“What’s going on?” Someone calls from the hallway and we’re joined by a woman I can only assume is Colleen. “Andrew?” she asks, unsure of what to make of the situation.
“Grace, go to your room. I need to have a talk with your boss,” Andrew says, and Grace makes to do as she’s told, as if out of instinct or habit. But then she stops and turns back to me.
“No, I want to hear what he has to say,” Grace says, crossing her arms. I watch as the shock of this defiance crosses Andrew’s face. “And I’m not a child. I’m 19 years old. I won’t be told to go to my room.”
“Grace,” I say, wanting her to find her way to me, away from these controlling people. She moves toward me, but Andrew stops her.
“Grace,” I say, again, my chest rising up in Andrew’s direction as if to warn him to leave her alone. “You need to get away from these people. They’re only going to continue to control and manipulate you. You shouldn’t be made to feel bad about wanting to explore things for yourself. You shouldn’t be made to feel dirty for having desires. You shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting things or wanting to be with me. They’re preventing you from living your own life. It’s not a sin to be with the man you love.”
I make my way towards her, but Andrew stands in front of me, blocking my path.
“She doesn’t love you, Boyd,” Andrew says, matter-of-factly. He glares at me, so confident in his assessment of the situation.
“Grace,” I say, ignoring him and looking directly at her. “He’s just jealous of what we have. He’s jealous that I’m in love with you. He wants you all to himself. He wants you to be with him.” I don’t look at Colleen, but out of the corner of my eye, I see her move further into the house. I can’t help but feel bad for her, even if none of this seems surprising to her and she instead seems resigned to her fate. “Please, Grace. Come with me. I’ll take care of you. You can come back to work and you’ll be given a raise. You can live on your own. Or, with me.”
I look at her, pleadingly, and our eyes meet. She gives me a small smile that lifts my heart.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Andrew says, trying to close the door on me. But Grace places a hand on the door and stops him from closing it further.
“Yes, I am, Andrew,” Grace says, and pulls the door open. Andrew stands there in shock and lets her go. “I love him and I’m going with him.” Grace moves past him, but he grabs her arm again.
“Grace, you don’t belong with him. If you belong with anyone, it’s me. We’ve given you everything. Don’t give that up. Can you imagine what God must be thinking right now?” Andrew says, desperation heavy in his voice.
“God can think whatever he wants and so can I.” Grace pulls herself out of his grasp and walks down the steps towards me. I reach out towards her, enveloping her once she reaches me. She even smells the same. I savor every moment as I place a gentle, yet desperate kiss on her sweet tasting lips.
“You won’t be welcome back at the Church, Grace,” Andrew says, in one last ditch effort to get Grace to change her mind. “Or this house.”
She turns around and looks directly at him and takes my hand. “I don’t want to go to a church that doesn’t have my best interests at heart and makes me feel guilty about things I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about. Thank you for all that you’ve done for me but it’s time I found my own path. And that doesn’t include living here anymore.”
She turns her back on Andrew and we walk back toward my car, an extra spring in both our steps.
Chapter 23
Grace
Boyd and I sit across from each other at a fancy restaurant. This is our first real date and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The excitement of being out with him is radiating through my entire body. I can’t wait to tell Erin about our date. She called me and I filled her in on what’s been going on. As someone who has been through something similar, she’s elated for me.
“To us,” Boyd says, holding up his glass of wine and I clink my glass with his, unable to keep the smile from my face. “Grace, I should have never let you go that day at the office. I should have fought harder for you.”
“It’s okay,” I say, taking his hand across the table. “Honestly, until I learned how to let go of my guilt, it would have all been in vain, no matter how hard you fought. Guilt, I now know that I should never have had in the first place. Thank you for helping me see that.”
He kisses the top of my hand and I can’t help but smile.
“I love you, Grace,” Boyd says, squeezing my hand in his. “I love you so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know it may be way too early to say that, but I know it’s true. You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I didn’t know I could have. So, thank you.”
“I love you, too,” I say, and lean across the table to kiss him. I sit back and look at him for a long moment, taking everything in.
“What?” He asks, with a smile. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What do you say we get out of here?” I ask, a wicked grin forming on my face.
“Our meal hasn’t even come yet,” Boyd says.
“I have a better meal in mind,” I say, winking at him.
At that, Boyd tosses his napkin on the table and gets up from his seat. He comes over and pulls my seat out for me. I take his hand and he leads me in the direction of the car, but I stop him before he gets to the door. He looks back at me in confusion.
“I didn’t say we had to leave the restaurant.”
“What are you…”
I take his hand and lead him towards the bathroom.
We enter the ladies’ bathroom and I push him into the handicap stall. I immediately start taking off his pants and tug them to the floor. He kisses me deeply and trails light kisses down my neck.
I run my hands along his shirt and rip it open, the buttons flying every which way. He bites his lip in anticipation and I tug his briefs down and am presented with that all too familiar cock, looking as beautiful as always.
“Grace, you do the most amazing things to me…” he says, unable to finish the sentence. He looks absolutely blissful, and I love it.
