The Boss

by Abigail Barnette

  The glasses we'd been drinking from were bigger than the ones I had at home, and I was fairly certain I'd drunk most of the bottle on my own.

  "Yes, I see that." He reached up, taking my chin in his hand to tilt my face to one side, then the other. "You're pink cheeked."

  "That's not the wine. It's anger at these morons." I shrugged his hand off and gestured at the screen. "'We really liked the Cape Cod, and it was perfect for our needs, but it had waaaaaaaall paaaaaaper.'"

  He laughed. "I can't tell you how much I needed this tonight."

  "Bad TV?"

  "You." His smile slowly faded. "I find that when I'm with you, it's impossible to worry about anything else."

  Oh, Neil. Maybe that was his problem. He was too happy to see the colossal mistakes he had made with Porteras. Or maybe he saw them, but like an oncoming train, couldn’t avoid them.

  The problem wasn’t the changes he’d made. The problem was he’d made too many, too soon. I was starting to get a sense of what Rudy had referred to as Neil’s “forceful personality.” When he saw something he wanted, he went after it tenaciously. While that was admirable, it wasn’t always sensible.

  We'd already had the "never ask me about my business" talk where this subject was concerned, and I so didn't want to rehash that argument. Not when I was full of red wine and an alarming amount of pizza - which shouldn't have been a turn on, but I challenge anyone to not be turned on sitting on a bed, even casually, with Neil Elwood.

  "Do you ever watch porn in here?" The word 'porn' makes me giggle. I can't help it.

  "Sophie, don't be juvenile." He sighed impatiently. "Of course I do. The picture is incredible and there's no danger of getting semen on my laptop."

  I shook my head and covered my face with my hands, laughing as he got up from the bed and relocated the pizza box and wine glasses. "Is that something you'd be interested in? Watching porn and fucking in here?"

  It felt like such a natural question, like he was asking me if I'd like pancakes for breakfast. "Yeah, I think it could be fun. You know... I've never been with someone who talks about sex the way you do. I mean, in my other relationships we could have sex, we just couldn't talk about it like this."

  "If you can't talk about it, you damn well shouldn't be having it," he observed, draining his glass in a heroic swallow.

  "You're right." I got to my knees on the bed. It was made up with pillows and blankets that matched the burgundy velvet upholstery of the theater seating around it. "Is there any reason we can't watch porn and do dirty stuff tonight?"

  "None at all." He walked slowly over the to bed, an uncertain expression on his face. "I'm a bit surprised, though. I thought women of your generation had a problem with pornography."

  "I'm pretty sure you've seen women of my generation in porn," I said dryly.

  "Well, of course. I only meant..." he paused, and laughed. "You're a feminist. I assumed that feminists... didn't care for that sort of thing."

  "We're not a hive mind, Neil." I rolled my eyes at him. "I like porn. Not like, the animated stuff with tentacles. And nothing super degrading. If you bust out a box of barely legal girls crying as a specific fetish, I'm probably not going to be happy about it."

  "No, nothing in the 'barely legal girls crying' genre, I'm afraid." He sat down beside me and reached for the remote. He hit a button to open up a menu on the screen, selected "private" and entered a password.

  "This is impressive." I looked up at the projector. "Is there a hard drive in that?"

  "Of course. Every porn-loving billionaire in his right mind is going completely digital these days." He hit another button on the remote, and a gallery of thumbnail images popped up. "What are you in the mood for?"

  I snorted as I looked at the pictures. There was a very similar theme going on there. "Looks like redheads are my only option."

  "Oh yes, um," he looked over at me with an embarrassed, apologetic grin. "I like redheads."

  "I hate to tell you, but I don't think I would look good as a redhead." I lifted one long lock of decidedly brunette hair. "I could try it, if you want."

  "You'd better not," he warned. "Don't ever change your appearance solely to please me. I love you exactly the way you are."

  "As long as you don't hire some new redheaded secretary to bend over your desk, I'll be happy." I pointed to the upper left corner of the screen. "What's that one?"

  "Excellent choice," he said, his expression brightening. "Do you speak French?"

