by Jamie Knight
‘Jeez. She wasn’t on the Mayflower, Charlie.’
‘I know. But it felt that way.’
That was three years ago. The pearls were still safe, and my roommate had gotten herself in a polyandrous marriage off the coast of Haiti. I missed her.
I walked straight through to my work desk, the clip clop of the light heels on my feet making my arrival as noisy as they could. There was an air of brevity that day. Hands flew and tongues wagged.
Men in black suits walked with assumed haste towards the cafeteria and ordered triple espressos. The coffee machines hissed dominantly beside the knives cutting through heavy and raw veggies for salads. I watched from afar, while waiting along the escalator with at least ten others, marveling at how everyone felt the need to rush. It was acquisition day.
I placed my bag neatly by the front legs of my standalone chair and got the computer working. It was early. I did not expect to smell his cologne so soon.
Henry Palmer was the kind of man who walked into a room and stole everyone’s attention. He stood a head taller than everyone else, and his body frame was daunting. He was firm, and even through his suit you could see it.
He walked with a haughty, determined demeanor that shook me to my very core the day he interviewed me. The man smelled of a foreign vineyard, and his eyes, his heavy and deep brown eyes, saw through every lie and every soul.
He was a man sculpted to perfection, better than Michelangelo ever envisioned. And the man, the god among men, was standing over me, flipping through a binder with his thick and perfectly manicured finger. My pussy clenched when I saw him, just like it always did.
‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked.
I loved how he always sounded demanding, even when he was asking a question.
‘I am, sir.’
‘Good. Meet me in the conference room in twenty. Have the Boris file ready and printed.’
‘Already done, sir.’
I handed him the yellow folder, which was clearly thicker than what he expected. I saw him smile as he read page after page. He was impressed.
A man shouted downstairs before Henry spoke to me. There was some kind of commotion going on. A woman, Alice from HR I think, yelled out something that was obviously meant to warn about danger, considering the tone she used.
Henry left my station and leaned his muscled weight across the balcony. His face was one of concern. I felt my phone buzz twice. Then three times.
I leaned down and looked at it. The screen lit up with messages from Charlie and my mom that didn’t make more sense at all. They were saying something about a virus, about a pandemic- as if we were living in a sci fi movie.
Henry came to me, his face calm, and his hands on my arms. They were warm tendrils of skin and bone, and my heart skipped when he spoke and looked directly into my eyes.
‘Get everyone off my phone in the next two minutes. Cancel every reservation. When that is done, call a cab and get yourself home. I will call you.’
He ran through his office door and shut it before I even had time to stammer out a ‘yes, sir’ in response.
The doors downstairs filled with colleagues rushing out. Through nothing more but basic instinct, I did as I was told and packed my bag.
My heart was in a murky pool of dread, not knowing what would happen next. My phone was buzzing. I ignored the messages and dialed a cab. There was no response. Offices were emptying out. There was panic.
I heard a woman say she was heading to a grocery section to max out her credit card. Another man, Mark from accounting, rushed off a bunch of conspiracy theories, saying it was some way for the New World Order to come about.
And then Bart, the head security guard outside Palmer’s Sporting Goods who had been working there for five years before I ever started, was smiling as he listened to his country music stereo on repeat while snapping his fingers. He took his earpiece off and beckoned me to him when he saw me, though. I ran over.
‘You need to go straight home, Jules.’
‘What’s happening?’
He held my arm and rubbed it in a fatherly fashion.
‘The world has finally lost its mind, and we are about to pay for it. Go home.’
‘But the cabs...’
He nodded and radioed someone. His mustache twitched and flickered with every word. He set the orange device down and looked me right in the eye.
‘The truck is coming up. Bernie and the gang will drop you off as close to your place as you need them to.’
My chest swelled with gratitude that he was allowing the building security guards to escort me home. I hugged the man. He had been a moral compass for so long that I thought of him as something close to my dad.
‘Stay safe, Julia. My prayers are with you.’
I didn’t answer back, simply because I never prayed. A nod did just fine. The truck picked me up and we went on our way. The streets were as they were always meant to be in New York City, I supposed. Chaos reigned and sanity was lost.
The guards dropped me off three blocks away from where I lived, because traffic prevented them from getting any closer. I thanked them once again and they nodded at me casually in response, as if it was part of their job duties.
