered, holding him tight like a child. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “We don’t even know what happened, Shelby,” Jackson continued. “I was on this, I was so on this, and then…blindsided.”

  Shelby held Jackson as he explained how things went down. They’d been set to require the shares this morning, but when Archer Enterprises brokers approached the seller, he’d already sold to an anonymous buyer.

  “How did he get the contact info for the seller, Shelby?” Jackson whined. “I mean, I had that info. Don, our broker, he had that info. And you had it.”

  “Me?” Shelby froze.

  “Yeah, you were cc’d on all those messages,” Jackson said. “They’re all probably still in your inbox, unless you deleted them.”

  Shelby’s stomach dropped to the floor. They were in her inbox, all her emails were currently stored in the cloud, so she’d have them available on all her devices: her laptop, her tablet…her phone.

  Her phone.

  Which had spent the night in Andre’s penthouse. Which would have been easily accessible to anyone in the penthouse, whether that was Andre or a different member of his staff.

  There was no other explanation. Andre had used her.

  ***

  Shelby held Jackson, her brain whirling through possible solutions, but none of them made any sense. It had to be the most obvious answer: Andre had invited her to Paris, wooed her and then fucked her, all so he could get his hands on the top-secret business info on her phone.

  That bastard.

  For so long, Shelby had admired Andre, compared Jackson’s behavior and business acumen to Andre’s and she’d been wrong—so, so wrong—to do that. Andre was perfect on the outside, but inside, he was a lying, manipulative scumbag.

  And she was beginning to think she’d horribly underestimated Jackson.

  Her boss—Jackson Archer, cocky playboy and general pain in the ass—was now huddled in her arms, trembling like a small child. She had to tell him the truth, she knew she did, but it was so hard to open her mouth and be honest about her part in this.

  “Mr. Archer,” she began, but Jackson cut her off.

  “Mr. Archer is my father, Shelby,” he said. “My father was an excellent businessman and I…I don’t deserve to share his name. Just call me Jackson. Please.”

  Shelby took a deep breath. This was going to be harder than she had imagined. “Jackson, I need to tell you something.”

  She pulled away from him and Jackson sat up, gazing at her with his big blue eyes. He looked open, childlike. She’d never seen her boss without his snarky, shit-eating grin. This wasn’t the man she knew and disdained.

  “You do?” he whispered. “Shelby, there’s something I need to tell you, too—”

  “Mr. Archer—”

  “Jackson.”

  “All right,” Shelby conceded. “Jackson. Please let me go first.”

  Jackson shook his head. “No, Shelby. I think I know what you’re going to say or, or a variation on the theme, so please. Let me go first.”

  Shelby really, really doubted that he knew what she was going to say, but she’d been taking instructions from the men of the Archer family for so long, following along was an instinct.

  “I’m sorry, Shelby,” Jackson said. “For being such a shit to you these last few years.”

  There were a lot of things that Shelby thought Jackson might say, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.

  “I know what people think of me, what my father thought of me and I, I don’t know. I guess I was just trying to live up to all their negative expectations,” Jackson admitted, running a hand through his thick black waves. “But you…”

  “Me?” Shelby had an idea where this was going and was beyond shocked.

  “Do you remember when my father made you be my date to that gala? When I was dating that actress and he freaked out?”

  Oh, Shelby definitely remembered.

  “Well, you took care of me that night, Shelby. You looked after me, you got mad at me when I said something shitty, you actually made sure I got home safely,” Jackson said. “You were the first person to ever really call me out on my shit, or the first woman anyway. Most of them are content to just let me misbehave, act like an idiot. They don’t care if I’m safe or happy or whatever, they just want me for my money. But you, Shelby, you never gave two shits about Jackson Archer Jr., billionaire bad boy. You cared about Jackson, a guy who was making some really bad choices and I…I appreciated that.”

  Shelby chose her next words carefully. “Then why did you continue to…behave badly even after your father died? You could have made any choice you wanted, you were in charge of the company. You didn’t have to keep being an idiot, Jackson.”

  Jackson laughed, low and thin, but at least it was a laugh. That was one step toward getting the old Jackson back.

  “I love it when you call me an idiot, Shelby.” Jackson said, reaching one hand out to stroke along the edge of her jawline.

  Something else clicked into place for Shelby.

  “Jackson—” she started.

  “I love you, Shelby,” Jackson finally admitted, and Shelby froze. “I think I’ve loved you ever since I almost threw up on you at that first party, but I didn’t realize it then. I realize it now, though, and I’ll be damned if I let you—”

  This was all too much for Shelby. She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she needed Jackson to stop talking. Immediately. And there was only one surefire way of doing that.

  She shoved Jackson back on the bed threw herself on top of him, stopping his mouth with her kiss. She could feel his lips form a brief ‘O’ of surprise before they relaxed into the kiss, pressing back against her with a sweet tenderness.

  Jackson explored the kiss, losing himself in her mouth as his tongue desperately chased hers. When Shelby was sure his attention was elsewhere, she deftly unbuckled his belt and tugged his trousers down around his thighs.