  "Not even a little."

  "Well, the plot isn't really important. The dialogue is atrocious." He started the video.

  I frowned. "Do you speak French?"

  "I do."

  "Do you speak any other languages?" This was a fascinating side to him I'd never really considered before. He’d probably had a way better education than I'd had.

  "Besides English? Icelandic is my second language, but I’d consider it almost native. I'm fluent in German and French, I speak some Dutch, a bit of Greek. I can do a tiny bit of Japanese, but I never quite get it right, and I’m reliably informed that my accent is awful." He flashed me a smile and hit another button on the remote to dim the lights. "What about you?"

  "Spanish." I shrugged. "Not fluent, but I do okay."

  "That's perfect then, isn't it?" He sat down beside me and ran his hand down my back. "I can cover for us in Nice, you can help us get around Malaga."

  I snorted. "Right."

  "I'm serious." A slight frown creased his forehead. "Sophie, I would love to go away on a holiday with you. To have you all to myself for more than two nights in a row, to spend all day with you and hold your hand in public without fearing someone from work is going to spot us. Just to relax with you, without work hanging over our heads."

  "We go to dinner together. We go running together," I pointed out. But he was right, we were both silently rehearsing our cover stories the whole time. Oh, it was meant to be a business dinner, not a romantic, candle lit one, but the wait staff wouldn't take no for an answer. "Maybe that's something we could do in the future. Go some place warm and sunny, where I can wear a bikini."

  "Where you can sunbathe topless," he suggested lasciviously. “I’m going to go get a condom.”

  “Hurry,” I told him, lying back on the bed and walking my fingertips down my tummy.

  "Never." He leaned down to kiss me, as on screen the woman in the porn crawled across a bed, speaking softly to a nude man with a truly glorious physique.

  "Wow." My eyebrows shot up. The dude had to have a twelve pack.

  "I'm still here!" Neil laughed from the door, but it sounded like he was only half kidding.

  The actress reached for the actor's erection and slowly stroked it, whispering her lines. I slipped my hand beneath my shirt to stroke the curve of my breast.

  That’s how Neil found me when he came back, and he stopped at the end of the bed to watch me lazily circling my nipple beneath my t-shirt.

  I smiled up at him. "What's she saying?"

  "Oh, um, that it's all right, her sister won't find out, but that she's always wondered what he was like in bed." Neil shrugged and sat beside me. "I told you it was a stupid plot."

  "No more stupid than 'It appears our flight is cancelled, would you like to get a room with me?'" I teased, mocking his accent.

  He tackle-hugged me, and we rolled together on the bed. He buried his face in my neck and sucked noisily on my skin, tickling me, making me squirm and laugh and gasp all at the same time. Finally, he let up, pinning me beneath him. One hand went to the top of my yoga pants - I wanted to be comfy on the weekends, but I wasn't quite ready to spring printed flannel pjs on him - and slipped inside. My last giggle died away on a contented sigh as he stroked me. He pushed my t-shirt up with his other hand, cupping my breast, and covered my mouth with his mouth, my body with his body.

  I smiled up at him as his fingers found my clit and pressed in slow circles, then I tilted my head back to watch the video. In this position the
picture was upside down, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment any. The woman on the screen ran her tongue up and down the man's cock, maintaining eye contact with the camera as her fingers curled around him, coated in her saliva.

  My reaction to the sight was a bone-deep shudder.

  "I prefer scenes like this," Neil said, nibbling along my jaw. "When it seems genuine. I detest the over-loud, obviously faked enjoyment in some videos."

  "Oh my god," I whimpered, rolling my hips under him. "I totally agree. I like it much better when it looks real."

  His fingers slipped down, two of them sliding into me. “This is very real, isn't it?"

  "All real," I moaned. "All for you."

  "You'll drive a man crazy, talking like that." He sat up and pulled off his shirt, and I did the same. I'd taken off my bra when I'd changed out of my work clothes, and his hands and mouth were on me before I got my t-shirt over my head. I pulled him back down with me. I loved the way our skin felt pressed together. I loved the weight of him between my legs, the heat of his mouth on my nipple, the roughness of his hairy chest against my belly.

