by Kaylee, Katy
“Will do. Thank you, Rachel.”
Amber laughed to herself and looked over at the clock. “Oh, shit.”
She jumped up from the chair and grabbed her raincoat, needing to go pick up Bradley from his daycare. She still wasn’t used to the days going by so quickly, but she was super excited to see her little boy, even more so than her promotion. She raced out of the building and jumped into her car, heading over to the daycare center. Ms. Brown was standing out front with Bradley and a couple of other children when she arrived.
Amber hurried up and gave Bradley a big hug. Ms. Brown smiled. “He did so good today. He has been anxious to tell you all about it.”
Amber looked at Bradley. “You did? Well, I was thinking that we would go have some pizza!”
Bradley put his arms up in the air. “Yay!”
They headed over to the local pizza shop and got a table, munching on some cheese bread while they waited for the pizza. Amber looked over at Bradley, thinking about how amazing of a day she had. “So, tell me all about your day.”
Bradley wiped his face with the napkin that was as big as his head. “I got all of my ABC’s in the first try. Then I read the first three pages of a book to the class and I only messed up once. Everyone thought I was the best reader of the day. Ms. Brown gave me a special reading sticker for my board. I get to pick the book during next reading circle time.”
Amber gasped, putting her hands together. “That is so wonderful, monster. I am so proud of you. I know you’ve been working hard on the reading every night before bed. Before you know it, you will be reading Tolstoy.”
Bradley wrinkled his nose. “What’s Toystoy?”
Amber laughed. “Tolstoy, and don’t you worry about that yet. Spot the Wonder Dog is probably better, anyway. Tolstoy doesn’t put awesome pictures in his book. To be honest, he is kind of boring even to us old adults.”
Bradley giggled. “So, what about your day, Mommy? Did you do anything exciting at your new job?”
Amber grinned. “Mommy got a promotion, and she gets to start interviewing her new team next week.”
Bradley was wide eyed. “You got a promotion? What’s a promotion?”
Amber threw her head back and bellowed. “Oh, little boy, you have so much to look forward to. I got a bigger title and more money. I will be in charge of people. Ten people. We will work as a team to get the job done, since there are so many parts to it. One person can do it, but it will take them a long time and they could make mistakes without having someone to check their work. I will also have a secretary.”
“Like Pawpaw has?” he asked.
Amber shook her head. “Yep, like Pawpaw has. She will answer my calls, set up meetings, and whatever else that I need. She will be a whole lot of help. Or he, maybe I’ll have a man secretary.”
He looked at her with awe. “Wow, that’s really cool. You must be important, like Pawpaw. Everyone says he is the most important man in the building.”
Amber tilted her head slightly. “Not yet, but one day I hope to be. And your Pawpaw has always been the most important person in the building, or so he thinks so.”
The waitress walked up to the table and set the pizza down. Amber looked up at her and smiled. “Ms. Handley, don’t you own this place? What are you doing waitressing?”
The older woman sighed. “Can’t keep waitresses on staff. They just want to go party with their boyfriends. So, I’ll just have to do it myself. How are you, dear? You guys look so great. And my goodness, Bradley is huge. I still remember when you came in here nine months pregnant, just craving some pizza. You had to sit three feet back from the table. You did a good job, Momma.”
Amber grinned. “Thank you. And I think that’s where his love of pizza came from. I sure ate enough of it when I was pregnant.”
Ms. Hadley patted her on the shoulder. “That’s how we keep the customers coming from generation to generation. You guys let me know if you need anything at all.”
Amber reached up and put a slice of pizza on a plate and cut it up into pieces for Bradley. He took his fork out, determined to eat like a big boy. She sat back and watched him eating his pizza, her hand on her belly. Her thoughts moved to Friday night and the way that Logan had kissed her stretch marks and told her that she was beautiful.
Sparks shot through her chest and she took a sip of her soda, trying to hide the feeling. It was the sweetest thing any man had done to her before. He had been so gentle and made her feel like the most beautiful creature ever to walk the planet. It made her heart skip a beat every time she thought about it.
At the same time, though, she was terrified that he was going to find out about Bradley. She had found out she was pregnant, despite the birth control, just a month after Logan had left. She could still feel that fear pulsing through her chest as she sat in her bathroom, staring at the plus sign on the test. At the time, she had been so angry and bitter that Logan had deserted her that she had made a promise that she would never tell him or anyone else, except Taylor. She would never let anyone hurt her child like Logan had hurt her.
Dealing with her parents had been a challenge at first. They wanted to know who the guy was, but Amber had insisted he didn’t even live there anymore, and he wasn’t interested in being a father. She was on her own, and she was okay with that. After a couple of weeks, though, they had let up and had begun to welcome the idea of their first grandchild. Of course, her dad was a bit less welcoming until the moment he held Bradley in his arms in the hospital. Amber could see his face go from fear to pure love and joy, and her father had never looked back after that.