I hike my skirt up and tug my panties down to my ankles. Meanwhile he takes a condom from the pocket of his pants that are on the floor, and puts it on. Then he lifts up one of my legs, always athletic like, and enters me swiftly. He no longer has to worry about being gentle or cautious with me. He pounds his cock in and out of me for several minutes and I don’t bother to try and stifle my moans.
“Oh, my God, Boyd, you feel so amazing, mmmmm,” I groan as I cum.
In this moment, I don’t care if every single patron in this restaurant hears me. He grabs my ass, spanking it and saying, “You’re such a bad girl for me, I love it.”
“I thought I was your good girl,” I tell him, my ass cheek stinging from the red welt he left there.
“You are,” he says, moving his hand up to my nipple and twisting it while he kisses me. “You take my cock like my good girl. You let me do what I want to you, don’t you?”
“Yes, Boss,” I tell him, looking up into his eyes, and then we both laugh.
“I guess you’re not my boss any more,” I quickly correct myself.
“We can change that,” he says, thrusting in and out of me some more. “It doesn’t seem fair that all the other couples at work get to work with each other and we don’t.”
“Oh, you mean at Sugar Daddy Central?” I ask him.
“What?” he asks, laughing as his cock throbs inside my wet pussy. I love to hear his laugh while I can feel him inside me. “Who calls it that?”
“Everyone,” I tell him. “But Katie started it.”
“That Katie is a bad influence,” he says, grunting as his cock pulses inside me, giving off the familiar warning sign that he’s about to come.
“She sure is,” I joke.
He grabs my hips and pulls me closer, his cock swelling inside me, filling me all the way up
. I wrap my arms tighter around his shoulders as I cum again myself.
He lets loose his entire load deep inside my pussy and I squeal in release as we orgasm together. Our breathing is very fast and labored. He smiles at me and kisses me deeply. I slide off his cock and adjust my outfit.
“I can’t wait for more of that,” I say, with a satisfied smile.
“And without so much as a single guilty thought about it,” Boyd says, and I take his hands in mine.
“You got that right,” I tell him. I never believed in all the religious stuff but I was just trying to be respectful of Andrew and Colleen. When I realized nothing was as perfect with them as they pretended it was, I decided to find my own way and decide what I really believe in. While I’m not completely sure what that is, I know it isn’t fake hypocrisy. I’m ready to be my own person now, and to give in to what I want, which is being with Boyd.
We walk back out to the restaurant and find our table. If anyone working or eating here had heard us, they make no indication. We sit back down and our food arrives a few minutes later.
“Well, look at you smiling like an angel while you’re served steak,” Boyd says, teasing me.
“I am an angel,” I tell him, winking innocently.
“That you are,” he says. “My little Christmas angel, who turns into a devil when she takes me to the ladies’ room.”
Chapter 24
Boyd
The next day, I meet with the partners in the main conference room. They’re unsure as to why I’ve called them into this meeting, but they can tell they’re about to hear something good just by the look on my face.
“What’s with the shit-eating grin, Ashdown?” Cameron asks, leaning against the table. He looks at me with pure amusement.
“Yeah, why did you call us in here?” Asher asks, looking at me curiously. “It better be good. I was busy not getting work done.”
I can’t help but laugh at the joke.
“Well, I just wanted to let you know that Grace and I are officially together,” I say and wait for their reactions.
“I’m glad to hear everything worked out,” Tim says, sincerely. Steve looks more surprised but takes it in stride.
“You knew this was going to happen?” Steve asks Tim, sounding astonished. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I’m trustworthy!”
“I knew he was planning on going after her,” Tim says, shrugging. “I didn’t know if he was going to get her or not. For all I know, he was coming in here to tell us he quit too.”
“Of course, he was going to get her! How could you ever question that?” Steve says, looking at me with that old hint of jealousy. “He gets every girl he lays his eyes on.”
“There’s only one girl I have eyes for now,” I say to them, but they don’t look entirely convinced.
“Whatever you say, man,” Asher says, getting up from the table and heading towards the door. “I’m just glad people are done talking about liabilities around here.”
“That’s the other thing,” I tell them, and they all turn around to look at me again. “I want her to have her old job back. It wasn’t fair she had to quit just because of me.”
Tim and Steve groan, but Garrett nods his head knowingly along with Asher and Cameron.
“I know what you mean,” he says. “And I think we can work something out. Right, guys?”
“What about Oliver?” Steve asks.
“I’m sure he can be a floater until someone else is in need of a permanent assistant,” I say. “And don’t worry, he’s a great one.”
“Well then, I guess that’s settled,” says Garrett, ready to get back to business— or, if I know him, to the golf course, or home with Carolina, since he can never stop fucking gushing about her.
“I’m just glad you’re over Shelley,” Tim says, also heading towards the door. “She really laid you out. This girl better not do the same.”
“She won’t,” I say, confidently, and I follow them out of the conference room.
When I get back to my office, Grace is there waiting for me. I pull her into my arms and kiss her deeply, pulling her tightly to me.
“How did they take it?” Grace asks, pulling away from me. She runs her finger along my bottom lip. I nip at her touch, making her smile.