The inside of my house smelled the same: lemongrass tea and macadamia nut cookies. There was no one to hug me, no one to say hello to. I was alone in the middle of rising chaos all around me.
Apparently, I had learned while skimming the news on my phone in the car, a global pandemic called the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, had made its way to our country and everything was being shut down so that people could stay safe. We had to isolate, or we could catch and spread this very contagious virus.
I thrust myself inside my beanie bag and let out a long, exasperated sigh, wondering when or if the world would ever be normal again.
And when or if I would ever see Henry again.
I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I had lost my opportunity to be than just an employee to him. I had fantasized about being with him but had never gotten up the nerve to try.
Well, except for a couple times, and I was pretty bold about it. But I didn’t go nearly as far as I wanted with him.
And now I might never be able to.
Chapter One - Julia
I stand still and pace around the small, crowded space, anxiously listening. The woman on the other line, who owns a dog I have been walking, has a lot to say with very few words, and I think it better to bite my lip and cool my tongue. She hangs up.
I will not be getting paid, it seems.
Ever since the pandemic broke out in the United States, life completely spun around for me. I got up, dressed up, baked a fruit pie, sat on the balcony for some good old Vitamin D, binged on a TV series for a whole three minutes, which was the most my brain could take in before it gave up, then tried reading. I had no better luck focusing on the book, though.
It was crap. I had chosen to keep dog walking as a gig ever since the Era of Charlie, as I like to call it. It was a poor choice.
Almost all of New York is covered in brick and cinder. It made sense at the time to alleviate the burden that dog owners upstate had, and I would take my old clients’ dogs out to smell some flowers and feel free. As it turns out, it’s the dog owners that are having such a hard time adjusting to life indoors. The frustration, always, rubs off on me.
Today I had hoped to get some extra cha-ching going. I need to make more money.
Henry coughs from the other room. Instinctively I push three bangs off my forehead and breathe for composure’s sake.
It turns out I had the opportunity to see him again. He wanted me to work for him at his house during the quarantine, so of course I said yes.
I push the phone into my back pocket and pinch my cheeks. I move with ease past the pantry door, through the kitchen and to where he is at, behind his dining room table. He is totally focused on me.
‘Everything alright?’
He pays me, of course, but most of
that money gets used up at home back in Arkansas, where my ma and pa live. I could ask the billionaire for a raise, but that would get the plan undone. Who goes ahead and asks their crush for a raise?
I guess the real question should be, ‘who has a crush on their boss for three years and does nothing about it?’
Or, almost nothing about it.
Certainly not nearly as much as I’ve wanted to do.
But I can answer that one at least. I wanted to do everything with him today. Right here in his house, where the fireplace is still lit from last night and where he could throw me on the table, rip my pointless-at-this-point dress apart and fuck me silly.
But my mind is in disarray. I need to make more money. I need to think.
‘Yeah it is. I just need to go home.’
He slides his strong arms across the project we’ve been working on all morning and takes his thin-rimmed glasses off. He licks his lower lips.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I have some personal issues that just came up that I need to work on. Is that okay?’
He mulls on it for a minute. A stray hair lingers atop the bridge of his nose. I can almost see his mind racing. Please accept. Please. Say yes. Don’t take it further than it has to go…
‘It’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow if you’ll be feeling better, okay?’
You could have said no and locked me up, you know.
‘Thank you, Henry. I will let you know when I get home.’
The mask is hanging by the sanitation booth. It’s this little black and blue door frame that he had installed awhile back. Every time anyone walks in through the thing, it sprays a sweet-smelling brand of sanitizer from head to toe.
It makes me feel violated, no lie. But it was part of the deal we had agreed upon. And I do hate going back on my word. I put the damn blue thing on and blink for a few second when the sun hits my face.
I stop by the cherub statues for a minute to nod at them, and then I resume my trek. The walk down the tarmac is sullen and broken.
I see the car, but I also wish I could turn back and see him watch me through the window. Like in those Nicholas Sparks books. Romantic, and the like.
Nope. Not today. Today I am afraid I will find him watching. I would not know what to do with that.
The gate buzzes me through, and I wave to the chauffeur. He opens the door and I settle in. I keep my eyes on the road as we drive off.
Chapter Two - Henry
Well.
This sucks.