After some time passed and the bitterness left her, Amber thought about contacting Logan, but had been too afraid. So much time had passed that she didn’t think she could ever tell him the truth. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She didn’t want to tell him and have him abandon them all over again, or worse, try to take him away from her. She had protected Bradley from everything in the world up to that point, she wasn’t going to stop just because Logan was being sweet to her. He wouldn’t be so sweet if he found out she had hidden his child from him for four years. She could only imagine just how livid he would be. No, she was going to stick to her guns on that one and keep the secret as far from him as she could.
“Mommy, you got quiet,” Bradley said, kicking his feet, pizza sauce on his cheek.
Amber reached over and wiped his cheek. “I sure did. I’m sorry. I was thinking about when you were just a baby in my belly. Ever since you came into my world, it’s been me and you. I love that I have my best boy by my side.”
Bradley smiled. “Do you ever miss my daddy?’
Amber choked a bit on her pizza. “What? Where did that come from?”
Bradley shrugged. “Mikey asked me about my dad, ‘cause he went fishing with his last week. I told him I didn’t have one. At least not one that I ever met.”
Amber immediately felt incredibly guilty. “The truth is, I do miss him from time to time. But in the end, we are both better off on our own. We have each other, we have Pawpaw, Grammy, Uncle Jordan, Aunt Melissa, and Aunt Taylor. What else do we need? You have so many people to love you, it’s crazy. I am jealous sometimes.”
Bradley took another bite. “I love all of them but guess what?”
Amber set her slice down. “What, monster?”
“I love you the most, Mommy. You are my best friend.”
A tear pulled at the corner of Amber’s eye and she held up her cup. “Let’s make a toast like we do at Pawpaw’s house.”
Bradley held up his kid’s cup. “What to?”
Amber thought about it for a second. “To you being the best reader ever, and to me and my new career.”
Bradley held his cup back. “And to being the best team ever, me and you.”
Amber smiled and clapped her cup against his. “Here, here.”
Amber was going to do anything and everything she could to keep Logan from finding out the secret. She
loved her son too much to risk either of their heartbreak.
Logan
“If you changed the character in the beginning, though, it would change the entire feel of the app. Right now, it has a medieval feel, but if you go with this character, you get more of a Viking pub whore look,” Amber said, flipping through the sketches from the artist.
“Hey, people like Viking pub whores,” Logan pointed out.
Amber chuckled, not looking at him. “If you’re a guy. Do you want to cut out fifty percent of your audience because you like pub girl on the cover? I think that would be dumb.”
Logan laughed. “You’re right. I’m just joking about her, anyway. I was never a big fan of that character because of the way she looks. I think that cuts back on our age group, too. Mom is not going to swipe the card for her little boy when she sees her bouncing up and down on the screen.”
Amber tilted her head back and forth. “Maybe, but at the same time your target shouldn’t be kids, it should be people with money. People with credit cards at the press of a button. Your goal is not just to sell downloads, it’s to sell products within the app. Timmy is gonna want a pack with three swords and a pint, but Timmy’s dad will buy it sitting in his man cave.”
Logan shuffled through his papers. “And if Timmy’s dad is our target, we should create packs that go along with what adults want.”
Amber nodded. “Which is their money’s worth, options, and the ability to create exactly what they are looking for.”
Logan snapped his fingers. “Precisely. A mix and match pack. You can pick from three or four different price points, and with those you pick exactly what you want from each category.”
Amber shook her head. “This is nuts.”
Logan looked up at her. “What is?”
Amber put down her pen. “That I am working on prize packs for virtual swords and chainmail. That people actually spend their hard-earned money to have a graffiti covered suit of armor in their app.”
Logan scoffed. “I know, right? The first time I ever worked with an app designer I was blown away by the shit that people would buy for these things. People love the extras. They spend millions of dollars a year on things they will never hold in their hands. It’s crazy nuts.”
Logan couldn’t help but notice that the two of them were right on the same page. They had started out jaggedly, and now they were completely in sync. She was brilliant with the project stuff, and the two of them seemed to have minds that worked almost the same. He couldn’t deny their connection and from the look of how hard she was pulling back, neither could she. Her face was straight, but he could tell she was enjoying the flow of how well they were conversing.
Usually Logan struggled with criticism, especially when it came to things that he had his hand in creating. He was brilliant when it came to tech, but not as much with marketing. For him, she seemed to be on his page. She understood the concept he was trying to present and didn’t want to change it, but offered things to the table that would make it better and more profitable. She went beyond her job title to make it successful, which was exactly what he wanted in someone of her position. It wasn’t often that he just meshed with someone like that, but then again it didn’t really surprise him with their past. They had always, at least when things were good, meshed together.
Logan wanted Amber to loosen up. He was tired of her being so scared to show her softer side to him. She had always been funny and fun to be around and he thought if she mixed that into her brilliance at work, she would be unstoppable.
He put his pen down and cleared his throat. “What do you call a field of cows masturbating?”
Amber blinked wildly looking down at her paper and then sighed, putting her pen down and staring up at him blankly. “I don’t know, what?”
Logan smiled. “Beef strokin’ off.”
