The Baby Package
Page 76
“So, you want to set the divisions up as individual businesses?”
“Not exactly. That would be really expensive and not cost-effective. What we want to do is find other companies that can purchase these divisions and offer them the best possible future. We can work to ensure employees keep their jobs, or ones that would like to retire can do that. We want to find these companies, get some bids, and then come to your father and Marcus with a full package deal.”
“People would keep their jobs?”
“For the most part. That is our hope anyways, but it will depend on each individual contract. That’s one of the reasons I need your help. We need your help. This is a scary proposition, and yes, it is going to dissolve the company name as it is. But the divisions will stay intact within new, stronger companies which will allow them to thrive.”
“This is really complex, but I think I understand. I don’t know that you’ll be able to get my father or Marcus to understand this, though. They are going to be upset. And what’s going to happen to them?”
“Okay, so our middle management is already gone. The top-level managers will go with their divisions, and for Marcus and your father, they will have to decide if they just want to retire or if they want to pick one of the divisions and follow them.”
“Retire?” Anna said as she thought about what I was saying. “I think my father wants to retire. But he’s so worried about his employees and the company. I don’t know.”
“Here’s what I’m asking of you, Anna. Come back to work. Help me figure out the specifics of this deal. Help me ensure that your father will be really happy, and Marcus too. Be there to help this happen the right way.”
Anna was silent for the rest of the drive to her apartment. Even after we pulled into her parking lot, she still didn’t say anything. I pulled into a spot, and we sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. I could do the work that was needed to get Edward on board with this idea, but I knew that if Anna was with me, it was going to go ten times smoother. She could learn all the details and be able to explain things to her father when he got agitated with me. Plus, I really did not like the feeling of having Anna mad at me.
“Let me walk you upstairs,” I said as I got out of the car and opened her door.
She didn’t object to the offer, and we climbed up the cement stairs to her apartment. After having a fight with a beautiful woman like Anna, there was a natural endorphin that built up inside of a man—a slow burning desire to let off some steam and make up after so much intensity. When we got to the top of the stairs, I felt that build up and awkwardly stood with my hips facing away from Anna while she unlocked her door.
“Do you want to come in for a minute?” she offered.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you were able to explain what is going on to me. I appreciate you doing that. I’m sorry I got so angry with you.”
“You’re sorry? Oh, Anna, no. I’m sorry. I was a little blindsided by Kevin and this plan too, but I should have explained that it was a possibility. I’m sorry.”
“Sit down, let me make us some coffee,” Anna suggested.
I took the opportunity to sit down and hoped that I could calm my throbbing member before Anna noticed. Although we had made up from our fight, and my body was primed and ready for some makeup sex, I knew that wasn’t reasonable with Anna’s situation.
We were quiet for a few minutes as Anna made the coffee and I watched her. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she was glowing and beautiful. Her long blonde hair had varying colors of highlights in it, and I could see the shadow of her body as the kitchen light shined on her thin cotton T-shirt. The more I watched her, the more I throbbed with a desire that wasn’t going away.
When Anna brought me the cup of coffee, I did my best to cross my legs and try to hide what was going on, but as she sat down next to me, her eyes wondered to that area. A huge smile crossed her face as she looked at me questioningly. “Really?”
“What? I’m a guy. I can’t help it.”
“What part of our argument got you so damn excited?” she teased.
“It was the part where you let me walk you upstairs. The first time I dropped you off, you wouldn’t let me near your apartment.”
“Well, I figured since you bombarded me already, there was no harm in letting you in for a minute. But if I had known it would excite you so much, I would have left you in the car,” she said with a laugh.
It was nice to see her sense of humor back, and there was a huge weight off my shoulders as I noticed the tension between us had nearly disappeared. This was the Anna I liked being around—the woman who smiled and teased me and tortured me with her amazing good looks.
“Well, thank you for trusting me. After I saw you over at your father’s house, I really was afraid you’d told him what you overheard. By the way, what did you overhear and how? I thought our conference room was pretty airtight.”
“The office next to the conference room can hear everything that’s going on in there. I went in there and listened to you guys. Basically, I just heard that you were breaking the company up.”
“The vent in there? Is that how you can hear?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, I bet Becky has been loving attending all our boring conference room meetings.” I laughed. “I can’t believe she never told anyone.”
“Yeah, well she probably didn’t want her air vent blocked off and her office turned into a sauna.” Anna laughed as she touched my hand and threw her head back with the momentum of her own joke.
As Anna pulled her hand away from mine, the room felt like it stood still, and we both looked at each other. Silence fell over us, and for a brief moment in time, we were just sitting there quietly looking at each other. Then something took over me—a deep desire that wouldn’t be pushed to the side any longer.
I grabbed Anna’s arm and pulled her toward me slowly. She had just enough time to set her coffee cup down on the table before I had pulled her all the way next to me on the couch.
“Anna,” I said softly.
“Jason,” she said back to me.