Julia’s body is one finely tuned machine, I’ll give her that. The sway of her hip as she walks away, a tug of the skirt behind the small of her back, and the innocent caress her arms give her light and supple breasts are all enough to make any man fall. I want to be that man.
For weeks I have wished for a moment of clarity, for some kind of sign to make a move on Julia. Today after I had breakfast made for her and sent the workers upstairs to work on the dusty rooms, or their weekly gossip, I asked her to sit with me and work.
We have been avoiding the whole social distancing phenomenon as I definitely know we are seeing no one else. What I mean by ‘seeing’ is having company over. I know I see no one. I hope she’s seeing no one.
She got so close that I could smell her hair. It smelled like it needed my hands to rub it.
I trudge from the window when the cab leaves with her inside of it and sit by my wooden chair beside the fireplace. We ground into each other today by accident.
She knew where her ass was. I knew where my groin was. We knew where we were, at the proverbial water cooler.
It felt good. Three seconds of contact was enough. It was funny how we went back to the table still thirsty and empty-handed. Well, it was funny, anyway, until her phone rang, and she walked away towards the kitchen.
My hand is down my waistline and it feels good to fondle my hard cock with her on my mind.
Julia Cast is one of those women who seem to appear out of a dream when you look at her. Her face is thin and narrow at the middle, like a model who moonlights as a preschool teacher. She smiles when you least expect her to, and she laughs only when the joke is perfect.
It has taken me three years to learn about her and who she is as a person, and after all that time I still feel as though she still holds back so much from me. I like that. Mystery engulfs the pleasure a man needs to feel fulfilled.
This room will not cut it.
I shut the folders and secure them in the safe above the fireplace. Marcy and Sarah, my father’s housekeepers, are busy somewhere on the grounds, sniffing around about some neighborhood gossip, I bet.
Comfortably I tread towards my special bedroom downstairs and lock myself in it. I strip down to my socks. I light the room up with red candles and exhale.
Then I pick up the bottle of lube from the stand and settle into the soft fuzzy chair, knees apart. My cock is still hard from being so close to Julia, and I stroke it with my eyes closed.
I see her. I imagine her curvy, naked body in my mind’s eye, and I think about what I’d like to do it. I imagine bending her over and putting my cock into her tight, wet pussy.
I’d play with her clit while I fucked her.
I’d make her scream my name until she came…
But right now, I’m coming, just thinking about her.
That girl really does something different to me. She makes me surrender all thoughts and desire over to her.
I hate that she owns my heart and my mind.
I want to be the who owns her.
Click here to read Under My Boss's Authority
We're doing a bad, bad thing.
My boss and I are working at his mansion during lockdown.
But work's not the only thing we've been doing.
I'd always dreamed of being with him like this at the office.
I'd also always thought his handsome body was off limits.
After all, I'm much younger than him, and I work for him!
But now he's taken my virginity.
And I want him to keep taking me, over and over.
We aren't expecting a visit from a co-worker, though.
Of all people, it's someone with an ax to grind, too.
My boss and I always knew there was a spark between us.
But now we realize we're playing with fire.
Is this just a quarantine fling we can easily end?
Or will we risk anything to keep what we've found together?
Under My Boss's Authority is a collection of three quarantine office romance books: Under His Ownership, Under the Countdown and Under Cupid's Contract.
Each book is a standalone and they all feature an older, experienced billionaire boss and his younger but feisty virgin assistant, trapped together during lockdown, with nothing to do but explore their pent up fantasies... and fall in love!
Jamie Knight promises to always bring you a happy ever after filled with plenty of heat. And never any cheating or cliffhangers!
Click here to read Under My Boss's Authority
More Books in the Under Him Series
1): Under My Boss’s Orders
2): Under My Boss’s Command
3): Under My Boss’s Control
4): Under My Boss’s Desk
5): Under the Billionaire’s Shelter
6): Under My Boss’s Rules
7): Under My Enemy’s Roof
8): Under My Boss’s Authority
9): Under My Boss’s Direction
I am always adding new books to the series so this list may be incomplete.
Click here to see the entire series and make sure you haven’t missed any!
If you enjoy BDSM books, you’ll love my Club Lush box set called Training His Virgin. It contains six books about billionaires and virgins who frequent a BDSM club. Enjoy!
Click here to see all my books in my entire catalogue!
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
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