Tempting the New Boss

by Angela Claire

  He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Camilla.” He forced her to face him, but then wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. All he could think of was, “I’m pretty sure I jumped you that last time.”

  She smiled. “Uh, I guess we jumped each other maybe. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “I think it was the not crashing and dying part.”

  “Yeah, that might have had something to do with it.” Her smile widened.

  “I could look at you smile all day,” he said softly.

  She dipped her head, as if embarrassed.

  “Simply an observation.” He looked away.

  “Hey.” She touched his arm. “What do you say, for now, we forget about the, ah, unconventional circumstances and just go with the flow until we get out of this. Whatever happens, happens. We still have a long walk ahead of us. Let’s not be awkward with each other. Okay?”

  “I’m awkward with everybody.”

  “You’re doing pretty well with me,” she said with a twist of her lips.

  “Yes, why is that?”

  “The not crashing and dying thing?”

  He shrugged, reaching for the bomber jacket from the closet. “Here.”

  “No, you wear it. I have this sweater.”

  “I’m strapping you to the seat unless you put this on. It’s too small for me anyway, and I have my suit jacket.”

  “Oh, all right. Thank you.”

  He handed her an umbrella from the backpack the pilots had filled with water and snacks and she opened the plane door, starting down the stairs without him and striding off into the darkness. He retrieved his own umbrella, slugged the backpack over his shoulder, tying the laces of the size nine boots together and slinging them over his shoulder as well, and hurried out to catch up with her, flicking on his phone flashlight on the way. The rain splashed around their feet and beat against the top of the umbrellas as they walked in the direction the compass claimed was north. Her ballet slipper shoes were half submerged in water but she kept pace as if they were wellies.

  A half hour of mud later, she resorted to the boots, wadding her socks up in the toes so they wouldn’t fall off and double-tying the laces.

  The trail they eventually wound up on appeared to be abandoned, overgrown with nature taking back what had once been her own in the first place. They had to take care, flashing the light to make sure they didn’t trip on stray roots or rocks. That, along with the still deafening sound of the storm, precluded conversation as they set a dogged pace. After a while, the rain eased off, but the sky darkened into true night. Periodically, Mason shone the light around them on their environs to try to make sure they weren’t missing a sign or other evidence of people, but for the first few hours, there was nothing.

  Beside him, Camilla hugged the oversized jacket to her slight frame, umbrella perched on her shoulder, and when the rain lightened, she collapsed it and walked in what was no more than a heavy mist. A sudden downpour a few minutes later had him struggling to shield her with his umbrella as she reopened her own, not fast enough to avoid getting so wet that her blond hair looked as dark as his and her jeans were soaking.

  He shook his head. They couldn’t keep this up all night. But he didn’t say it out loud.

  The walkie-talkie sounded up just once, a few hours into their journey with a brisk, “Anything in sight, Mr. Talbot?”

  He stated there wasn’t and received a similar report on the other end.

  Camilla, under an umbrella again, walked ahead of him even faster.

  Later, just as he was about to insist she stop and rest, at least drink some water or something, she snapped her attention to the right and said, “What’s that?”

  He shone the light in that direction to see a one story, tin-plated building, flat roofed and square but more than good enough for some temporary shelter. Off the trail a hundred feet or so, the dilapidated condition of the building exterior, rusted and gaping out in places, suggested it was not in frequent use, whatever it was.

  He rattled the padlock on the front door, a faded black lettered sign announcing it was Luxton Lake, Station S-5, whatever that meant.

  Although the building was locked, it sported a row of evenly spaced ground floor windows in the front, none of which were barred or boarded up. Mason broke one easily with the handle of his umbrella and reached in to open the metal latch. Once open, he hoisted her up and in.

  “I hope it’s a garage with a jeep full of gas.” She landed with a slight jump, and he climbed in after her.

  They looked around. It wasn’t. Just a big utilitarian-looking room with a wooden table and chairs, one rusted sink, a battered locker, and an unlit fireplace.

  And a bed.

  “Even better,” he said. “We need to rest.”

  The bed was stripped of sheets or blankets with a thin used-to-be-white mattress gracing a metal frame. She opened the locker, but its shelves were empty. When he turned on the faucet, only a cloud of dust emerged from the spout.

  “Nothing here.” Her voice was quiet in the room, no echoes from the cement walls and floor.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” He sat on the edge of the bed, patting next to him. “You look tired.”

  “Shouldn’t we get going?”

  “First let’s rest.”

  She shook her head, but smiled slightly. “Condoms burning a hole in your pocket? What happened to my clueless boss?”

  He hadn’t been thinking of the condoms.

  Not exactly.

  But now that she mentioned them. “He’s catching on?”

  She paused. “Or he was there all along.”

  He leaned back on his palms. “You’re not still talking about that movie with the limp-dicked guy tricking Madonna or somebody, are you?”

  “Marilyn Monroe. And I’m surprised you know who Madonna is.”

  “Me, too, but it’s kind of unavoidable.”

  He shrugged out of his jacket and spread it to cover part of the mattress. Unfortunately, she looked around, everywhere but at the bed, her lips thinned, arms crossed. “Sometimes you sound so stiff and unapproachable, and then other times you sound just like a regular guy.”