“I need you to know I was genuine in our interactions. I wasn’t using you to get to your father. I wasn’t using you at all. Your father asked for me to hire you because he said you wanted to go to a business school. I was trying to be helpful and kind to him. That is why I hired you. Not for some sort of scam.”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. I know it wasn’t your idea to hire me. I begged my father to get you to. It was my idea.”
My hand slid up and down her arm as we looked into each other’s eyes. There was so much going on at that moment. So much trust, lust, and intrigue that I could hardly sit still. I wanted more of her, all of her. Yet, I didn’t know how I should handle things between us. I wasn’t going to be that kind of guy who brought Anna to bed just to say I’d had a virgin. That was childish and not at all in Anna’s best interest. When and if Anna and I slept together, it was going to be because there was a connection so strong that neither of us could deny it. Only then would it be worth it for me to be her first. And as much as I wanted her at that moment, it wasn’t the right time, and I knew it. “I should get going,” I said as I started to get up from the couch.
“Stay,” she replied. “Just for a little bit.”
“Okay,” I said easily to her request. She certainly didn’t have to ask me twice.
Her hand stayed wrapped around my wrist as she tugged on me to stay with her. My heart throbbed at the idea of what could come. What a rollercoaster the last few days had been, and I was so relieved that we were getting along again. “I like this,” I said almost under my breath. “I mean, this between us when we are getting along.”
“Yeah, I like it too.”
“I really do have a lot that has to get done at work. Will you be in today or tomorrow?” I asked.
“I’ll come in tomorrow. I think I’ve settled into the idea of not working today.” She laughed. “I re
ally don’t like working all that much. I mean I like coming in and seeing you, but I could do without all the rest of it.”
“I can’t take it,” I blurted out as I leaned in and kissed Anna.
She kissed me back and climbed right onto my lap as she straddled me in the position I’d become accustomed to having her. My hands instantly grabbed onto her hips as I held onto her and let my tongue play with hers.
“Stay,” she said as her breath got heavy, and she started to pull off her T-shirt. “Stay all day with me.”
I’m not sure if I actually replied to her or not, but in my mind, I said, ‘Okay.’ How could I refuse her? I helped her pull her T-shirt off and let my hands slide up and down her body as we continued to kiss. We moved our lips together slowly and then more feverishly as we played with the moment and teased each other.
I reached around and let my fingers play with the clasp of her bra for a little bit. I didn’t unhook it yet but instead took my time playing with the fabric to see if she was alright with me taking things to the next step. She didn’t flinch at all as my fingers grabbed the hooks, and I slowly unlatched them to release the fabric that was covering her breasts.
As she slid her arms out of the white lace bra, I swallowed hard at the sight of her perky tits. They were amazing; perfectly round and erect with excitement. My lips were drawn to them and I pulled one of her nipples into my mouth.
The sweet taste of her body was more than I could take. Any thought of waiting to take Anna to bed was gone at that moment. If she was ready, I was ready to have her. As I sucked on her nipple, Anna let out a delightful moan, and her fingers grabbed my hair.
I feverishly moved to the other nipple to play with it as well. My hand was running up and down her back and feeling every move and breath from her body. Her hips rolled forward and back in perfect timing with my mouth as I sucked on her, and soon we had a rhythm going. Her hips moved faster, so I pulled harder on her nipple. When her hips slowed, I let my tension release a little from her body.
When I felt her fingers slide to the button at the top of my pants, I could hardly contain my excitement. She gingerly unzipped me and pulled me out as she let her hand stroke up and down. I didn’t release her delightful nipple, but I had a horrible time concentrating as her fingers continued to tease me.
When Anna started to climb off me, she pulled away so I couldn’t play with her nipples any longer, but then she got on her knees in front of me. I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted her lips around my throbbing member at that moment.
“Well, it looks like you made up,” Anna’s roommate Patrick said as he flung the door of the apartment open.
Anna quickly grabbed her T-shirt and threw it on while I zipped myself back up. We both laughed at the perfect timing her friend had, and I couldn’t help feeling like a teenager who had just been caught by his parents.
“Patrick, I thought you were working?” Anna said.
“We got off early,” he said without seeming at all put off by what he had just seen.
Patrick went straight to the kitchen, grabbed some lunch meat and bread and started to make a sandwich on the counter facing us. He looked up at us only briefly as he and Anna continued their conversation.
“That’s nice,” Anna said as she giggled and looked over at me.
“Are you two having sex now?” Patrick asked nonchalantly. “I could head back out. Maybe give you a little privacy.”
“No, no, no,” Anna replied.
“Oh, okay.”
Anna rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders at me as we sat there awkwardly talking with Patrick. The moment had certainly passed, though, and I didn’t suspect the two of us would be sneaking off to her room while Patrick was there. I sat with her for nearly twenty minutes as she and Patrick talked about random things other than the fact that her mouth had almost been around my throbbing dick. That was all I could think about as I zoned out of their conversation. Only a few more seconds and I would have felt the soft touch of her tongue as she wrapped her lips around me and moved up and down my shaft. Oh, how cruel the world was sometimes, I laughed to myself.