  The actress moaned around the shaft in her mouth, and my throat went dry.

  "Hey." I sank my fingers into his hair and gently tugged. When he lifted his head, I looked him in the eye and said, "I want to suck your cock."

  He grinned at me and leaned up, and I started to sit up as well. He placed one hand against my chest. "Stay there."

  I watched the screen as he rose from the bed and stripped naked. The woman in the movie was getting more enthusiastic now, her mouth bobbing up and down her partner's glistening erection. Neil came back to the bed and knelt over me, a knee on either side of my ribcage. The tip of him brushed my lips, and I opened my mouth, raising my head a little to take him in. I reached up to grip him, and he intercepted my hand, guiding it to the side of my breast.

  I could take a hint.

  I squeezed my tits together around him, letting my tongue swirl over the head of his cock as he thrust. I was surprised at how much of a tease it was, not being able to suck him deep into my mouth. That only made me want to do an even better job on what I could reach.

  Neil's hand snaked down my stomach, into my pants again, to finger me as he slowly fucked my breasts. I lifted my hips, rocking under his gentle strokes, whimpering as his other hand traced slow circles around each of my nipples in turn.

  I started to giggle. I couldn't help it.

  "Are you laughing?" he asked, laughing a bit himself.

  "I am." I let my head fall back and moaned again as he pinched my clit between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it from side to side. "I'm just having such a good time."

  And that was it, really. I was feeling so damn fantastic. Here I was, doing something I'd rarely done with other partners, without any fear or shame, because I knew Neil loved me, and he genuinely loved fucking me. We could try anything and he would still be into me, and ready to try other things.

  Not that this was a failure, by any means. While his fingers were doing a lot more for me than his cock was at the moment, I got a naughty thrill just from being held down by him, having him dominate me by virtue of position, even if he wasn't going full Dom tonight. I lifted my head again and took him into my mouth, still somewhat breathless from laughter. After a few long, slow licks, I had to lower my head again, but I held my breasts tighter around him.

  "You know, if you came like this, you would blow all over my face," I said, as though it were an innocent observation. It totally wasn’t.

  He groaned and closed his eyes.

  I whined in disappointment as he withdrew his hand from between my legs.

  "Get up," he ordered, swinging one leg over me. He offered me his hand and I took it, climbing to my knees in front of him. He pushed me onto my hands and gave me a sharp slap on my ass before he jerked my pants down. I felt his weight shift, his arms brush my thighs, and then without any warning, he pushed his face against my vulva. He sucked my clit into his mouth and I jumped, but he held my hips, urging me to tilt my pelvis for easier access.

  In the porn, the woman was on top of the man now, straddling his face as he devoured her pussy. The noises she made were too breathless and spontaneous to be fake. She sounded like she was really, really getting off. Like I was really, really getting off with Neil’s nose brushing against my labia, his tongue tapping my clit.

  "Let me hear you," Neil begged, pressing kisses across my ass, down my thighs. "I'm going to make you come, Sophie. And I want to hear it."

  "Oh, fuck," I gasped as his fingers shoved into me. He knew exactly what I needed. I needed him to be rough with me, to make me feel more than just pleasure. To feel that little twinge of fear, when there was nothing to fear. To feel helpless, when I held all the power.

  He pressed against my g-spot with two fingers, hard, and rolled my clit under his tongue. My gaze fixed on the woman on screen, how her thighs trembled around her partner's face, how she gripped one breast and ran the fingers of her other hand through her hair. Neil's thumb replaced his tongue. His teeth grazed the curve of my buttock and I shuddered; he bit me, hard, and that was all I needed. I sobbed and shook, grinding back on his hand. I threw my head back as my pussy clenched around his fingers. And I totally let him hear me.

  "Fuck," I groaned again as he withdrew his hand. After a brief pause to put on the condom, his cock took the place of his fingers. With my pants still around my knees, and his knees on either side of my calves, I might as well have been tied up because I couldn’t move. He pushed in, hard, then drew back and shoved again. There was nothing I could do but hold on, rocking with him, my balance precarious, my fingers digging into the blanket beneath me.