“Well, they were just glad to know I hadn’t created a liability for them,” I say, with a large smirk on my face. One that might be considered shit-eating. “They’re fine with you coming back, and I’m sure they’ll have you fill out the requisite HR paperwork with Monique. And they were glad that I was done fooling around at work. Little do they know that it’s still going to happen,” I say and Grace raises her eyebrows at me. “But only with you.”
“Good answer,” Grace says, wrapping her arms around me. “So, tell me. Are you a man of your word?” Grace asks, running her hand down my leg.
I jump at the touch and smile down at her, grabbing her ass. “You could say that again.”
I throw her up against the desk and fling her skirt up around her waist. I can’t help but silently bless the making of skirts. I’m pleasantly surprised to see her bare ass on full display right in front of me.
“Well, someone thought they were going to get lucky today,” I say, teasingly and slap her ass gently. She giggles at my touch and turns her head toward me.
“I’d say you were about to be the lucky one,” She says, wiggling her ass.
“You can say that again,” I say, while plunging my fingers into her wet pussy.
I finger her for a bit, teasing her, until I turn her towards me and kiss her deeply. She grabs a hold of my tie and tugs me over to the sofa. She pushes me down on top of it and start rubbing my stiffening cocks with her now expert hands.
I was already mostly hard and she gets me all the way there. Then she begins licking the tip of my pulsating cock, taking in the pre-cum. I can’t help but smile as I remember when she wasn’t even sure what that was.
I hurry and put on a condom. She then slides onto my cock slowly, rocking back and forth in a teasing motion. She moves faster and faster with each passing moment and she grabs my hands and presses them on her firm breasts.
“Touch me, Boss,” she commands, and I say, “Hell yeah, you bad girl.”
I squeeze them gently and she leans forward and swings her boobs in my face. I take one of her nipples in my mouth and suck, hard, her back arching in response. She continues pounding her pussy up and down on my cock with growing vigor.
I watch her face as she reaches climax and she lets out a loud moan that I’m sure can be heard around the office. She slaps a hand to her mouth and I pull her down to me and kiss her. I can’t help but laugh.
She rides the wave of her orgasm and continues until I start to reach mine. Her second one comes just as mine does and I explode into the condom inside her, releasing the built-up tension. When we’re both finished, she slides off me and lays down beside me as I pull off the condom.
“You know, I meant what I said to Andrew,” I say, lying next to her naked body on the sofa. I stroke her hair as she plays with my fingers.
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking up at me.
“I’m going to give you a raise. You’re good at your job and you deserve it,”
“Thank you, Boyd,” Grace says, leaning up to kiss me. “I really appreciate that. I could maybe even find a place of my own.”
“That’s the idea. Unless we figure something else out, of course.”
She smiles. I know we’re going fast, but I don’t care. I’m fucking in love with her.
“And you’re also very good at making me happy,” I say, nuzzling my chin into the top of her hair, taking in the now familiar smell of her shampoo.
“Right back at you,” Grace says, moving closer to me.
There’s a knock at the door and we both jump. Grace scrambles to find her clothes, but I stop her. I want a few more minutes of peace with my love and her naked body.
“Mr. Ashdown,” Oliver’s voice calls f
rom the other side of the door.
“Now’s not a good time, Oliver,” I call to him, hoping he’ll have his wits about him. “I’ve kind of got my hands full.”
At that, I grab Grace up in my arms and she squeals audibly. I put a finger to her lips to keep her quiet. She giggles uncontrollably.
A few minutes pass and I assume Oliver has gone back to his desk. Whether or not he heard us, I’ll have to determine later. But for now, it’s just Grace and I. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” I say, and kiss Grace on the lips.
And what Grace doesn’t know—that I have a little Christmas surprise up my sleeve for her—won’t hurt her either. In fact, I rather hope it will progress our relationship and help it along even further.
Epilogue
Grace
The night of the firm Christmas party, it actually snows, which is rare for December in Albuquerque. Boyd and I are bundled up in our winter jackets and I hold onto his arm as we walk into the party.
It’s already in full swing by the time we arrive fashionably late, with “Jingle Bell Rock” blasting, and then Erin runs up to me, handing me a cocktail. “Drink up,” she says.
Once she sees my eyes pop open, she adds, “They don’t card.”
I down the drink, loving the way it burns in my stomach. All the office couples are here: Asher and Madilyn, Cameron and Ruby, Damien and Katie, Garrett and Carolina, and of course Erin and Jameson. Those who have kids have left them with sitters for a fun night out.
“This is an awesome party,” I whisper into Boyd’s ear. He squeezes my arm, to let me know he agrees.
Erin and I drink another cocktail while Madilyn tells all about the joys of pregnancy and motherhood. “Silent Night” begins to play, and Boyd and I sway together in a slow dance.
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.
We rock together to the music and I can’t help but think of the decorated halls of St. Benedict’s, where I will probably never set foot again. I’m still upset that everything I thought I had was an illusion, but at least I have Boyd’s love to see me through. I think I’m finally finding my own way now, with his help, and relying on no one but the two of us and our trusted circle, which includes many of the people in this very room.
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