  “Shelby?” he asked, pulling away for a brief moment to suck in air. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him, stroking the outline of his cock through his thin boxers. “Tell me I can do this?”

  “Do what?” Jackson whispered, eyes big.

  Shelby slid her hand into his boxers and wrapped her clever fingers around his thick shaft. “This,” she murmured, sliding her hand up and down with surprising ease.

  “Y-yes!” he stammered. “Yes, you can definitely do that, Shelby.”

  She pulled her hand free for a moment and offered her palm to Jackson. “Lick,” she commanded and Jackson eagerly lapped at her palm, providing all the lubrication that she’d need to properly take care of his hard, needy dick.

  When her palm was slick with Jackson’s spit, she slipped back inside his boxers and took him in hand once again. Jackson fell back on the bed, writhing in pleasure and she sat above him, tugging him toward orgasm.

  “Shelby!” he moaned. “Shelby, oh my god. Don’t stop! Don’t stop, please…”

/>   Shelby increased her strokes, twisting her wrist slightly as she reached the tip, teasing the head with each twist.

  Jackson moaned and thrashed on the bed, hands balled up in the sheets as he gripped the linens to ground himself.

  “Shelby,” he said again, voice low and scratchy. “Shelby, I’m so close but I need…”

  “What do you need?” Shelby whispered in his ear.

  “I need… I need…” Jackson stammered.

  “What, baby?”

  “I need you to say my name,” he finished.

  Shelby took a deep breath. That was not what she was expecting at all. “Jackson,” she said finally and he thrust his cock up into her fist, moaning in delight at the sound of his name falling from her lips.

  “Jackson,” Shelby said again and was rewarded with another shuddering moan. Shelby opened up then, repeating herself, driving Jackson closer and closer to the edge with the lightning fast ministrations of her hand and the repetition of his own name.

  With a cry, he threw his head back and came, white droplets of his release spurting over Shelby’s tight fist. He cried out again as Shelby coaxed the last of his orgasm from his exhausted cock, then she released him, wiping her hands on the disheveled bed linens.

  A moment passed, then another. Finally, Jackson propped himself up on one arm and gazed admiringly down at Shelby, still wearing her rumpled ball gown.

  “That was incredible,” he whispered down at her. “I love you, Shelby.”

  “Jackson,” she said, but he cut her off with a kiss.

  “I love the sound of you saying my name, Shel,” he said, then dove back into the kiss. Shelby knew that she needed to say something, let him know about her betrayal, but his mouth felt so good against hers, his lips so soft as they left her mouth and nibbled down her throat, across her collarbone, down…

  “Jackson, I need to tell you something,” she blurted, sitting up abruptly.

  “What?” he asked warily.

  “Jackson, I—”

  A knock sounded on the door to the flat.

  “Are you expecting anyone?” Jackson asked wryly.

  Shelby shook her head. “Nope.”

  As Jackson buried his naked self under the covers, Shelby straightened her dress, making herself as appropriate-looking as humanly possible, then crossed the flat to the front door.

  There, on the other side of the threshold, stood Andre Kennedy, fists clenched at his sides and dark eyes nearly black with anger.

  “How dare you,” he hissed, glaring at Shelby like she was nothing but a piece of dirt on his shoe.

  ***

  Shelby stood there for a moment, completely confused. The emotions of the morning had been a bit of a rollercoaster, but she eventually remembered where she’d left things with Andre. They were good or, rather, they were good as far as Andre was concerned. He didn’t know that she knew that he’d played her for a fool.

  If anything, she should be the one standing on his doorstep and yelling at him.

  “How dare I?” Shelby replied, throwing his words back at him. “More like ‘how dare you, Andre?’”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Shelby,” Andre replied. “I know exactly what you’ve been up to, you manipulative, treacherous—”

  “Is everything okay, Shel?” Jackson padded out of the bedroom, dressed only in his discarded pair of boxers.

  Andre’s face contorted as he took in the sight of a nearly-naked Jackson and Shelby, still dressed in her gown from the previous night.

  “I knew it,” Andre stuttered. “I fucking knew it, man.”

  “Andre,” Shelby went to him, hands outstretched. He was so mad at her. She was so mad at him. He was probably experiencing so many new emotions—betrayal, disappointment, requited affection—that his head was likely to explode in confusion.

  But the fact remained that Andre had used her.

  “Congratulations on your new stock acquisition, Mr. Kennedy,” Shelby said coolly.

  “Excuse me?” Andre shot back.

  “Wait, what?” Jackson said.

  In the middle of distracting Jackson with sex, Shelby might have forgotten all the things her boss didn’t know.

  “Jackson, this is what I have to tell you—” Shelby began, then launched into the whole story. Andre wooing her, deliberately bringing a date that Jackson would be distracted by, taking her to bed and then stealing the information from her phone.

  “—and that’s everything,” she finished. “Andre screwed us both, I guess.”

  Jackson looked at her, blue eyes full of hurt. “You…slept with him, Shel?”