  In the video, the woman was on her partner's lap, facing away from him, the camera angled to show every thrust of his erection into her shaved-bare pussy. They were going at it pretty vigorously, her tits bouncing as she rode him. What we were doing was just the opposite. Neil would slam forward, then withdraw slowly, so I felt every inch of him drag along my sensitive channel. My internal muscles gripped him in tight flutters. My eyes rolled up at the unbelievable sensation.

  "How can you feel so amazing?" He teased me, leaving just the tip of his cock in me until I whimpered. He filled me, so deep I gasped, and leaned to sweep my hair aside. His lips fell on my nape, his tongue laving the skin there, and I shivered, overcome by the rasp of his sharp stubble against my ticklish neck. Every cell in my body was on fire for him. Every sense had attuned totally to sex; the video feeding graphic pictures to my brain, the sounds of the actors on the screen mingling with my own harsh breaths. The scent of Neil's cologne had become a powerful aphrodisiac, and it only heightened my desire now. Every centimeter of my skin had come to total awareness, every touch too much and not enough.

  He picked up speed, his hand reaching around to caress my throat. He didn't exert any pressure, just left his hand there, possessive over the soft skin of my neck, his thumb brushing up and down in the curve below my ear. A thrill shot through me at the territorial nature of his touch. When we were together like this, I belonged to him, body and soul, though I knew that he would never seek to actually own me. I almost wept at the security of that feeling. Pleasure twisted through me like an arc of lightning, every muscle tightening as I panted and ground back on him. The feeling snapped and writhed, and I writhed with it, tossed in the storm of my own violent climax. It took me a moment to realize the hoarse, half-shouted moans were wrenching from my throat, not the actress on the screen.

  My thighs trembled, as did my arms, from the strain of staying up. Before I could collapse, Neil pulled out and gently pushed me to the bed. He tugged down my pants, and I kicked them off with exhausted legs, turning to my back and reaching up for him. He settled between my legs, kissed me, kissed my jaw, my neck, as he sank easily into my body.

  His hands found mine and brought them up to either side of my head, threading our fingers together as he moved. I rocked my hips in time to his thrusts,
lifted my head to meet his greedy mouth with my own. When he came, his groan was muffled by my lips. His head dropped to my shoulder as his body jerked involuntarily against mine.

  He leaned up on his elbows to kiss me, breathing hard, his weight still pinning me to the bed. I giggled, disentangling our hands so I could reach up and touch his face. "You know what would be a terrible obituary? 'Twenty-four year old suffocated under billionaire boyfriend.’"

  "Ha ha," he groaned, grimacing as he slipped from my body.

  The moment he rolled to my side, I got up and crawled toward the head of the bed. "Post-sex snuggle time?"

  His eyes were closed, but he smiled. "Give me a moment to get rid of this."

  He ditched the condom in the remaining wad of pizza napkins and climbed beneath the covers. He used the remote to stop the video. I cuddled at his side. "This is basically a perfect Friday night."

  "I couldn't agree more." He hit a button on the remote, and the lights dimmed as he wrapped his arms around me.

  An hour later, we still hadn't moved. I lay sprawled over Neil's chest, while he stroked my hair down my back with one slow hand.

  "Do you want to go to the bedroom?" he asked, his voice rough from wine and drowsiness.

  "In a minute," I murmured. "I'm all snuggly."

  "We can sleep in here, if you like." He suggested, and I heard it through his chest. "I stayed in here many a night while Elizabeth and I were having our differences."

  I lifted my head slightly. "Is the divorce final yet?"

  "Mmhm." His eyebrows rose. "It was final before I came to Porteras. But as per the terms of the divorce, she had sixty days to move out of this apartment and into the house in L.A."

  "Oh." I had a sudden, burning curiosity about this woman I had been trying not to think of for so long. But trying to pretend she never existed wasn't fair to Neil. He'd been through a divorce, very recently. That had to be traumatic. "I hope you don't think that you can't talk to me about all of that. I love you. I don't want you suffering through a difficult time feeling like you can't talk honestly with me."