  “I’m nuanced,” he said.

  She laughed. “And to answer your question, no I’m not still thinking of Some Like it Hot.”

  “Okay, because I wasn’t about to whip out the condoms, either. I just meant rest. You look beat.”

  She eyed him.

  “Although it’s nice to know they’re there, isn’t it? In case you want to jump me again.”

  She laughed. “No comment. For now, I guess that ship has sailed anyway.”

  “What ship?”

  “Stop that.” But she smiled.

  “I’m not presuming anything, Camilla. Just, ah, you do need to rest. Or maybe I do. You’re making a wimp out of me with your pace.” He tugged at her hand. “Now your feet are soaking wet, and we’ve been walking straight for three hours. This might be the only dry place we can stop. Come on, we can share a bag of Cheez-Its.”

  “Actually, I am starving.” She went over to the table and blew at the dust, then crouched before the fireplace, bereft of wood. “Do you think whoever’s in charge of this place would mind if we sacrificed one of those chairs in the interests of trying to warm up? All the wood outside will be too wet to help us.”

  He stood. “I can handle the chair destruction if you can find some matches.”

  “Matches? You wound me. I was almost a Camp Fire Girl.”

  “Almost? I’m impressed.” One of the rickety old chairs transformed into kindling with a few firm whacks of it against the iron sink, and he handed her the remnants of the legs. “They had Camp Fire Girls in Detroit?”

  She set to rubbing the sticks and making sparks she could blow on. “Well, not technically, but in the summers we stayed at our cottage in a little town outside of the city called Bunny Run, and my older sisters and I
would camp at this part of the lake that was filled with weeds and foliage that hadn’t been cut down, and we’d pretend we were Camp Fire Girls. We called it the natural beach because it was a sandy cove, despite all the other guck around it.”

  The flames started out shimmery and as faint as the flicker of a lighter, but seconds later they managed to spread enough to qualify as a real fire. Mason and Camilla both rubbed their hands together over the warmth, and he dragged the bed over, metal legs scraping against the cement, to right in front of the fireplace.

  “What?” he asked at her raised eyebrow. “We need the rest of the furniture for potential kindling.”

  “Mmmm.”

  He sat on the bed, leaning back on his palms again, and she stood beside him, holding her hands out to the burgeoning fire before she untied her comical boots, kicking them off, and he did the same with his sneakers, both of them warming their bare toes before the fire.

  “What about you? Were you a Boy Scout?”

  “I went to boarding school. No Boy Scouts there.”

  “You did? Oh right, that’s some fancy thing they do out east, right? Where’d you go? Andover? I think that’s the only one I know the name of.”

  “You wouldn’t have heard of mine. And it wasn’t out east. It was in Northern California.”

  He rarely thought of the sterile halls of St. Fischer’s anymore whereas he used to dream of it all the time. And in the dream he was always the same age he was when his mother left him there with the head master and warned him to “be good” with a sigh that told the old man her son rarely was. Or maybe she had just said it outright. He didn’t actually remember.

  “California? I’m surprised. You don’t fit my stereotype of California.”

  “You should meet my mother.”

  She cocked her head.

  “She’s the prototype of the bleached blond, tanned Valley Girl, even at whatever age she is, which she keeps a state secret.”

  “Huh, must be that sperm donor you got your coloring from.”

  He watched her frame silhouetted against the fire. “Apparently.”

  “We all look alike in my family. All blondes. Not bleached,” she added quickly. “Just highlighted. Except my parents. Neither of them is blond.”

  “That’s odd.”

  The damp sweater clung to her and hinted at some of the lush figure he knew was underneath, more than when it was completely dry anyway, but she still had far too many clothes on.

  She really should get out of those wet clothes. Just the thought sent a shock of excitement through him.

  “Genetics. A lot of recessive genes floating around in the Anderson gene pool.” She laughed, retrieving the Cheez-Its from the backpack and breaking them open, taking a handful and offering him one as well. “What grade were you in when you went away to boarding school? High school?”

  “No, I was five.”

  Her head snapped around to look at him. “Five? You’re kidding.”

  He watched the fire leap higher as they finished off the bag of snacks. “You warming up?”

  “Yes.” She turned around to face him. “I’m feeling all toasty.”

  “Good.” She stood between his legs, and he pulled the bomber jacket off before spreading it below his own on the bed.

  “Remember what you said about letting whatever happens, happen?” he whispered.

  She took a deep breath. He barely heard her “yes” when she murmured it.

  “You have to get out of these wet clothes. Let’s do that and see what happens.”

  Keeping eye contact with her, and slowly enough so she could stop him if she thought the teasing was going too far, he ran his hands along the sides and back of what he was pleased to note were tight jeans, even more so when they were wet.

  “You have a beautifully shaped ass.” He was so turned on at the prospect of taking his time with her, exploring every inch of her, if she’d let him, that he barely got the words out.

  “We shouldn’t stay long, Mason. We should be trying to find a town or park ranger or phone or something as fast as we can.”