He leaned his head back and laughed loudly, slapping his hand to the table. He loved that joke, but like so many others he had told it to, she just sat there staring at him blankly, not even a smirk on her lips. She picked up her pen and went back to work, completely ignoring the fact that he found himself incredibly hilarious.
He leaned his head forward. “You get it? Beef s-t-r-o-k-i-n-g off? Bahahaha.”
She smacked her lips together and continued writing, not saying a word. He wiped the tears from his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. She was doing everything she could to try to ignore him. In fact, the stern look on her face was incredibly sexy.
“Come on, you can’t ignore me,” he smiled.
He reached out to poke her hand, but she stood up nonchalantly and walked away, filling her coffee cup from the carafe in his office to the side. He tilted his head to the side and watched her walking, her long pencil skirt tight on her ass. Her tall six-inch heels made her legs look like they went on for miles, and he took a deep breath, looking back down at his work as she turned around.
She sat down and started writing again. Logan pouted. “You know if you laugh at my joke, that doesn’t automatically mean you’ve committed to a relationship with me.”
She slowly looked up at him. “I would have laughed if it was funny in the least.”
He grinned and nodded. “Oh, okay, so you’re a professional joke teller now. Well, come on, give me one.”
She looked at him and narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips. “Okay. How do you circumcise a hillbilly?”
Logan tilted his head. “How?”
She smiled mischievously. “Kick his sister in the jaw.”
Logan’s mouth fell open and there was silence for a few moments before he burst into laughter. She was laughing too, with a smile that he hadn’t seen from her in many years. The attraction he felt for her was growing stronger and stronger. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life. The way she smiled, the way her eyes creased in the corner and her nose wrinkled. The way her breasts heaved and she put one hand on her stomach. She was so sexy in every way imaginable.
She looked across the table at him still laughing and he caught the spark in her eyes. She quickly moved them over his body, the way she used to from across the table during family dinners when her foot moved up his leg playfully. He could tell she felt the exact same way as him. He could tell that there was a spark, or more like an explosion happening between the two of them. It was always there, just waiting for the fuse to be lit, and all it took was a brush of skin or a dirty joke to make it burst to life.
They both fell silent, looking down at their paperwork. Logan knew though, just like him, she wasn’t actually focused on it. The lust and attraction in the room was thick as fog, but they were in the office. They were in the exact place that she said she wanted things to be strictly professional. Anyone could knock on the door at any time and catch them in the throws of passion. Not only would it be him breaking his own office policy, but it would be something that could take him down if it got back to the wrong people. In that moment, he absolutely hated his office. He hated the restrictions all around him. They were like chains that were binding his hands and his legs to the floor.
Logan glanced up as Amber gently pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, revealing her long, feminine neck and soft, supple skin. The urge to press his lips to it made him shift eagerly in his chair and lick his lips. He watched as she brought the end of her pen to her soft, supple lips and bit gently on it. It was in that moment that he realized it wasn’t just her that turned him on so much. It was the understanding that sex in a forbidden place with her was so hot and so enticing that he couldn’t get his mind off of it.
He slid his hand down into his lap and pressed down on his massive erection. Maybe he wanted to throw caution to the wind and take chances for once. Maybe he wanted to have her wherever and whenever he wanted. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to get caught with her. He would never want to bring pain to her, but having it out in the open would give him a chance to really be with her. On top of that, the thrill of the creaking of the floor on the ou
tside of the door, the turning of a door handle as he pushed inside of her, it was incredibly hot.
Logan had never done anything like that before, in fact, he hadn’t been with anyone since he left Amber five years before. He wanted to do those things with her, it was her body he lusted after, and this was just another daring escapade they could add to their resume of sexual experiences with each other. After a few moments, he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He pushed his chair back and walked around the table, sitting down in the seat next to her and leaning forward.
As his hand swiped her hair gently back from her ear, her breath hitched in her throat, making him grin. He leaned back and took her hand, pulling her from the chair and walking over to his desk. He leaned her back against it and stood close to her. He could tell she was so taken aback she couldn’t even speak a word to him. He ran his lips across her cheek and poised next to her ear.
Logan was straight forward, no bullshit. “I want to fuck you right here on my desk.”
She gasped slightly as he stepped to the side and shoved everything off onto the floor. She swallowed hard, trying to protest, but her lips just quivered as his cock rubbed against her leg. He pulled his lips right to hers and began to whisper. “You know you want to, stop fighting yourself. Stop fighting me.”
Her eyes fell to his and she looked into them for a moment before giving in and slamming her lips onto his. Her hands flew right to his belt buckle, and it was on. They were ripping and tearing at each other, trying to be close, trying to not let the moment slip by. Logan grabbed her ass with both hands and lifted her up on the desk. He slid her skirt up to her hips and pulled her panties off, tossing them to the side.
He pulled back and looked at her for just a moment before letting his pants drop. She reached down, frantically pulling out his hard shaft and scooting to the edge of the desk. He grabbed her around the waist and bent his knees slightly, thrusting his long, hard dick inside of her. She gasped, and he pressed his lips to hers. Over and over again he slammed into her, breathing heavily into her neck. Her hands gripped his back.