  That was not the thing that Shelby expected him to be most upset about that.

  “Jackson, I didn’t know—” she began.

  “Bullshit,” Andre snapped, cutting her off. “Both of you are so full of bullshit, I cannot even stand it.”

  “What the hell are you even talking about, Andre?” Shelby snapped. Jackson was still looking at her, his expression sad.

  “Nice try with the ‘corporate espionage’ game, Shelby,” Andre continued. “But we all know that it’s you who got all up in my shit. Care to explain to me why my investment in Paris Global was denied this morning?”

  Shelby just stared at him. Paris Global was the firm that they’d met with yesterday, but she didn’t do anything that would have messed up Andre’s business deal with them. Or, at least she thought she hadn’t.

  Andre explained that he was set to be the final investor in the project, but when his lawyers had called to broker the deal this morning, they’d discovered that the Paris Global people had already struck a deal with a different investor. One who had outbid Andre by the slightest margin.

  “It’s like they knew exactly what my investment was going to be,” Andre glared. “And then they upped their bid until they were higher. I wonder where they got that information, Shelby?”

  “Jackson?” she asked. “Did we do anything to mess up Andre’s deal this morning.”

  “No,” Jackson finally managed, but the sound was small, so small. It was like Shelby had broken him.

  “I’m sorry, Andre, but we didn’t do anything,” Shelby finished. “I’m sorry that your deal went in the shitter, but we didn’t do it. It sounds like there would have had to have been some sort of, I don’t know, brilliant spy who was able to get access to your hotel penthouse and our flat at some point in the last…oh.”

  The solution dawned on Shelby.

  “Svetlana,” she gasped. “It was Svetlana!”

  Both boys turned to her, faces agape with relief.

  “It wasn’t you,” Andre cried, rushing to her and sweeping her up in his arms.

  “It wasn’t you,” Shelby replied, kissing him. “Oh thank god, thank god…”

  A throat cleared behind them and both Shelby and Andre turned in that direction. Jackson Archer—one of the richest, most sought after men in the world—was sitting on the couch, dressed only in a pair of used boxers and a miserable expression.

  “Jackson…” Shelby said.

  “I love you, Shelby,” he said simply. “I’ve loved you for years. I was hoping that you could give me a chance, that we could start fresh—”

  “Jackson,” Shelby tried again, but he kept speaking.

  “But I understand. Andre is…a great guy. I know that you two will be very happy.”

  Something in Shelby’s chest panged at this. She’d had fun with Andre. He was kind, he was smart, he was lovely. But he wasn’t Jackson Archer and, she was shocked to discover, somewhere deep down inside her, Shelby loved Jackson back.

  “Shelby?” Andre’s hand was on her shoulder. “If you need to stay with him…”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I just found you, Dre, I’m not ready to walk away yet—”

  Jackson spoke without raising his eyes. “It’s okay, Shel. You deserve to be happy, so go. Go with Andre. He’s a good guy and I’m…”

  “You’re mine, Jackson,” she said, finishing hi
s sentence for him. “You’re mine and I can’t let you go, either.”

  “Shelby,” Andre said.

  “Shel,” Jackson echoed.

  “Wait,” Shelby said, voice decisive. “I don’t have to decide, do I? What if…what if I just become the most hated woman in the world?”

  “Shelby, what are you talking about?” Jackson demanded, but Andre’s brown eyes were gleaming warmly at Shelby’s words. He understood.

  “I’m saying, Jackson, that I won’t settle for one of the world’s most eligible young billionaires,” Shelby said. “I want them both.”

  She crossed to Jackson then, knelt before him and stroked the side of his face with her small hand. “Jackson Archer, I’ve been in love with you so long, I can’t even remember when it started. Now kiss me.”

  Jackson did. He leaned forward and let Shelby press her lips against his, let her curious tongue explore his mouth. When she pulled away, his mouth trailed after her, unwilling to abandon the kiss.

  “Andre?” she asked, but he understood. Andre backed her into the couch, pushing her on the cushions next to Jackson, pressing her back as he pillaged her mouth with his. Shelby’s hand sought Jackson’s hand and found it, and Jackson held it tightly as she kissed Andre.

  Jackson’s hand released Shelby’s, roaming up her thighs toward the tantalizing crevice between her legs. His fingers were just beginning to explore when Shelby pulled back suddenly.

  “Wait,” she gasped, then tried to think a good way to put this. She hadn’t showered after spending the night at Andre’s and it seemed a bit rude to allow a new lover to discover her when she was still a bit…disheveled from the other lover the previous night. But how could she put that tactfully and not freak out either of the boys?

  “I think we should move this party to the shower,” she said.

  It was a mess of discarded clothing and tangled limbs as the three lovers made their way to the enormous shower in Jackson’s master bathroom. The hot water steamed down on them from two separate shower heads and Shelby found herself pressed between both men’s firm, taut bodies.

  Andre was small, slimmer, but every muscle was elegant and well-defined. Jackson had a swimmer’s body—tall, broad, strong. Shelby didn’t know which one she wanted more.