“What?” Anna asked as she noticed I was smiling.
“Nothing, I was just laughing about the timing of things.”
“Like how I almost had you in my mouth?” she whispered in my ear. Shit, even her whispers made me hard.
“You are naughty,” I joked.
“You know I am,” she teased. “Okay, I’ll be at work tomorrow,” Anna said loudly so Patrick could hear her.
“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I replied and started to get up from the couch.
“Thanks for a great date.”
“Oh, that was a horrible date.” I laughed. “But if it counts as our first date, that just means I have a lot of room to improve.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I gave her a peck on the cheek before heading back down to my car. There was a huge sense of relief as I climbed in and made my way to the office. I hadn’t told Kevin where I was since dropping Clyde off, and I saw at least a half-dozen text messages from him when I glanced at my phone in the parking lot. Instead of bothering to read them, I just drove to work. It was going to be much easier to explain things to him when I was there in person.
I put the windows down and turned the music up as I sped down the freeway toward my office. Life was good at that moment—carefree and fun with everything falling into place. I couldn’t wait to get the new deals put into place and get Edward and Marcus on board. When we got everything settled, it would be such a relief, but even with all the work we had ahead of us, I was still more relaxed than I’d been for months.
Anna was to blame. It was her smiling face and constant upbeat attitude that intrigued me and drew me to her. She wasn’t like any woman I’d ever dated. Even with what she thought was an absolutely horrible thing I was doing to her father, Anna still gave me the opportunity to explain and actually listened to me when I told her my side of things. She was angry; she did yell a little, but she didn’t stop believing that I wouldn’t purposely hurt her father. That meant a lot to me.
As I sped into the parking lot of our building, I saw Kevin on the phone and standing at the window. When he saw me pull in, he hung up and disappeared from the window, and I suspected he’d be waiting for me the second I got out of the elevator. He’d probably been worried sick about what was going on with Anna and Edward and how it would affect our company.
Chapter 14
Anna
“She was literally on her knees about to suck him off when I walked in,” Patrick said loudly as we all sat around the table at Starbucks and most of them laughed.
It was out now. Everyone knew for sure that I was a virgin and that Jason was the man I was going to lose my virginity to. I was embarrassed but tried to take it like a champ as I sat there and smiled while Patrick, Summer, Amy, and Rebecca used my life as their morning humor.
“Okay, I think they get it.” I tried to stop the conversation from going any further.
“You should have seen his face when I walked in. It was a mixture of anger and utter disappointment. He was looking forward to that blowjob, and I totally ruined it for him.”
“Anna, why were you going to blow him?” Summer asked in her usual rich girl attitude. “You’re a virgin. He should be on his knees for you.”
“I just felt like it. We were in the moment.”
“No, not the best plan,” Amy added. “You are in charge. You have a commodity that guys will literally kill each other for. You need to take advantage of this precious gift you have.”
“Maybe I could tell my guy that I’m a virgin and see if he buys me the Mercedes I want.” Summer laughed as she sipped her tea.
Who actually got ice tea when they went to Starbucks? I never understood that. Starbucks was a coffee house, and you went there to get coffee, or maybe a hot chocolate, but tea just seemed weird to me. But then again, Summer was a little weird. She
was obsessed with having the latest and greatest things and was so materialistic that I couldn’t imagine any man being able to put up with her.
“Can we just stop talking about my sex life,” I begged them. But my urging went on deaf ears, and they continued with their tips and ideas for how I should live my life.
It was exhausting being the center of attention in our little group. I liked it much better when we were talking about Summer and her various rich boyfriends or listening to her complain when her parents threatened to take away her monthly allowance. Having everyone talking about me and giving me their opinions was utterly tiring.
“What if you held out and got married?” Rebecca asked. “Like stayed a virgin until your wedding night?”
“I’ve thought of that, but I don’t plan on getting married for many years, and it seems a little unrealistic for me.”
“Oh, what if you kept teasing him until he proposed and then you denied him?” Summer laughed.
“Summer, that’s a horrible idea. Then I don’t get to have him as a boyfriend or a husband. What are you talking about?” I scoffed at her.
She just shrugged her shoulders and went back to drinking her tea. I couldn’t take much more of the gossiping about my life and had to say my goodbyes so I could head into work. It had been a really long week, and going into work on a Friday and then enjoying the weekend was exactly what I wanted to do.
“See you Saturday?” Amy asked before I left.
“Ugh, where are we going?”
“No idea yet. But it’s your birthday so we will find someplace that will let you in. Invite your new boy-toy,” Summer teased.
“You mean her boss?” Patrick added with a snicker.
“Oh, you mean her neighbor?” Rebecca chimed in.
“Oh, my God, you guys! I’m going to work. Text me where we decide to go, and I’ll come for a little bit.”