  “It won’t do us any good to faint from exhaustion on the trail. And it’s dark out there. Who knows what we might run across? Better we’re dry and well rested, right?”

  He pulled her blouse out of the waistband and concentrated on the snap of her jeans, his thumb lodging in her belly button for a second, causing her to jump a little.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” he murmured.

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “I’m thinking that you could take your wet clothes off while I turn my back and then wrap yourself in the jacket.”

  One eyebrow went up. “Mmmm, you’re surprising me here. That wasn’t what I thought you were thinking.”

  “Or I could help you undress, which I really should do.”

  “And why’s that?” She moved a little closer.

  “Because I’ve been inside you twice, and I’ve never seen you naked.”

  “It’s cold.” The protest sounded half hearted.

  “Thanks to your campfire skills, it’s warming up, though. What else do you have to show me?”

  She stared down at him, then said softly, “See for yourself.”

  He unzipped her jeans then dipped his hand inside to where she was hot and bare.

  “Commando,” she whispered, and he didn’t bother to point out he’d never heard the term. He knew what she meant. “You ripped my panties off. Remember?”

  “And you didn’t have any others in that suitcase of yours?”

  “Shut up!” She laughed.

  He slowly unpeeled her jeans, kissing her silky abdomen as he did so, straying to the light curls at the top of her thighs, darker than her hair but proof positive she was a natural blonde indeed. He left the wet jeans on the floor. “Take your sweater off.”

  Her breath came faster, and her eyes were a dark blue in the firelight, not light as they usually were. He could see her fighting with herself for a second, and he held his breath, but she pulled the fuzzy pink wool over her head. He slid his palms between her bare legs, widening her stance. “Now your blouse,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her puffy clit, which tasted so sweet and tangy. She moaned and when he glanced up, her eyes were closed, her head back. “Go on, Camilla.”

  She opened her eyes and looked down at him, unbuttoning her blouse quickly. After tossing it away, she used her hands to unclasp her bra without further instruction as he stroked her lightly between her thighs, along her wet core. Then she was naked in front of him in the firelight. There for him to touch and kiss and fuck, her creamy full breasts tipped with dark pink nipples inches from his mouth.

  “You, too, now. I want to see you naked,” she said in a breathy voice, and he stood, urging her onto her back on the cot.

  “Okay.” He yanked off his shirt, his pants and briefs gone as quickly, and then reached for a condom in the spread out jacket as she lifted her shoulder to accommodate him. Resting one knee on the bed, he ripped open the condom and rolled it on. “But I’m on top this time.”

  God, he had been on top from the moment she gave in to his dark blue eyes and black, unruly curls, even wilder from the damp. And as to his talented hands and mouth… How had she ever thought he was clueless? Whatever else her boss may have been oblivious to in life—manners, cultural references, friends and family—he knew his way around women. And she didn’t want to think right now about why that was.

  She didn’t want to feel bad about anything, as she had for those first few minutes after the plane landed, worrying about something that didn’t even matter, about who was brave and who wasn’t, when all that mattered was that they had survived. She wanted to feel this magic they unexpectedly had together, him moving inside her, kissing her, loving her, making her feel so alive she could not have imagined being so close to death only hours before. She wanted him, no matter how it ended up when they made it back to the real world.

  He started to
climb on top of her as she lay on the cot, and she sat up, a palm to his chest, halting him. “Not so fast.”

  He sat back on his haunches, his hard cock rearing up at her, while she smiled and ran her hand lightly along the top of his broad shoulders and down his muscular chest where just a dusting of black hair stretched from each copper nipple and in a thin strip down his flat abs, a perfect six pack. “Now I get to look, too.”

  Skimming her fingertips from his chest to his narrow hips, the top of his muscular thighs, she said, “How does a guy who works at a desk all the time get such a hot body?”

  “Genetics, I guess. Sperm donor, remember?” He sounded hoarse and eager and not content to let her be the only one looking and touching. Whatever pins remained in her hair came tumbling out with his quick fingers tugging down the remnants of the bun. He spread her hair over her shoulders and down her back, where it fell almost to her waist. “Look at you. I didn’t know all this was waiting for me.” Burying his face in her hair, he cupped her breasts, heavy with wanting him, and she arched against him as he pushed her down again, his hot ready cock burning against her thigh.

  Shoving a leg between her knees, he opened her wide, and a sharp pang of pleasure wrenched another moan from her as he brought his mouth to one breast. Her fingers were in his hair as he licked and sucked her sensitive nipples, first one, then the other.

  “You taste so good,” he murmured against her skin as she arched, his hand between her thighs now, teasing her clit. “And down here, you’re so wet. I want to taste you all over.”

  He moved his mouth lower, to the underside of her breast, her ribs, and then the curve of her hip, warm tingling kisses that she welcomed with breathy hums of encouragement. When he set his mouth between her thighs, she cried out, the black curls silky against her fingers, his mouth hot and insistent. Though she had her eyes closed, she concentrated on the sensation of his finger sliding inside her, the pressure of a second along with the coordinated work of his tongue sending her close to the edge.

  “God, how do you do that?” she moaned.